Monday, December 13, 2010

LOLhammer

I hadn't made a posting about Warhammer this month, I'd wanted to hold off and wait until I could really pass judgment.

I'm passing judgment now.

I'm not going to say you should or shouldn't play WAR, that's your call. Most already don't, and won't, so you probably don't care all that much. I heard some other game was doing something that involved werewolves or something? Anyways. I just figured I'd list the reasons why I'm not playing WAR any longer.

- Just general fucking incompetence.
My group ragelogged out of an instance last night because all of us had unholy Rez Lag making the game unplayable for us. Don't know what Rez Lag is? You're better off not knowing. It's what you get when you play in the amateur leagues!

>:

- Running assbackwards into oblivion.
I was under the impression that RvR was supposed to
A. Be more dynamic, involve less waiting around.
B. Break up the zerg.
C. Make city fights more epic.

Hey, guess which one of those things they accomplished?
That's right, none. They made a list of three things they wanted to fix and they actually managed to fuck up each aspect even worse somehow.

- Fuck your dead server.
There should be 2 servers.  Iron Rock is OK... if you're playing during a 2 hour window. Otherwise, it's a fucking ghost town. Don't que. Don't roam. Don't reroll an alt. There's nothing going on. AAA MMO's don't operate this way. Hell, shitty F2P MMOs don't operate this way.
You can't just let loyal, paying customers rot on the vine like that.


SEE YOU IN HELL, MOTHERFUCKERS.

or the Rift beta this weekend, whichever comes first.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Barbie Dollhammer

So, there's the new Warhammer gear.
I like some of it, I hate some of it. It's odd how these things are important to us, how we're all basically little girls wanting to dress up our Barbies in these games. But, there's something very masculine about it that we thrive on. New gear should get your blood going when you see it. It should stir up that insane, primal urge of envy and man-lust for conquest when you see another player wearing it in-game.

"Ahhh that son of bitch has a full set of that awesome, beautiful armor! I hate him. That should be my stuff! I am going to strangle him and take what's rightfully mine! My preciouses! "

But ... if the gear looks MEH, that's all you think. Meh. I don't want to think 'Meh', I want to log-in, see guys showing off their shiny new gear in the middle of the city, and I want to poison them and steal their shit. I want to want things.

You lust after really beautiful things and that gives you purpose. Conversely, silly-looking things are repulsive. It's a fine line and it seems very trivial, but it's wildly important. Sexy drives you on, Ugly drives you away.

Put it this way, there's a reason the Stanley Cup is the Stanley Cup and there's a reason the other trophies are all just "other trophies".


Adding in a couple new pieces and then just re-texturing old, recycled shit is not going to cut it.

Aesthetics in a game - the gear, the character designs, etc - are as important as the gameplay. Don't think so? Ask yourself if you'd be playing whatever you're playing now if it was exactly the same game - except everyone played as pink kitties and purple bunnies dressed as sailors. You wouldn't use guns or axes, you'd fight with pillows and rainbow muffins that charge up using a mechanic based on accumulating Hugs.

Case in point: AION.

Are people are going to lose interest and quit in droves because Black Guards will look like tie-dyed insects and Witch Hunters look awful? I would hope not. But it's extremly disappointing to see people already saying "MEH, the shit we have already is better." Ideally, you want guys to kill for their gear and have hysterical shit-fits when they lose loot rolls to some other lucky bastard.

WAR players needed something to look forward to, and so far all the newness (the gear, Skaven Play, the Skaven Dungeon) all seem far short of Sexy and way nearer to Ugly.


Saturday, November 06, 2010

Meanwhile...

Bioware listened to the fans heckling them about naming one of the Jedi sub-classes "WIZARD" and has put naming to a vote.

How awesome is that? I sometimes wish more game decisions were made democratically like that. Games are made for the players, after all. Shouldn't our voices be heard? I'd like to think so. But then I look at game forums and remember, "Oh yes, these people are fucking morons." I also recall a speech from my younger days, one I would give to new trainees:

"The customer is always right... if by "right" you mean fat and stupid and willing to eat their children alive if they tasted like Chicken McNuggets. Customers are right because people are shit."

So, if you remember nothing else from this posting, remember these 2 things:

1. Space Wizards = Gay.
2. People = Shit.

ALSO: TOR PVP DETAILS

Key features I agree with so far
*Relatively small-scale warzones (8v8) ... I'm all for that, I think most people are.

*The "win condition" mechanics will actually have real thought put into them (ie instead of just playing flag football like grade schoolers, your team will be doing stuff like ka-ka-ka-blowing up ships with cannons.
...Sounds potentially neat, but I'm still not even really sure PvP instances should bother with 'mechanics' at all. I think most of just want a fun place to kill dudes. Personally, I don't want it to be game-y at all. It should be a fucking street fight, keep the flags and glowballs and cannons and crap out of it.
I'll reserve my judgment until I see the mechanics in action.

*Crafting is talked about, and supposedly your crew of companions will be doing that shit for you. I think that's fantastic, really. I hate crafting, but I love stuff - making stuff, using stuff, leveling stuff. This essentially gives me all the stuff I like without the shit I don't like.

Friday, November 05, 2010

Official Trolling Guide: The Black Guard

HOW TO TROLL THE SHIT OUT OF BLACK GUARDS
AND MAKE THEM CRY

by Spider Love

1. HP Regen Turtle-spec BG?
You are useless and cannot kill any one.

2. Debuff/CC Utility-spec BG?
You cannot kill anyone and you still die like a little bitch.

3. LOL DPS-spec BG?
Are you just completely retarded? FFS, do something useful.

4. BG balancing debuffing, survivabilty and damage?*
Roll a class that can quake and has auras, puntard.

*This does not really exist, I'm j/s, hypothetically.

HOW TO TROLL THEM BACK

You would totally eat balls playing a BG, so keep spamming 2 buttons on your Fisher-Price My First PVP Class and pretending like that's something to brag about.

Also, I have spears.

True Story. Cool Story.

FUN FACT:
The boars in LOTRO are smarter than 90% of Warhammer Online players.

FUN FACT:
I am a Dwarf Pirate and I will fuck you up with both FIRE and LIGHTNING. Take your pick, gringo.


