Possession Is 9/10 of the Law

“You’re saying that mine was yours? So why’s the ore in my backpack?”
--Just about anyone who has beat you to a node

Not too long ago, I was skimming the forest floor of Terrokar with Scepter when I spy the most beautiful of sights, the adamantite node. You know the one, all shiny and glittery and completely solitary, not a toon soul within Frostbolt distance. With the lightning speed that can only come from a normal flying mount and an equipped Carrot on a Stick I shift course and angle down to approach the Mine of Scepter (to be christened ever so briefly).

I land crisply, textbook really. I dismount (this was before the patch that rolled dismounting and harvesting into one convenient action, God bless Blizzard) and reach for my worn pick . . . when my kid sidles up to me, knocking my hand from my mouse. I take a moment to glance down on her. Smiling benevolently, I kindly brush her aside as I prepare to return my attention back to the Mine of Scepter.

But what’s this? I hear a clanging terrifyingly close by. A metal on metal sound that seems much too premature given the fact I never actually began the mining process. Couldn’t have, given the real life gremlin that had seconds ago wrestled my hand away from certain divine mining justice. I snap my head to face the screen and witness the horror of horrors: an alliance pudwacker stealing the Mine of Scepter, reaping its bounty it as it were his to reap.

My anguished cry startles my little girl. I pat her on the head and give her a peck on the cheek, assuring her interruption is forgiven. And promptly log onto my only alliance toon to have a “discussion” with my alliance friend regarding mining rights etiquette.

/tell ALLIANCE PUDWACKER

ME: You know, that mine was mine. I was clearly there first.

PUDWACKER: Really? Sorry man, I didn’t see you there.

ME: For Christ’s sake, how could you not see me? I was right there! You landed your damn chicken right on me!

Long pause.

PUDWACKER: WTF, you’re like level two. What the hell are you talking about?

ME: My other toon. The one you just stole the mine from. In Terrokar.

PUDWACKER: You mean that horde toon? Lolz.

ME: You can’t go around stealing people’s mines.

PUDWACKER: Sure I can. Horde does it to me all the time.

ME: But that doesn’t make it right.

PUDWACKER: Yeah it does. You’re Horde, I’m Alliance. We’re at war you idiot. I’m going to steal ore from you pricks every chance I get. Now go QQ somewhere else.

Long pause.

ME: I see. Carry on then.

The only thing worse than being wrong is being wrong at the expense of a night elf hunter named Leggolass.

Consoles Get All the Fun

I want to play this game something fierce. Bad enough to go out and buy a X-box? Hmmm, probably not. But it does get me thinking about supplementing my PC gaming with some console action. And wondering bitterly why certain titles are exclusive to consoles. Assassin's Creed looks to me the spiritual successor to Thief: the Dark Project, one of my all time favorite games. That was a PC game, so why isn't Assassin's Creed as well?

I know, some suit crunched the numbers and foresaw more profitability in skipping a PC version. I just hope they don't go the half-ass port route a year from now; I hear nothing but complaints about the PC ports of the Halo series. My brother has a X-box 360, so I'll have him over some weekend and get a little taste of it then. Who knows, if Assassin's Creed turns out to be as fun as it looks, I just may take the console plunge.

Boy She's Got a Nice Set of Warlocks

Rod Ryan, the morning DJ at The Buzz, has recently been referring to women's breasts as "warlocks." Now, I hear (and use) plenty of euphemisms for women's breasts and almost all of them make sense to me at some level. But I have no idea where he's getting "warlocks" from. Unfortunately for me, every time he says it, I picture two gnome warlocks glued to a woman's chest at a 90 degree angle, slapping each other. It's not a pleasant image.

I really need him to stop using it and go back to his old stand-by, "milk wagons."

Bioshock a 10

Games for Windows gave Bioshock a rare 10/10 rating in their latest issue. They admit it's not perfect, but praised the game for its unique game world and compelling story.

I don't usually like 1st person shooters. But I do enjoy the ones built around a good story, Half-life 2 comes immediately to mind. I think I'm going to hold off picking up Bioshock since Hellgate: London is getting close to release, but I'll probably take a look at it in a few months.

File Under TMI

Cue the chorus of angels, my three-year old daughter just went poopy in the toilet tonight. Twice! Dare I dream of a life without changing excrement-filled diapers?

