So a preview of the World of Warcraft comic is out.
And now, a little spoiler from our impish insider at Wildstorm:
Apparently, after the last page we see on the preview site, the human wrestles the crocolisk from off of himself, skins it, and then kills another fifty four of them, until the watching orcs realise that he’s a bot, report him to a GM and then move on.
I’ve mentioned before that I’m not really one for the serious analysis of the MMO market, the games or their design; I started out that way, but too many others are all ready doing it, and far better than I could ever be bothered to.
Making light of the industry and its games is easier, for me at least.
I did however have a small vent a while back and received some encouraging feedback from the general bloggerati.
A small addendum, then, to that original post, the basic thrust of which was:
So here we are in the tree of MMO life, where Everquest saw the graphical MMO genre explode out from its roots, and World of Warcraft brought it into the branches of mainstream popular culture as perhaps Half-Life did for FPS games. And now we begin to see the influx of MMOs released in the wake of this success, and the weight of all this extra growth that isn’t needed begins to damage the tree, it weighs it down and forces it to spend resources in keeping these branches alive which would be better spent in growing a few stronger and healthier branches. And if nobody comes along to prune it, eventually it will wither and fail, until it is a gnarled trunk unrecognisable from its former glory.
Today we have news that Gods & Heroes is to be cancelled in favour of Perpetual focussing their collective effort on their Star Trek based MMO instead.
Yesterday we had news that WAR is stuck in the trenches and the limited beta has now been closed entirely for a period in order to allow for what, one can only assume, is some major emergency reworking of some fundamental part of the game.
It is a few months ago now since Van Hemlock’s supernatural kiss of death upon the niche yet ambitious Auto Assault, and more recently the blogreel has been spattered with tales of the latest saga of Ryzom.
Even the stalwart golden child of the current MMO crop, Pirates of the Burning Sea, has not been without the odd delay, which means that its release date is pushed back – along with nearly every other anticipated MMO of 2007 – into at least the first quarter of 2008.
And need one even mention the delays to release, and the lukewarm beta response, that Tablua Rasa has experienced?
My problem is this: I’m not sure what this means with respect to the tree analogy; the cancellation of AA, G&H and Ryzom seem to be a pruning of the weaker branches, allowing for more freedom on the part of these companies to produce newer, fresher and more healthy growth. However, the delay of nearly every significant MMO title of 2007 still seems to me to be indicating the suffocating effect that all this extra growth is having on the MMO market, and that the phenomenal success of World of Warcraft still casts a monstrous shadow over the rest of the canopy of games, thus blocking out their light.
It will be interesting to see how the MMO market shifts in the coming year or two, whether WoW’s domination will finally break, whether the current crop of anticipated MMOs (when they are eventually released) will produce more than just another batch of fresh blooms, that burst forth in all their fragrant glory only to wither away to nothingness too soon after. Will frameworks like Metaplace actually shift the market in an entirely new direction? Will it, perhaps, seed an entirely new market tree, one we cannot yet predict because the opportunity has never been presented before?
If nothing else I’m still glad that I, like many others, have built my house in the MMO tree, and I wait with a fervour of anticipation the next major development of the surroundings.
World of Warcraft, then. I’ve always wondered what exactly was involved in the ‘craft of war’ within this MMO for the masses, but the other night I received a small hint of what it might entail. I was out questing with my level seventy druid and had found an interesting quest chain that I was enjoying working through. However, coming towards the end of the chain I received a tingling sensation from my Adventurer Sense[TM] and I got the distinct, yet subtle impression that it was all about to get a little bit tricky and complicated.
Me: “What’s next, oh recently met this morning person; oh possessor of much shiny loot; oh giver of passages of text that compel me to undertake tasks that your own parents wouldn’t be prepared to do for you?”
Quest Giver: “Oooooooo, it’s all about to get a little bit tricky and complicated!”
My adventurer sense really is that good.
