n3rfed

E3: GOOD TO SEE THE E3 REPORTING IS AT ITS USUAL HIGH STANDARDS

So, there's this car, and it has a gun, and it goes bang, and, uh...that's it.

E3: FFXI CAMPS THE XBOX 360

Gamespot has the news about Square Enix spreading its love around.

And here's the spot where I make another remark about the Phantom console.

PROVING THAT TO GET A JOB DONE RIGHT, YOU'VE GOT TO BUY IT YOURSELF

Congratulations World of Warcraft players. You just helped StarCraft: Ghost see the light of day and Blizzard enter the console market.

In other news, Infinium Labs begins plying Mike Morhaime with alcohol and porn.

THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM

So.

E3 starts in two days.

And all was quiet in the MMO house.

That is, except for Brad "I get two Fiery Avengers in Vanguard!" McQuaid who has gone on a veritable posting rampage. My in-depth calculations (involving counting the fingers on my hand more than 3 times) has Brad posting 109 replies over the course of this weekend.

Hidden amongst the E3-hype-fuelled verbal diarrhoea is this nugget of a post (from Pitfalls for easy reference) in which Brad waxes lyrical about his days at SOE, its current flock of games, and his relationship with Smed (equalling the gripes with the praise so as to keep it all politically correct, don'tchaknow), who he would like to employ at Sigil (i.e. Raph Koster and the recently SOE-free Rich Vogel), his feelings about SOE as a competitor (Calling SOE out for not having vision or original ideas because Brad decided to run with the not very original and much-copied Arabian Nights theme first), and how Sigil makes him all warm inside so Vanguard will rock your boxers.

All in all, a fresh and frank view from an MMO CEO - something we see as often as me winning the Miss Norrath competition - so head on over if you're looking for something to take up your time until you can oogle booth babes.

HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND NINJA PEOPLE

Forget Onyxia and Ragnaros. The new high-end challenge is beating this guy.

Edit: No, you won't find that scripted Leroy video here.

EVERQUEST SUBSCRIPTION PRICE INCREASED. GUILD WARS RUBS ITS HANDS TOGETHER IN GLEE.

Camping the same spawns 6 years on? Priceless $14.99

According to the Smed himself, the promotional price from the 5th year anniversary will remain unchanged.

Regardless of where the hardware went, that's got to smart a bit if your server was dwindling fast and ended up being merged with another.

Cue next month's marketing gimmick with an EQ focus.

(Props to D-One)

I SPY WITH MY LITTLE EYE...

Terranova postulates possible E3 predicitions. And because I threw a sacrificed chicken over my shoulder, I am able to offer my foolproof foretellings.

-- IGE stops leeching off the hard work of others and announces it has set its army of farmers to work on creating its own MMO. Characters begin as a skilless untextured model and players are required to buy hair, a GUI, and the ability to move upper limbs in an overarm slicing action. All goes well at the E3 demonstration until it is discovered no one purchased the newbie area and characters plummet to their death-loop.

-- John Smedley begins signing up booth babes for the Miss Norrath competition. The Smed is seen half an hour later nursing a black eye after asking the Fragdolls if they wanted to play with his joystick.

-- The E3 showroom floor breaks out into a large-scale fight after one employee at the DAOC booth calls the employees milling around the EQII booth "Station Exchange sell-outs". Nearby SWG fans dressed up as Stormstroopers attempt to intervene but are soon torn to bloody pieces. In his report, the state coroner states the cause of death is "a large combat upgrade blow to the head".

-- Pizza Hut delivery drivers go on strike after no one offers to pay for the 327 pizzas ordered from the EQII demonstration booth.

-- People attempting to visit the FFXI booth are forced to turn back after finding it blocked off and camped by life-like cardboard cutouts.

-- Blizzard leaks announces the first WoW expansion. The resulting crusing throng of bodies around the WoW booth is soon alleviated after Blizzard employees move their friends to a new secret booth on the other side of the exhibition hall. Meanwhile, at the other booth, all high-end content is already farmed by a Paladin at the end of Day 2 of E3.

-- Richard Garriot announces that Tabula Rasa has been taken back to the drawing board once again. It will now be based on Roman civilization and mythology.

-- Publishers announce more MMO titles than ever before. Jumps onto the bandwagon include a Grand Theft Auto MMO, an Unreal MMO, and a Fallout MMO. Oh, wait...

ZEEEEEERG RUSH

The new WoW patch hit the test realms earlier today bringing the first (and small) serving of Battlegrounds, and also confirming that nerf to slow-swinging weapons. For those people still Googling, the patch notes are here.

Bug fixes, nerfs, and boosts abound but still no decisive fix for the broken Honor System. Or patching system for that matter as well.

This message was brought to you by the zerged and smoldering heaps that were up until today the WoW test realms.

THIS SITE DOES NOT EXIST

Technology Review (an enterprise of the super-beardy folks over at MIT) is reporting that blogs about videogames are woefully underrepresented. To which I reply:

I am not quite sure as to what you are referring to, kind sir.

Hell, in the first 3 months of this year alone it seemed a new MMO blog (one genre amongst many) popped up twice a week. And that's not counting the twirling, seething community known as LiveJournal.

Tony over at ButtonMashing says what needs to be said, so instead I'll head off and blog something that does exist. Like how hot Beyonce is, and how Britney is a skank. OMG.

VANGUARD FOR XBOX 360. INFINIUM LABS ANNOUNCES THEIR PHANTOM SYSTEM WILL LAUNCH WITH DAOC 3.

As seen on this Vanguard forum thread and via this link comes news that XBox Magazine is reporting Vanguard as an XBox 360 launch title.

Now, there's two interesting things here.

1) The XBox 360 supposedly launches in November. That's this November. That gives Sigil roughly 6 months to finish everything that should be finished (like the third continent for instance, I'm lead to believe), proceed through and finish beta, and then provide a happy, shiny game box for stores.

My gut feeling says this can't be done. But hey, this is the MMO genre and we're used to beta phases that run past release dates so I may as well take that gut feeling back. Plus, when Microsoft is on your back, you give up the lesser things in life to get your job done. Like eating.

2) I'm actually quite surprised it took this long for this to be made news. Microsoft is pouring money hats - 10 gallon motherfuckers - into its console, has repeatedly hinted and stated that it wants to increase both its online and RPG game stable, and there was certainly always a reason why Microsoft has been so supporting of Vanguard. This would be that reason.

Actually, I'm more surprised Sony and Sony Online Entertainment haven't concocted a similar situation and I'm not talking about that black sheep of the family, Everquest Online Adventures. Opening SWG and/or EQLive and EQII for the Playstation2 playerbase would seem like a typical SOE move to me. Smed, hang up on Jenna Jameson. You're behind on making your calls here.

Back to Vanguard, my kingdom crappy blog for a control system designed with a keyboard in mind first, rather than vice versa.