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Tag: mythic

April 21, 2010

Mythic’s Marvelous Mea Culpa

by Frank — Categories: Gaming, Warhammer Online — Tags: , , , — 4 Comments

If there’s anything that sucks to say sometimes, no matter if you’re an individual or a company, it’s “my bad”. Whether it’s in everyday interaction as simple as bumping into someone and causing them to scald themselves with hot coffee, or as complex as a fender bender car accident, we’re all going to be put in the place to say “I’m sorry” at some point. Sometimes it helps (“oh, that’s ok, I was freezing and the coffee warmed me up”) and sometimes it doesn’t (“I’m gonna sue your ass for rear-ending my Mercedes, bitch”), but the key in any apology is how you go about doing it.

This is especially true for MMO developers, who have to handle being wrong while at the same time explaining what happened. In the waters of online forums, fansites, and blogs, posters and writers of a particular MMO are at times sharks, smelling blood in the water and attacking with ruthless ferocity. Such as it was with Mythic Entertainment, which experienced a billing snafu two weeks ago that had people charged a ton, some at least over 20 times, for their monthly subscription fee.

Mythic’s been raked over the coals (understandably so) by a number of folks for the messup.  I’ve got friends at Mythic, and it pained me to see the hardship they had to go through trying to fix the nonsense that had occurred because of payment processing craziness. It’s because of this personal interaction I’ve had with them that made me had faith. Faith that when the inevitable apology came, it would be a good one.

Today’s letter from Mythic’s Jeff Hickman about the payment issue comes through by explaining first, in detail, what exactly happened, second, what they are doing to fix it, and third, what the current status is. Normal stuff, right? But then comes the in-game compensation, which is as follows:

Over the past 15 years we have always strived to do what’s best for our players. We are truly sorry, and want to work to make things right and restore our relationship.  We hope you will accept this small token of our appreciation for your continued commitment to our games:

For starters all players will earn 100% bonus experience and renown when killing enemies and monsters for two weeks. As well, during this time we’ll be hard at work designing and implementing a special vendor. This vendor will only accept special tokens that will be sent to your mailbox, using these two tokens each of your characters will be able to receive two of the following items:

  • Bottomless Chaos Black Dye
  • Bottomless Skull White Dye
  • Imperial Griffon Mount (Order)
  • Enslaved Manticore Mount (Destruction)
  • WAR Tract – earn a free level
  • Choose from any of these pets – Order: Imperial Hunting Hound or Dwarf Keg Handler; Destruction: Warlord’s Fell Hound or the Goblin Bar-Back.
  • Change your appearance with any of these illusion items: Skaven Skin Cloak (skaven), Kossar’s Helm (bear), or the Signet of the Cursed Company (skeleton)

Please accept this gesture as a step towards rebuilding our relationship. From all of us at Mythic, we thank you for your time, your commitment, and your trust that helps us to make great games year after year.

Bonus experience, and the choice of what appears to be an amazing set of items normally only preserved for contests and special events. The in-game benefits of said compensation will be huge for some players of WAR, that’s for sure.

Say what you will about WAR‘s struggles, and the fact that this doesn’t completely wipe out the inconvenience some people went through – the latter is especially true. This is pretty much what sets Mythic apart from other MMO companies. They have a deep connection to their community, and an understanding of their customers that makes their service top notch. Ever since DAoC, when I first started interacting with them on forums and fansites, Mythic has always gone above and beyond when it comes to talking to their players. This is basically their stock in trade, making the fact that their design has struggled to take hold in the MMO playerbase all the more unfortunate.

When you do something wrong, you’re never going to totally eliminate the fact that it happened, or make people forget. It’d be unrealistic to think as such. But the effort to apologize and make amends is always huge when you’re at fault – and Mythic understands that. WAR‘s been in the public eye a lot lately – both for good and bad reasons – and one can hope that with so many eyes on it currently, that this will go a long way towards making people believe they empathize with their players.

September 18, 2009

The WAR Birthday Party Speech

by Frank — Categories: Gaming, Warhammer Online — Tags: , , , — 11 Comments
Audrey's 1st Cupcake...er, I mean Birthday
Image by She Takes The Cake via Flickr

Today marks the first anniversary of the release of Warhammer Online, the spiritual successor to Dark Age of Camelot, and Mythic’s 2nd major attempt at an MMO. It was one year ago today that WAR, the darling of the MMO playerbase at the time, released to major fanfare and anticipation.

