Sydera

Alts and the Raider: An Officer’s Perspective

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the_alt_parade

Who are all these unsavory characters, you might ask? Well, all WoW players–particularly raiders–have a closet full of skeletons, or, to be more specific, absolutely terrible alts. These just happen to be mine, and not a one of them is as good as my main. There are the few exceptional players who play their holy priest as well as their frost mage, but those are few and far between. For the most of us, we have one character to raid with, whose mechanics we know inside and out, and a motley crew of has-beens, might-have-beens, and never-will-bes to tool around with outside of raid time. Usually, alts are harmless, though my paladin’s mailbox macarenas HAVE been known to cause temporary insanity. However, especially when burnout or boredom threatens, alts start to look pretty attractive. I’ve just taken Isidora the Fail Warlock on a little tour of Borean Tundra. Sure, level 68 mages can kill me one-on-one because I can’t find my fear button. But I can pick Goldclover!

This post explores what happens when raiders get attached to their alts. The fascination can go far beyond leveling a convenient profession or two. It is a truth universally acknowledged that when a guild starts spending a significant amount of time every week on farm content, at least one raider will want to bring in an alt.

Change is Good, Right?

From the perspective of the player, a change of main, or even a few trips to a dungeon on an alt, can help refresh interest in the game. On rare occasions, this can work out well for the guild as well. Sometimes a player is even more successful at raiding on a rerolled character than they were on their original main. I saw this happen in Collateral Damage with Allagash, a wonderful shaman who rerolled from priest in mid-T5 when she saw the potential of the shaman class. Those kinds of Cinderella stories can happen, but what I’m really interested in talking about are the rotten pumpkins that can result from an excessive love of alts.

Speaking Hypothetically

What if I were to decide tomorrow that Sydera has plenty of gear and experience, and that I’d like to start raiding on one of my alts? Maybe, since my guild has only one raiding shaman, I’ll powerlevel Zoraida (now at a stout level 7) and work my butt off to help my guild stack Chain Heal. Or, I’ll decide that even though I’ve become pretty decent at healing, it’s my destiny to hit things in the ankle with an axe. So, I’ll level my retribution paladin from 70 to 80 and add myself to an already bloated melee team. But I’m a good player, right, so my guild will work me in just to keep me. In either case, I’d ding 80 in little more than my underwear (yes, those are healing boots on the ret pally) and I’d want some runthroughs of heroics and Naxx 10 to get up to the minimum standard for raid gear. I’m sure, though, that the whole project would be engaging. Some players seek out just such a long slog so that they have enough in-game struggles to hold their interest. However, at the end of the line, when a new alt is at level 80 and in a basic raid kit, has it been worth the sacrifice?

Giving your Guild Leader a Giant Headache

Nothing causes Guild and Raid Leaders to lose more sleep than the prospect of changing the raid lineup. Anyone who makes a raid roster wants to be able to count on a consistent team, and alts ad chaos to the mixture. Most guilds don’t min/max every situation, so they will do what they can to keep a player they like, even if it means letting a healer come to raids on a ret paladin. However, that player has probably cost their guild a good bit of time and effort for a very uncertain return. Often, the end result is that the new main contributes less to the raid than the old one did.

Didn’t Ghostcrawler tell us to Take the Player, Not the Class?

syd-states-clearly-noYes, he sure did. However, when we’re talking about a rerolled character or an alt, there are a lot of reasons for guild leaders to say no. For example, let’s take Sydera. She’s been all the way through TBC and the current Wrath content, and somewhere along the way, her operator learned a thing or two about healing on a druid. When I take my warlock out for questing, I’m less quick to react than I am on Syd. It’s like playing a stranger. I might be able to learn another healer, but I don’t think I’d ever post great numbers as a raiding warlock. For high-end raiding, the absolute optimum scenario is for everyone to play one class of their choice and to build the team based on those choices. Changing things up mid-stream is uncomfortable both for the leadership and for other players.

But What if My Main is Already Geared?

