Ever since I read Jesse Schell’s The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses when I play a game I tend to look at what pieces are contributing to the experience and how the “Lenses” apply to that game.  Right now my memory of the lenses is a bit rusty, but I started playing a new Facebook game to look at how it works and doesn’t work and thought I’d write my thoughts while they are fresh.

First off, the music has a nice “Fairy tale/adventure/disneyeque” sound to it.  I know that I may tire of it after a while, but right now it is enjoyable. How you design loops so they enhance and don’t get annoying is a really good question.  That said it seems to have more than few segments of the music (perhaps even “movements’) so it isn’t just a short loop.

The graphics are cartoon and on the cute side, but defined enough that you aren’t going “aaaah saccharine”.   The look is consistent, the graphics go together and nothing makes you go “Wait…where did that come from.”

The avatar for the user has a default so the user can get going but has a small but reasonable set of customization options (and probably you can buy more.)  It is nice to be able to pick your character’s look, but at the same time it is good to not have too many options or it gets a bit overwhelming.   (n.b. by default it created a female character for me and I didn’t check if I can change my avatar to a guy (I just changed my hair color from blond.))

The game does a nice job of gradually building the player’s knowledge of how to play.  You start out with some small quests that teach you he basics, and then as  you complete the quests you get new ones that teach you new skills (how to use the market, how to plant, how to move the gloom away.)  The game also provides good feedback as you make progress through the quest – encouraging you on.

The game also introduces new characters as you go and you end up “interacting” with them through quests and the like.  It makes you feel more like there is a “there” there.

This is a Facebook flash game and as such it is “click on things to interact” kind of game.   As far as the type of game, it has a few elements. The first is a “gathering/building” game ala Tiny Towers/Farmville/etc.   It gives you small simple repeatable tasks with clear indicators when you must maintain things, plus the “playing house” aspect that these games have where you can build things and move things around allowing you to entertain your inner organizer/decorator.

Secondly it has a “questing and adventuring” game.  The various NPCs (non player characters) give you quests that you fulfill, but in addition there is an overall story where you are the Lord or Lady of your estate and you are fighting off the gloom and rescuing people. The story quest line (which interplays with the “here’s how you play the game” quests) uses the language of hero quest lines.  You may be the chosen one, but there are challenges to meet and bad guys to fight off, and those who will help you in the journey that you must seek him out in the  to learn from him…but first you must gain the skills for your journey, etc.  (Sorry…Joseph Campbell is on my reading list still so I can’t tell you if this is the classic hero’s journey – but it mirrors many games and movies that I’ve been told reflect it.)

The language as you receive and complete the quests is written in a way to make you feel your “choosiness”, which does give a nice feel good.

In addition to the type of gaming the way they have implement the performing tasks is quite well done.  When you click on something to clear it/harvest it/mine it/feed it/etc. when the actions is completed your rewards joyfully pop out onto the screen and you run your mouse over them to gather up the rewards.  For some reason this has a satisfying feel – like you are really gathering rather than just clicking – and also it allows them to throw out variable rewards.  Yes you get the item you harvested but you might get something else with it.  It makes each click a bit of a “surprise box” which adds to the feeling of adventure.  (Ok, perhaps I find adventure easily but the element of surprise does trigger something in the human pleasure psyche.)

Like most Facebook games it has the standard “invite your friends to be neighbors” and “visit your friends” quasi-social aspect.  Visiting lets you do tasks for your friend and vice versa.  However, when a friend has visited, you see them in your estate (somewhat standard behavior) and you can accept or reject their help (also standard) but then you watch them do the tasks (that they did whenever they stopped by) and you get to gather up the rewards from their tasks, and then you send them off with a gift.  While the end result is pretty much the same as the “Farmville model” since you are watching them do what they did and interacting to gather the rewards it has a very different feel – it’s like you got to see them visit.