*Edit: After I posted this, Turbine nerfed the dogshit out of Rune-Keepers.
Co-incidence? Nuh-uh.

Failcrotransactions

 EA Biomythic can't even get fluff  right.

Do you want to buy a Flavor Flav clock and a dead rat? How about this broken vase I found?
ONLY FI' DOLLAHS.

Those aren't epic trophies, that's just shit a retarded junkie tries to sell you.

WAR STORE! Account Entitlements.

The Snotlings are nice and all, sure.






But I'm a god-damned Dread Lord, I should have oddly phallic pet dragonbabies and rape-scythes!
Everyone knows that.



































*Edit: I see now that you get a drake in the "Personality Pack". So, yeah.
Still no rape-scythe.

And don't even get started on the fucking ponies.




Wednesday, November 03, 2010

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Things I could do.

Option #1.
I could wander around Iron Rock during the day, screaming
"IS ANYONE ELSE IN THIS GODDAMNED WORLD?!"




Option #2.
I can not do that.

Monday, October 25, 2010

New Guild Recruiting!

"The Rent Is 2 Damn High Party!" will soon be accepting applications on the Iron Rock server!
Please complete the application and send it back to me!

Official Application
1. Character Name
2. True or False: The rent is too damn high!



My favorite class? Recess!

For Dan-

Quick overview of the upcoming classes in both The Old Republic & Rift :

Star Wars: The Old Republic  <+>
Note: Each class in TOR has 2 different subclasses, total of 5 different talent trees.

Example: Smugglers will choose from the Scoundrel (long ranged damage) or Gunslinger (mid-range support) 'Advanced Classes' and spec using 'Skill Sets' - a core class tree "Luck" (crit, energy regen), "Sharpshooter" (sniping), "Dirty Fighting" (AOE), "Sawbones" (healing) and/or "Scrapper" (Melee, CC).

Races will vary from class to class; include Human, Zabrak, Chiss, Sith Pureblood, Twi'lek, Rattataki, Mirialan, Miraluka.

The Galactic Republic 
 vs. The Sith Empire
  • Trooper : Commando (ranged tank) or Vanguard (damage)
     vs. Bounty Hunter : Powertech (ranged tank) or Mercenary (damage)
  • Jedi Knight : Guardian (tank, buffs) or Sentinel (damage, dual wield)
      vs. Sith Warrior : Juggernaut (tank, buffs) or Marauder (damage, dual wield)
      vs. Sith Inquisitor : Sorcerer (heals, CC) or Assassin (damage, 2H saber)
  • Smuggler : Scoundrel (stealth heals, CC) or Gunslinger (damage, dual wield)
      vs. Imperial Agent : Operative (stealth heals, CC) or Sniper (damage)

Rift: Planes of Telara <+>
Note: There are four base archetypes (Callings) broken down into (8?) different sub-classes (Souls) with their own talent trees. Each character can spec into any of the Souls from any of the archetypes, mixing and matching up to 3 different Soul Trees at one time.

The Guardians (Medieval Humans, Dwarves, High Elves)
vs. The Defiant (Nomadic Humans, Tattooed Purple Dudes, Dark Elves)

Warrior classes (heavy plate armor)
Champion (2H sword, dash-and-slash Knight)
Reaver (shield or 2H, DoT & debuff Death Knight)
Paladin (shield, blessing & blocking Holy Knight)
Warlord (buff & debuff auras, 2H weapons, shield?)
... TBA

Cleric classes (chainmail & cloth armor)
Purifier (primary heals, uses fire magic to cure & cleanse, low-offense spiritcalling)
Inquisitor (secondary healer, uses lifestealing, 2H and/or hammer-and-book)
Sentinel (defensive AoE heals, survival & group support, hammer-and-shield)
Justicar (frontline melee healer, mace-and-shield)
... TBA

Rogue classes (leather armor)
Nightblade (stealth, augments dual blade attacks w/ fire & shadow magic)
Ranger (tames pets, ranged bow attacks)
Assassin (stealth, augments dual blade attacks w/ poisons)
Blade Dancer (dual wields swords & daggers for defense, combo attacks)
... TBA

Mage classes (cloth armor)
Elementalist (summons elemental minions, elemental magic)
Warlock (DoT & debuff Death Mage, AoE and ST spells)
Pyromancer (uses fire magic to nuke and CC)
Stormcaller (chains lightning, wind, water & ice spells to CC, debuff & nuke)
... TBA
 

Monday, October 18, 2010

I hate myself and want to die.

"Spider, what did you do this weekend?"
"Oh man, crazy shit. Mad pu$$y."
"That's not true, is it?"
"Not really. Not technically."


Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Seriously, don't ever whisper me.

[Random Asshole]: hey can you help tank something for me?
Spider J Lovington III: EAT A DICK, CAREBEAR
[Tom Jones]: soul that was my kid
Spider J Lovington III: YOU RAISED A DICKEATING CAREBEAR


Monday, October 11, 2010

GameFAQS: Warhammer Online FAQ/Strategdy Guide

8=====@ WARHAMMER ONLINES: Age of the Reckoning @=====8
__________________________________________________________


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Created by: SephirothLichKing
Version: 2.6.6.0.1.4.b.VIII
^\/^^\/^^\/^^\/^^\/^^\/^^\/^^\/^^\/^^\/^^\/^^\/^^\/^^\/^^\/^

Contact: Viperscorpionblade@aol.com
===================================================

Friday, October 08, 2010

A New Hope

People ask me,
"Spider, what would be the most perfect game?"

And I say,
"It would have to have 3 things:
1. Adorable pet kittens.
2. Donkey Samurai.
3. Hardcore PvP action."

Lo and behold...


BELIEVE ME I WILL BE PLAYING THIS GAME THIS WEEKEND.





*Edit:


Sunday, September 26, 2010

WAR - Parting Shots

My free Re-enlistment to WAR ends very shortly.

I'll be posting my thoughts on the state of WAR this week.






 This about sums it up.
 The armor customization makes your realm-mates look more fashionable... well, what's left of your realm-mates right now.

Underboobs and fire. Two of my favorite things.












