Thursday and Friday I was in Virginia visiting with the fine folks at EA Mythic. Got the full rundown on pretty much everything they’re willing to show right now about Warhammer Online. I’ll admit it: I was really impressed. The Public Quest system, RvR, Keeps … I was already enthused about all that stuff before I went. But, from what I saw, it really works.

The game also looks really good. Past screenshots of the game I’ve seen, even videos, have been a bit mediocre. The reason is pretty simple: they don’t have final lighting in the game. The current Beta has an intermediary lighting component that looks much better than most of the public screenshots. The final lighting paradigm (which is supposed to go in sometime in June) will be even better looking.

This weekend I’m spending pretty much every waking hour translating the 15+ hours of audio and experiences I gathered into blog posts. All of the content from the trip will be available at Massively under this tag: massively-goes-to-war. So far I’ve got up an interview with Jeff Hickman, one with Senior Designer Dan Enright, and a chat with Carrie Gouskos about the Tome of Knowledge.

Upcoming for this week: RvR, Keeps, Scenarios, the Empire/Chaos cities, Guilds, Classes, etc, etc, etc …

Despite being really quite busy, I have actually managed to get in quite a bit of Massive gaming this week. My statement earlier this week about AoC, despite the kudos, mentally prompted me to return to the game with a vengeance. I’ve got a video of my escape from Skullcrusher Mountain the early-game volcano, where the hilarious “Virgin Blood swap” happens. I’ve also got a video teasing a post I’ll have on Massively next week, looking into the game Silk Road Online. This free to play game is surprisingly fun, with a number of interesting game mechanics. Remember that bit about Eastern games coming in and eating the Western folks’ lunch? Yeah, this game is hella interesting.

To complete this bevy of YouTube footage, a two part piece showing our second go at Archeadas, the end boss in Uldaman. Unfortunately I let Brendan die near the end of the event, so it wasn’t as ‘perfect’ as our first go. I take total responsibility, I was distracted by an add and didn’t pay enough attention to the Mage’s health bar.

Of course, the game I probably played the most of this week (Warhammer Online) isn’t exactly going to show up in one of these Friday Film bits. Just the same, with luck I’ll have some footage to show on MV. I’ll be sure to link that beautiful imagery when I can. Read on below the cut for the videos and some shots from my week in gaming.

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Via Sanya, I laid eyes upon Beckett’s list of the “Top 20 Influential People in Massively Multiplayer Video Games” for last year. If you’ve read the site before you’re probably already aware of what I think about Massive Online Gamer. Though it has definitely improved since it launched, it’s still not all that great (IMHO). The last issue I thumbed through had some weak-sauce interviews with folks I know are more interesting than they were made out to be. The core of the mag is still semi-obsolete World of Warcraft strats, with a idiotic advertisement for Skittles at the end.

I’m also, to echo Sanya’s point, not a big fan of ‘Top X’ lists. This one in particular, though, rubs me for a few general points. It also rubs me wrong for a few specific points, which I will gladly illuminate while simultaneously making a handful of people mad at me.

As a note, I almost didn’t put this up. This is a really cynical, jaded post. I’ll totally cop to that. But I do feel that this list is kind of a load. So … sharing time begins now.

Read below for the fireworks.

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I know I’ve said this before, but I think it’s startling how terrible a gamer I actually am. Despite my passion for this subject matter and my enthusiasm for the MMO genre in general, I’m really bad at one of the most important parts of actually being an MMO gamer: slotting a bunch of hours together continuously to do that whole ‘leveling’ thing.

From a practical standpoint, this is simply because I try to keep busy. My new work situation has me about 10x less stressed than even a month ago, but I’m still humming along with various projects. Massively, MMOG Nation, Random Dialogue, GameSetWatch, the occassional GWJ article, a wife, friends, family, etc, etc … whine, whine.

In any case, I’m still just at about level 13 in Age of Conan. I’m going to endeavor to play a bit more today, but I’ve got even more barriers between me and Conan’s fun. I really apologize, because this is going to sound extremely faffy and pompous … but I’ve kind of seen everything I need to. This is the real reason that I’m so bad at these games; once I’m out of the tutorial element I tend to find that there’s not a lot of incredibly new stuff This is a discussion I’ve had before with games journos and designers.