Even someone as optimistic as I am can’t really ignore the fact that WAR has had a bit of a rocky first year. Growing pains, a child that stays up most of the night crying, and difficulty potty training – you can pretty much use any analogy you want if you’re a parent and you’ve had issues with the trials and tribulations of taking care of a baby, as WAR has been. A dip in subscriptions and being plagued with a variety of core issues have meant that WAR has taken a body blow this past year in terms of its success.

But to be honest, WAR is far from dead. Making it to the one year mark without being shut down by EA, known to cut off products that are underperforming, says something. It says that EA is still committed to making a mark in the MMO business, and though Star Wars: The Old Republic is miles away, funding is still being poured into the WAR machine, with Mythic’s employees toiling away at smashing bugs and fixing imbalances. There are a lot of people who want to write off WAR’s little baby of an MMO, but it’s not done learning to crawl just yet. In fact, having others not pay attention to it for a while might be a good thing, as other MMOs like Aion and Champions take the harsh light of criticism from an increasingly discerning playerbase.

I’ve written about this before, but a curious shift in the way WAR’s developers communicate with the playerbase, as well as incremental changes rather than sweeping ones, has led to the last couple of patches introducing some much needed changes, such as the reduction of AoE and CC, the beginning of the revision of city siege, the upcoming removal of stun as a crowd control element, and the modification of fortress roles in RvR. All of this points to an understanding of WAR’s problems – which frankly, are few, but happen to be core issues that cause players to unsub in frustration. Some time to fix these issues without worrying about what more to lose is the ticket WAR needs to stabalize itself as an MMO in this saturated market, and the slow progress towards those goals is being realized even as we speak.

Really, for as much as WAR has had trouble with, objectively speaking they have gotten a lot of things right. Public Quests are a huge innovation that has made it into releases as recent as Champions Online. PvP experience and casual scenario-play has seamlessly worked well in WAR, making PvP not just a nice diversion but also a means to advancement. Quest marking through red circles for marked locations has saved a lot of time and effort for PvE players. Many fundamental things with WAR are actually right, overshadowed by admittedly public and glaring core issues such as stability, RvR campaign problems, and class balance. So as much as the game has been touted by some negative Nancies as a failure or an upcoming failure, it’s had a bit of both in the win/loss department.

The coming months are going to be an interesting time for Mythic. With many of its former subscribers off to check out other games, they are now working in a mode where they have to gain the equity of its observers back with a few solid patches and perhaps the tease towards something major to redesign core elements of the game. Speaking of observers, if WAR can take a bit of hope away, it’s that just about everyone I talk to, and everyone who posts in places, says that they haven’t stopped following WAR and at least check up on it to see what’s different or changed. The offering of a more extensive free trial following a couple of solid under-the-hood patches is just the ticket to entice players to see what WAR can do, and it’s up to Mythic to get the job done. Working from a position of nothing to lose and everything to gain has its advantages.

I’ve had the pleasure of meeting the Mythic folks, and as much as people like to trash on them for not caring, it simply isn’t true. You won’t find a more dedicated, passionate, down-to-earth bunch of folks in the game developer industry, who feel more keenly than anyone the growing pains their game, which people seem to forget is their way of paying the bills. The future of WAR is still an open book, but were the WAR baby to fall flat on its face after celebrating its birthday, it won’t be for lack of trying on the part of the parents for trying to get the child to walk.

Happy birthday WAR. As one of the most fun MMOs I’ve played that I could play casually, I’ll continue to give you my (overly positive) support. Cheers!

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August 17, 2009

A Better Letter From The WAR Front

by Frank — Categories: Gaming, Warhammer Online — Tags: , , , — 1 Comment
Cannon at Prairie Grove Battlefield State Park
Image by J. Stephen Conn via Flickr

These days, you get the sense that Mythic’s just plugging away at WAR. Seemingly unconcerned at past transgressions and not particularly worried about the upcoming MMO releases on the horizon, the folks who develop WAR are starting to hammer away at the existing problems of the game.

