Just to prove that World of Warcraft is not the only source of funny videos out there, check out Roleplayin‘ when you get a chance. Here is their preview of the upcoming Age of Conan expansion.
Apr 182010
So I’ve been playing SC2 for about a week and I can’t quite get the hang of it. But I do know that RTS games have a pretty big learning curve. (I never played the original Starcraft.)
So far in the beta, the only part of the game available to play is multiplayer. Playing through the storyline is probably what I’d like more. Blizz has implemented a new system through their Battle.net site to allow SC2 to search for players, which is kind of like the battlegroup based search for cross-realm PUGs in WOW. So I’ve not had to wait very long in queue to play any of my matches, which is nice. Coincidentally, I’ve not had to play each match very long to have my butt kicked. Perhaps the reasoning behind only having multiplayer content available is to work out kinks in the Battle.net system and make sure its running smooth before moving on to the next phase. I, for one, am anxious to see the storyline component.
There also won’t be any LAN play in SC2, a fact that some people, including Hitler, are pretty upset about. (I promise this will be my last Hitler video.)
More later!
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, or don’t play World of Warcraft (not sure which one means you are more out of touch… ), then you may have heard about the upcoming expansion called Cataclysm. You are also probably wondering “What’s going to change for me?”
Fear not, my fellow geeks. WoW.com is on the case. They have announcements and analysis for all of the upcoming class changes and it looks like every class is getting a taste. The only class that hasn’t been announced yet is Paladins, but I think we can all agree that next to Warlocks, they are the class in most dire need of a severe nerfing.
Of course, we, the fearless staff of DC*MMO, are happy to do our part to repress, supress, and distress the Warlocks among us. We even had a “Live-action Warlock Nerfing” at Dragon*Con a couple of years back…
MOAR DOTZ!
-Grim
The box looks like it'll stand up to a Zerg rush...
It’s a rare day when $99.99 doesn’t seem like a stupid amount of money to pay for a video game. Steel Battalion, with it’s “you’re going to need a bigger boat lap” controller was one of the earliest titles to hit the century mark. Blizzard seems to have found a way to justify separating us from a C-note with the Collector’s Edition of StarCraft II, even though there’s no release date set yet. For those of you who haven’t seen the trailer yet, Dani posted about it here.
In addition to the sequel of the wildly-popular original, a Duke Nukem-esque ten years in development, there are a whole passel of goodies tucked into that big honking box:
- THE ART OF STARCRAFT II: WINGS OF LIBERTY – 176 pages of concepts and 3d renderings
- JIM RAYNOR “DOG TAG” USB DRIVE – Replica of Jim Raynor’s in-game dog tag is a 2GB USB thumb drive, pre-loaded with the original StarCraft and Brood War Expansion
- BEHIND THE SCENES DVD – Dev interviews, all the cut-scene animations (with director commentary), and discussion of the original SC’s place in gaming lore
- STARCRAFT COMIC ISSUE #0
- GAME SOUNDTRACK – 14 tracks from the game itself, plus a couple of bonus tunes. I’m a sucker for game soundtracks – they make the daily commute suck less, that’s for sure.
- WORLD OF WARCRAFT IN-GAME PET – Maybe you’ll want Baby Thor as a companion to your shenanigans in Azeroth
- BATTLE-NET DOWNLOADABLE CONTENT – Unlockable goodies, including in-game army icons, unique avatar portraits, and an exclusive version of the in-game Thor unit
This is where I make everyone’s head explode by admitting I never played the original StarCraft (I was a Command & Conquer guy), but this list of goodies does make my wallet itch, just a little.
Apr 052010
As many of you may know, the Starcraft II open beta has started; and I got picked to be a beta tester! So here’s the cinematic trailer to get you drooling. Stay tuned for weekly blog updates about my shenanigans in Starcraft II!
embedded by Embedded Video
YouTube DirectStarcraft II Cinematic Trailer
Jan 282010
Now, I know what you’re thinking…
Who is Near Death Studios?
NDS is a studio owned and run by Brian “Psychochild” Green, who has been a panelist and speaker at Dragon*Con in previous years. Psychochild has been the target of a few good-natured ribs concerning the now-infamous “Meridian 59 panel” . The shutting-down of NDS is a little sad for me personally.
