• Deep, immersive play: there’s literally too much to do around town and at home to get everything done in a given day.
• Customization galore: nearly every in-game object can be tweaked easily using the themes toolkit, allowing on-the-fly adjustments to furniture, home decor, and clothing. Plus, customization doesn’t cost your sim a thing!
• New traits for your sim mean a lot of fun: make your sim a loner, a computer geek, evil, insane, artistic, a good cook, or anything in between. Every trait gives certain benefits (and sometimes drawbacks) to your sim’s daily interactions. Best of all, traits allow for a fair amount of personality customization.
• Re-vamped career ladder: the same old career tracks are there (military, cooking, business, law enforcement, etc.) but the jobs available at each level have been totally reworked. In addition, career advancement is no longer about how many friends you have, but about how well you get along with your boss and coworkers.
• Random opportunities: the random events which occur in-game are much more fun, and usually involve more work on your part. This is a good thing, and makes the opportunities more based on your own choices than on the luck of the draw.
• “No loading times”: your sim can travel from their house to any other location in town with no load screen.
• Gardening is absolutely awesome!

Cons:

• Build-a-Sim creator is clunky and unintuitive: the sliders for determining facial structure are often confusing, especially if you’re transitioning from The Sims 2. And some features which were customizable in The Sims 2 can no longer be edited.
• Far less available customization for community lots: because town buildings run scripts specific to the type of building and the action desired (eating, working, etc.) when sims enter them, it is virtually impossible to edit your town’s businesses or restaurants.
• “No loading times” doesn’t mean no lag – the game performed adequately, but not without stutters on my last-generation white Intel iMac. Still, the game seems to run bug-free on OS X Leopard.
• Social interactions are still a bit repetitive, and some social interactions are downright illogical – the lines between a sim’s “best friend” and “love interest” seem extremely blurry.

Conclusion: A highly diverting use of time.

Social gaming is still relatively new to me. Growing up in a one-computer household with a cranky, old dial-up modem, the most “in-game chat” I ever experienced was dominating the dinner-time talk by discussing battle tactics for Heroes of Might and Magic with my dad.

Playing World of Warcraft showed me a whole new world of gaming, where social exchange, from trading to chatting to following battle orders given to you by another human in real-time during a raid, were all completely foreign. Nevertheless, after a few months in the wilds of my first Massively Multiplayer Online Game, the social element had become one of the most entertaining, amusing, and, at times, totally frustrating aspects of the game.

It’s no secret that Blizzard are pulling in their top developers to design some next-generation MMOG. But exactly what the MMOG will be – and whether Blizzard is going to develop a new franchise, or use one of their three existing universes, has been up to speculation. And for awhile there, some folks in the blogosphere were saying that the new, top-secret MMOG could be World of Diablo.

Personally, I disagree. We’ve already got D3 coming out – why would Blizzard confuse their player base by offering a similar game in two different platforms? And yet, that might just be a clever way to ensure that the title continues to thrive. After all, sales of Diablo II are still going strong, bolstered by fan anticipation of D3.

Nevertheless, there’s a far cry between the immersive and multi-faceted genre of MMOGs like World of Warcraft, and the focused, dare I say linear style of both Diablo II and its predecessor. And after playing a few Battle.net sessions of my own, I concluded that while still a fun, engaging game, Diablo II is certainly not a strong social platform.

Top reasons why Diablo shouldn’t become an MMOG:

There’s never any down-time. Diablo is essentially a massively-scaled dungeon crawl – a never-ending lightning-quick search for the best monsters and the best treasure. Your character is constantly moving, changing dungeons, regions, even whole continents to keep searching for that ultimate boss, Diablo, and the (hopefully) great loot he drops. Move too slow, take too much time smelling the flowers, or as the case may be, chatting to your teammates, and you’ll not only lose track of your friends, but you might just get slaughtered by wandering mobs or respawning minions. Gameplay in Diablo moves way too fast to chat, at least not without a voice client.

The game is all hack-and-slash. While the game is set in a fantasy universe, there are really very few RPG elements to Diablo, and in most social games, it’s the non-combat game elements which trigger as much chat and social interaction as the combat itself. What, we’re supposed to stand around and analyze Gheed’s strange fascination with Charsi, or count the number of times Alkor sneezes?

