Lens on Some Quick Notes

So today, I'm going to talk a little bit about things in the news the last few days.

--Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend--It starts up Friday with freshly wiped servers.  I think I'll do another live blog so that I don't have to write when I'd rather be gaming.  Because if it's "writing vs. playing GW2" I'm afraid there'd be no blog on Friday.  And, knowing how that would hurt my loyal reader, I wouldn't want to have that on my conscience.

I'm planning on skipping the zones I'm more acquainted with to try to keep them somewhat fresh for launch and going either Sylvari or Asura warrior come Friday, but I'll play it by ear.

--Layoffs at TOR--When the executive producer gets the boot (or walks) out the door, it can't be a good sign.  The official response to requests for information basically re-iterated the company lines of "with the launch of any MMO, the size and skillset of the teams needed to maintain the game is different than the ones that built it" and they're "currently staffed to ensure the continued delivery of new, high quality game content...and at a more frequent cadence".

More frequent cadence?  Seriously?

And to think, these clowns were boasting just a few months ago how they hadn't downsized after launch (like most MMOs) because they were so successful and were going to be cranking out the new content.  For those keeping track that would be fail and fail.

--Diablo 3 Item Duplication--It's clear that at some point Tuesday there were 8 identical legendary bows on the Auction House.  Where by "identical" I mean every single stat...including the randomly generated ones.  All were posted by the same guy at the same time for the same price.  Three of them were bought by one guy, who reposted them at a price where nobody would buy them from him just so he could prove that the original 8 were really identical and really existed.  I believe they are still up on the AH right now.

I have heard exactly one person report, with details, about where an NPC will rarely offer that exact item for sale, the only NPC in the game that has ever sold a legendary item at any time.  I have not seen a single confirmation of this.

If this guy isn't telling the truth, there's an item-duping bug in Diablo 3 and the game is done.  And with the Real Money Auction House, I think there may even be some legal exposure for Blizzard.  The amount of suck displayed by Blizz in D3 is quite extraordinary.

There used to be two companies that were the absolute Gold Standard In Gaming, Blizzard and BioWare.  Now the only thing they produce is disappointment.

At least let's hope that puts the stake through the heart of the RMAH for all games forever.

--The Secret World July Update--I thought that TSW would likely be a niche success and it looks like I was right, and the game has a shot at being slightly larger than that.  Especially if they can keep the content pipeline full.

Come the end of the month they'll be adding at least a half-dozen quests (including player faves "investigation quests"), a couple more dungeons getting nightmare modes, an auction house equivalent, construction in the starting zones (whatever that means!), and more stuff already announced for the August update.

With monthly updates and a solid (and sometimes fanatical) fanbase, I'd cautiously describe TSW as a success for Funcom.

P.S. Funcom haters...their launch went really well!

--Steam Summer Sale--The lads at Valve with their annual torpedo barrage to the wallets of gamers everywhere.  I've managed to keep the damage minimal so far ($5 for "Dungeon Siege III"), but we'll have to see if it lasts!  Most of my friends are checking a couple times a day to see if any of the flash sales catch their eyes.

We are addicts, I tell you.  ADDICTS!

I'd love a few hours with their bean counters sorting through all their sales metrics.

And Origin, EA's answer to Steam?  Here's what the rocket surgeon David DeMartini (their SVP of Global E-Commerce) has to say about the big sales, "I just think it cheapens your intellectual property."

Given what EA has done with Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 3, and SWTOR, they clearly prefer to cheapen their intellectual property with shitty games at FULL PRICE!

He also said, "It certainly works for Valve; I don't know if it works as well for the publishing partners who take on the majority of that haircut."  If it didn't work, dumbshit, they wouldn't keep coming back, now would they?  Of course you know more about their business than they do!

He also likened Valve to Target, whereas EA, "We're trying to be Nordstrom."  Anyone who goes to Nordy for something they can get at Target at half price is an idiot...and exactly the kind of customer DeMartini and EA are looking for.

--The DayZ Phenomenon--A mod with 500k users?  Impressive.  I haven't played, only watched some video, but I can understand the allure.  A hard-core zombie survival sandbox, who would'a thunkit?

This sort of thing always excites me...  Not the game, yet, which I expect I would find too unpolished for my overly-refined (OK, overly-wussified) tastes in its current state, but its success.

If a team of two (I think) can crank out something unconventional that becomes a huge hit, it gives me hope that unconventional games can get some traction in the market.  So that they have a chance to get, you know, MADE.

We need more Minecrafts and "Sword and Sworcery"s and DayZs.

--A Day's Worth Of Crap--I have a group of friends that I will describe as eclectic.  What do I mean by "eclectic"?  I could call them weird and they'd probably just nod.  But we have an irc channel we talk in, mostly about games.  But here's a list of game and game-related topics we hit on, in order, over about 10 hours on Tuesday:

SWTOR, Gamasutra, Darth Scabrous (that one's actually canon, btw), Star Trek Online, Farscape, Tron, Battletech, Shadowrun, Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, Skyrim, MUDs, Cryptic, Champions Online, Neverwinter, World of Warcraft, Blizzard, Cataclysm, Mists of Pandaria, The Secret World, Guild Wars 2, Lord of the Rings Online, ZA bear runs, Ulduar, Tabula Rasa, Anarchy Online, Firefly, EverQuest, Star Wars, Star Trek, Dungeons and Dragons, Borderlands, PlanetSide 2, Defiance, Syfy, Trion (those three came in the same sentence), Dust 514, Modern Warfare 2, lensonmmos.blogspot.com (self-reference ftw!), Magic the Gathering, Auto Assault, EVE Online, Battlestar Galactica Online, Perpetuum, Mechwarrior Online, Car Wars, Steve Jackson Games, World of Tanks, Ogre, Harlan Ellison's "Along the Scenic Route", Mad Max, He-Man cosplay (truly creepy), "Player of Games", The X-Files, Fringe, Dark City, Ender's Game, The Last Starfighter, J.G. Ballard, Clive Barker, M.A.R. Barker, Meridian 59, Ultima Online, Diablo III, Electronic Arts, BioWare

Holy crap we are geeks.  And because you recognized most of that, so are you!