Champions Online

I’ve renamed the Web Log to the Daily Blogroll, just because I like the name better. Also, in the Shameless Self Promotion dept, look for the last Adventures in Monopoly scheduled for later today. There’ll be more adventures with Dire Bear, Scottie and Car, when they have another story to tell. It’s server merge time in EQ2 again. This time, the US PvP servers Nagafen and Venekor (RP) will merge after Fan Faire in June. Most PvP players seem okay with it, but some are taking it really hard. ...

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. ...

Welcome to the weekend! It’s fantastic weather, so gonna keep this short. More news about the ex-Mythos developers’ new game, Torchlight? The Runic Games Fansite has a FAQ complete with everything they know about the fantasy Action RPG and its followup MMO, and Runic Games Insider’s Taylor Balbi has really long interviews with a few of the devs with the nittiest, grittiest details. Keen at Keen and Graev has a rather positive look at Free Realms. It’s a fun game, but will it appeal enough to kids to become a success? ...

The original definition of “blog” was as an abbreviation of “web log”, where you’d point out interesting places you found while surfing. I don’t really have anything to write about today – I did 1.1.11 in LotRO last night on my hunter and started in on the Forsaken Inn quests, and played Free Realms for a couple of hours but I can’t write about that, so… welcome to my web log! ...

In 2007, you could have surprised absolutely nobody by predicting that 2008, last year, would be the biggest, best year ever for MMOs. Triple A titles abounded – Age of Conan and Warhammer Online were both just going to tear WoW a new one, but heck, even WoW was coming out with its second expansion. Pirates of the Burning Sea would take MMOs into a new direction, Chronicles of Spellborn would be an indie hit from Europe, and Flagship would be following up Hellgate: London with their MMO homage to Diablo II, Mythos. ...

2008 has been an absolutely amazing year for MMOs, and my personal progress through them. Last year at this time, I’d just found the absolutely most perfect EQ2 guild – they were great raiders, loved grouping, and were fantastic people besides. With Clan of Shadows, I managed to do every flagging raid for Ruins of Kunark and was ready to step in and do my best to help the guild as they conquered Veeshan’s Peak. It wasn’t to be; I didn’t make the full membership vote. It wasn’t even close. That disappointment, along with other things to fill my evenings, eventually led to the end of raiding. Without raiding, though, I didn’t have much incentive to log in anymore. I tried to make things work with another guild, Delusions of Grandeur, but it just wasn’t CoS. I guess if I couldn’t make it in CoS, I didn’t want to settle for a lesser guild. ...

While discussing the possibility of “classic” servers in World of Warcraft, Cameron waxes nostalgic about his own yearning for the simpler days of gnoll-pounding in the Karanas. I loved those days too – my blog is named after one of those old zones, and my header images are all from EQ1, so you know I’m standing right there with Cameron, casting SoW, shooting off careless lightning and healing as best an old-school druid can. I was so nostalgic at one point that I restarted on a new no-transfer server, Stromm, and went through the entire game from scratch (xping in East Commonlands and Permafrost and Oasis, seeing the world once again), so that helped sate that particular yearning. ...

Dr. Destroyer in Champions Online Champions Online is the new game from the developers of City of Heroes and the defunct Marvel Universe Online. When I first heard the name of their new game (and anyone who doesn’t believe we’re seeing the essence of what Marvel Universe Online would have looked like can just rest easy in their wrongness), I immediately slipped back twenty years to one of my favorite pencil and paper RPG campaigns ever. ...