Items aren’t exactly comparable – and that’s a good thing. Don’t get me wrong – I LOVE that Diablo II uses a random item generator. It means that every play session is unique and interesting, even if I’m downing Diablo himself for the 15th time. Even copies of what appear to be the same item have different statistics and sometimes different character buffs. But most MMOGs don’t use random item generators because they affect game balance. Sure, WoW gives you random item drops – but each item in the game has set stats and characteristics. Not so in Diablo II. Which means it’s much harder for me to compare my loot with that of my friends. Still, I love going back to bosses I’ve already defeated to see if they’ll drop anything better the next time. And I don’t think I’d want to give that up if Diablo became a MMOG.

All this aside, I have to say that if Diablo were made into a MMOG, I would still probably play it. Diablo is an incredible franchise, filled with potential for even more. And lead game designer Jay Wilson did say in an interview last year that the Diablo story will not end with D3. So maybe that new MMOG won’t be so new after all. Are any of the obstacles I’ve mentioned insurmountable? Of course not, and certainly not for a company like Blizzard. But I still say it’d take a major overhaul of the Diablo system as we know it to change the game from a lightning-fast action game into a social experience.

• Why the Diablo franchise shouldn’t become a MMOG, or “How can we possibly have time to chat when there’s Duriel to kill?”
• Why Baldur’s Gate should be remade so everyone can adore its splendor on modern operating systems, or “Isn’t it time for the concept of an open-ended single-player RPG to reappear in the gaming world?”
• Why I’m disappointed in Spore.

Until then, happy trails, everyone, and don’t forget to back up your data and recharge your batteries.

* Yes, I know that grammar’s terrible.

The first computer game I ever played at home was SimAnt – a simulation game which placed the user in control of a real-time colony of digital ants. The game was billed as entertaining, rather than educational, but it had a clear basis in science: the behavior of the digital ants on my screen was informed by some of the same factors which real-world ants use to determine their behavior, including pheromones, barriers, and the presence of predators and enemies. Yet the premise of the game was to fill the yard and house of a typical suburban homeowner with ants, thus driving the humans and all other species off the property. Thus while the game was definitely educational in origin, my interest in it was more for entertainment than for instruction. Yet SimAnt also marked a trend in my school education – using computer games to teach life lessons and academic or social concepts both basic and complicated. As an elementary schooler, I even did reports on real-life ant behavior which was in part informed by a computer game. For me, games were not just a diversion, they were a resource.

But can games teach? Of course there are “educational” titles out there, games which are meant to be instructional, rather than recreational tools. I played “games” in school which helped me learn typing, arithmetic, or spelling, and I don’t think anyone would label them detrimental to my education. Typing tutors and number crunching games serve the dual purpose of teaching basic mechanics of math and language, and of introducing students to using computers, which is a necessary skill in and of itself. But these games are really more like electronic flashcards – study aids in digital form.

I’m really talking more about what happens when a younger person takes the plunge and buys (or asks their parent to buy) a game which isn’t on the educational shelf. Are there applicable life lessons to be found amidst the coding and graphics of an RPG, FPS, RTS, TBS, or MMOG title?

Ethan Kennerly writes that many games excel at teaching the human brain about systems and concepts, from the basics of psychology, to urban and collective planning to history and politics. He lists a number of different board- and computer-game titles which fulfill this role, including The Sims, SimCity, Civilization, and even Poker.

And Microsoft recently launched a study on that most infamous of genres, the FPS, to determine if more violent, combat-based games can teach significant concepts like mathematics.

SimCity and related simulation titles are perhaps the first place most people go when drawing educational comparisons between textbooks and computer games. After all, these games are based on real-life behavior and situations. From SimCity, I learned the basics of city planning, from not placing my high-polluting industries right next to where my sims lived, to allocating enough in my budget for public parks, prisons, and paperwork without raising property taxes too high. And despite its emphasis on conspicuous consumption, The Sims series can also teach users time management, responsibility, budget planning and other important life skills.

The Civilization series is also touted as an educational-tool-within-a-game, because it puts gamers in charge of managing the culture, civics, and overall history of real-world societies. Sure, the game has world domination as its end-goal, but the journey to stake your claim over the entire planet requires building significant infrastructure while balancing many different factors, including domestic production and citizen health and happiness, international relations from diplomacy to trade to warfare, and scientific research and technological development.

It is perhaps less common to hear that gamers can learn life lessons from RPG, FPS, or RTS titles. But I think there are things to be learned from other games, too, including games which focus on fighting, looting, weaponry, tactics, and violence.

