World of Warcraft Patch 2.2.0 Today

World of Warcraft is patching to version 2.2.0 today. I will hopefully post links to WoW Patch 2.2 downloads later.

The biggest new feature is voice chat:

Voice Chat - The new Voice Chat feature is now available in game. Players will need to go into the options menu under Sound & Voice to activate it. Volume sliders are available for the microphone, speakers, and game-audio fade (which automatically lowers the game audio when a voice communication is received), as is a “push-to-talk” setting. Right-clicking on a player’s name now includes the option to mute or unmute that player. Muting another player blocks all voice chat from him or her; the ignore feature now blocks both voice chat and text chat from that player.

It should definitely be a good week for WoW parody websites, WoW comics, and most definitely for the guys over at Ventrilo Harassment. However, for me it will probably be more than a week before I even have a new mic to use. I was never a huge fan of voice chat, but it definitely has it's advantages and I can't deny that I will probably be using it.

Oh, and a side note, they nerfed Shamans again:

Earthbind Totem: This totem will no longer break Rogue stealth.

Because all the Shamans in WoW know how useful totems are for popping rogues. I just don't know what to do as a shaman with half of my crowd control now somewhat nerfed.

Green Bay Packers

I am a huge Green Bay Packers fan. I was born near Green Bay and my blood runs cold, dark, and green.

The Packers took home a win today against the San Diego Chargers and in the process, Brett Favre tied Dan Marino's all-time touchdown mark. Congratulations Brett. I will always be a fan.

Following Failure With Failure

It seems that closing the doors on Auto Assault isn't the only thing Netdevil is up to these days. MMOsite has the news that Netdevil has announced another post apocalyptic MMOG, entitled Warmonger. The basics: Warmonger will be an action-oriented MMO FPS set in a post apocalyptic future.

The kicker? It won't just be vehicles this time. Players can blow shit up and stuff, but not with vehicles. Understand?

The bigger kicker? It will be available for digital download on October 16th, 2007!

So, why will this be a failure? Because it is built around the AGEIA PhysX processor, perhaps the most worthless piece of computer hardware ever invented for gaming. Don't get me wrong, I am sure all 250 people worldwide that own an AGEIA PhysX processor will be just tripping over themselves to download this baby.

Fortunately, the AGEIA PhysX processor has dropped to somewhere in the neighborhood of $130, not terribly unreasonable. Players will just have to pretend they are buying the AGEIA PhysX card for access to it's vast library of enabled games. It worked for FFXI and the hard drive for the Playstation 2!

Why Is World of Warcraft So Popular?

People will always argue about the reasons behind World of Warcraft being so popular. Some argue that Blizzard just spent a ton of money. Some argue that Blizzard has a massive following who will buy anything they put in a box. Some argue that WoW benefited from word of mouth. Some argue that WoW just got lucky.

Wash all of these reasons from the chalk board. Then, sit down, and play World of Warcraft for five minutes. The controls and camera are absolutely smooth. The UI is clean and simple. Tasks and goals are laid out from the start. There is almost no decisions to be made until level 10, when a player receives their first talent point. If a player dies, they run back as a ghost with no experience or item loss. The game NEVER punishes a player until that player is willing and able to avoid the situation.

Fundamentally, WoW is just a pleasure to sit down and play. Take all the reasoning for why WoW is so popular and compare it against this question. If this is truly the reason, then why do people sit down, play, and continue to play?

For WoW, the devil is NOT in the details.

RIP Robert Jordan

Author Robert Jordan, whose "Wheel of Time" series of fantasy novels sold millions of copies, died Sunday of a rare blood disease. He was 58.

Jordan, whose real name was James Oliver Rigney Jr., was born and lived in this southern city most of his life. He died at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston of complications from primary amyloidosis with cardiomyopathy, his personal assistant, Maria Simons, said Monday.

UPDATE: Check out TarValon.net for a great tribute.

Metaplace is Official

Raph Koster and company have made it official: Areae unveils Metaplace, Web 2.0 with a bit of MMORPG mixed in.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Metaplace.com!

It has been incredibly hard keeping quiet about this for a whole year. Everyone here on the team is really excited about what we're making. And we're really honored to get to launch this site as one of the TechCrunch 40.

