THE STATE OF THE GAME = IT NEEDS WORK.

Mark Jacobs penned Warhammer’s first state of the game letter, linked above, and a laundry-list of promises are made. In fact, they might as well have sent out promise rings in the game that gave the “It will get better” achievement.

Make it better, make it better! I want to love this game. I want to make hot sweaty love to my monitor in RvR… Waaaaaait. a minute. Yea, I want to like WAR. I really do, but a likeness can’t be forced. Maybe three years wasn’t enough time.

My big whiny gripe so far is I can’t find a career I want to take to the top echelons of stardom. I want to be a Warhammer bright shining star. The good news according to Mark Jacobs is that most careers will be buffed. So why exactly should I invest days played into a career that may presumably become more powerful in the 1.1 patch? With as many games that are due out in the next few months which include WotlK my motivation to stick it out with WAR is waning.

What’s probably going to happen is I’ll stay subscribed until December, and I’ll realize I wasted over 100 dollars and then I’ll cancel my subscription. Immediately afterward I will proceed to gel my hair down in front of my face, spray paint my hair with green spots, go outside in the sun and throw a shit-fit how WAR hurt my feelings, cry lots and go back inside and reapply some makeup I stole from my sister.

At the start of any MMOG I play a lot of different classes before settling on a main. I’ve played Chosen, Witch Hunter, and Disciple of Khaine and each one has hit at least rank 5. I’ve done the research, I understand their roles and picked what appeals to me but it doesn’t always turn out that way. Damn implementations. I’m hoping it’s still too early to gauge the final feel for each class. When will this happen? When should it happen? I was thinking around rank 15 but that’s a pretty significant time investment for each class. I like the Disciple of Khaine the most so far, but admittedly I don’t like how the movement feels or their Marilyn Manson type appearance.

Your class has to be fun to really enjoy the other areas of the game, your career or class is the catalyst to the enjoyment you experience. Player versus player hasn’t blown my mind or anything. I lose a lot and I’m tired of losing. It’s very repetitive and when your ass is getting stomped it’s actually really boring. I want to give up, and sometimes I do. I’m already sick of Nordenwatch. I don’t know if WoW battlegrounds ruined me or what but I had high hopes for Warhammer’s PvP. The only thing I really like about Warhammer’s early PvP game is the experience gain. If it wasn’t for that I wouldn’t even bother…

On a positive note the Tome of Knowledge and how everything is tied to it is the best robust game system in any MMOG. I wish WoW had it. Is it enough to keep me playing the game past the first few months? Not if I can’t find a class I like to play. It could be all the serious real-life turmoil both personal and political factoring in to my overall negativity this week. Normally these games are supposed to be an escape from all that, but it’s hard to escape. I’m going to give Warhammer a chance for a few months and see how it turns out but it’ll be competing with the 3.0.2 patch. Something I won’t pass up given my time investment and new talents!

No longer among the living, Jeff took his own life. I grieve today, and no matter how death happens it comes and goes until it’s your turn. When death strikes close to home it’s scary, emotional, tragic, and of course the impact of that loss makes it different. That was Jeff, different in a good way. Sure he was another blog junkie with a warped mind but set a great example.

He took the time to read the lesser known blogs. He wasn’t afraid to drop comments, and offer advice or help when asked. When I opened Plaguelands Jeff tossed a link up on his site, sent spambots my way, encouraged my writing, and fed my pathetic ego. He didn’t have to invest to listen, read, or talk to a mere stranger over the internet. He still did, and I believe he genuinely cared.

What I’ll remember most about Jeff is how hilarious he was. His occasional odd sense of humor was also easily misinterpreted in his writing. I found it thought-provoking. It wasn’t uncommon for people to ask, “Did Jeff just say that or what the hell is Jeff trying to say?” I’m glad I could decipher it and try to throw it back at him. Our back and forth banter always left a good laugh.

As a game designer Freeman’s insight was compelling. His ideas were often entangled with bits of humor. When Jeff pulled all his essays on game design from his site I panicked and delved into the cached interwebs to save them all. I foiled his evil plan to deny the world from the secret Freeman designs. You just wait! All those designs will make me rich someday. They did in thought. I think Jeff would get a kick that someone actually saved all his design essays.

His blog hasn’t focused on design discussions for sometime. Maybe the reason why stemmed from an NDA due to work, the unfair NGE debacle or the simple burnout many of us face and struggle with for extraordinary lengths of time. Ahem. Whatever the case, I miss the discussions and our duels but more importantly he will be missed. Thanks Jeff, I only wish I said it sooner and a lot more often.

