SOE – Obsolete Gamer

What’s next with Everquest Next

It will be the largest sandbox style MMO ever designed. The same exciting content delivered in a new way. Something you’ve never seen before. The MMO world has never seen before. We didn’t want more Kill 10 Rats quests. We didn’t want more of the same. If you look at the MMOs out there, they’re delivering the same content over and over again. So are we. We need to change that. When we released EverQuest, we changed the world. We want to do that again with a different type of game.

Editorials

J.A. Laraque

The Downsizing of Star Wars: The Old Republic

“We are bidding farewell to some talented, passionate and exceptionally hard-working people who helped make SWTOR a reality,” said Bioware co-founder, Greg Zeschuk. “We still have a very substantial development team working on supporting and growing the game, and we feel we are in a strong position, with your continued involvement and feedback, to continue to build Star Wars: The Old Republic as one of the most compelling and successful online experiences in the world today.”

PlayStation 2

J.A. Laraque

Weird Games: Mister Mosquito

Now this might sound easy, but only certain areas are bitable and you must watch your stress meter while sucking blood. If you suck to fast or too slow, you can stress your victim out and if that happens you are dead. (Seriously, I could go so lowbrow with the sucking too fast or too slow, but I will let it be just this once.) In addition, if you are flying around and are spotted you enter a battle mode where you need to avoid being killed while hitting pressure points on your attacker to calm them down. (I wish my mosquitos did this.)

Editorials

J.A. Laraque

Subscription MMO’s soon to be a thing of the past?

Fast forward to the early days of Everquest, when the decision was made to raise the price of their monthly subscription. The player base revolted saying EQ would be done for if this move was made, but as how addiction works, we continued playing.

Blog

J.A. Laraque

World of Warcraft: Free till level 20

“We’ve removed the previous 10- and 14-day trial time restrictions, and players who are interested in trying out World of Warcraft can now play the base game for free up to a maximum character level of 20, including draenei and blood elf characters—all they need is a Battle.net account and an Internet connection,” Blizzard explained in a statement. If you ran through a previous 14-day trial, you can go back to your character and continue to play from the point you left the game if you’d like, but the level cap will be set at 20.

Blog

J.A. Laraque

SOE: Dropping Subscription rates like it’s hot

If you purchased a 3, 6 or 12 month game pass from us between May 14, 2011 at 12:00 AM PST and June 27, 2011 at 11:59 PST, we have credited you with additional game time per the table below. This credited game time has been added to the end of your current game time. The new rate for your recurring plan will take effect after your credited time ends.

Editorials

Umar Khan

A Long Time Ago, In A Galaxy Far Far Away A World Came To An End

We write to you today to inform you that on December 15, 2011, Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) and LucasArts will end all services (MMO and Trading Card Game) for Star Wars Galaxies (SWG). The shutdown of SWG is a very difficult decision, but SOE and LucasArts have mutually agreed that the end of 2011 is the appropriate time to end the game.

Editorials

Umar Khan

Cryptic Studio Has Moved On But Have Their Games?: Star Trek Edition

For those of you waiting for this review after the sudden ending of the previous portion of this two-part article, I apologize. I wasn’t having problems with time or just pure laziness. No, I had problems with how to word my feelings towards Star Trek Online and how best to give an honest review without completely belittling the game. I know, I know. You’re used to that kind of response from me but I decided to be a bit more delicate with how I explain the faults and pluses of STO.

Editorials

Umar Khan

EQ2 Has The Worst Players On Erf!

I know I could easily deny myself of these experiences if I only made my own group and wrote off some of these people with my own iron fist ruling. Trust me, I have! I don’t take shit when I’m group leader. I don’t like having my time wasted while someone is eating shit in real life. This is my break before real life kicks in and you’re ruining those precious few hours I have. There are just sometimes where it’s easier to join an already forming group than taking the reins into your own hands.

Blog

J.A. Laraque

The Obsolete Gamer Show: You’re full of Sh*t

This week we continued our attack on SOE and the community letter sent out by Lorin Jameson which led to the topic of how game companies and the people that work for them often bullshit us. We also talked about the decision to removed blood and the original fatalities from Mortal Kombat for the SNES. Overall, we spent the time calling people out and had a great time at it.

Editorials

Umar Khan

Lorin Jameson: The World’s Worst Bullshitter

In this world there are a special group of individuals who are hired to spit bullshit into the faces of others. These people are normally hired into public relations or in some dire situations they even ascend to an executive ranking. This is the case for Lorin Jameson, the executive producer of DCUO.

Blog

J.A. Laraque

The Obsolete Gamer Show: Your MMO Blueprint Sucks

This week Ignacio and I asked for some topic recommendations via our Facebook fan page. We began the show talking about Ignacio’s continuing addiction to League of Legends and then moved into the topic of Atari dumping Cryptic like a ugly prom date. In addition, we covered some of the ongoing Sony troubles after being hacked and the future of MMO’s and the fact that the days if pumping out tons of MMO’s to make millions looks to be over.

Editorials

Umar Khan

The Unsurprising Incompetence of Sony

We all know what’s going on with Sony. For those of you who don’t know, you either don’t game or you live under a rock. The greatest hacking escapade of 2011 has left the company’s loyal consumers hanging on the sideline while they hope to the heavens that their credit card info hasn’t been sold to the highest bidder. If you haven’t cancelled your credit card, asked for a new number, or put out a fraud alert by now it’s best advised you do so now.

Interviews

J.A. Laraque

Rift Q and A

There are also level 50 zone events in the high level zones (and more will be added constantly). Initially, one 20-player raid instance has been released (with more coming over time). There are crafting recipes to continue to collect. Artifact collections to continue completing. Achievements to obtain. Rare crafting recipes to be discovered. Then there’s the level 50 PvP warfront (The Battle for Port Scion), the PvP Prestige leveling system, and so on.

Editorials

Umar Khan

DCUO: Qualms With The Game And A Plea For Fixes

I am writing this in hopes that SOE sees this and takes the time to actually start some sort of plan to save their latest MMO DC Universe Online. I am not calling in the apocalypse of this game but I am simply stating that right now it has been poisoned by bugs. I have played many MMORPGs and since World of Warcraft’s release there haven’t been many AAA MMO launches. Many games falter in their idea to cash in on the WoW craze and create clones and other games try mechanics that just seem to fall flat because they failed to fix game breaking bugs before release. I don’t have much faith in many of the MMO’s coming out in 2011 but I did feel and still do feel that DCUO was going to be the one to stand with the greatest potential.

Blog

J.A. Laraque

The Daily Vid: DC Universe Online – End Game

The end game starts when you reach max level and in DCUO that level is currently 30. Throughout the game you have alerts given to you by members of the Justice League or Legion of Doom (Secret Society) these alerts can be accessed via your user interface and you can select the alerts which puts you in a queue to join with other players.

Blog

J.A. Laraque

The Daily Vid: Lineage tours The Watchtower

Honestly, do yourself a favor and play on the PVP servers for a bit, I play on the Public Enemies server. In the PVP worlds, you can fight against villains at anytime and any level. The good thing is even if they are level 30 a team of level 10’s can take them out. I admit it is the most fun I have had in a PVP match since very early World of Warcraft.