Community » The Grouchy Gamer

Vanguard Crafters is Closed

Nov 032010

Since March of 2005, Vanguard Crafters has been operated by me or by other volunteers to serve the community and the developers in Vanguard and the associated crafting community. I have not been actively involved in it’s operation for quite some time. The amount of link spam and the attacks on the wiki recently, paired with the decline in the size of the Vanguard community have led me to the difficult decision to shut it down.

If we are all honest with each other, the site is a shell of it’s former self, and the amount of effort by unpaid volunteers to keep it up has become unconscionable to ask for.

I want to apologize to those of you who still used the site. I know there are a loyal few. Please understand that the whole episode is very heartbreaking for those of us in the community that had hoped that Vanguard would succeed.

I’ve temporarily redirected the site’s traffic here for an explanation. I’ll be taking this down and shuttering the site permanently in the coming weeks.

Thanks so much to everyone who contributed over there over the last 5 years. I’m really sorry I let you all down in the end, but it was very much fun while it lasted. Best of luck to all of you and many happy loot drops!

MMO Elitism and You!

Community, Design, Opinion, Rant, What I'm Playing 13 Responses »

May 252010

Elitist Last week, Wolfshead’s thoughtfully written and nicely crafted article about Why the MMO Industry Needs a Real Cataclysm set me to thinking. First of all, I don’t have nearly the industry pedigree that he has. Second of all, he took an idea from mid air and fleshed it out with cogent arguments. Third, it was thoughtful and passionate. Good on him. Let me tell you why he’s wrong.

He’s not wrong for the same reason Tobold says he is in his rebuttal Blizzard and McDonalds. Tobold’s rebuttal is also well written and uses an analogy that is very apt to rebut the ideas that Wolfshead presented. Don’t misunderstand, Tobold is right on, but his analysis is different from mine and is largely from the company’s point of view.

I wanted to address this even before Tobold did, but his article got me wanting to post.

Let’s look at this from a player’s point of view first. Then I’d like to address the evident contempt that is out there for Blizzard from others in the development community.

First Wolfshead starts out with a section called The Farmville Curse. I couldn’t agree with him more on that point. Those aren’t “MMOs” and I think I would say that Facebook games in general are pushing the definition of “game” to it’s limits. I have no argument with him there.

Healing the Anitsocial and My Role in it

Community, Gaming, Opinion, What I'm Playing 11 Responses »

Jan 152010

I’ve been making some observations lately in WoW regarding healing and the Dungeon Finder. I’ve been thinking about writing about it for a few days, but Spinks and Syp have both beat me to it.

Spinks article is about “You can’t heal stupid,” which is absolutely correct. Syp writes about the unwritten rules that healers have in “The Secret Life of Healers.”

Both of them allude to or outright point out that most healers in the game (I play a Resto Shaman as one of my dual mains) have a set of rules for healing people, particularly people in Random Heroic Groups. We probably all had rules that we had in our minds from doing PUGs, but not many people did as many dungeons doing PUGs as we do now with the Dungeon Finder. This has amplified our issues as healers and brought them to the forefront of our thinking. Before this I never really thought that much about them but over the course of the last few weeks I have had time to consider this quite a lot.

For the benefit of all the ADHD tanks, fire-and-forget ranged DPS, and don’t-quite-know-they-aren’t-the-tank melee DPS folks out there, here are some things to consider should you be lucky enough to be in a Heroic I am healing. I am willing to bet that there are even some other healers who will agree with these, so think of them as rules to live by.

We're Getting the Band Back Together!

Community, TGG, What I'm Playing 9 Responses »

Jan 132010

So on the Casualties of War (CoW) (www.casualtiesguild.com) forums the other day I noticed that a few of the folks in there were interested in getting going in WoW again. And I said to myself; “Self, YOU are playing WoW. Wouldn’t it be great to get a CoW group together again over on the Rexxar server?” So that is what we are doing.

Daevilchylde, whose idea it was to get going again in the first place, has graciously allowed the reigns of the Casualties guild over there to be thrust upon him.

We would love for anyone who is playing WoW or is thinking about playing WoW who has had anything to do with CoW or The Grouchy Gamer or I’m Talkin’ Games to get over there and help us get stuff running again.

So what are you waiting for? Make a character (or fire up an old one) and do a /who casualties and see who is on (there aren’t many of us yet) and ask for an invite.

Let’s find a way to play together again! Looking forward to seeing more people on in the near future!