From Heroes of Might and Magic, I learned to balance my resources, including money, time, and other, rarer supplies in order to build a diverse army capable of overcoming all other opponents.

From Warcraft and its successors, I learned to maximize efficiency while minimizing the downtime of my production units, ensureing that my army was always growing to meet the demands of a shifting world with multiple enemies.

From Prince of Persia, I learned time management, honing my reaction times, mental mapping skills, and ability to respond to change down to the wire to ensure that I could win the game within the mere 60 minutes allowed me.

Even an FPS like Unreal Tournament, a game focused entirely on death-match killing, can help teach strategy, versatility, and ability to respond to changing conditions.

From Baldur’s Gate and other team-based RPGs, I learned to utilize the unique abilities of each team member – druid, paladin, mage, priest, warrior, rogue, etc. – to achieve success over any one of the traps, tricks, fights, or diplomatic situations at hand.

And when it comes to learning skills from games, I have a special spot in my heart for RPGs. While on the surface, RPGs focus on getting treasure, learning new, often violent abilities, and killing dragons, orcs, goblins, humans, or small fluffy bunnies, these games also teach their users a great deal. RPGs, even World of Warcraft, are at their core language-based games, which force users to parse and analyze in-game text to find clues and details which allow them to succeed in any given situation. It’s not just young readers who can benefit from reading all that quest text – after all, anyone who’s ever had to study for the SATs knows that an ability to find critical words and phrases from within a wall of text can be a lifesaver in an academic environment.

And MMOGs have their own unique sets of educational tools by the sheer fact that they are social games which foster both cooperation and competition among other people, not computers. As one of my own friends in-game puts it, “The game gives us something to do as we all talk and connect, but ultimately, the game is made by the people.”  And the fact that MMOGs are user-driven means that gamers can learn important social skills in addition to academic and life lessons. Yes, MMOGs often revolve around getting loot and killing monsters, or even around killing other player characters, but in order to do any of those things, a gamer has to interact with other gamers, and to learn how to coexist, negotiate, and strategize with them as well.

Now, what use in the modern world, and especially in my desk-job career could I possibly have for building an army? Not much. Does killing a dragon help me get through that board meeting or complete that memo? Of course not. But in addition to teaching gamers how to summon dragons, kill their enemies, and become masters of the universe, games – and I mean those games which even ESRB warms younger users to avoid because of violence or adult behavior – are also replete with applicable lessons on a variety of subjects, from time management to resource development to budget allocation to conflict management and resolution. Lessons, in short, which one would more expect to see on a career resume than on a game box.

I spent many happy hours of my childhood blasting space aliens, unlocking puzzles, or donning cloak and sword to fight dragons, all within the realm of my computer. Much to my mother’s dismay, I forsook the stereotypical childhood activities like team sports, summer camp, or sleepovers to spend more time delving into digital dungeons or trying to top my previous game high score. It didn’t help that my father was a gamer too, that the two of us would spend hours playing or talking about playing games in worlds completely foreign to her.

Going to the game store was a weekly event at my house. Every Saturday morning my dad and I would hop in the car and go peruse the shelves of our local electronics store, to return home with some new title which would occupy our time. Gaming was so much a part of what my dad and I did at home that my mother, who had hundreds, if not thousands of cumulative hours to witness and analyze our passion ultimately likened computer games to an addictive substance. And she said that with each new game over the years, my dad and I would go through various phases of interest, including:

Obsession: The game is so new and fascinating that we spend every waking hour trying to explore its various options, usually playing late into the night, oblivious to all else.

Withdrawal: We talk about the game nonstop when we’re not playing, ignoring all other conversation topics. If someone else is listening, we tell them all about the game, even if they’re not a gamer.

Burnout: The puzzles have been solved, the monsters have been killed, and we no longer get our usual “fix” by playing the game. It was at this stage that we “surface,” to finally talk about other things than the game itself.

New Attraction: Having finally digested all that the previous game had to offer, we start looking elsewhere to satisfy our craving for games, find a new title, and begin the cycle all over again.

Every game I played growing up had these phases. But to gaming as a whole, I have remained a steadfast addict. To be honest, my obsession with computer games, often to the exclusion of many other things, was the single biggest source of conflict between my mother and me, not because it was detrimental to schoolwork or because it detracted from my finishing chores or helping around the house – I did those things, graduated on time and went to college and grad school. But through every phase of my life games themselves have remained a consuming interest.

