This week we touch on a series of MMO highlights and news stories from both GDC and PAX East. I don’t want to give too much away, but I’ve added some links and videos behind the break for those who want more information on the games we’re talking about this week!

SW:TOR Trailer:

The Secret World GDC writeup & trailer:

UFO Online: Fight for Earth:

Grimlands:

You can check out all this news and more over on Massively!

Music used:

• Opening: “Yellow Cake (Healflouride) by Ministry
• Bed: Tavern music from WoW (sampled and looped)
• Ending: “Я очень рад, ведь я, наконец, возвращаюсь домой” by Eduard Khil

Questions? Comments? Hatemail? Contact us at podcast [AT] dc [DASH] mmo [DOT] org or catch up with Krystalle & Kevin on Twitter

This week’s (sic) SnarkCast covers all sorts of fun stuff.

• SIEGE Con – Grim goes to a convention which doesn’t require him to work.  Will he survive?
• World of Darkness – Watch Krystalle nearly pass out from the Squee.
• Dragon*Con is making some changes for next year.
• Cataclysm is dropping on December 7th.  Grim expecting to get “sick” that week.
• DC*MMO is looking for a few good staffers. (Yes, we’re serious)
• and the proverbial.. “Much Much MORE!”

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Do you know of some great Halloween MMO Machinima?  Email it to me!

[Note: this video is a tad dark, you might want to watch it in full screen, which helps]
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… on the other hand, the end of the world doesn’t need to be so morose.  This second transmission illustrates a little more whimsy:

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

End of transmission.

Sadly, none of the audio from the weekend’s recordings made it (we think whatever weird thing that made Grimmy’s PC play music at chipmunk speed is the same thing that caused the audio to be unusable) but hey – learning experience for next year, when we’ll show you a real snarkcast.

Hey everyone! Krystalle from Massively.com here. I hope you all made it home safe and sound and are enjoying being back at home with your gaming computers, in your comfy chairs/beds. I know I’ve missed my beloved office! (That’s an old picture of it above. Much more filled with geekstuff now.)

I’d like to take a moment to thank all our awesome sponsors and contributors, as well as the many guests who came to lend their own brand of awesome to our track this year:

Track sponsors:

• Artix Entertainment
• Comcast /Xfinity
• Sony Online Entertainment

Guests / Panelists:

• Battle & Brew
• Brandon M. “Oxhorn” Dennis (who wrote up a great post about his adventure!)
• Brian “Psychochild” Green
• Cartoon Network
• CCP / EVE Online
• CK Knight / Curse.com
• Hi-Rez Studios / Global Agenda
• Jeff Lewis
• Kingdom of Loathing
• Lessons in Lore / Chad and Megan Tindale
• Sandeep Parikh
• Sean Becker
• Seraphina Brennan / Massively.com
• Shawn Schuster / Massively.com & GuildCast
• Star Wars Combine
• Romily Rilynn, our mistress of Machinima

And those who, while unable to make it, contributed prizes for us to give away!

• Bigfoot Networks
• Blizzard Entertainment
• Funcom
• Gazillion Entertainment
• Icarus Studios
• Kingsisle Entertainment

Without our above sponsors and guests, we wouldn’t have been able to pull off the epic win of this year’s MMO track. Many thanks, everyone!

Also, I wanted to take a moment to post some of the information from my panels, since some people did not grab the handouts I’d made. You can find it all after the break!

Kid-friendly MMOs / Virtual Worlds:

• AdventureQuest Worlds
• Club Penguin
• Digimon Battle
• Fantage
• FusionFall
• Free Realms
• Hello Kitty Online
• Jumpstart World
• Kung Fu Panda World
• LEGO Universe Online
• Maplestory
• Moshi Monsters
• MyMiniPeeps -  (Note: beta! Reg code “mmpfriends”)
• Pixie Hollow
• PopTropica
• Puzzle Pirates
• RuneScape
• Super Hero Squad Online
• WebbliWorld
• Wizard 101
• ZulaWorld

