Overly Positive

Courtesy of theBerry. Seriously…that looks so bad for you but yet so good. And it looks so sweet it could give people tooth decay. Kinda like me, right?

You gotta love all those new fangled features cars have, don’t you?

So Mythic’s looking for its subscribers to hopefully make the Public Test Server not an empty wasteland so some testing can get done for Warhammer Online, which is why they’re introducing incentives to get the job done.

In addition to all the stuff that’s being thrown in for the patch, qualifying contributors (that is, people who don’t just login and logout to say they tested) will be eligible for being randomly selected to win one of the neato griffon or manticore mounts Mythic’s been giving away as part of their Recruit-a-Friend program.

Gotta say, it’s a good idea to give away stuff for a PTS. It’s tougher to test something because your character isn’t permanent, the bugs and problems from a patch always seem to be apparent and experienced in excruciating detail (whaddaya mean I wasn’t supposed to get hit for 34344?!) and the players just don’t seem motivated. As much as it is a bit capitalist, it’s a good way to go about for tests.

I wish these incentives would be applied on some level in the main game for reports, bugfixes, and posting on forums. The real issue is that a lot of people who can’t bother to post feedback in a productive way seem to be the squeaky wheel that gets the grease. If there were incentives for sounding like a rational human being, maybe forums would see better feedback than what they get now.

So get on that PTS, WAR subbers, and give them the feedback they need!

James Bond, at least prior to the tough guy, gritty reboot he got, was known around the world as an “international man of mystery”. The cool, suave attitude along with the enigmatic aura he gave off was part of the appeal of the character that got him the ladies. Sure, he was easy on the eyes, but have hope, all you shut-in geeks out there – people looking for a relationship really do need something beyond hotness to draw them to you.

But Bond, for all his storied years of spy shenanigans, has a worthy opponent in game designer Hideo Kojima.

Kojima is the man behind much of the Metal Gear game series. He’s always been one to craft a story around mysterious happenings, betrayals, and intrigue, guiding his protagonists through layers of complexitiy and story. It wasn’t until Metal Gear Solid, though, that he really gained notoriety for doing so. Sure, long conversations and cut scenes that make your eyes bleed may also be in Kojima’s pedigree, but the thing that draws people in is always the unexpected and unknown.

Take his latest venture. On the Kojima Productions site there’s an image of a field raining with thunder, lightning, and a countdown. Afficianados of the series know that one of Kojima’s most interesting (and most hated) characters, Raiden, could be the focus of whatever next Metal Gear game this could be. But an update on the site revealed a picture of what could possibly be Big Boss, another character who seemed to be the lynchpin to the entire Metal Gear story. This, however, has not stopped rampant speculation, from how Raiden and Big Boss could be in the same game (they existed during two completely different time periods) to the symbol on Big Boss’s hat, to even if either of the characters really are Raiden or Big Boss. 

Kojima’s made a successful living off of teasing and interesting his readers with stuff like this. E3 appears to be the place where we’ll see some kind of announcement about this, but for now, if you haven’t checked out the Metal Gear series and don’t mind philosophical cutscenes about nuclear weapons, genetics, and whatever other thoughtful topic Kojima has shoehorned into his games, check it out. 

You blink and suddenly it’s 4am.

OP will be back in full force tomorrow..