We Fly Spitfires – MMORPG Blog

Star Trek Online has some pretty cutting edge graphics

In my younger days I used to pounce on new MMOs like a fat boy onto cake but recently I’ve not only become much more hesitant to get caught up in hype but I’ve also had a lot less time on my hands (oh how I lament the days of student hood when pumping 6 hours into Everquest was something I considered a productive day). I think the last new MMO I tried was either Aion or Champions Online (whichever came out last, I can’t remember) and they were fun albeit brief distractions. Since then I’ve been sticking with old familiars like World of Warcraft, EVE Online and even enjoyed returning to Warhammer Online and Age of Conan. However it’s time to dust off my online downloading skills as I’m now getting that itch to try something completely new again. Therefore, with all of the pathetic power invested in me, I declare August to be try a new MMO month.

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EQ2X. The ability to pay the same and do even less.

When I first read the news that EQ2 was going free-2-play I was pretty excited. I’m a huge fan of the Everquest franchise having played the original Everquest for five years and the sequel for over three and was looking forward to the idea of being able to dip back into EQ2 without having to pay the full monthly fee. Plus, being a strong supporter of the game, I also liked the idea of it attracting some much needed publicity, attention and new blood. However, instead of following the sensible F2P model that Turbine are introducing with LotRO, it seems that SOE have gone with a system specifically designed to deceive unknowing new players and extract even more money than the current monthly subscriptions.

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In space no one can hear you betray.

I read an interesting article over at the Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah today about how one of the alliances in EVE Online, the Ushra’Khan, had been disbanded just a few days ago after being infiltrated by one of their enemies over the course of a year. Although I’ve never been able to engage in that stratosphere of gameplay in EVE (yet) I still love reading about these stories and try to follow the goings-on throughout New Eden as much as possible. To me, this constant struggle between corporations and alliances for dominance is a real attraction of its sandbox design. It’s not necessarily about PvP either but rather more the idea that individuals can actually shape the virtual universe around them and that their actions have impact and consequences. CCP call it the butterfly effect, I call it darn cool.

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London. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.

Another week in the blogosphere has flown by this time filled with anticipation for my forthcoming holiday which, drum roll please, begins on Wednesday and lasts for an entire week. Woot. For part of it I shall be heading down to London to pick up my in-laws as they fly in from Tokyo and show them the sights there before bringing them up to Scotland. I’m both excited and slightly nervous at the prospect of meeting them again as they don’t speak a word of English and my Japanese is limited to formal greetings, generic stock phrases and sexual commands (don’t ask). All in all, should be a lot of fun though and I’m looking forward to it. And don’t fret, my blogging should mostly continue uninterrupted (I’ll have a few 5 hour train journeys to kill, after all).

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I don't care how long it's been. Zerg rushing is still a lame tactic.

There are advantages for working in an office full of geeks. For instance, in order to celebrate the impending release of Starcraft 2 and somehow sate our desires to play it, we decided to install the original Starcraft on our computers at work and have a few games after hours. Although the original is more than tweleve years old, can’t even support a widescreen resolution, is slow as a dog and looks incredibly fugly, it’s still a lot of fun to play… even if I did get my ass kicked by some of my younger, and more up date with SC, colleagues (my feeble excuse being I haven’t played the darn thing in a decade). I’m probably looking forward to SC2 more than even now but still, at the back of my mind, what I really want to play is World of Starcraft.

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Time travel is only one of my many hobbies

According to this screenshot that my brother sent me, I haven’t logged into World of Warcraft for 41 years. Rather impressive consider neither I nor WoW were around in the 60s.

Dear Blizzard, to discover the perpetrator of this bug simply look for the coder who recently received the entire series of Quantum Leap on DVD and is currently reading any H.G. Wells novel.

-Gordon McFly

South Korea. That part of Asia you have never heard of.

Those darn South Koreans, they get all the luck. First Blizzard gives every Korean with an active sub to World of Warcraft a free copy of Starcraft 2 and now Funcom are releasing Age of Conan with a free-2-play model over there. Top it all off with having the fastest Internet connection speeds in the worlds and you’ve got a country that most geeks would mistake for the afterlife. If it wasn’t for the fact that I have an uncanny ability to accidentally spout off-the-cuff racial slurs at inconvenient moments (my wife’s used to it) combined with their national sport being Tae Kwon Do, I’d be applying for permanent residency as we speak (I’m also afraid of getting nuked by my neighbouring country but that’s a risk I’d be willing to take for the sake of 100Mbit download speeds).

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