My brother (known as Grimx in WoW) plays MMOs a lot. He is the one that got me into them, introducing me to Asheron’s Call way back when. He recently became the first player on the Doomhammer server to reach level 70, accomplishing the feat in just a few days. It is a play style I don’t understand, with motivations I personally can’t figure out. I decided to ask him some questions and the end result is this interview. I hope it is of some interest.
Author: Ethic
I own this little MMO gaming blog but I hardly ever write on it any more. I'm more of a bloglord or something. Thankfully I have several minions to keep things rolling along.
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Промоакции для игроков не только в шутерах — воспользуйся промокодом Vavada от наших партнеров и получи бонусы, которые подарят азарт и атмосферу, сравнимую с игровыми победами.
.The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar – Founder’s Plan Announced
[The Lord of the Rings Online] Turbine has announced some interesting benefits for pre-ordering The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar.
Special membership pricing of $9.99 a month or even an option of $199 for lifetime access. Lifetime access… that reminds me of something. Oh yeah! Long ago, I won a free lifetime account for Asheron’s Call 2. You know, the game that is no longer available? Yeah.
Anyway, down in the details: Founder pricing valid for so long as game is in service… Got that problem all taken care of so no worries.
I just noticed this part too: …the commercial launch of The Lord of the Rings Online (currently scheduled for April 24, 2007).
– Ethic
Stay on target…
Something is happening here, but I’m not quite sure what.
Update for background: Red 5 Studios creates leading, next-generation, massively multiplayer games. Our mission is simple: we want to make the best online games possible and have fun doing it. Red 5 Studios is led by key creative and executive talent behind the most successful MMO to date, World of Warcraft®. Our team represents years of successful, AAA game development on projects such as Warcraft®, Diablo®, Starcraft®, and Ultima Online®.
Red 5 Studios believes that online gaming will be the dominant form of gaming in the future. We are dedicated to creating incredible, immersive game worlds based on original stories and characters that bring together millions of gamers worldwide.
UPDATE: An anonymous reader sent me a photo of a special customized iPod that Red5 is sending out to potential new employees. The box it comes in has this message: “Red 5 Studios invites you to listen to track one and join us at www.red5studios.com”. They are on some sort of recruiting blitz, trying to nab devs from elsewhere. Included with the iPod is a personal web link tailored to the recruit, with details about the job they are hoping the recruit would be interested and background on the company. No details on the game they are working on, sadly. To the reader that sent me the image: thanks!
– Ethic
Getting Warmer
[World of Warcraft] aka The Lukewarm Crusade: Day 3
We had a really good time playing our Blood Elves last night. The quests around Silvermoon City are quite fun. My wife continued her social experiments, this time with someone whispering to her asking if she checked her mailbox yet. She did, only to find out that she has been given gifts! Lots of gifts. Her latest says he is 35 and married with 4 kids. So perhaps his intentions are simply to help out a new player. All I know is that nobody is giving me gifts. Isn’t my Blood Elf fancy enough? At least she promised to share her gifts with me.
We had a quest to eliminate a “spy” located at the North Sanctum. We traveled out, wondering what our “spy” might look like. The orders were to eliminate the spy without being seen to avoid the shame of allowing a spy to infiltrate our little club. We arrived at the Sanctum and looked around, finding the dead body of a dwarf. Someone already got to the spy first. Good thing another spy with the same name will show up soon so we can fulfill our orders.
The Lukewarm Crusade: Day 2
[World of Warcraft] We revisited our Blood Elves last night with more problems. At first, the server was offline for some urgent rolling restarts. After the server appeared to be back online, it still kicked us out over and over. Finally we were able to get back on, but there was a lot of issues. Things like looting mobs and talking to quest NPCs took quite a bit of time to complete. We got disconnected a few times but it seemed like after about 30 minutes things settled down.
