Archive for the ‘Article Archive’ Category

He was afraid to go near the hurt locker
He was as nervous as he could be
He was afraid to go near the hurt locker
The armor was skimpy as skimpy could be

Two three four tell the people what the ogre wore

It was an Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Galvanized Metal Bikini
That the ogre wore the first time today
An Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Galvanized Metal Bikini
So in his big hut, he wanted to stay

“It is extremely hard to get somebody to pay for the privilege of constantly losing in a PvP game. And especially new players that start a game and always lose will often give up very quickly. This is why successful PvP games have safe spaces in which new players are completely or at least mostly safe from being ganked.” – Tobold

I couldn’t agree more with Tobold’s state above – It’s why Eve Online has high security space.  It’s why Warhammer has RvR lakes. Ganking may make the members of the gank gang feel good, but it will kill their victims’ participation faster than cheetah on speed. Even if you take ganking out of the equation, balancing the pvp abilities of character classes is a task that would even befuddle the Wisdom of Solomon.  You can take the Warhammer approach and make one class strong against some and week against others.  You can try the World of Warcraft (WoW) approach and attempt a precarious balancing act that requires myriad and constant micro-adjustments. The end result is always the same. It’s human nature. No one likes to lose all the time.

Still, no matter how much you try and balance the pvp and pve it doesn’t always work.  As Tina Turner says in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome “one day the cock of the walk, the next day a feather duster.” There was a time when many a beastmaster hunter could claim, and rightly so, to own the top of the dps charts (and woe to the day that anyone created the ability to make a dps chart in WoW in the first place).  The Blizzard decided they wanted to balance out survivalist hunters with beastmaster hunters and we were nerfed not only into the ground but the devs dug a hole, threw beastmaster hunters in, and covered them with dirt. But top of the dps charts or no I have no I have no intention of giving up my spirit beast pet.

Ah but then the word “huntard” started to slip back into conversations.  In my particular case it wasn’t the insult that was upsetting it was the last syllable of the slang term that I will not tolerate…applied to anyone.

 

So it was some months before Fran (my sister and co-host) could convince me to come back to Wow from my regular stable of staple mmos…Eve Online (oh thou of the love/hate relationship), Star Trek Online, Lord of the Rings Online and now thanks to the kindness of friends, Fallen Earth (Yay!).  Whatever the reason for the season of return to Wow, perhaps some virtual siren call, perhaps sisterly love, maybe even the fact that even in religious circles my co-host and I have been called “The Dynamic Duo), return I did.   We picked up where two characters had been left off in classic Azeroth and soon worked our way around to my favorite Outland area (and the new last area before the big transition to Northrend at level 68)…

Nagrand

 

In Nagrand we soon found ourselves putting the hammer down on the warmaul ogres.  This time around, however, I found I didn’t have quite the patience enough to put in that last valiant effort that it takes to bring the revered reputation (where it stops after all the questing is done) to exalted with the Mag’har orcs (the point at which you can buy a Talbuck mount). Having taken off a bit of time for good behavior in real life, Fran is playing catch up so we can both take that goblin zeppelin to Howling Fjord where I have saved up half of the Northrend quests for just such an occasion.

See you online,

Julie Whitefeather

[posted for Julie Whitefeather by The Webmaster]

What we are looking at for the week of August 30, 2010

 Wow doesn’t this sound familiar?

Most anyone who has ever put up a website on the internet will eventually experience the virtual visits from one of the various companies who buy up potentially popular domain names, including iterations of websites that are popular.  The No Prisoners, No Mercy Team (NPNM) actually has several websites – and so we receive occasional emails from virtual squatters hoping to hold a domain name hostage.  Our response, as always, is to suggest they spend their time on more useful pursuits such as experimenting with just how high it is they can go fly a kite. It’s not so bad when the domain ransom only has three digits in it, but sometimes the ransom has a lot higher price tag…

Take-Two Interactive fought the good fight but failed to prevail in a lawsuit against a company that specializes in domain squatting – the practice of buying up and sitting on domains for potentially popular products. A company called NA Media grabbed the domain name in early 2004 after word slipped out that BioShock was in the works at Irrational Games. Unfortunately for Take-Two, the company hadn’t trademarked “BioShock” before NA Media registered “www.bioshock.com”…

 

Take-Two tried to argue that NA Media had a history of squatting on its domains, having once registered taketwointeractive.com (later handed over to Take-Two). NA Media countered that at the time of the

unofficial announcement and the subsequent grab of the domain, Take-Two was not openly associated with BioShock. Bioshock2.com is currently in a similar situation, but Irrational Games has secured

Bioshockinfinite.com for its next game in the series.

 

A rose by any other name

 

Zynga, our favorite game developer that we love to hate,  is finding out that a rose by any other name doesn’t smell as sweet and is definately not better than chocolate…

Zynga is now the target of a trademark suit from mobile game developer Digital Chocolate. The Trip Hawkins-helmed company claims that it owns the exclusive rights to the name Mafia Wars and that it notified Zynga of the infringement last year, after which it was informed by Zynga that it would stop using the name. Zynga, responding to the lawsuit, stated, “We are surprised and disappointed by Digital Chocolate’s lawsuit. The timing of the action appears to be opportunistic, and we plan to defend ourselves vigorously.”

 

We are the Champions (and now you can be too)

Starting tomorrow, September 1 through September 7 you can experience what it is like to climb into a cape and save the world. If you need some incentive you can give No Prisoners, No Mercy Episode 59  a listen where we interview Mr. Shannon Posniewski, Cryptic’s executive producer for Champions Online.

