Tobold's blog Alganon contest and more....

OK fellow gamers, it's time for the MMORPG blog roundup, where I scour the web for interesting blog content about games, so you don't have to! we start off with:



Tobold's Alganon contest.
Our friend Tobold from Tobold's mmorpg blog is having a contest whereby he is giving away beta keys to test out Alganon NDA before it drops on Oct. 31st. The rules seem to be pretty straightforward. You just gotta make sure you have your contest entry by Oct. 4 which is right around the corner so if you wanna try out the game, I suggest you get this done ASAP and grab yourself a beta key! Intinally I had asked Tobold to be a regular contributor to this blog, but he declined to do so, citing the fact some of his content on his blog is a bit esoteric. To prove we don't hold any ill feeligns, we are pimping out his contest here.

QJ.Net has a nice roundup this week about all the latest going on in MMORPG news, with a lead post explaining this weekend's upcoming Double XP event for City of Heroes, information on the second LOTRO expansion Seige of Mirkwood which is slated for the holiday season and detailed info on wow's 3.22 patch which is now live. Personally, I have never played CoH but I am sure that it's got great content because the comic books were really good.

Finally, episodes 4 sand 5 of the third season of the guild have been released. While I don't have time to go into full episode reviews at the moment, wow.com has posted good synopses of each, the latest dealing with Codex moving on from Tink's decision to join the rival guild. The highlight of course is the applicants vying for Tink's vacated spot. A priceless segment in the web's most engaging show which had me chuckling like a ninny for several minutes. You gotta watch!

The MMO Report

Almost an entire week without any updates? I know I should be taken out in the middle of Ogrimmar and flogged by 12 angry goblins. Sorry that my work and having a life has interfered with gaming. However, rather than attempt to recap this week's happenings, I would like this opportunity to pimp the MMO Report. Yes, Casey Shriner can be annoying, but he's actually not as annoying as that dude from the soup. I think the MMO Report is still the best reason to watch G4 other than Olivia Munn (who IMHO is a tad annoying herself but whom any straight guy would give up an arm for) and Ninja Warrior.

Video Games - E3 2009 - The MMO Report

Wow addiction blog targets gamers

Perhaps you came across this ad while on your Facebook page: It is a silhouetted image of World of Warcraft races against a dark background and the caption ominously reads: Addicted to Wow? Get help. Wowaholics Anonymous. "Quit Wow addiction. Win at Life"

It left me puzzled, who were these hucksters plugging an anti-wow page on the most popular social networking site on the internet? I had to investigate. The link leads to a blog called Wowaholics Anonymous replete with testimonials from people allegedly devastated by their Wow addictions and their all consuming need to play. There is very little identification on the site.

The About Us reads: "Wowaholics Anonymous is a community who shares their experience, strength and hope with each other. " so is this blog put together by a religious anti-video game group? Or is it the work of anti-gaming fanatics?

A tiny link at the bottom indicates it's actually sponsored by Inspire Center, a group based out of UNC that treats people for mental illnesses such as depression, ADHD, bipolar syndrome and anxiety. Are they kidding? Are these people really equating video game playing with these serious conditions? Apparently so. It would be insulting were it not so ridiculous. I have never believed in people who attribute the ills of society to playing a video game. I've played Wow before, it isn't crack cocaine like extremists make it out to be. Yes, it is very engaging and I suppose some people can use it to escape out of their daily problems, but the same can be said about television or movies and other forms of mass entertainment and no one is trying to ban them, well not yet at least.

Furthermore there are articles linked to this site, one of which is entitled "Should Doctors treat Wow addiction?" which implies that it is a serious problem which doctors should waste their time on. However, it goes on to state:

At its 2007 annual meeting, the American Medical Association rejected a proposal to classify video game addiction as a mental disorder in the DSM IV, which is used by psychiatrists to diagnose mental disorders. “There is nothing here to suggest that this is a complex physiological disease state akin to alcoholism or other substance abuse disorders, and it doesn’t get to have the word addiction attached to it,” said Dr. Stuart of Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York.

