Last friday Lum had a great post looking at why Galactica Online would never work. Psychochild then turned around and scraped out the insides of my brain by talking a little bit about the Cowboy Bebop MMOG I’ve wanted desperately for the last two or three years. These two discussions are wonderful to see; I haven’t said much this month but I’ve definitely done a lot of thinking.

Playing Eve has been fun, but only because I’ve come to realize that it’s purely a novelty element. I’m enjoying spending time with a RL friend of mine, bothering Darniaq, and blowing up pirates, but the actual play I’m experiencing so far has been (to borrow Lum’s term) somewhat Excel-esque. Apparently there’s this thing called ‘0.0′ space, and I’m training up to fly Cruisers so I can see what that’s like.

Eve aside, I want a space MMOG that does more than just let me tool around. Eve’s based entirely in the black, and as awe-inspiring as their space stations are you can’t get out and look around. The less said about Galaxies on this site, the better. The Star Trek and StarGate games sound interesting, but in the end they’re going to be limited by the realizites of modern massive games; a persistent reality means no exploration, little discovery, and no real ‘heroes’.

Mass Effect, really, is the closest thing I think I’m going to get to the game I want any time soon. Even then, I’m put off by Tycho’s words on the combat experience. NASA’s underfunded, no one cares about the Moon, and I’ll never get to fight off Reavers from the comfort of my office. It’s a sad time to be a sci-fi fan.

Abalieno has some commentary on the World PVP promised by Blizzard for the upcoming 1.12 patch.

I really didn’t make this up. To conquer a tower you just need to zerg it and sit around. Combat is optional. The main purpose of a PvP system is about giving an occasion to fight. This one *discourages* any attempt to actually have a battle. At least in Alterac Valley you had to fight your way to a tower and then manage to cap it uninterrupted. It opened up at least a possibility for an effective defence.

Pretty much everyone I’ve talked to about this addition has been … dubious of the system’s merits. He goes on to rag on the Silithus system too, which is just as broken. Where is the real world PvP we’ve all been talking to each other about? I saw a great post on Slash under a post about WoW, asking for some kind of geographical control. Another guy wanted the ability to champion a town (a guild or character signing on to defend a specific town). Either way, World PvP should be about ownership. Make the players feel like they’re an actual part of the world, instead of the punch-clocking Naxx-runners they really are.

There are more and more details coming out about the expansion … and yet there are fewer and fewer things I’m looking forward to the expansion having.

(deep breathe) hahahahahahahahahah

I love Lum so much.

For those of you who think that every film, no matter how low budget, deserves its own multi-million dollar MMO project to enhance synergy, this one is for you:

Babysitter Wanted: The MMO.

Rather than any immolation analogies, I’d prefer to think of things more phoenix-like than anything else.

Fundamentally, SWG was launched too early from a game design point of view. It may not have been from a financial point of view - there’s considerations like how much had been spent, how soon it would earn back the investment, that sort of thing - but most systems in there were first-pass at best. The place where that was most obvious was in the relative lack of content at launch. The tools simply came on too late to make the volume of content needed, and even though a heroic final push tried to populate the game with distinctive content, it just wasn’t anywhere near enough. 

Vacation, moving, and (now) unpacking have dropped me out of MMOGs for almost a full month now. I’m left with very mixed feelings. On the one hand I can’t say that it’s been a wasted month. My wife and I had a great time in California, we’re in a much nicer place, and we’re almost out of the weeds when it comes to boxes.

On the other hand, as I sit in the public chat channels for World of Warcraft or Everquest II, I’m left a little dazed. What’s a C’thun? What do all these buttons do? What quest was I working on again? I’m also somewhat saddened by my reaction to most of my regular MMOGs. I have a definite sense of ’sigh’ when working my way through the Eastern Plaguelands, or while turning in a quest to ‘a Misshapen Halfing’.

Part of my sigh stems from a very real sense of weariness. I’ve been playing both of these games for nigh onto two years now. I’ve got a level 60 character in WoW, with another one in spitting distance from 50. EQII … I try so very hard to like you. Another part is rooted in the fact that I’m missing a lot of what makes MMOGs fun: community. Everyone that I played EQII and WoW with has moved on because I’m such a terrible spaz when it comes to longterm play. My RL friends are ever patient with me, but I know that I’m frustrating them as well with my ‘in a month, out a month’ patterns.

For the time being I’m focusing my energies on a new experience. Eve Online has always made me pine for the smell of ship propellant and spaceport funk, but I’ve never given it a serious go. Especially in the early days of you career, it seems like a great game to multitask on, and is perfect for my currently busy life. As of a few days ago, another Caldari freighter pilot is plying the spaceways. I’m not sure how long this will last, but I’m ever hopeful.

My fix under control at the moment, I still haven’t addressed the issue at the heart of my frustration: the horizon. With a few lackluster exceptions, the recent terrain of the MMOG Nation has been barren. The new places to explore and things to kill that were introduced at the end of 2004 are still some of the most interesting features of the virtual landscape we share. LOTR, Conan, and Darkfall all have an element here or there that smacks of fresh experiences, but there really isn’t anything out there I’m just breathless to try out.

I’m going to devote time then, here on the site, to making sure what does interest me gets attention. I’m going to make sure that the cool things(tm) about Conan and the rest get air time and consideration. I’ve spoken with a person or two who does the MMOG blogging thing about an idea I have to get our voices out there, and I’m going to pursue that more diligently. I’m going to make sure that this little corner of the cyberinterwebosphere receives the head patting and postage it deserves.

Mostly, I’m going to try and figure out what it is I want to say here. I have a soap box and I must speak.

Joystiq has spun off yet another gaming-related blog, this one dedicated to all things Second Life. Second Life Insider looks to be an interesting peak into a world that I just haven’t had a lot of time to hang around in. Here’s hoping it’s as interesting a ride as the one provided by Mr. Au.

Good luck to the editors; Here’s hoping your time at sea is a good one.

Cosmik has a very well thought-out discussion up on n3rfed looking at the Vanguard Beta Community. Already a much-discussed topic, he bring some interesting sociological and psychological analysis to the party (along with the required snark).

We can still distinguish who speaks what language (although I swear half the people that count English as their first language cannot type it), but on the other hand we have no idea what DeathWolf69 looks like. To aid us in determining whether DeathWolf69 is cool enough to share our toys with we use additional markers like “which web sites and forums are visited” (the Vanguard Beta boards in the case of the fanboy firing squad), and “which games are played” (EverQuest in the case of the fanboy firing squad).