Several weeks after a heated clan-versus-clan battle, members from both the Coo clocks clan and Platanium literally met face-to-face outside Lineage 2. Some vindictive jacktard from the Coo clocks clan went apeshit with the fisticuffs and as a result from the altercation Platanium’s guild leader died on the way to the hospital.

When questioned as to why he did it the murderer calmly referred to a Coo clocks clan rule: “Beat everything that moves, and everything that doesn’t move - move and beat!”

It gets worse… Several Coo clocks clan members continue to threaten the deceased’s sister, a fellow member of Platanium, with bodily harm. You can see her response in the video. Both guilds play on a bootleg L2 server, playing on these servers is quite common in Russia.

:\ It’s sad to hear about hatred over in-game feuds and grudges. I’m not surprised; many people take MMOs far too seriously and sometimes that can lead down a darker path. Killing is far out there, but this isn’t the first case nor will it be the last.

I’ve had my share of real-life threats, but the one that stands out is from my days on the EQ Mac server. After refusing to group with someone this dumb shit threatened to stab me and rape my mother in my blood while I was dying. They were absolutely 100% serious. There was no j/k. There was no emoticon. There was 10 minutes of idiotic hatred that included “give me your RL address pussy.” Without question I was perplexed and admittedly a bit entertained by the idiocy this person showed. I never came across this behavior before from a complete stranger on a non-PvP server. I had more than enough evidence to see this person hit with the banstick and that’s exactly what happened after the GM acted on my report.

After wasting my time guiding on Vallon Zek for a couple years, I can honestly say PvP servers breed more asshole type behavior than non, but even so, real-life threats against another player was rare, and when it crossed that line it was usually the creepy ex-boyfriends stalking a poor girl than anything else.

What an improvement from the earlier footage shown at the last Fanfaire. I would play this over Huxley, but The Agency’s PvP is consensual, which normally means we left it all out but you can whack each other if the other guys says O.K. Aside from that, my big concern is the legalized RMT implementation, which was left out from the above walk-through. I was expecting some spy to pull up in an ice-cream truck and ask the players if they wanted to buy some snazzy alligator thongs. So will the RMT be over-bearing to the point that it’s detrimental to your playing experience? You know, I don’t want that crap in the game. I’d rather see RMT on separate servers. It’s good to see the lines blurring, the merge between console games and persistent worlds. Long overdue, and we’re still not there yet, not by a long shot.

all my other mega cute lolcat kitty pictures turned out fuzzy. I decided to go with some product placement!

My sister’s boss had adopted this kitty and was in one of those WTF should I do positions because her girlfriend was going to take it back to the pound. “Can I get a refund? I’ve had it for one day and don’t like it.” I wasn’t surprised, I was pissed off. This cuntlord was livid that is was doing kitten-like things and her reasons given when I asked were: “It was getting on our nice furniture.” “We didn’t know it would be so messy when going to the bathroom!” “It cried all the time.” I guess she didn’t get the memo that kittens do cute shenanigans and release bodily functions.

I hate people like this, unfortunately they are the majority where I live. This is another good reason why I stockpile guns and machetes because just about every person I know in their twenties here is on Meth, or has some gambling addiction. Plus you never know when any type of bio-terrorist outbreak or alien invasion will happen. I suspect a lot of these rednecks would turn into super zombies since they have a dual retarded strength factor that crush brain cells and bones.

My sister is a huge animal lover, she went to see what was up with this demonic kitten, and it was so overblown, he was doing all sorts of crazy cool adventures that normal kittens do. My sister fell in love as any sane person would, and adopted him. My sister did gain some boss faction by solving her bosses “relationship” problem, but I can genuinely say she is the type of person to do this, or try to find homes for pets that are bound for the pound. I probably would have twenty dogs and cats by now if I took them in every time she asked. The only problem is my brother-in-law named this kitty some weird French name that I can’t pronounce or spell. On the plus side, I can give him endless amounts of shit over his poor naming skills.

Their kitty did take a dump on my chest (just a smear!) shortly after the above photo was taken, (he still isn’t fully litter-box trained), but I suspect he was scared since I’m a towering 6″6, and my pounds of flesh scale to 270 lbs. I’m a gargantuan flesh beast, an obese force of nature that needs to be reckoned with and that is the only defense the animal kingdom can do to fend my attacks. As you can imagine this little guy is a lot of fun, I find myself visiting more often.