I dare.

Mr. Clean

I clean the bathrooms at my house. I'd rather not, to be completely honest. I'd much rather be the quintessential 50s head-of-household, clad in my smoking jacket, sitting in the study as I puff away on my pipe and read the newspaper. But then that would mean driving an Edsel and only having three TV channels, none in HD.

So I clean the bathrooms at my house.

It's been a dangerous endeavor as of late. The toilet scrubbing goes smoothly enough. It's the shower stall and bathtub that have proved hazardous to my health. You see, I'm not a fan of old-school scrubbing. Scouring with Comet and brush? No thanks. That smacks of work, and I'll have none of that, thank you very much. Instead, I subscribe to the new theology of bathroom cleaning; I use products that promise thorough sanitizing without any of the laborious scrubbing. In other words, I spray the crap out of stuff. It works and I don't have to. Scrub Free eats up that pesky soap residue like Takeru Kobayashi in a hot dog factory. When all is said and done, the bathrooms look and smell clean.

But maybe Scrub Free doesn't work as well as promised because I have to spray like half the bottle into the shower before it disintegrates the soap residue. Meanwhile, a toxic cloud fills the entire bathroom, sending me fleeing, coughing and gagging. No joke, I can actually feel it searing lung tissue. Chemical weapons in Iraq? Bush need look no farther than my bathroom cupboard for some off-the-shelf WMD. Seriously, no one can go back in there for a good half hour until the air has cleared. I guess I could try using less Scrub Free and actually pick up a scrubbing brush. Instead, I think I'll look into military surplus and see if I can't score some sort of gas mask.

Looking For Fellowship PST

I've really been enjoying LoTRO this last month or so. But finding a fellowship for those innumerable group quests has proved difficult at times. Like WoW, LoTRO has a built-in group finder that allows you to customize what quest you're on, what levels you need, and what classes you'd like to recruit. But just like WoW's, no one uses it. No one. I have yet to create or join a fellowship using this tool. Instead, I have to spam the LookingforGroup channel. Sure, that works, . . . well, in the sense that people can read your chat and ignore you. So it functions as intended, but isn't particularly effective at helping you find a group.

I guess it's not a complete mystery as to why people aren't using the tool. I chalk it up to laziness. The thing is, if the tool use ever does hit some kind of critical mass, I know its success would quickly catch on. But people don't bother configuring the tabs because after you get done with the fifteen seconds worth of effort it requires, invariably your entry is the only one sitting there.

I have an idea on how to fix this. First off, dump the current tool. No one uses it anyway, so chuck it. Instead, design a system that tracks everyone's quest log. Next, allow players to search by quest name, something like /quest Retaking Weathertop. Code would then search everyone in the region/area/world that also has that quest. With those names you could then begin a /tell spree trying to put your fellowship together.

Too intrusive you say? Nay, my friend. This system is alive and well in WoW, although in a much more primitive form. In WoW, nothing keeps a stymied player for searching by class for the always needed tank or healer. Ask a tank how many /tells they get a night and they'll confirm this. Sure, sudden /tells from strange people can be annoying, but what's even more annoying is a quest log full of fellowship quests you can't finish. Feeling antisocial? Check an "anonymous" box to render your quest log invisible to queries.

Though I have ask, isn't anonymous and MMO an oxymoron?

The Club

I was walking to my truck at work the other day and noticed a minivan parked next to it with The Club affixed to its steering wheel. A POS Mercury minivan with an anti-theft device. I need to find the owner of this vehicle and let them know that they could leave that van's door open, engine running and no one would steal it.

De Nial Ain't Just a River in Egypt

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Columbia University today at the invitation of that institution's president, Lee Bollinger, and jeez did he ever take it on the chin. Bollinger opened the session by referring to President Ahmadinejad as a "petty and cruel dictator." Later referencing Ahmadinejad's denial that the Holocaust took place, Bollinger said, "You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated."

Perhaps the funniest and most revealing comment came when Ahmadinejad said, "In Iran, we don't have homosexuals, like in your country." Mr. Ahmadinejad is either completely naive or thoroughly delusion. I don't think either are the most positive attributes for a president.

