Weekly Roundup 2/16/07
2007-02-17 05:13:23
This week was a bit laid back compared to some others, but there was plenty still going on. Let’s get right to it.
On Monday I gave an update on Dungeon Runners invites, expecting the number of people wanting to get in on the action to decline.
Tuesday I contemplated whether Lord of the Rings Online was worth looking into more deeply, to be perfectly honest, I’m still torn as to what I should do.
Wednesday’s Highlight of the Week had me spotlighting the interview with the Cryptic Studio’s Matt Miller about CoH/CoV.
I ran across a post from the WoW official forums on Thursday which talked about guild halls, something I had been working up to discussing on the Repairing Gears topic for the past several weeks. Later that day I highlighted some points out of that post for the Repairing Gears topic so that next week I could delve further into specifics.
Finally, rounding out the week I posted a final update on the Dungeon Runner invite status, and much to my surpri
Read more: Weekly
DR Invite Update 2
2007-02-16 07:56:02
I was under the impression that the number of people asking for invites would slow, considering I originally put up the post a week ago and it didn’t seem to garner much attention from certain sources, but that appears not to be the case. Instead of shrinking as I send off invites, it is actually growing. Currently there are 17 people awaiting an invite. Not a huge number, but with only 4 going out at any one time, and not every person activating there invite the second they get it, it takes a while to get through them.
Until they cut me off, of course, I plan on sending them out as soon as I am able to (when a person activates theirs) but for the moment know that you are not being ignored.
Several people e-mailed me directly for an invite using the contact feature or just siphoning my e-mail address from that page and may be wondering if they will get a response. You probably won’t immediately, but if invites continue to flow in as they have been I will take the time t
Read more: Invite
, Update
Repairing Gears #3: WoW Guild System, Part 3
2007-02-16 04:44:02
Time for the third part of this the third Repairing Gears
post. What I’m going to do for this part is go through some of the post I mentioned earlier and pick out some ideas from it with a short comment, which will be expanded on in the following installment where I take what I like, add in all that I had already planned, and enhance what other people have thought of.
I’ll go ahead and quote the posts (or the parts of interest) so people don’t have to guess at which one I’m talking about.
Gigantic heads of the bosses that have been vanquished by your’e army of crusaders.
This idea isn’t exactly what I would do, but I like the spirit of the idea, some sort of “trophy case” to display accomplishments is a cool idea.
A bank NPC where officers of the guild can store pots and other items would be useful.
Having talked about this last week I don’t think I need to go over the practicality of having such a system in place, but I’m
Read more: Guild
, System
, Repairing Gears
Snow to Crush my Spirit
2007-02-15 06:55:15
After spending all day (quite literally in fact) shoveling and blowing snow I hopped on-line momentarily to see what was going on in the world (wide web) and to write up a quick post to be later followed by Repairing Gears. Thanks to WoW Insider I was able to find this post on the World of Warcraft official forums about guild halls.
Now given, the original poster can’t even form a coherent sentence to back him/herself up but the important thing to notice is Drysc’s response, the second post. If you find it disheartening you aren’t alone. The casual way in which it is nearly blown off fascinates me, but he does bring out a good point about what people expect, or would expect, from a guild hall. I wanted to give the heads up now as I will be referring to points in this post with the Repairing Gears later today, where I will talk a bit about guild halls in more detail than the previous parts.
And, if any of you feel like sending the folks at Blizzard over to my art
Highlight of the Week
2007-02-14 06:40:20
This week we switch gears from my WoW-centric mode to City of Heroes/Villains and the interview with Matt Miller about the upcoming Issue 9 patch. A lot of cool things are going to be added now, but the biggest is the invention system, and I must say it sounds like it will be a lot of fun. I don’t want to keep on talking about it though, let’s just put up the link so you can read it on your own.