We did several quests, fighting a nice variety of new mobs. One quest gave us a 4 slot bag as a reward which was really nice. We did a quest that sent us into Falthrien Academy. I really enjoyed that place because it reminded me so much of some of the structures in Asheron’s Call 2. It was a sort of homecoming in a way.
The Lukewarm Crusade
[World of Warcraft] I decided to cash in some of my gift cards from Christmas and ordered online two copies of the World of Warcraft expansion, the Burning Crusade. I was surprised to get an email soon after telling me to come on in and pick them up, one for me and one for my wife. I really had expected them to be sold out. There was actually about 100 boxes still on the shelf when I got there.
I got home pretty late last night, so we decided to just upgrade our accounts and install the expansion, perhaps trying to patch before going to bed. 30 minutes later we were done. It was a beautiful thing, couldn’t have gone any better. So we decided to log in and check out the new races. We changed our realm to Doomhammer where my brother (who was already level 64!!) plays and normally encounter a huge queue in the evenings. We got right on, that was unusual.
WoW Abducted My Wife
[World of Warcraft] Seriously, she is crazy. She is playing when I am at work, this is not fair! She is leveling and I can’t keep up. She is making friends and has to stop to chat every time we go on a quest together. Level 21 already! I never made it past 29 (on two characters) in all the time I played solo. We hit 21 in just a few weeks without any troubles at all. I just finished proclaiming no interest in the expansion but that was before she heard about Blood Elves. Next thing I know she’ll be bringing home two boxes and installing them herself.
Two months ago, “take a World of Warcraft break” would have meant “get off the computer already”. Now it means “we should go to the basement and play WoW for a while”.
– Ethic
Vanguard Launch Date
VANGUARD: SAGA OF HEROES MAKES THE JOURNEY INTO RETAIL STORES ON JANUARY 30, 2007
San Diego, CA – January 11, 2007 – Sony Online Entertainment and Sigil Games Online today announced that the upcoming massively multiplayer online role-playing game Vanguard: Saga of Heroes will be released to retail outlets across North America and Europe on January 30, 2007, for the suggested retail price of US$49.99. A limited edition is also available for a suggested retail price of US$89.99.
Currently in beta, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes features vibrant environments reminiscent of oil paintings, a robust character customization tool and three distinct spheres of advancement in a seamless world without zoning or instancing. The immersive fantasy world is comprised of three massive, uniquely-themed continents for players to discover new creatures, new items and unlimited adventure. Players have complete freedom to roam the world whether flying dragons to islands in the sky or riding swift steeds to exotic lands.
– Ethic
Lets Get This Over With
Trying to find 5 things you don’t know about me is easy enough as most everyone that reads this site knows nothing at all about me. Generally, I kind of like it that way so when Heartless_, Cosmik and Relmstein tagged me (and the rest of the KTR gang) to participate in this strange game I was a bit perplexed. Therefore I have decided to try to find 5 somewhat interesting things without getting too personal and then I’ll tag a few more people just to keep the world pissed off.
My First MMORLG
Just got back after finishing my first MMORLG (Massively Multiplayer Offline Real Life Game) called “Walt Disney World”. It took eight full days and it was very fun, but there was a lot of walking involved. We had many quests to do and most of them were a blast. They had transportation hubs that allowed you to take a mechanical “bus” to get from zone to zone without having to walk there first. Made getting around a little easier.
There were a lot of other people playing so we had some lag while walking as well as queues for many of the quests. They did have a feature where you could go to a quest area and get a “fastpass” which basically allowed you to reserve a spot in a group at a later time. Then if you came back at that time you could go right ahead with the quest, skipping the queue.
There was a lot of loot to be had, but most of it required RMT. In fact, after you finished almost every quest, the only rewards you could get had to be purchased with real money. I was able to play in a group with my whole family most of the time and only occasionally did they require us to split up. The funny thing is, the barrier to grouping was based on height more than our individual level.
Now that I am done with that game, I’ll get back on track with my posts here – including the “meme” threads going around. Yeah.
– Ethic