The deal, basically is that once you’ve been inside the machine and seen its guts its hard to really just enjoy the paint job. Now, I’m no designer. I don’t go into their part of the machine. But, the journalists have their own bit, and (despite best efforts) there’s lotos of exposed piping up in there. I’ve seen a lot of piping. So (in my mind) it’s hard to just enjoy the creamy outer layer Conan has to offer. Fundmentally, Conan is almost exactly like WoW, EQ2, etc. Beneath the real-time combat thing, it’s the same diku we’ve been playing since 99′.

That said, I’m really looking forward to WAR and WotLK. I had it pointed out to me recently that in my writing story plays a very critical role. If I like something, it tends to be because I really liked the story. Fundamentally I don’t care all that much about Hyboria, but I really like the tale behind Mythic and Blizzards’ offerings.

Maybe it’s actually not the pipes that distract me – maybe it’s the color of paint? Regardless, I’m not done with Conan yet. I’m playing more today, and I’m (at the least) grateful that we have a stopover here between PotBS and WAR.

The eighth episode of the MMOG Nation Broadcast delves deep into dreary pits of despair and angst. “Slouching Towards Innsmouth” is all about the horror genre and how it intersects with MMO gaming. Michael discusses past successes in the industry, the challenges facing possible future games, and reads a little Lovecraft. Tune in.

Music:
Going down to Dunwich, Darkest of the Hillside Thickets
Command 1, System Shock 2 soundtrack
Living an Illusion, Dark City Soundtrack
The Dish, Star Trek: First Contact Soundtrack
Duskwood, World of Warcraft Soundtrack
Facetus Malum, The Truth and the Light (Music from the X-Files)

Early this week the Fists of Ham took on the Uldaman instance, over the lovely Badlands area. This may have been one of the best sessions we’ve had to date. We’re really gelling as a group, getting some big successes under our belt, and it’s an absolute ton of fun. The video this week is our take on the Ironaya event, the cool Indiana Jones-style boss fight in the instance. Very appropriate this week, given what just came out. We snagged the [Ironshod Bludgeon] as a loot reward … which makes me question reality. Can some bright spark tell me why I’d want a blue staff with a Stam boost? PvP?

I’m having a ton of fun with these WoW sessions; we went on from Ironaya to down Archaedas at the end of the instance – something we really didn’t think we were going to be able to do. Archie, if you’re unfamiliar with him, is probably one of the toughest pre-60 encounters in the entire game. We didn’t exactly walk through it, but I’d say we did pretty well. No deaths, either! Good times, and I think we’re going to give it another go thiscoming week (this time with quests). Oh, plus … got my raptor!

Otherwise this week has seen me largely ignoring Age of Conan in favour of playing Penny Arcade’s On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness. I finished it up earlier today, and I loved it – wall to wall – start to finish. It was really, really very good. Story, art, gameplay, all lovingly crafted as if just for me. I am obviously not a representative sample here, but if you’ve enjoyed my views on stuff in the past this gets a huge thumbs up from me.

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Given that I’m pretty enthused about Free Realms already, you’d be right in thinking that Wizard 101, the recently-announced card battle kids game from KingsIsle, also has my interest piqued. Massively has a writeup on it today with some hands on impressions, while WarCry’s got the thousand-foot view.

Sez the latter, “We want to be an online entertainment company,” chief executive Akilian said during a four-person press tour. “To become a real company, you have to have a conveyor belt of games,” he said of different titles that will appeal to multiple markets. Which is a key to Wizard 101: It’s pitched as the game for players between Club Penguin and World of Warcraft.

I find that statement really interesting; is niche-finding nowadays going to be just a matter of bisecting markets and finding the holes ‘between’ games? Is this niche that W101 finds itself identical to Free Realms? Is Free Realms’ niche bigger? What happens when someone tries to aim a game between Free Realms and World of Warcraft? That’s a much smaller hole to jump into, and it’s already getting crowded.

What’s a purely teen-aimed game going to look like? I’m sure we’re going to see them in the coming year. When are we going start seeing MMOs for older folks that aren’t all breast/beer/blood like Age of Conan?

Interesting times, as the man says.