Sorry for the lack of updates had a heavy project going on so hadn’t the time to blog or things, the usual updates will continue starting today.
On a somewhat related note , a good friend of my is going to start a new blog about games so expect even more reviews , rants and whatnot, and ofcourse I will be joining him.
Last week absence
World Of Duty ?
The head cheese at Activision, Bobby Kotick, recently made headlines for his assertion that, in order to compete properly with World of Warcraft, publishers may need to invest nearly a billion dollars in such a venture. Fortunately for Kotick and crew, they now have access to the big brains at Blizzard and Vivendi, a group of folks who know quite a bit about the MMO business. How then, can Activision exploit its biggest earners into even bigger financial monsters?
The Activision CEO says that during the first few months of integration planning with Vivendi, they asked themselves some serious questions about what they consider “the fastest growing markets in the world”, including Asian markets and MMOs.
As an example, Kotick said to investors at the Morgan Stanley Technology Conference, “What would be the natural evolution of a property like Call of Duty into a massively-multiplayer environment and how do you monetize that?”
Kotick parlayed that into a thought on in-game advertising, in which he pointed to Starcraft as a model for short-session, ladder tournament play that can easily support ad spots. While a Call of Duty MMO may be a long way off, if it ever gets off the ground, it’s starting to sound like Activision execs may be giving it serious thought and we’d expect it to be a big focus for the publisher’s ad revenue model.
~~~~
I really don’t see the point of this , honestly.Isn’t the Call of Duty 4 Multiplayer , Multiplayer enough?
It already has the ranking system , the level and experience system and unlockables.
So what are they planning? Maybe a huge world like any other mmorpg where you can run goallessly killing terrorist mobs , do quests involving killing mobs and invading Iraqs Caves and buildings and maybe , just maybe a Raid where you do fun PvP action doing a 5 minutes ( tops ) shootout?
And can you image what the gear system would be like?
Strogenov killed Iraqian Terrorist
Iraqian Terrorist dropped [ Iraqian Helmet ]
It really isn’t that Massive.
One thing I’ve always find myself thinking is,: Is a mmorpg really necessary?
Don’t get me wrong here, I enjoy playing online role-playing games with my friends. Because that’s most of the times the only thing you do.
An MMORPG , an “ Massive” Multiplayer online role-playing game , they are really not that massive , not even in a crowded town or raid.
I think it sums up to about 20 to 30 people tops, unless by massive they meant the environment. So correct me if I’m wrong. But what I am trying to say is that it just as good could be a Offline-game on Lan Mode, because in 80% of the cases you won’t interact with the other players, because either they are just plain idiots, jerks and/or just ignore you all together or don’t even speak proper English.
I don’t know about other people but, I only play MMO’s with friends and sometimes with players who cross our path and know how to be civil and cool
Let us be silent for a minute.
Ernest Gary Gygax (July 27, 1938 – March 4, 2008) was an American writer and game designer, best known for co-creating the pioneering role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) with Dave Arneson, and co-founding the company Tactical Studies Rules with Don Kaye in 1974. Gygax is generally acknowledged as the father of the role-playing game.
On March 4th, the Associated Press confirmed reports of Gygax’s passing that originally were made by Troll Lord Games, a small role playing game company Gygax had been working with. He had been in poor health, suffering multiple strokes and a near-heart attack
Research indicatates 50-70% of the MMO players “crossdress”
A study by Nottingham Trent University revealed that over half of the males who play MMOs play as female characters, and nearly three-quarters of females play as male characters. 70% of the females polled said they played as males, because they didn’t want guys to know that they had breasts and vagina’s and because they seemed to get treated better. Chief researcher Zaheer Hussain explains:
It seems that women gender swap for a variety of reasons, such as to avoid unsolicited male approaches on their female characters, or because they felt male characters were treated better by other males during the course of the game
By that logic, it seems male MMO players enjoy “male approaches on their female characters” and like to be treated bad, because 54% play as females. That, and looking at a hot pixelated night elf follow your commands for 8 hours straight is a lot easier on the eyes than watching a virtual man do the same.
~~~~~~~
It’s not that I like to “cross-dress” just to cross dress , but after almost 8 years playing MMO’s with male characters , it gets kind of boring and another thing they forgot to mention is that Female characters are most of the times better textured, has more Appearance options to choose from than Male characters who have mostly only a limited set of appearance options and most of the time look kind of dorky and dull.
And to simply put it into a nutshell : Male players like females , so they play as one. Female players like Males , so they play as one.
Glad to know.
