I think normal-mode guilds cannot afford to be casual anymore given the difficulty level of current tiers. Flex raiding coming in 5.4 has the potential to improve this frustration, particularly for casual guilds but it also has the potential to dramatically shrink the recruitment pool for normal-mode guilds.
This is not to say that casual players shouldn't be raiding, or any of that elitist nonsense. Of course everyone has a right to raid, as much as they have a right to access any level of content in the game. And I'm alway glad when more people get to play the way they want.
However - I feel that more and more, the content is being driven to a smaller and smaller subset of people. This sort of targeting is great, as the content is now more focused to the right audience but it comes at a pretty steep cost.
Back in the day
Let's look back at Vanilla/TBC content, when raids were linear, fights were balanced around class composition and finding attuned characters made recruiting a living hell for guilds. Wrath eased this by removing attunements, allowing for guilds to raid with 10 people, normalizing abilities and fights to "bring the player not the character" and providing a very quick catch-up mechanism though badge (now valor) gear. This worked well, but tiers were forgettable and grew old rather quickly as the new tier of badge gear invalidated the old raids immediately.
Cataclysm took this to an extreme where nobody even ran older raids once the next tier launched, and as Tier 12 and 13 both has fewer bosses than Tier 11, the whole thing was terribly lopsided. Cataclysm might been the worst raiding in WoW history. The difficulty curve for Tier 11 was very high, and while Tier 12 and 13 was normalized (re: nerfed by 20% a month in) a bit, it still felt too much for casual guilds to progress through. LFR provided the answer there, by allowing completely casual people to raid and see content.
Mists combines a lot of these ideas - there is still no attunement, valor gear is a bit more difficult to get but is less effective than current tier raiding, and there is no immediate "catch up" mechanism. Guilds that progressed first have an advantage but it's not overwhelming - players and guilds have to work pretty hard to catch up and LFR feels like it's a thing on the side, another gearing avenue, and normal/heroic raids remain the benchmarking of raiding. I'm quite happy here. It feels like a good medium level of compromise between the various aspects of raiding.
Movin' on up!
One of the things I liked about LFR as compared to normal mode is that LFR introduced and inspired people to do normal raids. When I moved back to Moon Guard, I've met a few people through PUGs who have started raiding for the first time after they grew bored of LFR and they're good players. I think LFR was intended to inspire people to move up the difficulty ladder and I'm certain that these people will slowly train and become very good raiders in their own time.
This also allowed the design team to make sure fights weren't forgiving. Encounters like Horridon, Council, Durumu, Iron Qon, and Lei Shen were brutally hard in the first few weeks. I was playing with some amazing people, and we took 3 weeks to clear the tier and that was after putting in 12 hours a week, every week rather than our usual 9.
Things Cost More on the Ladder
When people move into normal modes from LFR, particularly in a group that's progressing, the difficulty and gear check can be a huge roadblock. And Blizzard has explicitly stated that they expect you to work on your gear outside of normal mode raids - i.e., through LFR, though Valor purchases, through upgrades, crafted materials, heroic scenarios... there are a lot of avenues so each week, regardless of progression, each team grows stronger. iLevel is a very real consideration with these bosses as raw throughput is the line between enrage and kill sometimes.
So - in light of all this, when an LFR player who is used to more-or-less queue and raid and kill has to move into normal modes, there is this daily maintenance involved.
You have to do a bit of research, you need to stay current with your gear, you better be hitting your weekly caps with charms and valor, and you better be practicing your class. If you aren't, it's going to be difficult for the team to progress.
That's all there is to it. I don't begrudge it, I enjoy this increased level of responsibility and I like that there is a "you must be this tall to raid" barrier and it generally only takes me a small amount of time in game to accomplish this. But it does mean that if your team isn't willing to do the work, you will have a hard time playing the game.
But Wait! There's More!
So what am I going on about? Flex raids. I know why they are coming, I support the developers in their goals of making content accessible, and I appreciate just how hard it is to raid with twelve people on your roster.
But the nature of it such that I fear it will stem that upward transition. People will go from LFR to flex rather than normal, simply because of the lower level of commitment required. Flex is designed to handle a wide variety of play-styles, particularly the casual style, and it won't require as much from raiders as normal modes by definition.
My main concern with this, is that flex-raids will cause the already
shrinking pool of raiders to contract even more. As you can gain
achievements in flex, it further strips away a reason to step up to
normal mode.
Fear is the Mind Killer
Naturally, it's a silly thing to worry about, and if people are happy doing flex-raids, so be it. And I know that greater diversity and choice is a better thing for the game in the long run, and if the commitment required to raid normal modes is so high that it infringes on people's ability to raid and enjoy the game - then so be it, let them move on.
