Tipa tells us all about the Loping Plains Haunted House in EQ2:

West Karana » EQ2: The Loping Plains Haunted House. Scared yet?

Loping Plains hasn’t seen THIS much action since the Freethinkers threw that Christmas party and the Pumpkin-Headed Horseman barfed seeds and pulp all over Mayong Mistmoore. Everyone was talking about that for months.

Stargrace fills us in on the Everquest seasonal events:

MmoQuests.com » EverQuest Halloween Events

The costumes are a LOT of fun. You can become pretty much any scary creature at all that’s available in EQ, not to mention the fact that there are accessories! Want to wield a broom? A bucket filled to the brim with treats? Then that’s no problem at all. Looking for free treats and goodies to stock pile? There’s a vendor for that too, and what’s more is that they’re all free, no charge. The costumes do have limited charges, and are no rent which means they’ll poof if you log out for too long (they also dissolve on zoning) but the food (although no trade) will stick around later (I filled up my bags, I couldn’t help it, the stats were so nice!).

Ysharros gives some first impressions of WAR’s open RvR special, the Witching Night:

Witching Night in WAR « Stylish Corpse

So far I’m a little ambivalent about this event, or what I’ve seen of it today — which was only tier 2, with Amariel (the Archmage).

The good includes how much fun it is to have gigantic moshes in open RvR; at one point there were 30+ on the Order side in the Troll Country Witching Night PQ, and probably 20-25 Destruction. We owned them several times over, despite having to continually ask our own side to move back *inside* the PQ area.

No one seems to be blogging about their experiences in Kingdom of Loathing but the KolWiki has all the details you need to follow the event:

Halloween - TheKolWiki

Halloween is that time of year when Adventurers dress up and scam candy off total strangers. Or something. It occurs each Porktober 8. To go trick-or-treating, you need an outfit. Each round of trick-or-treating costs an Adventure, and is available from the main map

And the WoWInsider has a detailed guide for World of Warcraft’s Hallow’s End event:

Hallow’s End 2008 guide (updated) - WoW Insider

And, while these aren’t quests, don’t forget to trick-or-treat at innkeepers all over Azeroth and Outland for various goodies and neat tricks like pumpkin heads, masks, and magic wands. Don’t forget to visit the Wickerman Festival, done at 8:00 pm server time outside of Undercity each night of Hallow’s End.

And finally, a wonderful response from the Lich King regarding the complaints of WoW being overrun by zombies (via Broken Toys):

World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Announcement from the Lich King;

My deepest apologies.

It is my understanding that my invading forces, in their attempts to besiege your cities and snuff out all life on Azeroth, have inconvenienced the activities of common civilians. In the future, I will ensure that your commanding officers are informed well in advance of planned invasion times so that they may properly fortify themselves.

I have also looked into the issue of my plague being too quick in its purpose and too difficult to cure. Please be reassured that I have taken the matter up personally with my top necromancers and that any further incarnations of said plague should be only a slight challenge for your natural immune systems to overcome. Please forward any additional complaints to either Kel’thuzad or Anub’arak.

Regards,
the Lich King Arthas.

Hey, all we want to do is eat your brains…

Happy Hallowe’en everyone!

Posted by Taymar on http://www.mmorpg-info.org.

It can be difficult to keep up conversations taking place on blogs instead of newsgroups and message boards, so here’s a round-up of the recent discussion, with a brief quote to give you a taste of the post.

Mark Jacobs (Mythic Entertainment) started things off with this post on his blog: Online Games are a Niche Market:

A banning we will go, a banning we will go. Heave ho off the servers yo, a banning we will go!

I hate gold sellers/spammers. No, that’s not strong enough, let me try again. I HATE GOLD SELLERS WITH EVERY FIBER OF MY BEING. Ah, that’s better. Now, why do I hate them you may ask? I hate them for a number of reasons, most of which have been detailed in various interviews I’ve done over the years. And now that they have taken their obnoxiousness to new levels with gold service spamming, I HATE GOLD SPAMMERS EVEN MORE NOW THAN EVER BEFORE.

Syp the Engineer kicked the ball into play with his response on Waaagh! A Warhammer Online Blog:
The Golden Rule

The problem doesn’t lie with the gold selling companies — they suck, yes, and they’re going against the EUALA, yes, but they’re providing a service that is in demand. Let’s re-read that sentence, okay? They’re providing a service that’s in demand. If the potential for pay is high enough, shadowy forces will weigh that against the risk and take their chances. The problem lies with Mike, and people like him. People who have no sense of morality or honor in online games. People who go ahead and buy gold to be instantly gratified, and a lesser extent, friends that see them do this and say nothing.

