Two boxers facing each other in the ring have long been compared to a dance.  Many will remember the fights featuring the great Muhammad Ali who would “float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.”   But these days the fight between Bethesda and Interplay seems to have reached the point of a good old fashion cat fight.

Bethesda VP of PR Pete Hines states rather emphatically that his company owns Fallout:

“We own the rights to everything Fallout. The license is ours. Fallout belongs to us. That’s what I’ll clarify,” he told the outlet during a phone conversation yesterday.

Caen [president of Interplay] claims that it’s bad news for Bethesda if Interplay doesn’t get to make its MMO:

“We sold the Fallout IP to Bethesda in exchange for a certain amount of cash and the right to do the Fallout MMO,” he said. “If they refuse to let us do the game, then the sale of the IP is terminated, and they will be allowed to do only one more Fallout, 5. But in that case, the IP will come back to us, and of course, we will complete our work and release Fallout MMO.”

Via: Gamepolics.com

In the meantime as Interplay fight it out in the court of public opinion (and probably in the courts again) the barn is burning down around them.  Here’s a hint gents: while you were all fighting it out someone already did a post apocalyptic mmo – it’s from Icarus Studios and it’s called Fallen Earth .

The Bureaucratic Shuffle

There are more than a few people these days who are doing the bureaucratic shuffle, and chief among them is Representative Marsha Blackburn (Republican – Tenn).  It seems that the Representative that spent much of her time in the last weeks taking shots at the FCC in attempt to shoot down their impending rules on net neutrality has been doing a bit of the Tennessee version of the shuffle.  The representative has called conservatives to join her in the fight for intellectual property rights including “strict deterrents to infringement, user-controlled privacy legislation and rogue website legislation” (source)

What has us puzzled is who it was that just recently called for less legislation of the internet stating…

“The only sector of our economy showing growth is online. In these times, for an unelected bureaucracy with dubious jurisdiction and misplaced motives to unilaterally regulate that growth is intolerable.” (source: Politico.com)

Oh yes, it was Representative Blackburn.  So are we to assume that there should be less legislation only if such a move favors big business?  Like say, we don’t know…perhaps the Comcast/NBC Merger?

Yes, it is a sad day friends, it seems the FCC has given the Comcast/NBC merger the green light.  We can only assume that Minnesota’s Senator Al Franken is hopping mad over the whole thing. If he is, he isn’t the only one:

“The FCC just blessed the merger of Comcast, the nation’s largest cable and home Internet provider, with NBC Universal. The Justice Department approved the merger, too, leading to the unprecedented consolidation of media and Internet power in the hands of one company.

There’s no way to sugarcoat it. Wherever you live, the Comcast-NBC merger is a disaster.

Letting one company control the pipes and the content that flows over those pipes is a formula for abuse. Comcast-NBC could soon hike up rates, take away your favorite channels or even stop you from watching your favorite shows online. Comcast has already targeted Netflix and other companies that compete with its video and Internet offerings.

The merger lays waste to then-candidate Barack Obama’s 2008 promise, when he said, ‘I strongly favor diversity of ownership of outlets and protection against the excessive concentration of power in the hands of any one corporation, interest or small group. I strongly believe that all citizens should be able to receive information from the broadest range of sources.’

 

-Free Press CEO and President Joe Silver (source)

Dancing with the stars

Here we aren’t talking about Hollywood stars but the stars in the sky.  Just about everyone has heard about the ambitious modder who finally gave the mmo community what has been clamoring for – a Starcraft mmo – only to be shot down by the mighty Activision/Blizzard gorilla.  While that move was predictable, the good news is that even if the devs at Blizzard (read business executives who have probably never played an mmo in their life) didn’t like what they saw someone else did…

And that someone was League of Legends lead designer Tod Cadwell.

“When I see a modder with a lot of drive that has done something cool, I tend to contact them…”

– Tod Cadwell on the League of Legends forum. (source)

We’re glad that someone thought the price was right.

There is nothing to get you back into a game like the opportunity to sit down for a chat with the games Senior Designer and find out a bit about what has been going on behind the scenary.  When I heard that we would hace a chance to talk to Ms. Croall who was going to tell us about the live events on September 22nd I had to hit the virtual roads of post apocalyptic Arizona again.  

