Category: General

Ok, I just got back from two weeks in LA, and I am headed out to Atlanta in a couple of weeks immediately followed by another LA trip. Whee. E3 here I come. Anyway, while I was hanging out in Hollywood with some friends, we started chatting about my “Designing the perfect MMO” commentary and the conversation sort of took off on a tangent and then went on a long vacation as we discussed death in MMORPGs….

Continue reading Oh Death! Where is thy sting?

[Kingdom of Loathing] The Kingdom of Loathing has its own holidays, mirroring normal American holidays. These are set by the KoL calendar, but they also appear on the real-world calendar days. The Feast of Boris, for example, appears on Thanksgiving as well as Boozember 7.

Today is the first time a KoL holiday falls on a real world holiday that has a KoL equivalent. Therefore, it is a combination of St. Patrick’s Day and Easter. Drunkenness and oyster eggs abound. Can you find the secret special baskets?

(Special Offer! Today Only! I thought you’d want to know.)

: Zubon

[City of Heroes] City of Heroes has an Issue every three months or so. These are the big content updates, introducing new zones, powers, etc. Issue 6 coincided with the release of City of Villains at Halloween.

It has been a while since then. Cryptic puts out “feature updates” to maintain interest from week to week. Is it a bad sign when the update is literally “Hey, check out these walls!“?

(In fairness, there are more updates here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Any surprises left for the test server?)

: Zubon

[Katamari Damacy] Start with one red paper clip and work your way up to a house!

1. I love Katamari Damacy.
2. Would you trade a year’s rent for a daylong lap dance?

There are two links above. Each will shed light on one of these two points.

: Zubon

HT: Marginal Revolution

I thought I had finally fixed my video corruption/crash problem with a new power supply, but my video went out again tonight. I am so sick of this. Can’t play anything for more than 30 minutes. I really don’t want to spend any more money, but this is getting old. Stupid computers.

Right now I just want to quit gaming forever. Bah…

– Ethic

Hmm, we seem to be quiet here. We are still awaiting Issue 7 over at City of Heroes, and I have not been playing much this week. I did read something interesting, though, so I’ll toss you a link. Will Wright is guest-editing Wired for April, and this is something he wrote for it, entitled “Dream Machines.”

Two preview bits:

Imagine that all you knew about movies was gleaned through observing the audience in a theater – but that you had never watched a film. You would conclude that movies induce lethargy and junk-food binges. That may be true, but you’re missing the big picture.

By moving away from the idea that media is something devel­oped by the few (movie and TV studios, book publishers, game companies) and consumed in a one-size-fits-all form, we open up a world of possibilities. Instead of leaving player creativity at the door, we are inviting it back to help build, design, and populate our digital worlds.

ATSRTWT

: Zubon

[Face of Mankind] In 2001 Duplex Systems was founded to pursue and develop products in the MMO space. The Berlin based studio is focused on intelligent and unique game play styles where the player ‘lives the story’. Last month they launched their first title; Face of Mankind. So the question holds; does it stand up to the PR or is it just another bag of sullen dreams?

Continue reading Face of Mankind

[My Little Pony RPG] Sadly, it will not be an MMO, but my wife is really looking forward to the My Little Pony RPG. With any luck, it will do well enough PnP to be licensed as a virtual world. Could this be the game to dethrone Virtual Horse Ranch?

: Zubon

We have a Hamidon raid scheduled for 11pm tonight. About 100 people plan to spend Saturday night pretending to beat up a jello monster, in the hopes of marginal improvement to a character who probably spends most of its online life at or waiting for a Hamidon raid.

A gamer’s spouse must put up with many things, but doubts about fidelity are not amongst them. Unless she, too, is a gamer and thinks he is spending a bit too much time with that other guild…

: Zubon