Decisions are Hard

I'd like to go off the reservation a bit today and talk about Dragon Age: Origins and non-linear gaming. I'm not really going to get into specifics about the game, but I do want to cover a particular plot point, so there will be spoilers. You have been warned.

This article spawns from a concept that hit me while analyzing the difference between the two non-MMO games I'm playing right now: Dragon Age and Final Fantasy 13.  They are both part of the larger RPG genre, but are quite different in their goals and execution.  Final Fantasy is linear.  Dragon Age is multi-threaded.  Dragon Age is pretty basic, graphically.  Final Fantasy is breathtaking.  Both rely heavily on an in-game AI system for battle, but they implement it completely differently.  Both have a great, engaging story line.  You may not like one game or the other, but I think it's clear they are both well-designed games from companies that know what the heck they're doing.  Neither Square Enix nor Bioware need any introduction among RPG gamers.

The aspect I want to focus on today is the linear vs. multi-threaded difference.  I think a lot has been written about the two approaches, expounding on the pros and cons of each approach, so I'll spare you the regurgitation.  Suffice it to say, neither is explicitly better than the other; it depends very much on the desires of the player at the helm. Rather than reopen this debate, I'd just like to point out my personal, emotional reaction to a certain choice in Dragon Age, and how, for ill or good, I will totally avoid such a tangle in Final Fantasy.

As an aside, am I the only one that feels that consulting the internet before you've finished an RPG is, in a way, a failure on my part?  As in: I couldn't figure it out on my own and that's somehow bad?  More on this in a second, but I just found it odd that I have this stigma.  Not with MMO's mind you (hence, blogging), but with single player games.  It's one thing to read, ask around, get general advice.  I think it's another when you have to look up a specific quest or something because you're "stuck".  To me, stuck = fail.  In a way though, stuck = win because think of how good you feel when you eventually get un-stuck.  Shouldn't that be sort of the goal of a game designer, to get the player stuck?  Not horribly, irrevocably stuck, mind you, but enough so that when the hurdle is eventually overcome, it feels like a triumph?  To me, that's an interesting thought.

That, however, is only an aside.  As I pointed out.  Right.  If you have not run off to save yourself a spoiler yet, then this is your last chance.  I'm totally delving into it in the next paragraph.  No more waffling.  Waffle House.  Even the sign looks like a ransom note.  (Gaffigan anyone?)

Near the end of Dragon Age, you have to make what seems to me to be a monumental decision.  Namely, Morrigan approaches you and offers an "out" for your Gray Warden, involving some kinky impregnation ritual and stuff.  For those that may just be reading out of mild interest, the short version is that if you (or a fellow Warden, if you happen to be female) don't sire a child with the, um, friendly Witch (friendly is probably a stretch and totally depends on how you play, but theoretically she is on your team at this point), then one of your number will die.  It's a classic "how far are you willing to go" scenario.  Do you impregnate a woman of dubious moral standings, possibly giving her some sort of "super baby" for her nefarious purposes or do you willingly offer yourself or a friend up for sacrifice to save the world?

And here's where I got "stuck".  You see, I played the romantic route with Morrigan.  My hero was very much in love with her, and perhaps she with him.  Yet, to me, none of the choices reflected this.  Basically, you were given really two options.  You could say no and probably die.  You could say yes and never see the child or your love again.  Oh, and saying no would also make Morrigan leave.  Let's set aside the fact that if you'd liked using Morrigan in your party, you would be denied her services unless you, you know, serviced her.  (I guess tit for tat is quite literal in this case.)

Another aside here: I find making decisions difficult.  I can't be the only one out there.  I think there are a lot of people who find decision making an anxiety laden activity.  This isn't to say I find all decisions difficult.  Some you just have to make and are easy and clear.   However, sometime choosing where to eat is a real chore.  If neither my wife or I feel very strongly about anything, it's like "no you decide", "no you", "no, don't put this on me."  I know we're not the only couple that does that.  Sometimes you just don't want to make decisions.  Deciding is hard, mmkay?

