The Sixth Meme - Or...

How I learned to stop worrying and love the pic....

Ok, this was an odd affair. Many people were doing these pics in a multitude of ways. I thought to myself...how can I do it and be cool.

I failed.

I then went to my sixth folder and the sixth pic in My Photos folder. I ended up with...

From Cabal Online. This was during closed beta testing. A neat game, but of course, grindy. Had hints of Diablo mixed with a Korean MMO.

I did not last too long in that game.

So, I then tried to look at screenies of JUST MMO's. This worked out good.

I found the sixth folder of the sixth MMO screenshot folder, and got...

Perfect World Malaysia.

This screenie showed the one thing this game has that makes it fun to at least try. The flying was phenomenal. I could spend 30 minutes just flying around, and have fun. The rest of the game was awful, but it was not a visual slouch, and the airborne time was amazing.

Thanks to this meme, it also lets me reflect on something for a moment.

Each of these games are free, with RMT. They both have been running for years. They both have a high audience count on Xfire. They both prove that not all MMO's need to be buggy (they both are quite stable, and no weird issues all the time). They both prove that hype and big bucks do not equal success.

Players need to accept that maybe up and coming MMO's need to look at this market, and how players pay for their games. Developers need to look at making sure they have a game that works. And maybe they do not need to put all those big bucks into development.

Anyways, thanks DMOsbon and Hudson..

Meme complete!

Blogger screwing up and other tidbits

Well, seems as blogger integrates a new "friends" system into blogger, which allows your Gmail contacts to be followers or to follow their stuff, it is starting to get a bit wonky...i.e: I will call it "Googlebook Twits in Myspace"...

Anyways, so much going on...

First up, I have been tagged for a meme by DMOsbon at Construed (I promise to get to that...), and Hudson issued the same challenge to everyone...so dang, gotta catch up.

Next up, the Feb 2009 Game Directors letter for AoC has been released with the next patch info, and it is a doozy (complete with screenies...). Basically they call it the RPG system, and it now makes gear matter. I will be working up a post on that as soon as possible.
(EDIT: AoCBlog beat me to the punch, thus making my life a little easier. Good info there, so follow this link. I may comment later, but lets just say, wow...very nice stuff.)

Anyone who watched Lost this week...OMG. (This show has done a complete 180 on information and story. This truly is what fun TV is suppose to be like). Also, does anyone recognize the lady that was in the last two episodes? She is younger with dark long curly hair...(YUM). I do not want to give too much away, but if you do, make sure to comment...lets just say you will get geek cred points if you know her.

I have a busy weekend with some work, so I may not be around too much after today, but I will try to get those posts in. I am working on some catchy music for a "commercial" for the non-profit I work for (woot). It has to be catchy, light, meaningful...hope I can figure it out...and will post it when I am done..Critiques are always nice.

Cheers and have a good weekend!

Stargate Universe series cast complete

Today finalized the full cast and launch date for the Stargate Universe series on Sci-Fi channel.

As we previously noted, Robert Carlyle, actor extraordinaire and master of feelings (this man can cry at the drop of a hat, which is not always done well by male actors.) plays a major pivotal role. More of the cast has been filled out with various actors from other shows and movies (a range from 24, Smallville, Saw the movie, etc...).
Today two more names were announced you may know.

Lou Diamond Phillips and Ming Na.

It has been a while since Lou Diamond has had any major success. It seemed like he was on the fast track after parts in La Bamba, Stand and Deliver and Young Guns. I dare you to look at the roles he has played since and see if anything really stands out...I think we will agree. Not so good. He is cast as Colonel Telford, the leader of the expedition.

Then Ming Na, an ER alum, will be filling the part of an IOA member, part of the Stargate oversight committee. She has actually been more prominent lately in voice over work in animation and video games.

As well, the date has been pegged, with a two hour movie to hit in October. Of note, one of the links above is to the wiki page, and they list episode names. I find it cool that each episode has been named after an element, and then one episode after is named "Time".

The best part I have read about the series is there will not be one pivotal enemy. Thus, no major bad guy type thing the other shows did. I think I rather enjoy that bit of news...

Anyways, in closing, there is an awesome rundown of the character profiles and players on Joseph Malozzi's blog, producer and director for the SG and SGA series.
In that blog post, I need to mention one line....He says...

"late yesterday, Robert Carlyle delivered a performance in a key scene that was so outstanding it blew the doors off Stage 3 - and the entire crew away! “Masterful” would be one word to describe it. “Extraordinary” would be another. But I prefer to simply go with “Wow!”.

Oh yes...I know!

Age of Conan - Ymirs Progeny

Just a few screenshots of my battles against Frost Giants in the Northern section of Ymir's Pass.
I have been assigned the task to investigate the capture of the Frost Father.
As noted within my quest...

Shaman Aevar, still in his trance, told me of the chaining of the Frostfather beneath the ruins of Karutonia. He told me that in order to free the Frostfather, I must destroy the magical chains that bind him. Those chains cannot be breached by mortal weapons.

In order to breach the chains, I will need the Axe of Ymir - but before I can wield it, I must prove myself worthy.

Of interest, this story line has some interesting twists of Mythology based on the Nilfhelm stories...based on Norse myth.
You can actually read a piece here...As well, the stories of the Vanir are described within this story (scroll to the bottom and check out contents to read other chapters).

Further within the confines of this frozen region is a Shaman locked in the ice.