Bloggers: Be Objective. At least.

Community, Rant 28 Responses »

Dec 222009

First a little housekeeping… I’m still occasionally posting here, but mostly I’m posting at I’m Talkin’ Games. OK, that’s done.. Now to business.

I don’t usually call out other bloggers because usually they have their opinions, which everyone knows is like a part of the body, and they are entitled to that opinion. My standard for reading a blog is that there is a shred of objectivity to the posting there. Sure we all have our favorites and I tend to write mostly about what I am playing at the moment. Right now that is WOW, but it’s been variously EQ2, EVE, AoC, Vanguard, and even TF2. There have been others but you get the point. Other than on the fan site that I started (which was sanctioned by the studio and clearly labeled as such), I’ve never really advocated a game and tried to stick to posting about what I like or dislike about it or my sometimes inexplicable behavior around it.

I’ve noted that a lot of others stick to that same ethos. There is currently one blogger that stands out, and that is Syncaine over at Hardcore Casual. Hardcore Casual has been on my blogroll for a long time. I remember enjoying reading it back in the day, and even looked up to it as a successful blog. Recently though a trend has emerged over there. In short, it appears that Syncaine should change the name of the blog to Hardcore Apologist.

GameBreakR Goes Live at AGDC

Business, Community 1 Response »

Sep 162009

I’ve been a fan of Gary and Ryan from MMOG nation for a while. I used to listen to their podcast back when theirs was just about the only podcast out there about MMO’s. Gary Gannon, the Gary from the aforementioned team has been semi-retired from podcasting and community in general for about a year or so.

He’s returned in a big new way with his new site GameBreakr. The new site is a combination of news, ultra-brief reviews, and something a little more experimental, Gary’s live video podcasts. At AGDC, he’s launching the site with the help from the folks over at Vivox. He’s also peppering in a lot of social networking components with his presence on Facebook and Twitter as well. It’s a little more of a 360 degree approach to an online presence than is being done elsewhere.

The tag line on the blog is “Video Game Talk You Can Trust – with Gary Gannon” The scope of the podcasts will be everything gaming from Xbox, Playstation, Nintendo, and PC gaming. I’d encourage you guys to go over to the site and check it out and click the “Game Breakr Live” tab at the top to see the live podcasts during AGDC with people from the industry, and check back each day to see what he’s got going. I’ll be following this new experiment and see how it develops. It’s cool to see someone take a little more complete approach to the community.

Win

Community, Gaming 3 Responses »

Aug 172009

If you watch the online video series The Guild, or even if you don’t, this is a win on several levels. If you don’t watch The Guild, you need to head over to WatchTheGuild.com and get caught up. Until then, check out Felicia Day and the rest of the crew from the show in this new music video. I know this is probably going to break my stylesheet, but I don’t care.

If you liked this, go over and buy it on iTunes. As of today, it’s the #1 music video there. Tell Felicia that Genda sent you.

Painting With a Broad Brush

Community, Opinion 2 Responses »

Aug 142009

Antisocial Much?

I’ve been reading Tobold’s series of posts since his un-retirement (from blogging) that all share the “Why we play” theme. I think his posts are thoughtful and incisive, although I don’t always agree with him.

One thing I’m noticing is that there seems to be a distinct “what’s wrong with WoW” tint to the series. For example, in the current post, Why do we play? – Social interactions. Tobold points out why the social temperature in WoW is poor, while it is better in “free2Play” games. Specifically, he points out that raiding guilds are like professional sports teams;

But a professional sports team isn’t a group of friends who decided to play together, but rather an assembly of people each talented for whatever position he is playing. And WoW raiding guilds are designed around the same principles: Guilds don’t recruit nice players, they recruit a “healer with epic gear”. There are guilds where you can get kicked out for crimes like taking a three-week holiday. And good luck explaining to your guild that you are retiring your raiding priest, because you’d rather reroll a hunter.

The Issue of Trust in MMO's

Community, Opinion 7 Responses »

May 202009

Trust

Last night something came up in my WoW guild that got me to thinking. Yeah I know, it should happen more often, this “thinking” thing.

I’m almost level 79 so I’m running some stuff with friends, trying to level. As such I’m not in Naxx with the rest of my guild on the nights they run that. Tarkheena is 80 and she has started running Naxx with the guild and as such was in the Vent channel with them during the run. Before I get into the details, let me set the stage.