Your fantasy may not be final yet

If your fantasy is to play the Final Fantasy XIV open beta you will have to wait just a bit more as it has been delayed with an announcement of a schedule made at a later date. While I have played some of the early Final Fantasy console games I hadn’t planned on taking part in the open beta.  However, this all reminded me of some of the articles I have seen around the internet talking about the FFXIV fatigue system, with the most interesting article on the subject over being Déjà vu? I think I have that in the kitchen [] over at Biobreak (one of our favorite sites)  – here’s an excerpt:

“The proposed “fatigue” system in FF14 has stirred up a lot of controversy this past week.  Basically, if you play a character for more than eight hours a week (not a day, a week), then you start to get less and less experience as you go along until you’re finally getting nothing at all.  This system resets after the full week’s gone by.” – Syp from Biobreak

Syp points out, it sounds a bit like hoopla raised ever WoW’s “rested experience” system – which is true until you get to the worlds “Until you are finally getting nothing at all.” It’s at that point where FFXIV can reach the point where you are paying not to play (well sort of). The Pink Pigtail Inn took a look at the issue from the standpoint of parental controls:

“It will even out the conditions that different players have, making it easier for players with a casual schedule to keep up with players who have a lot of time at hands. And it might also, according to some, help to prevent unhealthy addiction, which ever so often is brought up as an argument against gaming… I will take sides though. I just don’t like it when you build in parental controls to a game that is intended for an adult audience. We should be able to decide for ourselves how much time we want to dedicate to a game and where in the week we want to put it.” – Larisa at the Pink Pigtail Inn

Banned in Boston

 

On past shows we briefly mentioned the current reaction to Medal of Honor and the fact that players can play members of the Taliban.  Britain’s defense secretary, Liam Fox has called for a ban of the game in the United Kingdom:

 

“At the hands of the Taliban, children have lost fathers and wives have lost husbands. I am disgusted and angry. It’s hard to believe any citizen of our country would wish to buy such a thoroughly un-British game. I would urge retailers to show their support for our armed forces and ban this tasteless product.” – Liam Fox, Defense Secretary for the United Kingon 

 

Now Wayne Mapp, the Minister of Research for New Zeeland has followed suit:

“Terrorist acts have caused the deaths of several New Zealanders.” He continued, “This game undermines the values of our nation, and the dedicated service of our men and women in uniform.” – Wayne Mapp, via Gamepolitics.com

 

EA having previously defended Medal of Honor saying “If someone’s the cop someones gotta be the robber” has taken a different stance on the issue:

“We respect the media’s views, but at the same time [these reports] don’t compromise our creative vision and what we want to do. The development teams care very much about what they’re building, and of course a bit of criticism from the media causes some to get demoralized, but at the end of the day we’re proud of what we’re doing. Bringing Medal of Honor back was no small feat.” – EA Games President Frank Gibeau

Ironically the best way to assure the success of a book, movie or game is get it banned somewhere.  If you remember back when Martin Scorsese released a film entitled “The Last Temptation of Christ” in 1998.  It was a mediocre film at best and would have faded into the obscurity it so richly deserved it if weren’t for the fact that it was banned, condemned and protested.  The fact that Roger Ebert gave the film with some of the worst acting I have seen outside a high school auditorium four out of four stars only goes to prove my old prof’s point that art was done for the consumer and not for the critic.

 

Don’t play our games

 

Playdom, the company for which Disney recently agreed to shell out over three quarters of of a billion dollars has recently shut down all Acclaim Games. “We regret to inform you that all Acclaim games will no longer be in service effective August 26, 2010” with a note at the bottom to check out Playdom’s Facebook games.

What’s in a name?

 

So goes the question asked by the immortal bard. However, the answer is different if you are a game publisher attempting to use the word “Edge”…

 

“The flurry of actions between Edge Games, its CEO Tim Langdell and Electronic Arts continues with a new entry in the pair’s battle—EA has filed a countersuit against an action brought by Edge earlier this year, which involved the game Mirror’s Edge.  In June, Edge filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against EA, alleging “willful infringement and unfair competition” over the use of the Mirror’s Edge name…Now, according to Industry Gamers, EA’s countersuit claims that the company is “the latest target of Tim Langdell’s decades-long campaign to block anyone from using the word ‘edge,’ or any variation thereof, in connection with the marketing and sales of video games and related products or services.”

“The counter claim calls Langdell a “a one-time designer of video games for such long-since obsolete video game systems as the Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, Oric, and Sinclair ZX Spectrum,”  and alleged that the company obtained trademarks through “fraudulent misrepresentations to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (‘USPTO’).”

 

Why does this sound familiar? Oh yes, just before the release of the Marx Brothers Movie “A Night in Casablanca” it was rumored (a rumor reportedly started by Groucho Marx himself) that Warner Brothers was trying to get Grouch to not use “Casablana” in the title of his movie.  In “response” he penned the following open letter  to warner Brothers.  On a related subject, since our two co-hosts are sisters we are claiming exclusive rights to the words “sister” as well as “if”, “and”,” but”, as well as “or”

Dear Warner Brothers,

Apparently there is more than one way of conquering a city and holding it as your own. For example, up to the time that we contemplated making this picture, I had no idea that the city of Casablanca belonged exclusively to Warner Brothers. However, it was only a few days after our announcement appeared that we received your long, ominous legal document warning us not to use the name Casablanca.

It seems that in 1471, Ferdinand Balboa Warner, your great-great-grandfather, while looking for a shortcut to the city of Burbank, had stumbled on the shores of Africa and, raising his alpenstock (which he later turned in for a hundred shares of common), named it Casablanca.

I just don’t understand your attitude. Even if you plan on releasing your picture, I am sure that the average movie fan could learn in time to distinguish between Ingrid Bergman and Harpo. I don’t know whether I could, but I certainly would like to try.