I logged back on and my precious cargo bike was right where I left it, right outside the bunker bar and casino at the heart of New Flagstaff.  All the regulars from The Older Gamers where online and I had a chat or two.  Heading out of New Flagstaff I headed toward Kristo’s Rest only to be stopped by a Union Roadblock. Fortunately the big bike moves faster than Union thugs on foot.  When I rolled into town I was tasked with deliver of a package to one Thomas Allgood who started out our conversation with “you can trust me.”  If there is one thing I have learned in life it is to NEVER trust anyone who says you can trust them let alone starts out the conversation that way.

Back in my military days grand dad gave me this bit of advice before I spent my days wearing  o.d. green…

Always make friends with two people – the supply sergeant and the mess sergeant.

Good advice – even in the virtual world.  So when the merchant who controls the ammo at Kristo’s Rest wants some help I was anxious to lend a hand (and a pistol).

One of the people I ran across in my adventures at Kristo’s Rest is Ramona Alvarez.  If it pays to make friends with the supply sergeant and the mess sergeant, next in line for me is Franklin’s Riders. Remember the Kevin Costner character in the movie The Postman? Well the same thing applies here – these are some people it pays to stay in good with.  It turns out some of the ladies and gents down at the local saloon called “The Empty Trough” are getting a bit rough and rowdy for local tastes.

Pulling up on my bike outside The Empty Trough I can already hear the gunsots inside, and a few other players running out of the front door – this really is a rough place!  Time to teach some piggies at the trough how to be clean!

It turns out there is a reason they asked a clone to do this particular job – it’s tougher than it looks! Before the job is through the patrons re-introduce me to the cloning chamber.

Once the job is through it’s time to collect the reward.  Currency in Fallen Earth is in Poker Chips.  Still, food is scarce in the post apocalyptic world and when she says “250 chips” for a few glorious moments I thought I might be getting potato chips.

We didn’t want to leave you with the impression that the entire world of Fallen Earth is all bomb shelters, bombed out buildings and people living on the edge. As the picture taken outside Kristo’s Rest shows there is still a little green left in the world.

See you online,

The No Prisoners, No Mercy Team

Marie Croall

Alls well that ends well…

After a disasterous first attempt (our fault as you can see below) thanks to the kindness of Icarus Studios’ senior designer, the No Prisoners, No Mercy Team was able to sit down for a cup of coffee and a chat. Topics included the one year anniversary celebration with live events this coming Wednesday September 22.  She also explained the new faction points, blood sports and many other changes to the game since we played last.   The NPNM team is back in post apocalyptic Arizona and having fun.

You can expect the discussion with Marie Croall, along with the rest of No Prisoners, No Mercy Show 70 out this weekend on www.virginworlds.com.

The NPNM Team

(photocredit: Lulu.com)

[Depicted above: When I read this recent Doonesbury the first thing that it reminded me of was my return to Fallen Earth and my adventure traveling from New Flagstaff to Kristo’s Rest.  One of the road blocks was by that ever persistent npc faction, The Union.]

There are a few things that push our buttons and we have done more than a few shows about them.  Our regular listeners know that one of the actions that causes’ us to react are those members of the community and blogosphere that pronounce a game to be dead merely because they don’t play it or don’t like it.  One of the most noted instances of such behavior was the blogger who tried a game for 5 minutes (and in early beta at that) and wrote a two word review… “It sucks.”  (I will just be he made his creative writing teacher proud with that review eh?

Those astute followers of our show who occasionally peruse our companion site will also note the lack of adverts on the show and the site…this is, of course, because we absorb the cost ourselves. This means that sometimes there are only so many dollars to go around. So when we were given the chance to try out Fallen Earth again and see what had changes we jumped at the chance – and, as the designated post apocalyptic lore member of the No Prisoners, No Mercy team I must say I was pleasantly surprised.

Not only that, the kind folks at Icarus Studios have even agreed to send over their Senior Game Designer, Ms. Marie Croall to have a chat with us this week. The way we will be handling the interview is much the way we did the interview sessions with Mr. Paul Barnett, then of Mythic Entertainment, and break it down into subjects over more than one show. Is this a ploy to get new listeners to come back more than once? Heaven forfend of course not! (O.K. maybe just a little). More than that, however, is our desire to meet the requests of our listeners.

So if there is anything you want to ask the Senior Designer feel free to send it in to us at noprisonersnomercy@gmail.com .

See you online,

Julie Whitefeather

[posted for Julie Whitefeather by The Webmaster]

Icarus Rocks On...