It turns out that the couple of bits of crystal that I’d been hunting for all this time were not, in fact, in the handbag of a defenceless little old lady who wanders the marshes around Telredor. Nor were they being used as dradles by the infant offspring of the over- exfoliating contentious objectors of northern Nagrand. And neither were they being used in the bedding of the small fluffy herbivores of the Oasis of Calm, Peace and All-round Non-aggressive Nicety. No, apparently these crystals were wedged beneath the fiery arse cracks of a couple of twenty foot tall mega demons who had liked the look of the shiny pebbles and decided to use them as some form of demonic butt plug(*).
(*) May not represent actual quest text.
And so it’s off with the Fel Leather gloves and on with Marjorie’s Marigolds of Giant Demonic Buttock Mining, and away I go to have a look at these fellows. And so begins the craft of war…
The first rule of Warcraft Club is, you do not talk about Warcraft Club.
The second rule of… uh…
You see, the problem is, they didn’t really think those rules through, because after you’ve stated the first rule you run into the slight snag of not being able to talk about it any more. There were actually one hundred and forty seven rules of the super secret Warcraft Club, but rule one was the only rule anyone ever knew. In fact, nobody knew who the other members were, where to meet or even what the club was actually all about. It was the second worst club in the world.
It was, however, just slightly more successful than the worst club in the world: the super secret Craft o’ War group – formed shortly after it was realised that the Warcraft Club wasn’t going anywhere – had the unfortunate first rule that you absolutely, positively, must talk about the club at all times. This certainly overcame the issues presented by the Warcraft Club rules, but alas was not entirely conducive to keeping a secret school of war very much of a secret. Two hours and thirty four seconds after the Craft o’ War club was formed the core members were rounded up and shot, partly for being involved in an underground movement for training in internecine warfare tactics, but mainly because they were all clearly idiots.
Where in the Inferno was I? Oh yes! The craft of war.
The first rule in the craft of war: Scout out the objectives.
Scouting is probably a slight understatement. In normal warfare a scout would generally observe the enemy encampment through some sort of optical magnification device from half a mile away, make a note of numbers, patrol routes and any other such information that they can glean, then high-tail it out of the area before they were discovered. In the craft of war, the scout can walk into the enemy encampment, have a good old nose around of what’s going on and maybe even carry a small clipboard with them and take a survey of a few wandering patrols:
Scout: “Excuse me! Excuse me, sir! I was wondering if you had a little time to talk to me today about the reinforcement capabilities of your camp here.”
Throgg: “Oh… uh… no. Throgg real busy right now. I, ahhh, I talked to previous person further up the camp, yes that it, spoke to one already, must get to bank before it closes, sorry.”
Scout: “Come now, sir, just a moment of your time to detail patrol movements over each twenty four hour period.”
Throgg: <Walking faster now> “Noooo, Throgg not interested.”
Scout: “Well, can I ask you to take this leaflet? It details who we are, and why we’re going to be attacking your camp later this afternoon.”
Throgg: <Snatches leaflet> “Ok! Ok! Now leave Throgg be!”
And the great thing is, once you’ve scouted around, you won’t have to do it again: the enemy won’t react to you roaming around their fort by, say, reinforcing the gate guard, switching patrols around or even plugging up the gaping great hole in the perimeter that you waltzed in through, they’ll just carry on as happy as ever, although one or two might be grumbling about the recent influx of street surveys.
The second rule in the craft of war: Plan an escape route.
It’s always a good idea to plan your escape route should something go wrong. Generally though, your escape route is going to be your entry route, since you’ll have cleared a neat little path right through the centre of the enemy camp, and the enemy certainly won’t consider the trail of corpses of their nearest and dearest comrades in arms to be any reason to follow the trail on to its source, namely you.
“Throgg not remember this many corpses of Groth and Strugg and Krung last time he patrol past here. Oh well. Throgg not see any hoomans, so on Throgg goes.”
The third rule in the craft of war: Have a little go.
