I am a very political person.  I will not talk about that here.  Period.  End of Story.

I don’t think political statements should be part of any website that is related to gaming. We play games to get away from real life for an hour or two. I don’t want to go look up a quest, and have political ads and banners all over the page. I don’t want to read a gaming forum, and have to scroll through pages of “Vote for —insert names –”. I go to a technical support forum to find out if anyone else is having problems gating home. I really don’t care who you are voting for. I don’t know what makes you think I do.

I especially do not want to visit a gaming blog, and see nothing but political ads and commentary.

I have a political blog of my own, and I also have a list of favorite political blogs that I read. If I want to comment about politics I will do it there!

All I ask of my fellow gamers…is go start a political blog if you are really political like I am, but please keep your political beliefs to yourselves on the fansites for games.

©2008 Morninglark. All Rights Reserved.

I have often talked about what draws me back to EQ over the years, but today I want to talk about what draws me back to WoW.

Life sometimes has a way of becoming unusually busy. At those times, I dread the thought of logging on to most MMO’s.  I just don’t have the time to get a group, or commit to raid schedules.  If I do have an hour, I would like to log on and actually get something done!  World of Warcraft is the perfect game for the one or two hour gamer.

I can log on and do 10 or more dailies in an hour.  I can scan the AH, and make 500 gold in an hour.  I can complete one of the new achievements, or kill the Headless Horseman 6 times in one hour.

Wow does not have some of the depth of other MMORPG’s, but they do have more for the busy player than any other game.  I don’t want to say they have more for the ‘casual player’, because I don’t like that term. It is widely used, and often misunderstood.  Arena players are usually anything but casual, but they can accomplish the weekly Arena goals in just one evening!   Players can do BG’s and earn honor toward very Uber gear with only an hour.  Most games require 4-5 hour commitments to do anything worthwhile.

So with life being so busy right now, and not likely to get any calmer before the holidays, you can expect to find me in Azeroth until 2009!

(and anyway..I can’t quit until I catch the fish I need for my new achievements)

©2008 Morninglark. All Rights Reserved.

Not all of the ideas work out as intended. Some are not fully implemented, the way they could have been. A few were not exactly a new, but the designers took the concept to a new level.

This award is more about the IDEA than the actual implementation.

Some of the ideas we considered:

• LOTRO’s playable instruments and the ability to form in-game bands.
• EQ2’s mentoring down.
• Horizons playable Dragons.
• DDO’s great dungeon traps.
• Vanguard’s Diplomacy Advancement Path.
• WoW’s fishing tournaments.
• EQ’s shrouds, and monster missions.
• Final Fantasy Moogles (sidekicks in your home that perform tasks for you. — Enhanced pets)
• Pirates of the Burning Sea - Real ship to ship combat.
• Pirates of the Caribbean - Digging for treasure, and playing poker for loot.

Well you get the idea… (there were dozens more)

This was another tough decision, but we give our Lark’s Choice Award - Best New Idea to:

Vanguard SOH for Diplomacy!

The reason we saw this as a good thing for MMORPG gaming, it was not only a game within a game, but was also a viable character advancement path. You can play Vanguard and never adventure! You could become just a diplomat, and play the subgame within the larger world.

In addition, you can impact the world and the adventuring and crafting players. When a diplomat goes into a town, they can play the card-game, to earn benefits for everyone in the region.

The concept of advancement beyond adventuring or tradeskills is a great idea. I would love to see other games use it. Perhaps a merchant class, to replace Auction Houses and vendors. A spy class, that does nothing but quest and spy for the adventurers.

The diplomacy game itself was very well designed. It was similar in concept to Magic the Gathering. It could easily have been a standalone game. The quests, and storyline for the Civic Diplomacy had depth.

©2008 Morninglark. All Rights Reserved.

He was to me, the ultimate gamer. He loved D&D, and was a very good Game Master. He knew all the rules, and was creative. He could weave a wonderful tale, and lead his groups into the best of adventures. The reason he was better than most, as a GM, was that he did not bring his Ego to the table. He didn’t flaunt that he was the GM, or want all the attention, or become the “Lord of the Rules”. So many GM’s get on a power trip, and ruin the game for the players. For him, the most important part was the players enjoying the story.

