Hello Anyone From Massively!

Sorry, I've not blogged anything much recently. If you fancy a damned good read though, the blogroll is still quite active and there are some fantastic mmo blogs to read on it.
If you fancy a rather not bad read, my interviews with Derek Smart and Ragnar Tornquist are linked to the side.

Blind faith is a just cause. (WH40K)

In his Glorious Majesty’s realm, blind faith is a just cause. Granted that says an awful awful lot about the world of the Imperium.

A quick look at my blog list this morning got me a few links. On the one hand we have Shadow-War and We Fly Spitfires on the cautious but positive view. On the other we have Syncaine in his crusade against all things WoW taking a snarky tack, along with The War Realm being unimpressed.

To each their own really. Syncaine insists that Dark Millennium doesn’t look dark and gloomy enough and is WoW in the future. War Realm has come down on the side of the trailer being CGI and thus useless (coughOldRepubliccough).

They may have a point. Perhaps games have been unfairly influenced out of all proportion by World of Warcraft. At the same time maybe that’s because the influences weren’t all negative. Maybe the trailer doesn’t give everything you want to know, but hey that to me looked pretty damn slick and THQ did all its cinematics in the engine for Dawn of War. If they were going the CGI route full of pretty and no substance, they could have gone further.

Me? I’m all for it. We’ve gone from what was just a bullet point on a THQ statement, through small bits of concept art into a trailer that shows me some pretty exciting things. Maybe Syncaine is right and the Kopta isn’t piloted and is more like WoWs griffins. Maybe there will be a ridiculous amount of PvE questing. Maybe all the naysayers will be right on the money and it will be World of Warhammercraft 40k.

Or maybe… just maybe it’s as good as it looks. Given the option of being negative or being an mmo blogger… I’m going to have to go with the unbridled out of proportion optimism. I have faith in Vigil Games and THQ. I am not yet ready to call for the Exterminatus on the Dark Millennium.

Blogging or living in the grim darkness of the far future, blind faith is a just cause.

To Everything There Is A Season

I have never really had experiences with big guilds. I dabble in many many games but my home for the majority of my MMO life has been the Virtue server of City of Heroes.

City of Heroes is a reasonably casual game. You can hop on to either side, grab a random mission from the Police Radio or Newspaper (assuming you don’t have a contact with missions) and hammer it out quickly. Design aspects were taken and further expanded upon in Cryptics Champions Online and to an extent Star Trek Online. As a result of this casual nature, I have never had the experience I hear of with World of Warcraft guilds where courting them is a multiple week long process. I never really had much interaction with many guilds in Warhammer either. The one that I did join which wasn’t just a collection of City Of Heroes friends merely asked that I play with them a lot rather than a little. Given that more often than not I no longer played with friends at that time I had no problem throwing my various alts in.

However recently in City of Heroes old players have come back from the wilds of Champions Online and here is where I get to the point.

There once was a group. I shan’t name it, though anyone who knows me can guess it, so as not to come across as bashing anyone. I had a wonderful time in the group and made many friends. Some of them persist to this day, some of them I have had the fortune of meeting in person. The group was active, had allies, had stories and had fun. With so many people back in those heady days coming and going in City of Heroes there was a vibrance to the Supergroup. People came and people went but the core of what the roleplay group was remained.

As time passes though, so too do people. Eventually the group withered and died. There were brave attempts at restarting it to be sure. There were good ideas and good intentions but in the end, if no one can give the time to the group, the group does not exist. That is the core of my belief regarding Supergroups. Perhaps with hardcore guilds where it takes months to gain entry, where they are a heavy investment in time, money and effort, there is a greater sense of permanence to the guild. Perhaps in those cases it is about the tools and utility of the guild rather than the people. As I said, I don’t know having had no experience. Supergroups though are all about the people. In a casual game with so many coming and going and having so many faces (ahhh altitis, my bane) the time between a group being one you remember fondly and one being filled with strangers who have little link to the original ideals can be quite small.

