I've Never met a Welsh Elf

There are certain dialects which are vastly overrepresented in fantasy RPGs. For the most part you’re looking to rural or upper-class English, Scottish (mainly a Glaswegian growl – think Billy Connolly in Brave) or generic Scandinavian (the population of Skyrim appears to hail from a conglomeration of Finland, Sweden, Netherlands, Norway, Denmark and very occasionally Scotland and Ireland). This has likely come about due to the typical dungeons and dragons, sword-n-board RPG setting taking significant influences from Medieval Britain (thanks J.R.R).

Unfortunately, the romanticised reproduction of this era seems to glaze over the always charming Geordie, Brummie and Scouse Accents – hailing from Newcastle, Birmingham and Liverpool respectively. When have you ever heard an Orc remark: “Why-aye pet, I’ll just git me bastid sword an we’ll be oota here!”? Never, that’s when (with the exception of the Fable series).

Admittedly, Tolkien can’t really be blamed for the accents included in the movie adaptations. As Bill Bailey puts it, after being rejected from the part of Gimli the Dwarf for being too “rural”, he never anticipated the entire inhabitants of the Shire to be so Cornish they sound “Like a bloody cider festival!”

[Aion] It's not you, it's me.

It’s a tried and tested cliché – the ex who won’t go away. They are usually the one who burrowed deep into your soul and every moment you spent in those first few weeks of the relationship was exciting and sent a thrill through your spine. Of course, it doesn’t take long before the honeymoon phase wears off and you’re left with the prospect of spending significant amount of time with someone who is boring, difficult and shallow.

You move on, find new and interesting ways to spend your time and forget the vacuous harpy which lingers in your past. Until they send that one email:

Oh you vile temptress! I’d just uninstalled you and now you come crawling back expecting to be welcomed onto my hardrive like the mid-level grind-fest never happened? What about the incredibly laggy fortress battles, huh?! You can’t tell me you’ve changed, I can see right through you. I won’t let you disappoint me again!

Oh, but you are very beautiful…

I draw the line at Panda

It’s a relatively arbitrary line which distinguishes what is “acceptable” and what is “unacceptable” in online games. If you reject the idea of playable intelligent pandas, why not reject the idea of playable intelligent wolves, cats, bears, goblins, plants or zombies? Why is the panda where the line is drawn?


Is it the markings? Racist! Could you live with playing as a beaver, but not a skunk? As a horse, but not a zebra? As a monkey, but not a lemur? Pfft... you make me sick.

Of course, I’m simplifying it for comic effect. In fact, WoW is a game I know little about and I’m only really using this whole panda- people debacle as a microcosm of the insane logic upon which MMOs are built.

Ps. This post is also built upon my long held assumption that the greyscale animals mentioned above are actually just olde-worlde versions of the other animals I stated. You know, before they invented colour television?

Guest Post @ Technected

Just a quick pop in to say that I've written a guest post for the lovely peeps over at Technected - go have a looksee:

The MMO Structure: Sandbox, Themepark and Zoo

Distilling March: A belated review

I know, I know - it's been 10 days since March ended! I can't help it, I've just started a new clinical study and the clinic hours are a bitch, so this is the first chance I've had to really sit down and whack out some hot spicy info onto my blog. So: March.

This month has been a big month in the Guild Wars 2 bandwagon. We've had PAX East, the Thief reveal, speculation over PvP, Mesmers, Attributes and the Sylvari. Also, there's been some juicy new gaming info outside of the Guild Wars bubble in which I live: From Dust came to my attention, whilst we also got some new nuggets of stuff on Alice: Madness Returns. 'citing stuff!

Most popular posts for March 2011 (and the first 10 days of April) were as follows:

1. The Sylvari Redesign: Taking a Leaf out of Guru's ...
2. Marble Hornets Entry #38
3. Top 5 Black Ops Commentators 
4. The Mesmer's "Hook" 
5. Norn Week: To the Mead Hall!

Considering it's only been out 5 days, the post on MH #38 has done well to shoot to the top of my monthly views - it's even at #4 in my all time viewed list (although, that isn't surprising, I've had significantly higher traffic this month - thanks everyone!!).  


Top 10 Search Terms for March 2011 (and bit of April blah blah) were:

1. Sylvari redesign
2. Best Black Ops commentators
3. marble hornets entry 38
4. marble hornets 38
5. Black ops commentators
6. top black ops commentators
7. guild wars 2 sylvari redesign
8. sonic 
9. edward yeo thomas
10. from dust

Lots of MH in there again, but my top Black Ops commentators is consistently one of my highest viewed posts... which is odd because it was so long ago (February!). This is the first month were my search terms haven't been dominated by people looking for naked pictures of Katy Perry.


In terms of gaming my time has been split up pretty similarly to before:


Guild Wars 49%
Black Ops 49%
Portal 1%
Fifa 10 1%

Played through Portal once, but I know the routes so well that I can usually get it done in under an hour. I also tried playing Fifa again after a looooooong time and it turns out that it's not like riding a bike and you can forget how to play it. In Guild Wars, I almost for Legendary Survivor and then lost it, but I have got a lot more money and bought a lot of stuff which I've been craving. Should get Survivor and Drunkard done this month, with any luck. Black Opswise I'm at about 8th prestige, been trying to only use a sniper this prestige and I am totally sick of it - can't wait to move back to assault rifles.

