Kill 10 Rats And Bring Me Their Tails!

Guest author Lexton “Lunarhound” Collins discusses the upcoming Guild Wars 2, believable NPC drama, heroic errand-running, and shares his perspective on what makes a good MMO great.

Most gamers, both fans and detractors, would agree that MMO’s need shaking up. It’s happened before, when City of Heroes and, shortly afterward, World of Warcraft made camp grinding a thing of the past and brought quest-based advancement to the mainstream. Suddenly, characters had purpose-driven lives. Other games followed suit, and life was good in cyberland.

Now, several years later, gamers are growing weary of the new grind. It’s tough to ensure that every single one of the hundreds of quests necessary to keep an MMO going are interesting, and players are growing weary of the endless variations on “kill ten rats and bring me their tails”. Mini dramas acted out by NPC’s cease to feel immersive when sticking around for a minute afterward lets you watch the world reset before your eyes so that the next players in line can ride. Collecting exclamation marks and running errands for people too lazy to deliver their own letters or fight their own battles feels less like an adventure and more like checking off a list of chores. Few want to go back to the way things were, but developers, and many players, seem to be finding it difficult to see a way forward.

There have been efforts to do something different but they’ve gone largely unnoticed. Guild Wars came hot on the heels of World of Warcraft, and attempted to remedy many of the ‘theme park’ issues that came with a static world that had to reset each quest for the next player by making heavy use of instancing. Players see each other in towns, but once outside, you and your party had your own private copy of the world. This allowed them to change things permanently based on your actions. Unfortunately, this lead to many players not considering it a real MMO and, despite its commercial success, it didn’t inspire many imitators. Additional problems came from the fact that players could not jump, climb or swim and the world was full of invisible walls that forced strict adherence to the current mission path. Dungeons & Dragons Online came along a few years later with a similar world structure coupled with much better implementation of the mission-based game play and a great new action combat system, but the facts that it couldn’t (at the time) effectively be played solo and it required a monthly fee, it also ended up being relegated to niche status.

Now, Guild Wars has a sequel on the way. ArenaNet was very secretive about it for quite some time after its announcement, and even now information is limited, but what is beginning to emerge paints an interesting picture of a title that is trying to shake up the genre all over again. With the inclusion of open world areas and much greater mobility (players will be able to jump, swim and climb as they can in most other MMO’s), as well as new attitudes toward creative use of instancing, they might actually succeed this time.

In a preview at Eurogamer, back in August, lead designer Eric Flannum states that “I think I can safely say that you won’t see a single exclamation mark floating above a character’s head in Guild Wars 2.” This one little sentence makes for a pretty bold statement considering the direction of MMO’s for the past few years and, luckily, he elaborates:

“We actually don’t have a traditional RPG/MMO quest system… Instead what we’ve got are Events. Think of them as group-orientated activities. This is one of the many things that will encourage the player to explore the world – you can wander through and never quite know what you’re going to see. You might come across a fortress that’s being attacked by centaurs, or it might be that the centaurs attacked half an hour before you got there and they hold it now. You might start walking along a road you’ve walked a hundred times and suddenly there’s a caravan traveling along that road that you may not have seen, and you can go help that caravan out.”

Supposedly, these events will form a complex web within any given public area, spawning new ones and phasing out old ones based on cause and effect. An older example given is that of a dragon attacking a bridge. Players can band together to defeat the dragon, which might open up a new chain of events that can be participated in. Alternately, they might fail, choose not to help, or simply not be there when the dragon attacks, which would result in the bridge being destroyed and a completely different chain of events opening up, revolving around repairing the bridge. The difference between this and something like Warhammer Online’s public quests is that they will not simply reset repeatedly so that players can do them over again. The assertion that there will not be a traditional quest system seems to indicate that public areas will consist of countless such events and, rather than wandering around looking for someone with an exclamation mark to tell them what to do, players will spend their time looking for something actually happening. The potential of such a system to change the way questing is seen in online games is staggering.

That isn’t to say that all adventuring will be completely directionless. Each player will have a personal quest chain to play through that reflects his or her own character. From an interview with MMORPG.com in December:

“When a player creates a character in Guild Wars 2, they will be able to answer many questions about their personal character history. These answers will help determine your personal story in the game. As many fans have theorized, one of the first things you choose is a ’subdivision’ of your race, which provides a more personal feel to your character’s history. For the humans, that means their ancestry–Elonan, Krytan, Ascalonian and Canthan–and also their social status as gentry or commoners of the city of Divinity’s Reach. For charr, it primarily means their legion, whether Blood, Ash, or Iron. The asura choose between the three most respected colleges of learning; Synergetics, Dynamics, and Statics. The sylvari follow the path of their seasonal cycle, or the time of day in which they awakened, being Dawn, Day, Twilight or Night. The norn choose their personal totem, and may choose to walk in the path of bear, snow leopard, raven or wolf. From these and other initial determinations, a wealth of personalized storylines develop, so that each player in the game experiences a story that is individually tailored to their character.”