In the end the casual nature of the game contributed to the death of the group. Some older hands retried it in Champions Online and it seems it has either diverged from the memory of the original or the game itself does not hold the interest of everyone. Why do I say this? Well those same souls are back in Paragon City and trying once more to recreate the group. The name was never the group. The ideals or roleplay reasons for it were never the group. The group was made and immortalised in peoples memories by the people themselves. They’ve moved on, the groups season turned. I just hope that in trying to bring it back again, people do not tarnish their memories (surely rosily coloured by nostalgia at this point) of what they had by the imitations attempted.

They say you can’t cross the same bridge twice because of the water flowing beneath. I suppose you can’t join the same casual dream twice either.

Last Chance

Hey folks, just a quick poke in the eye here.

Today is the final day where you can buy the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.2010 MMO Calendar

Information and Store here

If you want an epic piece of MMO art every month for a year, this is the last chance. Go now and grab it, 100% of proceeds go to charity.

Scarybooster Asks Me Stuff

Hop on over to Scary Booster (you should have been going anyway!) and see my barely coherent ramble in response to his fantastic article section that’ll release every Monday about the bloggers you know and may follow on Twitter.

How I became Ardua

Commentapalooza : The Tobolding

For my junk post to inspire comments, I take my lead from Ysharros and I expand upon the point made.

While pie is meh, I posit that this refers only to the American convention of fruit based pies. Cottage Pie and Shepards pie when made well are far superior to mere fruit pie.
Further and to reiterate, Mince Beef and Onion pie is awesome.

However, to grant Ysharros one small boon, my father swears by (oh how I wish it was at) apple pie with cheese on top.
I prefer cheese and peanut butter sandwiches.

For Tobold by the League for Greater Comment Volume. Never mind the quality — feel the width!

League Memebers
Ferrel who hates bloody peasants.
Ysharros wielder of the holy cheese
Syp whom the cheese did not agree with
Rivs who is piloting the breakaway Attention Whore Union
Frank who gives tips and points out he whom we must topple.

Mythic & Bioware : Mythioware

Head on over to the Warhammer Herald for one of likely many announcements to come on
the EA Mythic/Bioware Merger.

This... is going to be interesting. Where's my flame war survival suit?

Woohoo!

Thanks to the blogosphere (I wish I was putting information out rather than taking it in as usual, must work on that) I too have gotten myself the nifty Scarab amulet.

So far ....
CE Retail Box Includes: The Librams of Insight, Custom Character Heads and more!
Pre-Order Includes: Rittenbach's Portable Camp and Guardian's Iolite Band
Reward: White Dwarf Includes: Custom Dwarf Head
Reward: Email Validated Includes: Title - 'The Validated'
Reward: C&C Red Alert 3 Includes: Kossar's Helm
Preview Weekend Provides access to Preview Weekend
CE Open Beta Provides access to the CE Open Beta
CE Head Start Provides access to the CE Head Start
Reward: Choppa/Slayer Custom Heads Includes: Choppa/Slayer Custom Heads
Reward: Scarab Amulet Includes: Scarab Amulet
Reward: Shroud of the Imrathepis Includes: Shroud of the Imrathepis

One day Skaven Cloak, you will be mine.
(What? CoH has badge whoring, WAR has the Tome and rewards :P)

Everyone say awwwww now

WAR news, but not WAR related.

From Twitter : JoshDrescher Less than six hours left until the wedding...

Come on everyone. Tweet the man and wish him luck.

Blogroll Update

Had to go and take an axe to the blogroll on the side. So many WAR Bloggers gone, so many blogs that I didn't pay enough attention to.

Sad to see them all go, but still I thank them for what they shared with everyone while they were here.

Coming later tonight : WCPI

WCPI : Blogwarhammer

For this WCPI it is less a promotion of the active and more a good bye.