As with many games there are resource limitations.  Some tasks take a set amount of time to complete – so you have to wait to do them.  You also have a limited resource of energy that limits how much you can do in any one session – you can wait or buy more energy -  (so the constraint can become coins in this case).   And then there is the space & money resource management as well.  All in all the time  & energy constraints seem the most “need management” so it is a pretty loose boundary but the constraint is there.  Also quests require resources, so you need to manage gathering and producing such resources to complete your tasks at hand.

Lastly they do a very nice job of always giving you something to complete.  When you finish one quest a new one appears.  Right now I have 4 quests (one for each NPC I’ve interacted with), plus animals to feed, periodic bad guys to fight off, and various and sundry tasks that i can chose to do.  It is easy to get into the “just one more task” mode because it just feels so productive – there is no time where you are going “hmm…nothing to do….”  which is good.

Anyway, those are some initial thoughts on Castleville.

It seems so odd posting about Second Life again, even though that is where all of this whole web 2.0 stuff stated for me, but here it is.

The other day I downloaded the latest Beta Viewer for SL which include the initial version of Basic and advanced modes.  There are a lot of things that I like about it, and some definite criticisms, and I thought I’d capture them here rather than in 140 character segments.

First off, and my favorite part of the viewer is they have improved the graphic rendering engine for the Mac significantly.  On my Macbook pro I rez places (and myself) fairly quickly (10-30 seconds in very limited testing – not with lots of people around) AND I can move.  In the same places on the old viewer it would take me a good 5 minutes to rez and walking was a step by step, step every second or two jerky experience.  That alone gives me more options on where i use Second Life.

When I started up the viewer I set it to basic mode just to see what the starting point was.  To start with there are a number of features that I liked:

The click to move is very nice, and is a simple way to move. Also the mouse to pan/turn the avatar was a nice way to look around, although it really is more of a “push against the world to move” action than a camera view.  (In other words, it moves exactly the opposite of mouse view in game like World of Warcraft.)  Alt-zoom is still there.  Also I really like the fact that the viewer 2 tab list HUD is gone, giving back some nice screen real estate and helping with the immersiveness.  Instead there are nice text buttons at the bottom out of the way of the screen.

I like the Gesture button – it makes it easier to “emote”.   The “Destinations” button is my favorite button.  It gives you a range of categories of places to explore and you can head off into the world and ideally find places where people are. The my avatar button has a nice selection of pre-made avatars with skin/costume combos.  It makes it easy for a newcomer to change their look.  I’d love to have my outfits displayed that way and be able to do wardrobe changes that easily with my bought clothing.

The “Howto” button is the last standout feature – it brings up help with a list of “how to do x”.  It is a fairly short list but then what you can do in basic mode is fairly limited, which brings me to my criticisms.

I understand that basic is designed to give a simple interface without too much to get new users started.  They have an excellent start, but there are some key features missing that make advanced a necessity (and the changes between the two very disorienting.)  Before I touch on the concerns with advanced we’ll finish up basic.

First off, although I can wander the world, I can’t return home.  To start with, there is no way to set a home, and then there is no way to ask the viewer to send me home (unless I can get there using the back button in the navigation component at the top.)  Even my web browser has  home button – this should be an easy and an early fix.

Secondly, there is no way to access your inventory.  You can still acquire inventory nicely but there is no way to get to that inventory in basic mode.   This seems like a huge oversight.  I understand that the inventory presentation is messy – and perhaps they didn’t know how to basicize it, but it is something that has be addressed.

As you might guess basic has no build mode.  I’m ambivalent about that.   On one hand it makes the UI very simple.  On the other hand, it means that to get to building they have to intentionally switch the mode of their viewer.  There is no accidentally discovering building.   While I think removing building from the much simplified right mouse click menus is correct, it would be nice if there was a menu option, like under Edit or perhaps it’s own, that would let a person discover building.

So…we’ve explored basic, realize we need to move to advanced to build and get to our inventory…let’s check out the jump our new user will have to go through.