Thursday, September 02, 2010

slow news day








What's up, suckers.
Random Bullshit Rundown:
  • Hurricane Earl will most likely rain all over my parade this weekend, so I should have time to play some more this weekend. Most likely betas. Also, do you think the people here are wildly overreacting to Hurricane Earl because it's been named Earl, and do you think they are being racist? I say yes and yes!
  • DID YOU KNOW? Aion's Assault on Balaurea is out next week, Sept. 7. Also, LOTRO goes full f2p Sept. 8. Also worth noting FFXIV is right around the corner. That sound you hear is America yawning. No wait, that's just Earl's 100 MPH winds. Sorry.
  • Which do you think sounds more exciting - Assault on Balaurea or Here Comes Earl? I say Earl. I'm racist.
  • Sort-of boring but agreeable article on Jumpgate Evolution's philosophy vis-a-vis designing their PvPvE repeatable content. The emphasis on meaningfulness, context and clarity sound very well and good, although I'm still really not fond of NPCs / PvE / AI / Ex GFs getting involved in PvP.
  • This guy has a decent-looking Rift-centric blog, I'll be reading through it later! I kind of love the horrible name and banner and the fact that it's still good.
  • I desperately tried to sign up for The Bible Online as "Satan". They won't let me. Please God, let me play your MMO. I really cannot think of a better idea for a PvP game. I mean, has there ever been better factions than GOOD and EVIL? No. Also, there's a chance EVIL could win, right? Does that mean the world ends? Is Earl coming for me because I think things like this? 
  • *Reader Question: "Who would be your Third Faction in PvP Bible Online??? Atheists?" ...I don't know. Excellent question. A Muslim faction would be... interesting. Scientology? That would make it Good vs. Evil vs. Batshit Crazy.

Wednesday, September 01, 2010

The WAR RvR Pack Spectaculare *Updated

 If you don't give a shit about any of this, don't read it. If you are interested, this is just me summarizing Andy's RvR Q+A in the forums.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Making a difference

We're starting a new Warhammer guild, one that hopes to affect real change to the biggest problem plaguing the game. That's right: Gingers.

We hope to remove this insidious scourge completely from the game by forming an elite Witch Hunter Death Squad, a Gingerish Inquistion. We shall seek out and destroy completely any of those born with the Curse of Gingerness, forcing them to quit the game or forever face our righteous wrath. Their heresy must stand no longer. They are abominations in the eyes of God, and in His name shall we rend their ghostly white daemon-flesh from their horrific freckled faces, slicing off each of these orange-brown pockmarks of the devil with our rapiers and burning them all in our great ginger pyres.

Join us, brothers. The Lord's work needs doing.
Fear not the Daywalkers...
Photobucket

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Under the radar

re: Rift demos
City Raids in Rift?

Quote:
I saw several lower-level battlegrounds tiered for levels 8-10, 16-20, and 10-19, marked as capture-the-flag events.
We know Rift will offer both PvP and PvE servers, and the Trion team assured us that a PvP-flagging mechanic would be in place even on PvE servers, allowing for both consensual PvP and PvP during city raids (yes, city raids!). In fact, Scott told us that the team is considering allowing experience to be gained during PvP sessions, if that doesn't prove too unbalancing to the world-experience and dungeon-experience formulae.


ALSO

Apparently there's a game in beta that involves boobies and mugging other players.
Sounds exciting except for the whole Korea thing. This leads me to believe that 90% of the game will involve grinding Pokemon nipple-turtles (Turple! Turple!) for 8 days until you to get to level 6.











Sign me up.









Funniest MMOment of the Week?
You decide...


FFXIV's fatigue system explained: if you play for more than an hour, an angry Japanese guy turns off your XP, repeatedly yells "You go now!" until you uninstall and play a game that is fun.

Cryptic admits they've done nothing but rush out mediocre, half-finished games, because they want you to buy their next game.

Warhammer announces their truimphant "expansion" finally, immediately gets 140 different Rage Threads and death threats on official forums.

Bioware says advanced classes for Jedi and Sith will include "Wizard" and "Sorceror".
Just call me Darth Potter.

The SWTOR space combat mini-game alone already looks more fun than the 36 different MMOs relased this year, combined.
 


Monday, August 23, 2010

The MAN is keeping me down.

I want to blog, I just CAN'T.
I think I'm now under 30 different concurrent Non-Disclosure Agreements.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

OMFGW2

That's all for today.
I don't even have it in me to make fun of Alganon or Chronicles of Spellborn. That's like Brock Lesnar beating the shit out of Bea Arthur, no one wants to see that.

Monday, August 09, 2010

RIFTwatch

via MMORPG.com
"I asked [Trion Creative Honcho Scott Hartman] about [Rift's] plans to deal with [PvP] balance issues and he had a pretty surprising response. Scott actually enjoys people thinking about the balance challenges, as he feels that people are thinking of ways that combinations could end up being “too much fun” and that their stance is that they don’t even really want the system to be perfectly balanced. Indeed, Scott doesn’t even believe achieving perfect balance is something to aspire to, as players would be able to do everything and no one would feel special. Scott doesn’t view balance as a huge issue in a game like Rift where you can switch things at a whim, as opposed to your typical MMO where if something gets nerfed you may be stuck with it. Ultimately, Scott expects that there will be “out of balance” builds, but that the possibilities are so great with the soul system that players can discover new “out of balance” builds to trump or counter one already in existence."

Translation: PvP in this game is going to be a wild hayride of cookie-cutter Flavor of the Month builds, but that's part of the charm of PvP, no?

"expect to see three quality warfronts (battlegrounds) at launch, as they are testing five or six right now and they expect the best ones to rise to the top. The idea being that they’d rather have three solid offerings over six that are “meh” as “no one comes back to meh.” One of the warfronts they are testing at the moment actually incorporates the rift gameplay as well."

MEH.
No, I'm fine with this as well, I suppose. I think Warhammer players learned this eventually, it's better to have a handful of well-liked battlegrounds and look forward to the introduction of other, fun new ones, as opposed to just throwing out 12 different instances and 8 of them range from being painfully lackluster to lustlackingly full of pain.

Throwing rifts in there sounds fun, too.

