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I could go on and divulge into why I’ve been a ghost for a bit but it’s honestly too complicated, melodramatic, and depressing to really get into, so just take this post and appreciate it! I’m overdue to talk about my recent over-indulgence of WoW, but I’ll save that for another time. For now, let me talk about my first impressions (we’re talking first night) of Champions Online.

I was excited to give Champions Online a try, for if nothing else, to get back into blogging and updating my site. Something about WoW just leaves me completely indifferent towards writing about it, so it’s always nice to play something else and get some actual inspiration and creative juices flowing.

I went into Champions Online retail knowing that performance of the beta client had left a very nasty taste in my mouth, but I was going to try and look past it. About a day into playing, and the game’s performance is really the only knock against the game I have. The graphics are perfect for the style they’re trying for, the character customization is deserving of all the hype (if not more), the depth of character progression and customization (beyond visual) is reminiscent of Star Wars Galaxies level of options, and the combat feels fresh and “actiony,” but still enough of the traditional MMORPG feel to make me happy.

I can’t go into much more than that at this point as I’ve seriously only played an hour hear and there. I’ve been scrapping and remaking characters just to try out a few of the power-sets and I think I’ve settled on the “Telekinesis” powers, which are quite fitting for my psychological-adept, mind-game hero “The Passive-Aggresive.”

A friend and I had one of our monthly LAN party-of-sort (is it honestly a LAN party if it’s just 2 people? Sure) and as such this found me playing a multitude of random games I would normally not play on my own. The plan all week had been to pick up Darkfall or reactivate my World of Warcraft account, but little did I know, what happened at the LAN would change all of this.

We started things out slow with some RTS action in the form of Demigod and the Heroes of Newerth beta (DOTA clone). Demigod can be fun when you can actually find a non-lag match in the short list of online games that actually exist. Heroes of Newerth, well, I am pretty sure it’s under NDA still ( luckily for them), so I’ll bite my tongue.

After a food run and a short stint in Warhammer Online (trial accounts) I had the idea that we should test some of the many new “free2play browser games” that seem to be sprouting up more and more now (and of more and more quality). My eyes were set on Battlefield Heroes, Fallen Empire: Legions (Tribes), Quake Live, and the one that turned out to be my favorite, Free Realms. I had dabbled in most of these games in some sort of beta form but had never given them an authentic chance since. Before I get into the others, I might as well just say that Fallen Empire: Legions doesn’t work on Windows 7, so that’s a bummer.

I’ll start with Battlefield Heroes. It turned me off a bit in the beta because I felt like it was just a dumbed-down BF game in third-person, where twitch and aiming skills didn’t really matter. Turns out, I just wasn’t giving it enough of a chance. The charm in BF Heroes is the art style (reminiscent of Team Fortress 2), the classes and leveling/ranking-up system, and well, just the overall “charm” of the game (seeing people running around with tophats on or in their underwear, while wielding a sniper rifle sitting on the wing of an airplane – craziness). My friend wasn’t getting as into BF Heroes as I was and wanted to keep going back to the HoN beta or Counter Strike: Source but I was having a blast. My favorite class was either the Gunner, who is the “tank” type heavy-gunner, or the Commando, your usual “scout” or sniper-rifle wielding class. The stealth mechanic really adds a fun layer to playing the Commando, as it lets you get to and set up your sniping spot without getting mowed down every time you spawn and try to make your way to a safe sniping spot, so your class can actually be useful.

I was never one to play Quake 3: Arena back in the day (I was an Unreal Tournament kid), but Quake Live has had a special place in my heart ever since I first tried it at a similar LAN last year. I feel like you either love or hate the quick-frag-action of Quake Live and it just turns out that I love it. It reminds me of playing the original UT and that hits a special nerve in my gaming-heart. A shot of nostalgia, in a modern-day syringe, if you will. I don’t really know what else to say – it’s Quake 3 multiplayer action in your browser for free. Go play it if you dig that kind of thing!