I’ve always found the “City of” team to be generally more responsive, or perhaps just less able to completely avoid saying anything at all then some other companies (we all know who I’m talking about.) Anyway, take a moment to browse the interview and I’d love to hear what some CoH/V players have to say about the new content being added.
city of heroes, matt miller, position, city of villains, cryptic studios, ncsoft, interview
Read more: Highlight
Lord of the Rings Online
2007-02-13 06:06:16
I’ll admit I’m really not all that interested in the game, I’m more for Tabula Rasa (sci-fi interests me much more than fantasy for the most part) but others seem to be the other way (I’ve actually noticed a sort of split, people that are really interested in TR aren’t interested in LotRO and vice-versa.)
Tobold, though got to play in the beta of LotRO, and he had basically all good things to say. Some of it, especially, seems interesting. I like the idea of quest items marked with what quest they belong to (though to be honest I like the idea of no quest specific drops even better, but that’s just me.)
I’m not sure yet whether I am going to be spending my money yet to pick it up, or rather, if I’ll be spending money to pay for it monthly, I’m almost positive I will at least buy it and get my 30 days free but I did at least get a glimpse of what it may be.
Anyone really looking forward to this game, or get the chance to play some?
Read more: Rings
Dungeon Runners Invite Update
2007-02-12 06:15:17
For those of you that might not have checked the comments in the other thread and wonder why you haven’t gotten your invite, here’s what’s going on.
I am allowed to send out 4 invites at any given time. Once a person activates their account with the key that was sent to them I can invite another person. Currently there are 4 out waiting to be activated. If you are one of those 4 (if you signed up at all check the e-mail that was given) please activate as soon as you can so other invites can be sent out.
If you are wondering what order in line you are, I won’t say, but there are 8 people still awaiting an invite, and they will be sent out in the order that I received them. Hopefully this will go quickly and people will activate, but if there are any other problems or delays, etc. I will be updating again mid-week to fill everyone in.
Thanks to all for reading and for the interest.
Dungeon
runners, free games, ncsoft, invites, refer a friend
Read more: Invite
, Update
, Runners
, Dungeon Runners
Weekly Roundup 2/9/07
2007-02-10 05:26:53
While perhaps not as busy as last week, plenty was still going on. Let’s do a quick recap.
Monday morning I was stuck without the pictures to post my launch experience as looking back from level 70. However, later that day, I managed to put up the pics, and the story of what happened to me when I tried to snag my copy of the Burning Crusade.
On Tuesday I posted something that I had missed from over the weekend. Remember, the FBI says not to mess with intellectual property or they will come steal your stuff…or something like that.
When Wednesday rolled around I had the Highlight of the Week ready to go, with Sinister Strike’s blue RSS feed, a great tool for catching up with the WoW official forums.
I posted Thursday to ask for an invite if you wanted one to check out Dungeon Runners. I got quite a bit of responses and was busy sending people their codes to play the game. If you sent me an e-mail or commented and haven’t gotten your invite yet give it till ov
Read more: Weekly
Sucking and Dying
2007-02-09 07:46:59
I don’t like to wipe. I don’t understand how people can be okay with it. It’s not alright, while in a group, to fail and attempt again and again. It is not alright to die, laugh it off, and head back into the instance. It is not a time to say that no one is at fault; someone is, undoubtedly, at fault.
People say these things when in a group, I must assume, to console those who died along with them. It is no consolation to me. As a healer when I see someone in the group die I know it was my fault. That’s why it is my job to be the first to die or there is to be no dying at all. If I’m the first to die, then the tank didn’t do his job, he caused the wipe, if anyone else dies first it is my fault. I, as the healer, failed to do what I was supposed to.
I don’t take games too seriously, as some people will say when a person gets mad about wiping. Often times these people are not overly serious about the game. They are frustrated. Frustra
Read more: Sucking
, Dying
Repairing Gears #3: WoW Guild System, Part 2
2007-02-09 03:45:26
Last week I made some changes to basic guild management. This week I wanted to dive right into the first part of my fixes for guild banks. I will still be going back to other changes in the guild management part of things, but I am trying to keep things in order of how they interact with one another and this seems the next logical step for me (though the way ideas fly in and out of my mind that may have changed by the next part.
There have been many, many posts over on the WoW official forums about this and guild halls/housing and the entire topic of just guild banks can taken so many ways that I want to focus it again into two primary components for the first part of this guild banking system.