With that in mind, sometimes a non-linear game like Dragon Age can be a bit of a chore for me.  I agonize over some decisions.  I mean, I'm not ashamed to say I get a bit tied up in my characters.  That's what RPGs are all about, and I want to see a good story played out.  So how in the hell am I supposed to feel when the culmination of the game comes down to two choices, neither of which I believe fit my character.  I mean, I get it.  It sort of had to be cut down this way for the story to work.  You can't have a completely non-linear game if you still want to tell a story.  Bioware does a great job, but they're not God, and as far as I know it'd take a omnipotent deity to be able to truly make a non-linear game.  There's just no way you can account for free-will in game design.  There will always be the player that thinks outside the box.

In this case, here was my reasoning.  I thought my relationship with Morrigan was going well, as such things go.  I mean there was some drama and she has some issues, but really she was opening up.  It was like the start of any relationship, except with a couple thousand Darkspawn thrown in.  It's sort of like meeting a girl's family for the first time.  Darkspawn = In-laws, amirite guys?  (jk, my in-laws are actually really cool and fun people, but making a good impression when you have designs on the daughter is sort of hard, IMO.)

So if I have this relationship, why can't I talk with Morrigan and compromise with her.  She obviously feels strongly for me.  She even says how much she wants to save you.  She may be a complete selfish bitch, but my character would have at least tried to reason it out with her.  She may have understood.  He wouldn't just take her word as final after some awkward, fact-finding questions (Yes, I've told her to "get in the tent, woman" before.  That's the kind of guy I am.  What now?).  He's this incredible badass hero, and he's just going to let her walk away?  She loves him and she's just going to say "welp, it's been fun..."

I mean, I get it. Sequel.  You have to leave yourself room.  It's just that the decision just didn't feel right or complete to me.   It left me conflicted.  It made me "stuck".  Like I said above, that alone probably means "Mission Accomplished Bioware".  They got to me.  I just had to go look up the possible ramifications of my decision.  I had to know what the outcomes were.  I had to cheat because I just couldn't make the decision based on what was "closest" to my character and be satisfied with how it worked out.  I was emotionally conflicted about it.

To me, this highlights a fundamental problem with the non-linear game: You cannot account for all possible choices.  It's that simple.  There may be ways that, after 50 hours or whatever, I've played my character that would make sense to me, but aren't offered.  The fact that when the little choice dialog pops up and the choice that I really want isn't there... well, that irks me.  It frustrates me.  It sort of lessens my enjoyment to some extent.  After all, everything after that sort of has to have an asterisk like "I wouldn't have really chosen that exactly", so I've created a fundamental disconnect between the character in my head and the character that keeps going in the story.

This isn't going to a problem in Final Fantasy.  The story is "on rails".  There aren't any tough decisions (yet).  All the decisions revolve around what strategies and gear to use.  In that way, it's more traditional.  In that way, for me anyways, it's more fun.

Well, I even hesitate to say more.  It's not that one is more fun than the other, it's just different fun.  There are days when I just don't want to make one more damned decision.  Those days, FF is a welcome release.  I can sit back and kill stuff and enjoy the scenery.  It's still challenging, but not emotionally.  More a cerebral exercise.  Which leveling path do I take?  Which accessory or weapon do I upgrade?  What three characters should I use for a particularly tough fight?

There are no disconnects between what's on screen and what's in my head.  After all, the characters aren't mine, but I'm okay with that.  It's more like an interactive movie that way.  I still care about the characters, I just don't own them.  I think each approach has it's own merits. A good story telling doesn't require for you to dictate the characters.  I'm more than happy to be led through a story.  I mean, I love books and movies and that's what those do.  I also used to like the "choose your own adventure" books too, and that's essentially what Dragon Age is.

