I would have co-posted about it here, had MMOG Nation been up, but last week I actually had the chance to do some question-asking. It’s like reporting, but I’m doing it.

Here’s the deal: Lum mentions eBay may be delisting VW stuff on Thursday. Later that day, I hunt down the media contact number for eBay and give them a call, which resulted in a post to Slashdot on Friday. It was one of the few chances I’ve had to create original non-review content for Slashdot, and I enjoyed it. On Monday C|Net continued the story, by asking the ‘duh’ question I’d neglected to ask the eBay rep: “So, does that include Second Life?” The answer being no, Giga Gamez points out something CNet has missed as well: eBay and 2L are sorta-in-bed via eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. With the dust starting to settle Van Hemlock does a couple of quick searches, noting that Second Life doesn’t have that much stuff on eBay anyway (making that part of the story not that interesting), and then Foton points out that eBay has said they’ll do this before. Like, several times. Which I really wish I’d remembered when I saw Scott’s post in the first place, and stayed off the phone. Oh well.

I still think there are some interesting things to be gleaned from this, given the renewed discussion on RMT and whatnot. Plus, if eBay continues to go through with it, IGE will print a fortune. But then … they probably would have anyway. Live and learn.

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MMORPG.com has up a look at UO’s resurrection.

The details are sharper, the lighting is prettier, even the props set around the world look brighter and clearer. It all looked, in a word, better. Looking at the side-by-side, you can tell that everything is the same, but different. The buildings are still in the same places, with the same architecture, but the walls are smoother and more vibrant. The monsters, which didn’t appear to be fierce by today’s demanding standards, seemed somehow more threatening in their new treatment. Even the drab cobwebs (which had been applied liberally to the dungeon that we looked at) were in the same place, but looked somehow stickier.

It looks a lot better in action than it does as screenshots. GameTrailers can accomodate you here, here, and here.

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Folks reading the site by RSS reader probably didn’t even notice I was ‘gone’, but MMOG Nation is back online. My host flipped out not once but twice in the past three weeks, and I am now gone forever from its unpalatable service. MMOG Nation is now hosted on a server owned by a friend, a friend whose email address, AIM name, phone number, and street address are all readily available. Now, if something goes wrong, I know exactly who to choke.

Expect a return to the regular schedule of nattering promptly. Thanks for reading.

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Noonian Soong, according to Lore, was referred to as “Often Wrong” for his mistakes in creating cybernetic life-forms. I decided today that I’m just as good at making mistakes. Even on this site, which is quickly becoming a repository for my half-baked thoughts, I’d like to think it’s important for me to try to be honest.

Specifically: I looked up from my computer on Tuesday night and realized I’d gotten it all wrong with Lord of the Rings Online . What I said about LOTRO in August:

“Boring. Boooooring. It’s five minutes of the same. damn. thing. as. every. other. game.”

In point of fact, in play LOTRO is very much like World of Warcraft. To my snooty, MMOG-connoisseur sensibilities ‘just like WoW’ is pretty faint praise. To a lot of the gamers I know ‘just like WoW’ is a detriment, a reason not to play the game.

Not everyone is me, though. Not everyone has played WoW. Not everyone is a giant dork who has played every Massive game. 8 Million people are playing WoW, and that’s based on a license that isn’t taught in grade-school English classes. That’s a game without iconic character like Legolas, Aragorn, Gimli, and hotty McElfpants to fire the imagination.

I, personally, am not enthused by this game. I’m not likely to play it much when it launches at retail. But … the possibility definitely exists that this WoWalike could be another runaway hit for the genre.

After all, success for any game in the genre is good news for everyone who likes Massive games. What’s good for the many is good for the few.

I may be “Often Wrong”, but it’s hard to go wrong with toasting to success. Good luck, Turbine. Here’s hoping it works out for you.

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The New York Post has a transplant from CBS. You may recall William Vitka as the gent who wrote the CBS mailbag hate-fest on SWG in early 2006. He’s now posting at the Post, and has his own regular blog column there. He’s apparently been recontacted by players about the post, which led into some more discussions with Smedley about the state of SWG. Apparently some players claimed that SOE thought that the players were part of a vast conspiracy, which is a chain of insanity I not only can’t buy, Smed dismisses it right away. I know that they know that there are problems, and I don’t for a second believe they’re sitting over there blaming SWG’s problems on Mythic or NCSoft.

