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.
.Pepsi advertised one of its brands last week with an iPhone application (new link) that divided women into 24 categories and provided recommended pickup lines to help you “score” with them. What puts it over the top into real notability is that its developers have embraced Web 2.0 and included a “Brag List” so you can name and share your conquests on Facebook and Twitter. After the world noticed, Pepsi issued the usual non-apology.
Classy.
: Zubon
I recently found audio from a particular raid leader who is somewhat famous for screaming obscenities at his raid over voice-chat. Just this morning, I find myself wondering if someone getting that bent out of shape is universally funny, or if it’s only funny to me because I see hints of that behavior in my least favorite raid leaders.
For example, the other night I was in a raid which was going to attempt to take down the Mistress. I’ve never killed the Blind One, let alone the Mistress, so the idea of taking down the final boss of the current raid was pretty cool. Someone in the raid asked for five minutes AFK, which we granted. After twenty minutes, people realized he had fallen asleep at the keyboard, again. All the top dogs in the raid started screaming at the top of their lungs into their microphones hoping to wake him up. After nearly an hour of waiting, we knew we only had one shot to attempt the Mistress before people went back to bed, so we tried to kill her with only eleven people. It didn’t go well
After we had started the fight, our missing raid member came back. He just said, “Back” and asked where everyone was. I don’t think he had any idea how long it had been.
A lot of obscenities were shouted at that moment. It wasn’t funny to me, because I was pretty annoyed myself. But now I wish I had recorded the moment, because some day I may go back and look at that situation and find it the funniest thing since Leroy Jenkins.
I have said many times that developers will make more money working directly opposed to my preferences. The mass market is somewhere over there. The menu-builders at Taco Bell may be amongst our readers, because every item I used to order is now gone. Perhaps the rest of America decided that a “big taste taco” is not worth the extra dime.
I applaud their wisdom and wish them greater profits in years to come.
: Zubon
Borderlands is an online game I am keenly interested in. Keen enough that I already bought it on Steam for a 10% discount. In my morning tweets I saw Gearbox write that DLC (“downloadable content”) was already coming for the unreleased game (Borderlands drops 10/26). Not only was it DLC, it was DLC that players had to buy! My immediate thought was outrage. How dare they? To ask for more money before I even got to play the game I paid for was a slap in the face. (The last 5-words, in a perfect world, would be written in a self-debasing sarcasm font.)
After looking at the neat DLC pictures of a zombie isle, I had another idea. Gearbox devs were the good guys here. They were letting me, the customer know, the specifics of their business plan before people shelled out for the game. Players that were interested in Borderlands as a service would now have a more concrete understanding of things to come. MMOs are definitely a service, and so many times we buy the initial offering without having a good understanding of the specifics of the bargain. How often will we get content updates? How about paid-expansions and their cost? What exactly does our subscription fee cover? A lot of times it is pure faith in the developer.
Now Gearbox’s DLC has the bonus that it is likely completely optional for Borderlands, but in our DIKU-world, MMO players don’t realistically have that option of choice. The expansions either raise the level cap, gear cap, or just simply add in new must-haves. It’s a siren’s song, and stuffing your ears with cotton might mean all your online friends leave you behind. So it is nice, despite my initial outrage, to have a company show their hand for the customer’s benefit well before they “need” to.Â
–Ravious
who’s your favorite Other
Unheralded in City of Heroes Issue 16, some of the more insane badge grinds were toned down. Some were cut in half, some had a 0 lopped off the end, and a couple added more enemies that count towards earning them. This is a good thing: do not encourage your players to leave the computer on overnight in a low-damage perma-mez situation, for several nights, to earn a badge. That would be aberrant gameplay. Which I have done on a few characters…
I approve of making badges/achievements/deeds/trophies/accomplishments more about exploring and doing a variety of things, less of making them about grinding.
: Zubon
My first 3D exploration in an MMO was in World of Warcraft. There were some delicious herbs to be found off of Westfall’s shores. Stranglekelp was found amidst roaming Murlocs, and when the herb was smoothee’d with some Blackmouth fish oil, my priest could be underwater for in-game hours checking out wreckages, looking for pearls, and generally enjoying the freedom of the z-axis. There was one area, if I recall correctly, in Stranglethorn Vale where some elite Murlocs were guarding a sunken ruins. I played an interesting game of agro-Operation trying to swim down to the bottom without alerting the bug-eyed fish-lizards to my presence. It took a few tries, but I remember being so proud and feeling so clever. The quest suggested a group of people after all. Continue reading Under Da Sea
As has been stated, the tech is good. Phasing is interesting the first couple of times you see it, but you quickly notice exactly when they’re changing sets. Oh is that why they keep having me mini-zone? I am starting to get the hang of vehicles.
Most of the storyline is good. Betray your former allies, slaughter the innocent, corrupt the living, torture people for information: everything you should demand from a soulless monster under the will of the Lich King. Then you get to the ending, which is long and boring and lousy. Let’s dial up all the numbers for the big fight, then make it so none of them matter anyway! Let’s have a story of betrayal, which is exactly the Lich King’s right and what you expect from him, rather than a stunning revelation; the whole point of having undead minions is to send them on suicide missions for your fleeting tactical advantage, which he somehow fails to convert despite being the freaking Lich King. Way to have the Big Bad fail, lose, and be defeated trivially in his first appearance. Let’s have a story of redemption that no one cares about because we have no reason to care about any of these characters, to say nothing of wtf did that come from. And what, we piggyback on his redemption?
I’m parking the Death Knight just because I no longer care about it after that introduction. But it seems like a good first class whenever you go to a new server, because you can get Burning Crusade gold quickly and mail it to a character you are interested in.
: Zubon
“Well, in our country,” said Alice, still panting a little, “you’d generally get to somewhere else — if you ran very fast for a long time, as we’ve been doing.”
“A slow sort of country!” said the Queen. “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”
: Zubon
Or is everyone having a nostalgia attack lately?
Sweet zombie Jesus, people. I’ll be the first to admit the last couple of years have been mediocre, but have some perspective. It’ll get better without the need to look back. We’re not going to be the first generation to destroy gaming. The guys in the mid 80s already did it.
Sometimes the sky is, indeed, not falling.
(this post is half tongue in cheek, but I’m not telling which half)
It’s weird to see the progression of material prices as I scum the Auction Hall. Tier 1 is pretty cheap. Tier 2 jumps about a magnitude in price. Tier 3 is about double in price to Tier 2, and so on… until the last two Tiers where the character leveling curve slows to a crawl. Tier 6 materials only cost as much as Tier 2. That makes most expensive portion for leveling my alt’s crafting the mid-game. The end game crafting experience will be an easy coast downhill towards mastery.
–Ravious
pork bellies