That’s right folks, it’s the mandatory MMORPG news post 1! I also need to start thinking now for a suitably unwitty title for post 2 whenever that comes!

As a somewhat avid, some would say rabid (and to them I say ‘grrrrr’, swipe and foam at the mouth), MMO player, I feel it is my duty to waste storage space on the interweb waffling on about what I think and feel.

PAH! Lousy human emotion!

Moving swiftly onwards, follow the hyperlink for news on various MMO’s!

Tabula Rasa: Now, at the moment, I’m just installing the client now. Rather silly of me, I’m downloading it instead of using the handy pre-order CD I got in a goody bag at the City of Heroes Minicon at Omega Sektor in Birmingham, March 2007 (/plug). 17 minutes to go so far. But what pre-conceptions do I bring with me to the game?

Well, from what I’ve seen on YouTube, I’m… not really sure -what- to expect. I feel the best way is to just walk into the game and face it head on. MMOFPSRPG chimera, even though it is in third person, is kind of what I’m expecting. Mix the bastard child of CoH and Starship Troopers, along with Exteel, and this is the kind of gist I’m getting. Still, got my 5 day trial code ready to play, and may grab the NC Soft Starter Pack for it too to give it more of a try if needed. For only £1.99 for a client disc and 14 day trial, I feel that’s good value!

TotalVideoGames are doing a 5 day Trial giveway, click here to apply (UK).

World of Warcraft: Yes, it’s that game. Warcrack, World of Evercraft, whatever you wish to call it. An intermittent year on from first starting playing and my main Alliance character, Zackary Tanner, has reached level 60. The vast expanse of Outland now awaits me.

But what do I make of Outland? Firstly, the quest rewards. I can understand why they call them ‘Welfare Greens and Blues’, but damn are they sweet, and they were the perfect things to boost Zack’s equipment and stats up for taking on the hoards of demons. Currently stationed at Honour Hold while running about Azeroth as well, at the moment the level grind has been replaced with something else.

The gold grind. You see, I need an epic mount. +100% travel speed? Yes please, Outland is a big place after all, and filled with many a demon. And annoying, user error (IE. my own) means that I accidently sold a [Forumla: Enchant Weapon - Crusader] for 1/100th of it’s market price. Mmm, the princely sum of 1g 30s. Someone got a -real- good deal thanks to that. Ah well, World of Grindcraft continues with me running old instances to get various materials to sell, craft with, or disenchant, as well as flinging the things I can’t disenchant over to my friend.

It’s also kind of scary to see how fond the RP community on my server (That’d be Ravenholdt, RP-PVP) are of me.

Wrath of the Lich King brings some promising features, such as the ability to ride on the mount of another player. Will be rather cool for hitching a ride, especially on characters who are a lower level, and it’ll make ferrying people about much easier. Death Knights are apparently as of this moment unlocked for those who are level 55, I can’t quite remember if they have a quest to unlock, but they start off at a higher level, with a selection of greens and blues. I may have a little mess about on one to see what they’re like. It’s also a case of one per account per realm server.

Still, from an RP perspective, playable Death Knights are almost as bad as Vampire Princesses of Stormwind in Goldshire. Or all the ERP that takes place in public channels. I’m looking at you Goldshire!

The new profession of Inscription may be interesting, giving you a boost to your abilities, such as quicker recharge, more damage, or other side effects. I’ve also heard promising rumours of enchanters being able to sell enchants through the Auction House, which would make leveling Enchanting -much- easier. Oh, new dances and haircuts too, plus the ability to change hair styles. I hope we can change faces and facial hair too…

City of Heroes: Issue 12: Midnight Hour is live! Villan Epic Archetypes, the Soldiers of Arachnos and Widows for people with level 50 heroes, Powerset Proliferation, a brand new zone set in the past, and new story arcs to do with the Midnight Squad.

Patch Notes Here!

I’ve yet to play it myself, I deliberately avoided trying it out on Test as I was suffering from CoH burnout, and still kind of am, but may have a bimble on there tonight to see what’s what. And check out the mass of Quality of Life Changes, including stuff that should help stop the inf spammers that have been plauging the server as of late.

RP wise, I still really need to recharge my batteries for CoH. I dunno what came over me, though I think it may be burnout from trying to set up a new Supergroup, and 3 year syndrome may be another cause. Over three years actually… wow, January 2005. It’s been a long, long time.