First up, the HUD is back, with the tabs with the indecipherable icons on them.  As a plus it does seem to tuck out the way better than I recall it doing.  However, it could be hugely helped with at least mouseover text.  What are these strange icons and why are they on my screen?

Help is now up in the menus, and takes you to the old style help – no “how to” option here.  I think at least adding the how to help, as limited as it is, to the help menu options would be useful.

Moving along, our new user now tries to click to move to a new location and…that no longer works.  I hope they figured out wasd or arrow keys for movement while they were in basic.  Well, lets look around…wait…mouse turn is gone.  Luckily the “view” button that gives you a HUD that lets you change your view around exists, and if they try the help the directions for alt-zoom aren’t too far down in the help.  However, this change is jarring.   That, and even as an advanced user I’d like have the click to move & mouse turn options back.  They are great for casual looking around. (n.b. mouse turning does have a limitation as there is no way to look up (or to use it while flying) so it could use some revamping – perhaps to have more of a “mouse view” functionality rather than an “avatar turn” functionality.

Having not played with Viewer 2 that much I’m not sure that there is that much different in the Advanced mode from what existed in Viewer 2.  I think the new basic mode is a great start but there are some key missing things I’d like to see added.  Also, since at some point a basic user is likely to go advanced it would be good to have a few of the features of basic mode brought into advanced mode as well.   I look forward to seeing the next iteration of the viewer, which hopefully will advance the state of basic, and bring some new features to advanced.

This post was inspired by a meeting of the meetup group currently known as Serious Second Life. We were discussing what we are working on and what our involvement currently is in Second Life. For many of us we are less involved in Second Life, while still busy in virtual environments or sometimes simply busy with social networking/media sites and tools.

I know I’ve been a rare presence in Second Life. For a while it was the lack of a machine with enough horsepower to do anything in Second Life…you know, like walk. Now that has been resolved but I’m looking for that “project” or reason to reenter the world.

In the mean time I’ve been exploring gaming, game design, and augmented reality. One game that has caught my eye and made me ask some questions is Minecraft. I will say up front that I have only played a small amount of Minecraft, but I have been stunned and amazed by the videos out there of the creations made in that game. It has taken the gaming world by storm, being names game of the year by some. Yet at the same time it is an amazingly simple game. You start out building stuff with cubes, you can eventually program using logic gates, oh and and night the monsters come out so you better get your shelter built.

What I’ve seen of the game makes me say the simplicity brings out the creativity in people. It also makes me ask why is this a wild success yet Second Life is so…niche when the potential for creating is so vast in Second Life. I was looking for more on Minecraft and came across this article on G4TV’s site with this great quote:

“Unlike other world-building games like Second Life, where it’s theoretically possible to build whatever you like, but is, in practice, way more trouble than its worth, Minecraft isn’t hard, per se. Read a few “getting started” tutorials if you’d like, but after that, you’ll find your way without too much trouble. It’s not super time-consuming either. Give Minecraft a couple hours, and you will have an exciting adventure, I promise you. Plus, there’s enough danger inherent in guarding against death that it’s interesting, unlike Second Life.”

That started me thinking and reminded me of some past discussions on why the entrance to Second Life is so hard.

Beyond basic usability questions the real challenge is finding why you are there. Now needing to build so I don’t get eaten by monsters wouldn’t have enticed me to join Second Life. I know I was terrified of “damage turned on” areas in Second Life, even though I knew I would get my avatar back. But one thing that Second Life doesn’t have that real life has is an initial impetus to act.

Even if I picked a random point on the map and drove there in real life, my real life body would require me to seek out food and a place to sleep. I would wander, and likely run into some people and then find out more about a place. Just the nature of life causes that seeking.

Within Second Life, if I’m dropped in my natural curiosity might send me to explore, but for what? There is no defined objective. I don’t have this short list “food, sleep”,  I have an unbounded list “find something cool” which means infinite possibilities, which means infinite choice, which is a close cousin to analysis paralysis, which, with a handy “quit” button, means people exit the world.

