Unlimited Free Trials: Is WoW Next?

PURE SPECULATION

Recently Warhammer Online and Age of Conan, two high profile games, have started offering unlimited free trials of their starter content. So, with more and more games going free to play or offering more content for no money down, is a change of this variety in the works for World of Warcraft?

The idea of giving the Old World content to players for free has been around for a while now. However, there are two obvious problems with freeing that content up in the long run:

1. Wow is way more successful than Warhammer and AoC combined and has no pressing financial reason to all of sudden give away a large part of their game.

2. The next expansion, Cataclysm, is going to radically change the Old World in an attempt to refocus the population of the game.

So, no, in the long term I cannot see Blizzard giving away any part of their golden hen. The short term, however, is a different story. Lately, the marketing push for the game has seemed to of ramped up. Just the other day my mom and I were watching TV when one of those Mr. T Mohawk Grenade ads came on. She thought it was hilarious. It got me thinking.

With the release of patch 3.3 last week the current expansion is done, paving the way for Cataclysm sometime (I hope) in the first half of next year. And this marketing campaign with well known faces suggests that they will push the next expansion more heavily than any previous as it is probably the largest change to the game to date. So, what will bring the most new players into the game in the lull between January and when the expansion hits?

Starting early next year, offer the Old World content for free until the release of Cataclysm.

Age of Conan is doing basically the same thing until, I think, the end of this year. And yes, I know, in the case of Warcraft it might be seen as the old bait-and-switch: get new players in with this old stuff, then when the expansion hits and they subscribe everything they have come to know is different.

That last part though, is solved by just being honest and up front. If I were to advertise that I had a dinosaur living in my backyard, but that it was going to die in a week, people would still flock to see it. That it was going to die soon would only give them a bigger sense of urgency.

Okay, bad example, but you get the idea. Anyway, your thoughts?

-Max

The Unfortunate Part Two: Oh, Blizzard!

Well, my glorious return to WoW was not so glorious. Remember how I said my laptop can no longer run it so I had to pull out our old desktop to run it? Well, turns out the desktop won't run it either... Without fail, (or with a lot of fail) somewhere between five and ten minutes into playing, the computer blue screens and I have to restart it. There have been some other very strange glitches too:

One time I lost all landscape features

One time I tried to tab out and the game got stuck in a frantic, glitchy transition between my desktop and the game.

And one time I was in the middle of a quest that involved setting down a torch to summon some bat demon, but as soon as I set down the torch my perspective flipped upside down. It was like gravity had flip flopped me and I was standing on the underside of the world. Hard to explain. Anyway, at first I thought this was part of the quest...until I couldn't select anything and the bat demon killed me.

You know, for a game like WoW, which is supposed to run on nearly everything, it's pretty ironic (and sucky) that it won't run on any of our computers, despite them being more than powerful enough.

I'll probably give it one more shot today, although my expectations are not high. From what I have seen so far of the changes they've made since I last played, everything is working better than ever. I especially like a lot of the quest log and map changes. It's just a shame I can't get far enough into the game to be able to appreciate it more.

-Max

Oh, Blizzard!

A couple weeks ago I was one of the lucky current unsubscribers to get a free seven days of playtime in World of Warcraft. Given my previous record of subscriptions they probably thought that a few free days would lure me right back in...and they would be right.

Except!

My main computer at the moment refuses to run the game. So, in order to use this time I had to pull out our eight year old desktop and patch the game up. With finals coming to an end this week I finally got around to logging back in yesterday. However, wouldn't you know it, yesterday (Tuesday) they decided to release patch 3.3. So, it wasn't until fairly late last night that I actually managed to log in.

This is the part though that I'm sure Blizzard were hoping for: I wasn't in Stormwind ten seconds before someone sent me a tell asking for a port! I love all that community stuff! Community and Exploration are two of the main things I look for in a game. Not coincidentally, WoW being my home game, has both these things. Say what you will about the WoW community, but in this instance they really came through for their game. So, yes, Blizzard, I would love to resubscribe to your game after these seven days run out...

...just as soon as you release Cataclysm and I find a better computer to play it on.

*Hint to Blizzard: if you want me to resub, how about a new laptop for Christmas?*

In all seriousness I'll gladly be back soon, but this break will probably be consumed by Xbox.

-Max

Now I just need to find out what happened to that guild I was in.....

Birthdays = Relevancy!

Just the other day, yesterday in fact, I had a birthday. I'm now twenty; yay, go me, etc etc. And because I'm on the long Thanksgiving weekend from school my parents were nice enough to give me my presents early. I'm tempted to give a run down of my console gaming history, but perhaps that is best left for another time. Anyway, long story short, I received an XBox 360 and several games!

My mother, being the incredibly smart and frugal woman that she is, bought a Pro way back when they went on sale before being discontinued, so it was fairly cheap! The games I got were: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Borderlands, and The Orange Box.

So, now I feel much more relevant and capable of talking about current games! In particular, I have had my eye on Oblivion for a while. I absolutely loved Morrowind for what it did the with completely open-world concept and so far Oblivion feels like a much more polished Morrowind. I get the feeling this is the game they wanted to make, originally. It is such a beautiful game. I've probably spent the most time in there so far. I've never thought about roleplaying a game before, but Oblivion has actually sparked ideas in me. I'm considering doing some blog posts in character about some of my characters quests in game; I'll have to see.

Next, there's Borderlands. I'm not a huge fan of shooters on the consoles (unless, ironically, they are on the Wii) but so far I've played through the tutorial and it seems like a really fun FPS-RPG hybrid with the emphasis on shoot, kill, loot; rather than stat managing. I'm also a sucker for the slick art style. I should get more time with it over my month long Holiday Break.

The Orange Box I haven't played at all yet, but will probably get to eventually. According to just about everyone, you're life isn't complete until you've played Portal. So, I'll see if the outrageous accounts of gaming godliness are justified. I did play part of Half-Life 2 on the original XBox a long time ago, and to be completely honest it is probably some of the most fun I've ever had in a video game. So, I can't wait to start playing that again and *fingers crossed* finish a BIG IMPORTANT GAME.

I tend to never finish games unless they are pitifully easy.

So, while I own a Wii, I'm not sure I would consider it current gen. It's sort of in a league of its own. I've loved Nintendo consoles for most of my gaming youth, however I think it may be time to begin to move on. While the Wii has some great games, it lacks the support of some of the major titles I'd like to be playing.

After the next two weeks are over I should start blogging more frequently, probably mostly about the new 360. My year-end wrap up is still coming too!

One last thing as well. I know I shouldn't take the bait, but my account was selected by Blizzard as one to which they gave a week of free play time in honor of WoW dinging five years old. They expect me to jump in there and get hooked again. And they are probably right. However, I know something they don't know! My main computer can't run WoW anymore! So HA! Blizzard, joke is on you! Though if a Blizzard rep is listening I'll tell you what you can do: buy me a new laptop that can run your game and I will never let my sub slide again.

Talk about securing customer loyalty... Anyway, if I do end up using my seven days it will probably be on our old clunky computer which is a mess to get running, but still runs the game competently. It's like a snowball in one of those old cartoons: once you give it a good shove it starts rolling down the mountain, after a while picking up speed, growing larger.

