Beware of short balding men in red robes.

“Fear not Ranger; Barbarian; Magician; Thief; Cavalier and Acrobat!”

So says the Dungeon Master in the title sequence for Dungeons & Dragons the animated TV series.

Of course anyone who has played an MMO will instantly recognise that the appearance of the short, wizened and kindly old man festooned in his rich red robes was merely an illusion and that he was evidently a sick and vicious sadist who got off on the pain and suffering of children; it’s probably a fair guess that he and his son, Venger, were actually working together all along, and that the realm in which they dwelled was merely a labyrinthine torture chamber for the young.

I mean, one tank, five DPS and no healer? It’s a party composition straight out of Hideously Doomed To Fail PuGs 101.

No wonder those poor kids never made it home.

The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.

One minute: Sixty seconds. The time it took to write this post.

One work minute: Sixty minutes. The time it takes the clock hand to tick that final division so that you can go home.

One MMO minute: Sixty milliseconds. The time it takes to do ‘one last thing, it’ll just take a minute’ that results in you waking your partner two hours later when you try to sneak sheepishly into bed.

Upgrade time

Just to prove I’m not falling under the sway of the oh-so-beguiling XBox 360, I’ve decided it’s about time to upgrade my PC. On the plus side the time between mandatory-if-you-want-to-play-the-latest-game upgrades is getting longer, it used to be pretty much every two years you’d need a complete new rig but I’ve had my current PC for a fair few years now, and with a processor upgrade and couple of graphics card changes (mostly prompted by previous components falling over) it’s still a reasonable system. On the downside, it’s getting ever more difficult to actually decide on what to upgrade to.

For our first PC in the late 80s there was basically one choice, the Amstrad PC1512, though there were two options: two 5.25″ disk drives and a mono display, or one disk drive and a colour display (it was another £100 or more for two disk drives *and* a colour display). I lobbied hard for the colour display (doubtless suggesting it would’ve been vital to some aspect of homework, though I can’t think what now; better for drawing graphs for maths, maybe), but thankfully was overruled. With the display being CGA capable of four colours it didn’t really matter so much whether, after black and white, the other two were cyan and magenta or light gray and dark gray. Curse of the Azure Bonds, on the other hand, came on four (or five?) 5.25″ disks, and every encounter required about three disk swaps; I dread to think how many it would’ve needed with just the one drive.

By the time of the first upgrade the PC boom had kicked in and there were plenty of options for vendors in the adverts in PC Plus, Computer Shopper and Micro Mart, but spec wasn’t too difficult. Intel processors were the only game in town, graphics were just “VGA”, and the price of memory and hard drives meant you usually didn’t have much choice with a limited budget. After that rivals to Intel had started arriving, my third PC had a Cyrix chip, and then the graphics card was something to pay more attention to as 3D accelerators came in. Though computer magazines kept expanding with more and more adverts, it was still nothing compared to the array of options brought by the internet, so these days it’s not just Intel or AMD, it’s i3, i5, i7, Opteron, Phenom and all points between available at a variety of speeds, sometimes with yet more options of cores and lord knows what, and every one has someone singing its praises and someone else panning it for some reason. Graphics cards, well, if you’re not bamboozled by the array of cards out there and their ever-shifting alpha-numeric appellations, you’re just not trying. For the first couple of PCs the case never even crossed my mind. Later it was “desktop” or “tower”, now there are choices out the proverbial wazoo, with their own merits in aesthetics, size, cost, airflow, cable management… For every vendor out there, somebody has had a terrible experience of faulty components and rude staff, and somebody else is full of praise for helpful people and an amazing product. Plumping for a Dell would be a simple option, and result in a perfectly satisfactory box I’m sure, but after a particularly noisy unit a few years back, and with the PC sitting in the lounge, I like to select quiet components where possible, so it’s time to draw up a list of bits then try and find them all in stock somewhere. Wish me luck!

One murder makes a villain, millions a hero.

Rethgood the Redolent blinked sweat and blood from his eyes as he tugged his sword from the limp form at his feet. He staggered as he looked about himself, a haze of nausea welled up inside him as his head hummed from the blows it had received – a swarm of wasps buzzing around inside his head and stinging at his mind. The corners of the world closed in on him, and seeing no more wolves he finally dropped to his knees, placed broken hands into the white carpet that lay upon the grass as he heaved clouds of breath out into the cold morning air.

“Hey maaaaaaaaaaaaan. Like, what’s with all the rage?”

Rethgood looked up and saw an orc approaching from the trees to his right, he scrambled to gain his feet, slipped on the frosty ground and fell prone. Clutching at the grass with hands that stained the pristine canvas with crimson, he pulled himself away from the orc, whimpering to himself all the while.