• Alt Much? rips off the bandaid.
• Girl IRL makes a sideways move.
• Wizards & Wenches beats a towel to death with another towel. Don't meddle in the affairs of Wizards, they is the cwaaaziest people. <3
• Bugmans Best is no longer being served.

Blame The Healer and the Tome of Knowledge continue and I along with them. Over on the sidebar there's still the link to the Blog Warhammer Forum. Drop by and annoy some folks.
(Ardy watches for spam .... always watches)

Let's talk about Sandwiches.

My personal favourite sandwich is "THE Sandwich". It's tuna, eggs, ham, onion, cheese, dash of black pepper and cheese & onion crisps.
Granted, I'll put almost any meal between bread. Ask Shannon.

How does this relate to WAR? Well I am going to close my eyes and pretend it does. Actually the whole sandwich thing comes from a blog I remember reading once, may have been Ixobelles. The idea being that the sandwich shop that offers it all and has the freshest bread and fillings is the best.

That and when I originally started writing this, I was waiting for lunchtime.

Anyway back to the point at hand. PvE is your bread and butter, except I hate butter. PvP we'll call being the spicy/very flavourful fillings. Some like them, others not so much. Despite the original sandwich theory being that the shop that offers better sandwiches than the others is the shop you will always return to, I would like to offer the counter theory that we have not yet made the perfect sandwich.

A sublime medley of tastes and textures, a mix of colours and sounds when you chew. No one has yet made such a sandwich that you can lean over the theoretical counter and say "hold the PvP" and have it remain delicious. Or even "Can I have a wrap instead of bread? Not feeling PvE".

Right now several WAR/MMO bloggers are casting their eyes about and trying new treats. Some are in EVE, others CoH and probably a few in WoW. Vanguard, LOTRO and Champions Beta have all also been mentioned.
If they come back to WAR, of course I'll be pleased, but I am not going to shove my choice of food down their throats. One day we'll get the game that has it all and spells the end of the MMO genre as we know it, one day we'll have the sort of game where hardcore casuals and casual pkers and seat of the pants market junkies can all co-exist without any trouble.

Until then, I wish everyone the best on their travels round the worlds offered by MMOs, I hope they find something filling and enjoyable, I also hope I'll see them again around my way.

In the end though, sometimes when you're in a sandwich shop... all you really want is a Chinese take away.

Dig, Drink, Kill

The Dwarf Way. Dig, Drink, Kill.

There's plenty to dig up though and as an addition to the WCPI and because of something mentioned on Sentinels guild chat, I present to you the quick link fest to the brightest and best about the Land of the Dead, Beyond the Sands and the Live Expansion.

• Beyond the Sands from the Herald
• The Tome Of Knowledge on the Tomb Kings pt1
• Pt2 from ToK, also what got the attention of Massively
• GirlIRL considers the Live Event
• When in doubt, Lexicanum

Also ... in a WAR related note. Some personal pimpage. If anyone is going to Baltimore Games Day and can grab me a code, I will heart you. If anyone wants to join Warhammer and help me earn a bloody sweet Griffin, so much love. Otherwise, get back to readin ye buggers.

Dug up the links. Check. Drank. Check. Kill.... well the barman looks shifty...

WCPI : War Underground

A good while back I blogged, or at least remember blogging which is close enough, about the extra bits that come along on an MMO. Radio stations, artists plying character portraits, things of that nature.

We already have a few podcasts going (I really should get into those...) and enough blogs to shake a level 2 +5 crotchetiness stick at.

Still todays WCPI goes out to a dual effort of WAR Underground and the Waaagh! Roots blog. They've got radio, they've got guild bits and they've got thee poooowwwer.... sorry, wandered off there.

Slowly but surely we're getting there in the blogosphere. Hop on over to WAR Underground if you want to promote your guild, check out some player made videos or read a few guides to Warhammer Online.

Now if only they could get rid of that elf chick. I vote for a big barrel of Bugmans.

T Minus One Month (give or take)

What are you doing on May 9th ?