-Max

Still listening to Girl Talk. Illegal Art just re-released another of his older albums and I think they are set to put the first one back out sometime in December. It's interesting to see how he developed as an artist up until Feed the Animals, which is a good jumping off point for a new listener. His work can be found HERE.

Happy Thanksgiving

For those Americans reading this blog: Happy Thanksgiving!

And if you plan on going shopping tomorrow for all the Black Friday deals: good luck! I just looked through all the newspaper ads and it seems that this year the deals are better than ever; probably due to our middling economy. For example: WoW is going for just $5 this weekend! Crazy. Massively put up a buyers guide too; it's not much, but that Guild Wars deal is just ridiculous.

I'll be spending the day eating turkey, watching the Dallas Cowboys, and playing Oblivion (my birthday is Saturday, so I got a 360 a little early and am finally caught up with the current gen systems!!!).

Have a happy turkey day!

-Max

Concerning Modern Warfare 2...

I'm officially tired of hearing about it; on to more interesting games!

I'm listening to the latest MMO Voices podcast and it was all good until they had to throw their two cents in about this game. Okay. Great. Here are mine. Let's move on now. I refuse to read or listen to anything else concerning this game.

-Max

My year end round up will be coming soon!

The Nature of Micro Transactions: Setting an Example

This post will take the form of a letter.

Dear Blizzard Entertainment,

You guys have a lot of money, everyone and their virtual dog knows this. I can say that there are three absolutes to everyday life in America today: people will be born, people will die, and you will make a ridiculous amount of money. Even through this so-called economic downturn you have continued to turn a profit. The entertainment industry has shown itself to once again be bullet proof. You good folks have so much money, in fact, that you have the ability to develop not one, not two, not three, but four projects at once (that we know of). You have essentially blazed the way for the mmo genre in the last five years. You make a move and most other developers in the industry take notice and generally follow suit in a similar fashion. So that is why I'm writing this, to ask you to take a stand on a certain issue: micro transactions.

Recently you threw down all guises and introduced full-on RMT into World of Warcraft in the form of vanity pets. You priced these two pets at $10 a piece. Charitable benefits not withstanding, I believe this is entirely too much to charge for a permanent in game item. That is not to say that you were not well within your rights to charge that amount; by all means, charge $100 if you think people will pay (god knows, someone is buying those beer steins). All I'm saying is that it is not ethical to charge so much for an in game item. And this is where setting an industry example comes in to play.

We are a capitalist country and by no means do I begrudge you your fair profit. I'll be the first person to pay that monthly fee to keep you folks in business, so that you can continue to turn out amazingly fun content. However, there is a certain line of what it is okay to charge and what it is not okay to charge that has been crossed and so we come to the $10 Horse Problem.

First lets break down the phrase at the heart of the issue.

Micro - something "very small"

Transaction - "An exchange or trade, as of ideas, money, goods, etc."

In our instance we get a very small trade of goods and money; perhaps even of ideas because the point of RMT is to increase the amount of fun one has.

However, ten dollars can do a number of things that are in no way "very small". It can fill my stomach for an evening. It can fill half my gas tank for a week long commute, and it can pay two thirds of a month's subscription to your online game. You would certainly agree that, at the very least, the last example is no small thing.

But that's really the heart of the problem here, you have let those dollar signs get in the way of better judgment and would probably care more about me keeping up my subscription than getting to school for the week. It's the ever-popular 'principle of the thing': don't gouge your customers and they will like you more. When they like you more, they will spend more. More people benefit from a $1 horse than benefit from a $10 horse. And the all important 'me' (in this case Blizzard) loses nothing because we are not dealing with physical products; sell five or five billion, it does not matter because every cent is pure profit. Yes, I very much believe in micro transactions because by their very nature they are inexpensive to the consumer, while also being profitable when introduced to a large enough group of people, in this case eleven million.

So, we come to this 'example' that I've been yapping about. And by example, I mean if you embrace the 'micro' in micro transaction then you will have the distinct possibility of maintaining your choke hold as industry leader. By lowering the barrier to entry you open up not just your own game, but the entire genre to a wider group of people. As I said, when you do something, others follow suit. When you lower prices, other RMT utilizing games must do the same or face the prospect of charging more that WoW. So, let's think long-term here:

Less expensive = more consumers, more consumers + time = more money

Micro transactions are indeed the future and the first game to fully realize that will be one to claim those tens of millions of waiting American gamers and the spot as the month after month best seller. Whether it is you, Blizzard, is entirely up to you at this moment. I just hope that all the current money and popularity has not made you so lazy and resistant to change that it ends you.

Thank you for your time,

-Max

I'm in a creative writing class and for our final semester grade we have to turn in five original poems. I just wrote this limerick and think it would be a shame to not include.

Condoms are made from polyurethane
Which, to the environment, can be quite a pain
So when you put out
You will be a gentleman, no doubt
And not throw them from a car, plane, or train.


Any thoughts, suggestions?

-Max

Off Topic: Fall Edition

I know, I haven't done much posting in the recent weeks; things at school have really picked up. However, a cold front just blew through Texas, so it put me in the mood to do a post on the Fall, so far its been a damn good one.

My dad and I are pretty big football fans (Go Cowboys!) so every Sunday at our house has been a party. We've been making a literal ton of snacks (chips & queso, salsa, vegetable dippers, mini burgers, cheese stuffed jalapenos, pigs in a blanket, hot wings, grilled shrimp, pizza, to name a few) and then sit down to watch six hours of football with family. It's great. I can't honestly say I've enjoyed my Sundays September through December more than I currently am. Looking forward to Sunday really helps to balance out all the anxiety that builds the other six days of the week.

This Sunday looks to be just as wonderful. Like I said, a cold front blew through last night so it's 67 and dry, a rare condition where I live. It makes our normally grumpy dogs happy.

Also, if you haven't heard, be sure to check by Beau Turkey's Spouse Aggro page today through 9AM tomorrow. He and his wife Leala are doing the Extra Life 24 Hours of gaming to raise money to help the Texas Children's Hospital. A worthier cause there is not. Give if you can!

Back in the summer I was glued to my computer all weekend when some guys were doing a Mario Marathon to raise money for a Penny Arcade Charity. These 24 hour gaming extravaganzas can be pretty addicting to watch.

Lastly: music. Of course!

I can't stop listening to a song called "Lust For Life" (no not that Lust for Life) by the band Girls. There's a free download floating around the internet, somewhere. These guys are the next big thing.

My friend also turned me on to a free downloadable mix called LSTN that Urban Outfitters puts out every once in a while. Like I always say: There is no music better than free music! I've found that mixes 2 and 4 have the most consistently good songs.

And because Pitchfork named it their number one album of the 2000's I finally went to Best Buy and picked up Kid A by Radiohead (for under $1!). They are my favorite band and I'd pretty much run out of excuses for not owning what most people consider to be their greatest album. Suffice it to say, all praise is well deserved and the album is perfect.

Well, anyway. Enjoy your Fall!

-Max

It being Fall, I am in search of a good, light fantasy novel. I'm currently re-reading Dragons of Autumn Twilight for the billionth time. But, if anyone has a suggestion send it my way. I'll probably be getting the new R.A. Salvatore novel soon too, though this latest series has been somewhat of a disappointment.

...what?