Right at the outset, when we launched the original Areae, Inc. website, we told everyone that we were out to reinvent virtual worlds, and to make them work more like the Web does. We also told everyone that the cartoon on the website was our business plan. It's been amazing to watch the speculation out there about what exactly we meant, but now you know: we meant it completely literally. Metaplace works how the web does, just about top to bottom.

Our goals are sort of idealistic. We think there are all kinds of things on the Internet that would be improved if anyone could have a virtual place of their own. Right now, there aren't enough good games, for example, and they all seem to be about elves in tights or soldiers in battle armor. Metaplace allows more diversity. Right now, there are lots of people who want to use virtual worlds for research, or education, or business, but it's just too darn hard to get one going. Now you can create a world in just a few minutes and start tailoring it to your needs. Basically, we wanted to democratize the process of making online spaces of all sorts.

As part of that, we also committed to an open markup standard for our network protocol - anyone can write a client for any platform they want. We decided to use Web standards for everything we could, which is why you can have a game world that is also a website, or use Web data to populate your world. The scripting language (we call it MetaScript, of course) is based on Lua. You get the idea - no "not invented here," no closed proprietary approaches.

We knew it was all coming together when one of our team made a game in a day and a half. And then stuck that game on a private MySpace profile. You can inherit someone else's world (if they let you) and use it as a starting point. You can slurp whole directories of art and use them as building blocks. Cut and paste a movement system or a health bar from one world to another. Use an RSS feed for your NPCs. We made puzzle games, RPGs, action games... and set up doorways from one to the other. Basically, coming to work in the morning is a lot of fun.

This isn't all hypothetical, either. We fully intend to be customers of our own product. We've already started work on our first big game - a "worldy MMORPG" with what we hope will be a ton of fun game play. What's more, we figure that some of you who have been looking for a game like that might want to help us build it.

We have a lot of plans for the future, and we hope you'll check back every week to learn what we're cooking up. As you can see, we're taking alpha applications. We expect to ramp up the number of testers a lot over the coming months. So keep an eye on the site - it will be growing a lot.

Overall, I think what we are most looking forward to is surprises. We can't wait to see all the amazing things you will build with the Metaplace platform. It's time to see what the world really wants from virtual worlds.

We'll be updating this blog at least once a week. In the meantime, see you in the comments thread!

Right before leaving work, my co-worker and I discussed what was potentially coming from today's announcement. We both agreed; this is pretty much what we and many others expected. Areae is building a better Second Life. A Second Life that makes sense. A Second Life that doesn't treat players like caged chickens.

I guess the real kicker is that this is more of a service, than a game. So, it is a bit hard as a gamer to get any excitement out of this announcement. Until I get to see some of the games in development for the service, I will have to hold comments on the gaming potential.

What worries me about Metaplace, is the fact that most user generated content is just absolute junk. I've played Neverwinter Nights 1 & 2. I've played countless MUDs that allow for user submitted content. I've played countless video games where players could make and contribute something to the community. I can count on one hand how much of that content has actually been worth my time.

It's the whole signal to noise thing again. How much crap will Metaplace members have to shovel through before getting to the good stuff? I honestly don't see many people, myself included, willing to pay "meta dollars" for the chance to play a crappy game. Early adoption is going to be a tough hump for "armchair designers" to get over. Then its a fight to make sure your ideas don't get copied/stolen and sold for a lower price.

So, thats my negativity on the announcement, but don't let my jaded gamerness overshadow what Metaplace could turn into. Afterall, as stated, we still haven't seen the games :)

Areae Announcement Tommorow

From Cuppy:

Hey all =)

Just wanted to let you know that tomorrow Areae is making our announcement on what we are making. We were picked to be one of the TechCrunch40 and are demoing our product tomorrow.

Keep an eye on Metaplace.com tomorrow! =)

It will be interesting to finally get an idea of what Raph Koster has been working on over at Areae, but at the same time I know it will be a disappointment to many fans of Raph's previous work still holding out for a Raph Koster MMORPG. It is pretty evident that Raph is trying his damnedest to separate from the "old-school MMORPG" crowd without actually severing the link completely. I guess we will all know how far he has gone tomorrow.

Let's Help GamerDad

GamerDad, a gaming blogger who just so happens to also be a wonderful father and gaming spokesman, has suffered a heart attack.