"Scott and I discussed the impact of population balance on their game as they make use of a two-faction system which has been shown to be problematic for other games in the past, but Scott feels trying to win that battle isn’t really possible, so they intend to make up the player deficit by introducing NPCs where necessary."

Wait, what? You can't just say that and not explain it!

"What happens if the population imbalance gets too out of hand?"
"NPCs"
"What?"
"The jeeps come."



"I don't understand."
"Listen, asshole, we're making another Everquest, we don't give a shit about all this PvP balance shit."
"Oh, OK then."


I also love the line 'trying to win that battle isn’t really possible'.
Is this attitude towards balance completely crazy, lazy, or genius...?
It makes me afraid, yet also oddly titillated.

The Bad Days

This is a very bad time for MMORPGs. A bleak, half-forgotten Dark Age that we will solemnly discuss in very hushed tones only once it's safe, once we're playing The Old Republic.

"My god, what did we do during that time?"
"We did what we had to! We did what we had to survive!"
"I- I did horrible things! I... had no choice. I played Warhammer! I played Aion!"

And we'll look back and laugh and cry and shudder at the thought of playing such shitty, shitty games.

The irony now, at this current juncture, is that we're already nitpicking the big games coming out.

"Oh noes, teh Star Wars space combat is going to be a 5-minute mini-game? That's a deal-breaker! Boo hoo hurr durr!"

Relax yourselves. Even if SWTOR is only a tenth as good as we think it could be, it will still be 100 times more enjoyable than whatever crapbomb MMOs that are out now. Help is on the way, the cavalry is coming.

In the meantime, we'll have to scavenge amongst the debris looking for rat carcasses to sate our ravenous appetites.

I know I'll be trying the Vindictus CB this week, and you can tell it's bad when I'm even mentioning that. The game appears to be an Asian-made F2P 2-button hack-n-slasher that revolves around 2 stock characters. 2, as in two.
And ... I hope it's fun. I hope it is fun and stupid and I can kill things for a little while and not hate myself.
We'll see.

I also applied for the Bloodline Champions beta, just for the hell of it. But they are playing hard to get and haven't officially accepted me. For some reason, this makes me really want to get in and play this now.

Maybe other MMO's should look into that. Have Warhammer just start canceling random accounts saying "Oh, sorry man, you're just not my type."
"WHAT? You're turning me down? Just give me a chance, you won't be sorry! Please let me play your game!"

The world needs more mediocre superhero MMOs

  • PvP in the forthcoming DCUO will involve some open-world shenanigans (don't worry, Care Bears, you have to 'flag' yourself for combat. Just like in the comics, right? You'd never see Joker just jump the Batman from behind, what kind of sense would that make), and some instanced battlegroundy type stuff, including a  2v2 King of the Hill match, 4v4 group-on-group action, as well as 8v8 and 16v16. I know what you're saying, "Spider Love, I don't give a shit!", yeah, sure, you don't care now, but when you see my 8-man Aquaman Gank Squad totally pwning noobs with our quick-strike Fish Communication skills, bringing sperm whale-sized pain to the world, you'll think twice about doubting this game.


  • But seriously, watch these Q+A sitdowns that DCUO's crew has with the geeks at these comic book conventions and wait for the inevitable "Green Lantern Rage" moment.
Comic Book Dork dressed head-to-toe in green: "Hi, I'm a huge Green Lantern fan, I have 46 separate Lantern tattoos, I named my children Green Lantern and Kilowog and I call my wife 'Hal Jordan' in bed. I once killed a man because he said that Thor could defeat Green Lantern. Literally, I strangled him to death. So, my question is will you be able to play as a Lantern, with Green Lantern powers?
DC rep: "Uh... we won't have that at launch, but it's something we were working on because it's pretty cool, so, yeah. Maybe later, I guess?"
Comic Book Dork: "..." /blinks violently, has blood coming out of nostrils and ear canals.

  • Herp durp durp? 
  • Derp.

Friday, August 06, 2010

Real Life Quote of the Week

"Spider, why are your shoelaces brown?"

"They used to be white but they changed colors after all the ASS-KICKING I've done."

Thursday, August 05, 2010

I can save you, Warhammer.

Stop laying off people, the game can be saved!
I'll tell you how to bring people to the game and keep them playing. It's so obvious it's kind of crazy.

They're introducing customizable armor appearance in the next patch, right?

Here's how you save the game. Two words.

Full. Frontal. Nudity. Armor.

YOU'RE WELCOME.

Monday, August 02, 2010

Vent Quote of the Week

"No, she's pure evil. She doesn't have a vagina, it's more like a graveyard of un-souls erupting in flame and shadow."


"Whoa. Does she have a sister you could hook me up with?"

Thursday, July 29, 2010

This is how I role. play. with myself.

 EA BIOMYTHIC CANNOT UN-DO MY WORK, IT SHALL LAST FOR ALL TIME.


Photobucket

"You're a long way from Bligrigsteindorf, Bright Wizard. These are the Shadowlands.

...I see you notice my bow. It is quite large, I like my bows long and strong and made of sturdy, knotty wood. I like how they feel in my hands, the feel of a polished weapon growing tauter and tauter at my touch.  Touch it. Touch my bow. Can you sense the power it holds? It's one thing to throw fire about like a child, but a tool like this requires masterful skill.

 I've made you blush. I can see your cheeks turn rosy red even behind your thick auburn beard. Are you... shy, Bright Wizard? Let me embolden you."

/emote removes your Sovereign Flamerobe of the Inferno, slowly.

"Ah, you have freckles even there, Mage. I like that. We Asur are not marked in such a way. I can see that you're excited. How do you phrase it... 'building combustion'? You do look like you're about to explode. Why don't you Barrage your Fireballs right into my quiver, Wizard? Why don't you Fiery Blast into my face?

Do you like this? Yes, you do, you like it when I switch to Assault Stance! I call this the "Whirling Pin". Unnnh. I'm going to festerbomb all over you, here it comes... I'm going to rapid fire my penetrating arrows all in your ISHHHAAAAAA"




I wanted to try to get "red velvet tongue tickling your silky pink perineum" in there, but that even made me gag.

