Greetings and salutations readers,

Hello, my name is Lokonopa. To begin, I could say I have been a reader of WTFMan for a very long time, but instead, those of you who remember October 2nd, 2003; you may remember the "fishing" picture in the little screen shot contest started by Azaroth. I believe this will speak for itself.

In addition to the obvious UO subscription, I have a few confessions that some of you should know before I continue. The very first MMO that grabbed me by the balls and didn't let go was Ultima Online. Sadly, as I am no longer afraid to admit, I joined during the UO:R release. Please, save the boos as I was fully aware of what I have missed shortly after and still wake in the night screaming from a nightmare involving bears with neon fur sporting flashy symbols on their bellies that spewed forth a kaleidoscope of color that morphed my brain into a mass of useless grey matter that coughed up change for this type of treatment each month. Needless to say, I acknowledged the bad timing on my part long ago.

In regards to UO, I still compare every game that I have ever played to every aspect of this classic, including a handful of console video games. An example of what console game I would speak of is Fable. When I first heard that you would be able to steal from shops, I was delighted until that reached near orgasmic anticipation for a long while until its release. With great sadness, I did manage to stomach this trash until the muralesque ending made it all clear that I now regret being born for playing Fable. That might be stretching the experience a bit, but the sadness came from the awful stealing system, as it was clearly a time wasting mini-game. Indeed, Fable certainly grabbed my attention early on and killed a piece of what hope lied for RPGs on a console almost two years later with a mere eight hours of absolute disappointment.

As that may look like a digression from anything Ultima Online related, I promise you it has much to do with the game as I was once a thief. I was never the brilliant disarm thief like a good friend of mine, who is also pictured with me here and here, but it was the first passion I had for the game in the beginning. I absolutely loved walking into a town, going into a shop, and stealing what goods were in the chests and crates. Not only could I steal from shopkeepers, but players, corpses, and monsters. This paves way for the statement so many have made that UO was a lot of fun, even if you were far from being a 1x GM in any skill. You cannot get away with being anything but the max level in World of Warcraft with great gear.

Perhaps the last mention of UO would be just how much I enjoyed the people in that game. There were assholes just like other game, but you could easily become a bigger asshole than them. You didn't need the greatest gear to defeat a pest. You didn't even need armor. Run around naked casting a nasty spell or two and you are able to skull fuck your victim with the infamous Jesus staff. Everything was fun about that game. I would run outside of town and never know what would happen next. Perhaps I will cast EQ to piss off someone trying to sit comfortably in their home, only to have them run out screaming WTF until I beat them to death before they could ban me. Times were sweet and I fucking miss it all.

Moving on from Ultima Online, as there is nothing else I could say that would trump anything that has been said about that MMO over the years on this very site. Even though I do not remember what year I quit, I do remember the few dozen online games that almost held my interest for a week or more ever since. Next to the year or so of World of Warcraft, the next closest game that stole my attention was Everquest. That only lasted around two months. I never did get around playing AC, but I have heard of great experiences. Other games I have played have been Rubies of Eventide, during the second engine development phase, Shadowbane beta, very briefly Final Fantasy XI, Diablo, Neocron, anything Steam, and many other online games I forgot because of the short time played. I believe I played Ragnarok Online for almost twenty minutes, while Ryzom for almost an entire night. After all of this, I became extremely picky.

Like others, I found temporary solace with World of Warcraft. I did have an account when it was released and I really enjoyed the game for a while. One reason I may not have ventured to other games is that I have always went to where my friends have gone. Like many others, I became bored with WoW when I reached a high enough level to see where it was now going. New instances would always be welcome, but after one or two completions, the only point in running another would be to obtain better gear. I began losing interest and did not play for a year after the summer of 2005. After a great deal of changes, especially ones that would make a fellow warlock happy in the pants, I returned eager to take on everything that I have missed. To much dismay, the feeling was fleeting when I knew that eventually all of this gear that I would spend many hours collecting would become obsolete, as it always had in the past. Surprisingly, I certainly did not foresee Arcanist gloves being replaced with a pair of greens after the Burning Crusade release.

