Hey look, I leveled!

If I don't take the time to set a shot up, most MMOs are going to provide a lot of screenshots of my dude's back. But this one's on purpose: both that giant rock mace thing and the cute little red cloak are Edward's first drops from bosses.

Meaning especially good pieces of equipment that you get when you kill especially hard monsters and villains within dungeons.

To consistently make this readable for people who don't play these games would require a lot of explanations of terms. Cultures create the lingo that's appropriate and efficient for them, I guess, unless they're in grad school.

World of Warcraft, Level 17

Oh look, I leveled....why are you crying, Edward?

One of the big problems to solve for yourself when leveling in WoW is whether to bother with instanced, group dungeons. It's a lot more fun than leveling solo when the people are good, but it's not as fast. And when the people are bad, it's not as fun or as fast, unless you can have a sense of humor about dying.

Almost everyone at this point as solved the problem by speccing (picking a specification, a specific design of your class) to solo as fast as possible and leave the low levels in the dust. The newest patch, which will allow you to make groups for instances much more easily and with much less running, might change that. But I haven't played on the public test realm to see. So Edward is forced to make himself tough and agile, in order to fight monsters himself, though my preference would be to focus on his mental capabilities and have him heal his friends.

World of Warcraft, Level 16

Hey look I HOLY SHIT IS THAT A GHOST WOLF?

Basically the reason World of Warcraft is a million times more popular than every other game is that when you become a level 16 Shaman you get to become a Ghost Wolf. And Shaman are the least popular class.

Hey look.

It's harder to be whimsical when you're doing quests for a second or third time. Harder to pretend, even facetiously, that you're on an adventure.

Things are going fast for Troll Edward tonight for three reasons; the Shaman class comes into its own a little bit over these few levels, giving him the ability to murder his enemies much more efficiently; the Ghostlands, where he quests, are a newer design than most of the other low-level zones in the game; and, of course, QuestHelper. A little mod which attempts the Travelling Salesman problem for doing good deeds on the internet.

It's the kind of thing that might ruin your fun the first time through, but saves a lot of hassle if you're not worried about ruining the mystery of exploration

World of Warcraft, Level 14

Oh look, I leveled. And I got an achievement.

WoW's achievement system is only a year or so old, and it doesn't have any mechanical effect. There was a lot of scorn about its introduction, and there's been a lot since directed at those who might pursue an activity just because it's an achievement. I think it's a case of the narcissism of small differences, where the arguable pointlessness of the pursuit of one finish line might make others uncomfortable about their own, more 'productive' pursuits. Getting better equipment, raid progression, etc.

World of Warcraft, Level 13

Oh look, I leveled underwater.

I think the reason Aion's promise of flight never did much for me is because I've already had fights in three dimensions - slowly, underwater, and it's bad. It's difficult for me to move precisely, difficult to know what's going on in 6 directions, and the timed element makes even routine tasks stressful without making them more fun. I don't see how making it faster, or impeding one's vision with giant wings that in large battles ask quite a bit of your computer to render, improves the experience.

World of Warcraft, Level 12

Oh look at Edward! He leveled!

Edward has moved to the Ghostlands, where the Blood Elves try to recover their territory and/or seek revenge from the destruction of the Scourge (who are the super-bad kind of undead, as opposed to the Undead, who are pretty bad, but mostly allies with the Blood Elves.)

Story-wise there's not a good reason for him to be here, but if you roll Horde there isn't any other option but the Barrens, which as a zone went crazy from running around for hours with nothing to look at about ten years ago and literally never quit telling Chuck Norris jokes.

The downside to the move is that the Blood Elves can't be Shamans, and so there's no one around to teach Edward what he needs to know, so it's back to Orgrimmar to learn Fire Nova Totem and Purge and whatever the Shaman resurrection spell is cast.

Resurrecting your friends is pretty cool.

World of Warcraft, Level 10

I leveled, but this shot isn't exactly it. What we're looking at is Orgrimar, which I have probably misspelled, and is the urban and cultural center of the Horde diaspora.

World of Warcraft, Level 9

Oh, look, I leveled.

WoW early levels, at least for the original races, are also designed so that you might be there for a little bit, I think, and possibly even grouping up early. Hence the earliest dungeon can be entered at level 10, and hence this screenshot, where Edward singlehandedly infiltrates a human fortress and kills its leader. These areas have been made a little easier since the game began, I think, but you still have to fight more than one enemy often enough when you are very weak that it seems like it might have been designed for a couple of people to go into together.

