He Loved Cheez Its

Our pet rabbit has passed away.

Let it be known that he loved his Cheez Its.

The Corollary to That

“The corollary to that is if you’ve seen a game consolidate servers, you know it’s in deep, deep trouble — that’s not a healthy sign for an MMO,” he said, citing Sony’s January-released “Pirates of the Burning Sea” as a recent example. “It will be the same for ‘Warhammer.’ Look at us six months out. Look at us six weeks out. If we’re not adding servers, we’re not doing well.”
- Mark Jacobs 8/29/08

Fast forward to today:

On Tuesday, March 10, we will be performing a final transfer of characters from several of the servers that have been, in the past, a source server (ie. we have offered transfers off of). Please read on for all the details, including a list of affected servers.

Failures do not become more epic than this. As Obama's presidential run was a lesson for all future presidential candidates, so will Mark Jacob's pre-launch WAR propaganda be for all future MMO developers.

Sadly, Mark is going to find out the hard way how right his original statement was.

No Such Thing as a Free Puppy: FREEEEEEDOM!!!

Ever heard that there is no such thing as a free puppy (NSTaaFP)? Sure, the puppy is free, but the food is not, veterinarian bills don't pay themselves, and that poop in the back yard isn't going to clean itself up. Nothing is ever free; there is always a price to pay.

With my real life churning at an incredible rate (baby on the way, new job, new rank in the military reserves, and a less than stellar economy), I am having to adjust my gaming habits. Gone are the days of shelling $30+ monthly for multiple MMO accounts and having dozens of hours to play weekly. Arrived are the days of 30 minute gaming sessions and better-things-to-spend-my-money-on-than-games.

Fear not, for I will NEVER give up online gaming. What I am giving up are overpriced, bloated, and value-depressed gaming habits. An MMO subscription may be a bargain, but that same $0.50 per hour of gameplay is a lot more valuable put into chewing gum most of the time. Plus, in the long run, a good non-subscription game is going to prove far more value-profitable for my time spent.

That is not to say that a good subscription-based MMO isn't worth the money, but the B-rate subscription MMOs with half-ass launches and lackluster gameplay are now off the table for me. I can get the same crappy gameplay from free games that force no commitment upon me. Hell, I may even warm up to the idea of micro-transaction games.

Also, this probably means any game costing $50+ better be damn good if it wants my money (and they better not require hardware upgrades). When I can buy games like Team Fortress 2 for $20 ($10 when its on sale!), game developers will never again convince me to spend $50 for a game if there is any chance the game will falter. However, I hold the right to waffle on that statement as I am susceptible to hype (bad Heartless_, bad).

I am damn well sure that I am not upgrading my hardware for any game. The beauty of most free to play games is that they shoot for wide audiences and run on practically anything. Fortunately, some "real game developers" are getting the clue. For example: Valve does a great job with their Half Life engines, which run well on most up to date PCs. Epic Games does not with their Unreal engines, and some four year old games are still impossible to run on your average gaming PC today.

Here is my short list of Free to Play games I am going to hit up:

1. Quake Live
2. Maple Story
3. Battlefield Heroes

Any more suggestions? Hit up the comments.

Mythic, are city sieges supposed to be fun?

I had the chance to participate in a couple city sieges over the last few days in Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning on the Badlands server. Destruction has been rampaging through the streets of Altdorf, Order's capital city, for two nights straight now. And, unfortunately this is true for what seems to be the majority of servers. Poor Order bastards, red-headed step faction of WAR.

My main question for Mythic: are these sieges supposed to be fun? Because, for me at least, they are about as much fun as pulling my finger nails out with pliers.

1. There are way too many people per instance. Lag, bullshit area-of-effect dominantion, and a don't-do-anything-but-follow-the-zerg-or-die mentality all add up to a giant pile of garbage.