In my mind, this is the worst reason to bring an alt to a raid, unless it’s a raid specifically designated for alts. In guilds with DKP lists, alts can sometimes bid on loot, often sharing a DKP pool with the main. Let’s imagine that a well-established guild has many long-time members with lots of DKP and a few new members with very little. One of these new members loses an item for their main spec to someone’s alt. How are they going to feel? And what will the effect on team morale be? This can be a hard lesson, because we all love our alts and get bored of farm content, but a guild has to think about the good of the whole. As painful as it might be, and as much as I’d like to go to Naxx someday on my alts, it’s best to keep alts out of raiding entirely. The exception, as I said, are raids designed to carry alts. If the guild is revisiting old content for giggles, then why not let everyone take their alts? But if the raid’s purpose is to gear up the players for the next level, you’re much better off with a full group of mains, even if some loot gets sharded as a consequence.

What if I Want to Switch Mains?

Sometimes a change in mains is the only thing that will make a player happy. In my mind, players should seek their bliss–but they should so so while being aware of other people’s needs. I can imagine two possible scenarios that allow a player to switch and keep his or her integrity intact.

1. The player who wants to switch is able to do so in a way that supports the guild.

If one of Conquest’s four resto druids really, truly wanted to switch to another healing class, and was willing to let that class be paladin or shaman, I would support them. Sure, I’d be skeptical until the alt in question reached 80, but I would be willing to do a little extra personal work to support the new character. However, once the person switched, I’d hold them to it. There would be no going back to the former main once the new main had an acceptable gear set. That essentially causes the guild to have to re-make its plans twice. I’ve been burned in the past by asking people to switch to an alt either temporarily or permanently in order to ensure better class balance for a raid. I’ll never do that again–and I’ll keep people from switching themselves to a character they don’t really like if at all possible. I’d only support a change of main if it was permanent and favorable for both the individual and the team.

2. The player switches mains and respectfully leaves for a guild that needs a player in that role.

One of the hard lessons I’ve learned this year is that sometimes you have to say goodbye to your guild–for the good of both that guild and the raider involved. I believe in everyone’s right to find happiness, and if that sense of in-game satisfaction is only available with a new class and role that your current raiding group doesn’t need, well, it makes sense to say good luck and goodbye. There are respectful ways to g-quit. It’s better, in fact, to quit if staying would mean that the guild has to radically change itself in order to accommodate you. My earlier example of healer-to-melee would probably require a wholesale shakeup of Conquest to accomplish. So, have a heart-to-heart with the Guild Master or Raid Leader. Find out if your new main will be able to contribute something useful to your raiding team. If not, give a notice of a couple weeks if you can and then start looking for a new home.

Would I Ever Switch Mains?

Probably not. I’m rather attached to Syd, and I’ve found something I’m good at. Alts are nice for dreaming. I like to imagine what it would be like to Chain Heal with Zoraida in a 10-man, though I’m not likely to get there. I might someday pug a Naxx 10, or go on an all-alt run of old content. That sort of thing is fun. However, when it comes to progression raiding, I might daydream sometimes about switching, but then my better angel kicks in and tells me to get back to lifeblooming. Another question entirely is whether I’d reroll if Matticus asked me to. Yes, I would, because if the guild leader asks, that means it’s best for the team–but he’s not likely to do that. After all, I’m an incredibly slow leveler, and the guild would have to wait a long long time for their new team member.

10 v. 25-Person Content Revisited

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green-vortex

Well, darn. I figured out something last night that should have me eating my hat, or humble pie, or maybe a boiled crow, or else four-and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie. One of my biggest predictions about Wrath of the Lich King turns out to have been dead wrong.
some-very-humble-pie

When I first heard about the 10 v. 25 raid size split in Wrath, I made a logical assumption. To be entirely fair, the conclusion I drew was well-supported by blue comments. I believed that since the rewards would be demonstrably better in 25-person content, as a consequence the difficulty level would also be higher. Either that, or the difficulty level would be exactly the same, the only reason for a reward difference being the Organization Boss that all larger guilds have to face every week.

However, last night I ran two “normal difficulty” raids that took my breath away: Sartharion with two drakes and Malygos. Without a stacked raid, our group–which took out Sartharion 25 with 2 drakes earlier this week after only an hour and a half of tries–just could not make any headway in the 10-man version. We had to settle for just one drake, and since we picked the baby dragon-spawner by accident, that was no cake walk either. And as for the rewards at the end? Nothing anyone wanted, since we had been doing so much Sartharion 25 and Naxx 25. We were pretty psyched to get the achievement, though.