You claim that you own Casablanca and that no one else can use that name without permission. What about “Warner Brothers”? Do you own that too? You probably have the right to use the name Warner, but what about the name Brothers? Professionally, we were brothers long before you were. We were touring the sticks as the Marx Brothers when Vitaphone was still a gleam in the inventor’s eye, and even before there had been other brothers—the Smith Brothers; the Brothers Karamazov; Dan Brothers, an outfielder with Detroit; and “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” (This was originally “Brothers, Can You Spare a Dime?” but this was spreading a dime pretty thin, so they threw out one brother, gave all the money to the other one, and whittled it down to “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?”)

Now Jack, how about you? Do you maintain that yours is an original name? Well it’s not. It was used long before you were born. Offhand, I can think of two Jacks—Jack of “Jack and the Beanstalk,” and Jack the Ripper, who cut quite a figure in his day.

As for you, Harry, you probably sign your checks sure in the belief that you are the first Harry of all time and that all other Harrys are impostors. I can think of two Harrys that preceded you. There was Lighthouse Harry of Revolutionary fame and a Harry Appelbaum who lived on the corner of 93rd Street and Lexington Avenue. Unfortunately, Appelbaum wasn’t too well-known. The last I heard of him, he was selling neckties at Weber and Heilbroner.

Now about the Burbank studio. I believe this is what you brothers call your place. Old man Burbank is gone. Perhaps you remember him. He was a great man in a garden. His wife often said Luther had ten green thumbs. What a witty woman she must have been! Burbank was the wizard who crossed all those fruits and vegetables until he had the poor plants in such confused and jittery condition that they could never decide whether to enter the dining room on the meat platter or the dessert dish.

This is pure conjecture, of course, but who knows—perhaps Burbank’s survivors aren’t too happy with the fact that a plant that grinds out pictures on a quota settled in their town, appropriated Burbank’s name and uses it as a front for their films. It is even possible that the Burbank family is prouder of the potato produced by the old man than they are of the fact that your studio emerged “Casablanca” or even “Gold Diggers of 1931.”

This all seems to add up to a pretty bitter tirade, but I assure you it’s not meant to. I love Warners. Some of my best friends are Warner Brothers. It is even possible that I am doing you an injustice and that you, yourselves, know nothing about this dog-in-the-Wanger attitude. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to discover that the heads of your legal department are unaware of this absurd dispute, for I am acquainted with many of them and they are fine fellows with curly black hair, double-breasted suits and a love of their fellow man that out-Saroyans Saroyan.

I have a hunch that his attempt to prevent us from using the title is the brainchild of some ferret-faced shyster, serving a brief apprenticeship in your legal department. I know the type well—hot out of law school, hungry for success, and too ambitious to follow the natural laws of promotion. This bar sinister probably needled your attorneys, most of whom are fine fellows with curly black hair, double-breasted suits, etc., into attempting to enjoin us. Well, he won’t get away with it! We’ll fight him to the highest court! No pasty-faced legal adventurer is going to cause bad blood between the Warners and the Marxes. We are all brothers under the skin, and we’ll remain friends till the last reel of “A Night in Casablanca” goes tumbling over the spool.

Sincerely,

Groucho Marx

 

The Devil didn’t make him do it

Craig Smallwood, of Hawaii isn’t claiming the devil made him do it; he is saying NCSoft made him do it. Do you take the case seriously? Apparently a Federal judge takes it seriously enough to refuse to dismiss the case.

 “Craig Smallwood of Hawaii has a lawsuit in the works against the creator of Lineage II, claiming that he became so addicted to the game he became “unable to function independently in usual daily activities such as getting up, getting dressed, bathing or communicating with family and friends… in his proceedings, [he] claims to have spent 20,000 hours playing the game between 2004 and 2009. He claimed that developer NCsoft is negligent because it failed “to warn or instruct or adequately warn or instruct plaintiff and other players of Lineage II of its dangerous and defective characteristics.”

 

Turning right instead of left

 

 The blogosphere is busily announcing where Realtime Worlds zigged when it should have zagged with the release of their game All Points Bulletin.   Interestingly enough, most of the people who have analyzed the game weren’t the people playing or developing the game.  But if you really want to know where it turned right instead of left check this out…

 

“Those who have been paying attention to the trials and travails of Realtime Worlds and All Points Bulletin may be interested in attending GDC Online (Oct. 5-8, 2010 at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, Texas.) to take in the talk “Self-Inflicted Wounds: When We Are Our Own Worst Enemy.”

Former Realtime Worlds executive producer Joshua Howard (APB) will talk about “common management and organizational failures that leaders talk themselves into accepting, which almost always end up impacting a game’s success.” Howard, who is also a former Carbonated Games executive, will offer techniques everyone can use if they find themselves on a project making similar mistakes.

 

If, however, you can’t afford the Game Developers Conference Online here is another source of inside information – APB Insider Details Realtime Worlds Woes  The main problem being, of course, that this source is simply dubbed “Anonymous” in the original story.

A rather salacious “inside the sausage factory” news article at NowGamer, citing a source close to Real Time Worlds, paints a picture of the company now in bankruptcy in an extremely bad light. We contacted Real Time Worlds to get its side of the story, but they did not respond at the time of this writing. The NowGamer news story taps an anonymous contractor who claims to have worked on “various aspects of APB’s launch” with Real Time Worlds. The anonymous source claims that Real Time Worlds was losing millions of dollars a month, and that the amount of lies it told publishing partner EA was “unbelievable.”

“Coupled with a nasty double cross of EA – waiting until last minute to take back online publishing rights – right before launch and a confused marketing campaign meant no one other than hardcore gamers knew the game had launched. Include some internal politics – mainly from the senior producers and art department – leading to stale advertising material and negative beta campaign the game never really had a chance.”

