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Hunters Gone Wild

wow[World of Warcraft] Undermine has become a welcome home for our Night Elf Hunters. My wife spends her spare time greeting anyone and everyone, only to be ignored most of the time. But not always. Just recently she had another female Night Elf get mad at her for blowing a kiss to her boyfriend. Duel challenges arrived and my wife got a good laugh out of the whole thing.

Later on I introduced her to fishing and since she now has a big cat as a pet she needs to feed it and fish are perfect. She has taken to fishing and seems to really enjoy it, out-fishing me on a regular basis. While I was at work the other night, she found a guild for us to join. They were having a big party in Darnassus and she sort of wandered into the middle of it. Seems like a pretty big guild but I have yet to determine what type of guild it is exactly. Hopefully they are not a hard-core raiding guild.

We hit level 12 last night and are still having a lot of fun. We even have invited some solo players along whenever we see them near a quest area. The addition of pets has really made our hunter duo even more powerful. Now if I could just find a pet wolf somewhere (or else I’m going on a trip to grab The Rake).

– Ethic

How Many 2.0s are there?

Buzzword check! Most of us have heard of “Web 2.0” by now, which is of course jealous imitation by people who are not as cool as Al Gore. In discussing my wife’s upcoming presentation in Second Life, I was introduced to the term “Library 2.0.”

Oh lord, are we really doing this, the way that we added “e-” to the front of everything ten years ago? “E-commerce!” Does anyone else have more examples? Or a way I can cash in on this if it is a developing fad? You’ve seen how much I write — I can pump out a management book on “Business 2.0” in a month, provided I have an advance from a publisher. With no real content! It will be the start of Book 2.0!

: Zubon

Holiday Tidings

Remember, the holidays are a time for family and togetherness, so the PvP zones will be full of people working off anger and frustration. Play safe, kids.

: Zubon

Friday Wanderings

The wife and I are still playing World of Warcraft. We gave Everquest 2 a try, but she really did not care for it. She didn’t like the look of it and she hated all the extra clicks it seems NPC quest givers require. I’d almost say she hated the look of the game to be honest. We went back to WoW, but since I lost any interest in the queue on Doomhammer, we looked for a quieter server and landed on Undermine. We’ll see how long this lasts before we get a queue but so far so good. This time we both started a Night Elf Hunter. As a duo, we are just destroying everything in our path and we don’t even have pets yet.

Of the two beta tests I am in, one of them is collecting dust and the other one just keeps getting more and more enjoyable. Because of this, my time normally spent in EVE Online (which I was playing when the wife didn’t want to play) has dropped to nothing. I think it’s time to take a break from EVE for a while. Not sure if or when I’ll go back, but I’ve lost all desire to play it right now.

Lots of holiday family stuff coming up and also a family vacation, a trip to Disneyworld. Going to be busy for a while. Here’s hoping your holidays bring you lots of joy and good memories!

– Ethic

Dungeons and Dragons Online Update

This month’s Dragon Magazine has a brief update on D&D Online. Executive Producer James Jones says:

We’re also very interested in implementing prestige classes, adding the rest of the races and classes from the Player’s Handbook, and we’re looking into adding the Eberron races and classes as well.

Looks like the game should be ready for release sometime next year.

: Zubon

Niche Games and the Mass Market

TV is not vulgar and prurient and dumb because the people who compose the audience are vulgar and dumb. Television is the way it is simply because people tend to be extremely similar in their vulgar and prurient and dumb interests and wildly different in their refined and aesthetic and noble interests. — David Foster Wallace

Everyone likes boobies. Everyone likes huge phallic swords that burn with purple fire. Everyone likes blowing up the bad guy.

Once you get past the “everyone likes” options, you are eliminating portions of your potential playerbase. You may be making a better game, but it is better only for those subsets of the world that like that sort of thing.

As we get more games, we see more refined and aesthetic options, as games find their niches. We also see more games trying to be that lowest common denominator superstar in the center.

So hey, your game’s population is tiny not because it sucks, you are just more refined and noble than the market leader. Now that other niche game, yeah, it sucks, and so does everyone who plays it. What a bunch of losers.

: Zubon

H/T: Ben Casnocha via Marginal Revolution

How Do I Break It to Them?

I have seen print ads for the Age of Empires III expansion for a while, but I had not read the text on them:

You are one with the land. Bury your enemies in it.
Defend the Americas as the mighty Sioux, Iroquois, or Aztecs. … The land will bear your legacy forever.

I do not know how many game developers have history degrees, but they might have looked up how that fight turned out… Meh, the game would not be much fun if disease took out 95+% of your units when you met the European powers.

: Zubon

Don’t Take That Discount

Most MMOs have a multi-month discount plan. Pay $15 for one month or $14/month for three months, with options frequently ranging up to a year. A Tale in the Desert even offered an “as long as this Telling lasts” package, which was a huge cost-saver if I recall correctly. I would like to encourage you to buy these plans rarely if ever.

The quick version is that you are giving up a lot of flexibility for very little savings.

Continue reading Don’t Take That Discount

Holiday Events

In City of Heroes and Villains, Snaptooth has returned and kidnapped Baby New Year! Oh noes! Save the little tyke and enjoy your Christmas toys (and badges).

Father Crimbo is missing from the Kingdom of Loathing, so the Fright Queen steps up to take his place. Three spirits will guide you against primitive cave-elves, festive undead, and cyborg reindeer as you seek to bring him back. Assemble your own familiars!

Over at Gunbound, the event itself does little to gameplay except add a new song, but they are giving a discount on various avatar items and an easy way to get the gold to pay for them, along with some free avatar items.

: Zubon