Previews R Us

Just saw an announcement from the Warhammer Online Herald that they are holding another preview weekend, called Preview Weekend+, for all the players who participated in the preview weekend two weeks ago.

According to the announcement the PW+ dates are Friday the 5th and Saturday the 6th of September. Considering that Open Beta starts on the 7th, the nice people at Mythic are giving us an extra couple of days.

My guess is that the particular bugs that caused so much embarrassment for Mythic on the first preview weekend have been fixed, and that Mythic is handing us a small reward for putting up with them.

I don’t think I’ll thrash the game so much this time. I’ll definitely be logging in around 5 hours from now (if it starts at the same time as before) and spending some time this weekend. Unfortunately, I’m busy at the moment and can’t spare much time.

I wasn’t planning on doing much during OB anyway. I will be waiting until the head start before I dive in fully. The OB for me is to get a feel for the game, not to create and become attached to a character that will be deleted at release.

I guess I should go patch the client.

Popularity: 8%

Respect Mah Prognosticatah

Way back in time… oh, around 18 months ago, I made a little, light hearted post called Five IPs I Would Like To See Made Into MMOs. I was feeling silly at the time and picked Monty Python and the Holy Grail and House as two of the options.

(I still think it would be great that when you get your mount, it’s just a guy that goes in front of you banging a couple of coconuts together.)

Imagine my surprise when reading Massively this evening only to see my first choice for MMO IP goodness is actually in the planning stages. Yes. Someone is planning to make a Buffy the Vampire Slayer MMO.

This is being developed by the people at Multiverse, who are the same folks who are (or were) developing the Firefly MMO. According to the report, that game has been delayed. The Buffy MMO is apparently in development, but there is no word on how far along it is. I expect that we’ve still got a wait.

Can I now put myself in the same category as such eminent prognosticators as Tobold? Tobold you should remember predicted the Wrath of the Lich King in his satirical post about the Frozen Jihad. He managed to pick a whole bunch of features too.

Just for posterity here is what I wrote (if you’re too lazy to follow the link to the original post.)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

A PvP Action Online game to slay ‘em all. Taking a little licence, Sunnydale doesn’t fall into a hole at the end of the series, but Buffy still shares her ‘gift’ with the world. Slayers start at the beginning of high school, and at the end of each game year graduate to the next level. Form your own Scooby Gang as you battle Vampyr, Monsters, and the Forces of Darkness. Oh, and by the way. You can play as Vampyr, Monsters, and the Forces of Darkness. Two sides against each other in a PvP battle royale.

Now I’m off to the magic shop to buy that crystal ball.

Popularity: 4%

Titles Are Not Worth Anything Unless They Cost Something

At the moment I am very busy. I’m between contracts and it’s dragging on a little more than I’m comfortable with, so I’m setting myself up to do some freelance work over the Internet. It’s something that would mesh nicely with any short term software development contracts that come along. And it would give me the chance to set my own hours for once!

Hence, the lack of posting. But I’m still checking all my subscriptions regularly, including my Mythic account. I’m just keeping an eye on it, in case, you know, I get a special invite or something.

So yesterday when I logged in, there was a notice telling me to validate my email. So I did.

And I got "The Validated" as a title I can use in the game.

Big Yawn.

Too harsh?

I like the idea of achievements and titles. I think that Turbine have done this particularly well in Lord of the Rings Online. It’s a fine idea.

I’m not entirely sure of how I feel about the way Mythic has implemented their achievement and title system, but I’m leaning towards feeling that they’ve overdone it.

Firstly, there are a bunch of early titles that are just there. Get killed a certain way and you get a title celebrating it. Validate your eMail and get a title.

Then there are just so many of them, it’s almost impossible to keep track. I guess that’s a minor point though. After long enough in the game, most players will have an intuitive grasp of all the names.

To me, titles should be earned. If you made the first 5 levels in LotRO without being defeated, you were given the title "The Wary." For every five levels after that you were given another title. I only made level 10 once, iirc, the title was "The Invincible."

What an achievement to get the level 50 undefeated title, whatever that is!

So when Mythic give me "The Validated" as a reward for receiving an email and clicking on the validation link, please forgive me for feeling rather underwhelmed.

PS. Just 10 days to go until the early access. Woo hoo!

Popularity: 8%