SWGemu, and why I think it’s worth it.
Nov 15, 2008 Games
You mention Star Wars: Galaxies on a PC gaming forum and you can be pretty sure of certain reactions. One camp will roll their eyes and post, “not again. Let it rest.” One camp will come along with the, “yeah, it’s a shame what they did to the game after CU and NGE, but I still play it because…well…It’s SW:G.” and then you’ll get the majority of responses. Heart break, bitterness, nostalgia and a misty-eyed rememberance of a game system that should-have-been.
Pre CU and NGE, Star Wars: Galaxies was a game that wasn’t like any other (and in some cases, still outshines some of the brand new games.) in the fact it was damn hard work getting to where you wanted to be.
You had skill trees you had to work through as a melee or social profession. Hours and hours of harvesting and work, and yet, you weren’t truly holed up in one set in stone profession. You could mix and match and do as you like, ending up with a pretty much customized class suited for your playing needs. And I don’t even have the time to go on about how the housing, clothing, imagination of the players made it a game truly unique to those of us who enjoy role playing or getting into the game while there.
But the one thing that SW:G is missing at this moment more than anything is the community. I wrote a post several months back about why I think SW:G is slowly declining after the loss of it’s core community, so I won’t rehash it any further than mentioning it here. But what’s this got to do with anything? What’s this got to do with SWGemu?
Community.
SWGemu has the stirrings, the quiet whisperings and the beginnings of the same community I once thought long dead from SW:G. In it’s testing, adolesence phase, SWGemu is very awkward. There are game-smashing, lose-your-character-if-you-go-to-Coronet-bugs. There are tiny little annoying things that don’t work right and then giant huge-oops, we’re missing missions, can’t craft yet–and it doesn’t seem to matter. The core community of players backing everyone 100% is there. I wasn’t signed in five minutes to take my first peek when someone came along to introduce themselves and show me around.
This…This could me a magnificent thing, and I am encouraging you now…If you’ve kept your SW:G C.D’s, If you still have it insalled but no longer subscribe and are disenchanted, if you hold pre CU and pre NGE fondly and want to return to a land before time…I am urging you to check out and take a look at SWGemu.
I have and am placing alot of hope into this project, like many already there. I hope that you’ll come to love it, warts and all, too.
Dear Gaming World
Sep 12, 2008 Games
What the hell happened?
Did you outsource to thirteen year olds who are far more obsessed with pink shiny things than I am? Perhaps you’ve been trying to market to five year olds, because lately, everything that you’ve marketed to me has not been the stimulating, razor’s-edge-entertainment you’ve been promising.
Age of Conan: Ginormous fail boat
Age of Conan happily lead me on a long walk of false-awesomeness. At first, the beheading, the amazing textures, the voice overs–they helped pull the nerdling wool over my eyes. I was sold, or was I (dramatic music goes here)? I made my way through Tortage with stars in my eyes, giggling merrily whenever I had a fatality that would fill my screen with blood. Granted, the nay sayers started in on this game the moment it was open beta, which rankled me more than anything.
Alas, the dream soon turned to waking. At first, it was my disappointment in crafting. I knew that AoC didn’t want to focus on crafting, that it wasn’t as important as other game issues and I was willing to over look that. Then I reached 59 with my main, a priest of Mitra and the wool was crudely torn from my eyes. There was nothing for me to do, content wise, but grind three or four instances, with the same spawns, over and over again until–what? Until I hit mid 70’s?
No, thanks. Don’t misunderstand me. This game is gorgeous and amazingly well done. So long as you don’t go any higher in level than 50. (Or at least, it was this way at the time of me quitting.) There was literally levels and levels of content-gap where there were no quests and nothing for you to do. Sorry, but, no-can-do-thar, Funcom. Maybe we’ll talk again in a year, kay?
Spore and its lies
And Spore! Spore! You lied so hard to me! Oh, Spore, you looked like a game I could have sunk my teeth into. You were something different with countless thousands of ways I could make disturbingly cute pink monsters to evolve and take over planets.
And what did you turn into? A five hour marginally kind-of-cute waste of time. It was like ice cream instead of sex. Sweet, filling, but not exactly what I had been expecting. A friend of mine over at rulihe.com pretty much summed up Spore in her review of the game.