According to ArenaNet, these choices, though part of character creation, will not affect class or power in any way. Their sole impact is on the player’s own personal narrative. This sounds tantalizingly like the Origins system in Dragon Age: Origins, and is an exciting thought when considered in the context of an MMORPG.

There’s no telling, of course, how much of an impact any of this will have or how well it will be received until the game is available to the public in some form. And if these claims were being made by a smaller developer without the experience or budget to back them up, they might be only a faint cause for hope at best. But ArenaNet has the budget and the talent to back up its big ideas, and it has already proven with one successful series that it knows what it’s doing.

Most seem to believe that the ultimate feat for an MMORPG would be to topple World of Warcraft. I’m not so sure. I think the ultimate measure of success is moving the genre as a whole forward. With a new approach to quest content, a strong focus on providing the player with a personal storyline, and the lack of any sort of monthly fee, Guild Wars 2 stands poised to do exactly that. Will it topple World of Warcraft? I doubt it. But it may force Blizzard to change in order to compete, which would almost certainly lead to other games following suit. Now that would be an accomplishment.

Popularity: 1% [?]

WarCraft Down In China

I blogged from Beijing last year about World of WarCraft access in China. Technical difficulties were keeping nerdy expats from accessing servers from outside China, and when you’re in China, you know that a sudden “technical glitch” preventing you from accessing a previously available site means that something is going on that the Chinese government doesn’t want you to know about. (See also: inability to connect to YouTube, Twitter, Blogspot, etc. during the current Xinjiang unrest, last year’s torch relay protests, that stuff that didn’t happen in T-word place, etc.)

Although it turned out to be real technical difficulties, we spent a long time worrying about what had gone politically sensitive in Azeroth. Was it a Free Dun Morogh rally?

Anyway, seems like there’s there’s another technical issue with WarCraft and in the Middle Kingdom, and this time it’s the China-based servers, not the foreign ones, affected.

The handover should have gone smoothly. Blizzard had decided to change its Chinese handling company for World of Warcraft from The9 to Netease.

And so on June 7th the WoW closed down for the handover but has yet to come back again.

Apparently Blizzard and NetEase are “working around the clock” to get the service restored to millions of Chinese users, but after three weeks there’s still no show.

The result has been long waits to enter Taiwanese servers as Chinese players swamp them.

via Boomtown – PC.

Popularity: 32% [?]

Game Review: Sims 2: Castaway on the DS

One day, you’re standing on the dock, waving goodbye to a friend, when you slip and fall and land in a crate, which is sealed and loaded onto a cargo ship, which is caught up in a storm and your Sim is shipwrecked on a deserted island! Your poor shipwrecked Sim must survive on this island, at first by finding food, building a shelter and starting a fire.

The zaniness we love about the Sims arrives in Castaway once you’ve gotten a handle on sleeping and not-starving. Your Sim can build an SOS sign for Dharma initiative-style airdrops of random things, like a victrola or a candy bar.  As you collect island items, you can cook tasty dinners (your Sim was getting tired of bugs and raw fish), make new clothes, make tools or decorations, build a new house, make a canoe and just create all kind of island crafts. You can even make and play an ocarina! And, as you explore more, you’ll also befriend the other island refugees, and check out the ancient temple. All tropical islands have an ancient temple, don’t you know?

I’ve written such angry things about sparkly pink shopping games as “girls’ games”, that I hate to admit when I fall into a traditional girl pattern, but, well, I love pretend cooking. I like it in World of WarCraft, too, if that make me sound any less like an eight-year-old girl. I also like making Sim clothes and playing dress-up. Castaway avoids being an unappealingly feminine game by also having survival puzzles and mini-games about fish-catching and fire-building. Oh, and the game’s not pink, which is always good in my book.

Sims 2: Castaway seemed to make much better use of the DS interface than Sims 2. In the regular Sims 2, you’re forced to ignore the stylus, and use the clumsy buttons to navigate, but you can’t put the stylus away completely, because you need it to select menu options that really should be hotkeys or at least accessible by arrow keys. Sims 2: Castaway takes better advantage of the DS-specific interface, using either the stylus to move, and even creating minigames that require use of the microphone. The top screen is used to display the meters that are very familiar to Sims players.

One interface annoyance is the crafting book. When crafting, your Sim cannot create multiples of the same item. You need to select the crafting spot, tap Craft Things, then click the item you want to make,which leads to a screen showing you what materials will be reguired. On this screen, you must click Make. Then you’ll see a picture of what you’re making, and you must click OK. Then you see a picture of what you made, and you’re forced to click OK one more time. If you want to make a duplicate (or a second item), you’re back at the crafting book, and you need to do it all over again. And if your item is on the second or third page of the crafting book, it can be even longer. And if you need three of one item to make something special, well, seems like EA figured out how to most of the suck the fun from a crafting game.

