MMO Gaming

Reading over Mike’s interview file at 2 AM (sleeping is for people that don’t own Burning Crusade) as I happen to be doing my first thought is to curse him and his entire family for choosing that font, but I’ll move on and say thank you to Mike as well, so yeah…thanks Mike. Once again, editor’s notes are marked so let’s move ahead!

1. What game(s) (aside from WoW) are you currently playing?
I got an Xbox 360 for Christmas and Gears of War, Lumines, and Rainbow Six Vegas are the reasons my alts didn’t get 60 before the expansion like I planned.

2. As a player of World of Warcraft do you think the success Blizzard has enjoyed is good or bad for MMOs in general?
I think it’s a great thing for gaming in general, and online games specifically. I’ve met people with multiple 60s in game that have never beaten a game before, or ever played an online game. Those same people, I think, are the ones playing on Xbox Live and checking out the reviews on Vanguard.
(Ed. Of course, given some of the WoW population, one has to wonder if that’s such a good thing?)

3. With the expansion just released what are your initial thoughts? What is your favorite addition so far? Least favorite?
I’m just so happy that there’s new 5-man content. Raiding is fun, but there’s nothing like running through an instance with four of your closest friends while great loot drops for everybody. Least favorite has got to be the lag and quest camping on populated servers. It hasn’t completely been a game ruiner, but lately I’ve been leveling my alts in Azeroth during peak hours, just because things are so crowded in Hellfire Peninsula.

4. Which unfinished quest line would you be most interested in seeing completed (King of Stormwind quest line or Uldum quest line for instance)?
Yeah, what’s wrong with your Alliance boy king that Preston gets revealed time and time again right there in front of him, but he keeps trusting her and letting her back in? I want to see that whole problem solved. To answer your question, for some reason, I like the troll instances– I’m waiting to see Zul’Aman.

5. What is your biggest problem with WoW and how would you fix it?
To give Blizzard credit, they’ve fixed a lot of this, but the biggest problem is simply standing back and letting players play. Anything that takes time or keeps you from playing (getting queued for raids or battlegrounds, or traveling around the world, or running dumb Fedex quests) is a problem to be fixed. Also, while Blizzard’s designs are great, the inability to customize the look of your gear means everyone ends up looking the same, and while my Shaman looks cool in tier 4, part of me doesn’t want him to look like everyone else.

6. The launch of World of Warcraft in ‘04 was riddled with problems, did you feel that Blizzard learned from that with the Burning Crusade launch? What problems, if any, did you run into on launch day?
I think they did as well as they could– yes, the servers crashed over and over, but there’s eight million people playing this game. In terms of bugs, they are sneaky over at Blizzard– all the major game-breaking bugs were dropped in 2.0.1, and were fixed by the time the expansion released.

7. What is your favorite quest/instance/zone in the game?
I love Scarlet Monastery and UBRS (but I haven’t done nearly everything in Outland yet). I’m going to lose Horde cred for this, I think, but I love the Absent-Minded Prospector quest. Cracked me up every time I did it.

8. There are a huge number of UI modifications available. What mods, if any, do you use? Also, how do you feel about Blizzard taking functionality from some mods and implementing it in the basic UI?
I use Titan Panel, MonkeyQuest, Auctioneer, and Clique (I keep things simple so I don’t have to reinstall 20 addons every patch). And CTRaid and Threatmeter for raiding, of course. I’m fine with Blizzard implementing some mods in the basic UI, but there are some mods (Auctioneer, for one) that they will never do that with.

9. What is your fondest WoW memory?
Man, there’s lots. My first raid ever was in ZG and it blew my mind. But the first time I ever ran MC, it was Gothic Bunnies’ (my guild on Thunderhorn) first run ever as a guild, my first run ever in MC, and we one-shotted our way all the way up through Garr. Good times.

10. Now, the most important question of all; Horde or Alliance?
FOR THE HORDE! I bet at least one of the other WoW Insider people said Alliance, but I’m 100% BLOOD AND THUNDER!

Final Comments: thanks, brandon!

Thanks again to Mike, but there is much to be done still, so let’s head to the next.

WoW Insider, World of Warcraft, Blizzard, Burning Crusade, Mike Schramm, interview