Bollinger really raked him under the coals to be sure and I'm going to give Admadinejad props for showing up, giving a speech, and fielding questions. Unlike his one-on-one interviews with Western reporters, this was a tough and hostile crowd and he must have had a hint that's what he faced before he stepped into the auditorium.

Still, this guy took a left turn at reality and then kept driving into the sunset. No homosexuals in his country? Are you kidding me? You put that together with the man's theory the Holocaust never took place and it paints a picture of total abnegation. And as Bush has proved with WMD in Iraq, the worst thing a leader can do is deny the reality of the world around him. It's just our luck this guy emerged the leader of one of the most "stable" governments in the Middle East.

This guy is nothing but bad news for the Middle Eastern geopolitical scene. Ahmadinejad projects earnestness and conviction when conveying his beliefs, but his ideology reveals a vast divide between Iranian and American culture and values. I guess this assumes that President Ahmadinejad represents the consensus of this countrymen, and maybe that's not true. Regardless, Ahmadinejad is the spokesman of his country (much as Bush is the misspokesman of ours) and I'm going to speculate that what he expresses isn't all that far from what an average Iranian believes. If it were, would he still be their president?

This gulf in values worries me because we're fully committed in Iraq, our military spread to the breaking point. Ahmadinejad appears to be reaching out to us, but the effort is clumsy and creates misunderstanding and strife instead of friendship and union. Past wars have begun over far less affronts. It strains my optimism that the U.S., or any country for that matter, can contain Iran's nuclear weapon ambitions and I shudder at the thought of what will happen if it all goes down bad.

Iran's President

I saw Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, interviewed by Scott Pelley of 60 Minutes. I've seen him interviewed before, both by Brian Williams of NBC News and also Mike Wallace. With each interview I see, I get more worried.

First off, the guy never answers a direct question. Pelley is obviously frustrated by this and many times used the phrase, "Is that a 'no' then?" while interviewing Mr. Ahmadinejad. Sure, what politician does answer questions honestly? I guess what bothers me is the way he smiles as he dodges questions, like he knows that we know that he knows. If we're all in the know, then why the grand performance?

My gut tells me Mr. Ahmadinejad uses the American media to both attack the current administration and sympathize with the American public. I think he pities us for having Bush as President despite the fact that we elected him. It's propaganda, of course, but I'm not sure entirely sure what Iran hopes to gain by it. Mr. Ahmadinejad comes across to me more as a used car salesman than elder statesman, and I don't imagine he's convincing too many Americans that he's a stable political force for the Middle East. After all, he denies the Holocaust took place, openly calls for the dissolution of Israel as a country (by force I assume since there's no way Israel will allow that without a fight), and argues that Iran only seeks to develop nuclear technology for energy needs, not for weapons. He claims the latter while flashing that smile of his.

The problem is that Iran is all too likely trying to develop a nuclear weapon, no matter what Mr. Admadinejad says. I heard reports last week that Israel entered Syrian air space and bombed what it claimed was a nuclear facility. Experts in the Middle East speculate that if the United States or some other government doesn't get a handle on Iran's nuclear weapons program, Israel will take matters into its own hands and try to take out the facilities themselves. And that could be all it would take to light the very short fuse of the Middle Easter powder keg.

What's most irritating about all this is the U.S. has wasted its clout and credibility claiming that Iraq had WMD. It didn't and now it's cry wolf when the U.S. says it has intelligence that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon. I don't blame other countries for doubting our word, I just hope it doesn't spiral into an expanding war beyond the borders of Iraq.

Exhausted from Exalted

I've got a guild member that says "exhausted" for "exalted." So if someone asks him how far he's into Cenarion Expedition, he says "I'm 9k from exhausted."

That sounds about right.

I just hit exhausted with Netherwing. Yes, I'm fishing for your congratulations for that was the suckfest of grinds. I know, I know, Blizz can't hand out Netherwing Drake mounts like they're pez, but dammit, there's got to be a better way dole out rare, desirable rewards without making a player loath to log in.

The mini-games you play to earn Netherwing reputation start out just fine. Collect 40 pollen? Sure, no problem. Beat disobedient orc peons with the booterang? I'm on it; I may even chuckle a bit as the boot slams into their thick skulls. Slay Netherwing fliers to collect 10 tokens. Okay, that one sucked from the git go because the drop rate eschewed the laws of probability. Some days I'd snag 4 or 5 of those tokens in a row, others I'd hit this insane dry spell where I'd kill 10 fliers and not see one token. Ah, the rage that caused.