Typifying this is the 1.3.1 And Beyond Producer’s Letter, written by Jeff Skalski. Let me first say that even though I’m a bit biased because I’ve met Jeff and he’s a standup guy (and dangerous in certain situations), that it is nice to see some other voices pipe up at Mythic these past couple of letters. WAR players have been so used to Mark Jacobs being the de facto “voice” of Mythic that when he left it was uncertain if one person could fill his very sizeable shoes. What has appeared, however, is a collective voice from a variety of sources from senior management on down that has frankly been refreshing to hear. If Mythic has any one strength, it is the humanization of their team, and putting Jeff, Gabe Amatangelo, Andy Belford, Jess Folsom, Martin Smith, and more in front of the keyboard or camera can only help that.

But aside from appearances comes a refining of the style that letters such as Skalski’s latest Producer’s Letter seem to exude – the same sort of changing voice of WAR that I referred to before. There are a couple of things that I’m referring to that point to this style shift. One of these is the reveal of specific details and mechanics. Gone are the more hype-worthy, marketing-style tomes of the past, replaced with instead, hard facts about what is happening, how things are working, and when they are taking place. There’s a detailing of the revamped city siege mechanic from beginning to end. There’s talk about the ORvR revision to Keeps with second ramps and other improvements. There’s talk about the other secondary improvements such as friends lists and summoning stones. More meat, and less fluff, seems to be the tone of the letters, and that is a welcome change.

Another is the subtle and indirect addressing of player concerns in these letters, by citing the problem, stating the analysis, and talking about the solution. Several times you can even see Jeff play devil’s advocate when he does this, addressing concerns about changes and fixes, recognizing the fact that they’ve been given, and then briefly addressing them. He doesn’t do this necessarily with the kind of blustery confidence you expect in these letters, but with a matter-of-factness that says “this is why we did these things, and we hope you understand where we’re coming from – but we know not all of you are happy”. That, to be honest, is as close as you’re going to get from a developer saying in a letter like this that mistakes have been made and they need to be rectified. As much as some people want the rush of hearing from a developer’s mouth that they suck, it is A)sadly a short term feeling of satisfaction that doesn’t address the core issues and B)not good business sense, especially from a watchful investor’s point of view.

The last comes with with a certain sense of cautiousness with revealing details and teases. 1.3.2, the next patch in the cycle, had a few interesting bulletpoints, all served with the usual “not 100%” disclaimer. Significant points include detaching fortresses from being required for city siege and an apprentice/hireling system to make it easier for people to play with each other. These only appear in short detail, but only with the level that Mythic appears to be comfortable with. We’ve seen this page out of an MMO PR playbook before – from Bioware – so perhaps some of that may actually be rubbing off on Mythic’s communication.

Really, no one patch is going to be the panacea to WAR’s multitude of problems. The key is to crawl before walking, and that once knocked down, knowing to take baby steps to get to a point where there’s confidence. This is the place that WAR is currently, and probably will be for the next few months, so letters like Jeff’s will be a welcome change in reports about WAR. Like the old saying goes – there’s no where to go but up.

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July 1, 2009

News on Breaking From WAR Devs

by Frank — Categories: Gaming, Warhammer Online — Tags: , , — 4 Comments

For a few days now, it’s been all quiet on the WAR front. Speculation abounded for a little bit, until we saw a post from Community Coordinator Andy Belford explaining that the upcoming holiday meant the Mythic offices were taking a bit of a break, leaving to spend time with families and loved ones. This, of course, sparked some discussion and even a few jabs at the developers for daring to take a breather from not just post-Land of the Dead but also post-Mythic/Bioware announcements.

This is going to sound completely cliche, but developers are people too. Don’t get me wrong – WAR has a lot of work ahead of it and there’s still so much for Mythic to do in order to get the game to where it is running in a place with which they are satisfied. But every time I see posts that rage out over developer priorities when “they should be working on the game 24/7 or it’ll die”, I have to scratch my head, because these are people that clearly have let their frustrations get the best of them on an emotional level.

In my travels through the world of geekery and gaming, I’ve had a healthy respect for the folks at Mythic because they’ve been the most “human” out of the developers I’ve had the pleasure to meet in person. There’s a tendancy to put developers in an ivory tower at times, and let’s be honest – some developers like it up there and never come down. But the ones that do, that take the time to talk to players and testers and show them their product, those are the ones who deserve just a little bit of latitude when things don’t go right, because they clearly care enough about what they built to want to fix it. If a break to re-charge the batteries is what is needed, then so be it. This is especially true when things have taken a rocky road, as WAR has since its release.

