The MMO Gamer is your source of independent, in-depth coverage of the MMOG industry. We bring you news, reviews, features and interview with the developers and publishers of the MMOG industry.

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I’m also looking forward to the Barcelona trip I’m giong on with my sister this August. Just a short trip, from Aug 11th to 14th, but better than nothing. And hoping to upgrade my PC after the summer and then buy a laptop at the end of the year! And a DSLR camera too if I can afford it.

Also hoping to possibly maybe go to Games Convention in Leipzig in August…we’ll see. Definitely looking forward to Barcelona though.

The MMO Gamer is moving ahead, delayed slightly but moving ahead. Got articles worked on and getting ready for the launch. We’ll even have a launch contest with sponsored prizes! WOO!

Other than that, I’ve mostly been playing LOTRO, which is a really enjoyable game most of the time.

They are moving along though, only took 2 drafts before they pretty much had the design done, mostly small details left beyond that one technical problem.

Going to talk to the point man of the development team tomorrow. Hired a professional company. Even after the current delays, it was worth it, got a good deal. Plus it’s somebody I trust so that helps.

Let’s see if we can have the site done by next week.

Anyway, where does the line go between swag and bribes? The first guy thought the watch was too much and sent it back, but they accept game systems and games and consider them review material. Another guy said they accept anything and everything, but state that they don’t let it affect their writing.

Should there be a line drawn? If so, at what? The first writer said he didn’t notice anybody else react to it, could it be that it’s not seen as a bribe attempt by most game journalists? How would other journalists have seen it, it it had been a press conference for say a non-gaming product? Or something not related to the entertainment business?

I have evrything packed for the next three weeks, including my laptop. I’ll bring my mouse along too…I’m way addicted to my computer it seems. :/

I’m bringing Swedish candy for a couple of my friends too. I had three bags of chocolate…but I gave in to the temptation and ate one all by myself.

Also printed out some very sweet looking cover samples for the magazine, to get a feel for them and experiment with the layout a bit.

Anyway, I’ll post photos on the gallery as soon as I can. =) I’ll try to document this trip better, both to practice my writing and my photography.

They flew us over on Thursday and then the entire day was spent for the press event and a dinner in the evening, housing us in a very nice hotel/country club for the night.

I had a great time with the C.O.G crew and got to see more of their games. and although the current versions of for example RFO doesn’t interest me much at the moment, the plans they have for that game and their other games (ArchLord, LotRO and DDO) are looking promising. Time will tell. LotRO and ArchLord are the two games that caught my attention the most.

I put up a few photos from the trip in the gallery. And some random information:

ArchLord:

- The game is PvP and guild focused. And looks like it’ll be -very- competitive and objective focused.
- The main goal of the game is to get your character to become an ArchLord. You do this by having your guild elect you as the challenger. After the guild has taken one of three Archons (some sort of artifacts whihc you gain control over after successfully sieging an NPC castle) and then beating the two other gulds who managed to take control of the other two castles. And after beating those two guilds, you apparently have to be elected by your guild to be the challenger and then move forward on your own to achieve the ArchLord status.
- ArchLords gain lots of powers for 21 days. Including massive AOE effects, bodyguards, castle access for their guild, tax control and…a flying dragon mount. The first person to achieve this rank will also receive an RL full scale replica of the ArchLord armour. Every ArchLord after that will receive a fullscale helmet replica.
- There’s supposed to be massive sieges and warfare, which I like.
- Consequences for PK, which will be in-game/in character measures to try and hamper gankings and promote the actual objective of the game.
- ArchLords gets weather controlling powers as well.
- There’s mounted combat.
- Some terrain deformation results were shown and they talked about having some terrain deformation in the game. Such as a forest being scorched after an ArchLord cast metero shower on the area.
- They also said there would be ca 200 000 quests in the game, which I’m skeptical about. But when asked, they insisted on it and said it wouldn’t be just kill and delivery quests. So we’ll see what that’s all about.
- The graphics are imo mediocre. Mostly because I can’t tell them apart from other korean games such as RFO or L2.

Lord of the Rings Online:

- Setting/main story is Angmar, a rerisen ntion under the control of the Witch King.
- Quests helping the original Fellowship.
- Very atmospheric graphics. I love the art style. The Art Director is a Yamin Dee (sp?).
- The char gen looks promising as well
- A very PvE and storyline focused game. Looking forward to it.
- Awesome water. Just awesome.
- Very few instances.
- Semi affecting the world. Ie people completing certain quests will perhaps see things differently than people who haven’t completed the quest. Guess it’s a step in the right direction.

Hoping to get to try these two asap.

There’s just no end to it all!

Phew, now I have a strong urge for junkfood, chocolate, candy and soda. And chips. *drools*

And now for something completely different.

This is a mildly interesting discussion (in Swedish) about the lack of investigative journalism in the gaming industry: Click me to read!

Until next time, toodles!

P.S Speranza is banned from commenting!

I do want to get on with the rest of the work, but even this early stage is rather exciting. I’m sure I’ll think differently when it’s time to pitch and make deals. Having people scrutinize my calculations, etc. But I’m sure it’ll work out. I’m thorough.

Only annoying part is the lack of time for all the meetings and visits I want to do. But hopefully that’ll change soon since one of the heavier courses is about to end in a few weeks and a couple of easy classes will start up.

Well back to work for now. More updates to come later.

Only worry really is going downtown from my place at those hours. I dont live in the safest of areas to begin with and taking the tube after 1 am…doesn’t sound too appealing.

Although they said I could go in earlier so I’ll probably do that and leave home before midnight, and then just chill there for an hour or so before there is work to do.

The job is to update a news service based on the paper edition of a daily news paper. The paper comes in at 01.15 so I can start work then even though my official hours are 03:00 to 07:00. And I can go home as soon as the job is done.

In other news I am, together with my designer, meeting with JMS tomorrow morning. JMS is Sweden’s third largest media development company with printers and stuff, and I’m going to meet a couple of people from their printer division to ask some question and get some quotes from them.