Chapter One of Quick Updates Exploring Stories Told is the start of this blog. Truth be told, I can’t even recall what I was playing then (had to have been WoW) but I am sure a lot of that will come out in the posts themselves.
I had 3 posts to my starting month.
August 27, 2008 – I HAS BLOG
In my introductory post I explained why I was going to blog (same reasons as everyone else) why I chose my blog name to be what it is (same reason why anyone chooses their own preference for anything) Explained my background in gaming a bit (same/similar to anyone with a gaming background – extra pride for the fact that I beta tested EQ, plus most MMO launches after that) and self congratulate myself for getting my first post done. Mood: I am going to be busy, important and famous!
August 29th, 2008 – REALITY DOESN’T BITE
My second post was a review of one of my favorite FPS games of all time (and a free one, to boot), Project Reality. Which, amazingly, is still going. In it I shared my excitement for a realistic, slow paced, strategically focused first person shooter that required teamwork and communication to succeed. I haven’t played PR in years, but there have been many shooters that are unforgiving that way in different formats that have come out – even if I haven’t played them. (Escape from Tarkov, I’m thinking of you). None of them have seemed to be massive successes versus the other series that are bunny hopping, 360 headshot quickspawn style (COD, BF, etc.) but good to have options, I always say.
Mood: Telling stories is fun. Making them is better.
August 29th, 2008 – COMPARING APPLES TO STARFISH
OK. Officially, on post one of this series, I have found the current reigning champion in terms of stupid blog post titles. I get bonus points as this is probably the only time in 16 years of the blog existing that I wrote two posts in a single day. The post was comparing to what I believed was the stupidity of comparing Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning versus World of Warcraft, which launched 5 years earlier, and I guess I was trying to find something that was so different from Apple (Oranges wasn’t different enough, I suppose) that I landed on starfish.
The premise being that a new game coming out shouldn’t be compared to one with 5 years of updates and patches since, well, that’s 5 extra years of development time for the latter. Counterarguments in comments was that they were both competing for the same dollar, but with the difference in experiences (PVP / RVR focus, etc.) And I still stand by that premise, and I think it is somewhat validated with the extreme rise in early access games as a fairly new, fully accepted way to make games better as they develop.
My big proclamation is that I thought that WAR would beat WOW if they launched at the same time. That is completely false, as true as it was at the time. During beta all the testers were focused in areas and levels so it was such a curated and incredible levelling experience. As the game launched, population and level imbalances were never really “fixed” enough and the game ultimately failed. But we’ll no doubt explore that as I wrote quite a bit on the game through launch, and to failure.
Mood: I’m going to be all suave and pick the unlikely winner in this WOW/WAR
As always, Free AI generated images, guaranteed to drive traffic! <smirk>