MMO Weekly 30/09/08

Hey kids, it's time for another edition of MMO Weekly!  This week, we wrap up all the very latest news in virtual space, and we serve it up steaming hot, and covered with delicious snarky salsa.  It's delicious!

Our first story this week is a review of Warhammer Online by none other than G4TV's Adam Sessler.  Sessler isn't known for pulling punches, and has given games some embarrassingly harsh reviews in the past.  As you might expect, when news of this review rolled out, everyone was pretty interested in what he had to say. 

Quite frankly, Adam is more than impressed.  In fact, the guy's practically in love.  Unlike some other pundits, he praises Warhammer for its seemless integration of RvR and PvE content, the public quests, and the fact that even lowbies contribute to the success of their side in the overarching war.  Sessler practically gushes on Warhammer's many innovative play aspects as he delves ever more deeply into infatuation.  You can check it out for yourself here.

Next up, we have an interview with the “most hated” GM in Maple Story, VectorWindia.  Of course, Maple Story is a very friendly, almost child-like MMO, and getting banned there is no small feat.  Despite this, VectorWindia is known to be very proactive in locating and banning those who hack the game.  He quashes rumors that he is a bot, or that he's out to get players, and puts a human face on the most famous of Maple Story's “enforcers.”

This new take on MMO gaming caught us a bit by surprise.  It's called “Superstruct” and it's a live action, particpatory MMO that takes place in 2019.  I'm not sure I have my brain fully wrapped around this kind of multiplayer experience, but the concept is fleshing out to be both odd and slightly scary. 

IncGamers scored a nice interview with Fadi Mujahid, who's leading a project to bring a localized MMO to the Middle East.  As it turns out, this isn't a completely new MMO geared specifically toward the Middle East and North Africa.  Instead, it's Rappelz, which is being “localized and culturalized” to suit the area.  Presumably, this means that the game is being translated into Arabic, and Fadi makes clear the game's story elements are tweaked to appeal the local player-base.  Knowing a bit about Rappelz, I have to say I was a bit surprised that this was the game Fadi and his cohorts chose to bring to the region.  First off, the game contains more than its fair share of the quirks so common in Asian-developed MMOs.  Second, virtually every female in the game wears a bikini 24 hours a day, including armored metallic battle-bikinis.  Culturalizing that to blend in with the very conservative local values is going to be a wee bit challenging.

Doug Lowenstein's personal quest to destroy his own credibility is, as of this week, back on track.  The former head of the Entertainment Software Association has been admired, in the past, for making the ESA (and its yearly conference, the E3) both wealthy and very influential.  However, before he left his own organization, he appointed a borderline incompetent successor and utterly gutted the E3 trade show.  The ESA now suffers from an exodus of membership (including Activision Blizzard and other MMO developers) and a track record of, well, incomprehensibly bizarre decisions.

It took the disbarment of anti-gaming attorney Jack Thompson to bring Lowenstein out of...well, wherever he'd crawled off to.  Jack has received a lot of press in recent years as his antics have grown increasingly aggressive, ugly, and every more grandiose.  His disbarment is considered by most a victory for the gaming press, who have historically pointed out his outlandish shenanigans, as well as the slanderous harm Thompson brought upon others.  They were the only ones who stood up to Thompson's bullying tactics, and ultimately contributed to his disbarment.  Lowenstein, instead of giving credit where credit is due, instead blamed the press for validating Thompson and giving him credibility, and for encouraging him throughout.  Quite frankly, Lowenstein's comments are about as out of touch as anything the man has ever written.  If you'd like to get seriously ticked off, have a read for yourself. 

There appears to be a growing fray this week involving Warhammer Online and Mac users.  WAR elected not to support the Mac platform, citing development costs.  This has been seen by some as a questionable move, since a new MMO needs every player it can get.  It has also raised the ire of others, who've lambasted developer Mythic for this decision.  Thankfully, a handful of folks got really over the top about this, venting every ounce of their bile at poor Mythic.  (It's gotten so out of control as to be entertaining.)  Others had the good sense to remain a bit more pragmatic about this, and to simply enjoy the vitriol.  

Mythic's war on gold sellers continues unabated this week.  In fact, they've taken to proclaiming their successes against gold farmers with a brand new feature on the official Warhammer site:  the Ban-O-Meter.  The Ban-O-Meter measures exactly how many gold-farmers, spammers, and other miscreants Mythic has banned to date.  As I type this, the number stands proudly at over 4800, and the game is barely 10 days old.  Nice.

Two new endeavors to aid your MMO gaming emerged upon an unsuspecting public this week.  The first is the world's greatest Warhammer gaming table.  If you're a fanboy who likes to spend his time away from Warhammer Online by playing the old tabletop version of Warhammer, this is your dream come true.  The second invention is the Alliance QQ machine.  Sure, some may say that it's simply a tissue box covered with some Alliance-themed art, others see it as a sure fire way to deal with all the cryin'. 

If that doesn't amuse you, how about a man in a dress and a big floppy hat rapping about WoW?  That's just the kind of video that makes my day.  And for you WAR fans, we have a video which we think every single Swordmaster should see before he takes to the RvR battlefields.

Of course, if that's not odd enough for you, there's this story from the Evangelical Lutheran Synod, in which they discuss the sinfulness (or lack thereof) of killing in video games.  (In a nutshell, you don't have to worry about the eternal consequences of ruthlessly murdering all those AFK gnomes.)

If you find yourself in need of a little advice in your virtual life, this week's Ask Elvyra column is there to help you.  This week, Elvyra tackles issues involving 1) attention whores in your guild, 2) the regular kind of whores in your guild, and 3) role players.  It's amusing, intriguing, and chock full of highly questionable advice.  (What more could anyone ask for?)

For all of you Fallout fans, this is certain to be good news: Interplay has all but announced that they're working on a Fallout MMO.  The company is back from the edge of oblivion, and is working on a game called “Project V13”.  They've also hired Chris Taylor, the lead designer on Fallout.  They haven't explicitly stated that the game is a Fallout MMO, but the the company's new website offers hints galore that that is exactly what they're working on. 

As we bring this week's episode of MMO Weekly to a close, I'd like to offer this one piece of advice to all you Warlocks, Mages, and Wizards out there: you keep your spellcasting in the game, or this may just happen to you!

And that's all for this week, fellow MMO fanbois and fangurls.  If you'd like to keep up-to-date daily with the odd, quirky, and funny news happening in and around your favorite MMOs, come visit WanderingGoblin.com, where we serve up that kind of thing every day.  For now, Ciao!