It didn’t even matter what the game was. As a kid I spent just as much time on simple drop-and-match games like Tetris, or any of its clones, as I did on big-budget epic roleplaying or strategy games. I was ready to play absolutely anything, from Sim City to Lemmings to Unreal Tournament, Myst to Baldur’s Gate to Heroes of Might and Magic.

It is only recently that I have begun to explain to my mother why I game. I’ve boiled it down to three main reasons:

A Chance to Be a Protagonist. All fiction books have their protagonists. Good books make you care about their protagonists, to invest in them, cheering on their successes and bemoaning their failures. Games take that ability to relate to the hero of the story one step further by making you the hero, responsible for besting the baddies, rescuing the innocent and saving the world. In that sense, they are an immersive approach to the world of storytelling, allowing the gamer to truly be the change they want to see in the story. Games offer a chance to escape the humdrum of the normal and everyday to become something larger than life.

Ultimate Interactivity. Games equip their users with the tools they need to be successful, but it’s up to the gamer to determine how to use those tools to achieve the best ends. If some people read mystery novels for a chance at determining the killer even before the detective does, then gaming takes that mindset to the next step. And for all those readers out there who have been frustrated with their favorite protagonist for ignoring clues, making mistakes, or failing to grasp the basic nature of the puzzles put before them, gaming offers a chance to make up for all of that, because the outcome of the game is as good as you can make it with the tools you’re given. Every action the gamer takes in-game has an effect, and the game’s final outcome, be it victory or defeat, is in your hands. For me growing up, when so little else was under my control, the fact that I could dictate the outcomes of a game meant power, security and fun.

Immersive Content. Books allow the reader to picture characters, places and events in their mind’s eye, but games come fully equipped with a graphical setting, characters, and animations already in place. And games take storytelling one step further by setting everything to music. Personally, I enjoy having to imagine the people and places I read about, but I’m even more fond of experiencing the game world already made around me in color, lights, words and sound. Gaming is a conglomeration of the written word, visual art and music, too expansive to fit inside just one little box.

Ultimately, games are just another form of media, offering what most media types do: diversion, entertainment, provocation, and food for analysis. And I partake of them freely, just as I read books, listen to music, go to the cinema, or visit a museum to see a painting.

When I put my obsession in perspective, I noticed a change in how my mother reacted to gaming. This of course could be due to the fact that I’m no longer a teenager arguing with her over why I should spend my Friday night killing Diablo instead of working on my history paper, but a bona fide adult with a full-time job living on my own in a different state. If I choose to spend my weekend gaming, there’s really nothing she can do about it. But games as a whole have also changed quite a bit since I was young. They’ve gotten sleeker, more approachable, even genuinely attractive to the public at large. MMOGs now offer people the chance to experience gaming collectively, to make social contacts, friends and partners while they play. And casual games meant for kids, commuters, and gaming newbies mean that more people than ever before are playing games.

So the perception of gamers has changed, too. No longer are we all high school nerds without dates who have LAN parties in our parents’ basements. We’re not all loners who have the communication skills of a deranged hedgehog. And to my mother, I am no longer a withdrawn introvert who uses games to escape from all aspects of reality. To be sure, gaming is still a release and a diversion, but I know now that when my mother calls me up to tell me about the latest merger between Blizzard and Activision, or asks me to forward her some in-game music because she likes the theme to Wrath of the Lich King, she’s approaching gaming as a healthy hobby, not a wasted time sink. Now if only I can get her to join me in my World of Warcraft guild…

