Daily Archives: May 11, 2011

Have I Got MMOnews For You

Host: This week, news that the United States Navy needs YOU (yes, YOU, reading this now, with the… no, not you, the other one… yes, YOU!) to help develop anti-piracy strategy, tactics and contrived acronyms through their Massive Multiplayer Online Wargame Leveraging the Internet (MMOWGLI)

Zoso: The Navy are having some trouble adapting the most effective tactics used by players due to difficulty in creating real-life aimbots and wall hacks

Melmoth: After extensive crowd-sourcing feedback, the US government officially announced today that it wasn’t going to bother fighting Somali pirates at all as it was a bit too much like hard work, and instead the navy would focus on performing daily tasks for fisherman along the US coastline

Zoso: Unfortunately soon after going live, players realised that the optimal way to win was to play as the pirates and within three months actual attacks on shipping off the Somali coast had increased by 167%

Melmoth: US Navy personnel were reported to be disappointed that in reality they weren’t required to fight wave after wave of small weak Somali pirates before facing off against Umzongro, King of Pirates.

Zoso: Suspicions that MMOWGLI was hastily adapted from Pirates of the Caribbean Online were aroused when pirate forces in the game turned out not to be former fishermen with assorted small arms and rocket-propelled grenades, but invulnerable rum-swilling Keith Richards impersonators.

Melmoth: Navy personnel trained using MMOWGLI were surprised to find that Somali pirates didn’t really just float around statically at random locations on the ocean, and military operations were repeatedly frustrated when they were unable to pull one pirate ship at a time from a fleet by using carefully hurled insults from range.

Zoso: Existing MMO players took some time to adapt to the new environment, with 67 characters lost in the first run of the simulation when they tried to mine for crafting minerals in the hold of their ship

Melmoth: The first alpha of MMOWGLI based on the EVE engine was quickly abandoned after an enterprising Ensign snuck into the main naval operating base in Bahrain and disbanded the entire United States Fifth Fleet.

Zoso: Theorycrafters soon determined the optimal group composition and refused to sail with anything less, but were disappointed when the Navy rejected their insistence that the only possible viable anti-pirate unit was three Nimitz-class carriers strapped together as a trimaran with the steam catapults adapted to fire frigates and destroyers at enemy vessels.

Melmoth: Based on real-world feedback from Navy operations, the latest 2.31 patch notes for MMOWGLI indicate that Somali pirate ships will now drop more guns and modern electronics and fewer magical swords and wolf paws.

Host: Goodnight!

Studio lights dim, theme tune plays.