Breakfast Topic: Who knew?

Did you know that there is a secret room in Dalaran that you can access only if you complete the achievement Higher Learning? I just found out about it myself. And while this piece of information is practically useless, it made me think ... What other things don't I know about? And then I started remembering all the times when I learned something so basic about the game that I said to myself, "How could I not have known that?"
There was the time before The Burning Crusade was released when I was happily making my mooncloth every four days and traveling to Darnassus or Darkshore to do so, when a guildie informed me that there was a moonwell in Stormwind. "Doh!" Then there was the time that I was grouped with a friend, happily traipsing around Eastern Plaguelands (so yes, I was almost level 60), and I would stop running every time I had to respond to an in-game whisper. My friend asked me what I was doing, and I explained that I had to stop running to type a response. He then informed me that I could use the mouse to auto-run and keep my hands free to type. "Doh!" More recently, I was in Dalaran exchanging Emblems of Triumph for Emblems of Conquest for Emblems of Valor for Emblems of Heroism ... (big gulp of air) ... in order to purchase Reins of the Wooly Mammoth. I needed 200 Emblems of Heroism, and I was exchanging all of my emblems one at a time. My guild was waiting for me to do a raid and asked what was taking so long. So I told them. And then they told me I could simply shift-right click on an emblem and pick the amount I wanted to exchange. "Doh!"
Why didn't I know these simple things? How could I have been playing this game for five years and not know these things? I used to laugh when I saw the tips on the loading screen. The one that informs the player that she can eat and drink at the same time always elicits a mental response from me that goes something like, "Who the heck doesn't know that? What a dumb tip." But recently I have begun to realize that there are many people just like me who let the simplest nuances of the game escape them for some reason or another.
So what things are you embarrassed to admit that you didn't know until you were well entrenched in the game? Don't worry, we'll never tell (wink, wink).
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Guest Posts
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Reader Comments (Page 4 of 14)
Luci Apr 22nd 2010 9:16AM
I loved how awesome it was that we got to keep tele moonglade after the quest was done. I used it to speed up travel a lot in vanilla and BC and it helped tremendously.
vanye111 Apr 22nd 2010 9:26AM
I didn't find that out til WotlK dropped o.O
You know there is one in Silvermoon City too, right?
PvtDeth Apr 22nd 2010 8:27AM
I hope I don't come across as a tool, but I'm constantly hearing things like this while I play. There are hundreds of things people, "just never knew," because they didn't read the manual or the patch notes, or whatever. All of them things I knew because I go looking for that information. You can blame that on lazy players, but I think the responsibility for that kind of thing rests on the developer of a product. You want people to enjoy your product, right? The very existence of wowhead, wowwiki, and many similar sites means Blizzard has failed horribly at documenting their game.
Of course, that's different from not knowing about stuff like the secret room. I tried my hardest to not find out any information about the rewards for that achievement during the year I spent working on it. I was quite surprised, and then surprised again.
vaarsej Apr 22nd 2010 8:35AM
i enjoy finding out about little secrets and then telling my guildies when they ask. It's much more fun that way. A game manual should tell you the essentials and leave you free to do what you want with your character, instead of trying to spoonfeed you.
Swifteye Apr 22nd 2010 8:38AM
I bought all three games (vanilla, BC and WotLK) online and downloaded them... I didn't get a manual. Can I have yours? :-p
Yoratowel Apr 22nd 2010 8:41AM
Usually its not so much that the information isn't out there, it's just that people would rather play the game then spend endless days trying to figure out everything they could possibly do in game.
How many times have you bought a new printer, car or anything else and read the manual completely from front to back, googled everything it could possibly do THEN use it?
Thanatos Apr 22nd 2010 8:51AM
Not everything is in the manual, patch notes, and forums. It's also a LOT more fun discovering it and laughing at your own naivety.
Possum Apr 22nd 2010 9:11AM
Yeah...............right after I finish reading that manual i'll go iron and fold my underwear and arrange my dvd collection by colour. I might finish up that thrilling afternoon straightening out paperclips but I don't want to over excite myself..
PvtDeth Apr 22nd 2010 9:38AM
Wow, I had no idea you could get that downrated that fast. I'm not sure if what I meant came across. There are many things which are much more fun to figure out on your own than to study beforehand. I just recently played my first arena match which was predictably horrible. Figuring out my own tactics for countering the many classes, specs, and comps has been fun and sixty or so matches later, I'm starting to get good. So yeah, I certainly get the value of discovering things along the way. I also described that in my original post.
What I'm talking about is the stuff that you just couldn't figure out in-game no matter how you played. Where in the game are sockets and socket bonuses explained? How do you know from within the game what the value of armor penetration is against a boss versus attack power? For that matter, how could you possibly know that a raid boss is permanently three levels above you no matter what your level?
I love technology and I'm generally very averse to reading documentation before using something. This game, however, is extremely opaque to new users. That fault carries through for most of us even after years of playing. I love discovering all the little things that make the game special. (I just found the ninja turtles last week.) I'm mostly just trying to say that this game very poorly supports the conventional practice of, "I'll figure it out as I go along."