What’s the story?
Well, back in the early days of what has now become DC*MMO, Trevor, Waylon Adams, and I had a panel on online gaming. Now considering that Everquest was the big boy on the block, and World of Warcraft was just a gleam in Blizzard’s eye, you can imagine that things were a bit more intimate than they are today. So when we put together a panel on the industry as a whole, we were ready to do just about anything to keep it from turning into something like
“Well, in Everquest…”
“In Everquest, we do…”
“How does Everquest handle the issue of…”
You get the idea.
We decided to bring in a couple of panelists who had nothing to do with Everquest. That’s how I met Elonka Dunin (who, for my money, is the smartest woman on the planet). I also got to meet a pleasant chap named Nathan who worked on a game called “Wish“, and then there was Brian.
Brian joined us on the dais, grabbed a microphone, and if we hadn’t cut off power to the room, might STILL be talking.
“In Meridian 59…”
“In my game, Meridian 59…”
“Well in Merdian 59, we…”
We had avoided becoming an EQ panel, but had somehow turned it into a panel on Meridian 59. Poor Nathan couldn’t get a word in edge-wise, and I don’t think Elonka got to answer more than one question. My friends, who took time out of their con schedule to watch me try and play moderator, ribbed me the rest of the weekend. “Meridian 59… Meridian 59… Meridian 59!!!” In fact, this panel has a great deal to do with how I have since developed my moderating style. (I am no longer shy about interrupting folks if they start rambling or if I feel they are starting to dominate a discussion. Either you run the panel, or the panel runs over you.)
As initially annoying as it was at the time, and as much fun as I’ve made of Meridian 59 in the intervening years, Brian Green taught me an extremely important lesson about MMO development, and life in general. Brian’s passion for his game, and his belief in what he was doing shone through every word he said. He is a “true believer” in M59, and he wanted to get the word out to anyone who would listen.
We should all be so passionate about the things we do for a living. Having a job that you love that much is worth more than money, and game developers, at least the good ones, are “true believers” in the games they create. The game developers who come to Dragon*Con pay their own way, and take their own vacation time to come to our convention. They truly believe in what they have created and they want to come to our convention to get their message out to the rest of us. The MMO industry will lose something vital when the “bottom line” becomes more important than the game itself.
Brian “Psychochild” Green had a lot to do with teaching me that. I’m sorry that his company has shut down, but I hope that Meridian 59 is around for a long time.
Yeah, I know. We haven’t been as diligent as we should be in updating the site with the latest and greatest news in MMO land. On the other hand, we’re too busy playing them to write much.
In preparation for our next SnarkCast and because Krystalle can be, at times, a moderating influence on me, I have prepared a Christmas “Naughty or Nice?” list of stories, people, and things that have happened in the past year. Don’t expect anything even remotely “correct” or “political”.
Nice
World of Warcraft’s 3.3 patch
The new content is nice, but the LFG tool has made dungeon groups fun again. I don’t think I’ve seen a wait time longer than 10 minutes for a dungeon. I love to bag on WoW on the SnarkCast, but I must give credit where it is due. 3.3 has me playing again… a lot.
The folks at Fallen Earth have come up with a rather nifty game set in a Post Apocalyptic American Southwest. (Grand Canyon, to be specific) If you’re in the mood to check out a game that departs from the average fantasy-based WoW clone, I highly recommend this one. It’s from a small, independent studio so there are some warts in the game, but the community is tight-knit and the in-game customer service staff is responsive. Enjoy.
SOE has a lot going on. There is a new EQ expansion out there (16!!!), more EQII content on the way, and Free Realms has gotten off to a very good start. That, and Brenlo and the gang are lots of fun to hang out with at Dragon*Con.
Ok, enough of the syrupy sweet, here comes the “coal in the stocking”…
Naughty
Aion
A craptacular grindfest which is packaged in eye candy is still a craptacular grindfest. The fact that NCSoft, a studio which seems all-too-eager to pull the plug on MMO’s that don’t make enough money for them, is behind it leads me to believe that this title won’t have much staying power. (Tabula Rasa, anyone?)
MMO’s which are basically LAN-party sized games with a giant chat lobby.
