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Archive for March, 2010

“dirty xrealmers” – Warhammer Online

31 Mar

Let me first clarify the scope of my writing on this topic. This will be my thoughts on people with leveled classes on both sides of a server in Warhammer Online. Talking specifically about cross realming in Warhammer is important because there is relatively little you can learn or spy on that isnt already known by people who are not cross realming. The biggest issue that comes to mind is having a character that you can log on and /who to find out who is in TOVL for purging, but I imagine you can do that with any trial character as well.

This also leads slightly to a side topic, where people use hidden/anon flags to avoid being searched for in tovl. The anon/hidden flags were originally used to hide from gold farmers, but in all cases it is annoying for an alliance to have a bunch of members hidden from each other. I have the suggestion of removing hiding from your alliance members posted up for mythic, if you agree or disagree, jump on this thread and post your feedback/kudos. http://forums.warhammeronline.com/warhammer/board/message?board.id=pts_ff&message.id=69211#M69211

Now, back to xrealmers. The reasons people seem to cross realm vary, but of the ones I know of, I don’t believe any of them have sinister or evil intentions. In most cases they do it to try a class on the other side and if they have played on a server for a while, chances are they have a mutual respect for some people on the other side and can play with them, instead of rolling on another server and being alone. IRC plants a lot of seeds for this, as often friendships and respect grows and people are seen more as actual people, instead of hated in game enemies. Others cross realm for a challenge or for an easier road if they are getting whooped on their current side.

I saw an idea recently posted on the official forums asking for the ability for a single account to have characters on both sides of a server. While I do have my opinion of letting any good people play with JS, I would be against it from an overall Warhammer/business rule. I think the solid two sides and the forced choice helps build that virtual hate and strong rivalries that help make the game more exciting. I am curious however on Mythic’s exact standpoint on xrealmers that have 40s on both sides of a particilar server. Obviously some thoughts would be “yay, this person has 2 subs”, but technically I believe it is against the rules. I imagine it is just too difficult to enforce without breaking privacy barriers. Either way, I doubt it is a big priority for Mythic, and I can agree with that standpoint.  Anyone have any thoughts?

ps. This was my first requested topic. Hopefully more people can throw topics at me, I really enjoy the suggestions :)

 
2 Comments

Posted in Mythic, Online Gaming, Warhammer

 

Gromril Plating to be self only in 1.3.5 – Warhammer Online

30 Mar

Breaking news!

The ironbreaker ability, gromril Plating, a Morale 3 ability that gives every group member within 100ft a 7200 damage absorb shield, will be changed to be self only in the upcoming patch.

Here is a link to the current implementation.

http://www.wardb.com/spell.aspx?id=1420

 
6 Comments

Posted in Online Gaming, Warhammer

 

$20 off any game at EA.com

29 Mar

Hi Guys, just found a cool coupon code that might make purchasing a new game easier! :)

Use coupon code PAXEAST842 at checkout and get $20 US off any game at the EA Store.

http://eastore.ea.com/

Some game suggestions to use the coupon on:

Battlefield Bad Company2

Dragon Age Origins

Mass Effect 2

Command and Conquer 4: Tiberian Twighlight

Medal Of Honor  (Pre-Order)

 
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Posted in Battlefield BC2, EA, Gaming, Online Gaming, Software Deals

 

Warhammer Online Game Client to be free

29 Mar

Mythic Entertainment has announced that players who are looking to subscribe after participating in the free WAR trial will no longer be required to purchase the full game client to continue their adventures. Trial users can simply opt to subscribe and continue along in the game.

Sounds like great news for growing the game! :)

 
1 Comment

Posted in Mythic, Online Gaming, Warhammer

 

Weekend Game Deals!

26 Mar

Steam has Torchlight on sale for $5 right now, which is 75% off. I bought it around xmas time but haven’t played it yet. Everyone I talk to loves it though.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/41500/

Direct 2 Drive also has it for $5

http://www.direct2drive.com/sale/

Microsoft Games for Windows has a deal on Viva Pinata. 5$ at 75% off. A great deal if you like that kind of game…

http://www.microsoft.com/games/en-US/games/pages/sales.aspx

Have a good weekend.