1. Don’t die. Or, alternatively, Heal Thyself! You have more healing abilities than the average non-mana fighter, so use them to the best of your ability. Death Strike when you can, pop consumables, sacrifice your ghoul, bandage, pray, use Icebound Fortitude or Lichborne, do whatever you can to keep your health above that red zone, and keep healers from worrying about you. And if you die, you better come back as a ghoul.
2. Don’t cause your friends to die, whether from wanton use of Death Grip, berserking ghouls, or plain stupidity. Learn boss fights in advance, and know what that debuff that just got cast on you does. We are a new class, yes. But that’s no excuse for ignorance.
3. Don’t pull aggro from the tank. All it takes is a mis-cast Death Grip or Dark Command to cause mayhem throughout your entire party. To this end, always keep an eye on your Presences too.
4. Know your role, and use your special abilities well and often. DKs are the leaders in melee anti-magic classes. We have interrupts, silences, taunts, and shields, all of which revolve around making us both resistant to magical damage and capable of dealing out damage better to magical classes. Let the warriors and druids handle the big sweaty hitters, and the paladins manage the trash mobs. Our prey is mana-users, and we hunt them better than anybody else.
5. Always maintain your diseases on your targets. There is absolutely no excuse for not doing this, as it’s how we DKs do our best damage. Use Pestilence and Blood Boil whenever applicable, for in the current state of the game, AoE is our friend. But, remember also to…
6. Pay attention to CC. Do not indiscriminately DoT magely sheep or cancel priestly shackles. When you AoE, do it intelligently.
7. Keep monsters away from your squishy friends. It’s often easy to forget that despite all our damage, DKs can also be a support class. We can shield our friends from magical damage, call more minions into battle to turn the tide, and act as off-tanks in a pinch to keep aggro where it belongs. It is never noble to ignore pleas of help from the mages and priests you’ve sworn to protect just to get a higher ranking on that damage meter.
8. Love your ghoul. It can increase your damage, interrupt spellcasting, heal you, and act as interference when your squishy friends get targeted. That said, always use your ghoul well, and don’t distract other players by misuse.
9. Help your party buff. Horn of Winter may be all we have in our spellbook, but that’s no reason to sit idle while the raid prepares its assault. Max out your cooking and share food with your friends. If a mage or warlock is casting a table or stone, help them out. Be responsive and active, for in the buff department, DKs get more than we give.
10. Do not abandon your post. The tank is there for keeping the attention of the boss, the healers are there to keep the party up, and you are there, though thick and thin, to see that the boss goes down. When the @#$% hits the fan, use everything at your disposal to see that you do your job, regardless of repair costs, personal safety, or used consumables.

As the first “hero class” of WoW, it’s certainly to be expected that DKs would make a mark on the game – after all, they’re completely distinctive in being the only class which starts at level 55, in being able to tank in all three talent trees, and in having fewer abilities to master at the outset, but ultimately requiring management of abilities previously unseen in the game – Rune Energy is like a cross between rage and mana, and the runes themselves are in a class all of their own.

There’s no doubt that DKs have made their mark on PvP. At last count, Death Knights were the second most popular class, after Retadins, in arena. WoW forums and blogs are filled with complaints of Death Knights being OP, unbalanced, and a threat to every other class trying to make a name for itself in arena. DKs are just as big a threat to other players in battlegrounds, especially in the 50-59 bracket: unlike every other class they get a fast land mount at level 58, and they enter battlegrounds with a matching set of blue gear. I personally noticed that when I joined battlegrounds on my DK I was topping the kill charts for the very first time in my WoW career.

But when you broaden the question to the impact DKs have had in the game as a whole, the camps are divided.

Some believe that DKs have no defining role or purpose in the grand scheme of PvE content in WoW. In his recent monologue on the subject, Totalbiscuit claimed that they’re not needed as a tanking class because they don’t have effective talent specs for tanking in raids. And, he notes, most DKs he meets don’t want to tank anyway – they’re in the game to DPS. And as DPS, he says they don’t top DPS meters either. And even if they did, do we really need yet another tanking or DPS class? He therefore questions whether Death Knights have any distinctive role in the game, and a number of his respondents agree with him.

But I have personally noticed that many formerly-ranged DPS-ers have abandoned their former toons to adopt the quick damage, versatile play style, and high survivability available to a plate-wearing class. In fact, it’s a running joke that all those who used to play warlocks have converted to join the Lich King, what with both PvP and PvE content in game being so based on AoE instead of DoT combat. It’s happened in my guild (our hunter class leader just rerolled a Frost tanking DK). Heck, it’s even happened to me – it’s pretty likely that I’ll ding 80 on my DK before I do on my mage.

