Definitive review: first 10 levels of WAR as a WOW fan

[Disclaimer] The title is clear: I only played through ten levels of the game, and I am a Wow fan. I also never played a Warhammer game before that. And I know that the game might also turn into a completely different experience later on, but this is a “first impressions” review.

So how should I approach such a loaded review?
I’m a World of Warcraft fan (not a fanboy, there’s a difference) and Warhammer Online is the first really credible threat to Blizzard’s hegemony in the MMO space in four years. I would like to give Wow players an idea of the experience of discovering the game the same way I did…
Got it! A “step by step” review with interweaving of good / bad points, with personal commentary. It will allow me to detail most of the game’s features in a way that will be relevant to the Wow crowd. This is the bestest idea ever, I can feel it! Let’s see if it works…

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The Blizzcon Dairies (part 2)

This is Part 2 of The Blizzcon Dairies.
If don’t know what this is, find out here with part 1!

7 – The panels

The opening ceremony is about to start. I make my way to the front row… May I see your pass please? Well of course you may, good sir. I look for a good spot, thankfully there’s a lot more seats than there are journalists. Here’s Kathleen Sanders and the guys from the one up show “Hey, it’s Mini! Love the show!” “Thanks!” Mini’s owner smiles back. I sit down, the ceremony starts. Morhaime on stage, giving numbers. Then Starcraft 2 and Wrath of the Lich King, we already knew all of that… Still cool, but a little bit underwhelming. “Damn you, Interwebs!” I hear Chilton screaming inside his head.

The ceremony’s over, and… The horror. Regular people are ok, but “ze journalists” enter a stage of panic that I’m no stranger to. Quick, update our pages we must! Blog and post and announce we have to! Well, the cool ones are sitting and chatting, cause they already live updated everything from their palm-treo-PDA thingies. Curse you technology savvy professionals!
I run and plug in and start typing. Maybe some kind of PHP script would have been a good idea, instead of actually coding the page and formatting the pictures by hand… And maybe this could have occurred to me, oh I don’t know, TWO WEEKS AGO?!

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Rant: Believing the earth is 5000 years old is not ok

Freedom of thought is essential. Anyone should be allowed to put forth any idea and not be ridiculed or shun for it. This is how our world advances, and that’s the way it should be. It’s a given in any “free society”.

That being said, what starts out as a good intention can be perverted. This can bring us to accept an idiocy as a respectable theory. When something as asinine as “the earth is 5000 years old” becomes a somewhat accepted opinion, we, as a society, have to put our foot down.

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The Blizzcon Dairies (part 1)

In august 2007 I was lucky enough to be at Blizzcon. Randy, from The Instance, asked me for a few words about the trip and the experience. Even though I didn’t intend to, I ended up writing a little essay which was never really published. I figured that with Blizzcon 2008 coming up, some people might enjoy reading this monster of an article.
So here it is: The Blizzcon Dairies.
Hope you enjoy it!

1 – The departure

Early morning, I get up in my usual haze and grab the clothes I carefully folded the day before. T-shirt, check. Pants, check. Socks, check. Sexy underwear, ch… Errr no wait, that’s from yesterday. Regular underwear, check. Ok, no need to waste time opening closets, having breakfast or taking showers, I’m going to Blizzcon, yay!

Bus ride to the airport. I’m on time, the stars must have aligned.
Let’s head to the check in counter. Not this one, not this one, not this one… Wait… I think… Yup, that’s it. Great, it’s the one with thirty seven thousand people in front of it. Typical. Ok, no worries, I’ll just wait in line. And take a couple of pictures so I can laugh about it later. Nothing can bring me down, I’m going to Blizzcon, Yay!

10 minutes.
I’m smiling. Everything’s nice. The girl next to me is smiling back and even laughing at my stupid joke about the on line check in thing, and it wasn’t even funny. It’s probably because going to Blizzcon is giving me a sexy glow.

20 minutes.
Still smiling, the airport security people are checking you’re in the right lane and looking at the passpo… OH MY GOD, MY PASSPORT! I DIDN’T CHECK FOR MY PASSPO oh here it is, here you go miss. “Everything is in order, go ahead”. Of course everything is in order, what did you think?! “Thanks, have a great day!”

30 minutes.
Ok, this is getting a bit long, and the kids next to me are beginning to get on my nerves. Control your damn spawns, agents of parenthood hell!

40 minutes.
Counter in sight! I have to go through one of those automated thingies… Nice girl is coming to help me, cause apparently 20 years of using computers isn’t enough to know how to operate these damn things. She’s smiling. I can go in straight cause I don’t have any luggage to check in, cool. Ok. She’s smiling. Err, let’s punch in that number again. Ok. Hmmm, wait.

- “Is there a problem?”
- “No no, it’s fine”. But she’s not smiling anymore.

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You need DRM? Fine, I want CRM!

The music industry has been banging us over the head with it for years. The movie industry has been pushing it for ages. And now the games industry is giving it a go too.

