cameron-sorden
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Raid leaders are (not) jerks
Recently here on Massively, Cameron Sorden entertained us with his opinion on raid leaders. Apparently, alot of them yell like dictators and aren't all that nice to get along with while you're raiding, evoking the spirit of Machiavelli. It is perhaps these attributes that lead many people to drop from raids and leave from the experience with a bad taste in their mouth.However, Jaye from Journeys with Jaye recently gave us the other side of the coin with the post, "Me? A Jerk??" Jaye relates her raid experiences to us, and more specifically her experiences as raid leader, and how the position has evolved over the years. Also, going deeper into the issue, she gives us some of his tips and relates to the reader what she has learned from raiding for so long. (Raiding since the days of EverQuest, woo!)Any up and coming raid leader would be wise to take a look at this article. Jaye relates many great ideas and concepts that are useful to any raid leader, regardless of game. Maybe, with her advice, you won't turn into the red-faced screaming jerk (NSFW).
MMO reviews guilty of the ol' bait and switch?
The indomitable Cameron Sorden over at Random Battle pondered the ramifications of a phenomenon earlier this week that has had a lot of bloggers of the MMO persuasion scratching their heads. Namely, what's to be done about the glaring discrepancy between optimistic preview write-ups for new MMOs and the inevitable critical panning post-release? Cameron argues that it's the consumer that ultimately gets screwed over by this system, as he faithfully follows the coverage of bloggers who insist that games in their beta state show considerable promise, or at least show enough potential to warrant over-looking a few minor quibbles that could be settled before launch. Shouldn't critics get tougher on games pre-release?Of course, if the issue were that simple, there'd be no need to blog about it. The counter-example is a game like Tabula Rasa, which received an utter panning by people who were able to play it in its pre-release state. Now that it's been out for a few months, the community is starting to realize that there's actually a really fun game there that only really congealed in the month prior to release. The game hasn't been able to escape those early impressions however, and though we really have no raw data on how well it's doing, it'd be hard to call it an unmitigated success. Make sure to check out Cameron's take on it, graph and all. It's interesting to think about.
Spears getting the shaft
Did you ever stop and wonder whether your MMO character is actually using his weapon properly? We spend so much time focusing on gearing up and looking for the next upgrade, that I think most people really miss just what exactly we're doing with those weapons. Cameron Sorden stops and takes a quizzical look at this question on his blog, Random Battle. Specifically, he muses on the ways that the spear, one of the more versatile melee weapons of antiquity, is used and abused and in the modern MMO.Think about it, most spears are whipped about like over-sized swords or maces, whacking enemies like overly cumbersome cudgels. According to Sorden, spears are weapons that be wielded with extraordinary grace, and they're fairly misrepresented at this point. The only game we've seen coming down the pipes that really seems to be depicting spears with any authenticity is World of Kung Fu, and that game is still a little ways off. In the meantime, it looks like spears are getting the shaft.