Via gamepolitics.com

 

A nightmare in Chile

 

I have nightmares about this sort of thing.  I can’t imagine what the miners are going through (O.K. I can but my mind reels just thinking about it) This first came to our attention in the Sunday paper:

 

To give them hope, or to at least keep them occupied as they wait to be dug out, trapped miners in Chile have been given PlayStation Portables, according to MSN International. Copiapó, Chile – a provincial capital situated on the west coast of South America’s Andes Mountain range – has been the focus of the international media as the story of miners wait for a rescue which some say could be two to three months away.

The trapped miners include 1 Bolivian and 32 Chileans, who are getting along well despite their current situation, are doing their best to keep hope alive as rescue crews lower food and supplies via bore holes that are described as “roughly the width of a grapefruit.”

The PSPs were given to “help preserve their mental health” during the long wait for a rescue tunnel to be drilled and to give them a means to escape their current plight. The PSPs were delivered via the small cups that are used to shuttle supplies to the men down the mine shaft. A power supply was also lowered down to the men because the average battery life of a PSP is a mere 6 hours.

Via  Gamepolitics.com

Stranger than Fiction

 

It was not that long ago we read about the following “game” and one young man who wanted to marry his virtual sweetie. Not it appears there is a place to take your virtual sweety on a honeymoon.

 

“Fans of LovePlus, the Konami-developed dating simulator that was released only in Japan, now have a vacation destination where they can integrate virtual girlfriends into their daily activities.

Using augmented reality (AR), Konami and the resort town of Atami, Japan have teamed up to offer 13 “romantic locations” throughout the town, where love struck gamers can pose, thanks to augmented reality, with images of their favorite LovePlus characters…

A local hotel offers additional entertainment for LovePlus fans:

The local Ohnoya hotel even offers traditional rooms to the unusual couples, which feature two sets of futon beds and another barcode panel that allows the men to visualise their girlfriends in a flattering summer kimono.

It was claimed that 200 LovePlus fans have already stayed at the hotel, while “well over 2,000” have visited Atami for the promotion, which ends when this month does.

Schwartzenegger vs. The World (O.K. the videogame world)

 

We aren’t baffled by the support of the videogame industry by the Utah Attorney General’s Office.  What has us baffled is why Governor Schwartzenegger is against violence in videogames but is, apparently o.k. with violence in movies, as evidenced in his appearance in the recently released movie The Expendables where the governator has a walk on roll.

But how does it play AOC?

 

The following website comes to us via Slashdot. It seems that Chris Fenton built his own 1/10 scale Cray – 1A super computer.  While we were all pondering why it suddenly dawned on us to wonder how well it would play Age of Conan…that “high end” game that none of our computers have ever been able to run without looking like it was sputtering to a stop.

 

 

What kind of leaks?

 

NPNM Comment: O.K. we aren’t geeks (at least we don’t think we are but after watching the first two seasons of Big Bang Theory we aren’t too sure any more).  If you have been lending even a modicum of interest to the web site called WikiLeaks  that has incurred the wrath of the United States Military you may have caught site of the latest news on where their servers will be located – 98 feet underground.  All we can say at this point is that it looks like something right out of a Science Fiction movie.

 

Photo Credit: Gizmodo.com

“This is Pionen White Mountains, the nuclear bunker in which Wikileaks will locate some of its servers. It was excavated 98 feet underground, in a rock hill in the center of Stockholm, Sweden, during the Cold War. Originally, it was just a bomb shelter built in 1943. In the 70s, the Swedes turned the shelter into a full bunker, a civil defense center that was going to hold an emergency unit of the Swedish government in the case of a nuclear war.” – Gizmodo.com

 

We all have our favorite games, books and movies. But what happens when they end? What happens when you want to read a engrossing tale of intrigue set in your favorite universe? Well my friends, look no further, because our favorite site for fiction is back.

Yes none other than Lorewriter.com brought to you by R.W. Harper, Senior Producer and

all around great guy. Go out there and read Raybo-Empire Mercenary. And while you are out there you might want to check out the work of one of our co-hosts, Julie Whitefeather, as she brings you the all new Splintered Reality.

Go there…now…Julie’s a ruler and she has a nun!

Get out your fairy dust and magic wands boys and girls. Click your heals together three times and keep saying “there’s no place like net neutral wireless internet, there’s no place like net neutral wireless internet”.  Gather round as Verizon spins a tall tale of how they will fullfill President Obama’s dream of Net Neutrality…

 

Regular listeners will remember a regular feature we used to do on the No Prisoners, No Mercy show called “Mad as Hell.”   Since show 68 just came out, and show 69 is in recording/editing it’s time for the first written Mad as Hell…

*cue sound clip*

I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more.

 

If you have been following the plans that broadband providers all over the country have to try and dip their hands deeper in your pocket by charging by the byte good for you.  Earlier this month Google and Verizon tried to broker a deal between themselves that would create a second wireless internet, creating a rich man’s world where few of us regular joes and janes could afford their by the minute rate for access – and thereby brought net neutrality talks with the FCC to a screaming halt .

Recently FCC Commissioners Copps and Clyburn were on hand in Minnesota’s Twin Cities, with Senator All Franken to speak out in favor of net neutrality and against the Google/Verizon deal.  You can view Senator Frankin’s speech below. Listen to Senator Frankin’s speech and he will tell YOU how the Google/Verizon proposal would enable companies to pay for faster services for themselves called “managed services” (like buying a first class ticket as Senator Frankin points out) allowing any broadband provider to open “fast lane services” for selected web sites, leaving the average user in the dust….oh yes, and the little loop hole is that Google and Verizon want this to apply to the wired internet.  And what if the FCC has a problem with this? Well the Google/Verizon plan takes care of this by “empowering” the FCC to “publish a report” (oh be still my impatient heart). Doesn’t sound so neutral for wired or wireless internet now does it?