“Duuuude! Like, wow, you killed all these wolves? Awwwww heck, man, why’d you do that? What have you got against the wolves man, they’re God’s creatures maaaaan, just like you and me…”

“You’re… mot… cweadure ob God” panted Rethgood, the words formed through a swollen mouth full of blood sounded slow and stupid to his ears.

“Oh hey maaaaan, don’t be like that. Don’t be all, like, Mr Angry. Relax, dude.”

“WELAX? I’b dyig here you gween fweak…” Rethgood choked on his anger and vomited blood down his front.

“Oh wow. Well man, maybe you shouldn’t have hurt those wolves man.”

“Wh… harghk… whad?”

“They weren’t doing no wrong. Just livin’ their lives here, like, in peace. With the nature an’ all, man, you know? We’re all happy here man, why’d you have to come along and bring your bad vibes? You’re, like, totally bringing the place down.”

“Thad wab the idea you gobbam monsder”

“Monster? Hey man, I’m not, like, the one who came charging in here killing all Big Mother N’s children. You’re like, totally bad karma man, you know? Like, bad mojo. You need to mellow man. Me-llowww.”

“Yo…. gaghk… you’re mad.”

“Mad? I suppose so man, we’re all a little mad you know? But you crazy folks keep coming in here and killing the innocent children of Gaia, man. We’ve all got a right to live. You people just need to chill, try to understand it from our point of view.”

Rethgood sobbed as the orc bent over him, he could feel the creature’s breath on the back of his neck. He tried to turn himself over, fend the creature off in some way, but his limbs had long stopped obeying his commands. He squeezed his eyes closed and waited for the inevitable.

The orc’s lips rolled back in a grin, huge tusks and pointed teeth framed in red velvet, drew its arm from behind its back and slowly, gently, placed a crown of daisies on Rethgood’s head.

“Peace, man.” it said.

Rethgood watched from one half-opened eye as the orc walked away, a wolf padded along beside it now and a hawk sat on its shoulder; the forest seemed to wrap its long branched arms tenderly about the orc as it melted away into the shadows.

Ever noticed how all the animals that attack you on sight never seem to have any problem with the humanoid NPCs in the area? I picture them all living in perfect hippy harmony, at one with nature and creation. Their lives are happy until adventurers come along and slaughter them wholesale because some stranger told them to.

Think of all the wildlife that we PCs kill during our adventuring lives because someone with a pocketful of gold compelled us. No wonder so many of the wild animals in MMOs attack us but leave everyone else alone.

Sometimes you have to wonder whether we’re not the heroes but the villains after all.

Previewlet: Torchlight.

Torchlight is to Diablo what Champions Online should have been to City of Heroes.

Where Champions Online inherited many ideas, themes, sound effects and such from City of Heroes, but changed some of the core game-play that made CoH so well loved and tried something new and brave, but which ultimately didn’t really work as well, Torchlight has taken everything that made Diablo great and built upon that with new features that just make the player smile at the simplicity and brilliance of the implementation.

Have no doubt, if you buy Torchlight you are buying Diablo 2.5; there’s the brooding, almost melancholy ambient music that drifts in and out of the periphery of your consciousness as you play through a level, and which is so close a tribute to the Diablo score that if you closed your eyes you might be hard pressed to tell which game was actually running on your PC; the piñata mobs that burst open and erupt loot all over the screen whenever you so much as look at them; scrolls of Town Portal and Identify; the disembodied voice of a strange old man that – slightly creepily – follows you around and provides narrative relief while you take a break from your excessive loot-candy highs. I haven’t found a Horadric Cube yet, but I’ve only played an hour or so. It’s there somewhere, I’m sure.

Games like Titan Quest tried to clone Diablo and tap into that rich vein of Blizzard devotees by presenting something that was familiar to them, whereas Torchlight unashamedly is Diablo, but with an up-to-date graphics engine and additional features that are different and unusual enough to tempt even those virtuous souls who are chastely saving their gaming cherry for Diablo 3. One simple and obvious example of a new and excellent feature is the pet companion that accompanies you everywhere you go, it is far more than a token addition to differentiate the game from others of the same ilk because there is an entire sub-game involved with making the best use of the functions that your pet provides. Suffice it to say that any player familiar with Diablo will feel immediately at home but still have plenty to learn and adapt to.

I haven’t played enough of Torchlight to go into an in-depth reviewlet yet, but the game has certainly impressed upon me enough to warrant mentioning it now, because if there are any of you who are wed to the Diablo series but are perhaps feeling that seven year itch, then Torchlight is quite possibly The Girl to spark your imagination.

Dare I say: it’s quite possibly more Diablo than Diablo 3 will be.

Every day is a fresh beginning, Every morn is the world made new.

Dateline Internet, October 2009. A Brigham Young University professor heads a recent study which reports that moral behaviour may be encouraged with nothing more than clean smells.

