MMORPG

Aside from just being a shout-out to John Landis fans, I will be away on family business all weekend, returning Tuesday. I don’t know if I’ll bring my laptop, but I won’t be gaming in any event. The banner picture is of a raid dying in EQ2’s Wrath of the Elements x2 raid instance. It’s a guild raid, and the guild is Twilight Disciples, and it’s a PST raiding guild with a full roster of raiding nights, but the WoE raid was fun enough that, warning them I’d likely be missing most weeknight raids due to being asleep, I accepted their offer to join. I even won some T3 gloves from the raid, but I don’t have enough shards to finish them. If you’re not an EQ2 player, most of this paragraph was gibberish. ...

According to news sites T-Online and GameZone, Dutch-developed Fantasy MMORPG Chronicles of Spellborn will be shutting down the Frogster-operated European servers at the end of July. European players may have their characters transferred to the Acclaim-operated American servers by filling out a form on the Acclaim site. The article goes on to say that Spellborn will be relaunched in 2010 as a Free2Play game, funding itself with a cash store that will sell gear and character services. Upon relaunch, Frogster will again operate the European servers.

Okay, THAT was a day of good discussion, so thanks, Wolfshead :) Why did I feel your “first impressions” article needed rebutting? Well, SOMEONE had to stand up (and thanks to Hudson, who did!). I couldn’t say that stuff about WoW and expect to come away without comment. In grand blogging tradition, Wolfshead now has a rebuttal to my rebuttal :) ...

Isaiah Spelldust of Defenders of the Spiral is having a comic contest! Well, I’m always up for a comic :) That’s my entry above. Good luck! Here’s Isaiah with the rules: Just to let you know about my first ever Comic Contest! -Anyone can enter! -The comic has to be Wizard 101 related -Entries can be submitted between July 22-August 13 -No run-offs of anyone elses comics! ...

Where I live, both Burger King and Texas Steak House are in walking distance. Both serve meals, and both of those meals may contain beef. I could walk into the steak house and notice that the wait was too long, the menu was not posted prominently with pictures of the meals as you walked in, the meals were vastly overpriced, the music was too loud, the place was too crowded, the servers demanded I decide how I wanted my meal cooked, they served alcohol, and that since Burger King was arguably a LOT more popular, they would be well served by changing their business, or at least to be more aware of the BK way. ...

The Gobblers have finished moving the old Bazaar into the basement and have set up the entirely NEW Bazaar for our buying pleasure! Here’s the info straight from Professor Greyrose: New Bazaar! Elik has updated his Bazaar in Olde Town. The new Bazaar allows players to sort items based on name, quantity, school, level and cost. When you first arrive at the Bazaar, everything will be sorted by name. As you can see from the following picture, there’s a yellow arrow under the word ‘Name’. Click the word Name to sort from A to Z or Z to A. ...

I almost resubscribed to WoW last night. Just for a month, just so I could see some of the new places, see if the stuff the expansions added changed the game for the better. I didn’t, though, because to roll up a Death Knight and see all this cool stuff would cost me $$$ for the core game, Burning Crusade, and Wrath of the Lich King. Maybe when Blizzard finally makes all-in-one editions, like everyone else these days. ...

Famed sociopath and brother to the villain Malistaire, Professor Drake of Myth school, apologizes for the lack of a level cap increase in Grizzleheim. Drake, this is the second time you’ve come before we students with an apology. Stop it! You’re Professor Drake! Maximum Level / Grandmaster XP Wizard101 friends, fans, and customers, When we first envisioned our sixth world we saw it as a world Wizards would experience after Dragonspyre. This world would have increased the maximum level beyond 50 and the supporting content (new spells, equipment, etc) necessary for the max level increase. However, when we dug into the overall Wizard101 game play and what would best serve our community we decided to launch Grizzleheim, a world that created a parallel experience and offered new content and experiences as players leveled thru the entire game and the other five worlds. While we hope that high level characters find the content enjoyable and engaging the immediate downside to this decision was that no level increase was introduced with this world. ...

The weekend went by too fast, as it always does. Rock, Paper, Shotguns Kieron Gillen had the perilous job of re-reviewing Darkfall for Eurogamer. Eurogamer’s original review score, 2/10, was savaged by the Darkfall developers and players. In Darkfallout, Kieron talks about the perils of being the clean-up crew for a disaster, and why he was shocked at the reaction by some other game journalists to the first review. Following up on last week’s discussion about how MMOs are like men, women, dogs, or kitchen cleansers, Green Armadillo notices that his dog is a lot like an MMO player. Except we have to go get our OWN food. ...

I finally got around to unpacking my things from the move to the Antonia Bayle server. First step: renting a new apartment from Big Bend New Rivervale’s friendly slumlord. He wanted 5 silver for one dingy room, but this haffer wasn’t born in a cabbage patch. Well, actually, I WAS born in a cabbage patch – long story – but I’m still a pretty sharp cookie. ...