Tobold posts a surprisingly reasoned response to Mark and Syp on his MMORPG Blog:
WAR and RMT

Syp is right in saying that the problem of gold selling is the demand of gold buyers. But his solution is wrong, because he short-sightedly attributes the demand to notions of “morality or honor”, which is just plain silly. Player’s demand for gold is simply a function of how grindy it is to get gold, and what you need that gold for. And that are all questions of game design. It is a lot easier to solve the problem with good game design than to start a successful crusade to stop people from cheating in video games. Google has 80 million hits in a search for “cheats”, most of which are about video games, that isn’t something we can make go away if we all just hold hands and wish for it very, very strongly.

Michael Zenke of MMOG Nation weighs in with his view of the real problem:
On WAR, RMT, and Goldspammers

The truth, though, is that people wanking about the dishonor of goldbuyers and the scourge of goldsellers should really put it back in their pants. For better or worse goldselling is something that’s … well, I’ll say it outright: in my mind it’s not an issue that players have to worry about anymore. Every game I can think of has done their best to deal with goldfarming and spammers at this point. Every one. It’s 2008, and if you are still getting spammed by goldfarmers in-game it’s becuase the game developers want you to be. It’s as simple as that.

Scott Jennings (author of Massively Multiplayer Games for Dummies) puts forward a detailed solution based on treating RMT as vice on Broken Toys:
How To Stop Gold Farming

However, my belief - and this may well be false - is that enlightened self-interest does in fact work, and given the choice between patronizing other players and bad actors for RMT sales, players will patronize other players.

And that, I believe, would completely devastate the third party markets because there was no financial interest for that free market to develop external to the game.

Chris F of I HAS PC weighs in with a different solution:
$0 DOWN, $199/MONTH 2.3% FINANCING

What we need is some sort of solution. An obvious one, but one I haven’t seen or heard much about (I don’t read every blog and website out there, so sorry if it has) is the simplest one of all. Make gold bind on pickup. Eliminate it from the equation altogether. How can we eliminate gold changing hands, without eliminating item trading? Enter the lovely world of leasing.

Matt (Sparkplay Media) writes about their blind auction and arbitage system on his blog, The Forge:
Dual Currencies in MMOs

At Sparkplay, we’re tentatively planning to restrict credit transfers as well as have the currency exchange (blind auction) that Iron Realms has, and I’m reasonably confident it will keep professional gold farmers out of the game. I firmly believe that gold farming isn’t the problem anyway - it’s the behavior of many of the pro gold farmers that’s the problem. Anyone throwing ‘morality’ out there as an indictment against gold farming is not to be taken seriously on the matter in my book, but it’s certainly legitimate to find being spammed with gold ads obnoxious as hell.

Will the next generation see the end of the gold spam? Certainly it seems to be a priority with the developers of the moment.

Posted by Taymar on http://www.mmorpg-info.org.

Turbine finally announced their big secret: the Mines of Moria expansion. We can look forward to two new classes, level cap raised to 60 and new advancements for crafters. Personally, I’m just looking forward to fishing in Lothlorien.

Meanwhile on World IV, Tuebit writes an analysis of the weaknesses of LotRO from the point of view of a level 50 hunter. Be sure to read the comments where the arguing commences conversation continues. I love the exploration aspects of LotRO but I must admit that I also browse the web during combat on my minstrel.

GamesPolitics.com reviews The Ten-Cent Plague, a new book dealing with the struggles to get comic books accepted, drawing the obvious corollary to the gaming industry today. It looks like a good read.

On the other side of the coin is Yahoo’s vaguely tongue-in-cheek look at Seven Ways to Win Back Your Gaming Spouse for those neglected non-gamers (hey, find a game!). I was a bit disappointed by the piece but that was quickly superseded by my enjoyment of Sanya’s excellent rebuttal, Eight Tips to Save Your Marriage to a Gamer.

Tipa has written an interesting commentary on Betaleaks, offering coverage of games in beta and what the testers are leaking. Tipa’s views on why this is a bad idea is right on target.

And in the better late than never category, last week Cuppycake found a Legends of Norrath card announcing that the bards and troubadours of Azeroth will be singing praises! Ooops! The offending card has since been removed from the website.

Posted by Taymar on http://www.mmorpg-info.org.

Barbie Girls and Ty Girlz

I wasn’t allowed Barbie dolls when I was growing up - my mother felt the peroxide blonde hair and boyfriend accessory were sending the wrong message. The message on these pre-teen competitors to Second Life is very clear: no boys allowed. Not even Ken. Last month the month the Washington Times reported that Barbie Girls have 10 million registered users - that’s a lot of grrl power!

Neither of these has any actual gameplay as far as I can see: you can meet with your friends to shop or have a slumber party in your room or just hang out. Ty Girlz is at least slightly less relentless with the pink. I’m not sure why they make such a fuss about girls only, I can’t imagine a boy managing to make it through the sign-up without gagging. I sure couldn’t.

Hello Kitty Online

I’m actually a big fan of Hello Kitty Hell, a site dedicated to complaining about Sanrio cuteness in all its forms. Hello Kitty’s stare has always freaked me out and I just can’t imagine being able to immerse myself in that much cute … despite a vague curiosity as to how the “sophisticated combat system” could actually work.

