Comments for The Grouchy Gamer

Comment on Thank You, Panama by dj ernie pearl

dj ernie pearl — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 01:59:42 +0000

So sorry for your loss. I can totally relate to the pain in your heart. I too lost a very special female cat who was 11yrs(human yrs) when I lost her. I remember my house being so alone and quiet when she passed away. Looking at her empty food dish and having to get used to not hearing her meows and grunts was really devastating. 6 months later I decided it was time to start over and give some of my love to another cat who would really be spoiled like no other. This time I got myself two kittens,both sisters. I named one Diva. She was a delicate gray and white short-hair cat and the other one was a black cat I named Boo who became the butch Alpha-Cat. I have now had them for 3 yrs and I’m totally in love with their personalitys.

Comment on MMO Elitism and You! by Ransom

Ransom — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 21:29:13 +0000

Agree with the first post. I loved EQ2 and often went back to it, but lately they are making it more and more like shitty noobtime WoW, so I don’t go back at all anymore. It’s a sad, sad tale. The other reason old school MMOs don’t attract new players is that, well, it just isn’t new enough anymore. The engine and graphics are old. People want the new flashy graphics etc.

I miss the old school EQ. *tear*

Comment on Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty to hit stores this summer by Droniac

Droniac — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 09:08:21 +0000

I’m certain that it will do even better than the original StarCraft did back in 1998, because I’ve participated in the beta and it’s a great game. It’s easily the best multiplayer RTS since… well… StarCraft.

There is one caveat however and that is the new Battle.Net system. It lacks features of the original Battle.Net like chatrooms, lan support, region switching and password protected custom games. And there’s no way to see how you stack up against everyone else. My 2v2 team was ranked #1 in Gold league during beta, but so were hundreds of other 2v2 teams and there’s no way to see which of these 2v2 teams is the best in the entire Gold league.

That being said, the new friend system does work well. RealIDs do call for using Blizzard Authenticators if you don’t want to run increased risk of account theft, but the system seems to work fine, so I don’t expect any problems with the new implementation for WoW.

Comment on Bloggers: Be Objective. At least. by Summing up my daily life WoW

Summing up my daily life WoW — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 16:32:32 +0000

[...] Putting the personal attacks that he makes towards others aside I have to admit that made me laugh. Now back to hating you. Internet hating, not real life hating. You know kinda like internet romances and such. But not a romance…well you know what I mean. Now you get back to pimping your PVP MMO you get paid to pimp. Easy AdSense by Unreal MMO [...]

Comment on MMO Elitism and You! by Breltar

Breltar — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 20:43:44 +0000

Well in one regard WoW is copying other games, namely asian ones and DDO and soon LoTRO. The free to play model with transactions to access more content is the wave of the future in regards to MMOs, WoW took a small bite with non essential things since it doesn’t need to do the full change over since it has so many paying subs.

DDO has come back from a game on the verge of being the next Tabula Rasa to becoming a very stable game with growing numbers of paying customers. They figured that if you cannot keep folks around with the monthly payment plan, you can give them a load of content free and they will pay for the additional parts they want. It is working.

Would this work to revitalize games like EQ1/Vanguard/etc? Perhaps, but I think it will have to be proven with Lord of the Rings online before it really is taken into consideration.

The community is always there for all games, EQ1 still has one, but folks are tempted by the shiny and will always want what is new, especially if it is easier to figure out than some of the old EQ1 quests.

In some regards it is the thought that everything is a ‘WoW-Clone’ that keeps folks playing WoW. If it isn’t a WoW clone it is often deemed too hard/complex/complicated. There are MMOs out there that are not, but the money is in the comfortable and folks seem to be comfortable in WoW.

Personally I’m having fun in DDO and ecstatic that Lotro is taking the same payment approach, but I’m a nutjob…

Comment on MMO Elitism and You! by Ado

Ado — Mon, 31 May 2010 05:05:53 +0000

This is a good rebuttal of the Wolfshead post, but it’s also exaggerated to say that nobody is buying the old EQ/MUD model. It couldn’t possibly be so hard to create an MMO with good grouping experience and a sense of community in it. Recall that Asheron’s Call released the same year as EverQuest, and was a very good MMO you could solo all the way to max level in, but EverQuest continually beat out the Asheron’s Call subscriptions.

So why did the entire MMO industry follow the Asheron’s Call model and give us all these sparsely populated worlds of soloers? It could not have been because AC was more successful than EQ. It could not be because people hated forced grouping in EQ, because lots of people created un-soloable classes in EQ. In fact, most of my guild members from regular guilds to the uber ones were not solo classes (necro, druid, wizard). They played clerics, warriors, and paladins. The group mode of play was plenty popular in EverQuest and it 500,000 subscriptions showed this clearly.

Frankly, I do not think it is at all proven that making a solo game with easy travel, easy trading, and zero need to work with other players is a sign of success. After all, if people will play a good single-player game, they’ll likewise play a good multi-player game that is soloable. WoW’s success has more to do with good marketing, branding, and polish than its core gameplay model. The rest of the pack has gone with the WoW model because that’s making a conservative investment. But all it will take is one old school developer to break the mold and do what EQ did right to redefine the industry.

Comment on MMO Elitism and You! by Final thoughts on Lunatic Fringe

Final thoughts on Lunatic Fringe — Thu, 27 May 2010 22:24:43 +0000

[...] to do a two part on Wolfsheads Blog, but I really don’t think that I can expand upon what The Grouchy Gamer has already said, so I will just pass along a few closing thoughts on the matter. I do appreciate [...]

Comment on MMO Elitism and You! by Because I Can’t Resist: Elitists And Rose Colored Goggles « Im Talkin Games

Because I Can’t Resist: Elitists And Rose Colored Goggles « Im Talkin Games — Wed, 26 May 2010 23:22:37 +0000

[...] agree with, however I don’t have to say alot because I merely need to reference Ixobelle, Genda and Tobold. They’ve pretty much got it covered, enough [...]

Comment on MMO Elitism and You! by Sven

Sven — Wed, 26 May 2010 19:52:01 +0000

I’m glad I’m not the only one whose thoughts turned back to Vanguard in the wake of the most recent wave of WOW-bashing.

I still find it a fascinating topic ; Vanguard was simultaneously wonderful and terrible, the gaming equivalent of that crazy ex that you fell for even though you knew they were bad news.

Comment on MMO Elitism and You! by Oakstout

Oakstout — Wed, 26 May 2010 05:24:00 +0000

How can 11 million people be wrong? Blizzard must be doing something right and for every person that leaves, 2 more join the band wagon. Should this be the staple of the MMO world? No. Will the landscape eventually change? Sure, but it will be Blizzard that does the changing now. They have the power as such and they aren’t going to give it up easily. Consider all the people that paid $25.00 for a sparkle pony on the first day?

If enough people wanted change, then change would happen.