I could go on about WoW like many others, but what would be the point? Why would I rant about this and not about the other many games that had a glimpse of hope as the next thing to take my mind off my first love, which has always been Ultima Online. While sucking on the proverbial cock of UO even more, I did attempt a great deal of free shards, including IPY, but I have never been able to get that same old feeling. Just when everything was going great, something unholy has to fuck everything up for everyone else. Every shard I played on has been doomed in this manner. Though, I cannot cry about WoW, as I did enjoy it for a good period of time, I lost the energy to do anything at all even after a year's absence. That includes multiple instances that are brand new to me along with many changes to my favorite class. To share an experience on first returning, an alien feeling took me completely when I joined a guild that took Ragnaros down before the three minute mark. The last time I played, simply making him spawn was enough to race to forums to post screenies. This was a weekly raid for them and I immediately saw WoW for what I never really have before, an MMO that is extremely easy to advance if you have the time. Ultimately, a virtual race.

Like many others, I have waited patiently for any news of DarkFall, only to forget until I am reminded every few months. I am happy they have learned from the mistake that was Shadowbane and updated what they could. If DarkFall were to ever be given a green light, there would be no stopping what is to be a game that may take over any means of a social life for me. Why should I propose to my girlfriend when I have DarkFall? My actions would be justified to no end. My mother sells sex toys which mean I could give her a healthy supply of fun for temporary relief. Until then, Oblivion will reign supreme until it is down to a science just as Morrowind became. Albeit, I doubt I will be able to hit level 55 and pocket a cool million in gold in a few short hours, let alone beat the game in less than thirty minutes, Oblivion still blows me away. Until something that isn't a grind fest that involves jerking off to your new epic breastplate while you ride around on your epic mount, online gaming will never be the same.

A pleasure,

- Lokonopa

03.28.07
Vanguard, a New Hope?

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes (http://www.vanguardsoh.com) created by Sigil Games Online and co-published by Sony Online Entertainment is to be released on January 30th, 2007. Now what sets this MMORPG apart from the various other MMORPG’s being created and released lately, is that this one is rumoured (yes, I am Canadian) to launch a free for all player vs. player server on launch.

Some other features that may peak the interest of old Ultima Online players:

- No zoning or instancing.
- Players being able to place houses in the world.
- Run-casting, even though your character’s movement slows down.
- Drop everything that is not bound to your character on death.

Yes you can bind items to your character, so you won’t be looting his/her awesome weapon that he/she is wielding unless they are stupid enough not to bind it. However, if you are running around with your little goon squad you will be able to roll over other groups camping/farming dungeons or mob camps. Therefore, you will be able to loot whatever they have earned in that session and all items that are unable to be bound to their character.

Even though I have only been in the beta for about one week now, I feel this game really has the potential to provide a “hardcore” environment with its FFA – PVP server. Now excuse me while I go cancel my Burning Crusade pre-order, wait, do I have to right-click someone and join a queue to do that?

- incorp

03.23.07
The Perfect Day

So there’s this game, right? This game we all know of; this game of which we wonder why the fuck anyone would want to play it, you know? Well, in the interest of science, I decided to find out!

It Begins.
(The Faeries like to watch… Oooh, Robosaur!)

So I start off in my wonderful treetop town of Kelethin. From this perspective, it does seem a lot more of a shit-hole…

Kelethin, a.k.a. the death trap, a.k.a. the city that never should have been.
/(Honestly who the fuck builds a city atop the trees?)/

Moving on, I started here in this shit-hole of a city and scoured the town asking anyone I could find why they would want to play this game. After getting a lot of “It’s fun,” “It’s a good time killer,” “Why don’t you go kill yourself” responses, I stumbled upon the real reason -- and what a reason it is!

The quest! Oh what a wonderful reward this will be.

This is the kind of shit people play for. I must have it! In order to receive this wonderful reward, I am to go far to the east of my shit-hole city, into enemy territory. After dying 17 times on my way there from people, monsters, or just plain ol’ fucking stupidity on my part, I find what I am looking for.

