I want to know who buys this crap. Seriously. Who is it? Obviously, they are the same people who are buying Winnie the Pooh t-shirts for their Xbox Live Avatars.

The whole concept of Xbox Live Avatars isn’t completely terrible, I guess, but the fact that they are charging real money so I can put some kind of stupid shirt on my avatar… is just bizarre. It almost proves the insane ideal that anything will be bought by someone at some point in time just because there is a price attached.

If this crap were free would anyone download it? Aye, there’s the rub. This is something I like to think of as “the pet rock phenomenon”. Take something that is pretty much worthless, attach an arbitrarily low price to it, and suddenly it has worth. I guess that sums up this whole Playstation Home business model. It isn’t pure evil (don’t touch it!) or anything, but what happens when the PS3 and Xbox 360 go away? Never gonna happen, you say? Au contraire, mon frere.

The part of all this that is the most infuriating to me, is that Sony and Microsoft wouldn’t be selling this garbage unless there were enough people buying it to make it profitable. That’s the worst part of this whole thing. This whole stupid, inane, pointless endeavor is actually working. I’ll admit, though, the face that Xbox Live is full of people who buy this crap makes me reconsider even subscribing to the service. Auto-renew: off!

Maybe that’s me being elitist, but here I am… still subscribed to Xbox Live. So, who buys this crap? Apparently… I do.

That being said, there are a few… issues I’ve been having lately. Yes, it is sometimes annoying to get the “No more instances can be created message” but that doesn’t cause seething hatred in the cockles of my heart. Nor does ganking, nor Death Knights constantly being nerfed, nor even the guy in Vent that turns his speakers up really loud so that whenever anyone else talks you get this annoying echo effect.

What fills me with rage is drama.

First, to give you a little background, I’ve recently joined a new raiding guild. The guild I had been in which was pretty much just a group of friends, while fun, was not very diligent as far as keeping to ANY kind of raiding schedule. When Ulduar came out and I was still kicking around in Heroic 5-man purples, I decided to strike out for greener pastures (and better raid schedules.)

I found the current guild through the WoW forums (I know, I know… but with horrible gear, and very little actual raid experience, I can’t be too choosy, here.) They seemed pretty laid back when I browsed around their forums, and it looked like the kind of place I could join up and not get in too much trouble if I couldn’t make a raid night every once in a while. (Family first, ya know!)

Well, we’re running our mid-week Ulduar 10-man and we’re clearing out Freya. I vaguely remember there being some in-game chatter about who has herbalism blah blah blah okay let’s go kill stuff. Well, we clear the whole area (because we don’t want to do hard mode, mmkay) and right before we’re getting ready to pull Freya, the Shaman/healer/Guild Master leaves the raid group, immediately disconnects from Vent, and goes offline. Everyone is shocked for a few seconds as we wonder if his connection blew up, or maybe evil Nazi super-scientists teleported him to the black sun dimension, or what. Then, someone in vent says, “If he wants the 3 Frost Lotus, I’ll give it to him. It’s really not that big of a deal.” Wait, what?

Yeah, so our shaman ragequit over some stupid herbs. Granted, they are somewhat valuable, but enough to actually ragequit over it? Seems a little dramatic to me. At this point, I’m thinking to myself, “No biggie. We’ll just pug another healer and keep going.” Well, that’s when our Resto Druid and a rogue both /gquit. “Wha??”

They inform us in vent: “Yeah, <GuildMaster> just threatened to /gkick us over this Frost Lotus thing because he says he’s the guild master and doesn’t have to be treated like this. We don’t really want to stick around for this. Bye.”

At this point I should explain that the core of this guild is a group of IRL friends. The GuildMaster is actually more of an officer, and the real guild master, the guy that organizes raids, determines who can join the guild, grants forum access, is really a great guy, fun to play WoW with and in all respects is pretty cool. If the GuildMaster were actually the guild master, I suspect a large amount of the guild population would’ve been looking for new guilds at this point.

In the meantime, the raid has ground to a halt, and I’m suddenly NOT getting any closer to getting my Tier 8 gloves. And this is what bugs me. It’s one thing to be pissed about something, and it’s another thing to be pissed about something so inconsequential. It’s entirely another thing to leave people hanging because you want to go have a cry-fest over some stupid herbs. This is playground-level of getting pissed. Buck up, little camper! If losing 3 Frost Lotus is enough to send you into a fit of rage, just wait until your mom kicks you out of the basement.

Ugh.

Woot!

Joystiq posted the above video this morning with the following screed:

Hey Star Wars: The Old Republic, want to know the best way to suck the excitement out of your upcoming space opera MMORPG? Show us a bunch of still pictures not taken from the game, while a guy who sounds like Sam Elliott’s less commanding brother, Denny, tells us a super boring story about galactic diplomacy.

Seriously, if the video was capped by a young Jack Palance playing a guitar solo while he kills a bunch of guys with a lightsaber (that’s also an electric guitar), it still wouldn’t be enough to wake us from our coma. Can we all agree to leave boring in books, where it belongs?

