It's been a few months since I started playing World of Warcraft (since June 2010). So far I'm pretty happy with it. I started with a Horde character (Rathstar the Tauren Hunter) on the Darrowmere server and got him up to level 85. All the while I was creating and leveling other characters as a break (and because that's what I do with every online rpg I play). Unfortunately, the guild my character started with (Mass Redemption) changed a lot. I don't think it was really a good fit for me in the first place, but I've always had the opinion that there is give and take in organizations, and you should try to fit yourself into them as much as they should try to fit themselves to you. However, after a while some people I counted as guild buddies left, the guild leader stepped down and handed the guild over to the one person in the guild I actually actively disliked. I reviewed my situation and decided it was time to leave the guild.

I lost interest in Rathstar and started an Alliance paladin character (Goldoath), still on the Darrowmere server. I found that I actually enjoyed playing the Alliance side for several reasons, mostly having to do with aesthetics and being on the side of the good guys for a change. In addition, I actually found a nice guild, small and fairly tight knit. They were a group of friends and family members who welcomed me and made my gaming much more pleasant. The upshot of it all is that I changed factions on Rathstar, changed his name to Wrathstar, and made him a Worgen Hunter in the Alliance, and now I have a lot more fun playing him.

At the moment, I have two main characters, Wrathstar the Hunter and Goldoath the Paladin. I tend to switch back and forth between them, and both have some interesting things going for them.

That's all for now.

I'm going to cancel my Warhammer Online account and see if I can get a refund of my unused time (not holding my breath on that), and will just move over to playing WoW full time. Warhammer Online had some good things going for it, but in the end it was the things I didn't like that killed it for me.

The Good

1. PVP - (also called RVR in WHOL). One big team vs. another in a huge area fighting for control of objectives and keeps. Very nice game play. I liked that if you wanted PvP, you entered those areas. If you didn't, you stayed out. However, almost the whole point of the game was to enter these RVR areas and duke it out with opposing faction players. I always had fun, except at the first tier (level 1-10) where so called twinks ruled. These were players on the endless free trial who had gear that was way out of line with their level. That was annoying because when they entered the field, you could just hang it up and go home.

2. Public Quests - These were quests on a timer that anyone could join in. Everyone who participated was scored on their level of participation and success with a random number tacked on. The ones who scored highest at the end of the quest (if successful) got better loot. I liked public quests very much.

3. Elves - unlike WoW, elves in WHOL have normal elf ears, not the donkey handlebar ears you find in WoW. A minor point but it still annoys me about WoW.

4. The world, background and history. Incredible, naturally. Warhammer has a long history and this rich background was brought over to the online game and really shows.

The Bad

1. Class Specialization - each race has access to a specific class which is not available to other races. Each class has special abilities and they are unique to that class and race. Now, it's true that each mechanic used by the class has an equivalent in the other class. For example, the Bright Wizard mechanic of building up fire energy is mirrored in the Dark Elf Blackguard who builds up Hate. But Bright Wizard is a ranged DPS class while Blackguard is a tank class. One of the main complaints I heard over and over was that the classes were unbalanced.

My preference is for a generic class (warrior, for example) playable by any race and let each races innate abilities color how it's played. This was a problem for me.

2. Server selection - Let's face it. Warhammer didn't make it big like everyone hoped it would. Currently the game is limited to four servers and has no signs of getting more. There were undoubtedly plans for expansions and additions, which probably had to be shelved when it didn't succeed. I didn't want to hitch my wagon to a falling star and have to leave it as things go worse and worse.

3. Graphics - The graphics load on my computer was worse than WoW. It tried to be much more realistic than WoW, and that was nice, but slowed things down for me unless I turned most of the cool graphics down. In huge fights, it was just terrible. Framerates were low, and lag was really bad.

4. Focus - with a focus on RVR (aka PVP), it's my opinion that gear should not be what makes a character better than another, but rather the abilities one takes vs. abilities your opponent takes. Sure, gear can make a difference, but I found it was a huge difference.

