Comments on: Daily Blogroll 10/14 – Puns R Us edition

By: Tipa

Tipa — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:44:05 +0000

Thanks!

By: kaozz

kaozz — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 21:12:28 +0000

Thanks for the link Tipa! I just got a new domain and moved the site, here is the updated link for the fall fun.
http://www.ectmmo.com/2009/10/fun-events-in-october-mmo-halloween.html
-kaozz

By: Bhagpuss

Bhagpuss — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:01:24 +0000

What if you enjoy Wow a great deal, love questing, but have done all the quests WoW has to offer several times over? Wouldn’t you be excited to play a game that really feels like WoW but is new, where you can do more quests, like the ones in WoW that you enjoyed so much all those other times, only with slightly different text and scenery? I know I would.

/Irony off for a second, though. One circus is very much like another. A car chase is a car chase. Even in High Culture, a ballet is a ballet and an opera is an opera. There’s a certain set of tropes that represent “MMO” and when eating a banana you don’t want to taste orange.

In the end it doesn’t come down to originality, or novelty. It comes down to quality. We aren’t suffering from a dearth of MMOs that are different to WoW, we’re suffering from a dearth of MMOs that are better than WoW. The very best quest dialog and storyline in MMOs scarcely reaches the level of an average fantasy novel, and the standard of average fantasy novels is, even by the standards of genre fiction, mediocre.

It’s not the format of quest-based MMOs that’s the problem, it’s the quality. The genre just is not attracting the level of creative talent that novels or movies do. I don’t think that’s inevitable; I believe that games, as an entertainment genre, have the capacity to tell stories and stimulate emotions to the same degree as other entertainment and artistic forms. So far, though, it’s an unproved thesis.

By: Cuppycake

Cuppycake — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 21:41:19 +0000

Completely disagree about a browser based EQNext directly competed with Free Realms. If anything, the faster development time by reusing an engine is worth the competition. Also, I’m interested to hear exactly what you think they have learned by “competing with themselves”. Competing with themselves means they keep the revenue in-house rather than people playing another game. SOE doesn’t care if you pick Free Realms, EQNext, or SWG as long as you pay them money for one of their games and not Blizzard or Turbine, etc. Having multiple MMOs with congruencies means the ability to put in systems that work across world, such as Station Cash and LoN. This is all GOOD for a company looking to increase revenue without drastic overhead.

In other words, SOE putting out more browser based MMOs is only a good thing.

By: yunk

yunk — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 13:52:55 +0000

Every game needs moar boar! I can’t believe someone released a game without boars, or few boars. What were they thinking?
That’s why in LOTRO everyone’s favorite zone is the Lone Lands. 50 different quests to kill boar! Done killing red boars? Now kill brown boars! After all the Forasken Inn has a lot of customers to serve. Pity the poor vegetarian:
“You mean you won’t eat ham? You won’t eat pork chops? You won’t eat bacon?”
“Dad those are all the same animal!”
“Yeah right Lisa, a wonderfull, magical animal.”