As for Malygos, we took him down with two healers, and boy, was I sweating. Tank healing was tight, and raid healing was even dodgier. Meanwhile, my mana pool dipped to absolutely scary levels–which became an emergency when I made a mistake on one attempt and blew my innervate in the gap between phase 1 and phase 2. In my panic I hadn’t even been checking Mal’s health bar. Malygos is a fight I love on 25s, but I have to say that the 10-man was breathtaking. It’s exactly the kind of challenge I want–one that I know I can meet, or that gives me a chance to make improvements between attempts. It has me tempted to go back again. However, once again the rewards aren’t in proportion to the difficulty. I’d say the loot is about on par with Kel’Thuzad’s from Naxx 25–pretty darn good, but not nearly as nice as the stuff that comes out of the easier 25-person version of the same instance.

Has Blizzard Made A Big Mistake?

Clearly, I think they have, or I wouldn’t have written this post. Knowing what I know now, there’s no reason to separate Emblem loot by normal/heroic raid tier. I think I definitely earned an Emblem of Valor or two for that Malygos kill. I had heard before that Sartharion with 3 drakes was absolutely monstrous on 10s, and I thought that was just a freak thing. But based on my personal experience, I’ve come to think that the phenomenon is more widespread. Nothing in Naxx–either version–is all that difficult for my guild, but I do remember that Kel’Thuzad is harder on both healers and melee-heavy groups in the smaller size. Like it or not, I’ve come to the conclusion that raids who run 10-person content only deserve the same compensation as 25-person raiders.

What Can the Developers Do About It?

A lot of people in this game min/max, and it looks like right now, the biggest rewards for a person’s time and effort come out of 25-person content. This is a disappointment to me, because I want the game design to lead me–and my fellow raiders–to the hardest possible content. The game needs to lure us there with rewards and encourage us not to be lazy. I also want everyone to get fair compensation for what they do. I just feel bad about getting better gear for less work than a smaller guild might do. A 10-man guild who clears Sarth with 3 drakes has absolutely played better than I’m capable of right now–and they get a Heroes’ glove token, while I’m wearing a Valorous one? Ludicrous. Moreover, assuming that Ulduar-10 is harder than Ulduar-25, could that mean that a raid really needs i-level 213 gear to do it? The gear gap between 10-person raiders and 25-person raiders is pretty noticeable. As promised, it is very nearly a whole tier of difference. I think I had smaller upgrades, say, between T4 and T5 than I did between Heroes and Valorous.

For Ulduar and all future raids, I urge Blizzard to do one of two things.

1. Eliminate the i-level gap for 10 v. 25 person gear along with the Emblem difference. Put either equivalent or exactly the same items in each tier. The dichotomy was a nice idea, but the dungeon difficulty doesn’t actually support it. Clearly, I never favor lazy solutions, so I’d rather have totally unique sets in each dungeon size tailored towards the attributes that tend to be more important in that particular raid size. For small raids, survivability and mana regeneration/total mana might be key, whereas you might want higher damage output for the larger raids.

2. For the love of Pete, make the 25-person content different from the 10-person content. It’s not enough to adjust the health and damage values. Make the encounter feel different. Add lots of chaos for the 25s so it feels more on the difficulty level of the 10s. Give every one of those 25 raiders something to do, as in the Lady Vashj fight. I would even go so far as to give the bosses different mechanics–think about, say, the difference between Mechano-Lord Capacitator from Mechanar on Normal v. Heroic. Make the 25-person raiders earn their higher i-level sets.

Don’t Be Lazy

The solution to most of the problems I’ve seen in Wrath so far can be summarized with this adage. Wherever the developers have cut corners, things didn’t come out so well. No one’s complaining about the design of the leveling content or 5-person dungeons. That’s because they clearly show that Blizzard lavished time and attention on them. The same is, unfortunately, not true of the dual-tier raid system. I think it’s time to bring it in line.

