This should be a tradition.

I did this well before the launch of Star Trek Online and I am doing it again. The only difference is this time I’m not (yet, if ever) in the beta.

I do not like nor am I impressed by Star Wars : The Old Republic.

I’m not hating on your game, if you are a fan. I am not bashing the company or anything. I am just totally unimpressed. If I change my tune later and become a total fanboy, feel free to call me on it.

In the meantime, until I get my blogging regions of my brain full of coffee and come back to you all, enjoy this.

Things Man Shouldn't Know

Woo! \o/

The Secret World GamesCom press embargo lifted yesterday and with that you can now read my exclusive interview with Ragnar Tornquist over at www.OnRPG.com

A snippet?

It's incredibly hard to keep our mouths shut! All we want to do is show you what we've been working on for so long - but we're not far away from doing just that.

It'll be a sh!t game, don't buy it.

Ragnar Tornquist on The Secret World

Now Live on OnRPG.com !

Conspiracies… myths… half truths, careful lies and dark places. All of these are in The Secret World. All myths are true, for a given value. All conspiracies are being played out by the major factions, so long as it suits them.

Templar, Dragon, Illuminati. A world beneath and a game on the horizon. Whatever you know about The Secret World, game creator Ragnar Tornquist says it best on twitter.

“RagnarTornquist @RarePc No, it'll be a shit game, don't buy it. OF COURSE it's going to be a good game, worth every penny, cross my heart, etc. Peace. #TSW”

Of course he’s joking. This game is his baby and soon we will all get to witness its birth onto the AAA MMO gaming scene. If you haven’t been following the rise and reveals of The Secret World, then more than any other game before you are missing a treat. Sure there is the normal hype surrounding it. Where there are fans, there are huge expectations and opinions. Where there are fans, there are detractors and naysayers. All of that we’re used to, heck for some of us it’s how we got our start in the MMO blog scene. Hype breeds excitement, excitement breeds word of mouth and we all know what word of mouth can do for, or in darker cases to, a game.

This game though, it has been creeping around in all the dark places. It has been waiting, growing. Spinning tales and weaving webs. I speak of course of the many ARGs (Alternate Reality Games) related to The Secret World. Even if you aren’t a fan of MMOs, and if not I’d wonder why you’re reading this, it has been quite an experience.

I personally have followed the tweets of some of the unwitting souls of Kingsmouth. I have read of the Monsters of Maine and the Sanctuary Of Secrets. All of these things are being played out on the internet. Sometimes in bursts, full of action and teases. Other times subtly and over a period of time. Unlike any other game I have watched come from concept art, through the teasing trailers and into the market, The Secret World has won my adulation and interest through its mystery. Through the fact that the more I know, the more I want to. All the conspiracies and myths await, all the promises of a secret world, a hidden war and a story unlike any I personally have played with before are just ahead of me.

For people who are left looking at this entry, wanting more, expecting something other than the gushing of a proclaimed fan, there is plenty to be found. There is information close at hand and on the official game forums. Ragnar himself is answering questions every so often on Formspring.me. The Alternate Reality Games get picked apart by a rabid and dedicated fan base on more than one occasion. Of course the best information comes from community questions on the forums themselves here, here and here.

Will it be, as Ragnar joked, a sh-oh look a kitty-t game? I for one am happy with my expectations. I think it will be every bit as deep, every bit as enthralling and mysterious as advertised. In the end, every game has fans and detractors. Every game will have nay-sayers and rabid supporters. I am going for the game whose manner and mystery caught my imagination… not with pretty graphics or insane game play. They weren’t shown yet when I first was snared by it. No, they made me imagine all the possibilities and that, the promise of the mind, is why I will follow the Templar into the darkness of Argartha. Into The Secret World.

Ardy vs Guild Wars 2

My interview with some of the designers of Arena Nets Guild Wars 2 is up over at OnRPG.Com

Go check it out here!

New World, New Look, New Info.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the absolute latest information from City Of Heroes : Going Rogue.

Firstly, information on the gorgeous Nova Praetoria, the centre of Emperor Coles powerbase.

Nova Praetoria 

This city ward, considered to be the most exclusive district in all of Praetoria, houses the elite of Praetorian society: Cole’s trusted Praetors and the myriad state employees and officials who have been given the special privilege to live and work next to humankind’s savior, Emperor Marcus Cole.