After the GOAmeet Dublin well.... we wanted to try another go. So this time information is available from Arbitrary and the Book Of Grudges blog, as well as her own Nerf The Cat. The broad plan at the moment is outlined over there. Check it out. Come to London. Let's Waaaagh!

Oh and the Star Trek thing is my fault. But who doesn't love the idea of IMAX Star Trek?
(That will be May 8th, times tbd)

WCPI: Smelly Orc

Well I imagine Tufmudda smells funny what with being an Orc and all.

Tufmudda is one of the other Irish bloggers which if nothing else makes me feel all warm and happy because my God does this country need more MMO players. Check the site out for honest views on the ups and downs on the Euro servers as well as an awesome chicken recipie that I will have to try.
...What I still haven't finished Gunbad? I've never even seen the Lost Vale.

Tastes like stunty

Honest Scrap Award is me

Well bugger me.

The Honest Scrap award has been circulating in the WAR blogsphere and beyond recently.

Somehow I got nominated and so I am excited to recieve this award from S.T. on RvR Confessions.

Thanks mate! I will so get you back for this.

So what is it about?

1. When accepting this auspicious award, you must write a post bragging about it, including the name of the misguided soul who thinks you deserve such acclaim, and link back to the said person so everyone knows she/he is real.


2. Choose a minimum of seven (7) blogs that you find brilliant in content or design. Or improvise by including bloggers who have no idea who you are because you don’t have seven friends. Show the seven random victims’ names and links and leave a harassing comment informing them that they were prized with Honest Weblog. Well, there’s no prize, but they can keep the nifty icon.


3. List at least ten (10) honest things about yourself. Then pass it on.

I, Ardy, Hereby Nominate:

The Greenskin - Snafzg, Snafzg, Snafzg. I found the Greenskin before I wandered into the rest of the (at the time) new forming Warblogosphere. In fact if it wasnt for reading his blog and from it Book of Grudges and Waaagh! I likely would never have met the BoG girls nor gotten into blogging. So... he's the #1 nominee because it's all his fault. I even smacked him once or twice in a scenario. Though I then died as per my normal MO.

Stylish Corpse - I lessthanthree Ysharros

Bio Break - Syp. That's it. You either know his work or you've been on Mars for the last two years. I wish I was as good as Syp.

Wizards & Wenches - Regis writes Wizards & Wenches. He's the Admin for Blog Warhammer. Runs competitions that have brought us Girl IRL and hosted other blogs. He too is an inspiration to me. That as because I mod over at Blog Warhammer, a little ass kissing never hurt :P

Way of the Chosen - Rivs is another from Blog Warhammer. Never stops. Always has something to say and I love seeing his work. That and one day I'm going to hammerstaff his Chosen in the face. Wait and see.

Breakfast At WAR - They make me laugh. I could try to write more, but I don't know them as well as I'd like or to bastardise some Baggins, half as well as they deserve.

Symptom Of A Greater Cure - SoagCure isn't a WAR blog but is always always a blog I can count on for giving me something to think about. What more can you want from a blog?

10 honest things about myself

I am six and a half foot tall. Really. Check the photos or ask Arbitrary.
I am one year shy of a physics degree that I promise one day I will finish.
I love all things Jim Butcher and will be getting Turn Coat asap. In fact I'll be getting all the graphic novels of, you guessed it, the novels I already own.
I, unlike practically all Irish people, do not drink. Nor have I ever.
I met my wife on the internet through a friends med/fantasy roleplay 6 years ago.
I am a crap roleplayer. (Ok this one was a cop out)
Custard and chocolate chip cookies together is like rocket fuel for me. Causes immense hyperactivity.
I am very tactile and probably end up hugging most people. Beware at GOAMeet London.
I have a photographic memory (probably) where sci-fi is concerned.
I have a scar on my butt. Look, I ran out of things. Suffer with that knowledge :P

Ordering Order and Controlling Chaos.