Way to go wow addiction blog. Way to cite evidence to dispute the very point you are trying to make!

Review the Guild: Season 3 ep. 3

As promised, another review of the latest episode of the Guild. Things are getting good as the guildees are in shambles after Vork decides to quit and go on the road.

I was laughing at Zaboo this time around, he has the best scenes as he's forced to choose between the game and his new girlfriend. Tink is still AWOL, though I predict she will resurface as a new member of the rival guild from last ep. This is easy to figure out as we last see her talking to the members of the Axis of Anarchy.

After venturing out to the gaming store, the guild is back in their familiar environment, behind their computers and installing the next expansion pack...or at least trying to. Clara has funny dialouge as usual, her horrible mothering skills as a result of being obsessed with the game are about to cost her dearly.

Overall this is a very enjoyable episode and does a lot to further this season's direction which appears to be what happens when the Guild is fragmented and Codex has to try to keep it all from falling apart. Great show!

Warforged I hardly knew ye!!

Well, I guess it was bound to happen. Ever since Turbine announced last week that their MMO was going F2p I had been dying to rejoin the world of Stormreach. However, time constraints and spending time playing ROM prevented it, until now.

Last night I tried out an account on the new DDO Unlimited and found it to be quite an enjoyable experience, even if I only spent 2-3 hours on the game server. The biggest change I saw upon character creation was the fact that my old character was Warforged but Turbine has made it a paid race. I had to settle for a Paladin! Oh the humanity!

No matter, the game's graphics are terrific and the voice overs that they rolled out in the opening quest and noob section of the game was very satisfying and successful in capturing the mood and feel of Dungeons and Dragons.

The problem I had in my previous attempt at DDO was that it was hard to do some of the instances and dungeons unless you were in a party, but the cool thing about DDO is that it's less of a grind than Wow and with dungeons and zones that are tailored for soloing or for playing with a party, it really doesn't matter if you are on your own or with a group (though of course the latter is probably more enjoyable to most gamers)

Turbine has added the DDO store to purchase in game items for those who want to pay and their VIPs can continue to play the game as subscribers, but if you don't need to pay, this is a good time to get into the game and try it out, with nothing to lose.

I found this video which details what the first quest looked like in Beta. I found it's still very similar in the game. Also, here's an interesting article detailing who invented the warforged race.

Review The Guild Season 3 episode 2

Since Felicia Day's "The Guild" is my favorite web show, and since they say it is "The Office" for the gamers set, the Chronicles will try to post a review of every new episode they roll out.
Although I don't like to be lumped into a category by the mainstream media, this one might be somewhat true, there are few web programs or tv shows aimed at gamers and this show does a fantastic job of capturing the feel of online gaming while saterizing its conventions, but it's funny even if you don't play.

The new episode centers around Vork feeling he let the guild down as leader when another group of players (The Axis of Anarchy) cut in front of them in line at the Gamestop store in order to try and get the latest expansion.
This episode, Vork has the best lines, even though the episode as usual opens with Codex hoping that opposing the other guild will reunify the guild. She says, "Its easy to bond over hating something together, the internet is total proof of that."

It's sort of weird seeing Zaboo give up his weird obssession with Codex, but it's hilarious and consistent with the progression of his character. The Axis characters were a bit predictable and there is some over acting going on here, but the premise is pure gold and the execution is as usual, well worth watching. Plus, how funny is it to see Clara's poor parenting beyond the scope of her house into the real world? It was a brilliant move to have the Guild move on from their comfort zone and adventure out IRL. This allows for further character development and for them to intearct with new characters. You can't take this show seriously, obviously real games don't act this way, but if you are fine with satire then it is sure to provide a chuckle or two, or to make you laugh out loud on several occasions. Can't wait to see what happens next.

