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-[ Rants ]-

Daedren gave 2 liters of blood, felt dizzy and wrote this on June 30th, 2008

For those that don't know, which is hopefully nearly everyone, I'm an ex-Air Force guy currently held prisoner in mainland Europe. I say this because it's relevant to what I'm about to say. I met a lot of people in my 8 years of service, and left behind a lot of good friends in the states when I chose to live in the land of wine and baguettes. This includes a lot of "gaming friends" - you know, friends that ...

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AoC: The Passion of the Beta Test

Daedren was suffering from a bad hangover while writing this on April 25th, 2008

In Age of Conan, Rants

It's no news - well, at least to the geek empire that is MMO gaming - that beta testing is now a big part of the marketing of online gaming. That's all good I suppose, as companies save production costs by having potential customers test their product before it's launch and help cut down on overall QA costs. They've even taken it to the next level by offering beta keys as "prizes" and letting the fortunate few get to see ...

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Packaged Gaming…?

Zay traded two bottles of tequila for this article on April 24th, 2008

In Gaming, Rants, Zay

So it looks like most people are eagerly awaiting the arrival of various PC/Console games that are due to drop in the coming weeks. The most notable of course being Grand Theft Auto IV, who's "collector's edition" for the PS3 and Xbox360 both feature a "lock box" and designer "Rock Star key chain". Add to that mix, some miscellaneous other "items" and you have for a mere $90 [US] an assortment ...

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My Kingdom for Different Archetypes

Daedren took some bad shit and came up with this on April 17th, 2008

In Gaming, Rants

Archetypes. For gaming purposes, and we're mainly talking about Fantasy based games here, we've somehow been thrown into a specific template of unoriginality for the last 20 or 30 years. Waxing intellectual on the subject, Archetypes are basically an example or stereotype of a certain type of person or personality. These have appeared throughout history in literary works; for example, Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (Star-crossed lovers Archetype) or Falstaff (bawdy, comic knight Archetype). Welcome to the 21st Century Gaming Industry, where ...

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Corporate Asshattery: Creativity has a pricetag

Daedren tested this article on a cute white mouse on March 14th, 2008

In Rants

An article over at TheGreenskin that I wandered across recently is quite possibly the biggest example of MMO corporate asshatery that I've ever read. Buying a company up isn't anything new, but the reason for them buying is almost mind blowing. From the article: Activision CEO Bobby Kotick: "We don't think that even if we made the USD 500 million or billion-dollar investment to get a product out [to compete with WOW] that we would even be successful doing ...

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UHF, It’s Tricky and Itchy Balls

Zay copy and pasted most of this article on March 13th, 2008

In Rants

I thought I'd take my first shot at boring the masses on yet another forum here at the site that was confused by some fried hipsters as being another "clue" for a shit storm of sub par digital masturbation. As you may have seen over at the Why We Don't Suck (More Than That Old Guy In High School) page, I'm the "one" ...

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Hello Kitty MMO: Apocalypse Cometh

Daedren threw rocks at his keyboard and this article came out on March 13th, 2008

In Rants

The problem with the internet and consolidated news is that you hear about pretty much everything. While this might be good in most cases, it can also lead to situations where you would have been better off not knowing something. The Hello mofo Kitty MMO fits into this category nicely. I'm not ashamed to say I didn't know too much about this silly little feline. As I'm ...

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5 MMO Names That Could Have Been Better

Daedren threw rocks at his keyboard and this article came out on March 8th, 2008

In Feature, Rants

Continuing our series of looking at the shortcomings of some popular MMO titles, we're taking a look at some of the more poorly chosen names in the MMO genre. Judgment has been reserved for games that are at least mildly successful and/or published by some of the "big boys" in the industry. We've unfortunately left off gems such as the World of Kung-fu and Dark and Light : as fun as it would be to wonder ...

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