Free-to-play & Freemium MMOs:

• Allods Online
• Battle of the Immortals
• Black Prophecy
• Dungeons & Dragons Online
• Digimon Battle
• EverQuest II Extended
• Face of Mankind
• Forsaken World
• Free Realms
• FusionFall
• Godswar Online
• Hello Kitty Online
• Kingdom of Loathing
• Lord of the Rings Online
• Mabinogi
• MapleStory
• Need For Speed: World
• SoulMaster
• Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures
• Taikodom
• Vindictus
• Wizard 101
• Zentia

Upcoming MMOs:

• Black Prophecy
• DC Universe Online
• Earthrise
• End of Nations
• EverQuest II Extended
• Fallout Online
• Final Fantasy XIV
• Forsaken World
• Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising (rezzed, no joke!)
• GuildWars 2
• Jumpgate Evolution
• LEGO Universe
• Might & Magic: Heroes Kingdoms
• Poisonville
• Super Hero Squad Online
  *Note: There is another Marvel MMO with a classic comic art style currently under development*
• Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures
• Star Wars: The Old Republic
• Taikodom
• Rift: Planes of Telara
• TERA
• The Secret World
• Vindictus
• World of Tanks

If you have any questions about materials covered during any of my panels, feel free to ping me. You can email me at krystalle AT massively DOT com, or say hello on Twitter.

Hopefully, we’ll see you all next year!

But enough about my thoughts on the video, here it is!

Also, I’d be terribly remiss if I was doing machinima without mentioning the incredibly wonderful and talented Christina “Romily” Rollins, who has been coming to Dragon*Con for a few years to share some of the best Machinima from around the world with us. Take, for example, this film she introduced us all to last year. While the game featured isn’t an MMO, I think anyone who has ever looked for a group can sympathize with this Pyro.

If you really enjoy machinima, be sure to check out her panels this year! Currently they are scheduled as follows:

Machinima (Cool, notable, and award-winning) – Friday, 8:30 PM, Savannah Room
Machinima (Comedy, off the wall, or as Grim calls it “fart and dick jokes”) – Saturday, 8:30 PM, Savannah Room

Also note, you’re welcome to bring snacks and drinks since this is set up pretty much just like going to the movies. Only we don’t have ushers, so please clean up after yourselves!

Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw on Age of Conan

Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw on Eve Online.

In honor of E3 conference happening right now, here’s a look at some future MMOs and console games we are excited about!

William Shatner is an excellent addition to the excessively large group of Dragon*Con’ers know as the “Look at me, Look at me!” crowd. However, I believe in his youth, Leonard Nimoy was probably President of that club.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Earn Your Powers

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

And now you MMO, and MMOing is half the battle…

Fury spec'ed orc warrior terrorizes local mall. Film at 11.

That picture is from the lovely Elizabeth Harper, but the next…ah, the next…back in the days of Target This and all that was good and full of debauchery…

Kyngllama on Emperor Dagran Thaurissan’s throne…how the dark iron dwarves must squirm at the sight. Of course, Myca and Muskullswife dancing on the sides may have something to do with that as well.

A glorious evening to you all, noble warriors in the Snark army! It is time once again for your Secretary of Geek affairs to fill you in on some of the awesome news of the last week. My apologies for the lateness of the post, but I was feeling a bit under the weather today and so, unfortunately, has Mama McGreevy. Never worry, though! I did manage to gather a few tidbits to quench your thirst for geek knowledge, and you’ll find them behind the cut.