Tis’ the season for the Seasonal Arctic Network of Toy-based Altruism (S.A.N.T.A.) to band together and reinstate the age old tradition of gift giving in post apocalyptic Arizona.  S.A.N.T.A. have loaded up their all-terrain sleighs at North Poland and travelled across the globe to distribute presents. (I haven’t quite figure out why North Poland yet – except perhaps some dev from Icarus Stuidos “hails” from there as they say).

This, of course, is only possible with the help of the Emissaries Leaving Free Stuff (E.L.F.S.) acting as a “special ops team ensuring proper protocols for supply distribution”.  I know this is all true for I have it all straight from the mouth of Corporal Claus.

While the military faction (The Enforcers) is busy bringing toys in “Operation Nice” the scientific faction (The Techs) have been figuring out how to build a snowman in the middle of an irradiated desert. I must say I like their solution. Icarus studios rocks on… I give you the rock man (see image above)

Now there are plenty of seasonal goodies to be had, but just in time for Christmas the devs at Icarus Studios have brought us all some permanent presents that are now in full swing…camp sites and bunker bars.

My first stop, of course, was the “construction zone” (a street corner in New Flagstaff was the one nearest me) where I learned how to build camping equipment…

Time to learn to camp!

After that, of course, it was off to the nearest city run by the Traveler Faction where our clan leader and I (read guild leader for all you World of Warcraft players out there) hit the slots and the black jack machines.

After winning a few chips I head over to the bar to enjoy a drink, and wonder how hard it would be to build my own rock man.

See you online,

The No Prisoners, No Mercy Team

This guy pushes my buttons

You might recognize the desert that this particular troll is standing in – it is the post apocalyptic Arizona desert, about 150 years from the current date.  Now why, you might ask yourself, does a troll standing in a desert “push my buttons”? Well lets be a bit less obtuse about it then…

One of my “buttons” in this case are players who, having decided they don’t like a game also decide that no one else should like a game as well. Not long ago I read a forum troll for one of the newer games on the shelf that started as follows:

“Am I the only one who doesn’t feel like logging in any more?”

My immediate thought was, of course, “Yes, you are the only one. The game has just come out and some of us are actually enjoying the game.”  Fortunately, many of the games today are solo friendly and the solution for those who rushed to the level cap and have no guild mates to play with is easy: Re-roll a new character and solo it through the content again…put another way, go play with yourself and leave the rest of us alone.

Now there are some of our long time readers who at this point will remember the phrase I am wont to use, and that is “Hell hath no fury like a gamer whose game has been scorned.”  Yes, in this case, the phrase does especially apply to yours truly. But why get so defensive about it?

Well it might be that the folks at Icarus studios are some of the nicest most considerate game developers we here at No Prisoners No Mercy (NPNM) have ever had the pleasure of meeting…but that isn’t it.  It might be that, as an independent developer we  here at NPNM wholeheartedly agree with the discussion we had with Dr. Richard Bartle not long ago when he was a guest on our show – that even if you don’t like a game, if it accomplishes something new that it is worthy of praise.  After all, no matter what anyone thinks (including the imbecile we read on the Internet who thought that Fallen Earth was copied from Star Wars Galaxies) Fallen Earth has given players a new game world, with alot of virtual world thrown in, that breaks the same tired old fantasy world mold.

But none of that is the “it” in question.

There are some causes that just strike a nerve, push a button, or hit home if you will, and one of those causes is independent game developers.  It’s just in my nature, and trying to champion a cause doesn’t always mean the members of a given community wish to have anything to do with me.  There was a time in my not too distant past when I belonged to a social action organization that simply tolerated me to have the membership dues. More is the pity, because of all the members I was (for reasons upon which I will not expound) in a better position than any to get changes made for the given social issue.  Still, that doesn’t stop me from taking a particular issue to heart; from feeling defensive about the matter.  There is even an old tale that explains why I feel compelled to champion the cause of independant game developers: It’s in my nature.

One day, a scorpion and a frog met by the side of a river.

The scorpion wished to cross the river, but it was too wide and swift for him to do so. Not being able to cross the river himself, he decided to enlist the aide of the frog:

“Mr. Frog!” said the scorpion, “Would you be so kind as to give me a ride on your back across the river?”

“Well now, Mr. Scorpion! How do I know that if I try to help you, you wont try to kill me?” asked the frog hesitantly.