Well, if you get DRM on a product you’re selling me, then I want CRM on the money I’m giving you. That’s “Customers Rights Management”. Here’s the idea: when I buy something from you, we are in agreement that I own the product I purchased, and you own the money that I payed for it. So if you get control over the product I purchased, then I want control over the money I gave you.

For example:

• You told me this DVD was great but I really didn’t like it? I’m taking half my money back.
• I bought your CD and I hear your company is not eco-friendly? You can only use my money to invest in green projects.
• Your game was great, but a patch made it less enjoyable for me? I get to freeze my money in your account until you make it fun again.

*shaking fist* So how does that sound? Unfair and ridiculous? Unwarranted? It’s overkill and in the end it doesn’t really address any relevant issue?

Hmmm, sounds familiar… I wonder what CRM rhymes with.

DRM (Digital Rights Management) is, in short, a way for the publisher who sells you a digital product to control the way you are using it. Where you can play a movie, how many times you listen to a song, stuff like that. To be fair, there are legitimate uses to DRM. But many also think they are counter productive, and only really hurt legitimate customers, not copyright infringers.
I also know that this analogy doesn’t really stand close scrutiny (or any scrutiny at all really). The point is merely to express the customer’s frustration in a way that the rights’ owners might relate to a bit more. As if they care…

8 podcasts geek gamers shouldn’t live without

For the past two years I’ve been watching and listening to a bunch of podcasts. But I only recently discovered one of the best tech shows out there, that pretty much everybody has known and loved forever. And I know you will all make fun of me for it, but still, it made me think that there are probably many of us who miss the big obvious ones because we aren’t reminded of them quite enough. So this is my attempt at bringing other idiots like me back into the fold by hammering it down one more time:

These are the podcasts you should absolutely be subscribed to: they are just that good!

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Rant: I’m a fatist!

Rants are supposed to be semi-rational angry spiels, and I don’t expect everyone will agree. I’m just having a bit of fun (and maybe trying to make a point?) but if I offend anyone I apologize in advance if I do.

First, let me make a couple of things clear:

• I think obsessing over the looks of photoshoped models is ridiculous and unwarranted.
• I really bare no ill will to anyone, I love all people of all shapes and sizes.

That being said, I’m tired of people who think being overweight is an uncontrollable curse. I’m not talking about people who have a few extra pounds. Or even three dozens. I’m talking about obese people who think it just happened to them. No, it didn’t. Listen to me: the reason why you are fat is… wait for it… because you EAT TOO MUCH!

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How knowing about bacn is saving my life

So I was at the new media expo last week, and Veronica mentioned the fact that she had too much bacon on her computer. At first I thought this was another one of those American things like, you know, when you need to deep fry your cheese and wrap it in solid high fructose syrup to enjoy it. I figured she had left some of the bacon dip from her “BBQ style cereals” on the desk or something. But it turns out it wasn’t quite that.

She was actually talking about “bacn”. And if you don’t know what bacn is, let me fill you in. Bacn is kind of like spam, except it’s the kind you sign up for. Twitter saying you have more imaginary friends, forums telling you that DeathStar34b replied to your thread about the practicality of Klingon motorcycle helmets, or Facebook letting you know that people need you to be a zombie-pirate or want to buy you for thirteen bucks or so.

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10 random thoughts from the New Media Expo

Well I finally succumbed to the temptation, I have a blog. Let’s start in pure blogging fashion: a top 10 list overloaded with links. So here are my 10 random thoughts from the New Media Expo in Las Vegas:

1. At an event like this, the iPhone to person ratio approaches unhealthy levels.
2. I really don’t care too much for their show (I don’t own tools), but the spags are awesome.
3. The New Media Expo wasn’t “new media” at all. It made me think of something called “Podcast Expo”.
4. When you are Jonathan Coulton or Felicia Day, you cannot walk 10 feet without someone stopping you to say that Ilovewhatyoudoandyouarereallyawesome- canItakeapicturepleaseIloveyou. I’m guessing it would get pretty annoying pretty fast, but they stay friendly. A mystery.
5. I already knew it, but I got confirmation that Veronica Belmont is a real real geek: she knows Joco’s songs by heart and sings along when he’s on stage.
6. Being on Twit Live can get you a hundred+ Twitter followers in two minutes.
7. Tom Merritt might very well be the nicest person on the planet.
8. Randy Jordan is a real cowboy. Also, he secretly swore a few weeks ago that he would get more Twitter followers than me. And he did.
9. Even with geeks like us, the real fun happens after hours… Jim Kirks and Molly Lynn are party animals.
10. I’m really not a Trekkie (or trekker or whatever), but going to the Star Trek Experience with Len Peralta, Brent and almost all the people I talked about here was definitely worth the 38 hours I spent in airplains and airports in those five days. Also, Randy screamed like a girl during the 3D ride.

All in all I had a really great time, and I consider myself incredibly fortunate to be part of such an amazing community. A thousand thanks to all of those who were there, a million thanks to the people who chose to listen to what I have to say, and I hope we get to do it again as soon as possible.

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