August 2009 Entries
As mentioned last show, after an unexpected turn of events, I somehow found myself playing an extra MMO amid my already packed schedule, so here is a bonus Op Cheapseats reviewlet for a strange and quirky little bit of online fun; Pirate Galaxy, which can be found here:
http://pirate-galaxy.gamigo.com/
It's a browser-based game, so negligible download, and is Free 2 Play, in the no-sub, item-shop sense of the term.
In the distant future, mankind has been driven to the brink and near extinction by the evil Mantis empire. Reduced to the status of
guerrilla fighters, rebels...
Here we go again: Van Hemlock (Ep 65): Business As Usual Nothing experimental or outdoorsey about this show, and very much a case of two people talking about things that have happened in online gaming, and things they have done while playing online games. News, and about four weeks of What We’re Playing!
A fine day out last weekend, visiting all manner of online friends who mostly only exist as names on blogs and characters in computer games. Always nice to put faces and voices to folks who might otherwise exist only as text to me; a kind of validation or grounding in reality perhaps, in...
Huge showbiz feud unfolds!
Van Hemlock Podcast (Ep 64): When Wasps ATTACK!
Another outdoorsey experimental one, this time lounging on the grass at the West Dean Chili Fiesta on a lovely day and not nearly as car-based as previous. General rumination of gaming, wasps, bad cider, and swine flu, with special guests! Intro bit and Twitter question were solo affairs this time, which is a lot harder than folks who solo-host entire podcasts make it look!
The alluded to showbiz feud will probably be resolved by next week, when we'll be getting some semblance of normality back to proceedings, but still a few more...
Oooh, addiction, microtransactions, addiction, microtransactions… lets go with addiction first!
It’s clearly been ages since this old floater has resurfaced, and what with it being silly season, and new launches being thin on the ground, now is the ideal time to plunge into a sensitive, considered and rational examination of online gaming motivations, drives, psycholog…ZOMG UR ALL ADDICTS!!!!!1!!
This round of panic provoking preaching comes to us courtesy of the much mentioned documentary ‘Second Skin’, which I’ve not even watched. This is because I am in denial.
Apparently, this documentary, instead of examining a wide and varied subculture well on the way...
Something a bit different this week:
Van Hemlock Podcast (Ep63): On The Road To Nowhere
If you've ever wondered what it might be like to be stuck on the back seat of a Vauxhall Astra for over an hour in the dismal grey British summer, travelling across Hampshire and Dorset while two computer game obsessives try to stop going mad and killing each other, wonder no more!
Architecture, Rural History, Traffic Near-misses! Theres even a bit of MMO News in there somewhere!
We completely lost iPhone Twitter capability once at Swanage, so I winged it a bit with the Twitter Question, and hope someone...
No need to panic! I somehow managed to break the previous stylesheet, and anyway thought it was time for a change. This new scheme is a little more olive than I'd like, but does have some nifty user-controls up top, letting you folks decide the layout of the site for yourselves!
On with the blogging:
Sword of the New World: Granado Espada
Another free-to-play title, presumably supported via item-shop purchases later on in life. It's quite big, at 4.1GB, and I had to go to FilePlanet in the end to find it. Ptttht!
Against a backdrop of fierce national conflict, two explorers from...
Back the more normal kind of thing here:
Van Hemlock Podcast (Ep62): An MMO Too Far
More news, and some mini reviews too, with me having given this a go:
Sword of the New World: Granado Espada
And the Cohost having spent a bit of time in here:
Runes of Magic
Mixed reactions, all in all, with me being pleasantly surprised with mine, and the Cohost deciding that he never wants to play another MMO ever again. More on my own experiences to follow, as usual, but in the interests of fairness, the Cohost will be doing something a bit different form now on, rather than giving any...