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The Daily Grind: What's your favorite game-related webcomic?
Geeks and webcomics go together like pennies and arcades, but finding a good gaming webcomic that also covers MMOs is sometimes a challenge. As gamers, we like to have fun, and it's assumed that with that sense of fun comes a sense of the funny. Luckily, we have some true works of art with such comics as Ctrl+Alt+Del, Penny Arcade, and Order of the Stick, which not only appeal to our deepest gamer sensibilities but also regularly cover MMO topics. New comics are popping up all the time, and it's good to see budding young artists trying their hands at the popular genre. But we want to hear your favorites! Which game-related webcomics do you enjoy the most? 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!
Freddie Mercury spotted in EVE Online
EVE Online's new character creator went live yesterday in a mammoth 1.2 Gb patch. While some players (myself included) are still waiting for the patch to finish downloading, it's already clear that the new characters are a big hit with the EVE community. Immediately following the Incursion expansion's final release yesterday, the forums exploded with topics full of people trying out the new avatar customisation process -- with hilarious results. Players have even begun faithfully re-creating real-world celebrities, from Freddie Mercury and the Village People to the cast of Star Trek. On the other side of the fence, some visually impressive, realistic and even emotive avatars have been produced. Before the new character creator went live, people had some reservations about it. While the new characters were expected to look very realistic, some players prefer to pull funny faces and create hilarious avatars that better suit their clownish approach to the game. Other players expressed concerns that there might not be enough variety, and that all the members of one bloodline would look almost identical. While the choice of clothing is likely to remain limited until Incarna, it seems that all other fears have been squarely put to rest as players continue to make some fantastic and often hilarious avatars.
TurpsterVision: I am a real Barbarian
Every Tuesday think "T" for Turpster and take the "a" in "day", capitalise it, remove the little bit in the middle, turn it upside down and you get a "V". Put the two together and you'll have TV for TurpsterVision -- the best Internet video podcast on Massively! (Never mind that business about it being the only video podcast on Massively...)It is a well known fact that Turpamania is running wild, but before Turpamania there was Hulkamania; arguably not as widespread and with as many Turpamaniacs, but our lesson has to begin somewhere. You see, Age of Conan was released today, and with that it conjures up images of the greatest barbarian of all time, Hulk Hogan – don't pretend like you don't remember all the words to his song, "I am a real Barbarian".Anyway, I digress: AoC has been billed as one of the four horsemen to herald the end of Blizzard's evil tyranny over the MMO market, but can any game, or any group of games, really topple the giant that is World of Warcraft? No, of course not, but that doesn't mean that they aren't great fun!
Second Life and World Of Warcraft go to war. Second Life wins, Azeroth nuked
OK, this might not be an entirely serious piece. Some of the humour is rather dependent on you having a pretty good grasp of British politics and events of this past year. But, some isn't - and in the Telegraph a spoof article about 2008 features Second Life and World of Warcraft quite heavily.I hope that you enjoy it, being a Brit it took me about 10 minutes to recover from the giggles after reading it, but that might be just my sense of humour.
Behind the Curtain: Save our bosses
Without lore, MMOs as we know them wouldn't exist. Lore means different things to different people. Some of us embrace it, some of us let it define who we are and what we do in-game, and some of us ignore it as best we can. Lore plays an important, central part to any MMO. Central to that lore is the creation of solid, entertaining bad guys – evil, despicable, wicked bad guys that we all take for granted, call out as 'on notice', and sweat blood to chalk up world-first kills for. But you've all been so busy running around taking down bosses left, right and center that it probably never occurred to you that if you're not careful, there's every chance we could run out of bosses to kill.There's a reason that Blizzard aren't removing old world content from WoW, and it's not because they feel bad that the old bosses don't have anything to do with their time it's because they're scared. Scared of what might happen if there were no more bad guys for us to kill. New content only lasts so long when we've got guilds like Nihilum burning through new content in a matter of days (attracting controversy as they go), and as good as the Blizzard developers are, it's not like they're churning out patch-worthy content every week, is it?
Pac-Man: The Movie, not coming to any theaters near you
In my opinion, the concept behind this home-made trailer for a fictional Pac-Man movie surpasses that of any other full length movie based on a game. Not that it's got much competition. Choice quote: "It looked like some kind of man, some kind of... Pac-man."[Thanks, Justin]
Essential advice for druids
Play a druid? Ever confused about which form to use when? Or do you want a handy howto to give others when they ask you, in catform, to heal? Alamo's Druid Guide, or rather "Alamo teechs u 2 play DURID!", can help -- it's been recently reposted on the forums. Here's a sample excerpt:OK LISSEN Almo noes about sum durid things sinse the baginning. Maybe B4 durids was week & stuff but now Durids is very storng. 1) OK, Sum durids is bare 2) Tehm whos bare durids, can B 4 tank: ONLY DURID DON’T HAF SUM PEEPS IN THE HEAD AND A GUNZ LOL! 3) Man, sum bare druids can maek sum peeps poop in feer bc/ tehms so storng. 4) Bare druids is not so good at uh moonfare spam but its OK b/c a bare durid haf many armors & when a thing hits durid, maybe thing gets borken hand LOL! 5) Bare durids is 4 funs when u can charje & stun & haf sum armors lol. Indispensible advice for life. Thanks, Alamo![Via Wonderland]
You take my breath (bar) away
The Onion has published a humorous love letter which makes sense to any WoW player, though it has a poignant side. Sometimes it's hard to understand life without WoW -- just as it's hard to decipher the terminology any Azeroth resident is steeped in -- and relationships bridging the chasm can have their problems.Ever tried to convince your other half to see the setting sun in Southshore rather than go out on the town? If your love life is eerily like this, perhaps it's time to reconsider your priorities. However, I know plenty of couples who play together and find it a good way to spend time together -- perhaps you can get your other half interested, though mine is quite happy not sharing this particular hobby.[Via Joystiq]
WoW Olympics?
Aggro Me suggests a list of MMOlympic events that players could compete for -- ranging from a camping competition to a tricky roleplay race. Some more WoW-specific events that we're all longing to see: Chest Competition -- Juggle bag space and run speed as you try to collect all the treasure chests in a zone; no dwarves allowed! Auction House Wheeler Dealing -- Pit your salesmanship skills as you compete to sell AH items in the Trade channel for a profit Hunt the Ninja -- Run instances with PuGs; try to be the first to find a ninja-free group Survivability -- Level 1 characters race from their starting area to the furthest capital city via high-level zones; first through the gates alive wins! I've heard of the last event taking place under several themes -- the Running of the Bulls sees baby Tauren characters sprint for survival, and gnome footraces have also been run on a few servers. While some of these events exemplify the bad side of behaviour ingame, others are just plain fun.[via Wonderland]
WoW as birth control?
We've seen happy stories of families that play together, but this parody video looks at one advantage of getting your partner hooked on WoW; free birth control. It's reasonably old, but funny nonetheless.(Note: WoW Insider does not promote this method as a 100% failsafe contraceptive; after all, you've got to do something while in the BG queue.) Dailymotion blogged video