And there is always the possibility that flex raiders will grow out of the difficulty level. If people progress from LFR to normal mode, then there's hope that people will do the same from flex. There is another rung on the ladder and the glass ceiling is really just a time commitment.
The whole thing really has put me in two minds. One part of me is very glad and happy to see more flexibility in raiding for people, as human resources are the most complicated part of raiding. But another part of me is worried that this will make recruitment even more difficult than it already is.
Here's hoping I'm wrong.
Can you tell I'm tearing my hair out trying to find people to raid?
Showing posts with label rant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rant. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Blizzard as a Political Entity
I've always claimed Blizzard was a Center-Right company with many policies and in-game examples of this stance, but the (most) recent talk of homophobia has me thinking about it again and I wanted to take a look at Blizzard as a Political entity and try to articulate my feelings from having played the game for a number of years.
Full disclosure - I consider myself a fairly progressive individual with very liberal opinions on gay rights, equality for women and minorities, social welfare and a complete separation of church and state. Also, before I get too far down the road with this, I want to set aside the expectation that because this is a "medieval" game, Blizzard gets a pass for doing anything because they're being authentic to an anachronistic setting.
Bullshit.
When you can introduce dragons, magic, motorcycles, planes and tentacle monsters, you divorce yourself from any expectation of representing reality in your playground. And typically, the point of representing an anachronistic culture through art is to illustrate the stark differences between where we are now to what was once the norm. Not to revel in the injustices of the past.
Racism
The most recent blind example of this are the Pygmies in Uldum. You have a squat race of brown people with turbans who speak gibberish and steal from the noble Tol'vir and we're tasked with knocking them around with comical hammers.
As an Indian of Arab descent, I was looking forward to seeing Arabian, African and Central-Asian culture in the game, but I wasn't expecting this.
There are plenty of other example - from cannibalistic Trolls who are influenced from Island culture to the apologist noble-native take on the Tauren, there is a complete lack of clarity or foresight in the design team of how the game appears outside of their bubble.
Homophobia
From the videos posted at BlizzCon last year to the lack of any openly gay characters in the game, to the above-linked history wherein a burgeoning Gay community received negative attention from Blizzard in their attempts to come together and it took public outrage for them to reverse their decisions, we see a company that thinks making gay-jokes is funny.
I'm not suggesting they're homophobic, but I am suggesting that they are insensitive to the way the world appears to gay and gay-friendly people.
Diversity
Of the people who sit on the panels at BlizzCon, how often do we see women or minorities, especially in the upper levels of the design team?
The diversity is just not there, and that's part of the reason why we see the Azeroth the way we do - it's a one-sided view of the world. Their quest-team (from what I could tell of the article posted in the WoW Magazine) is entire male, for example. What would you expect from a team that had no women working in it? I'm not suggesting men can't write well-rounded stories or women-positive quests, but the incentive isn't there especially in a team where no one else might be making an effort of it.
Take this one step further and you can point at all the plate-bikini armor sets, the festival sets that make women look like lingerie models, Achievements that require us to target women and give them Playboy bunny ears.
Torture
There are a number of quests where torture is successfully used to extract information from victims. True, this is a common fantasy trope, but it still leaves one feeling queasy when the target is begging for relief and yet we continue with the torture. So much so that the NPCs suggest this is beyond them and they ask the player to engage in this behavior, as if the developers are chortling at the prospect.
Especially at the time that Wrath came out, Torture was a vital topic of conversation as America itself was dealing with the problem of figuring out where the lines were between interrogation and torture. It was ill-timed, thoughtless, impulsive and unfortunate at best.
Conflict Resolution
Consider the fact that seldom, if ever, do you run into situations where you can reasonably resolve issues in the game. It always comes down to physical conflict. I'm not suggesting Raids involve a riddle contest, or a conversation thread that makes it possible to bypass a boss, I'm talking more in terms of quest design here, and the general theme of the game itself. War is a viable solution to all problems in the game.
Jaina and Thrall have often been the only voices of dissent in the entire setting, and while they might be the protagonists, their hopes are constantly dashed and the conflict continues.
I appreciate that the Horde vs. Alliance conflict is vital for Warcraft, and I'm okay with it, but the level of ridicule and impotence thrown at pacifism in the game is a little strange when you sit back and think on it. At any point politically, you might imagine there is some contingent of a population that is working on peace and appeasement and negotiation. We never see those elements in the game. At least with Cataclysm we're seeing some fall-out in South Shore and Barrens and maybe it's a move in the right direction.
