Want to Join My D&D Gang?

Image created by Joey deVilla

Ok, this has got to be the best story I have read in a long time. Apparently a court has ruled that inmates are not allowed to play Dungeons and Dragons in prison because it encourages prisoners to cooperate! Really? Apparently they never went to any sessions that I was a part of because all we did was eat snacks, talk about out-of-character stuff, and drive the DM absolutely bonkers! The few games I did DM, there was little to no cooperation between the folks. All they did was argue over why the dwarf fighter was never leading the charge into battle.  Anyway, here is a quote from the article detailing the court’s ruling.

A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit this week concluded that “cooperative games can mimic the organization of gangs and lead to the actual development thereof.”

Guess the inmates will have to go back to less menacing gangs like white supremacists and whatever else they have in there. Watch out, that gang of nerds over there is dangerous! 😀

-Pid

Quote to Note

Love him or hate him, SynCaine made me laugh out loud with this one.

From its oldschool-style graphics (Aria thought I was playing Wolfenstein 3D (if you don’t know Wolfenstein 3D, gtfo WoW kiddie!)), it’s use of sound/music, the simple yet effective control scheme, and just how massive the world it generates is, it just does a lot of things well.

-SynCaine discussing Minecraft

-Pid

PAX or Bust

Well, I did it. I booked a hotel room and a flight to Beantown for the 2011 Penny Arcade Exposition. I am hugely excited to go and a little anxious as well. I have been to conferences before (for my career anyway) but never for something just frivolous. I have no idea what to expect, but I am pretty sure it will be a lot of fun. Shoot me an email in March sometime if you are going to go. I’ll buy ya a beer…if you are 21 that is lol!

-Pid

Console MMO’s

So apparently DC Universe Online is selling like hotcakes and is SOE’s fastest selling MMO. The interesting thing is that apparently the majority of the sales are on the PS3 as opposed to the PC. I think this is great for consoles, and the game probably lends itself quite nicely for that platform. For what little I have played it on the PC though, I cannot get over the fact that the game plays like a console port.

Why should this matter?

“Just don’t buy the game.” There are plenty out there that are good and not tailored for playstation/xbox.

Here is the problem, or at least my misgiving with the potential success of hybrid MMO’s:

When a business model gets popular, other MMO companies tend to follow it. Reference any number of articles on the Free-to-Play MMO trend. As it stands, the popularity of DCUO has made SOE consider making EQ Next on a console platform as well.

I have no problem with people being able to play MMO’s on a console. I don’t really understand it, but I have no real problem with it. The problem arises when games get made so that they can be played with a gamepad and then get ported over so that they can be played on a PC too.

Hello, half the reason these games are MMO’s is so that people can be social on them. It is pretty hard to do with a game pad. Not to mention I think the gameplay stinks on a game pad. Every time I log into DCUO (which isn’t much I freely admit) I can only play until the frustration with the controls reaches an unbearable limit. It really doesn’t take much time.

I understand that the gaming companies are out to make a profit. That is the whole point to forming a company…I get it. I just implore them to go the extra mile though. If they are going to make the games on two radically different platforms (PC/console) please don’t make the game for one platform and then just port it to the other.

SOE, I am pleading with you. Please do not make Everquest 3 to be a console port on the PC. Please make the game playable for the folks that contributed to the success of EQ and EQ2. Make a game that is playable on a PS3, but also make a game that is playable designed for the PC as well.

-Pid

[WoW] Is it Cold Outside or is it Just Me?

Damn, this guy gets around!

So I finally made level 68 and decided that I have had enough with TBC content. Blech. I know nothing about WotLK other than it is when Blizzard started to introduce the phasing concept. I have already seen it in full force from going through the goblin starting scenario, but I’ll be interested in seeing it in its early form. I haven’t run a dungeon in a long time, so I might try a few once I actually hit level 70+. I did like running the low level ones, but they started to get longer and longer, and I don’t have that kind of time for one session. I can play for a few hours in a day, but it is more like an hour here and 45 minutes there. Anyway, we shall see.

On a lighter note, I encountered my first “Oh wow, that looks cool,” moment in the game. I was flying around Blade’s Edge Mountains and saw this picture.

You should really blow it up to do it some justice. Anyway, it was pretty cool to stumble upon.

Hope the gaming is going well in your neck of the woods. If you have any suggestions for what to do in Northrend, don’t hesitate to drop a comment.

-Pid

EQ My Set of Demands

A lot of people are moving back to Everquest. Some out of boredom, some in preparation for the new Fippy Darkpaw server. I have a couple of friends that are always asking “Hey, wanna go back and play EQ?” My routine response is “No.” Sometimes I may elaborate, but usually they already know.

