Wanted to drop in quick to offer a few links.

• Everything we’re writing at Massively about E3 can be found at the e3-2008 tag on the site.
• I particularly like our series on the DC Universe Online title.
• World of Warcraft’s new achievements look freaking awesome. Much better than I’d expected a WotLK’s launch.
• EA’s chief exec has confirmed the KOTOR MMO. About. Freaking. Time.

It’s now well over a month since I attended Austin Games Conference. One of the highlights of that trip was the opportunity to meet with some of the minds behind Star Wars Galaxies at the SOE-Austin studio. It was a very informal thing, something that John Blakely had mentioned as a possibility when I had the chance to talk with him at SOE Gamers Day early this year. Schedules and stars aligned, thankfully, and I made the trek out to their offices for a few hours with the game’s creative leads. So why hasn’t it shown up on the site until now? I blame illness and brain worms. Hopefully my memories here aren’t so stale as to be useless. I’ll try to give an overview of the experience and the topics we touched upon, which ranged from the SWG development process all the way to the role of bloggers and podcasters in MMOG communities. The latter conversation was, admittedly, as much friendly conversation as idea exploration for my panel session that Thursday.

The big picture: SWG is still not a game that I (personally) want to play every day, but you really have to hand it to those guys for the passion and persistence they’ve displayed in keeping that ship afloat. Also, DCUO concept art is gorgeous.
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I put a lot of effort into this one, and I think it turned out pretty well. The newest MMOG Nation colum at GameSetWatch is all about the CoH vs. MUO vs. DCUO. It’s not about the games, so much, as it is about what the fight means in a larger context.

Change, then, is ultimately what this fight represents. New players in the Massive space have announced themselves. Perhaps for the first time in a long while, jaded gamers can look up from the ruddy glow of Molten Core and see a light on the horizon. There will be flames on message boards, debates about design choices, and analyzing of screenshots. Most important of all, there will once again be passion in the eyes of Massive gamers tired of companies promising ‘Everquest … but different!’. In the end, what every Massive gamer wants is not a hot elf chick. It isn’t phat loots or cybering, guild drama or farmed gold. Massive gamers want to have fun. They want to feel powerful, like they have real choices to make and an impact on the virtual world around them. They want to feel like they’re part of a community. And, of course, they want to wear cool costumes.

Getting linked off of the front page of the EQPlayers site was fun, but is anyone reading these things? Is it worth the time I’m putting into them?