Yeah, I like TV. I can say that now; for years I refused to watch it. Rotting my mind and all. But having just come off a marathon 30 Rock Season 2 bender, I find I really want to get back to playing MMOs because they are LESS addictive than television. With MMOs, you chat with people, group with them, make friends. With TV, it’s just sitting with the cat and a bowl of popcorn on a lonely couch. So, you know, on the scale of pathetic leisure time activities, MMOs are way above television.

But I still like it! The GOOD shows, I mean. Since you and I like only the good shows, I don’t need to list them, but I think we know Brennan and Booth are gonna get together.

In MMOs, though, well… we’re not in Azeroth anymore. Unless we are.

Earthrise

When a studio thinks critics won’t have anything nice to say about a movie, they tend to not let the critics in to see it early. The same thing happens with MMOs; when a game studio is unsure about their game, they might be reluctant to let the hoi polloi in if they’re just gonna badmouth it all over the forums. That’s what Sente of A Ding World thinks might be going on with Masthead Studios’ Earthrise. Watching the video, I’m reminded a lot of Tabula Rasa, but the clip showing a group of three killing a boar doesn’t make me leap out of my chair to buy it.

Aion

Aion end-game raiders are morons. No, it’s true. I know because I read it on the Internet!

DC Universe Online

It’s been an exciting week for DC Universe Online, SOE’s latest entry in the men with tights genre – this one being the first MMO for the Playstation 3. As the platform leader for the upcoming The Agency and EverQuest Next, there’s a lot riding on these primary-colored shoulders.

And what a week! Entertainment Weekly is openly wondering if DCUO could possibly be the WoW killer everyone’s been looking for. An LA Times article points out that DCUO is one of the ways DC is trying to build enthusiasm for its screen properties, like summer’s Green Lantern. Just Push Start claims SOE has had to rush new servers online to meet the European demand for the game.

Via Tobold comes news of some possible kryptonite in the coffee… Gamespy didn’t give it a stellar first impression. The real test comes a year down the line, but my take is that the game wasn’t meant for PC gamers.

EverQuest 2

Stargrace has the skinny on the features coming with Destiny of Velious. Yeah, it kinda bugs me that the epic scope Velious had in EverQuest is being vastly reduced for EQ2. EQ’s Velious brought a truly vast continent, almost as large as Kunark, with THREE NPC capital cities, with which you could build favor or choose to tear down; the legendary Sleeper’s Tomb, the Dragon Necropolis, the three-dungeons-in-one Temple of Veeshan, the iconic Tower of Frozen Shadow, a huge collection of outdoor contested nameds… it would be nearly impossible to match that.

I have no idea how SOE manage to knock those out year after year.

Well, this one DOES include the end of the world, so that’s something, I guess.

Ferrel of Epic Slant pretty much nails the features Velious SHOULD provide.

Blue Mars

The virtual world that was going to be an upscale shopping and resort destination for those that had tired of the unmitigated chaos of Second Life has fallen on hard times. Tateru Nino examines the reasons why Blue Mars failed to excite virtual worlders, and its perhaps dim prospects in its afterlife on the iPhone.

I dunno. Maybe people don’t really feel the need for a virtual world for shopping? Hard to do online shopping better than Amazon and eBay.

EverQuest

Kaozz is returning to EverQuest! But she won’t be startling Fippy Darkpaw outside the gates of Qeynos; she’s returning to her old home on Firiona Vie, the roleplay server. When SOE makes a roleplay server, it’s more than just a (RP) after the name. All races speak their own language and don’t understand anyone else’s without training. Items that are no drop on other servers can be traded on FV (mostly). There used to be a one character per account limit, but apparently that’s been removed.

If you’re not up for starting completely over on a totally new server, could do worse than to check out FV. You can buy everything there, for a price. A really HIGH price. The Legends server people used to use FV to traffic no drop items between servers, and that really ruined the FV economy.

EVE wasn’t the first MMO to legitimize shady activity, not by a long shot.

Guild Wars 2

Ravious at KTR has written a nice guide to the main features of Guild Wars 2 – “A World of Warcraft Player’s Guide to Guild Wars 2”. I see these kinds of guides all over for various games, and it’s always tuned to the WoW player.

It’s been my limited experience that people who have WoW as their first MMO, and a really huge percentage of those that came to it later, really have two complaints about any non-WoW game. The first, that it’s too similar to WoW. The second, that it’s too different from WoW. The only solution to this paradox? Just play WoW!

I just feel it’s pointless to even try to snare the WoW player to a new MMO. At least, I’ve had no luck getting any of the WoW players in my own family to try anything else.

Vanguard

TAGN pointed out this rare quote from SOE’s John Smedley on the obligations a game developer feels when charging a subscription for a game:

The monthly subscription fee means players can expect a lot of new content from us. And I say a lot — I really mean that. This is something that we feel obligated to the players, because they are paying monthly sub fee…”

Subscription game Vanguard hasn’t had an update since 2009. They still charge a monthly fee.

So… yeah.

Tired now. More later. Just want to point out: No Rift news!