On August 24^th, Tom Tauke, executive vice president of public affairs at Verizon defended his companies proposal that a wireless internet should be excluded from net neutrality rules.

“We believe that the proposal is rational, addresses the issues and concerns of the time, parenthetically fulfills the president’s campaign promise of non-discrimination and transparency on the Internet, [and] provides guidance on more areas going forward…” – Tom Tauke, at the Aspen Forum hosted by the Technology Institute

 

So while you are pondering just how it is that creating a by the minute access wireless internet, free from FCC regulations, that few could afford somehow magically fulfills president Obama’s promises on Net Neutrality  (we assume that it must use fairy dust)…and if Tom Tauke hasn’t already made you mad as hell…Verizon took another shot at it this last Wednesday.

Yesterday Senior Verizon spokesman David Fish had this to say on his blog (via gamepolitics.com)

“We believe a practical, principled and pro-consumer resolution of the network neutrality debate is within reach,” Fish said. “But, to get there, some people need to cool the rhetoric and stick to the facts.” – Senior Verizon Spokesman David Fish

 

Perhaps the rhetoric he is talking about is the reaction by the Free Press to Tom Tauke’s speech:

“Verizon can’t hide the fact that, if enacted, this pact would mark the end of the open Internet era,” said Free Press Research Director Derek Turner in a statement. “The Google-Verizon deal contains no protections for wireless access, which accounts for nearly one-third of all Internet connections, giving Verizon and other ISPs the green light to block or degrade content on their wireless networks.”

 

So get out your fairy dust and magic wands boys and girls. Click your heals together three times and keep saying “there’s no place like net neutral wireless internet, there’s no place like net neutral wireless internet” and maybe, just maybe, if we all clap our hands loud enough it will be so.

 See you online,

Julie Whitefeather

[posted for Julie Whitefeather by The Webmaster]

“If there’s a bright center to the universe, you’re on the planet that it’s farthest from.” – Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker talking about the desert planet of Tatooine

“For over a thousand years Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of triumph, a tumultuous parade. In the procession came trumpeteers, musicians and strange animals from conquered territories, together with carts laden with treasure and captured armaments. The conquerors rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him. Sometimes his children robed in white stood with him in the chariot or rode the trace horses. A slave stood behind the conqueror holding a golden crown and whispering in his ear a warning: all glory is fleeting.” -  George S. Patton

 

Gamers are a fickle lot. Every time a new mmo has an announcement date, there is always the hope that it will be the one – the one that saves all that is wrong with mmos.  The release date is reached and the virtual shores of new worlds are flooded with virtual residents.  When Warhammer Online (War) opened its doors, tier one, Empire pairing, was the place to be.  Then comes the turn of the wheel, the toss of the dice, the virtual crap shoot that is the estimation of how many servers to open.  A few months out and you could shoot a cannonball down the center of many War servers and not hit anything.  Where have they all gone? Some voices within the community will tell you that once their virtual visas are up, they will migrate back to the shores of whatever virtual home they have chosen – in many cases World of Warcraft (WoW). 

Not everyone migrates like a flock of virtual gaming birds, flitting from one mmo to the next, looking for the next fix.  Sometimes a game comes along that grabs and holds our attention. When that occurs, the inevitable race to the top ensues, where leveling proceeds at a pace that would rival the fastest land speed records.  When that goal is reached developers/publishers are beset with the problem of what carrot to dangle in front of players to keep them going.  But no matter how many carrots a developer comes up with, no matter how much content a team can create, there will always be players that can burn through it faster than it can be created.  When this happens many players log off…many but not all. 

This gives rise to the places where players go to be seen. In almost every mmo I have ever played the place players to go been seen is the bank.  What magic is it that casts the spell on players that causes them to congregate in places like the banks at Ironforge, Stormwind and Dalaran? As far back as Ultima Online (UO) I have seen players flock to the plaza in front of the bank – in UO it was the bank of Brittania.

What is it that drives players from virtual shore to virtual shore, ever seeking the certain je ne sais quoi?

Is it because, as George C. Scott surmised (or whoever wrote the script) as General Patton that we, “all admire the champion marble shooter, the fastest runner, big league ball players, the toughest boxers?” Interestingly enough, that part wasn’t in the speech delivered by the real General Patton to troops in England, on May 17^th, 1944. Perhaps the real General Patton didn’t include the part about fame in his speech because he knew all glory is fleeting…Oscar Wilde, Veronica Lake , Hedy Lamarr , and Billie Holiday all died penniless.  Does America always love the major league Ball Player?  They used to love J.R. Richard, starting pitcher with the Houston Astros; by 1994 he was living under a bridge in Houston, Texas.  Perhaps as gamers our search for the next virtual fix are what keeps adding names to the list of mmos that includes,  Auto Assault, Asherons Call 2, Earth and Beyond, and Tabula Rasa…with All Points Bulletin by Real Times World’s coming way to close to the list for any kind of comfort.

Perhaps as gamers we are always seeking for that certain something, that je ne Sais qua, that bright shining center of the universe.  But when we never find it we keep driving on, keep moving, hoping to find some places where the light shines the brightest, some place where we can finally breathe easy and say “at last I have arrived.”

See you online,

Julie Whitefeather

Side Notes

Gold Sellers redefine the word “desperate”

If you have entered the hallowed halls of Azeroth lately, wether on the horde or alliance side, you will have seen gold sellers redefine the word “desperate.”  Gold sellers have programed hordes of synchronized sleeping bodies in routines that would turn Esther Williams green with envy.  Does this constitute gold spam if the bodies spell out the name of a web site? We aren’t sure, but we will just bet that the program that does it would be considered a hack.

