WarCry™ Network

WarCry™ Network: "DISCLAIMER: I don't engage in account stealing anymore. I still engage in laughing at those stupid enough to get theirs stolen."

In an effort to bring you the news about EVE Online's recent announcement that customers using third party applications to improve the EVE experience are subject to not only banishment from the game but are also subject to account stealing, Warcry Network's editor JR "Razor" Sutich admits to being a hack account stealer who once preyed on the less fortunate readers of his website. Wow, what a scumbag.

Breaking News! Not All Politicians Are Idiots!

I know you can't believe it, neither can I. This story starts for me several years ago at E3 when a representative (read lawyer) from one of the big defense contractors sauntered up to our booth and described how it was against the law for game companies to use planes produced by his client without their permission. The client it appears was especially worried that their brand might be connected with war planes that get shot down, obviously implying some sort of bad juju on the company that made the war planes by showing them in a negative light. Yeah, we were dumbfounded too.

Well it looks like the gentleman from New Jersey has decided to call bull on this and is proposing a bill that would prohibit defense contractors from requiring liscenses for the use of military likenesses. That kinda makes sense since, you know, like, our tax dollars paid for the RDP of the whole thing and junk!

Make your voice heard if you're a wargamer or you just like to stick it to the man. Even if, in this case, you're helping the man stick it to the other man. Ok, that's dirty.

GovTrack: H.R. 4806: Military Toy Replica Act

Daily Show FTW

In case you missed last night's daily show be sure to tune in tonight at 9 central for the repeat. Jon had a rollicking good time covering the Houes hearing on violent video games. Among other jems one congressman exclaimed that he felt powerless watching his children playing violent video games in his living room and wondered aloud how the system had failed. *dramatic pause*

Another gleeful exclaimed that he was in tune with the issue as he had reached Civiklization IV. Seriously, like it was a badge or something you could get.

My favorite though was when Jon showed a clip of scenes from the violent cop-killer San Andreas. Interspresed among the clips was a quick shot of a laser guided bomb blowing the crap out of some invisible opponents on national television during the news. It could have just as easily been any nightly news program or indeed a montage of Law & Order, CSI Miami and Cops. You want to talk about rotting your brain, maybe Hilly should watch a few hours of netwrok television or the local news once in a while if she wants to learn what's destroying America's youth. I bet her parents thought it was rock and roll. Most likely it is that dipshit from paragraph one.

(Disclaimer: The gentleman who has achieved Civ level IV is from the great state of Texas. God bless the Republic)

Watch it.

The Cesspit.

The Cesspit. | Home of the fool (on a hill): "In the past I wrote that you can guess the quality of the design in a MMORPG from its LFG system and I still believe there is some truth in that claim. I always considered these tools as the real core of these games and I think they should be the starting point from where you design a new game. Not a feature that you consider later on, but the very first one around which the rest of the game is built."

I just started reading the Cesspit and one of these days I'll get around to linking it and Damion on the right there. I couldn't agree more with the above and really, honestly hadn't thought about it in that manner before. I do remember the MMO's I've played with excellent LFG controls. Most of them were interface driven tools that were very useful and as stated WoW's really sucks. If you haven't heard, their long touted improvement over the never-ever-ever-used meeting stones is... wait for it... to make the LFG chat channel.. get this ... really ... global.

Uh...

I post this because a lot of what we deal with in WWIIOL is really about grouping. Sure, it appears and is in many ways quite the antithesis of your regular MMO's grouping functions but in essence it is all about getting players together for common goals and orcs and elves call that grouping. If I had to do WWIIOL all over, and many days I'd like to, then I would certainly start with that element as my primary focus. It is indeed the foundation which makes for a great game from a design point of view.

They Stole Bloo's idea!

Remember West World? Bloo has been nagging on and on for years to develop a concept that is based loosely on that. A world where you can take your avatar and go on vacations to game settings that appeal to you. A cross if you will of the virtual world Second Life with actual games. Many, varied games. Guild wars with themed instances if you will. Cool eh? The guys at The Corporation seem to think so. Read on for hilarity.

