Welcome to Snaffy's Playground!

If the name Snafzg sounds familiar, you might have heard about my Warhammer blog, TheGreenskin.com.

You might also be wondering why I have a new blog... well, I'll tell you! Grab a cup o' joe and a bull whip because this is going to be long journey full of snore-inducing commentary and perilous crevasses.

TheGreenskin blog was solely dedicated to WAR, but I as a writer and gamer am no longer playing WAR very much these days. Actually, if you were to average out all my WAR play-time in 2009, you would probably come up with the number six. As in, six hours per week.

There are many reasons for this. First is my writing gig over at Massively, which takes up an hour or so per night of writing and research. Second is an increased emphasis on more things RL-related. Finally, I just don't enjoy WAR very much. I mean, I want to. I'm not just saying that to be nice. Seriously, have you ever known me to be nice for the sake of appearances? I call it as I see it, damn it!

Here's my online gaming history spanning over a decade:

1996-2002: MUME
2002-2005: DAOC
2004-2007: WoW
2008-present: WAR

You could toss in a few brief stints in EQ1, SW:G, and EVE but I wouldn't really consider those important since I never played any of them much longer than a month. If you noticed the time gap in the above list, it's because I took over a year off from MMOs between 2007 and 2008 due to burnout and a bit of anger toward WoW. I was naive to believe that getting to the endgame would allow me to engage in fun, balanced, and meaningful PvP (even on a PvP server). Mudflation played a huge part in it as well.

That year-long break from MMOs is important to note because WAR was the first MMO I actually allowed myself to become fully engaged in after quitting WoW.

I started getting into WAR in November 2007 because a friend of mine was in beta and had some cool things to say about the game. Also, the game was set to launch very soon. I had a shadow priest / general blog during my time in WoW but didn't take it very seriously. The friend suggested that a good way to get interested in WAR would be to blog about it, and considering how few WAR blogs there were around at the time (none dedicated), we thought I might get a lot of attention.

Within a month or two of starting the blog, everyone learned about the delay until June 2008. No biggie, I thought. I'll just keep blogging. As I started getting more and more plugged into the community, I started hearing negative rumblings about the beta test. Basically, major parts of the game were being totally redesigned. People were having their faith in the game shaken because it didn't appear that Mythic knew which direction to take.

I won a contest in February that got me into the WAR beta around April 2008. "WOOHOO!" I thought. Finally a chance to see the game a couple months before release. My brain went into overdrive thinking about all the exclusive goodies I'd be able to get for my blog once the NDA finally dropped. Considering how I wanted to eventually monetize my blog, I also saw this as a bit of a business venture. What's that saying again? "Don't mix business with pleasure?" Hmmm...

That might actually be something for all game designers to think about. Actually, let's save that for another post.

Anyway, suffice it to say, the game wasn't the blood-soaked poppy field I had envisioned. Things were clunky. Out of focus. Unbalanced. Unstable... But hey, this is beta. Things were also changing at an extremely rapid pace. The UI would be completely overhauled every week getting better and better. We had something completely fresh and interesting to focus test every other week too. Over time, however, I started asking myself some important questions. Why haven't we tested this feature or mechanic yet? Why haven't we seen these classes? Why aren't we allowed into other tiers, zones, or dungeons? Simply put, I was starting to see just how far behind schedule Mythic really was.

It came as no surprise that when June approached Mythic announced another delay, this time until the upcoming Fall. I actually welcomed it. WAR would have completely bombed if they had released it in that state. Beta testing from May until late August was more of the same. Focus test this. Focus test that. The scariest part about the entire beta process for me was how totally focus-driven it was. We were never at any point allowed to play the game as it was meant to be played, tier through tier, start to finish. What a horrible mistake that was. "Take the time and do it right," was the cry of many beta testers but it went unheeded.

