Arrived In Sydney

Just a quick note to let you know I have arrived in Sydney.

I arrived yesterday afternoon a little earlier than I expected. I’m staying with friends until Tuesday morning when I head off on to Coffs Harbour. That’s likely to be my longest driving day with a google maps prediction of eight hours. If experience shows anything, that estimate is likely to be low.

My friends are currently out and I’m here home alone. Hence the chance to write this. I’ve also been doing a bit of blog catching up.

I’ve been taking a few photos too. I’ll put a few up when I get home. During my travels, I did notice many fields with Taurean and many polymorphs. I shouted “For the Horde” a few times, but sadly didn’t get a response.

Typical that stuff happens when I’m not around; Blizzard has released a whole bunch of info on the Wrath of the Lich King; Shaun Fannings gamer social network Rupture has been purchased by EA for 30 million (it was even finished!) and Microsoft cancels its bid for Yahoo.

I got to wonder what’s going to happen in the next week!

It looks like I’ll have a lot to write about when I get home, even if it is a little behind the times.

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AoC Schizophrenia

It’s a little worrying.

I’ve been reading some of the first impressions and reviews of the Age of Conan beta. Tobold has posted his, and Keen has added some more to his impressive repertoire of AoC articles.

AoC is shaping up to be a find game. That much is clear. By all reports the PvE is excellent while the PvP could use some polishing up, but is promising.

The problem is, it appears, that Funcom didn’t really learn anything from the Anarchy Online release debacle years ago. According to Keen, it appears that Funcom is using an old buggy version of the client, even older than the PvP open weekend, as the client for the open beta.

Now if that isn’t a mistake, I don’t know what is.

While it’s true that beta testers should be playing the game in order to test it, after all that’s why they signed up, the reality is a lot of beta testers just want to get in early and play an upcoming game for free. This is even more the case during the open beta when anyone can get in, not just those selected by the developers.

This makes it really important for the developers to put their best foot forward and provide the best experience for the beta testers. First impressions count, and this includes the beta.

There are still people who consider Tabula Rasa a bad game because of their experience early in the beta, even though the game improved immensely towards the end.

Funcom knows what it’s like to lose out to bad first impressions. Anarchy Online had a dismal launch, and this put a lot of people off the game, even after the problems were ironed out. AO has gone on to a long and successful career since then, but who knows how much better it would have done had the launch been smooth.

A game only gets one shot at a good first impression.

Popularity: 14%

Running Around Like A Headless Chook

It’s midnight and I’m still getting things ready for the trip tomorrow morning.

I really ought to have learnt by now that it’s important to get things done reasonably well in advance of the departure date. Oh Well.

I’ll be taking my notebook with me. If I find myself in a hotel with internet, and I get the time I’ll try and put up a post or two. I’ll see how it goes. I’ll keep the Twittering up if I can too.

In any case, I’ll be back home on the 18th of May.

Popularity: 8%