Questing through Silverspring in Runes of Magic

I wrote in some detail about Runes of Magic in my previous blog. Last night after leveling up to 10, I found myself going into Varanas with the purpose of picking my secondary class.

I should probably preface this by saying I think ROM is a great game. A lot of people are down on it because they say it's a clone of WoW but I think more than that it combines some really good features from previous MMORPG including Wow. Unlike Wow this game is f2p. The only reason I would see myself not playing it anymore is because of the community. It might be my own fault because of the server I chose, not sure, but I felt more of a community sense with Wow since there were always so many other players running around the game world and some were even willing to join my party and play with me. Not so much so for ROM, at least not on my current server, or with the same frequency as Wow.

Above is a shot of my character riding a mount through the howling mountains on the way

to the big city of Varanas. Unlike Wow, where you had to be a level 30 character, ROM allows you to get a mount at any time. I just paid 300 gold and off I went. Below are some shots of what you see when you get to the main city. At level 10 characters they can go to the class hall (seen below) and choose a trainer for the class they select. I chose a mage so I could have a warrior with spell casting abilities. The other shot is of the guild hall, (also seen below) but since I didn't belong to a guild, I really had no business being there.

There are some other features of this game that I am really enjoying: One is that when you are doing a quest and killing x number of critters, you can click on the monster before going into combat mode and the game tells you how many you need to complete the quest. Nice! Another good feature is you can often open up your quest log for the specific quest you're on and double click on the name of the quest giver and it automatically takes you to the spot where the quest giver is, that way you don't have to wast time looking around for him or her.

I'm sure that there are other good game features that I am forgetting to highligh at the moment, however, I know characters can register for their own in game house but I have yet to do so.

DDO Unlimited released as F2P MMO

I remember the first time I heard about DDO. I tried out the Turbine 10-day trial key and made a Paladin which I eventually leveled past its level 3 status, which was pretty good because leveling in DDO is much slower than in traditional MMOs and I was mostly doing instances and soloing, with a rare exception here and there.

I recall being impressed by the game's mechanics and its graphics and I enjoyed the fact it was so much different than WOW, which is not necessarily a bad thing. It is just nice to have some diversity. Soon however, I got bored of killing kobolds and didn't explore it at a deeper level. With today's launch of DDO Unlimited, the game goes f2p and much fanfare has been given to it, but how are things going with the MMO that claims to have the best combat system of them all?

Well, The updated content includes a new class, an increased level cap (up to 96), a new 12-player raid, new adventure packs and “major combat improvements” to the game’s real-time combat, according to the company. Turbine says the game is “easier than ever” and that “creating a new character is incredibly simple with guides and templates that speed you through the process.”

However, there are stability issues being experienced by players. This was posted earlier today by Marketroid:
"We're currently experiencing stability issues with many of our websites due to excessive amounts of inbound traffic tied to the launch of DDO Unlimited. We're working to stabilize the websites and will continue to do so overnight. The games and downloads are unaffected by these web issues."
We apologize for the inconvenience and look forward to seeing you in Stormreach! "

aren't some connectivity issues expected when a game undergoes a massive relaunch such as DDO Online?

yesterday Turbine announced the launch of the beta release of myddo.com
The marketing copy reads: This new site offers players a place to share the experience of playing DDO. Blogs, galleries, character info, and guild functions all combine to bring the world of DDO to life on the web!

...but as of 7:06 PST the site was down for maintenance...an omen of things to come? or are servers just overloaded with players wanting to try it out? Hopefully the latter.

other issues: (posted on the official site)
"Please be aware that there is a known issue with the Difficulty Scaling system which is causing players to take more damage than intended in some game situations. The issue is most severe for large parties of players, especially in the first five levels of the game. Unfortunately this issue can affect quests in Normal, Hard and Elite difficulties; Solo and Raid quests are not affected."

