Project Lore

MMORPG designers are a crafty bunch.  The genre may be relatively new, but by using design philosophies from single player titles, mainly standard RPGs, the minds behind MMOGs learned to keep a players entranced quickly.  Blizzard has nearly perfected the art of retaining its player base by implementing the relatively ancient knowledge of past video games into World of Warcraft.  They don't even hide their lifting of another company's ideas, as evidenced by the blatant use of Achievements, which is their most recent addition.  In all fairness, damn near everyone from Sony to Valve is ripping that off due to Microsoft's highly praised implementation. The massive flattery of the Achievement system is simply because it works.  The added goals, no matter how fleeting they may be, add to the longevity of any and all titles.  It was only a matter of time before MMOGs began implementing them in full force.  And what a powerful force they have become.  However, the age old catch - just gotta get this next mob/drop/quest/level - continues to drive my elongated playing sessions. I spend most of my time during my journey to Exalted for my third Northrend faction completing the group's half dozen daily quests.  But I always queue up for various Heroic dungeons, especially those that may have some piece of gear for Solidsamm.  Being of the overpopulated DPS archetype, I often grind through the dailies, get annoyed at never finding a group in under an hour and log off for the night or afk to make dinner before the raid.  Well, that is what used to happen.  Lately, right as I go to log I get ninja invited or join this or that party/raid. My original intention when I sign on these days is to complete an instance quickly.  Doing dailies is supposed to be the distraction during group formation.  After waiting so long, then getting ready to log, the late invites and formations can be hard to stick with.  In the end, it isn't any fault of Blizzard's that I hang around past my personal time limit.  Even after admitting that to myself, I can't shake that nagging feeling in the back of my brain that some designer in Anaheim is celebrating his small victory over my lack of willpower.  Bastard. Anyone else have this problem?  Do you always get pulled back in when you are on your way out?  When was the last time a 20 minute session became two hours for you?  And to those of you with willpower, can I have some?  Please?  Sugar on top?

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Estimated Time Remaing: FOREVER

There were a few things that one expected with Wrath of the Lich King's launch, first and foremost was long lines at the midnight sales.  Next was an Auction House ripe for money making, before and after the second expansion's launch.  However, the ability to cash in for gobs of gold would not begin until WotLK finally launched.  The additional opportunities opened up due to the fact that many players would be returning to WoW, while more were joining the ranks of the Horde or Alliance for the first time. Next on the list of items that experienced players would expect should of been queues.  Queue times have been a staple in World of Warcraft since the title's launch way back in 2004.  Originally, they were implemented because the starting areas were so full of players that the lag made the vicinity unplayable.  They persisted on the realms for times when the server hit its maximum load.  Generally speaking, the cap was only hit for most servers during national holidays, Sunday nights and around the release of major content patches or whole expansions.  Thanks to Blizzard's liberal use of awesomesauce on Wrath, Northrend has supplied my main pair of servers with population timers popping up nearly two months since its launch! At the beginning I was one of the many who steadfastly told people to chill out, that the queues would go away in a week, two or perhaps a month.  While I still hold on to the belief that the lines will shrink and then disappear - either to player apathy or hardware updates - but they are putting a serious hurt on my limited playtime.  More importantly, one of my good friends just transferred to another server because Magtheridon has been plagued with 20-30 minute queues during raiding times, and beyond.  Hell, last night at 11 o'clock I had to wait 25 minutes to log in, giving me about 20 minutes to play before I had to pack it up.  On the plus side, he was a Horde player, so perhaps I can get him to re-roll Alliance once this business dies down. How are the stacks on your servers?  Tolerable?  Non-existent?  Transfer worthy?  Also, does anyone know if the queues are faction based at all?  My aforementioned friend has constantly reported longer wait times for Horde than I was getting for Alliance.  However, we never managed to login at the same time to truly compare.

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