A good analogy to use here is a simple story. Say you build a sandcastle on the beach. You make sure the structure looks good, the sand is well-packed, the towers look realistic, and the castle doesn’t collapse on itself. You spend a ton of hours out of your stay on the beach for a week, perfecting the look and feel. Then you finally invite other people to play with the sandcastle. You watch proudly, as people take an initial look at the sandcastle and appreciate it before starting to mess with it.

Then you watch as some people destroy whole towers in anger, stomp around the castle, put holes in the wall in the places where you thought you’d packed in the right amount of sand, and generally call it a complete failure of a castle. You wince as people who look disdainfully at the holes in the castle and leave even though you’re hard at work fixing them. How do you think you’d feel? Bet you’d feel like taking a break, too. Walking away from the beach might seem like you’re unwilling to face the problem, but you’d be surprised at how staying away from something will rejuvenate you, making you more determined to build a bigger and better sandcastle for people to play in.

I’ve been blessed with actually seeing the passion and dedication that WAR’s developers exude when talking about their game to an audience, or to an interview with me. This is why I think that while Mythic may be taking a small bit of a pause to gather their thoughts during the holiday weekend, that they will come back with a vengeance to fix the things that are wrong and concentrate on building a better game for people. The people currently taking a break are people with families, wives, husbands, girlfriends, boyfriends, and children – just like most of us. Give them a chance to stop running in the MMO marathon to catch their breath, and you never know how fast they’ll be sprinting later.

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June 24, 2009

Mythic and Bioware Now Equals Peanut Butter and Jelly

by Frank — Categories: Gaming, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Warhammer Online — Tags: , , , — 6 Comments
Miniature Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches P...
Image by Aminimanda via Flickr

So if you haven’t heard the buzz around the interwebz about this news, check out this link about the Mythic/Bioware group merge on Warhammer Alliance.

For those not in the know, both Mythic and Bioware exist under the EA umbrella these days, so in a bold move of re-organization and utilization of their resources, they’ve united them under a single group.

There’s the usual Chicken Littles who are predicting bad things for this little unification of sorts. Of course, I can’t get on that bandwagon – otherwise I’d be betraying the whole purpose of this blog!

The opportunities this merge creates are huge, addressing perceived weaknesses in both studios. While WAR has done decently, it has suffered in sub numbers and has gone through considerable reputation hits over the past six months. Bioware’s obvious developer equity will help fix that as well as bring some new, fresh management into the picture. Meanwhile, Bioware, while in good with the MMO community, has never done an MMO before. Mythic has a proven track record and ability to deal with the MMO community from an experience perspective, and it is no secret one of its greatest strengths is its ability to connect with its players. Bioware will benefit from this in spades.

EA, meanwhile, makes a bold move towards competition with the other juggernaut in the MMO business, Activision/Blizzard. With a single MMO group and single direction, they are poised to create entries in both the fantasy and sci-fi genres. If WAR stays steady and SW:TOR has a smooth release, it’ll be a force to reckon with in the coming years.

Mythic and Bioware are now a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. They now bring a certain flavor to the table and the unification may bring with it incredible agility within the group to create great games. Will they also be “two great tastes that taste great together”? Time will tell. But one thing’s for sure – for people who follow both WAR and SW:TOR, like me, can’t help but be excited and surprised at this new opportunity on the horizon.

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October 10, 2008

Extra Life Update

by Frank — Categories: Gaming, Site Related, Social Geekery — Tags: , , , — 4 Comments

So, as some of you know, I will be participating in a 24-hour gaming marathon to raise money for children’s cancer research.

As of this writing, I have no sponsors, but regardless of whether or not I get sponsors, I will be participating in this effort, as it is a worthwhile one. I would hope if you’re a blogger and reading this, that you will re-post this in an effort to help me out.

As an update, I will be playing Warhammer Online. I’ll be playing for 24 hours from 9:00am CST on Saturday, October 18th, to 9:00am on Sunday, October 19th. I will be playing on the Gorfang server, on Destruction, under the name “Liferxtra”. As of this writing, I’ll be playing a Disciple of Khaine (what better class to play than a healer class of course) and I’ll be playing from level 1. Feel free to message me if you are on Destruction and want to help!

I’ll be blogging here at OP throughout the day about my experiences for this very worthy cause.

Here’s the information if you want to contribute!

