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The Daily Grind: Would you like more sprite graphics?
Back in the time when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, nearly all video game graphics were produced as a series of animated pixels, or "sprites" as they're more frequently known. Sprites have evolved from the basic pixel-block format seen in old Atari games to being complex collections of fluid animation, producing graceful and evocative art. Of course since each and every frame of a sprite's animation has to be hand-drawn and can often be quite involved, vector-based three-dimensional graphics have become the standard for games both online and offline. World of Warcraft and other triple-A titles are never likely to be dominated by sprite graphics, since the result is usually less character customization, more work for the art team, and only a negligible actual benefit. But what about you, the player? Do you like seeing games where the landscapes and avatars are rendered with sprites instead of polygons? Does it give you a sense of nostalgia and familiarity? Or do you dislike the style and want to see a move away from what was once the predominant graphical style? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of our readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's The Daily Grind!
Josh invades Late Night studio with flying robot army of one (video)
Lest you weren't glued to your television sets last night, our own Josh Topolsky raised quite a bit of mayhem on Jimmy Fallon's Late Night show. After doing the professional thing and showing off the minuscule Apple TV and Roku XDS media streamers, Josh proceeded to power up an AR.Drone quadricopter and fly it around the studio in a decidedly menacing fashion. For video of Jimmy's courageous reaction and the fallout from this robot invasion, jump past the break. [Thanks, Sonny]
Warhammer Online drops 1.3.6 today
The odds weren't in favor of us seeing the newest patch for Warhammer Online so soon... but that works just fine, since the patch itself is Against All Odds. Even if you're not using it to set up a lame joke, however, patch 1.3.6 is going live today after slightly extended server maintenance, bringing with it several updates and improvements to the game. The eponymous Against All Odds mechanic is one of the central changes, giving a side without sufficient numbers in an RvR lake bonus rewards for persistence. 1.3.6 also brings two major changes to items in the game. The first is the addition of an appearance system, allowing players to make their armor look like whatever set they want without losing the benefits of high-end rewards. The second is equally significant, splitting the high-end Sovereign armor into two sets to celebrate alternate playstyles for each class. As always, there are a number of adjustments and bug fixes listed in the full patch notes, but Warhammer Online players should be happy enough knowing that the game's latest patch is live and ready to enjoy.
Star Trek Online asks players to choose the next ship addition
There have been a lot of ship designs in Star Trek over the years, so it's understandable that not every design was in Star Trek Online at launch. The game's division of ship tiers into customizable batches is no doubt part of the reason, as well. But that doesn't mean that the developers aren't well aware of the gaps in ship classes, and that's the reasoning behind the latest poll on the official site, asking players which ship design they'd like to see enter the game next, quite possibly as a lower-tier ship. Of the classes available, four are past or future designs for the ubiquitous Enterprise lineage, including the often-seen Excelsior class and the rarely-seen Ambassador class. There's also the far-future Enterprise-J design and the far-past NX design, both seen in Star Trek: Enterprise. The other two classes are somewhat less flashy but somewhat more notable omissions -- the Nebula class, a frequently-seen workhorse design that resembles a pared-down Galaxy class, and the Oberth class, a general-purpose medical and scientific vessel from the same area. The Excelsior class is currently in the lead, so Star Trek Online fans are encouraged to vote for their favorites.
Breakfast Topic: What overcloak designs would you like to see?
We found out on Tuesday of the new ability to toggle customized overcloaks that replace the look of your cloak (but leaves the stats intact). As a dwarf priest, I would proudly wear the Ironforge colours of gold and red. But I wouldn't have a problem wearing something else that looks as slick as say the insignias of the Argent Crusade. From a guild perspective, I think the guild tabards in game are okay. The problem with tabards? My beard covers it up. I know for other classes and races, the tabard has that "tucked in" look. Many comments from the overcloak post mentioned overcloaks with guild tabard designs on them. Not a bad idea and that is something I hope we'll get to see. Now I have to ask, what cloak designs are you looking forward to wearing?
Cataclysm: Stylish overcloaks!
The thing about our cloaks is that the ones that give us the most power for our characters aren't always the ones that look the best. Turns out that is about to change. Our friends over at MMO Champion have revealed a new Overcloak function. They're entirely cosmetic in appearance and allow you to slightly customize the look of your cloak. It appears there will be a toggle option of some sort for players who wish to display their cloak along with an overcloak. My guess is that these cloaks will be incentive rewards that come from reputation, limited seasonal drops or really rare drops (like mounts and companion pets). Ironforge represent!