The 6 Signs of Raiding Burnout

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We’re just a few weeks into a new expansion, so it feels a little strange to talk about burnout. However, Blizzard made a critical miscalculation when they worked on Wrath. They lavished most of their time and energy on quest and 5-person dungeon content–which is essentially single-view for many players. I know I certainly haven’t brought my alts through Northrend yet. However, they spent very little of their design energy on new raids. Naxxramas, which I never saw pre-Wrath, feels dated to me–it was already old the day I stepped in there. It’s something that was very cool for its time, and is fun even now, but just looks like Classic WoW. It’s like Eastern Plaguelands, part 2. For example, take a boss like Grobbulus. He looks like a butt with a face on it, or a face with a butt on it…or just a butt, with a gas mask. How can I help but be a little disappointed, especially when Blizzard is capable of creating a boss as beautiful as Malygos?

The fact that the new Naxx is tuned to be rather easy isn’t the biggest factor in how I feel about it. After all, I loved Karazhan–it was the unique mechanics and the enchanted-castle look of that place that kept me going back for more, not the difficulty level. The only two new raid instances, Obsidian Sanctum and the Eye of Eternity, are one-boss wonders. They’re cool and challenging, but there’s just not enough new bosses there to get the blood pumping.

I, for one, am very disappointed that Ulduar hasn’t hit yet. At the end of BC, I was on top of the world–Illidan and Archimonde fell for my guild right before the patch. Pre-Wrath, I got a little peek at Sunwell up to Felmyst. I had started to love raiding, and I wanted bigger challenges. . . like an entirely new instance full of beautiful, sad giants and lovely starscapes. I hope that’s Ulduar. If it had been me, I would have held Wrath entirely until at least one new full-length raid dungeon was ready.

Are you suffering from early burnout, dear reader? If one of the following six signs applies to you, you may want to see your nearest priest, who will probably prescribe a healthy diet of alt leveling and shameless achievement-chasing.

The 6 Signs of Early Burnout

1. The first time you ever saw one of the Naxxramas bosses, you said to yourself: “Not this guy again.” That, for me, was Heigan, who looks suspiciously like a lot of the trash mobs in Northrend. Hey! I think I killed that guy in Dragonblight. And Zul’Drak.

2. When your fellow raiders drop a train set, you wish that you could teleport them to Stranglethorn arena and kill them all. Choo choo? I hate you. Note to self: learn to PvP.

3. You’re tempted to send the Four Horseman a little note telling them how to better coordinate themselves for easier kills on overconfident adventurers. Note to the 4H: go for the healers, especially the druids. Wait no, scratch that . . .

4. When a boss dies, you run to get another beer–or in my case, Bailey’s–without bothering to see what he dropped. Purples, schmurples.

5. You and your friends have each incurred a repair bill of approximately 1589 gold this week because you’ve been trying for the Heroic dungeon achievements. After all, achievements are the real game, and all the leet players ride red proto drakes.

6. Tuesday is the high point of your week–not because it’s the start of the raid week, but because that’s the day your egg from the Oracles always hatches. I just got my baby Cobra–how did you do?

Syd’s Fantasy Raid Instance: Part 1

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instance-portal

The New Year has given WoW raiders a little something to look forward to. Just now, a dribble of information about Ulduar has started to appear in blue posts. Nothing of substance exists yet–all we know, essentially, is that Ulduar will have lots of encounters and a corresponding amount of loot. Thrilling, isn’t it?

I decided to take advantage of this moment when we know practically nothing about what is to come and imagine what my ideal raid instance might be like. Of course it’s not Ulduar, or even my own design for Ulduar. I don’t think I’m invested enough in the lore surrounding the Makers to give anything like an approximation of the story.

I thought it might be enjoyable to start out 2009 with a series of posts sketching out the kind of instance that I would like to play over and over. I’m very interested, though, in what the readers think is fun–so don’t be shy about making suggestions in the comments!

In this first post, I will be looking back at past Blizzard instances and analyzing what makes them fun (or, I suppose, un-fun). It is my hope that I–and of course the Blizzard designers–can learn from the strengths and weaknesses of past content.

What Makes an Instance Fun?

All truly great dungeons have to follow a set of general principles–let’s call them the 6 Rules of Playability.

1. There must be an engaging story line that develops throughout the dungeon and gets at least a partial resolution at the final boss.

