Book News: Wheel of Time, A Dance With Dragons, and Crichton writes from the Grave

Boy has there been some big news in the book world lately.

First, the final chapter of the Wheel of Time has grown from one book into three. The final books of the series are being penned by Brandon Sanderson.

This morning Tor-Forge announced that A Memory of Light, the conclusion volume of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series, will begin publishing in November 2009. That’s the good news!

The bad news? A Memory of Light is going to be broken into three separate books released one year apart each, the first of which is titled The Gathering Storm.

I'm still on Book 4, The Shadow Rising, so this gives me a reason to procrastinate. I'll still catch up before the last book is published.

Secondly, George RR Martin has delayed A Dance With Dragons, book 5 in his Song of Ice and Fire series. The most important thing I can do in regards to the delays is have everyone read this: In Defense of George RR Martin.

This long article is about author George R. R. Martin and, more importantly, the misgivings and negativity some of his more vocal fans have concerning the lateness of his forthcoming book, A Dance With Dragons.

Trust me, it is worth the read. Personally, I can wait. The end product will be worth it.

Lastly, Michael Crichton, recently deceased, will have a couple novels published posthumously.

New York, NY (April 6, 2009) - HarperCollins is proud to announce the global publication of two posthumous Michael Crichton novels. The first, Pirate Latitudes, will be published on November 24, 2009; the second, as yet untitled, will be published in Fall 2010.

Crichton's Lost World was the first "real" book I read in my youth and I can not thank him enough for the road that reading has lead me down. Ironically, that is the only book of his that I have ever read.

This Is A Test Post

Tested submitting posts from e-mail.
Nothing to see here.
Move along.

W A R Stands 4

Waiting on Aion's Release

Sorry, couldn't help myself.
Anyways, Aion looks pretty cool.

Mythic Does Get It

Mythic does get it. Need proof? Read about WAR's upcoming Keep Upgrade System.

The real question is, why has it taken them so long to "get it"? They had these sort of features figured out with Dark Ages of Camelot years ago, but completely dropped them off the face of the earth for WAR. Sad, truly sad.

Dungeon Party Open Beta

Ahoy there! More free MMO gaming ahead!

Dungeon Party has gone into Open Beta.

1. Register here.
2. Download here.
3. Play.
4. ???
5. Profit!

Free games are flowing faster than I can write reviews (or maybe free games are finally to a point where they are fun to play for more than 10 minutes and therefore I don't have time to write reviews)!

The Path

Just a quick note, Eurogamer has their review of The Path posted.

Very few Indie games intrigue me, but The Path has intrigued me enough to spend $8 on it. Yes, it sounds that good IMHO.

This Title Has Nothing To Do With This Post

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning is introducing a token system.

The RvR Quartermasters are "Barter" merchants who will trade players special items and equipment in exchange for specific items earned in RvR. These Quartermasters offer players an alternative way of obtaining items in RvR such as the item sets normally obtained via Keep PQ bags. In addition the RvR Quartermasters will offer exclusive items and rewards not obtainable elsewhere.

Under System Goals, Mythic lists the following:

Help offset "Bad Luck", allowing players to obtain items they may not have gotten out of PQ's due to unlucky rolls.

Personally, I've never understood why MMOs shifted so far towards rewarding luck instead of rewarding investment and smart play.

Anyways, Mythic may just have a game worth returning to come the Tomb Kings content expansion.

Update: The title for this post was from an old draft. I have changed the title to reflect that it has nothing to do with this actual post.

Something That Every MMO Needs: The Aggregator

Runes of Magic has introduced The Aggregator.

Using this Aggregator item you can transfer statistics from items that belong to you to similar, new items.

You can e.g. transfer the stats of your new and better but not so-good-looking robe, to your trusty and well fitting robe immediately.

So you can still look cool and do not have to go without your beloved bonuses!

Are Blizzard and Mythic listening? They should be, because this is an absolute brilliant idea.

I'm still on the fence for micro-transactions in MMOs, but Runes of Magic and items like The Aggregator are slowly changing my opinion. This micro-transaction stuff can work with solid design principles behind it.

With that said, I'm still a bit bummed that the PvP server for RoM requires a massive cash investment to be competitive on. So, kudos for The Aggregator RoM, but -50 DKP for the PvP server (which is in really bad shape).

One More Hour

One more hour and I can start using the Internet again. No, your April Fools jokes are not funny.

@Anon

On my "WAR, what is it good 4?" post, Anonymous asked:

I just started playing the game and I would be curious what fundamental game designs you think it lacks?

Upfront, the performance was my dead horse to beat for the majority of my time in WAR. I have a good PC, a solid connection, and the end game zerg Realm vs. Realm was nigh unplayable. It did get better and last I played, lag and choppiness (outside of Fortresses and City Sieges) was fairly reasonable in most cases.

OK, that really isn't design related, but performance issues make a game's design difficult to evaluate. Here is a list of the fundamental design issues I found with WAR.

1. Another Mythic game with overpowered group crowd control (Rift, Electromagnet, AOE disables, and knockdowns) combined with overpowered AOE damage abilities. Sorry, I hated PBAOE groups in DAoC and I hated the AOE farm groups in WAR. Both were overpowered and both destroyed the fun of venturing out into RvR without 100 of my closest friends..

2. Open-world RvR zones were referred to as lakes, but were more like deserts. They were void of content outside of keeps and zerg RvR. The warcamps were too close together and there was no point to venture out alone. RvR zones should have been like every other zone in the game, but with the addition of keeps and battlefield objectives. Maybe we will see some of this out of the Tomb Kings patch.

3. City sieges needed to last longer and have a bigger impact. Instead they were short, laggy messes that benefited everyone equally. Honestly, players wanted their city to be taken so they could farm the defender Public Quests for fat loot. That is an absolute failure of Mythic's design.

That really sums up my problems with WAR. Three strikes and you're out and all that jazz.

Actually, the only item off my "list" to get fixed was scenario grinding.