I have started playing World of Warcraft again (this game is hard to let go!). Got my blood elf mage up to level 80, decked her out in full tier 9 set just by running heroics. Nothing surprising really. Cataclysm seems to be just around the corner, and it’s a good thing because many are becoming very frustrated with the lack of content.

I’m still playing Battlefield Bad Company 2, on the occasional nights when me and some friends login together and wreak some havoc. The game is so full of “moments” that unless you have someone to shout at when it happens you will simply fill up and explode. Some sniper dodged your entire magazine and then stabbed you in the eye with the knife. You took out two tanks in the helicopter, got shot down, and when you were parachuting down you took out a third with your rocket launcher. Those kind of moments.

Playing through Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. The old Jedi Academy 2 is one of my favourite games, and while it still beat Force Unleashed in some aspects (camera most of all – you can tell the game is a console port), the action and combos is just wonderful.

Or, at least that’s what I think. Maybe deep down I enjoy tormenting my mind by killing the same ten rats over and over again, like some kind of grind-masochist. Leveling in WoW is a hundred times better than it was four years ago, but it’s also four years of doing the same leveling content over and over again, with some fresh new expansion-stuff on top of it. Leveling in Northrend is not too bad. Actually, it’s quite enjoyable experience. But even that gets dull the third time you do it… and I have done it three times now. I don’t need QuestHelper, because I know from memory the locations of all quest locations.

So why is it impossible for me to stay faithful to one character for any length of time? I keep thinking of my friend who has played the same character since release, and I just wonder how does he do it? He got alts – and a few of them are even max level - but he always got his priorities straight and will throw them under the bus at any time for his main character. I can never manage that. I put all my focus on one, and when playing with alts it’s just a matter of time before I play him more than my main character… and he becomes my new main character.

The “problem” is even more problematic because I can’t find a logical pattern that could hint to why I do what I do. I mean, if I stuck with melee characters longer than casters that could give me a hint that I just enjoy a specific archetype, but that’s not the case. I leveled a hunter to 80, then a druid to 80 for healing/caster DPS, and then a warrior for tanking and melee DPS. And now the tank is being put to the side for a mage. Does it make sense? Not to me anyway.

It could be that I don’t enjoy playing any of them, and I just go back to the archetype that I played far enough back in time to forget why I quit.

But I think the real reason is that I just enjoy the thrill of starting over. Tabula rasa; a blank slate. That once I’ve got used to a familiar pattern or habit I start looking at other characters and seeing their difference in a new light. That maybe being a mage isn’t that bad after all. Every time I quite a healing class I swear I will never touch healing again, and yet I know I will level a priest or paladin eventually. Maybe it’s the experience of doing something different, or maybe it’s the challenge. I don’t know.

Actually this problem is not just in one game, but all games that has the ability to create individual characters with different potentials. I remember that I played games like Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights for a full run with one character, and then created new characters over and over again, but never coming close to finishing it before starting over.

Maybe it’s even a blessing; to be able to ignore all past experience, pain and suffering you had to go through to get a character where it is, and create a new one with no remorse. But I like to think of it as a curse, because leveling sucks.

If I ever meet Sisyphus he and I could trade some stories.

In a raid there might be someone other than a tank assigned as Raid Leader, but his leading just include deciding tactics, picking boss order, and assigning loot. The actual leading (being at the front of the raid, urging them on) is always on the shoulders of the tank. There are no hunters that are running ahead and misdirecting everything, it’s up to the tank to run the right way and to set the pace. He has to be aware that dead people get the time to be ressed, that mana classes get the time to regen mana, lazy people to be summoned, tables and healthstones to be handed out, and everything like that. If you as a tank stand around and wait too long people will start yelling at him to go (you don’t have all day!), and if you move too fast people will yell at you to slow down.

Tanking is not for anyone, at least not main tanking. You are the natural leader of the group, and everyone expect you to know all the tactics, the correct way to move through an instance, what trash that can be avoided and what should be cleared for safety, all the pats movement and time (god forbid that you tank a pack and a pat comes along).

Take a large raid instance filled with bosses for example. Every boss in there got a gimmick, be it to face him a certain way, kite him when he starts an ability, interrupt a certain spell, run out of his AoE, or hundreds of other gimmicks that separate the boss from others. A melee DPS might have to pay attention to some of them (like the AoE), a ranged DPS less than that, and a healer can probably ignore everything except to know when the tank is taking more damage. But who has to have perfect knowledge of all this stuff? The tank.

The success of the raid lies heavily on their shoulders, so pay them some goddamn respect.

(No, I don’t currently play a tank, but I have done it in the ol’ days.)

PROLOGUE

First a brief introduction of me. A long time ago in a world not so unlike this one I wrote on a blog called Wizards & Wenches, and it was mostly about Warhammer Online. But, as my new friend Roland would say, the world has moved on. After WAR I played EVE Online for a while, but in the end I came back to World of Warcraft. I like games, and from the three mentioned titles you can guess that I like MMOs.

Lasers and spaceships is alright, but for some unfathomable reason I prefer swords and dragons. My bookcase is stuffed to the brink with fantasy books, and I write and manage the (now somewhat out-of-date) fantasy literature blog Quilldragon.

I also like webdesign, so when not playing or reading I create themes for Wordpress. For that purpose I have Frostpress, a site where I gather my themes for download. The theme I use here on Wildwhine is one of those, but I will create a new one just for this blog later when I got time.

What will be on this blog then? Generally about games I currently play and thoughts about it. I will try not to get pin-holed into just one game, but since it will likely be a lot of World of Warcraft in the beginning I make no promises.

Want some cheese with that whine?

CHAPTER ONE

To be continued…