I’ve been playing Bloodymare for a while , which went in closed beta not that long ago.
and If you want my opinion in a nutshell here it is : it’s very similar to world of warcraft but than the adult version of it.
Anyhow , Going to give it a full review later this week.
But this post is really about females , female villagers.
I’m glad they pointed that out , saves alot of confusion.
Wakfu is Not Dofus.
There is an animated series in production called Wakfu the TV Series, but while it features characters types from the MMO Dofus, Wakfu itself is an in-beta MMO that’s based on the world and characters from Dofus.
So, what’s the difference between the two? According to their website, Wakfu will be more of what you love about Dofus — improved graphics, new class spells, more character customization — but with an added dimension to interacting with the environment and the community, including electing players to governorship, and preservation of the forests. If the graphical simplicity of Dofus turns you off, perhaps Wakfu will be more to your liking. Check out the shiny goodness in their trailer.
Source: Massively
Putting the Iron in Irony
If there’s one thing I’ve been wondering and is ticking me off , it’s the loot you get for other classes , I’ve played many MMO’s and in almost every MMO it’s the same.
Varendiel gains [ Arcane boots of the hare ]
Woo! I finally found gear! .. but wait , it’s not for my warrior class, it’s for an mage.
No problem , magicians need clothing too right? So after slaughtering some more monsters.
Varendiel gains [Electric Staff of Vanity]
Woohoo! More booty, but crap it’s mage equipment again? Crap.
So I thought I just had bad luck, and logged out and made a mage.
Alright, let the gear drop baby!
Voltburn kills fire Imp.
Voltburn gains [ Valor platemail of the Agile ]
Holy Chestnuts! Are they freaking serious!?
And it continued like that, no matter what class you took, the loot you find is always the opposite of your class.
Dekaron
Since a week ago a new MMORPG went into closed beta , called Dekaron, being the curiosity itself I signed up right-away.
So after the signup sequence I logged into the game and got the good ol’ choose your class screen in front of me. They give you a choice out of 6 classes.
The Azure Knight, which is the swords/axe class in the game and is able to use dual or single wield weapons with fast stylish movements. The Sagita Hunter is like the name implies the archer class and is able to learn bow mastery with arrow skills and some healing skills. The Vicious Summoner is like it says , the summon type and can use spells to summon creatures and demons, besides that he has a secondary ranged spells. The Segnale is the Healer/Debuffer type which can use healing ,debuff and curse spells and can summon 2-3 creatures or objects.The Bagi Warrior is a all around barbarian type of guy which can use heavy melee skills and some boost buffs and as last we have the Incar Magician
The combat style in Derakon is nice and fast with smooth animations “ Extreme Action “ as they selfs like to call it , further than that it pretty much works like the rest of the MMORPG’s, after gaining a level you increase your stats and your skills with skill points , which you can invest into Passive , Mastery and Support, you will have to buy mastery skill scrolls to activate them , done that you can add your points to mastery.
My first impression after playing an hour and reaching level 6 is that’s an interesting game , note that’s not anything special and looks like any other MMORG that’s F2P.
But with a skill tree that’s very similar to that of World of Warcraft together with the smooth combat system and Okay graphics it’s a good to go game , but unfortunely every rose has a thorn , namely that because it’s free every kind of people join up , I’m not saying that everyone is a unsocialized chimp , well I am but that’s not my point. The thing is that people with names of popular anime will be running around , and most people ignore you when you ask them politely for help.
But putting that aside It’s thumbs up from me and will stick around for some time.
Freaky Creatures
Apperently there’s a new MMOG coming soon after 5 years in the making , called My Freaky Creatures.
There’s not so much information given free about it , but after reading some articles about it it’s going to be some mix of Pokemon and Battle beasts and Medabots, which let’s you put together your own creature you purchased, on a flash drive in store and each flash drive contains 2 or 3 creatures to unlock, together with 20 random parts and powers to pick from.
And aside from that there’s a Tamagotchi/Monster Rancher-like thing to it ,choosing a location for your creature and let it live in a cave, dungeon or wherever , and feed , give toys and other things to keep him happy.
There are 5 types of attacks , physical, energy, poison, fire, and ice. Once both initial attacks are chosen, you can choose to employ a Power, which modifies your chosen attack. If, for example, you see that your opponent’s attack is energy-based, you might choose to use your energy shield Power to mitigate its effects. So, the initial attack is blind, the secondary attack is with full knowledge of what’s coming at you. Once both of these attacks have been chosen, they’re played out with amusing and charming animations.
