January 2007 Entries
Old news now, of course, in this whirling helter-skelter of Information Superhighways and what not:
Slashdot: eBay Virtual World Delisting Skips Second Life
All quite complicated, and still on-going I think, but the basic gist of it is that the megalithic online car-boot sale that is eBay, has decided that it wants nothing more to do with the mind-wrenching conceptual hijinks that is Online Virtual Asset Ownership, and have decided to just pull the lot. Including imaginary stuff from Ultima Online, which is actually allowed to be traded in this manner, and yet not including imaginary stuff from Second Life...
Flush without resounding success, mentioned previously, in 'A Bold Confrontation', the guild was all set to tackle the second Guild Writ in the series - 'A Daring Confrontation'.
Not that I've ever had much experience with WoW Raiding mind you, but so far as I can see, EQ2 does seem to do, if not a better, than certainly a more flexible job of the same kind of gaming experience. For starters, the Raid Instances I've seen so far seem to scale dynamically, based on the average level of the members of the raiding force. The various set-pieces and event-attacks still...
More Guild Wars mayhem, and a surprisingly enjoyable session that saw me complete missions 20, 21 and 22 of the basic Prophecies campaign; The Ice Caves of Sorrow, The Iron Mines of Moladune and Thunderhead Keep, mostly without frustration or incident, making a much longer night of it that I normally spend in there, and now I'm on the Ring of Fire Islands, and have only three more missions to complete, to finish the Big Story, as far as the original game goes at least.
The session was mostly spent 'duoing' with my previously mentioned friend, the one with all the...
Life continues to be good to me in Everquest II, with rate of overall progress both satisfying, and almost accidental at times. I'll be just out there, doing my thing; exploring, questing, defending myself from wandering monster attack, indulging in the odd pick-up group dungeon crawl, and all of a sudden, 'Ding!', which is exactly as it should be; a pleasant surprise, not the focus of my existence.
I remember the dark old days of Everquest 1, when you'd be sat there, driving yourself progressively more insane by spending the lengthy, and frequent downtime (at times, 14 mins in every 15...
Seems that it's not just a case of the lights being on but no-one being home:
OGRank: Planetside: what is coming in the near future
A small heads-up, and "we're not dead!" shout out from the Planetside Development team, detailing some of the upcoming development work we, the ever-dwindling members of the three Auraxian armies can expect some patch day soon. It's a good list, particularly from my perspective, since my, frankly abysmal, FPS Skillz often tend to drive me toward the tactical planning and forethought of Combat Engineering for my kills, so any new toys there will probably be be...
Winnaaaah!
Pro G: French WoW Player Reaches Level 70 in 28 Hours (via MMOG Nation)
Good grief! Something of a study in obsession, Monsiuer Gullerbone there took the rest of his guild out to the Outlands, and in a feat of determination as much impressive as it is frightening, organised a 28 hour marathon, with rotas, a shift system and some highly dubious use of the Mage's AOE spells 'tagging' monsters around him that were then taken down by his guild chums, and has finished in just over a day, what Blizzard were probably hoping would take a month or two at...
Hmph. Seems as if I was completely wrong in my vulture-like glee-filled pessimism about The Burning Crusade launch, with pretty much everyone else actually being able to buy, install, patch, connect and play the blasted thing with no problems at all. See, well, any of my sidebar links, for a glowing tale of praise, joy and post-Lv60 exuberance. I'd post specific links, but Blizzard have basically made me look a like fool in front of the entire Internet, so I'm far too cross to fiddle about with <a> tags now. Grrr!
Seriously though, it is nice to see a company get...
It's another Second Life post, so if that kind of thing makes you cross, you'd best join me again tomorrow!
I've filled in a good few posts in the past, off the back of the Media Circus that surrounds SL, mostly from the lofty perch of general all-round MMO Pundit, and indeed, coming across this article, by New World Notes' Wagner James Au, would normally be my cue to have at it with pretentiously wordy abandon:
Gigagamez: Second Life Backlash: A Story Too Good To Check
In which he looks over a lot of the recent negative reviews of SL, and suggests that...
