Oh, regularity and timing. Why hast thou forsaken me?
Vanguard News: First it was Kendrick. Then it was Akkirus.
Now it’s a hat trick with the news that Lawrence
“Myrlokar” Poe has left Sigil. As a side note, Amanda Tarr nee Poe is still
working as Lead Programmer at Sigil.
For the
sake of clarity, let’s review. 3 Senior Designers have now left Sigil within a
year. That’s 3 Senior Designers that have a history with Brad and Co. up and
leaving for...well, God knows what, but I’d assume it has a greener hue. I
mean, that’s the kind of thing you do.
Now, yeah, while
it’s not uncommon for MMO developers to move on when they feel they have
achieved all they want to at one studio, it’s a bit of a little tradition that
you stay at least until release day (the other, unspoken tradition involves
Mrs. Lash and a 50 dollar bill). That way, in the very least, you’ve got
“Designed DikuMUD clone #24 from concept to release, resulting in Most Awesome
Launch Ever” on your resume. At somewhere near the most, you learn some
important new skills as you survive another MMO launch.
Instead,
these guys skipped out on an unfinished product and a studio that most likely
holds a few friends. So just what is going on? Regardless of what Smed thinks,
this stuff is interesting to us MMO customers and observers because with the
MMO industry fostering such a close business-customer relationship, some
players are drawn to certain designers, artists or coders more than others. If
not akin to fandom, it’s a genuine interest and the desire to play the product
of a favorite MMO developer. Knowing what that developer is up to is a bit of a
necessity in this case. Odd that.
Enter stage
left the FOHrums on which a thread
discussing Lawrence’s leaving evoked Vanguard beta testers and their less
than sparkling Vanguard reviews. Oloh would have
spanked you naughty kids if he could, ya know.
With the
state of the Vanguard beta being prodded with sharp sticks and questioned once
again – the latest in a series
–, Brad McQuaid had some ‘splaining to do.
* Flames a previous
poster, telling him he has no idea what Vanguard beta is like.
* Questions
Vanguard being singled out. (It hasn’t Brad. Every MMO that goes through
beta will get its turn at being picked apart on forums around the Internets)
* States
that the changes being made are merely tweaks and not a redirection of concept.
* Discusses
how Vanguard will be a success and talks subscriber numbers.
* He’s
excited (I agree with him on this point)
* Finds
it is sometimes like talking to, well, a forum poster. Takes his ball and goes
home.
Putting out
some fires in his own backyard, Brad further discusses some
wishful numbers and effectively
admits to the rumor going around that the simultaneous beta player numbers
have dropped to something in the region of 100.
Meanwhile,
I’m still waiting for my beta
invite.
Dungeons & Dragons News: From the rumor mill comes this:
1) Ken Troop
has left Turbine. Effectively confirmed in this
comment thread. With the new DDO module just coming out this week, I’m
hoping Ken didn’t want a credit on it.
2) From
the same QT3 thread, Engineering Director Justin Quimby has also left Turbine.
3) From
the same post in that QT3 thread, in cahoots with a VN
Board thread, DDO’s subscriber base is estimated to be around the 40,000-50,000
range with a concurrent player figure of 15,000. This goes hand in hand with
the observed low
server numbers and boxes not exactly flying off shelves.
Not a
rumor: Turbine
patches dragon loot in with the new module. To be specific, dragon loot
that may only be obtained by one of two players on the raid as a result of
being rewarded with one of two glyphs dished out by the raid leader. That is,
if the raid leader doesn’t give them to close friends or auctions them off to
the highest bidder first. Oh, and don’t forget. You’ve got to wait 66 hours
until you can do the instance again and watch the raid leader give the glyphs
to someone else.
Intended to
be a way to reward players that don’t cause trouble in raids and groups? If so,
Turbine forgot one important part of the equation – humans are, at their core,
selfish. Add in the anonymity of the Internet, and they mutate into selfish
arseholes. MMOs already have a mechanism for dealing with griefers. It’s called
never finding a group again because of
your idiotic actions.
Other than
that, it’s just a lame attempt to introduce some kind of repeatable content –
if it can be held up to that spotlight – at the end of the game where players
have reached level 10 and found there is absolutely nothing for them to do.
I’ve never used the term catass before because I’ve never been fond of it, but
this reeks of it. See the Other News for the SUN preview and what
DDO should have implemented as part of the answer to the lack of high end
content.
Warhammer News: Something
tells
me Mythic may be
trying
to
market
their
new MMO.
Other News: Spend
The Night goes frigid…Nevermind. EA founder Trip Hawkins takes
the term “phone sex” to a different level...Sigil makes seekrit sauce once
again. My guess is they aim to become another SOE – MMOs and online console
games will be the fad with these youngsters once they give up their obsession
with the Wireless...Ensemble Studios, developers of Age of Empires, thinks
MMOs could make some money and that’d be a nice thing to have...SUN preview
mentions players may “create battle maps set to your level with your
choice of monsters, terrain and which other players you want to adventure
with”. DDO slaps its forehead and asks “Why didn’t I think of that?”…Half
a million people log on to play Guild Wars Factions. 475,000 roll a female
Assassin...SOE
adds comic books to the Station. Ability to buy higher quality circles and
speech boxes to be patched in with an Exchange server at later date...News
Flash! Media
discovers sex in games. Rumors are it may sell as well. Quote of choice:
The article points out that for clients a penis, simply to participate costs L$1500
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