ZOMG NEEDS MOER SPLODEY!!!11

Wow. If there were a way for Joystiq to sound less intelligent, I’m not sure what it would be. “Don’t talk about diplomacy and intrigue… I just want more asploding! WAAAAAAAHHHH!!!”

First of all, the only people in a coma over this game are the gibbering unthinking mass who couldn’t be bothered to play a title for more than 5 minutes unless it has the word “Madden” in the title. Bioware is taking an honest stab at trying to make the STORY interesting, and you’re gonna take a dump all over it because it didn’t have any action?. You remember STORY, right? Yeah, it’s that thing that happens in some games while certain Joystiq writers are trying to figure out which end of their controller is up. Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt your frathouse shenanigans with our plot development.

Honestly, for the kind of people they need to attract to this game, this video is perfect. Most Star Wars fans will think this is downright cool, especially if they played KotOR thinking “Gee, this would make a cool MMO.” Darth Malak FTW! These are the same kind of people that were super-hyped about Star Wars Galaxies and then were horribly defeated by SOE’s ineptitude.

Listen twerp, I LIKE DENNY!

Oh, and I should probably point out that “Denny” is actually Lance Henrikson. You might know him from such films as Aliens and the Chris Carter television series, Millenium.

ZOMG NEEDS MORE BORG!!!!!!!111one

I bet I know who else balked at this video. The guys that thought Enterprise would be SO much better if they just added THE BORG! Forget that your characterizations are shallow, your concept of Vulcans are totally broken, and your opening theme song is about as inspiring as a kick in the junk (they both make me want to chunder).

“Where are you going with this, Finster?”

Just hold on a sec. Guys, the issue with a lot of MMO’s is that the story never gets through the layers of gameplay to the player. The whole “WRITE YOUR OWN STORY” bull crap is really not going to get MMO’s anywhere these days. Mostly becuase, when we let MMO players write their own stories, that story is about “HOW I NINJA’D THAT GUYS LOOT!!1 QQ MORE! lern2PLAY nub!”

World of Warcraft doesn’t always do the best job of telling their story, but with the latest expansion, it does it right at almost every turn, from the Battle at the Wrathgate all the way to Loken, Hodir, and Storm Peaks. Did Warhammer Online underwhelm because of a lack of story-telling? I don’t know. I’m sure people that spent more time in there than I did might be able to come up with better reasons, but I can honestly say I would’ve stuck around longer if Warhammer Online did a better job of telling some kind of story… any story really. I’m sure there was some lore spread around, but it just didn’t come through in the course of leveling.

Basically, I see two possibilities: WoW is huge because it has an awesome story, or WoW has an awesome story because it’s so huge. I would love it if SW:TOR has as much depth to its story as WoW. And based on this video that Joystiq was so quick to dismiss, it really seems like it will.

Congrats, Bioware. You just won me over a little bit more. Coma averted!

The first combat experience they give you with Star Ocean combat in this iteration of the venerable Squeenix franchise is a battle tutorial that teaches you the various moves that you’ll be able to use throughout the game. The problem is that this combat is NOT indicative of the combat once you actually get into the game.

I didn’t find this out until I had decided that this combat “isn’t FOR ME” and had pretty much moved onto other things. Later, a friend of mine informed me that the combat is much different than the what the tutorial area would lead me to believe. After watching him play a few combats it was obvious combat wasn’t as horrible as I was expecting.

In the interest of full disclosure I should let you know that I generally prefer turn-based combat to real-time, at least in the scope of Japanese-style RPG’s. Unfortunately for gamers like me, there really hasn’t been a lot of compelling turn-based games in recent history aside from Lost Odyssey.

So, after seeing how combat REALLY plays out in Star Ocean: TLH, I’ve gotten back into it and actually started playing the story a bit. Based on the demo my friend had given me, which was at about the 10 hour mark, the story does seem truly compelling. We’ll see.

Essentially you have N’Gai, Leigh Alexander, Adam Sessler (already this sounds like the setup to a bad joke), Stephen Totillo and “Smartbomb’s” author Heather Chaplin, all of whom competed to use enormous words and poetic verse to out-do each other in ranting the day away about “the industry.”

I get pretty tired of all of these individuals. I’d really appreciate it if every last one of them would shut their traps and turn off their laptops for a while.

Although, I think this is the kind of thing that isn’t unique to game journalism. Look at the wide-sweeping failure of journalism in all industries. Newspapers are going bankrupt daily, magazine subscriptions have been dropping for years, and the best TV journalism can do is a half-hour show on Comedy Central.

Meanwhile, normal people are getting their news from bloggers, podcasters, and twitter. The unwashed masses are getting their news from… the unwashed masses.

Everytime Microsoft kills a studio that I used to love, I’m going to butcher a kitten and feed it to my Corgi. With the destruction of FASA Interactive and Ensemble, she now has a voracious appetite for kitty.

True to recent form, MS is “restructuring” Rare. Are they going to get the axe? Only time will tell as my corgi eagerly awaits Rare’s destruction.

In my line of work (web development) every now and then you get the chance to work on a project that stands above and beyond other endeavors. Recently, I’ve had the chance to help develop academicearth.org.

