It’s time for our holiday edition of the SnarkCast! This time around, we’re trying something a little bit different, as we have some friends guest-starring on the podcast! Please do let us know what you think about this new format, and if you like longer or shorter podcasts. We’ll let you guess what the main topic of this cast was. Hmmm..

This particular one clocks in at a meaty hour and 30 minutes, but we also won’t be publishing again until after the new year, so we figured we should add in some extra snark for your holidays.

If you have any comments, suggestions, etc. or just want to say hello, drop us an email at podcast[at]dc-mmo[dot]org

As always, you can find links, notes, and more after the break.

HOLIDAY FINDS w/ Morgan

• http://www.etsy.com/shop/CastleMcQuade
• http://www.etsy.com/shop/wakeupjuliet
• http://www.etsy.com/shop/useyourdigits
• http://www.etsy.com/shop/Fanboyglass
• http://www.etsy.com/shop/geekoutlet
• http://www.etsy.com/shop/WhatsEatingYin
• http://www.etsy.com/shop/Foxwise
• http://www.etsy.com/shop/DarkerImage
• http://www.etsy.com/shop/ZombiepieceTheatre

NEWS

Well, it took us more than 2 years, but we’ve finally made it to 20 podcasts.  I’m not sure of the significance of that milestone, but it’s a nice round number, so YAY! WE HAZ 20 PODCASTS NAO!  In this episode, Grimmy and Krystalle are a little… less inhibited, when it comes to snark.  We manage to keep things serious long enough to discuss…

• Cross-realm Dungeon Finder premium service coming soon
• Atari to Divest Champions Online Developer Cryptic Studios
• Funcom planning Age of Conan: Unrated F2P launch this summer
• Rift is getting ready to provide free server transfers
• Guild Launch is sponsoring the MMO Track this year
• Dragon*Con News

We’re also looking for feedback on the idea of going live with the show. If you’d like to chime in, please leave a comment here, or email us at podcast@dc-mmo.org

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!”

Grim and Krystalle discuss the schedule of events on the DC*MMO track for this year and give some exclusive information about the track that won’t appear in the program guide or pocket schedule. If you want the real inside scoop on what we’ll be up to this year, we’ve got the podcast for you. (or you can wait until con and read about it in the Daily Dragon…)

In this episode, we discuss free-to-play games, games that are in trouble, and games that aren’t.  We give some props to the folks who are coming to Dragon*Con, and we HORRIBLY mangle the website for the D*C Digital Gaming track. (it is .ORG not .COM – I suck.)

Some highlights from this week’s (sic) podcast…

• Grim has hot three-way action with a couple of smokin’ hot babes!
• Grim and Krystalle discuss people who use excessive profanity.
• Fun with no air conditioning in Georgia in the Summertime!
• Krystalle gets spanked by a lucky community rep.
• Krystalle discusses her David Hasselhoff fixation.
• LOTRO goes free-to-play!
• Grim admits he is wrong about something.
• More riffing on Derek S****. (If you say his name online, he magically appears… like Candyman or Biggie Smalls)

As always… MORE DRAGON*CON 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)
• World of Warcraft Soundtrack.

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.

Not a huge amount of time for a long post this week, but the important thing is that the time and care was spent creating a brand new Dragon*Con MMO SnarkCast for you! Are you getting excited? We certainly are as plans are building here at the virtual D*C MMO HQ for this year’s convention.

Anyway, enough of the blathering – here’s the cast for you.

• WRUP – What we’re playing!
• How not to promote your game (or, CSI D*C)
• WAR, uh-huh, good gawd y’all, what is it good for? Apparently lawyer fees.
• RTS MMO WTF gimme
• Gentlemen (and ladies), start your engines!
• Kissing babies in New Eden
• Zero-day MMO reviews by people who haven’t played the game since launch are A Bad Idea
• With Friends and Family like that, who needs (business) enemies?
• Who’s hot (this week) to Kevin?
• Kevin says something nice
• Georgia Ren faire reminder for local Dragon*Con fiends!
• And more Dragon*Con MMO silliness and guest news!
• Audience participation SnarkCast

Music used in this show:

• Opening song: Zerøspace (Q-Burns Abstract Message Mix) – Kidneythieves
• Bed music: Green Nebula – CCP: Jon Hallur (soundtrack from EVE Online)
• Closing music: none this week because we didn’t have time to toss in the normal disclaimers before mashing it together and uploading it.

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!

This podcast is (c)2010, DC MMO. Released under a Creative Commons: Attribution, Non-Commercial, No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported license.

• 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.

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

I am half tempted, as soon as I have a few weeks of free time, to go through a bunch of our outtakes and give you a “best of Snarkcast which never got published”.  As chaotic and “free form” as we are, sometimes Krys and I ramble a little bit too much.  Mixed in with all that chaos are occasional nuggets of hilarity that may be dated, but still funny.

Time will tell, but for now you have some new podcasts to check out.

-Grim

(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”)

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

Also, as this is our first-ever attempt at actually making a podcast, we welcome your thoughts. You can contact Kevin and Krystalle by dropping an email to them at podcast [at] dc-mmo [dot] org. Gifts are accepted in the form of beta keys, money, or chocolate covered espresso beans.

Feel free to follow these two crazy monkeys on Twitter as well. Kevin can be found [here] and Krystalle lurks around [over here].

This episode features music from around the MMO landscape: City of Heroes, EVE Online, EverQuest II, Age of Conan, World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, and a bit of audio silliness here and there. See if you can figure out which is which; or if you’re truly hardcore, what the track names are. (After all, we have an MMO Trivia panel to plan for… You never know.)

We’ll see you in two weeks for Episode II; and not the one where Anakin is a whiny, emo QQer.