From Teclisen, former Vanguard designer.

You know, as much as I hate having to carefully craft (AKA, lie through my teeth) an answer to “What was Vanguard’s biggest failing?” in job interviews, I realized after reading that rather disappointing article how proud I am of it.

Know why? Because I can honestly say with 100% validity: I’m a big reason for Vanguard’s failure. Not Brad Mcquaid - not Microsoft. Me. And Guess what? I’m really kind of proud of it.

Brad Mcquaid didn’t do shit. (News Flash?) He’s had an opiate addiction for years now, which only got progressively worse as the project failed. His cumulative face time with sigil designers in the most crucial final years of development? Approx: 15 minutes. And some of the time was spent begging for legitimately acquired narcotics (Or in times of desperation, jacking them from people’s desk).

The lead designers didn’t do shit. (News Flash?) Sigil fired all of their golden-boy, EQ-Genius designers (Save One) who this board once speculated simply “left.” It wasn’t even secretive. It all happened on the same day.

Sony didn’t do shit. The extent of sony’s help was 2 designers who ended up writing some diplomacy quests in Tanvu and some adventuring quests in Tursh. I think there was an artist that came in 2 days a week or something for about a month also. Thom Terrasas (sp?) is the only Sony employee that ever directly affected the direction of that game.

The only part Sony really played in Vanguard’s destiny was to let its life unnaturally and undeserving-ly continue. And apparently, it’s simply because they were naive enough to think this project was worth their cash. Hah! Even the staff at sigil was left wondering why the hell Sony would buy us. Dozens of lunch hours were spent trying to figure out why.

“What profitable web of intrigue and mystery was big’ol Smed spinning with this crazy move(????),” we’d often cry

It was pretty shocking (and just lame) to hear John Smedly actually get angry and complain to people after the layoff’s that he, “didn’t know what he was buying.” He even expressed anger at Jeff and Brad for bamboozlin’ him. Poor guy. Maybe next time tough-guy Smed decides to spend several million dollars on something he’ll expend some brain power figuring out what it is first.

Dave Gilbertson DID do some shit. (News Flash!) But this guy? Man, so much stuff I could say about this guy. He was truly unbelievable. Even when you thought his insanely unprofessional antics couldn’t get any more outrageous, he’d go and do something like tell everyone they’re getting a raise (to keep crunching) and then one by one call people into his office who WERE actually getting raises (but would never actually get them), how much they were going to get (VERY, soon). Unfortunately he would move through desk rows one by one and simply skip over the unlucky ones. It took a whole 5 minutes for the office to see through his brilliantly laid out scheme. He used the same plan for the lay-offs too. Classy huh?

He’s literally never played a video game in his life, yet when Brad died off and Dave inherited the position of Vanguard Jesus, he decided he must be the final call on every design decision. I guess if you ride dirt bikes with a gamer god, his genius just wears off on you.

Fortunately, sometime this would result in getting played like a fiddle by whoever happened to be lovingly pulling the strings that day. But more often than not, this just meant people had to go around him to get something in, only without the help of (Place whatever department here) that was necessary for a game feature to actually turn out right. Imagine for a second people at Sigil actually knew how to do something right? (Believe it or not, we did on occasion) this guy would become the bottleneck to prevent that from happening.

If there was a ceremony for the Gamespy award, Dave would be accepting. For the sake of all our future video game consumer habits, let’s hope this guy goes back to the only thing he’s qualified to do, whatever that might be.

Anyway, enough of my blabbering. The most shocking reality that I don’t think anyone really ever understood is that Vanguard was made (exclusively the design staff, I should say) COMPLETELY by amateurs. People who had been hired less than a week with 0 prior experience were tasked with designing entire newbie areas that shipped. People who had never produced a game in their life were asked to fix a 40 million dollar fuck up. People with no experience were asked to fix the item, diplomacy, ability, content, quest and pretty much every system in the game.

The game that exists now was designed in a single year by people with 0 experience. If that sounds too vague think of it like this: about 1 year from release we had 0 quests in the DB because the tool didn’t exist yet. When I decided to split the team there was over 30,000 quest object entries. Yeah, explains a lot doesn’t it?

What a huge let down indeed.

Oddly enough, the whole situation was probably a bigger let down to the designers than the consumers. I accepted a position thinking I was going to work with a bunch of experts - Masters of their craft - and really learn the ropes of game design. Instead, my fellow design associates and I were unwittingly tasked with trying to fix a failed video game that had literally been canceled twice before any of us were even hired. So in retrospect, despite everything, I guess I’m still pretty proud of vanguard. Every team member should be proud in spite of a truly pitiful and pathetic waste.

