Category: Gaming

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EDIT: This post is now very much out-of-date (see comments).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!

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.

60 gig XBox 360 hits the streets

Posted on by Nimgimli

So according to a post at Engadget, the new 60 gig XBox 360 is hitting the streets, or more specifically, some Target stores. So far, no word on whether these units use the new (and presumably more reliable) “Jasper” motherboard.

I’m still trying to decide if I’m willing to give Microsoft another $350 in order to enjoy my XBox 360 games (once “Jasper” is confirmed to be in the pipeline). When I start to add up what I’ve spent already: the cost of the console, a $100 repair charge, a few years of XBox Live, Play & Charge kits… it might just add up to more than the $750 I spent on my 3DO all those years ago! Adding another $350 at this point definitely would push it way over that mark.

Worth it for the 360 exclusive titles? Tough call…

I might owe Harmonix an apology

Posted on by Nimgimli

A couple of weeks back I wrote a rant against Harmonix (Harmonix can kiss my behind) after I learned that Rock Band 2 was going to be a timed exclusive for the XBox 360 (and I happened to get it for the PS3 due to my love/hate relationship with the 360).

Well after doing some snooping around, I now get the feeling that Microsoft is just doing a spin job on this timed exclusive stuff. I think Harmonix is just taking a little bit longer to finish the PS3 version, which is a totally different thing from accepting a boatload of money from Microsoft in order to shaft PS3 owners.

I have a few reasons for this change of heart. First, if you look at release dates on Gamestop and Amazon (and I know these aren’t always, or even often, reliable), they have the XBox 360 version, game only, with a launch date of September 14th and the bundles (ie with instruments) for both PS3 & XBox360, as well as the PS3 game only, listed for October 19th.

Second, Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb was on Leo Laporte’s “This Week in Tech” podcast talking about E3. During the conversation Hryb mentioned that Rock Band 2 was a limited time XBox 360 Exclusive and when Laporte asked him how long it was exclusive for, Hryb claimed he didn’t know.

So first of all, if Microsoft had purchased a “Timed Exclusive” window from Harmonix, I suspect Hryb would know exactly how long that exclusive was for (though I’ll grant you he might not have wanted to share that knowledge). Second, it seems almost silly to buy exclusivity for only a month (assuming the Amazon and Gamestop dates are accurate). And lastly, if it was a business deal you’d expect both the stand-alone game and the bundle to be exclusive, not just the game.

So now my suspicion is that Harmonix had the 360 version finished earlier and just figured they might as well ship it asap rather than wait for the instruments and the PS3 version to be completed. And when Microsoft learned about this, they started using it as a “timed exclusive” marketing point, with no money changing hands.

Wars and games and wargames

Posted on by Nimgimli

I’m often accused of being thin-skinned or overly sensitive about certain topics, and gaming past wars is definitely one of them.

So I have to give a cheer to Ross Arbour’s article over at Nukoda:
Wii Aren’t Amused: Call of Duty World at War and Nintendo’s E3 Press Conference

Mr. Arbour takes exception to that portion of the Nintendo press conference where two friends were shown gleefully waggling their remotes to simulate hosing down Japanese soldiers with a flamethrower. I remember seeing that segment and having a definite “WTF?” moment. I thank Mr. Arbour for reminding me of it and bringing broader attention to the topic.