Yeah I have a cape, what of it?

Apparently this fuck has what I need to get my wreath. I thought I’d try negotiating for it.

Me: Smoothly handling the negotiation.

After long talks, a hug and coming to an agreement, I have what I needed! It is now time to go claim my reward. Excitement levels are near capped at this point.

They were all tuckered out.

On the walk home, my faithful companion decided to show up! He’d been missing for awhile, so it was good to see him.

Turkleton is a badass name for a ghost wolf.

Upon returning to my fair city, I go to Mr. Gh’lad Tydingz (Oh SoE, you rascals and your subtle word play!) to get paid.

Yeah, thanks you fucking chud! Merry Christmas and all that.

Taking my sweet-ass wreath, I decided to go to my house right away and hang it up!

Oh Jesus Christ, I live in a fucking Acorn.

What a perfect end to a perfect day! My life seems so much more complete now that I have this colorful wreath hung up on my door; to my acorn house, in my treetop city, which is surrounded by giant mushrooms and huge god damn underbrush.

I hate this fucking place.

Yes indeed, a perfect end to a perfect day.

- cr0ss

03.22.07
Old School

Games today make PK'ers cry. Call me old school. I'm a dick. If I run into you in a game where PKing is allowed (Player Killing for you noobs) you are a grease spot. Unfortunately thats not the case anymore. There is almost no place for PvP and Player Killers in online games today, and something has to be done about it.

Lets take WoW for instance. The biggest thing since Elvis. You grind your happy ass to 60, run some dungeons, get some neat looking helmets, then wash, rinse, and repeat. "BUT WIRED WHAT ABOUT BATTLEGROUNDS LOL". Fuck Battlegrounds. For one, it's always one sided. You have some Hunter sitting on top of a hill raining arrows into your ass, some mages clicking blizzard like crack whores jerking off a homeless man, all the while you're stunned by a warrior like a kid who just saw his first pair of tits. And dont even fucking start me on the rogues. Then to top off this shitcake that the whole world seems to be digesting, you can't even call a silly little bitch.

"Wait a minute, you can't talk shit to the other faction?". WHAT THE FUCK MAN?

Every company right now decided to make a grinding cock fest designed from the ground up to rape your wallet. Then some big wig twat waffle got the idea to casually toss some PVP into the mix. So what we get is essentially a big rock paper scissors match. Thats fucking spectacular. Rock, Paper, Scissors. I do that when I want shotgun in my friends car . Not when I pay 15 dollars a month to enjoy some competitive play.

You see it comes down to this. No one wants to make a game where you can be a prick, and where PVP combat actually means something. It's all geared towards the social fuckwits that think sitting on their asses to get the best sword ever somehow involves skill. I dont care who you are, if you think that just because you played 4 million hours to get a better weapon, and you win a fight, you're a "better gamer"? You sir are a fucking idiot.

- Wired

03.07.07
Where have all our manners gone?

Is it just me, or does it seem like people these days have less manners then previous years. And I do not mean manners in the sense of tea parties and soirees where people are on their best behavior, but simple manners that I should think would be common sense. Anyone who has ever been dragged to a party where they knew next to no one (which I am sure most of you have) will understand the feeling of dread that comes with having to put yourself out there to meet new people so you are not the dork in the corner, however some help should be expected and forthcoming from the few people you do know, but in my case I was very wrong to expect any help from anyone.

The Party and the Problem:

My girlfriend was invited to come guys 22nd birthday ( keep in mind she barely knows this guy), but you know how guys must surround themselves with girls at parties in order to compensate) so of course I am involuntarily volunteered to accompany her. Not to mention I go to a different school than her so the realm of friends I have at hers is much smaller than my own school, so the chances of me knowing anyone at the party is small. While this is not really a problem normally as the mention of free boozes perks my interest I then find out it is no one I know, and someone she barely knows, GREEEEAAAT! We arrive after the party is already in full swing so our entrance is barely noticed, however once in the party I feel as if I have people staring at me from left and right. Sure enough when I casually glance around to get a feeling for the atmosphere I can tell people are really looking at me and most notable my girlfriend (not to be immodest but she is a looker), while this may not seem very troubling you must think and put yourself in my shoes to understand that...I know no one. In order to drown out any trepidation I have might, I decide I good deal of boozing is in order to wash my worries away, however I then find that the bar is surrounded by 50+ people and there is 1 count it 1 bartender, my spirits fall and I am in need of a savior. Now you might be wondering when I am going to get to the manners part, but this is all the set up.

