August 2005 Entries
Some news here:
Kill Ten Rats: Asheron’s Call 2 To Close
It's always alarming to see this happen, regardless of the title - someone can end my Other Life, just like that? This one in particular is quite surprising actually, because although not a tremendous success, I always saw it as a good solid ‘also-ran’, and they’ve only just released an expansion, ‘Legions’. Presumably that didn’t go as well as planned, but to be frank, AC2 has been in a sedentary decline for quite some time.
MMOGChart.com: AC2 Population
Asheron’s Call 2 is the dark green line with diamond dots, and exhibits the classic...
Meanwhile in China:
Interfax China: Chinese Governments Set Limits
So now you know; three hours is 'Healthy', five is 'Tiring' and more than five is 'Unhealthy'. I guess I fall into the Unhealthy bracket then, most nights. To be honest, I tend to agree, but would still like for it to be my decision. Lifestyles vary, and I think very few people are so hopelessly addicted to these games that if they did have something more important to be doing, they wouldn't stop playing and get on with it.
Five hours might seem like a long time, but if you'd just be watching...
Regular readers will by now know that Van Hemlock is a very solo-friendly website, and whines about Enforced Grouping any chance it gets; mostly because of stuff like this:
Van Hemlock: Another Typical Day At The Office
So having heard how solo-friendly World of Warcraft also is, I was already looking forward to getting stuck in. I did my homework and decided, on the basis of previous experience, on a pet-class, to further remove any need for human interaction from my massively multiplayer online experience. Hunter or Warlock. I picked Warlock in the end, mostly because Gnomes are cool, but unable to...
I’ve been thinking some more about the whole in-game advertising thing, and think there might be a second way to deal with it. Certainly boycotting games with adverts in will force the advertisers to give up and walk away, but will also have the unfortunate side effect of leaving a dead shattered carcass of a game behind, with not enough players to warrant its continued existence.
That would be a shame, because before some high-flying media psychologist even noticed us, we were, on the whole, fairly happy with the games we’d chosen. The fact that in this case, it’s Planetside is...
I don't want to say 'I told you so!' or anything, but:
Van Hemlock: The Acceptance of Defeat
Well, it seems that day is finally here, or at least right around the corner.
EQ2 Forums: Screenshot of Planetside In-Game Advert
Planetside Forums: Disembling In-Progress
Massive Incorporated: Don't Hate Us Because We're Profitable
I know, I know, this all happened a while ago, but so much Stoopid happened while I was away that it's difficult to catch up. I really didn't want to let this one go though, because it's not often I get proven right. I mean playing for free, but enduring adverts is one thing;...
To be honest, at this stage there doesn’t really seem a lot of point reviewing World of Warcraft. It’s all been said, by everyone and often. That just leaves me with self-indulgent subjective ramblings – my own personal World of Warcraft. Still, I’m fine with that if you are.
Having said that, I am actually quite glad to have been so late in getting on the Deeprun Tram of Popular Gaming for a change. Almost without exception, any MMO in which I’ve in the first landing craft onto the beach, has not been pretty, so turning up this late, I...
So we’ve seen what sorts of changes to combat the ‘Combat Upgrade’ has made to Star Wars: Galaxies, and been quite grumpy as a result, but what about everyone else? One of the key things that set SWG aside from The Rest, was the sheer diversity of play styles available to the new player.
Out of six starting professions, only two were explicitly combat-based; Brawler and Marksman. At last, I thought, a game that understands that I might not want to fight all the time.
Two of the other four, Medic and Scout, were certainly involved in combat by association, but had...
During the last month or two, I’d been focusing my online obsession on Planetside. My interests come and go, and I tend to flit from title to title, dabbling in all of them, and not really getting that far in any of them, but Planetside, with its drop-in style of play and almost negligible career progression is slightly unusual in my experience, in that it’s the first, and only online game that I’ve actually won!
By ‘won’, I mean ’have gained enough Experience Points to reach the maximum level’, Battle Rank 23. Don’t get me wrong; I am not bragging here,...
I’ve decided that there’s one thing I really can’t stand in an online game, more than PK Greifers, Exploiters, Trade Spammers, Ninja Looters and Random Drive-By Guild Recruiters, it’s Attention Whores, and boy did I hit the jackpot last night, in World of Warcraft.
Warcraft is quite fascinating for me right now. I’d thought that pretty much everyone else on the Interweb had comprehensively Been There and Done That with the game by now, and that turning up as unfashionably late as I have, there would be not a lot left for me – just a novel, but mostly empty world...
So I finally got around to seeing the Star Wars: Galaxies ‘Combat Upgrade’ for myself. This was mostly by accident, mind you – I only reinstalled because I wanted to catch up with an old online friend who is quite a SWG fan, and also because, with the Station Pass, I’m not actually paying for it, as such.
It’s hard to describe my feelings about it really. Regret, disappointment, loss…words like that. So much has changed it’s hard to blame any one thing, but the overall impression I have is as if the game had been lobotomised, for it’s ‘own good’....
Why hello there! Long time no see and all that. It’s been a difficult month or two for me, back in the Real World, the details of which have no place on a barely updated blog about online gaming. However, I would just like to say, Tom Cruise, if you’re reading, die in a fire, kthx.
But problems or no, I’ve still managed to find the time to continue to be obsessed about MMO gaming; what can I say? I’m weak, psychologically dependent, and in some ways, having somewhere as pointless as a good online game to dive into and get...