n3rfed

NEXT, ON A VERY SPECIAL CHRISTMAS EPISODE OF N3RFED...

Christmas took a time toll on me this year, what with the work crunch leading up to the holidays, the amount of drinking that needed to be done each night leading up to the holidays, the amount of driving that needed to be done across half the country in order to catch up with family, and the various people I needed to claw and punch throughout various malls and shops in order to grab the last iPod peripheral for a present.

I didn't even have the time to talk about controlling EQ2 with a Wii, Burning Crusade Tier 5 stats, Guild Wars selling 3 million boxes, Smed calling out Zonk and Zonk answering the call, the best fun WoW has seen in a long time and its subsequent nerf, NetDevil working with a major toy company on a new MMO (Transformers has been denied, but LEGO, anyone?), Smed mentioning a PS3 MMO that is only available via download, penises flying at Anshe Chung during an in-game CNET interview (just another typical day in Second Life), John Donham (co-founder of Areae) making a post for people that most likely won't be buying his product, 7,700 FFXI accounts banned followed by 50,000 EQ2 characters removed followed by 100,000 WoW accounts banned (remember, it's not the size of your ban that counts, but how you use it), the WoW class that claims it has been nerfed the most deciding not to wait for a patch that allows them to one-shot end-game MOBs and going about it their own way, rumors of a Jan 4 open Beta date and Jan/Feb release date for Vanguard culminating in Round 7 of Vanbois vs Naysayers, Ryzom being acquired by Gameforge, an example of the quest and reputation grind awaiting raiders in the Burning Crusade, Nintendo forming a partnership with Nexon, PvP in Vanguard (2 points stand out: One, PvP within 10 levels of opponent - not surprising from the people that brought you EQ PvP, but let's hope Immy heals aren't also brought over.  Two, Ctrl + Left Click. WTF?), controversial psychology experiements are alright when your subject is a Night Elf, Second Life allowing players to live out rape fantasies (I don't think Anshe Chung paid for those penises, however), tired with foretelling the death of PC gaming, media attention now turns to foretelling the death of console gaming, EQ2 characters mysteriously travelling across the void and changing servers, Mythic unveiling 3 new WAR classes and showing us that not all drunk Englishmen are found at the cricket.

It was all worth it in the end, especially from a gamer's perspective when Christmas Day afternoon - a time usually reserved for passing out on the couch and mumbling "Uhhhhhrrghgh. I'm never eating that much ever again' - saw my family gathered not around ye olde roaring fire, but around ye olde flat-screen television  in order to spend a few hours rocking out to Guitar Hero 2. My mother totally pwns Nirvana's Heart Shaped Box.

I hope you all had a great Christmas, whether it was with family at home or with strangers in Frostfell/Wintersday/Winter Veil celebrations, and you have fun-fueled New Years. I'll be doing the traditional New Years shindig around here and heading to the coast with friends so we can drink entirely too much and pass out on the beach. No regular updates (haw!) for a week until I'm back. Then you can watch me try and keep my New Year's resolution: to actually update more than once in a blue moon. Prepare the rescue crew - it could be a messy landing.

Be excellent to each other and party on, dudes.

(I'll get back to you in just a bit, Scott)

RAPH'S BRAVE VIRTUAL WORLD

Raph has drawn back the curtains and unveiled his new company at which he'll be making Something That Is Totally Not Second Life 2 So You Can All Stop Bringing That Up Now Thank You Very Much.

Areae, Inc. is a company dedicated to taking the tired old virtual world and making it into something fresh and new. Something anyone can jump into. Something where anyone can find something fun to do or a game to play. Something where anyone can build their own place on the virtual frontier.

Sometimes I scare myself. Even without a mirror.

If the cartoon picture on the front page doesn't give you enough of a clue as to the kind of virtual world Raph and his partner in crime John Donham (ex-Vice President of Development at SOE San Diego) have in mind, then think MMOG meets Virtual World meets Web 2.0. Everyone else does.

It's an intriguing, yet obvious concept and Raph has gotten it off on the right foot today with the way he's gone about setting up and announcing the company.

Company founded by recognizable industry names? Check.

Company secured the services of advisors in the form of other recognizable industry names? Check.

Company has money (that's kind of important)? Che-ck.

Baited potential customers, employees, investors, commentators and reporters with not quite enough information? Ch-e-ck.

Name recognition caused by a company name that people will keep rolling it over and over in their heads because they don't know how to pronounce it even with the help of a Latin dictionary? Check.

In short, congratulations Raph and co. And good luck with both the pro-SWG and anti-SWG camps watching you.

Lastly, speaking about Raph...

I'm very disappointed in all of you.

PERPETUAL ENTERTAINMENT MAKES EMPLOYMENT STATUS OF 35 PEOPLE "NO LONGER PERPETUAL"

Gamasutra, by way of an "anonymous former employee", is reporting that Perpetual Entertainment has laid off 35 employees in the wake of budget issues surrounding the Gods and Heroes delay.

The delay of Gods and Heroes' release was believed to be an estimated six-to-ten months, and the layoffs are purported to be a cost-saving measure to accomodate this increase in development time. The thirty-five terminations also includes at least eight members of Perpetual's other upcoming game, Star Trek Online.

