When anecdotes attack…

I know it’s no big surprise that World of Warcraft and MMOs in general can really provide a bond between people where there really wasn’t anything much else in common. I wrote a while ago about my boss’ young son and his little written note asking me how to get off Teldrassil. And my boss [...]

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Cataclysm: We didn’t remake the low level zones for YOU!

Brill 2.0 It’s been an exciting week so far in Azeroth. Player numbers are way up, on my server (Argent Dawn EU) there have been queues every night stretching up to 30 mins. The lower level zones are populated and busy again. Faction cities are bustling, and Orgrimmar is already developing a reputation as a [...]

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Gaming News: Shattering hits Azeroth, Elder Scrolls 5 in production, Skills change in EVE, casting for Uncharted film, details on FF Agito XIII

As you can see from the subject line, this is a quiet time of year for gaming news. But there are some moves afoot to change that. Bioware has already been issuing teasers for a new game announcement to be made after the Spike VGA awards, and now Sony have also announced that a new [...]

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Should MMOs encourage grouping? How about helping you make in-game friends?

I’ve been having quite an interesting discussion on google buzz this week with Chris@Levelcapped on his latest post about unsocial MMOs. Rather than lifting the entire conversation (which is cool and all but a bit rambling, and also I’d want to get permission from everyone before posting it), I thought I’d sum up here, because [...]

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It was the year of fire, the year of destruction, the year we took back what was ours

When we last saw Spinks, she was standing at the raceway in the Shimmering Flats. But when I logged on after the shattering, everything had changed. She was standing on a small floating platform. The title ‘Raceway Ruins’ flashed up above her head. A look at the map showed that she was in the middle [...]

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Mrs Spinks goes to Orgrimmar

It took only a couple of months for the dream of settling down somewhere away from all the fighting and politics to run a small pub to die. Silverpine was, after all, packed to the gills with forsaken celebrating the fall of the prince of lordaeron with only emptiness in their hearts instead of …. [...]

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Thoughts on Motivation, Achievements, and MMOs

There is an idea in psychology that people are motivated by two different routes: Intrinsic Motivation: driven from within, driven by intrinsic fun, enjoyment, creativity, opportunity to use signature strengths (e.g. if you’re smart, you may enjoy playing games where you get to show off your smarts). Also includes the drive to master a topic, [...]

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It came from the PUG: Northrend eats healers alive!

There’s something about moving on to Northrend that has broken the spell with my paladin. I still think that Retribution is a very fun spec at the moment but I am rapidly going off paladin healing. I will (not very) secretly be glad to get back to Spinks. What happened, you say? Northrend instances happened. [...]

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Gaming News: Bioware’s Mystery Game, LOTRO takes hobbits to Isengard, Music games nosedive, Jagex beats patent suit, Activision closes more studios

So apparently this is a traditional week of sales in the US, which brings me to the picture to the left. What’s odd about this screenshot?  It’s from amazon.co.uk. Yes, I’m puzzled too. In any case, keep an eye out for sales from your favourite US vendor (eg. steam, etc) this week. There does come [...]

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Thought of the Day: On elitism and speed runs

Melmoth suggested yesterday in comments that dungeon runs might be smoother if the LFD tool had an option for fast (gogogo speed run) vs slow (time to chat). I’m wondering if there’s any way that the slower runs could become more elitist or if it’s inevitable that speed is always better. Maybe some kind of [...]

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