There is such a thing as a Free Lunch

It’s FREEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!! (Remember this guy from those commercials? I took three years of French and can’t say a word, I remembered this dudes name was Matthew Lesko so I could google image search him, go figure)

It feels strange to speak of “the olden days” of gaming and be talking about 2004.  That’s when Blizzard released World of Warcraft and basically changed how people thought about games with a monthly subscription.  A niche Everquest audience was suddenly ten million people strong, all handing over cash on a monthly basis.  On some level almost all the major players have been chasing that same thing since, be it Call of Duty with its Elite service (which for the record, according to an IGN article posted earlier this week, has about 10 million subscribers, go figure) or Bioware’s banking that the Star Wars license will make The Old Republic into the next behemoth of the mmo space.  Sadly for them, it’s not.  It’s not that the game is bad but that the market has changed.  The future is free.

Wakfu beta: Planting a better tomorrow

so elegant. So Japanese.

Augh, oh God I just sneezed all over my computer monitor!  This is the worst!  Also, I am coming to terms with the fact that the more Faceplant articles I write in a row, the less sense they make.  But meh, as the only surviving member of the Great Faceplant Massacre of 2012, it falls to me to once again present you with SOME kind of entertainment.  Or something.  I’m really not sure what it is I’m trying to accomplish here, honestly.  Ehhh, Can’t over think this thing.  Writing Faceplant is how I will deal with the deaths of Elrood and Enosh following this horrible…  horror.

Anyway, back when he was still alive, there was a conversation I had with Elrood about MMOs. Elrood has long been appraised about my feelings for World of Warcraft:  namely, that at any given point my love for the game could devolve into a deep rooted hatred that seethes below the surface of my sarcastic exterior.  Around the same time I finally cancelled my account, I heard about Wakfu, a new MMO being created by Square Enix and Akama through a nerdy nerd magazine for nerds.  While Wakfu didn’t sound like the kind of game I typically picked up, it sounded so different from every other MMO out there I had to admit I was intrigued.

… Having separation anxiety from World of Warcraft may have played into that, as well.

Star Wars: The Old Republic Impressions

So confession my dear readers (all…four of you?).  I almost forgot to write this article because I was playing the game it’s about.  In fact it took Tophat to remind me that it was Friday!  We talked a bit about the latest MMO to hit the market, The Old Republic.  And I think I said something quite telling about the game in that conversation, without even thinking about it.  When he asked me how the game was, I responded with “I’m enjoying the single player.”  Wait, WHAT?!  This is an MMO.  Massive Multiplayer is in the genre.  As it stands now though,  the game seems very divided.  It’s this division that makes it both a unique game in the MMO space, but one whose power to retain a player base for a long period of time is in question.

DC Universe Online: Loregasm

Seconds later, an epic thumb war battle broke out.

I’ll be honest here- I don’t know much about the lore behind DC Comics.  Much of what I do know comes from cartoons, and the watching of, well into an age where I should have stopped watching comics and started watching, I dunno, Survivor or something equally as terrible.  From these cartoons, as well as a few gems I picked up just randomly over the years, I do know a few things worth noting.  Most of these have to do with superpowers and the people who have them, with no regard to things that are actually happening or have happened in the comics.

Maybe it was my subconscious desire to play Arkham City when it came out compared to an effort to save money for the holiday season, but when Steam announced DC Universe Online was now a free to play, I had to pick it up.  Maybe I’m just a sucker for super hero based MMOs.

Free to Play: Incomplete entertainment

Give a gamer a free game and this is what it feels like in our heads

Don’t know how many of you out there have been paying attention, but several free-to-play games launched on Steam this month. Four games launched in one chunk, with Champions Online, Spiral Knights, Global Agenda and Forsaken World taking the stage first, and Valve’s ever-popular Team Fortress 2 joining in shortly after.  The first chunk of games is interesting in that all four of them are MMOs of varying sizes and shapes, offering worlds of content, endless quests and character progression for Steam’s community.  Now, as many of you may know, I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with MMOs, forged deep in the murky bowels of the underbelly of World of Warcraft.  So why the eff would I pick up four new MMOs?  Simple.

THEY ARE FREE.

Playstation 3: Right now even Nintendo has more online services

Nice Logo, I think I'll take it

I own both an Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.  I have no preference in the eternal console fanboy war.  In fact I always kind of considered them equal, maybe even the PS3 coming out ahead because of its ability to play blurays and its FREE online services.  Xbox live is definitely the slicker system as far as presentation, but not having to pay Sony kind of made up for the lack of bells and whistles on the PSN.  However, as most of you reading this probably know by now, the Playstation network was hacked into and taken down as a result on April 20th.  This is posting on May 4th and the PSN is STILL dead to the world.  Not being able to play any games online (including the MMO ONLINE ONLY DC Universe) would be bad enough, but the question remains of whether or not the hacker(s?) obtained user credit card information.  While Sony is a victim of a crime in this situation, the surprising lack of timely information and concrete answers is of great concern to me both as a gaming enthusiast and a consumer.  To me it says that while Sony wants to be at the technological forefront in terms of horsepower, how people use and interact with the technology seems to be lost on them.

Online Gaming: It’s not you, it’s me!

BEHOLD. The powerful tool of multiplayer gaming in 1994.

Remember the time when multiplayer gaming was an enormous hassle?  I recall renting a SNES multitap adapter ; a magical device that let four controllers be connected to one system.  Fire up some Super Bomberman, get some friends to bring their controllers, and the fun would last for hours.  Sure it might SOUND crazy for you and two buddies to drive to a friend’s house, whose not even home, and accost his mother to borrow a gamecube controller, but back before the internet was an important part of any console (except the Wii because Nintendo set sail for fail on that one) these were the kinds of things that had to happen to truly experience a game with friends.  The present day is a different beast of course.  Friends lists are one of the most important features on Xbox or PS3.  However, even more so, the ability to just randomly jump into a game and shoot strangers in the ass, then virtually teabag them, is to me still a relatively new, strange, and completely horrifying experience.  The ability to connect to the masses to play games is for me not quite as an awesome prospect as it probably should be.  I wonder:  am I the problem or is everybody else?

Starcraft 2: Playing Nice with Others

Blizzards insanely large RTS took forever to come out and had quite a history to live up too.  The plot of Starcraft was all well and good but the reason the series is still relevant today is the fact that the game is well balanced enough to basically be a professional sport, and actually IS in Korea.  To say that Starcraft 2 had some high expectations is quite the understatement.  How’s it stack up?

The Old Republic is feeling old already

Oooohhhh Bioware. I love you guys, I really do. Between Knights of the old Republic 1 and 2, the Mass Effect Series, and Dragon Age, I’ve never had a bad time playing your games. As a huge Star Wars fan, I was super excited to see you were working on another game set in that universe. When I realized it was an MMO, I grew a little concerned.

World of Warcraft: Why Some Hate it and Some Love it

World of Warcraft players are serious. Well, some of them. Trying to purchase tickets to Blizzcon, Blizzards yearly event of Warcraft/Starcraft/Diablo nerding the f out, sells out within seconds. Actually, to be more accurate, in under a second. I was sitting at my computer at the ticket sales web page, clicking refresh two times a second waiting for the magical BUY TICKETS box to pop up. I was on the phone with a friend who was doing the same.