So seriously? What the hell happened? Why are you pushing increasingly less intelligent, half-finished, shitty games at us? You’re making it worse. In fact, all you are doing is creating a larger skeptical audience growing more leery to spend their money on another buck-eating waste of hard drive space.
So you want an uber guild, eh?
Jul 10, 2008 Games
In MMORPG’s, the guild is often a welcome addition to any game. Should you PVP, your guild generally has your back but that’s not the only plus in having an excellent guild! Here’s a chance to socialize with people like minded, often online when you are and generally available to group with, without the rigmarole of ‘you get what you LFG’ for as well as PUGS.
Running and maintaining a guild however can often suck the fun right out a game for guild leaders and officers. When they aren’t having fun the entire guild often picks up this emotion and echoes it back. Throughout my rather illustrious (read: geeky) career of MMORPG’s, being a guild leader and officer, there have been some really interesting opinions and things I have learned as to what I think makes or breaks a good guild and lucky for you, I’ve written them up and offered them here.
By no means am I saying that a guild has to be run this way. These are just a collection of my thoughts and opinions and I hope they help you!
DO NOT:
- Mock your members openly in public places. And I’m not talking the fun mock you do in guild chat when they slip up and mistype or misspell. Calling your members stupid, their issues or anything they wish to privately share with you stupid is a great way to alienate guild members from you.
- Allow your guild officers to do whatever they want because they’re officers. Nothing sends a clearer “You’re not important, we’re not really a group, you’re not as awesome as we are, poo on you” than this do as I say, not as I do behavior.
- Allow your fellow guild leaders to do whatever they want because they’re guild leaders.
- Allow yourself to do whatever you want because you created the guild and that somehow makes you moar speshul than everything else.
- Forget to make some place some where for fellow guild members to meet and chatter that is outside the game. A message board, a web site, a chat room–anything to help bring a sense of community to your members is a plus.
- Ignore what your members have to say, no matter how annoying and repetitive it is.
- Believe most guilds are a democracy. Few are.
- Have officer and guild leader drama spill publicly—be it in guild chat or boards. Present a united front whenever possible. If and when you lose an officer in a particularly nasty /guild leave, save face by staring down anything nasty they have to say by remaining calm and polite. Who do you think will come out looking like the better?
- Snap, treat discourteously, or be rude intentionally to your guild members. Even if you think they deserve it. Your members are your guild’s life. You don’t HAVE to like them, but as an officer or guild leader you do have to work with them.
- Be unavailable to members when online with your guild leader or officer character. When you signed up for this gig, you signed away your privacy in game for that officer/leader avatar/toon. Be prepared to be PM’ed and in-game mailed.
DO:
- Keep your gripes about members, rants, issues to a private place far away from member’s eyes. I don’t begrudge guild leaders or officers the right to blow off steam. Make sure it remains private, however.
- Expect and demand your guild officers to uphold and follow your guild’s rules and charter just like every other member must. If they break a rule, then they should be punished in the exact same manner you have deemed fit for a member.
- Listen to your guild members, even when it’s the fiftieth time George the Wizard has complained to you about the epics purple unicorn hat that has been bugged for weeks that everyone knows about. George probably just needs an ear to listen to him, and guess what? As guild leader or officer you unofficially signed up to do this. If listening to people gripe and complain gets on your nerves you might want to consider rethinking your position—because you will be doing this for your entire tenure as guild leader/officer.
- Be courteous, kind, and polite. Whether you know it or not, part of the job guild leader/officer is customer service. You signed up to be the ears and eyes for either the guild leader as officer, or the head/boss of a group of people. Therefore, not only are they all going to look at you as well as to you for examples being lead, they’re going to want to talk to you and bring their issues or problems to you. Officers will either be expected to bring such issues to the guild leader, while working to keep any ruffled feathers smooth. If you are a jerk to your members, the only message you’re getting through is that your guild doesn’t care and you might find yourself out of a few dozen members. Quickly.
