What so great about Warhammer again? RVR... huh what?

Soo this is not to rail against WoW or warhammer or ne thing like that but to get people thinking about marketing. Yes, marketing. Blizzard has it in spades, so does microsoft(Bungie) and so does Disney/pixar. Warhammer, ..so far, has not really been marketed to me well except by my excellent blogging friends at Keen and Graev and the greenskin and Waaagh. Putting them aside, hard as that is, let us consider a few things:

The average Joe (me) has been playing wow and maybe lotro for a while and along comes this warhammer game. Big whoop. Alright so my wow friends are excited about it. All of them are. But they don't bother to explain to me whats so great about it. Or they use acronyms like I'm supposed to know what they mean to convey what's special about it. RVR? Ok they explain to me it means Realm versus Realm. The wrong picture is still in my head though. I have personally been happily playing my own little game and haven't heard hide nor hair about this new game except through word of mouth. No tv commercials, no commercials that make sense on gamespot or ign or whatever.

Ok so lets pretend I am looking at buying the game, maybe a few months after it comes out because no-one in their right mind plays a game right when it comes out unless they are in such a frothing rage about it that they are willing to put up with bugs and stuff. Wow had bugs at launch, so did lotro, and I waited half a year before playing wow, although I did take a look at it on launch week through my cousins eyes. and lotro I didn't really play until they had patched the bugs and filled it out a little. Why am I bringing all this up?

Cuz I have a point. My case is not that unusual. Most people need to be convinced that something is worth buyin', especially if its in any way similar to what you've already experienced. If they were to tell me that warhammer has something like world pvp only it works and is fun that makes more sense than spouting rvr, rvr all the time. But I am a special case there. I know what "world pvp" means. Lets pretend I don't. Lets pretend I have never played an MMO. I would love WAR but I am cautious about getting into this MMO thing and I don't know why I might love this game more than any other one. Try to sell it to me. Cuz EA/Mythic sure isn't.

More pics, I couldnt resist!

Gwahahahahah!!!

Now Playing Lord of the Rings

Okay, so after just about everyone I know stopped playing World of Warcraft for the time being, I started wishing I had someone to play with more often. My solution was to also stop WoW, so Thallian and I actually played Lord of the Rings Online together Tuesday night.

Looks like I'll be keeping up with LOTRO, probably until Wrath of the Lich King comes out.

I'm playing a Minstrel, which is the most hilarious MMO experience ever...
I kill things with bad chords on my mandolin and with my fierce overbearing voice...

It's the superpower I always dreamed of.

My character is "Antton" on Windfola server, Thallian is "Thallian."

Game update

This is a mockup of a space on a grid for the Game Thallian and I want to make. I created a few textures finally, and we're planning a simple system for creating maps. We'll be able to use text files to define the type of space, what's on top of it, and how tall it is. We'll use this system to build maps, and we'll have a tactical battle system, with story elements. The characters will be 2D drawings, it's very much like one of my 4th favorite game of all time, Final Fantasy Tactics. Thallian's job right now is to get the grid working and the proper textures to apply. I'm finishing more textures and starting to design gameplay aspects and characters.

iPhone games, anyone?

A friend of mine told me about Apple's keynote address from yesterday... apparently the iPhone is going to have some new applications, one of which is a way to download video games to play on the iPhone... I don't have one, but my friend tells me this is a very big deal and there are very few games on it so far. But the quality of games is very good, not like ordinary celphone games... we're talking somewhere between the graphic quality of a Nintendo DS and a Sony PSP!

This tells about the keynote address by Steve Jobs:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal_tech/iphone/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=208403026

Here are some samples of games:
http://www.pangeasoft.net/index2.html

So I set up a poll to see what you all think... are these games worth your money?
Please cast a vote!

Music from Lotro (Free)

Patience from the forums just announced that they have released a turbine download manager and you can go here to download music from lotro for free :) Cheers (read Anton's new post below. Its good)

p.s. I especially recommend the rivendell + trollshaws soundtrack and a few of the boss battle musics.

Bought LostWinds.. Liked it :)

LostWinds is like being a little kid again and playing Super Mario Bros. for the first time on NES... intuitive and original, you command Toku, a small boy, and Enril, a wind spirit across a puzzling world, acquiring new wind powers along the way allowing you to reach new areas all the time.

It's also like Mario because you can beat it in an unbelievably short time... I spent 2 1/2 hours beating it, another hour getting the pointless 24 collectible totem poles, then half hour playing from the beginning again just for kicks... I've had my fill of it for now, but for 10 bucks, not so bad... I might be in the mood to play it through again like I used to play through Mario Bros. as a kid over and over again, and get really good at it... It's just that fun to run around and knock Toku around with blasts of wind, easily blown by waving the wii remote pointer.

That said, now that I realize how short this game actually is, I think I might have been happier downloading My Life as A King for 5$ more, and at least having something more to do after 3 days of owning it... Still, LostWinds is a great ride, and a very gorgeous game. It's an episodic title, so there will be several sequels, probably all just as short, but if that's the case, I think I don't need to spend ten more dollars to get another 2 1/2 hours of fun... Movie theaters are cheaper! Unless you get popcorn.

Big pics!

I may have figured out how to post big pics now :) Make sure to read the alt tags by mousing over. (That only works in IE for some reason)