Fallen Earth

Take me back

 If you are one of those who have left the province, as Icarus Studios put it in a letter to a former subscriber on the NPNM team, they are giving you a chance to re-subscribe for $10 off the first month and a “Clone Psychoactive Shot”  that has five charges of +15% experience points boost each.

State of the Game

We wanted to make sure that you all had a chance to see the content under discussion in this months State of the Game message from the Fallen Earth Development team.  You can see the content discussed below – take a look at the entire letter here.

Combat
We’ve been taking a very in-depth look at two core systems of Fallen Earth—Combat and Factions. Over the next several months we will be making changes as we continually adjust and improve these two systems.

Specifically for combat, we will be changing some of the formulas to create a more fast-paced, exciting combat experience. Major changes coming soon involve adjusting high levels of mitigation, tweaking the random damage spread and making armor require statistics (like Faction or Strength) and character level (rather than Armor Use skill). However, Armor Use skill will still determine how well armor performs. After these changes are in place, we will be making adjustments to Faction skills, Mutations and regular skills, and a balance pass for Items.

Progress Towns
Progress Towns, a PvE feature, will add all-new content to the Wasteland.

Within certain areas, factions are attempting to build new towns…while the remnants of Alec Master’s forces are trying to tear them down. In Progress Towns, players can run all new missions in an effort to build a town, from the ground up, for their Faction. While special defenses may be crafted to help protect and defend your newly formed faction town, beware, it won’t be an easy task to maintain control.

Faction Control Points
Every Faction has planted flags throughout the Wasteland to claim parts of the Grand Canyon as their own. Players who are in a PvP area or World PvP flagged can claim one of these flags for their own Faction. Claiming such a flag, or multiple flags in an area, may grant benefits such as Faction-specific guards, buffs, or harvest nodes, but you’ll have to battle it out to keep your flag flying.

Color Customization Options for Clothing
We are hard at work on introducing the next step of customization options in Fallen Earth in the form of customizable social clothing. We will do a special dev journal on this feature and are very excited to bring this to all of you!

Camp Improvements
We are also taking a look at the camps system and will be improving certain elements. With the improvements, players will have the ability to place camps on a wider selection of terrain. Additionally, camps will no longer disappear when their creator logs out or moves out of range. We hope to see this system continue to evolve and improve as we move forward.

Mobile App

We realize a lot of players are anxious for the premium mobile companion app features to be released, and you can expect to see the update available within the next few weeks on the Fallen Earth website. With the update, you will have the ability to fully craft items, send/receive in-game mail and attachments and buy/sell at the Auction House!

We’ve got lots more in store in addition to these awesome new features in the September patch, so be sure to keep an eye on the FE website! And to give a glimpse at what you can expect to see hit the server in December, we’re working on some major systems—Factions and Clan Strongholds. Stay tuned for more details!

The highlight of the 2010 Chicago Comic Con, at least for me, was being able to meet Brent Spiner.   In person he is every bit as witty and personable as he seems on the big and little screens.  I found it impossible not to be drawn into his wit and charm at once. Some of the stars of the shows we have all come to love were there simply to sign an autograph and make a buck – but Brent Spiner took time to visit with each person who came up to him.

It occurred to me as I visited with Mr. Spiner that having helped create the drama that was Star Trek: The Next Generation would, perhaps, make that suspension of disbelief that makes movies so much fun, all the more difficult.  If you have ever been on the other side of the proscenium arch (I have) the technical aspects of a production can sometimes steal the escapism that draws us into the stories on the big screen or the small.

A large part of the con was, of course, being able to meet the artists that create the comics.  I have long since stopped actively collecting and reading comics, but it was interesting to talk to some of the artists, such as Jeff Balke who has agreed to spend some time with us on an upcoming show.  The floor of the show was very much like a strolling through a costume contest; and we will feature a few “costumes of the con” on these pages soon.

In the end, while this was my first con, attending it seemed to enable all those present to be just a little closer to the bright shining center of the universe (or at least our corner of it).

Bazinga

I have never been a big fan of sit-coms. They have always seemed a bit trite to me.  Then Fran brought home the first two seasons of “Big Bang Theory”.  The relationship of the ensemble of geeks Sheldon, Wolowitz, Koothrappali, and Leonard,  due as much to the actors as the writing, pulled me into the comedy. So, of course, no trip to the con would be complete without a Big Bang Theory Bazinga T-Shirt.

Side Notes:

As soon as one war ends another one starts…at least that’s the way it has been going these days in Eve Online for me.  It has always seemed to be a love/hate relationship with me.  Recenctly a “corp-mate” from days gone by joined the corp I am currently flying with – only to suffer over 1 billion isk in loses as his tech 2 ship was blown out from under him when war targets caught up with him when he least expected it (which is the way it alway seems to be).  I think in the end the reason I stick with Eve is for the potential of where it may go.

“Los Angeles, CA (August 23, 2010) — Atari, one of the world’s most recognized videogame publishers and Cryptic Studios, the acclaimed developers behind City of heroes, City of Villains, Champions Online and Star Trek Online, announced today the development of Neverwinter for PC. Neverwinter is a new online roleplaying game based on Wizards of the Coast’s global property Dungeons & Dragons and the beloved city of Neverwinter.”

Welcome to the rest area – as in give it a rest.

The announcement above is less than 24 hours old and already those who consider themselves the resident Nostradamus’ of the mmo and sole judges of all that is, was, or should be in the world of game development have begun to crawl out of the woodwork, out from under rocks, or slinking out of the sewers.   It is easy to sit back from the standpoint of someone who doesn’t have a brass farthing invested in Cryptic and say “Cryptic simply does not have the ability to make good games”,  or regale us all with the knowledge that Jack Emmert has discovered the “joys of scope”  (thank God he has finally discovered what the rest of us have known all along!). Most amazing of all is that Cryptic, the company that apparently “doesn’t have the ability to make good games” has been nominated for a 2010 Game Developer’s Choice Online Award forthe  Best Online Game Design Award for their game Champions Online. It appears that at least someone at Cryptic must know how to make games.

