Daily Blogroll 1/14 — Old Character’s Home edition

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Who owns your MMO character? The game companies say they do, but they didn’t put hundreds of hours into turning the character from an animated paper doll into a person with relationships, memories, friends, victories, stories and history. But it’s precisely because you HAVE taken the time and done all these things that the companies can keep running their game. But as long as game companies control access to your character, you’re paying them so that you can add value to their game.
There’s no technical reason why you can’t take your character out of the game and put it somewhere else — Second Life, for instance. There’s LEGAL reasons, based on the assumption that you don’t own your character, but technically it’s possible. Take a video while spinning the camera around your character and you could have enough info to make a 3D model and then do whatever you like with it.
This issue comes up again and again, I know. But, darnit, it may be their game but it’s MY character!
Anyway. News after the break.

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Facebook’s Least Popular Games

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I read today that Zynga’s CityVille now has over 100 million monthly active users, making it the most popular game on Facebook, outstripping all the other Zynga games and, of course, every other game in the world. Eat THAT, World of Warcraft. Among my own CityVille neighbors are players from Thailand, Japan, China, India and … Read more

EverQuest: Fippy Darkpaw NEEDS YOU!

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BBBBAAAARRRRRKKKK!!!! You humans will pay for ruining our homeland!!! GRRRRRRRR!!!!! Fippy Darkpaw of the Sabertooth Clan will slay you all! BARK! This is what YOU could be hearing in a few short months! Long before Hogger ever thought about terrorizing Elwynn Forest, Fippy Darkpaw was em-BARK-ing on his one gnoll crusade against the heavily armored, … Read more

Daily Blogroll 1/12 — Snow Job edition

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A whole weekend lost in a Rift, but I think what I’ll remember most about this last weekend was this jerk in General chat — named, ironically, Karana — who was going on and on about how the quests and everything else about the game was a copy of WoW.
Well, heck, I didn’t know Thomas Edison was resurrected just to offer his genius insights. But some people just can’t see past their own experiences with WoW. Like, the people complaining that every one of the classes will have a 50/16/0 point spec, as if the class-defining abilities of each ‘soul’ only happen once 50 points are spent on it, similar to WoW’s talent trees. ACTUALLY, the class-defining skill is usually given for free, at zero points. Smart players will have a synergistic three soul mix. Anyway, already went on about that, and though I’m loving Rift and have applied to a guild, I’m really tired of reading about it.
Well, let’s see if there’s some stories from the weekend that aren’t about Rift, shall we?

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