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Between madness and desire lies obsession. Between addiction and dependence sits compulsion. Off to the rear side of eternity, and a little to the left of fate, sprawls immersion.
All of which is a fancy European perfume advert type of way of saying I’m hooked on a new MMO. I’ve mentioned it once or twice around these parts – Football Manager Live. Now, if you’re not British/European and/or have no interest in non-American sports (or sports in general), you’re probably not going to find much for you in these next few paragraphs. Sorry about that. But if you ever wondered if it was possible to turn Microsoft Excel into an MMO, baby have I got a game for you!
… I have never heard of, let alone watched, As The World Turns. Just in case yesterday’s post left any of you wondering. Now hush, momma’s stories are starting…
The most rumoured in-development MMO title of all time was finally made official last night. Bioware (KOTOR, KOTOR II, some other non-KOTOR but still jolly good RPG games) are officially working on an official Lucasarts-approved MMO game in the official Star Wars official universe. Officially.
Star Wars: The Old Republic is the name, KOTOR Online is presumably the game, and according to Bioware, they’re going to be taking the whole concept of MMO gaming, mashing it into the beloved sci-fi universe, and doing something completely new with it…
Cool!
Actually, the ‘new’ is that it’s going to be heavily story-based for an MMO, and if anyone gives good Star Wars story it’s Bioware (it’s certainly not George Lucas, that’s for sure – ZING! Heyyy-ohhhhh!).
Stargrace over at MMOQuests was recently very kind enough to respond to a comment of mine on her site about playing Vanguard. Basically my thrust was to ask what, if anything, VG would offer me that I’m not already getting from EQII. In fact, her response was so measured, thoughtful and reasoned that it merited an entire post. Indeed, she did a good enough job of selling me on her own passions for playing the game that I’m all but resolved to give it a try, although not immediately as I want to give the LOTRO 45-day trial a fair shake first.
One aspect of Vanguard that does interest me strangely is the diplomacy system. I’m all for innovation in the online gaming arena, and a card game conversation mechanic is something I haven’t seen since Republic: The Revolution – a much underrated, if a little unwieldy strategy game from a bunch of genius developers called Elixir a few years ago. There, conversation was handled with a basic form of stat-based card game, the results having effects on your rise to power in the former Soviet satellite. And I gather it’s much the same in Vanguard, minus the trip to a Siberian gulag if you choose to bribe the wrong person.
I find space travel fascinating, real and fictional. My only true regret is being born too early to (presumably) enjoy a futuristic world of personal space transit systems, blasting off to your weekend home on Mars as easily as we jump on the subway today. Assuming a technologically progressive future of democratic harmony of course. If it turns out we’ll all be living in a zombie-infested, irradiated wasteland, battling packs of rabid dogs for our daily portion of fried cockroach and living in patched together enclaves, shotguns by our side and ever-fearful of the local overlords and their fascist gangs of enforcers – well, then slightly packed traffic lanes, an over-dependence on reality TV shows and a distinctly non-space based railway system is just fine by me.
I’ve sadly not been spending a lot of time with EQII just lately. I didn’t exactly make full use of the recent double XP weekend, aside from pushing through two levels and spending a lovely evening teamed with a female wizard blasting through beetles in Butcherblock (alliteration not intended). It was a handy chance to practice my Templar’s team healing powers, something I haven’t had much of a chance to play with during my 20’s. I’m still not entirely au fait with how they all work, but neither of us died so I guess that’s something.
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