“Because,” the scorpion replied, “If I try to kill you, then I would die too, for you see I cannot swim!”

Now this seemed to make sense to the frog. But he asked. “What about when I get close to the bank? You could still try to kill me and get back to the shore!”

“This is true,” agreed the scorpion, “But then I wouldn’t be able to get to the other side of the river!”

“Alright then…how do I know you wont just wait till we get to the other side and THEN kill me?” said the frog.

“Ahh…,” crooned the scorpion, “Because you see, once you’ve taken me to the other side of this river, I will be so grateful for your help, that it would hardly be fair to reward you with death, now would it?!”

So the frog agreed to take the scorpion across the river. He swam over to the bank and settled himself near the mud to pick up his passenger. The scorpion crawled onto the frog’s back, his sharp claws prickling into the frog’s soft hide, and the frog slid into the river. The muddy water swirled around them, but the frog stayed near the surface so the scorpion would not drown. He kicked strongly through the first half of the stream, his flippers paddling wildly against the current.

Halfway across the river, the frog suddenly felt a sharp sting in his back and, out of the corner of his eye, saw the scorpion remove his stinger from the frog’s back. A deadening numbness began to creep into his limbs.

“You fool!” croaked the frog, “Now we shall both die! Why on earth did you do that?”

The scorpion shrugged, and did a little jig on the drownings frog’s back.

“I could not help myself. It’s in my nature.”

(source of this version of the tale)

If all else fails...

If all else fails, so the old adage goes, read the instructions.  Yet ask yourselves, of all the times  you bought an mmo off the shelf (remember when the only way you could buy one was in an actual box?) how many of you even cracked open the instruction booklet?  As for me, I occasionally peruse the instructions… usually when the mmo takes a long time to patch. After all, isn’t that what tutorials are for?

It’s interesting…all the comments I have read about tutorials over the years – everything from “it’s too good” to “it sucks a pile of dead dingo dung.”  With each new game developers face multiple challenges with just the starting area:  How do you make it convey how to play the game but not make it boring? How do you make it good, but not so good it overshadows the rest of the game? (Age of Conan anyone?)  How do you do all that but make it interesting enough so players won’t say “OMG not again!” when they go through the same starting area for the third time.

Yet no matter how good a starting area is, there is no way a developer can convey all the nuances and myriad rules in the short time it takes to complete the tutorial. And there, as the immortal bard once said, “lays the rub”.  Had I had the opportunity to talk to whoever designed the crafting in Fallen Earth this weekend it might have gone like this:

Me:  “My armor crafting seems to be stuck at 28 – no matter how much I craft these stupid t-shirts my score won’t rise.”

FE Dev: “That’s because you are capped out for your level…”

Me: “WHAT! I’VE BEEN AT THIS ALL AFTERNOON! WHAT DO YOU MEAN ‘LEVEL’?”

FE Dev: “We mean that the cap on your current craft skill by area is tied to your intelligence and perception scores.”

(long pause while I think)

Me: “Why didn’t you tell me that in the first place?”

FE Dev.: “We did…”

Me:  “No you didn’t.”

FE Dev: “Didn’t we send you that wonderful autographed box?”

Me: “Well…yes.”

FE Dev: “Did you spend all your time gawking at the signatures or did you read the instruction book that came with it?”

Me: “Well…I never read those things.”

FE Dev: “We suspected as much. That’s why there is this really nice npc standing right by the exit where you start the game that answers all the questions you have.”

Me: “Oh that guy…I just sort of ignored him.”

FE Dev: “We thought you might. That’s why we sent you to the NPC to teach you about crafting and have her guide you through the process. Did you read everything in the NPC’s dialogue?”

Me: “Well…no.”

FE Dev: “Well then any time you wasted is your own fault.”

Me: “How so?”

FE Dev: “Back in college we failed ‘Mind Reading 101.’”

Whoever designs crafting in any game has an enormous challenge. Make it too easy and it will seem like it was tacked on to the game as an afterthought. Make it too hard and the player will get bored. If crafting is both hard and an integral part of the game it will make the player feel like an animal in a trap – willing to chew off a limb just to get out of it.

Even when a developer hits the proverbial nail on the head when crafting is added to the mmo, the interest of the player is still dependant on both ability and willingness to perceive how the process is done – like reading instructions.  Fortunately, when part of that equation fails those who are fortunate (like me) have a great clan LIKE THE OLDER GAMERS who are willing to help out.

