MMO Weekly 10/03

Welcome, dear reader, to another epic episode of MMO Weekly.  As always, we take some time out of our busy raid schedule to smell the roses, to get the most out of our virtual lives, and to spend some quality time with our fellow gamers.  And then make fun of them.  It's just how we roll. 

Having said that, on to the news!

You may remember the very odd and very sudden resignation of Richard Garriott from NCSoft several months back.  Garriott stated at the time that his leaving was prompted by his trip to the international space station.  That experience had given ol' Lord British a bit of an epiphany, inspiring him to exclusively pursue a select number of other interests.  These interests did not include his sci-fi MMO, Tabula Rasa, or gaming in general.  Some folks were left puzzled over why a man who'd made millions in gaming would suddenly quit the industry entirely.

Shortly after his resignation, it was announced that Tabula Rasa was shutting down.  A whole lot of gamers were heard muttering to themselves, “Oh, that explains everything...” 

Well, over the past few months, Richard has been talking again, and now things are getting pretty weird.  Consider this quote, about how TR would have been handled differently had Richard been the boss:  “If I were in charge, I would continue to grow it, because MMOs are long-term plays, and that’s what you should do with them.”

Now, perhaps I'm confused, but wasn't he the guy running the show?  I always assumed, since the game's full title was 'Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa,' that Richard Garriott was the boss.  Obviously, this simply proves that I don't know anything about how games are made these days. 

Richard goes on to state how he can't get back into gaming any time soon, particularly since he has a lot of follow-up work, all very important science-y things, since coming back from space.  These are things for NASA, and for the European Space Agency.  You know, agencies that had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that Garriott was a space tourist over in Russia.

Most recently, Garriott has conducted a series of video interviews for Vice magazine.  And those, my friends, are full of similarly quirky quotes.  Consider: 

• "Literally throughout my entire professional career, I’ve been investing in the privatization of space.”  Funny, I thought his whole professional career was devoted to making computer games.  Oh, wait, same thing. 

• In reference to his role on the Russian Soyuz: “One of my jobs is to push the button that starts up the operation of the vehicle.”  Ok, so his job is to be the the guy that pushes the go button.  That's awesome, Lord British.  Just awesome.  

• He also reveals that he did some art in space.  It looks mostly like some triangles pasted to white paper.

• Richard openly talks about the fact that his home consists of artifacts from his recent space travels, some secret passageways, and some decorations consisting of preserved octopus tentacles.  Yes, really.

Please don't get me wrong, like so many others, I love Richard Garriott.  The guy invented my favorite genre in gaming: the MMO.  But, to be honest, his interviews of late have been 1) weird, and 2) even weirder.

I have to be fair to Lord British for a moment.  The guy is utterly fascinating.  I mean it, and I think that's the real problem.  See, if you watch the interviews, you'll probably (like I did) find yourself interested in every little thing he has to say.  It's only when you pull back a bit and give it a little thought do you find yourself asking “Ok, how did an interview with this gaming bigwig turn into a conversation about his custom-designed magnetic toy?”  The root cause of some of this oddness is, very likely, the fact that interviewers realise after all is said and done that they don't have a lot of usable material, so they include the odd bits as filler.

If you're a WoW player, or a Blizzard fanboy in general, this story will interest you.  According to a flier distributed by Gamestop, Starcraft II will be released June 2nd of this year.  Yep, that's a nice hard date, confirmed by a Gamestop employee.  The only problem is that Blizzard is denying the whole thing, and they have a lengthy track record of not notifying anyone until about two weeks before their games ship.   So, yeah, we're pretty sure Gamestop made a wee little mistake on this one.

Have you heard the tale of Yazan Ammari?  He's a professional gamer, and he used to appear on TV and make $250,000 USD a year to play.  Nowadays, he lives at home with mum and dad.

This past weekend, the Watchmen movie was released in the US.  This caused a bit of a craze, as comic fans suddenly became lightheaded, lost their bearings, and acted like lovesick schoolboys, all because of a graphic novel.  Sensing the opportunity this kind of thing presents, lots of 'monetizing' behaviors began to appear.

• A Watchmen: The End is Nigh downloadable game appeared on Xbox Live.  It's been described as "fun, overpriced, and way too short."

• A parody of the Watchmen in the style of a Saturday morning cartoon appeared on the web.  It was funny and over the top, just as it should be.

• Dr. Manhattan himself appeared on G4TV, and displayed his blue package for all the world to see.  Epic.

• Oh, and there's a Watchmen MMO.  And it's on the iPhone.  I'll wait until you recover from this WTF moment.
  Feel better?  Yes, it's true, but the story doesn't get a lot better.  It's apparently a downloadable iPhone app, in which you get to design your own costumed hero, fight crime, and interact with other masked adventurers.  Having seen some video of this baby in action, I can say with confidence that WoW's position as 'king of the MMOs' is safe.  There was no demonstration of interacting with other players (a staple of the MMO genre), and the gameplay appeared pretty limited and clunky.  Heck, judge for yourselves.  
  I could only find one review of the game thus far, and it was actually surprisingly positive.  Of course, since it costs 99 cents (yes, really), complaints should be minimal.

And that, my fellow MMO-heads, is all for this week.  If you found this little scratch-along amusing, then come and visit us over at WanderingGoblin.com.  We serve up a daily dose of this kind of nonsense each and every day.  For now, ciao!