Just heard Aion described as a "next-gen mmo."

Still trying to figure out just what that means. Any takers?

Couldn't Help Myself

I was reading this interview on Gamespot with one of the designers of The Old Republic about how they (no surprise) want to cater to soloers and I get to the bottom and see this one, lone comment:

"In the last couple of months playing EQ2 I never grouped with anyone... most likely because there are relatively few groups that aren't guild affiliated. Same goes with WoW... I spent 95% of my time soloing. After awhile the repetitive gameplay gets boring and I quit... lets face it... MMO's are nothing but glorified chatrooms with simplistic gameplay. Guess I don't have leet chat skills :/"

I know this is more of the same: former mmo players who burned out and now love to bitch about how bad or boring the games are, but it's also just really funny. As much as I'm constantly disturbed by people who hate on this genre for no decent reason, that comment gave me a chuckle.

In other, sad news: Dungeon Runners is closing. NC Soft is doing what they do best and shutting down another game. I don't know how successful this game ever was, but I do have some fond memories of it being a good hack-n-slash free to play game. The art style took its cues from WoW and the gameplay was a take on Diablo, plus it had a really over the top sense of humor, which was refreshing. As with any game, I'll be sad to see it go.

Finally, I'd like to direct anyone and everyone's attention over to Game Breakr the new podcast by Gary Gannon. He launched it this week at the Austin GDC and had a live feed going at UStream with guests ranging from developers to Virgin Worlds folks. A good time was had by all who watched. (Especially those of us who scored some free swag. I was lucky enough to win a Plantronics headset!!) So be sure to check him out, I think he's starting to do weekly podcast shows next week.

-Max

Good Old Fashioned Nightmare by Matt & Kim
Amazing song - enjoy!

DDOU First Week Impressions

Last week saw the re-release of Dungeons & Dragons: Online, a game that has been on my radar for some time. I've probably mentioned this before, but when I was looking for my first mmo, DDO was one that caught my interest, however I was never a subscriber. The announcement that it was going free to play, though, meant that I really had no excuse for not playing it anymore. So, it went live last week as Dungeons & Dragons Online: Unlimited (Eberron Stormreach blah blah blah) and on Friday night I used their little quick start downloader to jump right in. I haven't made it past the starter town, but wow I have really enjoyed my time there, so far.

With the flood of new players coming to the game, myself included, I just thought I'd draw up a short list of Likes and Dislikes. Bear in mind, it's the small things that matter.

Likes:

• Run Speed - This was may be the first thing I actually noticed about the game. After talking to that little thief on the beach I began to try out movement...and immediately stopped. I had hit W and before I knew it was halfway up the hill to the encampment. Your running is more like sprinting. Apparently every adventurer in the D&D universe has the athleticism of Usain Bolt and at lower levels, before mounts come into play, this is an excellent thing.
  


• Journey vs. Destination - The focus of this game is very squarely on adventuring and exploration. True to its license the game puts an emphasis on story and the journey you take to accomplish a task. Yeah, beating a dungeon boss is great, but just exploring all the instanced areas is a ton of fun for an exploration junkie like myself.
  


• DM Voice Over - This might actually be my single favorite feature of the game. I'd even go so far as to say that every fantasy mmo needs to have narration like this. This goes along with what I said previously about journey and adventuring. It feels so much more immersive and epic, as if you were reading a book.
  


• Integrated Voice Chat - I'll just show how much of a noob I am and say that I never used voice chat in an mmo until I grouped with some people in this game. I know vent and teamspeak are considered the programs to use, but for casual folks like me this is a great feature. It seems that every big budget mmo *cough* WoW *cough* needs to have this feature.
  


• Climbing/Vertical Movement - Look, my avatar realized he has arms...and they aren't just for swinging a sword! Apparently vertical movement doesn't have to be limited to walking up steps or the side of a mountain...who knew?!
  


• Graphics - Unfortunately, my main gaming machine for the time being is a Dell Inspiron laptop with an integrated graphics card, so not a whole lot runs on it, or runs well on it. WoW runs so-so at low settings, Guild Wars the same, Free Realms actually runs something awful unless I crank down all the settings and stay away from high pop. areas. DDOU, however, runs great! Even with the settings on medium to high it still runs smooth and doesn't look half bad. That's big points in my book.
  


• Knows its Name - It's incredible how many games don't follow through on the promise of their name, you would think it's such a simple task. In DDOU you wake up ship wrecked on the shore, look up into the sky and you will see a dragon (check one) flying overhead. Follow the path up past the encampment and you enter a dungeon (check two) for the starting/training area. The game designers aren't wasting my time and for that I applaud them.
  


• Plenty of People - Obviously, this is mostly due to the free re-release and I don't know how large the community was before last week (although I could guess it was much smaller), but I hope the population stays high. A game this good deserves to be played by as many people as possible.

• Instances - As always, there are pros and cons to heavily instanced games like this, but what I really like are the details and options DDO gives you about its instancing. When you click to go into a dungeon a screen pops up asking if you want it set for 'solo', 'normal', 'hard', or 'elite' difficulty and tells you very roughly how long the instance will take. This is good for those (like myself) who have a more pop-in and out playstyle.
  

• IT'S FREE! - No one can argue that free isn't a good thing, especially in the case of this game. I would probably never have played it otherwise and now I'm even thinking of giving Turbine a bit of my money. If I wasn't so busy and could devote more time to the game with a steady group then they might even be able to pull the monthly sub out of me. Free to play and RMT are very obviously the way of the future for online games and Turbine seem to realize this. I wish this game nothing but success and hope that other companies see DDO as the start of big budget games going free to play with plenty of payment options.

Dislikes:

• Class Difficulties - At least the game is up front about it. From the start of the character and class creation menu they let you know that some classes are better and some worse in trying to solo stuff. Unfortunately, and probably accurately, caster classes do not fare well by themselves. Sadly, I'm partial to mages so I rolled a Wizard out of the gate and have been running when a group of more than four mobs comes after me. Even at the solo difficulty setting I've still been getting steamrolled by those damn Soughagan. At least I run like a championship track star.


• Instances - As I said above, there are pros and cons to instancing. Aside from the towns (and even within some towns) this game comprises a metric ton of instances. In this respect it could easily be Guild Wars with a different coat of paint. Even though it goes against the idea of the IP, I just can't help but wonder what this game would have been like as a persistent world.
  


• Complicated as Hell - I've never actually played a game of D&D so when I looked at my character sheet for the first time I was totally overwhelmed by all those stats. How does each stat affect how my character players? How do they determine the number of spells I'm allowed to memorize? How do I learn new spells? What is the story on action points and should I be spending them down a certain lane similar to Talent Points? These are just a few of the questions flooding my head whenever I look at the character sheet.

Anyway, I hope everyone is enjoying the game...and if you, for some crazy reason, have not downloaded this game yet, then what are you waiting for? It's free! That last part really cannot be stressed enough. This is an excellent game.

If anyone wants to group up sometime, I can be found on the Khyber server with the rest of the MMO Voices folks. My character is named Maxian Flaco.

-Max

School, Among Other Things

Hi.

Sorry for the prolonged silence. My fall classes started a couple weeks ago so I've been pretty busy with those. I'm taking creative writing and that has sort of been sapping up all my will to write anything.