From Cole Tower, the tallest building and most dominant landmark in all of Nova Praetoria, Emperor Cole can survey all that he has fought hard to protect.

In the Magisterium below, his Praetors gather for the day-to-day business in Praetoria, capital of the Empire.

Surrounding the Magisterium courtyard are the five most influential structures in Praetorian government: the Ministry of Information, the Ministry of Technology, the Civic Center, the Praetoria Police Headquarters, and the Cole Transport Authority.

Statues of the Praetors stand like sentinels over the Magisterium, reminding all who visit that Cole’s trusted advisors watch over the city with constant vigilance.

But these statues pale in comparison to the glory of Emperor Cole’s likeness, which stands before his tower, hand outstretched in greeting to all who visit here. Before this colossus stands the statue of Praetor White, Praetoria’s enforcer and head of the Powers Division, Praetoria’s super-powered police force.

Where there is a city, there is a support structure and in the darkness below the gem of Nova Praetoria we have The Underground.

The Underground
The Underground is a network of tunnels that traverse the soft underbelly of Praetoria.

It was created to keep the appearance of the aboveground portion of the city unspoiled and uncluttered while the day-to-day maintenance and transportation tasks were carried out away from public view. Using the Lethe as its main artery, the tunnels follow a winding path through Nova Praetoria to Neutropolis and beyond. 

Not all is fun and games in the darkness though. Things lurk and people plot.

 

You’d be best not to take Nova Praetoria at face value…

(More information to come soon we hope and keep an eye on OnRPG.com for my take on Going Rogue soon)

Tinfoil Hat

Not that Tinfoil hat though it is related.

The Blizzard Entertainment Real ID idea has caused a major storm. Suffice to say, people are annoyed (or amused).

So my little tinfoil wrapped titbit is a question. Given that Blizzard is held up on a pedestal and shown to be the company to watch when making an MMO, the company to emulate and the ones who set all sorts of trends… they’re obviously capable of judging how people will react to any given idea to a fair degree.

So if they aren’t going back on Real ID, why are they going forward? I don’t think it’s merely to clean up their forums.

All that data, accessible… that has got to be a marketers wet dream.

Real World Interlude

This entry deals with real world news, so if you’re avoiding all  that nonsense, skip this one.

Anna Chapman is my hero of the hour. But! But but but. Let me explain that statement.

Pictured to the right is Ms Chapman.

The news says she is a suspected Russian spy.

 

Now, I’m not anti America and supporting a spy. I am geeking out over something that Sky News put in my head. When they broke the story, over and over they said it was like a real life spy novel. Personally I didn’t see it. Sure there is a ring of suspects and I have no real idea what they have or have not done. However, when it came to them putting a face to them, the picture shown here is the one they splashed on tv.

Now it’s a real life spy story. Sure the plot is a little lame, but hey, you’ve given us a Bond Girl.

What’s not to love?

WAR EU

This little tidbit has come to my attention.

Will I be able to transfer to North American servers immediately?
◦We do
have plans to allow European customers to transfer to and from our North
American servers. However, this option will not be available at the time of
launch.

Sure I went back to WAR for a bit with Sareini but, in reality, I played maybe two or three days. I'm busy with things at home and in other games. That said, the ability to take the characters I still love, the goodies I managed to grab up (Kossars Helm from C&C RA3, Scarabs from codes etc) and move it all over to the timezone I actually live in? Fantastic!

That may well get me back. No promises of course... but it'd be an option to play again when I know there'd be major action going on.

Sorry for GOA, but I'll be keeping an eye on this.

Proof of the pudding

The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

I previewed Lego Universe for OnRPG here a while back. Keep in mind, the preview was based on early early closed beta stuff. Even on the back of that, I now have my pre-order ordered.

Even if Lego isn't your thing, trust me, this is a gift to get.

Success is commemorated. Failure merely remembered.

Massively have a wonderful interview with Mark Downie from Vigil on Warhammer 40,000.

One good quote I like.

All that we've seen in the trailer is actual gameplay footage?
Mark: Absolutely.

Mark goes on to talk about the work they’re doing with Games Workshop in making the setting properly Warhammer as well as the lovely bonus of

Mark: Pretty much anything that gets added into the 40k universe in our MMO will get added to the canon, part of the war, and will receive the blessing of Games Workshop.

Head on over to the interview to check it out and keep an eye on OnRPG.com where soon I will be going through the background, the build up and the battle that is Warhammer 40,000 Dark Millennium.

