MMO BinA Geek's Look at Massively Multiplayer Online Games

In World of Warcraft (WoW), I have found that when you’re looking for a group or even just a single someone to help you with an instance it can be very hard, but that problem could be just be with my favourite server/realm. This is one of those games issues that really bother me.

I’m a gnome Death Knight and I like to level and do instances, but the only problem is finding people of my level and skill to go with me and so sometimes I die when doing it. It could be that we don’t have a healer, but sometimes we get a Paladin that says he can heal but it ends up that he can’t. Also, I sometimes run into the problem where the instance is full. What’s with that? Seeing how there are over ten million players, there shouldn’t be an message saying “you can’t go with your party sorry if we wasted your time”. Also, if I have a quest and I need an instance to complete it, but it ends up being full, it can be like a slap in the face.

Another problem I see is how they spread the level for instances. For example, why is it that the instances start at level 10? Why can’t World of Warcraft have level 5 instances for the lower levels to give them something to do beyond quest grinding and waiting for the higher level instances. This would give them a faster way to level and to help find guilds and buddies to do higher instances later. I’m not blaming Blizzard for this, (I like Blizzard) but in the gaming world there are two kinds of players: hardcore and casual. MMO’s need to be able to satisfy both kinds.

Blizzard has tried to help players find people to do instances with using an “eye thing” that looks for players. I’ve tried that with little to no luck so far. Again it could be just my server/realm, but Blizzard needs to think about such concerns in the next few updates they release if they really want to keep players like myself happy with the game they’ve worked so hard on. Let me know what you think in the comments below.

COT PLZ is a column that hypothesizes potential Caverns of Time content that Blizzard could explore in the future.

If you’re a lore nerd like myself, you most likely enjoy the Caverns of Time instances.  With the introduction of the COT,  Blizzard has opened up a large chunk of past and potentially future lore to be experienced.  I often sit around and extrapolate on what possible adventures Blizzard would send us on through the Caverns of Time system.  One such adventure comes directly from Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos.  During the Scourge (Undead) Campaign, Arthas and the Scourge direct an attack against the Magical City of Dalaran.  The Scourge is seeking the last spellbook of Medivh in order to use its magic to summon Archimonde to Azeroth.  As a defense, the wizards of Dalaran put up barriers that harm undead units.  Your mission is to destroy the barriers by killing the wizards that guard them and secure Medivh’s spellbook by slaying Grand Magus Antonidas.

Now the question, how would this apply to the Caverns of Time mechanic?  I would set it up in the same fashion as The Culling of Stratholme instance.  Give us the “cutscene” using in-gaming graphics again to set up the premise of the instance.  However the twist would be to borrow from the Oculus instance.  I would propose that you would be able to select a unit of the Scourge to be (as an illusion) but you would gain abilities relevant to that unit (like the dragons you ride in the Oculus).  That way any individual in your group could fill any role and it would allow you to assist Arthas’ campaign.  You could have armored skeletons for the “tank” role, necromancers for either a “healer or dps” role and a ghoul or possibly a geist (I’m aware they were not in the WC3 campaign) as a “melee dps” role.

The Caverns of Time is such a great mechanic that I can not help but dream of more adventures to explore and hopefully Blizzard can not help but dream either.

Shoutout to my friend Ken for letting me bounce these ideas off him constantly.

I’m not sure how everyone else feels but I personally loathe searching for a guild to join.  I find guild recruitment forums to be a waste of time unless you are seeking a full raiding schedule or a realm transfer.  Realm forums do not always prove to be the most helpful resource either.  So for individuals like myself, there is a gap between what we’re looking for and what we have available to us.

That’s where WOW Headhunter comes into play.  WOW Headhunter is a powerful website that allows individuals to search for guilds that are actively recruiting on their realm(s).  It quickly and cleanly displays what classes those recruiting guilds are seeking, as well as easy to locate guild websites and recruitment requirements. Those are not the most interesting aspects of WoW Headhunter however.

The real power comes from the guild leader/guild recruiter side of the equation.  Guild leaders, or their appointed recruiters, can go onto the WOW Headhunter site to list their guild as recruiting.  Just like the forum solutions they can enter information about their guild, raiding times, class recruitment, etc.  The piece of information that WoW Headhunter gives that is not always readily  available is what type of atmosphere the guild has.

The Personality Graph allows individuals searching for a guild to instantly see what type of environment that guild would be.  On the other hand it allows guilds to target individuals that are of likemind.  It makes the most sense to me to match up guild personalities with player personalities to avoid conflicts and misinterpretations. I feel this is a very powerful tool and would be overjoyed if more guilds would sign up to use it.

Head over to WOW Headhunter and give it a look!  Especially if you are Horde guilds in Bloodhoof-US…holy/shadow priest LFG PST…