Now.
I don't think anyone at Blizzard is explicitly racist, or sexist, or homophobic, or war-mongering, or pro-torture - but I do think nobody sat down, to look at the races, or the armor, or the quests and thought, "Is this insensitive or offensive to some significant sub-set of our audience?" And that's kind of the point.
When you have millions of people in your audience, you are going to offend someone, that's inevitable, I don't need a squeaky clean game with no possibility for freedom of expression - far from it - I enjoy and consume vast amounts of media that explores inequality.
But really, for a game of Warcraft's size and scope, with the size of their audience, what are they getting in return for the level of offensiveness in the game? Is the latent sexism and racism vital to their storytelling? Is it important to the arc of the expansion? Are these points that Blizzard needs to make and stand behind?
Or is it just a cheap joke for a bunch of guys to laugh about?
Full disclosure - I consider myself a fairly progressive individual with very liberal opinions on gay rights, equality for women and minorities, social welfare and a complete separation of church and state. Also, before I get too far down the road with this, I want to set aside the expectation that because this is a "medieval" game, Blizzard gets a pass for doing anything because they're being authentic to an anachronistic setting.
Bullshit.
When you can introduce dragons, magic, motorcycles, planes and tentacle monsters, you divorce yourself from any expectation of representing reality in your playground. And typically, the point of representing an anachronistic culture through art is to illustrate the stark differences between where we are now to what was once the norm. Not to revel in the injustices of the past.
Racism
The most recent blind example of this are the Pygmies in Uldum. You have a squat race of brown people with turbans who speak gibberish and steal from the noble Tol'vir and we're tasked with knocking them around with comical hammers.
As an Indian of Arab descent, I was looking forward to seeing Arabian, African and Central-Asian culture in the game, but I wasn't expecting this.
There are plenty of other example - from cannibalistic Trolls who are influenced from Island culture to the apologist noble-native take on the Tauren, there is a complete lack of clarity or foresight in the design team of how the game appears outside of their bubble.
Homophobia
From the videos posted at BlizzCon last year to the lack of any openly gay characters in the game, to the above-linked history wherein a burgeoning Gay community received negative attention from Blizzard in their attempts to come together and it took public outrage for them to reverse their decisions, we see a company that thinks making gay-jokes is funny.
I'm not suggesting they're homophobic, but I am suggesting that they are insensitive to the way the world appears to gay and gay-friendly people.
Diversity
Of the people who sit on the panels at BlizzCon, how often do we see women or minorities, especially in the upper levels of the design team?
The diversity is just not there, and that's part of the reason why we see the Azeroth the way we do - it's a one-sided view of the world. Their quest-team (from what I could tell of the article posted in the WoW Magazine) is entire male, for example. What would you expect from a team that had no women working in it? I'm not suggesting men can't write well-rounded stories or women-positive quests, but the incentive isn't there especially in a team where no one else might be making an effort of it.
Take this one step further and you can point at all the plate-bikini armor sets, the festival sets that make women look like lingerie models, Achievements that require us to target women and give them Playboy bunny ears.
Torture
There are a number of quests where torture is successfully used to extract information from victims. True, this is a common fantasy trope, but it still leaves one feeling queasy when the target is begging for relief and yet we continue with the torture. So much so that the NPCs suggest this is beyond them and they ask the player to engage in this behavior, as if the developers are chortling at the prospect.
Especially at the time that Wrath came out, Torture was a vital topic of conversation as America itself was dealing with the problem of figuring out where the lines were between interrogation and torture. It was ill-timed, thoughtless, impulsive and unfortunate at best.
Conflict Resolution
Consider the fact that seldom, if ever, do you run into situations where you can reasonably resolve issues in the game. It always comes down to physical conflict. I'm not suggesting Raids involve a riddle contest, or a conversation thread that makes it possible to bypass a boss, I'm talking more in terms of quest design here, and the general theme of the game itself. War is a viable solution to all problems in the game.
Jaina and Thrall have often been the only voices of dissent in the entire setting, and while they might be the protagonists, their hopes are constantly dashed and the conflict continues.
I appreciate that the Horde vs. Alliance conflict is vital for Warcraft, and I'm okay with it, but the level of ridicule and impotence thrown at pacifism in the game is a little strange when you sit back and think on it. At any point politically, you might imagine there is some contingent of a population that is working on peace and appeasement and negotiation. We never see those elements in the game. At least with Cataclysm we're seeing some fall-out in South Shore and Barrens and maybe it's a move in the right direction.
Now.