- Know the difference between being honest and just being crass and rude. Honesty is a hard pill to swallow, but you can still be bluntly, brutally honest with someone without calling them names, resorting to swearing, mocking or dragging their name through the mud. For example: “Well you can’t get that piece of epix gear because, quite frankly, you suck.” Or“Well, I think that you might not be able to get that piece of epix gear because you might be doing something wrong. Here’s what I think: …” See the difference?
- Put your foot down and don’t be afraid to do so. There is no reason for any guild leader or officer to put up with really nasty crap for a long period of time. Despite all your best efforts of being polite and reasonable, some members or people just won’t get it. Don’t be afraid to cut these members loose. Deal with continuously problematic members without hesitation or fear, courteous does not mean you need to be a welcome mat. You can be a nice hard-ass and you will no doubt learn how to do so as a guild leader or officer.
- Have as much fun as possible with your members and fellow officers, leaders. If you aren’t having fun in a game you’re paying to play—well—what are you doing playing it?
- Try and keep your officer and fellow guild leader roster full. No one can run a guild by themselves, no matter what they say. Burn out happens, real life happens, computer trouble happens. Eventually the inevitable might come to pass, and if the guild only has one leader, where does that leave the guild?
- Take breaks. When you find that you just want to throttle someone, find yourself yelling at the monitor or disliking the game that’s a good sign that you might want to take a break. It’s also a great way to avoid burn out which happens a lot in officer/leader positions. Tell your leader or fellow officers that you need some time away and go do other things to refuel and recharge.
There are no doubt hundreds of other little things you, as a member, officer, or leader can do to ensure a kick-ass guild experience, but these to me are the most important. Hope these have helped you in some way and happy gaming!
Mel’s list of fun free games you don’t have to sell yourself once a month to pay for.
Jun 20, 2008 Games
Over the last year or two whilst I was wandering ceaselessly, attempting to wait patiently for Conan to release, I tried my hand at many free to play Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games. A lot of the games I didn’t like, but surprisingly, a lot of them I did!
These games generally originate in countries where English isn’t their native language, resulting in some really interesting phrases, occasionally confusing instructions, and a small or steep learning curve.
Once you get past that, you can generally get a good sense of the game and start having fun. My personal opinion is that these games are more of a grind fest than anything you’ll have to pay for. Yes, in essenses, “aren’t they all?”, but Free to Play MMORPG’s don’t tend to hide it as well.
**Note: Most of these games have cash shops. IE: You send money to the game creators for a pet, an item, a “bonus pack” for extra xp or gear. I do not use these when I play, so my reviews and opinions are coming from the completely free side.**
If you’re looking for some free fun, I recommend trying these games:
Maple Story: Despite the fact that there will be a handful who cheat at this game (speed hacks, item hacks, so on and so forth) it’s kind of cute. It’s a side scroller reminescent of the good old ancient days of games. Back when we had to go barefoot, up a hill, three times, just to buy a game–in the snow–and it’s terribly cute. (Cute is a theme that will be common here. Prepare yourself.) I played Maple Story for about a month or so and had a pretty decent time while I was there. The issue of course, was that I didn’t know anyone, most of the users seemed pretty young and had some confusion as to how not to mix numbers with their letters. I recommend this one because of it’s side-scroller niftiness just to try out.
Trickster Online: This is the first free MMORPG that I got into thanks to and his pictures of unbelievably cute characters, hats, and beautiful Engrish. Trickster online appeared to be relatively easy to figure out once I read a little bit on it via cluttered forums and played a bit. It is undeniably cute and may send you into a sugar coma–which is kinda what I like about these games, anyway! I played about a month by myself and was amused by most of the quests and chat. If you’re into bright, happy little games with kitton-hats and foxy-fox chicks, I’d recommend trying this one out.
Dreams of Mirror Online (DOMO): Dreams of Mirror Online is another game which reminds me heavily of Okami in it’s use of strong, black outlines for characters and it’s world. DOMO online caught me however for it’s bright colors, exceptionally cute characters and well presented world.
When I downloaded the game and started playing it, several other features within it began to make it stand out a little better than other free-to-play MMO’s, such as the fact DOMO Online wants to be a game that zeros in and focuses on the social aspect of gaming, instead of just soloing and grinding all the time.
