Weekend update 6/28/09

Today feels like a good day for a weekend update.  There are a lot of odds and ends to briefly comment on, announce, update, etc. etc.

[Podcast / Interview] Julie Whitefeather & Frances Kosac of the No Prisoners, No Mercy podcast had me on their show for episode 36 to discuss… well a lot of stuff, really.   They’re working on several episodes at once over there so I’m not sure what was all part episode 36 and what is being reserved for future episodes (I’m only halfway through listening) so you’ll just have to listen and enjoy.  I do know that you’ll hear my thoughts on Land of the Dead from my time on the public test server (this was recorded before LotD launched) and my thoughts on some of WAR in general.  Those two nuns are a lot of fun and you’re sure to enjoy their podcast (and me!) so give it a listen.

[Delayed] Mortal Online has delayed the sale of their pre-orders/collectors/whatever because they can’t get their store working properly.  No one could have seen that coming. OUCH! Sorry, my tongue just went through my cheek there.  Dodging the same problems that Aventurine had when they couldn’t get their store working probably would be a very good thing.  This whole “only 999 copies!” thing and having to pay full price to get into beta is a big put off for me so I won’t be adopting this one early.

[Gaming News] NCsoft delivered an open letter to their community.  In usual form for a producer’s letter, it gave very little information.  When I tried desperately to read into the letter or find something worth talking about I read the line “…an army of creative writers generating an enormous amount of rewrites as we execute to our total commitment of quality of content” and thought that this could at least explain why Aion, being so polished already, would need 3 more months before release.  Makes sense that rewriting the story and Westernizing the content would take a while…. but then I found out from a friend who has been following the game for years that they’ve been saying this same thing ofr the past 2 years.  Maybe they really mean it this time.

[Release] Battlefield Heroes launched this past week.  I’ve been in the beta for months and months and months and months and forever and have enjoyed playing and testing.  It’s not what you would think of when you think of the Battlefield franchise.  It’s cartoony, wonky, honky, and the antithesis of what you would consider the Battlefield games to be.  It works though.  It’s fun, completely free, and offers a decent amount of fun for a game that requires you to put so little into it.  You can earn experience on your character like you would in the recent FPS games to unlock new abilities.  You can do “missions” which are just like achievements and give you a form of currency to spend on buying new weapons.  The sad part about the game is that they’re really looking for you to spend money on their microtransactions.  To get any cool clothes you have to spend money and the weapons are not permanent because you have to continue spending to own them (7 days or a month at a time).  Unfortunately, their microtransaction system has to value to it.  You can’t buy more to save in the long run.  Spending $5 will get you X and spending $20 will get you X*4.   I consider myself to be decent at the game and enjoy completely destroying those who spent money on the game when I’ve spent zilch.

[Beta / Upcoming Game] Aion’s 3rd Beta Weekend will be a bit longer this time.  We get to play from July 2 – July 6 and have access to content from levels 1-20.  The schedule says that this will be open to Asmodians, but I bet they’ll open up the Elyos as well.  I’m torn on whether or not I should play a lot this weekend.  On one hand I want nothing more than to play the heck out of Aion, but at the same time I want to avoid burnout or seeing and experiencing the fun before it’s permanent.  I’m usually the type to play the beta, love it, play at launch and like it but feel like it wasn’t as good as beta – probably because the magic of the first time has worn off.  I’ll wrestle with my decision up until Thursday.  Be sure you pre-order if you haven’t already and give it a shot.  It’s only $5 if you can find a pre-order bonus box at your local Scamstop Gamestop/EB which can be transfered to another game if you don’t like it.