I don't think anyone at Blizzard is explicitly racist, or sexist, or homophobic, or war-mongering, or pro-torture - but I do think nobody sat down, to look at the races, or the armor, or the quests and thought, "Is this insensitive or offensive to some significant sub-set of our audience?" And that's kind of the point.
When you have millions of people in your audience, you are going to offend someone, that's inevitable, I don't need a squeaky clean game with no possibility for freedom of expression - far from it - I enjoy and consume vast amounts of media that explores inequality.
But really, for a game of Warcraft's size and scope, with the size of their audience, what are they getting in return for the level of offensiveness in the game? Is the latent sexism and racism vital to their storytelling? Is it important to the arc of the expansion? Are these points that Blizzard needs to make and stand behind?
Or is it just a cheap joke for a bunch of guys to laugh about?
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Blizzard and Extreme Metal
George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher
Ever since Blizzcon the name of George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher has been floating around the forums and his (rather un-PC) rant about how much he hates the Alliance that was broadcast by L90ETC during their concert at the closing ceremonies.
I think that people are absolutely in the right to be offended by this, but I think there is some depth to this that's missing, and I thought I'd step aside from my usual WoWMusing to talk a little about extreme Metal, and why Corpsegrinder was the worst choice Blizzard could have made for a guest musician on stage during BlizzCon.
I'll begin by saying I've been a fan of heavy metal, particularly extreme metal (Black, Death, Doom, etc.) for a long, long time and have been active briefly as a music reviewer in the genre, and also as an amateur musician in that same vein with some home recordings, so keep that in mind as I go forward. I happily admit my bias up front.
Who is he anyway?
For those not in the know, Corpsegrinder is the lead singer of Cannibal Corpse - a rather extreme, if very innovative, consistent and important American Death Metal band. I've been a fan of the band for a long time, simply because of the level of integrity (if you can call it that) they have had to their vision of extreme, brutal, unrepentant, ugly and violent music. Now, in the American Death Metal scene, politically correct is the last thing anyone wants to be, and macho-one-up-man-ship is an art.
Which is not to excuse the rant - I don't condone any of the homophobic language Corpsegrinder used, and I find it unfortunate that the scene needs to exist in such a state. I feel the same way about Norwegian Black Metal and it's off-shoot ties to extreme right wing agendas like racism, fascism and nationalism.
But. The actions of a few don't and shouldn't tar the entire genre. The music is good and worthwhile and important.
Why is this music important?
Death Metal started in America, and here it has found its most extreme representation - the Death Growl is an American invention, as is the super-super-fast riffing that came left Thrash and Hardcore in the dust. Death Metal is deeply rooted in the horror of American films like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the horror of American serial killers (particularly from the seventies) and the racism and violence in American media. These musicians fed off of this stuff, exposed it, and reveled in its most extreme states.
This is as American as anything, and I think that's an important thing to acknowledge. It is a uniquely American art-form that I don't think could have come from anywhere else. But it eventually gave rise to various genres of European Death Metal which innovated and contorted the extreme American Horror roots into epic Nordic themes in beautiful and moving ways.
On the other hand, Norwegian Black Metal, probably the most reviled and tarred of metal genres, has given rise to very important pro-environmental radical life-style altering Black Metal in the American North-West. It also gave rise to an Ambient/Experimental super-loud, very strange music that bands like Sunn O))) embraced to the point where they have become art-institutions. Sunn O))) played a concert in MOMA for instance, as a work of contemporary high art. You can't ask for a stronger acknowledgement of your relevance to the art world than that.
Finally, Doom Metal grew out this whole scene (and the Punk offshoot of Hardcore) which is a rather intellectual almost post-metal genre with some amazing music that has come out over the last ten years.
Do you have a point to make?
Yes, my point is, this stuff is ugly, but it is a part of human expression, an important part of our artistic history, and for Americans, this is part of our heritage. This music is important and this scene and sub-genre were the living cultures for many people and still are.
I think Heavy Metal is as important culturally as, say, Opera or classical music. And I wish that if Blizzard is trying to bring it into the open a bit more and expose it to people who don't know it too well, then they could have picked a better ambassador than Corpsegrinder.
It's tremendously unfortunate that Blizzard used Cannibal Corpse instead of, say, a band like Mastadon, who're much more relevant in a contemporary sense and a lot more palatable to the general audience and who wouldn't offend half the player base.
So, why was Corpsegrinder on stage?
