LAGWAR | VIDEO GAMING'S BEST IN TOP NOTCH MEDIOCRITY» World of Warcraft

Love in a Time of Text

Syeric — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 06:44:03 +0000

What follows is Part I of a two part tale. Stay tuned for the conclusion, Monday! In the spirit of this week’s holiday, I thought I’d share a story on love forged in the fires of 1990’s text-based gaming. A couple that met and originally flourished in the transits and byways of the imagination, and... [Continue Reading]

SAR: Cataclysmic Thoughts for Cataclysmic People

Syeric — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 21:39:00 +0000

Wow. Look at this. He’s back. Poor old Syeric takes off for two months, no word, no foul, and here he is again just when we thought he was dead. Well, the good news is that I’m not dead. Only mostly. I’m coming out of a neck-deep WoW binge, Rift binge, LotRO-not-so-much binge, and to-a-lesser-extent-Black-Ops... [Continue Reading]

A Hiatus Broken: A Gaming PC Broken

Xavier Morgan — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 02:22:52 +0000

After a brutally fun grind of 12 days, 4 hours, 16 minutes, and 7 seconds at my keyboard, I achieved the privilege of becoming an 85 Demonology Warlock on the Hakkar server: Ohcheese arrived! ... If you are considering a switch or just have flames to push in my direction, I would love to hear about your personal computing experience.

The more the merrier?

Raim — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 02:57:04 +0000

The more the merrier? Sometimes…but not always. More friends at a party? Great. More men in a hot tub? Not so great. It just depends on the situation. With the merging of 10 and 25 man raid locks many guilds in WoW are asking themselves the same question. Is more merrier? My guild is one example of a group of players stuck between 10 and 25.

State of the Raid

Raim — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 21:14:09 +0000

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that the game had changed this expansion. That healers didn’t have unlimited mana anymore and that tanks, DPS, and healers alike would all need to start towing the line, using damage mitigation cooldowns as a matter of course, and generally be even more vigilant about not standing in hurty things on the ground. I was right. I also went on to intimate, perhaps rather blatantly that I thought that 10 man raiding was overtuned. I was a little off there.

WoWWatch: It’s not Indiana Jones and unfortunately its not Lara Croft either.

Raim — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 01:25:22 +0000

The holidays are a time of reflection, giving thanks, and spending more time with our families than we really would like to. They also are a time when most of us have a bit more free time than the norm. Some people cook, others clean, some drink (probably the best hobby). Not me. This holiday season, with a little extra free time, I decided to try to level archaeology. Ugh.

WoWWatch:Cataclysm, coke binges, and healer mana

Raim — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 12:08:36 +0000

It has been one week since Cataclysm went live. I initially thought I would be behind in other work (which I am) and unable to develop a clear message for this column. I had resigned this column to being one of those “smattering of impressions” columns that I have always felt are cheating. However after playing the game for a week, hitting 85, jumping into heroics, and healing a raid, I have one definitive impression that stands out way above the rest – WoW is harder again.

SAR: 5 Tips to Get the Most Out of Cataclysm

Syeric — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 05:11:11 +0000

That time has come again, boys and girls, and another World of Warcraft expansion is upon us. The lands of Azeroth have been torn asunder and a very upset black dragon is flying the skies, hungry for a special blend of gobbo-huma-orc cheese spread. What? Dragons can like cheese spread. This expansion is different than... [Continue Reading]

WoWWatch: Coo-coo for Cataclysm

Raim — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 03:47:35 +0000

We have all done weird stuff; things that from an outsider’s opinion would look a little off. That argument you had in your head at the supermarket that slipped out and became a little audible, or that time you had a little too much to drink. People are strange – and on top of it we do things that may, at the time, seem rational to us but look like utter insanity to everyone around us. All you have to do is go to a Justin Bieber concert or a midnight showing of a new Twilight opening to see this in others. Video game players generally exist pretty close to that uncomfortably weird line, and when something big happens in our games – well…sometimes we are those girls lining up at a Bieber show.

WoWWatch: PvP as a new PvE?