A look to the past, with Planetside, so now a look to the future, with EVE Online. I'd be hard pressed to put an exact date for my eventual return to the game - I have a lot of games I'm quite enjoying already at the moment, but the 2007 Plan is indeed, another go at CCP’s quirky niche space-based quietly-solid success story.
Part of EVE's unique appeal, is the sheer level of impact the players have on their game world, and indeed, game. Many of the elements of gameplay that exist in today's EVE Online are things that had...
On a whim, and reminded by my 'Highpoint of 2006' post, I popped into Planetside last night, for a bit of a look about, see how the old dog is getting on. Going with lowest population team as usual saw me on my Vanu Sovereignty Light Infantry/Repair guy, and as usual after a long period of not-playing, I sucked mightily, and for the next couple of hours got quite convincingly humiliated left right and centre.
For their part, the remaining players still dukeing it out on Werner must have been, in some tiny way, thrilled to have an opponent that...
Hot on the heels of their recent announcement of 7.5 million accounts, and just when I was starting to feel left out:
Dear Adventurer,
While u've been away, something monumental has been happening, yaddah yaddah, Burning Legion, yaddah yaddah, Outlands, yaddah yaddah, Hawt Horde ElfSecks, yaddah yaddah truly horrific attunement path, yaddah yaddah, Ponies, but Flying! yaddah yaddah, avoid crushing the servers by resubscribing today!, yaddah yaddah, jewelcrafting, yaddah yaddah, click here to automatically be billed!
Luv, Blizz!
=^.^=
Aww, I feel special now. My name is Van Hemlock, and I ... am actually quite indifferent about The Burning Crusade. Gosh, that feels so much...
Level 40-49: A_Banqueter says, 'CH Raid, LF DPS!'
This is usually how it starts. I'm running along, from A to B, and the occasional capricious mood hits me, partly based on psychological self-harm, partly because it's an anecdote, and I can't just bang on about Second Life the whole time, but mostly because part of me still wants it to work - despite all my bitterness, I still want to be a hero. So pausing only to deconstruct and translate the acronyms (CH - Cauldron Hollow, a raid instance off the Nektulous Forest zone in Everquest 2, LF - Looking For,...
By all counts, the Vanguard: Saga of Heroes beta Non-Disclosure Agreement has been lifted, and indeed, the whole thing has been opened up to anyone with a File Planet subscription now, allowing our intrepid amateur war correspondents to get in to the action and get word out to all us mildly curious bystanders about what this much speculated-on title is actually going to be like.
Or at least that's the theory anyway. Personally, I hate the idea of an 'Open Beta Test' - the word 'Test' is typically omitted these days, and this rather neatly hits the nail on the head....
Well, I'm finally caught up on my RSS from the few seasonal weeks off I took, and it does seem quite a bleak kind of season, particularly the 'round-up' type posts, with most of us still playing games from 2005 and further back, not impressed with any new titles released in 2006, and not especially looking forward to anything scheduled for 2007. Lean times, and the Year of The Expansion indeed.
The Podnositcator's holiday special, including interviews with a great many other MMO podcasters, seems to sum this mood up quite well, and can be found here:
Virgin Worlds Podcast #45
(Episode #46,...
Michael at MMOGNation got me, but I've been waiting for an intervention for months anyway:
Five Things You Might Not Know About Me:
1. I once made headline news! It was the front page of the local paper, in connection with the discovery of evidence of 'occult activity'. The expert the police called in was particularly convinced by the discovery of diboloical markings (drawn from memories of Ultima Underworld 2 spell runes) and a burnt offering (A mixture of damp charcoal from a nearby barbecue, and sweet-n-sour sauce from a Chinese takeaway). A somewhat ill-advised evenings larking about after pub kick-out. I...
I’m awake, I’m awake! A rather low-key, but quite pleasant seasonal period, which I spend in my traditional manner – obsessively playing MMORPGs and gradually going insane, feral and nocturnal, in various order. This year it was mostly the turn of Everquest II to play host, with a smattering of Second Life and the odd day out in Guild Wars.
All very agreeable, but EQ2 really does deserve special mention for it's Christmas..er..."Frostfell"...offering. You sort of get used to the Typical MMO Seasonal Event after a while - Valentine, Halloween, Christmas - a chance for an MMO to do something a...