The "We're cutting content," announcement came some time during this period. 4/6 of the cities gone. 4/24 of the classes gone. Anyone reading my blog at the time will know that I kind of blew a gasket here. Obviously, I couldn't give everyone the full scoop because I was bound by the NDA, but this was the very moment I became 100% certain WAR would not become the success it was hyped to be. Combine that announcement with the shaky state of beta at the time and many testers were pretty much certain that Mythic was going to release an unpolished turd because they were being driven to make the next launch date no matter what.

Some will blame EA for this, but I don't think Mythic should get a free pass here. They had a vision for their game in 2007 and then went a completely different way in 2008. They were not originally making a game most of their testers wanted to play. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if they stuck to their guns and pushed ahead with their original vision. You should listen to your players, but you shouldn't bow to their every whim, right?

Anyway, as September was quickly approaching, I wasn't in a happy place with WAR. While it can be fun to be in the inner circle or boys club of a beta, I don't think I have the personality for it. I played WoW closed beta for a couple months before release and it was kind of the same but to a lesser degree. I value polish above nearly everything else in a game. You aren't going to find much of that in a beta for obvious reasons.Hell, by current standards, you won't even find it in most MMOs several months after release.

The game launched in September 2008 against the advice of many beta testers including myself. WAR needed at least three more months of testing and polish if it really wanted to capture people, but obviously WotLK was launching around then and EA/Mythic saw this earlier period as an opportunity to make back some money and try steal customers away from the reigning king of MMOs.

They obviously failed. Well, I shouldn't say it like that. 300k is a very respectable number even after registering 750k initially, but given all the hype and hoopla and developer interviews, everyone knows they wanted a much bigger piece of the pie. We're now in May and it could be said that while the game is still improving, it has a long way to go before actually meeting the pre-release expectations.

I know for me personally, it still has a long way to go. I'm beginning to wonder if Mythic's window of opportunity is slowly shrinking. It could be said that Mythic isn't making WAR for me and that is completely acceptable. Unfortunately, all the way along everything I was reading led me to believe otherwise.

I'll save a lot of my current WAR commentary for future posts, but long story short, I no longer play much nor am I really that interested in WAR to have a blog dedicated for it. Massively allows me the opportunity to keep up on and write about WAR news and for that I am grateful. I will always follow WAR and be one of the first staff-writers to post about it because I still have enough insight to make the posts semi-interesting and I am actually interested to see where it goes and want it to succeed even if I'm not participating very much.

My account will remain active and I will pop in from time to time. Snafzg is rank 40/44 in decent gear, which isn't terrible. He allows me to quickly jump in and out for a bit of instant RvR action whenever I feel the itch. I can't imagine I'll ever roll another character in the game again because I'm simply not that interested, but for me, WAR is what it is. It's an easy-acces game that you don't need to take too seriously (if you do, you'll be disappointed). It isn't all-consuming nor overly exciting. I don't have a burning desire to log in because I need to get the next thing accomplished. Given Paul Barnett's commentary all along about making a casual experience instead of one so engaging you wouldn't realize your house was burning down, I suppose they totally nailed that design aspect of the game. Props where props are due.

So, back to the blog then! As I said, there's no way I play enough to dedicate my writing solely to WAR. There are other upcoming MMOs, however, that look very appealing. Champions Online. Jumpgate Evolution. Global Agenda. Aion Online. I can't promise this new "general MMO blog" will be updated with multiple or even just one post per day like TheGreenskin was in its heyday, but by expanding my options, it should at least give me more things to talk about.

I really do enjoy having a creative writing outlet like a blog. Hopefully, you'll stick around for the ride. I'm working on another secret project that I'll reveal later this summer depending on a certain MMO's release date. I'm also developing an interesting MMO comedy podcast with Syp of BioBreak, which should be somewhat entertaining. The first episode will hopefully be out soon.

Finally, there will be no ads on this site. I would have shut down TheGreenskin months ago but I had advertising obligations. As I said above, mixing business with pleasure isn't always the best idea. One will usually dominate causing the other to suffer.

Stay tuned! :)