n3rfed

Em-Em-Oh?

Kristin Kreuk, a presenter at this year's Spike TV Video Game Awards, when asked if she plays video games:

"No, but, I mean, I would rather communicate with people and, like, read a book…"

Well, industry PR seems to be going according to plan then!

Survey Shows Gamers Are People Too. Pimply, Smelly People, But People Nevertheless.

GamePolitics is following XBox Live's recent political polling;

In partnership with nonprofit Rock the Vote, XBL has just completed a new round of polling. This time users were asked to name which issues were most on their mind.

So what's the answer? In the words of Deomocratic campaign strategist James Carville, it's the economy, stupid. Here are the numbers:

35%        Jobs and the Economy
19%        Environment
18%        Foreign Policy
14%        Health Care
14%        Education

With the top 3 real concerns being left out of the poll - Invasion Of Earth By Bipedal Gun-Toting Humanoid Aliens, Having A Higher Gamerscore Than My Best Friend, and Getting The Pinky Finger Over To That Stupid Orange Button -, I wouldn't pay much attention to this survey.

In Which I Go To Pick Up A Copy Of Warhammer On Release Day

Click to Play

tags: warhammer, age of reckoning, i know this is posted late i've been busy ok?, cut chemist, a peak in time

One Of These Things Is Not Like The Others, One Of These Things Just Doesn't Belong

Three recent replies from GOA, the company ruining running Warhammer Online in Europe:

1:

"As announced on our news, we took our registration and authentication platforms down for maintenance this morning. We hope to be able to bring them back online by early afternoon.

Game servers have been down for much of this morning, but after a successful and universal EU server reset, they seem to be stable. All in all, our servers performed well yesterday. This was, however, completely overshadowed by other problems. We are now back in full force and we hope to be able to resolve the most pressing issues during the day. Our number one priority is to allow our many Open Beta testers to try out the game, and by doing so provide us and Mythic with much valued data and feedback."

- MagnusK, GOA Community Guy

2:

"Dear all,

I rarely address players directly, but I wanted to write you as too few of you have been able to access the open beta today.

As my team explained in the previous post, although we have opened the servers and corrected numerous issues during the last 24 hours but we have not yet solved the issue of saturated Open Beta key activations that we’re currently experiencing. I am sincerely sorry for this, and I understand all the frustration the situation has spawned.

Today was a dark day. We expected a massive influx of players, but reality was even harsher.
I personally commit that we will communicate to you as clearly as possible on the resolution of these current issues. My goal is to give Warhammer Online the success it deserves. Be ensured that all GOA teams, with Mythic’s support, are working hard to bring you the best possible game experience."

- Ghislaine Le Rhun, GOA CEO

3:

"Overall then, some things went right - not many to be sure and the important things certainly didn't. We made some mistakes, we expected many problems and we found some entirely different ones. We disappointed many of you by not letting you get into the open beta when we said you would and for that I am sorry. All of us are disappointed that we couldn't bring you the service you expected. I wasn't at work yesterday, Magnus was the man on the scene covering the situation, but I did keep a close eye on forums and was in contact with the guys in the office. A lot of what was said yesterday here and on other forums was entirely out of line. Of course you were disappointed and criticism is certainly warranted but frankly many of the posts made about the situation were borderline sociopathic. If having delayed access to a beta test really drives you to such depths of anger and fury that you felt compelled to make the death threats, racial slurs and other deeply unpleasant posts then - and there is no polite way to put this - there is something wrong with you."

- IanC, Annoyed That His Day Off Was Interrupted

'Tis Better To Throw Your Women And Children Overboard Than To Run Aground (Ok, That Made No Sense, But It Sounds Kinda Cool)

From a recent Massively article on the removal of some content from Warhammer: Age of Reckoning;

Well it's certainly not good when a developer cuts content they've been talking about publicly for so long, especially when launch is only three or four months away.

Why?

I can think of one very good reason why it is good.

Cries of "Waaagh" Will Turn To Cries Of "Whaaaa"

Fresh from the name cut, Mythic Entertainment has announced it has cut 4 capital cities and 4 classes for WAR's launch.

Surprising? Not in the least if you've been following the official beta information and, if you're a naughty boy like me, the beta leaks floods. What's of real interest to me is how this is going to;

a) Affect end-game RvR (theoretically, as it hasn't started yet) now that the major targets have decreased from 6 to 2. Is anybody going to bother to fight in the Elf/Dark Elf zones now that there is no capital city to push towards at the end of the road, or is Mythic going to allow all RvR areas to affect the territory control that leads to Altdorf/Inevitable City?

b) Affect group dynamics in the low level zones, at least before you get to the level where different factions on each side of Order and Destruction easily mix together, now that 2 factions have lost their tank and 2 have lost their melee DPS. If the rewards for quests are not too faction-specific, I'd wager we'll see a number of melee DPSers from, for example, the Dark Elf and Chaos factions head on over to Greenskin land early on in order to ensure they get a group when they want it.

Either way it looks like Mythic has got half of the content for their first expansion sorted then.

EA Mythic Now Mythic Entertainment. Talk Of Sims Online. Did Someone At EA Break The Time/Space Continuum Again?

Those that call the shots over at EA have finally gotten around to doing some marketing research on a company they bought 2 years ago and discovered that the first name was better after all.

"Hey guys, I've been thinking."
"Again, Brian?"
"Wait, bear with me here. Maybe if we didn't slap "EA" onto their name, the company would have a more favorable image. Both for employees and consumers."
"You're talking shit again, Brian."
"We might even be able to sell a few more copies of their games."
"Solid gold shit, Brian. Solid gold."

Why, hello there brand equity, my old friend. No, I don't know why people keep ignoring you either.

Google's Lively. Not The Top Result For "Lively" in Google Search. May Want To Work On That.

Google has pulled back the curtains on Lively, our Dear Overlord's answer to Second Life/IMVU/Vivaty/Habbo Hotel/Whomever else is hip and happening this month.

For a public beta from Google it's surprisingly content light, but does it have the features that have made other virtual spaces so successful?

It's got an island. A sex island.

You can be a Furry.

It takes ages to load anything.

Your Furry can have a hook as its hand. A sex hook.

Well, that's sorted then. Lively will go on to be downloaded a gajillion times.

(Tonight's closing thought: The proportion of Female to Furry to Male avatars shown in the second picture is, oddly enough, representative of the avatar population within virtual spaces as a whole by my calculations.)

Microsoft; Redefining "Amicable" Since 1975.

Microsoft Game Studios' Shane Kim, February;

I’ll confirm. Marvel and we have agreed to end development on the MMO. It was an amicable decision…

Marvel's Ultimate Superhero (see what I did there, comic book nerds?) Brian Bendis, this month;

Well, you're talking to one of the executive producers of the ill-fated Marvel MMO that went away. I have my laptop here, and on it I have the "X-Mansion" level fully completed that only I and five other people have access to play. It's gorgeous and fantastic and no one will ever see it. So I feel bad, because I think that MMO was a phenomenal idea that was extremely well executed and it went away because some guy at Microsoft who we'll never know pulled the plug on it before it even got underway.

MGS, I can't help but notice that you seem to have having a little difficulty with your MMOs. If I may suggest a sure-fire hit, how about a sequel to Asheron's Call? Surely the market is ripe for an Asheron's Call 2.

Diablo III Confirmed. Intertubes Explode ("Clog Up" Not Nearly As Dramatic). Sales Of Clean Pants Skyrocket.

Official site.

I'm interested to know what gameplay mechanics and multiplayer systems, if any, found their inspiration in World of WarCraft and its license to print money.