Player reaction to the 5-man Trial
All right -- patch 3.2 has been out for a few days now, and I would say that most people who are interested have had a chance to go in and run the brand new 5-man instance. Of course it's not the only change in the patch (far from it), but it's the one I was most looking forward to, and unlike the raid instances, it's all in there and doable, ready for our judgment. So what did we think?I tried it yesterday, and my first impression was "underwhelmed." I definitely don't feel that way about 3.2 as a whole, but the instance itself seems less than impressive, a one-room fight with almost as many boring moments as there are exciting ones. The fights themselves are actually pretty commonplace for a Heroic -- the jousting fight is probably the least-liked among the playerbase (seriously, whoever really loves the jousting mechanic over at Blizzard needs to take a good long look in the mirror for some self reflection), while the best is of course the Argent Confessor, who summons a random figure from our "past memories" to fight. I got Illidan and Onyxia the first few times I ran the instance, but of course Hogger and Van Cleef and Heigan the Unclean also have a chance at making an appearance. I did like the fight, but I was kind of bummed the old memories didn't bring any of their abilities with them -- they all have the same three abilities to throw at the group.
Forum post of the day: Tick Tock
I knew I couldn't be the only quirky person in WoW. Talonhunter of EU-Tarren Mill's thread on the general forums helps me feel a little bit better. He asked what people's "ticks" are, citing "Every time I engage a mob, I strafe a few steps to either side," and "When I have done a brief dismount, to gather something or likewise, I always run a few steps before I get back on my mount again."There are some things that seem odd, but actually appear to be common. Some examples include jumping when charging or when summoning a flying mount, obsession with repairing gear, and checking out what every linked item looks like. I have some of the habits mentioned in the thread, and a few others:
Star Wars Galaxies Producer's Letter outlines appearance tab, future plans
Early last week the sixth Game Update hit the live servers for SOE's Star Wars Galaxies. While previous updates have focused on bug fixes, class rebalancing, and other tweaks, GU6 added a whole new system long asked-for by SWG players: the Appearance tab. We've already talked about this system earlier this month, when the SOE Austin team did a preview of this brand new system. It's functionally very similar to the ones found in EverQuest 2 and Lord of the Rings Online, and you can find full details on the new tabs in our previous post.The patching in of the system, though, was accompanied by a new Producer's Letter from Chris "Dotanuki" Fields. He offers up just a taste of what's coming for SWG players: Game Update 7 will be all about Spies! Plus, this year's Valentine's Day event will be an even bigger and better version of the Ewok Love Festival than last year. Beyond those updates, the team is playing things a bit close to the chest; the only other piece of news he had touched on a fun and interesting re-entitlement reward. Read through to the official forums for all the details.
Putting on appearances in Star Wars Galaxies
Later this year a brand new 'appearance' system will be added to SOE's Star Wars Galaxies MMO. Like similar systems found in Lord of the Rings Online and EverQuest II it will allow players to appear to be be wearing whatever they wish, while gaining the mechanical benefits of specific 'loot' pieces. In a way the system reintroduces one much beloved portion of pre-NGE SWG, which often saw players wearing varied outfits. Loot, in those days, didn't have mechanical benefits.To accompany the new system, the official site has up a Friday feature explaining how the system is to be used. Making use of the system couldn't be simpler, and allows an unchained range of possibilities for customization and personal expression. Check out the piece to learn the full details of equipping and customizing your character's newest look.Update: We originally said the system was already live; currently it's only available on Test at the moment.
Blizzard needs to steal character customization Ideas from other MMORPGs
The idea of being able to customize your character's look and feel beyond choosing one of 4 or 5 basic face and hairstyle choices at character creation or upgrading to a new piece of loot is one that's near and dear to me. I'm an RPer, so I like to think of each of my characters as a unique person with unique quirks, ideas, and fashion sense that I can't always express as I'd like to due to the limitations of WoW's mechanics. I've even had some very good friends quit WoW because their characters weren't customizable enough. The idea came to the front of my mind a few weeks back when I was visiting my brother. We played EverQuest together, but when it came time to move on from that game, he (and most of our EQ guild) chose Everquest 2, and I chose WoW. So, of course, he ribs me about it quite often, and since I was visiting, he decided to load up EQ2 and show me what I was "missing." Now to be honest, I'm still a bigger fan of WoW, but that's a subject for a different article. One thing I will say for EQ2 is that I was very impressed with the wider range of options to customize your character and show off your character's accomplishments. There's a few ideas related to character customization from EQ2 and other games that I'd really like Blizzard to continue emulating in future patches and in the WoTLK expansion that I believe would deepen the game experience for me and my friends, and for many other players as well.
