This past weekend I sat down with the Gamers w/Jobs crew to talk Age of Conan, and that Grand Theft something-er-other game that seems to be very popular these days.

Age of Conan, Mario Kart, Grand Theft Auto IV, Rob Off The Rails, Your Emails and more! Michael Zenke joins us for our in-depth impressions of Grand Theft Auto IV. Does Sean still hate it? Will the vein on Rob’s forehead burst? Can Michael inject some sanity into the conversation?!

The answer? Probably not. But it was fun to try.

Games can define your state of mind. I think that’s pretty obvious, a self-evident statement from a guy who loves games speaking to an audience who loves games. What I find interesting is how games can wear mental grooves into your consciousness. For folks coming home from tough jobs, MMOs fill the vicarious adventure void in their lives. Mothers turn to puzzle games, college students to FPSes, for lots of people in our culture there are titles that offer comfort and solace on whatever level you’re seeking.

For me, the Massive genre itself is my ‘comfort game’. It doesn’t really matter what game I’m playing, just as long as I’m online in a persistent space. WoW has its obvious draw, but I’ve recently found Guild Wars to be particularly comforting; running quests with a forest of henchmen and heroes is incredibly appealing. collaboration between the Eye of the North Heroes with those from Nightfall leads to evocative mental stories. Interesting stuff.

What I’m interested in is how the online experience extends this ‘comfort level’. Playing GTA IV this weekend I basically finished Raph’s Koolaid cup; in ten years every game is going to have some sort of online/MMO element. I think it’s a given. Nick Fortugno, at IMGDC, talked about the ’semi-multiplayer’ elements of Pogo.com games; I’m curious as to how much the human element is involved for comforting people as they play.

Funny title, probably a useless article to you. But still … I try.

Even with the help of other players, making it to the top is long road. That journey is one to be enjoyed, as leveling a character in WoW is (for many people) the real game. That said, once you have your first character at max level, retaking those same steps to the top can be frustrating. Going over the same content for the second, third, fourth time is just never quite the same.

Today we have on offer a few simple tools to help you make it through ‘the grind’ in a reasonable amount of time with minimal hair-pulling. Some of these are technical in nature, some are simple techniques, and some are simple platitudes that we’ve found helpful in the past. Read on, and make sure to grasp the handrail tightly up the escalator.

Big stuff today on Massively from me. My fingers hurt.

• Not technically from today, but instead earlier this week, a fun retrospective on the two most recent Guild Wars boxes.
• Catching up with Warhammer. I sat in on another one of those EA Mythic conference calls, which you may recall from here on the site. Made me a little sad not to be putting it up here. Times they are a changin’, huh?
• Lots of AoC stuff on the site today, as the NDA dropped for press folks. I put in a sort of thousand-foot view on the game, and a heaping pile of videos and screenshots.
• It’s also a Thursday, so Massively Speaking #3 went up. Yay for consistency! #5 or bust!

The seventh episode of the MMOG Nation Broadcast is a blast from the past. Late in March I attended the Independent MMO Game Developer’s Conference, and recorded a podcast on the way home. That Sunday I resolved to leave Slashdot, and the ensuing month has been a bit hectic. BUT! I have not podfaded. Not even slightly. Today I have for you a recap of my experiences there, and a sort of ‘how-to’ guide for attending conferences. This episode is the first in a collaboration I hope goes on for a long time as Shawn (of GuildCast fame) is now editing the MNB for me. Expect crisper-sounding, more timely, and all around better shows. And my apologies (again) for the delay.

Relevant Links:
De Casuals Iz Coming
Bartle’s Good, Bad, and Ugly
Gordon Walton’s IMGDC Talk
Trust Me, We Don’t Want Rights

Music:
Tomorrow Comes Today, Gorillaz. Composed by the Gorillaz, used without permission.

I finished up a huge project over the weekend, and have been working on another one of moderate size since last Friday for tomorrow … so I’ve been a bit off.

I wanted to take a sec to throw back some links, though, because I’ve gotten a lot of love recently. Actually (and don’t ask me why) the posts from last week got a really warm reception from folks - I even got email about them. I never get email about MN.

• I’ve gotten LOTS of feedback on my Bullet Point List, which I am not too surprised about. I jotted it off in a hurry, probably should have thought more about it. Still: fun to write. The -gards of 38 Studios commented on the post (thanks, guys!), and Grimwell even offered up a way to make my dreams of shard-free gaming a reality.
• My back-of-the-napkin poking at numbers got a lot of good-hearted flack (though nothing like poor Cameron got back in the day). My favorite comment about this post wasn’t even here on the site; Angus made it the topic of an entire post. I didn’t even know Angus knew about MN. (Heya Angus!) It’s really hard to dislike someone disagreeing with you when they do it so *well*.
• My post a while back about Microsoft and Sony’s duel over console MMOs has reappeared on CMP’s network, polished up a bit and wearing a bowtie. Make sure to read the comments; Sony hate knows no professional boundaries.
• Stephen was nice enough to mention me on the MTV Multiplayer blog after he, myself, and Chris Grant had a spot of the GTA IV multiplayer. Y’know, I think you should ignore what everyone else is saying … it’s actually a pretty good game.

Thanks for reading, folks.