Items
Money
Items first, because I like starting at the top of the list. This is probably the simplest part of the banking system because it works essentially just as the individual character banks do, there is a bank space, followed by rooms to put bags (though charging the space for thes
Read more: Gears
, Guild
, System
, Repairing Gears
Like Rabbits
2007-02-19 06:05:32
The server I am currently playing on in WoW is a transfer server, which means, for the most part, everyone that moved over already had a high-level character and moved to avoid queues and the like. It was not immediately open to be rolled on, so no new characters were popping up.
That is why, when I decided to roll a Human Priest and mess around with leveling I expected it to be deserted, completely barren. Apparently that isn’t the case. There’s hundreds of them. All of them completely oblivious to how the game works, what to do, how to do it, the way to do it. They are all noobs. I am surrounded by them. To my right; noobs. To my left; noobs. In front of me; noobs. Behind me; some jackass horde rogue trying to get me to flag PvP.
These people invite me to groups at random. They will attack the same mob I’m hitting to help me kill it, just to be helpful. These are obviously people who haven’t played the game before. That was clear when the first
Decisions
2007-02-20 07:40:10
I had a choice to make, two interviews I came across both had the chance at being good Highlight of the Week material, but I wasn’t sure which to go with. It occurred to me, of course, that I could do both, but I didn’t want to taint the good name of Highlight of the Week by doing so. Instead, I bring you the interview that didn’t get chosen.
It’s all about Tabula Rasa straight from Richard Garriott. A lot of it has me even more excited than I was, and I’m interested to actually see how it turns out, with all the hype it has been getting anything less than phenomenal could prove to be fatal. Of course, before I run it I will need to get a new computer, so I guess it’s time to start saving up.
Richard Garriott, ncsoft, destination games, tabula rasa, upcoming games, new mmos, interviews
Read more: Decisions
Highlight of the Week
2007-02-21 06:15:45
I gave some indication yesterday that I knew what was going to be posted today, and it did take some deciding, but here’s what I decided to highlight. It’s an interview from GameDaily with Robert Garriott, the CEO of NCSoft North America (and the brother of Richard Garriott, the interviewee from yesterday.)
I won’t spoil things by diving into it at the moment, but I’m going to talk a bit more about the interview and break it down into some interesting points I found later in the afternoon. Until then, take the time to read it, I found it interesting. Of special interest is his response to the third question on the second page of the interview. As I said, I’ll bring out more later, but I thought that was worth mentioning upfront.
Robert Garriott, ncsoft, richard garriott, interviews, gamedaily, highlight of the week, mmo market, mmorpg, mmog
Read more: Highlight
Highlights of the Highlight
2007-02-22 05:21:26
I said I would take a few minutes to point out some things I found especially interesting from the Highlight
of the Week, and here they are.
the user interfaces have come up to… well not quite the same sort of level, but they’re getting there where the ease of play is better.
I liked this quote because it is so distinctly true. Interfaces in MMOs tend to be…decent or acceptable at best, though they are getting better. That would perhaps be a good topic for discussion later.
The new games all have a characteristic that I like to describe as one where you come into the game, you’re given a quest, you go out on a quest, you are not killed, you come back and get a pat on the back and get told what a great person you are and you’re given another quest. All of that has to happen in about 15 to 20 minutes, and if it doesn’t happen in the first 15 to 20 minutes, it’s a design flaw and if you die during that time it’s a design flaw. And so, thos
Read more: Highlights
Another Garriott Interview
2007-02-22 06:15:32
Richard Garriott seems to have gotten another interview done, this one with The Hollywood Reporter, talking about Tabula Rasa and the MMOG market (again.) Personally by this point I think I would just start making copies of the answers and hand them out to people as I walk down the street, but that’s just me.
I’d really like to see a few original questions in among the bunch but it always seems to be the same ones over and over again. Not that the answers aren’t interesting but after the second or third time I can start quoting them, and that’s really not good.
Anyway, seems in all the excitement I forgot the link, so here it is.
the hollywood reporter, tabula rasa, mmog market, mmorpg, mmog, online games, ncsoft, richard garriott
Save Often
2007-02-23 07:49:24
Well, it happened. I lost a post. A good long one too. In fact, it was the Repairing Gears post that was supposed to go up yesterday. I would’ve posted earlier but I was a bit frustrated and just had to take some time out, so I’m filling everyone in now.
