A refreshing article, although you’ll find most of the comments and replies he got to be a bit harsh. It’s true that at the beginning of the NGE I too was angry at SOE for trying to copycat World of Warcraft and ruin the sandboxgame well all knew and loved.

But it’s like the guy says, games change and never last forever. 

Some fresh lolcats pictures for your pleasure. You can also view the Flickr set.

Speaking of Star Wars, isn’t this every guys fanatasy?

(Main page image from Mela de Gypsie)

©2008 Stefson.com. All Rights Reserved.

Wow, that’s one hell of a title.
First things first, the cover sucks. It sucks hard. Hell, it’s just plain ugly. Trust me, I see a lot of book covers, every … single … day, and I know ugly when I see it.

But we’re not here to read the cover, so lets move on.
The book covers corporate blogging. Using a blog to expand your business and ultimately, making more money. Lets not kind ourselves, that’s what it is always about.

The chapters include:

• Blogging basics
• Getting into the right mindset
• The power of blogging
• How to use the different kind of blogs
• Using blogs for internal communication
• Interacting with visitors
• The future of blogging

The central concept of the book is transmitting vs engaging. Blogging is (should) be about engaging your readers (visitors). The idea behind corporate blogging is:

Engage potential (excisting) customers –> create trust –> create evangelists –> more money for you

I especially liked the second chapter, getting into the blogging mindset.
Why would you, from a business point of view, want to start blogging? To get your message across? More advertising?

Wrong.
Blogging is an excellent way to get in touch with your customers. And, accordingly to the book:

“Customers are your best productmanagers, your best evangelists, and perhaps the only people in the world who will tell you the truth about your company”

Participation breeds passion:

• Creates customer evangelists
• Builds trust
• Helps you become an authority
• Lets you share your knowledge
• Provides feedback

Near the end of the book is an interesting small chapter about blogs and advertising.
A little quote:

“Don’t distract from the content. Meaning your content is the only means of gaining trust, relating to your customers. Don’t let your ads hide your blog.”

Would I recommend this book?
If you’re new to blogging and are thinking about getting one for your business, then you definately should read the book. It’s filled with basic need to know blogging stuff that can set you on your way.
On the other hand, if you’re already out there filling the internet with daily feeds, then you can leave this book at your favorite bookstore.

©2008 Stefson.com. All Rights Reserved.

If you’re a gamer and you hang out on forums now and then, you’ve certainly come across one of these joyfull persons. Always so elegant and witty in response, never to shy to point out the fact you fail at life and have no business even thinking abiut their game.

Yes, we all love fanboys.

So here’s the great news. You to can be a fanboy!
All you have to do is remember a few pointers now and then, and if you’re lucky, you can take advantage of your new fanboy-ship and get discounts, freebies and everlasting fame.

Okay, lets start with the tutorial:

• Sometimes you will see people write about other games that supposedly are better than your current game nr. 1. Obviously these people have been bribed, brainwashed or are just plain stupid. use every means necessary to point out they are wrong, wrong, wrong. There can be only one best game evahh!
• Second, hardcore is the only way. Everything else is for wussies. If someone points out a feature that they think is questionable, they must be carebears!
  Be absolutely sure to guide them towards World of Warcraft and make some comments how your game is for real men only. Hardcore means being uber-leet, don’t let some wuss ruin your game.
• We’re on a roll here. Remember, the developers created this game for you and you alone! Hell, shy wouldn’t they? It’s not like they have to earn a living or something, right? All these people on this forum are nothing but a bunch of whiners. Be sure to let them know this at all times.
• Forth, abuse the quote function whenever you can. Why waste time with an adult discussion? Nonono, remember point one, everyone else is wrong but you. So when someone dares to post something, quote is and rewrite it to your liking. People will love you for this. Not only are you funny, you even took the time to make the internet a better place.
• Last, do not hesitate to use harsh language to prove your point. No need to try and present some level of dignity on the internet. It’s all carebears and whiners remember?

I’m sure if you think hard enough you can find more interesting pointers to make the internet a better place. But start with these five and you are good to go!

©2008 Stefson.com. All Rights Reserved.

Also tried Age of Conan and didn’t like it. Didn’t even finish the 30 day included sub you get on purchase.

So what other mmo’s/games are there left to play?
I played some Call of Duty 4 (multiplayer only) a couple of weeks. Nice game, great graphics, but gets boring real fast.

Guildwars Nightfall is still installed on my system, but it can’t spark my interest anymore.

Lord of the Rings Online … don’t get me started.
Great looking game, awesome world, nice quests, but to much running all over the place. If I were still in highschool or uni, and I had no “real” life responsibilities, things would be a lot easier. But when you’re 31, and you have: a fulltime job, multiple websites to run, a girlfiend and a social life, you don’t want to spend it running round in a world. So exit LotRO (but a nice game though!).

We’re running out of games here.
Oh yeah, I also played some Crysis. Sold it on ebay after a week. Superb graphics, especially on my new system. But again, it can’t hold my interest for longer than a week.

