MMO Weekly 11/11/08

11 Nov 2008 at 11:05:00 by Jeff Hollis

Hello fellow game-geeks, and welcome to this week's edition of MMO Weekly! In this week's write up, we search out everything new, trendy, and painfully awkward about MMORPGs and the people (like you and me) who play them. Of course, just like every other week, this means passing up perfectly legitimate MMO news stories to cover ever single funny story we could dredge up instead.

Let's start off by talking about this past weekend's fanfest for Eve Online. As you are no doubt already aware, Eve is made by developer CCP, based in Rekjavic, Iceland. There's three things I know about Icelanders: One, they make great video games. Two, they really know how to party. Three, when it comes to holding conventions, these guys have some seriously wacky ideas. Who, except an Icelander, expects thousands of fans to come from around the globe to party together, in November, on a frozen subarctic island? Somehow, that makes perfect sense to these crazed, cold-weather partyboys.

What came out of this cold celebration of all things CCP? Well, there's this hot gameplay video, featuring some hot lasers, smokin' missiles, and lots of stuff blowing up. It's stuff from the upcoming Eve expansion, and it's epic.

What's more, there were some tantalizing hints – heck, they were a lot more than hints – that CCP is working on a first person shooter. Yes, the kings of MMO space combat are working on a shooter. According to this report, the game has some Halo-like aspects, and is targetted toward the 360 and PS3.

If you're into MMOs for kids, maybe the open beta for Free Realms is just what you've been waiting for. It's got all the things most people really like in a kids' MMORPG. You know, things like cute, cartoon-y characters, funny monsters, adventures involving making friends with animals, and fun settings. Also, things like bad voice acting, an overly cute art style, music geared toward 12-year olds, and adventures involving drinking root beer with your friends while wearing really trendy clothes. It's adolescentastic!

Wait a minute...wasn't Blizzcon like, a month ago? Then why the heck did IncGamers just post this video of hot, steamy Blizzcon action? It's got lying teenage girls (caught in the act, no less!), a mini-review of Blackthorne (a game published in the 1990s), some 'geek on the street' interviews, and some mockery of the Lich King himself. Worth seeing!

Activision is a huge company. Not only are they the parent corporation of Blizzard Entertainment, and thus of WoW, they also make lots and lots of other games. They do this by having smaller, subsidiary production companies work on their projects. In the past week, this system resulted in a little family squabbling. The problem began when one of the producers of Call of Duty: World at War began comparing features of his game to those of Call of Duty 4. Surprisingly, Activision has farmed those two games out to entirely different production houses. Well, the community manager of COD4 didn't like the comparisons very much. In fact, he called the COD:WaW guy a “super douche” on his blog. This kind of nasty name-calling isn't very brotherly, is it?

We're wondering if Activision CEO Bobby Kotick will be giving both of them a big fat time out. ;)

Have you heard the rumors that Warhammer Online is in decline? That it's a dying game, that the population is dropping, and that it's only a matter of time before it folds up like so many failed MMOs before it? Yeah, well, it's all untrue. Those rumors are, somehow, making their way around the intertubes, but we have no idea exactly why. WAR has 800,000 subscribers and is growing stronger ever day.

How about a tale about the dumbest thieves in all of the UK? They stole 4,000 copies of Age of Conan from the back of a truck. That's about $300,000 worth of ultra-violent MMO action. Unfortunately for the thieves, each game has an activation code. This means that they can't use the games themselves (Funcom is bound to deactivate the stolen games), nor can anyone else who might buy these games on the black market. (I'll bet you didn't know there was a black market for games, did you? Well there is. It's just like the seedy underground of illegal drugs, or the current market for sex slaves. Really, you can trust me on this one.) In essence, they stole a bunch of games they can use only as coasters.

If that story isn't uplifting enough, how about a story of Artificially Intelligent in-game bots. Developed by the U.S. Army, these bots are designed to act just like real people in battle simulations. These complex wargames are used to train soldiers in simulated battlefield conditions, and the AIs act as other soldiers, enemies, or civilians. Army scientists are now beginning to field-test the AIs, and they've decided the best way to do that was to introduce them to current MMOs. This means that the jerk that ganked you, the noob that ninja-looted your drop, and the healer that keeps going AFK may actually be an Army AI. Also, it means that this is probably the beginning of that whole Skynet thing. Not good.

While you contemplate the impending robot apocalypse, maybe this story will cheer you up: an inmate in a US federal prison named Jonathon Riches is suing Blizzard. Why? Well, it's for causing him to be in federal prison. His exact allegation? Here goes:

…caused Riches mind to live in a virtual universe, where Riches explored the landscape committing identity theft and fighting cybermonster rival hacker gangs. Riches was addicted to video games and lost touch with reality because of defendants. This caused Riches to commit fraud to buy defendants video games. Riches chose World of Warcraft over working a legit job. Riches mind became a living video game.

Now, mind you, Riches has something of a history of suing people, almost at random. He sued Rockstar Games for turning him into a criminal, for example. He has, in the past, also sued Martha Stewart, the President of the United States, Steve Jobs, Perez Hilton, Britney Spears, the former president of Pakistan, the Eiffel Tower, the Lincoln Memorial, Mein Kampf, the Garden of Eden, Three Mile Island, the Nazi Party, the 13 Tribes of Israel, the Roman Empire, Nostradamus, Jimmy Hoffa, and Plato. Personally, I think Riches is setting a legal precedent with many of his cases. I mean, who ever thought of suing inanimate objects, Nazi books, and symbolic religious locations before? This guy's an innovator!

And that, friends, is all for this week. Remember, the WoW expansion comes out this Thursday. Or, for the truly hardcore, it comes out one minute after midnight on Wednesday night. (Yeah, I'm talking to you. You know you're going to be there, buying your WotLK as soon as possible, rushing home, and then playing until 4:30 in the morning!)

If you enjoyed these random scribblings, check in with us every day at WanderingGoblin.com. We bring you the latest, greatest, and most absurd stories in MMO gaming each and every day. Until next week, ciao!

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