• Smiling Stan Lee has chimed in with his opinion of Marc Webb, the man who has been charged with the responsibility of taking the helm on the Spider-Man film franchise in the footsteps of Sam Raimi. Stan gave a fairly detailed summation of the meeting over on his Twitter account, and I’ve cobbled together all of them into one statement for you here. “Had a great time today. Lunched with Marc Webb who’s gonna direct Spider-Man 4. First time I’ve met him. Lemme give you my impression – After meeting Marc. I was certain Marvel had made a great choice to direct Spidey 4– and not just because of his table manners! The mighty Mr. Webb is smart and hip– and he cares about being true to Spidey as much as I do. And remember, he’s also a great director. I could tell by the dynamite ideas he proposed that Marc’s gonna bring new excitement and a new sense of wonder to ol’ Spidey! And remember–Marc wants a great Spider-Man movie that’ll bring new luster and glory to our web-swinger as much as we do! So let Marvel’s True Believers unite with my brave Brigadiers and get behind Mighty Marc, because hey, the best is yet to come! Excelsior!” I hope Stan is right. I do love Sam Raimi, but Spider-Man 3 was a complete train wreck of a film. Whether or not Sam is responsible for that really depends on who you believe, but the fact of the matter is that at this point a re-boot is probably the only thing that is going to help the franchise out. [Source]
• There have been countless revenge movies made in the relatively short history of modern cinema. The story is generally pretty much the same in all of them. You start the film and establish your happy, well-adjusted hero. You then proceed to slaughter his entire family and have him mutilated and left for dead. You then watch as he extracts bloody vengeance on all of those who wronged him. It’s a pretty tried-and-true trope, but it works. This time, however, the hero? Is a tire. A tire with the power to kill people with its mind. For reals. [Source]
• Star Wars fans rejoice! If you’re a TomTom owner you can now download the voice of Darth Vader to guide you to your destinations! My question is whether or not he’s constantly going to try and divert you to the Dark Side. If you watch the video associated with the this news release it’s pretty clear that the person voicing the Dark Lord isn’t James Earl Jones. In fact, if I had to guess, I’d say it was Chad Vader. Still, it’s a pretty awesome download option and I’m seriously thinking of grabbing it myself. [Source]
• And speaking of Star Wars (there, Grimm…I’ve fulfilled my “speaking of” quota for this post)…A couple recently cobbled together what is, in my mind, the greatest birth announcement ever using clips from A New Hope. [Source]
• Hugo Weaving is going to play Red Skull in the upcoming Captain America : The First Avenger film. The utter awesomeness of the sentence I just wrote stands on its own and needs no further elaboration. [Source]
• Remember Stephen Baldwin? No, you probably don’t because he’s pretty much the Fredo of the Baldwin family. There are some who believe that his lack of popularity in Hollywood has nothing to do with his lack of talent and everything to do with the fact that he is an outspoken Christian. These people are so convinced this is the case that they have actually set up a charity to raise money for him. Once news got out about this, though, some enterprising internet folks decided the appropriate response was to set up a site to restore someone much more worthy of our praise. Joss Whedon. [Source]
• I like Batman. I also like porn. Regardless of the fact that I enjoy both of these things I have never actively sought to combine the two for my own enjoyment (despite the fact that Rule 34 dictates I could easily find material to do so should the desire strike me). Some folks, however, clearly think there is a market for such a combination and they have thrown together a porno parody of the old Adam West Batman television series. Someone has to ask Adam about this one if he comes to Dragon*Con again (someone who isn’t me). [Source]
• In my opinion one of the best parts of the Quentin Tarantino Grindhouse film was the fake trailer for a film called Machete starring ultimate bad-ass Danny Trejo. Apparently a lot of folks agreed with me, because they have turned Machete into a feature length film. Check out the trailer and a few words from Machete himself about the recent immigration legislation that was passed in Arizona. [Source]
• Yeah, ok. I might be getting a little trailer heavy today, but I can’t not post this one. The latest Discworld novel turned television movie is Going Postal, and the trailer just looks awesome. So far all of the Discworld movies have been great, and if this trailer is any indicator Going Postal is going to continue the tradition. [Source]
• Back in my day video games were hard. You didn’t have these fancy tutorials or access to websites with lots of cheat codes. If you wanted any kind of help playing the game you had to go out and buy a book, and every time you died it put you one step closer to dumping another quarter into the machine before you could continue. Want to see proof of what I’m talking about? Check out the video in the link that follows to see what it would look like if Super Mario Brothers was made today [Source]

That’s all I’ve got this week, folks! Happy Monday to ya!

