January 2009 Entries
Continuing on with Emo Week here at the Van Hemlock Blog, heres a show about The End of All Things, or some such!
VH's Eyliner Hour (Ep 36); In which a somewhat introspective host gets all melancholy about the nature of Permanence in Online Gaming. Plucky Cohost does his best with chirpy light-hearted News, but doesn't do a terribly good job at lifting the mood there, either...
Don't worry though, it'll most likely be Mania Week next week on the Van Hemlock & Jon's Violent MoodswingsCast! Long Live PC Gaming, etc!
If you can't wait until then, there's also Ep 35,...
I'm in a bit of a 'What is it all about, really?' mood at the moment, so you can be too! Once upon a time, I came across this mind blowing new thing, called an MMO. We probably didn't call it an MMO back then, but a 'Massively Online Collaborative Cooperative Adventuring Simulation Information Network', or similar, and they were powered by ginormous brass cogs and coal and such, but in essence, it was for me, a Single Player RPG which never ended, and in which I could sometimes talk to other people. I was probably...
Its all gone a bit peculiar actually - for once, I seem to be on the right bus, and find my usually curmudgeonly solo self in the midst of something of a Lord of the Rings Online revival, with quite a few folks setting up static weekly groups and working up from the ground floor, seeing it all for the first time from scratch, or getting stuck into all the new and shiny at the top end, with the big expansion. I try not to get all fanboy about these games if I can avoid it, but it is...
More shows here! It speaks volumes about my real life, or lack there of that we managed to keep on going, right through the festive season and out the other side. Heigh ho. The Sound of Van Hemlock (Ep33): In which we slack off and just play computer game music for two hours and pretend to be Real DJs! Also: Judge Jon's Legal Corner (Ep34): In which we return to the normal post-festive style of things; News Mockery, Rambling Gaming Anecdote, and a special vast section on the recent Worlds.com vs NCSoft patent thing,...
Back to rearranging the deck-chairs on the Titanic then, and more poking about what remains of Tabula Rasa. Right from the word go, one of the big features of the game was its Control Points. I've talked a bit about those back in April 2008, in my guise of free-faced newbie, and on paper, they seemed like a great idea. The basic setup is simple enough; a base with a flag in the middle, walls, turrets and a force-field gate, which every so often, gets rushed by the Bane. If the players don't put up a spirited enough...