See you online

Julie Whitefeather

Side Notes

 

This last weekend I had a chance to hear a performance on taiko drums.  There may be those of you who don’t know what taiko drums are – for those unenlightened few they are, in brief, REALLY BIG REALLY LOUD DRUMS.  Now it so happens I have heard taiko drums played quite a bit.  Keep in mind that taiko drums are usually not accompanied by other musical instruments, as drums so often are in western music.

Now THAT'S Music!

Now if I have heard my share of taiko drums, I have heard A LOT of bagpipe music.  The reason for this is simply that there is more than one hard drinking Scotsman in my family tree. That said, taiko drums and bagpipes have at least one thing in common, and that one thing is that it takes a trained ear to really appreciate a performance with either instrument. Otherwise, after the novelty of the performance wears off, reactions start to go like this:

Neophyte audience: “Hey…look…great big drums!  This is really different!”

(Drumming starts)

THUMPA, THUMPA, THUMP, THUMP, THUMP, THUMP

(15 minutes later)

Taiko Drum Master: “And now ‘Tea for two’ on the taiko drums”

THUMPA, THUMPA, THUMP, THUMP, THUMP, THUMP

Like drums, there are some songs that just shouldn’t be played on bagpipes.  Two that come immediately to mind that I have heard played on bagpipes are “Jesus Christ Superstar” and  “Stairway to Heaven”. As moving as I occasionally find the bag pipes, like taiko drums, they are best taken in moderation.  Otherwise, like our penguin friend above I find myself looking at the piper and saying, “Maybe if you quit biting it’s tail it will quit screaming”

And I used to be in a bagpipe band.

Quote of the day: This quote is from one of our “must reads” here at No Prisoners, No Mercy – Killed in a Smiling accident. This quote is from “When Once the Forms of Civility are Violated, there Remains Little Hope of Return to Kindness or Civility” by Melmoth (and is available here) The title alone is nearly an article in itself but the post is a good read. We recommend both the article and the web site.

 “Well you could do that, but nobody will want to group with you.” A phrase wrapped in wilful condescension so thick that if you spread some patronization between a couple of slices of it you’d have the world’s most bitter doorstop sandwich.” – Melmoth, on “Killed in a Smiling Accident”

The subject of the article is not DDO so much as some of the players who inhabit that virtual realm.  I must say, as a player of DDO from back when it came in a thin little book that said “chain mail” on the outside I agree whole heartedly with the following quote by the same author, from the same article:

“…every MMO has their class of players who think that they are above and beyond the plebeians who don’t play the game the way that they do.” – Melmost, ibid

The article even coins a new word that I just love, describing players who fault others for not squeezing the virtual nickel until the buffalo farts (my comparison not his, so fault me) or ensuring they have squeezed out the last .01 dps. Melmost calls them “Maxminati”. You just have to love the term.

Drifting along in Fallen Earth

A bit later than usual today dear readers…believe it or not I actually went outside today.  It seems that it was the perfect day for sucking a yard full of leaves. It reached the point where the neighbors called and said, “Gee you seem to have all the leaves from the neighborhood on your lawn!”   And in case you haven’t guessed, that is “neighborese” for “When are you going to rake the leaves?” However it was a good day for it – after all it was Caucasian summer…I mean “Indian summer”…I mean a warm fall day.

So if you saw the title on your reader and expected to find an article about a Cole Porter song you are, as you can tell from the picture above, mistaken.   Instead this is about a time in the not too distant future (150 years to be exact) as a rough character named “Auntie Maim” rides across a plateau somewhere in the vicinity of the Grand Canyon (that’s a great big hole in the ground in the south west area of the U.S. for all of you  out of the country readers).

So why the night and day title?

Quite simply I have had the pleasure of sampling Fallen Earth since early closed beta thanks to the kind folks at Icarus Studios. Yes, I will be the first to admit that some of the early days were rough.  But things have changed since then, and even since the opening days of the game.  And as the title of the article suggests I have found it to be a change of “night and day” by comparison. 

Lag?

Not a bit of it – and we are running it on a desk top that is a far cry from being a “top end” machine.  Even when I rode in to town with all the other post apocolyptic residents of Depot 66 around me there wasn’t so much as a sputter.

What about that tutorial?