(Bonus Fluff Theory: In the closing days of the 41st millennium the Emperors Golden Throne had started to fail. A Q&A I had one Games Day with Sandy Mitchell of the Ciaphas Cain series mentioned that GW was holding up the story for now, letting it all get to the same point. If the game creates canon, is this Dark Millennium the opening chapter of the 42nd and the greatest upheaval The Imperium has ever known? Exciting prospect.)

Also you know, while the Imperium quotes are great for blog titles, it makes everything sound very grimdark. Nor is it necessarily a commentary on Warhammer: Age of Reckoning.

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.

The Dark Millennium

No waiting. Watch now!

Warhammer 40K: Dark Millennium Online!

A quick breakdown of what I’ve made out.

Factions

• The Imperium
• Chaos
• Orks

Possible Player Characters

• Space Marines (In Nomine Imperator!)
• Mechanicus (As the Omnissiah wills)
• Imperial Guard/Kasrkin (Men of the Emperor!)
• Chaos Space Marines (Khârn is a pretty fun guy)
• Chaos Cultists (Sanity if for the WEAK!)
• Orks (DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA!)

Some other things that stick out from the video.

That’s gameplay footage that is! Mmmm gameplay.

There’s something that looks suspiciously like an Eldar Farseer going up against the Chaos Dreadnaut as the music climaxes.

Finally, the means of getting around looks interesting. I saw Space Marine bikes (and of course Chaos bikes), Trukks and Koptas. Flying mounts as well as the purely mundane? Yes please.

The quick run down of things you will not see? Kroot, Tau, Necrons (my favourites), Tyranids and Dark Eldar. Does that mean they aren’t there at all? I couldn’t say. Perhaps they will be NPC factions, perhaps they are for later inclusion or expansions. For all the talk of Warhammer Age of Reckoning needing a third faction, I don’t think a 7+ way war in the 41st Millennium is particularly viable, especially given some of the omnicidal armies.

In conclusion for this first bit, it’s good to be a 40K fan. THQ, having proved themselves more than capable of capturing the feel of the universe in the Dawn Of War series, are bringing us both Dark Millennium and Space Marine. On top of that we have the Ultramarines movie moving forward.

There is only one final thing I need to know from that video…. who do I have to kill to become a Princeps and drive the Titan?

Missed Calling

Why is BioWare making an MMO?

Sure there is all the PR marketing hype. Sure there are the legions of Knights of the Old Republic fans who are salivating over the IP. Sure I suppose it’ll be a very good game.

But why bother making a game when they would be better suited shaming George Lucas and making an epic movie?

If you haven’t yet seen it, that link is for the Star Wars : The Old Republic “Hope” trailer. Seriously EA/BioWare, you can tell me all you want about how many voice actors you’re going to have, how big the game is going to be and all of that but in my mind, you’re better spent on crafting us a different sort of entertainment.

Warhammers Black Ops

Apparently the Skaven may or may not be coming. Who knows? It's all rumours at the moment.

I've talked about Skaven before and Planetside.
So my quick two cents.

Skaven Classes!

• Grey Seer - Equivalent to Archmage and Shaman. Variously imbibing Warpstone and expelling it to weave spells.

OR

• Plague Monk - Equivalent to Rune Priest and Zealot (this one is Sareinis)
• Warpfire Cannon Skaven - Equivalent to Engineer or Magus. Guns ho!
• Assassain - Witch Elves and Witch Hunters suddenly find sneaky rats butting in.
• Rat Ogre Tamer - White Lions and Squig Herders.

But one race alone wouldn't properly shake up RvR, it'd have to be an entire faction. Unless you go the Planetside Black Ops route.

If Skaven do make an appearance and exist primarily to foul up the plans of everyone else...well that's Skaven-y and perfectly fine by me.

Retropreciation

I’ve only told you like 200 times or some such but my first MMO was Earth & Beyond. This is important because it came out in 2002 and I played it on a 56k modem which thankfully was on one of the first packages in Ireland to offer flat rate unlimited off peak internet.

That was my first foray into the massively multiplayer world and fortunately or unfortunately it was a sci-fi space game. I never had the really old school experiences.

Partially, I never had them because I never heard of MMO gaming until poking around Westwoods site for information on Command and Conquer. Partially I never had them because even if I had discovered Dark Age of Camelot or Everquest at the time they were new I wouldn’t have been able to afford the phone bills. Or my parents wouldn’t have if I am honest.