The Manners or lack thereof:

My savior comes in the form of three girls I happen to know, and was unaware that they would be coming to this party, this makes me happy and so I go to them (first because I know them, but more importantly sending cute girls to get drinks for oneself is a passtime I enjoy), we all greet and I finally get a drink in my hand. Then of course as women attract men as moths to a candle 4-5 guys show up on my tail, and start intruding in my conversation with my friends. This does not bother all that much because A. I am now drinking and B. I have a girlfriend and could care less who these girls talk to, however I still find it extremely rude when they introduce themselves to the girls and blatantly ignore me. So, this means I go into asshole mode, and I forcefully introduce myself and proceed to shut down their game (not that they had much anyways). Note to guys who do this: If you ignore the girls guy friend (or girl friend who is less attractive) your chances of scoring a number or more decrease drastically. Since I am a pretty easy going guy, I eventually let them off the hook as they start to engage me in conversation and so I turn from A-hole back to nice guy.

The final breach of manners, but perhaps the more hurtful one was actually done by my friends (more people showed up that I knew as time went on). This breach of manners is also quite infuriating it is simply when you are talking to someone you know, someone else comes up to say hi, and the person you know does not introduce you to this new person. I HATE THIS! Not only am I at a party I do not wish to be, with long alcohol lines complete with rude horny guys, but I have to suffer through my friends ignoring the fact I do not know many people and continue to introduce myself when there is a break in conversation, if that ever comes. I basically spent the rest of the party trying not to be awkward to these people I did not know, and who would not introduce themselves nor would my friends introduce me to them, so it basically fell upon my own shoulders to not look like an outcast or an idiot by just interjecting into conversations.

Moral of the story, if you have a friend who does not know anyone in the group you are talking with introduce them for their sake as well as yours. Use some common sense...oh wait it seems as if people today lack that!

- Imperialrage

02.15.07
WoW Rant

There's something I've been wanting to get off my chest for some time to people who actually understand where I'm coming from and this seems a good avenue to do it. I, like almost everyone who still reads wtfman.com, am a gamer who yearns for the days of old. This isn't exactly about that, though. I went from The Realm to UO briefly to nothing to DaoC where I first played with Ron and Greybeard, to Shadowbane, and now I've somehow ended up on World of Warcraft. Dare I say Warhammer will be our savior...I hope, but in the meantime I have a bone to pick with what I would guess is 95% of the WoW playerbase.

People who pve. Ok let me rephrase that. People who live for pve and think it requires skill. For a double whammy, pay attention for any guild proclaiming superiority in playing ability to pvp guilds because your average pvp guild hasn't even cleared AQ40.

My current guild, Evil Bastages who some of you may know from UO and/or Shadowbane, is bashed on a daily basis for "not having the skill to pve", which entertains me to no end. And it's simply for the fact that we do nothing but pvp, and the only reason we'll pve in BC is to level. Here, let me clue you in - pve = scripted encounter. It's a pattern, nothing more. You figure out the pattern and then execute the pattern over and over and over again for months until Blizz churns out the next proverbial turd of a piece of pve content for you to "conquer" and be "server first!" to play through. Stand tall and be proud, little carebear, you did it! You got the first piece of tier 3 gear and yet somehow still lose to good guilds in pvp gear who actually know how to focus fire and use crowd control.

