People seem to think that guests are a Sometimes Thing for the show, which we can respect, so its back to something a bit more normal this week:
Van Hemlock Podcast (Ep 54): When DRM ATTACKS!
Which mostly features yours truly getting quite stroppy about SecureROM issues while trying to play Supreme Commander. Grr! Overall, the fight against software piracy is a tricky issue that probably has no obvious solution, or at least not one that we could come up with in half an hour!
The Twitter Question wasn't a terribly original one this week; "What MMO are you looking forward to next?", but I feel it is one of those perennial questions that does bear asking repeatedly on a semi-regular basis, as peoples tastes and anticipations change over time, and new titles come and go. In my own case, as I explain, I really don't pay nearly as much attention to the Next Big Thing as I ought to, so its always interesting to take the pulse, so to speak; find out what more savvy MMO Fashionistas than myself think about the upcoming titles.
Our dinky straw poll seemed to show the greatest anticipation for Star Wars: The Old Republic, Bioware's first foray into the MMO space. Quite the hype building for it at the moment, and features Star Wars and Bioware, both names that have a specific draw all on their own, MMO or not. Promising new paradigms in MMO Storytelling, it'll certainly be interesting to see, but I'm a little skeptical, much like Tobold. Can good stories only be told about one person at a time, i.e. an instanced single-player experience?
Potentially sooner and perhaps taking the spot of Next Next Big Thing, Champions Online seemed to be one that folks were looking forward to a fair deal as well. An upcoming Superhero MMO by many of the folks who originally designed City of Heroes, the big Superhero MMO Showdown has been recently postponed. Quite a fight to come though; a franchise that few gamers heard of, with a seasoned design team who have learned lots from their past project, versus a long established game with settled customers, but which will be showing its age once the new shiny arrives. And that will all be well before DCUO comes along and adds to the confusion.
Jumpgate: Evolution, Star Trek Online and 'The 40k MMO' all mentioned as well, but with perhaps not as much frequency. No mention at all of Fallen Earth or Global Agenda, the two titles that are listed as 'next' on Massively's events calendar. If you feel these views are unfair, you need to follow @vanhemlock and pay more attention on Friday afternoons (UK time) to correct this kind of oversight!
Interesting times and just goes to show that my assumption that there is nothing much to look forward to, was quite mistaken.