So crazy it just might work

Today's installment of the Bad Idea Department is brought to you by
Sony Online Entertainment!

  • DCUO is promising "Iconic Play" 
This certainly smells as fishy as a frog's bunghole. You not only get to play alongside Batman and Superman in DCUO, you now will be able to play as them.

"How we do this is that throughout the game you actually find "sim cards," like you find a Batman sim card. You collect these cards, and once you get into the PvP side of the game, then you can actually play as the iconic heroes or villains on whatever card you just collected."

That's a neat idea except... now PvP's going to be nothing but pre-order edition Batmen fighting a handful of guys in the raid content Superman armor. Just an orgy of Batdudes throwing garbage cans at Superdouches.

I have no idea how you can utilize that and not have it be very stupid.

Their trailer was totally stroke-worthy, though.




  • - EverQuest II is adding Free-To-Play
I think this makes sense, if you do it right. They didn't just go the 'Fuck Y'all' route that Turbine took with Lord of the Rings. ("We're shoving a massive Cash Shop down everyone's throat, and we don't give a shit if you like it or not".)

What EQII's doing is building an 'experimental' F2P server, completely separate from the Subscription Servers.  That's Win-Win-Win, right? Sony gets to charge $5 for health potions, and dumb assholes with too much money have a place to buy $5 health potions. Meanwhile, the guys who hate F2P nickel-and-dime bullshit can continue to play as always and not have to deal with any of that malarky.
(Malarky is a word my Grandpa used. It means "crazy inter-species bird sex.")

That's a hat trick of Win... everyone gets what they want: the prospective New Player, the grizzled Old Player and the greedy Corporate Overlords.


I personally don't want the word F2P near any game I play, but if you have to do it, why not do it like this?

Friday, July 23, 2010

No More Boars

This week, I'd like to introduce a series of postings called
REAL MONSTERS.

The premise of these posts will be to propose the retirement of certain creatures that litter the multi-player video game genre, and then I'll ask what sort of bad-ass beasts could potentially replace them in future games.

~ An example ~

RETIRE:
Boars.

I'm not sure whose idea it was to put wild pigs in every MMO, but that guy needs to have his balls gnawed off by a pack of ravenous cockhogs.

You think I'm being too harsh?

Count the number of boars listed here. I counted 36. That's just Warhammer Online. I think there's 36000 types of boars in WoW, EQ, RoM, AoC, LOTRO, hell even the Korean games have boars, they're just cute Pokemon-looking cartoon boars with neon green tiger stripes and glowing orange dildo tusks.

Photobucket

Boars are boring, they are sad squealing balls of pork.
GTFO BOARS.


Thursday, July 22, 2010

I swear to god it wasn't me.

Man wearing Darth Vader mask robs Long Island bank

 Photobucket 

"I find your lack of fifties disturbing."  

 

 

 I have a rock-solid alibi.

I was in Bellport, sodomizing a woman in a Stormtrooper mask. 

 

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Judging People

It's wrong to judge people.

I had judged this woman, this neighbor of mine. She would feed all these stray cats, about two dozen of them, all constantly multiplying. We all called her The Crazy Cat Lady. She was a sad, lonely old dingbat that could only find companionship in dirty, disgusting, disease-ridden, dumpster-feeding vermin. That's what we thought. Why else would she leave out plates of stinking cat food all around her yard and let these soulless, scabbed-over fleabags into her house?

"They're nothing but filthy, mangy parasites!" I would say. "I'm sick of seeing these pathetic garbage-eaters, they sicken me!"

"Crazy Old Cat Lady!" I yelled at her one day. "Why don't you just get rid of those nasty things and try to rejoin the human race like everyone else!"

"Oh, dear!" she replied with a smile. "These are just for the coming of The Zombie Apocalypse. When you're all scrounging for your last dented cans of beans, I will be feasting on fresh, delicious meat for all my days!"

"I'm .. I'm sorry," I said, suddenly ashamed. "I'd misjudged you. You're not just some Crazy Cat Lady. You're an extremely Awesome Wise Lady. I guess it is wrong to judge people."


MORAL OF THE STORY:
Always be prepared for the coming blood storm of the End Days.


THE END.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Musical Interlude.



Summer's been treating me well. Nice to have a real-life tan as opposed to the PC monitor version.

Thursday, July 01, 2010

The Spider Love Poo of the Month Club

If you guys could help me with this, that would be just great.

I'm looking to start a website that highlights all the different poops in all the different MMOs. I need your poo, send me any screenshots of MMO doodies you've seen and I will add it to the site I am building.
It will be very classy and tasteful and elegant. Like a real fancy arthouse showing, with framed work and wine and cheese and the lingering aroma of pretentious yuppie farts.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

The Spider Love Summer Tour '10 continues

I'd been trying to form a team that barnstorms around the different PvP games every month until a real game comes out. This plan fell short when I realized it would be impossible to form a squad like that for one key reason - people do not like me.


This isn't happening.
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So, I've just been playing with myself.

First there was some casual WoW tourism that left me a tad seasick. I jetpacked around Global Agenda for a couple hours. What's surprised me is that I actually haven't hated playing Champions Online at all yet.

I've built a new, improved version of my ol' run-and-gun Goblin Squig Herder, now cybernetically augmented to rain down explosive arrows of death & be-daze-ment while I teleport around in puffs of green smoke. I also picked out the stealth-evade skill, just so I can backflip into that cool cloaked mode, like I'm the fucking Predator.

So, there's that.

Just for those keeping score, I've made a full Family Tree of my Goblin babies.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Pictures of the Day

playing Champions Online. forgot how much I liked the character creator! so fun. that was worth the $7 alone. also got a little cyborg midget pet 'cuz i bought it off Steam.
did i mention i'm drunk?
i'm drunk

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Thursday, June 24, 2010

What WAR could steal from the WWF, part I

WHILE I'm on the subject of BSD's ideas, let's talk about 2 other things real quick.


Firstly, I was disappointed the 6v6 Tournament didn't pan out. Not surprised, given the state of the server (Iron Rock is a tremendous clusterfuck of pricks, vaginas and anuses) and also not surprising given the general state of the game (guys were actually bitching that they didn't even have enough guildies left to field a 6 man).