"We are working on a fix to the problem which will go live in an upcoming patch. Thank you for your patience and we apologize for any inconvenience"

Some players are not very patient and get frustrated easily. User Whitey posted this earlier today:

"im gettin very annoyed paying for a game i can never use i want some free months outta this ****.seriously any1 find it annoyin when ever u try 2 play u cant when u payin 4 it ?"

It remains to be seen wether these issues will be fixed with upcoming patches, but I for one am avoiding the download until some of the kinks are all worked out. After all, I've got a level 10 warrior on ROM awaiting his second class.

The Monday morning quarterback MMORPG report

Well, it's closer to afternoon. Happy Labor day everyone! In America, this day marks the end of summer but there is plenty to report from the world of MMORPGs. Every week I will try to scour the forums, message boards and developer sites, as well as other relevant blogs to bring you info on the games you love to play. So let's dive in:

Mike from MMOCrunch reports that as of yesterday, two of the largest auction sites for MMORPGs virtual goods MMOBay.net and Playeraucitons.com, had been down for most of the day. They had been under a bonet attack since 5 am yesterday morning.

Ten Ton Hammer has event coverage of PAX 2009 including Fallen Earth launch news, screenshots and trailers. (Fallen Earth launch date was delayed to Sept. 22)

Aion Online has rolled out open beta testing in both Europe and North America.
According to a letter from producer Brian Knox posted on the site on Thursday, new game features include:

1.New Areas: Theobomos (Elysea) and Brusthonin (Asmodae)
2. New Instances!
3. Over 40 new default faces have been added to character creation.
4. Increased PvPvE rewards
5. UI changes (click-to-move has been disabled by default
And much more!
A more detailed list of new patches and additions can be found here

Massively.com reported yesterday from PAX 2009 that the mini-expansion for LOTRO Siege of Mirkwood was devoid of a date or a price, Turbine seems to be trying something new with a $19.99 base price and some special promotional deals leading up to the release of the new expansion. For more info click here.

Champions Online’s website reports that The login server has now been restarted. EU pre-order customers should now have access to the game until 11:59PM PDT on Tuesday, September 8.

Vanguard SOH and Everquest 2 developers state that there will be maintenance on the Session databases across all games on Wednesday September 9, 2009. It will begin at 12AM PDT and is estimated to last until 12PM PDT. All game worlds will be unavailable for the estimated 12 hour maintenance, as well as the Station Store and all commerce avenues. This may affect the performance of the forums and any or all accounts' abilities to log in.

SWTOR’s site reports that fans who join the Old Republic Community by September 15th, and receive a 25% off coupon for Star Wars™: Knights of the Old Republic™ on PC, redeemable at Direct2Drive!
Fans can prepare for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ by playing KOTOR, a role-playing game developed and published by BioWare and LucasArts, which takes place 300 years before the events in The Old Republic.

Thursday, Blizzard announced that the new faction change service is now available. Basically players will be able to switch from Horde to Alliance for a fee. Here is a link to the FAQ for more details on this new World of Warcraft service.

Can it be that Warhammer online is already celebrating a year of WAR? Yep, and their live event The Wild Hunt is ending today. However, the Hunt's end will be followed by three weekend events: Battlemarsh on September 12th, Battle at the Gates on September 19th, and Isha's Sorrow on September 26th. In the spirit of Return to Nordenwatch, each of these weekend events opens up one of WAR's premier Scenarios to players of all ranks and tiers but only for a limited time!

Welcome to the Chronicles- a new era in MMORPG commentary begins

Welcome to the MMORPG Chronicles. Over the coming months this blog will provide you with information on the most popular games out there on cyberspace in the MMO genre. If you are a gamer we invite you to bookmark us and come back frequently. Wow's Cataclysm and upcoming MMOs like Star Trek online and Champions Online only serve to underscore the popularity of this genre for hard-core gamers and casual gamers alike. For now, enjoy Felicia Day's Do You Want to Date My Avatar video from the popular web show The Guild. but be warned, repeated viewings of this video may result in getting it stuck in your head, it's quite catchy.