One of the regulars that writes in the our little corner of the blogosphere (no names please – except to say it isn’t anyone from the Virgin Worlds collective) faulted Fallen Earth’s tutorial.  They said that they felt dumped out into the world by a tutorial that had no resemblance to the rest of the game.   Before the changes to the new player experience I still thought that it was a great way to introduce the game mechanics to the players.   I always appreciate devs who try and make the new player experience interesting and involve me in a story right from the get go. After all, consider the alternative from some of the games that have been around awhile – in those “other” games a dwarf hands you a rusty axe and tells you to go kill ten wolves.  Exciting eh?

Even though all that was added to the tutorial was a series of optional quests once you hit your first town (where you first appear in the game after the tutorial and you have selected your starting town) they made a big difference.  Before I still felt a bit lost after the tutorial but not this time.  The beginning quests showed me around town, introduced me to how the various systems work like crafting and combat. I even ended up with a horse from square one, rather than having to take half of forever to earn the darn thing in those “other” games.  O.K. so the horse was an “old nag” but by the end of the second play session, as you can see above I sat astride a much higher priced model.

And speaking of horses…

One of the things I am sure you all heard us talk about  with Keen on show number 47 was games that have a bit more “virtual world” in their “game world” (for a difference between the two see our earlier articles about our discussions with Dr. Richard Bartle).  One of those nice touches that really impressed me was the fact that horses don’t “disappear” like the mounts in so many other games.  In every other game I have ever played you get off your horse, turn around and say “who the heck stole my horse”?  In this game you get off your horse, walk into the local store, and when you come out your horse is still waiting there. (no worries, no one can steal it),

So when I am online the rest of the weekend, most of it will be riding across the plateau of post apocalyptic Arizona.

If you see Auntie Maim say hello!

See you online,

Julie Whitefeather

It's Friday!

Among the many jobs I have worked at, one of them was in a factory. There is an old expression that stuck with me from those days – no matter how tired you are, come quitting time on Friday, everyone has energy.  It’s Friday, welcome to the road to the weekend edition.

The Road to the Stars…

If you haven’t read the running conversation under this week’s “Game You Wish You Could Love” article, it’s all about Eve Online. But there is one game that we here at No Prisoners, No Mercy love even before it hits the shelves: Star Trek Online. Now mind you, these days we take anything that comes out of Eurogamer with about a truckload of salt. They are reporting, however, that Cryptic Studios has announced the official release date for Star Trek Online, which they are saying is February 5, 2010. Now mind you we are well aware that if there is anywhere that Murphy’s Law rears its ugly head it is producing games; and so that date may not be set in stone. However, at the risk of jumping the gun (for even in the world of interviews things change) we have the perfect source to ask…

Mr. Bill Roper who has kindly agreed to an interview about one of our favorite games  – Champions Online. The accompanying article prepared by our own Fran has been completed but we are going to make you wait until the audio portion is recorded.  While Fran and I are busy winging (or in my case teleporting) our way across the skies of Millennium City it occurred to us that while CCP is still talking about “walking in stations” everything we have seen from Star Trek Online so far (and that is only what we read) tells us that players in Star Trek are already footloose and fancy free instead of floating around in a pod full of primordial goo.  We only have one question left…

Who do we have to bribe to get a beta code (we missed out on the lifetime offer for Champions Online)

Dragons Age…

Dragon Age Origins has finally arrived and with it, an article over at arstechnica.com entitled “Dragon Age Launch Fails” (available here). If the article is to be believed, there are problems – here is a quote:

 “The problem? EA and Bioware require you to sign into their own websites, with their own accounts and login information, to allow you to access the bonus content from your purchase. That process, it seems, is broken for many users.” – Ben Kuchera, Arstechnica.com

I am not sure why the good folks at Arstechnica are having problems but no one at the modding group I belong to called “The Engineering Guild” (available here)  seems to be troubled at all. In fact everyone at The Engineering Guild has been planning their mods for Dragon Age Origins since long before the game came out.  And one thing is for sure, no one can say the devs at Bioware are not on the ball where the modding community is concerned – the tool set was released with the game and is available here.

Getting Hammered…

It was not that long ago that my goblin shaman finally retired from Warhammer Online for good…but maybe someone might follow in his place. Why? Here’s why..

