by Julie Whitefeather 

“I think what’s happening is that social networking has infiltrated every aspect of the internet, and that same is true of games. I think you’re going to see a lot more social networking aspects to games, but are they competing? I don’t think they are. Something like Facebook is entertaining, but it’s not the same entertainment that we offer. I do see more usage of them though, that’s for sure”

- John Smedley, in an interview with Gamesindustry.biz “MMOWeek: SOE president John Smedley”

I recently had a discussion with Dorothy from The Older Gamers (TOG) about this very same issue which John Smedly mentions in the quote above.

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Lemmings. These adorable little green topped yellow guys can do anything that you want them to do. Tell them to stop and redirect traffic, and they’ll put on a hat that grabs the attention of the other lemmings, put out their arms, and shake their heads telling the other lemmings to turn around and not continue going that direction.

Sometimes it seems as though gamers feel that the people developing the games can do the same thing - as though each person who is a “developer” is so multi-faceted that they can do anything and everything, and tend to do so and not look at other areas until “one area” has been worked on and completed.

It is very frustrating to read forums or hop into IRC and see the misconception from people who ordinarily, I would find to be highly intelligent people. In this “area”, it seems that the ball is falling short of the intelligence hoop.

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This week new atttitude takes a look at why we still play some games, even though their graphics have long ago paled in comparison to some of the newest offerings on the market.

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By Julie Whitefeather 

There was a comedian named Stan Freeburg that was popular when I was growing up.  He had an album (many of you may not remember vinyl covered discs called “albums”) called Stan Freeburg’s History of the United State of America.  At one point in the album Christopher Columbus is standing on a sandy beach talking to the indigenous population.  The conversation turns to how Christopher Columbus is going to prove that he “discovered” the Americas.  It is at that point that a member of the local population turns to Christopher Columbus and says the following:

“What do you mean you discovered us? We discovered you! We discovered you on the beach here – it’s all how you look at it.”

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By Julie Whitefeather

This last weekend I had the pleasure of being a guest on the “Shut Up We’re Talking” podcast. Among the subjects we spoke about was one of the articles I wrote for Virginworlds.com – an article called “Pushing Back” about the causes for pushing back the release date of new games. I have told the owners of both this site and Virginworlds that I would not duplicate work so I will pick a new subject; one called “We’ll always have Qeynos.”

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Time for part two of the article - Vicious Circle or Circle of Friends: Breaking the Cycle, by Julie Whitefeather. What do you break the cycle that game developers use to players to keep coming back for more and still keep the subscriptions coming?  We will discuss that in this article.

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Here is my own little virtual billboard for a Monday morning: Watch this space.   As I am sure my readers (both of you) have noticed lately I have been timing my column so it comes out Sunday afternoon for Monday morning. I originally tried Fridays but life always seemed to get in the way of reality - virtual reality. 

Once again life seems to have gotten in the way of virtual reality once again; but I didn’t want you all to think I had forgotten about you.  So later on today, before noon cst if I have anything to say about it, watch this space for my weekly column entitled “Vicious circle or circle of friends”. 

Vicious Circle, or Circle of Friends - part one

Here it is friends, as promised.  An exploration into how game developers keep customers coming back for more. This is part one - part two will be posted later today.

 Read on…for the morning update

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Flipside: By Julie  Whitefeather

Flipside - last week I covered the opposite side of this issue.  That article, if you recall, was about  “SOE bashing”  and some of the people who do it simply because everyone else is doing it, following along like a sea of lemmings, letting someone else spoon feed them their opinion. This week we look at the opposite side of the issue. 

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by Julie Whitefeather

Those who have read my articles, whether here or elsewhere, know that I am a nun.  There is a running joke amongst my friends, where I tell them “don’t make me get my ruler out”.  Well today, my friends the ruler is out. There are a few people that need a ruler across the back of their virtual knuckles and today I intend on administering a well deserved rap or two.

“What prompted this?” you may well ask.  To find out you will have to read on…

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This week New Attitude begins with a story of good love gone bad with WoW and a little bit of payback. 

Better moats and gardens goes to South Qeynos on the Antonia Bayle server, and Knocking about Norath encounters a ticked off Djinn.

 Read on…

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