In the end, WoW has more good things going for it than bad, and like I said, I'm only going to spend my money on one of these games. I chose WoW.

Well, I had resolved by then to make my SW, Sywyn, my main character , so I left Grimsieg in a warcamp an now I'm playing Sywyn full time. Nice thing about Sywyn is his Renown Rank is nearly the same as his Regular Rank. This means his gear is probably as good as can be, right now. I need to continue to earn medallions in RVR, so I can buy the best gear if I don't happen to earn it in the chests.

One nice thing he does have is all the available RVR gear you can get in Tier 2. My Bright Wizard Grimsieg wasn't as fortunate. I'm talking about the special equipment you can get from the quartermaster or in drops when you successfully attack a keep. You have to get all your influence in the RVR lakes, which means you basically need to spend all your time in RVR.

My plan is to put Sywyn straight into RVR at each tier until he has filled up the influence for each t ier, and has the required renown, then hhave him run through the public quests and fill them up for each chapter in the Empire at least, maybe into other areas depending on whether he's leveled enough in regular rank. Hopefully this plan works out.

The real kicker is that Sywyn has an ability that can kick in after he's been shooting a while that will double his damage for X seconds. When I use that and my Rapid Fire, spellcasters take dirt naps. I look for spellcasters or healers mostly, and ignore tanks unless they're the only target I have. Actually, the first thing I look for are squig herders. I hate them with a hate that cannot be described. Anyway, my choice of targets seems to have made me a priority target for Destro, which means I'm probably doing something right.

Last night I logged on for a bit and was very happy to get several greetings and an immediate invitation to a warband. People seem to know Sywyn and want him in their warband, which is very gratifying. That evening we spent at Barak Var defending the keep from a very determined attack. I went up and started working the oil, which I'd never done before. It was a blast! There's a lot of fun to be had dropping boiling oil on hapless besiegers and getting a combat message that you've finished off one or two players each time you drop the oil. I did this for hours as the siege went on and on, and got two renown ranks out of it in the end going from 16 to 18. It gave him some interesting new abilities and now I'm running out of room on my number keypad for them.

Finally, Sywyn was promoted in his Guild (The Booty Brigade) from Hiney to Pioneer, so he's no longer a noob member.

The same player can't have characters from Order and Destruction on the same server in WHOL. I think it may have something to do with preventing spying or other nefarious activities, since the main activity of the server is fighting battles between factions and there is a real possibility that a betrayal could seriously hamper one or the other sides. I chose the Badlands server for my Destro Horde. I had a character on Badlands from a long time ago, a marauder I deleted because he annoyed me.

Now I have about five new characters in total and have played them all up to a few Ranks each, to get a feel for them. Now I can switch between Order and Destruction and keep things relatively fresh.

I have a couple of dark elves, a sorcerer and blackguard, a couple of humans, magus and chosen, and an orc choppa. No healers because honestly I don't like playing them. I don't think I'm very good at them.

I chose a dark elf because I wanted one of those cool looking T-Rex mounts.

Finally, I need to pick a main character for each server. For order I think I'll be going with Sywyn the Shadow Warrior. He was the first character I've created, even though my BW Grimsieg is now higher level. He's advancing evenly in Renown and Rank, which I like.

On Badlands, I don't know which one I'll pick as my main character. Maybe Zakzak the Chosen. Probably the sorcerer because I want the dino-mount.

To be completely fair, he's not the only one. Several other DMs are firmly in the epic end of the world plot corner. "Why is this a problem anyway?" you may ask. Who doesn't like a nice high stakes adventure? It gets the blood pumping, right?

Well… not after the fourth time in a row, no it doesn't. For several reasons.

First, it overshadows every other DM plot that doesn't involve the end of the world/galaxy/universe/plane of existence as we know it. I have personal experience with this. I came up with a plot in which political intrigue played a big role. The plot didn't involve the end of the world, just some minor but important local changes. The plot was dropped and/or put on permanent hold because….

A VAST ARMY OF DEMONS AND ORCS WERE INVADING WITH THE GOAL OF DESTROYING THE WORLD!!

