I’m actually sitting in Star Trek Online right now, hovering above the Deferi Mining Outpost 3, waiting for the Breen capital ship “Desna” to show up. So I can kill it.
So, what it is with Black Friday? When did that become some sort of holiday in and of itself? Now we’re apparently exporting it to the rest of the world.
Rumor Control: Elder Scrolls V to be an MMO?
People have been wondering ever since the next chapter in the Elder Scrolls series was teased way at the beginning of the year, if the game would depart from its single player roots and make the leap to become an MMO. Because, a single player “sandbox” RPG which allowed unprecedented levels of freedom and customization would be a good fit as just another fantasy MMO without many of the things that made the series so popular. For instance, no MMOs let you mod the game. Why is this news now? Apparently a Danish gaming site has some more information on the next game, and, it’s just about time Bethesda finally made an MMO?
Single player RPGs don’t have a shelf life. You can play them for years. MMOs DO have a shelf life. Not seeing the fit here.
Spinks and company have been talking for a few days about the ups and downs of grouping in MMOs. Clearly, one of the differences between MMOs and single player RPGs is the opportunity to form or find a community. Single player games get played through, then put on the shelf. MMOs either end up on the shelf within days, or being played for years. Likely more than anything else, it’s the community that will either keep you or drive you away.
Everyone loves pets. Even your pets, right? The kids browser MMO Neopets(*) lets your pets have pets, too — they call them petpets. But what if the petpets want pets? Hey, we’re all in luck. Neopets now has the Petpetpet Habitarium, where you can breed petpetpets to your heart’s content. It’s actually a clever little RTS for young gamer geeks because, guys, we have to bring up the next generation of gamers right.
It’s good that petpetpets turn into gems after awhile, because otherwise, they’d be yelling about getting them some petpetpetpets.
(*) Neopets went from being a kid game portal to an MMO the very same second gaming blogs began treating kid game portal Clone Wars Adventures as an MMO!
Kasul and I were chatting the other day about speed run videos, those videos where insane people run through classic games in almost no time at all. While searching for some MMO speed run videos, I came across this video from the old EQ guild Parallax that shows them killing Cazic-Thule, Trakanon, real Faydedar(*) and Velketor.
Yeah. That was raiding.
Last year there was a fair amount of noise in the U.K. media about “Black Friday” but it didn’t seem to catch the public’s attention and this year there’s been much less. In fact, the Amazon promo was about all I saw and if they can’t come up with better offers then I don’t think Black Friday is going to make much headway here.
Of course, I grew up in the 1960s and 70s with “The January Sales”, which traditionally started with a huge fanfare on the first trading day in January. Harrod’s sale was often a top item in the national news broadcasts, complete with people queing all night in freezing temperatures for a shot at buying a color television set or the ever-popular three-piece suite for £10. Then sometime in the 80s sales began to migrate to before Christmas and now we have them all year round.
On the “why people play MMOs for years and put finished RPGs on the shelf” thing, for me it has nothing much to do with community. It’s much more about the characters. They always have further room for development and so remain endlessly compelling. Because the environment is always subject to change, there is always a reason to come back. It’s a fine combination of nostalgia and novelty, whereas a completed offline RPG can only offer nostalgia.