It's a shame, 6v6 really shows off different group dynamics and solid group play, which is what the game is about.

However, switching to 3v3 / 4v4 Tournie would be probably easier to schedule and does add more potential teams to the pool. I don't know. It's hard to organize things. That's something I've learned from firsthand experience as a professional fight promoter. I have a successful NMA* company in Japan and run a very popular XTCF** league in Indonesia.

What WAR could steal from APB, part I

AKA What Spider Love could steal from BSD

I don't know a whole lot about A.P.B.'s mission system. I watched a demo video, and what I learned about missions from that is you hop in a car, briefly drive around like a half-blind old Chinese lady who's been drinking Cuervo all night, jump into another car, then jump out and immediately die.

No?

It's basically Open Group PvP questing with opposing objectives and conditional stages. Like a PvP PQ, sort of. Like the city siege!

I like the idea as an idea, but as a generic concept for Warhammer it doesn't do a whole lot for me at the moment. I think any new tweaks like that added to the game should be solely focused on augmenting the one central idea in the game (oRvR), not add more extraneous mini-game type horseshit like scenarios or arenas or pve loot grinds.

It needs to get players involved directly in the ORvR campaign, not distract from it.

What WAR could steal from Twilight, part I

I think more people would be playing Warhammer Online if teenaged inter-species love triangles were allowed in the game.

Here's a typical Warhammer fight scene now:
A Goblin Shaman heals a Witch Elf, the Witch Elf is attacking a Dwarf Rune Priest.

Boring, right? I fell asleep just thinking about it.

Proposed Twihammer fight scene:
A Goblin Shaman is totally conflicted about healing his Witch Elf girlfriend because she is totally conflicted about attacking a Dwarf Rune Priest. The Dwarf Rune Priest now looks like a tall, shirtless, exotic young bad boy who has a sensitive side.

I just made your game 80 trillion dollars, real money. You're welcome.

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Mental Exercise of the Day

Come up with an idea for a MMO that would have the potential to be either the best or worst game ever made.

Example:
"game where you have to travel back and forth through time to either hunt and kill or serve and protect Lady Gaga and her evil minions as she continues along a path to conquer the universe".



*UPDATE: Submissions so far include -

"a XXX-rated sequel to Hello Kitty Online"

I smell potential.

"a MMO where you do nothing but troll messageboards in-game"

That would be something.

"Charlie Sheen Online"

/\ Winner.


All is lost for us if heaven fails

THOUGHT OF THE DAY

If SWTOR sucks, does that pretty much kill the MMO genre / industry / movement as a whole?

Would we all just completely lose faith in humanity and quit working, quit trying, quit living? Would we shed our civility like so much dead skin and riot in the streets, burning, pillaging, molesting old men's mustached faces?

WHAT HOPE HAVE WE IF THE OLD REPUBLIC FAILS?

World Exclusive: Star Wars Starship Housing in Action

*Companions may vary by class.
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Thursday, June 17, 2010

Story of the Day

EA / Mythic laid off producer Josh Drescher.

That's awesome timing. Just to sum up the news week now:

The Old Republic is setting off dork quakes in Los Angeles.
Vigil popped eyes open with the Warhammer 40K teaser.
Announcements were made for WoW's expansion, GW2, Rift, LOTRO, DDO, FFXIV + XI, TERA, DCUO, CO, CoH, MSHS, Black Prophecy, JGE, BGO, Allods, Aika, EoN, The Agency, GA, Taikodom, MMGK, Swordsman, Zentia...
And
Warhammer made headlines by.... shitcanning people. Again.

Way to make an impression. They should've gotten a booth at E3 for that.
"OKAY WE DONT HAVE SPACESHIPS BUT WE'LL HAVE OUR PRODUCERS IN A DUNK TANK AND IF YOU CAN HIT THE TARGET, THEY WILL GET DROPPED INTO A VAT OF WATER AND LOSE THEIR JOB."

Congrats on being the least-possible appealing MMO on the entire market. Warhammer is officially the Fat Ogre Kardashian Sister of MMOs.

Do you think they determine who gets laid off at Mythic by using some hidden contribution system and then a Vegas Roll of the dice?

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Dark Millenium trailer

I want it.

I'm Afraid

VIDEO: SWTOR Announces PvP 'Warzones'

"In the Old Republic, players battle it out in warzones. In these warzones, players will experience fierce battles that evoke memories of famous Star Wars ground conflicts."


Which famous Star Wars ground conflicts? The one where the teddy bears beat the shit out of space marines with sticks and rocks or the one where the army of Jar Jars threw giant marbles at the retarded stick figure robot army?

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*Quick update:
Massively Interview

Massively: Now with the PvP War Zones, they are going to be instanced as well?

Rich Vogel: The PvP War Zones are very similar to what you see in WAR and WoW.

(*ie instanced Scenario / Battleground team vs team Capture the Flag type bullshit)

Massively: Will there be any instances of open PvP or is that something you have on your map?

Rich Vogel: Well, we haven't really talked much about that yet, but I'd rather not say much about that. But since other games have that, it's a likely assumption.

This is what scares me about features in this game (and most MMOs now)... the "since other games have that, we should too" philosophy. It's nice to have lots of stuff in a game, I know everyone wants this to be the Dream Game that is all things to all people. But games go horribly wrong when they go all Kitchen Sink mode and try to please everyone. You can't do it. Look at WAR. Hell, look at WoW. Read that quote again. We didn't engineer the game and classes and balance around it, we just added it on.

Massively: So you are looking at it?

Rich Vogel: We will have open PvP play and we will have instances, I'll just put it that way.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

So long, suckers

My WAR subscription expires tomorrow. Just want to take a personal moment to thank all those I've played with; especially Fate, Illuminaughty, Jaded Souls & friends. I don't think I'll miss WAR much, but I do miss having guys like you around to make me look good. Or less bad. Whatever.

I hope we'll get a chance to kill dudes together again soon! If anyone cares, I'm still dicking around with Allods and WoW and also may re-sub AION &/or Champions for a month or two, just for lols? I don't know.