I capped the LAN night off with some Free Realms (by myself, as my friend glanced over in confusion) and found myself playing it for a good 6-8 hours on Saturday as well. It’s hard to nail down what hooks me into FR so much, but all I know is after a few hours I was a subscribing-member and had 1,000 Station Cash in my character’s wallet. There are so many innovative, refreshingly fun, and charming things about FR I don’t know where to start. The fact that this is a browser-loaded game blows my mind. This could easily be a store-shelf product and it would totally be worth the money, more so than many games that are going for $50 on store shelves right this moment in fact. One of the simplest things that I instantly loved about FR was the name-creator they give you to help make your character’s name. It’s really just there to help encourage cutesy fantasy names and weed out the bad names, but any game that let’s me go as “James Peachmetal,” and actually encourages it, is awesome in my book.

The game is an evil perpetrator of the infamous “just one more quest” gaming hook. I found myself thinking this every time I would start another mini-game or head to a quest objective, yet I would still be playing an hour later. There are so many unique jobs (classes) that I wanted to explore and unlock them all, but then I wanted to try them too!

I really wish it let you take screenshots because I found myself hitting the “Prt Scr” button on many occasions, even after realizing it wasn’t working. I’m pretty sure the FR engine was built from the ground up by SOE, in which case, I really hope they are planning to use it in future games, if they aren’t already. The game is beautiful and runs flawlessly. I’ll have to get FRAPS installed again and get some footage for sure. Speaking of footage, below is some that I captured in game with FR’s built in video capture. The quality is low because I was pushing out videos that were about 700mb-1gb when I had it on the “high quality” setting. It’s definitely not optimal, but it’s pretty awesome they have it in there and a way to upload it to YouTube with a click of a button.

So as I move forward into this week, I’ll probably be playing a ton of Free Realms and hope to throw some BF Heroes in there somewhere too. I feel like the litmus-test of free2play games is whether or not you feel like buying something in the in-game cash-shop would be worth it and if that appeals to you. If a RMT/micro-transaction game even tempts me to use “real money” to buy something in the game, let alone gets me to do it, I feel like it has succeeded at being a successful free2play game. I’m not sure if BF Heroes has hit that point with me yet, but congratulations Free Realms.

If you want to find me these games, here are my names for each respective game:

Battlefield Heroes: Remove_Nozzle

Quake Live: Remove_Nozzle

Free Realms: James Peachmetal (on Server 4 usually)

Blizzard has just released the World of Warcraft Mobile Armory iPhone app. Mark this up as more proof of why the app store is 90% of the reason to even own an iPhone in my opinion.

With the WoW Mobile Armory you can do pretty much everything you can do on the official WoW Armory website:

• Search for and view any character, item, guild, or Arena team in World of Warcraft.
• Access your in-game calander of events.
• View achievement-point leaderboards.
• Plan out talent specs using the fully functional talent calculator.
• And much more!

To view a nifty video presentation of the app in action, screenshots, and even a download link, just head to the official WoW Mobile Armory page. How much is the WoW Mobile Armory you ask? How about free!

You are a Planeswalker with an arsenal of sorcery at your command…and a bottle of soda in your hand.

Jones Soda Co. and Magic The Gathering have teamed up to bring you limited edition customized Powerful Soda for Planeswalkers from the eagerly awaited M10 edition.

Magic The Gathering  picked some of their most iconic characters representing the Five Colors of Mana and Jones Soda supplied the labels on five great flavors. Add Purifying Fire, Elixir of Purity, Illusion Infusion, Necromancer’s Tonic, Beast Brew to your playing session.

These bottles are available for a limited time only and are unique among the Planes. Get yours before the Mana is gone.

For more information on Magic The Gathering visit www.magicthegathering.com

These beat the WoW-themed Mountain Dew in every aspect of awesomeness. Order them quick before they sell out again.

