The choice that dares not speak its name

We’re all writing a lot about class choice, mastery choice, Destruction vs Order choice, server type choice. These are all relevant and interesting discussions. But over at our guild forums, another choice has cropped up and one that means something quite personal to me, so I thought I’d raise it. The choice not to play Warhammer Online.

First, I don’t imagine any of us in the ‘community’ don’t recognise this is a valid choice. I think we just figure that the people we’re ‘talking’ to have probably already decided to play Warhammer Online.

But, in the wake of the closed beta and the preview weekend (if you happen to be in America), some people will make the choice not to play the game, for all sorts of reasons which I’m not going to comment on – except for the one closest to my heart.

My husband (who may write up some of his beta experiences up for us), will not be playing the game on release. It’s not that he didn’t enjoy it. In fact, it’s the opposite – he really enjoyed his Witch Hunter and Bright Wizard (and Squig Herder). The problem is, he has no limits when it comes to gaming and can happily still play for 24h without coming up for air.

So, in the spirit of keeping his vice in check, he’ll be sticking to non-MMOs in the future. It’s not been an easy choice for either of us, as you might imagine. We like to game together, he got on with my guildmates (who he’d not previously met, since he gave up LotRO for the same reason), but at some point, real life needs to be considered. And he knows he’ll be happier in the long run if he doesn’t pick up Warhammer Online.

A couple of other guildmates have decided not to pick up the game initially. I haven’t asked why because I respect their decision. As I said to them – Warhammer Online isn’t going anywhere, and neither are we.

moar links!!!111!!!!

The Brainy Gamer wonders why industry keeps making so many shoot-em-up games.

Mark Jacobs comments on current plans for server types. Open RvR servers will be present as well as Core.

Classy Gamer explores the decision to remove some of the tanking classes from the game and pleas for their return.

Ten Ton Hammer talks to Erik Mogensen, Licensing and Acquisitions Manager for Games Workshop about the future of tabletop gaming in an MMO world, and Warhammer in particular.

Iain C, Community Manager for WAR in Europe ponders whether MMOs are more like massively single player games these days and looks at the importance of soloing as well as group play.

Keen’s interview with Mark Jacobs can be read in full over at the Vault.

So the Mythos Beta has been shut down. Not really a surprise, but it was a fun little game and we hope it returns someday.

At The Vault, RagingMarauder has a thread for people to make their predictions for launch. I see lots of predictions of people taking a day off sick! And Linuxx has some good advice on that:

never waste a sick day on a launch..it never is worth it…maybe in a day or so after launch then get sick.

Coffee-lovers check out Oliver Shwaner-Albrights New York Times coffee blog. In an interview on the Mr and Mrs Smith blog, he discusses where to get the best coffee in London.

Massively’s latest articles on Warhammer Online are all grouped together here. They include articles about UI customisation, open groupings and RvR.

Josh Drescher mentions the upcoming appearance at Comic-con, while Paul Barnett goes a step further and lists a few events he has on his schedule, including Comic-con, Develop Brighton and PAX. We’re, meanwhile, still preparing for our trip to Games Day UK!

At Warhammer Conflict, they have a Focus Discussion: Solution to Gold Farmers

Another week, another set of guild highlights on both official pages, and features profiled guilds and some info about guild advancement. Here’s a link to the EU one.

Links

Lots of bloggers have posted reactions to Mythic’s news of last Friday, and we’re grateful to all of you for letting us know that we’re not alone in how we feel. Keen takes a balanced view, as does Syp@Waaagh with some reservations. Michael at MMOGnation is disappointed and wonders if EA were connected. Snafzg@The Greenskin is angry but Cicadymn also posts an alternate point of view, he’s annoyed with the community’s reaction. The White Tower of Hoeth wonders what was wrong with the cut classes.

Archmagery brings some professional competence to bear and explains why Punkbuster is a good thing.

First in a series of articles on videogamer.com is a developer diary from David Petit about guilds.

E3 is upon us, prepare by playing Massively’s Bingo!

Cicadymn over at The Greenskin is posting an awesome set of guides to gods in Warhammer Online. Here’s a link to the Sigmar one (remember, we love Order here), but even the Chaos ones have been an interesting insight in an easy-to-read state.

Google is going into the virtual world business. I’m sure we’ll be hearing a lot more about this. I made a desert island paradise with lots of lava lamps. Keen has been keener (I slay myself!) and opened his room up for chat.

Not only Google, but Asda. It’s not THAT Asda (for non-Brits: Asda is the store owned by Wal*Mart over here, and is primarily a food store with added homewares and clothes). In another example of why localisation matters and words can have different resonances all over the world, I bring you the Asda MMO which has just gone into beta.

Would playing shoot-em-ups help girls be better at science and engineering? A report claims yes, because it helped girls perform better in a test which involved spotting a dot flashing for 1/100 of a second. And …? Oh, and that’s it.

Gamasutra has an article about how 50+ gamers approach video games. Don’t laugh, it’ll be all of us one day 😛 It includes such gems as “I’d love to play a game about swimming, or how about property restoration? That would make a great subject.” Well maybe they’ll be happy with Ubisoft’s version of Hell’s Kitchen complete with computerised Gordon Ramsay.

The BBC has a long interview with Sir Clive Sinclair (one of the pioneers of personal computers in the UK) about lots of things but mostly his thoughts on the modern computing industry.

Games Industry whines, gets some cash out of the UK government.

Future have just launched What MMO which will be distributed free with titles such as PC Gamer, PC Format, PC Zone and Windows Vista: The Official Magazine. It’s also freely available online as an ezine. Yay for free stuff (are you listening GOA/Mythic/Games Workshop!? ;p)