“What’s an exit survey,” I hear you say. “Addict,” I say in response.

At some point, everyone has dropped an MMO subscription like Paris Hilton during an “STD Free Holiday,” so I’m sure your familiar with the concept. For those of you who have never canceled a sub (Still enjoying Darkfall?), here’s a brief explanation:

“You’re leaving? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I’ll change, I swear! No, I really mean it this time! Don’t GOOOOOO! I signed us up for couples’ counseling!”

An exit survey is supposedly designed to collect information about the reason you’re leaving, but usually turns into more of a “bad breakup with an extra-clingy girlfriend” flavor. Why? Well, no one wants to see their livelihood walk out the door; that type of event calls for doing everything in your power to get it to stick around.

Bad Gods has put together their own version of an MMO exit survey…make sure you check all the reasons for leaving…good stuff. (NSFW in a few spots…just like the site!)

And I find it rather sad that I think they just changed the name of the game in a couple of cases; I believe I’ve actually read these answers in a real exit survey.

I realize that not everyone tends to notice things like this, but I’ve got a bit of an art background, and I’ve always admired the posing of Arthas’ right hand in the original zone loading screen…almost as if he were giving a half-hearted acknowledgement of you while he sat there freezing his buns off. Ever since Wrath of the Lich King was released, every time you zone into Northrend (either via boat, portal, hearthstone or login) we’ve seen the following image on the loading screen:

However, it wasn’t just the druid cat and bear forms that got a graphical update with 3.2 today…this image was changed as well. Now, when you’re zoning into Northrend, this is the image:

For some reason, Arthas has lowered his fingers. That’s the only change I’ve found in this image, which leads to several questions:

• Is this some sort of hint from Blizzard about something somewhere?
• Did they get chopped off by Sargeras in some sort of IRC-related disaster?
• Is poor widdle Lichy-Kingy just getting tired?

Stay tuned for details! (Or not…I’m easily distrac-wow, is that a muffin over there?)

After yet another recent spate of “Hey! Here’s a marketing idea…let’s spell out ‘cheap wow accounts‘ in gnome corpses for advertising!”, I got interested in spite of myself. As a copywriter, I have to admire the creativity of the folks creating the marketing for gold sellers, whether I agree with what they’re doing or not. Like getting a Russian porn star to tattoo your logo and url on her boobs, where it will be seen forever in every porn movie she makes in the next two years.

No, really…they did that.

Maybe.

It was supposed to happen (the tattoo, not the porn shoot) on June 15th. However, you would expect pictures of that everywhere…it’s the kind of thing that gets spread around on the social web, thereby giving you even more advertising value. However, Google has no pics of any kind, save the one that accompanied the original article, and there’s no info to be found on that particular girl’s name, either in English or Russian (yes, I checked).

What all of this means is that the gold sellers have progressed from banner ads to in-game chat spam, then on to in-game “toon spam”, and then to “fake tattoo on made-up boobs”.

Y’know why the gold sellers are so successful, in spite of everything done to stop them?
They understand marketing.

They do everything they can think of to bend the rules and work around the obstacles in the path between them and their business model.

Quick…name any other business that does anything other than “traditional” advertising. Hell, the gold selling industry gets a ton of free publicity just because what they do is controversial…or novel and new.

Spamming “buy wow accounts” in trade isn’t that far from spamming thirty second commercials during your favorite show on television, if you think about it. When’s the last time you saw the victims of an explosion on “24″ crumple to the ground, their lifeless corpses forming the Pepsi logo?

I’m not saying that would work for Pepsi, mind you…but is a thirty-second commercial the best idea they’ve got?

I’m not saying “gold sellers are great!”… from it. However, you have to admire their chutzpah.

Back at the end of January, I posted about a new addition coming to the Inhibihousehold…Mrs. Hib was expecting our second child! (Insert the usual happiness/giddiness/lack of attention to the blog that one would expect from such an event.)

At twenty weeks, veterans know that “the big appointment” comes up…that’s the one where you get to find out whether you’ve rolled a new boy toon or a new girl toon. On April 10, we excitedly drove to the doctor’s office (in my wife’s case, because this meant she would be able to get down to some serious shopping, now that she would know what she was shopping for), went in, and they fired up the giant “Let’s Find The Genitals Machine”.

Despite him checking out great at the last appointment, this time…they couldn’t find a heartbeat.

I thought I understood the phrase “having the rug pulled out from under you” before this, but now I realize I never did. In the space of ten seconds, we went from “happy and excited” to “Oh my god”. Since she was that far along, Mrs. Hib had to enter the hospital, and with the sound of newborns filling the air on either side of our hospital room, delivered our son…Chance William Hughes, who missed the doctor’s appointment I talk about above by three weeks.

One night not too long after that, I logged into World of Warcraft to play around, and a thought hit me. For the first time in my life, I went to character creation on Madoran and rolled a hunter. Not because I particularly like the class, but I had plans. My hunter’s name is “Memorium”, and every pet he’s tamed so far has been named….”Chance”.

In WoW, I get to play with the son I never will in real life, and with one added bonus.

For those of you that have never played a hunter in WoW, you have to feed your pet; it lets you know when you need to do this by commenting on your pet’s mood. This means that every time I give Chance a treat (or log in with him well-fed), I get this message (seen in green below):

“Chance is happy.” Most days, that’s all I need to know.

We’ve got an exciting challenge today, so let’s get right to it!

Figure out today’s MMystery MMO from the following clues. These clues are either features in today’s MMO, or have been announced as future features of the game:

• Player housing
• An obscene number of professions
• In-game player groups, or “guilds”
• Varied tradeskills, allowing you to make a variety of in-game items
• A CCG (collectable card game) with special in-game loot attached to the physical cards
• It’s at least partly free-to-play

And that’s your list of clues! Join us tomorrow when we find out if anyone correctly identi-…y’know what?

