Bit of a lazy three-day weekend here, and yet again, not much MMO to ramble about. I find myself in a bit of a 'calm before the storm' at the moment. Done with free trials for now, and yet with the exception of Guild Wars and Second Life, (both free to play) not really obsessed with any of the more traditional MMOs at present. Mostly, I feel like I'm waiting. For what, I'm not quite sure - probably whichever out of Tabula Rasa or Pirates of the Burning Sea gets here first.
I hope it's Pirates, mostly because I've finally gotten round to watching 300 this weekend, and also ended up watching far more episodes of Sharpe that is healthy (UKTV History were doing some kind of endurance marathon), and right now, I could really go for a good war. Both of the above games are likely to provide this, but if it turns out to be Pirates first, I get to justify playing Planetside again, which is a bloodthirsty bonus!
I've also been trying out X2: The Threat again, a budget re-release box I picked up ages ago. It's a fun single-player offline space combat trading thing, only with the space empire building bit thrown in. A bit like running a large 0.0 Alliance in EVE Online, only all by yourself. Built my first Player Owned Station the other night, something I'm unlikely ever to do for real in EVE.
So for want of anything about my own MMO time over the weekend, it's another link-post!
Patch day for Vanguard coming up:
Kranky Kraut: I'm Glad I Quit Vanguard
In which one of the few remaining people actually in the know, picks over Vanguard Game Update #2, and is not impressed. Oh of course, I'm pointing and giggling along with everyone else, but I'm also quite fascinated by the game in many ways, mostly as a kind of living case study. I've never played it, and probably never will, (barring some Cheapseats run of the future), but I am quite interested to see what was imagined, what went wrong, and what, if anything, can be done to restore it to a credible and viable alternative to WoW, EQ2 and the rest.
The patch notes purport to introduce a great many features that the rest of us tend to take for granted, showing a bit of an ongoing retrofit of what was released, and look suspiciously like things they didn't have time to finish before it went out the door, rather than anything in the New Content category. Better late than never of course, but apparently, there is a lot more than the mere absence of those things on the list, that remain wrong with Vanguard.
It's the last week EVER for Auto Assault:
Auto Assault.com: End of Game Activities - August 27th, 2007
Auto Assault Warcry: Auto Assault In-Game Goodies
In which we learn that the under-subscribed post-apocalyptic driving MMO is going out with a bang and not a whimper. Seems that the GMs have been on hand for the last week or two, giving out, well, whatever the soon-to-be homeless road-warrior of the future would like really. Free loot, levels, cash, tokens, all that jazz. A nice touch and perhaps some small consolation. I'd imagine the decision to axe the title is probably quite disappointing to the staff as well as the players really, and it's nice to see those who stayed to the very end get a little something extra.
Seems the whole thing is going to culminate on Friday with all manner of literally apocalyptic events, starting at 9PM CDT, and finishing, for ever, at midnight. Mind you, if you currently still play, you'll no doubt know all about it, and if you don't...well, too late to do anything about it now. Adieu, Auto Assault... I barely knew you...
Not actually MMO news, but something that annoyed me no end anyway; apparently, we can't be trusted with Bioshock:
The Consumerist: Punishing The Ones That Don't Steal
In which we learn all manner of dirty little secrets about a game I was otherwise quite keen on getting my grubby little mitts on. Various sources seem to confirm that Bioshock does indeed install various Big Brother style hidden applications for our safety and protection, (including, distressingly enough, the demo version). I seem to remember a similar outrage about Half Life 2 requiring online verification, MMO-style, to play offline. That system, Steam, is even one of the ways you can get hold of Bioshock, but it still does all this SecureROM nonsense anyway.
Don't get me wrong; I completely agree that software piracy is a bad thing. I don't mind paying for goods or services, and was indeed going to do so. After all, I'm a grown-up and have an income! But alas, the horror stories of being unable to successfully log your uninstallations at SecureROM HQ, causing your game to stop working entirely after the second failed go, and stories about how much AVG, my own virus-checker of choice, hates the somewhat insidious infestation that comes with the thing, has all made me rather skittish about the game, and I think I'll just give it a miss, thank you. All smacks a bit too much of 'The Innocent Have Nothing To Hide' to me. At least the Not-Very-Widescreen Issue hasn't made me that cross!
My XBox 360 owning friend is understandably quite smug about it all, but I'm not entirely sure Bioshock is quite worth £300, even if it is, according to many magazines and review sites, the best game ever, past, present or future. 100%? Great..that means they can stop designing new games now! Their work is complete!
(On a related note, I have indeed completely forgotten (and/or lost the bit of paper I wrote it down on) my Steam login, password and email address, as I suspected would happen when I bought Half Life 2, so long ago, rendering that game more or less useless now. Ho hum. And I bet it's still reasonably easy to find a hacked/cracked/pirated/whatever copy of the game anyway, after all that fuss! Tough on Crime, Tough on the Bystanders of Crime!)
On a lighter note, and fresh in at the 'Sex makes me Giggle' desk:
MMORPG.com: A Buff For Sex
In which we learn that Funcom seem to be adding the... er... "Entertainer" profession to Age of Conan. Guess they're dead set on that 'M' rating then. I can just imagine the trade spam lamentation of the women now:
"L45 Seductress LFW - Me love you long time! 100g/10mins!"
Mind bleach! STAT! No word yet on whether this innovative new form of PvP is non-consensual...
Elsewhere, Zubon is giving Dungeon Runners a far more comprehensive going over than I've managed to so far, with a seven-day mini-series on it all, Melmoth is up to his old tricks again, Brinstar is a big Guild Wars Winner, and has all sorts of PAX stuff to tell us about, and it does rather look like Michael's immanent nervous breakdown is getting quite close, but lots of GenCon stuffs there soon anyway!
Here's a random, amusing, and entirely accurate YouTube link, annnnnnnd I'm spent!