Raim — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 03:16:50 +0000

I don’t really PvP. Ever. In fact, generally when people start talking about PvP my eyes glaze over. I am the ultimate care bear. I have a rainbow tattooed on my stomach and in times of great peril I can expel a beam of energy out of it to stun my foes. Really. I can. Okay maybe not. The point I am trying to make is that I have never been interested in PvP in WoW. Until just recently. The introduction of ranked battlegrounds in WoW has piqued my interest to the point that I might, just might, figuratively dip my PvE pinky toe in the PvP water. What has ensorcelled me so? I think it’s that the new PvP is really a lot like PvE.

WoWWatch: Goodbye, my friend, goodbye.

Raim — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 04:15:38 +0000

A curious thing happened this weekend. As I raced around Azeroth with my fellow players, trying to fill out those last few quests, achievements, or reputations, I felt a pang of regret. There was so much from the original game that would soon be gone that I knew I would not have a chance to finish. Today, actually while I write this column, Azeroth is being digitally torn apart. The Cataclysm patch is being activated and while we are at work or school (or writing articles), Deathwing is going to blast out of the earth and tear down good ol’ Azeroth. It’s exciting for sure – but it’s a bit bittersweet as well.

WoWWatch: Building an expansion

Raim — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 23:44:56 +0000

Here is a quick thought exercise. Take the original Star Wars – not the original trilogy just the very first film – and compare it to (what was once called episode II but is now referred to as episode V) the Empire Strikes back. Not bad right? TESB (I have no idea if anyone else uses that acronym) is a pretty good sequel to the first movie. It expands the characters, drives the story, and keeps the audience enthralled. Now let’s try something a little different. Let’s compare the first trilogy – the ones from the 70’s – with the new Star Wars movies. Ugh. The (pre)sequels don’t quite hold up do they? This just goes to show that there a good ways (The Empire Strikes Back) and bad ways (any of the new Star Wars offerings generously referred to as movies) to make a sequel. Similarly there are good ways and bad ways to build an expansion for a game.

WoWWatch: Gamers to the rescue.

Raim — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 02:52:20 +0000

As gamers we take a significant amount of flak from our non-gaming fellows. Although use of the words “dork”, “nerd”, and “geek” don’t sting like they used to, they still aren’t often positive descriptors. WoW and online games similar to it seem to hold a particular stigma – people think that we prefer our fantasy worlds to the real one. However, after some “real life grouping” (hanging out) people see that by-and-large we aren’t the antisocial misanthropes that we are made out to be. Unfortunately, anti-social gamer tag is not the only one we are bridled with, and as gamers it’s about time we started setting the record straight.

WoWWatch:Death and Taxes

Raim — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 00:03:44 +0000

Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between a step forward and a step sideways, or even a step in reverse. Never is this more palpable in WoW than patch day. Another patch day, another round of critiques, and if you have played WoW for more than one major content expansion you know what patch day means…another round of “WoW has been dumbed down” arguments. If I had a penny for each of these I have written, I would have at least 5 cents. OK, that isn’t too impressive, but this time for some reason I find the argument more annoying than its previous incarnations. If you can brave the continuation of an old age argument – read on.

WoWWatch: Wish you were here.

Raim — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 01:21:07 +0000

Another year, another Blizzcon come and gone. Compared to previous years, this Blizzcon seemed a little more sedate. The release of Starcraft 2 over the summer and the mountain of information that is already available on Cataclysm left a little less “oomph” to this year’s proceedings. The biggest bombs Blizzard dropped were the introduction of arena style PvP to Diablo 3 and the inclusion of a download service for Catalcysm. But that information is available on any number of MMO news sites, so this week I decided to give you some cool inside observations that you could only really get if you were there in the flesh (or read this article).

WoWWatch: A respectful plea for sanity.

Raim — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 01:29:09 +0000

Sometimes events occur that are so horrific they burn a memory into our minds. Killings, bombings, terrorist acts, etc., all horrific beyond contemplation. For many of these instances the pain will never be forgotten by the people who lost loved ones, spouses, and friends. But afterward life goes on, because it must. On December 7th 1941, 2,402 American soldiers and civilians were killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor. They were serving America and paid the highest price for their selfless duty, that day as it is said, “will live in infamy”. December 7th 2010, marks the 69th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor and has also been slated as the release date for Cataclysm.

