Month: August 2008

Welcome to beta, Collector’s Edition pre-orderers

Posted on by Nimgimli

So I gather that folks who pre-ordered the Collector’s Edition of Warhammer Online have been invited to closed beta. Now they’re scrambling to download the client.

I first typed “There is a Warhammer Online Beta and I am in it.” back in February. I’ve definitely struggled with “beta fatigue” once I realized that this was a game I really wanted to play after release. Now that we’re closing in on launch I’m getting seriously pumped again!

It’ll be great to have a fresh wave of enthusiastic testers hitting the servers. I *really* hope they (and I!) don’t have to download a whole new client for Open Beta though!

Anyway just wanted to shout out a “Welcome to the fun!” to the new testers. I hope you’re as pleased as I’ve been!

Massive Gamer…WTF? (UPDATED)

Posted on by Nimgimli

EDIT: This post is now very much out-of-date (see comments). The folks at Massive Gamer have done a great job of bringing their site up to snuff.

So I’ve been seeing mention of this new magazine “Massive Gamer.” I’m an MMO fanboy and all that, so I figured I’d best check this out. You can too: Massive Gamer. Check it out and come back. I’ll wait.

So tell me, were you moved to subscribe? No? What’s the matter with you? Isn’t a shot of the AoC babe enough to get you to fork out $25!?

Sorry, I’m really trying to bite back my sarcasm for the sake of the writers of the magazine, but c’mon Massive Gamer, get a f-ing clue! You’ve got to give potential subscribers a taste before they’re going to buy (and a table of contents, hidden behind the Press Release link, doesn’t count).

If you think your content is so incredibly valuable (y’know, more valuable than the content of every other magazine and newspaper with a web presence, all of whom post at least some articles online) that you can’t afford to give away an article or two, at least offer the option to buy a sample issue for $5 or whatever.

And for the love of all that is holy, hire a web designer. What’s up with those rapidly scrolling images at the top of the page? Is that just to see how annoying you can be? Why isn’t there an “About” link or a “Contact Us” link on the home page. On the subscription page, how about some basic facts, like, oh, how many issues in a year’s subscription? Is it monthly? Bi-monthly? Semi-annual? How about an indication that your secure certificate is with a reputable company (it’s a GoDaddy Cert, btw) for less savvy web users who don’t know how to check a certificate.

Throw me a bone here. Convince me you’re something other than a fly-by-night company that’s going to put out 2 issues and then fold, taking my money with you.

I’m ranting because it’s just tragic. What I’m asking for costs nothing. It just requires a modicum of caring about the customer experience. When the magazine fails, the publisher will blame the economy or the fact that print is dying, and he’ll convince others that there’s no hope for a print mag dedicated to MMO gaming.

And that would be a shame, because I think such a publication could succeed, given half a chance. But the Publisher of Massive Gamer isn’t giving his fledgling magazine even a tenth of a chance.

Post count = Epic Phail

Posted on by Nimgimli

Are you ready for the litany of excuses for why I haven’t been posting? Here goes. First, the Casualties of War forums have been going crazy and I’ve been trying my best to keep up with it and get to know some of the folks I’ll be waging WAR with (ancillary excuse: through those forums I’ve found out about bunches of great WAR blogs that I now must read). Plus I’ve been trying to be an *active* Warhammer Online beta-tester again. Plus I joined a guild in LOTRO and have been playing that more than I probably have since launch. Plus there’s that work thing that’s been slopping over into my off hours.

Anyway it isn’t just here. I haven’t been Plurking or Tweeting and I’m way behind on my news feeds. I need a vacation to catch up on my leisure time!

Hopefully the Warhammer NDA will drop this week. I’m thinking about the game an awful lot but I’m really hesitant to post about it and accidentally reveal something that breaks the NDA. Been thinking a lot about what class to play (first, I’m an alt-aholic for sure) and was leaning towards White Lion but now not as much, but I don’t feel like I can say *why* I’m changing my mind without breaking NDA.

Thank goodness Mythic is going the “x characters per account” route that Age of Conan did. From everything I’ve read, we can have a full roster on every server if we want to, as long as we don’t mix Destruction and Order on any single server. That means lots of alts and experimental characters, which is half the fun of MMOs for me.

Open Beta ought to start next week some time and I’m sure NDA will lifted by then. Thanks for not removing me from your RSS feeds. The posts should pick up in frequency soon!

Use your PS2 to stream media to the living room

Posted on by Nimgimli

The Industry Standard brings us an article about QTV:

QTV by BroadQ uses a $30 piece of software to repurpose a PS2 as a digital media set-top for a TV or home theater. All users have to do is pop the DVD into their PS2, turn it on, and they are ready to either stream local network content or Internet shows like Revision3’s Digg Reel without leaving their sofas.

Brilliant idea. I’m going to be on the lookout for a copy of this software, and in the meanwhile I’ll dig out and dust off my old PS2.

WAR is coming

Posted on by Nimgimli

I was going to write a big long rant about blog comment wars and how psychotic some people get (not meaning anyone here, mind you) but then I thought maybe that wasn’t a very productive topic. I’m never going to change the minds of haters (who can’t even manage to get my name right) and the internet is a big place, so best to just walk away and let Karma deal with them.

Heh, ok, now I’m REALLY going to let it go.