I was a big fan of Sims 2 for the computer, so I expected to like Castaway. It was even better than I expected, with the exotic island theme, a zany but cohesive storyline, and all the adorably realistic animations we expect from the Sims.

Popularity: 40% [?]

WoW Extras Without Leaving The House!

Do you play WoW? Want to shop for upgrades and playtime without leaving the house? Instead of having a monthly fee debited from a bank account, some World of WarCraft players are using WoW game cards. These game cards offer 60 days of online playtime, and they can be sent as a code to your email for instant access, so you can buy World of WarCraft playtime immediately. While shopping online, you could also upgrade your basic WoW game with Burning Crusade and/or Wrath of the Lich King by buying a WoW battle chest. Gaming without leaving the house. That’s gamer convenience!

Popularity: 19% [?]

China’s Gamers

It’s not often when my interests in China and gaming collide. Nate, of the China blog Orientation, recently posted on Chinese gaming habits, particularly the huge numbers of MMO gamers in wang ba, or net cafes.

China contains an undulating 59 million online gamers. Despite the fact that 47m of them play free-to-play games, this is a massive amount. To put that into perspective, the 2007 estimate of England’s population was 51,092,000 while the 2008 census quoted America as having 306,068,000 million people. Imagine the entire country of England plunking down and playing a game everyday. Keep in mind that these are only online PC games.

The majority of Chinese gamers, though, seem to play in net cafes and not on personal computers. (Although this may be changing, I saw plenty of Beijing teens with their body weight in personal electronics, and laptops can’t be far behind). Playing in net cafes instead of at home changes the gamer culture quite a bit. No more jokes about nocturnal gamers living in their basements, although there are plenty of 24-hour wang ba for late-night gaming sessions.

Also, fewer games rely on the purchase of software (I’ll save the discussion of China and software piracy for a different post!), since one copy will be installed in the cafe and anyone who comes by will use it. Instead, games have an in-game cash shop or an hourly fee. While talking about Runes Of Magic, Lexton Collins credits the Asian game community for bringing us the free-to-play MMO model.

I also wrote on Chinese net cafes and gaming culture over on  Wang Ba: Gaming In A Strange Land on CNReviews. (It feels a bit odd to quote myself, but it’s better than re-writing my description):

Chinese net bars sell computer time by the hour, and most also sell juice, soda, candy, snacks, and instant noodles, the Chinese equivalent of a Hot Pocket. You can also buy cigarettes, smoking isn’t just permitted in net bars, at times I think it’s mandatory.

The library-like silence of an American net cafe is gone, replaced with the usual thousand-decibel cellphone conversations, Tudou or Youtube videos, and shouts from the boys playing CounterStrike. It might not be the most conductive environment for working, especially when compared with the headphones-wearing crowd back home, but the cheery shouts of videogame victory don’t need translation.

Another thing Nate noticed was the divide between guys playing combat-heavy games and girls spending their internet time using QQ, China’s answer to AIM. Chinese girls do play games but it’s more likely to be something cute on a handheld game or on their mobile phones than hardcore PC games.

I’m sure Chinese netizens and Old China Hands will see this as a very surface analysis, but it’s very interesting to me, to see how the gaming sub-culture translates into other countries! Share your thoughts in the comments!

Related: Travel in China is like a Fantasy Novel, Living In China Is Like an RPG.

Popularity: 28% [?]

Guest Review: Runes Of Magic

Lexton “Lunarhound” Collins was kind enough to review the upcoming MMORPG, Runes Of Magic, for us. Lexton has been playing the open beta of Runes of Magic for a few months now. Here he discusses Runes of Magic in particular and the free-to-play gaming model in general. Runes will be officially released on March 19th, 2009.

And now, there’s Runes of Magic. It’s aiming squarely for a more Western feel, with WASD controls (though point and click is still available for those who want it), a heavy focus on quests, brisk advancement pace, higher localization standards, and a user-friendly approachability sorely lacking in many other free games. Its creators are determined to prove that you can make a free MMO that’s just as good as any of the more expensive ones out there.

One way it’s doing this is by blatantly copying the current best. The term ‘WoW clone’ is tossed around a lot these days, but it usually doesn’t have much basis in fact. Here, though, the similarities in both graphics and game play are immediately obvious. While die hard fans of the game will protest mightily that this is absolutely not World of Warcraft in any way, an honest assessment quickly proves this to be wishful thinking. The aesthetic isn’t identical, but it comes extremely close sometimes. While it might have been nice if they’d set themselves apart a bit more in the art department, it’s hard not to feel that adopting the same interface, control scheme and core play mechanics was the right thing to do. If you’ve played WoW before, everything will feel immediately familiar and the learning curve, at least when it comes to the basics of getting around and playing with the UI, will be reduced to almost zero. If you haven’t, the same intuitiveness that makes Blizzard’s masterpiece so easy to get into will still ensure that you spend more time playing than learning how to play in Runes of Magic.