This is a fierce demon you’re facing, and you don’t know quite where in that megalith of a butt he might have stashed the crystal. It looks like you might have to defeat him outright and then search the corpse due to the concern that trying to pick this particular flatulent pocket might cause you more than a little harm. Never fear, however, because you can take this chap on as many times as you like so long as your escape route is clear, for despite commanding legions he will never call upon them when he is set upon by troublesome adventurers. For example, if you want to know if your rooting spell will hold him, just stand back a bit and cast it; if it fails he’ll charge after you, certainly, but you can just saunter away from him, perhaps while smoking a pipe and twirling a cane in your other hand. Keep walking nonchalantly along, because just as he is about to reach you he’ll suddenly remember that he left the iron on, or he forgot to feed his cat, or perhaps he hears the tinkling tones of a nearby ice cream van, and he’ll turn tail and rush back to camp as fast as his cloven-hooves will carry him.
“Curse you to all four corners of the fiery underworld you puny mortal, you dare to taunt me?! I will DESTROY YOU, I WILL UTTERLY… oh hell, I left my socks drying in the oven. <Turns around and legs it back to base>NEXT TIME ADVENTURER. NEXT TIME!”.
The fourth rule in the craft of war: Clear all the minions in the area.
You’ve cleared a huge swathe of mobs on your way to their leader, but always hang around for a bit to see if there are any patrols that you’ve missed. You may have to wait a while though since the patrols, although eminently predictable, may range far and wide in the most illogical and utterly bizarre manner possible. Thus, it may take some time for various patrols to reach that point, five feet in front of the person they’re supposed to be guarding, where you are currently camped.
“This is the seven thirty south western patrol, calling at Far Away, Further Away, Way Way Too Far Away, All The Way On The Other Side Of The Map, Half Way To Nowhere In Particular and Stratford Upon Avon.”
The fifth rule in the craft of war: Have another little go.
While you’re waiting for patrols don’t be afraid to have the odd pot-shot at the demon commander when you feel you have enough room. The boss will have entirely forgotten you since two minutes ago, and certainly won’t have developed any strategies to undermine what you attempted last time.
The huge pile of his guard patrols’ corpses seems to be entirely uninteresting to him. Maybe he’s deep in thought, perhaps composing an irritating Muzak tune that he will unleash on all the elevators of the world; he’s not an evil demonic commander for nothing, you know.
The sixth rule in the craft of war: Buff up.
A small delightful picnic a few yards away from your target is always a wonderful way to boost the morale of yourself and any other members in your party. Be sure to bring a nice bottle of Beaujolais nouveau!
Don’t worry though, as well as not being able to see for more than a few feet in front of their nose, demonic commanders are notorious for their complete lack of the sense of smell.
The seventh rule in the craft of war: Charge!
Attack for all you’re worth!
You’ve had some light exercise, a delicious light lunch, and a quick round of ‘toy with the mob’, so you should be ready by now.
The seventh and a half rule in the craft of war: Run away!
I told you those patrols took a long time to come around.
The seventh rule in the craft of war: Charge!
Ok, you’ve finally cleared all the patrols, including the seven thirty south western service, so it’s time to try rule seven again. Yes, rule seven again, we’re not wasting a new rule because you didn’t clear all the patrols; did you think the fourth rule was there for fun?
The eighth rule in the craft of war: There is no rule eight.
And for good reason.
The ninth rule in the craft of war: Run away!
Don’t be complacent in your victory, for the demonic commander does, at least, have one trick up his sleeve. Once you’ve defeated him and retrieved your crystal, wiped off the goo and stored it away, do not then take time to gloat, because as you stare at the very corpse of the one who you but moments ago defeated, the very same demonic commander will also, through some bizarre and incomprehensible spawning process, be looming up over your shoulder ready to deliver you to your doom, and this time he put his socks in the airing cupboard to dry…
And finally, the tenth rule in the craft of war: You absolutely must or must not talk about the craft of war depending on the situation, but the general idea is that we’d like to keep it a secret so use your common sense and discretion.