Just the same, it is interesting to see the topic of SWG come up again in a public forum. It’s kinda been absent from the limelight for a while, huh? Vitka’s parting comment is something I wholeheartedly agree with: “My question is: where does LucasArts fit in to all of this? I’ve tried to get them to comment before, but with no luck.”

If LucasArts has said two words about that game in the last year I’d be mighty surprised. C’mon SF folks … inquiring minds want to know!

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In the interests of covering some bases with the B to the C, I wrote a longer version of the post from the other day for the GameSetWatch site. I transplanted my list of competing viewpoints over there, so if you were wondering where that went … there it is. I also touched a bit trends in the game moving forward, and new, future features that the game may offer. It’s all very exciting.

Many Factions And Reachable Epics - Even moreso than back on Azeroth, who you befriend in the Outlands matters a great deal. Every mob and quest, it seems, earns you a higher reputation with one faction or decreases your import with another. From a world perspective this is invigorating; as a player it’s fascinating to see the interplay between these new and sometimes arcane layers of society that are already in place. What’s even more invigorating is the material benefits of allying with these factions. The BC expansion introduces a myriad of new outlets for purchasable epic gear. From what I’ve seen, some of the items obtainable by becoming friendly with High Hold or the Scryers is on par with what is being pulled from the dungeon instances. As with the revamped PvP offerings from the last patch, these raid-less epics are a godsend for those looking for emo-free high end gear.

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I’d like to offer a huge congratulations to PC Gamer for taking a stand and refusing advertising from IGE and other auction sites. In my opinion this was the right thing to do and it took a lot of guts. It’s saying ‘not all money is the same,’ which I strongly agree with. I think we’re beginning to see the impact that this kind of unsanctioned activity is having on in-game activities in MMO’s. - SOE’s John Smedley, in his first blog entry.

I just had a quick chat with a couple of old guildies from the SWG days. One of them was poking around on the main Sony Station site, looking for one of their other games (yes, they do make non-MMOGs). He got to the bottom of the page and saw something that, as he put it “Made me wonder what fucking alternate reality I was living in.” This is what he saw:

Right. So here you’ve got your standard Google ads. All well and good. Except, no one has made sure the ads aren’t for SELLING THE COMPANY’S PROPERTY through third party vendors. I know the SOE folks are are all hot for their ’solution’ to the fact that they’ve put a treadmill into the game. I know that not all RMT is bad, no matter what the academic folks say. Heck, as long as I’m casting stones, I’ll be up front about it: I’ve purchased in-game currency. I’m no angel. But there is a world of difference between some random guy buying some gil (oops), and a major force in Massive games hosting ads on their front page for third party RMTers. And crappy RMTers at that … jeez, guys, where’s IGE?

Obviously, this is a mistake. No one would have ok’d this at the SOE manse if they’d taken the time to think this through. No one has a problem with Google ads on your frontpage … it’s yours to do with as you please, right? But c’mon, guys! Wake up! What does it say to all the nice little Wizards and Necros that don’t buy gold when you’ve got ads for their sale right there front and center? The negative reaction to the Station Exchange will be nothing compared to what will happen if every EQ player comes to understand that you are advertising for ‘Chinese Farmers’ (to use the pejorative).

Indeed, this is bigger than just bad publicity - Remember that thing about the Korean stance on RMT? I imagine that’s a country SOE wants to continue doing business in … but I could be mistaken.

Seriously: Smed, whoever in marketing cooked this up, fix this. Like, yesterday. You need to keep on top of these things, guys. Cuz somebody’s always watching … and not all of them are as nice as I am.

I’ll leave you with some words from a more articulate man than I, Mr. Scott Jennings:

While Station Exchange’s introduction rubbed me in several wrong ways (since as an MMO player RMT trading makes me ill and as a developer I see people trying to buy their way past a game as the ultimate symptom that the game has issues), at the end of the day it’s SOE’s game to run … With outside arbitrage dealers such as IGE, none of the above applies. And interestingly, despite IGE’s initial ‘Gosh, Station Exchange is great, it legimitizes our business model, happy happy!’ press releases’ oddly enough, IGE still sells things on non-Station Exchange EQ2 servers. Funny how that works. I guess the people who specifically chose to remain on non-RMT enabled servers for that game? Yeah, they shouldn’t get to make that choice. It should be made for them. Yeah.

Update: Smed wrote to say: “We added google ads and are filtering out RMT sites or at least we are supposed to be. We absolutely will not take ads from those sites. They will be taken down immediately.” So good deal. Looks like it was just a mistake after all. Thanks guys.

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