2. There must be adequate rewards for the time spent.

3. Boss encounters must be numerous and varied.

4. The length and difficulty of trash clears has to suit the difficulty level of the dungeon.

5. No part of the dungeon should feel like a pure timewaster. Everything–trash included–needs to serve a purpose.

6. The design should support a sense of gradual progression. The most visually stunning environments and encounters should accompany the end content.

Wait, have there been ANY great instances in WoW?

If I go by my own Rules, WoW has had a lot of misses and only a few hits. I will say that, in general, the trends are encouraging. The Burning Crusade dungeons are a step above Classic, and in Wrath. . . well, we have yet to see.
In order to reveal the areas where I think dungeon design most desperately needs improvement, I’m going to go through a few popular dungeons in terms of the 5 Rules and highlight their strengths and weaknesses.

Instance #1: Deadmines

I know, I know, it isn’t a raid. However, it’s my feeling that the developers took their time with this content. Just like, say, the Northshire Abbey area, it’s a starter zone that stands up extremely well to repeated playthoughs. Deadmines scores 6/6 for my rules–it’s just the right difficulty at the right moment. The story of the Defias gang develops through quests in Goldshire and Westfall and receives an extremely satisfactory conclusion when you finally make that scurvy scalawag Van Cleef walk the plank. Moreover, the letter in his pocket and its resulting quest chain really gives your poor little lowbie the feeling that he or she has affected the game world for the better. As far as the rest of the rules go, the Deadmines hits every high note. You can’t tell me that it wasn’t at least a little bit exciting to blow open the door at the end of the cave to reveal an underground harbor with an enormous pirate ship. Not to mention the rewards–which were always pretty good and got a significant buff last year.

Instance #2: Karazhan

There’s quite a large jump from the Deadmines to Karazhan, and if you, dear reader, choose to take that as censure of the many instances that fall in between, well, I won’t try to dissuade you. As I see it, Blizzard made a lot of raid experiments at the end of Classic, of which the best was surely Naxxramas, but my own thought is that the developers were still learning what made instances fun. Karazhan, the flagship instance of BC, scores 5/6 on my scale, and is in my opinion the best-designed Blizzard raid instance for its level to date. Let’s take a close look at its successes.

1. Story
Karazhan did an excellent job of introducing familiar lore characters–Medivh and his father Nielas Aran–and giving them life. When you play through Karazhan, you’re hanging out in Medivh’s house, interacting with the ghosts of his friends, loved ones, and servants. The Moroes encounter is particularly great–you can even imagine the kinds of conversations Medivh and his steward might have had (Oh dear….). In addition, Karazhan did two things that made the story develop over multiple instance runs. First, the quests give you story information in stages, culminating with the cut scene you get as you learn to summon Nightbane. Those quests give insight into Medivh’s personality. In a certain sense, it’s a shame that Medivh himself never appears as a boss, but I must say I do enjoy him as an opponent in the Chess event. Secondly, the Violet Eye faction and their reputation rings give players a reason to repeat the dungeon. In general, I am always in favor of reputation rewards in dungeons. The interaction with the rep-giving faction is always a plus.

2. Rewards
In terms of bringing down the purples, Karazhan was one of the best instances ever. The sheer number of drops per player for a full clear is truly mind-boggling, and yet the loot tables were varied enough that it took several months to get everything.

3.Variety
Karazhan introduced what I like to think of as 2.0 boss mechanics. I won’t replay the whole dungeon for you, but I think that Shade of Aran, Chess, Netherspite, Nightbane, and Prince were all quite innovative. None of the encounters may have been particularly “hard”–though they certainly were difficult for me personally at the time–but they were all very different from each other.

4.Trash
Here is Karazhan’s weakness. I think that it was originally conceived of as a multi-day instance, and as such it might have seemed appropriate to build in some long slowdowns. However, the trash clear between Curator and Shade should have been streamlined at some point. The rest of the trash in the instance seems proportional, but I remember when it took an hour to clear between Curator and Shade. I think a lot of people used to stop for the night after Curator–I know we did. I would think that–at any difficulty level–a trash clear of even half an hour between bosses is too much. For the sake of fun, 10-15 minutes would be best.

5. Sense of Purpose
The reputation gain with the Violet Eye helps keep even an enormous amount of trash from feeling superfluous. In addition, the trash epics soften the impact of long clears.