But don’t despair! Tipa over at West Karana says she’s going to create a video application to get onto the Hello Kitty Online closed beta. She’s made of stouter stuff than I am, I can tell you that.

Guppylife

Guppyworks describes this as an MMO for girls (is it just me that is bugged by the lack of a noun in MMO?) - it sounds like a mashup of Barbie Girls and Neopets. There is this summary on Wonderland:

It’s Danish, it has AI, and is about cuddling critters, by the looks of it.

It’s a lot less pink but the big staring eyes give me the creeps - and that’s just the girls! The Guppies themselves look like they ate their previous owners and are just waiting for you to fatten up a bit.

Posted by Taymar on http://www.mmorpg-info.org.

Here’s the recent history (the last ten days) as an example of the type of thing you can expect to see on my twitter feed:

If you are interested in the occasional, somewhat random link about the internet and gaming, feel free to watch http://twitter.com/mmorpg. And if you have your own twitter, let me know in the comments here and I’ll watch you back. :)

Posted by Taymar on http://www.mmorpg-info.org.

China’s leading online game operator Netease.com Inc. (NTES.NASDAQ) is likely to make its first step on being licensed to operate overseas online games in the near future.

Caijing Magazine reported that the first foreign online game to be operated by Netease, which used to rely on independent R&D, will be Starcraft Online, developed by US-based Blizzard, quoting an industry insider as saying.

Netease CEO Ding Lei didn’t confirm the market saying, adding that the company is observing many online games and has not signed any formal license contract.

When it first came out that Blizzard were working on “an unannounced Next-Gen MMO”, Starcraft seemed an obvious candidate. Unfortunately, the English language edition of Caijing isn’t carrying the story and my Chinese is not up to scratch, so it’s a bit of a dead-end from there. Hopefully we can expect to see a statement soon and stop all the second guessing!

Posted by Taymar on http://www.mmorpg-info.org.

The series is completely funded by user donations and we have it on good authority that Episode 7 and 8 are already being filmed. If you’ve not seen these clips before, start at Episode One - I bet you are grinning by the end of it. :D

Posted by Taymar on http://www.mmorpg-info.org.

*click* This is a just another channel — but it’s neat because it’s a gamer channel.

They are focusing on offering game videos. Are they aware that the huge majority of these videos are really really bad? Each video has a rating, based on the number of “likes”. I can’t help but think “Mikey likes it!” when I look at the videos. Am I showing my age?

We’ve spent the past several months developing a free client application that can record video from some of the most popular PC games. The WeGame client is tightly integrated with the WeGame.com site, so all it takes is a simple click of your mouse and your video is online for gamers around the world to watch.

There’s a logic to focusing on gaming although I’m sure major dilemmas are right around the corner! Is it OK if the video is from the game but the sound is from my ipod? Can I mash it with stills from my webcam? Should The Guild be on youtube or on WeGame?

Meanwhile, I’ve had a short clip in mind for ages - testing out their software gives me the perfect excuse.

Posted by Taymar on http://www.mmorpg-info.org.

First, we had major drama when the news broke that an Everquest2 guild on test were transferred to a live server, against policy, along with prize bits of gear and a bit of guild leveling thrown in. There is a recap of the thread over at massively.com:

It’s a safe assumption that a SOE employee or several are members of Unhallowed Triad / Unholy Trinity. Perhaps SOE needs to establish an Internal Affairs Team to help safeguard, and retain transparency and openness with their playerbase.

Then, in a follow-up to the Live Gamer announcement about legitimising Real Money Trading, Smed appears on eq2flames to discuss Sony and RMT:

We aren’t going to be allowing RMT in any way, shape or form on the non-exchange enabled EQ II servers. Period. End of statement. If we catch people, we ban them and have been for a long time now. The truth of the matter is it’s very difficult to combat them, but we have people at SOE who fight the good fight each and every day. In the near future you’re going to see us becoming a lot more public about this then we ever have been. I think we’ve done a bad job at communicating just how seriously we take this fight.

Just as it seemed like the dust might settle, The India Times reported that Zapak was set to buy out Sony Online for $300mn and the news spread like wildfire in the short amount of time that it took SOE to get people out there to say SOE: not being sold and we have no idea how this story got started.

Saddened to find that there was no reason to panic, players are trying to justify the existence of the runaway threads by posting random rumours including whether it’s to do with Ramayan 3392 A.D. MMO, and that Zapak may not be buying but Sony may be selling things off anyway, and a tongue in cheek exposé that SoE is relocating to India.

Because why should we let a good gossip thread go to waste?

And just in case that’s too much SoE here’s a bit of Zombie lovin’ for you all:

Posted by Taymar on http://www.mmorpg-info.org.

Like it? You can sign up to play in the beta via the official website although the Fileplanet download does appear to work regardless of your location.

Posted by Taymar on http://www.mmorpg-info.org.