Oh wait, sorry. That’s incorrect, the tenth rule is: Never wear a lilac cummerbund with a white dinner suit, it just isn’t the done thing in polite society.
I find myself bumbling around in City of Heroes and World of Warcraft at the moment, playing neither of them with any real passion but enjoying the short stints of play that I do embark upon. I’m surprised by this newfound ability to play in ever smaller slices of my daily time pie; although in truth these can’t really be seen as a slices, but more as the simple pleasure of scraping out of the filling and eating that alone, leaving the overly thick and unpalatably burnt crust of housework and chores until later. The arcade-like accessibility of CoH allows for this brief gorging, with its lack of loot and, more importantly, a community that seems not quite so hell-bent on turning the game into a bizarre new TV ‘talent’ show called Loot Idol, the game’s society does not present that cognitive dissonance that can be found in the more time-intensive MMOs where a considerable investment is required for any real return in gaming satisfaction.
Curiously though, I am also currently experiencing that same feeling in World of Warcraft, and the reason is an interesting one. Well, interesting like the ingredients on the back of a packet of crisps are interesting when you’re waiting for a train and have nothing else to read, but I’m bored, you’re here, so let’s just pretend that it’s full of fascinating e numbers and calorie counts, shall we? The reason that I can play in such short periods of time and gain satisfaction at the end of it is due to a couple of factors. For one, I’m playing one of my level seventy characters and therefore, level wise, there’s nowhere for me to go, nothing to crave and no new abilities to desire. No level based restrictions whatsoever. Now this is interesting in itself because there are plenty of other artificially introduced restrictions and ‘levels’ in the form of reputation and raid attunement and such, but they don’t register with me as being The Game. What I mean by The Game is that when I sit down and play an MMO for the first time the simple challenge that is presented front and centre is that you are level one and have something like two abilities that you can use to advance in the game; advancement, and hence The Game, is that you will gain in level and with each of those levels you will gain new or improved abilities that will allow you to continue further in your player experience.
A quick aside: those two new abilities you get will allow you to stab innocent folk in the mediastinum, set innocent folk alight or explode innocent folk into a fine cherry vapour mist. A character never starts out with abilities that allow them to help innocent folk across the road, sell Tupperware or build housing for innocent folk to hide in so that they don’t get stabbed in the medulla oblongata. Ok, those are crap abilities, but perhaps starting out with skills in diplomacy or crafting might be an interesting change from starting out with the ability to effortlessly slice and dice an orc into fillets suitable for a Gob Kebob.
Raiding and other past times are not The Game to my way of thinking because they are clearly an artificially tagged-on treadmill for people who have completed The Game. Specifically, raiding is based on loot progression not character progression. If I returned my character to earlier areas and gave him the same gear as he had back then, he would not only be able to defeat those encounters more easily, but could also take on harder content that he wouldn’t have been able to when he was the appropriate level. The character improvement is the intrinsic part. So anyway, tenuous as that argument may seem, it’s how I feel about current MMOs and therefore, because there’s no XP bar silently staring at me from the top of the screen projecting a contorted face of anger and derision that says “You don’t do enough to fulfil me, I’m leaving you for another hero who has a bigger sword with which he can satisfy my needs”, I can play for as little time as I want and then log-out without feeling as though I should be doing more for my bunny boiler of a progress meter.
Another factor that allows for brief spurts of WoWgasm is that travel time is short. Outlands – where most of the quests that I can undertake are to be found – is pretty small as it is, add on top of this fact that I can now fly and therefore not only travel in a straight line to my destination but do so without drawing aggro from crap animals along the way, and travelling becomes a minor break between having fun rather than a major expedition that would make Sir Ranulph Fiennes blanch. This again makes sense within the context of The Game: I’m done, I’ve hit the level cap, I’ll either re-roll, leave or repeatedly hit my head against the reinforced glass wall of raid content; so because The Game is over, there’s no need to keep things like artificially slow travel in the way of play any more since there’s no levelling progress to restrict and obstruct in order to keep people in the bulk of the content.