As Gamasutra astutely notes, in addition to the multiple rounds of investment and the company being bought out, Perpetual is currently advertising 20 jobs on their website, including positions in Art, Design, Engineering and Production.

As I (attempt to) astutely note, the positions have been on the website for a good while now, and if this report is true, expect to see some positions being taken down from the page.

If you dropped your resume in, you might want to reconsider taking the day off work in hopes for an interview. No, not you Database and Client Engineers. You'll be fine. I was talking to those QA people. No one needs those guys.

CHINA'S SWINGING DOOR

From Yahoo News comes the word that China is cracking down on its online games industry after discovering that some games contain subject matter that would make baby Mao cry.

Companies must now obtain approval before releasing an online game and must also submit monthly reports to show that they haven't included anything sensitive during that period. Like a quest where you have to save an human called T'aiwan escape from her orc captors.

The latest crackdown was prompted by "a rash of problems with imported online games, some of which contain sensitive religious material or refer to territorial disputes," Xinhua said. It said some were criticized as pornographic or too violent.

The report gave no details about the religious and territorial issues, but the government is sensitive to references to Islam and Taiwan, the self-ruled island that Beijing claims as its own territory.

I blame the dancing Night Elves.

Well, you can pretty much rule out the Chinese localization of Second Life.

SOME PEOPLE ARE GOING TO HAVE A GOOD CHRISTMAS LUNCH THIS YEAR

Following on from (well, preceeding in some ways) the news of Red 5's achievement of $18.5 million and Interplay's hope for $75 million, GamesIndustry.biz reports that Realtime Worlds, the developer of the upcoming MMO All Points "Don't Call It A GTA Clone, Sucka" Bulletin, has secured $31 million.

Realtime Worlds will use the money to develop new videogame franchises and recruit new programming and game development staff. Under the terms of the agreement, NEA principal Patrick Chung and NEA partner Harry Weller will join the company's board of directors. Ian Hetherington will remain in his role as chairman...

...The studio plans to release its first title, Crackdown, on Xbox 360 next year. Realtime is also currently working on MMO All Points Bulletin, which will be published on PC and Xbox 360 by Korean publisher Webzen.

Speaking about MMOs on the PC and Xbox 360, Conan 360 is a go.

OH, I WAS MEANT TO CARRY THE 1

Short version - WoW PVP LOLZ!!!

Long version - After increasing the amount of honor gained and keeping the PvP system based upon the amount of players participating and their relative worth, Blizzard first denies that they are changing the amount of honor gained and then proceeds to change the amount of honor gained.

Now that the Before the Storm content patch has been live for the past week, we’ve had a better opportunity to track the rate at which players are accumulating honor, and subsequently how easy it's been to obtain honor rewards. In gauging these elements, we've determined that the effort required to obtain honor rewards is more trivial than we had intended. As a result, during today's maintenance we’ve applied a hotfix that reduced the amount of honor gained by approximately 30%.

Read the full Blue post timeline over at He-Who-Stalks-Nethaera.

Seriously, guys, Kalgan, stop trying to do your own math. There is a perfectly good PvP system here from which you can base your system on. It's easier to work with and it's fun. Remember that? I believe it's what you guys said you would only add into WoW.

(Yes, I realize I've got a case of the snarks. I'm just annoyed that I didn't grind enough honor.)

GG, LOOT TABLE PART 2

Following on from Part 1, a guild on Stonemaul killed Kel'Thuzad (you know, he who is currently the most end of the end bosses in WoW) and achieved a server first - the first ever drop of the Shaman Tier 3 ring.

The guild? An Alliance one.

Working as intended.

GG, LOOT TABLE

Remember kids, it's working as intended.

(Totally taken from Zonk. So click through to there, why doncha.)

(And hey, they're on Mannoroth. Someone really does not like that server.)

TAKE A BACK SEAT, BROWNCOATS

Firefly? Pfft.

This is where it's at - Interplay's latest SEC filing contains confidential (heh) and actual details about a... *gulp*... Fallout MMO. Fallout.

A $75 million budget? A January 2007 start and a July 2010 release? From the (reportedly) near-bankrupt Interplay?

I do hope Interplay survives long enough. Killing mutants and looting Water Chips are at steak!

(Via Blue's News)

IM IN UR BATTLEGROUND, BUYIN UR EPIX

A former Grand Marshall by the name of Melodii bemoans the WoW Honor system change. The opening points of her argument? This:

- I needed to spend 20-22 hours a day playing.
- I slept between queues with headset on and volume turned to max.
- I didnt have the best gears on earth so most PvE geared people regard me as "noob" and do not allow me in their "uber" groups for super WSG honor train.
- I had to play with PvPers (skilled but lousy geared) and we had to fight our heart out against horde team 1 game after another for 12-14 hours straight. 40 minutes of intense WSG fight, not sure if we win or lose.
- At the same time competing with afk botters who played 24/7 (that only went offline when they changed players).

The post is concluded with:

Disclaimer: I intended to play WoW casually when I first started. I have a lot of (real life) friends (that I neglected for 6 months), I had a job which conveniently laid me off (department downsizing), and I quit school for 6 months (took only 2 online classes to sustain my student loan). So yes, I have a life, I have a fuller life than most WoW players. But I am an achiever, I didn't quit (in this case, I lost it).

You know, it might just be for reasons such as this that they changed the system.