Dungeon and Dragons Online

I installed DDO yesterday, having picked it up in the bargain bin for £5. Downloaded a patch at 100kb/s and it took about five hours to complete. Guess Farlan aren't the only ones who think a "patch" should be used to describe the bit that's left out of the download rather than included. But once I was through that, the game was surprisingly user friendly. It goes to show what a decent budget can do for the polishing of the start-experience. And it's so important too, if a player is hooked on a game and there are some irratations or bugs, then likely, they'll not leave unless they are too severe (like no endgame in WoW) but if you frustrate early users, you're introuble. So the upshot is that I had an enjoyable enough hours play from a noobs perspective. Graphics - pretty basic looking - even my aged rig allows for near MAX on everything, but they're OK Sound - other than having to reload once, the sound has been ok in VISTA. The acutal sound content is OK, though some tunes have a tendency to cut off after ten bars or so. That could be the local bard getting cut short of course... There's a GM style narrator too which is a nice touch for PnP style emmersion - likely it gets frustrating to listen to the "You here muffled sounds behind this door" for the 100th time. controls - everything worked straight out the box and you can jump on boxes, climb ladders, "tumble" from enemy. The targeting is interesting too, in that you don't just lock on to the target, you actually have to be close to it in order to hit it. combat - my first attempts to kill stuff were largely enjoyable. skill - they seem to be as varied as I remember them from my PnP days, there seems to be enough differences between classes to make each interesting. MMORPGability - I think, sadly, that this game's perception of not being a "real" MMO is fair enough. As far as I can gather the only time you see other players is in the quest staging areas. But as I'm only using DDO as filler, that's fine for a month, it's like having a single player game with an option for grouping if I feel sociable enough. So that's an early one hour in Noob's perspective. Clearly much to learn and places to see. I'll report back maybe at the weekend or so! If anyone is interested in joining me, I'll likely be playing for an hour or two each night around 20:00-22:00 GMT. You can pick up free 10 day trials on teh website!

Tue May 08, 2007 4:52 am

Blog moved and moved again

If you're looking for old posts... check the front page of www.mystical-awakening.net - there's a long running news posts there which fills up the time since the last post.

Return of Team Fortress!

RAWR! TEAM FORTRESS 2. Ok so I'm a bit slow on the uptake, but for those of you who didn't know where I cut my PvP shaped teeth, it was in TFC years ago...

Ok so this game teh graphics look cartoony, but that's gonna be a change in a decent team based FPS. Maybe not so unusual for MMORPGs (can anyone say WoW) but a good FPS blast-em-up is never a bad thing to relieve the week's tension over a beer or three.

After some time far, far away...

..I thought I'd try to start up the Blog again.

Lots of interesting things happening in MMO world

Eve Online is adding atmospheric flight here's a video to a vid taken during a recent fan fest (has sound). Atmospheric flight is a welcome adition to Eve and has been talked about for many years - though unlikely to make it in to teh up and coming expansion Kali which is looking to be a pretty good addition to the increasingly successful non-standard MMORPG game.
Atmospheric flight will add a whole new area for production and conquest. Hopefully players will be able to battle it out for domination of the best areas, and it would be a nice twist to see some of the new areas opened up too.

More space news coming tomorrow once I have had a chance to check out a new space MMO on the distant horizon called "Infinity".

Dedication's what you need

I just spotted this on forum about up and coming MMORPG - ROMA VICTOR. Thought it showed what is needed for small production houses these days. Eye opening, no?


RedBedlam Comm. Mgr.
Rank: 100/100 Rank: 100/100 Rank: 100/100 Rank: 100/100 Rank: 100/100

Registered: 3/21/05
Posts: 174

"Rome wasn't coded in a day"
- Kanoth RedBedlam Community Support Manager


Another big difference between RB and the big companies...they get paychecks.

I'm hoping to get my first paycheck since July 01 for helping with these games. KFR also hasnt had a paycheck from his company since 2000.

In fact, I think only 4 or 5 guys on the team are paid when we have money to do so. Actually, here's RedBedlams structure with a bit about the people there:

Management (all on board for around five years - all unpaid):
KFR - See Jupiter.
RJH - Business Director (full and part time as needed)
NGW - Communications Director (part time)

Development (all on board for around 2-3 years - some have occasionally been paid as much as we could afford, whenever we could afford it):
Jupiter - Producer, Project Lead, Architect, Lead Designer, Programmer etc. Full time since the start.
Vulcan - Lead Client Programmer & 3D Engineer. Full time.
Neptune/Faunus - Lead Server & Tools Programmer. Full time.
Mercury - Lead 3D Artist. Sometimes full time; sometimes part time.
Apollo - Audio Lead & Composer. Full and part time.
Mars - Animator. As and when needed.
Additionally there are a few other goodly writers, artists and programmers that have also dropped in to help from time to time.

Consultants:
PJH - Virtual Economist
AJT - Server kernel & Tools Programming
Dr Richard Bartle - Virtual World Design
LG - Communications & Design

Community Support:
Kanoth. Community Relations Manager. Unpaid hero of the forums.
And of course the Prefects, Moderators and countless contributers that make this project both possible and worthwhile. They'll all feature in the game's credits eventually.

Partners:
Finally there are all the third party companies and organisations that have worked with and partnered with us. Some in particular have gone well above and beyond their obligations to help us out, for which we are all extremely grateful.

The word 'passion' means both suffering and devotion. I think it is therefore entirely appropriate to say that RedBedlam is made up of a very passionate bunch of people. Anyone and everyone that cares about Roma Victor owes a great deal to the dedication, enthusiasm and talents - not to mention sacrifice - of those listed above.

-KFR

"Rome wasn't coded in a day"
- Kanoth

AutoAssault slated by Jolt.co.uk

Well respected bastion of gaming servers, Jolt have reviewed AutoAussalt, the latest offering from NPSoft. Their review score of 6.8 underlies the true problem with the MMO genre at the moment... no innovation. Let's see if games such as Chronicles of Spellborne, Huxley, Dark and Light and Eve Online will bring (or continue to bring, in Eve's case) fresh air needed in this UO/WoW obsessed genre.

FFXIII

Looks quite nice - but is it worth buying a PS3 for?

video clip