Chutzpa, Hubris, Pretentious

 

It’s easy to develop a pretentious attitude.  The danger of succeeding at anything is that it can rapidly become hubris.  Sometimes, as we heard in the case of Total Biscuit from WoW Radio on show 41 , it’s just their shtick.  It is understandable when someone takes a stand and defends a viewpoint… I do that myself.  While this makes for some very absorbing conversations, it can also place you in the position of having to apologize on the air to people like Bill Roper  and Dr. Richard Bartle.  Perhaps the most dangerous positions are held by those individuals who fail to remember the adage “Be nice to the people you meet on the way up, you will meet the same people on the way back down” – having to apologize could end up being the least of their worries.

I haven’t even made it yet

 

No matter where you are in the mmo community, be it consumer or author, there is a tendency to begin to consider oneself the Oracle at Delphi, sure of the eventual outcome of any given situation.  My grandmother used to tell her version of Goldilocks and the Three bears, that ended with the famous blonde being told by mama bear, still in the process of making the soup, “bitch, bitch, bitch…I haven’t even made it yet”.  While some corners of the mmo community discover the joys of pretentious, I will try and remember hard earned lessons and simply regale in the fact that ANYONE is making Neverwinter nights.

See you online,

Julie Whitefeather

[posted for Julie Whitefeather by The Webmaster]

If you started this article expecting us to predict the downfall of Fallen Earth or Icarus Studios  you came to the wrong place. In fact I find it interesting how many news sources  fall into the same category as day the Chicago Daily Tribune when it heralded  the now  famous “Dewy Defeats Truman” – by regaling us with the “Icarus Studios Closes” headline.  Yes, some sources qualified it with “rumor” on the page somewhere. I must have gone to the wrong schools; it used to be we called that yellow journalism.

Going to the dogs

 

So why is Fallen Earth going to the dogs? Well as you may or may not know, there are now pets in the game in the form of wasteland mutts (see above).  Ask yourself, what post apocalyptic setting is complete without a dog? Mel Gibson had a dog in The Road Warrior.  Don Johnson had a dog in the roadside garbage of a movie (how do you really feel?) from 1975 called “A boy and his dog”. Will Smith had a dog in “I am legend”, and Judge Dredd with Sylvester Stallone was a dog (I think that counts but I am not sure).   It turns out that your local feed merchant (at ever gas station throughout Fallen Earth) has a well stocked kennel.   When I took my cargo bike out for a spin it turns out the fell has some fantastic tracking abilities – even when I left him in the dust he eventually caught up.  Yes I will admit that there was a time when he had a time of it trying to make his way back after my twists and turns across post apocalyptic Arizona became a bit labyrinthine.   But it turns out, not only can you have your wayward car or motorcycle towed to a gas station  you can also have your dogged towed.

Tow Truck Operator: “Okay doggie open wide, we’re gonna take you back to your mistress Auntie Maim”

Auntie’s Dog: woof, growl, bark, bark, bark *

*translation: What in the frell are you doing? Get that hook out of my mouth!

 

Riding a bike

 

And speaking of riding bikes…I usually find that going back to an mmo after an extended absence isn’t quite like riding one. Fortunately the basics of most games are the same where things like movement are concerned. Still, I often find myself saying “Oh ya…” after asking where something is located for the umpteenth time. Fortunately the clan I belong to (part of The Older Gamers) are patient with returning players.

What was the problem?

 

When returning to any mmo after a long break, one of the first questions I find crossing my mind is, of course, “Why did I have a problem with this game?”   In some case, I find myself saying “oh yes THAT was why.”  If there was a reason, other than a simple matter of pairing back the number of MMOs that grabbed my attention each week, the only thought I remember having was a bit of a dearth of things to do somewhere around the late level 20s.  Part of the reason for that is I tend to “press the envelope” where PVE is concerned, often completing (and sometimes failing) quests well beyond my character’s level.   Another factor that comes into play at this point is something Paul Barnett talked about when he was  a guest on the show and that is “perceived leveling speed.”   The idea is this: If you play World of Warcraft you will find your ability to level though 1 to 70 is lightening fast because most of the new development (up until Cataclysm of course) has been tacked on to the end of the game. It’s easy to get used to something like that and begin to see other mmos as grindy that really aren’t.

Attitude Adjustment

 

It was an attitude adjustment
I guess it was his first time
An attitude adjustment
Now he understands just fine
He got bent out of shape
And he opened his mouth
And just one appointment
Straightened him right out
It was an attitude adjustment
Oh It’ll work every time

- Attitude Adjustment, Hank Williams Jr.,

Maybe it was an attitude adjustment. Perhaps I just remember wrong. Maybe the dev’s at Icarus Studios actually change something and did tell anyone. It could also be that I simply haven’t followed Fallen Earth very closely.  Still, I seem to remember Auntie Maim, my level 27 character, getting her butt whomped a lot more when she was making her way around Blaine in Sector 2 – not so this time.  After I got a handle on swinging the six guns again, stocked up on ammo and polished up the techie maces I took on a quest chain that ended in Mission: treachery and lies. Some people don’t like long quest lines, some people do. Some people only tell you one way or another when they have something to complain about. Me? I like long quest lines that aren’t long because an NPC said “Oh by the way, did I tell you to go get that widget from the other side of the world? I should have asked you to bring the box it came in as well.”  Quest lines that tell a good story are a joy. Such is the Dead Mines quest line in WoW, and now I will add the “treachery and lies” quest line to the list.  The story is good and the reward is gruesome:

Severed Ear

Slot: Storage

Weight: 0.001 kg

Resists: Sonic +228

Modifiers:  +5 perception, +5 mind

 

What also drew my attention was the new Blood Sport arena. In the future I plan to participate…after I get a handle on things and get a few more action point quests under my belt.

