How many MMO's have you actually PLAYED?!

It's easy to get nearsighted when it comes to MMO's...It's often the kind of game you have to devote your gaming life to.

Since it's easy to get caught up in just one, it's nice to step back and try a few of the others now and then. Since I quit WoW after Christmas, I decided to try some new ones. I played Final Fantasy XI for 2 hours the other day, and I just downloaded Atlantica Online to give that a shot. I must say, Final Fantasy is pretty rough on beginners. I had a little graphical problem in Atlantica I'm trying to figure out, but other than that, the graphics are my favorite MMO graphics since WoW.

So thus far, these are MMO's I've tried out and my impressions of them:

World of Warcraft
Phenomenal game, beautiful to look at, addictive, and the solid fanbase assures that you'll have plenty of friends to spend the time with. Its popularity also ensures us that the game will continue to just get better and better, since the Lich King content shows that the game is only more fun than ever before.

Lord of the Rings Online
Plays like a WoW clone, with a few nifty additions. It does lack the diversity of races that WoW has, since main characters are limited to a single faction of Men, Elves, Dwarves, and Hobbits. The game looks amazing on a computer that's better than mine, but on anything not up to modern specs, it doesn't really match up to WoW.

FLYFF
Secret of the Solstice
Final Fantasy XI

I bunch these together because I think these three games have as much in common for starting players as WoW and Lord of the Rings had in common...All three of these games start you in a big city where it's easy to get lost, and each of them required me to run around for 30 minutes to 2 hours before discovering any real adventure. They all fall short of the other MMO's I've played in the graphics department. Secret of the Solstice had beautiful 2D art, which was interesting, though. The other thing I saw similar between these three was the first newbie fighting areas all seemed to be a big field with a bunch of the same 2 monsters bunched really close together. Grinding seemed to be a major focus. However, hard for me to be too harsh...I didn't give any of these much time, and they all seem to offer more to the players who devote themselves more, especially FFXI.

Atlantica Online
I'm just going to be getting into this, but I'll keep you posted. The battle system appears to be tactical based, which is a major difference. It also advertises itself to be a simulation game, where different towns actually pass hands to different guilds. Artwork is fantastic, and play is Free, you just buy Gold with 1$ to each 100Gold. That means as long as I don't mind being a flunky, I can play for free! Sweeeet.

A great anime I forgot

Here's a great anime I forgot to tell you about, Seirei No Moribito. Its about a lot of Japanese/Shinto stuff but more interestingly its a very well written story about a Spear woman who is trying to atone for her sins and finds a young prince who the state is trying to kill. Ensue thou drama.. :D Very worth watchign and has a great plot all the way through, though there are some slow episodes I warn you. (i.e. slow = no killing)

It was showing on veoh for a while I dunno if they removed it.

Deadly Creatures

If only I had ..more..(see money, time, energy, etc..)

Anyways this is a game I'd play if I had more of those things: Check it out!
It releases on Feb 9th for the Wii and has impressive graphics for the system.

Make sure to run one of the trailers. What could be cooler than playing a tarantula or a scorpion? WHY hasn't this been done before? Because everyone always does the same old things lately. Well at least someone is gonna do it now. :) Maybe it'll pave the way for a kewl transformers game later. Or maybe it'll just be road pizza. We shall see.

Little Big Puzzle Planet

I don't have Little Big Planet, but my friend at work was planning to build a custom level to post online, so he asked for some ideas. The basis was "Puzzles," since Little Big Planet levels are typically platformer-based concepts, he thought it would offer something a little more unique. For days I was offering ideas, and he built them.

I invite everyone who plays Little Big Planet to download the level my friend made (which I brainstormed the concepts for most of the puzzles for). His I.D. is CBW2005 and the level is called littlebigpuzzleplanet. It's probably one of the more unique levels you'll find online.

For those who don't know, Little Big Planet is a new release Playstation 3 title.

Anton's Weekly Sketch: The Haughty Hero

I made a list yesterday of the 7 games I really want to make some day...This guy's from number 3. Click the image to see full size.

Bringing Lowbies and High level characters together

I wanted to bring up a topic of discussion. One thing that's always bothered me is the inability to join up with friends in MMO's who are of different levels.