I had the Repairing Gears for the week done or at least a good part of the way into it before my browser crashed and I lost the entire post. As you can imagine that annoyed me, but what annoyed me even more is I hadn’t saved it at all so I would have to start over again from nothing and I just couldn’t stand to do it. For that reason the Repairing Gears post didn’t appear yesterday. It may appear today before the Weekly Roundup or sometime this weekend, depending on when I can get a chance to sit down and re-write everything without wanting to bash my head against the desk.
Sorry for the error, next time I’ll remember to save.
Read more: Often
Weekly Roundup 2/23/07
2007-02-25 04:48:08
A day late late on the weekly roundup (but I’m still marking it for yesterday, because that’s how I do things.) Given my annoyance with myself for not saving the article I wrote I can hardly blame myself for not posting this yesterday, but it does need to be posted, so here is the rundown of the week.
Monday had me focusing on all the lowbies infesting my new server in World of Warcraft. I’m fairly annoyed by this, it really is a pain to be surrounded by people who want to be friendly; it’s just unnatural.
Tuesday I couldn’t decide which interview I ran across should get the Highlight of the Week spot, so I put the one that didn’t make it in this post.
Wednesday I moved on to the Highlight of the Week. Later that day I went back to bring out some things I found especially interesting in the interview.
On Thursday it was yet another interview with Richard Garriott, who just can’t seem to shut up about things.
Finally on Friday, I was cursing
Read more: Weekly
Must Taste Awful
2007-02-26 06:15:40
Blizzard, it seems, has recanted their previous statements so adamantly saying they will not bring back the global LFG channel. For those so lazy they refuse to read, it basically says come the next major content patch the global LFG channel will return in World of Warcaft, with a few stipulations. Mainly you have to be using the LFG/LFM system currently in place.
I’m not really against it, in fact, I think it will be a big help in getting groups easier, but it still seems like an artificial fix to a system that wasn’t designed properly in the first place. They give themselves just enough of an out to say they weren’t wrong in the first place about the LFG system but they are willing to work to make it better, when quite frankly they needed to just apologize for a half-done system and redo it, which I can hope from that post is still coming sometime.
Via WoW Insider
Blizzard, patches, drysc, world of warcraft, looking for group, lfg, lfm, chat channel, lfg
Cat Durids are in Fact for Fite
2007-02-27 07:20:02
As I have mentioned before my main character in World of Warcraft is a Druid, at level 70. I have been Restoration specced leveling all the way from 10-70. Tonight my guild was running Black Morass, an instance in the Caverns of Time, and one that really requires 3 strong damage classes a tank and a healer. A priest was healing the group leaving me to do damage, but even in cat form with some different gear on I couldn’t put out the damage necessary for us to beat the instance. We wiped several times and it really wasn’t looking too good, so I was sent off to respec to feral to see if that would help the cause.
I’d never been feral, in fact, I didn’t have any huge desire to go feral at any point (though I am currently leveling another druid who I planned on putting as feral.) I figured it would be some help to the group though, and the guild at least for a time, so I went for it and spent a little gold hoping to be able to beat the instance and move on (to
Tabula Rasa Contest
2007-03-01 06:15:57
If there is one thing that NCSoft knows it is apparently how to run a cheap contest for their games. Take the latest contest for Tabula
Rasa in which they give away a name. Yes, that’s right a name. Given, this name happens to be your last name with a rank of some kind stuck in front of it, but I imagine the cost of implementing this was somewhere right around zero dollars, just plug another NPC somewhere and you’ve got yourself covered.
I’m not saying it is a bad thing, actually, the contest is pretty cool and even the reward would be cool to get as well. For those who have a special love of the Rosetta Stone this contest will allow you to do all that deciphering of hieroglyphics you’ve always wanted to (well, Logos, as they happen to be called in the game, but the idea is the same.) If you have the time and want to be immortalized in NPC goodness check it out and decipher that paragraph.
