Is the gaming treadmill getting faster or am I slowing down?

The likely answer: probably both.

I play Hearthstone pretty casually (surprise) and usually hit, but rarely break, rank 20 each month. I put some effort to reach that level (in case I'd like the card back) but typically not great amounts. It can take me a while to hit 20 some months and I think my best ever ranking was maybe 17?  It is also something I can play on my phone or tablet to pass the time.  I prefer it on my computer but when there, I'd rather be doing something else.

Casual credentials established, the recent announcement about Standard Mode, Wild Mode, and the retirement of some cards kind of disappointed me and highlighted how out of sync I am with the game. It's not that I don't understand the issues with overly powerful cards or the need to keep the game "fresh" and also accessible to new players.  I just really dislike the way they are going about it.

Old expansions no longer being available for purchase means unless I craft them, which can be exceptionally hard to get the dust I would need, I will never have some cards. That's pretty disappointing. Not end-of-the-world, gnash-teeth, rend-garment but simply "oh, that sucks."  Being unable to collect items in a DIGITAL collection game is pretty weird and annoying.

The limited time* nature of future decks in standard play is also annoying. This is what really inspired my treadmill question. If you want to stay current and have a chance at winning, you'll likely need to have the most recent expansions.  And you'll need to stay current or you'll just be left with the basic cards.  It's not that you can't win with a basic set, but that you will be at a disadvantage most times.


The game is moving in a direction where you'll need to really keep playing and current with the decks or else be left pretty far behind.  And I really don't like that kind of game.  I don't want a static world per se, but this constant (and to me quick) change discourages me from investing myself in the game.

If I can't learn, explore, and experience the game at my own pace; if I have to rush through things and stay with the pack or get permanently left behind and miss out on things, that game is probably not for me.

I'm kind of this way about aspects of WoW too. I actually prefer the long gaps between major events and changes because it gives me a chance to play the game the way I like it.  I can try different classes and storylines.  I can be different races or specs.  I can spend time in the game, enjoying it without feeling like I'm permanently missing out on something.

I don't mind if I'll always be behind the pack in a game like this unless that means that I'll NEVER have the chance at something.  I have the Core Hound mount from the 10th anniversary event and I hated getting it.  Not because the raid was hard.  I had a very good and easy raid, actually, and was even lucky enough to even get the pet on my first run though.  I hated it because I felt I had to rush to 100 and then I had to get geared up enough to get into the raid.  All because it was for a limited time.  That wasn't fun to me.

Did anyone that got the mount feel like the fun part of it was the limited time?  Does anyone really feel extra special that they have the mount and others don't when it may simply be that the other person didn't have enough time?

I also happen to think that longer gaps give more time to produce good quality games when they finally are released as opposed to...well, Warlords of Draenor.

(Quick note: I, of course, realize that many people prefer a faster pace and want more content to consume faster.  This post is not intended to convince them they are wrong**.  I'm just examining my own relationship with current gaming and my preferences.)

I fully realize that if the gaming treadmill is speeding up, it may only be by a small amount and it's actually that I'm just slowing down more.  Nothing wrong with that but ignoring it or being in denial about it can cause problems.

And I guess that's what I'm trying to grapple with. The path that Blizzard is going with their games, seems to be one that I'm not very interested in following.  Obviously, once the multi-billion dollar company sees my post they'll change their ways.  Until then, I kind of need to come to terms with what it means that I'm not the target audience anymore and never will be.

Earlier this week, Fiannor had a post or two that also thinking about game audience. Just some more food for thought.

As I said at the beginning, I think it is most likely a combination of the gaming industry just moving faster and me becoming even more resistant to my leisure activities always being rushed. Still, as Blizzard keeps pushing new ideas that they think will keep the game fresh and pull in new people, it's a little sad for me because it seems to end up pushing me out of something I enjoy.


* The card backs are limited time too, which does bother me, but I've been thus far willing to work within that, since I can use Hearthstone to pass down time at work or wherever.  The card backs are also unrelated to game play.  I won't win or lose based on the card back.  Not having access to current cards, which often have new and more powerful effects, that does impact game play.

** Which of course, they are :P

Personal Gold Challenge: 3 weeks left

I've got about 3 weeks left to finish my gold challenge.  How am I doing?

Well, let's consider that question in two different ways:

How am I progressing towards my goal?

vs.