I’m still befallen with a terrible cold/sinus infection, but I wanted to make a quick update before the NyQuil kicks in. I’ve been just lounging on the couch all day trying to feel better, missing all of the big Darkfall Online and Mortal Online happenings today. On that topic, I would go out on a limb and say it is definitely not a coincidence that they both had big “launches” of sorts today. I guess they are going after different audiences, with Darkfall’s launch being a North American retail launch and Mortal Online’s pre-order/beta being admittedly for the European audience, but it’s kind of ironic that two “hardcore pvp sandbox” MMORPGs have sales going live today in some fashion.

US server website and account management are now open.

Sales are also open. The download instructions for Darkfall’s US version can be found here:

http://www.us1.darkfallonline.com/dl/DarkfallFull/

Pricing information can be found here

See you all in game!

Thank you,
The Darkfall Team

I’m definitely tempted. I’ll give it more potential thought once my cold passes and I have a some free time to spare later this week. If you are looking for something different in your MMORPG menu, you should seriously consider giving Darkfall a chance. Just try to look past some of the rough edges and you may find the difference you are looking for.

As for Mortal Online, it’s pre-order store has opened with the “Special Edition” going for ~$100 (EUR 71.95) already sold out, and the normal boxed edition going for a whopping $~77 (EUR 54.95). These prices are outrageous to me and have saved me from myself essentially, as I’m not willing to pay that much on, in what my opinion, is such a risky investment and purchase.  If you live in the US and are willing to dish out ~$77, there appears to still be some available from the initial lot of them. Have at it.

Just wanted to remind anyone interested that the Mortal Online pre-orders will go live tomorrow (Monday) at 20:00 GMT+1, which is 3:00 P.M. Eastern or 12:00 P.M. Pacific. I’ll probably hold out to hear more about when the beta is starting before making the decision to pre-order or not, but I thought I would do the time conversions for those who don’t live in Europe.

I woke up to the discovery that Darkfall has finally moved into the 21st century with a legit looking website and news that the North American launch is schedule for July 13th. I normally wouldn’t give this any coverage because I was utterly disappointed with the European launch of DF, but the first “free expansion” is coinciding with the North American launch and it looks like it is a pretty expansive update.

In the same sub-genre of “sandbox, classless, hardcore” MMORPGs, Mortal Online pre-orders are finally going to be begin this week.

The Mortal Online shop will open on Monday 13th of July 20:00 GMT+1

We have separated the initial shop page from the Mortal Online main site for better performance. On Monday you can go directly to the shop on www.account.mortalonline.com should the main site be slow or unresponsive. Save the link and keep it in handy.

On Monday before the shop opens we will post more information about the first beta phase as well as the current system requirements for Mortal Online.

Hope to see you on Monday!

If Darkfall’s sales and shop traffic around pre-order and launch are a gauge of the internet’s interest in this niche of MMORPG, then expect Monday’s pre-order allocation to sell out easily within an hour and the site to hammered with traffic, causing page time-outs and frustration. I probably won’t be able to be there amongst the others F5′ing, but I do want to get in on the Mortal Online beta at some point, and pre-ordering looks like the only guaranteed way to reserve a spot so far.

And as the post title implies, I’ve been sick all week with some sort of cold/fever deal. I’ve actually been so achy, sore, and stuffy-headed that I haven’t felt like playing anything besides when I can lean back in my chair with a blanket over me, pop a cough drop, take some NyQuil, and play some World of Warcraft until the drowsiness starts kicking in and summons me to sleep.

I’ve been trying my damnedest to find a way to enjoy WoW the last few months, mainly because it’s the only MMORPG my friend is willing to play (yep, it was his first). Yeterday I decided to hop on my 67 Death Knight, Crypticill, and see if I could bump him to 68 quick enough and jump into the Northrend content. Success, as I played for a good 8 hours at least on my day off yesterday and then another few hours this morning before class, achieving levels 67-71. Only time will tell if he has rejuvenated my interest in WoW.

And check out this mechano-gnome, coolest NPC I’ve ever had to smack down in any game. Ever.

Gamestop is having a little sale, with some gems like Warhammer Online and Spore for $20. What are you waiting for? Go buy them if you haven’t already. I honestly think WAR’s new price should just be $20 to begin with, could help with sales and get some new players into the game.