If a friend of mine is just starting, he's level 1, so I could just start a level 1 character with him. But then I don't get to use my level 75 character or whatever...

And what about friends you talk to who are level 20, and you're level 50? Or friends who level faster than you?

This discussion can be based on either what you do with friends who have drastically different levels in MMO's, OR you can tell me ideas of what you think a developer could do to the game design to encourage low and high level characters to play together, regardless of the gap in their skills.

Ideas?

PS--Sorry I'm behind on my Weekly sketch, I'll get something up soon.

Funny stuff and little to report

I HAVE been playing Lotro but as far as what to report I don't have much. I have continued to push the frontier a little, I'm exploring a frozen ghost ship for (vol)1.(book)13.(chap)6ish i.e. (1.13.6) and I find the last king of men to rule middle earth. Unfortunately he needs a special tome locked in a dungeon overflowing with Dourhands and the only way for my poor little minstrel to get in there since I cant handle two or three at once very well is to get some sucker, errr nice person to go with me. Well, nobody is usually feeling that generous but anyways, I explored Moria a little more and I'm glad its not a wide as it looked initially cuz you cant ride a mount in there except from preset travel destinations. Book 2.2.1~etc so far has been all about running around or little kill quests

On a funner note my little sister showed me these jewels on youtube. Check them out!

Animaniacs - Nations Of The World

Animaniacs - Presidents

Enjoy :)

Oh, and I watched Tales of Earthsea while I was sick and it was really well done. Good movie and first one done by Miyazaki's son Goro I believe that

World of Goo Soundtrack and demo for free

Go here to download the world of goo soundtrack. It's 84MB of fun music for free. Just thought I'd share the love. And if you haven't played the demo or the real game, do so. Better yet, just buy it and play it. It was the best rated wii game of 2008 lol and its not even a proper Wii game, but a wii-ware one.

Anton's Weekly Sketch: Character Classes

I didn't draw much on paper this week, but here's something from my notes awhile back on character classes for our planned Indie game. Click image to see full-size.

Anton's Weekly Sketch: Heroes and a Goblin Guy

*Click image to see full size*

Thallian's Guide to Getting yourself in Trouble (tm)

So this last week I got engagged to be marred. For the uninitiated, this is when the male part of the species goes up to female part of the species and says, will you be my darling baby bubby bunkaroo?


Allow me to give you my step by step guide. Only daring males should try this, and only after giving many free meals, free lip massages, and free conversation (whoever said talk was cheap has not seen my phone bills. I should get a cash advance!)

Step 1. Secure a girlfriend
Step 2. Secure a refined Adamantium (Carbon) Crystal from days of yore. Newly made ones will not do, neither will any form of Zirconium. Females are very picky about this sort of thing. If you are really smart, ask her mother in a third world country to bargain for one for you. She probably has a better grasp on her taste than you do anyways. Also craft the base out of refined Mithril when available, or white gold if you're cheap.
Step 3. Secure a venue, I asked her sister to scope one out for me.
Step 4. Secure yourself. No guts, no glory....and definitely no convincing display of undying devotion.
Step 5. Secure her... at the venue, with the ring, and never turn back on your decision ;)

My venue was an Antipolo hillside restaurant called Pati's Point overlooking the city of Manila in the Philippines at night with a gorgeous view of the milky way. (Your venue may vary. Results are not guaranteed.) She cried a little and we had a wonderful time. Try to avoid seeing dead bodies on the way home like we thought we saw, it kind of ruins the mood. In actuality they were just unconscious motorcyclists.

Our wedding day will be April 25th. I'm sure gonna be busy. :P
I'll still be blogging though, I love it and if any of you have any fun engagement stories please post them in the comments ;)

Off WoW, what's next?

I got frustrated with WoW because all my friends play so much more than me, they all hit 80 and I'm still 75.

So over Christmas break I cancelled my account...We'll see how long it lasts this time.

But the good news is, I should have lots more time to put together some personal projects. I'm hoping to get the ball rolling hard for our Indy games soon...First I have to wrap up one other side project, though.