World of Warcraft, Level 8

When you're starting a new character in World of Warcraft, you're playing a game that was designed five years ago. You can tell. Especially with classes that cast spells - Edward here, or a Druid, for instance, you feel distinctly un-powerful, which decision almost no game that came out today would make. It's a measure of how much influence WoW has had on the design of the genre, I guess, that many of its mainstreaming sort of gestures no longer feel quite mainstream enough.

World of Warcraft, Level 7

Oh look, I leveled. Several times actually. I cheated and skipped a few.

World of Warcraft is a big thing to confront, as a player or commenter. It's become a significant part of our culture, though that part is diminished somewhat by the tendency of players who go deep into it to disengage.

One interesting thing is just how good it is, as a game. I'm not necessarily talking about big design decisions, here, as they're similar to MMOs that came before and after, and many are questionable. Rather the timing of the dings (slang for leveling, used here to refer to any positive reinforcment that encourages a behavior), the sheer responsiveness of the controls, no one else seems to have gotten just right. There are a lot of timing and luck factors to the games massive success, but I think an underrated source of it is how good and natural Blizzard made it feel to push buttons on a keyboard.

World of Warcraft, Level 2

Meet the new Troll Shaman, Edwardsaid. His name is a dumb joke about contemporary fantasy's relative immunity to post-colonialist thought.

Oh look. He leveled.

Lord of the Rings Online, Level 51

There's a reasonable amount of talk about gaming addiction, and I don't think it's stupid. MMOs in particular parallel the drug experience not just in the rush of dopamine achieved through means that circumvent whatever evolution has decided are the proper sources of a dopamine rush (forgive my sloppy pop-psych and pseudo-science, it's not really relevant) but in the pattern of tolerance.

The exponential level curve mimics quite closely the initial drug experience of getting plenty or even too much pleasure, followed by needing more and more of the same substance to achieve the same feedback. While this works very well for getting people to do a lot more drugs, for MMOs the problem is different. First of all, a given user using *more* or *excessive* amounts of a product doesn't necessarily benefit a game creator. They just need the person to use enough to continue to feel the fee is worth it. Moreover, whereas MMOs are highly habit-forming, the withdrawal after quitting is relatively low, so expanding this curve to too great an extent is going to cause some number of addicts to go cold turkey.

Lord of the Rings Online has found a way around this problem with legendary items. Now that my items level, often at a much faster rate than I do, I get to experience the same rush-whoosh-ding much more often than I otherwise wood at high levels, without having to rush through all the content. It's not a fool-proof plan, as for some the upkeep and fiddling required by the items is a net negative. But it's a really good idea.

Oh look, I leveled.

Lord of the Rings Online, Level 50

Oh look, I leveled!!!!

Actually, I was so excited about getting a legendary rune-stone (a rune-keeper's weapon of choice) and watching a dwarf get slung around by a kraken for disturbing the water that I forgot to take a shot. So here's Rivendell for you.

One thing that sets LotRO apart from other games is its willingness to offer you almost laughably pedestrian quests. It works, I think, as the ability to set a non-dangerous norm in Middle-Earth through game-play allows a greater feeling of disturbance when that world is disrupted. My last string of quests to obtain a legendary weapon involved killing four birds, delivering some dwarves their lunches, and picking up some thick branches and sharp rocks. I also had to go tell some dwarves to stop disturbing the water.

They shouldn't have disturbed the water, though.

Lord of the Rings Online, Level 49

Oh, look, I leveled! Well, actually, you can't see much, cause the fog is overwhelming, but there you go.

Even at higher levels, there isn't much grind to Lord of the Rings Online. Levels go by while your'e not looking, and at lower ones, even faster than you'd like at times. One of my pet peeves with playing games that have been around for awhile is that developers seem to enjoy speeding up their experience curves without doing the same to other bars that players are expected to fill in in parallel. Leaving players, unless they go out of their way to back-fill, reaching max level with their crafting, traits, reputation, or other diku-mmo staple in a mess.

LotRo currently offers up to level 60, so it might be that the last 10, wherein I assume one is expected to explore the Mines of Moria, are exponentially slower. This is just a really good game. Clearly a WoW-clone, with even fewer customization options, actually, but really well crafted. I've heard complaints about the relative easy and lack of depth to the endgame, but I've never actually reached an endgame, so it's hard for me to worry too much.