In many ways, it almost feels like an improvement over WoW as far as features are concerned. Visual customization options for your character are more extensive, with sliders for adjusting height and resizing various body parts. Once in the game, the customization options expand via the cash shop, with purchasable facial tattoos and the option to dye your clothing and mount in the colors of your choice. All players are granted a free house, without any rental fees, early in the game. This can be upgraded to larger sizes, decorated with furniture that grants a rest bonus similar to WoW’s, equipped with crafting tools, and used to store possessions. Besides the standard instanced dungeons, there are varieties with randomly generated maps that yield a special treasure at the end. There’s a dual class system, allowing you to mix and match abilities from any two classes. It’s possible to wipe the stats from a favorite piece of equipment and transfer the stats of a different piece to it, so that if you find a great new breastplate but like the way your old one looks better, you can keep both the appearance of the old and the benefits of the new. The interface is even modifiable via XML, and a sizable collection of useful addons can already be found at curse.com.

What it doesn’t have down quite yet is World of Warcraft’s amazing diversity of environments. Nothing here looks bad and, taken individually, each area actually looks pretty good. But there are very few surprises or (excuse the pun) “wow” moments. The game has the basic fantasy staples – green fields and forests, dark caves, snowy mountains – but very little of the raw creativity that makes WoW so stunning. Blizzard’s environments are brimming with personality and a sense of artistry that elevate them above standard fantasy fare, despite that being exactly what they are. Azeroth has a real sense of place. Taborea doesn’t. It’s not boring and it’s not bad, it just doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be besides a traditional pseudo-medieval fantasy RPG. The developers haven’t yet figured out how to capture that sense of wonder that seeing Darnassus or the underground tram for the first time can evoke.

One place where more creative energy has been spent is on the story. Taborea’s background is involved and interesting. There are no scene-setting cinematics or mood-setting cut scenes to draw you into it – you’re just dropped unceremoniously into the world – so some players might not take enough interest to pay attention to what the NPC’s are saying. If you do, you’ll be treated to a rather unique (as fantasy MMO’s go) pioneering storyline. Unfortunately, this will probably be lost on a large portion of players, as the fairly simple goals of many of the initial quests (talk to him, give this to her, kill that) don’t seem to be worth the large blocks of text that precede them.

The dual class system is interesting and useful, but can often feel cumbersome. Though each class holds up well on its own, the fact that your secondary eventually provides all of your base stats with a bonus means that going without one will leave your character crippled later in the game. Because each of your two classes must be leveled independently (you can swap your primary and secondary at your house, and only the primary is able to gain experience points or raise its skills), it often feels as if you’re being forced to play two characters. Some won’t mind this, but those that don’t have as much time to devote to the game or simply don’t like playing alts will likely find it irritating. The flip side of this is that the system allows for a lot of great options and it really is fun to play with different class combinations. If you enjoy a traditional paladin character, a knight/priest fits the bill and comes with the added benefit of being able to change to a full-on healer if the need ever arises. What if you like tanking but aren’t so fond of the low damage output? Try a knight/warrior or knight/rogue. A rogue/mage can hurl fireballs from the shadows as well as holds its own in melee, a mage/priest can both dish out serious punishment and make up for its lack of fortitude with healing spells, and a warrior/scout can hold its own in both melee and ranged combat. The individual classes feel complete on their own, but each pairing also feels like its own specific class, with its own strengths and weaknesses. It’s just too bad that it has the downside of requiring you to essentially level two separate characters.

One of the features that could still use a bit of work is upgrading. Runes of Magic features an upgrade system that allows you to bolster the power of your equipment in several ways. One is with runes. Through defeating enemies and dismantling equipment, you’ll be able to gain runes that can enhance equipment with various bonuses. How many bonuses one piece can support depends on how many rune slots it has. With the use of a special device that you’ll acquire early in the game, you can combine lower tiered runes of the same type into more powerful, higher tiered runes of that type. This all works fine. What isn’t so polished are the direct stat upgrades through the use of jewels. Certain special jewels offer the chance to increase a piece of equipment’s base stats, with the risk that you could also get nothing at all, or even a downgrade. Each increase will put a +1, +2, etc. after the name of the equipment, up to +6. The problem with this is that increasing a piece of equipment to the point that you’ll notice any tangible benefits is so low as to make the entire system almost pointless. Getting to +1 after a few tries isn’t too difficult, but beyond that, the chance of failure or a downgrade seem to be so much higher than the chance of an upgrade that it’s not even worth the effort. The jewels are expensive and you can often end up spending thousands of gold with no positive result, or even a negative one, to show for it. Worse, these jewels are offered for sale in the cash shop. While their tooltips clearly warn of the chance of failure or downgrade, they don’t highlight just how high that chance is, and several players have already complained of spending significant amounts of real money hoping for an upgrade, with nothing at all to show for it. What’s even more baffling is that the upgrades, when successful, are so slight. If the developers were so afraid of equipment becoming too powerful, it’s hard to understand why they decided to include the upgrade system at all.