He was also an avid player of Magic the Gathering (MTG). He was not really a competitive player. He just liked the casual game. At the store, the Pro-tour players would all be playing the latest beat-down deck. They would be “preparing” for the next qualifier, or testing new combo’s with one another.

You would look over and see Don playing a big multi-player game, with all the kids that the Pro’s were ignoring. He would make some silly goblin deck, and have a blast.

He was famous in the Tampa Bay area. People would say, “Oh, the Kird Ape guy”! He collected original Arabian Nights Kird Apes. He would trade almost anything to add to the growing collection. Last count, he had over 30,000 of them! I think he enjoyed helping the younger kids, more than he actually liked collecting them. He used the collection as an excuse to make ‘bad trades’. He would often give the kids 10 good rares, for one silly ape. You would hear some kid off whispering, “Man he is so dumb, he just gave me all these cards for one stupid common.” Don would just smile, in the way only he could smile.

On his Yahoo 360 profile, I gleaned a few of his thoughts:

My friends call me bear . I come from a time past . Simple things make me happy , a good cup of coffee and conversation with friends after dinner is heaven to me .

Hi, its me Don . I don’t have a lot, but my name and honor and my Heart .

He was a tender man, a romantic who never found a wife. He would have been a great dad I think. He never raised his voice. One of his final posts was:

“Why can we never go back . Never reach that perfect moment in time . Never capture again that split second where we were happiest . Our feet keep leading us down the path of life . Along the rocky road we must travel . From time to time, our road leads us to a Green Pasture next to a gentle brook where we can dip our feet in the cool waters . We must learn to savor these moments to lay back and feel the grass under our backs to smell the flowers near by to hear the birds singing in the trees . For all to soon our feel must start back down the path and who knows what lies around the next bend in the road . Heaven or Hell or just a long long road ahead .”

The St. Petersburg times said this of him:

Spatafora, Donald Paul, 45, of St. Petersburg, died Tuesday (April 17, 2007) at home.
A native of St. Petersburg, he worked in theatrical lighting and was a merchant. He graduated from American Heritage Academy in Fort Lauderdale and was Catholic.

Forty five years, and that’s how they sum him up!

They don’t say that he was a loyal friend. A good and honest worker. An imaginative story teller. They don’t tell you of his kind heart. His simple enjoyments.

It didn’t say that he always had a kind word for everyone, or that his character meant more to him than riches. It didn’t tell you he was a giant teddy bear. A gentle Ben.

And it didn’t tell you how many people will miss him, and his silly Kird Apes!

©2008 Morninglark. All Rights Reserved.

At first it was kind of fun. I didn’t get into it as much as she did, but I would log on every day and buy more territory, do a few missions, and add people to my Mob.

When you add them, they become a friend. Soon my real friends, were being blasted by 100 new mobster friends to join the game. They didn’t just ask once. Oh no! They asked one of my favorite Catholic priests 1000’s of times. I actually had two people remove themselves from my friends list because the Mobsters would not leave them alone.

Next all the Mobster players started BLASTING the bulletin area. Now usually I love to log on and read my friends bulletins. They might tell of an upcoming trip, or some new blog they wrote. But not anymore! Now I see this crap:

From:
SLIM

Date:
Jul 27, 2008 2:38 AM

Subject:
TO ALL THE FINE LADIES ON HERE

Body:
GIVE ME A CALL….781-382-3478

And he doesn’t leave it at that. Oh no! He continues to spam things. That mixed with all the people spamming for you to join their friends groups…and pretty soon you just turn off all the Bulletins from friends.

Now as if having creepy old stalkers spamming you with phone numbers isn’t enough, you go to read your comments. You no longer have any REAL comments. You just have page after page of:

This comment was sent by your friend via the Mobsters app.
To block this app and all communications from it, click Here.

