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Wii Warm Up: If it could be anyone ....
A reader who is as excited about Super Smash Bros. Brawl as we are suggested this excellent question to get the day started: if you could see anyone in the game, any character at all, who would you want? Or are you pretty satisfied with the current roster? That's a pretty tough one ... there are a lot of characters out there. Comedic answers will earn you both bonus points and respect.[Thanks, Alexander!]
MMO Art expanding, artists wanted
Our good friends at MMO Art are growing, and if you're an artist that's interested in working on commissions of MMO characters, they might be looking for you. They're working on a site called MMO Art Studio, which will consist of a stable of artists selected by Jomaro Kindred (glad to hear he's back) to work professional commissions under the MMO Art banner.To submit, they're looking for a couple of examples of your work, sent in via the web form. We've linked to their gallery before, but you can see examples of exactly what they're looking for over there. And even if you aren't an artist, their work is worth a look, and they've got some new art up as well. Unfortunately, most of it is City of Heroes-- WoW is woefully underrepresented, which I guess means that WoW players aren't commissioning portraits that much.But it's still great art, and the Studio site offers a pretty unique opportunity to get paid professionally for something you might already be doing for free.
Breakfast Topic: Character slots
Sure, it'll be nice to have a new class -- we've been stuck with the same nine since 2004. However, there are some downsides to the Death Knight as well. Some see it as a threat to their raid spots (mostly rogues and warriors), some don't think it fits in well with the lore, some are afraid it'll be overpowered. However, I have a different concern: how am I going to fit one in my character list?Some players with less severe altitis may not know it, but there are limits on how many characters you can have: ten per server, 50 per account. Ten is a good number for the per-server limit, at least right now; you get one of each class, plus one more for a bank/AH alt. But what are we supposed to do if we want to make a Death Knight? Delete one of our beloved alts? Pay to transfer a character? Start the DK on a different server (if that's even possible)? CM Nethaera tells us there are no plans to add more character slots, although she notes that people are unhappy with it and that she'll relay that to the devs. Are you going to run up against the character limit in WotLK?
Breakfast Topic: Capturing your character's essence with art
It might sound a little like an essay exam question from an Art History class, but Inaraserra wrote in asking about how you would represent your character (or class) in pictorial form. If you could sit down with an artist and have them draw one picture --regardless of scene-- that would include everything that it means to you to play that character, what would you select? I know it's a little tricky for my main character, but I always imagined my warlock standing in the brightly lit sun cuddling an imp minion trying desperately to claw his way out of her loving arms. For me it's a sort of metaphor about the juxtaposition of her physical features (being a blond, vapid-looking human) with her dark demon-loving ways.
A vegan character, and other self-imposed boundaries
I really like Pinkywinky's idea that she posted over on the forums-- she's running her character as a vegan, which means no meat (she's a mage, so she only eats her own conjures), no killing of non-hostile animals, no leather wearing (again, as a clothie, no real problem with that), and no attacking anything that doesn't attack her. Of course, that doesn't fit the strict definition of vegan, but you get the idea-- she's giving herself her own boundaries inside the game world, and challenging herself to stay within them.We've seen players do this before (the naked troll is probably the most well-known example), and it's fascinated me every time. WoW is not really a tough game, and so there's all kinds of ways you could make it harder or set up an interesting challenge, either for roleplaying reasons or just to keep it fun. I've always wanted to try play the game without ever talking to anyone at all-- that means no quests, no training, no groups (no talking to players either), no repairs (I'd have to just wear drops as I got them), and no professions. It would be really tough-- I'd probably have to make an exception on the training thing, no matter which class I chose, but I think it would be possible, and it would definitely give a new bent to the game.Have you ever gone without in WoW, just to see if you could?
Guildwatch: A strange form of payback
Imagine for one second that you're an amazing raider (Yes, I know it's hard, but do it anyway). Imagine that a guild working on the Black Temple actually invites you out of your guild to come and raid with them. Would you do it? Would you leave your own guild behind just to go to the Black Temple? That's the choice that one guild's main tank was faced with, and he chose to leave his guild behind. And then they chose to log on to his account, and as payback, as you can see in the movie above, delete every one of his characters.Ouch is right. Not quite sure that was called for (although, as someone points out, since he's got such a clear record of everything that was deleted, he'll probably be able to get it back from Blizzard). Still, not exactly the best way to congratulate your guildie on getting "promoted." That drama, and much more in this week's GW, which starts right after the jump. Want to send us juicy drama of your own? Drop a tip to wowguildwatch@gmail.com.
The Guile to show SSFIITHDROMG
Capcom continues its morphine drip of showing off a character per week from Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix for XBLA and PSN. This weeks character is Guile, the master of the flat-top. This follows the releases of both Akuma and Ken over the last couple weeks. Capcom swears the images are what the characters will look like in the game and says we'll all be impressed when we see them in motion. Hopefully that'll happen as soon as Min-E3.
