Crosspost from Talk Tyria. Asura: Cute and cuddly or heartless and selfish?

Disclaimer: This is a crosspost from my posting over at Talk Tyria. I’m crossposting it here so those following the blog can see it (and so I have all my postings in one central place ^^). If you want to comment/share your thoughts, please head over to Talk Tyria. That’s also the reason I disabled comments to this posting here. It’s a Talk Tyria posting, so comments should go over there. :)

Asura are the smallest of the playable races in Guild Wars 2. They’re the cute* race. Fuzzy, cuddly… wait – are those pointy teeth? And what’s with this maniac grin? Is… is that a golem running towards me? In other words: They are everything but cuddly and cute, that is for sure. I wonder what it will be like playing an asura…

 

“You give a new meaning to the term “counter-intelligence.”
(Vekk in Guild Wars)

Rift vs. LotRO vs. World of Warcraft – a closer look at all three MMOs (all entries in one)

This is the full version of entries that have been published in the last week! I just thought it might be nicer to have everything in one huge entry instead of in separate ones (either way: You can find all entries in the category labelled “rift vs. lotro vs. wow” on the right).

The topic I wrote some time ago about “Rift vs. LotRO” is still getting readers almost every day. Unfortunately, it is probably not the kind of topic they were looking for. So, since I’ve played both games (at least for a little while), I thought I would make an elaborate posting about those games. I’m also going to throw in World of Warcraft because, apart from playing it as well, the big majority of MMO gamers have played the game or know something about the game, at least. :) (After starting to write this, I realised how long this entry would be in the end and decided to split it into different topics to be posted separately. So expect a posting every day for the next few days!)

Before I start, a warning of sorts: This will be a biased review of those games! I can only judge what I have experienced myself or what other people told me. And no matter how hard I would try, I could not write an objective review because my own taste/preference will always play a role in how I view games. So please, keep that in mind. I also do not claim that this overview is complete. I might have forgotten something here and there.

Before I start, a short gaming history: I have started playing WoW in December 2005. I raided during Burning Crusade and have stopped with that part of game content before Wrath of the Lich King was relased. In fact, I quit the game for a long time (came back shortly before Cataclysm was released). I quit again at the beginning of this year because I had my diploma exams and had no time for gaming. I am now back in WoW for 60 days to experience the new low level content.

I started with LotRO in 2009. I am now an officer in a social/casual kinship. I have done a few raids but they were mostly lower level content (which is not as easy to run through as in WoW but still easier than when it’s at the matching level). I mostly play solo or do the small-group-content.

When Rift was released, I started playing that game. I had my account active for two months, then I quit. I have the least experience with this game as my character only reached level 20-something.

I am going to sort several aspects of the games into categories. Of course, the content sometimes overlaps, so please bear with me here while I am trying to sort it somehow logically. ;)

LotRO: Ready to move

My little hobbit’s packed her bags and is now waiting for June 1 to move from Codemasters to Turbine. The European community is also wide awake and asking a ton of questions.

One very important one was answered today: The European RP servers will still be supported after the move! That’s great news! I never understood why Turbine doesn’t have RP servers. I figured maybe it’s because they’d like to see RP on all their servers which, in my ideal world, would work perfectly. But from what I hear, there are always people who think it’s their job to make fun of RPers (which seems to happen in other MMOs as well). And it’s probably a lot easier for the RPers to just gather on one or two server(s) so they can find RP-partners easily.

Anyway. Another issue I’ve seen is that some Europeans are concerned about Turbine’s forums. I haven’t posted much in Codemasters’ forums, so I can’t say much about it. There are two big concerns: 1) Turbine censors and deletes postings that criticise them and their game (seen here), 2) they don’t allow off-topic conversations and lock topics when they become off-topic (as in: the main content of the conversation isn’t LotRO anymore) and European players are used to talking about other stuff and that’s what makes them a gaming community (note: I read that on the forums. I don’t know how much of that is true and, most of all, I don’t know how much that happens or doesn’t happen on Turbine’s forums!) – as seen here.

As a result, an inofficial LotRO forum was started. I quote the admin: “Well, let’s say we’re a bit less sensitive when it comes to criticism. That’s not an unlimited access pass to troll and curse though. You can get banned here too.”

Zzeno, producer at Codemasters, also invites the players to use Codemasters’ MMO forum to continue talking to each other after the transition.

Either way, I think it’s great to see the gaming community not only complain but also do something about it. :)