You can create relationships with other players. Obviously, there is the romantic kind, but there are friendships and pledges, groups and families which the game rewards you for creating and keeping. Characters with certain relationships are granted buffs, bonuses and specials they can use depending on the relationship they have. The game uses “Fate,” an interesting quirk which brings you Destined Enemies, Destined Relative and Destined Love as well. It’s an interesting take and despite a few hiccups in the translation and learning curve department, it’s not a bad little game for a freebie. You can tell that a lot of time and effort when into some aspects of it.
And it’s cute. Did I mention that yet?
9Dragons: Acclaim’s free to play Kung-Fu martial arts PVE & PVP MMORPG game. This one, I admit, I have played off an on for the last year. My playing stints are generally no more than a week or two, or a month, but I enjoyed playing it.
I think I enjoyed playing it specifically just for the Kung-fu and martial arts alone and the look of the game. It’s a grind fest (of course) the players are often gooberheads that you don’t generally want to associate with, but I struck out and got lucky with a decent guild of adults (while I played) and came away with a favorable attitude.
The only issue that I had/have with this game is that the website is not designed with anything but IE users in mind.
Requiem: Bloodymare: One of the single most bloody free-to-play games I’ve gotten my hands on yet, Requiem is different in the fact that, if you’re bored with cutesy free games–this game will help. Twisted, grotesque monsters to fight which twitch, flail, scream and bleed, and bleed A LOT, when you kill them. At night time during a two-hour slot, the world turns into a “nightmare,” which special, more difficult monsters appear. There’s a definite lack of anything that will make you squeal like you do at kittens.
The over all design and look of the game is dark, gritty, and dirty. Someone made mention that it looks a lot like, or reminds them of Lineage II character wise. I played it for a bit and I also came away with the impression that, while you can solo through most of it, there will be certain group dungeons and instances that drop decent loot you’ll want to…well…group up for.
I was entertained by the twitching, flailing, bleeding and guts for a little while. If you aren’t into the saccharine happy sweetness good time fun of most Free to plays, give this a try.
Archlord: Archlord started off as a pay-to-play MMORPG, actually. I don’t know the full story, whether the company fell through or the developers all exploded in a horrible cake accident, but it’s free-to-play now. What caught me about Archlord was not the fact that it had an excellent PVP system, and that you could still choose to PVE if you wanted–but that it rewarded the single most best PVP player by making him or her Archlord over the entire server.
Specifically, the Archlord could control things like whether it was night or day, the weather, and a host of other really neat things. The idea was pretty cool.
The graphics weren’t too bad and I enjoyed playing it while it held my interest. Again, (as with most of these games) the grind fest got to me and I haven’t been back.
Perfect World: While the website seems eerily familiar to World of Warcraft Players, the world itself isn’t exactly alike. Perfect World is kind of impressive in a very cheesy way: they’ve their own theme song which you can hear after you install the game during character creation or log-in.
What made this game stand out for me is the possibility for character customization. So many free games give you, on average, four different faces, four hair colors, four body types and that’s it. Perfect World’s character creation (on the female end, sorry boys. I play chicks.) had a plethora of sliders, color choosers, size sliders and other things to fine tweak a character to your liking. That really stood out to me.
I have an account and I admit that out of the six months I’ve had the game installed, I’ve played maybe a week, but what I have seen and what I have played so far, I’ve really enjoyed.
Games I’ve recently tried but sucked so hard I didn’t make it past install and first hour:
Mabinogi Online: Months of waiting for them to open the game up to “Oceanic” people, just to find out that I am still in a “Service Denied” area. I guess they don’t want people from Florida US playing? I was really looking forward to this free game, as it touted as many support crafting classes (things like the ability to sheer sheep, spin thread and make custom clothing) but..Well. I CAN’T PLAY IT.
Zu Online (Beta): This is in beta and it shows. While it has a strong resemblance and nod toward the Okami feel with broad black lines and cartoonish characters, it looked really good. An hour into the game with poorly translated english and “help” prompts that made no sense what-so-ever, I left. Way, way, way too confusing for me to get.
2Moons: 
I can’t get those 30 minutes and one hour of attempting to play back. EVER.