2. There is no sensible direction to take within the siege. Sure, there are "objectives", but can players reasonably expect to complete objectives with 75 zergling wonders barreling down on them anytime they get a pop up telling them a control point flipped?

3. To reiterate part of point numero uno, CLASS BALANCE FUCKING SUCKS BETWEEN ORDER AND DESTRUCTION. Mythic, give Order the same I WIN AOE disables and disorients, or remove them from the game.

I'm stopping here. I could go on, but I won't. WAR is a joke and I almost thought I was beginning to like it.

PS. Order Badlands - Kick Destruction's ass! Its obvious why the majority of big-time guilds chose Destruction (EZ mode).

Darkfall Launches

It's the LOL heard around the world: Darkfall has gone LIVE!

On a side note: a new Star Wars: The Old Republic web comic!

FPS Gaming Goodness: Quake Live and Team Fortress 2 Scout Update

The Quake Live beta has started and I can be found getting fragged repeatedly as heartlessgamer. Just to note: there are queues to get logged into the beta website, so get in line now if you want to get your frag on!

Actually the queues have subsided to just a couple of minutes now, but last night they were swollen with tens of thousands of people trying to log on to the new service. Apart from being over-subscribed and the verification emails taking a while to turn up, the browser-launched Quake 3 is looking good. The front end system, with its rankings and insta-matching systems, appears remarkably solid and easy to navigate. Why not go and have a look? It’s completely free, after all.

Next on the schedule for FPS fans: Team Fortress 2 has released the Scout Update.

Baseball pre-season begins. And the Scout Update goes live. After the vote to see in which order the unlocks should be added, the order is announced. It’s Force-A-Nature first, then The Sandman, then finally the Bonk Energy Drink. You can read all the details of all the updates with this handy link.

Also to note: Team Fortress 2 is on sale for a mere $10 until this Friday. Get it while its hot. Oh, and apparently games work just like taxes, lower them and more revenue is made. Or I mean to say: lower game prices and more revenue is made.

The holiday sales lead to interesting numbers. A 10% reduction lead to 35% increase in amount of money which came in (i.e. Not just sales). 25% lead to a 245% increase. 50% lead to 320% increase. And 75% lead to 1470%. Which is an interesting one to interpret in a few ways.

A great one-two punch. A free, web-based FPS that plays great on almost any PC. And a game developer delivering digital downloads at a reasonable price making money hand over fist. Take that you stupid, overpaid fucking twats running 90% of the game development industry.

Full-time

Some 500,000+ people may have lost a job recently, but there are a lucky few out there that have gotten a job lately. I just happen to be one of those lucky few. I am moving from my contract position into a full-time position with my company. It is a great feeling. I beat out 35 other candidates, for a position that normally only sees a handful of applicants, and it eventually came down to a written skills test to determine the winner.

And as a nice reward, I may just finally get two monitors for my work PC!

Warhammer Official Forums are OPEN!

A lot of squigs died in the opening of these forums:

To log onto the official forum's beta simply go to http://forums.warhammeronline.com and sign in using your WAR product account name (the same one used to log into the game) and password. You will then be asked to create a user name and provide a valid email address. Please note, registration for the Official Forums Beta will not be open until the PTS is open.

What I Learned from Left 4 Dead

Best Left 4 Dead Comic Ever.

Left 4 Dead: Fixing Black Textures/Missing Textures/Video Problems

Recently, Left 4 Dead has gone dark on me. In my search for solutions, I stumbled across the following for nVidia card owners:

If you are using Riva Tuner, please follow these directions:

1. Launch Riva Tuner
2. Click the "Customize" button next to "ForceWare Detected".
3. Click the Direct3D/DirectDraw button
4. Set the "Surface Format Settings" to "for DirectX8- Applications"
5. Check the "Enable FOURCC DXT..DXT5 surfaces" box
6. Select "OK" and you will be prompted to restart your computer

For step-by-step with pictures and a guide for ATI video card owners, click here.