The worst part is, Cannibal Corpse and L90ETC are worlds apart in terms of skill and mood and genre - the two bands sound nothing alike. L90ETC are essentially a retro-metal act, calling to mind the First Wave of British Heavy Metal (Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, etc.) It's a bunch of guys playing music they liked as kids - and Cannibal Corpse are an extremely ugly and violent band with heavy, heavy riffing, indecipherable vocals, noise-laden solos and super-fast bridges that none of the guys in L90ETC could keep up with.
The two bands are worlds apart.
Ever since Blizzcon the name of George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher has been floating around the forums and his (rather un-PC) rant about how much he hates the Alliance that was broadcast by L90ETC during their concert at the closing ceremonies.
I think that people are absolutely in the right to be offended by this, but I think there is some depth to this that's missing, and I thought I'd step aside from my usual WoWMusing to talk a little about extreme Metal, and why Corpsegrinder was the worst choice Blizzard could have made for a guest musician on stage during BlizzCon.
I'll begin by saying I've been a fan of heavy metal, particularly extreme metal (Black, Death, Doom, etc.) for a long, long time and have been active briefly as a music reviewer in the genre, and also as an amateur musician in that same vein with some home recordings, so keep that in mind as I go forward. I happily admit my bias up front.
Who is he anyway?
For those not in the know, Corpsegrinder is the lead singer of Cannibal Corpse - a rather extreme, if very innovative, consistent and important American Death Metal band. I've been a fan of the band for a long time, simply because of the level of integrity (if you can call it that) they have had to their vision of extreme, brutal, unrepentant, ugly and violent music. Now, in the American Death Metal scene, politically correct is the last thing anyone wants to be, and macho-one-up-man-ship is an art.
Which is not to excuse the rant - I don't condone any of the homophobic language Corpsegrinder used, and I find it unfortunate that the scene needs to exist in such a state. I feel the same way about Norwegian Black Metal and it's off-shoot ties to extreme right wing agendas like racism, fascism and nationalism.
But. The actions of a few don't and shouldn't tar the entire genre. The music is good and worthwhile and important.
Why is this music important?
Death Metal started in America, and here it has found its most extreme representation - the Death Growl is an American invention, as is the super-super-fast riffing that came left Thrash and Hardcore in the dust. Death Metal is deeply rooted in the horror of American films like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the horror of American serial killers (particularly from the seventies) and the racism and violence in American media. These musicians fed off of this stuff, exposed it, and reveled in its most extreme states.
This is as American as anything, and I think that's an important thing to acknowledge. It is a uniquely American art-form that I don't think could have come from anywhere else. But it eventually gave rise to various genres of European Death Metal which innovated and contorted the extreme American Horror roots into epic Nordic themes in beautiful and moving ways.
On the other hand, Norwegian Black Metal, probably the most reviled and tarred of metal genres, has given rise to very important pro-environmental radical life-style altering Black Metal in the American North-West. It also gave rise to an Ambient/Experimental super-loud, very strange music that bands like Sunn O))) embraced to the point where they have become art-institutions. Sunn O))) played a concert in MOMA for instance, as a work of contemporary high art. You can't ask for a stronger acknowledgement of your relevance to the art world than that.
Finally, Doom Metal grew out this whole scene (and the Punk offshoot of Hardcore) which is a rather intellectual almost post-metal genre with some amazing music that has come out over the last ten years.
Do you have a point to make?
Yes, my point is, this stuff is ugly, but it is a part of human expression, an important part of our artistic history, and for Americans, this is part of our heritage. This music is important and this scene and sub-genre were the living cultures for many people and still are.
I think Heavy Metal is as important culturally as, say, Opera or classical music. And I wish that if Blizzard is trying to bring it into the open a bit more and expose it to people who don't know it too well, then they could have picked a better ambassador than Corpsegrinder.
It's tremendously unfortunate that Blizzard used Cannibal Corpse instead of, say, a band like Mastadon, who're much more relevant in a contemporary sense and a lot more palatable to the general audience and who wouldn't offend half the player base.
So, why was Corpsegrinder on stage?
The worst part is, Cannibal Corpse and L90ETC are worlds apart in terms of skill and mood and genre - the two bands sound nothing alike. L90ETC are essentially a retro-metal act, calling to mind the First Wave of British Heavy Metal (Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, etc.) It's a bunch of guys playing music they liked as kids - and Cannibal Corpse are an extremely ugly and violent band with heavy, heavy riffing, indecipherable vocals, noise-laden solos and super-fast bridges that none of the guys in L90ETC could keep up with.
The two bands are worlds apart.
The only reason Corpsegrinder get on that stage was because of his rant, and because it tickled some bone among the Blizzard employees to have him up there, saying things they might not have wanted to say themselves.
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