First impression of this game was standing in the main city after leveling up for the first bit and have nothing but scroll after scroll after scroll after scroll after scroll after scroll after scroll AFTER SCROLL of gold seller spam. In a free to play game. :/ After further inquiry, apparently all the main cities are like such, and it’s so bad that NO ONE can talk in any of the cities.
I know that gold seller spam and farmers (unfortunately) are part and parcel of most games these days, but that’s just the most ridiculous case I’ve ever seen. And the fact that game masters or volunteers don’t do anything about it sort of tells me the general jist of how they feel about their game. They don’t care.
At LEAST Maple Story and the other games will try and ban people cheating or openly selling gold, 2Moons people don’t seem to even care. It’s surprising to me that it’s a game made by the same people who made 9Dragons, which I actually liked!
Advantages:
- They’re free!
- No monthly fee!
- They’re generally not graphic intensive, so if you have a good computer with a few old parts or a semi-old computer that you are waiting to upgrade/can’t afford to yet, you can usually run these games smooth as buttuh without going 23232323232 dollars into debt just to have them run.
- You can solo through almost all of it happily by yourself without worry of being told by someone to hurry up because you aren’t l33t enough or leveling fast enough.
- You don’t have to spend a single cent in any of the cash shops for items or xp boosts to play and enjoy the game
- Most aren’t PVP only, so you can choose to skip out on that if you wish.
Disadvantages:
- Kids. Mom and Dad didn’t want to pay for the WoW account, so they turned around and downloaded one of the free to play games.
- Spammers.
- Language Barrier. A lot of the people who play these games won’t all be speaking English, some of the actual GAME TEXT looks like it’s been translated into English by babble fish, a lot of internet short hand and text/1337 speak.
- Confusing instructions or none at all. Some of the games don’t have a terribly great help system for beginners and often times, you’re tossed into the middle of the world with a pat on the head and a “GOOD LUCK DON’T PRESS THE RED BUTTON BUT YOU WON’T KNOW THAT UNTIL LATER, WHEN YOU CURIOUSLY PRESS THE RED BUTTON.”
- People who spend money in the cashshops will always have the advantage over you. Cash shops sell unique gear (usually) that doesn’t drop anywhere else, experience boosts, special attacks, uber pets and more. This leaves the rest of us poo’ folk who may enjoy PVP at a great disadvantage. It’ll be extremely difficult to try and compete with these folks.
So there you go. I recommend installing and trying out the games that appeal to you, because the worst that could happen with a free-to-play game is that you don’t like it and you uninstall it 
Tags: Games
Mel’s Top Ten Ways to Seem like a Douche bag in any Game.
Apr 10, 2008 Geekery
Image via WikipediaHere are ten excellent ways to seem like a douche bag in any game, whether you’re playing an MMORPG or anything else that requires you to mingle with your fellow humans.
1.) You help further any of the many gamer stereo types.
I just want to take this moment to personally thank all the guys playing females, or females playing females who are standing about some town right now, stripping off all their gear and begging for gold plz. Thanks guys, you make me feel warm and tingly inside.
2.) You sign up for the two week trial just to dis the game and advertise for another one.
Listen, douche bag, you’ve just been granted two weeks of free play. If you don’t like the game don’t play it. Flopping about the beginner town and lamenting over how this game sucks compared to yours doesn’t convince people to “come to the light.” It won’t inspire a mass exodus from this game to yours; in fact, most people will take a five second note of your behavior and think, “Wow. They behave like this, here; I can’t imagine what it’s like there.”
You aren’t part of the awesome team. You aren’t raging against the pixels. You’re just a whiner with a two week free key.
3.) You utter the most god forsaken words ever known to man: WoW is better.
I don’t want to hear about how it brought an MMORPG to the masses, about how easy it is to play, or how blah blah blah best game evar blah blah fan boi blah fan gurrrrl.
The truth is, compare WoW on a simple graphical scale to any game released this year and dare to tell me that WoW is better. WoW isn’t better, it’s old. If I had money growing in my backyard, I’d bet you hard cash nearly half of the people playing WoW right now are doing so because they are bored out of their god damned minds and cannot wait for someone to release something into the market that doesn’t suck.
