Random MMO thoughts and ramblings (SWG, WAR)
Another fellow that took a peek at post NGE Star Wars Galaxies. A very nice read. He pretty much enjoyed the experience, although he much preferred the old game. Where have we heared that before?
And I’m going to write about this too.
The recent announcement from EA Mythic regarding their upcoming mmo: Warhammer Online.
Apparantly, due to project management, time-management issues, some stuff got scraped from the game. To be more precise:
- Most capital cities will not be available at release (leaving only 2 CC for players)
- Five classes have been scraped from the game (Choppa, Greenskin, Hammerer, Blackguard and Knight of the Blazing Sun) and probably will not be added again.
Mythic’s community/PR wizard Mark Jacobs explains the why and how’s on a forum.
Now, I’ve been following the game with some interest. I’ve never played Dark Age of Camelot (also from Mythic) but the whole realm vs realm thing appeals to me. I’m not that keen on games with an EA brand on them, so that is an issue that might decided whether or not I’ll buy the game.
Also, the itemization (WOW pvp anyone? How fun is it to get oneshot?) and balancing of the characters is vital to a PvP centric game.
So is this cutting a good or a bad thing?
For starters, no-one knows the real deal. Only Mythic has the real reason as to why. We mere mortals can only speculate. But that’s what the internet is all about so lets get to it.
The BAD:
- Beta Beta! The game is nowhere near finished and polished and they are pushing for a release (AoC anyone?). Who knows why? They’re out of money, EA is breathing down their neck, they are tired of developping …
- Promise a lot! That’s the mmo mantra these days. if you are creating a game it’s always best to say it is the most uber thing ever done. It’s packed with next-gen features (Next-Gen baby, woohoo). Offcourse the day will come that you get confronted with reality and funding and stuff like that. Woop did we dream out loud?
- World of Warcraft! Yea the killer of mmo’s. In a couple of month, WOW’s second expansion will hit the shelves, Wrath of the Lich King. And it is bound to hook players for several months to come. Bad time for you to release your mmo after that no?
The GOOD:
- They really really want the game to be perfect! Not just good, but awesomely perfect. It takes balls to make a decision like this so far into the developement cycle. They could have waited with the announcement until WAR was being shipped. They could have shipped with uncompleted (bad) content and try to fix it after release, and we all know how easy that is right? (/sarcasm off)
- The game will actually benefit from it! I actually like the decision to cut the number of capital cities. This way everything will be centered around two cities. As a player, a heck of a lot easier.
The classes is something you just have to trust Mythic on. if the data they get from their beta-testers says crap, it probably is crap. And again, kudos to them for actually listening to their QA people.
I’ve been reading statements of people (gamers) saying stuff like “I want my pre-order money back” & “I won’t be playing the game now you EA sellouts”.
Please … get real.
It certainly is an interesting developement, and I’m curious what the next couple of months will bring for the game, but I’m certain this isn’t the last surprising announcement Mythic has in store for us.
Movie: Rambo 4
I just watched Rambo 4 on DVD and I have some mixed feelings.
We all love Stallone, and we all love Rambo. It’s a character we grew up with. When we were kids and we were playing soldier of warfare, somebody always played Rambo.
So the story goes like this.
There is a crisis in Birma. Some dictator/warlord kills each and everyone that gets in his way. Just your avarage genocide thing I guess. John J. Rambo again lives secuded in Thailand and pretty much hates the world and everyone that walks it.
Along come some fine people that want to do good and help the poor rebels/people of Birma. Those people won’t listen, go to Birma and get f00ked. After some internal struggles, Rambo decides to listen to his conscience. A lot of those fine people get killed/butchered in the process.
Action time baby!
No not really. If you’ve seen the previous three movies, you’ll probably be expecting lots of action/combat scenes. You’ll be in for a disappointment. Only at the end of the movie, the grand finale, you’ll see Rambo mow down evil soldier by the bushes. And I mean that in the most literal way possible.
Remember Rambo 1? Great end-fight against the evil sheriff that got in his way.
Rambo 2? Fighting the Vietcong and an awesome escape by chopper.
Rambo 3? Against the Russians along with Col. Troutman, using tanks and choppers.
This time, the grand finale is a bit over the top. Nothing really exciting. Only a lot of bodyparts & blood that get spattered all over the place. Cool, but over the top. I guess it had to make up for the lack of action during the rest of the film.
From the Wikia page:
Rambo holds the record with the most kills out of the entire Rambo series, with 262 kills and an average of 3.2 per minute also the number is more than that of the previous three movies combined. Stallone justified this in a press conference by saying the violence in the film was to underline the ongoing problems in Burma.
Wow, did you know that? An avarage of 3.2 per minute? Damn …
Anyway, did I enjoy the movie?
No, not really. Stallone puts down the Rambo character easy and because we’ve all seen the previous movies, you get this sense of compassion with the guy. It’s Rambo for crying out loud and the guys been through hell. Cut the dude some slack.
But the movie itself is very predictable. It has a vey slow pace and it’s all so very dumb. Again some idiotic s.o.b.’s come knocking on his door to please help them do something stupid. And then they come knocking again, and again. And then he says “Yea whatever I’ll help”.
On February 2, 2008, Sylvester Stallone informed Reuters in an interview that making a fifth Rambo would depend on the success of the fourth movie but that he thought he was “gearing one up” and that it would “be quite different.
That would be nice. A Rambo movie that is going to be different and not a warmovie.
Movie: Alien vs Predator Requiem
Ever since the first Predator movie I’m kind of a fan of the big guy. Mysterious, powerfull, remorseless. yea he’s one bad ass dude.
So here we are with the second Alien VS Predator (Requiem) movie.
Again, the Predator will be fighting the evil Aliens, with humans in the middle as canonfodder. This time however, some sort of hybrid alien/predator gets born (remember the end of the first movie?).
The story is actually pretty thin. I’m not going to spoil the ending, but a third PvA movie could be possible. As expected, the movie gets bloody very fast, and people (the entire town the movie takes place in actually) get butchered like flies.
A couple of regular folks survive and try to escape town. The usuall stuff happens, sidekick characters get picked of one by one.
All in all, an entertaining watch. Nothing spectacular, like I said, a very predictable storyline. The special effects are nice and cool, but nothing that will make you go WAW.
I had hopes that finally the history behind the Predator species gets explained more, but alas. You do get to see their homeworld for a brief moment, but that’s it. Perhaps in the third installement?
The clash of generations
Today some old lady (70+ or so) walks into the store and comes up to my desk with a piece of paper in her hand. So far, nothing new and exciting there. She wants to order a book, which she found out about on the internet. A website called rugpijnweg.nl. The site itself is in Dutch, but for those of you that can’t resist to take a look, you’ll probably figure out what’s to come.
Anyway, I search for this title in our system and come up empty. Because she remembered the website I said okay, lets take a look at it, see if we can find any more information about it.
So I put in the domain in the browser and what do I see? E-book only.
I explain to the lady that we, as a bookstore, can’t order an E-book, because technically an E-book is not a book, etc … blabla. She looks at me as if I just slapped her in the face.
She then points at my screen, indicating the word e-BOOK, and says: “It says book right here, so order me the book already okay?“. I then try again and explain to her that this e-book is available in digital form only and that unfortunately, I can’t help her.
Again, she looks at me like I’m some sort of scum that enjoys ripping of old people, and says: “Then I will just have to order it in another bookstore. If this is how you provide service then I’ll never shop here again.”
Now, I get my daily dose of ignorant, annoying, rude … (fill in the blanks yourself) customers. But this lady will stick with me some time. Sometimes the gap between generations is to big for even me to fill :).