The Event, or “Why we are crazy enough to play WAR for 24 hours”

Advertising and characterization aside, Overly Positve is participating in the Extra Life charity event on October 18th, organized in part by gaming site Sarcastic Gamer:

http://extralife.sarcasticgamer.com (if the page does not load right away, reload)

The event is a 24-hour gaming marathon, where the participants get sponsors and play the game of their choice. Overly Positive plans to play – what else - Warhammer Online - for 24 hours straight, with real-time updates on the OP blog on just how far we can get in 24 hours of WAR goodness, all for a good cause.

Overly Positive is looking for donations in the form of monetary sponsorship. All of the proceeds and donations will go to funding Pediatric Children’s Cancer Research for Texas Children’s Hospital. Sponsorship is at $1/hour, so to sponsor Overly Positive, $24 would ideally be donated. However, any amount of money you can donate, bigger or smaller than that number, is greatly appreciated. Our goal is modest, but we obviously are fine with exceeding that number.

How you can contribute

Make a Donation

Here’s how you can donate through Overly Positive.

  • Go to http://overlypositive.com
  • Click on the Extra Life banner on the right. You will be taken to the donation page for Overly Positive.
  • Click the Donate Now button
  • Fill the form, and donate online. If you wish to make an offline donation, please PM me so I can send instructions

Advertise

I’m asking the community, if they think this is a worthy cause, to take this post and put it in their blogs, their sites, facebook, myspace, whereever! We’re raising money towards saving children, so I would hope that the community picks this up and runs with it.

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August 31, 2008

Sating the WAR Appetite

by Frank — Categories: Gaming — Tags: , , — Leave a comment

As some of us are (hopefully) taking the long weekend here in the US for Labor Day to have a nice little barbeque and spend some time with family and friends, I thought this was an appropriate time to talk a little more about that wonderful thing that happens when it comes to highly-anticipated MMOs – the lull.

The lull happens when you are between two major milestones in a game’s release timeline. Those that haven’t been scared away by the disturbingly obsesstive fandom or been so disgusted with previews that they wanted to slice their wrists open with a dull spoon are left wanting for more during this time period. They hunger for a taste and lumber along in forums and blogs like a zombie shambles after human brains, and pine away counting the days until their next delectable bite.

Warhammer Online is no different in this regard. Right now, with the NDA drop and Preview Weekend behind us, and Open Beta and the chaos of release ahead of us, things are in a calm period, and people drool over even a hint or a tidbit of new content. They bang virtual cutlery on the table, looking to be served their WAR dinner on a platter, and when it isn’t forthcoming, they try to amuse themselves with doing some oh-so-productive things like start threads on forums that are half in all caps and repeat a topic worse than a parrot mimicks its owner.

Now I have to say, it isn’t all that bad that you folks are not playing right now. Sure, it might seem like we moderators and admins want to shoot ourselves in the head because you want to spend so much time on the forums hitting F5 like a crazed monkey, but we still care, so  I’ve got a pick me up just for you.

Not playing the game right now means you’re going to prevent yourself from burning out on it, for example. Because you can’t log in for 20 hours a day literally to beat the snot out of someone else on an opposing team, you are at least a 20-hours a day work week away from being a cynical, bitter, inflammatory bundle of joy. Already there? Well, you’ll basically have one less game to complain about, right?

It’s also good that you’re not playing because it allows you to give the rest of the Internet their due. I’m sure that when you might have been playing WAR over the Preview Weekend or for the double secret Collector’s Edition beta, that you were arguing all the wonderful Internet meme spawning grounds, from 4chan, to Youtube, to Bit Torrent, and other such tools of the tech trade. Not playing gives you more time to waste on other superficial things, giving you a way to post later about how he game will be an epic fail and create videos set to random metal music.

And let’s not forget the online social element. WIth no MMO like WAR at your fingertips to start playing at any time, you’ll have to actually try to hold an online conversation with someone, now that you can’t mark yourself away because you’re in the game already. Besides, it’s good practice, because when the site gets past release, you will have all the time to try to make sure every 3rd person doesn’t spew some random nonsense. To get a good idea, just play a wonderful game of Halo 3 over X-Box Live. If you survive for at least 15 minutes without wanting to reach through the screen and choke someone, then you’ll be nice and ready for open beta and release.

So don’t worry about not being able to play WAR right now, fans. There’s so much that you can do otherwise, that it’ll re-charge your batteries and get you ready for the next round of inevitable tests and concepts that make you play a grand total of 13 minutes at a time. I know I look forward to it.