——————————————-

— wants you to join their mob in Mobsters, a Mafia-style combat game played on MySpace.
Start out as a petty thief and work your way up to become a Mob Don!

I no longer know that my friend had a baby. I don’t know that another friend is playing LOTRO. I didn’t hear the news, that a friend of mine got transferred in the Army. There are too many pages and pages of Mobster comments to actually read my comments page.

The worst part is watching what has happened to Gabs. She has been inundated with Myspace requests. (Lil Ravey Babe has 1128 friends.) She is a nice person, that can’t say no to anyone.

People were sending her questions about the game. She couldn’t just ignore them, but answering 700 private messages a day with the same questions wasn’t going to work either.

So she wrote a few blogs, to answer some of the questions she gets. Now she is getting hate mail, nasty posts on Myspace, and one person even found her work email, and sent her nasty comments there.

These people need to get a life. I have seen people in MMORPG’s get this involved in the drama of a game. I can almost understand it, when you have years into building a character. But this is a javascript app on myspace. It’s only been around a couple of weeks, and is a lame game at best.

For me, I am deleting all my mobs. Issuing a public apology to my real friends for all the spam. I am deleting all the mobster friends. (and I am sure that some of them are really nice people that I would want on my friends list)

As far as poor Lil Ravey babe, it’s like watching the Grinch who stole Christmas. All the joy of Myspace is gone. She dreads logging on. I won’t be surprised if she just deletes her account.

©2008 Morninglark. All Rights Reserved.

Dear Game Designers,

Please fix the current issues, with grouping in MMORPG’s.

It used to be, that grouping was something we naturally did. It was difficult to be in a world, wandering around getting jumped by orcs. We would form groups, and hunt together for the day.

Now, games are designed to guide us through the content, and level. People will come up and ask for a group because they need a certain kill, for a particular quest. They join, we kill the mob, and they leave.

There is no community being built. There is no real grouping. You are just forming a momentary alliance, to kill some NPC. Rob, at MMOcrunch recently expounded that many games have become like standalone RPG’s with chat rooms.

Once you get off the island however… nothing changes. Age of Conan is an MMORPG where you can pretty much make it to Level 80 without ever grouping. Now, pardon me for this next outlandish thought… but isn’t grouping one of the key reasons we wanted to play MMORPGs instead of RPGs in the first place? I thought it was!

One of the comments, from Ryan, had some very insightful thoughts:

I love soloing. I love grouping sometimes too. What I like to see is encouraged grouping, not forced grouping or discouraged grouping.

World of Warcraft actively discourages grouping during normal play by making it less efficient than soloing. That’s dumb.

Dungeons & Dragons essentially forced grouping, and I hate that even more than discouraging grouping.

Something in-between is what I like. EverQuest II did an okay job of encouraging grouping by making it more efficient to do so.

I think there’s a happy place for “encouraged grouping” that hasn’t been introduced in any MMO I’ve played to this point, which would include absolute solo viability but increased reward for being social.

I would like to see a game that does not have a leash on the players. One that doesn’t have the ‘newbie island’ and tutorial that lasts until end game. (right now all the games have NPC’s and quests, that pretty much tell you to move on to the next area.) LOTRO included.

I want to get in, have a tutorial that teaches me the controls and basics of combat. Perhaps a solo instance for just level 1-3. Then just dump me in the world. Have a few quests to let me get some tattered armor and a rusty weapon, but for the love of god…don’t tell me where to go next. Let me wander the world looking for things to do. If I get in trouble, maybe I will think to ask others for help! (there are other players in an MMO to ask..right?)

Try to make the quests more group friendly. If you give me a quest to kill 10 of something, then I will go near the somethings, ask for a group, kill 10 and leave. (then of course I have to go back to town to get another quest to kill 10 somethingelse)

If the quests were more creative, perhaps the players could stay grouped for longer than 10 minutes. Community could be built, and I wouldn’t have to keep running back to town to get another dumb quest.