All in all, Runes of Magic is a pretty impressive package. It has a solid beginning, it’s at least as good as a lot of other games that require a fee, and it puts a number of features from the genre’s best in one place. There’s nothing revolutionary about the game design itself, and if you’re sick to death of traditional MMO’s, it likely won’t do anything for you. What makes it stand out is the fact that, despite a few flaws (and it’s still early enough that they could be worked out), it’s both free and a genuinely good game. If you’ve played pay to play MMO’s in the past, it’s easy to forget, while playing this one, that it doesn’t have to cost anything. Though it falls just short, it comes closer than any other completely free game has to being able to stand toe-to-toe with the big boys. Hopefully, it will become popular and visible enough that it will start a trend.

Popularity: 33% [?]

Beta Mod for WarCraft III

This WarCraft III mod is looking for beta testers. I’m not signing up for this one (shocking, I know!), so if you do, let me know how you like it!

Ever wanted to play new version of DotA? Time to for you to apply for Beta Tester. IceFrog need more dedicated beta testers with free time and experience in DotA. If you signed up before, feel free to submit another application (there were some lost applications at one point).

Sign Up Here

Thanks to PLANET DOTA: Dota Beta Signup for the tip.

Popularity: 28% [?]

Paris Hilton In Azeroth?

Even Paris Hilton is in WarCraft! Personally, I thought she’d be more of a Second Life porno avatar than a WarCrafter. She’s an NPC Blood Elf, of course. Typical! The forums say she’s in Shattrath City, hanging out by the bar, refusing to talk to anyone. No word yet on whether “Haris Pilton” will leak a sex tape to lucky gamers, or send players on a quest to find her missing panties.

I vaguely dislike Paris in the way that nerdy girls don’t like pretty girls who keep popping out of their clothes. My real anger is reserved for the stylist who allowed her to make, wear and market Thats hot, your not t-shirts. I know she’s not too bright but there must be someone in her entourage who noticed two usage errors in a four-word statement.

Popularity: 17% [?]

Character Art

Do you love your role-playing character? What about your WarCraft toon? AvatarArt offers portraits of your role-playing characters. You describe your character, and they’ll make it into a pretty picture for your game room. Or wave your nerd flag at work by framing your picture of Gudrun the dwarven warrior, and having it on your desk where your co-workers have pictures of their wives and kids!
AvatarArt also offers a character life insurance policy:

One improvement this policy has over a real policy is that it doesn’t cost you $100 per month.
A second and even better improvement this policy has over a real policy is that you don’t have to die to collect
This wonderful policy is offered as a free rider to any conventional character portrait package offered by AvatarArt. To wit: if/when your character dies AvatarArt will, free of charge, remit to you, free of charge, one portrait of similar style to the one that you purchased, which was therefore not free of charge, illustrating your character’s death. Free of charge!

Would you get your favorite character’s portrait done?

Via Avatar Art.

Popularity: 17% [?]

Indie Game Mag and Momo

Indie Game Mag is a new magazine about — no points for guessing — independent games. Now, I don’t mean to bash the bestsellers, I love my World of WarCraft and my Sims2 just as much as the next gamer, but fun, creative indie games are often underrepresented in games journalism. It’s sad that so many really creative games get overlooked in favor of same-old mechanics and gorgeous graphics of a lot of mainstream games. IndieGameMag focuses entirely on new games from small developers, there’s no World of WarCraft or Gears of War here!

A few days ago, Indie Game Mag ran a crazy contest for the best ad that game companies could come up with in 24 hours. The winner would receive a full-page ad in the March issue of Indie Game Mag.

The winner was none other than the guys behind my squirrel friend Momo!

Guess the guys at IndieGameMag can’t resist Momo from RotoAdventures either!

PS Don’t forget to check out the upcoming March issue of Indie Game Mag for my review of Chains!

Via The Indie Game Magazine: Impromptu Ad Contest Winner.

Popularity: 27% [?]

Level 1 Human

How cute is this? A WarCraft onesie, perfect for a little nerd baby! I don’t have kids myself (I’m going to wait until I can keep a plant alive before moving on to mammals) but I love seeing stuff like this that shows you don’t have to give up your gamernerd side when you get married and have children.