Finally the other joy that immediately springs to mind is that I can pick the quests that look and sound interesting, rather than feeling the need to complete any quest I can lay my hands on so that the Experience Mistress won’t release the Hounds of Achievement to hunt me down and deliver their own special brand of frothing, tooth-laden guilt. Thus, I have the freedom to say:
“I’m sorry Farmer Bob, but stuff you. Stuff you, and stuff your crops that are being overwhelmed by rats. Perhaps if you hadn’t built your farm in The Valley of Rats on Plague Island, next to that giant rat hole where Gorgonra the terrible red-eyed queen of rodents lives; perhaps if you hadn’t decided to grow a specific crop that can only be considered the crack cocaine of the rat world; perhaps if you had developed some form of basic hygiene rather than just defecating where you stand through a flap in the back of your dungarees; perhaps if you had built something, anything that might be considered a defence against a rampage of rodents, rather than a picket fence and a scare crow that wouldn’t bother Terrified Tim the Timid of Treenton, who is scared of absolutely everything, including the thought that someone might cure him of being scared. Then I might just find it in myself to be bothered to waste my time chasing ten of the little bastards around and bringing you their measly little hides so that you can reward me with a piece of moss and half a button.
It’s deliciously refreshing. Although that might just be the air I’m breathing now that I’ve moved on from Farmer Bob’s rat infested poo pile.
The main problem I have with these brief but enjoyable sojourns from the real world is that this style of play does not provide a lot of material for a blog: “I logged on. I did a couple of quests. I fed Farmer Bob to Gorgonra. I logged out” is hardly compelling reading and I don’t have the inclination to make it sound more dynamic or epic, it’s just not my thing, and I’m certainly not experiencing anything new and irritating that would inspire a tirade of biting satire or comedy situations.
I’m afraid that I’m not one to talk just for the sake of it, so if it’s a bit quiet here then it’s simply because I’m waiting for more fuel to fire the Inferno.
If I were a quest giver, I’d get heroes to:
Thinking about it: if I could get enough adventurers on the books I could start a cleaning company, I’d just tell them that it’s a rep. grind and they’d be all over it like a WoW forum on patch day. I’m not sure what Johnny Homeowner would make of a van full of heavily armoured, beefy heroes and buxom heroines unloading on their driveway, though.
Melmoth’s Municipal MMO Maids, coming to a zone near you soon.
It’s curious how the nefarious population of City of Villains has a university; the game mechanic of the university is to give characters a place to learn about and participate in the recently introduced crafting system. Clearly the developers work on the hero side first and then transfer as much of the effort as possible directly into CoV, converting any glaringly obvious heroic insinuations.
One wonders, though, what a villain university or school would be like…
“Johnson, did you do your homework again? What is the matter with you boy? If you carry on completing coursework and paying attention in class you’ll find yourself out of this university before you can blink, and then you’ll probably have to get a job wearing spandex and helping old grannies get their cats out of trees. Is that what you want?”
“Right! Who was that? Come on, own up, which one of you wasn’t throwing paper planes behind my back? Someone wasn’t throwing them, I can tell. It was you was it, Packard? Well, as a punishment you can go and help old people cross the road for a day. Actually make that two days, because I’m fed-up with you owning up to your crimes, a good villain doesn’t own up to anything. Are you some sort of pansy hero, Packard? Right! Three! Three days, because you’re not even arguing with me over the point. Go on, get out!”
“You! You behind the bike sheds. Stand still, laddie! Right, now, why aren’t you smoking? Explain yourself!”
“Well, Franklin, apparently you’ve been bullying young Thatcher here and stealing his lunch money. What? Oh I’m not punishing you for stealing the money, Franklin. No. But you see, Thatcher tells me that you’ve been failing to steal all of his money, that he’s been keeping some of it hidden from you. You’re a slacker Franklin, so you can be in detention this evening. Top snitching there Thatcher, you can have a house point.”