August 19, 2008

An OP Review of a Half-Baked WAR

by Frank — Categories: Gaming — Tags: , , — 4 Comments

So with today’s NDA drop for Warhammer Online, everyone who was in the closed beta seems to be scrambling to put down their keyboards and mice and post their thoughts about the game as it stands today, a little less than one month before release. Well, far be it from me to not jump on the bandwagon and start yee-hawing away myself, so here’s a great review of a product that isn’t out of the oven yet. Now, some of us have been licking the bowl longer than others. I myself have been in the beta so long (since June of 2007) it seems like I’m licking the plastic shards off the bottom of the mixing bowl these days. But with that comes a certain impression, and, like with everything on this site, it always looks on the bright side.

Perhaps the best portion of all this stuff has been going through the process as long as I have. Make no mistake about it – WAR has been polished so hard you could almost see the blisters on our fingers from all the rubbing we’ve been doing for the past year or so, ever since public testers were first invited. The core elements of the game – the fact that you can queue in a Scenario and bash someone’s head in from rank 1, the idea of the campaign, the zones and the classes on each side – the experience of going from chapter to chapter living a story in your own fantasy world – all of this stuff has been fine tuned as much as it could be for the time we have left. Even as a half-baked pie, it tastes decent.

I mean, sure, every time you logon to actually do some of that “Realm vs. Realm” thing, you’d better be a race that was beaten by an ugly stick, mutated by one, or clutches one looking jealously at people with better sticks. If you’re the perceived “good guy” Order folks – don’t worry – while you can look forward to many, many beatings by superior numbered Destruction people outside of WAR’s balanced scenarios – it’s a challenge right? You like being the underdog that takes on 5 on 1 and somehow manages to beat them to the point of them calling for a nerf to your class, I’m sure. So don’t worry – if you’re Destruction, you’ll have plenty of time to get in a swift kick to the nads of any Order corpse after it’s been sliced to death, and if you’re Order, you have the wonderful opportunity to trudge uphill both ways and post on Youtube about how you somehow prevented a “zerg” from killing you because you have “l337″ skills. You’ll also get to command all the clueless people who filled your ranks on release who “thought humans looked cool”. Everyone wins!

Gotta say, the UI looks great. Yep, you can move all the elements around, you have an amazing Tome of Knowledge that would (and probably could) record when you last picked your nose and how often, and everything is easy to find and convenient, from the action abilities to the party windows to the layout, all customizable. Hey, it’s easy to make a variation on a hamburger when someone has it pretty well done already, right? Heck, I’ll get this out of the way right now – most of you who are reading this played WoW , and if you say you didn’t I would question your honesty, because it’s like masturbating – millions have done it at least once, but not everyone’s willing to admit it. The UI is definitely easy to teach to someone who’s sat down with WoW – it has similar shortcuts, it has similar feel, and it has similar layout. But don’t torch me at the stake yet – why, I think it’s a good thing. There’s no need to innovate or think of TOO many new features, because you don’t want to overwhelm someone with too many selling points, right? I mean, when was the last time you had a choice between a hamburger or an exotic new dish that might have been made with the brains of a monkey, and chose the latter? Yeah, I thought so. WAR’s UI better be like a hamburger, because today’s fast-food society demands it! The customer is always right!

And what about all those “Secondary” things about WAR’s beta right now? Crafting, for example. Boy, I do have to say that finding my own recipes is kind of interesting, challenging, and fun to do. Of course, when I do make something it’s probably something that might be more useful to a 2 year old with a crayon for a weapon instead of my character, but hey, it applies somewhere, and it’s the thought that counts, right? Oh, the many things that I have crafted with my own two hands that I have generously donated to some merchant who takes in orphans to feed. Slight Allaying Draught that heals 50 over 4 seconds, I salute you, and the pet cat or rat who benefited from it does as well! And let’s not forget the PvE dungeon aspect. I mean, yeah, the dungeons might have been more deserted than an ice cream store in the dead of winter, but I’m sure the 60 or so people out of the hundreds or thousands who tested the dungeon found all the bugs and there won’t be a single one for release at all. With all those other people testing how hard they could slam their weapon into their opponents’ faces, someone has to do the boring dirty work of testing a wing of a dungeon that has mobs with pathing and direction issues worse than the Blair Witch Project kids.