Elsewhere across the globe: the MMO blogosphere was turned into a barren wasteland earlier today when a new law came into effect mandating that all basements be equipped with air freshening equipment. The resultant ninety percent reduction in ninja looting and generally ‘being a smacktard’ in the World of Warcraft community meant that erstwhile bloggers had nothing to talk about other than the weather and which type of emote would be most correct when used to formally greet a new group member.

More details on the MMO Blogging Drought as we get them.

Reporting live for Oh MMO Emo News, I’m Melmoth Melmothson.

A yawn may not be polite, but at least it is an honest opinion.

Our regular Monday night group in Lord of the Rings Online, spearheaded by Messrs Van Hemlock and Shute, tackled the tenth book from volume one of the game’s epic storyline content. It was, as usual, an enjoyable evening, but this was due exclusively to the company of the fellows present, and certainly couldn’t be attributed to the game content that we were playing through.

Book Ten suffers from Yet Another Wandering Narrative Safari – a condition not uncommon in MMO design and certainly not exclusive to LotRO – it is categorised by large amounts of exposition with little-to-no action or adventure until the very end, and possibly occurs because the content designer spent the night before overdosing on re-runs of the X-Files. YAWNS is easily identified, but for those who may yet be unsure, I will outline a typical example for you now.

For an entirely accurate representation, the following should be played at twice normal speed to the tune of Yackety Sax, preferably with the PCs running line astern while flailing their arms in the air above their heads, although freedom is given to allow the PCs to be on separate parts of the quest at any one time and therefore have them running in opposite directions and occasionally bumping in to one another and falling on their bottoms, before getting up and continuing on their way.

• You are presented with a wall of text from Colin your current quest NPC that essentially translates to “Go and speak to Bob”.
• Bob is either standing next to Colin, within the same building or possibly in the general area.
• When you speak to Bob he gives you a two line answer and sends you back to Colin.
• Returning to Colin he then asks you to go and speak to Neville, who is half a continent away in a location with no convenient travel routes and which requires a fellowship of players to negotiate.
• Upon finally reaching Neville you are asked to perform a mundane chore including, but not limited to, collecting local flora, killing local fauna, examining inanimate objects in hard to reach heavily guarded places, or grovelling on the floor at his feet until he sickens of your pathetic spineless nature. Bitch.
• Neville sends you back to Bob, who tells you that he doesn’t give a toss, go and speak to Colin.
• Colin tells you to tell Harold (who is standing next to Neville) to tell Bob to get over himself.
• Upon finally reaching Harold he tells you to tell Neville that Colin is bossing him around.
• Neville waits for you to grovel on the floor a bit before telling you to tell Colin that if he wants to tell Bob something, then he should jolly well get off his lazy arse and get a bunch of pathetic loser PCs to do it for him.
• Neville swings a kick at your rear as you leave.
• Colin concedes that he probably should have got you to tell Bob in the first place. He asks you to tell Bob to get over himself, to tell Harold that he’s sorry and to tell Neville that he loves him.
• Bob cries at the harsh reprimand and can only be consoled by you killing fifty boars.
• Harold is delighted by Colin’s apology and rewards you with one piece of tattered goblin wang, a barter item that can be traded for amazing gear. Unfortunately you are required to trade fifty pieces of tattered goblin wang to get one solid goblin wang, and you need ten solid goblin wangs to get the “I ran repeatable daily quests for three months and all I got was this lousy goblin wang t-shirt” t-shirt.
• Neville looks with deep concern at the message Colin asked you to bring, then spits on it and slowly wipes it over your face before giving you a wedgie and sending you back to Colin.
• Returning to Colin he is excited to inform you that your quest is nearly at an end, all you need to do now is go and speak to Geoff who needs to go the Castle of Death and Blood and be protected while he wanders around aimlessly for a bit.
• Geoff doesn’t know who the hell you people are, and isn’t going to trust a bunch of strangers to escort him around the Castle of Death and Blood until they prove themselves to him.
• After killing fifty boars you return to Geoff who grudgingly agrees to go, but first he needs his sword and shield and he can’t remember where he left them, you are to ask his wife where she put them as she’s always moving his stuff around.
• When you get to the location where Geoff’s wife is supposed to be there’s a note pinned to the door which reads “Geoff, have eloped with Neville to Far Far Away Land, am not coming back. Your dinner is on the fire.”
• You return to Geoff who is, understandably, inconsolable. You tell him that you really need his help, and he sobs that actually there is something you can do to make him feel better.
• After killing fifty boars you return to Geoff who snuffles that he is feeling a bit better and that – good news! – he has remembered where he left his sword and shield!
• You speak to Colin and ask him for the key to the room that has the chest that contains the key to Geoff’s room that has a chest containing a key to the vault in the crypt that has his sword and shield in.
• Colin says that he did have the key but he can’t find it, but he’s fairly sure that Neville will know where it is…