Encourage grouping, by giving a NOTICIBLE bonus in loot or experience. A persistant world may exist for a long time, and even have many players, but it will not flourish if the players do not have to depend on each other.

When I play WoW, I play it like I am playing Diablo2 with an auction house. I could just as easily play WoW as a single player version, and be content. I like to solo. I don’t want games to remove that option. But I would like the group dynamic to be better. I don’t like that half the grouping, for low-levels in WoW, involve older players just running people through Stockades. Players paying higher levels to run them through instances is NOT GROUPING!

Another problem is players joining a game later than friends did, and not being able to group. I liked the idea that EQ2 had for mentoring down. I would like to see games expand on the idea. Maybe mentoring up? EQ has added the monster missions, so players of different levels can group together. (But I like to group with my own character.) I don’t want to drop what I am doing to go get shrouds, just because a younger friend logged on.

Certainly the designers need to start addressing the current state of grouping in MMORPG’s. The early games like EQ, and DAOC seemed to build more community. They were more group friendly.

There has to be a way to make games solo friendly, and still keep the incentive to group.

©2008 Morninglark. All Rights Reserved.

He has so many games reserved for me, that it takes a Cray to manage the database.

He calls me when he gets news for hot pre-orders, and makes sure we get every cool promo item there is.

I have 7 grandkids. Six of them are already playing video games on a regular basis. (give the 2 year old another year)

The oldest is into WoW, but the others have different gaming machines. One is Using his Xbox360 all the time, another loves his DS. One still likes the PS2 and Gamecube, while another is still using her Gameboy. Of course they have all asked for a Wii for Christmas.

I homeschool the six oldest grandkids, and often use a new video game as a reward. There is also a video store near us that rents games, and I often let them.

I like the video game rentals. Many times I would buy a game, and they would finish it in three days. Gotta love when you spend 50 bucks on a game, and the kid beats it the first day.

At the video store, I can let them try new games. If it’s one they really like, and will replay, I go get it at Gamestop.

Lately we have had a problem with the rentals. When I go in there with the kids, most of the good stuff is always checked out. Then I thought about Netflix. (I love Netflix. I order it online..and it shows up at my house.)

Doesn’t get any better than that! (wish Dunkin’ Donuts delivered)

So I started searching and found a place called Gamefly. Not sure why I had never heard of it before. They rent video games! (and I don’t have to pile 6 kids in the car to go look for them-woot!)

Anyway, I checked it out. Got the free trial membership. It worked great. The kids can choose what games they want. Read all about them. They showed up in my mailbox as promised. There are no late fees!

I recommend them to anyone that loves to play console games!

Try before you buy video games, with free shipping

(Oh one more thing. If you have younger kids browsing the selections, you can limit what kind of games they see ahead of time)

You can set parental controls.

After you create an account, you can just click on parental controls. They also offer video rentals, but have never used that service.

©2008 Morninglark. All Rights Reserved.

This morning, I was doing my usual thing. Drinking Coffee, and reading some of my favorite gaming blogs. Rob, over at MMOCRUNCH, wrote an interesting article about the Generation Gap in MMORPG players.

It’s funny to be 33 years of age and starting to feel really old in the MMORPG community. Sitting below me are at least one, and probably two, new generations of gamers, all with their own ideas on what makes for a good MMORPG - and all of these ideas are wildly different to my own.

This is causing a serious disconnect in the industry as games developers, to my mind, try and chase the future and what they think “the kids” want to do in the year(s) ahead. And, in doing so, they are neglecting the game mechanics that my generation still believes would be the best underpinning for MMORPGs in the future.

** side note to Rob- You think you are old, I was OLDER than you when I started playing MMO’s. I feel your pain.

I agree that there tends to be a difference in what the players seem to want. Is there more to the cause than JUST the difference in age and experiences? I think there is a Generation Gap in the Developers. They have grown, and changed. (Here me out.)

When the older games were being written, they really did not know what would happen. I will use Everquest as an example. When the team was developing that game, they had no idea it would be so popular. They developed with 6 months to a year in mind. Never did they imagine dozens of servers and millions of players.