Truth be told, I think death knights are special. Sure, they tank, and many classes tank, and sure, they do melee DPS, which isn’t unique. But they do have some other tricks up their sleeve:

• Universal Tanking: DKs are the only class which can tank in any of its three trees. This means that literally any DK can tank if they want to. All they have to do is change stances. No other class can say that.
• Anti-Magic Class: DKs have two silence spells, multiple spell interrupts, both a self- and group anti-magic shield, the ability to heal in combat by doing damage, and an instant-cast immunity to fear, charm, and mind control. Death Grip removes the need for line-of-sight pulling in dungeons, and on top of it all, DKs have multiple ranged abilities should the mob/boss/enemy player get out of melee range, as slippery casters are known to do.
• Self-Heal: While not a healing class, DKs can heal themselves, again, by utilizing a baseline ability available to characters in every single tree.
• I Wear My Undeath on My Sleeve: Ok, DKs may fight like other classes on paper, but are you seriously telling me that there’s another class out there with abilities like Summon Gargoyle, Army of the Dead, Pestilence, and Blood Boil? Death Knight combat abilities are macabre, eldritch, and grisly, because DKs are the most anguished, emo, and, in my opinion, badass class in the game. Everything about DKs screams Death and Decay.
• Ghouls: Maybe it’s because I’m Unholy spec’d but there’s something absolutely awesome about being the only melee class with a pet.
• I Have Three Professions: Runeforging is kind of like a cross between inscription and enchanting, and it’s available only to DKs. There’s a rune for every weapon and every situation, and managing them all could be considered an occupation in and of itself.
• The Cool Factor: DKs are the first class to get their own starting area. They have their own city, and hey, let’s face it, they’ve been by the big guy Arthas’ side for much of the game, which is incredibly neat. They have cooler voices, cooler eyes, and cooler abilities than most other classes.
• Easy to Play, Hard to Master: I firmly believe that anyone can pick up a death knight, and by now, everyone should at least have tried to take their DK through the incredibly cool phased starting area. But while it seems simple, being a DK comes down to management of many different factors, and players can play around for a long time finding that perfect rotation which optimizes the cooldown of every single rune, the best way to set up diseases on every target, and the optimum use of their Runic Power.

If you look around Outland and Northrend it becomes immediately apparent that the legions of DKs have not subsided, and that many of those who signed up “just to take a look” at the class haven’t gotten sick of their DKs yet. Forget the supposed tanking shortage, after five dungeons run with a total of 20 other DKs, I firmly believe that the healer shortage is far more serious. After all, many DKs are capable of tanking on the fly even if they’re DPS spec’d before level 80.

In a previous post I outlined some of the reasons I personally enjoy playing a death knight. To sum up, I play my DK because she’s versatile, great at PvP, and has fewer abilities to manage than my old hotbar- and macro-heavy mage. I wouldn’t necessarily call DKs a hybrid class – after all they tank by doing DPS and they… uh, DPS by doing DPS too. But there is clearly still some appeal to the approachability of the Death Knight which has galvanized a strong contingent of followers who haven’t yet gone back to their old characters, who stick around with their icy-blue-eyed friends because they like the ease of play, the newness, or just the plain old mystique that death knights have to offer. If we’re not taking over the world, we’re at least carving our niche in it.

I spent years of high school and college playing the Baldur’s Gate series, and Diablo II. And I still played them long after their interfaces had grown clunky and their graphics were out of date, simply because they had a great story to tell. I’ve often compared a good computer game to a good book, because it sets a great scene, has great characters, and draws you into the action. The best part of roleplaying (RP) games is that they let you become the protagonist. And when I find a game which lets me be a good protagonist, I’m hooked.

Most modern RP games allow a high level of interactivity. You choose your race, gender, class and appearance. Some games even allow for “alignment” based on your in-game decisions. Given all these factors, there are dozens, sometimes hundreds of permutations for game play.

But in most single-person RP games, there comes a time when the final monster has been vanquished and the ultimate treasure has been looted. A time, in short, when there is nothing left for your character to do. In the worst cases, your ability to play the avatar you’ve spent weeks of your life with is terminated with the final cut-scene and your name on the in-game high scores list – the ultimate authoritarian end to the world you’ve spent so much time exploring.

WoW to me is therefore the quintessential eternal game. There will never come a time when the game is “over,” no matter how many times you slay Arthas. And no matter what level your character is, you can always come back and play them again.

Of course, from a financial standpoint, it’s better to create a game which people will play for years, a game which is basically serialized, not to mention social, and possessed of a random number generator which makes you forever wondering what better treasures await you if you only fight that boss again. MMORPGs were made to allow near infinite interactivity, and for this same reason they have also been likened to addictive substances. And among many, WoW has been called the “gateway drug” to the world of MMOGs.

Does this mean I’ve become a slave to my monthly WoW fee, and another junkie geek waiting for my next “hit” of content? Maybe.