Shave and a haircut, two bits!...er...gold?
While I know that this subject has been touched on before, one can only hope that someday Blizzard implements a feature to change the appearance of your character. Many players have already voiced their opinions over the years, but it seems the cause has been reinforced yet again. Cyn from the Lethon realm has caused a resurgence in this movement. His efforts include digging up more than 40 previous petition posts, many of which already have hundreds of signatures as well. This isn't even the tip of the iceberg for the outstanding demand of this feature, as his post already has 300 signatures as well. The idea stands that people want to be able to change their facial expression, hair style, hair color, facial hair, and skin tone without having to reroll their character. Essentially, players want to have a tool in-game that performs like the character creation tool, but that doesn't require you to start over at level one, as it stands now. There seems to be a real demand for this, and its a shame that Blizzard hasn't implemented or at least given a "coming in future patches" notice to all the fans requesting it. I for one wouldn't mind forking over the equivalent cost of a respec to fix my level 70's ugly mugs into something a tad more appealing, or more complimenting to the current gearset that I have equipped. I mean, hey, the neon pink and green gnome-fro's just don't always go with the orange-red Spellstrike Garb. Does anyone else have a bad-haircut story to share? What do you think about this potential feature or lack thereof?
Patchwork enforcement on the naming policy
Pepe has done an informal but (as he says) "real FREAKIN interesting" little study of supposedly inappropriate names via the Armory. Blizzard's naming policy, as you'll know if you've ever run afoul of it, is pretty stringent-- you're not allowed to create obscene names at all (obviously), names based on real-life or well-known sources (so no trademarks or references to celebrities or Blizzard employees-- Legolas is completely out), harassing words or phrases, or "partial or complete sentences."Now, you can't really argue with most of that. The obscene stuff is a given, of course, though where Blizzard gets their criteria for obscene is anyone's guess-- one of my guildies had an undead warrior named "Skinflayer" that Blizz forced him to rename (he renamed it to Tenderheart, actually). And the copyright and famous names seems a little silly, but it's most likely just Blizzard covering their backside-- you never know what copyright holders will do when it comes to user-created content. But harassing phrases? No l33tsp33k? How can Blizzard possibly track this stuff?The fact is, as Pepe points out very effectively, that they can't (except on Blizzard employees, strangely enough). Reported names, of course, will probably get a message that they must be changed, but there's no way that Blizzard actually examines the rolls name by name to figure out which are compliant with the ToS and which aren't. The problem, then, becomes who gets punished and who doesn't, and what whims that comes by. While I'm with Blizzard on the player bans, I'm not with them on this one-- either they need to stick to their naming policy or change it. As Pepe shows, just a few minutes of Armory browsing yields hundreds of "violations." I've included all of Pepe's links after the break-- be warned that some of the names are in fact obscene according to Blizzard's policy, and thus might be offensive to some of our readers.
Is ten character slots enough?
You may or may not be aware of the fact that you are only allowed ten characters per realm. For some, this is not a problem, and for others it is. Kinless writes about his dilemma, with the upcoming expansion, in which he will find himself wanting 13 character slots on a single realm. (I feel his pain -- I'm going to have to pick a character to delete in order to roll my expansion Blood Elf on my usual realm. And then I'll have to delete a second character if I decide I want to try my hand at playing a Draenei!)Of course, Blizzard allows for this, in a way. You can always put your alts on a different realm, which has the notable side-effect of giving you something to do when your usual realm is down -- but that means playing away from friends and guild-mates. Starting over on a new realm isn't for the faint of heart: when you've made a name for yourself on your old realm, and regardless of your alt's name you're likely able to find friends and help when needed. So is ten character slots per realm really enough -- or do you find yourself wanting more?
A second sixty in the making
I'm a serious alt-a-holic, with dozens of characters spread out across servers, factions, races and classes. After getting my first character to level 60 a few months ago, I've been exploring the endgame, but still spending time with my alts too -- and now my first real 'alt' character is about to reach 60. At the moment, I'm considering how to approach the 'main'/'alt' situation. There are many things I want to achieve with my main; the pvp and reputation grinds are nowhere near done, and there's plenty of bosses to fight and items to collect. However, I'm a little bored of the sameness of it all, and being able to experience these encounters from a different class's point of view is going to be refreshing -- and will involve a lot of relearning. Many of the raiding players I know tend to focus on their main character, only bringing out alts for special encounters or when the raidgroup feels generous enough to gear up the alt. Class balance being what it is, my main character (a druid) is more likely to be needed for raids and instances -- but I don't want my alt (a mage) to sit gathering dust in greens for the rest of time. For the time being, I think I will continue playing both characters, attempting to gear up my alt when I'm not raiding or PvPing with my main. Playing my alts is something that I do for a change of pace and scenery, and I'd like to keep it that way.