So with all this going so well and with so much time to test since everything appears to be just peachy keen, is WAR ready right now? You bet it is. It’s ready to be judged within 5 seconds of footage by people who like to get their daily lulz out of posting chain letter comments on YouTube videos. It’s ready to be potentially cast aside as the MMO with “the worst launch ever” and the common words “epic fail” attached to it. It’s ready to be invaded by tons of players who might not have the slightest idea how to ask for help unless it’s with three letters and the grammar of a Wookie. And of course, it’s ready to deal with the angst of many people who were somehow bested in combat not because their opponent was better than them, but because they are “OP”, “need a nerf now”, and “use cheap BS”. In a game where the point is to take the enemy’s capital city and moon them at the same time, expect to see a lot of bare geek ass on fansite forums as Mythic is smart and sane enough not to run their own.

I can’t wait. Can you?

August 19, 2008

NDA Nostradamus

by Frank — Categories: Gaming — Tags: , , , , — Leave a comment

So the latest, exciting news on the WAR front is the fact that the Non-Disclosure Agreement will be dead in a matter of hours, allowing many people who’ve had to have their lips zipped and their mouths shut to finally talk to everyone who wasn’t their friend or on their IM list. Yes, once again I’m going to invoke the cheesy Braveheart comparison and say that soon, the masses will know just what kind of freedom they’ve been clamoring for. Of course, that will get some people beheaded just like in the end of the movie, but who’s really counting?

Anyway, I’m really looking forward to this, and no, not because I’ve been in beta for over a year now. No, I’m excited because there are just going to be so many productive and awesome posts, threads, and news about this that I might burst with joy. Or is that a headache or migraine coming along? Ah well, no worries.

So now, hours from the floodgates, here are some really great predictions for the dropping of the WAR NDA:

I will be rich off of the words “WoW 2.0″: That is, if I had had the sense to somehow find a way to be paid 10 american cents whenever I heard the words. Boy, am I looking forward to this stuff despite that, because hey, why try to let a game stand on its own merits when you can try to point out what it rips off from other games that have ripped off other features? Never has a criticism such as this been so in-depth and all-encompassing. Exciting!

The game will fail and fall into the depths of MMO Hell: At least, according to at least hundreds of posters who will make the same kinds of predictions I’m making now. Hey guys, I know that we all can channel Nostradamus here, but heck, leave some room for me to make some wholly accurate and not at all assumptive predictions, will you? I mean, I’m certain that I’m going to find a post that starts with a dramatic, interest-inducing statement of “epic fail” and ends with “this game sucks” really extremely helpful and not at all biased. Sure, dying a ton of times or only playing 15 minutes in a fast-food society like ours might have been factors, but who’s really going to report boring factoids when you can go for popcorn worthy theatrics.

The game is perhaps better than sliced bread, the invention of fire, and quite possibly, sex: And I really only put “quite possibly” on there because hey, just because you probably haven’t ever had sex with someone doesn’t mean you can’t compare something to it, right? This is really the other end of the spectrum, but boy, if only the haters and these folks could realize they learned from the same Forum Drama 2.0 book, we’d have less of a battle on our hands. Anyway, I really look forward to all these extremely gushy posts about how the game could quite possibly rival the peak of ecstasy, even though there are some things omitted like game details, or mechanics, or that time you might have gotten stuck naked in the opposition’s capital city because of a teleport bug. God, that realistic stuff just gets in the way of the awesomeness aura, forget that.

Our eyes will be given sensory overload with a bevy of video footage: Oh man, I can’t wait to see all the videos that people have taken of their gameplay footage. Yep, nothing will rock so much as yet another video of “PvP” set to the likes of Linkin Park, Disturbed, or any other rock band that tends to scream their words. Or how about all the “epic” PvE videos consisting of a grand total of one shot that doesn’t go anywhere and shows nothing but spamming heal buttons, set to all that music by X-Ray Dog or Immediate Music that people certainly have not used over and over again. Certainly there’s no need for actual video editing or cutting, or music timing – not when you can crank out 15 videos of a 5 minute clip set to a looping top 40 song. I mean, quantity is king! And let’s not forget all the video feedback. Gosh, if you enjoy Youtube commenting you’re going to love some of these gems when they come out.