 
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Posted in Direct2Drive, Microsoft, Online Gaming, Software Deals, Steam

 

“playdates” – online escort service, great idea, or both?

23 Mar

I have a pretty big interest in neat businesses/websites that start up. They make me jealous that I haven’t yet started any new amazing part of the internet and my jealousy twinged again this morning when I was told about a new business launching in a matter of hours, called GameCrush.

What is GameCrush? GameCrush is a service where you can purchase time with “PlayDates”. These “PlayDates” will play games with you on Xbox Live, classic online games and more. It looks like you have options to search for flirty and dirty women to game with you. For xbox live you connect and play over voice communications and for PC you have options for either or both of you to hook up webcams while you play. For xbox live, initial games supported will include: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Halo 3, Grand Theft Auto IV and Gears of War 2 with more coming in the future. For classic online games, players can play games like Checkers and Four Across.

It seems that starting prices will be ~$8.50 for 10 minutes and it has been rumoured that 60% will go to GameCrush and 40% to the girls. Personally, I applaud this idea and wish I had thought of it and had the drive to push it through. As a long time guild lead through many different games, a lot of times guys do have more fun when women are in the mix. (It wasn’t immediately apparent if skill was a searchable criteria for your PlayDates).

I wish them luck both with their launch and with the critism this is bound to create. I would love to hear the female perspective on this service. From a male perspective, I would love it if a service opened up that paid me to play games with people, male or female, dirty or flirty!
Website: www.gamecrush.com

 
4 Comments

Posted in Business, Gaming, Online Gaming

 

gamer stabbed in head gets off easy?

22 Mar

Cheating is always a hot topic in games and Warhammer is no different. Cheaters are constantly evolving and there are always holes in code somewhere. Just last week someone pointed out how single target healing is easily possible without any out of the ordinary addons. The company fixes them hopefully in a timely manner and people move on.

Cheater’s cheat for their own reasons, usually because they want an easy road or only really have fun when they have a distinct advantage. They take a risk and usually only consider that they may lose their account temporarily or permanently along with the time/money invested in it.

They would never expect it would end up like this…

Recently in China, a gamer at a net cafe was playing CounterStrike and was accused of using a wall-hack by other players. An argument and fight broke out outside and the cheater ended up with a foot long knife thrust into his left temple stopping only when the tip of the blade hit the other side of his skull.

The gamer was taken to the hospital and doctors started operating immediately. The blade avoided major arteries and failed to effect his motor skills even with the blade passing through areas of the brain that control them. He is still under observation and I imagine it is too soon to give the all clear, but reports are that he will recover.

Lets take a moment to recall an article that came out last week. Chinese soccer official Nan Yong was accused of taking bribes and match-fixing. He now faces the death penalty in China, dependant on how much actual money changed hands.

Is it really that much of a jump between these situations, I am not familiar with China’s laws by any means, but assuming the differences are age and having an effect on gamblers, what if the boy was a couple years older then 17 and was found cheating on a game where people had wagers on it? What if it was a gaming tournament with prizes/money. Gaming industry tournaments are everywhere nowadays. Would this cheater be recovering right now just to stand trial in his country with a possible death penalty? Did in some twisted way, he get off easy?

Yes I realize that the view could be taken that these situations are quite different, and thats valid, I chose to focus on their similarities. People involved in games that cheated and now are struggling to keep their lives because being caught and punished… legally or otherwise.

Links:

Gamer stabbed: http://kotaku.com/5499061/accused-game-cheater-gets-knife-through-head-and-survives

Chinese Official: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/100301/sports/soccer_china_matchfixing

 
2 Comments

Posted in China, Counter-Strike, Gaming, Mythic, Online Gaming, Warhammer

 

“appeal this” – Warhammer Online

18 Mar

This week I mentioned in passing that some of my angrier moments in this game have come from dealings with customer service reps and their handling of appeals.