The Spider Love Affair will most likely continue as my "PvP Game" blog for the 5 people I know that actually read this.

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Oh no, it's the weekend.

Nothing spells excitement like a weekend of non-stop Reject Scenario action.

Someone make it stop.

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Interview: Some Person

The Spider Love News Network was kind enough to spend some time with a random Mythic producer, a person by the name of "Carrie Gouskos". The interview was brief, as I do not like other people and their presence tires me. Enjoy.

Spider Love, Lord of All Bloggers: "Who are you?"
Carrie Gouskos: "I'm the executive producer of-"
Spider Love: "YAWN."
Carrie Gouskos: "What are you doing?"
Spider Love: "I'm putting fun pictures here otherwise everyone's just going to fall asleep. Interviews are boring."

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Spider Love: "I've been playing the game again and I'm noticing a trend, you guys started selling pink dyes and pushing some sort of "breast cancer awareness" agenda with everyone in the game looking like Strawberry Shortcake. The new mount you added is a pony. A pony with jewelery. The new emotes you added in the last patch were /hugs and /gayhighfive."
Carrie Gouskos: "That last part isn't true. That's a falsehood."
Spider Love: "The question I have to ask is this: Is is true that you are a, I hope I'm pronouncing this correctly, is it true that you are a woman?"
Carrie Gouskos: "It's true."
Spider Love: "A-HA! Is it not also true that you were intentionally put in this postion to destroy Warhammer Online because the game is horrible and needs to be put out of its misery?"
Carrie Gouskos: "No, we're improving the game. You said you liked the changes. And we just did that thing you wanted for Serpent's Passage. The boat thing."
Spider Love: "Fuck your boats. You've mentioned that Open RvR is your top priority and you think the key there is adding more incentives for that. What sort of incentives were you talking about?"
Carrie Gouskos: "Pony of the Month Club."
Spider Love: "No, seriously."
Carrie Gouskos: "What would you suggest?"
Spider Love: "Cloaks that don't look like dirty shower curtains. Enchanted Glow-In-The-Dark Dyes."




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Carrie Gouskos: "We can look into a glowing pink dye, maybe."
Spider Love: "Also, it would be nice if taking keeps and battlefield objectives was actually fun in tier four. I don't know. Crazy idea."
Carrie Gouskos: "Your suggestions were 'Monster Trucks as Siege Weapons' and 'Giant Dragon That Eats Zergs'."
Spider Love: "Yeah. It'd be like this big dragon that goes "rahhr" and eats a bunch of zerglings and then flies to The Blighted Isle to poop them out. The pooping part could be an animation or a cinematic movie thing, your call."
Carrie Gouskos: "Do you have a disease where you're actually a 5 year old in a man's body?"
Spider Love: "So you noticed my Man's Body, I see. I know it's hard not to, but that's sexist. I'm a serious journalist, not a piece of meat. Alright? I'm a human being, I have feelings, too. God damn it. This interview is over."

Tuesday, June 08, 2010

Idea of the Day

Regnum, the free-to-play RvR game, is doing a neat World Cup thing in honor of some sort of wacky soccer tournament that is taking place this summer.

From June 9th to July 13th, players can pick a special costume piece that corresponds to one of the 32 countries playing in the World Cup. While your chosen country's 'uniform' is equipped, you earn points for that country by earning points in PvP action.

Warhammer never does cool shit like this, ever.


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*EDIT:
Had an idea for the Guild Cup of Warhammer - during this 2 week stretch the guild with the most members on the two big PvP leaderboards, Kills + Scen Wins, would win the Guild Cup.

Not the worst idea in the world, I just hate my server and feel like the official forums are like romper room for special needs students, so, I could care less about trying to do shit like that. Don't know how Ty was able to manage even attempting the 6v6 tournie.

I still want Captain America armor, though. Someone make that happen. With an Evel Knievel motorcycle mount that can do stunt jumps off mountains.

Monday, June 07, 2010

I cope with grief by being a complete monster.

AND NOW for some sorely needed perspective -

a Great Player and a Wonderful Man

"Last night around 10:15 PM Atlantic time a man that some of you know as “Sugbis the Shaman” died of a massive heart attack. He was an avid player and to him keeping you alive to help you win the battle was a matter of honor.
... He always strived to do the best he was capable of doing in order to fulfill his role to achieve the victory of the team.

To me he was Jim, my husband, my lover, my companion, my best friend, and my soul mate; a gentle giant with a heart made of gold.

He was playing Scenarios with some people, and got up his chair because he thought that he was going to pass out. His last words to me were:
“Log me out of the group; I do not want them to think I am leaching”

He did not want me to call 911, he went into the barroom and close the door, and I waited a few minutes, and went to check on him. He was laying face down on the floor and was blue already."


That's heartbreaking. He sounds like a genuine nice guy, and it's a tragedy losing those rare people that really do care about other people.

But seriously, you gotta detaunt and snare Clogged Arteries, you can't just kite that shit away.



Hey, kiss my ass, that's way better than just using
Can I have his stuff?
like every other asshole.

LIFE IS SO HARD

I've been suffering from The Great RAGE this past week and playing like total shit. I'm very mad at myself right now, and mad at other players, and mad at Mythic, and mad at thIS GODDAMNED SPELLCHECK

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I think some of it has to do with the fact that I'm so close to rank 80 and it's just taking forever in these godawful pick-up groups. I don't really care about being 80, it doesn't mean much or validate anything really. But, now, it's like this symbol of futility. I should be 80, but I'm not.

I really get frustrated when we do badly. It's stupid, but that's why you play - to group up with weird assholes and accomplish meaningless bullshit. And the more frustrated I get, the worse I play.

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I felt like I was being successful with the shield-and-sword, but in trying out different things as glaive-wielding 2Htard, I just find myself overthinking things. It's like I'm imagining this class is a Rubik's Cube, and there's some secret pattern that will make everything click together. I don't know. I'm bored with the Blackguard and bored with the game, perhaps I'm just intentionally screwing myself in my own butt hole? OR perhaps it's time for another extended break.

Thursday, June 03, 2010

PRIORITIES

PRODUCER'S LETTER, MAY '10

What's due for patch 1.3.6?