6. Design
The movement onward and upward–from the servants’ to the masters’ areas of the castle, and always up toward the parapets–gives Karazhan a nice sense of progress. In addition, the most visually interesting encounters–in my mind, Nightbane, Netherspite, and Prince, are at the end. I like the feeling of creeping through an enchanted castle, room by room, progressing ever onwards toward the source of the place’s madness.

Instance #3: Black Temple

I know, I know, I’ve skipped SSC, TK, and Hyjal. There were good things about them, of course, but I’ve decided to run ahead to my personal favorite instance of all time, Black Temple. Illidan’s House of Pain scores a 4 out of 6 on my scale. Let’s look a little closer at how different aspects of the dungeon measure up.

1. Story
By the time I entered Black Temple, I had been hearing about Illidan and fighting his minions for months. I had talked to Akama and Maiev as part of a quest chain, and I had even spent hours upon hours masquerading as a Fel Orc, only to score an interview with Illidan himself when I became exalted with the Netherwing. I think that of all of the BC instances, Black Temple made the best connections to content outside of the raid itself. Moreover, when we killed Illidan, I really had the sense of participating in a drawn-out battle of epic proportions. It was just right for the story. I didn’t even mind Illidan’s speech–and I agree, Akama’s duplicity was hardly surprising. I saw that one coming a mile away.

2. Rewards
Thanks to the purples, the Hearts of Darkness, and the epic gems, adventurers certainly profitted from BT runs. The only change I would have made concerns the allocation of tier pieces. I would have spread them out a bit–I would have put the shoulder token on Gurtogg Bloodboil just to motivate people (ahem, healers) to pay the utmost attention in the pickiest boss fight in the instance.

3.Variety
All of the bosses of BT test different skills. My personal favorites for the sake of sheer ingenuity are Teron Gorefiend, Reliquary of Souls, Illidari Council, and Illidan himself. Gurtogg Bloodboil has unique mechanics too, but I didn’t particularly enjoy that fight. However, I realize that BT offered a chance for players to challenge themselves with many different mechanics.

4. Trash
No points awarded here. The BT trash is monotonous with its reused models and much longer than it needs to be. Particular weak points are the clears between Naj’entus and Supremus and the clear between Akama and Teron Gorefiend. It’s a relief to get to the shorter clears of the end of the instance. The total clear time for BT for an average raiding guild was just too long, especially when BT formed only half of Tier 6. The only “good” trash in the instance is the gauntlet of ghosts before Reliquary. I would like to see more mini-clears of that type.

5. Sense of Purpose
I’m only giving BT a half a point on this question. Yes, we were introduced to Illybeans early on, and we had a good reason to fight him, but other than Teron Gorefiend, all of the other bosses were relative strangers. Yes, the Illidari Council seems like a logical set of advisors for Mr. Illy Dan, but all the others? Why is Naj’entus even in there, especially when he seems to think his boss is Lady Vashj? And why are they even keeping the Reliquary in there? It’s all very unclear.

6.Design
Once again, I’m awarding only a half point. Black Temple is big and scary, and I love that we get to fight Illidan just when he’s stepped out on the rooftop for a moment to collect his thoughts (or maybe smoke a cigarette?), but the instance as a whole reuses too much of the look of Hellfire Peninsula. I think I would have expected something more unique, perhaps with more staircases and outdoor encounters under the eerie stars of Outland. And yes, I know it’s the BLACK temple, but I don’t think that means that every room had to be black. Just a decorating suggestion. . .

Honorable Mentions

I’ve already discussed what I consider the best WoW instances in detail, but some dungeons excelled at certain aspects of design. What follows are my honorable mentions.

1. Best Trash
I have to give this one to the timed bosses of Zul’Aman. The bear run was challenging yet manageable with a well-geared raid, and each of the trash clears was in some way special. This is the one trash clear that really inspired all-start play, and as stressful as it was, I’m glad I did it a few times.

2. Best Boss Fight
Hands down, Lady Vashj is the best ever end-boss fight. To a greater degree than the too-talkative Kael or the overly-emo Illidan, Lady Vashj made a raid really work for a kill. It was all about movement and coordination. I think healers may have had it the easiest of anyone in that fight, but when I imagine what it might have been like to kite a Strider? Pure fun–and lots of difficulty.