If you've ever played Braid (and I highly recommend that you do,) then you've seen the definitive example of a game presenting absolutely no explanation of any kind, yet still guiding you to exactly the information you need. World of Warcraft is obviously a completely different kind of game; I just wish that type of philosophy could be represented in it.
PvtDeth Apr 22nd 2010 9:46AM
@ Swifteye
The manual is included in the downloaded game files. Another one of those things people never knew.
It actually came up when the Wrath manual was (presumably accidentally) included with one of the BC patches. Didn't give away anything groundbreaking, but there was plenty of information that hadn't been leaked yet.
Swifteye Apr 22nd 2010 10:02AM
I was pretty much just joshing ya. I mean, I *didn't* know that a manual was included in the download files, but to be honest I *never* go poking around in the download files for games because I'm just terrified that I'll accidentally move/delete something important and then never be able to figure out what it was and how to get it back.
For the record, I actually upvoted ya, just wasn't enough to make a difference. I think you were downrated because people either only read the first line of your post before deciding it was "trolling", or else they just skimmed your post and still got that general idea. I *do* realize your post ultimately resolved itself into "this is why Blizzard is doing players a disservice", but it comes across at the beginning as "players who don't know things are just lazy".
And that is why I hardly ever rank posts, and when I *do* rank them I make sure to read the entire thing carefully first. Heh.
jrizutko Apr 22nd 2010 12:19PM
One of the things that attracted me to wow was how robust the new user experience was and how smoothly interface information was delivered by tips. Yes there is information that wasn't included in the beginner tips that is useful, and it could be better, but blizzard has a number of mechanics 4 or 5 orders of magnitude larger than braid's. That's not remotely a fair comparison.
A fair comparison would be other MMOS, and in that realm there are some incredibly poor tip executions. Just mentioning FFXI gives me fits. Try figuring out how to effectively use your scanner in EVE Online as a noob. I'm sure there are some now that are doing a better job than Blizzard (i haven't played one, but there's always an innovator somewhere), but all you have to do is introduce the game to someone new to realize how hard it is not to overwhelm them when introducing them to the game. You could spend a week teaching them to play, and still miss some of these things.
TL;DR blizzard could be better at providing useful tips, but as far as MMOs go, they do a bang-up Job.
Shrike Apr 22nd 2010 1:41PM
Its true, compared to FFXI (the UI put me off so much that I stopped playing it) and EVE (which is arguably the most brutal newbie experience available, and I love it dearly) WoW has a much smoother introduction.
That being said, there are many things which no tutorial or manual adequately covers. How to kill mobs that are glitched in the terrain for instance, how to kite mobs as a tank without them all ending up behind you, or how to properly strafe; these are all "by feel" things that really can only be learned well through practice and experience.
Draelan Apr 22nd 2010 5:00PM
Game Manuals are great. I actually kind of enjoy reading them to learn little facts about a game. (I'm weird, I know.) However, with a game as large as WoW, it wouldn't need a manual so much as an encyclopedia series! And then, you have the issue where it will quickly become out-of-date. Heck, I remember reading my Vanilla WoW manual and seeing something about "you will gain dishonor for killing guards", and by that time that feature was long gone.
Even if they made an updated one at the start of each expansion, it wouldn't be enough. There'd be no mention of hardmode raids in Wrath, it wouldn't mention the option to change fur color for Tauren at the barber shop, it would still say Unholy DKs have a talent to revive themselves as a ghoul upon death, Frost wouldn't be the "dual-wield tree", no mention that hunters no longer gain any special bonus from quivers, etc.
In a game that changes as rapidly as WoW, the best way to distribute up-to-date and accurate information is via websites, and even if Blizzard DID do that themselves, there would be plenty of fan-created websites doing the same thing, anyway.
Besides, with a game as large as WoW, even veteran players can learn a thing or two every once in a while. That's part of the fun. =)
Bronwyn Apr 22nd 2010 7:30PM
And really, how many games do you know that document every little thing in the manual? If they did, then there wouldn't be strategy guides for things like The Sims 3, or Final Fantasy, etc. The whole point is to get the basic game mechanics down, but they don't (and shouldn't) just tell you how to "win"
Inscrutibob Apr 26th 2010 11:59AM
Here's the path for learning all those things you think we should read about:
- read the original manual.
- read the notes for the first patch. Adjust your expectations.
- read the notes for the second patch. Adjust your expectations.
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- read the notes for Burning Crusade. Adjust your expectations.
- read the notes for the first BC patch. Adjust your expectations.
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Wowhead and wowwiki et al exist because the game is too damn big (and I mean that in the nicest way) for one person to remember.
I just took up JC for the first time. I used external resources to get up to speed on the basics. I guess I should have read the damn patch notes instead...
Valorum Apr 22nd 2010 8:37AM
Can't you just fly into that room?
placebo Apr 22nd 2010 8:43AM
No, you can't. You can target him through the wall, but it is completely sealed off.
dfgreat1 Apr 22nd 2010 1:27PM
oh, sounds like time for Mind Vision!
alabngpuso Apr 22nd 2010 8:44AM
I never knew that the confirmation screen that comes up after typing the "/GQUIT" command contains so many useful hints!