Day: March 9, 2009

Blogger flockers

Posted on by Nimgimli

I find it interesting, and by that I mean sometimes fascinating, other times depressing, how MMO bloggers seem to travel in packs at times (and I’m pointing at myself just as much as at others). The past week or two, Runes of Magic seems to be the place to be. For a while it was Wizard101. Then of course it was the WAR -> WOW transition.

Why do we travel in packs like this? RoM isn’t news…it’s been in open beta since December. The WAR thing made sense; it was a brand new game and everyone was curious. Ditto those in Darkfall now. And the bunch of folks going into CoX to play together is different, too. That’s a bunch of friends looking for a game they all feel like playing.

I’m talking more about this hive-mind mentality that suddenly some MMO that’s been cooking along is the kewl place to be, even though the various bloggers playing don’t seem to be actually playing together.

It’s just weird, and for some reason tonight, it really kind of bugs me. I guess because I don’t understand it..it’s a mystery I can’t unravel. Why Runes of Magic, now? The game’s been in open beta since December and no one deemed it worthy of a second glance until the last couple of weeks. Now suddenly its The New Thing. Why? What changed?

It baffles me. I hate stuff that baffles me… 🙂

Peggle mania

Posted on by Nimgimli

Peggle, the PopCap pseudo-pachinko casual addictive-as-heck hit, has been available on the PC for a good long while, but last week it came out on the Nintendo DS, and this week it hits XBox Live Arcade.

It’s an incredibly fun game and I urge everyone to give it a go, but is it a casual game, or is it hardcore?

Wired asks just this question in Getting Lucky: Hard-Core Gamers Penetrate Peggle’s Physics.

It’s an interesting read for both Peggle enthusiasts and armchair (or for-reals) game designers. Quick quote to get you warmed up:

For a casual gamer, Peggle seems too heavily based on luck. You aim the ball, but once you’ve dropped it and it hits the first peg, all bets are off: It bounces and careens through the forest of pegs in crazy, zigzagging patterns. For casual players, there doesn’t seem to be a clear enough correlation between how they aim and the results.

But hard-core gamers see the game quite differently. When they look at the Peggle board, they see the Euclidean geometry that governs how the ball falls and pings around.