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BC turns 1 (month)

wow[World of Warcraft] Here we are, 759 long hours later, in the land of the alien lizard guys and stuck up elves. Where the quests are paved with gold, and the average orc abandoned in the middle of nowhere has loot in his quest cache that would make Nefarian cry.

It’s been an exciting, and fast month. The exp flows, the gold flows, the place looks amazing, really amazing, and on the whole the masses are quite happy with what Blizzard has done with the place. While the launch had a few issues, this may be (feel free to correct me) the only time we had a major launch and still had product on the shelves to cover the need while the servers remained mostly alive to players. As I’ve already written in some detail already about BC, I’d like to turn the floor over to you, our faithful reader. What about BC would you like to see some writing about? Sans high level raiding, I think I have tendrils in with enough people to get some sort of a story. The suggestion box is open.

Director of Internal Affairs

EVE[EVE Online] The latest dev blog over at EVE Online brings some hope for a cleaner, brighter future.

In what a feel is a good move, the new director of internal affairs makes an introduction and follows with some plans for the future. The part that Arkanon said here is what I was hoping to read:

I believed, and still believe that we owe our player community the right to be the focus of EVE, without paid employees using dirty tricks to swing our universe in their favor. Even playing by the rules, I frown on employees being power players to the extent that their gameplay results in any sort of domination over others. I don’t believe CCP employees should run the EVE universe; that spot is reserved for the paying customer. EVE is a sandbox, but it’s not our sandbox. We’re here to keep it clean and provide the sand.

I hope so Arkanon, I hope so.

– Ethic

The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar pre-order dilemma

lotro [The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar] I am still stuck on the pre-order deal for The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar. It’s a great deal, so either I take it and have access to the game forever, or I never play because I would feel like a sap over-paying if I play in the long term. I generally try to avoid pre-ordering games, because it creates perverse incentives for developers to ship unfinished products, and I have not yet seen The Sign that convinces me that this is The Game. So the pre-order deal means that either Turbine convinces me in the next month that I will want to play $250 worth of The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar, or I never play the game. That’s a tough sell based on beta content.

Also, am I the only one frightened by that good of an offer for pre-orders? If something is so great that everyone wants it, you do not need a big sale to move product. I understand other reasons why you would want lifetime subscribers, but that is a huge discount to offer conditioned on your inability to try before you buy.

Also also, I am never abbreviating The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar.

: Zubon

The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar – Beta Screenshots

lotro [The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar] Finally got the clarification that we are indeed allowed to share screenshots from the beta test. I went through my first batch and will share them with you today. If there is something you’d like to see, let me know and I’ll try to get it for you. Remember while looking at these, I had my graphics turned down so they do not look as good as they could. I’ll try to get some better shots soon.

Approaching town, the guards blocked my entrance. But as I closed on them they decided I was friendly and let me in. In town, I stopped by the jail to taunt some of the prisoners. Outside, people had their laundry hung up to dry. There was a blacksmith nearby, hard at work.

Continue reading The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar – Beta Screenshots

The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar – NDA Lifted

lotro [The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar] The NDA has been lifted for The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar. As this announcement caught me off guard, I really don’t have anything prepared so I’ll just go off on a very brief ramble review here.

I have been in the beta for several months now and I still log in to play at least once a week. My wife has me playing World of Warcraft most of the time and that is fine with me because I am planning on pre-ordering The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar anyway (and taking advantage of the lower fees). I really don’t want to play it too much before it counts. Surprisingly, even though she is a big LotR fan, she is not showing any interest in the game. She says she just got into WoW and does not want to go starting something new right now – so perhaps it will be a game down the road for her.

Continue reading The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar – NDA Lifted

Why Do I Do This?

I have re-subscribed to EVE Online, but Empire space palled within a week and I am not ready for (or really interested in) the PvP areas. This may be my last month here ever. But I am religiously making sure that I do not waste skill points, carefully switching skills as appropriate. Why?

On a different front, I have a new little free browser-based game, Rule the Seas. I know that I will tire of this fairly quickly, as I have flirted with a dozen of them. Kingdom of Loathing is the only one I keep going back to. Don’t get me wrong, there are worse things in the world than being a pirate of the high seas in a shallow, text-based world that revolves around soliciting donations and one-click PvP. It will be amusing for a little while, which is about all I can ask. But why is it interesting to click through some levels in these things? I have already done the math to figure out the system, so it is just a matter of making a few clicks every 20 minutes if I want to play.

Do I just want a database somewhere out there to register, “click, Zubon is hereby a slightly cooler guy”?

: Zubon

Hunter Update

wow[World of Warcraft] Since I last left you, our blood elf hunter duo has reached level 21. On the way there, we have had several really fun moments. It’s amazing how much more I am enjoying this game with my wife at my side.

When we were night elf hunters, my wife tamed a ghost saber as a pet when she was level 20. There are these little cat figurines in Darkshore and we kept picking them up. Eventually, a see-thru cat spawned and attacked us. We wondered if we could tame it so we spent another hour trying to get one to spawn. Eventually we did get one trained. Not long after, it dropped dead and we didn’t know what to do. She tried to rez him and it worked. Guess it is some kind of bug, but anyway I digress.

Continue reading Hunter Update

CCP Comes Clean

EVE[EVE Online] CCP t20 On Recent Allegations:

As you might have read and heard, there were recently some allegations posted regarding developer misconduct that basically come down to:

* Developers helping (an) alliance(s) gain information they otherwise would not have.
* Developers having an unfair advantage of game mechanics.
* Developers helping themselves acquire goods in-game by means of in-house tools, otherwise not available to regular players.

All allegations mentioned above are untrue, except one. Sadly enough, the allegation regarding unlawfully obtained blueprints are, in my case, true. I’m here, laying out the facts of what happened in June 2006 so this whole issue — which jeopardized my colleagues, my company and our community — can be put behind us, I hope for the better.

Continue reading CCP Comes Clean

Paying to Beta

wow[World of Warcraft] A thread I’ve been following elsewhere references a theme I’ve heard before: the release of unfinished content in an expansion has become acceptable. The poster states that there are several unfinished aspects in WoW’s expansion, The Burning Crusade, and declares that the solution to this problem is that the developers should have made it harder to level so that they had time to fix it, after release.

How has this become modus operandi?

Continue reading Paying to Beta