Rolling the same toon
When I'm being completely honest with myself, I'm forced to admit that one of the things holding my alts back is that I get dissatisfied with their appearance. Whether it's the limited number of options you get at the character selection screen, or just an overwhelming and completely inexplicable preference for a single character model, I always find myself thinking at some point in an alt's 20's or 30's that I'd take them back to the drawing board if I could. I deleted a level 30 Night Elf Druid in no small part because she bore an uncanny resemblance to Cher, and I am very uncomfortable both with the idea of playing Cher and Cher being able to kill people with Moonfire spam. I'm pretty close to deleting a level 30 Draenei Mage for the same reason. Well, not because she looks like Cher, but something about her appearance just....bugs me.My main is the only character for whom I've never had that impulse, and I don't know why. Female Tauren don't have particularly interesting animations, jokes, or special attacks. They're less plausible (how on earth do they run like that?), less dramatic, and less impressive-looking in endgame armor than their male counterparts. Maybe it's just their distinctively awkward gait -- you can tell it's them from a mile away -- or just that so few people play a Hordeside female who's not a Blood Elf, but I find them hopelessly endearing.So I keep rolling moo-cows. Or, to be accurate, a particular model. Call me boring, but no toon from my growing herd will ever be mistaken for Cher.
Breakfast Topic: Can gear be too ugly?
Okay, let's be brutally frank here. Some gear looks bad. Some gear looks really really bad. Last night, as an example, Zul'Aman gave to me the present of the Battleworn Tuskguard. This is one heck of a tanking hat. Take a loot, it's really sweet for a 10 man instance drop. It also makes me look like Big Bird with tusks. Perhaps some unholy Big Bird/Snuffleupagus hybrid. (Long time experience writing for the site tells me that I need a disclaimer here saying that yes, I know Snuffy doesn't have tusks, but it's possible that the hybridization process brought the latent tusks to the fore. Also, I'm a little embarrassed for us all that we all knew that much about Snuffleupagus.) But at the same time, I'm so insanely happy with the hat that I can't bring myself to turn the thing off, so now I'm wandering around Outland as the most lethal looking hawkstrider - elekk hybrid in existence. The weirdest thing is, I really enjoy how insanely awful the hat looks. It looks like what it supposedly is, a battered relic of war ripped from the corpse of a dead troll. It even has a broken tusk.I have a guildmate with the same hat but he never, ever leaves it turned on. This leads me to wonder: is there gear out there that's so ugly but has such nice stats that you'll never, ever turn it on? Maybe never even wear it? Perhaps I'm unusual in that, the worse my gear looks, the more I like wearing it. Considering that we loot all of this junk off of the broken and battered bodies of our enemies, shouldn't some of it look less than awesome? I actually would hope that Blizzard would design more gear in the future with a 'battle damaged' aesthetic. After all, when a big dragon drops a healing wand, it's not like he was using it. Clearly he took that off of the corpse of a foolhardy adventurer much like ourselves, only less lucky.So I put the question to you again: is there any gear so awful looking that you won't display it or even wear it outside of encounters? Any gear so horrible that you love wearing it? I am keen to know.
All the World's a Stage: If looks could kill
All the World's a Stage is a column for inquisitive minds, playing with roles every Sunday evening. The media usually portrays WoW as a "boy's game." That's not to say girls don't play too, of course -- just that the game is basically about qualities such as aggressiveness and violence, and our culture expects males to be interested in that sort of thing. Whether such a designation is true or not, the "masculine equals violent" stereotype is very pervasive, and it is natural for many male players to begin the game with a powerful and intimidating character in mind. The player may imagine that his avatar is warm and kind-hearted inside, but outwardly, his character looks as though he could rip out your throat with a flick of his pinky finger.But there are many men out there who don't like such exaggerated manliness in their characters, just as there are many women who don't want their character to look like a dainty barbie doll. Being a person isn't just about just one gender attribute, after all. Indeed, female characters in WoW can achieve a full range of human attributes in their appearance; they can look friendly and intelligent, yet lightning quick and deadly at the same time. However, the appearance of male characters is often so filled to the brim with "strength and honor" that there's not much room left for any other human quality.
DS Daily: How's it looking?
We're pretty obsessive about our DS care, as you would imagine. We're sure all of you are as well to some extent. But, sometimes, you forget to put it in its case, or it falls, or you lend it to someone else (nooooo!) In some cases, life just adds normal wear to your device.How is your DS holding up cosmetically? Does it still shine like the Dickens? Do people still react to its presence with a hushed awe? Has it acquired any scratches in its lifespan, either on the outer surfaces or the screens? Right before we got the new Lite, the outer layer of the sticker on the back of our DS Phat spontaneously came off, taking some of the print off with it. Thus the unfortunate effect seen above. In terms of case and screen scratches, it's practically brand new, but that simple cosmetic effect seems to have aged the unit so much.
The more things change...