Armor Updates?
Check. Hopefully. If nothing bugs out, sure, why not?
Zealot / Rune Priest Updates? Maybe sometime? It's being thought about. Pencil that shit in.
Blackguard Update? LOL.
Content? .../cricket... .../cricket...


I DO love the Armor Update idea. I loved it in Lord of the Rings, it's just a very cool idea. One of the things I truly hated about that game (The Purple Pajama Epidemic) suddenly became a huge plus for the game (being able to build and customize your own distinctive, cool look and show off some of the neat-looking crap you've collected).

Not sure it will work just as well in this game (LOTRO had all sorts of decent, different-looking gear found from drops, vendors and crafting, and better graphics) but it's a good start and closure on a sore point with players that's dragged on way, way too long.

Also, supposedly they're working on finally polishing the Zealot/RP abilities, so that they can simply "toggle" from healing to damage-dealing at will.

I know that this is a huge relief and I can't wait until more of the Zealots think they can DPS. Should be a big boost for the game. Call Blizzard and tell them to cancel that other new MMO they're working on, it doesn't stand a chance now.

The proposed change to allow for Realm Xfers on the same server is now limited to situations where you don't have other servers to play on.
...I still read that as "Yes, we're going to merge all the servers, you should just quit now and Pre-Order the Collector's Edition of Guild Wars 2". But, that's just me.

Also, fuck you, Blackguards.


Content?
Warhammer will continue to have less new content than the game "Connect Four".
Try back again in another six to eight months, maybe they'll mention something about new content.

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I'm being helpful

I've officially submitted a suggestion on the forums! I'm helping!

It's a suggestion on how to buff Blackguards! I think it's a winner, but I don't expect any comments or "KUDOS" because most people are stupid and only care about really simple-sounding, stupid ideas that are easy for stupid people to grasp and understand.

"1000 armor reduction yay! 450 Weapon Skill increase hooray!"
"That's not ever going to happen and would be dumb."
"I WANT TO KILL THINGS JUST BY LOOKING AT THEM! DPS!"
"No, man, you gotta really think about these things."
"SKY CAKE!"

Also, my suggestion is written very poorly, but that is because I just copy-and-pasted it from a private discussion, and also because the subject makes me angry and indifferent and angrily indifferent which I would think is an impossibility but I guess not.

Jaycub also had a really great idea, which surprised me because Jake is a Knight and I heard he is only 12.
Most Knights are 12 and under, that's a fact. I think you can still look that up on that Winkl's WAR stats site, the percentage of Knights that are under 12 years old is 88%

Perhaps the Warhammer 40k game will use that idea, I don't know.
I mean, it's fucking Joe Maduriera, right? Seems like monster trucks + Joe Mad = match made in Heaven. or Hell. Whichever.

Tuesday, June 01, 2010

My P is better at v'ing than your P

Massively.com gave a weekly column to some guy to talk about Warhammer Online.

What was the first real column?
"Warhammer is full of assholes and I don't like them"

Next week: "FUCK THIS GAME! SERIOUSLY! FUCK THESE GUYS!"

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The Elitist in me just wants to say "LOL CRY MORE FGT" and then use his tears as lube as I attempt to molest his sobbing bitch mouth until it bleeds.

But what I want to do is address this in a practical way, and not just talk in broad strokes about Elitism or Carebears or whatever, because it's not even about any of that.

What this debate will always boils down to in life is dicks, pussies and assholes.

"We're dicks! We're reckless, arrogant, stupid dicks. And Massively.com columnists are pussies. And other players are assholes. Pussies don't like dicks, because pussies get fucked by dicks. But dicks also fuck assholes: assholes that just want to shit on everything. Pussies may think they can deal with assholes their way. But the only thing that can fuck an asshole is a dick, with some balls. The problem with dicks is: they fuck too much or fuck when it isn't appropriate - and it takes a pussy to show them that. But sometimes, pussies can be so full of shit that they become assholes themselves... because pussies are an inch and half away from ass holes. I don't know much about this crazy, crazy world, but I do know this: If you don't let us fuck this asshole, we're going to have our dicks and pussies all covered in shit!"







ISSUE:
"One of the players... refused to heal someone else in the warband... he told me that it was because the person was in another specific guild"

Okay, caring about this makes you a Pussy. Sure, not healing somebody is a Dick move. But, for all you know, that guild is nothing but Assholes that need to be not healed.
Elitism really never enters the picture here. People don't get healed and die everyday, in every game. If you're reading this, you're wasting your time NOT healing kids in Africa that need it. Why? Because you think you're better than Africans! Fucking Elitist.

ISSUE:
"One of the players in the established guild started talking back and refusing to take orders [from unguilded player]"

Again, caring about this makes you a Twat.
I have no idea how "refusing to blindly follow a complete stranger barking orders that may or may not be completely horrible ideas" is somehow categorized as "Elitist".

These two complaints are Pussy Game Theory at it's finest, the idea that if people don't always get along and work together, singing Kumbaya together in region chat, then people in that game are being Elitist Jerks that hurt your overly sensitive Pussy feelings.

ISSUE:
"One of the leaders of a major guild called out the push to the Lord's room ...everyone except that guild pushed up -- completely unsupported by the other guild. The result was wholesale slaughter at the hands of the defenders. ...The leader's response was something along the lines of, "Well, if you want in the fort, you should join my guild."

That guy is an asshole. This is why Dicks need to fuck Assholes and not heal them and Pussies need to stop saying we all need to work together and follow random orders from complete strangers.


ISSUE:
"only a minute and a half from the zone flip, with at least two warbands waiting for the invasion to begin, Zimmeron's Hold was released ...because they wanted to give their own guild membership enough time to get online to join the fray."

OMG those are too funny. Seriously, in the case that I heard about, that turned another ho-hum Order City Zerg #108 that absolutely no one would ever talk about again into a hilariously stupid little civil war that resulted in all that realm's "dicks and pussies all covered in shit", just like the man said.

Can Warhammer be elitist at times? Maybe. Most competitive things are.
Is that a bad thing? No.

Elitism is not a bad thing, it's the American Way. And that's why we're The Best.
Team America: Fuck Yeah.