So, I guess, FF is like a traditional novel and DA is like a CYO novel, but they're both books.  And I like books in general, but it certainly depends on what sort of mood I'm in.  They can all get to me emotionally, but in different ways.  I can't say either is fundamentally better than the other because they're really different.  I guess I think something of that difference is lost in reviews and such.  Also, I think a lot of times the fact that a decision can be quite stressful is not taken into account.  I always seem to see more choices equated with "better", but I think sometimes that is just not the case.  The phrase "less is more" comes to mind.  Either way, I have a great amount of respect for what both companies are trying to do, and look forward to their future titles.

Now, time to start thinking about where I want to go to lunch today... ugh!  What?  It's a tough decision!

Knowing your Raiders: What spec are you again?

Hey Gang!


So, I've been talking to my Raidleader as of late about the in's & out's of our 10-man ICC raid. We were discussing DPS (the damage output & the Actual DPS raiders), Buffs, Debuffs, the works. Once we got on the subject of overlapping Buffs & debuffs that each class brings to the table, it hit me like Patchwerk's Hateful Strike. I don't have the slightest clue what specs our DPS were.

As a tank, you don't really care what spec everyone else is, you just care that the DPS is high & the healing is solid enough to keep us standing on our own two feet (or four if you're a druid).

Is this a good or a bad thing?

Our Raid group consists of:

Healers~
1X Discipline Priest
1X Resto Druid

Tanks~
1X Protection Paladin
1X Protection Warrior

Ranged DPS~
1X Elemental Shaman
1X Arcane Mage
1X Affliction Warlock
1X Beastmaster Hunter

Melee DPS~
1X Retribution Paladin
1X Enhancment Shaman

As you can see, I can spout them off pretty easily... now. I'm pretty embarrassed though because a few of these people I couldn't tell you before.

I had no clue that the Mage was Arcane. Maybe the Pew Pew should have set me off but I guess I never really looked too hard into it. Would it have really made a difference if they were Fire? Probably not. I can tell Frost Mages from their little water elemental now. So guessing what spec she was, well, it was a hit or miss without knowing more information.

Shamans all look the damn same. They drop totems & two out of the three stand in the back. What if the elemental likes to stand up close & personal to the boss? Well then, I sure couldn't tell you. I mean the chain heal is a dead give away that they are resto but really? I see 4 totems on the floor that are doing something, that's all I know.

Oh, let me tell you about hunters. Ummm they have a pet & they use a bow. You seriously need three separate trees to do that? Ok, ok, I understand that Beastmaster can tame sweet Spirit Beasts or lol T-Rex but what do the other ones do that really makes a difference in the play style? YOU SHOOT A BOW!

WoW, this is turning into a rant.

So ok, my point being, does it really matter, to a tank, what spec the rest of the party really is? I mean, does it help me in any way to know that the Warlock is Affliction rather than Destruction? I'm really just not seeing a major point to knowing that information if you are not the Raid leader.

What do you think? Is it important for you to know what spec everyone else is or do you just work around what you see?

<3 Fuu

Made A Pact With D.Pact Yet?

Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter. I know Fuu and I are both kind of worn out from travel/eating way too much. My family loves to eat. I think that's pretty common though. We have so many leftovers. Fuu's happy because she probably won't have to cook for a week.

We returned home in time to catch a Sunday Night Weekly Raid run with our raid group.  It was my first real chance to try out Dark Pact since I wrote about it last week. In my opinion, it went rather well.  I'm not sure if my healers noticed it, but I felt a lot... healthier?  I was at 100% for a lot of the fight, and the innate self-healing of an Aff'lock really kept me topped off with what I hope was minimal attention.  Not that I was life tapping a whole ton before, but I certainly think it's noticeable. 

The amount of mana back from each Pact seemed pretty sizeable too.  I didn't find myself going OOM or having to tap a lot extra (and I always have Life Tap on backup just in case).  I didn't notice my Felpup going OOM either, and I was easily able to keep the glyph buff up.  All in all, I'm thinking this change is all win.  My question today is how about the rest of you?

