Ethic

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The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar – NDA Lifted

[The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar] The NDA has been lifted for The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar. As this announcement caught me off guard, I really don’t have anything prepared so I’ll just go off on a very brief ramble review here.

I have been in the beta for several months now and I still log in to play at least once a week. My wife has me playing World of Warcraft most of the time and that is fine with me because I am planning on pre-ordering The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar anyway (and taking advantage of the lower fees). I really don’t want to play it too much before it counts. Surprisingly, even though she is a big LotR fan, she is not showing any interest in the game. She says she just got into WoW and does not want to go starting something new right now – so perhaps it will be a game down the road for her.

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Hunter Update

wow [World of Warcraft] Since I last left you, our blood elf hunter duo has reached level 21. On the way there, we have had several really fun moments. It’s amazing how much more I am enjoying this game with my wife at my side.

When we were night elf hunters, my wife tamed a ghost saber as a pet when she was level 20. There are these little cat figurines in Darkshore and we kept picking them up. Eventually, a see-thru cat spawned and attacked us. We wondered if we could tame it so we spent another hour trying to get one to spawn. Eventually we did get one trained. Not long after, it dropped dead and we didn’t know what to do. She tried to rez him and it worked. Guess it is some kind of bug, but anyway I digress.

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CCP Comes Clean

[EVE Online] CCP t20 On Recent Allegations:

As you might have read and heard, there were recently some allegations posted regarding developer misconduct that basically come down to:

* Developers helping (an) alliance(s) gain information they otherwise would not have.
* Developers having an unfair advantage of game mechanics.
* Developers helping themselves acquire goods in-game by means of in-house tools, otherwise not available to regular players.

All allegations mentioned above are untrue, except one. Sadly enough, the allegation regarding unlawfully obtained blueprints are, in my case, true. Iâ€™m here, laying out the facts of what happened in June 2006 so this whole issue — which jeopardized my colleagues, my company and our community — can be put behind us, I hope for the better.

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Should Devs Play Their Own Game?

Recently, in EVE Online, allegations have arisen about the possibility that the most powerful alliance in the game had gained benefits due to having several CCP employees playing in their various corporations. The accusations revolved around things such as finding out about events ahead of time, getting valuable items handed over to the corporations, and gaining inside information that might help advance a war against another alliance.

CCP has investigated these claims and so far has only admitted to having employee characters in many alliances and since they have now been “outed”, they will be removed from the game (or maybe just revised to have a different name and corp history – my thoughts only, not something CCP said they would do).

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PVP is Grief Play

[EVE Online] My subscription has run out and I think Iâ€™m done playing EVE Online for good. War between large alliances has shown me some things about pure PVP games, things I donâ€™t care for. Is PVP in itâ€™s true form nothing short of grief play? At least in EVE, I say yes it is.

In EVE, it seems the best way to win a war is to try and ruin the fun of the game for your opponent. Smack them on the public forums, get spies into their alliance so you can post private forum threads on the public forums, steal their stuff, shut off their player-owned stations from within, and do everything you can to demoralize them. In short, make them want to quit playing the game. In a game that supports these play styles, expect nothing less.

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Hard Core Brother: The Interview

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.

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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 WarcraftÂ®. Our team represents years of successful, AAA game development on projects such as WarcraftÂ®, DiabloÂ®, StarcraftÂ®, and Ultima OnlineÂ®.

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!

One more photo.

Senzee 5: Red 5’s Pitch

– Ethic

Getting Warmer

wow [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.

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The Lukewarm Crusade: Day 2

wow [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.

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