Suddenly, a minor political intrigue centered around one small country wasn't all that important, and players blew off the plot to join this other one. The main features of the world ending plot were wave after wave of monsters, treasure, magic items, and wave after wave of monsters. Note that this was not one of MaO's plots.

Second, if the PCs fail, someone else (an NPC) will have to step in and save the world, because you can't really let the universe be destroyed. Nor can you allow the kind of sweeping changes that failure might entail even if the world doesn't explode. Guess what? The players know this, too.

Third, if you save the universe and all you get is a lousy T-shirt, there's a big let down. Seriously, if the PCs win and save the universe, what reward can you give that fits what they did and still allows them to play? They just saved the freaking universe and you're giving them a magic cloak? Really? No kingdom of their own? No entire planet or demi-plane full of nubile, grateful, semi-clad and horny members of the appropriate gender? No elevation to demi-god status complete with worshippers and temple bureaucracy in place? Dude… they saved the world/universe/plane of existence/whatever.

Fourth, during these plots, the local starting village is usually overrun by units of the mad halfling's evil teddy bear/vampire army. Now, characters can't go there and adventure, and nowhere else has areas appropriate to their level. Not everyone will have the opportunity to get involved in these plots, especially lower level characters, but they have to deal with the bad side of it. In three of four world ending plots I can think of off the top of my head (which actually occurred in this world) the starting area was overrun by the bad guys and effectively became off limits to certain PCs who were in no way involved in the plot.

What's the lesson here? Quit trying to end the world! Your plots can be interesting and draw in players without threatening everything they know and love. In fact, you should probably not do them at all unless you involve the whole DM team. We've had no less than four major, server wide, world ending plots in a row on FRC and I've heard PCs literally yawn and say "Again?" when a major bad guy surfaces and threatens to destroy the world. There's a major loss of suspension of disbelief.

My advice? Find a way to scale it down. If you want to challenge a group of adventurers, have another group move in and start supplanting them, for example. Have a small local bad guy do something a group can oppose. Alternatively, have a small group of good guys move in and start to make things difficult for the local Team Evil.

You can keep it small scale and still keep it interesting. Just make sure something is at stake that a particular group of player characters value.

An extremely cool site for those of you who like maps or calendars. A very unique and original idea.

I think I'm still getting over that. It's not like when I was a kid and staying up all night didn't affect me at all. I suppose it wasn't so bad then because I could always just sleep in, whereas these days I never get to sleep in. Ever. No really, never ever do I get to sleep in. Weekdays, weekends, no difference.

It was an interesting experience, but I doubt I'll be doing it for a while.

DAVE ARNESON 1947- 2009 R.I.P.

David Lance Arneson (Oct 1, 1947 - Apr 7, 2009) was a game player, game designer, and game entrepreneur. He was also a true gentleman and a dear friend. As one of the co-designers of the Dungeons and Dragons game, he started something that is much bigger than all of us. It was not only a new game, but a new KIND of game and it spawned an entire industry. Without Dave, it never would have happened. He taught, lectured, designed games, and started at least three companies. He won several awards, including the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts & Design's Hall of Fame (Origins) in 1984. In 1984 he married Frankie Ann Morneau and they had one daughter, Malia. In addition to Dungeons & Dragons, games or scenarios he wrote or co-authored include Don't Give Up The Ship, Blackmoor, Dungeon Master's Index, First Fantasy Campaign, Adventures in Fantasy, Robert Aspirin's Thieves World, Citybook II, DNA/DOA, Case of the Pacific Clipper, and more. We are all much better off for his time on earth, but the world is less than it was, with him gone. I never knew him to be rude to a fan, or turn down a friend in need. In fact, I believe his last words to me were "Let me know if there's anything I can do for you." I wish there was something I could do for you, my friend. Good bye, and may God bless you. -- Rick Loomis [From Dave Arneson]

D&D was my first RPG, as it was for most other gamers (though not all). Thank you, Mr. Arneson.