Werit had an article this week  (and if you don’t read Werits blog why not? It’s good.) reporting that the new 10 day trial for Warhammer Online has been extended – indefinitely. In other words, while players are still limited to Tier one they can now play longer than 10 days. In fact they can play as long as they want.  Here is the article. Let’s hope that this is not only true, but that those who participate will max out at the top of the Tier One levels. After all, Tier One is where I had the most fun; especially in the Empire RvR lake. Either way, another one of our favorite sites, The Ancient Gaming Noob, has an interesting post this week about the possible consequences of the new trial (available here) entitled “a mass of Tier One Twinks”

Meanwhile back at the (post apocalyptic) corral:

Meanwhile the Wandering Goblin is reporting that Interplay and Bethesda (makers of Fallout 3, one of my favorite stand alone games) are still fighting it out in court for the rights to produce a Fallout MMO (which I read is set to expire this month for Interplay). The article is available here.  So while Interplay and Bethesda have been busy playing dueling lawyers I have been busy in the post apocalyptic world of FALLEN EARTH.  And if you want to know a bit more about how things have been going for the dev team over at Icarus there is nothing like hearing it straight from the “horses mouth” as it were – or in this case the project managers mouth.  Yes, Mr. Colin Dwan, project manager for Fallen Earth was kind enough to share some time with us earlier this week. The interview has been through the editing process and will be the top half of show number 48.

The folks over at Wizard 101 have been asking the No Prisoners No Mercy team to come back and play in their world again. As for me, I will be spending time buzzing through the skies of Millennium City faster than a speeding pullet and learning my way around the post apocalyptic Fallen Earth. However, I will not be playing any more Aion Online. For me I believe it is finally time to hang up my wings. I will be in good company, however as Werit appears to being hanging up a similar pair of wings and talks about it in an article here called Farewell Aion.

The last straw…

Werit’s article touched on a couple of points that, for me, were the last straw. Here are the quotes:

“Abyss.  The Abyss sounded interesting on paper, but in reality it was one big gank fest.  Allowing ranks 25 through 50 to fight in the same space, without a bolster, just was not fun.” – Werit

 ”Leveling.  It’s a long way to the top if you want to PvP.  I am a big fan of PvP leveling and Aion just does support that style of gameplay.” – Werit

“Guild.  There are quite a few CoW’s [presumably his guild] who play Aion and I will miss grouping with them.” – Werit

Pvp is  one place that place that Warhammer did it right and NCSoft  still hasn’t learned. If you are going to make a game where the focus is primarily on pvp make sure you can easily level with pvp. The interesting thing about pvp is that everyone talks about balance but what most people really mean is they want the scales tipped in their favor.  As far as balance is concerned I still like the approach Warhammer took (every class is strong against some and weak against others) as opposed to World of Warcraft’s approach (Micromanage all the classes until you manage to tick off just about everyone but rogues). And while Werit said he will miss some of his guild mates, the best thing about organizations that cross multiple games like The Older Gamers is that you will still see the same people in other games.

Stinking out loud…

There is little doubt that anyone who surfs the waves of the blogsphere has not heard about the ‘Blizzard Cash Shop” by now. Earlier this week Fran wrote about this at the end of her “Homey doesn’t like pugs” article.  John Woods echoes our (that’s the royal we) opinion in his article over at www.mmorpg.com.

“By raising a gigantic stink about this particular move on Blizzard’spart, the only thing that is going to happen is that next time, when a company actually does do something offensive like charge a subscription and offer game-enhancing items within a store, is that no one is going to listen to the horde of people that are crying foul.

By reacting and over-reacting negatively every time even the slightest thing is done that might possibly be controversial, the voices of the fans get easier and easier for game companies to ignore. This, my friends, is not good for our genre and opens the door to truly unscrupulous actions by others.” – John Wood, MMORPG.com ( available here )

Now on to the next section…

The Lore Behind the Game

Lets start with a bit of fiction about Fallen Earth Lore.  Enjoy the story. See you on the other side of Friday.

- The No Prisoners No Mercy team

Most people have memories of their past: playing with childhood friends (or a lack thereof), parents, perhaps a sister or two. People often look back on times spent with families (and not necessarily fondly).  Her memories didn’t extend past the last half hour. In fact the only thing she could remember was her name, and that was only because it was tattooed across her upper left arm, that and a mass of Celtic scroll work. A similar tattoo adorned her right forearm, with two matching tattoos on each of her right and left leg, that went all the way up to her thigh.

