Rift

I suck at predictions, but everyone else is doing them. Luckily, I have a Magic 8 Ball. I’m just gonna list some games, and ask the Magic 8 Ball what it thinks of them. Question to the 8 Ball for all of these games: Will this game have a good year in 2011? Age of Conan: “Outlook Not So Good”. AoC released its first expansion, “Ride of the Godslayer”, last summer, and that’s pretty much the last I’ve heard of the game. I don’t think the Magic 8 Ball is correct; I think Funcom is content to support their current player base without feeling the need to go F2P. Their massively hyped launch should have helped them recoup their development costs years ago. ...

I long ago pre-ordered SOE’s DC Universe Online, but this was my first opportunity to play it, in beta, on the PC. Though it’s on the PC, the little picture hints and controls clearly expect you to be using a PS3 controller to play the game. I don’t have a PS3 controller, but I do have a XBox controller, so I plugged it in and away I went. ...

Trion has announced the third beta event for their Rift MMO. It’s been described as an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary game, and that seems about right. Like fantasy novels, I guess, where very few ever try anything new, and yet people still buy, read and enjoy them. It’s a decent genre entry, and as I don’t currently play any games in the fantasy MMO genre, I’m very much looking forward to it. (Wizard101 is so entirely different that it cannot be compared to the WoW-likes in any way. That’s what I love about it!) ...

Scott of Pumping Irony was chiding me and other bloggers today on Twitter for getting totally excited about a game, writing loads about it, then dropping that game the moment something new came by. I was all defensive, pointing to my long-term coverage of W101, STO, DDO and, when I played them, EVE, EQ and EQ2 when – I remembered Fantasy Earth Zero, Dragonica, Dream of Mirror Online, Dragon Oath and so many other games I played heavily for a few weeks, then totally forgot. ...

The Rift beta NDA has just been lifted, and there’s so much I want to write about. I want to tell why this makes me feel like I felt when playing EverQuest, even though it really is nothing like EQ. And in fact, EQ did certain things better. So maybe I’ll work something about that into this article, more in others. For now, this is just going to be a stream of consciousness ramble through the second Beta event, the fantasy-based Guardians. ...

This mysterious e-mail just mysteriously appeared in my in-box. My in-box OF MYSTERY! I can neither confirm nor deny that I will be leveling my lower gluteal regions over the weekend as a warrior brought from the past to defend the Vigil against the rifts – and from the evil warriors summoned from the future by the Defiant. E.g., the folks that were the community of the first beta event. ...

FFXIV opens with a fantastic character generator, shows you a wonderful cinematic that soon includes you and segues smoothly into the tutorial. You soon are dropped into a crowded inn with quest givers that you will come to know very well. They give out your “guildleves” – kill quests, and your “local leves” – crafting quests, and finally your “field leves” – harvesting quests. Your remaining days in FFXIV will consist of filling up on leves, going to the place they tell you to go, killing trash mobs, making items you won’t be able to keep, and whacking away at harvest nodes. ...

A little later, we’ll be talking about a virtual world to a “Time Travel” theme, which will send customers through differently themed worlds. Like, “Now you’re in Roman World! Through that door is Dinosaur World! Take the trolley to Wild West World!”. I don’t know about you, but this seems more like a theme park than time travel. I think I’d keep waiting for the killer robots to spring out from behind the bushes. ...