Dark Pact: Win or Fail?

Is it as much mana as you expected?  Is anyone noticing excessive tapping or going OOM as a result?  Are you living through stuff you used to die on because you don't have to Life Tap?  Last night was more of a dress rehearsal for me, as our 10 man ICC raid is scheduled for tonight.  That will be the real test.

If you're an Affliction 'lock and you haven't respecced to grab Dark Pact yet, I say "do eeet!"  If you're like me, you probably have an extra talent point hanging around that you're not quite sure what do with anyways, and you can always keep your LT on backup.   I don't really see a down side to it, and the Felpup is really well-synergised with Affliction to make use of this talent.  I suppose it's what you would hope from a deeper tree talent.

I have to say, I'm rather pleased with the state of Affliction Warlocks right now.  It's a pretty solid spec all around.  It makes me a little concerned about the re-working we're set to get for Cataclysm (soul shards especially), since it would seem there's a lot more to screw up than fix.  Danger is the spice of life though.  Or something like that.

No IC Friday... this Friday but...

Hey Gang!

I know that you guys were expecting one of Fulguralis's Awesome IC Friday posts today but...

Here's the thing, it's Good Friday which means we didn't have work today. So I'm forcing him to do a few things out & about with me today. I'm kidnapping my husband if you will ;)

We are going to be out of town for the rest of this beautiful weekend off to see his side of the family. I wanted to point you to something that our blog will be participating in for this upcoming holiday. Over at Revive & Rejuvenate, they are putting together a cute little blogger event for Easter. Here's a link to the event if you are interested.

We wanted to wish you all a safe & Happy Easter!

<3 Fuu

Wherein I Try To Fool You

So, I rolled a mage last night and...

No really, I was playing on my mage and I Topeka'ed their rotations and...

Okay srsly, it wasn't that bad but...

Oh, you're no fun.  Mages are awful.  I can't lie about that.

What can I lie about?

Jbelle called me last night.  She's done healing, wants to roll a real toon and DPS.  Well, she didn't call, because she hates phones, but she did text.  Or maybe it was MSN messager.  Yeah, we actually use that.  Maybe we'll Tchat in our Tmail about that today.

Hydra slapped me.  So I hacked her account and rage deleted her toons.  Except for her Warlock, she's still allowed to play that.  But only if she doesn't cry.  THERE IS NO CRYING IN WARLOCKERY!

Abi isn't back.  I've been writing on his blogs.  All 27 of them.

Samodean came by last night to chat.  In a drunken stupor he guiltily admitted that he's never played a video game in his life.  All his info, he got from reading fanfic.  That and gamer magazines like IGN.  He is IGN. 

Saresa is actually married with 5 kids and lives in Kansas.  Google, Kansas.  It's not a flat and boring as you might think.  She's not a school teacher either, as she claims.  Rather, she's a farmer.  Soy beans, not corn.  She tweeted about it on her super-secret farmer name: @Soyresa.

Grimm didn't take a break.  He just kept right on playing through it, but he wanted to seem dramatic and deep.  /tear.  That is, he plays when they allow him time at the nut house where he's being treated for Dissociative Identity Disorder.  My aunt works there, I know.

Nibuca isn't actually human.  Fim and Bre created an artificial intelligence co-host back in the day and named it Nibuca.  Like sky-net, she may slowly be taking over the World... of Warcraft.  We won't know until Judgment Day.  Fim is working on a second AI host named Syrana.  However, a faulty flux capacitor has lately left the second fembot dysfunctional and mute.  Hence, lack of posts.  Also, Stop is the first of Nibuca-net's self-aware creations.

Larisa actually runs a dungeon over in Europe.  Americans don't always realize, but most Europeans still have real dungeons in their fiefdoms, and Larisa is the DM.  Gnomeaggedon is her chain supplier.  Dungeons need lots of chains, it's a billion dollar business.

