Trolls Get Shafted

World of Warcraft and Blizzard must truly despise Trolls. It is bad enough Trolls, my race of choice, has arguably had the worst set of racial abilities in the game but now Trolls get slapped in the face by Hallow's End masks that do not fit.

It is painfully obvious that the masks don't work on Troll models. Would it have killed Blizzard to make sure the masks displayed properly on all races? Seriously!?

Update: 14 Oct, 2007 - Edited post and corrected labels.

Final Fantasy III coming to Nintendo DS

Nintendo DS is finally getting a Final Fantasy title! It is a remake of Final Fantasy 3 which was never released in the US. The game is coming with an upgraded graphics engine which looks eerily similar to the Gamecube's only Final Fantasy title, Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles.

Gamersdaily has some great side by side screen shots from the original NES game and the new DS version.

Update: 14 Oct, 2007 - Edited post and corrected labels.

Banned from WoW forums...

Well the Azgalor narcs got me, but it was expected.

Blizzard banning for posting pictures lifted from magazines already in circulation!

Boy must be tough enforcing a policy when you give the damn pictures to official gaming magazines :) Guess I was a bit early... oh well.

Fake or Real? World of Warcraft Expansion Screenshots!

The World of Warcraft rumor mill is running full steam today as leaked pictures have hit the net. Blood Elves will be the Horde's new playable race.

Link Removed

My Thoughts

Blah. If its true, it wouldn't surprise me. It smells like Blizzard and you know what they say. Blood Elves would not make me, but should we really expect a surprise from Blizzard?

The last picture titled, "Portal at 'The Black Morass' (Orc world?)", has me quite curious!

Update: 8 Jul, 2007 - Edited post, removed broken links, and applied labels.

So...

My MO4 article has been posted accross the world wide web to many different sites. It seems some faithful Vanguard:SoH fans read the /. blurb and cross linked the article into the Vanguard official forums. Here is the link.

It was only a matter of time before it happened and I'm glad it did. It actually turns out to be a better discussion on the subject than most, if not all, the other floating turds that I've found on the net regarding my article.

Here is my reply to most of the points discussed.

"I bite... you've made me come here, register, and post. I want to start out by saying "You are not the list of beta tests you've been in." more or less to quote a great movie.

I see a lot of misconceptions about me in this article. I don't care about Vanguard... I care about MMORPGs. Vanguard is one, but I am not interested in playing it. If you think I am love with WoW... well I've criticized them plenty.

WoW simply reminded me of why I play games... to have fun. Almost as much fun as playing games... is sharing my opinion about them, their processes, and the communites surrounding them. Sue me... I'm a net and gaming junkie and I'm here to have fun.

Now onto the replies here. It is my firm belief that (regardless if its just community managers doing the sorting of beta applications) that small beta test phases are best done by profesional software and game testing companies. They work in the single player market and have proven for years to be effective in the gaming and software industry. The whole process of phone interviews and the like just grabbed me as way too much of a fake facade trying to show they are *testing* their game.

I give them props for going to the community first and foremost, but that needs to be left to the later stages of beta where the game is more nailed down.

Then you move onto stress testing with your general audience using it for free marketing of the game. Right now... these early beta alpha whatevers are marketing ploys and hence where I am coming from."

Updates for 18 Oct 2005

The first update is that I reached Honor Rank 7 (Blood Guard) in World of Warcraft on my Shaman. I had 63,000 contribution points last week! That means new gear: [Blood Guard's Mail Walkers] & [Blood Guard's Mail Grips].

Also, my article on Overcomplicated Beta sign ups has been picked up by Slashdot! Great to always see my word getting out.

Welcome /. readers!

Update: 14 Oct, 2007 - Edited post and corrected labels.

My BF2 morning!

Update: 7 October, 2009 - Removed post. It was only a picture of a winning score from a round of Battlefield 2.

Required reading... "Betas should be about testing"

Darniaq has a great blog post up about how beta testing needs to be about testing and how the industry has strayed. From the article;

"However, this can't be the only part of the beta testing. There needs to be a good back end reporting system too. Forums do not cut it. They may work for a few hundred testers, of which maybe 75% of them would read the forums and 50% actually post. However, when the game starts stress testing the servers, the players will generate much more noise than actual signal on the forums. Most of this noise will be rehashing long standing bugs or incomplete features, requiring even other testers to skim posts so much they may miss something relevant."

Update: 10 Nov, 2006 - Edited post and applied labels.

Now I'm an eBay gold seller...

Update: 5 Nov, 2006 - Removed post, but this will be kept as a placeholder for historical value.

This post contained a picture of a conversation where someone in World of Warcraft accused me of being an eBay Gold Seller.

MO4 discussion links and other updates

Update: 9 May, 2009 - Removed post. This will be kept as a placeholder for historical value.

Originally, this post contained links to various reactions to my MO4 article.