And yes, I'm speaking directly to the mages who run up and open with pom ap pyro, or an improved counterspell for the 4 second silence instead of actually locking down a spell tree for 10 seconds which is what counterspell is intended for to begin with. I'm talking to the dpsadins running around trying to beat people down while their flag carrier gets pummeled into the ground. I'm talking to priests who go shadow because they think they are useful by outdpsing everyone on the scoreboard over time despite they have trash burst dps against a warrior holding a flag in full dreadnaught gear. I think you see where I'm going here. Playing mindlessly apparently works well against anything that doesn't think in response to your actions but somehow I have this funny hunch that it doesn't work so well in pvp.

Am I the only person left that realizes pve isn't a matter of skill? There is no dynamic to this once you understand the pattern. Pvp, on the other hand, requires constant change because naturally you have another brain thinking on the other end of the line. Even if most people are still retards - 7 million players and you know half of them are b.net goombas who think Diablo 2 pvp was scaled and hardcore - I still use 3 hotbars worth of bindings when I'm pvping. Pve? Not even 1 full bar required. What's that you say? I'm a mage and mages need to manage aggro in pve and that takes skill? Are you kidding me? With all the mods out that practically play the game for you it's amazing people still pull aggro.

I'm not sure what's more sad - the fact that people now rely completely on mods to succeed in a game, or the fact that even with those mods I saw guilds wipe on Thaddius in Naxx for weeks on end because their mod put an arrow up pointing in the wrong direction to run in when all the idiot needs to do is watch their debuff slot for a fucking plus or minus sign and move accordingly.

A plus or a minus sign. Move left or right. And people still manage to fuck it up. Repeatedly.

But no, pve requires skill. It does. No I believe you, you raise a good argument except that...oh wait, pve'ers don't have any legitimate arguments.

I'm sick to death of these misfits equating gaming ability with pve "accomplishments" and attempting to throw in peoples' faces that "< insert Random Shit-for-Nothing Startup Guild from WoW here> was in the top 25 U.S. guilds to clear Naxx and you haven't even cleared BWL lawl EB newbs." Sweet Jesus in a birchbark canoe, give these people a letter of recommendation from the committee of I Don't Give a Flying Fuck.

Defend a bane on your city in SB, go to sleep for 8 hours, wake up and still find the fight going on to defend what you've built up for months on end due to the potential of permanently losing it and having to rebuild from the ground up with 100v100 battles going on for 15 hours straight. At that point I might actually listen to what you have to say about anything at all. Until then, if ignorance is bliss, you're in fucking utopia. Carebear.

God I need a new fucking game to play.

- Risks

01.23.07
MMORPG Thoughts

Hello Readers,

No doubt you're sitting there wondering who the next sellout is going to be on this site. I've been a reader of WTFMan for some time now. I don't post on the forums, mostly because forums annoy the ever loving hell out of me. Or at least the people who visit them are.... so I rarely have anything nice to say. But then again I rarely have anything nice to say period. Although I did visit the forums often during the beginnings of IPY. Yea. We all remember IPY. The best way I could probably describe IPY to a non-gamer... would be that it started off as a fantastic hand job and ended up in a disastrous raping of your anal cavity. They did manage to get the Geo Metro out... but there will be permanent damage and mental scarring for life. But hey... it was fun while it lasted, right?

Forum use aside, I've been a reader here long enough to know this isn't exactly a website that caters to brown fuzzy teddy bears with purple hearts that say "I Heart You". So I'm not going to post about how awesome sauce I think some game is. Instead I'll just make fun of the average gamer. Because the average gamer today has shit for brains and craps out "Cheerios" on a daily basis. How many of them do you think reside here on these forums?

The ones who do are the mindless drones that play games such as Everquest, Dark Ages of Camelot, and more importantly... World of Warcraft. Have I played these games? I'm afraid so. Although I like to think of myself as more of the "Jane Goodall" of the bunch, minus the saggy nasty tits and dusty vagina. Anyway... anyone who's played Everquest knows the torrential spawn of EQ clones that has plagued the MMOG industry. The basic building blocks of the game are all the same. The steps are all the same:

