If you haven’t yet, make sure to check out the Warhammer Online video about Living Guilds; this is the kind of thing I’m talking about when I mention how pumped I am about WAR’s potential.

That said, I think every game has hurdles to overcome in the area of player groupings. Witness, if you will, a posting by Stargrace over at MMOQuests. She’s working on her endgame crafting works, and she needs a bunch of crafted content to complete the quest. So she works at getting in touch with some crafters, makes some headway, but it sounds like she’s a bit daunted. Then:

“I get a tell, from Omay, who says they have ALL the crafters, and can make every piece for me. I sat there stunned for a second, it sounded too good to be true. Not only do they make all of the pieces, they are a guild dedicated to crafting, and helping others craft … After they’d crafted every single piece for me, they played fire works and congratulated me, and on my way I went for the turn in … Here I’d thought there was no crafting community on Najena - the channels are practically always silent. Low and behold, an entire guild dedicated to it.”

One of the (many) features players really need in these games is the ability to know what their options are on the guild front. This guild that helped stargrace, “Wing and a Prayer”, sounds like a fantastic outfit. But because the playerbase is so scattered and segmented, she had no idea they were even out there. WAR’s keep-capturing elements are great, and I look forward to that a lot. At the very least, players who come across a captured keep will know *those* guilds exist. But we need more. We need something even more meaningful than that. You know what we need?

Read more

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.