Tobold posted today about a site hoping to be for MMO gaming what Wikileaks is for the real world – a way for players in the betas for upcoming games to alert people to potential problems in the game. These sorts of leaks can be useful – news that a game is a horribly buggy entirely unfinished travesty a la Dark & Light can warn a publisher to put a game back in the oven for a bit. ...
From a comment on Tobold’s excellent post about the tank shortage in the World of Warcraft (or more accurately, the Protection-spec’d Warrior shortage): I’ve been playing WOW for 2+ years now and everytime I see pvp hurt pve, it makes me wish there was a viable pve alternative to WOW. I happen to think there are plenty of viable PvE alternatives to WoW. Not least among them EQ2, but also LotRO (the breakout MMO of 2007, by anyone’s definition viable), Pirates of the Burning Sea, FFXI Online and literally hundreds of smaller MMOs, most of them free to play, most of them with very dedicated and helpful player bases. I’ve been hearing a lot of good things about Vanguard these days. ...
Aside from World of Warcraft, the most popular MMO in the US today is… The Lord of the Rings Online, which from what I understand, has about 500K subscribers – about what the original EverQuest had at its peak. LotRO was clearly the breakout hit of 2007. But all we hear about is WoW, all the time, WoW. Because as successful as LotRO has been, it’s nothing compared to the behemoth that is the World of Warcraft. ...
Sure, Warhammer may have grand battles to decide the future of realms, war everywhere, skies dark with the fires of pillaged cities… but do you win money when you gank a newb? World of Warcraft announced a new Tournament server where, for $20, you can create a new level 70 character from scratch and participate in 3v3 Arena matches and if you’re good enough, advance through regionals to become the best PvPers in the world. ...
Sheep tend to be timid, nervous and easily frightened. Having little natural means of defense, they instinctively join together in a group, called a flock, to run from perceived danger. I kinda laughed when I read this account of a WoW player who decided to go Horde hunting at Tarren’s Mill and was soundly thrashed by players who were far better trained and equipped. The funniest bit was when he went into full sheeple mode and hoped that WAR wouldn’t give such an advantage to people with better gear and skills. ...
Huh. I wonder if I spend too much time gaming? Anyway. Some minor news from my various gaming related interests: EQ2: Finished Tier 2 last night (finally!) as the Overking went down quickly and painlessly. The raid leaders decided not to flag everyone who needed him in one go, instead some of us (including me!) got in this time, and the rest will go the next time. It’s more important to actually win than to try to do it all at once, but lose. We went on to do Leviathon, the hentai tentacle monster in the Chamber of Destiny (which is not that crystal emerald sphere after all, but a different place entirely), to finish Tier 3. I’d have pictures, but I sat out of that raid. Next time! Listening to the fight on guild chat was fun. People turning into fishes to grab things from the beast’s stomach… some of us sitting out did a Vault of the Eternal Sleeper run, and they were still fighting that same guy when we were done. LONG fight. I finally got Dina’s Coat of Imperious Strikes (legendary RoK scout-set bp) from the boss of VoES… I’d though that dropped only in Maiden’s, but apparently not. ...
2007 opened with me splitting my time between EQ1 and EQ2. Through brief flings with LotRO, Dungeon Runners and Mythos, and even briefer flings with a half dozen more I played just once, I ended the year in pretty much the same place – playing EQ2 exclusively. There’s these incredibly massive hype/PR machines and all they want to do is build up expectations for their ground-breaking, world-shaking title, or book, or movie, and then when it finally arrives, you go “meh” and wait for the next big thing. And the hype machine worked overtime this year. Burning Crusade, Vanguard, Warhammer, Lord of the Rings Online, Age of Conan, Pirates of the Burning Sea, Hellgate: London, Tabula Rasa; all have (or had) the hype machine promissing so much that almost anything that came (or will come) can only disappoint. ...