Step 1: Make a character. Female.
Step 2: Give that character a class. Fighter, Caster, Healer or a variant of the three.
Step 3: Kill a bazillion of the same thing.
Step 4: Bounce your virtual titties and flash your virtual ass for horny geeks who will never get laid. Get free money/items.
Step 5: Kill a bazillion of the same thing
Step 6: Level
Step 7: Repeat steps 3-6 until maximum level is reached
Step 8: E-bay your character for less money than you spent on subscription costs

It's the same god damned thing. Over and over and over again. Everquest was bad enough. Dark Ages of Camelot was a refreshing step up... but really it was just the same thing. Then we have World of Warcraft. The most promising game to let us down since The Matrix: Revolutions or whatever the fuck the sequels were named. There are only a handful of games out there right now that really offer any more than just Everquest: The Attack of the Clones.

One such game is EVE Online. For those of you who cringe at sci-fi, too bad for you. EVE Online has proven itself, to me, as one of the better games out there that probably get as close as it gets to what Shadowbane was initially. The PVP can be epic, the corporation and alliance political system is by far one of the best I've seen in action since Shadowbane in its earlier days. The market in that game has held steady since it's release with the rising and falling of prices due to supply and demand. To top it off you can try it for 14 days. Although to be honest, 14 days isn't even enough time to grasp the game. It's fucking huge.

For those of you who played EVE and then left because it was boring or you just didn't care for it... eh, that's fine. They've been adding to the game and making it better, which is probably the only game that I would say has been able to do so over a 3 year period.

Another game, one that has been in production for three years and counting, that shows promise is Darkfall Online. No doubt a number of people here have heard of it and are active on the forums, fondly known as Forumfall. Quite honestly, the game is shaping up to be something similar to what Ultima Online was. In fact the developers of Darkfall are all ex-Pre-UO:R players. They know the good/bad of what UO is, was and will never be again. However, since there hasn't been a beta or any solid beta information in the last couple of years... it's difficult to say what the game is truly going to be like. For all we know, it's going to end up turning into a game we'll all fall in love with... then a year down the line receive "New Game Enhancements" courtesy of Sony Online Entertainment and Lucas Arts to turn us all into Jedi Knights of the Round Table with furry cat ears and tails with racial humping +1.

- Chris "Beer" Collins

01.12.07
Burnt Out

I never thought I'd admit it, but I've burnt out on MMO's and WoW is to blame. I've been playing MMO's since the Dread Lord days of UO, so roughly 10 or 11 years, near enough to the beginning of online gaming to consider myself a pioneer in the online world. I'm like one of the people on the Mayflower, I didn't discover America, but I got there just in time to rape some indians. All throughout my online gaming career I've been addicted, jumping from 1 game to the next with little to no transition and loving it. I've played UO, AC, DAOC, EQ, EQ2, Shadowbane, RFOnline, Planetside, Gunz, RYL, Guild Wars and a bunch of other games that I can't remember and I've had a blast.... until WoW....

Warcraft is the most dominant MMORPG ever...... 7 million subscribers, that's fucking amazing and I, for the life of me, have no clue why. I've been a rogue in WoW since the closed beta, I've leveled 3 different rogues to 60 and one rogue to 70 in the closed beta of TBC and I can honestly say as far as rogues go, I'm king shit. Now before every other rogue who happens to be reading this gets pissed off (and everyone has a rogue main or a rogue alt) I've taken my undead rogue through MC and BWL back when there were no strats, we stepped into BWL day 1 when it got patched into the game, so I've suffered and agonized through every step of the game. That's when I burnt out, I was in tier 1 and tier 2 when that actually meant something, I was rogue captain of Apocalypse on Burning Legion and I was bored out of my fucking mind.

On a side note, I've been with JoV for 9ish years and through some miscommunication some of us went to a different server when WoW came out from JoV. We ended up with OG under the control of non-og douche bags who ended up ruining the name.

Mug'Thol opens and it just so happens that the server we were on and the server the main force of JoV was on can both transfer to it, we jump on the opportunity. So here we are, most of us back together, still missing a few.... we're a PvP guild so I decide to focus on PVP, maybe getting PvP gear is more fun then getting tier sets...lol... Despite the fact that PvP in WoW is a grind just as bad, if not worse, then getting tier 1-3 I was having fun being back with JoV and helping out friends. Unfortunetly there was only so much I could do at that point, having been a major player in a large raiding guild, being in a PvP guild again was refreshing, but I had no instances to run, so I quit for awhile.

