I will not play Age of Conan or Warhammer Online on launch day. I am taking a wait and see attitude on new games. Prove to me you are worth playing and I will play. Blind faith and hope are not rewarded.
There is no rush. A good game will be around for many years. The longer you wait, the more content gets added. A lot of folks are getting worked up about Age of Conan’s early access program. They have a limited number of slots and they can’t handle more, because they are not prepared. You do not want to be a part of that. Besides, what is the rush? Seriously, it’s not that important.
In another attempt to keep me from reaching the level cap in any MMO, Turbine has done their part by introducing fishing to Lord of the Rings Online. I spent much of my recent game time on the shore of any lake or river I could find, doing battle with another form of monster, the fish of Middle-earth.
Some of my prize catches have already been stuck on the walls of my house. First trophy was the Giant Goldfish, yes that’s correct. Later on I caught a Magnificent Minnow. Hard work paid off with some bigger fish. Eventually I caught a Colourful Charr and then a 4-pound Salmon.
Not all was fish guts and glory. I also pulled in piles of weeds, more rusty daggers than I can count, and several of these tasty items. All and all, Turbine did a fine job of adding the first of many hobbies to the game. At this rate I’ll never get to level 50.
Turbine develops MMORPGs and company officials said when they replaced Anderson with current CEO Jim Crowley the move was done in preparation for a change to Turbine’s business plan.
Turbine spokesman Adam Mersky said the company plans to make an announcement regarding its future plans in two weeks. But the company website includes employment listings for console-game positions, fueling speculation that Turbine could be expanding from the online market to the console player market.
Travis “Rashere” McGeathy, Lead Designer of EverQuest has quit and announced a road trip across country to work on a new title. My only guess is 38 Studios. Seems like they could almost be SOE East if it’s true. Who’s next, Scott Hartsman?
The Lord of the Rings Online Book 13 patch will be improving the LFG and quest log UIs, which I already felt was some of the best out there. Currently, when grouping it is easy to see what quests your other group members have. No need to ask what quests everyone has, just look at the quest UI and you can see an icon for each member with the quest.
In Book 13, they will be adding several new features and it looks impressive. Here are some of the highlights:
More prominent filtering options for your list of quests lets you look at just solo quests or just fellowship quests or just the quests you share with your fellowship members.
We expanded shared quest status beyond just showing who has the same quest - we tell you where each member of your fellowship stands relative to you for each quest.
You can see who among your fellows is behind, or ahead, or even done with the overall quest chain-easily find out who needs to get caught up so that you can tackle that instance or group challenge together.
You can see when your fellowship members are ready to turn in a quest-much easier than spamming fellowship chat asking if everyone is done collecting 10/10 boar stomachs!
Sharing a quest can now share earlier quests in the chain-if you’ve done a couple of quests in an epic book and your friends haven’t started, you can share the quest you are on and they will get the first quest in the chain!
No more blind fellowship invites-when you’re invited, you see the name, level, class, and location of everyone in the fellowship.
“Find A Fellowship” button comes in. It’s a new button on the Quest Log that works a little like the “Add to Tracker” button. You can mark one quest for Find A Fellowship. That automatically opens the Fellowing tab of the Social Panel and fills out all the relevant information. You’ll see a list of players who also want to work on that quest (and those players can now find you, too).
To top it all off, they are adding “Mustering Horns” at campsites across Middle-earth. These allow you to summon the distant members of the group to the campsite. Very nice, Book 13 is looking to be another excellent addition to an already satisfying (at least for this explorer) game.
I just wanted to help draw attention to Gamers For A Cure. I consider Shawn “Kwip” and Becky “Kwipette” best-friends-I’ve-never-actually-met. Kwip runs N3 aka Neenerneener.net. It is probably the first gaming related blog I ever read. His wife Kwipette has MS and every year those crazy folks all get together for the MS Walk to raise money to fight MS. If you want to help out, they are having an auction for some Warhammer Online shirts (thanks to Sanya Weathers). You can also donate money directly if you wish.
Shawn and Becky, I wish I could join you guys - but I hope this little bit helps. Good luck with the walk and take care!