While what you can do in Second Life is amazing, the creations are wonderful, the concerts are brilliant, the potential is huge, for the initial starter there is no simple goal to get them started that gives them a place to build from. For those who have stayed in Second Life they’ve come in with a specific purpose, or wandered luckily into a group that gave them a what to do that drew them in. But for those who wander there without such luck or escort it is hard to know where to go and what to do. I would say that this one thing is the largest barrier to coming in to Second Life – without a reason or a focus it is hard to find the why to remain, or to come back.

I think by this point the idea of “social networking” and “games” being two separate worlds has melted away with the popularity of casual games on Facebook.  Very few people who use social networking sites have not heard of Farmville or Zynga, even if they don’t play the games themselves.  We also have been seeing the gamification of sites (adding game elements to a site) – with social tie in, often with facebook tie in,  to try and increase engagement in sites that might otherwise get only brief visits.

However, the other side of gamification is the socialization (or is socialification?) of games.  This is where games start using social network tools sites to help promote themselves.  Like gamification socialification can be done well or poorly.  I do remember taking a test to see which faction I would be in some game that looked very cool – but at the moment I can’t remember what the game was called (or find it in my Facebook apps – I just looked) even though my thought was “Wow I’d like to check this game out.”  That said – having the social network site tie in can help promote a game.  Blizzard has World of Warcraft feeds that you can set up on Facebook (and that is nicely tuneable so it doesn’t spam your feed) so anyone who friends me will get occasional updates about what I’m doing in World of Warcraft, which if they don’t already play, may get them interested.

Today I came across a new Blizzard site, designed to promote the upcoming expansion pack – Cataclysm.  It is called Darkmoon Faire.  Unlike the achievement feed I think this has more potential to draw new players in. The fact that I got “1 Light in the Darkness” is just some random fact for most. However “fortunes’ and “factions” and hints of some of the elements of what makes World of Warcraft interesting might draw in new players who might just think of the game as just being “beating up on monsters”.   I haven’t had a chance to do much on the site yet, but just reading through the FAQ and glancing at the page it definitely shows an evolution of Blizzard’s socialification activities.

The interesting thing about the socialification of a game like World of Warcraft is that as an MMO it already has a social component.  We have guilds, groups, group activities, interaction with other players who are near you, etc.  However, the social aspect within the game is in its own realm (literally).  Guilds may create websites that people can socialize and discuss things outside of the game, and many do.  However, there is the game (or virtual world) social network and then there is the “real world” social network.  With the integration into sites such as Facebook (and Twitter) the divide between “virtual world” and real world becomes increasingly permeable.  Some will chose not to participate (as with RealID) or they may chose a mixed participation.  They may let friends know their interest in WoW through something like the Darkmoon Faire site, but yet not share their particular identities within the world.  However, as socialification of games continues keeping that division becomes more of conscious choice rather than just the natural state of things.

I went on the PTR to see some of the changes such as what happens to stats that are going away, what to do the trees look like and the like. I figured that some people won’t be heading over to the PTR and might like to see what these things look like. Most of the shots are from logging in as my warrior so the spell power/mp5 etc. changes won’t be reflected. This is also more of a “peek my head in and take some quick notes” update. For more in-depth analysis check out Tankspot and Elitist Jerks (as well as other good sources).

The source of some the biggest changes is influenced by Blizzard’s attempt to enable players to understand concepts like class specialization and training even without checking out websites. To that end the talent trees have changed significantly, and how you can apply points changes.

Talents

When you first go to put your points into a tree you are required to chose a tree. The DK selection looks like this:

If you click on “view talent trees” you can see the talents and select that way as well.