Enter Alliance character

I'd never played alliance, so I figured that if I wanted to stay interested until TBC hit the shelves I'd give it a shot. Honestly I can say I learned a few things and improved myself quite a bit, but I fell into the same pitfall I was in before. I initially went to the server to join Dr.Twister's guild on Onyxia with a few of my friends who were in his upper echelon of officers (Joe and Pocketsize) aside from them, I knew absolutely no one in this guild of about 40+ members. Well there was some drama (I called out some cunt in the guild) and the guild split, 10 or so of his officers reforming under me (told you I was king shit). So I dealt with the drama of being a PuG guild leader for about 2 months then made the decision to merge with another guild so we could start hitting MC and ZG....... my guild shattered. I ended up in a guild called Immortal, uncontested best guild on the Onyxia server, we tore through BWL, AQ and Naxx............... but here I was again.............. doing instances that I was bored with and now I'm not only doing boring shit, but I'm not even doing it with my friends.

So now I'm confused...... I've tried everything Warcraft has to offer.... with and without people I know irl, I've been in every instance, I've dominated in PvP, I've lead succesful raids, I've got good gear and I'm bored........ So my question is.... what now? Why do people play this game? I still plan on playing when TBC comes out and I've logged over 180 days of online time since release, I just don't know why. I've seen near one hundred hardcore gamers burn out playing this game because it's just the same shit over and over. I've leveled to 70 in the expansion and there is in fact alot more shit to do, but how long will that last? How long until everyone starts to get bored again? How long will I put up with shit talking 14 year olds of my own faction that I can't stab in the face? Why for the love of christ am I so addicted to this game? Will I just play until I'm just a husk of a MMO player and I quit and go back to consoles? If anyone has the answers please let me know.

I wish I could go back to raping indians......

- Neverborn

01.09.07
Current MMORPGs

I was talking to Joe the other day about WoW and why we both don't post about it much. Basically what it comes down to is that we're not passionate about it like we (all) were about UO and AC. Then we started to discuss WHY we were so passionate about it and Joe couldn't come up with a solid reason aside from it just "felt right". There are a couple of things that made my favorite two MMORPGs ever (herce forth will simply be referred to as UO/AC) good, but what it boils down to can be summarized in one word.

Challenge.

These games were just damn hard to come up in. UO only had towns that were "safe" and AC/Darktide there was nowhere that was safe that you didn't make safe by force. When you died, you lost items. You either had a bitch of a time finding a place to res as a ghost or you were simply removed completely from the area and returned to your lifestone with 5% vitae. Compared to what happens in games now, it feels a lot like this :

Darkfall was supposedly going to be our savior since it actually was going to have a harsh environment that hardcore gamers could thrive in. Not too surprising if you know that some Darktide players are on the dev team. But since it's been in development since 2003 or earlier, it's getting that whole vaporware feel to it which is not too surprising, sadly.

The games now are not hard and that is part of why people flock to them by the millions. Back in the days of UO, hitting 100k subscribers was unreal... now that's not even a drop in the bucket for Blizzard's juggernaut. And that brings us to another thing that is vital for games. People. No matter how great a MMORPG is, if there's no one else playing it, then you're going to be pretty bored. I don't care if you're a pk, PVE enthusiast, trade, craftsman, quester or whatever. If you're playing on a server with virtually no population, then it won't be as fun.

While Joe and I were having this discussion he suggested we give AC another try in an attempt to capture the glory that once was. My only response was "Yeah we'd rule the server... since we'd be 50% of the online players."

So, that is why we endur the passingly fair pvp that Warcraft has to offer.

