Games are fun.

Right?

It’s only natural to want to share that fun with other people, as fun is multiplied by the number of friends with whom you share it.

A couple years ago, a bunch of people who were planning to have fun playing Mythic’s Warhammer MMO had had so much fun being excited about the game before it was even released, that they just had to share it. They got together and all launched blogs and started writing about it — and now many of them are among the top MMO bloggers in the industry.

We did the same sort of thing with Wizard101 blogs. There’s been blog groups for EVE Online, World of Warcraft… pretty much every game out there.

It turns out that writing about the games you play is even more fun.

None of these new bloggers expected to find fame (though some did) or attract thousands of readers (though some do). They wanted a place to share their excitement and game experiences and thoughts about gaming with friends and other gamers, so they started a blog.

YOU can start a blog. You SHOULD start a blog. Right now. Try Blogger (host of my bridge blog) or WordPress. Come up with a cool name for your blog, figure out what you’re going to write about, and start writing.

So, now that you have a blog, you’re a blogger. Grats! Your very next step is to head over to the Newbie Blogger Initiative and check in. Through the month of May, over 70 bloggers will be writing about how and why they blog and giving tips for getting words on the page and eyes on your blog. Because the absolute best bit about blogging is talking with other fans.

Look for a couple posts about blogging here in the next month — and check out the Newbie Blogger Initiative forums for the dozens of other blogs who will be giving their own take on this whole blogger thing.

And in the meantime, check out Google+, where a lot of great MMO discussion goes on every minute of every day :)

Avalon

Sure, everyone had this figured out awhile ago, but finally it’s announced — the newest world on the Spiral is Avalon.

Professor Greyrose writes:

Avalon is the silver city, a medieval fantasy world of knights, goblins, giants, and dragons. Merle Ambrose was born here, and gained a reputation as a fierce Wizard. Merle helped the young warrior-bear Artorius become king of Avalon. However, once King Artorius fell in the final battle slaying his archrival, Malory, Merle decided it was time to leave Avalon – Merle left to found Ravenwood School of Magical Arts and teach magic to any Wizard who wanted to learn it in the Spiral.

Avalon is a large world with 15 expansive areas to explore. Young Wizards who are a minimum of level 70 and have completed the quest “Through Glass, Darkly” need to speak to Merle Ambrose who will send you off on your adventures with a quest named “This Little Light of Mine”.

I pretty much keep returning to “knights and dragons” because, YUM. Anyone who knows me knows that if there’s a dragon to be killed, I am TOTALLY THERE. That desire for dragonly death held me from TSR’s DragonStrike game, through EverQuest, World of Warcraft and the rest.

Time to get leveling!

Here’s the last puzzle piece, for completeness’ sake:

Helpless!

What I want to know is, if the Spinner of Shadows could “hold person” everyone in the party instantly, with no saving throw, for as long as she wanted, anytime she wanted — how did we win the fight?

Not to say that it wasn’t a fun fight — it was. The whole Web of Chaos arc was a lot of fun, for all that the last adventure turned into an extended advertisement for the expansion, giving some reason for the sudden merger of the world of Eberron and the world of Forgotten Realms.

The Spinner of Shadows adventure was, in particular, pretty fun. The adventure had a raid-like complexity. We split the party in two, with Gleek and Ulan keeping the Spinner busy while Spode and I raced around killing spiders for shards with which to rebuild the Spinner’s prison.

Spoiler alert, we fail, and Lolth is summoned from the Underdark into the plane of Khyber (if I am remembering this right). Well, we succeeded in the adventure, and failed.

With Lolth freed, we were treated to the trailer for the next expansion, and were then ejected back into Stormreach Harbor to report our failure to the Silver Flame guardians who did not welcome our news.

Ophiga

Fact is, I play a drow, and I’m not sure why I would not welcome Lolth into this plane of existence. We spent the entire night killing Drow, and I felt a little uncomfortable about that. Why couldn’t we have killed something that really deserved it, like gnomes?

Sometimes it’s hard playing a good drow. I guess that’s why my fellow drow and driders usually try to kill me when they see me. Still, I struggle on. Far from Vulkoor’s solace, driven from the Underdark.

At least I can meet my ex-drowfriends as a more skillful rogue. While working through the Web of Chaos arc, I reached level 17 at long last. I got a new rank of sneak attack, and Rogue Sneak Attack Training IV. I just need one more point for Rogue Sneak Attack Accuracy Training IV, and then it’s just a hop, skip and jump to level 18 and Assassin III. Then I get two levels where I can choose levels in some complementary class. Since my last lesser reincarnation, I have become a strength-based rogue, which will allow me a little more leeway in choosing other classes. I’m thinking Fighter (for the weapon skills), Ranger (for ranged skills natch) or Bard (because… just because).

The glowy weapons I am wielding in the picture above come from the Web of Chaos arc. I didn’t get all the ones I wanted, but if we run the arc twice more, I’ll be able to select from all the options available, which is rather cool. That’s something just added with the most recent update.

Exciting times. Spode and Gleek have already maxed out their experience. Ulan and I are the laggers-behind, both now at 17. I really do want to get to 20 before we leave for Diablo 3, but levels come so slowly that I am not sure that’s realistic.

I’ve said it many times — I would enjoy DDO more if I didn’t have to spend real money to form a group to play on non-group nights. On the other hand, I like playing a MMO which was intended for group play. It doesn’t make any sense, I know. I guess I could join pickup-groups, but then there’s the fear that I am a terrible player and would enrage the members of any group I joined, since I care little for having the best armor, weapons or enhancements.

Back in EverQuest, the designers had this concept of camps. When you first came to a new dungeon (or even outdoor zone), there would be the “easy” camps for people with lesser equipment, levels, or ability. As you gained confidence, you’d move through the zone to harder camps, and as you gained a reputation, increasingly you’d be asked to come to a camp. That social web thing.

Now it’s all whirlwind speeding through a dungeon with people you will never see again. WoW, EQ2, Rift, DDO — all the same.

I treasure my static group :)

College-Ruled Universe

I used to doodle a lot as a kid. I’d draw up adventures where, typically, bad things would happen to my kid sister. If those drawings had come to life… well, I would have a very angry sister today (sorry, Val. At least I am comforted knowing you will never read my blog).

Artist Leo Dasso had a different vision. While doodling in class one day, he was inspired to turn his doodles into space ships, cities and extremely weird bosses and wire them up in Flash to make an abstract and visually striking side-scrolling shooter in the vein of R-Type and the old Treasure bulletstorms. He tapped a friend of his to do the music and called the game College-Ruled Universe.

He’s got the prototype coded up in Action Script 2.0 and is looking for funding to hire a programmer to port the game to AS 3.0 tuned to run best on Android (though the artist is now considering releasing it first for iOS). There’s a playable demo available. The rewards feature copies of the game once released and artwork based on the game (or even used IN the game), and a chance to get your own artwork into the game if you want to pledge that much.

As of this writing, the game has 49 hours left to go and has already raised $7,333 of the $6,000 goal, so it’s going to happen.

College-Ruled Universe is the perfect storm of indie game development that can reliably succeed on Kickstarter. It’s a game with a good “elevator pitch” — retro side-scrolling shooter with a distinctive art style and music. There’s a playable demo. The goals are reasonable and the funding target is low. We’ve seen these sorts of games succeed on other platforms again and again — flOw, Everyday Shooter, Castle Crashers and so on.

College-Ruled Universe might do well on Kongregate even without Kickstarter funding… but with the funding, it will be better and on more platforms.