Once you pick your talent trees you need to put 31 points into your chosen tree before you can put points in any of the other trees. At level 80 that means you only have 5 points left and that is not enough to get to the second tier of any secondary talent tree. At 85 you will have enough additional points to get into the second tree.
This is an example of the warrior tree:

Training
Along with the tree changes your spell book will let you know if you haven’t trained on some talents. It tells you “See your trainer” like this:

Stats
Another big change is the simplification of stats. There are a number of stats that are just going away. I’m not going to list them all here, but one big example is Defense is going away for tanks. No more “I can’t tank this because I don’t have enough defense gear”, crit reduction now comes from your talents, (and stance). This means that all the gear that used to have defense now has more dodge. It isn’t a 1-1 conversion. I haven’t figured out the math but I’m sure someone has (if you know where please let me know in the comments. I haven’t had the time to check the usual places). For example here is a before and after shot of my helm:

Other stat conversions seemed to be different as well. I know some may be related to how I placed my talents, but armor/dodge/parry definitely are lower on the PTR , even with the additional dodge from the defense conversion. (Also block is now a percentage so that conversion is completely different.)
Defense stats before:

Defense Stats after:

In addition to the gear stats changing they want to encourage you to wear gear types appropriate for your class. Thus Warriors/DKs/Paladins get a bonus for wearing plate and other classes get bonuses appropriate to their highest material gear. Here is what that looked like for aPaladin:

With all the stat changes and encouraging players to use the right material gear they have added the ability to change the stats on your gear. This is through the process of Reforging. Currently reforgers can be found near the enchanters (and any guard can tell you where to go.)

Here are a few shots of reforging:
Selecting a stat:

Changing dodge to…:

Ready to reforge:

You’ll note the restore button at the bottom (currently greyed out because I hadn’t clicked reforge yet.) If you change your mind about reforging a piece of gear you can restore it back to its original stats.

A Few Other Changes
Badger badger badger badger…
For those who have been playing long enough you probably have emblems of various types. Heroism, Valor etc. These are all going away. Triumph and Frost emblems are converted into Justice points, and all other emblems are converted to gold which is mailed to you. (By Omar the Test Dragon on the PTR.) A gratuitous currency shot is below (they are still tuning the conversion rate.)

This does mean that if you have extra emblems that are going to be converted to gold you might consider buying any heirloom gear you were thinking of buying but hadn’t yet.

Lastly the location of some things have changed, namely you profession, mounts and pets. These all have been relocated to tabs on your spell book. So don’t panic when you don’t see that usual button for your profession – it’s over in the Professions tab.

There are lots of changes to look forward to when the 4.0.x patch goes live. I hope the brief tour was enjoyable and if you want to just poke through the pictures on Flickr you can find them here.

Dear WoW Dev Team,
Thank you for my perky pug. He is a wonderful companion. Unfortunately he appears to have worms. I stopped by the pet store and Breanni didn’t have anything to treat him, and while the pet grooming kit has left him sparkling it doesn’t seem to have given the poor thing any relief from itching. I thought to check at the barbershop, but alas there was nothing for him there either. By any chance, do you know of a place that sells a remedy for my pugs worms, or could you perhaps supply Breanni with some?

Patiently Yours,
Mightymoe

A while ago I wrote about “The Gamer Divide” and how I think we are approaching a time when gaming is viewed as normal or even positive, instead of some thing that you might want to avoid mentioning.

Just this week Forbes had an article on How Playing Video Games Can Boost Your Career. It features a guildie of mine (Hi Elliot!), and makes some good points about how game skills, especially multi-player games, can provide real career building skills.

I think my favorite quote was:

“We’re finding that the younger people coming into the teams who have had experience playing online games are the highest-level performers because they are constantly motivated to seek out the next challenge and grab on to performance metrics,” says John Hagel III, co-chairman of a tech-oriented strategy center for Deloitte.

But head on over to Forbes and read the whole thing.

