Posts with tag debate

Multiboxing -- we've mentioned it quite a few times here on WoW Insider, and it's always been a controversial subject. While the game is quite clearly not designed around players playing multiple characters at once, Blizzard has stated that they have no problem with it -- as long as people are paying for each account they use, and not using third-party programs to control their characters, Blizzard is fine with it.

But I, Mike Schramm, personally have always been quite against the idea of multiboxing. Lots of folks have used macros and programming to control multiple characters all the way up to level 70 and beyond, and some have even taken teams of characters into PvP areas to win battlegrounds and gain honor, or even win the arena seasons, and all the rewards that come with that victory. In my opinion, that's a horrible mockery of the way the game was designed -- this is a social game that is meant to be played with other players, and to pit one person with five computers against a real-life team of five people just isn't fair or interesting. Sure, you might be able to control the movements of five characters with skilled programming and control, but the other team has to coordinate five human minds all together, a much harder and more interesting act, in my personal opinion. I am firmly against multiboxing -- it's not the way this game is meant to be played at all, and while Blizzard may be content to make more money off of someone paying for many accounts, I'm not content to be stuck in a game with them.

Which is why, this Saturday on the WoW Insider Show over on WoW Radio (at 3:30pm EST), our guest will be Xzin, one of the most notorious (and popular) multiboxers the game has ever seen.

The transcripts from the sixth Xfire Debate Club ("Best and Worst Classes in WoW") are now available on Xfire's main site.

On the main floor, I moderated a debate between such heavy hitters as Wowhead's Skosiris, Curse's Mek and Teza, Ming the rogue, and arena masters Tarde, Nuvas and Tiz. I wasn't able to format the full transcript for WoW Insider, but feel free to visit the link so you can see me ask questions and the panelists ... well, ignore them and keep arguing about the last question, or fight about which arena is the most interesting, or claim that the other panelists will one day be working for them. But it was fun anyway!

Xfire also has a transcript from the open debate room, where Xfire users debated the questions themselves. I'd like to thank everyone who came to the debate or proposed questions to ask. I hope to see you all again on Xfire!

Our good friends at Xfire have posted the transcripts of last Wednesday's chat about "Life After 70," which I was able to moderate. The guests-- Teza from World of Raids, Nopher from Last Resort on Kazzak-EU, and Skosiris from Wowhead (Awake from Nihilum couldn't make it because they heard Vashj had been hotfixed)-- all did a great job answering the metric ton of questions I tried to push at them, and the "viewers" had a lot of interesting stuff to say as well.

You can see the transcript from the Main Room here, and the transcript from the Open Debate room over here. Both are definitely interesting read throughs. Both of the higher level guilds echoed what Death and Taxes have said-- they use Paladins to heal, and shadow priests to DPS. They also told me that the loot from the 25 man raids has just not matched up to the loot from heroics or Karazhan (although hopefully that will be corrected a bit in the upcoming 2.1 patch). And perhaps most interesting, they said that the drop to 25 man raids didn't create that much drama in their guilds-- for them, the most drama came from the 10 man limit in Karazhan.

All in all, we had a great time, and I'll thank Xfire again for putting it all together (especially Nicolas Cerrato for coordinating everything this time around). If you were able to make it out to the chat (it was set earlier in the afternoon in America, so Europeans could have a prime time chat for themselves), thanks to you as well.

Thanks for all your Breakfast Topic ideas; watch this space, as we will be featuring them in days to come!

Today's topic is age. In WoW, you can play characters who fit into a variety of perceived age brackets, from sultry young females to grey-haired older men--you can even play your characters beyond the grave, if that takes your fancy. However, I was shocked the other day to find out that a grey-haired human character was actually played by a teenager. I had automatically conferred some sort of respect on to the character, and the realisation that the player was younger than me took some time to sink in.

On the other hand, sometimes it's easy to tell the age of a character--textual cues and behavioural habits might give it away. I've seen several adverts for "mature" guilds; do you seek out players who are approximately the same age as you? Or do you team up with anyone, even if they might have to leave halfway through to do their homework?

Joining a guild can be a lot of fun, but it can also bring a lot of drama into your life. Some people eschew the complexities of guilded life and purposefully go guildless; others pick and choose guilds carefully, or bounce between guilds at will.

I've personally only found a couple of nice guilds in my time playing, and I generally don't join guilds with my alts on other servers--it's not exactly fair on the guild, since I'll not be playing much. However, I've found guilded life to be rewarding and (given the tales I have heard of other guilds) surprisingly hassle-free. What's your take on guilds? More trouble than they're worth, or worth their weight in gold?

This debate is a perennial topic amongst MMOs, thanks to their often-stylised representations of reality. It goes like this: why does some armour barely large enough to cover one's modesty offer the same (or better) protection as head-to-toe chainmail? More importantly, why does some armour appear as a bikini top for female characters and yet a hefty breastplate for males?

It's a toss-up between realism and artistic licence, and Blizzard seem to have gone for the latter every time. While I don't personally mind the chainmail-bikini wardrobe, I know of players (especially those who RP) who aren't keen on it at all, and others who purposefully dress their Night Elves in Black Mageweave Leggings for fun.

What's your stance? Do you seek out or avoid skimpy armour? Any particular favourites?

MMORPG.com has started a weekly debate feature, and the current topic is instancing. How does instancing PvE areas impact the community of a game like World of Warcraft?

Instancing has its pros and cons; on the plus side, instancing (especially at lower levels) can help you find competent players to adventure with, and help you develop your own play style. Rather than worry about competing with other groups for the boss kill, and wasting time, instances let you efficiently handle a difficult PvE task. Instances are often billed as a major selling point of games thanks to this lack of competition.