WoW’s like your first girlfriend or boyfriend. They were hot, they were smokin’–then as the years went by you slowly started to wonder why the hell you began dating them to begin with. You just can’t quit them yet, however, because they were your first—and they have all your C.D’s.
4.) Your main goal in your entire illustrious gaming career is to harass newbies.
It was cool to pick on the new kid when we were in elementary school and mom still packed our lunches for us. Come on, people.
Besides that, there’s always the slight chance of getting your ass handed back to you in the future by that same newb you just tea-bagged.
5.) You spend most of your time online bragging about your uber leet purple gear.
By all means, compare your gear. Ask questions about what class should be wearing what, and what’s the best gear to have. The quest for uber gear is pretty much a major part of MO’s or MMORPG’s these days, anyway.
If this is all you do, all the time, in the same bat-channel, same bat-time—I hope you choke on your cheetos.
I don’t care. Chances are, the guy next to you doesn’t really care what chest-plate you’re wearing or what stats your bracelet has or how many purplz trinkets your toon is wearing after hearing it for the tenth millionth time.
6.) You take that game way, way, too seriously.
If someone making a wise crack at the color of your paladin’s armor, or a side comment about the style of your avatar (or toon’s) hair and you wig the hell out at them, filling the general chat or ventrilo server with vitriol that could strip wall paper?
Maybe it’s time to take a nice, long, quiet break from gaming for a bit, hmm? Did you know about the Realm of Outside, buddy? I hear it’s got a lot of quests, like Find A Job, Pay The Bills, Interact with Fellow Humans and even Date Somebody.
The last one is an Epic Quest, though. You’ll need to grind the Find A Job quest first.
7.) You use Bots.
This is the ultimate douche baggery. If you can’t invest the time to play the game, why have it in the first place? What’s the point? You aren’t even playing it, you’re running programs to play it for you.
If you’re one of those bots, standing in the main town and spamming the chat for cheap gold/credits and rare loot, there’s a special place reserved for you in gaming hell. I hear its E.T. for the Atari 2600 alllll the time down there.
8.) When you use voice chat programs, “Push to Talk,” and “Turn the mic off when you’re away from keyboard,” are foreign concepts to you. Also, you think it’s really cool to share your favorite song.
There’s nothing more relaxing then the sound of some toon’s mount clopping away at ten thousand decibels in my ears. The sweet harmonious siren’s call of swords clashing or guns firing at a noise level which makes my ear drums bleed. It is just lovely.
The best. ever. sounds however, are the tinny little strains of your favorite current song played from your computer desk mic. You know, the music that sounds like it’s being delivered out of the puckering end of a very angry weasel. You have to share it with everyone!
No. No you don’t have to share it with everyone. No one wants to hear your death metal, your gansta rap, your country, your dance nor any other genre of your music. We’re in the channel to shoot the shit or save ourselves some time in having to type while we play. Stuff it, DJ McNerdles and let’s get back to the quiet murmurs of geekery.
9.) You turn Guild chat/General chat/Vicinity Chat/Any Chat into your very own episode of Jerry Springer.
“OMG, Becky. You stay away from mah man! Stop sending him whispers!”
Suddenly, guild chat is a flurry of drama llamas bleating, accusations of cyber, ganking and douche baggery abounds.
Public chat is not for your airing of dirty laundry. All you’re doing is making yourself look like an ass and giving me five minutes of entertainment from killing these ten vorpal bunnies I need in order to get that necklace I wanted. Funny, in a very sad-car-crash-sort of way.
10.) Keep real life the hell out of my game.
I’m playing a game. I’m playing this game to get away from everyday life and have an hour or few to myself and relax. I’m playing this game because I’m getting away from real life—so why the hell are you filling my chat screen, or yammering my ear off in vent about your kids and bills?
I don’t care and I don’t want to see it. I don’t care what your daughter did this weekend, what trophy your son won, how lonely you are, whether or not your girlfriend is cheating on you…I just want to play and have fun, don’t you?
Now it’s your turn. I challenge you to share with me your tales of the Ultimate Douche Baggery! What would you have added to the list?