The problem isn't so much doing any of these mini-games once, or twice, or even three times. It's doing them over and over and over, day after day after day until your eyes bleed and your hand shakes and your head slams repeatedly into your monitor. To make things worse, everyone and my grandma are doing these daily quests at the same time I am. I can't tell you how many peons escaped the heel of my booterang because some jackass swooped in front of me and popped the slacker before I could. Ditto with the pollen, the fliers, even the damn boars you need to kill to get the meat to poison the peons: all camped to high hell.

I had to take a break in the middle of the netherwing rep grind. It got to the point I couldn't bring myself to even log into the game. A week off did wonders for my attitude even if the mini-games still sucked. And now, I've got a Drake. Without hesitation, I'd trade that Drake for some exhausted status with Keepers or Cenarion. So much grinding to do, so little time.

Greedo the Killer Pimp, Part II

This is a continuation of yesterday's post based on Jeff Strain's key-note speech.

Of course, WoW came a few months later and wrote the book on how to level via questing. And how to plop the player into a safe and comfortable beginning zone where toothless monsters could gum your ankles all day and not kill you. Tickle yes, but not kill. However, that was months after SW:G. To many, SW:G prevails as the poster child for what not to do in a MMO. And so I agree with Jeff in this particular instance, SW:G didn't turn out to be a good MMO candidate.

But my complaints about SW:G concern mainly game mechanics whereas Jeff's point deals with content. With the proper game mechanics in place, I think SW:G could have easily developed some exciting, ground-breaking content for players to experience. It's no secret, Star Wars has been a merchandising whore since the groovy days of 1977. Who else but George Lucas would sell his soul to Taco Bell and allow that fast food giant to fill poor R2 with Mountain Dew? (I know he's a robot and devoid of human functions, but Mountain Dew being the color it is, I quickly switched to Pepsi). Lucas has signed off on an entire fleet of Star Wars content, most of which he likely hasn't read, let along wrote himself. I'm too lazy to check exactly, but at my most recent visit to Barnes & Noble, I spied dozens of graphic novels and books set in the Star Wars universe. And of course Star Wars games have been a staple of console and computer gaming for the past fifteen years. Few of these books or games are set within the six movies George created. Instead, they expand beyond the original canon framework, sometimes thousands of years in the Star Wars past.

So with all its iterations floating around out there, I'm not exactly clear on why Jeff thinks a licensed setting like Star Wars can't make a good MMO. The fact that it didn't cannot lead to a broad assumption that it can't ever. And just because the content originates from a book or a movie doesn't necessarily mean that a MMO developer is any more limited in developing a fun world to game in than a developer starting from scratch with an empty universe. It's specific design choices that will limit a player's enjoyment of a game, a phenomenon not any more inherent to a licensed franchise.

Perhaps Jeff is essentially talking about my earlier comment about Matrix Online, that if you didn't like the movie, you won't try the game. That an original MMO, with a newly created universe, doesn't have the baggage of prior expectations to meet or fail to meet. That Tolkien's hobbits or Lucas' Ewoks aren't in Guild Wars and so suddenly the sky is the limit as far as what ArenaNet can do with that world. I guess it's true that starting with an established universe does instantly alienate a potential audience. But I've taken a glance at Guild Wars in the store and it looks as original and unique a fantasy setting as any other MMO on the market, which is to say it doesn't seem original at all.

As for player expectations regarding MMOs from licensed properties, I seriously don't think SW:G players expect to play Luke or Han or Chewie or Anakin. A thousand thirteen year olds running around as Lord Vader? Count me out. Most reasonable players don't expect that, and I've got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell the rest that do. Players may not even expect to meet these famous characters in-game, although Lord of the Rings Online has done an exceptional job of weaving its famous characters into the quest plots of its game. No, SW:G players expect a Star Wars experience, something that reminds them of the movies. That can be an incredible hook. The movies don't limit that experience, they springboard it. It's the job of a developer like Sony Online Entertainment to develop content and a game mechanic engine that delivers the Star Wars experience.