Tabula Rasa
, plaync, ncsoft, rosetta stone, hieroglyphics,
Read more: Contest
Highlight of the Week
2007-03-01 01:42:38
This week our highlight is a new feature available on the World of Warcraft official site. The Armory. The Armory is an addition that does what a lot of other sites have done before it, via extra mods, except this is official and is taken directly off the servers, clearing up a nice amount of space on your Addons folder. It includes things like character profiles, guilds, and arena information and rankings.
This is a great feature, undoubtedly, but it is also a feature which almost demanded to be implemented long before this. As great a game as WoW is it always seems that Blizzard is slower in implementing features onto their website than they should be (talent calculators were added much later the unofficial ones, for instance.) I can’t imagine I’m right but the nonchalant attitude they seem to show toward developing their website is a bit silly, especially in light of the fact that the MMO genre is such a step above all other game types (of course, I suppose that wor
Read more: Highlight
The February Edition
2007-02-28 06:10:07
Last month’s Warhammer Online Newsletter was hardly worthy of being sent out (at least if you are believing what I write, and really, who wouldn’t) but they have a chance to make that up as I just received the February
2007 issue of the Newsletter.
It’s again more of the same, and none of the professions/classes really get me too pumped, but the “Warhammer Online Grab Bag” this month did have one question that I’m interested to see how it pans out. For those who don’t want to look, the grab bag is a bunch of questions that the CM responds to in the Newsletter about the game. I’ll quote the question and answer below.
Q: I’ve heard it said that there will be no “healer-only” classes in WAR. I am used to games where there are healers, and there are hybrid healers. Unfortunately, many groups tend to bark at hybrid healers, and say that if you can heal, then that’s all you should do for the group.
How are you planning on prev
Read more: Edition
Cat Durids are in Fact for Fite
2007-02-27 07:20:02
As I have mentioned before my main character in World of Warcraft is a Druid, at level 70. I have been Restoration specced leveling all the way from 10-70. Tonight my guild was running Black Morass, an instance in the Caverns of Time, and one that really requires 3 strong damage classes a tank and a healer. A priest was healing the group leaving me to do damage, but even in cat form with some different gear on I couldn’t put out the damage necessary for us to beat the instance. We wiped several times and it really wasn’t looking too good, so I was sent off to respec to feral to see if that would help the cause.
I’d never been feral, in fact, I didn’t have any huge desire to go feral at any point (though I am currently leveling another druid who I planned on putting as feral.) I figured it would be some help to the group though, and the guild at least for a time, so I went for it and spent a little gold hoping to be able to beat the instance and move on (to
Must Taste Awful
2007-02-26 06:15:40
Blizzard, it seems, has recanted their previous statements so adamantly saying they will not bring back the global LFG channel. For those so lazy they refuse to read, it basically says come the next major content patch the global LFG channel will return in World of Warcaft, with a few stipulations. Mainly you have to be using the LFG/LFM system currently in place.
I’m not really against it, in fact, I think it will be a big help in getting groups easier, but it still seems like an artificial fix to a system that wasn’t designed properly in the first place. They give themselves just enough of an out to say they weren’t wrong in the first place about the LFG system but they are willing to work to make it better, when quite frankly they needed to just apologize for a half-done system and redo it, which I can hope from that post is still coming sometime.
Via WoW Insider
Blizzard, patches, drysc, world of warcraft, looking for group, lfg, lfm, chat channel, lfg
Weekly Roundup 2/23/07
2007-02-25 04:48:08
A day late late on the weekly roundup (but I’m still marking it for yesterday, because that’s how I do things.) Given my annoyance with myself for not saving the article I wrote I can hardly blame myself for not posting this yesterday, but it does need to be posted, so here is the rundown of the week.
Monday had me focusing on all the lowbies infesting my new server in World of Warcraft. I’m fairly annoyed by this, it really is a pain to be surrounded by people who want to be friendly; it’s just unnatural.
Tuesday I couldn’t decide which interview I ran across should get the Highlight of the Week spot, so I put the one that didn’t make it in this post.
Wednesday I moved on to the Highlight of the Week. Later that day I went back to bring out some things I found especially interesting in the interview.