Euripedes and Euripides are actually the same person.  That one letter difference isn't fooling anyone.


Tam isn't British, he's German.  He admitted it himself.  He has his own guild named The Fourth Reich.  All that bollocks about drama is propaganda to make you feel sympathy for him, when in reality he holds all his guildies (and their families) in a Wi-Fi enabled Gulag and forces them to carry him through content.  Chas has erected a wall and is attempting to get messages through to the Allied Blogosphere, but they get swallowed in the deluge that is Tam.  Every blogger that you see that says they're "quitting" has actually been captured and forced to work in Tam's Guild Gulag.  You'd better believe BRK is there.  Spinksville is the next haven marked for conquering on his ubiquitously cliche evil wall map of the world, and what chance does a small hamlet like that have against the might of Tam Nation?


And, last but not least, BBB is suing Blizzard for copyright infringement.  It seems he has proof that he was writing about WoW before there was a WoW, allowing him royalties due under the Peremptory Literacy Clause of Copyright Law.  It's an obscure law, but there is some precedence to support his claim, perhaps the most famous case being Gore v Internet.  The case is being referred to as Blizz v Butt.

Today is April the First, and remember: The Truth is Out There.

Back in Pact

Nibuca mentioned it last week over at the MC, but I wanted to make a service announcement of my own.  Dark Pact is back.  Where did it go?  You may ask...

Well, back in the day (/hikesupbritches), all Aff'locks used Dark Pact.  It essentially made your pet a mana-battery, which at the time was mostly what pets were good for.  Additionally, it didn't have the potential to put you in dangerous health situations. 

This was also before the Glyph of Life Tap was introduced.  Once it was, though, the DPS benefits outweighed the risks, plus Life Tap was slightly reworked so that it made a lot of sense to use.  Thus, we all specced out of Dark Pact and started tap, tap, tapping again. 

Now darkness has reclaimed it's rightful throne.  Dark Pact has been made to trigger the Glyph of Life Tap, so that difference goes away, and the scaling has been reworked such that you should be getting more mana back per use when compared with Life Tap (even improved Life Tap).  Nibs linked the pertinent EJ article here, but I trust her judgment (and cannot view EJ at work).  Feel free to explore the nitty gritty. 

The bottom line here is that if you're a raiding Affliction Warlock, you should give some serious thought to speccing back into Dark Pact and replacing Life Tap with it in your dark castings.  After our ICC run last night, I went and did this myself.  I basically took the one "wtf-do-I-do-with-this" point I had stashed in Grim Reach and plopped it in Dark Pact, so I didn't really have to sacrifice anything spec-wise.  If you're one of those folks that had specced into Improve Life Tap, you could probably take a point from there. 

ICC in particular, but raiding in general has seen AoE raid damage increase a lot.  I presume the effort is to get us to have to move around while also giving healers something to worry about.  The side effect is that it can make Life Tapping somewhat dangerous and downright annoying for healers.  Normally, I wouldn't care if I'm being annoying to healers (case in point: our druid healer once asked, "Why do you always get hit at the start of battle?"  To which I replied, "Many Life Taps, handle it!"), but I also like to live, so it's a good move in my book.  The less I have to worry about cutting myself at the wrong time, the better, and it's not like Felpups are having mana issues right now with their redesign in earlier patches.

I haven't had a chance to see how it plays yet, but I did test the Glyph functionality and it works as advertised.  So hop on the good foot and do the Dark Pact.  Or something.

All the Single 80's

Put your hands up... No, no. I'm not going to sing today.  I'm going to pontificate on the path that I believe a fresh level 80 Warlock should take.  It's been noted that we're in something of a pre-expansion lull.  For a lot of people, this means leveling the alts that they may have wanted to get to 80 but never had the time.  Thus, I would guess there are a good handful of freshly minted or soon-to-be minted level 80 'locks out there.