With NorCal buying the IP from Cryptic, I’m hoping for big things, and possibly a bigger sequel. With a non-graphics chewing engine. More on that later. Speaking of graphics…

Age of Conan: What kind of MMORPG post would this be without mentioning FunCom’s new flagship (If the name sounds familiar, they were behind Anarchy Online.) The game is for one, certainly not hard drive or download friendly, considering something like a 23 gig client and a 15 gig patch for it. That’s bigger than WoW and FFXI with all the patches and updates put together.

Graphically, it’s pretty. Very pretty. But of course, graphics come at a price (except oddly in Guild Wars case) and there may be issues for many who want to play the game. I’ve seen it chugging in beta on a fairly hefty machine, and I’ve heard cases of it chugging on real hardcore gaming machines, and having issues with multi-core processors.

Gameplay wise, I only played a little bit with it in Beta, I found it was very… well, WoW-ish. It was a very pretty WoW, with a combat system that was a bit more involving and certainly interesting, but WoWish all the same. Plus making a character on a poorly lit galley may be good for IC reasons (even if having all your characters in the story starting off as a slave and winding up in a pirate town), when it comes to seeing what the hell you’re doing, then you’re a little out of luck.

I’ll be hopefully grabbing a buddy key to dip my toes in the water and unleash the side of me that likes dressing up in leather and being scantily clad.

Moreso.

Guild Wars: Well, I’m surprised.

I first picked up Guild Wars in November 2007. By that I mean a friend brought Prophecies for me as it was only £10 and I was intersested in playing, mucked abotu with it a little and got confused. Lost the game client in crash and didn’t pay much attention, until I decided for a break from CoH.

When you get down to it, GW is a nifty game, and certainly innovative from its design, marketing and payment approach. Letting you solo with henchmen (or in Nightfall/Eye of the North with Heroes, who are Henchmen+) or teaming up, though I’ve yet to do the latter is refreshing from games such as Final Fantasy XI, where soloing is auto-masochism, but less fun.

No subscription fees means you can come and go from it as you want without worrying about payment, making it a very casual, relaxed thing to play, and the instancing means you don’t have to worry about killstealers and can be sheltered from some of the more, well, immature chat in outposts and towns. I did find one problem with the instancing, which is where on the Prophecies mission to get into the game proper, someone quit the team at the end which meant I couldn’t talk to Prince Rurik in the scene afterwards as we were all warped to Post-Searing Ascalon City.

PVP wise, well, I haven’t tried that yet, but the way of splitting the main PVP game from the game proper to help with loot imbalances and such seems like a good idea in theory, one that WoW have borrowed for their Tourney servers. Considering ArenaNet is made up of ex-Blizzard employees, that’s gotta say something.

Finally, to wrap up this leviathan of a post, I shall mention three things in passing, all NCSoft games.

Exteel: An MMO3PS (That’s 3rd Person Shooter. Go me, I’m making up acronyms!) that’s free to play with microtransactions for NCCoin to buy better stuff (I think it’s about 2000 NC coin for $20, which can buy you a complete mech and array of weapons, paint job and skills to go with it.) Twitchy game, and there’s a few issues with it still, but hopefully they should be ironed out. Worth getting if you like stompy mechs and just logging on to relieve some stress.

Dungeon Runners: Parody, thy name is Dungeon Runners, especially where Diablo is concerned. Free to play, mostly (You get more features and earn exp 15% quicker if you’re a member, it costs $4.99 a month, which is about the price of eating something for lunch in pounds) you play an eponymous Dungeon Runner, who’s goal is to run into dungeons, murderdeathkill, complete quests and run out again with phat lewt. The humour of the game, quests and interface is very tongue in cheek, and as mentioned earlier parodies Diablo a lot. A small client too, and while I haven’t teamed with anyone or done much chatting, it may be worth it just if you’re looking for something to do and a small creature or several to maim.

Lineage 2: After reciving a free trial key to this now somewhat ageing Korean MMORPG at Bristol Comic Expo, I’ll be giving this game a try soon.

Coming in MMORPG Post 2 (Damn I need to find a catchier name for that):

TABULA RASA – The How’s, What’s, Why’s and Huh’s of the Game!

CITY OF HEROES/VILLAINS: The Midnight Hour – Subjective Views on the New Issue of the Only Super-hero MMO on the Market.

LINEAGE 2 – Scantily Clad Dark Elves Ahoy!