3. Best Scenery
This might be a controversial choice, but I have to give the reward to Maraudon. I loved the three discrete areas, each with their own look, color, and indigenous mob types. Jumping down an enormous waterfall into a pool full of Hydras? Very cool. It felt like Elf Fantasyland…except that the princess at the end was rather flatulent and cellulitic. In terms of looks alone, this place is my very favorite.

So what have we learned? It’s no easy thing to make a good dungeon. In the next installment in the series, I’m going to tackle what must be one of the biggest dungeon design challenges–the entryway and initial trash clear. This part of a dungeon can’t give away all the surprises within the instance, but it does have to catch players’ interest.

Holiday Reading for the Gamer

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If you’re like me, you’re about to spend some of the upcoming winter holiday AFK–either squished between Fatty and Snorri the not-very-attractive dwarves on a cross country flight or trapped in your relatives’ house with only dialup to connect you to the virtual world. Fear not, intrepid gamer. Instead of reading the quest text this holiday season, curl up with an enormous novel. I hear that reading is (almost) as effective as Wow for lifting mind and spirit beyond the little inanities of mundane existence. In other words–a good book can help cut down on holiday boredom.

Of course, Professor Syd has a particular book in mind for you this holiday season. It occurred to me the other day that gamers must love Tad Williams’ Otherland series.

otherland

Why Read Otherland?

This four-book series will satisfy fans of either sci-fi or fantasy novels in general, but it has a special appeal to the gamer. I’m more of a fantasy reader myself. I read this series in 2004, and at that point, I had never even heard of online gaming. In fact, I think I might not have been willing to play WoW at all if I hadn’t become familiar with the concept of virtual realities through Williams’ novels. In the Otherland books, the evocation of both character and (virtual) landscape is masterfully done. Those of you who’ve already read the series may wonder what my favorite “world” is–I’ll just go live inside The House. Incidentally, I am of the opinion that The Makers in WoW are a reference to Williams’s Builders of the House.

A Short Plot Summary

I have to admit that my memory was fuzzy on this point after four years, but the story centers around Renie Sulaweyo, a South African programmer whose little brother Stephen mysteriously goes missing. It seems that he’s been literally sucked into the computer–or rather, his personality has been downloaded into an extraordinarily detailed virtual world. This virtual universe, Otherland, has been designed as a kind of afterlife for the rich and computer literate. All the self-styled gods (programmers) of this world have created their own fantastic refuges in which they can store their personalities and memories after their physical deaths. Pretty cool huh?

However, of course the whole thing goes awry, and each programmer’s heaven becomes Renie’s hell as she tries to find her brother. To the rescue: a cast of motley characters, including a click-language speaking romantic lead who spends most of the book transformed into a baboon, an avatar who’s somehow managed to escape an endlessly-repeating WWI campaign, and two teenage MMO players. One of these gamers, Orlando, is an invalid in real life, but in his virtual life, he is the most famous hero of the fictional MMO The Middle Kingdom. Interestingly, it is his Middle Kingdom avatar that appears in Otherland. The relationship between teenage “real person” Orlando and his avatar Thargor (who I picture as an orc warrior) is the most fascinating part of the book. Looking back, I can’t believe that Otherland came out in 1998, which means that it was probably in the works as early as 1994–the Dark Ages as far as MMOs are concerned.

Interesting Ideas

With a series like Otherland, the ideas often leave a longer-lasting impression than the plot line. What, four years after reading the novels, do I still think about from time to time? Here is a short list of philosophical questions that Williams’ series is able to answer.

Q. What is the best way to connect to the internet?
A. Clearly, a neural device implanted in the skull is superior to clunky computers and cables. The characters are able to interact directly with the virtual world without the mediation of the computer screen.

Q. What is the difference between real life and virtual life?
A. None at all. The experience of the mind is just as real in either case.

Q. Where do gamers go when they die?
A. The good ones become Rangers in their own idealized Lord of the Rings world. Duh.

I hope you’re convinced. Put Otherland on your reading list or, if you’ve read it already, consider sending a copy to a gamer friend as a holiday gift.

As a side note, I’d like to invite readers to recommend books for me. I was addicted to reading long before WoW existed, and I’m still able to burn through some pages every week.