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Reverse Collector’s Edition

Like any good subject, Blizzard’s latest online purchase for World of Warcraft, the Celestial Steed (i.e., the Sparklepony) created a lot of back and forth commentary around the blogosphere.  Thankfully, some clarity poked through the clouds.  Guild Wars also released another buyable costume set for the War in Kryta chapter of Guild Wars Beyond.  Parallel discussions of item-worth, self-worth, happiness, and greed occurred on all affected forums.

Yet, when a collector’s edition for an untried, over-hyped (read: untrue) MMO drops for $30 more than the commoner’s edition, there is barely a peep.  It seems that collector’s editions can contain nearly any in-game bonus, and unless it provides game breaking balance issues, the bonuses are merely seen as value added to the collector’s edition.

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Guild Wars Beyond

Gamespot has a good interview with the Guild Wars Live Team’s Linsey Murdock.  While the updates have been rolling in for awhile now, the interview helps to re-focus what is actually going on.  And, what is actually going on?  A new campaign has started titled ‘Guild Wars Beyond.’  This campaign will start to wrap up, and also advance, much of the lore of the original Guild Wars to set the stage for Guild Wars 2 with ongoing updates throughout the year.  It starts, obviously, by looking at the human side of things because in Guild Wars 2 the human nation is Kryta and the human hero is Logan Thackeray.  This first chapter gives some good answers as to how we get there about 250 years later.

It is important to note that anybody that wants to wait, for whatever silly reason, should be able to experience all these additions as well when they chose to join in.  In other words, these additions are not merely temporary stemming from some passing event.

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DDO – Kobold Genocide

In defiance, I played Dungeons and Dragons Online last night.  The Docks and Marketplace seemed oddly calm given the storm of chaos that blew through alternate worlds earlier in the day.  A little shing-shing to get the dust off of my dual khopeshes, and I was ready to roll.  One nice thing about Dungeons and Dragons Online is it promotes a very arcade-like wholesale slaughter of mook mobs.  This is where kobolds come in.  There is nothing mookier than the little reptile-weasel humanoids.  Their existence practically begs for a gibbing.

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DDO and Super Rewards, Part 2

Via the Boss Man in Comment 1:

The latest: “We’re currently investigating the reports of privacy concerns with our new Offer Wall. That feedback has been escalated to our partners for deeper investigation. Until that investigation is complete we’ve taken the Super Rewards option out of the Offer Wall. We’ll let you know when we have more information!”

http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p=2893059&postcount=116

Patience sent out a decent post on the DDO forum (thanks Ethic) regarding the shadiness of the whole thing.  It sounds like they have some really strict guidelines, which just weren’t fully in effect at launch.  (But, what is ever is fully in effect at an MMO launch, lololol… /sad)  Anyway, it is good that Turbine quickly responded, and I hope against hope that the filters will be enough to make it a decent option.  Forum posts are reporting that most offers require more real purchases, such as Netflix or buying shoes online.  Still, please be aware that the email linked to your Turbine account still seems to pass through the internet unencrypted.

DDO and Super Rewards

Yesterday Turbine dropped an unexpected announcement on the Dungeons and Dragons Online players.  They have made a deal with the company Super Rewards to provide another way for players to receive the cash shop points for Dungeons and Dragons Online.  It’s quite simple really.  Head on over to the Offer Wall to find current promotions along with the amount of Turbine Points a player would gain from doing the task.  It is great Turbine is finding another way to enjoy the game where points can be bought, earned in game, and now given via the Offer Wall.  The positives mostly end there.

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We Rule – Quick Review

Against some rational part of my brain, I started playing the free game We Rule on the iPod this weekend.  I doubt the game will make it through the month on my device, but for how my weekends generally run it is a great, MMO-like dalliance.  Here is a really quick review for anybody interested.  Note that I have not played Farmville, so there will not be any comparisons to that and other Facebook games.

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Guild Wars – War in Kryta

The haze has cleared leaving us with the upcoming content – War in Kryta.  Yet, calling it upcoming is not really the best word because it has started coming now.  It really started in-game with Mr. Thackeray’s attempt to sweep the ice queen Gwen off her feet.  Players that have completed the Eye of the North or done specific Wintersday quests are able to collect items from across the lands to prepare a picnic where possibly Thackeray could propose.  Players can get pretty good gifts in exchange for helping Thackeray out.

Last night there was an update that added the Trial of Zinn and the White Mantle Peacekeepers.  The Trial of Zinn follows the aftermath of Zinn’s Task.  Zinn, a rival golemancer to the main story’s Oola, accidentally sent out a few golem in Zinn’s Task to assassinate world leaders.  Players are tasked with stopping these rogue golems.  Now, in the Trial of Zinn, Zinn must stand before the Arcane [Asuran] Council for his crimes.  The White Mantle Peacekeepers are bandits hired by the White Mantle to maintain peace.  This posse comitatus (wink at Tipa) of course are antagonistic to players allying with the Shining Blade, which is about all of them.

It is pretty cool that instead of a big, honkin’ drop of content and goodies at the 5th Anniversary, which is what I believe most people were expecting, ArenaNet is choosing instead to ramp up.  It seems that a lot of players are dusting off their accounts to come back to the free updates.  The other weeknight, Fort Aspenwood, which is my go to for casual PvP, was absolutely hopping.  I’ve also seen a lot of Tweets from people coming back.  Guild Wars birthday is April 28th, and with the pace that has been set, I think we will see a few more truffle bites before the birthday cake comes.

–Ravious
deficient in the cognitive facilities requisite to fully comprehend the truth

Developer Recognition

Warhammer Online is doing something pretty cool with four lucky bloggers: Gaarawarr, Mykiel, Shadow-war, and Werit.  They invited the four to visit Mythic Entertainment and sit down with the WAR Design team for interviews and discussion.  There is a real heavy emphasis on interactivity via Twitter too.  I love seeing stuff like this because not only is it a fan dream to meet developers but bloggers are fonts of communication… so everybody wins.  The event got me thinking about developer recognition regarding bloggers.

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Leaderboard Prejudice

Sanya Weathers, an blogger of exponential blogs, has started writing over at the community manager watering hole, Metaverse Mod Squad.  In the latest post she discusses the fiscal responsibility of the community management team (not without comparison to another department), but the crux of the post is on Leaderboards.  Sanya writes that “achievement, respect, and a sense that time spent on your product is not time wasted can all be checked off with leaderboards, or whatever you want to call your comparative ranking system.”  Dan Gray at his blog echoes Sanya’s thoughts by saying “it’s free content, it’s recognition, and it’s a fantastic tool for your community.”

There is a dark side though.  A darkness that harms community.  We shall name it “elitism.”

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Guild Wars – War in Kryta Recap

Day by day the viral campaign for Guild Wars and believably its 5th Anniversary is bringing life to the Guild Wars community.  Almost every weekday it seems some small piece of the puzzle drops even if its an image that just becomes slightly less blurred.  I can barely keep up with it, and I definitely seem unable to tell the story here.  But, other people can.  Neo Nugget and Borx at Guild Wars 2 Guru forum have put together an excellent recap walking all late-comers step by step through what we have found in the viral marketing campaign.  The thread covers everything from the webpages that were discovered to the Facebook status updates for each faction.

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