Welcome to Monday! We had a gorgeous weekend here in Connecticut. The cat loved sunning herself in every patch of light, shorts weather for sure, and everything is in bloom.
Free Realms is also in bloom. FR’s beta ended yesterday with a huge bash in the port town of Seaside. Oz of Kill Ten Rats isn’t feeling the love, and cites deceptive practices in game among reasons why he doesn’t feel FR is ready for prime time. Tobold responds by pointing out the collectible card game was not nearly as expensive as Oz opines, or that beta testers were required to pay to test member-only content, and offers his own thoughts on the Free Realms beta.
Syp from Bio Break loves him some family-style guilds. and takes a look at the rise of the semi-casual gaming guild as the graying MMO population moves from twitch and kill games to games people can enjoy as a family. Syp also wonders if there’s a way to have your permadeath cake and heat it too, using alts like substitutes in a basketball game when the main dies.
Caliga of MMO Gamers used the two weeks of free gaming the American launch of the Chronicles of Spellborn gave him to take a look at this latest European MMO import. Between EVE Online, Age of Conan and now Spellborn, have we seen enough European MMOs on this side of the long drink to compare them?
Massively has news from Titan Online’s Grand Open Beta, and even has a thousand beta keys to give away. I don’t know much about the game. Giant mecha robots? Visually gripping art style? Or yet another Asian grinder? Beta’s free, Massively has the keys, maybe it’s worth a look.
Peter from Dragonchasers wonders why anyone would make a Nemesis that is at all hard to defeat? In Champions Online, your Nemesis is a super villain you design who follows your hero through the game, causing problems now and then. Who won’t make their Nemesis a push-over? Champions releases July 14.
That’s it for today!