“His obligation is to his shareholders,” Schafer tells Eurogamer. “Well, he doesn’t have to be as much of a dick about it, does he? I think there is a way he can do it without being a total prick. It seems like it would be possible. It’s not something he’s interested in.

He [Kotick] makes a big deal about not liking games, and I just don’t think that attitude is good for games in general. I just don’t think we’re an industry of widgets…We can approach it like we approach bars of soap, where you’re just trying to make the cheapest bar of soap. He definitely has that that kind of widget-maker attitude. I don’t think he’s great for the industry, overall. You can’t just latch onto something when it’s popular and then squeeze the life out of it and then move on to the next one. You have to at some point create something, build something.

Hopefully he’ll go back to another industry scene. He could go to an industry that makes more money. Ball bearings… something that suits his passions more. Weapons manufacturing?”

Activision then responded by stating “Bobby has always been passionate about games, and loves the video game industry. But as CEO of a company that makes games enjoyed by millions of people worldwide, the demands on his time now make it difficult to play games as often as he’d like to or as much as he once did.”

*snort*

And then it becomes priceless. “That was an accident,” Schafer told website Eurogamer. “I was going to change the title of my talk to ‘how to give interviews and remember to check the microphone is off.’”

I can’t tell you how much this interchange has cheered me up. I think I want to have Schafer’s babies or something.

And in case you forgot the quote that Bobby Kotick is most famous for, it is this:

Speaking at the Deutsche Bank Securities Technology Conference in San Francisco, Kotick said “The goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks into Activision about 10 years ago was to take all the fun out of making video games.”

Sounds an awful lot like a prick to me, actually.

Hmmph. I’m definitely going to need a new PC. *pout* It was pretty, though. I’m going to love playing a cute furry girl with ears and a tail.  :D

Age of Conan is ultimately a very European game, and as an American I couldn’t be happier about that fact. I mean this literally, as it was developed by those crazy vikings at Funcom, but also in terms of attitude. Across the pond, there’s very little uproar when a woman bares her breasts, whereas in the States, woe be to the purveyor of nipplage who doesn’t first think of the children. Thankfully, Funcom didn’t give a dead rat’s tail about censor-related clucking, and delivered a game that unabashedly celebrates the neck-bearded internet nerd upon whose hairy back the MMORPG genre was founded.

Very, very funny. And quite true, as well (speaking as an American who quites appreciates living in a country where everything isn’t as sanitised and censored).

If it does actually get made, the World of Darkness MMO is going to be amazing. EVE will look great, as well, but as someone said (I’m sorry, I don’t remember which blog or site I saw this on), after playing Star Trek Online I’m much less excited about having my EVE characters walk around in the space stations.

Enjoy…

I finally hit level 11 last night (friends and fleetmates are now some unimaginable level, like 220. Ok, what is it Raz – 21? 22? *sigh*) Anyway, green-eyed monster aside (just kidding), I reached the point where I could claim a shiny new science ship and a lot of new toys.

I do miss the gorgeousness of the ships in EVE. It’s part of the reason I played Amarr, even though they do have a stick-up-the-wazoo racial that isn’t pleasant. Their ships are rich, shaped like birds of prey or marine animals done in gold and bronze. Lovely. I suppose STO ships are an inevitable consequence of the way that a strict IP will limit design. But anyway, I do love my new Lollipop.

The servers have been very stable since launch, which I very much didn’t expect from the headstart problems. Some of the Genesis missions are still bugged. Overall, however, it’s going very smoothly. I’m liking it. :)

I’ve been levelling my Belf pally, and she’s almost 76 now. I’m taking my time and just enjoying the game on this one, no agenda, no rush. I’m not even skipping through the awful Zul’Drak on this one, because pallies just luuuuuurve grinding undead.  :) It’s been a nice journey.

Whatever indefinable thing there is that makes a virtual world feel like home, Warcraft has it. For me, anyway.

The game is fun, and it will be something that I’ll enjoy – especially since pvp is supposed to be great fun. Will it be a main MMO? No, I’m pretty sure that it won’t – but it will be a nice change. In the limited time that I’ve been allowed to actually play, it hasn’t felt as much like a universe as EVE does…and that bothers me a bit. As inpenetrable as EVE can be (figuring out for yourself the right kit to train for and buy – even down to the type of ammo to use and when, it’s quite difficult to get a grasp of what choices you should be making), it still feels like a real place. As nice as the interiors and ships are in STO, at the moment it doesn’t – and that is what I play for, the total immersion in an environment.

Part of that is the multitude of loading screens. Especially when there is a lot of lag, you seem to spend a good portion of your gametime staring at loading screens. Games with high levels of instancing, that have very slow loading screens, tend to really bother me. Again, it’s an issue of immersion and feeling that you are in a real, seamless environment.

But this is very early days, and I know I haven’t been able to play much with the servers being up and down like a bride’s nightie (such lovely expressions they have here in the UK!). So I will cross my fingers and hope to be able to spend some serious time in my starship this weekend.

• Reading
• Eating holiday food
• Drinking
• Reading more
• Levelling my paladin
• Playing Allods Online – closed beta at last!

Edit: Yaay, I can finally add screenshots. BT is quite arbitrary on when they’ll allow connections to things like WordPress. It would be so nice if there was another reliable ISP that we could get in our area. Anyway…I finally finished the grind for the raptor mount! It wasn’t bad, all things considered – I’ve never wanted to try the Wintersaber rep grind on any character (I have a life!), but this one wasn’t bad.

And then there’s Allods Online. Allods is a lot of fun. A bit basic in normal MMO terms, but absolutely lovely for a f2p MMO.

Although the loading screen looks uncomfortably like Evony/Civony (no, I’m NOT going to link to it!).

For anyone who is unreasonably excited about playing the game right now, please note that I have (so far) not encountered any elf-on-elf lesbian sex. But who knows…perhaps there’s a reason for the steamy loading screen, and I just haven’t unlocked that content yet.

Perhaps I just have a dirty mind. If so, I blame teh Internets.

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