Magic Castle for Sale: Sold! A few days ago I was trying to define what I thought of as an MMO. I started off thinking it was just a realtime, online game with other players, but as the day went on, thinking about it more, I felt it had to include a persistent avatar representing the player that could be named and customized. I was pretty confident that nailed the essential nature of an MMORPG. ...
Star Wars: The Crayon Republic So yeah. I’d have a better screenshot, but somehow I’m the only person who did NOT get into the Star Wars: The Old Republic beta weekend. But I have MS Paint, and I’m not afraid to use it. Doesn’t matter. Game is going to be a hit – that’s not even in doubt. You can kill stuff with light sabers. Kiss a wookie. Visit Alderaan before it went to hell. And even though the game is set three thousand years before the events of the movies, everyone still wears the same frickin’ clothes. ...
Grand Skellie Poo-bah Last night we were down two people; Ulan had real life relatives over (who could have popped in and played healers because WHY THE HECK NOT?), and Lessah continues to be mysteriously disappeared (we hope everything is okay with her). Since NOTHING can stop Team Spode, we headed straight into the ruins of Gianthold to see what kind of damage a team of three could do. The second dungeon of the night was Madstone Crater, a long, long labyrinth of death winding its way around and through an active volcano. Which technically makes the area a caldera, not a crater. But be that as it may. The basic goal here is to a) not step in deadly lava pits while b) freeing giant yeti-like “seers” from the mental control of c) giant skeletal enchanters. The seers, once freed, will insist on playing Dance Central in front of their XBox giant glowing crystal while the adventurers fight off a never-ending wave of troll and minotaur attackers. ...
Creativity can be deadly I realized today that I have no clue whatsoever what the term “MMO” means anymore. I gave it some thought and came up with “An MMO is an online, real-time game where other people affect can your game.” That’s pretty vague. Clearly there are games which call themselves MMOs and can be played as if they were MMOs, or as if they were solo RPGs. I don’t know. I just know the old definitions don’t work. ...
Going berzerk on minos I haven’t played Dragon Nest since I hit level 24, the current maximum, a few weeks back. I understood something about myself and my relation to MMOs at that moment; I like the leveling. I really do. Once I’ve leveled, I’ve seen the game, time to move on. The “end game” used to be incredibly important to me, but now there are so many games to play, that I just treat the end of leveling as the “end” of the game. I don’t know if I could deal with EverQuest’s year to level any more. Not that it takes that long to level in EverQuest these days. But if another game were to offer it, I doubt I’d go for it. ...
Frozen dragon Giants, they are big. They are big and very powerful. They swing I-beams like 10’ rods. They could and do crush the life from insects such as we without thinking about it. They freeze dragons in stone forever. So why is it again they need us to do their dirty work for them? Sunday before last, I was knocked out on my couch after a whale watching trip 30 miles off the coast of Boston and missed the rest of Team Spode’s first encounter with the Ruins of Gianthold. ...
Varath the Unloved Team Spode isn’t an adventuring party with a lot of principles, but there’s one principle which we regard as iron-clad. And that is, never leave loot on the table. This simple rule has served us well over the years. Having finished for now with the Sands of Menechtarun (we have a raid to attempt at some point), we took our guild ship to the compound of The Twelve. There were reports of dragons in the area. We thought back to our (short) list of principles, noted that dragons were known for their hoards of treasure, and we volunteered for the job. ...
Der Ritter, cleric Dragon Nest has it’s own version of World of Warcraft’s “rest xp” – power. There’s a power bar next to your experience bar that slowly fills up over time. Each dungeon instance you do takes some of this power away; doing a low level dungeon on “easy” mode might cost 25 power. Doing a level 15 dungeon on “master” mode might take 300 power. It didn’t take long last night to use up my warrior Obstacle’s power last night. I re-ran Valley of Mourning a couple times for side-quests and achievements, then moved into the Forest Ruins – a new spot – to advance the plot, complete some quests and look for higher level skill books. I didn’t find any skill books, but I did find some good high level sparks, which are similar to adornments in other games – they add attributes to the gear you have. ...
Pining for Hrundle Fjord It’s been no real secret that Wizard101’s Ravenwood Academy owes at least a little of its inspiration to Harry Potter’s Hogwarts. Alison Goldtalon and I were having a chat with Grandmother Raven over in Wintertusk; we’d just tied some gewgaws to the threads of our destiny in the Loom of Fate and freed her. Forgotten was that we’d earlier been told that because we were outsiders, the threads of our destiny were not part of the fabric of Wintertusk reality. ...
It's Dwaggin Season I got this mysterious e-mail the other day, it was simply a list of tasks to perform… log on to Lord of the Rings. Find skirmish camp outside Bree gates. talk to people there and get set up with a soldier and do the intro skirmish run. Press Control+J to get the skirmish panel. Select the Siege of Gondamon Skirmish. Second boss to the end is a dragon. ...