There’s a really cool project going on at Gametrailers.com. Basically, they are taking several famous gaming franchises and creating a documentary about how they have become famous. These retrospectives currently cover Final Fantasy, Metroid and the Legend of Zelda. I have only seen a couple, but I’m an instant fan. I’ll definitely be checking back once in a while to see more.
Last weekend there was an excellent article in the New York Times about Gold Farming. I mean to post about it earlier, but later is definitely better than never in this case. As a former hardcore EverQuest player, I can say that there’s a lot of this article that rings as very well said.
In particular, they make some good points about how the practice of Gold Farming is viewed in MMORPGs. When I used to play as a significant portion of my life, I was an elitist about how someone earned their equipment or plat, which is the common currency in EQ. I completely understand that perspective and still sympathize with those hardcore gamers who take great pride in earning things themselves. To them, Gold Farming is abhorrent and should be banned, outlawed. It dilutes their accomplishments by flooding the market with expensive and hard to get items.
Now as a more casual player, I would like to be able to at least progress without spending the time doing some of the more tedious things associated with MMORPGs. I tend to play World of Warcraft more than EverQuest when I do play, which is not all that often anymore. I want to spend my time killing things and doing dungeon crawls with friends, not foraging for trade skills or earning gold to buy equipment. Not that I have a lot of disposable cash for such things, but if I did it would be tempting.
The New York Times article shows both sides of the coin pretty accurately, if you’ll pardon the pun. It also describes how these things aren’t going to disappear. MMORPGs are huge markets now. As a result, the demand for services like Power Leveling and Gold Farming will make sure that these things don’t disappear. I think it makes sense for Blizzard, Sony and other producers to find a way to incorporate, regulate and profit from these services. It would eliminate some of the farming, stabilize the economies and perhaps even make the games more fun. It can even improve the endgame so long as all the absolute best items can’t be bought with real world money.
There’s a hilarious article out there about a possible retarted judge nominee to the California Supreme Court. It’s obviously a fake, but it’s still a good read. It also begs the question, “You mean this is the first openly mentally handicapped nominee to the California Supreme Court, right?”
In other news, updates are short because my evil friends have hooked me on EQ again. I’m applying with Memento Reejeryn, which was a guild I wanted to apply to when I became sure that I needed to leave Mythic Legends. They are a very tight knit guild and hard to get into. There were no open spots last time, but I probably should have applied anyhow. This time there’s one spot open and two people trying to fill it. I’ll probably keep my application open even if I’m not accepted for this spot.