I haven't been playing much either, just two games. Although, I have been greatly enjoying just those two, so that's all that matters. The first one is a browser based mmo called Ikariam. Beau over at MMO Voices organized it as the current site-wide game, so (mostly) because there was no download I decided to be social and give it a shot. It has definitely reawakened my inner colonial and town builder. Back in the sixth grade my junior high had drawings every Friday during lunch for random prizes. It was mostly stupid stuff like pencils and knick knack-y things, but every once in a while they would have fun stuff like an (original) Xbox or stereo or something. On a particular Friday one of the lesser prizes was a little game called 1602 A.D. I put all of my tickets, which was like five, in to this one drawing and ended up winning. I get the feeling no one else actually entered. It was their loss; this game was awesome. To sum it up simply - and it was a pretty simple game - you colonized islands. There were certain mission goals you could achieve, or you could just play until the game stopped finding crap to throw at your settlers, or all your settlers died. I mostly played the later kind of game. I love these kind of "sit and knit" games where you throw out some instructions every once in a while and watch what happens. This is pretty much what Ikariam is only it's in a Greek setting and even slower paced. If you want to find me I'm on the U.S Iota server (there are Brit and U.S. servers and they don't tell you there's a difference) at the coordinates 63:61, my town's name is Solarium.

The other game I've been playing is The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. I've had this game forever - and yes I know there's a sequel out now - but I've never bothered beating it. So, I thought I'd just start over and see how far I could get on this long weekend. So far I have killed tens...of hundreds of rats, ha.

Anyway, I hope all is well and I will probably be back sometime in the near future, hopefully to finish up one of those two-part articles I started a while back.

-Max

Titles that Make me Giddy

Van Hemlock posted his podcast question earlier today for their next recording session, it is as follows:

"Lot of Grump on the Blogoweb of late. Help cheer me up! What's the most positive thing thats happened to you this month?"

I would assume he means mmo bloggers are being their usual dour selves...but lets take a short look at a few reasons (games) to not be grumpy! These are the upcoming titles - excluding expansions - that I am most looking forward to, which will, *fingers crossed* be coming out within a year.

New IPs:

Gatheryn - Lets just be honest, it looks like crap. However, this is the only non-Asian, steam punk mmo coming out and that alone should be justification to anticipate it. The steam punk genre is morbidly under represented in video games these days. What interests me most about this game is its focus on community and games, rather than combat. My hope for this game is that it gives us something of a Free Realms-esq experience: collecting, exploration, medium to large community (hey, it will be free to play, so I can dream, can't I?), while milking steam punk imagery for all its worth. Oh, and did I mention it will be free? AND have player housing? It is currently in open beta and I've been teetering on the edge of checking it out, bugs and all. But, I think I'll wait until the kinks have been worked out, so as to get the best possible first impression. Regardless, it is one to watch!

Fallen Earth - Even though I'm a fan of post-apocalyptic storytelling and a ton of the things I have heard lately about this game sound incredible (the crafting, virus instead of nukes, the location), I probably won't ever have the chance to play it. Alas, my computer. That being said, I'm still excited for it. We have yet to see a good PA mmo and despite the inevitable Fallout comparisons that will come in a few weeks when it launches, this game will definitely fill a niche. Hopefully, it does well in its own right and paves the way for an actual Fallout mmo. These days you can never have enough online games that aren't fantasy rpgs.

Sequels or Old IPs:

Star Wars: The Old Republic - Seriously, how can you not be at least somewhat excited for this game? Maybe the hype switch in the back of my neck is just set opposite of everyone else's, but every piece of information on this game that comes to light manages to make me even more excited for it! Now there is even a rumor of player housing! After that four part video that came out this week everyone was complaining that, "oh combat looks so boring." Well, it doesn't look any more "boring" that combat in WoW and I happen to enjoy killing things in that game, I mean, that's what it's all about.... However, I do think combat in SWTOR will be more involved and probably more like AOC than WoW. And have you heard about the story? Or the full voice acting (which was admitedly a little wonky in the latest video)? The only concern I have for this game is how massively multiplayer it will actually end up being. To have as deep a story as Bioware claims to have, it would seem that they would need to lean heavily on instancing, but they are Bioware, so maybe they found a workaround.

Lego Universe - When I heard that they were making a Lego mmo my childhood came flooding back to me in a pile of multicolored, interconnecting blocks. I only want two things out of this game: 1.) For it to be free to play. 2.) To be able to build just about anything my mind can think up. It wouldn't truly be Lego, unless you could literally build whatever you wanted. Here is a recent article from Wired that I admit I have not had the chance to fully peruse. Also, the logo is totally awesome.

Dungeons and Dragons Online Unlimited - While this is not exactly a new game, the coming version of it will certainly be new enough to those that have never played it before. When I first started playing mmos I shopped around before settling on WoW and one of the games I read up on was DDO. I thought, "Dungeons and Dragons, the original role playing game, how can I go wrong?" I didn't end up buying then, but as soon as Turbine releases their free to play client they can count me in as a subscriber. Yes, I'm one of those folks who thought it looked interesting, would liked to have played the game, but could never justify shelling out $15 a month for something that didn't get totally solid reviews. (Not to mention, their free trial wanted your credit card. Nuh, uh.) But, when this game relaunches in early September, I will be there!

Guild Wars 2 - Even though I have played and enjoyed Nightfall, this game was no where on my radar, because up until last week no one knew anything about it. Of course that all changed, when ArenaNet put out a darn good trailer. Hopefully the trickle of info on this game will become steadier now that hype is starting to build. To be honest, I think NC Soft needs something to bring them out of the fall they are in (Aion won't be it) and this is the best chance they've got. Fortunately, it's an extremely good chance. Also, I should say that there is absolutely no reason to believe that this game will come out within a year from now (like I stipulated above), other than my own wishful thinking. :)

Jumpgate Evolution - The only thing I know about this game is that you fly a space ship and things go KABOOM...and it's not Eve. That works for me. The launch was recently delayed so that they could change the economy to be player driven, not unlike another space ship mmo. I hope that they aren't trying to directly challenge Eve, though, because from what little I know about both games, they seem to be operating on entirely different levels. One is about charts and mining and large groups of players fighting other large groups of players. While the other one is not about charts, or mining, just shooting things and watching the beautiful space scenery. Jumpgate may or may not involve large scale battles, I could not tell ya. For my money though, that is the one idea they should borrow from Eve.

Hello Kitty Online - Juuuuuuuuuuuuuust kidding!! But really, wouldn't we all rather play Hello Kitty Island Adventure?

Well folks, that is it on the games I'm most excited for (and reasons to not be a grumpy blogger bump on a log). Hopefully they all come out sooner rather than later and completed rather than crap.

-Max

I love this song and I love this video. They just look so happy!
Matt & Kim "Daylight"

Short and Sweet...

Just wanted to say a quick blip about MMO Voices, a really exceptional social network put together by Beau and Leala of Spouse Aggro. It's pretty much Facebook for mmo's with an emphasis on blogs. The community is a healthy 114 strong at the time of this post and still growing. So, if you check it out and decide to join be sure to send me a friend request, I'm the only member named Max...haha! I've been posting a few of my blog over there also, from time to time.

See you there.