They also had no idea how players would exploit and/or use some of the game mechanics. (For example they never considered the fact that feign death would be used as a way to pull mobs)

They certainly NEVER thought about the sheer amount of in-game support would be spent, dealing with players and the environment. For example, how many times people would accidentally attack their own guard? How many times did someone steal gear from a corpse they were dragging? How many times would people train someone else on purpose?

As time went on, the developers, tried to cut down on frustration by the players, and the CS people. They began to limit some of our actions. For example, players complained about powerleveling, so some games have made it impossible to buff people that are not in your group. Some players complained about kill-stealing, so they made locked encounters. CS complained that they had to answer too many petitions about ‘trains’, so they put Mobs on a leash and they do not have chain agro to players in most games now.

We have seen the worlds become more linear. You are born here. You do X number of newbie quests, then are ‘encouraged by NPC’s’ to go to the next area that is level appropriate for you. In this way, the designers are herding us like cattle through the gaming environment.

(In the original EQ back in 1999, you created a character and might spend a full night trying to get out to the world to hunt - especially if you were a dark elf born in Third Gate, or a gnome)

None of the NPC’s directed you. I think it took me several weeks to find out you could hail them for quests.

So I guess, I agree there is a generation gap, but it’s not JUST the younger generations attitude.

I think the attitude has been carefully crafted by the developers and marketing departments.

I think it is caused, just as much, by designers wanting to control gameplay.

The more you can control a players actions, the less customer service.

I think it’s more economics than preferences.

©2008 Morninglark. All Rights Reserved.

While I was researching the dances in MMORPG’s for the Lark’s Choice Award, I ran across new MMO’s that are devoted JUST to dancing.

I love the roleplay aspects of MMO’s but come on. They made a whole game around it..heck actually I found TWO! (Dance Party and Dance Online)

Who needs a WHOLE game just to dance in?

We can dance in our favorite MMORPG, and then go slay a dragon too! (someone should go tell all those folks to come join us in our games!)

The gaming community has made so many GOOD video’s about their favorite games.

While I was writing my article for Best Dancing in an MMO, I must have watched at least 300 of them.

There were a few that just stood out as ones I would want to watch again!

It made me realize, no matter what game we play — we all share the same world.

The world of MMO gaming is just one big family! Across thousands of servers, in hundreds of games players are dancing and having fun right now.

The first one is a WoW video. I didn’t choose to use it on the award page.

I wanted that one to display the actual in game captures.

However, this one is GREAT!

The next one is four players having fun in EQ2. It’s just cool that four people spent a whole night doing this video instead of leveling and looting. (I love when players decide to be silly for the night)

And it would seem that even Jedi dance now and then…(SWG)

And finally this little video from Age of Conan.

You have to string together emotes to get this kind of dance. He spent a good deal of time doing this video. Non-gamers would say, “Man he has too much time on his hands.” But me, I say Awesome!

Bet he had fun making it, and sharing it.

If you are interested in more Dancing Videos, you will just have to search Youtube or Myspace yourself!

©2008 Morninglark. All Rights Reserved.

I had so much fun researching this particular article!

I must have spent 20 hours watching Youtube videos of dances from games. I logged into WoW, EQ, EQ2, LOTR, and Vanguard to dance a bit myself. I looked at a total of 33 different MMORPG’s. I showed my top 5 to several other gamers and got opinions. We finally made our decision!

First Place goes to World of Warcraft. Hands down they have the best dances!

It was hard to choose a second place. No other games even came close. We finally decided it was EQ2. If you combine all the emotes, you can CREATE a cool dance. (although after they removed the ROFL emote, because of the panty issue it was never quite the same)

Vanguards dances are just dorky and dumb.

Everquests are dated. They need new ones.

LOTR was boring for such a new high end game. But they do have those cool musical instruments and ways to form bands and play..so we we cut them some slack on the dancing!

Well I could go on and on, but World of Warcraft is Dancing with the Stars, while the others only Think they can dance!

©2008 Morninglark. All Rights Reserved.