Episode 76 – PC Gaming Lives (to Die Another Day)

The M-Team brings news of the Chinese mandating MMO user name transparency, Bioware swears PC gaming is not dead, and more.

00:00:00    Introduction
00:03:22    What We’re Playing
00:21:14    Mail Bag
00:30:49    The Week in Gaming
01:09:15    Blog-O-Steria
01:18:22    Conclusion

TWiG

Chinese Government Forcing Gamers to Use Real Names
ECA Launches Campaign Against Video Game Warning Label
BioWare CEO Says “PC Gaming is Not Dead Yet!” – Nerds around globe rejoice.
Wizard 101 gets first major expansion
Sony MMO’s Come to Steam
Not all was well after WoW patch 3.0.8

Free Character Transfers Now Available Before AoC Server Merge
Layoffs at EA Mythic

A mysterious package sent to Keen and Graev suggests that an annoucement is coming Jan. 29th…
Another mysterious package was sent to Snafzg
No link between Video Games and Violence
Aussie Slapped with $6000 Internet Bill

Blog-O-Steria

“Including the Hammerer over the Slayer would be an NGE-equivalent mistake. Not exaggerating one bit about that either, fans would be crushed.”

Musical Interludes:
01 – Scott Lavender/Iron Maiden – Two Minutes to Midnight
02 – Scott Lavender/Iron Maiden – Wasted Years
03 – Spin Doctors – What Time is it?
04 – Spin Doctors – Refrigerator Car
05 – The Sword – Freya
06 – The Sword – March of the Lor
07 – The Cult – Phoenix
08 – Nine Inch Nails – Burn
09 – Nine Inch Nails – The Great Destroyer
10 – Nitzer Ebb – Warsaw Ghetto (Radio Edit)
11 – Love and Rockets – xxxx (Jungle Law)
12 – Taproot – Dreams

3 Comments to Episode 76 – PC Gaming Lives (to Die Another Day)

  1. Saylah's Gravatar Saylah
    January 31, 2009 at 11:43 am | Permalink

    Hi guys – haven’t listened to the whole show yet but wanted to comment on WAR. WAR has many excellent qualities among them the graphics, tone, combat, variety in classes and original gaming mechanics. BW and WP will go down as some of the best classes I’ve every played. Scenarios are excellent casual fun. oRVR is exciting when it’s happening.

    So why did I hit level 35.5 and bail?
    1. I can’t just do PVP/oRVR … that’s the focus of the game but they added some really good PVE content that I can’t access fully because it’s spread too thin…too many PQs divided by faction, zones and levels.

    2. I can’t just do PVP/oRVR… Other than PVE, I like to craft in my downtime and the crafting is really borked at this point. Especially alchemy which is heavily reliant on drops from PQs which were barren. And even when I stomached solo leveling PQ INF to gain the gear upgrades, I can’t get to Stage III which drops additional crafting items I desperately needed. Crafting which they claimed wouldn’t be Grindcraft is actually one of the most grind-riddle systems I’ve ever encountered, and that’s saying something because I’ve crafted in every MMO I’ve ever played. I did whole posts about how horrible the little random/inventive idea actually plays out.

    3. Guild keeps mean nothing – it’s all cost and very little tangible benefit to actually hold the keeps. It was pointless to defend them. They sucked our guild bank dry so we stopped holding them. It turned into a “let’s capture one just cuz then let it flip back”. I mean seriously, how could they do that in a game about WAR? It made the whole thing pointless and after I had fun capturing a few it was like why bother??

    4. oRVR lag and other manifestations of the system’s inability to sustain large scale combat – this has to hits up there as an epic fail. oRVR that is a slide show, ghosts players everywhere, can’t move/cast/fight/retreat – pure madness when a real epic battle begins. This must be fixed! One second I’m alive and the next I’m dead with no visual updates in between.

    5. End game is a PVE gear grind with tads of PVP/RVR thrown into the mis. Uh, what? I have to grind gear to withstand the PVE encounter part of RVR to do the city raids? Hmm, I don’t think so. And if I’m doing going to do the city raids then I’m not sure what else I’d be doing.

    In closing, I think 1 to 4 will be fixed and when they are I’ll re-sub and at least hit max level. How long I’ll stay afterward depends on what there is to do.

    Looking forward to the rest of the show…

  2. Saylah's Gravatar Saylah
    February 1, 2009 at 4:45 pm | Permalink

    Finished listening. Good show. I can’t wait to hear what Jason has to say about W101. I’m wondering if his macho image and male ego will let him be honest in the face of the other hosts sneers? LOL This will be interesting.

  3. February 2, 2009 at 10:24 am | Permalink

    @Saylah

    The client is on my hard drive and ready to install. I just haven’t had the courage (or the time) to try it out yet. :)

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