Screw that.

It’s Star Wars Galaxies.

And I fully expect to get heat over the “partly free-to-play” clue, but guess what? They have a fourteen day free trial, which is remarkably similar to giving a Nobel Prize-winning physicist a free two weeks’ subscription to the “Jackass Episode of the Month” club. When they get it, they might enjoy it, but the odds are against it.

Of course, the list of clues also fits Free Realms perfectly. Y’know, Free Realms? The new SOE MMO? SOE, the same folks that made SWG into the bastion of quality it is today*?

Same basic elements, same theories at work…the only difference is microtransactions (and a smaller monthly fee option) instead of a full monthly subscription fee.

Oh, and they haven’t royally messed up Free Realms.

Yet.

*Please limit intake of sarcasm to one or two sentences every four hours. If a nagging need to scream “You broke my wookiee!!!” in an empty room persists, see John Smedley.

Okay. First of all, it’s nice to see some mainstream media coverage of MMO’s done in a slightly more knowledgeable manner. Admittedly, it’s a “noob primer” on MMO’s combined with a look at LoTRO, but that’s to be expected. And let’s face it, the reporter obviously did some research on his topic, or the interview wouldn’t have been done in a machinima style with his avatar in-game; it would have been done in a strip club like all good interviews should.

That being said…the audio is…ummm…interesting. Campbell sounds engaging and enthusiastic, as he should. But why does Todd Kenreck (MSNBC gaming reporter) sound like a really bad voiceover job in a machinima entitled “Dude, Where’s My Gravitas?” It doesn’t sound the least bit conversational; instead, it sounds like Kenreck re-recorded his questions and had them edited in.

And he sure as heck doesn’t sound engaged…or, for that matter, like he’s doing anything more than reading from his cue sheet, and trying to sound “epic”. (Note to all: The more you try to sound “epic”, the more you…well, don’t.)

All in all, kudos to Kenreck and MSNBC. Hit his Myspace and brag on him for the interview; maybe we’ll get more. Great concept, pretty good execution, but Todd? Perk it up a bit…you’re in Middle Earth on a news network, not asking the Premiere of Phat-Lewtistan if he strangles kittens for fun.

(He does, by the way, but he’s in PwnZone on Madoran; what do you expect?)

Really, Jens?

REALLY?!?

Let’s be honest here, if superheroes were automobiles, Arthur Curry would be a Pinto, post-rear end collision…not something you want to spend valuable promotional time with MTV on to help promote DC Universe Online.

Yes, yes…I know:

“Aquaman is a badass,” he insisted with a straight face. “And he’s really, really powerful. People don’t give him credit because they think he just talks to fish but he’s more than that.”

Yes, and Spam is more than just regular meat…there’s all those exciting by-products!

In fact, (Jens) Andersen is so passionate about the Atlantean luminary that he helped start “Aquaman Wednesdays” at the office, based in Austin. He explained that Mondays are reserved

for Batman or Joker-related attire (”Batman Mondays”), and Fridays are for Green Lantern gear. But Wednesdays are extra special to the small few who truly love the Dweller-In-The-Depths. “I would encourage the general public, or everyone that watches MTV, to celebrate Aquaman Wednesdays,” he said, apparently serious.

No. Really. He said that. Out loud.

Jens, buddy. You have what so far looks to be a pretty damn good MMO based on the DC Universe. Don’t blow your credibility now. I assume the plan for the other two days of the week involve this guy:

However, nothing can sum up the total experience of Aquaman quite like Inhibitor from WoR-Radio:

Ah, that Hib.

And let’s face it…how high can Jens really be on Arthur?

In “DC Universe Online,” players will be able to create characters based on their favorite existing superhero, but those wanting to duplicate Aquaman’s swimming and fish-talking powers will have to wait. “I think it’s safe to say that we have no water-based powers at the moment, except for ice,” Andersen said.

He’s so awesome his powerset isn’t even in the game.

Nor, by default, is Spongebob Squarepants’.

I’ve seen no evidence of demons yet, but since it’s kept Curse of Weakness on Mrs. Hib for the last nine weeks, I can only assume it’s a warlock as well.

On the bright side, I got out of trouble when I reminded Mrs. Hib that she is, in fact, an epic mount at the moment, as long as “got out of trouble” means “got smacked upside the head with a television remote”.

However, information has been more than a little sparse since then…practically non-exsistant. I’ll be writing another post at a later date to discuss the wisdom of having a PR strategy of “not having a PR strategy,” but for those of you wondering if they’ll actually make the release date, not to mention the planned one-week open beta period to start on January 15…well, here’s a screenshot allegedly taken of the beta test forums for Darkfall earlier today (click the pic for the full size version):

This came from the Darkfall Beta Leaks blog, by the way, but not on the front…this image was left as a link in the comments section of the latest info post by “leaker2“, which means you have to go looking for it…which I did. It’s been confirmed to be fake by Darkfall Community Manager Brannoc, by the way.

Even though it’s fake, that doesn’t mean that DF will miss their launch date. However, even being a fake, if you’re curious what “the rampages currently going on throughout the public forums” is referring to, let’s just say that the natives are getting a tad restless about the almost-complete lack of information…go take a look yourself.

Of course, sometimes no news is good news, right?

Pick which photoshopped image you want to believe in, and have at it. We’ll know in a week.

I’ve seen some criticisms about it, but let’s face it…Percula kind of came out of the gate in first place here. Just take a look and judge for yourself:

It’s redundant (not to mention a really bad pun), but all you can say is…wow.