-Max

No music, but I'm continually updating my blog list on the right hand side of the page, if you are looking for any interesting reading, then check those out!

Warning:

Felicia Day you are about to be replaced as my numero uno nerd crush. I was reading my favorite, non-mmo news site the other day, The Daily Beast, and stumbled across an article on celebrity World of Warcraft players. Apparently, Mila Kunis, who starred in one of my all time favorite movies (Forgetting Sarah Marshall) plays WoW! AND she's a mage! Could she be any more attractive? I think not.

Suprisingly enough, Macaulay Culkin, Dave Chappelle, Vin Diesel, and Elijah Wood also play.

It's always odd - like watching a dog walk on its hind legs - when the mainstream media decides to cover mmos. The article is worth a quick read, if only for a laugh.

-Max

I Pick the Best Days to Be Away from the Internet

I take a few days off to travel and look at all the info that drops!

Pigs do in fact fly. I was beginning to think they would never announce this game's imminent playability, but apparently miracles do happen. I've learned, in a very roundabout way, to love the first Guild Wars for what it is, so I can only hope that this sequel improves upon the things its predecessor did so well. You really can't go wrong with adding the ability to jump!

And entire worlds get ripped asunder! Arguably the biggest game announced this week. Certainly the most exciting one for myself. Although, I can't help but feel bad for Dust 514 and GW2, this whole WoW announcement has stolen most of their thunder, at least in the press. But this new expansion, along with TOR has pretty much convinced me that I'm going to need a bigger boat...oh ahem, I mean a better laptop. An idea has occurred to me though, that I haven't seen much discussed anywhere else. I've been rather adamant for the last several months now that the new Star Wars mmo and the next World of Warcraft expansion will launch very closely together, but the announcement of Cataclysm adds another facet of competition between the two games. Is it just me or does it seem like this next WoW expansion seems to be focusing on story and a really awesome one at that? You know, like, just how SWTOR is supposed to be heavily focused on story? In my opinion the writers at Blizzard are really outdoing themselves bringing Deathwing back in a huge way and also aligning Worgen to the Alliance through Gilneas and finally letting us play Goblins! It is becoming more apparent with each announcement that these two games are going to be directly competing and anyone who thinks otherwise is sadly mistaken.

With the majority of these games currently set to release in 2010, next year is looking to be huge.

On a side note, this is what I was doing over the week. Real life can be pretty amazing when we choose to look beyond our monitors:


















Hamilton Pool, Tx


-Max

Oh, and by the way, Carla Bruni!
I have no idea what she is singing, but, thankfully, beauty has the ability to transcend language

Dust 514

When I read the article on Massively this morning about CCP's new console only mmofps Dust 514, the best two adjectives I found to describe what they are attempting were bold and intricate. And there are two questions, the answers to which, I feel, will determine the success of this game.

1. Will the EVE Online community accept the console community and share their sovereignty content?

2. Will the console fps Halo crowd be smart enough to figure out that they need to work with the players of EVE Online, in order to achieve success, and presumably have fun in game?

In attempting this melding of gameplay styles CCP is putting a metric ton of faith in their subscribers. Will it pay off?

Also, something they didn't mention was which console(s) Dust will actually be playable on. I'm thinking PS3, for no baseless reason other than it just feels right in my mind. Not to mention, PS3 players will soon be playing MAG which seems a lot like Dust, just without the interconnectivity. And did I mention the graphics? Because they look pretty damn good.

It will be interesting to see where these two games go from here.

-Max

My Felicia Day Crush

Like most mmo playing guys I have a huge nerd crush on Felicia Day.

So, it was pretty awesome to find that her and the cast of The Guild did a music video in costume.

Check out the video for "Do You Wanna Date My Avatar" The song is nothing special, they should of gotten Parry Gripp to write it. But wow, I don't think Felicia Day could possibly get any hotter!

If for some reason you live under a rock then go check out the damn show already! I linked it up there somewhere.

-Max

Thoughts on Fallout...12 Years Too Late

I thought long and hard about just what to say in my post regarding this game. It's old. It's groundbreaking. It's famous. Playing through the game for my first twenty minutes I could honestly not tell you why it is held in such high esteem, but after leaving for a few days and coming back, I fully understand.

I was about to start out with a few complaints mostly regarding combat, but instead I'll just get right to what about this game really grabbed me.

I wanted to be in the world. It didn't matter that I thought the combat was boring, or that the story had too little direction (and a god-damn-ball-busting-timer!!!) I wanted to explore what is essentially an entirely open ended world that was created before anyone truly knew what open endedness could be. Maps that gradually reveal themselves as you explore them are always the most rewarding. I wanted to learn the lore and collect crap and talk to people (fucking phenomenal voice acting) and just learn about this post apocalyptic waste land that seemed so unbelievably alive. I only have a pdf copy of the original game manual, but GOOD GOD is that thing incredible! Clearly, what made people such huge fans of these games is that they wanted to live out this existence in a world recovering from nuclear holocaust; the game designers did such an amazing job in making it seem real. I can completely see why a company like Bethesda, who make the Elder Scrolls games, would want to develop a property like Fallout 3. They pretty much write the wiki on how open a game world can or should be. Not owning a 360 or PS3, I have haven't had the chance yet to pick up numero tres, but you can bet that when I buy an Xbox, the first game I get will be Fallout 3. If the world is this detailed in a 1997 game with an isometric view, I'm sure the same details with updated graphics will just blow my mind out the fucking window.

So, just to wrap things up: I get it. I went in to these games expecting everything (combat, story, overall great gameplay) and what I came away with was an experience and a longing to be in a world that was alive (sorta, ha). This is a perfect example of "lasting gameplay" - why people still lavish praise on these games twelve years later. Experiencing a world this vivid takes a pretty long time to get old.

Take this experience, ramp the detail up ten times and give us the Fallout mmo, please!

-Max

Watched a great documentary on Hulu last night about remixing and the nature of copyright law in today's world. It's definitely worth a look: here.

Also, the band (guy) Girl Talk who features prominently in the show is one of my favorite musicians and his work can be downloaded here for free! My favorite quote about his music is that, "If you like music, then you like Girl Talk."

Virgin Worlds: The Movie!

(Full disclosure: I never finished watching it.)

By now I'm sure everyone has heard of the new mmo documentary Second Skin. Apparently some dudes got the bright idea to make a documentary of a certain selection of gamers who play EQ2 and WoW. Maybe when they first set out on this project they didn't intend it to be so heavily biased against the genre, but the finished product is pretty heavy handed in its disdain for these types of games. This is not a review, other than to say I thought the movie was fear-mongering crapola. Also, check out the latest episode of Spouse Aggro, as Leala pretty much rips into the film - like RAWR!

However, I just had an amazing idea for a rebuttal. Hence the title of this post. To counter all the negativity expressed in Second Skin, somebody needs to take their little digital camera and hop on a plane around the world to interview the podcasters of the Virgin Worlds Collective! From the way these folks behave on their shows (like normal, everyday human beings without social issues) they would be the perfect group of people to interview in order to show that the mmo community is a very friendly, deep thinking social sphere that isn't just inhabited by nerds in their parent's basements. The bias would be very obvious and very positive, promoting our community to the world at large.

Someone mention my idea to Brent and lets get this shit in theatres!