On more than a few sites I’ve been seeing posts where the focus of discussion is the “gamer stigma”.  This is the perception that playing of games is some how a sign of wasting time with something meaningless, or a stigma of gamers in the workplace, or a game could be the “cause” of a relationship break down.  All these focus on the “defect” of gamers.   On the other hand I’ve been seeing quite a few posts about the positive effects of gaming such as improved brain function, benefits for the autistic, and helping seniors get more fit.  All this focus and increased discussion makes me think that we are nearing a transition point in the perception of games, not too unlike the transition point with the internet not that many years ago.

I remember when I was busy on the internet, back before it was something everyone used, before google was a verb. For most, the internet was seen as this time suck.  A waste of time at best, a source of addiction at the worst.  My parents found it interesting that I used the internet but really could see no use for it themselves.  Eventually my uncle got my retired grandfather on it and he took to it like a fish to water.  He communicated with people with like interests, looked up genealogy and was happy to use it.  Not too long after my parents started using it and now they keep busy on it much of the time.   Although there are still some who don’t use the internet, societal perception sees using the Internet as normal.  Yes all the bad uses and behaviors that could be associated with the Internet still exist, but those are people related issues, not tool related issues – and they are recognized as such.

Gaming isn’t there yet.  There is, in some ways, a generational divide.  But the above studies show that the perception of what gaming is and who games is changing.  It may well be the retired that get gaming first.  (My dad got a Wii as a retirement gift and he’ll have Epic Mickey once it ships.) But even the casual gaming of Facebook is spreading through the “non-gamer” crowd.  More and more games are being introduced as not just “things kids do when they should be outside” but valid recreation or even tools to use that can change the world. Gaming is something we’ve done throughout the history of civilization – even as adults.  Somehow with the industrial revolution gaming dropped to “child’s play”, perhaps in pursuit of the more uniform worker.  However that is changing, and it will be interesting seeing how that will affect the tools we use and the way we work together.

This morning, listening to the news on the radio, I started pondering what the radio shows in Azeroth would be like. In discussing the idea with Shamir, we decided that the gnomes would run the public radio station. You would have announcements like “This episode brought to you by Sisters of Elune”.

Goblin radio on the other hand would be commercial radio. I can hear the ads now, “Get the best deals in Azeroth, but act now. Time is money!”

There would be an Undead, or rather Forsaken, political commentary show with the characteristic sign off of, “Trust no one.” The intro and outro would be Heavy Metal riffs.

We’d probably have a selection of spiritual shows, including “The Light of Elune” “How to Walk With The Earthmother” and “Reaching for the Light” (which perhaps might be an exercise show).

The show listing could go on. It was an amusing muse for the morning. For those of you that know World of Warcraft do you have any shows or special stations you would add?

This isn’t my typical post here, so as a fair warning – this is about World of Warcraft Gear. I’d posted this over in my guild forums and had wanted to share it with a friend outside of the guild and realized it might be useful to have this somewhere other than in the archives of our guild forums.  So with that intro, here is an introductory overview to WoW Gear, and how to pick your gear and know what you are looking at.

I was having a discussion with someone the other day about gear, and thought I’d write up a bit about gear in case anyone else can benefit from it. I’ve included item links below so you can click through to  the items and see the information being discussed.

To start with the basics, gear has “what material is it” (cloth, leather, mail, plate) which determines if you can wear the piece at all and stats. For example: [Web Winder Gloves] has Stam, Int, Haste and Spell power. At the same time this is a piece of plate. This would be a fine piece for a Holy Paladin (since no other healer could wear it) but it would look kind of funny on a Death Knight as they have no use for int or spell power.

Depending on your class and spec different stats are more important. Depending on your current gear, different stats are more valuable to you. For example hit isn’t a primary stat for Protection Warriors, but if the Prot Warrior is below hit cap (how much additional hit is needed to not miss a mob) the hit rating of a piece of gear may make the item more valuable.

Next up is the “color” of the gear. For the most part we are looking at “greens” like [Ancestral Chestplates], blues like [Patina-Coated Breastplate] and purples like [Breastplate of the Afterlife]. If you mouse over click the links those items you will see that the name of the item has a particular color. Greens are known as “uncommon”, blues “rare, purples “epic”. As you might guess greens < blues < purples. So when you hear someone say “oh he’s in all greens” that’s what they are talking about. A very simple gear check (which may or may not be useful) that people will do is to just check the color of the items in a person’s gear.