- Nighthawk

01.08.07
No Silver Lining?

Where’d we screw up? Somehow despite all the fighting, the killing, the griefing, maiming, looting, pillaging, and other such debauchery we managed to lose to a bunch of whinny fruitcakes demanding pretty colors and an easier life. I’m pretty old school here; I don’t like a game that doesn’t put me in direct competition with the other players. I’m of course talking about MMORPG’s. Things have obviously changed over the years; our generation of gamers, the UO generation, grew up and got mature. There are the obvious exceptions of course but some of us have truly evolved into something far more sinister then before.

I haven’t changed my moral standing; I’m still the evil bastard I always was and deep down so are a lot of you. This was especially prevalent when we came back to UO on IPY. Things in my opinion are looking bleak for our community. Lots of you play WoW and other MMORPG’s but nothing is quite doing it for me. Maybe there just isn’t a good environment for us to truly shine. I’d love to hear some ideas of what looks good in the near future. MMORPG’s are the newest craze and their a dime a dozen and I could care less about half the crap and despite some of them looking good they still managed to screw up everything I love about a game. I’ve all about given up on MMORPG’s, its like pissing into the wind. I don’t care about stat building or numbers, I want something more.

I want to shine again; I want to get that rush from a fresh kill. Man, am I a freak or what?

- Violent Dave

01.05.07
As Promised...

I will be putting up some of the "first posts" from the WTFMan candidates. So when you see some new names, that's why. Below is the first example of which with several more to follow. Feel free to comment on the forums.

- Nighthawk

Burning Crusade: Didn't We Already Do All of This?

On Januray 16th, 2007 Blizzard Entertainment is releasing an expansion to the game World of Warcraft. The idea behind this expansion was to give players more content to explore and an increased level cap to increase overall player strength. This sounds great on paper, but didn't we already do all of that over the course of the last two years?

Blizzard is increasing the level cap from level 60 to level 70, which according to my calculations is about the same amount of experience it takes to level from level 1 to level 50. So we all get to level basically all over again, great idea Blizzard. On top of all that, the new gear coming out basically makes all the gear you have worked for over the last 2 years obsolete. How many hours of painstaking PvP or raiding did you do for your gear? Between all the characters I have had, I have over 150 /played days total. I did this in 16 months of WoW play. A bit excessive? Yes. Worth it? Not anymore.

I have looked up all the gear for my current character and have determined I will have it all replaced by level 68 by blues I can obtain in 5 man instances. Blizzard says they want to try and make the game more appealing to the "casual" gamer. Which made since for a while, until they started releasing information on the new raids in the expansion. They all require attunements or flying epic mounts to get into. One of the attunements for Caverns of Time is almost on par with the AQ40 gates opening ceremony before they were opened. It requires revered reputation with 4 factions and every other raid instance to be cleared, not to mention the painstaking quest lines in between. Blizzard said it will take "months to complete, even for the hardcore gamer." So wtf? How the fuck are casuals supposed to do that? Will it take years? Will we see that content before the NEXT expansion? The more information Blizzard releases about the expansion the more it makes the game the same thing it was 2 years ago. Everyone will start on a level playing field and stay there for about two weeks and then each realm will slowly have its "powerhouse" guilds that get attuned quicker, get instances on farm quicker and overall steamroll everyone in PvP thus making the game once again appealing to those who can raid 7 nights a week, 8 hours a night.

Good game Blizzard, can't wait for the level 80 expansion.

- Sik

01.02.07
Now Accepting Applications

It's official, the forum vote has shown that you want new blood and so new blood I shall seek. If you have always wanted to be a WTFMan, have decent writing skills with a good bit of humor and you play games of some type (preferably mainstream) - now is your chance.

Email Me from that link with a little bit about yourself. I will be asking all applicants to submit a post for the frontpage of WTFMan to get feedback from the viewers, so you may want to go ahead and send that in with your application. You can talk about anything you want on the site, but do keep in mind that our origins are from online gaming so something relevant on that topic occassionally isn't a terrible idea.

Also, a moderate grasp of the English language is a serious plus. If you ever use words like "noone" or think lose is spelled "loose", save both of us some time and don't apply.

And yes, I agree that 10 posts in the whole year for 2006 is pretty pathetic. We'll see if we can't improve on that a bit.

- Nighthawk