“Evening everyone. First order of this detention session: you’re all in further detention for bothering to turn up to this one.”
The voluble Elf has tagged me, and I can never resist a jolly good memeing, especially from friends.
Four jobs I have had in my life (not including my current job):
All summer jobs I’m afraid; I’ve been at my current job since, well, forever really.
Four films I have watched again and again:
Like most people, I expect, there are several more films I could list here, so I’ve tried to pick a representative sample.
Four places I have lived:
I lived in Leeds when I went to university there. Other than that, I’ve stayed pretty close to home.
Four Programmes I love to watch:
Again, there are plenty of others both new and old, but this is a set of those that I’ve watched relatively recently and enjoyed tremendously.
Four Places I have been on vacation:
I think San Francisco is still my favourite place, although Venice is a close second.
Four of my favourite foods:
I like food. This is barely a pebble on the peak of the food mountain of my victual desires.
Four favourite drinks:
This makes me sound like a drunkard fop. Which might be accurate.
Four places I would rather be right now:
And I’d also like a pony.
Four People I Command to Do This:
Not so much command, as extend the embracing arm of memefulness. I’m only allowed four, so I’ve tried to pick people who haven’t been tagged and have commented here. Apologies to anyone who might have wanted to do it. And apologies to those tagged who don’t want to do it. Maybe you can all get together, swap out the people who don’t want to do it with those who do, and then send fax confirmation in triplicate to me, and I… ah bugger it, it’s just a meme.
As the wise Yoda once said:
“Do, or do not. I don’t give a toss, and I’ll be dead in the next installment anyway.”
Or something.
It was a fairly humdrum weekend in the Melmoth household with respect to gaming. I continued to level my ‘Thief of’ characters in City of Comicbookclichés, but singularly failed to meet any of the fellows of our super-group over the weekend; there is an indicator in the super-group window of when people had last played their character, and it seems that we’ve all been active at one time or another in the same day but never at the same time. Perhaps we need to implement a Justice Calendar which, when attached to the Freedom Fridge with the Magnet of Emancipation, would schedule crime fighting in a single badly scrawled entry.
“Batman, remember we’re fighting the Joker tonight at 7pm. Love and kisses, Robin.”
“Appointment with Dr Doom at 4.30pm. Remember to take stool sample. To fling at him. Johnny.”
“HULK SMASH PUNY VILLAINS. SOME TIME BETWEEN 11AM AND NOON. STAY OUT OF HULK’S WAY OR ME SMISH YOU TOO. NOTE TO SELF: NEED TO DO TAX RETURNS BY THURSDAY.”
Soloing in CoH is manageable, but the real fun comes from teaming with others. Extra bonus fun points if those people are competent folk whom you know, rather than pick-up group nutters.
In a fit of desperately wanting to play a bearded dwarf with a big axe and adventure in strange forested lands where orcs roam, I once again subscribed to Lord of the Rings Online for a month to see if I could get back into that. After a installing the game from the disks and then downloading and patching several gargantuan updates, my kilt-wearing dwarf was once more smoking a pipe in the Prancing Pony and enjoying the role-playing atmosphere:
“And he said. And then she said. And then he said that she said.”
“Hello! U looks nice, wanna come back to my room??????/”
“Lord Darkbrooding looks brooding. And dark. In a cool dark and brooding way.”
“And I said to them ‘you’re not in our special club of very excellent people’ and then I stabbed them.”
“Arrgghh! I’m covered in bees!”
That last one was me after five minutes of listening to ‘deep’ and ‘meaningful’ discussions: always be sure to throw in random Eddie Izzard quotes to liven the incredibly oppressive atmosphere of role-playing environs. It’s the law.