It can be done. Step one would be to ensure a newly created toon live longer than three seconds after spawning.

Greedo the Killer Pimp, Part I

At one point in his speech, Jeff Strain said, "Film, television, and book franchises are just not good candidates for MMOs. Even MMOs based on the "Big Two" franchises – you know the ones – have not lived up to the expectations of their developers." He's not clear on who he means by the "Big Two" but I'm going to guess they are Star Wars: Galaxies and the Matrix Online. He might also mean Lord of the Rings Online or D&D Online but LoTRO is too new to condemn to failure just yet and D&DO is not really a film, television, or book franchise the way I think he defines it.

I've never played Matrix Online. I like the first movie well enough, but the sequels were a swirl of leather trench coats, obscure dialogue, and meandering plot. Nothing about the Matrix universe motivates me to play its MMO equivalent.

But I've played SW:G. In fact, it was the very first MMO I ever played. I'm a huge Star Wars dork (as if the email address didn't give me away) and was curious enough to try it despite the prospect of shelling out $15 a month. Though I didn't know any better at the time, it was a dismal experience. Actually, I think I did know and just didn't want to admit that something related to Star Wars might just be a steaming pile (*cough* Episode I.)

Just about every aspect of the game was a design choice from hell. Deliberately or accidentally, players were punished at every turn. For instance, I started my toon on Rori, the small moon orbiting Naboo. After playing through a bizarre tutorial instance that taught the basics of movement and combat, I was magically teleported to Rori's surface . . . where I was immediately attacked and killed by some psychopath Rodian. My death was so abrupt and total, it took me a full minute to even piece together what had happened. This being my first MMO, I had no concept of the modern day MMO staple, the "starter zone." I blissfully shrugged my shoulders and hit the cloning facility. This gave me new life not far from where I died. Still milling around my corpse, the Greedo wanna-be immediately zoned in on me again and gave chase. I had been logged into the world of SW:G for less than three minutes, I barely had a chance to orient myself and get a feel for the world and the game mechanics and I was being ruthlessly pursued by a mob that I would be challenged to defeat even if I knew what I was doing. Crappy design 1, Hapless player 0.

I'd like to say game-play improved from there, but it didn't. It turns out, there was very little to do in SW:G. You could kill monsters to level up a skill tree or you could PvP. Quests? Not so much. There was a terminal you could go to in cities to pick up bounty missions. The bounty was usually a certain type of mob. You'd choose the bounty, go kill the beasties, and then return to collect some cash. Rinse and repeat. Crafting? The system was intricate, but you couldn't sell what you made to vendors and the auction house was bursting with the same crap you just churned out, none of which was moving.

Part II coming tomorrow.

Don't Tase Me, Bro!

I don't know what's funnier, Andrew Meyer's mewing plea to avoid hot voltage applied to his tender carcass or the fact that there are people out there making a case that free speech rights have been trampled. I'm going to go with mewing plea and hope that the cops tased him even more than the video shows.

Free speech in the United States has never, ever meant being able to say whatever you want, whenever you want, to whomever you want, for however long you want. If you think it does, I invite you to make your way to the nearest mall tomorrow and once inside, scream the f bomb as loud and as many times as you can, and when the authorities arrive to drag your ass to the parking lot for a good 'ole tasing, tell 'em they're infringing on your right to free speech and see how far that gets you.

Our prankster friend had more than a minute to grandstand in front of a U.S. Senator and an auditorium full of people, most of whom I'm guessing weren't in on his little joke. I guess someone decided playtime was over and made the call to have that attention whore yanked from his stage. Best not to gloss over the videotaped fact that Meyer resisted arrest; the officers didn't approach him with tasers drawn and buzzing. Meyer refused the escort and escalated the situation well past where it needed to go. I say tase him in his cell right now for muddying the issue of civil rights and sane free speech.

Set Your Tasers to Stun

Those tasers that cops use, I wonder if they have different power settings or if it's one shock fits all. Wouldn't it be great if they did have settings? Even better if one of the settings was "Fry Hippie?"