$15 seems a little steep to me for essentially transfer-paper letters on a baby onesie, but I don’t really know the going rate for onesies. I’m mostly proud that I know the word “onesie”.

Via Etsy :: Teedious :: Level 1 Human – Nerdy baby onesie, organic cotton (h/t MissElle)

Popularity: 11% [?]

Buying WoW Characters

Have you ever thought about buying a high-level World of Warcraft toon? I’ve definitely thought how cool it would be to instantly have a level 60… or level 70… or level 80, especially since max level is always just a few levels higher than I am!

Some people buy World of WarCraft accounts to keep up with high-level friends or just to try end-game toys without grinding their way there. There are a lot of reasons to buy a character for WoW or Warhammer Online or your MMO of choice. Or maybe you just need a little extra gold, and it’s quicker to pay for it than grind.

There’s also a large group looking to sell WoW accounts, but I get too attached to my characters. By the time I get to a decent level, I wouldn’t want to get rid of my toon! If you’re a powerleveler, it could be a good way to make a little extra money. Sell off your old character, or your extra in-game cash, and start over!

Whether you are buying or selling, just remember to be careful! And enjoy your new MMO toons!

Popularity: 25% [?]

MyTribe Mystery Solutions

I started playing MyTribe a while ago, and I think I’ve finally unlocked all the MyTribe mysteries!

This is the first time I’ve given any hints on ThumbGods, so this is your warning! Spoilers ahead! If you want to solve the mysteries on your own, don’t keep reading! How about a nice article on the World of Warcraft font instead? Or the history of the console? Or what I thought about MyTribe — the no-spoilers version? Seriously, stop reading now!

Still here? Ok, here are instructions on how to solve the mysteries on MyTribe.

I knew the big red rock was iron, especially when my tribespeople who were scientists started to drop broad hints. You need someone who is legendary in science and in construction to access this. Once you do, you get a bonus on work that uses tools.

Like the iron-red rock, I knew what the fish skeleton rock was but my tribespeople didn’t. A legendary rock-gatherer can break it open, and then a legendary scientist can examine it. Tada! Now your tribe has 50,000 more science points!

For a star-carved rock, use Stardust on a tribesperson, and then drop that person on the rock. Quickly add 3 more stardusts… don’t worry that it cost 4 Stardusts to solve the mystery, because now Stardust will drop more frequently on the island. For the moon-carved rock, do exactly the same thing with Moondust for more frequent Moondust drops.

A legendary scientist can tell that this ancient fountain is special, maybe even the Fountain of Youth! Once she does, you can use fountain water in potions.

For the strange bush, first make a fertilizer potion from guano, sea water and stardust and pour it on the strange bush. Then have a legendary farmer look at it. Ta-da! Now you have a special berry bush, and you can use these berries in potions.

Only someone with 100 strength can move that weird old stump. Tribespeople with high strength tell you there’s something special under it, but you need to get someone to max physical strength to move it. Once they’ve moved it, it needs special care. Make a potion of fish, sea water and stardust to make it rain (or just hope). Your muscle man may need to tend it again, and then your old wither stump grows into a strong iron wood tree.

Popularity: 29% [?]

New Videogame Gigs

The MMO Gamer and Gamasutra have a list of new game developer gigs, including one in Germany:

• Content Designer at Sparkplay Media. Located in San Francisco, CA. (USA)
• Lead Developer at InWorld Studios. Located in Los Angeles, CA. (USA)
• Lead 3D Character Artist – World of Warcraft at Blizzard Entertainment. Located in Irvine, CA. (USA)
• Lead 3D Character Artist – Next-Gen MMO at Blizzard Entertainment. Located in Irvine, CA. (USA)
• Lead 3D Environment Artist – Next-Gen MMO at Blizzard Entertainment. Located in Irvine, CA. (USA)
• Lead Game Designer at Sony Online Entertainment. Located in San Diego, CA. (USA)
• Game Designer at Travian Games. Located in Munich. (Germany)

These are NOT entry level openings, of course. But there are jobs out there for creative game developers.

Via MMOG Industry Job Openings Week 1 : The MMO Gamer

Popularity: 14% [?]

Holiday Games!

What are you playing right now?  The Designer’s Scroll talks about the backlog of cool games to play over the holiday break (if you’re in school) or just while the weather is too nasty to go out.

So where do I start?

Well, there’s Rock Paper Shotgun’s 12 games of Christmas:

1. GRID
2. Mass Effect
3. Trials 2
4. Sins of a Solar Empire
5. Audiosurf
6. Far Cry 2
7. Spore
8. You Have to Burn the Rope
9. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
10. King’s Bounty: The Legend
11. Left4Dead
12. World of Goo

At least for my part, I’ve played Audiosurf, Spore, and You Have to Burn the Rope to my satisfaction. Also, Left4Dead
continues to rock my world, but it tends to fall heavily under the
“socialize with friends” category, and as such doesn’t directly compete
with the other games.

