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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.

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Social Gamers? No way!

This article:  

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=15114 

seems to point out what a lot of us at Kill Ten Rats have known for years, but it’s an interesting read. It would seem psychologists are finally realizing that these MMO games are social activities and, in some cases, can cause a person to become better at social interactions.  This is not to say that it holds true for every gamer.  Certainly there are plenty of MMO players who it seems will never learn how to behave around others. What I find most interesting are the romantic facts.   The study found that 1 in 10 MMO players develop physical relationships with those they have met in the game world.  I’d be interested in seeing how that compares to the success rate on matchmaking websites.

Tired of Rikti

My City of Heroes account expired last week. I have not renewed it yet. I seem to enjoy continuous rock ’em sock ’em action for about ten weeks before needing a break. Alas, more unsubscribed time will lie between me and my decorative pet. This, along with my badge-whoring, is why I have half as many level-capped characters as my guildmates.

Issue 10 failed to bring much new in terms of gameplay. New story arcs are interesting, but they do not play differently from the old ones. The parts that are new are annoying: more enemies with crowd control, rescue hostage pets who attack at random for little damage. The task force has some interesting new thoughts, namely mini-Hami and the Four Horsemen (new in terms of gameplay; every game has some kind of Four Horsemen). Most of the new content can be consumed quickly: do a lap of the revamped zone (where safe), check out the new art, see the new archvillains.

New things yet to do: fight the Vanguard; finish the Vanguard story arcs (or read the mission text somewhere); play more hero-villain cooperative teams; 2 badges for doing that raid 25 times.

I am rediscovering how little fun the Rikti are to fight. I mostly play squishy characters, and the Rikti have plenty of crowd control, particularly the revamped Rikti Magi. Their drones counter stealth, and they have enough psychic and toxic damage to annoy tanks. I was excited to see the game getting back to the original story, but the main benefit of fighting them is that Communications Officers summon Portals for big experience.

: Zubon

Introduction

Hi, I’m James. I’m new here.

I wish I could say that I’ve been reading KTR for months in between running raids with my 70’s. The reality is that despite being a passionate gamer my whole life, I spent much of the MMO revolution of the past decade watching from the sidelines. Other life priorities at the time. I’m here at KTR because I’m in the process of changing that.

When I play, I’m 40% explorer, 40% achiever, and 20% socializer. I will explore that stupid little cave just becuase I haven’t been in it, and I will run the long way to fill in that empty corner of my map. I may even hurl myself off a cliff to certain death just for the novelty of the experience. (I actually do this on a pretty regular basis, and yes, it sometimes annoys my group.) But I will also take the time to keep my fishing skill up to snuff, because I need to be prepared to kick some ass if I find myself in Stranglethorn Vale for that fishing competition one of these days.

Right now, I’m splitting my time between Azeroth and the Viridian Ocean. “The Viridian Ocean? What’s that?” Puzzle Pirates, silly. It rocks.
Continue reading Introduction

LotRO: Book 10

I just wanted to put a quick preview of what we can expect next week when Book 10: The City of Kings goes live on August 20th.   My first impression of this feature list is, ‘How in the hell did they put all of that together in the two months since Shores of Evendim?!?’

Not only that, but they have promised the third installment in their content update schedule, Book 11, will be released in October and will in include the much awaited Player Housing.

Detailed update notes pulled from the test realm, Roheryn, after the jump.

~Cyndre

Continue reading LotRO: Book 10

Chronicles of Spellborn

I have just added The Chronicles of Spellborn to our list of MMOs on the side. (They’re hiring, by the way, if you want to head to The Netherlands.) I have had some interest in the game, especially since reading that they planned to deal with weapons by giving you the stats and letting you pick the weapon appearance you want (i.e. Warrior 20 does 50 DPS; do you want that to be a blue sword, a green spear, a red club, whatever). Or maybe I have that wrong. Rather than display further ignorance (or do any research when I am already running on caffeine tonight), I thought I would punt this one to our readers. Have any of you been following the game and wish to introduce it to the rest of us in the comments? Heck, if the developers have a 1000-2000 word intro that they would like us to post, we can do that.

: Zubon

Sphexishness

I think I have something new for you, but Raph has covered similar territory. At the very least you get a new word.

The digger wasp (Genus: sphex) is the unheralded mascot of the grind. When laying eggs, it makes a nest, finds a bug, paralyzes the bug, drags it home, makes sure the nest is okay, drags the bug in, lays eggs on it, and buries the whole thing. When the eggs hatch, the bug will still be there for baby wasps to eat.

The interesting part is that this is all mindless, genetically determined behavior. The sphex has no idea what it is doing. If you were to move the bug while the sphex was double-checking the nest, it would come out, see no bug, and reset its mental programming to go find a bug. Coming upon the paralyzed bug three inches away, it would drag it back to the nest, make sure the nest is okay, and come back out to discover that you have moved its paralyzed bug three inches away again. Reset, go find a bug, hey here’s one! Drag it home, go inside to make sure the next is okay, and come back out to discover…

Wow, you’re a jerk. You just keep moving its objective a few inches away and laughing as it keeps doing the same thing.

Continue reading Sphexishness