MMORPG

Yesterday I blogged about several games in development in 2001 that maybe aren’t so well known these days. Back in 2001, nobody knew Blizzard’s World of Warcraft would change the scene, but everyone knew great things were ahead. Computers were doubling in power every year, graphics as well, and what looked good in 1999 looked downright primitive just two years later – EverQuest’s graphics overhaul that began with Shadows of Luclin and continues today was testament to that, as well as the new beginning of EverQuest II. ...

Daily Blogroll will continue tomorrow. I’ll be up in New Hampshire driving my stepmom around as she gets surgery for her cataracts, so I’ll have Plenty Of Time :) Fernando_Blanco tweeted: I’ll be at Austin Game Developers Conference; looking to meet with press regarding some BIG Wizard101 announcements! (That’s today, by the way) – and later: Wizard101 is celebrating its 1 yr anniversary and 5 MILLION players in the game! Congrats! ...

I am so very pleased to welcome Mystic Worlds’ Saylah as a guest blogger while she lets her blog lie fallow for awhile. – Tipa Aion wasn’t on my radar - at all. I didn’t have any preconceived notions going into the Open Beta (OB) other than the game looked attractive from all the screenshots I’d seen. And I’d received enthusiastic emails from Mallika about her experiences in the Closed Beta. I’m going to keep this accounting short since it’s being graciously hosted on West Karana. I don’t want to kick-up any dust over at Mystic Worlds since I am by no means, ready to started blogging regularly. Smile ...

I was cleaning out my closet and found a few old floppy disks, REALLY old. Someone had scrawled “Daily Blogroll: Sep ‘01” on them. I honestly don’t remember writing any blogs way back then. I had no idea what was on them. They were two 8" disks, so between the two of them, there could be as many as four or five pages of documents sitting there, unread, for eight years. ...

Was there ever a mob that you really, REALLY hated as a low level, that you just HAD to go back later on and just kill, kill, kill? Well, old Dorn in North Ro was that mob for a lot of us EQ players. Seeing him CRINGE before me now in EQ2…. Worth the ride! One of the things that made EQ so memorable was that there was really nothing like it at the time. They could pretty much try anything, because, what else was there? Not like these days, where there’s so MUCH choice, so MANY good games, that it’s hard to stick with just one, and so game devs do whatever they feel they must to grab and keep players. ...

That’s like Galaxy Express 999, NOT the Futurama ship. That’s Planet Express. Ever, like, DIE in a game, and your pet begins dancing around your decaying corpse, singing about what a great day it is? Thanks, Hello Kitty Online! Leveling has slowed quite a lot in that game. My pet is having a super time, though. If you spend several hundred hours in your game of choice, the LAST thing you really want is someone coming up and telling you that you’re wasting your time, because Game B is SO much better than your Game A – insert any two games in those slots. Super Mario World vs Legend of Zelda. Cribbage vs Bridge. WoW vs…. well, any other game that is not WoW. ...

I’ve gotten a bunch of emails telling about updates et al to a lot of games. Rather than write an article about each one, or ignoring them entirely, I thought I’d just combine them into a single post. Windstorm Studios, brainchild of ex-Age of Empires and Halo Wars dev Dusty Monk, has just released two bits of concept art from his unannounced evil giant super death robot massacre game, Citizen Kabuto. Just kidding. The cries on everyone’s lips, where is Ultraman? … still just kidding. Check out the awesome art and bug him for more info! ...

Either the thought of playing in the world of Hello Kitty! makes you really excited, or you couldn’t care less. Nothing in this “first look” is going to change your mind. Still here? Then you’re a Hello Kitty! fan, and just want to know what the game that you’ve already decided to play is like. Worried that you’re too old to enjoy Hello Kitty? Worry not. Last night, the youngest person who admitted to their age was 20. Most were older – one person joked that everyone seemed to be 40 or over. HKO is a social game, more than anything else. A kaffeeklatsch for fans of a bobble-headed kitten from Japan. ...

I’ve been thinking of swapping my sidekick in Legends of Zork from the Gent (who made me essentially immune to traps) to the Accountant (who earns interest on your stash) for awhile. It kinda disappointed me that they nerfed her – it used to be that having her in your base would soon make you rich as Croesus. Not so much anymore, but as each upgrade now costs well over a million zorkmids, I need all the help I can get. And I can switch back to the Gent later on, once I’ve reached my goals and seeded the clan bank with some good upgrades for others. ...

Back in July of 2008, I downloaded a new MMO, played for several hours, and barely managed to tear myself away long enough to write about this still-in-beta Wizard101: It’s not the “perfect” MMO, but it’s definitely different enough to make it worth a look. Deck-building, strategic card-playing, turn-based combat? Check. Automatic grouping? Check. An absolutely INSANE amount of character customization? Check. A Toon Town-ish gameplay style that lets kids and adults play safely together? Check. Friggin’ baby dragon pets? Oh dear, yes, check! ...