The early entry server list has been dropped on the official AoC site.

I’m going to be on Wiccana, and I invite you to join me.

US Servers (Early Access 17th of May)

PvE Servers
Set
Dagoth
Zug
Omm
Derketo
Thog
Wiccana
Gwahlur (recommended Oceanic)
Anu

PvP Servers
Tyranny
Bane
Deathwisper
Bloodspire (recommended Oceanic)
Doomsayer

RP-PvP Server
Cimmeria

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

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.

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!

Massively Speaking Episode 2 runs down news and features from Massively.com for the week of April 14th-20th. Shawn and Michael are joined by blogging regulars Akela Talamasca and Jonathan Northwood to talk about the next LOTRO Book, the Epic Villain Archetype video, and (of course) Age of Conan!

Get the podcast:
[RSS] Add the Massively Speaking Podcast feed to your RSS aggregator.
[Digg] Like the show? Digg it.
[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.

So today was a big day for me, in a good way.

• The first Massively Speaking podcast went up on the website. No RSS feed or iTunes yet, but there will be. Go check it out, I think it went really well for a first offering. Yes, I still have a podcast here. Expect to hear from that feed again soon.
• We had an amazing day in general on the site. A video exclusive, a couple of great features; Cameron continues to rock so hard it hurts. I was generally very proud to be working at Massively today.
• I won not one, not two, but three Alterac Valley rounds. Warsong Gulch is this weekend, and I’m looking forward to it. Horde pwns our battlegroup in the bracket Hackworth is in right now.
• Today was also my last day at Slashdot.org. It’s like, for real now. My Facebook page says so and everything. You know it’s serious.  Since I’m not going to have a lot of opportunities to talk about my time with the site, I’ll say this: Working at Slashdot was a singular experience. I’m really glad I had the opportunity to do it. I’m thankful to Rob Malda and the other editors for giving me the chance to do it. I feel lucky that I can say I participated in a site that’s - kinda - a part of Internet history.
• Final Score: 12761 posts. That’s about 11 a day over the course of three years.

Hope your day was good too, blog readers.

I figure it’s within the realm of possibility that some of you reading this are heading to the ‘best four days in gaming’ this year, GenCon Indy 2008. If you are, I want to make sure to point out a fantastic resource that my friend Alan De Smet offers up free of charge every year. See, the events system on the official site sucks. A lot.

Alan snarfs the data every year, and offers up this fantastic alternative. The best part of his offering is that he cleans up the data! So D&D, DuNgeons and DRaGons, d&dragons, etc, all become Dungeons and Dragons. No, the official site doesn’t do this. Yes, they’re code-tards.

I’m going (as I do every year) and I hope I might have the chance to see you there. If you are planning on going, event reg starts (and effectively ends) a week from today, Sunday the 20th. Make sure to register as early as possible, because all the really good stuff goes fast! Keep rolling those 20s.