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

[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:

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End of transmission.

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!

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If you enjoyed this, check out the whole series…

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… and one that isn’t JoCo…

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I don’t know if you can actually still do this, but if you can, this is how I would play AoC:

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This one shows off AoC from two years ago…

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… and here is one from 2009 celebrating one year of AoC.

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And lastly, the trailer for their latest expansion, Rise of the Godslayer.

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Hit up YouTube for more of their songs as L70ETC or L80ETC…

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.

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Earn Your Powers

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

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You can check out more of her work on her website, PVPGurl.com.

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!

First, a little music…

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Some game play…

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Wings are awesome…

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The game is really pretty.  I hope someone takes the time to crank out some good machinima movies and music videos like they do with other games.

• 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.

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.

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”)

Really, anything I add to this would just be superfluous.