-Max

Ye Olde WoW Hate

This topic has been done to death, I know, but with the inevitable coming expansion, I feel it deserves some re-discussion.

At the this very moment (and for the last week or so) I will be the first to tell you that I am none too happy with ol' Blizzard at this point in Warcraft's lifetime. Not being able to log-in to one's first and favorite mmo will do that to a person. But, it is precisely because I love the game so much that not being able to play it causes my frustration at the company. I fully understand my current feelings for the game and thus am able to cope with not being able to play it for some unknown time. What I don't understand is why any WoW news at all brings out the haters, with the sharpest criticisms usually coming from former players.

Yesterday I was checking Massively and WoW.com for any new stories when this jumped out at me, as I'm sure it did to many others. My first and only thought concerning this revelation was that it sounds totally awesome, if it proves to be true. Now, perhaps it is because these days I mainly read mmo game sites for news, but I was quite taken aback by most of the non-mmo gaming communities reaction to the news. A little while ago I was checking Gamespot's "Latest Headlines" and two things caught my eye. One was this, which just caused me one more groan of Nintendo bewilderment. The other was, of course, Gamespot's own rumor mill reporting of the WoW.com news.

Jesus, god. Please take some time to scroll through the hate. Here are a few of the best:

"Can this game get any gayer?"

"No more new races will be added. This article is pure BS except the fact that the next expansion will be called Catacalysm. Expect a new hero class."

"This game has been going downhill since release, I didn't even bother with WOTLK, it'll take a lot more than Goblins and Worgen to bring me back."

"I don't play WoW anymore but all my friends are still addicted. Just wanted to comment on this. Ok I can see Goblins joining the Horde but Worgen for Alliance? How does that make any sense? Am I missing something? Seems like just a random choice because Worgen don't really fit as Alliance at all. But I guess if all people care about is "cool playable werewolves!" then why should Blizz care if it makes sense."

"and WoW becomes even more stupid, glad I left this piece of crap months ago"

"enough of this game already."


Most of this nonsense is easily brushed off with, "read the damn lore," and, "stop speaking out your ass on a game you have likely never played" but the comments from former players are what bug me the most.

What is it about this game that causes people to feel so burned when they finally call it quits?

• Did they take it too seriously?
• Did they not get out of it as much as they put into it? (time & effort vs. rewards)
  
• Are they just mad at themselves for playing the game for so long, but never really 'getting' what it is about?
• Or, perhaps after all that time spent did they never create the experience they wanted? As we all know, because of the social nature of mmos a large portion of that experience is player created.
• Lastly, maybe they just saw how much they had paid for the game and had a heart attack!

I am no psychologist so this is as far as my gamer-mind evaluation goes. But, perhaps those bullets are something to consider with regards to reasons for Warcraft burnout.

Lastly, when I started to write this post I remembered something Shawn Schuster tweeted the other day:

"Man I hate when sites write about MMO news and don't even play them. Don't you?"

Yes, Shawn, I DO hate that. I'd say that hate even extends to regular gaming sites that only partially cover mmos, but that have a rabid user base of mmo haters.

-Max


"WoW was the Nirvana of mmos"
-Michael Zenke in reference to wow's inevitable legacy

So Excited!

As you may have guessed, I'm excited. Why? Oh, well, because I just purchased the recently re-released Fallout Trilogy! So, I thought I'd throw up this post real quick to say that as a guy who has never played any of these games, but heard nothing of unending praise for them, I'm pretty excited. My expectations are extremely high (rightfully so?) and I hope that in the next couple of days I can perhaps offer a different perspective on these games, coming from a younger generation. I was only seven when the game was originally released.

The disk includes Fallout, Fallout 2, and Fallout Tactics. And I should say that I have also never played Fallout 3, so I'm coming into this totally new.

Well I am off to load the game and I will be back with my impressions soon!

-Max

The End of WoW *Tear*

Unfortunately, it looks like I won't be logging in to the World of Warcraft for quite some time. With the new patch 3.2 came more demands on the video drivers within my shitty little laptop, demands that it just can't handle. Dell, apparently, hasn't seen fit to update the drivers for the GMA 965 integrated graphics card in their Inspiron line, and because it's Dell, the generic drivers downloaded off the Intel site won't work. :( And yeah, because my warranty is out, customer service totally won't take my call.

I don't have the computer know-how or patience to search every last forum post for a possible solution to this problem.

So, until I get a decent computer, it's goodbye Warcraft.

-Max

Off Topic: Summertime Edition

It's always healthy to take some time out from a hobby. Today I thought I'd mention a couple things I've really been enjoying this summer.

Every season, it seems, I have a playlist of songs that I'm mainly listening to. Here is the mix that has been playing in my car for most of the last couple months.

1. No You Girls - Franz Ferdinand
2. Daylight - Matt & Kim
3. My Girls - Animal Collective
4. Summertime Clothes - Animal Collective
5. Bruises - Chairlift
6. No Hope Kids - Wavves
7. Weed Demon - Wavves
8. So Insane - Discovery
9. With a Girl Like You - Dave Sitek (The Troggs cover)
10. And I Was a Boy From School - Hot Chip
11. Ready For the Floor - Hot Chip
12. Stress - Justice (I know it's the Kanye West blog...but the video is amazing!)
13. Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell - Das Racist
14. The Girl at the Video Game Store - Parry Gripp
15. The Kids Don't Stand a Chance (Chromeo Remix) - Vampire Weekend
16. Cap Cod Kwassa Kwassa - Vampire Weekend
17. Engine - Neutral Milk Hotel (bad picture, excellent sound)
18. Heartbeats - Jose Gonzalez
19. Mykonos - Fleet Foxes
20. Everyday - Rogue Wave (Buddy Holly cover)
21. Day N' Nite - Kid Cudi

Be sure to comment back if you end up really loving any of them.

And if any of those links don't work then just search the songs or bands on Grooveshark, it's the best site I've ever seen for streaming just about any music there is.

I'd also like to mention a brand of tea called Honest Tea. If they have it at your local grocery store - do yourself a favor and buy a bottle. So far, I haven't found a flavor I haven't liked. Tea: the best thing to drink during summer, if you are underage.

This website is one of the funniest to come along in a while.

Ms. Kara Sutra (when she isn't bitchy) gives some pretty good advice.

Finally, if you are a do it yourself type of guy you probably already know about Instructables, but if not then check out the Throwies and other crazy LED projects.


Have a good rest of the summer!

-Max

The D&D Experience pt. 1

This is something that has been kicking around in the back of my mind for a little while. So, if you will indulge me, I would like to tell a short story.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I couldn't give an exact date, but it was during my middle school years when I first discovered exactly what Dungeons and Dragons is. Until then, I had only a vague idea of a game played mostly by nerds in years past. So, one weekend I was sent to stay at my grandparent's house because my parents were celebrating an anniversary, or some such holiday. Their house is very easy to picture because it is the quintessential grandparent house. Really old. Really comfortable. Really good food. I usually slept in a room upstairs that formerly belonged to my youngest uncle and still had a lot of his stuff packed away in the closet. During the afternoon I was bored, so while my grandparents were downstairs doing boring old-person stuff I decided to go digging through the closet. Invasion of privacy be damned, I was a restless little kid!