Why is that? Why do I get bored of games within a week? Is it because they’re all bad games? No, definately not. It’s because I’m getting old … *sigh*

There I said it, I’m getting to old for this.
I remember the day me and my brother were chained to our fathers computer for days in a row playing Sid Meiers Civilization. Or Dune II, man we totally ripped that game apart.

Does anyone know the PC magazine called Retrogamer? I feel so at home there …

©2008 Stefson.com. All Rights Reserved.

So anyway, I thought I’d cancel and get back to it in a couple of months or so.
Well, I gues SOE disagreed with me. Finally, after 45 freaking minutes of clicking, page refreshing, I managed to get into my SOE account page. Below are two screenshots of my epic quest to cancel a sub.

I’d like to think it was because of all the people (millions …) accessing the SOE account page at the same moment, but something tells my otherwise. Then again, this is one way of making sure you don’t loose customers (subs). Just prevent someone from cancelling by disabling access to the account page.

©2008 Stefson.com. All Rights Reserved.

This is a picture made by my Samsung cellphone in the store I work at. The airconditioning broke (again) and we had to suffer hellish temperatures.

Another picture I made some time ago. Think it was very early in the morning when I had to go to Antwerp for work (Annual bookfaire).

This picture is truly awesome. It is said that it caused quite a stir with US secret service and NSA and what not. They all thought it was some terrorist warning for things to come. But in the end it was clear that this picture is concept-art for a computer game. Talk about being paranoid.

And another absolutely weird picture from Mexico. A drunk driver drives into a bunch of bikers. Auch …

And to sign off, a youtube video most (if not all) Metallica fans know. It’s the Napster baaaad video. It’s back because of the recent change in M. marketing strategies. They are releasing some of their new songs for free as a download.

©2008 Stefson.com. All Rights Reserved.

All in all, a nice exhibition, but I expected a lot more. You’ll notice most of the pictures are very dark, that’s because, well, it was very dark in the rooms the exhibit took place in. Problably to make it all feel more Star Warsy :).

©2008 Stefson.com. All Rights Reserved.

In the book the author talk about MMO’s in general, the development, the game process, the relationship between developers and publishers.

He also explains how Blizzard got to its unique position and how it’s affecting their games.

Some quotes from the book:

“It was clear that even though their game (Blizzard’s Warcraft: Orcs and Humans) was already on the shelves, they themselves continued to play it (which, believe it or not, is a rare thing in this industry).”

“No, Blizzard held out for the Q (quality) and were rewarded, but continue, to be the exception rather that the rule. And so now, World of Warcraft.”

“Ask many hardcore gamers how they feel about the game’s design (World of Warcraft), and they will likely tell you that WOW lacks suffiient depth and complexity. I suppose this attitude comes from a general disdain by the hardcore players for anything deisgned for the mass market.”

The author also talks about gold farmers and how Blizzard fights them, with their ‘Warden’ program. Did you know that the code for the Warden-tool is not on your computer, but downloaded every time you login to the game?
He then goes on with interesting detail about hackers and their ways of cheating WOW.
A reference is made to another book called PLAY MONEY: Or, how I quit my dayjob and made millions trading virtual loot.

The book then goes on about how the author got into MMO’s and his first steps in WOW. It ends with describing the various classes and advice for playing this awesome MMO.

All in all, a great read I truly enjoyed.
After reading this book, you do have to wonder why so many MMO developers (and publishers) fail.

©2008 Stefson.com. All Rights Reserved.

First off, this is my very personal opinion. So if you’re out there enjoying the game, kudos for you. And I really mean that. Crush some skulls for me on the battlefield.
But, because I’m seeing a lot of “Age of Conan is the best MMO I’ve ever played” & “Age of Conan is the most innovating MMO ever” kinda post on various forums, I couldn’t stop myself from dedicating a topic on my blog about it.

Lets get some stuff out of the way.
Age of Conan is definately not a bad game. But for me, it not a good game and certainly not the best MMO out there.

Why not?
Well, for starters, there’s the continuous zoning and instancing in the game. You can’t set two feet without a loading screen (This sentence is exaggerated and added for drama purposes only!). It totally breaks the game and the massive feeling of a huge, persistent world for me. Age of Conan doesn’t make me feel like I’m part of something.

This brings me to the second part, the differentiation the developpers brought to the game by seperating certain aspects. At the beginning of the game, the creation of an avatar, he or she has to follow certain quests in singleplayer mode. Meaning, an NPC brings the player in a singleplayer instanced mode where he or she has to follow and complete the main quests that amplify the meaning (of your avatar) to the game.
Lord of the Rings Online also does this, and I really hated it. It rips your character out of the “world” and gives you (your avatar) a very linear feeling. Now, it’s true when you say that MMO’s are linear by nature. If you get down to it, all you do is level up and keep levelling up. You need gear (loot) to accomplish this, so you look for equipment (also linear). Most MMO’s introduce loads of mini-games and mini-features to keep you interested, but in general, we (The MMO players) all are monkeys sitting behind a computer doing the same thing over and over again.