Recently Massively pimped a link to the WARbander’s Handbook v1.0 (after Wizards and Wenches I do believe). It is a very good read indeed. However there is a question I have for everyone on your various servers.
How does your lot take control of the battle?

During the GOAMeet Tufmudda related some stories of what happened on his old server and his new one. You'll excuse me if I don't have the details down exactly as it was a wee while ago. One story related to the industrious Destruction player who through an immense amount of gold and the in game mail client mailed a huge amount of players to co-ordinate in secret a fortress attack. Operation Snotsner or something to that effect. Another related to Tufmudda himself and spending several hours in a warband not actively fighting. Instead of swinging his cleava and black orcing it up (guess on my part that) he had spent the entire time typing messages to a great many people, helping co-ordinate through the game and through voice chat the war effort. Pulling together bands, directing them to particular objectives and essentially running a battle across multiple fronts.

These stories and others about other peoples online experiences in WAR and other games served to firstly make me jealous. Jealous to such an extent that I toyed with the idea of moving away from the US servers of the game and to my own time and own people on the GOA servers. A place where I knew there was life, co-ordination and a battle to be fought.
Secondly it made me think about what can be done to change how it's all run where I currently am.

Anyone who plays MMOs for a while sooner or later hears that no matter how populated a game, the forums tend to be a vocal minority. Dedicated and devoted they may be (though that may be devoted to snark/flames) they are still a small number. Bloggers too are a small subset of a games population. Look at the Age of Blogging or WCPI initiative. Yes they raise the awareness of blogs and other forums but in the end most players will pass over them or give them a cursory glance at best.

With that excuse there, I admit that I am terrible with forums. I would love to be a regular on the forums, official or otherwise but sadly my attention span isn't up to it. Either I forget to log in, am too busy to or am considering blogging.

If I can't keep up with the war effort there, how can Joe Casual?

I happen to know that Ostermark has a channel, OrderRvR, for bringing people together to co-ordinate rvr. I know this because Bregel was around way in the beginning when people decided to create said channel. I heard it first from a friend and then over Christmas from the Warbands I was in. Sadly alot of those faces have either moved on or alted, and as a result I cannot tell how popular the channel is anymore. Do new folks get told? Am I part of an ever shrinking group joining the channel which one day may no longer have enough people on it to co-ordinate anything?

With this in mind I have an answer for Joe Casual, for me and for the war effort generally speaking.

Answer? Planetside.

We went halfway there with the leaders room in Sigmars Hammer and its Destruction equivalent. A room where only people of high guild rank can enter and thus can co-ordinate.
Planetside however had layers of channels dedicated to war efforts. To access them you had to earn command points for command ranks. CR1 would let you /sitrep. You could send a message one tier up to inform that layer of command. Messages and information passed up to higher ranks who in turn could co-ordinate with each other over greater distances. Onwards and upwards it went all the way to CR5 which allowed people to global message the entire server or a specific planet.

By giving these abilities only to people who earned command ranks which as you can guess can only be earned by leading, Planetside established the control for the war.

Throw in the channels or an equvialent and we may see more co-ordination on both sides beyond that of "Oh hey I see a warband" or "/g Is anything going on?" for people like me. The lazy guy, the footsoldier who will fight where told, when told, but only if someone is around to do the telling.

I'll serve my server in the war, but it'd be nice to give the people who spend the hours typing some framework to work from. Player created methods are fantastic, but only if we know they're out there.

Maybe I just missed it on Ostermark/Phoenix Throne. Anyone got a word for this foot soldier?

GOAMeet - Dublin 9th March

Rawr folks. It's about time that I got off my proverbial and got back to the blogging. Obviously it's easiest to start with the 9th of March and the first attempted GOAMeet.