Academic Earth is kind of a “hulu” for academia. They’ve been gathering OCW (Open Course Ware) videos from all over the web from such places as Yale, Stanford, MIT, etc. One of the institutions that they’ve gleaned some content from is the new Starcraft Studies course at UC Berkeley.

Having watched this first lecture, it’s obvious that the game of Starcraft has continued to evolve past the doldrums of the dismal “Big Game Hunters” matches that drove me from the game years ago. I was most intrigued by the descriptions of some of the South Korean pros who have been playing a more defensive game, again something that was unheard of in serious play here in the states, many years ago.

I look forward to seeing more of these lectures and perhaps gaining a deeper understanding of the RTS genre as a whole.

I’m sure Academic Earth will be updating as the course continues, but while you’re over there check out some of the other lectures.

Listen, I have a variety of gripes about all sorts of things, and when it comes to MMORPG’s sometimes the gripe cup runneth over. If I had to nail down my absolute biggest gripe, though, it would have to be that persistent worlds are sometimes TOO persistent.

Typically, progressing through an MMO world has little to no effect on the future of that world. When Bob the Orc tells you to kill ten rats, it would be nice if you could see the progress of the town as the rat horde is brought under control. Perhaps there would be more cheese laying around. Whatever. Fact is, when most MMORPG’s are faction based, it would be nice to see the effects of your quest completions and PvP victories.

Well, that is beginning to happen. Warhammer Online has certainly tried to revolutionize how PvP can affect the game world. Unfortunately, I’ve never been a PvP aficianado. That’s where World of Warcraft and the Wrath of the Lich King expansion’s phasing technology.

When you go to Argent Vanguard (which is the HQ for the Argent Crusade’s assault on the Lich King’s domain in Icecrown) you start out seeing the outpost completely surrounded by the Lich King’s undead forces. As you progress through the Argent Vanguard quests, the horde of zombies and frost wyrms are eventually pushed back until all that’s left is a field littered with dead dragon corpses and cheering soldiers. Then, you progress further into Icecrown to set up a new outpost. The conclusion of that quest line results in a new town that is accessible. This continues on throughout the Icecrown quests until you’ve unlocked several areas in a region that was originally 100% owned and operated by the Lich King and his minions.

And this is what I’ve always wanted from an MMORPG. The ability to have your quests actually affect the game world that you’re playing in. This is, in my opinion, the very definition of playing in a “persistent world.” Your actions, as they change the game world, persist even after you log off. The bottom line is that I’ve had more fun galavanting around Northrend than any other MMORPG experience, to date.

New Xbox Experience Sucks

I went quite a while without having an avatar. Eventually, I got tricked into selecting one as I tried (and failed) to get an online game of Castle Crashers going. Bottom line is, that according to OXM, they’re closing the “loophole” that was allowing me to back out of the Avatar process. I honestly don’t see what the point of having an avatar is. It’s a rip off of the Mii. The idea of selling clothes makes me want to eat Microsoft points cards until I retch. Better that than spend them on idiotic clothing.

The themes are also quite stupid. Take away the one part of the Xbox Live interface that wasn’t completely retarded (the friends’ list) and replace it with this godawful swooshy merry-go-round effect where it’s not even apparent what the hell people are doing because there’s so much extra noise from the avatar and themes. It’s gotten to the point that I don’t even bother with the default Xbox interface anymore. All I do is hit the middle button and pop up the Guide. You know, where you can find all the actually useful menus (including the old-style friends’ list).

I know this is reactionary, but I honestly am considering NOT renewing my Xbox Live subscription. I’m not saying OMG BOYCOTT, but I am just so… sick… of these stupid avatars.

Microsoft, not Developers, Determines Prices

There has been a never ending tale of tears and misery when it comes to Xbox Live DLC pricing. Horse Armor, Godfather codes, Lumines, just to name a few of the controversies. Many times, throughout these debacles, Microsoft has stated that it’s the developer that makes these choices. Blame them!

Enter Doug Lombardi, VP of Marketing over at Valve Software. Shacknews reported him saying that while the updates for Left 4 Dead would be free for PC, Microsoft was forcing them to charge for the same DLC on the Xbox 360. Naturally, this begs the question: What about the free Gears of War maps and the free Halo 3 content? I guess if it’s a Microsoft published game, you don’t HAVE to charge for DLC, after all.

Left 4 Dead is one title that is sorely in need of free content. Sixty dollars is far too much for far too little. The $50 Left 4 Dead package on Steam looks downright delicious, comparatively. $50 + lots of free updates vs. $60 + $10 for a DLC pack. Fail.

Microsoft trying to beat EA to see who can kill off more game developers

Halo Wars, created by the late Ensemble Studios will apparently include this achievement:

Ready for the Sequel – 100% completing – 75G

Fascinating. You include an achievement promising a sequel, but then destroy the people that would be best equipped to create it.

Everytime Microsoft kills a studio that I used to love, I’m going to butcher a kitten and feed it to my Corgi. With the destruction of FASA Interactive and Ensemble, she now has a voracious appetite for kitty.

Only Microsoft can end the suffering.