I should note that by this time I had read Tolkien, (some) Dragonlance, and Harry Potter, so, for a kid, I was well-versed in fantasy.

Although, looking back, simply reading fantasy didn't really prepare me for what I found. Several open boxes were buried under a pile of clothes, so I decided to pull those out and sort through them. What I found in them immediately seemed to me a gold mine. For effect, I'll just list everything contained therein.

Books:

• 1st Edition AD&D Player's Handbook
• 1st Edition AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide
• 1st Edition AD&D Monster Manual
• 1st Edition AD&D Monster Manual 2
• 2 copies of (one is pretty ratty) 1st Edition AD&D Deities & Demigods
• 1st Edition AD&D Fiend Folio
• 1st Edition AD&D Unearthed Arcana

Modules:

• The Keep on the Borderlands
• The Isle of Dread
• Against the Giants
• Queen of the Demonweb Pits
• Vault of the Drow
• Tomb of the Lizard King
• Lost Tomb of Martek
• The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror
  
• Master of the Desert Nomads
• Sabre River

Other stuff:

• World of Greyhawk Folio Gazetteer
• an old folder full of graph paper, character sheets, and item/loot information

It took me most of the afternoon to just wrap my head around everything I had found. The complexity and detail that each adventure and book contained completely blew my mind. I thought the old, hand drawn illustrations that accompanied many of the descriptions were particularly cool. Because I have always been a sucker for maps, though, the Gazetteer was my favorite. The gigantic fold out map and the accompanying booklet described in minute detail an entire world that seemed to be begging to be explored.

In spite of the internet and its endless information, I am glad that this is how I found D&D. It would have been too easy and boring to just do a Google search for Dungeons and Dragons and read up on it. This sort of hands-on discovery fits perfectly with the spirit of tabletop gaming. It's just you, your friends, a few materials, and your collective imagination that brings the stories to life. So far I had three out of those four things, my brain was excited and my imagination was really starting to cook with the possibilities offered in these books.

My grandmother eventually came upstairs to find out why I had been so quiet all afternoon. She found me sitting on the floor next to the bed reading the Monster Manual. She smiled and said something like, "Oh, you've found all of Paul's (my uncle) old Dungeons and Dragons books, have you?" Apparently, when my uncle was in high school he was also in a local boy scout troop in which he made friends with some guys who got him into playing D&D.

Needless to say, I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening combing through many different books and modules; all the while my imagination expanding. When my parents came back and it was time to go home, my grandmother said I could take all the D&D stuff with me (as parents are sometimes apt to do without asking their children first)! This made me quite the excited little boy. On the way home I told my mom all about the cool stuff I had found. By the end of that day I had learned that Wizards of the Coast was currently producing the D&D materials and that it was in it's 3.5 edition. You can guess what my Christmas list that year consisted of. Eventually, we talked to my uncle, told him what I had found, and he was only too happy to pass his stuff on to a younger generation.

Thus began my problem and overarching idea for this post.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

I originally intended this to be one post, but I don't want it to run too long and bore everyone to death. So, in the next couple of days I will write part two. I hope this has given at least some insight into a much younger generation coming upon tabletop fantasy games. In the second part I'm going to discuss my current generation's lack of imagination and how games like D&D just don't seem to cut it for most kids any more.


What I'm listening to:
"Young Adult Friction" by The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
It can be found under this review.

-Max

Becoming A Free to Play Junkie

I fear that I am very quickly turning into a free to play junkie. For the last couple of weeks I've been splitting my game time between Guild Wars and Free Realms, with the odd New Super Mario Bros. mini game. Although, now there is a growing tension between myself and the issue of PC Gamer magazine that I bought last weekend.

I couldn't help myself, it was sitting there on the shelf and practically screaming "365 FREE GAMES". I guess it was them trying to be helpful in a time of recession (because $10 for the fuckin' magazine itself is really easy on the wallet). So, I brought it home and found maybe one out of every ten games interesting and worth checking out; haven't really bothered yet, they are mostly flash games. For the last couple of days though, the magazine has been lying face down with cute, pixelated faces of characters from Maple Story staring up at me. Now normally I don't bother with Asian mmos, click-to-move is not what I want in a game experience. Somehow though, I think it must be hypnotizing me because I find myself staring at those ridiculously huge anime eyes and thinking, "It's a side scroller, so maybe it's different...and it's free, you can't argue with free." I am beginning to scare myself.

So, before I go and download a bunch of crap that I more than likely won't enjoy, I have a small request. If you are reading this and have given Maple Story a shot, please in the comments leave a little mini-review with your overall opinion of the game and maybe some positives and negatives of whatever types of game systems it employs (because quite honestly, I have not bothered to look up any info on the game).

I think I need to find some new games, because if I log in to Free Realms one more time I might end up spending money in that item shop. Seeing those RMT cards at Target and Best Buy are tempting me to do evil things, like break my rule about paying for 'free' games. Argh, WoW has ruined me!

Wrapping things up: if, for some reason, you should want to get in contact with me and berate me for my truly idiotic opinions then feel free to call me on Skype at max.castillo9791. I'm rarely on, but connecting with fellow gamers is part of what this blog is all about, so there that is.

Lastly, my first love is music, so from here on out I will be ending every post with what I've recently been listening to. Today it is:

Ra Ra Riot's "Can You Tell" which can be found here. Enjoy!

-Max

The Harry Potter MMO, or Lack Thereof

Originally, I was going to do a post today about new class ideas. But, after reading this article over on Massively, decided the Harry Potter mmo discussion was much more pertinent.

I understand that this property has probably been discussed endless times on blogs already. However, I feel the need to weigh in, given the fact that: THIS IS BULLSHIT.

Before I start in on my little shit storm, let me just say that, yes, I did attempt to read Twilight. But, it was apparent to me very quickly that hypersexualized tween stories about vampires were just not my thing; at least not after reading much higher quality vampire novels.

So, why is Twilight being made into a game and Harry Potter not? Nobody asked for a Twilight mmo! Most teens who read crap like Twilight don't play video games and those that do are perfectly happy playing Wii Sports and probably have no clue as to what an mmo is*. On the other hand, fans have been hoping and speculating for a while now on whether an mmo would ever be set in the realm of our favorite evil-vanquishing boy-wizard. Whoever the complete dumb ass (Mrs. Rowling excluded) is that decided to sit on this property and not develop it into what would almost certainly be a massive hit should be shot, several times.

After recently seeing this sixth movie and subsequently deciding to re-read the series from book two, a near endless stream of ideas has come into my head regarding what could be done with this mmo. A few are as follows:

• Set it during the first wizard war before Harry was born in order to create factions.
• If Rowling has direct input in the storyline, this setting would allow her to flesh out the back story without requiring her to write any more books, which she has more or less made clear she probably will not do.
• The inevitable expansions could be based around expanding out of England to the major battles that were hinted at all over the world.
  
• Start all characters at Hogwarts and by level 10 allow them to decide to become Death Eaters or part of the Order of the Phoenix.
• For all those bitching about class systems, it wouldn't even have to be class based...because everyone is a wizard! Make it skill based and allow players to specialized in different types of magic. Ex: herbology = healers, defense against the dark arts/dark arts = tank, care of magical creatures = pet style tank/dps, charms = dps, potions = support/buffs/healing?
  