On Thursday it was yet another interview with Richard Garriott, who just can’t seem to shut up about things.
Finally on Friday, I was cursing
Read more: Weekly
Save Often
2007-02-23 07:49:24
Well, it happened. I lost a post. A good long one too. In fact, it was the Repairing Gears post that was supposed to go up yesterday. I would’ve posted earlier but I was a bit frustrated and just had to take some time out, so I’m filling everyone in now.
I had the Repairing Gears for the week done or at least a good part of the way into it before my browser crashed and I lost the entire post. As you can imagine that annoyed me, but what annoyed me even more is I hadn’t saved it at all so I would have to start over again from nothing and I just couldn’t stand to do it. For that reason the Repairing Gears post didn’t appear yesterday. It may appear today before the Weekly Roundup or sometime this weekend, depending on when I can get a chance to sit down and re-write everything without wanting to bash my head against the desk.
Sorry for the error, next time I’ll remember to save.
Read more: Often
Another Garriott Interview
2007-02-22 06:15:32
Richard Garriott seems to have gotten another interview done, this one with The Hollywood Reporter, talking about Tabula Rasa and the MMOG market (again.) Personally by this point I think I would just start making copies of the answers and hand them out to people as I walk down the street, but that’s just me.
I’d really like to see a few original questions in among the bunch but it always seems to be the same ones over and over again. Not that the answers aren’t interesting but after the second or third time I can start quoting them, and that’s really not good.
Anyway, seems in all the excitement I forgot the link, so here it is.
the hollywood reporter, tabula rasa, mmog market, mmorpg, mmog, online games, ncsoft, richard garriott
Highlights of the Highlight
2007-02-22 05:21:26
I said I would take a few minutes to point out some things I found especially interesting from the Highlight
of the Week, and here they are.
the user interfaces have come up to… well not quite the same sort of level, but they’re getting there where the ease of play is better.
I liked this quote because it is so distinctly true. Interfaces in MMOs tend to be…decent or acceptable at best, though they are getting better. That would perhaps be a good topic for discussion later.
The new games all have a characteristic that I like to describe as one where you come into the game, you’re given a quest, you go out on a quest, you are not killed, you come back and get a pat on the back and get told what a great person you are and you’re given another quest. All of that has to happen in about 15 to 20 minutes, and if it doesn’t happen in the first 15 to 20 minutes, it’s a design flaw and if you die during that time it’s a design flaw. And so, thos
Read more: Highlights
Highlight of the Week
2007-02-21 06:15:45
I gave some indication yesterday that I knew what was going to be posted today, and it did take some deciding, but here’s what I decided to highlight. It’s an interview from GameDaily with Robert Garriott, the CEO of NCSoft North America (and the brother of Richard Garriott, the interviewee from yesterday.)
I won’t spoil things by diving into it at the moment, but I’m going to talk a bit more about the interview and break it down into some interesting points I found later in the afternoon. Until then, take the time to read it, I found it interesting. Of special interest is his response to the third question on the second page of the interview. As I said, I’ll bring out more later, but I thought that was worth mentioning upfront.
Robert Garriott, ncsoft, richard garriott, interviews, gamedaily, highlight of the week, mmo market, mmorpg, mmog
Read more: Highlight
Stupidity Doesn’t Describe it
2007-03-02 08:45:25
It fascinates me that people can be so stupid. They can make things that have no merit whatsoever and get people to join in with them just be spouting off some word or phrase that gets people instantly riled up. Take, for example, “violation of privacy.” Sounds pretty awful, no one wants their privacy violated. I don’t want people coming into my house and rooting through my drawers, or finding out how much money I have in my bank account, or watching me as I sleep, that is just creepy.
What about The Armory? I reported it being launched yesterday and suddenly I wake up and it’s as if the world got hit by a big, fat, stupid stick overnight. Some massive hand came out of the heavens and slapped the sense right out of everyone.
When I wake up to see variations on “OMG what about virtual privacy? now everyone knows my talent spec/reputation/gear” I can’t help but feel bad because it shows a complete disregard for even attempting to be remotel
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