All quite annoying really, but in a somewhat sit-com-like fashion, various Real Life events have all conspired to take out not only Tuesday N00b Club this week, but also the inaugural attempt at a similar "Monday Infamy Club" of sorts, in City of Villains too. I think the plan was that our little gang of petty hyper-fellons were going to try and approach the 'Strike Force' chained story missions in a similar vein to the ongoing Guild Wars: Factions plot, and then I was going to ramble on about it at length here, for the delectation of the insomniac, the bored-at-work, and the connoisseur of murdered time, with an Internet connection and RSS reader.
Alas, this may have to wait until next week however, as amusing-but-awkward event followed amusing-but-awkward event, in a very surreal fashion. The details do not bear repetition, but I'm sure it involved An Awkward Dinner with The Boss and His Wife, a Cunning Plan Which Backfired, an Intransigent Car and a Bad Temper, two Crashed British Airmen and Roller Skates. One of those kinds of night, all in all, leaving me dangerously short of rantable material. Looks like another link post then! Here are some Things I Saw On The Internet:
Tobold's Blog: No WAR for me
In which Tobold falls foul of some rather sinister Beta Application rules for the upcoming Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. Apparently, if you have a means to tell people about your experiences, you aren't allowed to have them. In Soviet Russia the NDAs disclose YOU! Seems that we're not to be trusted with an NDA and EA Mythic don't want any press in the beta for the Games Workshop based RvR WoW-Botherer. Somewhat insulting, as on the whole, pretty much every MMO blogger worth the name, and indeed, everyone on my sidebar, seems to be very adult, grown-up and responsible about taking NDAs seriously, so one would think that the usual NDA alone would be enough. Well done you!
I mean given the almost universal peanut gallery verdict on the recently un-NDA-ed Tabula Rasa ("Nice game, but not worth $15 a month."), its easy enough to see why that the "First Rule of WAR Club is: You do not talk about WAR Club." Perhaps they're afraid of the distressingly typical blog-based unveiling; a million voices suddenly crying out 'Meh' and then going silent?
Personally, I gave up Betas a long time ago, when the games started letting people in with not enough content to occupy that beta interval, as it happens. I tried a few, diligently had my feedback and bug reports ignored, and would invariably burn out on the half-finished and broken offering presented to me. I'd become quite embittered as a result, rarely going back to the finished product after release. Not fair on me, OR the game and developers in question. Nowadays, I'm content to wait. Once the thing is released, its fair game, and if it turns out to be so much level-based horse dung, well, they've only themselves to blame. I wait with due patience, and judge on the end results alone.
Still, seeing what other people think of this usually quite cynical marketing exercise does tend to influence me somewhat, and I'm definitely leery of a commitment to TR on the basis of what the intrepid pioneers of the Good Ship Blogonaut report back so far. Oh, I know We're Not Press and all that, and you need a licence obtained via Form 49-F-67XH from your nearest Franchised Bureaucracy before you can be a Real Journalist, but the point is, I (sort of) know the folks in the Monster Hunter category to the right. Well, not know in the 'I watch you sleeping from the end of your bedssss' sense, (in most cases), but certainly I have a greater deal of respect for the opinions, and impartiality, of those folks, than the folks in the Marketing Department of MMOCorp.
Trouble is, despite all the indifferent amateur reviews, I may still want to have a look at TR myself - sounds ideal future Operation Cheapseats material to me. On the other hand, hearing nothing at all about a game, aside from carefully prepared press statements, well... is that more likely or less likely, to make you want a look? A bad game is a bad game, true, but an open bad game is somewhat better than a silent bad game. Or something.
Bonus Van Hemlock Faction Points to Tobold for not just lying on the application!
This one was a good coffee-splurt moment:
Broken Toys: I Suppose That's One Way To Keep Support Busy
No Signal Input: Chinese MMO Bans Males From Playing Female Characters
Random Battle: All your Ladies Are Belong To Us
The Servitor: Many Men Online Roleplaying...Men
In which deserving scorn is heaped on the antics of Chinese MMO-sarios Aurora Technology, operators of the until now unheard-of-by-me title 'King of the World'. In a groundbreaking move, the company are banning any and all customers who enjoy taking a Walk On The Wild Side in their online spare-time. Enforcement seems to consist of locking 'Female' as a gender choice on character select, until Aurora have recieved an appropriately convincing web-cam pic of teh real boobies.
Damn straight! Its about time someone stood up for the victims of these online deviants whose only objective is to go online and perv decent upstanding heterosexual young men into the ways of teh ghey! As the victim of a horrific Crying Game Wire-Brush Shower Scrubbing Cybering Incident myself, I can speak with authority on the matter! This abomination must stop! Girls pretending to be men are a different matter, because as Science shows us; Lesbians == Teh Hawt!
Actually, the very preposterousness of asking female customers to send the 'screenshots or it didn't happen' almost sent me off the edge and you all escaped the excruciatingly tedious 10,000 word polemic on 'The Psychology of Transgenderism in the Virtual Social Space: Means, Motives and Methods' that I've had on the back burner for two years, by the narrowest of margins! Lucky you!
The above links seem to give the laughable concept the kicking it deserves in a very comprehensive manner, and all I can add is that I am an habitual, unrepentant and repeat gender-offender in my online gaming, and can only offer the 'If I have to stare at an arse for four hours, it might as well...' Defence against the charge. I tend to solo a lot, and it can get kinda lonely out there in The Wilds...
No 'King of the World' for me!
Speaking of bizarre gender issues, something from Second Life here:
Official Linden Blog: Burning Life 2007 Begins Today!
In which we learn that the SL multi-sim Art Installation based loosely on the real life Burning Man thingie, is finally open. Over the last few weeks, the proposals have been gathered in, and the various Artistes of the Future have all been busy sawing away at pine cubes and suchlike. Today, its down tools and time to let the public in. Much of SL is quite a bland place; acre upon acre of pseudo-realism; villas, castles, condos, etc, but with no prim limits, a blank canvas, and more often than not, A Big And Important <airhorn>SUBTLE MESSAGE</airhorn> to convey, the various plots at Burning Life are often unintentionally funny, sometimes genuinely well done, and in either case worth a look.
The more intrepid can find the freebie Basic Account signup at the above page if you want to look in person. Typing 'Burning Life' into the Map's Region Searchbox will find you the place in short order. For those who would rather not be tainted, don't worry; I'll be going along with a notebook and camera in due course.
Somewhat related:
GigaOM: Metaplace Unveiled: Raph Koster Brings Virtual World To The Web
In which noted Second Life enthusiast Wagner James Au, of New World Notes fame, interviews Raph Koster about the recently announced Metaplace. There's certainly all manner of bumph about the thing on other sites and blogs, but I found this one interesting as its mostly a 'Second Life vs Metaplace' discussion, and as far as I can tell, SL is about the most like Metaplace, out of anything else out there so far.
Metaplace is all very interesting and all I'm sure, but I shaln't be following it that much here, mostly for the same reason you don't see me enthusing rapturously about other MMO game engines either. Looking forward to seeing what people actually make with it in due course though, and perhaps one of my Current Monsters of the Future may even be something that been made using it....who knows?
Just time to pimp this again: LOLCTHULHU ...because, like, LOLCats are sooooo June'07, give out homework to the Tuesday N00b Club ("Get to 10,000 Luxon Faction before next Tuesday so we can get on with the Saving The World Bit!"), schedule some time to schedule a scheduling meeting with Evil Human Resources for another go at the Strike Force Club Night, aaaaand, I'm outta here!