I picked-up play with my dwarf guardian who is in his late twenties, and made my way to the North Downs since I had a few solo quests there; I had considered diving straight into a pick-up group in one of the instances available to my character at that level, but thought that perhaps spending a few minutes learning what all those buttons on the screen were for was perhaps the more sensible course of action. After many, many minutes of meanderings, like some sort of peripatetic loot basket, I finally reached the fields of Fornost where I had been charged with the task of killing bears. Oh well, I guess it’s fractionally better than boars; I recalled shortly thereafter that I killed boars in the previous quest. Sigh. Four minutes of running around like a loon trying to find bears found my character stuck on a seemingly moderate slope in the landscape; a known bug, that one would think would have been fixed by now. The only way to escape the jaws of the adventurer-grasping landscape is to use the /stuck command which returns you to your last bound point, in my case the Prancing Pony where I started off some thirty minutes of faffing around ago. There was nothing to do but to type /stuck and wait to warp all the way back to where I started. Whilst I waited for the unstuckness to occur (for which there was no countdown timer to be seen) a mob decided to spawn nearby; a ranged mob, who immediately decided that I looked like fair game, and started plinking away at my health bar. I could do nothing in the meantime, other than spin on the spot in a manner which I hoped conveyed my extreme anger and annoyance at this cowardly attack, in some fanciful effort to convince the mob that attacking me was going to lead to its painful demise just as soon as I’d taken the ten minutes to run back to where it was. It was now a race, with the stuck command ticking away in the background, would it trigger before the mob finished me off? Was the stuck command even working? Maybe I’d mistyped it, and I wasn’t in fact about to escape at all. I went to type the command again to make sure, but was then struck by the thought that this might reset the timer, if it was indeed counting down, and thus leaving me with longer to wait before death or unstuckness took hold. It was while I was in the grip of the complex moral decision of whether to type the stuck command again or just bugger it all and go and get a packet of crisps, that I warped back to the Prancing Pony with a modest fraction of health left. Faced with the run all the way back to the fields of Fornost or logging off and eating crisps until everything started to take on the semblance of potato, I took the salty baked saturated fat option.
Suffice it to say that the above experience didn’t sate my need to get all medieval dwarf on some critters’ arses, so I popped my head back into World of Warcraft, rolled a dwarf alt and burned through the first ten levels of content there. Ahhhhhh. Those first ten levels in World of Warcraft are the salty baked saturated fat taste sensation of the MMO levelling world, high in monosodium glutamate and everything.
Other than that, the weekend was predominantly taken up with doing Other Things. Reading, catching up on various TV series that I have on DVD, and generally not sitting at my computer for four or five hours straight. I hope a decent MMO hits the stores soon, because otherwise I might get used to this variety which is spicing up the grand MMO of Life and find it more addictive than playing any virtual grind. Heck, next weekend I plan on taking a look at this thing that you Earth people call ‘outside’.
I hadn’t really thought about preparing a review for Tabula Rasa because reviews from several other bloggers are already out there, and say pretty much all there is to say; if I were going to write about the game I’d try to put a humorous spin on it, but I’m afraid that I’m not seeing one. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of jokes to be had, but they’re not the light-hearted ribbings that belong here.
I was, however, listening to the ol’ iPodule this morning, and the lyrics to one of the songs became slightly warped in my mind – Warped mind? Me? – and seemed apt:
Lost in time I can’t count the words,
I said when I thought they went unheard,
All of those harsh thoughts so unkind,
‘cos I wanted you.And now I sit here, I’m all alone,
So here sits a bloody mess, tears fly home,
A circle of errors, seen before,
‘cos I wanted you.Weak as I am, won’t sub. to you.
Weak as I am, won’t sub. to you.
Deep as I am, I’m no-one’s fool.
Weak as I am.— The ‘Inferno review of Tabula Rasa’ version of Weak, by Skunk Anansie
They touted Tabula Rasa as a blank slate, as in a fresh start; what they seemed to forget is that Tabula Rasa is also the new mind in its primary state, before it receives any of the impressions and understanding gained from experience.
Tabula Rasa indeed, then.
If real life had an MMO UI overlaid, what would it look like to you? How would it affect your life?