ARGwise it's been the month of Marble Hornets. We've had Entry #38, lots of speculation and the release of the Season 1 DvD and it's taken up a lot of my mental brain-time. I kinda backed out of a couple of games in which I was participating heavily - I really just haven't had the time or the energy to properly commit.


Interesting Blogs I've come across this month:


Gankalicious - amusing MMO banter.
Hatred - this guy hates a lot. But is funny in the meantime, so I shall forgive him. Plus he comments on my blog, so he's alright in my books.

This month (or whats left of it) I'll be taking a look at the new MH DvD, hopefully getting some new Guild Wars 2 information, and also hopefully not be being strangled by angry patients who are tired of me asking stupid questions during clinic.


Will, AWAY! SHWOOOSH!

Rift: To Play or not to Play

I'm on the edge of a precipice, or so it feels. It's the same feeling I get whenever I start a major new MMO. I felt it when I started Aion, when I dabbled in WoW and even a little bit when I tried DC Universe Online. If I commit myself, I spend the money on the game, pay for a month, spend 3 hours downloading and installing the stuff, 5 hours queueing to get into a server and then if it all falls flat - well, then I'd feel like a right plonka.

The blogosphere around which I orbit has been a'buzz with Rift information for the past few weeks and I can't help but feel like I'm missing out on something new and exciting. Unfortunately, for every good review I get, there is a bad one. Now, I'm a fairly level headed guy and I know that I should take most reviews with a pinch of salt, but when the evidence is so conflicting it's difficult for me to make up my own mind.

I was speaking with TashaDarke earlier today and she explained it thus:

Think the Guild Wars profession system (you get 3 which you can change at will) and Guild Wars 2′s dynamic events & grouping (has a few issues but that’s another blog post), with Aion’s looks and WoW-post-Cataclysm feel & crafting. Its not better than other MMOs, its just a less broken system than the others.

Tasha's assertion is supported by other reviews:

Generally speaking this game plays virtually identically to warcraft, even to things like the menu options to switch on extra bottom and right hand menu bars!

I tried the game because I dont like where warcraft has ended up, I prefer a more perenial immersive sandbox experience, rather than spoon fed button mashing repetition experience. But this game is so similar to wow its ridiculous. (Unfortunately all developers seem to be desperate to emulate warcraft and so are all of this ilk).


And so if you love warcraft, you will like this.... but erm hey warcraft has years of content under its belt so erm.... just play warcraft instead.

It's inevitable that most popular P2P MMOs (and MMOs in general) will be compared with the big Daddy of them all. WoW has taken the MMO genre to its highest level yet and many a game designer could learn a lot from the tomes in Blizzard's dusty halls. I also understand that a lot of the old school WoWers are looking to Rift to be a replacement to what they view to be a severely broken game. Consequently, if Rift is going to be trying to tap into the disillusioned WoW player demographic (a big one, I'm sure) then I'm confident that it will flourish at first - although I don't have much faith that it'll nab many real loyal fans.

I think my main concern about Rift is that it doesn't appear to be adding anything new to the MMO genre, and I'm not sure I should reward this cowardice with my playtime and my hard earned moolah. I'll probably give it a few months for the dust to settle and to find out what the players think about the game in it's entirety.

Age of Empires Online: Build Barracks - Infinite Huskarls

Playing Age of Empires is one of my very first PC gaming memories. Well, actually, watching my Dad play Age of Empires is one of my first PC gaming memories. Now Microsoft have unveiled their free to play MMORTSRPG version of the original series and I have to say, I'm having conflicting emotions.

One emotion is: HOLY CRAPOLA GET ME IN ON THAT.
AoE 2 (in particular) was a beautifully constructed and well weighted game, the campaigns were relatively long and in depth, and the skirmish mode was customisable to the extent that it never really got old. I reckon I could (and might, later tonight) go back and play this game and still thoroughly enjoy it. In fact, whilst at University (I was in a house with 3 other gamers) we would regularly sit down to be thoroughly smashed by our friend Sam who had an uncanny knack for strategy games. Now, mashing this treasured childhood memory with my current love for MMOs can only be a good thing - right?

Oh no, here comes the second emotion: the Postman Pat Effect.
Any self-respecting Brit will know of Postman Pat. A Welsh children's TV character created in the 80s, he was a mild mannered small town postman who got into all sorts of japes, always accompanied by his cat: Jess. It was typically British; reserved, laid back and low tech. Did you know that in the new series he is married? And has a HELICOPTER? Its morally wrong.
I'm worried MS will Pat-isize AoE. They'll mess it up and ruin the golden memories for me.

Anyway, having seen some of the screenshots and gameplay vids, it doesn't look too bad. A bit cartoony perhaps, but thats what kids like nowadays - isn't it? Cartoons? Boom boxes and New Kids on the Block?

MS say it will have all the appeal of an RTS with some of the MMO elements like experience points and crafting. Sounds interesting to me. Plus its free to play - with extra elements able to be bought with real world money if you want. So, worth a look imo.