But it also means I’ve become a WoW addict with just cause: the game isn’t over yet, not by a long shot. In fact, if we’re to believe the powers that be who touched on this subject at BlizzCon, the work on the new expansion is already well underway, and will be nothing like any of us expect.

And just like the way serialized content was unlocked with each successive patch in the Burning Crusade, the “end-game” content in Wrath hasn’t even hit us yet. No, we should be expecting that post patch 3.1.x.

So to those who decry Wrath for being to easy or too short, remember that there’s more coming. And even if Arthas falls, there’s more story for us all to unlock in the world of Azeroth. I for one will be happy to pony up to the next expansion when it comes.

One thing I like about Frost spec is that it is so utterly distinctive: no other class has the range of frost spells that we mages do, or can do such wild and wonderful things with the powers of cold that we can. While other classes are busy honing their other abilities to take on the Lich King’s frozen wastes, as a mage I use the very cold of the Icecrown for my own desires, and turn that cold back on its master to lay waste to the Scourge itself.

Nearly all mage abilities are showy: our spells wreak devastation upon our foes, and our damage counts are high. Used to seeing my lovely Pyroblast crits and my crackling Arcane Power buff and my lovely purple Arcane Missiles, I was a little nervous trading all those varied colors and explosions for the cold blue ice missiles which give the Frost tree its trademark. In fact, I put off respec’ing into Frost until I had more than 51 talent points to spend, so that I could immediately determine whether the tree was a good fit for me or not.

Any concerns I had about Frost being slow, or repetitive, or boring to use were dead and buried by the end of my very first battleground. And honestly, even with all the praise which the Arcane tree is getting these days, I felt it was finally time for this once-sworn PoM/Pyro mage to finally shake off her old spec and assume the mantle of the truly dedicated Frost devotee. And thus, what follows is my ode to all things chilly and wonderful.

Top Reasons to Love Frost Talents (to follow along, visit the WoW talent calculator here):

Frostbite. The very first talent points I spent went into this ability, because fully-spec’d, it gives you a 15% chance to freeze your target in place for 5 seconds upon landing any frost spell. Why is this important? Take a look at the next reason to love Frost…

Shatter. Before, I never understood why the Frost tree had so many ways to freeze opponents in place. We have Frost Nova, our Water Elemental can cast Freeze to root enemies in place, our Ice Barrier roots enemies when it breaks, and our Frostbite talent gives us an additional chance to freeze enemies on the receiving end of one of our frost spells. All of this is because when our enemies are frozen, we have a 50% chance to critically hit them with all spells. All. Spells. In an ideal world, mages cavort through Northrend, snaring everything in our path, then turning around and destroying all those frozen enemies with one mighty blast of Blizzard or Ice Lance.

Improved Blizzard. For a Frost mage, Blizzard does it all, from destroying vast groups of monsters while soloing, to devastating invading enemy forces in PvP. As a PoM/Pyro mage, I had absolutely no reason to use Blizzard, and buried it deep in my task bars. Now, it is my favorite spell to spam in BGs or multiple-mob encounters. Why? Because Improved Blizzard slows down your targets by 75% when fully-spec’d, making it much harder for that group of enraged enemies to reach you. And with Frostbite and Shatter, you can take enemies down to zero HP en masse without ever losing a beat.

[Note for Patch 3.0.8]: Come the new patch, Frost mages will have their Improved Blizzard slowing debuff reduced to 50%. This is not only a cause for mourning on the parts of mages everywhere, it’s also a very good reason to invest fully in the next excellent Frost talent I’ve come to know and love…

Permafrost. What’s better than having a Blizzard which slows your enemies down by 75%? Having a Blizzard which slows them down by 85%, of course, which is exactly what Permafrost does! Permafrost slows your targets by an additional 10%, meaning they have even more difficulty reaching you. And if they do reach you, you’ve got this next ability to throw at them…

Ice Barrier. I hate Mana Shield. I really do. Since I played a priest first, Mana Shield feels like such a cop-out, a cheap date of a spell which looks pretty when you ask it out to dinner but by the end of the night has not only consumed all the money in your wallet but is trying to suck out your brain too. Blizzard threw Mana Shield at mages in a claim to make us less squishy, but really they wound up giving us a spell that only makes us more vulnerable, because it drains the thing we need more than hit points alone to survive: our mana. There is no logic behind giving the most mana-hungry class of all a shield ability which eats away at our mana, unless they just like to see us use Mana Shield and then run madly around the battlefield, robes flapping, trying to dodge the enemy while being unable to cast anything because our pretty blue bar is empty.