The guild I am in has been together for years and years. They play other games and WoW just happens to be the game that they are playing as a group now. We got invited to the guild because we know some of these guys in real life. Most of the people in the core of the guild live here in Austin and we’ve been to lunch and we’re probably going to do a LAN party event here soon. They are adults, most of them have kids or long-term relationships, and have pretty good jobs in the high tech industry. As such, there is a very high level of trust among the core. I’m not likely to ninja something if I have to be on a conference call with that person in a few weeks trying to sell something to a customer. It’s just not gonna happen. Plus, no one wants to jeapordize that kind of relationship.

The Guild Makes the Game

Community, Opinion, What I'm Playing 10 Responses »

Apr 232009

Something has really driven this seemingly-obvious point home for me over the last few months. There’s a little back story, so please bear with me.

As most of my readers probably know I got into the Casualties guild and was GM for the Destruction guild over there for a while. We had a great group over there, and if the game had held my imagination even a little bit I would have kept playing. Unfortunately it didn’t. Then the same thing started happening with a lot of the core gamers in the guild and the game in general and a couple of server merges later I was stepping down and looking for something else to play.

I had started dabbling in WoW again and decided to see if anyone in Casualties wanted to start a WoW guild. Several did and we were off and running. I had some real life complications which kept me from playing for a month or so, and stuff happened, and well, the guild had a big exodus. When that was over there were several characters left in the guild but mostly people that had odd play times or sporadic ability to log in and play.

Warhammer Destruction Guild Anyone?

Community, Gaming, TGG 17 Responses »

Jul 312008

Over at The Ramblings of JoBildo, JoBildo floated the idea of getting a guild together from the blogging community. He wants to start an Order guild. I’d love to play in that guild but I’m not rolling up an Order character as my main. Sorry. With that in mind, I thought I’d offer web space, Vent Server, mindshare, and if you all want it, management and leadership for a WAR Destruction guild.

You don’t have to be a blogger to participate, you just have to read blogs and find this via this blog or JoBildo’s or similar.

So this post is to gauge interest in the idea of a blogging community guild based around the idea of grown-ups with jobs and lives playing together for fun and infamy. If you are, please post below. It’s not a blood oath, but it will give me an idea if this is something worth pursuing or not. I have the enthusiasm, ability, and inclination to do this. Do we have numbers?

Post here and show those Alliance, er, Order Sissies that Destruction Rules!

Exclusive Interview with Warhammer's James Nichols

Business, Community 7 Responses »

Mar 132008

I recently had the opportunity to do an interview with James Nichols, Community Coordinator for EA Mythic for Warhammer: Age of Reckoning (WAR.) For those of you who don’t know who James is, let me bring you up to speed a little bit. James was formerly involved in community management as a volunteer with one of the very early Vanguard fan sites. When Sigil needed another community relations expert they turned to that community and James came aboard. He took over for Nick Parkinson (Glip the Gnome) when Nick moved elsewhere within Sigil and became the day-to-day Community Manager. You may have known James there by his forum name of Elrar. I first met James on one of my visits to Sigil when I was going to do an interview with Salim Grant for my Vanguard Site, Vanguard Crafters. James is the kind of guy that you like immediately upon meeting him. When all the drama with Sigil went down, he found another home for his community skills at EA Mythic. He’s been there since, herding the Waaaaagh! faithful and keeping the beta forums civil and useful.

I asked James to do an interview so you all would have a little more insight into a community manager’s life at EA Mythic and what is going on with the Warhammer Beta. James was as straightforward as he could be about things, and in spite of the fact that the game is still in beta and under a pretty serious NDA was able to share some information with me regarding what is happening there. I also asked James a couple of questions about working at EA that weren’t in the interview like how he likes living back on the east coast after being in San Diego for a while (he likes it,) and whether or not Paul Barnett is that manic all the time at work (he’s not.)

What follows is the interview in it’s entirety. I would usually run a narrative through that but I wanted to give this to you all as I got it from James. For more information about WAR, go to warhammeronline.com.

Older Entries

The Grouchy Gamer

Vanguard Crafters is Closed

MMO Elitism and You!

Healing the Anitsocial and My Role in it

We're Getting the Band Back Together!

Bloggers: Be Objective. At least.

GameBreakR Goes Live at AGDC

Win

Painting With a Broad Brush

The Issue of Trust in MMO's

The Guild Makes the Game

Warhammer Destruction Guild Anyone?

Exclusive Interview with Warhammer's James Nichols

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