So Warhammer Online. I haven’t talked about it much, but since my love affair with Age of Conan crumbled, its been my rock. If WAR let’s me down, I’m not sure what my next handhold in the swirling vortex of the MMO-verse will be. I’ve been in the beta for a few months now, and with the NDA in place I haven’t wanted to talk about it for fear of giving away something I’m not supposed to. And honestly I’ve been a crappy beta tester, ironically, because I enjoy the game so damned much that I don’t want to ‘spoil’ it for myself before launch. So I’ve been testing pretty lightly, trying to skip over ‘lore’ stuff and just test game systems.

Anyway…today the news is reaching a fever pitch, which is good because the community has been faltering a bit in the wake of some classes and content being pulled for launch and some other unpopular decisions on the part of Mythic & EA. But today, as JoBildo pointed out, we got a date for when Open Beta can be downloaded (Aug 15th). Presumably the beta itself will open shortly thereafter.

Bigger still, the War Herald announced a US launch date for the servers, Sept. 18th. Considering games usually ship on Tuesdays, and the 18th is a Thursday, I wonder how this will work. Will the game ship on Wedneday, to arrive on Thursday? Or will it ship on Tuesday, causing much confusion to those who get it on Wednesday and can’t log in. No matter, just pre-order and get early access.

Lastly, pricing, which is pretty standard:

* Monthly Subscription: $14.99 USD
* 3-Month Subscription: $41.97 ($13.99 per month)
* 6-Month Subscription: $77.94 ($12.99 per month)

Oh, and the guild JoBildo mentioned now has a name and a website: Casualties of WAR. The guild is open to bloggers and friends of bloggers. So far it seems like a great bunch of people in there.

Nintendo Customer Support FTW!

Posted on by Nimgimli

Somewhere around July 23rd, our Wii Fit Balance Board started acting wonky, giving crazy readings and drawing straight diagonal ‘COB traces’. I futzed with it for a couple of days, but on Friday, July 25th we called Nintendo to request service.

Later that day we were emailed a pre-paid FedEx Ground shipping label. On Saturday we packed up the Balance Board and on Monday, July 28th I dropped it off at a Kinko’s FedEx Center. It arrived on July 29th (a bit of luck there, we’re in MA and the repair center is in NY so it didn’t have far to travel). By July 30th there was a notice in the Repair System that they would replace the board but it was currently back-ordered.

In spite of this, a new board was shipped via UPS Blue (2nd day air) on July 31st, a Thursday. Today, Monday, August 4th, the new board arrived. It works perfectly. And cost us nothing beyond some packing tape (we sent it back in the original WiiFit box, wrapping it in flattened out brown-paper shopping bags).

I’ve been “fortunate” enough to have to pay to have both an XBox 360 and a PS3 repaired. It took Microsoft almost 5 weeks to turn around the XBox ($100) repair, and it took Sony 3 weeks to turn around the ($150) PS3 repair. And in neither case was anything repaired…the old unit was just swapped out for a refurb.

So I have to rate Nintendo as easily the best of the ‘big three’ when it comes to Customer Service. The exchange was handled swiftly and with no hassles whatsoever.

And we’ve got our little friend back. Oh, how we’ve missed our Balance Board Buddy!

Portal Sickness

Posted on by Nimgimli

So I’m probably the last gamer on earth to get around to playing Portal, which I did this weekend.

I’m prone to getting motion sickness while playing FPS and Portal does some really mind-bending things to you where ceilings become floors become walls. I was turning green really quickly. Which was really frustrating because, like everyone else, I was really grooving on the gameplay and on GLaDOS.

Then I had an idea and it worked, so I figured I’d share. Rather than play full screen, reduce the resolution a bit and play in a window. For me at least, that broke the ‘immersion’ enough that my eyes and inner ears got back in sync and my stomach was a LOT happier. It allowed me to finish the game pretty comfortably.

And the rat pellet of GLaDOS singing Jonathon Coulton’s Still Alive totally rocked.

I won’t even bother to ‘review’ the game because a zillion people have reviewed it, a zillion people have loved it, and I loved it too. Don’t have a lot to add, really. If you haven’t played it then I encourage you to do so. You can buy it off Steam for $20 direct download, or of course it comes in Valve’s “Orange Box” which is available for PC, XBox 360 & PS3.

Eureka!

Posted on by Nimgimli

I can’t in all honesty say that Eureka (Tuesday nights, Sci-Fi Channel) is a great show. But it’s just silly and geeky enough that I really enjoy it.

Running up to last Tuesday’s season opener, there was a campaign sponsored by Degree For Men, promoting Eureka via a bunch of crazy “new inventions” that might have been created by the denizens of the show. They were actually pretty amusing and had strong branding from both show and deodorant.

Now, in the past I’ve griped loudly about product placements in television shows. Smallville, for instance, is notorious for this, with some really cringe-worthy placements over the years. But a lot of shows do it. So when I was watching the first new Eureka of the new season, and the crew was walking through a room filled with boxes with “Degree for Men” labels plastered on the outside, I was drawing breath for a total, full-on rant about how horrible it was. And at that moment, main character Sheriff Carter pointed at the boxes and said “What’s all this?” and the new head of the research lab said brightly “Oh! It’s our first sponsor. It’s very exciting!!” and all the rant went out of me and I found myself laughing out loud. I mean, if you’re going to do a product placement, that seemed like the way to do it. It was funny, and broke the ‘4th wall’ enough to offer viewers a wink and a nod. Yeah, they know we hate this stuff, but they gotta pay the bills.

One other neat Eureka note. They had a banner advertising the Twitter account: http://www.twitter.com/_S_A_R_A_H_. What’s fun is that whomever is monitoring that account is answering in the personal of the show’s “Smart House” SARAH. Pretty funny stuff, and another nice nod to us geeks who enjoy the show.