 Am I enjoying progressing towards my goal?

   

A few quick notes for reference:

My goal is to reach 40,000 gold on one character before my time card ends on February 25th.

I am focusing on three characters on this secondary account: a warlock and a shaman that had reached 90 before the original trial account time ended and a warrior that was boosted to 90 when I got WoD.  All three are on different servers so I can't pool their gold.  The warlock and the warrior are DPS and the Shaman is healing but I was planning to pick up the DPS off-spec.

How am I progressing towards my goal?

 

Tackling the success angle first, allow me to present you with this high-quality, totally worthwhile graph.

Half-assed Nerdery

The sudden drops in gold are when I hit 100 and had to pay for the level 3 garrison.

Okay, so when I play for more than a few minutes at a time I can make a fair amount of money.  Despite the advice people gave, I haven't been consistent in gold generation from my garrison.  The suggestions were good, I just haven't taken the time (or really had the time) to set everything up and get it rolling.  The large gain for the gnome had been a day when I had been able to run something like 8-10 LFRs with DPS goodie bags, plus some old raids and other such.  That was a good day.

Real life has intruded some, so I haven't been able to get on every night to play.  Sometimes I can get on and do garrison chores, but sometimes I can't even do that.  That's to say nothing of the 12 or so other garrisons I have on my main account, so that if I do get time to get on, managing the other garrisons and these can take up a lot of my time.

But what I have gained out of this experiment so far is that IF I focused on one character and IF I could put in some consistent, reasonable amount of time to playing, I could almost certainly make gold each month.  I'm not declaring my challenge over but I think I can rule definitively that I could make the gold necessary to purchase WoW tokens.

Yes, I would still need to make double what I do now, since this challenge is over 60 days and not 30, but looking at how things are going, when I do play for sustained amounts of time, I could probably do it.

With that in mind, I'm continuing the challenge for my own satisfaction and because there is another part of it.  Not just the generation of gold, but how I have to change my playstyle to do it.

Which brings me to the second question

Am I enjoying progressing towards my goal?

 

As you can likely surmise, not so much.

The biggest issue is that I feel compelled to play each day and to focus on activities that generate gold.  And not just play each day, but restrict myself to characters that can make the most gold.  So if a character is better at soloing old raids or knocking out dailies or whatever, they get to take priority over the sub-30 alt I've been itching to play or the slow characters that I just like to do whatever on.

 

Another issue is that LFR goodie bags referenced above are probably my best daily source of gold.  I can run old raids once a week for gold and do the weekly LFR 150whatever gold reward, but that's once per week.  The 500+ gold that comes from the LFR baggies alone is a nice bump.  The catch is, that the DPS goodie bag is not reliable.  It's happening a LOT now but still not every time.  It is one of the reasons why I'm thinking of switching to my shaman for the remainder of the challenge.  I do see the baggie come up a lot more often on the healer role.  But, I'm not sure I'm good enough to be someone the raid needs to depend upon so much. Yes, there will be other healers and the raid likely won't fail, but I already dislike how much I get carried as a DPS, I'd prefer not to be carried as a healer too.

 

Even if I was top of the charts with healing or DPS, it still means I have to do LFR, which means grinding the same fights over and over and over again, in that unpredictable atmosphere that is LFR.  Where you can have good raiders in for their weekly valor or just fun or you can have the people who seem to be playing World of Abusecraft and I am their content.

What's next?

I had been reading Fussypants' post about healing and it made me remember how much I can enjoy playing a good support character. The Shaman is sitting at 92 with a level 2 garrison, so it'd be a bit of work to get her to 100, with as little of time as I've had to play lately.  But I think it might be fun and perhaps worthwhile.  If nothing else, if I get her to 100 I get a level 25 pet stone and can get some more heirloom upgrades pretty easily.


I do still like my gnome warrior although I feel pretty clumsy with her.  She's fun and I love her attitude, but I haven't gotten a hang of the warrior mechanics yet, so I'm pretty weak there.


I'll also need to figure out what to do with the gold when this challenge is over, since I'm pretty sure I won't be using it for a WoW token.  The guild the shaman is in could use any and all gold it can get.  The other two, well, it's not like those guilds couldn't use the influx but it might be an opportunity to get the garrison mounts and pets I haven't bought yet.  We'll see.