
On this week’s show, Bree and Justin talk about SWTOR’s new festival, World of Warcraft’s butterfly controversy, New World’s alpha, a new issue for City of Heroes, LOTRO’s ill-received patch, and a frank discussion about working in the games industry.
It’s the Massively OP Podcast, an action-packed hour of news, tales, opinions, and gamer emails! And remember, if you’d like to send in your question to the show, use this link or call in to our voicemail at (734) 221-3973 (yes, seriously!).
Listen to the show right now:
Show notes:
- Intro
- Adventures in MMOs:Â World of Warcraft, Star Wars Galaxies, Torchlight III
- News: SWTOR ushers in a Feast of Prosperity
- News: New World’s fall alpha test
- News: World of Warcraft’s sparklewings
- News: Issue 27 is on the way for City of Heroes Homecoming
- News: LOTRO’s Update 28 made no one happy
- Mailbag: Would you want to go into game development?
- Outro
Other info:
- Download Episode 294
- Podcast theme: “New Corinth” from City of Heroes
- Your show hosts: Justin and Bree
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I think the exuberance that drives most comments about “Why aren’t you working in the industry!”, comes from younger, less experienced/knowledgeable people. Anyone who’s been around the block a few times has seen how terrible the game development industry is to work in.
My wife worked for it and I’ve had many friends who have worked in the industry over the past thirty years and every time what I noted is that it’s an utterly crappy industry to work in, benefits lack, hours are terrible and uncertainty is the norm. Just no way I’d ever work in this industry and I don’t blame Justin and Bree for also not working for a game developer.
Edit: Forgot to complain about LotRO. I knew it was gonna go bad once I noted a TOS coming from Daybreak that I had to agree to a couple years ago upon logging in to LotRO. I posted and pondered and didn’t get any answers, later on we figured it out.
We all should have walked away then, I hung on until last year but I finally uninstalled the game for the first time since the game started in 2007 when I started playing. What I mean by that is uninstalled with the intent of not ever playing again. We’ve all had to uninstall and reinstall the client at various times due to issues/bugs that cropped up over time with the LotRO.
I’m so saddened about everything to do with LotRO, I really thought we’d be able to continue to count on them as long as they had the license. Nope, no way, thanks Daybreak. Drove me away from EQ2 too. :/ Of course SOE’s antics in their last years really filled that bottle up but Daybreak capped it for sure. (sigh)
Honestly, even if it weren’t a terribly abusive industry, I would still rather be a journalist than a gamedev! But I also understand why some people do it anyway, and it’s why I respect the rank-and-file developers who do it because you really have to love gaming so much if you stick around.
Regarding City of Heroes: the new story arcs are new content, I believe written by Piecemeal.
As for the question about game development, I messed around with the Ark mod dev kit and did some cool things for my server. I dabbled with a map, but those things take thousands of hours and I enjoy playing vs developing.
Yeah, mod creation is a whole ‘nother thing! That will never stop being fun for me, but it’s largely because it’s not a job. :D
LOTRO couldn’t wait 6 months to get money for the real expansion. To me this is the question that should matter and be asked. Why could they not wait 6 months? Bree mentions 3 years, I’m not sure LOTRO will be around in 3 years with these kind of bad and greedy decisions. The really bad thing here, is that had they given the update out for free and then offered some new mounts in the store and maybe some new cosmetics, they could have banked money that way. There are tons of cosmetics that people would gladly pay for. This was a terrible thought-out (or not thought-out plan at all) decision and I think is back-firing. They also have devalued the subscription model with this. Why even sub if it doesn’t give you updates any more? Fuck you SSG and DB for ruining this nice little gem of a game.
“… and the pillow.”
I love my community. They are one of the best in the industry.
But Sue is still every CM. :)
🦋
At last.
?
Let me explain, “At last” is a line Illidan says when he meet Sargares again
It’s also a line tied with several War3 characters. Arthas and Illidan being some of them.
Damn Blizz made Illidan pay for those things?! <3
Vulpera heritage armor includes a backpack.
Seems they’re sloooowly starting to add some.
With all the new non-cloak back items coming in Shadowlands, I’m hoping to see more non-cloaks in general in the future.
Justin, you can get a black backpack from Horrific Visions in BFA, i recommend that you wait for Shadowlands, reach level 60 and get some gear then go back to do the Visions, they will be much easier this way.
I attached a screenshot for the backpack.
Sometimes i fantasize about making an MMO, these days for example i’m thinking about designing an MMO with no end-game, how it will work? or if i remove dungeons, raids and PVP as end-game content; then what will be the end-game content?
It’s fun to imagine and think about these things, but i don’t want to develop an MMO.
Thanks for all the backpack pointers! Wasn’t aware of either of these, so that’s really good to know.
Can we achieve balance? Must all MMOs either have too many wings and buttcapes and trenchcoats or absolutely none?
Devs, options are GOOD.