• WRUP – What we’re playing!
• Macrotransaction vs microtransaction snark
• Nexon looking to play grown-up, goes om nom nom
• Shrinkage is still a problem after the apocalypse
• It’s almost time to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.
• JGEOMGWTF, HURRY UP
• Yarr Realms
• Brenlo deserves a beer
• New content and Bards and Uncle Voltie, oh my
• In other news, gang leaders make good models
• The two Perpetual Nerd Questions
• What do William Shatner and Patrick Stewart have in common with chipmunks?
• And more Dragon*Con MMO silliness and guest news!

Music used in this show:

• Opening song: The Swashbuckling Rum Run Of Tom Leftig – We Are They (from the Funny Music Project at TheFUmP.com)
• Bed music: The Damp Barachan Nights – from the Age of Conan soundtrack (by Knut Avenstroup Haugen)
• Closing music: Afro Samurai Fight Groove #4 from the Afro Samurai videogame

As always, comments, offers of cookies, and hatemail should be directed to us in comments below, or by emailing us: podcast AT dc-mmo.org. We’ll see you next time! (c)2010, DC MMO. Released under a Creative Commons: Attribution, Non-Commercial, No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported license.

And just in time for the coolness that is Ironman to continue…

Ironman 2 trailer

"Have a great f*ckin day!"

Muffy and the muff mob 1 of 5

Anyhow, I thought I’d get things off to a rousing start by giving you all yet another JoCo video.  The man is a genius.

(Opening music, courtesy of …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, “Isis Unveiled”)

(Opening music, courtesy of …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, “Isis Unveiled”)

PLEASE COME TO DRAGON*CON!!!!

Ok, I got that out of my system.

Who is Jonathan Coulton, you ask?

Seriously?

If you’ve been to any of DC*MMO‘s WoW events, you have definitely seen the video for Code Monkey.

However, if you have ever played Portal, there is another song of his that you might find more familiar.

In fact, the only problem I have with this video is that Spiffworld has two versions.  The original, as it appeared in Portal, and one done by JoCo himself.

Got an opinion on which video we should show at D*C this year?  Got ideas for other videos that you would like to see this year?  Want us to bring back some videos from last year?  Drop us a line!

(Opening music, courtesy of And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, “Isis Unveiled”)

This version of the Snarkcast is a little more “free form” than usual.  Of course we make fun of the usual suspects (World of  Warcraft, Aion, and NCSoft in general) as well as give you some recent news from Dragon*Con and the games we happen to be playing at the moment. (Both Krystalle and I are kinda hooked on Fallen Earth right now)

Anyway, I hope you all enjoy.  Now that we’re a little closer to the holidays, we should start getting more Dragon*Con related information to throw your way as well as having a little more time to actually play all of the games we love to play.

(Opening music, courtesy of And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, “Isis Unveiled”)

It also looks like the new engineering is working nicely in terms of flipping these casts over faster. We’re going to aim for once a week, but we’d love to hear from you in regards to show times. Would you prefer SnarkCast be around 30 minutes, or is the current hour-long chunk good for you? Be sure to let us know in the comments!

Note: If the above audio is choppy for you, please consider downloading it to your local machine before listening. We’ve made the file significantly smaller than before, so it should come down pretty quickly.

As always, full show notes are after the break!

Here’s what we’re talkin’ ’bout this week, Willis.

• D*C stuffs, as always!
• Is MAG an MMO?
  http://www.massively.com/2009/09/15/the-daily-grind-is-mag-an-mmo/
• Blogger sued by Evony for Defamation/Libel
  http://www.massively.com/2009/09/14/blogger-sued-by-evony-for-defamation-libel/
  Get the FULL details after you’ve caught up at: http://www.bruceongames.com/
• EVE Online council member steps down for insider trading
  http://www.massively.com/2009/09/08/eve-online-player-elected-council-rep-steps-down-in-wake-of-insi/
• DDO goes F2P
• Fallen Earth goes into pre-launch early start release
• Beatles Rock Band just came out

Music comes from the remix artists over at OverClocked Remix, with the exception of the brief snip of organ “hold” music.