I’m missing a lot more, but, that’s all I got ATM. I read to many blogs, I hate you all.

She passed away yesterday. She loved sleeping in that basket. She was having breathing problems, a trip to the vet confirmed my worst fears. One of her lungs was riddled with aggressive cancer and than some. As the doctor told me the prognosis my heart tore asunder and the devastation set in. Deciding to end her life was highly emotional and upsetting, pet or not, she is a loved one, part of the family like most other deeply loved pets. I haven’t cried this much in years. (yea, yea, I know. I’m a damn softie) I miss her terribly, she would be sitting on my lap right now, purring happily as I pecked away at the keyboard. She always loved to get up on my lap all the time, and she loved making biscuits.

I buried her under the tree where I first found her four years ago. When, we first crossed paths she was starved to the point of near-death. Clearly abandoned, seeking shelter from the harsh Nevada Desert cold in the dry leaves, or looking for a bite of mouse to eat, probably both. She loved our garden, protecting it she finished many rat-killing quests and always loved to show off her trophies. She was the perfect cat for me, she was so sweet, kind, and loving. To the family anyway, well mainly my pops, I, and, my bro-in-law. She was definitely a guys cat. She didn’t care much for strangers, and I never blamed her, she got that from me after awhile. haha. Funny how that happens. She was never any trouble at all, I still can’t believe how fantastic and well behaved she was, especially for an older cat! She was my old kitty. I’m glad she didn’t suffer any longer in what would have been pure selfishness on my part. I’m glad I loved her, I showed her a lot, she was my only pet so it wasn’t hard spoiling her with attention. I’m glad she took me in, and not the other way around.

Not all cats are terrible! haha. Yea, I thought they were, but nope. Not this one — all I had to do was give her a chance. Maybe one will change your mind someday if you feel that way about cats. You know, I hate depressing posts, I didn’t really want to post something this personal. I’m sorry if this makes anyone upset or no one gives two shits either way. I don’t expect you too. It makes me feel a little better to write about it, yes, here, on a silly MMOG blog. If you have pets, please take a break from all the MMOG bullshit, and go give your pets a hug or a scratch behind the ear. Spend more time with them! And no, I won’t get another cat right away. Adopting another cat or a dog might help me deal with the pain, (my fam thinks I should adopt right away) but I don’t plan on it, maybe never again, unless they find me.

Why couldn’t I get one with you know actual hot slutty playboy playmates instead or even cool looking wolves. I’d rather be the creepy guy who wears the wolf shirts and drives around a creepy van and whom also has the wolf posters and calendars than that guy with the wrestling calendar. I’m down with the man tango don’t get me wrong. Making wang shapes with friends is a favorite past time of mine, but the wrestling calendar. Oh man, you should’ve seen the mortified and hytsterical look on my face. I’ll never live that one down. haha.

Alright, I mulled that over for a bit, and no, I would never want to be the wolf guy. haha. I did end up using the soap on the rope, but in my defense it was purely for hygiene purposes. Soap is soap, and a rope, you can’t go wrong with that impeccable craftsmanship that is one of the best weapons ever invented. It has more purposes than a Swiss Army Knife. One, I could choke a bitch the Wayne Brady way. It’s hilarious that relatives will give you unintentional gag gifts that will scar you for life and make you cry every night and swear off the Holidays.

I hope everyone is having a good holiday. I’m eternally grateful for my friends and family, that includes you guys & gals that put up with me on this very blog, even the Krones haters. Thank you for sticking around and sifting through the mounds of tripe. I’m also very thankful to those who come out of the woodwork and actually leave comments. It really does mean a lot! Thank you for taking the time to do that. I’d also like to thank the other MMOG bloggers who make me look sloppy and dormant. Y’all do a heck of a job.

The only thing I wanted for Christmas that I didn’t get this year is immortality as a Cylon. I haven’t been accepted into the skin job program yet, so this marvelous work of art is as close as I can get. Did I mention, I really need to win MegaBucks?

This outstanding 7-foot replica features both the haunting visor lights of the robotic soldier synchronized to the menacing, eerie hum of the Cylon Centurion. It is sure to impress not only fellow fans of the epic ‘Battlestar Galactica’saga, but those who are just encountering the stunning Cylon robot for the first time.