by Julie Whitefeather

What, if anything, does PC Gamer Magazine, and the movie “Young Frankenstein” have in common? For the answer to that, read my article.

Read on…

It’s alive…

by Julie Whitefeather

“To put it bluntly, games with massive open-ended virtual worlds are better RPGs than those offering more linear, structured experiences. The best RPGs pull you into their worlds by creating the illusion that they are living breathing places where goals can be achieved in intuitive ways” – Improving the World by Desslock, pcgamer August 2008

The quote at the beginning of this article is by my favorite columnist. Well, favorite ever since Mike Royko died (God rest his soul). Desslock writes a column for PC Gamer Magazine. It is the only pc gaming magazine I read. Why? That one’s easy – it’s the only one left. The picture at the beginning of the article, however, is from “Young Frankenstein”, my favorite version of the classic Frankenstein genre movies. What do the two have to do with each other? For the answer to that (if it isn’t already obvious) you will have to read to the end of this article.

Feeble segue attempt…

…and speaking of monster movies. There is a scene in another funny vampire movie called “Love at first bite” staring the king of the good suntan, George Hamilton.  In the movie Dracula (played by George Hamilton) finally turns Cindy Sondheim (played by Susan Saint James) in to a vampire. As the two of them fly into the moonset in bat form Hamilton tells her of the only drawback –  you can only go out after sunset. She replies with “That’s O.K. I could never get my shit together before 7:00 anyway.” Wow. That’s kind of a long way to go for a segue isn’t it? So …

I could never get my shit together before Wednesday anyway.

The best way to catch up with your writing schedule is to try and squeeze in an extra article by squeezing out more creative juices. When that does work – skip a week.

Grandmother knows best…

Grandmother, while certainly an advocate of getting a good education, once described a PHD as meaning “Pile it Higher and Deeper.”  While I don’t have a PHD, I do have two masters’ degrees, and I seem to be living proof of grandmother’s adage.  It is easy for me to get my head around the creative end of a podcast; however the technical end is giving me the “screaming heebee geebees” (as Douglas Adams once wrote).  If I can ever understand the inner workings of Audacity I will be brining you an Age of Conan podcast. In the mean time, as far as I am concerned, “AoC” stands for “Audacity O’ Contemptible program.

Getting Hammered…

In the meantime, Mark Jacobs, VP of Mythic Entertainment, inc. announced that the Mythic had decided to cut 4 of the 6 cities originally planned for Warhammer Online in the game under development. It was an announcement for which he was soundly hammered in return.  The internet was full of incessant complaints from those who insisted that Warhammer Online was now ruined. This is an interesting position, usually written about with tag lines touting it as a “bombshell”, considering the game isn’t even out yet, nor even in open beta. The flipside of that particular coin is that Mark Jacobs couldn’t buy better publicity if he wanted to.  Like Mae West, who once said that people could say whatever they want about her as long as they spelled the name right, Warhammer Online is the subject of much heated debate, even before the game hits the shelves. And all this occurred just as the dust was beginning to settle from the last uproar concerning Warhammer Online that was caused by Dr. Richard Bartle (if you don’t know who he is you should) who claimed he had already played Warhammer Online, stating that “it’s called World of Warcraft.”

While the residents of the blogosphere where busy screaming about the response to these complaints, as written about in the Warhammer Hearld, everyone seemed to ignore the following quote, which appeared in the same response by Mythic:

“These cities are what we call Living Cities.  Cities will prosper and flourish from actions you and your Realm-mates accomplish.  Each city has 5 Ranks and at each Rank the cities economy changes.  Not only does the economy adjust, but also various quests, events and PQs become available.” – James Nichols, “From the development team”,  EA Mythic/Warhammer Herald

At this point you might ask yourself “so what?” But that is just a reminder of some of the novel game mechanics that Mythic Entertainment is bringing to the virtual internet table with Warhammer Online. While Age of Conan is sometimes compared (and often negatively so) to the release of Funcom’s other product, Anarchy Online, I can only hope that Mythic brings to the Fantasy Genre what Blizzard SHOULD have brought to us long ago – good, solid, thoroughly playable realm versus realm content.

Your cake and eat it too…

While I look forward to the enormous battle promised by Mythic, what caught my eye in the press release by Mythic was the sentence “these cities are what we call Living Cities.  Cities will prosper and flourish from actions you and your Realm-mates accomplish.”

WoW (and not World of Warcraft, just wow). Living cities – a concept in gaming often promised but usually feebly delivered.  In Lord of the Rings Online (lotro) for example, you will see some good attempts at making cities look living by seeing Hobbits rolling down the road with wheelbarrows and Blacksmiths pounding away at anvils, in the process of making something. These are good attempts but they are merely illusions.  Now I am not talking about having an affect on the way a virtual world LOOKS like I did last week. I am talking about the players having a real affect on how the virtual world is played by the gamers – a living city.

All I can say at this point, is that if  Mythic Entertainment can make good on all of the promises it has made where Warhammer Online is concerned, I may have just found my third great love. In the mean time, you can just bet that there is a reservation for a collector’s edition of Warhammer Online sitting on my shelf – it will be my first.

See you online,

Julie Whitefeather