The specific songs used are:

• Ghetto Lee Lewis – Ultima Online “Create your Fantasy” remix
• djpretzel, Vigilante – Short Skirts (Tifa’s Theme), Disc 2 “Dirge”, Voices of the Lifestream FFVII remix project
• Wurlitzer organ music blurb “Nola” from VirtualOrgan.com. (Get your minds out of the gutter, people.)

Comments, hate-mail, proposals, or offers for lewd and lascivious housecleaning can be sent to podcast [at] dc [dash] mmo [dot] org. That is, if you’re into that kind of thing.

As always, thanks for listening. Enjoy!

- Krys

Thrill to the sounds of two crispy fried post-convention geeks!

Chill with the cool background music while we ramble like a couple of blithering idiots!

Now with 100% more DC content than the last two weeks worth of non-podcasts, and 100% less MMO content than ever before!

Show notes are behind the jump for those curious. Now if you’ll pardon me, there’s a nap calling my name.

SnarkCast – Episode 5, Volume #1

Happy Birthday Sam!

Opening music: Gonna Make You Crazy by Eclectic Submarine
Bed music: Libation by Al Phlipp and the Woo Team

The music provided is from Mevio’s Music Alley. Check it out at music.mevio.com.

All rights belong to the respective artists.

SnarkCast is (c)2008-2009 Kevin Stallard & Krystalle Voecks. Copyright violators will have their faces melted.

We’ll be better next week – promise. Until then, enjoy.

- Krystalle

It’s been a crazy week in the land of SnarkCast, and Krys and Grim have already been overtaken by events given that we recorded this podcast before:

1. The Dragon*Con Staff Meeting last weekend.
2. Blizzard was allowed to partially re-launch WoW in China.

Oh well, them’s the breaks.  In any event, enjoy the podcast (show notes are included after the jump).  Thanks for listening, and we’ll be recording a new podcast very soon.

• Intro
• WRUP? (Also known as “What are you playing?”)
• AOC’s “come back” promotion
  • http://community.ageofconan.com/wsp/conan/frontend.cgi?func=publish.show&template=content&func_id=2926&table=CONTENT
• WoW’s legal trouble in little China
  • http://www.jlmpacificepoch.com/newsstories?id=152539_0_5_0_M
• Global Agenda Beta starting on July 24
  • http://www.globalagendagame.com
• Professor Griefer & CoH
  • http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/07/loyola_university_professor_be.html
• CoH: Issue 16 announced
  • http://www.cityofheroes.com/news/game_updates/issue_16/issue_16_overview.html
• Cryptic”Nemesis Online, can we start calling it “CoH 2″ now?
  • http://www.massively.com/2009/07/16/cryptic-could-make-champions-counterpart-nemesis-online
• Eurogamer does re-review of Darkfall, rates it 4/10
  • http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/darkfall-online-second-review
  • http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/darkfall-online-review
• Why MMO’s are like Men/Women
  • http://blog.weflyspitfires.com/2009/07/12/mmorpgs-are-a-lot-like-women/
  • http://divagoth.com/2009/07/12/why-mmos-are-like-men-a-reply/
• Dragon*Con News Storytelling in MMO’s panel is added
  • TERRY FREAKIN’ GILLIAM IS COMING!!!
  • DC*MMO T-shirts in da house

(Opening music, courtesy of …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, “Isis Unveiled”)

In this week’s show, we snarkify (otherwise known as “show notes”):