I got a comment yesterday from Darthregis reinforcing this supposition and asking for advice.  Basically, he wanted to know what direction I would go if I had just dinged 80 on my 'lock.  Would my love for all things Affliction dictate my moves, or would I go a different route?  Even more specifically, he'd like to know about how to plan his gear.  Should he go with the Tier 9 gear from tokens, or a mix of T8 and T9, or even the gear from ICC 5-mans.  Furthermore, he mostly plans to be running heroics and the occasional lower end raid on this toon, so what would work out best?

It's a great question and one where the answer would not fit easily into the comment area.  Hence, post.

So to break it down, there are a few key points to consider here:

• T9 is notoriously Affliction unfriendly, though it is easy to get right now.
• Heroics are notoriously Affliction unfriendly, though they are easy to get into right now.
• In general, the fresh level 80 is looking to gear up quickly by running heroics.

So you can see, despite my undying (dare I say everlasting?) love for Affliction, the current state of the game is unfavorable to fresh 80 Aff'locks.  Mostly, this is due to how quickly stuff dies.  Affliction is probably the best sustained damage class out there.  Over time, our damage is smooth and constant when done correctly.  It adds up.  When stuff dies too quick, it chops us out at the knees.  Not much to it other than to suck it up.

Or go Demonology.  Yep, as much as I hate to admit it, the best choice isn't to somehow finagle a working spec out of Affliction, it is to seek refuge in the shade of a different tree.  Destruction might work, but I choose Demo.  Let's look at the Pros:

• Demonology has the highest survivability of all Warlock specs.  This is great news when you're pugging a lot and not sure if your tank/healer is going to be competent.  It allows you to somewhat fend for yourself.
• Demonology makes great use of the crit that is prevalent on T9 gear.  Destro is still probably the burst king, but Demo isn't bad.  Both benefit from crit far more than Affliction.  You can really make use of those Triumph emblems you'll be raking in. 
• Demonology is a great balance of sustained damage, burst damage, and finishing power.  It's really a "jack of all trades" spec, allowing you to adapt to the situations you're likely to find in heroics and lower end raids.
• The spec is FUN.  You get huge crits with soul fire.  You get to be a big purple demon.  You're weaving dots and procs.  You have crazy AoE potential.  It's an active spec that can keep you awake even when you're running Gundrak for the 25th time.

What about the cons?  Well I see only two:

1. If you plan to eventually raid Affliction (which I would suggest as Affliction is Raid King right now, plus I love the spec regardless), then you are not training your fingers to the rotation.  Practice makes perfect, and you'd be getting it in a different spec.
2. Again, if you plan to go Affliction, then once you get geared up, it might not be as ideal for an Affliction spec.  A simple respec might actually see a drop in DPS because of how crit is valued.

So here's what I would do (and have done).  I would spec Demonology right away.  I would spec it as I've linked up on the left there (in my Demonology Primer).  I would dual spec into Affliction.  For most of the time, I would run as Demo and gear as Demo.  For some of the harder fights in lower end raids (where you know the stuff is going to live), I might switch to Affliction to practice.  I can always practice on dummies later if I get into more serious raiding on my 'lock and find my finger training lacking.

I'd gear up to T9 as quickly as possible, but keep my eye open for hastier pieces.  Haste and crit are usually the trade-off stats, so any piece that has haste in place of crit, I'd snatch up.  I would not go so far as to keep two gear sets, but I would slowly replace my crit heavy gear with haste gear (probably using the Frost Emblems I begin to accumulate).  After all, haste is not bad for Demo specs, especially when you're trying to be quicker due to fast dying stuff anyways.  I would not get a "downgrade" just for the haste, but I would definitely favor haste pieces when looking for upgrades.  Eventually, you'll have a pretty balanced set that will work well for both specs.

It's simple, it's fun, and it'll keep you playing as an effective 'lock.  The reality is that Affliction is just not effective when the trash is falling over like dominoes in a whirlwind.  Start off Demo, switch to Affliction later.  That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.