Smash Bros. fandom to the fullest
We're fans to the point where some might question our sanity, however we've never taken our intense want for [insert game and or gaming system here] to the levels of composing long fan fictions and/or drawing up ideas for characters and levels. We could never do that. It'd be a tell beyond our insane ability to include gaming quotes into casual conversation (I feel asleep). The cost of being caught is just too high for us to pay.We'll gladly give up others, however. Like these fine folk who decided they'd compose their own fantasy roster, complete with arsenal of moves for each proposed character. Not only that, they've come up with their own stages. So whomever is in charge of busting perps like these, have at it![Thanks Nushio!]
Another story about Loco Roco... and Japanese models
Perverted Japanese PSP Fanboy's Andrew Yoon consistently writes news stories about Loco Roco and Japanese models. In his ideal version of paradise, those two would somehow be combined. That day... has come! Firstly, you can learn the difference between all the characters of Loco Roco by checking out Siliconera. See the cute MuiMui, the racially insensitive Mojya, and more! Next, check out how Sony's trying to make the Japanese people like Loco Roco a bit more than they do now: they'll use actress Ryoko Shinohara to pose with the game and star in new commercials. Oh my, it appears that Andrew's died and gone to heaven. Loco Roco comes to the US in just one week. [First half via Siliconera, second half via PSP-Vault]
New Metal Gear Portable Ops trailer and details
As we promised earlier, a new trailer for the upcoming PSP-exclusive Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops was revealed today at the Games Convention in Germany. As you know, Naked Snake no longer works alone in this mission, which takes place six years after the events of Metal Gear Solid 3. You'll have to choose your allies wisely, and strategically coordinate with them. According to Gamespot, you can even switch control between your four allies by pressing a button. Fans will be giddy to know that the original voice cast is back, including David Hayter who called the script for Portable Ops the best one yet. Also revealed was the downloadable characters feature: you can access different wi-fi points around the world and have characters (either from the story or randomly generated) appear in your game. Wow. How the GPS feature of the game will work hasn't been revealed yet, but let's not forget the game will be appearing at TGS.Once you're done watching the trailer, visit our sister site Joystiq for some more hands-on impressions and a crazy motherload of screenshots.
My Secret Life as (another) Rogue
Like Elizabeth, I've taken to levelling up a rogue recently. In fact, she was the third character I ever created; having sat neglected for months, she's finally back in the game. Having played a druid (or rogue wannabe) for so long, it's really interesting seeing what the rogue class is really like. I've long envied the lockpick and vanish abilities, as well as the crucially-useful Sap. I'm still in my teens, but so far I'm enjoying it. I'm no stranger to up-close-and-personal melee, though staying behind the target for maximum damage is becoming an artform in itself. I often forget that I can't heal myself (though I carry bandages and potions), and Sprint with Evasion become very useful at such moments. The abilites available to even a teenage rogue, such as Kick and Evasion, make me realise quite how incomparable a feral druid is to a well-played rogue. While in catform I generally only use about four skills, but I use almost everything when playing my rogue. On the other hand, I miss other druid abilities, such as the versatility of shapeshifting -- in a sticky group situation I've found myself reaching for the bearform key, only to be disappointed. I've got a lot to learn about damage dealing and the art of stunlocking, but I'm enjoying the ride so far.
Breakfast Topic: First loves
How many characters did you go through before you settled on one to take to 60? Is your first your only character, or have you hopped from class to class and race to race before you felt comfortable?The first character we create can hold the fondest memories; we made newbie mistakes together, we learnt the game and explored the world. On the other hand, sometimes mistakes made as a newbie can have far-reaching effects; especially if that high-powered guild leader is someone we accidentally stole a mob from who still bears the grudge. Unlikely, but there are times we wish we could rewrite those first bumbling steps, go back and give ourselves all the expertise we have now.My first character was, maybe predictably, a Night Elf. I chose a Druid because shape-shifting sounded unbelievably cool, and after a few nasty experiences with spiders and getting lost in Teldrassil, I made it to Darnassus, then undertook the pilgrimage to Ironforge. After leaving the character there for months so I could play around with everything else the game has to offer, I recently dusted her off and it's a lot of fun coming back to that very first creation, even if it does mean dealing with a bank full of rubbish and extremely ill-suited equipment.
Video game character advent calendar
If eagerly ripping up a piece of cardboard to reveal novelty-shaped chocolates isn't your idea of a good advent calendar, this may be more to your taste. Game-Addicts.com has been compiling an advent calendar featuring a different video game character every day in December, ranging from favourites like Guybrush Threepwood and the four-block-long Tetris piece to Samus Aran and Katamari Damacy's King of All Cosmos. It's a labour of love worth reading to satisfy those nostalgia urges, although we can't help but imagine what Lara Croft-shaped novelty chocolates would look and taste like. Tomorrow's instalment is the last in the calendar, and we have a feeling it's going to be a good one.