I dream of these things in the wake of the tasered journalist student at the University of Florida this past Monday. Allegedly, the aspiring reporter's first question to Senator Kerry was, ""You will take my question because I have been listening to your crap for two hours." He spent another minute yelling out some more questions before the fuzz moved in to cut him off. Completely surprised and righteously indignant, the student resisted the escort. The cops warned him to stop resisting or they would unleash the tasers of war. Apparently he didn't heed the warnings because the cops circled the wagons and proceeded to tase the crap out of him.

I know I shouldn't think it's funny, but I do. It's the same guilty pleasure I get watching old 60s footage of baton wielding cops beating protesting hippies. My glee at the tasing is blunted, however, since there is every indication that this student, Andrew Meyer, planned to create a media circus, even brought a video camera and asked someone nearby to start taping when he asked his first question. Fifteen minutes of fame, doncha know.

If he was trying to stir up some media frenzy, it seems things may have spiraled beyond his original intentions. Faster than you can say "injustice," the tasing police officers have been put on leave and the University of Florida is being criticized for how its personnel handled the situation. I'm actually hearing rumblings of violated free speech rights, or some such nonsense. If this turns out to be nothing more than someone trying to get some heavy youtube coverage, we'll have reached a new low in celebrity and what lengths people will go to achieve it in this country. An even newer low will be if the University of Florida punishes any of those officers or changes any of its security protocols.

Comrade! Put That Mouse Down Before You Keel!

From Yahoo! News, a man in China dies after playing Internet games for three straight days. The most amazing part of this story is he wasn't playing himself to death in the privacy of his own home, but in a public venue, a cybercafe.

There's just a hint of propaganda in the middle of this story. The Chinese government all but admits it seeks to crack down on their citizens' access to Internet content deemed "unhealthy" and replace it with state controlled stuff.

Setting aside the Oliver Stone in me, let's just say the Chinese government didn't kill this guy as part of some twisted campaign to control their people's Internet access. Assuming he really did play computer games for three straight days, this guy obviously had some addiction issues. I'm guessing if games weren't around, it would have been gambling or alcohol or drugs that eventually led to his premature demise.

But since computer gaming is involved, some will point to gaming as the problem rather than an individual's psychosis. This guy is one out of millions that took it too far, and yet a vocal minority will draw broad conclusions about the "dangers" of computer games. Gaming didn't kill this guy, a serious mental illness did. If there's any discussion that emerges from this story, I hope that rings loud and clear.

Robert Jordan Dead at 58

Wow, I just found out that Robert Jordan, author of the Wheel of Time series died yesterday from a rare blood disease. I read the first two books in the series and really enjoyed them. I'm sure he'll be missed by legions of fans.

O.J., And I Don't Mean Orange Juice

O.J. is in the news again. Coming after his recent stint of writing a book on how he might (bahahaha) have killed Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman, Mr. Simpson is currently sitting in jail for allegedly breaking into a Las Vegas hotel room and robbing a man of sport memorabilia.

You couldn't make this stuff up if you tried.

Judge Douglas Smith denied Simpson bail pending a hearing within the next few days. Which is really disappointing since I think we'd all like to see O.J. jump back into that white Bronco and make a run for it. Running as a result of his innocence of course.

The Worm Has Turned . . . If the Game Sucks

Well, the dudes at Penny Arcade are making a PC game. It's called--deep breath--Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness-Episode One. The game is described as a "comic adventure," a genre that is as underdeveloped as it is hit or miss, at least as far top-selling games are concerned.

However, in this instance, it's not as much about the game as it is about its developers. The boys at Penny Arcade are game pundits turned game developers. This is a potentially interesting transition for the gaming community at large because Mike and Jerry have a history of some pretty brutal game reviews and the buzz out there wonders what will happen if the game is even marginally panned by the professional reviewing community.

Personally, I'm not aching to see them flop. Sure I thought they overreacted when they rescinded their endorsement of WoW because of the server outages not long after the initial release. They had a point to be sure, but Blizzard squashed those hiccups right quick and the game of course went on to be a very well-fed, well-maintained monster (If Blizzard dropped the ball anywhere, it's immediately preceding the release of BC where my server queues often exceeded twenty minutes during peak hours, and that crap went on for weeks.)

