So! Guild Wars then! Ah-ha! Tuesday N00b Club and such forth! Weeeeeeell...I'd like to talk about my experiences in my customary manner, you understand, but things didn't go exactly as I'd have liked, and... look! One paragraph down! A three-headed link post!
An interesting aside found here:
Tobolds Blog: Massively on PotBS crafting
In which Tobold peruses a decent interview piece in the relatively new online magazine thing Massively, which is quite growing on me, but is no substitute for for an RSS Reader stuffed full of Halfarsed and Ill-Informed Opinion! The particular nugget I noted is almost incidental to the main thrust of the post, but fascinating none the less:
"Maginn notes that, during various phases of the beta, the numbers have remained roughly the same -- 35% choose Pirates, nearly as many choose the English, and then the French and Spanish each take 15%."
Like many right-thinking people I wanted to be a Pirate, but saw this coming a mile off, so extra Smug Points for me! Public minded citizen that I am, I subsequently decided that I would help this shocking imbalance, take one for the team and be an officer in the underdog British Navy instead, possibly with enormous sideburns, a commanding presence, overfondness for fine wines and expensive cheeses and a terribly malicious and sadistic attitude toward my underlings. Probably a Dickensian name too; Lord Chesterton Isaiah Copperwinkle, or similar.
Turns out that this idea is Not Going To Help either, and already PotBS looks to have only two real factions on offer; Pirates and People-Who-Want-To-Fight-Pirates (a.k.a. The British). Strangely enough, very few people are that enchanted by the romantic allure and bodice-ripping bravado of being French or Spanish. Ordinarily this doesn't matter much in the grand scheme of things, but I gather there is significant non-instanced World-PvP to the whole affair, and I believe that Pirates, not being a homogenous nation in their own right, are unable to conquer towns? Looks like All Your West Indies are likely to Belong To The British. I hereby start the 'Spain; It's Very Moorish!' campaign, in the interests of it being at least a three horse race! [Note to self: Research 17th Century Spanish Naval Stereotypes!]
Then there was the Big Huu-Haa of the week:
Broken Toys: Clearly, We Do not Deserve Nice Things And/Or People
The Escapist: Ubisoft Threatens Legal Action Over Derogatory Cartoon
In which....sheesh, let me see if I got this right... Ubisoft allegedly have a game called Assassin's Creed, which isn't even an MMO! Its allegedly a bit like Thief, set in the Crusades, and some other stuff that very few people seem that interested in anymore. In retaliation for Ubisoft allegedly playing the alleged 'The producer is also a hot chick!' Card, and a number of allegedly real game journalists allegedly running with the 'Hawt, AND has a brayne!' angle, some of the allegedly lovable Goons at SomethingAwful.com have gone on a bit of a crusade of their own. Allegedly. That's right, that's 'Goons' as in Goonfleet, from EVE Online - they have branches everywhere. Annnnyway, one of those chaps allegedly linked to a somewhat ill-advised web-cartoon someone allegedly drew which showed the aforementioned alleged Game Producer in a rather negative and somewhat pornographic light. Cos she's like...a girl and that.
Seems to have sparked off a fair bit of fury, on all sides concerned, and I'm not quite sure whom to stick the boot in, which is annoying. On the one hand, you have a nasty and vile personal internet attack on a young woman largely for the crime of being, er, a young woman? And on the other hand, a nasty and vile Evil Megacorporation manipulating impressionable and delicate young gaming males with evil pictures of, er, a young woman, For Great Profit!
I'm con-fuuuuused. I... like young women? I... don't like Evil Megacorporations? Its a dilemma and no mistake, and one which I intend to simply ignore and hope goes away, demonstrating my lack of conviction, moral cowardice and most of all, general indifference to all Things That Aren't Computer Games. In other news, anyone tell me what Assassin's Creed is actually like?
(I'd just like to also point out that sending threatening legal letters to Something Awful is a bit like trying to put out a massive fire, by throwing petrol on it. Out of a bucket made of firelighters. They even have a special category for this stuff!)
Speaking of EVE Online, Trinity is nearly here, and I'm almost physically sick with excitement!
EVE Online: Trinity
In which we get to see how shiny its all going to be. All I've seen so far is admittedly very nice stills, and the occasional tiny juddery and compressed web-suitable video window, and all of it very dark, but even from those, you can see how sleek it all looks. I can only salivate as I imagine what it'll look like on my 22' Widescreen LCD, in motion. Call me superficial, but that's certainly good enough to warrant another go at an MMO I was probably only months away from resubscribing to again anyway. Time to pull the dustsheet of the old Hurricane, what! Tally ho! Chocks away!