Ok, so it isn’t Guild Wars’ fault that so many new games are adopting this approach, but for the love of Curt Schilling, can we stop calling games that are chat lobbies for 5-10 player “dungeons” MMORPGs? Raiding Temple of Veeshan with 300 players is Massive. Raiding Molten Core with 40 players is Massive. Sitting in a chat lobby until you can mash together a 5 man group in order to run a dungeon is NOT Massive. If you can’t get out of the quest hub and explore the world, it’s not an MMO. If “the world” is instanced to the point that you have zero chance of randomly encountering another player in it, it is not an MMO. It can still be a great game, but call it something else.
Ok, so I was super stoked about buying this game. So much so that I got the 6 month subscription (thus guaranteeing me a place in the Star Trek Online beta, which I am currently enjoying) I played it for about a week, then realized… Grind-tacular snorefest. The comic book style graphics are interesting and the game has a world of promise, but do us all a favor. Reduce the level cap by half and cram what content you have into those levels. Gaps in content make levelling an endless chore. If I wanted that, I’d have stayed in Everquest. I hope Star Trek Online is listening…
As always, this is just my opinion. I can’t help it that I’m right.
Merry Christmas!
-Grim
P.S. as an added bonus, and because I’ve mentioned her in just about every SnarkCast we’ve done, here’s a Christmas pic of Samantha.
http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2009/11/phi … PG+Blog%29
reposted in its entirety below:
Please be warned that today somebody swamped the internet with an extremely well made phishing mail, which looks very much like a genuine mail from Blizzard, and promises you a Jade Tiger in-game pet if you just fill out a survey. Of course to do so you’ll have to type your Battle.net login and password on the fake website us.blizzard-survey.com. And the next time you log in after that, instead of finding a Jade Tiger, you’ll find your characters naked and all your gold and possessions gone.
Braving the dark corners of the internet I gave a fake userid and password to the phishing website, which led me to the survey (note that if the website wasn’t fake, I wouldn’t have been able to “log on” with the fake userid). I was surprised how extremely professional this phishing side was, it looked exactly like a Blizzard site, even the survey looked real, and after thanking you for participation you get forwarded to the real World of Warcraft site. Scary stuff, this.
Now excuse me while I run a virus check on my computer.
A couple of notes:
- Authenticators are a REALLY good idea. Perhaps not for every game, but a game that is as popular as WoW is is bound to attract the kind of scumbags who do this sort of thing.
- blizzard-survey.com… Ouch. Even if someone was sharp enough to look up the domain information, here is what they would find.
WHOIS information for blizzard-survey.com :
[Querying whois.internic.net] [Redirected to whois.ename.com] [Querying whois.ename.com] [whois.ename.com] Domain Name : blizzard-survey.com Registrant Contact Information : AdminDomain Blizzard Entertainment [email protected] US, 18979 tel: fax: Administrative Contact Information : AdminDomain Blizzard Entertainment [email protected] US, 18979 tel: fax: Technical Contact Information : AdminDomain Blizzard Entertainment [email protected] US, 18979 tel: fax: Billing Contact Information : AdminDomain Blizzard Entertainment [email protected] US, 18979 tel: fax: Status : clientDeleteProhibited clientTransferProhibited Domain Name Server : ns1.2x4hosting.ru ns2.2x4hosting.ru Registration Date :2009-11-13 Expiration Date : 2010-11-13
Many folks who get this far would see “Blizzard Entertainment” and move on. The only real indicators that this domain is a phishing domain are
- Registered last week.
- Name Servers are in Russia. (and let’s face it, the Russkies are behind 99% of the high quality Internet scams out there, trust me… I know.)
Bottom line: TANSTAAFL. Why would Blizzard have a survey site and not advertise the hell out of it on worldofwarcraft.com or in-game? If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Be careful out there.
Sep 192009
Hey sea dogs an’ land lubbers, happy Talk Like A Pirate Day! Fer them who may nay ben aware, ye can download a free copy o’ Th’ Tales of Monkey Island from LucasArts and Telltale Games, in honor o’ th’ gentleman o’ fortune (Pirate) celebration. But ye best be gettin’ to it – th’ download is only free fer today, ye bilge rats!
Ye can find more information at http://www.telltalegames.com/playlikeapirate.
Don’t say we ne’er did anythin’ fer ye, neither. 