So what will it take to get me to resub to the mother of my MMO addiction? Here are a few of my demands in no particular order. Feel free to yell at me if some of this has been updated already.

• Offline Trading: Seriously…seriously. If this was the only change that was made, I would almost consider resubbing that day. It just doesn’t make any sense. First of all, why have all those people actively logged into your servers and not actually doing anything? I already know the answer…many people have separate accounts just for their traders which means money for $OE. From a player standpoint, I don’t want to have to dedicate memory and processing power just so I can sell potions and whatnot.
• Crafting: I am almost convinced EQ crafting all by itself has given me carpel tunnel syndrome. Also why is it that you can make millions (seriously my brother-in-law made millions…multiple) of platinum just buying reagents, clicking the mouse, and creating potions for recall, damage shield, and invis. Sick man, sick.
• Respawn: Okay this is minor and I admit it. Could you at least respawn in the zone somewhere rather than your bind location?

That’s it. I know the graphics stink, but I could live with it. The UI is antiquated, but it’s functional. The quests…well…we won’t go there.

So Sony, can you step up to the challenge? Think of the extra profits from my subscription. Yeah, I can see you getting ready to send out a press release to the share holders now. I tell you what, fix these things and I will run two accounts simultaneously. Yeah…watch that stock jump!

-Pid

Archaic definition from Dictionary.com

Evacuation MMO

It seems that not only are bloggers leaving WoW in droves, a number of them are leaving MMO’s in general. Pete at Dragonchasers and MMOGamerChick have decided to give up on the MMO genre for the time being at least. I personally can’t wait for March so that I can sink my teeth into Dragon Age 2. I have it preordered already and have put a new lock on my office door to keep the kids out. (No not really. Come on, I’m not that mean. The kids can come in, just not the wife!)

So what SP Games are you looking forward to? Maybe a new one or one of the classic titles collecting dust on your Steam account or waiting to be purchased from Steam, D2D, or GoG. I think it is a good idea to take a break from MMO’s on occasion if for no other reason than to catch up with the rest of your life. Come up for a breath of air once in a while, it makes the MMO swimming that much better.

-Pid

[WoW] /Ding 65

Hey buddy, aren’t you a chieftain now in Orgrimmar?

So as it stands, I think I am one of the only people left in my guild that hasn’t jumped ship and told WoW to “eff off.” I really didn’t do that much grouping when they were there since most of them had 80+ characters, but it was nice to be able to type /g heya and actually get a response as opposed to just an echo. I have 20 levels to go to get to level cap, and I am bound and determined to do so before I give up on this game. The solo experience is a good one even if LFD/PUGs stink.

The odd thing is, they weren’t that bad at low level <35 or so. Maybe part of it was because I actually had an idea of how the dungeons worked back then and could actually tank them myself. Now I have no idea what is what in them and TBC content does not have a native map of the dungeons, so on the off chance that I queue for them, I run as a Ret Paladin.

I have given myself a goal to get to 85 by March-ish. I am going to make an effort to go to PAX East in Boston and then Dragon Age 2 comes out so I will be hitting that pretty hard. This is one of the main reasons that I am not even looking into RIFT. I figure this will give me some time to decompress from MMO’s for a bit and then hit SW:TOR full tilt when it drops. Hopefully it won’t be delayed too much.

I guess this is a bit of a ramble, but I figured I’d give an update of where I am in WoW and what my plans are for the near future.

-Pid

VIP Server?

I am having a busy week between work and preparing my house to get a new carpet so I am going to get a little cheap with this post.

• Kaozz just returned to Everquest which is well known for having a great community after all these years.
• Gordon figured out why the community in WoW is awful. Too many dang kidlings.

Question: As a mature gamer (take that for whatever it is worth) would you be willing to spend a little extra cash on subscriptions to have access to a VIP server? Not to be elitist, but rather to get away from all the tots and twits for that matter! I imagine there would be some legal ramifications, but if you could get that ironed out, would it be worth it?

-Pid

UPDATE: Apparently I haven’t been reading blogs long enough or playing MMORPG’s long enough. Zubon over at KTR asked a similar question back in March ’07. Also Stargrace from MMOQuests made a comment on Stillwater’s Blog that EQ had a VIP server back in the day. It doesn’t exist anymore, so maybe that answers the question.

Distress Call

There is nothing worse than being stuck at work on a Friday night when there are oodles of video games to play and everyone else is out there playing them.

sniff sniff

Hopefully I can get sprung some day…

-Pid