Most of us have heard by now that the next expansion will bring the ability to change your appearance somewhat, and some people out there may be thinking "What was I thinking when I created my character, Uglybub? Finally, with Wrath of the Lich King, I will at last be able to get rid of this electrfied hair and frowny face! Then I'll change his name to PrettySmoochCakeLove too!" As much as we might love to dream, it's not yet clear how much of your character's appearance you'll be able to change. Should Blizzard enable you to change everything about your character's appearance any time you might wish to?According to Blizzard's current thinking, you will be able to go to the local barbershop and have your hairstyle changed -- probably facial hair and earrings too. You will be able to go to the local dance studio -- yes that's right, a Dance Studio in the World of Warcraft -- and learn new dances. But the devs believe that plastic surgeons just haven't caught on in Azeroth or Outland yet. "Plastic surgeons?" You cry out, "Who said anything about plastic surgeons? I just want to be able to change my facial expression! What's the big deal?" And yes, of course you are right, but your facial expression is tied to eyecolor, nose shape, and everything else about your face. Those things shouldn't be changeable ... or should they?Is Blizzard right or wrong on this issue? Now that we've got name changes and we're getting hairstyle changes, it's got me wondering, where do you draw the line? Redoing your hair, or turning that frown upside down is one thing, but going from dark skin and brown eyes to pale skin and blue eyes (with lots of wrinkles) makes your character look like someone else altogether. Is infinite customizability something we really want? Does a certain degree of consistency offer any other advantages?
Some celebrities shying away from HD cameras
It's all but unanimous that sports programming looks entirely more appealing in high definition than in SD, but for folks on the other side of the cameras, adding all that detail can be intimidating, if not embarrassing. While the "grain structure of film allows for a softness" that lends a hand in covering up the not-so-attractive signs of aging, HD cameras tend to capture that raw, unassailable truth that some celebrities are less than fond of. Diane Sawyer, the 61-year old host of ABC's Good Morning America, reportedly acknowledged that the puffiness under her eyes could no long be covered up, as viewers looking on in HD "could see every flaw." To combat the newfangled "problem" posed to many on-camera stars, makeup firms are devising new "airbrushing" techniques to add glamor and remove blemishes without looking like a shot of Botox gone horribly awry. Interestingly, reports indicated that viewers tended to enjoy the rough, disclosing look on men, but would rather see dames looking their best through those pixel-packed lenses. Nevertheless, HD cameras are making flaws more and more noticeable, and apparently causing quite the ruckus from overly concerned celebrities all the same, but hey, that's the price you pay for being in the (1080i) limelight.
WoW to make appearance on Ted Danson sitcom
Blizzard has dropped a note on the homepage that not a week after the South Park episode, WoW is coming to TV yet again-- it's going to make a quick appearance on a new Ted Danson sitcom tonight called "Help Me, Help You." The show is about a group of people in therapy (hmm...) who, comedically, I assume, struggle to get their chaotic lives together. WoW is supposed to appear in the life of a woman who's been dealing with online dating, so I'm guessing either she meets or breaks up with (the latter would probably be more funny) a guy in the world of Azeroth.That much you can learn from Blizzard's page, but here's what you really want to know: is the show any good? There's a short preview on the show's homepage, and I have to say that by the end, it sold me. Can't say Ted Danson makes me laugh much (excepting a few CYE appearances), but the vibe I got from the preview reminds me (and I know what you're going to think when I say this) of Arrested Development. There's some good acting, some morally questionable characters, and some good situations-- this one might turn out to have legs.Not if you listen to the New York Times, however. They say while "HMHY" tries hard, its potential may not pan out. Then again, if you don't want to bother wasting your time checking out a Ted Danson sitcom (it's on ABC at 9:30 Eastern), rest assured the WoW footage will find its way onto the video sites (and your favorite blog) as soon as we can possibly find it.
TUAW makes Joy of Tech cameo
Well color us red: TUAW reader loki capret tipped us off that we've been honored with a cameo appearance in the latest Joy of Tech! The comic (their latest as of this writing) features Apple's keynote command bunker, and you can imagine everything they need to keep track of in such a top secret and secure monitoring facility. Without ruining much more of the comic, you can simply see a screenshot of TUAW (alongside Engadget) on what must be a massive Cinema display for internal use only.Check out the comic for yet another good laugh from the JoT crew, and a big thanks to them for the cameo! We'd also like to thank the readers, and our AOL overlords, and the committee, our manager for believing in us and...Thanks, loki!
Poll: Do you mod OS X's appearance?
One of my regular online haunts is Resexcellence. They've got a huge library of appearance themes for Mac OS X. While I enjoy looking at them, I've never installed any. I imagine that it's fun and satisfying to use a theme you've designed yourself, or simply one that agrees with your own aesthetic sense, but I just like Aqua. I agree that some of the inconsistencies are annoying, but I'm willing to (begrudgingly) live with them.So what's your take? Do you mod OS X's appearance? Have a favorite theme?