Now the greens < blues < purples is a general rule but that isn’t always the case. With each expansion the old purples became worth less than the greens of the next expansion. So for example [Blinkstrike], a nice purple sword from Outland, might get replaced by a green [Blade of Diligence] from Northrend. You might guess this simply from the stats, but another way to see the difference is from the item level (ilevel).

[Blinkstrike] has an Item Level of 100.
[Blade of Diligence] has an item level of 158.

As a general rule the higher item level is likely to be the better gear – but again, the stats, and how they relate to your class and spec are what are going to be primary. However, when someone says “Oh their gear score is X”, what that is based on is the item levels of the gear they are wearing (and whatever formula their addon does to come up with the number.) Again, it can be used as a quick glance evaluation of someone’s gear, but again with variable usefulness.

Next up is Tier gear. Tier gear is gear that makes up a “set” and when you wear enough pieces of a set you get a “set bonus”. For example

[Wrynn's Pauldrons of Conquest] has 2 set bonus that affects taunt and devastate, and a 4 set bonus that decreases the cooldown of shield block. If a toon was wearing 2 or more pieces of the Wrynn Plate set they would get the 2 set bonus, if they were wearing 4 they would get the 4 set bonus (in addition to the 2 set.) Tier gear usually is associated with a particular raid instance. Tier 8 gear came from Ulduar, Tier 9 is associated with Trial of the Crusader (ToC). Tier gear is acquired by getting a token for the piece of gear and/or by using emblems. For example

[Breastplate of the Wayward Protector] a token can be used to buy one of six different ( tier 8 ) chestpieces. These tokens were acquired either by them being dropped in the raid instance or by buying them with emblems ([Emblem of Conquest] in this case.) The vendors for the tier gear are either in Dalaran, or in the case of Tier 9 at the Tournament Grounds. You can find how many emblems you have in your character tab under currency. Also note, not all gear bought with emblems is tier gear. (Look for the set bonus information if you aren’t sure.)

As you might guess, the higher tiers are designed as upgrades from the lower tiers. So is tier gear better? Not necessarily. Often it comes down to evaluating stats versus set bonuses. If you look at the Best in Slot (BiS) lists a lot of the gear is not tier. Again, it depends on stats and what type of a gear set you are looking for.

Gear sets? Yes, in addition to general for your class stat priorities there may be different functions you want your gear to perform. This usually isn’t relevant until you are working on refining your game for specific fights. (And I don’t know if it is relevant for all classes. I’ve only seen details on tanks and paladin healers.) When gearing up your first priority is to just get a good set of gear that meets the needs of your class and spec. You can ignore this next section if you want but I thought I should include this since it is something discussed in the forums and something that took me a while to get my head around.

The specific purpose gear sets are sort of an elaboration of the “what stats are important”. For example, a protection tank may have 3 (or 4) different priorities, Effective Health – how much damage they can take from a boss before they go splat, Avoidance – How much they can avoid being hit by the boss, or Threat – How much they can make the boss pay attention to them over the rest of the raid team. Different sets would be used for different fights depending on the boss mechanics. Because of the limits of the stats you can’t have maximum health, maximum avoidance and maximum threat, you have to pick one. While it is something you can do to some extent just playing with the gear you have, I usually look around on the forums and look at examples that other people who actually find all the gear and do the math come up with.

I know that this covered a lot of details on gear. To recap start with the basics. Know what stats are relevant to your class, and what your various “caps” are. Then work on getting better gear moving from greens to blues to purples. Often looking at what drops from various bosses on WoWWiki can give you an idea of places to go for upgrades. You can also look at sites like Wow-Loot, and many more. As usual if you have questions or corrections, fire away.

Happy gearing up!