Category: General

Upon a mention from the always opinionated Tobold, I picked up a copy of Puzzle Quest for my DS. My DS was a purchase I made to avoid a boring wedding reception (really), but the lack of truly innovative or different games for it has been discouraging. I have the few ones that are out – Animal Crossing, Brain Age, Trauma Center, Partners in Time – but lately I’ve been playing the better GBA games instead. Golden Sun is fun and great graphics, but I was looking for something that actually used the DS’ power. This one delivers. It’s very fun, even in short play times, and is just different. Should you have a DS (or PSP, but I’m not sure if it’s as much fun without a stylus), I highly recommend snagging this one.

I expect I’ll be even more AFK on flight paths than normal now.

Ok, Order of the Stick wins mad points for amusing me greatly. If you haven’t read it, go do so now.

Things that don’t amuse me? Right now, it has to be Dave Perry’s Super secret project and 38 Studios.

Super Secret!

Having more than 20,000 people “sign up” to “develop” a “MMO” doesn’t really mean jack. Honestly, can you guys *really* say you have a 20k+ strong development team? Second, how much signal is really going to rise above the noise here…hell, I can see it now…how many of these people are going to stick a design credit on their resume and try to get a job with it? Finally, I have a problem with this being called a massively multiplayer game. I was all excited about the concept here, until details were released. I mean honestly, a multiplayer racing game? Heavily microtransaction based? This sounds like nothing more than Mario Kart online with a matchmaking lobby. Maybe some gunbound style “gameplay” where you can customize your avatar and vehicle. Is it really going to take 20,000 people to “develop” this? From my point of view (limited obviously, I didn’t sign up), I get the feeling that most of this game is already planned out and a core team is going to be making it. The whole secret project just reeks of a marketing ploy for attention.

Yeah, I said it. Thumbsdown.

Continue reading Amuse me…or not

I need little in the way of fanciness or services with regard to an apartment. So, I’d *love* to live in a really cheap one. However, it would also mean I’m living near a bunch of people who can *only* afford that. […]
So, basically, I’m paying more, to … er, be with people … who can pay more.

How much does this perspective affect your online gaming choices? Do you avoid (some) free games because of the people who can only afford to play free games? Would you be interested in an online “gated community,” whose only gate was an extra $5/month in its fee?

Long-time members of our online gaming community can comment on the drop in civility that happened when you stopped paying by the minute for online time and/or games. When you have invested several hundred dollars in your character, you are less likely to do anything to get yourself banned or become a pariah. Today, griefers and goldfarmers can get back in the game with a $30 box and back to the level cap in a month of hardcore play. It is not as if they have better things to do.

The game’s content can serve as another sort of cost that deters the archetypal foul-mouthed twelve-year-old. Do you play Vanguard because it is hard to get into, therefore dissuading the undesirables? Anyone can pick up World of Warcraft and go, but it takes a certain type of person to play A Tale in the Desert.

: Zubon

Tales of Pirates Online advertises itself as “the most anticipated MMORPG in 2007.” Umm… This would not be the most anticipated pirate MMORPG of 2007. This would not even be the most anticipated RMT item shop attached to a Korean game port of 2007. I saw the ad at a good game, and I had to find someone else talking about it to make sure I had not hallucinated the whole thing (you can see the ad there).

(1) Why do I bother? (2) Why did I include a link?

: Zubon

As I am sure I have mentioned before, I’ll be attending and speaking at the indie MMO Game Developers Conference next month in Minneapolis.

My details here if you want to hook up. I’m more than happy to chat with anyone, and the first person that recognizes me as Nicodemus and says something witty gets a free signed copy of my book (hey, I gotta pimp these things).

~ Robert / Nicodemus

We have a lot of great sites over to the right. I read several every day and most of them over the course of a week. Good job on providing fun adventures, good humor, and interesting ideas. Unfortunately, because I read so many, I often forget where I saw something two weeks ago when I want to reference it in a post. Sorry about that. If I write about something that you were just talking about, either on your site or as a reply at someone else’s, please feel free to mention and link that in a comment here. You may be just the genius I was thinking of. And if not, I want to hear what you have to say about things anyway.

: Zubon

[Eternal Lands] In a click-to-move game, trees are a menace. Ground, what ground? All I have is foliage!

: Zubon

I love Fox News. But that’s beside the point. Go check out kongregate.com It looks awesome, and I wish I had done it first. Let me know if you like the war bears. This should be very good for the casual and amateur game industry.

Ok, I started this a long time ago and I got a lot of great commentary and feedback from everyone. I thought I would bring it up again, but with a little twist…what is the ONE thing you just HAVE to have in your Perfect MMORPG?

Sound off here in the forums…

~ Robert / Nicodemus

PS I decided about bringing this topic back up because of Zubon’s post about game features. Kill sheets are pretty cool by the way.

We have a forum, here. Call it an experiment. I think there are already too many forums, but I wanted to have some place less informal to do things like offer invites or talk about movies. I’ll get rid of it, if it gains no interest.

– Ethic