I need to free him of this misery. It took flames to melt the ice, then I needed to destroy him to let his spirit return whence it came.

The Giants are a hardy breed, and are much more difficult to kill than normal humans. Many strikes would be dealt to these oversized grunts, before they fell...



I grow close to solving the riddle of this region and what the screams of some distant Giant mean, as the whole world shakes from his rage.

I cannot wait to see what this mystery holds.

Age of Conan - Mythic beats Funcom to the punch

And this is not good at all.

Out of the veritable dry spell of MMO's last year, 2 games launched with a chance of success. They both, instead, fell down and went "Yuck!".

Age of Conan and Warhammer Online.

Recently though, Funcom had been making strides to try and get AoC going, as WAR took some blows, lost customers, and was starting to feel the downward spiral effect.
But, the recent patch has not done wonders for AoC, as more bugs presented themselves. Great content, great fixes, but, along with more issues...

Now, the final nail is about to be set.

Mythic introduces a very limited, but available trial offer.

Basically this will help fill up some empty servers, make starting areas look busy, and well, gives those who did not want to pay full box price a chance to see if they would like to.

And AoC? well...after leaving Testlive and seeing that DX10 is still a bust, and little bugs get left behind in fix up patches on the main servers...it really is becoming apparent that Funcom really does not have a grasp of this situation.

I hope Funcom comes to the realization that they need to get some type of trial going, or else, they can really say goodbye to the future of this game.

Age of Conan - A little peeved

So, of interest is an issue that really should not exist. But does, and still does after today's patch.
Introduced in patch 1.04, it seemed but a minor quibble at the time.

Every time a player logs in and has left Tortage, they log in to Midnight.

It seems the time scheduling of where the player character is at on the clock is always midnight on first log. This means that time is done client side and not server side.
So, lets say you login, and of course it starts at Midnight (dark in the Hyborian world), then a friend logs in say...2-3 hours later, Guess what..?

You will be at 5-6 am or later, and they will be at...you guessed it...Midnight.

Now, maybe this is not an issue to some, but with my limited play schedule, I can play for 1-2 hours and I am always playing in the dark. Dark looks cool and all that, but not all the time. No sunlight, no cool shadows on the ground...

I do not know about you, but for me, that is just depressing.

Thoroughly disappointed that this bug stayed in from last patch. Not winning anyone over with these types of problems.

Which brings me to the infamous "Thread Deletions" on the main AoC forums. It seems in the last patch for the Testlive server, they decided to "stealthily" remove DX10. No warning.
This started some speculation, and I decided to post asking why it was removed. This took maybe 2-3 hours before it was deleted.

Felt almost conspiratorial.

Luckily it was added back in, and a Dev finally stepped in to explain the issue, but only after he saw that this was being discussed on other forums due to the fact that in the last financial report DX10 was missing from the future updates list.

This all comes back to the "Midnight" bug I originally discussed in this post. I did the same thing and asked why this was not on the known issues list, and that thread was closed.

So, how does one look at a company when you enjoy their game, but the overall feeling is careless development and hard stern rules of discussion of issues. It is almost like a Nazi regime.

I don't know about you, but I get to feeling uncomfortable hanging with Hitler all the time...

Is "Innovation" dying in the MMO genre

Lets think about this. Where can MMO's go now. How can an MMO be "innovated" past the original mechanics.
Tabula Rasa tried with using non skill based shooting. AoC tried with wild swing combat and realtime combo mashers.
But, the rest of those games still have kill 10 x quests, go here to get this book, take a message to this guy, etc.

I got started on this when I read about Jumpgate today on Kotaku.

As stated on the report...

What Needs Improvement?
It's STILL an MMO: A fetch-quest in space is the same as a fetch-quest in Azeroth; kill so many X, and bring me this many Y. I understand there's a need for basic monotonous quests to grind with in order to upgrade ships, characters, mounts, etc. But couldn't the "why I need you to bring me rat-butts" expository text be more interesting? Maybe then I'll actually read it before clicking through it with that glazed look in my eye.

And so, it goes. And guess what...the rest of this years offerings are all the same thing.

So, I have to ask, am I comfortable with these meager options. Are you?
Yes, we still all play these games. No matter how much I wanted to give up on them, I still went back. But, I at least made a conscious decision to make sure something was different.
So, are the little changes enough to keep this genre going? What could the developer possibly change to bring about the next wave of MMO's that are unique?
FPS's on consoles have done it...but slowly. RTS's, well still the same with some small innovations (or are they changes now because innovation requires more massive changes...ARGH!)

Anyways, it looks like I am not alone in thinking maybe a total sea change is not possible...
Elder Game has a post about "Innovation or History?" Where he calls out Tobold (who is also discussing this issue)...

"He (Tobold)seems pleased that the developers of both Darkfall and Age of Conan tried to do something new with combat, but notes that the lack of targeting in Darkfall especially doesn’t do the game any real favors because it is too easy to exploit."

He then goes on to say..

"But now that Age of Conan and Darkfall are doing it, untargeted combat is considered “innovation”."

Is it? Or just a minor change to a same old mechanic. All I know is thanks to AoC's semi-real time combat system, I cannot go back to the old ways, no matter how much I try. Was this enough of a change in the genre to motivate other companies to follow suit and try to change the Press 1, Refresh, Press 2, Refresh combat?

And if they do, is that not an innovation of the genre? I guess maybe we need to state these are just evolutions.

Maybe the genre cannot innovate...maybe it does not know how.