On Saturday September 1st, Andrew Bub - the GamerDad, and my husband - suffered a heart attack. An anterior wall Myocardial Infarction to be exact. On Sunday the 2nd, he had an additional MI and on Labor Day he endured a Quadruple Bypass operation, which saved his life. He's been in the hospital ever since and dearly misses his children, his website, and all of you - his readers.

In a day and age where video games are constantly under fire and often times rooted as the cause of all ills of our children, GamerDad has been a staunch defender of the truth. Parents that game with their children are some of the best parents around. Gaming is not evil. Gaming does not ruin children. These are facts and GamerDad is their spokesman.

We can help by visiting this page and donating via PayPal.

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars - Initial Impressions - Part III

Click here for Part I of my Enemy Territory: Quake Wars initial impressions.
Click here for Part II of my Enemy Territory: Quake Wars initial impressions.

In Part II of my ET:QW initial impressions, I talked about the wonderful question: "What the fuck just killed me?" ET:QW employs a very standard scrolling chat window that details kills.

Example: heartless_ [weapon] UnluckyNewb

So, it isn't impossible to figure it out, but more often than not players will never see it coming. I guess it proves the age old; "You never hear the one that gets ya."

However, at times, this can be totally awesome. My absolute favorite weapon in ET:QW is on the Scrogg sniper class. Scrogg snipers receive flying drones. A player can launch a drone and fly it around for thirty seconds. At any time during flight, the player can cause the drone to explode. Think of it is as a flying grenade, perfect for rooting out camping snipers. The flying controls are spot on, easy, and allow for near perfect placement. The drones are easy enough to shoot down in the open, but a good pilot will use cover and height to ambush unsuspecting targets.

The flying drone is just one of many cool toys that are in the game. Honestly, I just don't have the time currently to test them all out. I said before, that there was a lot to this demo and it could be a bit confusing, but that doesn't mean there isn't a few cool surprises hiding in the game. And demos are the perfect time to play with these toys, before every single player learns how to counter them.

ET:QW offers enough new awesomeness that it should have a fairly strong following. Unfortunately, due to its more advanced play mechanics, it won't attract throngs of new players. For wily old veterans, ET:QW may just be the game they have been waiting for. ET:QW goes a long ways in providing fast and fun action. In the end, fast and fun should keep it going.

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars - Initial Impressions Part II

Click here for Part I of my Enemy Territory: Quake Wars initial impressions.

I left off my last post talking about the objectives system built into ET:QW and how, for a new player, it can be confusing. I don't want potential players to be discouraged. I am not stating that ET:QW's objectives based system is a failure. It works, but at a cost of being a major barrier to entry.

ET:QW is a tough game to pick up and have fun with right away. For the purposes of a demo, that baffles me. I expected better from this game. It feels like the team at Splash Damage wanted to highlight too many aspects of their game in the demo, instead of providing a streamlined demo to introduce players to the game. A simpler map, with simpler objectives would go a long ways to improving early opinions about this title.

Moving on, the action in ET:QW far surpasses that of any Battlefield title, in both speed and veracity. Battlefield games are notorious for having a bit more relaxed style of play with an emphasis on wide open game play. ET:QW does a much better job of focusing players onto a single objective. Spawn points are usually up close to the action, and often times will drop a player right into the middle of the fight. This minimizes the need for a team to spread themselves across an entire map. Teams and players can focus on the current area and progress from there. I have found no reason to go backwards on the demo map so far, except to grab a vehicle.

Speaking of vehicles, they are fairly well done in ET:QW. There is no "vehicle specific class", so any player should be able to hop into any vehicle and go to town. I've never really enjoyed vehicles in these type of games, so I have not tested them very much. So far, I have not been camped at a spawn point by any flying vehicles, always a plus in my book!

My final area of concern for ET:QW is the lauded: "What the fuck just killed me?" There are so many new tricks in ET:QW, that I've found myself more than once trying to figure out what just killed me. Players die fast. Once the damage starts, it rarely ends in survival. As the game play is faster, it stands to reason that players are likely to die without seeing the cause. It can become annoying, but hopefully with time players will have enough experience to know what owned them.

Part III has been posted here.