See you online,

Julie Whitefeather

[posted for Julie Whitefeather by The Webmaster]

Walter Koenig we love you madly

If you are reading these lines expecting to read an article from a star trek fan girl you will be sorely disappointed.  Yes, as our regular listeners know, I am indeed a Star Trek fan as is my sister and co-host, Sister Frances.  In fact, that is how we met. 

But that is not why I am writing this. 

I am writing this because the death of this man’s son touched me deeply and more profoundly than few things in my life ever have…

More than waiting with someone as the last hours of their life ticked by….

More than the death of my own mother…

More than standing, watching, unbelieving, the words “Oh my God it’s gone” escaping my lips as the second of tower of the world trade center collapsed.

Perhaps stranger still is where this all happened – at the 2010 Chicago Comic Con.

Fandom is a strange thing, no matter what level it is on. There are fans of the No Prisoners, No Mercy show, up to several thousand of you at high points in the month (so say the data counters). We get the occasional letters, such as one listener who described my co-host and I as “the fabulous sisters” and another who thanked us for thanked us for including her in the “No Prisoners, No Mercy experience.”  The time was when I even performed on stage, and afterwards took my bows (along with the rest of the cast) to the applause of  thousands of people.

But this is the rarety rather than the rule.

Usually we get letters when listeners are angry and they come out swinging like the pendulum on a grandfather clock on speed. Fandom on any level is fickle.  There’s a line in the movie “Mad Max” where Tina Turner, as Auntie Entity, proclaims “One day the cock of the walk, the next day a feather duster.”  This was driven home like a spike through my heart as I walked autograph row at the 2010 Chicago Comic Con.  There were the popular stars to be sure; Brent Spiner (a great guy) had a long line.  There were also stars whose fickle fans no longer saw them in the lime light…among them was Walter Koenig and John de Lanci.  I read a story once where Mr. de Lanci was at Con despite having a bad case of the flu.  He sat there through the presentation, drinking a glass of water. At the end of the talk, a bidding war began for the glass that the actor had begun drinking from.  The winning bidder presented his 50 dollars, and finished the glass of water, proudly proclaiming “I have the Q virus”.

Yet here sat John de Lanci,  his current project a kind of a sci-fi/slasher film called Recreator . Mr. De Lance and Mr. Koenig both sat at the table, with no fans around them; no one asking for their signature. Eventually, Mr. Koenig got up and walked away in what must have been the saddest moment I have experienced in decades.   It was at that moment, and I still don’t know why, that I felt the depth of the tragedy of the death of this man’s son. Not because I too had been where he is, and where his son was before his death, even though that is certainly part of it.  Perhaps what affected me most profoundly is that once the lights faded, and the next “next generation” Star Trek cast took over, few people around me seemed to care what Mr. Koenig was like, not as an actor, not for his body of work, but for the kind of human being he is.

Hopefuly my co-host will be able to go back today and speak to Mr. Koenig.

Still, I will relate my own miracle that is the reason I am still here, having escaped the fate of Andrew Koenig,  Mr. Walter Koenig’s son – divine intervention.  Years before, I had been to the meeting of a group that raised money for charity by dressing as Klingons.  At the meeting a woman named Lee Busco gave me her phone number on a small slip of paper, telling me to call her if I ever needed help.

That scrap of paper sat at the bottom of my wallet for years.

Then the day came I arrived home from work, to be greeted only by one of our dogs, and only one, where there should be two.  “Winston” I called out.  No answer.  No dog, which came running.  Then I saw a letter on the desk. Opening it, I read a letter that brought my world crashing down around me.  The person to whom I had been married for 9 years left me for a younger woman.

Conveniently the younger woman had the same first name.  At least the ex wouldn’t have to be careful about what name to call out.   Now I can laugh and say “My ex left me and took my dog – gee I miss that dog.”  Then, I realized I had been hiding out in a relationship that was a lie for 9 years. I felt my life was over, and even went to the drug store looking for sleeping pills to make sure it was – I didn’t find them.  What I  did find was that same scrap of paper in the bottom of my wallet with a phone number.

I called the number.

I reached out and that person put me in touch with someone else I had met through the same Star Trek group. That person was my co-host and mother superior, who invited me to her house, and promptly took my car keys, telling me I wasn’t going anywhere. I reached out, I dearly wish Andrew Koenig had reached out.  And today I cried for the death of a man I never even met…Walter Koenig’s son.

Would it were that Fran and I had the opportunity to get to know Walter Koenig better. Not the actor, but the person.

See you online,

Julie Whitefeather

Your cargo bike blasts through the Arizona morn, Maim

Your clone is among the first born, Maim
Your bike runs through the desert hummin’
And kickin’ up a lot of desert sand,
Your shot gun is ready for some pumpin’
Out in post apocalyptic land.

And so I asked myself, as I so often do when I reflect back on some of the mmos I have played, why I left.  Aion Online? That game was so grindy that keeping my nose to the grindstone took my nose right down to my medula oblongata.  Age of Conan? As much fun as it was our meager computer turned parts of the new content into a slideshow.  World of Warcraft? Well I am back but, when I left it had to do with being called a “huntard” one too many times.

Fallen Earth?

That one I had to think about a while – a long while.  Then it dawned on me…it was budgetary constraints.  But a good friend solved that problem when least expected and now we are able to once again bring you all the news from post apocolyptic Arizona with the same glee we always did.

See you online,

Julie Whitefeather