World of Goo I just need to put more hours into, period. I’ve loved what I’ve seen so far and simply need to commit. Why is it so hard to commit to just sitting down and having a great time with a game as purely fun as World of Goo, anyway? Vacation will fix that, I swear it.

Of that list, I play WoW pretty often, played Spore, and am planning on playing King’s Bounty. The RPS article makes me want to play World Of Goo, too!

What about you? What’s next on your gaming to-do list?

Via The Designer’s Scroll: Just in case you DON’T already have a 30-title-long play list for this season

Popularity: 15% [?]

Gamers Beware

Recently there was a Case on the Local News Paper of a Gamer Dying Due to Dehydration and Lack of Food Intake. It seems the Boy (Aged 14-16) Was playing World of Warcraft Continuous for Three Days without eating anything and Living only on Water. On the Third day When his Brother Came to check on what he was doing he found him unconscious on the Chair in front of his PC. And that was an End to His Gaming Career and His Life.

So Beware you Gaming -> Better Eat and Drink Healthy and OF Course Sleep Well.

Popularity: 11% [?]

World of WarCraft Font

A friend in the publishing world tipped me off to this article about Folkard: The World of Warcraft Font. Not being a typesetter myself, I’d never given the WoW font much thought, but it is pretty distinctive, you can even recognize Chinese WarCraft posters without being able to read Chinese because of the particular colors and font (even in Mandarin) on the logo.

Folkard is a great font choice for a fantasy game because it is the essence of classical fantasy. It is based on hand lettering done by Charles Folkard in the early 1900s for a collection of fairy stories from Scandinavia. It was developed into a font by Dave Nalle in 1993, some years before it was discovered and used in World of Warcraft. Charles Folkard is best known today for his classic illustrations for Pinnochio, but most of his work was in illustrating classic myths and legends from different cultures, with each book including unique hand lettering for the titles and picture captions. This particular style of lettering was also popular with other fantasy artists, but Folkard’s variation with the combination of celtic-style lowercase letters and swashed capital letters is particularly striking, which is why we made a font of it and why Blizzard chose it to use in World of Warcraft.

Via Folkard: The World of Warcraft Font | Fontcraft: Scriptorium Fonts, Art and Design

Popularity: 51% [?]

Recruiters Avoiding Gamers?

Kotaku has a post about a job recruiter (or possibly several) who was asked to avoid hiring online gamers.

When filling out your next job application, it might be wise to leave your level 80 Shaman off of your list of accomplishments, as some job recruiters are being told to avoid WoW players.

Forum poster Tale over on the f13 forums relates an experience with a recruiter in the online media industry, who reacted negatively to his conversational admission that he had spent too much time playing MMORPG games.

He replied that employers specifically instruct him not to send them World of Warcraft players. He said there is a belief that WoW players cannot give 100% because their focus is elsewhere, their sleeping patterns are often not great, etc. I mentioned that some people have written about MMOG leadership experience as a career positive or a way to learn project management skills, and he shook his head. He has been specifically asked to avoid WoW players.

I don’t know how I feel on this one. My own gaming doesn’t interfere with my job at all — it seems as silly as avoiding sports fans, because they might want to skip work to watch a game. But I do know some people who let their online life get in the way of their offline life.

What do you think?

Via Massively Multiplayer Employment: Job Recruiters Instructed To Avoid WoW Players

Popularity: 10% [?]

Reading And Gaming

Jenni Lada at Gamertell has an editorial on how games encourage kids to read. As a teacher and a gamer, I’m always pleased to see someone focusing on the positives of gaming. Videogames, like anything else that entertains kids, can be a useful classroom tool.

Games based on popular books also help encourage kids to read the source material. The Harry Potter series of games often only presents a small fraction of the story from the books and, if a child plays the game and watches the movie, he or she may then be compelled to move on to the books to discover subtle nuances not found in the other adaptation.

Lada makes some great points. Jenni, if you’re reading, bonus points for seeing manga as a stepping
stone towards reading for pleasure, not going the other way, towards a generation of illiterates who can barely spell out “POW!” and “BAM!”  Still, she seems a bit caught up in using game and movie spinoffs to point kids back at books. This isn’t wrong, but I think she’s skipped over all the great text-based games and story games that intergrate playing and reading. Yeah, I’m old, I remember when computer games were text. The older Adventure or Zork games were essentially choose-your-own-adventure books.

I recently played Nancy Drew: Lights, Camera, Curses! and part of the dialogue was remembering what you’d seen earlier, and choosing that option. Even games that aren’t quizzing players on their recall require reading of mission descriptions, journals, RPG clues and so many other things.  Unfortunately, players determined not to read, say, WarCraft quest text can just click OK and go kill things, but this is where Lada’s point comes back. Quite a few of the hack-and-slash RPGs have spawned spinoff novels.