Enter Ice Barrier, which to me is even better than that most famous of all priest spells, Power Word: Shield. Ice Barrier has a minute-long duration. At its very best, PW: Shield has a 30-second duration. Like PW: Shield, Ice Barrier absorbs damage (up to 3,300 at rank without draining mana. But Ice Barrier has something even more elegant and delicious up its sleeve: when properly-spec’d in its companion talent Shattered Barrier, Ice Barrier ensnares your enemies, giving you either time to run away, or time to blast their faces with your Shatter crit combos.

Summon Water Elemental. The signature talent for Frost mages, and for a reason. Properly spec’d, mages can have a nice, friendly (if a bit squelchy) pet join them in combat for up to a minute every 2.4 minutes. The best part? Damage done by your elemental does not add to your threat.

Cold Snap. It’s nice having an emergency button, and Cold Snap is just that – it clears the cooldown on all recently-used Frost abilities. I use it in PvE when additional foes join the fight and I need to re-snare all of my attackers or reset my shields. I use it in PvP when I need to summon my Elemental again, when someone breaks through my freeze early, or when I’m suddenly on the receiving end of some nasty crits.

Deep Freeze. I’m going to be controversial and leave this talent on my list. Yes, it got nerfed big-time before Wrath launched, and yes, it’s situational, but I like it. A lot. There’s nothing like mages who can stun a frozen target, thus preventing them from doing damage, and then keep on blasting away with the damage spells, getting Shatter crits. Because Deep Freeze presents yet another option to, well, keep your target frozen for an extra 5 seconds. It’s useful when soloing, it’s useful when doing PvP, and it’s even useful when clearing trash mobs in dungeons.

Top Reasons to Love Frost Spells (to follow along, visit wowwiki here):

Ice Armor. I didn’t use this spell much as a PoM/Pyro mage, and with good reason. Why slow your enemies when you can just pop Molten Armor and crit them to death? But for Frost mages, Ice Armor acts as an offensive frost spell, and thus can trigger your freeze ability. If an enemy hits you, they have a 15% chance of being encased in ice and unable to move for 5 seconds, without you having to do anything at all. The freezing proc for Ice Armor is great for battlegrounds, especially Warsong Gulch flag runs. It can also be a good, if unpredictable extra escape card when trying to get out of difficult PvE situations.

Ice Lance. Who doesn’t love a spammable instant-cast spell which can be cast while on the run and does triple damage when targets are frozen? Like Blizzard, Ice Lance is probably of only passing use to non-Frost mages, but for those who have followed the winter’s chilly call, it’s a formidable ally.

Ice Block. Ice Block is the mage’s panic button. We use it in PvE when we gain aggro and mobs come racing at us intent on sending us to meet the spirit healer. We use it in PvP to avoid spells, attacks and big angry red hunter pets which would otherwise kill us. But the nice thing about being Frost spec’d and using this spell, is that paired with Cold Snap, you can use Ice Block a lot more frequently, including at least twice in every arena battle.

Mages are a power-hungry class, no doubt about it, and most of us got into this business for the huge crits, devastating spells, beautiful fireworks, and sheer spellpower of which the class is capable. Having blasted my way through 70+ levels of faster-than-light Pyroblasts and the incredible boosts to spell crit and damage of the later Arcane tree, I am happy to say that the power, control, and utter beauty of Frost is now my spec of choice. Happy winter, everyone!

1. World of Warcraft Game Time. Ringing in at $14.99 per month, WoW game time is a sure-fire solution to your last-minute gift-giving blues. Upon purchase, an email is sent immediately to your friend or relative, allowing them to cash in their game time right away. Game time can be purchased in one-month, 3-month, and six-month increments from the Blizzard store.
2. Portable Solar Charger. Run any web search for a solar powered electronics charger, and you’ll find plenty of different renewable-energy options to charge cell phones, iPods, and other electronics on the go. Most chargers run the gamut between $30 and $100.
3. Support Green Energy. Worried about all the electricity those gaming consoles, computers, and mechanical gadgets use? Go green by purchasing an e-card from Native Energy. Your geeky friend or relative gets a great e-card, and Native Energy uses your donation to help build eco-friendly wind turbines or farm methane projects.

Happy holidays to all!