Why am I dragging these back into the light of day? Well someone else has.

Sure I can understand intellectually that some of those old school mechanics died because they were a pain. Or perhaps they were a barrier to higher subscriptions. Maybe they were simply boring and are just looked on fondly because they are old.

Sure I know that if the games of tomorrow were still being cranked out like the games of that many yesterdays there’d be uproar. But still… so much in the gaming blogosphere is hype. Nostalgia is a hype all of its own and I have to say I can appreciate the retro look, the bygone ways and yesteryears feel.

Would I like to give it a spin? Sure. Though I’ll have to settle for fond remembrances from others passed on which in the end condense all those years of gaming to just the best bits.

Lord of the Rings Online goes F2P

Everyone is talking about it. Seriously. This is but a drop in the ocean but Lord of The Rings Online will be going free to play this summer.

Lifetime Subscribers will according to someone on twitter be getting free VIP for life.

So if you’ve never before followed in the footsteps of the Fellowship, will this shift be enough to get you in for elevenses?

Tourism

Shannon and I are off on a holiday.

Not an actual holiday mind you, just a break from Paragon City. For whatever reason (I suspect a Nemesis plot) Shannon is feeling like a break from the City of Heroes and so in finest “WoW Tourist” (Thanks Syncaine for the now old term even if we’ve never played WoW) tradition, we’re off on a holiday.

It is just a temporary break though given that Going Rogue is right around the corner. At most we’ll be away for a month. Of course it becomes complicated when we factor in Shannons computer having died recently and the replacement being … well… crap. No fancy high end graphics games for her and therefore for us.

So options appear to be

• Allods Online (Suggested to her by OnRPG awesome guy Nic)
• Dungeons & Dragons Online (I wont let it go)
• Anarchy Online (Blame Sareini)
• Something else (This is what the comments section is for)

So. Any suggestions? Preferences? Cautionary tales?

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.

Worthy and On Topic

It is 11.40am GMT on the 11th of May right now. Minus five for the east coast and minus 8 for west coast.

You have 9 hours and 20 minutes remaining to consider the Humble Indie Bundle.

Basically it’s five (really six with the bonus contribution) indie games with no DRM and available on Windows, Linux or Mac for whatever you want to pay.

In fact here’s what they say themselves.

The Humble Indie Bundle is a unique kind of bundle that we are trying out.

Pay what you want. If you bought these five games separately, it would cost around $80 but we're letting you set the price!

All of the games work great on Mac, Windows, and Linux. We didn't want to leave anyone out.

There is no middle-man. You can rest assured that 100% of your purchase goes directly to the developers and non-profits as you specify (minus credit card fees).

We don't use DRM. When you buy these games, they are yours. Feel free to play them without an internet connection, back them up, and install them on all of your Macs and PCs freely.

Your contribution supports the amazing Child's Play charity and Electronic Frontier Foundation. By default, the amount is split equally between the seven participants (including Child's Play and EFF), but you can tweak the split any way you'd like.

And now, thanks to a humble donation from Amanita Design: all contributors are given a free copy of Samorost 2!

 

I don’t know if I’ll play any of them myself. In fact I’m not sure I have the time to even install any but I contributed all the same. Why? Well deals like this are too good to pass up and really they’ve sweetened the entire deal by letting you pick if you are giving money to just the developers, Childs Play and the EFF only or split across all of them.

How often do you get to be simultaneously charitable and snag an entertainment deal for literally whatever price you name?

I’d hurry if I were you.

Previews, Reviews and Writing

Okay let’s get back into the swing of things.

First thing I should mention is that I have in the past had some communication from PR companies asking me to preview or review games. Sadly the email address you can get on my profile tends to be ignored more often than not. If you have contacted me in the past or intend to in the future, I have taken steps to keep up with that email address better. Also if I may, I would suggest you contact the fantastic editors over at OnRpg.com for p/reviews as well. Sure it may not be me who ends up getting the particular assignment but give them a shout and if you still want blogger coverage as well, drop me a line.

Second while they update less frequently than I, if you have an interest in fantasy literature or reading in general, check out Quilldragon.com.

Finally things of mine have started going up over at OnRpg and there’s more in the pipeline. For here though, to get my lazy butt back into the blogging groove I’ll take suggestions on something you want me to natter about. Drop a comment and assuming you’re not trying to torture me (Terry, I’m watching you) we’ll see what happens.