I'm sat in the office this Friday morning (which is when I'm writing this draft), one of only two people in as everyone else has the day off, listening to a bit of Adele (not my usual bass pumping dance music) with very little to actually do today.  On such days my thoughts naturally drift towards blogging which is why blogging is somewhat eratic; it largely all depends on my workload which is by no means consistent.  Such is the life of a consultant.  Lately, however, I've been finding it harder to blog about WoW and then I suddenly realised that's because lately I haven't been playing a whole lot of WoW.  Sure I'm still running the RBG matches, I've been making my arena team commitments and I even ran with a guild 25 man Firelands Raid so we could finish the legendary (congratulations Anoris by the way, I'm insanely jealous of course but you completely deserve it) but I haven't really been 'playing' WoW.  I've been going through the motions.

Don't worry this isn't some 'I'm quitting WoW' post, that time may come and it may be soon or it may be a long time from now but it isn't now I can assure you of that.  But I can't help but be aware that my enthusiasm has waned somewhat.  I still love PvP (I've always loved PvP really) and when the RBG team gathers with our war drums sounding I get goosebumps.  I have euphoric moments in arena when we thrash a team that, by rights and looking at composition, should have easily defeated us.  I'm still playing aspects of the game and I love those aspects, but I'm picking and choosing not playing the game as a whole.  Now some people have been playing like this for a long time but it's not how I like to play.  I was mostly levelling through TBC (in the days before speedy levelling) but once I hit max level with my little Magey wagey I started in Wrath, I played every aspect of the game.  I raided, I never missed a daily heroic, I never missed out on dailies, I BG'd, I even did some arena (although then I was experimenting with it and did it to experience it and never consistently).  The idea of missing out on some Emblems of Whatever was abhorrent, I would never even dream of it.  A gentleman raider would do his duty, get his emblems and do his dailies to ensure he had the gold to make sure his gear was in tip top condition.

Now I still make sure my PvP gear is always ready to go, but my raid gear is a dusty hotchpotch of Tier 11 and 12 gear that lies mostly unused in the corner of my study (that's a euphemism for being sat in my bags by the way).  So what's changed and why?

If I had to pick a word (in a very gross and over generalised way) to pinpoint the cause then that word would be Cataclysm.

Anyone currently playing Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR) will know that Bioware released Patch 1.1 a couple of days ago which sought to fix a number of issues with the initial release(and forced a very hurried addendum to my first impressions article, cheers Bioware... bastard).  Well aside from making the UI a little more user friendly it would also appear that Bioware broke Ilum, the world everyone goes to at level 50 for their daily and weekly quests.  The intention was good, they wanted to provoke more world PvP on, what is essentially, their world PvP planet and so they adapted several quests to require the killing of players from other factions AND upped the amount of Valour earnt from each kill.  Unfortunately it would appear that Bioware didn't bother to look at the server population balances before they rolled the patch out, which meant good times for any Imperials but the Republic players had to endure this...

Additionally, there is a handy little feature that alerts you to whenever an enemy player gets near an important objective, you know just in case you try to be sneaking and avoid the big roaming packs of death called the Imperial Playerbase.

Even on those servers with a slightly fairer population balance the net result seems to be one big AOE grindfest as demonstrated below.

Bioware did not think this one through... no siree... *sucks gums*... nope.

What with the recent ‘blackout’ conducted by Wikipedia, Reddit and a whole host of other websites in protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA), I thought it was worth taking some time to highlight a couple of other issues.  Whilst I wholeheartedly support any opposition to SOPA and PIPA, and fully accept that legislation passed within the United States has wide ranging consequences that not only affect internet usage outside US borders but also basically set the ‘world minimum baseline standard’ with regards to internet freedom, I was somewhat disheartened and frankly annoyed to see so many British bloggers, youtubers and websites so actively supporting US activists’ efforts to get the US Congress to reconsider these acts.