Lord of the Rings Online, Level 48

Here is Lemmariel. She's older than the others. Cause she's an Elf of Middle-Earth. Oh look, I leveled!

I'd burnt myself out on LOTRO the past few weeks, but it has the advantage over Fallen Earth and Aion in that it doesn't crash. Honestly, though it's not new and exciting, it has a lot of advnatges. The world is beautiful, not just in how it's rendered but in its design. Whether because of the visuals or the association with long-novels, Middle-Earth feels like an ideal place in which to Have Adventures.

I'm not sure why the tank-damage-healing trinity was chosen for an MMO implementation of Middle Earth, other than wanting it to be as accessible as possible for WoW enthusiasts. It's not a natural fit. Lemmariel here is a Runekeeper, and while they do their best to justify it in game, she does an awful lot of magic or things-like-magic for just a regular old elf.

Here we're in Forochel. I have no memory of this place from the books, but it's cold. Lemmariel and a couple friends - a Man Champion and a Hobbit Hunter - have been saving the cold people from yetis and particularly mean elk.

Aion: The Tower of Eternity, Level 14

This is Nokir. Those revolutionists I was slaughtering earlier have obtained a sword they should not have. We weren't able to stop them, but oh look, I leveled!

Dropped back in for a bit since Fallen Earth likes to crash a lot more than Aion does. I'm still not super optimistic, but the game seems fun enough to solo and look at to play through the first month, anyway.

The latest distressing thing I've noticed is the sheer number of other people running around who aren't. People, I mean. Botting is really extreme within Aion, which is depressing not just to look at, but to be constantly reminded at how easily your challenging exploration of a harsh world can be replicated by a few lines of macro.

I'm pretty certain if people are botting your game for any reason other than gold-selling, you've got a design flaw somewhere. A lot of MMOs have a lot of design flaws.

Fallen Earth, Level 2

Oh look, I leveled. In Fallen Earth.

I haven't abandoned Aion just yet, but my momentary dissatisfaction with it's relative sterility led me to install and struggle through a level of Fallen Earth, a much rougher proposition. Not that anything difficult has happened, yet, other than not knowing where I could possibly find some things with which to make cereal, but it's just a much rougher game. I apparently didn't figure out how to change the resolution to match my system, or else there isn't a way.

This is Emma Rial. She just finished her introduction to the world. Every time she runs through Midway my game crashes. As of right now I imagine she's going to craft for the most part, with some Rifle/Evasion skills because sometimes you have to kill an animal, and possibly some leadership stuff if it makes any sense and build space allows.

Aion: The Tower of Eternity, Level 13

I was out burning the carts on which these adorable little guys were storing some kind of dangerous plant, on the orders of my superiors, and oh look - I leveled.

Really though I spent most of this last session crafting - a little bit of all of them, due to some quests and some indecision on my part. There's some disagreement on the best armor for Chanters, which I want to make. For the moment I've settled on Armorsmithing, for chain armor, and alchemy. You can do all of them if you want in Aion, and who knows, I do enjoy watching bars fill up, but probably shouldn't burn myself out too fast.

The forum chatter about this game has gone pretty negative, slagging off the grind, which negative attitudes tend to infect my enjoyment of even single-player games, for some reason. My main motivation at this point is to see each new area, and that my Fallen Earth trial download is going pretty slowly.

Here is Saffie in her new crafting hat!

Aion: The Tower of Eternity, Level 12

Oh look, I leveled!

I know it looks like I haven't moved during level eleven, but really I just got sent back here for some of the introductory crafting quests. I've heard there might be a little complexity to crafting in Aion, and I'm looking into it, because honestly, I'm finding the game itself a little thin, aesthetically.

The models are beautiful, I mean game-mechanic aesthetically. I have a relatively high patience for diku-mmos or holy trinity mmos or however you want to refer to them; I never really play end game on them, but I've played a lot of levels on a lot of them. But Aion isn't trying hard enough, I think. The classes are perfunctory, as if they just thought of the roles that would be expected to be filled and ran with their first pass at them, with the assumption that flying would be enough of a difference in their mechanics that they didn't need to do any other, like, design.

I mean I rolled a level 1 Mage and I actually had a spell called Root.

Aion: The Tower of Eternity, Level 11

Finally arrived at Altguard Fortress, or something, the next area where my services are needed. A little anti-revolutionary activity and oh-look-I-leveled.

Oh yeah and if I turn the camera a little to the right, here are some creatures.

