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It Is Not WoW

Why do so many people have the gall to compare new products and services to existing ones you could buy instead?

We were trying a new coffee bar recently, and for some reason my friend kept comparing it to Starbucks. I mean, hello, they are trying to do something entirely different with coffee here. They have some new flavors, and the logo on the cups is not the same at all. It’s not like Starbucks invented ground beans or was the first company to use those little insulating sleeves. If Starbucks is so much better, why are you still drinking your coffee?

Continue reading It Is Not WoW

Wife’s First Impressions

lotro [The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢: Shadows of Angmarâ„¢] My wife gave the game a try. Some comments:

  • She likes being an elf.
  • The world is pretty, but her character is not. Also, she cannot change how it looks much, like giving her a nice skirt or making her outfit blue. Meanwhile, she is right now repeating how pretty her Second Life avatar looks in her new dress while wondering if she has some knee-high socks to go with it.
  • Killing goblins is one thing, but why does she need to beat up all these poor animals? She is going to be so traumatized when she takes out her first bear.
  • “Can I go any faster?”
  • Needing to face your target is a huge bother.
  • She wants more location help on quests. Yes, the quest text says explicitly where to go, but she likes the City of Heroes arrow pointing to the spot. She does not like following maps.
  • “I just played for an hour and a half. I know that’s not a lot in gamer time, but it is for the rest of us.”

She liked it but was not exuberant.

: Zubon

Nicodemus delurks…

Ah, March is a wonderful month. I’ve been lurking behind the scenes for a few months working on some *stuff*, but now that the seasons are changing and Springtime is on the way, I figured it was time for me to crawl out of my cave and say hello.

I will be a guest speaker at the Indie MMO Game Development Conference in Minneapolis (April 14-15). Come check it out. I’ll be hosting a wet t-shirt contest for some hotty elf chicks and you don’t want to miss out on that.

Read on for some opinions and ranting!

Continue reading Nicodemus delurks…

Beta Characters Go Live

lotro [The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢: Shadows of Angmarâ„¢] Since we have been talking about The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢: Shadows of Angmarâ„¢ lately, there have been questions about keeping beta characters when the game goes live and how that works. Answers from players have been contradictory, but Turbine has ruled, so I am posting their statement here for reference.

The short version: keep all characters, 5 characters per server, open beta level cap of 15. Nothing except xp is capped.

Continue reading Beta Characters Go Live

Back to ToonTown. Not.

ToonTown[ToonTown] It was my son’s birthday recently and he asked if I could set up ToonTown for him to play another month. I figured I would, even though I had a bad taste in my mouth from the extra steps I had to do in order to cancel it last time.

I logged in and set up a subscription for the account. I hit submit and it sits there for about 5 minutes. Finally I get a message telling me to call a toll-free number for assistance. OK, nevermind – I’ll just make a free 3-day account for him and try the subscription after that expires. Three days later, same problem. They accept PayPal, so I try to pay with that hoping for a better result but I have no such luck. So, I make the call.

Continue reading Back to ToonTown. Not.

Fun.

Disneyworld is fun. However, I think if you went every weekend, you would lose a lot of the magic. Many MMOs are the same for me. Fun, but if you play a lot, you can lose the magic. Sometimes, bringing someone new along awakens the magic once again. I have been experiencing this in World of Warcraft lately, with my wife playing an MMO for the very first time. I can see the fun and magic all over again. I also experienced it in The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar.

Last weekend was a whole bundle of fun events and I’d like to share some them.

Continue reading Fun.

Me & My 10 Foot Pole

wow[World of Warcraft] The latest patch notes via WoW’s Test Realm have Priests, Druids, and Paladins crying foul, although as of last night some of the nastier changes for Priests at least had been undone. That said, there’s any number of other places on the web you can debate the pros and cons of the patch, so I’ll skip that and instead focus on a different issue I used to bring up with developers I interacted with: communication of said nerfs.

It’s all about tone. Remember Office Space and the TPS reports bit? There you go.

Continue reading Me & My 10 Foot Pole

Balancing Day One Load

lotro [The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢: Shadows of Angmarâ„¢] Turbine announced that if you pre-order, you get to keep your open beta character(s?) once the game goes live. Everyone simultaneously said, “Huh?” What kind of game lets you keep beta characters?

On Day One, however, the population will already be somewhat spread out. Not everyone will be level 1. The newbie areas will not be (as) ridiculously full of people competing for those wolves and pigs. Lag spikes will be smaller because the population is not all in the same town. The choking frustration of new players will be lighter. I have this image of Turbine representatives in their dark tower, cackling, “They called me MAD at the academy! Well who’s laughing now?!”

Sure, those pre-orders will hit the level cap sooner and run out of things to do, but who cares? Half of them are on lifetime subscriptions, so you already have their money, and the others lose their discount rate if they get bored and leave for a month. The race-to-50 players will be concentrated on the open beta servers, while the newly opened ones offer less competition from ubers (although more competition for those low-level pigs).

: Zubon

I Was a Halfling Fashion Victim

lotro [The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢: Shadows of Angmarâ„¢] Or, “A Weekend in The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢: Shadows of Angmarâ„¢. Yes, it is my turn for a “first impressions” post. You already know that Ethic has pre-ordered it, so we have at least one rat-hunter there.

Short version: it’s WoW. Long ruminations follow.

Continue reading I Was a Halfling Fashion Victim