This brings me to the part of “innovation“.
Funcom often used the words “innovating” and re-inventing the genre” when talking about Age Of Conan. If you have to give credit where credit is due, you have to congratulate their marketing departement. The game got hyped immensily the last couple of months. And with good results, more that 400k players since launch. Not bad in a post World of Warcraft world.
But here’s my gripe, I can’t find to much innovating and re-inventing.

The combat system AoC has in place has been promoted over and over again. For those of you that don’t know the game, there is no auto-attack function in the game. Every hit & bash on a mob has to be executed by the player himself.
In theory, this sounds cool, but to me, it sucks. Period. If you’re not into hours of button-mashing, I recommend you roll a caster character. True, every MMO has a certain degree of button-mashing, but AoC take it to the next level thanks to their combo system. Every move (or most) can trigger a combo move, that in return has to be executed as well. A combo move usually means higher damage or something.
But like I said, after two or three hours of gaming, your fingers (and your brain as well) will definately be in need of some rest. Or maybe I’m just getting old(er).
This combat system sure is new to the genre, but successfull? Maybe for others, but not to me.

Another part of innovation is the goal of the game.
The ultimate goal of AoC is offcourse to level, and then to take part in PvP warfare. Sieges, guildbattles, PvP, the whole nine yards. The game has always been marketed with terms like war, destroy, kill & rule.
For those of you thinking ‘Cool where’s the nearest PvP server?’, I’ve got bad news for you. There is no real PvP system in place. At least not at the moment. Maybe Funcom will implement something in the future, who knows. But the fact remains, there is no real incentive to PvP, no system to keep it in place. Sure you can go out on a PvP server and PK someone that’s questing and stuff, but again, there’s no incentive.
Let’s no start the whole PvP vs PvE debate again, on what’s actual PvP and griefing. But, it is my opinion, if you design a game around PvP, and market it that way; because that is what Funcom did; wouldn’t it be wise to to have a completed PvP system in check at launch. The feeling I get is that the PvP part got implemented real quick at the end of development.

A little example: Like I said, there is a lot of zoning, so when you travel (zone) to another part of the map, you have to wait with a loading screen on your side. Now, if you play on a PvP server, chances are that you will get Pk’ed while zoning in. Some call this PvP, others call this griefing. But one could also call this bad game design. For a game that’s been built around PvP, doesn’t that strike you as odd?

To go a bit offtopic, I’d like to point to another MMO currently in development that features full open PvP: Darkfall Online. Their solution to this is an alignment system, meaning your actions (PvP wise) have consequences for your avatar. Good and bad! This is something that should have been implemented in AoC from the start.

Enough about the PvP.
Lets get back to the ultimate goal of the game, levelling. Levelling in most MMO’s these days means one thing: Quests. And lots of them. Unfortunately, AoC also suffers from this. The usual kill x amount of rats and deliver this item to that person can be found o’plenty in AoC. Not very innovating right?

On the bright side, the game looks beautifull. If you have a state of the art PC system, you can enjoy awesome designed landscapes and zones. Also, it is refreshing to see an M-rated MMO, and kudos to Funcom for daring to take the risk to openly say the game is targeted to a more adult audience.

To finish, a litle something about the patching. Funcom has been hard at work at releasing the necessary patches and updates to fix things and bugs. I can only hope they keep up the pace. Players are levelling at an astounishing rate, and new content is the only thing to keep players interested and get them big bucks. Not to mention the new MMO’s that will be release soon. Warhammer Online anyone?

Lets finish this extremely long post.
Is Age of Conan the innovating MMO they said it would be? No, not even close.
Is Age of Conan exciting and fun? To answer this I’ll have to be very honest and personal, no it isn’t. I really had to try and keep an interest in the game to login every day. But at the end, it just didn’t give me this awesome feeling I need in an MMO.

Will AoC be successful? Hard to say.
Funcom has a heavy task ahead. They have to really pump in some content to keep players interested.
Do I recommend you to play the game?
Why are you listening to me anyway? Just make up your own mind and see for yourself. You’ll find out soon enough if the game can trigger your subscription interest.

To all that are still playing, enjoy!

©2008 Stefson.com. All Rights Reserved.

Sometimes you come across a really cool website. Thesuperest.com is one of them. Pretty nice cartoons, or art, whatever you want to call it.

Another is Keen and Greav, two gamers that run a website, and is highy tought of. I found out about this site because of the newly released massively multiplayer game Age of Conan. This game was so hyped the last couple of months, and I decided to give it a try, but more on that later on.

Ever heard of lolcatz?
C’mon, you must have. Those pretty picture of pussycats with some text on it. Check out some of the better ones below.

More to see om my Flickr set page.

©2008 Stefson.com. All Rights Reserved.