News from the Underground | The Corporation @ Corpnews.com

I <3 Suits

EA Ready To Finalise Mythic Acquisition / News // TotalVideoGames.com: "'The addition of Mythic to the EA family reflects our deep commitment to the online gaming market worldwide. Mythic will bring one of the industry's most talented MMORPG teams to EA. Together, we will create games that will introduce MMO players to a whole new level of game play and excitement,' said Paul Lee, President, EA Studios."

I just had to post this. As the General in Fift E says "For the archievs". Ok, so it's not Mila in a thermal wrap but it is still a gem. Commitment to the online gaming market worldwide! Can you believe that? I think I might wet myself. And as a bonus prize we get introduced, intro you see, to excitment and new levels of gameplay too! Holy cow! The new milenium IS beter than the nineties after all!

Do gamers really buy this level of corp-spek or doe suits just say this to sound like suits to other suits? Where's Dilbert when you need him.

EA absorbs Mythic

EA absorbs Mythic: "In business, there are two main avenues for growth: internal expansion and acquisition. Electronic Arts has chosen the latter strategy fairly often in its history, buying out companies such as Origin, Westwood, Bullfrog, Digital Illusions, and Jamdat Mobile, to name a few."

What's so terrible about this you ask? Ok, you probably didn't ask because everyting is spelled out right there for you. Origin! Westwood! Bullfrog! These are legends in the gaming industry. Wing Commander alone is probably the reason that I bought an Apple 6200. I can't even begin to explain the countless weekends of co-op play that Krieger and I spent getting Killraven the Avatar through Ultima VII. Hell, it took us over a year to get BACK to the storyloine. And Theme hospital, well, if you don't get it you never will and you're missing out no some fine gaimng there friend.

Too bad then that EA, who's only shining star that comes readily to mind is Madden's Football which I last played in...94?, has decided to kill off another legend. Wait I mean buy, acquire, no I mean lay out to pasture. Hope springs eternal though. WAR is the next MMO on my horizon (Ug der Klan-hai!) and now those dreams are as uncertain as shopping in east Brittania. EA PK's DAoC FTW!

Mission Ranking System up for Discussion

I'm working on a specification for a mission ranking system. Let's call it the 5-star system since we like to be really original! This system would look at a mission and give it a rating of 1-5 stars and display that in the mission selection list at Brig HQ. This system would then show at the brigade level which brigade has good missions. I'll proabably play with showing either highest ranking or a weighting system that takes into account how many missions plus rating to give a rating to the individual brigades and thus to the division.

If you think this might lead to an "instant action" option for noobies then you might be correct though I'd personally prefer that this system would entirely circumvent the need for such a system and would have the added benefit of walking recruits throught the brigade system we have in the UI since it is immersive to the period of WWII IMHO.

So then, what would your list of things that make a mission worth taking be? What would earn a mission a star?

You've got 'till Monday so take your time. Discussion is welcome but stay on topic or I'll bust you back to private. That means you Wintergreen!

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Dragon's Lair remastered in HD

So what. I mean ok they are taking one of the biggest quarter mongers of all time and making a DVD so us old farts can play it on the PC. Whoptee right? Well, right. But what if...

Lately a lot of the talk in the gameblogosphere has been about casual games and rightly so. Casuals offer small TMM. Time, men and money being the big three in any endeavor. They also offer a lot of distribution channels as anyone who played in the spaec recognizes. You can Besmkacdown for next to nothing and if it is good you can sell it to subscription web portals, pay for download, retail box, airplane seat backs...whatever. And unlike a AAA title, casuals don't necessarily peak really fast, they can be repackaged and re marketed to new distro channels again and again. This is indeed a good space to get into if you are indy (which generally means you have very little TMM).

So why then isn't someone looking at something like this as a casual game. It fits my favorite definition that it can be played with the mouse or my second that my grangran could play it. And with flash you could web browser this sucker in a heart beat.

There's a freebee for ya but when you stop to think about it there are a lot of "reusable" titles from the hey day of gaming that could easily be repackaged for the casual market and a lot of these liscenses could likely be had cheap. I'll call Costikyan. Someone scrounge me up some TMM...stat!

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