This seems to be unprecedented, from commentator to producer; I can't think of anyone who has made the leap from reviewing games to making them. But I have to hand it to them, they've got guts for trying. Their site and comic strip are smart and funny, which means I can't imagine the two didn't forsee the potential pitfalls of making a game after years of ripping into others'. Whether their game ultimately fails or succeeds is immaterial to me. Very often, the most vocal and fierciest critics are incapable of creating that which they judge. It's pretty cool to see someone take a stab at proving that notion wrong.

You Don't Bring Me Flowers Anymore

Scepter is to Woody as Emanee is to . . .

Scep is my undead mage, my first horde character rolled waaaay back in January of 2005. Emanee is my belf priestess, rolled a couple of months after the Burning Crusade expansion. Where Scepter is seasoned and dependable, Emanee is flashy and trendy. Scepter, substance. Emanee, surface. Scepter, Bill Pullman. Emanee, Britney Spears. You get the picture.

Originally, I intended Emanee to be nothing more than a vehicle by which to experience the new horde starter zone. But somewhere along the line, Scep got shoved aside and suddenly one day Emanee was at the level cap and raiding Kara, sacred dungeon ground that Scepter dreamed to enter, but had never trod. Weeks later, it’s Emanee who sports the raiding phat lewtz while poor Scep dons crappy 5 man blues and is relegated to money laundering and gold farming for a fashion model who somehow has the capacity to raid.

The poor slob STILL doesn’t have his Frozen Shadoweave set. He’s short the chest piece and unlikely to get that anytime soon. He’s long resigned to the reality of it all. About a month ago, Emanee bilked Scep for everything he had, more than 2k in gold. He took it pretty stoically, like that sap of an apple plant in The Giving Tree. But deep down he suffers the pain of a soul used and abused. I seriously feel for the guy. I occasionally have pangs of guilt as I log him in and wire gold to the waif. At times, I even toyed with the idea of making the princess earn all her own epic mount gold.

But unfortunately for Scepter, I’m a lazy git. And now while Emanee zooms all over Outland at Mach 10, Scep plods along on his Model T equivalent, all the while commiserating with the plight of that mistreated cowboy in Toy Story. “You’ve got a friend in me” whispers Emanee sweetly. Friend indeed.

Hellgate: London

Gamespot is reporting that Hellgate: London is on track to release at the end of October. I'm looking forward to this game since Bill Roper is involved and I played Diablo and its sequel way more than was healthy. Pricing has spawned some controversy, however. You play it right out of the box, but the developers have added some sort of pricing scheme that opens up more content if you pay a monthly subscription. It seems a growing trend within the industry. You can read Gamespots preview here.

MMO Business Models: The Plot Thickens

Check out Dungeon Runners, a free* MMO put out by NCSoft. The asterisk indicates a catch. The game is free to play, but playing free means no access to a bank, stacking pots, or the swankiest loot in the game. If you want access to all that, you have to shell out $5 a month.

There's also Sword of the New World: Granado Espada. This game appears to be completely free to play. X-Play reviewed the game and reported that you cap out at level 20 and have to pay a monthly subscription to level past that. But I can't find any mention of that on the game's site.

Today Is the Greatest Day I've Ever Known

I have no idea why Smashing Pumpkins are headlining Buzzfest XX. Before the lineup announcement last week, I hadn’t heard The Buzz play a single SP song in months. Evanescence, Chris Cornell, Evans Blue, Fuel, Finger 11, The Buzz plays all these bands regularly. But SP? C’mon. I bought Siamese Dream back in the early 90s. Jeez, that's nearly fifteen years ago. I was vaguely aware of Mellon Collie, but anything made by them past 1995 fell completely off my radar screen.

Maybe it’s a Houston thing and SP gets more play time in other parts of the country. I know The Buzz has Pearl Jam frozen at Ten. They’ll play three songs from that album and occasionally throw in Yellow Ledbetter. That’s it. Dan Jantzen, the afternoon DJ, plays other PJ, but I think that’s because he sneaks in his own CDs and is mercilessly flogged for it.

Could be the same phenomenon with SP. The only SP song I’ve heard The Buzz play is Today. And now they’ve got them headlining Buzzfest XX. I can only roll my eyes when I hear Rod Ryan go on about how excited he is that SP will grace the main stage. Maybe next year they can get A Flock of Seagulls.

Playing WoW for Free?

Jeff Strain, one of the co-founders of ArenaNet, the developer of Guild Wars, recently gave a keynote speech at the GC Developers Conference. You can find a link to the text of the speech here.