Nobody messes with Auntie Maim

At least she assumed they did. She hadn’t stopped to take that good of a look. After all, she had spent the last half hour dodging bullets, running for her life through the hallways of what the voice called “Hoover Dam” (at least she presumed the voice meant “Dam” and not “Damn”) and generally just getting irritated.  What she was most irritated at was a voice over an intercom that had insisted on calling her “clone.”

“Listen clone…”

There was the voice again.

“Auntie…or Maim…you choose” she said.

There was a slight pause, then the overhead speaker crackled in to life once again.

“What?” it said hesitantly.

“Call me Auntie, or Maim, but I am tired of this dehumanizing ‘clone’ crap. Why do you keep calling me ‘clone’? I got a name for you and it isn’t Elaina Winters.”

“Well I…” stammered the voice over the loud speaker.

“Look,” said Auntie sternly, “I may be a ‘clone’ but I’ve got a good memory and it’s not too late for me to come back to that control room of yours and kick your ass around the block a few times. And if I can find this ‘Alec Masters’ and his Lifenet buddies who do the cloning in the first place I am going to kick their collective asses a few times just for good measure.”

“Look you need to trust me…” said the voice that Auntie had come to know by the name ‘Winters’”

“Ya sure – how do I know you didn’t make up this whole ‘Shiva virus caused end of the world’ crap just to get me to help you escape? How do I know you’re not just using me?” said Auntie sneering.

“I’m not just using you, said Winters trying to soothe things over a bit. Didn’t I get you past all the soldiers?”

“Ya – I suppose. Most of ‘em anyway.” said Auntie.

“Have I steered you wrong so far?” said the voice on the intercom.

“Well no…” said Auntie hesitantly. Then she continued, “so what’s next?”

“O.K. now that you’re clear of the soldiers and mutants you’re going to need a way out of the dam. In the next room you will find a small all terrain vehicle. The keys are in it. Take the ramp straight toward the outside as fast as you can.”

Just as the voice told her, there was a small four wheeled vehicle in the next room, and the keys where in it. “How lucky was that?” thought Auntie. She hopped on the ATV and gunned the motor. She twisted the accelerator and tore off down the ramp as fast as she could. Half way down the ramp there were soldiers behind make shift barriers of ruined cars. Auntie dodged the bullets and the barricades and soon found herself at the foot of a steep incline with a drop off at the top. Then she heard the voice again. It came through a speaker set into the ceiling just behind her.

“What are you stopping for?”

 “I don’t know if this little four wheeler can make the jump” said Auntie.

 “You’ve got to hurry.” said Winters.

 “Why?” asked Auntie.

 “Well, there is one thing I failed to mention” said Winters.

 “Which is?”

 There was a slight pause. Then the voice that was Elaina Winters continued.

 “Well…because the ATV isn’t just an ATV?”

 “Why not?” asked Auntie.

 “Because there’s a bomb strapped to it.”

I am talking about…of course…none other than Icarus Studios.

Signed by the Fallen Earth Team

Twice now it has been our extreme pleasure to have their project manager, Mr. Colin Dwan, as a guest on the show. His second appearance is in the editing process now.  That said, in the interest of full disclosure, and since it is our understanding that it is now required by law in the U.S. anyway, we wanted to share the wonderful gift that the Fallen Earth team sent along to us – signed by the whole team and suitable for framing (believe me that’s exactly whats going to happen it).

Don’t get us wrong, this isn’t about some silly bank sitting “nah, nah, nah see what we have and you don’t” garbage. Far from it.  Why this is important to us is that, after the years of writing  about games and more than a year of podcasting (all told) this is one of the first tangible “atagirls” we have received.

Now what, you may ask yourself, is an “atagirl”? 

I had an NCO (non-commissioned officer in charge) in the military who would look at soldiers and say “atagirl” [that's a girl] when ever you did something right as an acknowledgement. He would then follow up with, “but remember one ‘aw crap’ wipes out a thousand ‘atagirls’”.

signed by the Fallen earth team

Our first "atagirl"

And so this is our first “atagirl” if you will (or even if you won’t) from a developer. So thank you from us here at No Prisoners No Mercy to the entire Fallen Earth team for what is possibly the biggest warm fuzzy in a long time.

See you online

Julie Whitefeather

Update:  When budgetary constraints forced us to make a few decisions and cut back on a few expenses one of the expenses to go was Fallen Earth. Now the kind people at Icarus Studios  have solved that problem by giving us a press account – and so we will be able to continue to bring you news from Fallen Earth. And yes, we think of that as another, very large, “Atagirl”.