• E3
  • Booth Babes
  • Underwear as Swag
  • A “Stripper Game”
  • News from Sony Online Entertainment
    • Free Realms
    • The Agency
    • Hong Kong Shuffle
  • Star Wars: The Old Republic
  • Global Agenda
    • Bogus “Awards” given at E3
    • DC*MMO takes a studio tour
    • “Open All Night” demo at Dragon*Con
• Sony Fan Faire
  • Star Wars Galaxies
    • Zombies
    • User-created content
    • The Gungan Gun
  • SOE’s big party at Dragon*Con
• Blizzard
  • No LAN play for Starcraft II
  • What’s Wrong With WoW?
  • Special Interview w/Dr. Tran
  • WoW Faction changes
  • WoW may be an MMO with training wheels, but it serves an important purpose.
• EVE Online
  • Yet another bank scam
  • BoB is dead
• Age of Conan
  • Huge upcoming patch
  • “Fixing” stats and itemization
  • Problems with questing in AoC
• Warhammer Online
  • How to “Kill 10 rats” correctly
  • Public quests
  • Mark Jacobs leaving Mythic
  • Mythic is now part of Bioware
  • How will Bioware change WAR?
• City of Heroes
  • Issue 15 is coming
  • The 5th Column is back!
  • New costumes and facial options
  • Is it better to look good? or have uber stats on gear?
• Dragon*Con stuff
  • Schedule is done!
  • 50 panels and events scheduled on MMO track
  • WoW trivia event being combined into Hardcore MMO Trivia contest
  • 5 different parties planned on the MMO track this year.
• Closing Music and gag reel.

(Opening music, courtesy of …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, “Isis Unveiled”)

Thus, we opted to reimagine the entire podcast, and have rebranded it SnarkCast. In this, our official first edition of SnarkCast, we discuss D*C MMO bidness, sure – but we also wander across the landscape from MMO drama to just what the heck is wrong with FreeRealms. Add in a healthy dose of Hentai, and you have the first-ever SnarkCast.

Admittedly, the engineering on this one is a bit rough, but we’re still working that out. As always feedback, suggestions, or gifts of chocolate-covered espresso beans are welcome!

EPISODE #1, VOLUME #1

**SHOW NOTES**

Topics listed here are meant as resources for further reading, but are by no means the entirety of topics covered. If you have any questions on sources, feel free to leave a comment and ask!

• Richard Garriott sues NCsoft
• Trion to reveal MMOs at E3
• Darkfall drama llama
• Free Realms!
• Stargate Worlds studio head heads for Gazillion
• Ace of Cakes Squig Herder cake

Music used in this podcast:

• Intro: “Isis Unveiled” by …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, courtesy of the Podsafe Music Network
• Bed music: “Suco de Melancia (Costa del Sol)” by Red Tailed Fox, courtesy of the FFVII Voices of the Lifestream OverClocked Remix project
• Featured bed snarky musical blurb – Super Mario Theme (Rock remix) by psobot
• Outro: “Lunatic Moon (Red XIII’s Theme ~ Cosmo Canyon)” by Sixto Sounds & zircon,  courtesy of the FFVII Voices of the Lifestream OverClocked Remix project

Comments? Questions? Hatemail? Email podcast [at] dc-mmo [dot] org, or ping Grim & netgoth on twitter

Who are we?

DC*MMO has a dozen staff members who work year-round to prepare for each year’s Dragon*Con. In addition to maintaining this website, we have to research new games (yes, playing games is part of the job), talk to community relations staff, come up with contests and prizes, and most of all work the convention itself and make sure our guests and fans get where they are supposed to go. It’s fun work, but it never ever ends.

A partial list of the games that we cover includes:

• Age of Conan
• Anarchy Online
• AQ Worlds
• Champions Online
• City of Heroes
• DC Universe Online
• EVE Online
• Everquest
• Everquest 2
• Force of Arms
• Free Realms
• Gaia Online
• Guild Wars
• Kingdom of Loathing
• Lord of the Rings Online
• Pirates of the Burning Sea
• Second Life
• Star Trek Online
• Star Wars Galaxies
• Stargate Worlds
• Tabula Rasa
• Vanguard
• Warhammer Online
and, of course…
• World of Warcraft

If there is a game that you would like to see us cover, of if you are a game developer who wants to participate in Dragon*Con, please Contact Us and let us know.

Calendar in iCal format
Calendar in XML format

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