Was it a sucess? I got fed, met people I didn't know and we talked about fun things. On a personal level it was very much a sucess.
However as Arbitrary will attest, the Dublin location wasnt the most popular choice when she polled the legions of Book Of Grudges readers. That's why during this first attempt, and in fact before it got off the ground, we started planning the second.
GOAMeet London - Coming May 9th. More on that in a bit.

Part of the delay in my blogging hasn't actually been work which normally would be the energy drainer. Rather I ended up with a blasted cold or flu or somesuch. I'm going to blame Arb and Sare if only because I'm taller and can get away with it hehe. Still it was lovely to have them both over.

Arb and myself set off into Dublin to invade the GOA Office. Signing in we got cute little badges that we completely forgot to put against the beepy thing, but then again I doubt we had to. We were also treated to Nic's reimaging of Evita, you had to be there.

There was an important task to tend to before the tour round the office so Arbitrary, myself, Nic, Magnus and ...err you know I've gone and forgotten their otherwise lovely bosses name (loves Tyranids, don't mention the Skaven apparently).. anyway the lot of us retired to the cafeteria for the first reveal.
Namely Arbitrarys birthday present, a modded and painted Queen Helga mini as a Dwarfen Rune Priestess with her very own Book Of Grudges. With any luck we'll have photos over on Nerf the Cat or Book of Grudges before long.

Touring the GOA offices was very enjoyable and despite rumours of super secret information being on whiteboards somewhere, either I missed it or was distracted, and there's plenty to distract.
The QA department has been orcified by the QA dept themselves. Spikes and Gork/Mork faces abound.
The busy CSR area (all of the language areas) had folks tending to tickets and all things WAR.
The Community Management and Forum area is covered in gorgeous in game art and coloured maps of every zone in the game as well as all the bits and pieces people bring in themselves (Space Marines guard Magnus' area). It was lovely to see those people at work, and believe me those forums are monitored. Very Tome of Knowledge (or for CoX players, Nemesis plot-y) with all the watching going on.

Two other areas came up in the tour. The first you may actually see featured here on Tuesday or Wednesday as St Patricks Day will be the first battle between the Dwarfs of Karak Grim and the 'Ard Enuf Greenskin Tribe. It is the games room where all things fun and geeky occur. The second was like an engine room. Huge monitors, incomprehensible things displayed on them, people watching computers carefully. Basically if ever I go in there and unplug something, doom will befall us all. Probably runs the EU or something.

Eventually we all left the office and made for the Bull & Castle. What can I say about the evening? I met Tufmudda. Stories were shared, jokes were made, one cheerful friendly crazy bastard drained a huge glass (check back for photos), blogging ideas came up and a good time was had by all. It was something better experienced.
Seriously, be at the next one.

Of course the night ended on a proper Warhammer note. The obligatory WAAAGH! photo. (Photos to go up as soon as I can get hold of Tufmudda >.<)



Now ... the next time.
Here's the plan ladies and gents. On the poll alot of you voted for London and this appeals to a great many people on a few levels.
Friday the 8th of May is the premiere of Star Trek in cinemas the world over, including IMax screens.
Early details (which of course are subject to change) of GOAMeet London are cinema on the 8th and a proper meet up for Warhammer gamers and GOA on the 9th in a pub to be booked. Apparently Dark Age players may know/remember it. Be sure to keep an eye here and on the Book of Grudges for more concrete details as they emerge.

This! Is! FANMEET!

As Arbitrary pointed out over here there is but a week to go on the GOA fanmeet.

Details remain the same and in good news the bus strike is off or delayed. So there shouldn't be any trouble travelwise. If anyone has any questions they want asked of the GOA lads, feel free to drop a comment or email me (it's in my blogger profile). We'll try to get answers for everything, but of course it's down to the lads themselves.

Travel info can be found here.
Bull & Castle Pub, Temple Bar, 7pm.

Camera-ambushes, Twitter and possibly some live updates will occur during the evening.

Oh and March 17th will be the first Ardy V Nic Warhammer battle. Wish me luck, or failing that insanely cheesey dice rolls.