Now, I am not advocating that a game with a fan base of this size and dedication be rushed to release, just to appease drooling idiots like myself. There is one very good example of a large franchise turned into a lackluster mmo. If they are going to do Harry Potter, I think everyone will agree, they need to do it right or not at all. Despite my disdain that was the impetus for this blog, I would also say that a game based on Twilight should be done well or not at all, too. All dedicated fans expect and deserve quality.

So, when we're done adapting games that no one actually asked for, can someone please get to work on our beloved Harry Potter?

-Max

*I didn't have time to talk to her before writing this, but I will send a message to a friend of mine who is Twilight's target audience and get her expert opinion on this matter.

Wow

No, not that WoW. I could never hope to have that many subscribers...

Bad jokes aside, I would like to say one huge thank you to Darren and the folks over on the Shut Up. We're Talking. podcast for mentioning my blog along with Tranquil Abyss in their Blog of the Week section.

I usually check Virgin Worlds once or twice a day to see if any new shows have been put up and was really excited to see a new SUWT. What I was totally unprepared for was to see my blog in the show notes! So, thanks Darren and Karen, you just made a noob blogger's day!

To be honest, it was always a hope in the back of my mind that one day I might get mentioned in one of my favorite podcasts; though, surely, never a goal of this writing experiment.

I am, however, sure of one thing: I am now going to have to exercise at least SOME quality control in order to call this a respectful blog. :)

We shall see where this takes us and I am glad to have as many people as possible along for the ride.

Again, thank you!

-Max

Caution: Devastator's Balls

For those that care, this blog is still deeply under construction.

So, tonight I just thought I would do a short post on what I'm playing/listening to.

Games:

• WoW Peggle - Only during podcast listening, don't worry.
  
• Guild Wars - I've been trying to get a friend of mine to play with me on odd nights, so I've just been popping in and out. Hopefully this time I can stick with it, the first time it didn't rub me so well.
• New Super Mario Bros. - After watching the Mario Marathon a couple weekends ago I got a huge itch to play some jumping plumber games.
• *I'm on the verge of giving Free Realms another shot. I think I should rotate all the unpaid professions; I got frustrated with mining pretty quickly.

Podcasts:

• Pretty much all of Virgin Worlds
• The perennial Shut Up. We're Talking.
• The extremely entertaining Van Hemlock
• The informative Massively Speaking
• The rare but delightful How I WoW
• The apocalyptic Through the Aftermath
• The obvious WoW Insider Show
• The Star Wars hype machine The Holocron
• Finally, ever since Epic Dolls went the way of the dodo I've picked up on the Turkey's other podcast Spouse Aggro. It is very quickly becoming a new favorite, due in most part to Beau Turkey being an awesomely entertaining commentator!
• *Also, I would give both my pinky toes to have The Online Gamer's Anthology come back. Please Jonathan, come back to doing what you do best: reminiscing!

So that is it. Please check back soon!

-Max

Early Adoption and the New MMO Gamer

As I mentioned in the first post I am a gamer new to the mmo scene. Without giving my full gaming history (I am saving that for a future post), I'll just say that my first experience playing video games was on an extremely old mac at my grandparent's house playing a game in which two apes threw exploding bananas at each other. Since then I've owned several consoles and handhelds, although I continually find myself coming back to the pc to play games.

So, where am I going with all of this boring personal history?

It makes me sad and lonely to say, but I have not yet had the opportunity (privilege?) to be part of a newly launched mmo. Yes, I tried my darnedest to get into that weird two week Free Realms beta and when the game went live I gave it a shot, but eventually decided my awkward ninteen-year-oldness was at the polar opposite region from the age group they were looking to attract. Who knows though, perhaps in the coming months I will go back? That's the beauty of free to play.

To be perfectly honest I have played WoW on and off since the summer of 2006, but it was not until this past January that I truly immersed myself in the massively multiplayer online culture of games and began to think of myself as an mmo player. To be less label-y: this year the genre began to appeal to and interest me in an entirely new way. I realized that there were plenty of mmo's out there that were not Warcraft.

This brings me to my main point of the post (finally). Star Wars: The Old Republic might as well be the only game on the release calendar, for all the rest of eternity. Global Agenda, Champions, All Points Bulletin, Aion...these are not games I will probably ever play and certainly not on day one of release. SWTOR, however, is one game that I will reserve and stand in line at midnight at GameStop for.

Being part of a game in all its newly released and exceptionally buggy glory has never been appealing to me until now. I'm a moderate Star Wars fan and I'm a huge KOTOR fan so this game is right up my alley, if you will. I want to be one of those (usually annoying) people who can say, *in a crotchety old man's voice* "I remember when SWTOR (insert changed game mechanic here). It's a totally different game these days!" Of course the day when I utter those praises and complaints might be three months after release. Nevertheless, I will have been a part of, what I believe is an experience integral to the genre: The Release.

Reading about so many launch reminesces on sites like Massively and listening to podcasts in which the hosts wax romantic about the glory days of their favorite mmos has got me wanting that same type of experience, and when The Old Republic launches I mean to get that experience.

They say you always have fond memories and rose colored glasses for your first mmo. I think the same must also be true for your first mmo launch.

-Max

Begin Blog: NOW!

Beginning to write is always the hardest, most awkward part. It's as though I'm waiting for Garrick Padfoot to spawn and who should turn up right beside me, but you, dear reader. Might I say you are looking lovely in that standard issue leather armor. But now the big question: Do we group, or are your intentions simply to ninja this mob I have been waiting on for nearly five minutes?

I will do the noble, nay, heroic thing and send you a group request. So, will you accept...?

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I hope (perhaps out of that silliness above) that you will be so kind as to befriend me in this world of massively multiplayer online games that we collectively call home. My name is Max and I have for some time entertained the idea of starting a gaming blog to cover and convey my thoughts regarding video games in general, mmo games in particular, and perhaps a little random music as I see fit. Finally, I decided (out of an abundance of free time) that it was either put up or shut up, and like many current bloggers I like to hear myself talk. It inevitably had to be the former.

So, a little about myself:

I am a second year college student who, in the last several years, has developed a keen taste for online games. If the first generation entered into the massively multiplayer game space with Everquest and the second generation entered into that space with World of Warcraft then I am solidly of the second generation. However, currently I have let my WoW account slide and am beginning to dip my toes into other games, beginning with Guild Wars.

I have to admit I am somewhat of a lonely gamer. Unfortunately, very few of my friends are at all interested in my gaming hobby. This fact alone is probably the main reason why mmo's are such an appealing genre of entertainment to me. *Millions of people on this series of tubes who share my passion?! Sign me up!* (For the low, low price of $15 a month)

Also, before we get any further I should state quite plainly that I am a Noob. Most of the time I will NOT know what I'm doing. Awareness of one's own inability is always a plus, right?

Finally, my writing ability. I can promise that my grammar will not always be perfect and my perspectives not always the most well-thought-out, but I can and will guarantee that every post on this blog will be written with an honest passion for massively multiplayer online games.

So, to wrap this first post up I'd just like to say thank you, dear reader, for showing even the most meager of interest in what I have to say. Maybe we can quest again together, hopefully very soon!

-Max