It seems the policy is to remove/delete an appeal if someone is found to be offline when they reach their ticket number in the queue. Tickets I am sure are handled by priority/category and somewhat by age, but I really have no idea. Anyways, I check my email 5 days after putting in an appeal for a missing item and I get a friendly email from Mythic CS saying that they looked for me, but I was not found online at 2:30 AM thursday morning. This is of course no shock to me as I am human. The next part says that because I was not online they have cancelled my appeal and asks that I re-submit.

You have to wonder, who on earth comes up with business request processing like this? Where would this translate? In my business, a customer communicates a problem and I take 5 days to awknowledge the problem, then give them a call at their work at 2:30 am and leave a message saying I was real sorry, I tried to get a hold of them and help them but I am going to disregard their request until they call in again in the morning. I would be unavailable at that time however.

Is this really so different? I suppose some problems do go away and perhaps they simply have way more requests then they can handle, so they try to delete as many as possible and hope people either don’t bother trying again or bank on at least some of the people not logging that character on ever again.

My request did get resolved, 3 weeks after submitting the issue,  the item was mailed to me. They did not need additional information from me, I put in my second appeal and added extra notes begging them to please not delete it in the middle of the night. I suggest everyone do the same for every appeal.

 
1 Comment

Posted in Business, Gaming, Mythic, Online Gaming, Warhammer

 

“freenowning” – Warhammer Online

17 Mar

Freenowning (free-renown) is the gaming term for sitting in a warcamp “guarding the mailbox” and catching zone flips for renown. You can either do this in Tier 4 or fly to other tiers. Heavy abusers also use some sort of program to remain AFK while doing so.

Freenown to me is a very different kind of wrong then the scenerio non-participants. In a scenerio, if someone does little or nothing to help out, they are not just hurting themselves, but everyone around them. They are taking up a spot that an active participant is often needed to compete with the other side in that scenerio. In a very real sense, they are griefing their own realm. Read more of my thoughts on scenerio non-participators and why the problem and solution is not easy to define or correct: http://www.backseatdev.com/2010/03/freeblemers-warhammer-online/

I think an argument could be made that “freenowning” is relatively victimless. Cheesy, lazy, wrong are all valid descriptions of it but it doesn’t really fall on my radar of things that I care about too much. Sure someone is getting rewarded for little or no effort, but no one is really counting on that person during that time period anyways. If that person could be playing the game and not busy with other things, they probably would be? The game is fun right? thats why YOU actually play?

The biggest victim could be argued that the opposite realm will have to fight someone with a higher realm rank from the free-renown. Flipping that however, you now have someone with less experience worth more RPs fighting you, making you level up faster as well, while playing the game you love!

All in all, this is a very low priority problem for me in Warhammer. I think guild leads should take action and curb this from their members as much as possible, but I also think if the people getting super riled up about this took a step back and thought to themselves, is it really making that much of a difference in my gaming experience? They could move their focus to more important issues.

 
4 Comments

Posted in Gaming, Mythic, Online Gaming, Warhammer

 

Battlefield BC2 – Great game if you can “get into it”

16 Mar

I have been having a lot of fun with BC2 lately. I am pretty horrible at FPS, but I can reach pretty average skill if I play the game a decent amount.

BC2 is a fun game to play and looks amazing. It has all the features you want in a FPS war game and the destructable environments keeps things interesting and different, almost making maps kind of random in how they play from game to game.

The issues with BC2 almost all revolve around the master server and Punkbuster. The master server system seems to really slow down the server browsing interface to the point that actually getting into a game can take up to 15minutes. Searching and refreshing the server list takes a long time, and it seems I get weird disconnects right after connecting to many servers.

Friend lists in BC2 have been quite flakey. People don’t seem to get friend requests sometimes or they take a long time to get to them. At one point last week, friends lists were completely cleared from a lot (or all?) people during a maintence. Connecting to a friends server often fails, but gives no useable error message. (I assume the server is full)

Some things that have helped were updating the Punkbuster using the PBSetup and also reinstalling the PBService. Both can be found at www.evenbalance.com.

I am sure the server issues will only get better and the game is great, so if you are on the fence, don’t let this be a negative review. I am happy with my purchase of BC2, I just wish some of these issues with connections could get ironed out faster.

props: Amigo

 
No Comments

Posted in Battlefield BC2, EA, Gaming, Online Gaming

 
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