The usual raft of 14-day trials available in the usual places, which you'll need if you want to take part in The Wizard's competition:
The Wizard of Duke Street: Rags to Riches
In which the rules and prizes are laid out. Seems the idea is to take a 14-day trial account newbie, and try to earn as much ISK as possible before it runs out. The winner, as adjudicated by The Wizard, Crazykinix and The Ancient Gaming Noob, will receive a 30-day Time Card for EVE, rrp $14.99. It all sounds like a fun exercise, and involving that 'hauling yourself up by your own bootstraps' that builds character, in more than one sense!
I'm a little busy to take part myself, but Van Hemlock's Hot Tip for any that are, is Salvaged Rig Component Parts; long-distance trading thereof. Nuff said.
The free Trinity upgrade is due along any week now, so watch that space! Two Christmases this year! Woohoo!
Some interesting Second Life stuff, if you like that sort of thing:
Official SL Blog: Long Road Behind, Long Road Ahead
In which Phillip Linden (nee Rosedale) makes the kind of speech you really need to be in full armour and on horseback with half a blue face to pull off. He still has a dream. The same dream in fact:
"To connect everyone to an online world that improves the human condition."
I'm not entirely clear on if that is optional or not, leading the imagination of go off in a decidedly dystopian Matrix direction, but hell, I'd follow that man into battle, not because he makes convincing arguments; mostly the article is a kind of combined apology and promise about SL's current, recent and future unreliability, instability and downtimes, and how they're going to improve Soon.
No, I'd follow him largely because, and you have no idea how irritated this makes me to say, the above wooly Vision Statement nonsense is largely accurate in my own specific case. I connected to his online world two years ago, made some imaginary stuff, and now, by the expedient of Paypal, my human condition has indeed, been substantially improved; new PC, car repairs, several utility bills paid, etc. Damn you Linden! Damn you for being right! I suspect capitalistic and material gain isn't quite what he's on about, but still...
Your own mileage will almost certainly vary, but the potential is indeed there. Don't expect to give up the day job though. The next Big Thing coming to SL is Windlight, a bit of cosmetic fluff that will make the sky look better and more realistic, and from the look of the pics, will also do a lot with ambient lighting and possibly weather effects too. It doesn't look half bad actually. Expect every region to be drenched in perpetual and photogenic "Blazing Sunset #3", any day now...
Speaking of money, I'm channeling some of my ill-gotten gains here and I think you should too!
Virgin Worlds: Support Virgin Worlds
In which Brent, not unreasonably, asks for a little help in paying the $510/month that Virgin Worlds costs to run/produce/maintain. Its a surprisingly low figure actually, considering there's a dozen or so podcasts, a very wide-ranging news roundup, some very good editorial articles and the man himself goes to extraordinary lengths to cover the big events and conferences, and chinwag with the big names. Plus all the technical jiggery pokey that goes behind the ritzy glitzy showbiz world of Shut Up We're Talking and Co; hosting, bandwidth, audio equipment and software, etc. On the whole, the site provides the kind of service one would normally expect to find as part of some large and cynically operated 'for profit' portal network site, usually crawling with pop-up advert spam, and padded out with extraneous fluff.
Clearly Virgin Worlds is a labour of love for Brent, but that doesn't necessarily mean that he should expect to be personally out of pocket $510 a month over it all, just so lazy slobs like you or I don't need to reach very far for convenient MMO news to grumble about.
Memberships start from as little as $4/month, which is less than a third what it costs to subscribe to most MMOs. In Real Life terms, using the Universal Standard Economic Unit I like to employ in these scenarios, that's approximately five bags of crisps*, a month. 128 of us sign up and he's covered. I'm sure a great many more people than that benefit in some fashion from Brent's tireless work. Remember kids; Give Five Bags Of Crisps To Brent Today!
And if you came here looking for a personal tale of MMO trials, tribulations, adventure, adversity, resolution and triumph, go here instead!
The Ancient Gaming Noob: Sunken Temple Round 1, Sunken Temple Round 2
In which Wilhelm does considerably better than I ever managed in WoW's Sunken Temple instance. MMO Game Design Theory, Player Psychology, Beta NDA Speculation and Shock Breaking Industry News are all very interesting and all, but the above kind of gritty field work and personal impressions, is for me, what MMOs are really all about.
And absolutely nothing happened in Guild Wars this week! No sirree! Everything went swimmingly! You don't need to see....my rambling tale of abysmal failure... Move along...
* Based on a 30g Pack of Worcester Sauce Ryvita Minis, which aren't half bad actually, despite purporting to be a 'Healthy Alternative' to real crisps! American bags of 'Chips' are often much, much larger!