Later that day on my bus journey home was listening to extended version of Anthrax’s Sound of white noise album which has a rather cool cover of Thin Lizzys Cowboy Song, two occurances

So during a late night game of Ryzom (that had just downloaded, more soon) I finally gave in and stuck on Dedication : The very best of Thin Lizzy, which suited the game rather well.

Sunday night Mr. Dok came around and with Guitar Hero: Greatest Hits and GH: Metallica both of which totally rocked. We rocked out to a awesome selection of different tunes, damn hard at times tho. Of course we finished the evening with a The boys are back in town again.

Continuing this list of linked occurrences I put the radio on while having a bath and happened upon Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds on radio 2. It wasn’t the original but a recently recorded version, but when I turned it on just happened to be at the section “Parson Nathaniel”, which in the original recording was performed by Phil Lynott.

I thought at the time, I should really get a re-mastered version of the musical. So I was well please when I tuned in to the Through the Aftermath podcast and heard a rather fantastic version of the War of the Worlds radio broadcast as performed by Jonathan.

Ah  2008, now thankfully gone

On the work front it was a unusual year for me, my job of 9 years was off-shored and I re-joined the ranks of the unemployed a position I’d only ever been in for two months previously. I haven’t kept in contact with many from my previous place but happily I believe most found work elsewhere.

Omega Sektor – A very enjoyable Easter weekend was spent in the company of gamers and NCSoft staff. It was a tiring experience but with many-many highlights including  meeting gamers friends, winning the beer quiz, DTWT work , attending the talks by Melissa AKA WarWitch and witnessing Rockband with Rockjaw singing (100% on expert if my memory serves me right).

Podcasters – I had my eyes ears opened to the rather fantastic world of the podcasts over at VirginWorlds. Now I quite happily download and listen to ever show that’s added, regardless of the game. Rachy and I decide to sponser the LE podcast as it’s a fine show that continually has us laughing out loud. This one item has kept me from going crazy on the bus to and from work.

Facing 2009

So what is on my radar for 2009, lets have a look,

• Planning our wedding, this task will be ongoing, reaching critical mass  around the end of May
• Dawn of War 2, this is the revamped RTS set in the Warhammer 40k universe. I’ve enjoyed playing these titles over the last year or so and the newer version looks wonderful.
• I’m looking forward to grabbing a drink with some of the new people we’ve talked to over the last few months
• There is only one MMO I’m waiting for which is Jumpgate Evolution, thanks to those that attended the Euro-gamer expo and reported and filmed the game for us to drool over.
• The Mission creator for City of Heroes/Villains is coming in 2009 and this item is one that will be high on my list of life changing events this year.

A light sprinkling of games over high ground (Current)

COD4 is still my FPS game of choice at the moment, although TF2 is fun it’s all too class limited. I may venture into COD5 in the next few months but the single player game isn’t appealing to me that much.
CoH/V remain my main focus at this time and until jumpgate appears on the sceen this is unlikely to alter much.
I’ve just re-installed LoTro but I’m unsure if I’ll re-sub again after January 20th. Will the lure of the crafting suck me in for another month?

So in closing thanks to all the wonderful people that I’ve gamed/nattered/teamed and generally interacted with in 2008, you certainly turned one frown into a smile.

Recently the Shut up we’re talking, Spouse Aggro and Van Hemlock podcasts (via Virginworlds) have all taken time out this week to discuss the topic of RMTs. This lead me into think about the current climate of RMTs and the future potential for the MMO game-space.

I’m told that Eastern MMO games are more frequently Micro-transaction based than Subscription being a complete opposite to the current Western gamer model. Of course it’s not completely new method to generate extra incoming from a game, many have allowed users to buy items like server transfers for many years.

A non-subscription game that has excelled in this area is Guild Wars, allowing for various purchasing options from extra character slots to PvP Skills packs. This appears to be a rather proviductive method to generate income, outside of the Game sales.

Closer to my gaming heart is the recent NCSoft released add-on packs for City of Heroes/Villains, delivering new costume parts and emotes, In addition to allowing the in-game purchase of extra slot options, rename tokens and server transfers.

So how good is the new black?

I’m a fan of RMTs, providing they are balanced, they can generate increased/renewed interest in a game title, plus the other benefit is they give extra revenue to the games owners. Now whether that cash is then injected back into the games development, is down to the company, but either way it’s good tidings for that game in general.

I think that in the current climate of financial uncertainty, any game that is advertised as non-subscription with micro-transactions is certain to gain favour of the masses.

As the changing face of the Western MMO market morphs into a thick-skinned old man, we’ll see that main established games will ramp up their focus on RMTs content to ensure that players gaming experiences are kept fresh.

So i think that providing that it isn’t at the expense of main content development I’m very happy to pay a little extra, to see a game I like, succeed.

virgin worlds

Well I’m happy to announce that my podcast hunt last night resulted 3 less bored than normal hours of travel today. VirginWorlds current houses a large number of Podcast on all manner of MMOs, it is in fact the host of the limited edition podcast i mentioned yesterday.

Well I grabbed a cast of VirginWorlds MMORPG News the flagship podcast of the network and hosted by Brent who also runs the whole website. What I liked about this cast is it delivers MMO news directly into my ears and giving my current lack of time it’s good to get a review of items I may have missed.

To still keep my finger on the pulse of plugged into the internet via Twitter, if you are active on there then give me a shout and follow me if you like, but don’t expect too much.