Forum moderators and administrators, along with some bloggers will suffer mental breakdown due to insanity: The only prediction that I can confidently say has already come true. The blogs I link to, not to mention myself, are perfect examples. Oh, how I love those masses – so cuddly…so chatty…so angry-mob-with-pitchforks-and-torches-that-would-burn-your-place-down-if-they-knew-your-address. Thank God for the anonymity of the Internet, where we can all certainly be assholes without any form of retribution.

Mark my words – this is all coming true. You’ll thank me when it does!

August 15, 2008

The Geek Essentials

by Frank — Categories: Conventions, Social Geekery — Tags: , , — Leave a comment

Mythic Producer Josh Drescher talked a bit today about fitting a bunch of junk into your little bags for a jaunt, pretty much calling out fellow employee Justin Webb for trying to cram everything into one carry-on bag for a trip to Germany’s Leipzig.

Now I’m not really sure what Justin is planning to do while at the convention, but you never really know – it’s entirely possible that a single bag can be filled by a geek in order to go to a gathering of other geeks. Times like these, we have to be thankful that the things that advance in technology actually are becoming smaller, and not the other way around. Can you imagine fitting a cellphone the size of a giant pizza into your carry-on?

I can’t really make a judgment either way whether or not Justin has the ability to stuff that bag silly. Granted, he has an advantage – he has a loving wife who can help. Women, and especially women geeks, somehow have this extradimensional power to put the necessities in purses – even things that aren’t really, as Justin says, “bits and bobs”.

Let’s take a look at the essential items any geek should take on their trip away from their precious, precious rig and Internet connection:

  • The Mobile Status Symbol - You know all those crazy people who buy an SUV even though the only off-roading they are planning on doing is pulling out of their clean suburbanite street into the driveway? They’re not really interested in off-roading, just saying “hey, lookit me, I gots me a gas guzzler!”. Geeks are the same way. Every geek has one mobile device that they like to whip out oh-so-nonchalantly and look sophisticated and advanced. An iPhone fits the bill nicely. So does a really slick-looking PDA that isn’t a Blackberry (because the geek more than likely has set up Blackberries for a clueless CEOa nd wouldn’t be caught dead with one). The point? Flaunt the technology you have that no normal person could ever hope to understand beyond “ooh shiny.”
  • The Computer – There’s no way a geek leaves home without some way to stay wired and feed their addiction to the OS of their choice. The funny thing is that we have this reverse Freudian thing where we like it small. The smaller, the better, the slimmer, the better. If you have an ultra-slim-light-featherweight computer with an 10 inch screen that you could break more easily than a pair of chopsticks, then you’re doing something right – and you’re saving space, too. Exceptions include geeks using largish computers to show off their latest 1080i render of a fan video of themselves killing the hardest boss in an RPG. See: Mobile Status Symbol.
  • The Sunglasses – Because the resolution of “the real world” is honestly too much for your refresh rate.
  • The Cool Quirky Thing – Every geek has something that they think is unique that they want to show to other geeks who might appreciate it. It might be a pen with light saber sounds. It might be the photocopied script of the latest Batman movie. Heck, it might even be the piece of lint off of Joss Whedon’s overcoat that he wore to the Serenity premiere. Either way, it’s cool, it’s needed, and it’s packed.
  • The Games – Geeks get bored easily, and trust me, you wouldn’t like geeks when they’re bored. Time-wasting games that geeks can bury their noses in are a must for any trip. With their gaming console probably owned by someone who is local, portable devices like a PSP or a DS rule the day. Anything to conveniently avoid unnecessary social interaction.
  • The Clothes – Geeks have three fashions – awake, asleep, and naked. Given the fact that they hopefully will not end up in naked mode at an inappropriate time, the only real difference between awake and asleep is which t-shirt, which unbuttoned or otherwise not-worn-in-the-intended way over shirt, and which pair of jeans or khaki shorts they choose to wear. At least 6 combinations can be had from three pairs of shirts and jeans, and you can count on a geek counting the clothes they are wearing as one combination. Still have space problems? Perpetuate the geek stereotype of being overweight by wearing multiple pairs of pants and shirts. Just hope you don’t get strip searched.
  • The Boring Stuff – toothbrush, soap, towels, undergarments, passport, plane ticket, toiletries, usually stuffed or thrown carelessly into the bottom, top, or sides.

Given all this, is it entirely feasible for someone like Justin to fit the essentials in a carry-on? That depends on Justin, but I’d have to say, don’t be surprised if one carry-on can hold a world inside of it.

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