It’s a good read, especially for anyone who plays a MMO. I was especially interested in what Jeff had to say about MMO payment options. Guild Wars charges zip a month to play their game; you buy the game and play it without paying another penny . . . as long as ArenaNet keeps the servers lit and humming. I’ve never personally played Guild Wars, but know the game has had a series of expansions released since the original (three all total.) Amazingly, it’s from the sale of these expansions alone that Guild Wars profits. This model contrasts with that of WoW, EQ2, LOTRO and most other MMOs for that matter, where the gamer purchases the game ($50) and begins paying a monthly subscription after 30 days, usually around $15 a month.

Not surprisingly, Jeff is rather keen on his games’ business model. Using marriage as an analogy, Jeff points out that Guild Wars never asks the gamer to “get a divorce” and leave permanently. A Guild Wars gamer can see-saw back and forth in their commitment to the game, all without ever involving their credit card. As a result, Guild Wars never relies on a monthly revenue stream that could potentially be dammed up by cancelling customers.

But how in the world can Guild Wars afford to NOT charge a monthly fee? Is the games’ content considerably smaller than that of other monthly fee MMOs? Does it have a solid end-game? Solid PvP? Loyal community? A community at all? I’ve never played the game, so I don’t know the answers to these questions. But even if Guild Wars pales in comparison to a game like WoW, their business model does get the gerbil in my head spinning its big, colorful wheel.

For instances, how often have you heard companies like Blizzard defend monthly fees as offsetting the cost of “bandwidth and server maintenance.” ArenaNet maintains bandwidth and servers, and yet the only money they get from their gamer comes from aforementioned pasty-faced specimen buying the box at the store. Perhaps Blizzard and its ilk exaggerate maintenance costs, creating a convenient and believable rationale that shields them from consumer scrutiny as they roll around in gobs of monthly fee earned cash like a dog in a cow patty? Hmmmm?

Seriously though, could Blizzard afford to follow a Guild Wars business model? Certainly, Bliz has got dozens and dozens of boxes to care for. And each box could sap hundreds of dollars per month? Thousands? Tens of thousands? Who knows? But maybe the real question isn’t can they afford to drop the monthly fees, but would they? Though unique in its own right, Blizzard took the EQ MMO model and developed it into something with enough mass appeal to quickly transcend the originator. And along with many other borrowed features came the decision to charge monthly fees. Even if they would change, they might be stuck with the model. Jeff Strain thinks so. He even said as much: “We could never turn Guild Wars into a subscription-based game, just as Turbine could not suddenly decide to eliminate the subscription model for Lord of the Rings Online.”

And what could possible motivate Blizzard to drop the monthly fees? They have a strong consumer base, likely the most loyal and stable in the entire industry. If I were the CEO of Blizz and I saw Jeff Strain wagging his finger at me for my monthly fee based model, I’d smile politely as I continued to count my money. With their established player base, Blizzard doesn’t have a good reason to change their current pricing scheme. The only thing that could possibly get Bliz to drop their current model is if the loyalty and stability of that base came at risk. And the likelihood of that seems the tiniest of specks on the broadest of horizons.

I guess it’s not exactly going out on a limb to state that the next WoW killer has its work cut out for it. Not only will it have to match WoW’s content, both in breadth and quality, but it will also have to implement an innovative business model, something similar to what Guild Wars has done. To beat WoW, it won’t be enough to make a game as good as WoW, it’ll also have to be priced to sell. And even that might not be enough to draw people away from Azeroth. Still, Guild Wars has spawned three expansions after its initial offering and Guild Wars 2 is reportedly in the works. Unless some eccentric third party is funneling them money, it would seem their business model does indeed work. It’s a model I’d love for Blizzard to get behind.

Taking the Plunge.

Welcome to Furious Cognition, my first stab at blogging. This will be the first of many (hopefully) posts about . . . anything and everything I guess. Apparently, I'm at the age now where I have opinions about things and feel the need to share them. I plan on writing prolifically about my hobby, computer gaming, but I really don't plan to limit myself to any given topic or subject matter. I'm going to kick things off with my thoughts on a speech given by a mover and shaker in the MMO business. So welcome and thanks for reading.