Via Opinion: Video games get kids to read without them realizing it – Gamertell

Popularity: 5% [?]

CCTV Video On WoW-Themed Cafe

Here’s a clip from CCTV9, the English-language Chinese TV station, on the new WarCraft restaurant. I spent quite a while watching CCTV9 news when I was abroad, and it’s odd to see and hear it back home. Anyway, here’s the link to the video:

CCTV.com – Beijing restaurant captures online game trend

Popularity: 4% [?]

What To Do With That Max Cooking Skill?

Open a WoW-themed cafe, of course!

Seeking to capitalize on the success of World of Warcraft in his native country, a Chinese businessman has opened a restaurant rife with artistic touches gleaned from Blizzard’s MMO.

His goal, he claims, is to offer WoW fans a place to enjoy themselves and share in his affection for the game. From the recreation of Tel’drassil in the center of the dining room to the vast murals depicting artwork from the game, the attention to detail alone is evidence of that affection.

While I’m sure this eatery would be sued out of existence if it were created here in the United States, Chinese copyright law is somewhat less strict. Though I’m sure Blizzard — and Chinese WoW operator The9 — are less than pleased with the restaurant, it’s unclear if either firm has any legal options regarding the establishment.

Much as I love China, China is where intellectual property and copyright means nothing. Nothing. You ca buy knockoff everything, not just on the street but on the shelves in real shops, so I don’t know if Blizzard is going to be making any money from this cafe. (Although with millions of Chinese subscribers, and the number steadily increasing, they’re probably not hurting for RMB)

I can definitely vouch for WoW’s popularity in wang ba or internet cafes. I wish I’d gotten to see this when I was in ChinaQ

Now for the important questions: Can I order Deviate Delight and Nogginfogger Elixir here?

Via World of Warcraft Restaurant Opens in China | Game | Life from Wired.com

Popularity: 8% [?]

Vista Games

There isn’t a lot of pc games that you could play in windows vista. You could not play Sims, NBA 2k9, DOTA, warcraft or Assassin’s Creed. Windows Vista took a lot in your visual graphics memory as they say, you can install it but you have to put a lot of enhancement to play the said games. I was really upset in hearing it at first. I’m a gamer at heart. I bought my pc not for anything else but solely for games. I choose to buy vista instead of XP for reason I thought vista is the future, other OS will be obsolete. Never comes to my mind that vista is great for other things not games. Vista is great for office or business use. My office is using windows vista, it made my work easier. Vista Ultimate really is designed for office use. The new Microsoft office is also very handy.
For the moment I have to contend in games like sally saloon, sally spa and family feud. Unless otherwise I will shell out another money for enhancements. But for sure if the upcoming game from Blizzard starcraft 2 doesn’t play in my vista, I will for surely put the enhancements.

Popularity: 7% [?]

World of Warcraft mouse

Fans of world of warcraft and players online, we know that you pass a lot of time in front of your screen to survive in this world. But also to find new fellowship to start a new adventure, to meet other players in this fantasy world so now it is a must to have this mouse.
Indeed, this mouse has been created especially for you, to able you to handle perfectly this world like you can master your magic, your sword to fight against your opponents…. here comes the ultimate world of warcraft mouse the Steel series, it owns 15 buttons that you can configure, 130 preconfigured options, to store until 160 characters and much more…

Popularity: 7% [?]

Test Final Fantasy XI For Free

Final Fantasy is one of my all time favorite games. I like playing adventure games as i told you before. Games like Warcraft and Final Fantasy are a great fun to play and they help you in building up a strategic mind. These games are story based and take you in a different world which is full of fantasy. And guess what, i have got a great news for Final Fantasy fans. If you wanted to check out Final Fantasy XI then your wait is over. Square Enix is offering a 14-day trial version of Final Fantasy XI and now you don’t need a credit card for checking it out. The only thing you need is a valid email address. When you trial period is over, you can activate a paid account which will allow you to save your progress. So, make sure you don’t miss out this wonderfull opportunity.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Rise and Fall Has Been Fixed

I am a huge fan of strategy games. And i have played all the blockbuster RTS titles like Red Alert 2, Age Of Empires, Warcraft and many more. I also keep looking for free RTS games that are available on the internet. And let me tell you something, there are many great and totally free games available out there featuring great graphics and intense gameplay. One of my all time favorites is Rise and Fall: Civilizations at War. Rise and Fall is one of the best free RTS present on the internet right now. Rise and Fall is a free game from Midway which you can download from FileFront. Midway recently uploaded a corrupt version of Rise and Fall. Thousands of people got frustrated and complained about this bug. The good news is that midway has fixed this problem and uploaded a working version of Rise and Fall. They felt sorry about this incident and apologized for this.

Popularity: 1% [?]