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The Nexus Telegraph: WildStar's pre-launch ups and downs
We're in the home stretch before WildStar's launch now. If you haven't pre-ordered, you should do so. For all intents and purposes, the launch game is what's being used in the weekend test sessions. All that's left is the actual gameplay, and if you're an RPer, hunting down the roleplaying community to see what's acknowledged as the unofficial community roleplaying server because beta servers certainly do not have those all-important RP tags. What? I know what side of the bread my butter's on. A bit of discussion with a friend the other night reminded me that I can't think of a single game over the past four and a half years that I really thought launched at the right time; either they launched a bit too early or a bit too late, at best. So today, with launch less than a month away, I'd like to talk about the things that make me most displeased about the game... and the bits that make me the most hopeful.
The Daily Grind: Will you defend a game no matter what?
There are people out there who are going to hate your game of choice; It's just the nature of the beast. No matter what the next World of Warcraft expansion actually contains, some people will consider it the most vile aberration of gaming on the face of the planet. Most of us, fans of the game or not, just shrug and move on. But not everyone. There are fans who see an insult as a call to defend the game, whether the game in question is Mortal Online or Star Wars: The Old Republic. Some people feel that the best thing to do is to stand up and shout the game's praises. At the best of times, this can dispel incorrect notions or outdated views and convince impartial onlookers that perhaps the game in question deserves a better reputation. At the worst of times, it comes off as a fan perilously incapable of seeing his or her favorite game receive any criticism whatsoever. So what about you? Will you defend a certain game no matter what? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their 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 Daily Grind!
Flameseeker Chronicles: Environmental weapons in Guild Wars 2
Environmental weapons were one of the early aspects of Guild Wars 2 that ArenaNet could talk up and players could get excited about. They were kind of the poster child for the interactive world that ArenaNet has been building, so we as fans heard about picking up rocks, boulders, and buckets of water many times. However, rocks, boulders, and buckets of water won't nearly do for defining the scope of environmental weapons in Guild Wars 2. The team went kind of nutso in creating items, forms, and stationary weaponry to change how users interact with the world. Sometimes that interaction falls well short of the mark, but when it works, it's particularly beautiful.
A critical look at Guild Wars 2
Well, it's finally official: ArenaNet's golden child, Guild Wars 2, has launched, and I'm sure thousands upon thousands of you are too busy playing it to even read this article. On the other hand, it's an MMO launch, so a good chunk of you are bound to be locked out of the servers, unable to launch the client, or any number of other things, and if that's the case, then boy do I have an article for you. But first, allow me to don my flame retardant suit. In the hopes of lowering the deluge of angry emails I'm about to get, let me preface everything by saying this: Guild Wars 2 is a good game -- a great game, even. In fact, I love it. But every time I've had the audacity to mention anything even remotely critical about the title in in-game chat (my first mistake), I've been immediately pounced upon by rabid fans who seem to think that anyone who feels that the game could be better in some regard is a heretic who should just quit the game. So I'm going to do what any rational gamer with a death wish would: take a critical look at Guild Wars 2.
World of Warcraft partners with Hungry Man
Blizzard's merchandising hasn't stopped with Mountain Dew, no sir. This past week the WoW Insider staff received a lovely surprise in the form of a package from Swanson. Many of the producers of Blizzard-licensed products (such as UpperDeck) tend to send us advance, review copies of new products. Swanson followed suit and has sent us a variety of the new Hungry Man dinners that will be hitting stores this summer.Hungry Man Gamer Grub (which we've dubbed 'Hungry Gamer') is a line of World of Warcraft themed frozen dinners. It seems this is yet another company jumping on the bandwagon of catering to the gaming demographic, but it would be unfair of us to write this product off from the start. To be completely fair to them, neither the box art nor the documentation that came with our package made any cracks about gamers as these things usually do. Essentially, it just seems like Hungry Man is trying something new. Gaming is 'in' now, you know! After the WoW line, I'd bet we'll see Halo Hungry Man or Noby Noby Boy Hungry Man. Well, maybe not that second one.Anyway, we were given one or two of each of the upcoming dinners to taste test. We took volunteers from the staff to try them out, and in the following pages you'll find our thoughts and reviews. Some were a hit, but others? Not so much. Click through the button below to find our reviews, and if you want to see a larger picture of the box art for each of the meals, simply click on the picture and it will take you to our gallery. To The Reviews >>
