Sometimes the internet is lonely

Sometimes the internet is a lonely place. After work, either playing World of Warcraft or reading and posting on other people's blogs, it fulfills whatever social needs are still left over after work. And sometimes, like today, it doesn't really fill that need and it just feels like a lonely place, which mostly it really is. If nobody I know is online, even though it's other people playing, it seems the same as a single-player game. Of course it's mostly because of my own choices to stay to myself most of the time. You can't have it both ways, if you are very popular, there are sometimes where it seems like everybody is bugging you and you can't get away. If you stay to yourself, there are some days like today. All of life seems to be that way; give and take. And of course there is the fact, at least I think it's a fact, that humans are hard-wired that way; I mean that nobody is wired to be happy all the time with the situation they are in. That's why I like to play orc instead of human, since orcs are wired for beer and cocaine. Just kidding ha-ha. I have been working very hard leveling up a warrior and now that I am at 83, it's like....I'm just about there, but instead of being excited, I feel like I'm about to fall flat on my face. Does that mean it's time to take some time off, or to fight through it? I think I'll fight through it.

Survival, freedom, and success

A human's, and any animal's first instinct is to survive. It takes precedence over all else. After that is the need to be free rather than be a slave. Especially important is freedom to come and go where you want. Only after a man or woman can survive and be free, do they then need to be successful. This is the problem where MMOs always fail. When they are new, the game is exciting and meaningful because you are trying to survive. Even the weakest creatures outside the inn or other safe area can kill you. Then you need to be free to travel, to go to other villages or cities, meet with other players, explore new lands. This also is very meaningful and acquiring some levels, basic equipment gains you that freedom. After that, some feel the need to be successful, to go into the dungeons and kill the most powerful monsters. But not everybody feels the need to do this very strongly.
For an MMO to always be highly entertaining, a player's survival and freedom must always be threatened. At the very least, there should always be somewhere that a player cannot travel to safely. There is a large percentage of players who will never feel a strong need to conquer monsters in dungeons to gain more power, that will allow them better chance of conquering even more monsters. A player's basic needs must also be challenged constantly. It is perfectly acceptable for this challenge to increase in difficulty. Just because it is "outdoors" should not necessarily mean trivial. Just like new dungeon content should get harder and harder, so should outdoor content. Perhaps a new quest hub should require players to pair up, or in threes, just to get to a new flight path/quest hub. Perhaps faction work also would be necessary. Don't just challenge the overachiever dungeoneers. Challenge questers and explorers. Challenge everybody, in many different ways.

Youtube site

I have a Youtube site with some World of Warcraft movies I made at http://www.youtube.com/user/yaggle52. I'm not saying they're great, or even they're good, I am just saying the Yaggle that does this blog is the same Yaggle that has that Youtube site. I figure everything else gets stolen online, I had better lay my claim to my own site before somebody else does.
Plus there is a link from there to here, so there probably should be a link from here to there.

Tanking is stupid

You need to kill something, you need to damage it. Well, if you are going up against something really nasty, you want to wear armor to protect yourself, right? The idea of "tanking" something in a role-playing game is pretty stupid. Anybody going up against a fire-breathing dragon is fair game and could get killed. Besides, dragons are smart, so they're going to go after the guy firing magic missiles at them, maybe. But the problem is, you can't protect the mage, can't keep him alive long enough. The dragon has to attack the "tank". Sure, okay. But the mage, as well as the priest, and the rogue, and the hunter,shaman,druid, etc. can't be getting hit because they will die. They will die because they can't use the best armor. Well, there's the problem. Who decided that? Just because Gary Gygax said that the magic-users can't wear plate mail, well screw him and the horse he rode in on. You think about it. You can cast a spell. You're going to fight a dragon. You're going to wear more than a bathrobe and a magic ring. You will find a way to make it happen. Wizards could wear armor in Michael Moorcock's books, and it made sense. My MMORPG should make sense, too. No more tanking. Everybody wears lots of armor. The warrior may have more stamina, but the wizard might have a ring of +5 protection and better saving throws. Who the hell knows, but stop with these weird and stupid rules where one player cons the boss mob into only attacking him(or her).

Hunter skinners are poachers

In connection with my last post, from a RP perspective, one reason I was starting to hate my hunter that I deleted, was that he was a poacher. Being a hunter and a skinner means that the awful truth is I shot and killed thousands of wild animals. I just could not do it any more. The irony is, hunters have animals as pets and supposedly take care of them. Well, I read a story about a year ago about a woman who loves animals that married a trapper. He killed a bunch of coyotes and brought home a young coyote that he did not kill, so she raised it as a pet. I do not want to be that guy.

Lv 85 deleted

I deleted my oldest character today, a lvl 85 hunter. I had 2 lvl 85 hunters, so I deleted one. He was my leatherworker, however, other than that he was unnecessary. And I have been more and more dissatisfied with leatherworking in WoW. I know it could be said, "Why delete? What harm does it do to leave the character alone?". It is hard for me to answer this logically. A character in a RP game often is more than just stats and abilities. It is an extension of yourself, or a particular aspect of yourself. I did not wish to pursue this aspect any longer. All characters are a project, and I do not wish to leave uncompleted projects lying around that I no longer wish to work on. It is so easy to level a character now anyways, that if I wanted another leatherworker, I would level up a different class character as a leatherworker.
Also, it was rather tedious leveling both hunters, and getting them basic decent gear with gems and enchants. I do not want to do this again.
My other level 85 hunter, named Yaggle, I still play and enjoy. I am "adopting" some of Mourndarr's(deleted character) pets by re-taming and giving the same names. So in a way, at least in spirit, he is still with us, and RP-wise, the pets will still get plenty of food and exercise.
It is hard to let go but it is the only way to move on, improve, and be happy.

I feel really stupid

I got caught up in the RIFT hype. I guess I want a new,exciting MMO so badly that I jumped off a cliff. I read all the hype about Rift, looked at their website, and it looked really cool. I watched a couple of YOUTUBE videos, and it looked even cooler. So I bought it and even paid the extra 10 bucks for the bigger bag, riding turtle, and pet because I was so sure I had found my new game. Well, my computer cannot handle it unless I put the game at the minimum settings. It just, well, it's playable, but it's not more awesome than Wow when it looks like that. It just doesn't look like I wanted it to look. I like Rift, I think it's a good game. But I don't really think it's better than Wow, just different. And if I could play it at high graphics settings, I might have gotten sucked in. Instead, 60 bucks got sucked out of me.
I went to the Indian Casino here in Tucson(there are 4 in or near town actually) today and won about $570, which, sure, takes some sting out of it. But I have been gambling since I was about 20 and I have learned a few things, one of them is that, the $570 and the $60 actually have nothing to do with each other, and 60 bucks is 60 bucks, whether or not I won money today. Also, gambling isn't actually a smart thing to do, so I basically did one stupid thing after I did another stupid thing. Just because I won doesn't mean it wasn't a stupid thing. Realistically, I never should have blown that 60, nor went to the casino. My bad spending habit is a catalyst for my gambling habit. I need to be more careful about impulse buys such as RIFT. My account is already cancelled and I only played it for 2 or 3 days. I guess it was actually TRION's(publisher of RIFT) lucky day.