At this low level, I haven't noticed much of the grind that many have complained of in Aion. I still have many quests below my level I haven't gotten around to finishing, and if anything I'm leveling a little faster than I'd like, because taking screenshots pulls me out of the soothing escapism that is facerolling.

If I have a complaint, it's just that the world, while beautiful, is a little flavorless. Which maybe isn't fair - maybe the extent flavor is just a little too super-saiyan for my taste. The class selection does seem a little rote, though, which feels like a mistake in a game people are going to play for years (?).

Saffie is a Chanter. She wears heavy armor and makes the people around her better and has a few heals. She's the Bardic group-utility class in the game, though she probably won't see a group until she's closer to level 20. So far soloing seems pretty good, these kinds of classes are weak in a lot of games because so many of their abilities function in ways that, when soloing, don't function. But using an instant-heal she can go toe-to-toe with even 4-dot mobs of her level, has a decent ranged damage spell, and can heal herself through even some harder encounters.

Sorry I'll try not to make any more posts where I nerd out about mmos.

Aion: The Tower of Eternity, Level 10

Oh look I leveled!

That's level 10, that's a pretty big deal. You can see I'm a chanter now, and I'm in a pretty important hall. This is because I have ascended into an immortal Daeva. Just between levels 9 and 10, yeah. I haven't figured out how to use the wings yet, maybe next time.

Aion: The Tower of Eternity, Level 9

My raider friends had me go to a local farm and eliminate a variety of surprisingly adorable foes and oh look I leveled!!!

And then this popped up! It's time to go get my wings! I always knew I was destined for greater things, I just kind of thought that all my little math trophies would be more involved.

Aion: The Tower of Eternity, Level 8

Back from therapy for ten minutes, and oh look!

We mostly talked about what I might want to do with my life. In the immediate future, I want to knock on Tombstones and kill the angry spirits that appear. This will spur on my rise through the Asmodean military organization, one imagines.

While I was typing up this post the kind of wolf thing that I killed to reach level 8 respawned at ate me, and I experienced death for the first time. It's mostly reddish and embarassing.

Aion: The Tower of Eternity, Level 7

This is Saffie in her new level armor, still enraged from her latest fight with yet another bug.

Oh look, she leveled!

I have my therapist in about an hour. I don't imagine I'll share with her how I spent last night and this afternoon.

Aion: The Tower of Eternity, Level 6

Oh look, I leveled.

This is me running away. I killed some goat-like creature to get this level. You can see this creature because three more of them are chasing after me. I have a couple magic spells, though, and these spells can heal me. One of them can even heal me as I run away.

It could also heal a friend, but I haven't made any of those yet. I'm sure crafting will come soon.

Aion: The Tower of Eternity, Level 5

Oh look, I leveled. This is my friend Bacorerk. He's a Cube Artisan. This means he helps me hold more stuff? I'm a little unclear. What type of animal do you think he is?

I went to a lake and completed some tasks for people and murdered some birds. It's a pretty lake, but you don't get to see it right now.

Aion: The Tower of Eternity, Level 4

Oh look, I leveled.

On my way to the promised first village I couldn't help pushing 3 at some more pretty little beetles. I also got a quest to collect the source of their glowing abdomens, so maybe they're fireflys, or whatever.

I forgot to say that Saffie is an Asmodean, which means, aside from the not living in light thing, that she runs kind of like one might imagine the link-formerly-known-as-missing would run. She's kind of like a Morlock, I guess, except with good hair.

Aion: The Tower of Eternity, Level 3

Oh look, I leveled.

Vandar told me I had fixed the Spriggs problem, and send me to report to this guy, who was also gruff with me, but with whom I leveled.

To be honest, I smote a lot of beetles on my way up here. The smite button is 3. I pushed it until they died, and then I pushed 4 to pick up their stuff.

Sometimes there is a beetle in my apartment, but it never has any stuff.

Oh look, I leveled.

That's me, Saffie, with the mace and the weird back hair. I'm level 2. I'm a Priest.

It took about 5 minutes for me to kill the happless Spriggs (?) which comprised the entirety of this accomplishment. It took me about an hour in the character creator to be as pretty as I wanted. It took me about 8 hours to download and patch after an impulsive, ill-considered purchase. And, just to finish the account, after taxes, it probably took me around seven hours of work to accumulate the requisite funds for said purchase.

This is Vandar. He's the one who told me to kill the Spriggs. I'm pretty sure he also gave me the juice. We're both blue because the sun never shines where we live.