WoWWatch: Scattershot

Raim — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 11:26:20 +0000

I have to admit, I don’t really like doing this. Writing a smattering of topics entry, that is. You see these on sports blogs a lot too. They are easy to write because you really only need a few sentences of analysis for each point you want to make. They are very superficial, and generally – I don’t like them. Generally. But this time, and hopefully just this once, I will resort to the smattering style article, so away we go.

SAR: The War on the Subscription

Syeric — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 11:00:52 +0000

Two years ago: we’re all happily playing WoW or LotRO, set with our surcharges and pre-paid time cards. Cash shops will destroy the industry! we cried. I don’t want to be gimped because I can’t pay as much as Joe Schlub! Blogs were afire as players rallied against the first stirrings of the F2P movement.... [Continue Reading]

WoWWatch: Getting Iced…

Raim — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 04:11:39 +0000

I recently received that phone call that anyone with a parent in the older generation dreads…a call to make an Amazing race audition video with them. I think in a lot of ways being asked by a close relative to be on the Amazing Race is the familial equivalent to being Iced; you don’t really want to do it, you know you are not going to like it, you know that there will probably be public embarrassment involved, but that you kind of have to do it. Luckily an extra long application form and late notice on the audition got me off the hook – at least this year. Had there been time though I would have done made the audition video, my parents raised me for 20 years, a single Amazing race video seems like a small price to pay (maybe). I do a lot of things, not necessarily because I want to, but because I feel like I have to. Sometimes this spills over into my virtual life as well.

SAR: A Case of Skill

Syeric — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 22:33:17 +0000

My column on PvP wasn’t very well received. I guess that’s the risk you take speaking out against the main play style of your whole audience. Unlike a lot of people conjectured, though, I hadn’t recently died in PvP. I’m not much of a raider either, actually. So, as someone who walks that middle ground... [Continue Reading]

WoWWatch: The spice of life?

Raim — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 21:04:39 +0000

I don’t normally talk about other games here, because well, this is a WoW column and that just wouldn’t make sense. Occasionally in an article however, I will mention one game or another to make a point about WoW. Well this is another of those articles. The game: Vindictus. The point? There is a lot to do in Azeroth – and that’s a good thing. (There is your cliff-notes version – read below for expanded startling revelations!)

SAR: Solo or Die (and Other Lessons I Learned in WoW)

Syeric — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 02:05:25 +0000

I like to think that everything in life is a learning experience; the good, the bad, and the ugly all go into shaping how we see the world – or virtual world, as the case may be. When I sat down to write this article, I asked myself: what have games taught me? Leadership? Nah,... [Continue Reading]

WoWWatch: Sausage party

Raim — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 03:00:00 +0000

Ever been to a party with a conspicuously high proportion of male attendants? Chances are if you have been to college, (or if you play video games, follow the careers of Starfleet officers, or speak Elvish) the answer is yes. The “sausage party” (if you don’t know the terminology you can urban dictionary it) or males-only club is dreaded by most party throwers (and goers). I can tell you (from experience, really) the flip side (I won’t use any funny slang here) is almost as bad. It’s a little uncomfortable when one of your female friends points out a conspicuously high number (19:2) of our female counterparts to us. Whenever a balance gets shifted too far one way or the other things seem a little out of whack – the same holds true for WoW.

SAR: PvP is a Loser’s Game

Syeric — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 11:30:17 +0000

Here’s the deal: over the past couple years, we’ve seen a clamoring of hopeful ex-Counter Strike-turned-WoW players clamoring for “the next great PvP game.” These voices are bad for MMOs. There. I said it. PvP doesn’t work, shouldn’t be tried, and creates more problems than it solves. Battlegrounds, arenas, and Wintergrasp should all be removed... [Continue Reading]

WoWWatch: Ready your pandas

Raim — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 01:29:57 +0000

It is finally here…sort of. After months of relative silence regarding when WoW players could expect to call out of work for a week, the hush has been broken. Numerous sites are reporting today (this sounds like a 1950’s radio news broadcast, doesn’t it?) that Cataclysm is due to be released November 2, about two weeks after this year’s Blizzcon. Whether you are insanely excited or just absurdly excited about the impending cataclysm to our social lives, this is big news. With Cataclysm looming ominously on the horizon, what are your plans for the expansion?