Totalbiscuit blacked out his youtube page and posted a highly informative video about why SOPA is bad, Yogscast blacked out their page and linked back to TB’s video etc etc.  And all of this is great, I’m not denying that.  It shows a bright new future where the internet community is not divided by country or flag, where we can all stand up and speak in one voice and it showed the power the voice of the internet has when we bother to work together.  Obviously I say that in the knowledge that SOPA and PIPA could still be passed into legislation, but the White House is actively against SOPA meaning that a veto is highly likely.  Building on that, considering the very public backlash against SOPA it is extremely unlikely that SOPA at least would get the 67 votes required for a supermajority in the US Senate (allowing the Senate to supercede any presidential veto).

Wait.  You’re pissed at fellow Brits opposing SOPA/PIPA but simultaneously applauding their efforts?  WTF RUNZ????

(Warning: Very minor spoilers about the Sith Inquisitor story but nothing that will ruin your experience.  I can't, however, guarantee the spoiler free status of links so beware!)

I have done something terrible, something absolutely heinous and I feel awful about it.  I didn't for it to happen, events conspired against me so as to make my final course of action inevitable.  It's really not my fault, I mean he would have killed me wouldn't he?  It happened on Balmorra, a planet recently conquered by the Sith Empire deep within the galactic Core Worlds.  I'd been sent there by my Master to retrieve a powerful artifact but upon my arrival I quickly learnt that this was no pacified planet.  A brutal guerilla war had been ongoing since the Republic's withdrawal as the local population was less than chipper about have a bunch of sadistic force users as their lords and ladies. On top of, judging from the state of the place, it was pretty clear that the Imperial Governor had reduced trash bin collections to once a fortnight.  Daily Mail readers would be incensed by the whole thing.  So being a responsible member of the Sith Empire I resolved to clean up the mess my fellow Sith had created, bring an end to the conflict and pick up that artifact along the way.  They'd call me Runz the Peacemaker!  Well that's the plan anyway.

You see I'm no conventional Sith.  I am Runz, a Sith Assassin with a heart of gold and an eye for the ladies.  Oh I talk big about crushing my enemies but that's mostly to impress my Dashade companion.  You see I am secretly a member of the Revanites, an outlawed cult within the Empire that believes that Revan's mastery of both the light and the dark sides of the force is the true way and will bring both power and peace to the galaxy.  Really I didn't even want to be Sith, I'd originally set my sights on being a Jedi Sage, but all my friends were being Sith and I just wanted to be one of the cool kids.  Funny, this story seems to sound exactly the same as the story of why I started smoking, oh hum.  So I spend my days trying to advance myself in Sith society, pleasing my somewhat twisted master whilst attempting to maintain some sort of moral code.  It boils down to this;

Killing defenceless civilians is bad.

Killing Rebels/Republic soldiers is fine if they're on the field of battle, they knew the risks.

Killing Jedi is justifiable if they conflict with my goals and will not stand aside, but I won't go out of my way to start a fight with them.

Killing fellow Sith is completely acceptable as they're a big bunch of arseholes who will kill me given the opportunity.  Most of the time I don't have to go out of my way to start a fight with them, it just happens and shouting "SAME TEAM, SAME TEAM" appears to have little effect on the situation.

A TALE FOR THE AGES

You'll notice that so far I've mostly been talking about me and my character and not very much about the actual game but that is for one very good reason; the story of your character is inextricably linked to the game and it's mechanics.  Many of the game's mechanics are used to drive the story, and the drive of the story propels you through the more traditional game mechanics that might otherwise be somewhat uninspiring.

Let's be very clear and get this said right at the start; for all its glitz and glammer SWTOR is essentially another WoW clone, it is another hotkey MMORPG based on statistics, gearscore and RNGs.  There's no escaping that fact and aside from some elements of gameplay it is not a player skill based game.  Granted gaming basic skills are still required, such as not standing in the fire and being able to position yourself behind the enemy to backstab but, much like WoW, a lot of your performance is more likely to be based on how good your gear is and how you've built your spec.  Those with greater spatial awareness and faster reactions are more likely to be better at the game but these personal abilities are not essential to have in great abundance to play the game well.  As long as you have an awareness of where to stand and what your abilities do, your spec and your gear will likely carry you through the rest of the way.  This is generally how MMORPGs work, we all know this so this will unlikely be a surprise to anyone.