Massively Speaking Episode 111

Okay, will you tell us about those warhammer interviews pretty please?

I think in regards to Tera and the micro transactions is he means they are not going F2P, with micro transactions being what pays the bills.

I'm entirely unsure as to how you guys are confused based on the microtransaction issue. Service charges for things like server changes and such are practically a given. It was clear that they meant cash shop (as in f2p item malls) by microtransactions, and that they wouldnt have subs on top of a f2p item mall. People were complaining about cash shops and having to pay extra to gain advantages. So they quelled that worry.

As long as vanity items stay vanity then I see no problem. It's just the same as every other game ever.

Bring Larry back! *fanboi*

Shawn and Rubi,

Long time listener, but this episode prompted me to become a first time poster.

Although, yes, it does can come down to a question of definition, clearly the

TERA spokesperson was referring to paid services and micro-transactions in

their traditional sense. A paid service is an account-based service which an

employee has to physically perform (i.e. move a character from one server to

another). A micro-transaction is a play-based item which can affect a

character's performance or appearance. These are micro because they are

generally a few dollars as opposed to the more expensive paid service.

Unfortunately, it seems you've attempted to make a mountain out of a molehill

on this issue. Surely, as reporters, part of your job is to dissect the

information provided by developers/publishers, examine the worth or truth of

the matter, and relay that to your readers or listeners in a form they can

understand. Unfortunately, there was a hurdle at the first point which may have

confused or alerted your listeners for no reason.

Secondly, I understand it's your intention to gloss over potentially fiery topics so that you remain in the good books of developers/publishers and therefore continue to obtain interviews which in turn gets you paid, but the way you discussed the Realtime Worlds issue was painful to listen to. It was quite obvious that the post written by "ExRTW" was more than just a rant and an attempt to "get back at the company". This result had been cascading over the last week and a bit and it was clear that there was more to the "rumors" of Realtime Worlds being in dire straits. It deserved more of a discussion than "Oh, that's rumour. Let's wait and see either way".

Lastly, Shawn, you mention that "they have Crackdown". Well, yeah, but they are also millions of pounds in debt. Right now, the royalties gained from that 3 year old game (which was already having its royalties sucked up by APB development) isn't going to be helping much at all.

Sad week for RTW, and as I said, it warranted more discussion.

First of all let be begin saying that Alyson Reeves bought wowscape server few years ago from some 16 year old guy (alias: "Silent") who had started it in 2006.
Some time later she started showing her true nature, she never did anything for the community but collected donations.
There was lots of drama about it, she even harassed the guy ("Silent") and threatening him and his family because him and other ex-moderators of the server exposed the spending habit of Alyson - thousands of dollars worth of clothing and other things bought by her for the donation money she got to help run the server, Alyson even tried to bribe "Silent" with money to keep him silent.
(notte the try to keep "Silent" silent, unluckily he was not silent about it)
Some time ago Alyson closed wowscape (or w/e she renamed it) and wanted to run with the money she made from it, but the server community found it to be wrong and they collected all the evidence they could from the few years she had ran the server and it was handed over to blizzard, soon enough blizzard sued Alyson.

Wow - listening to you guys complain about your commenters and how much hate email you get is getting really, really old. If I counted how many times you sarcastically say "yeah, the devs pay us" it'd probably be in the hundreds over the past few months.

How about being less defensive, trying to make a less meta-podcast about yourselves and actually talk about the games?

I want my 1:01:32 back.

APB's main problem wasn't solely the hackers, it was their business plan/model just like that supposed ex-employee pointed out. Several other sites and forums have talked about this very point so how come you guys dropped the ball on it?

Also, the reason some of us are hoping RTW crashes with APB isn't because we have some sick desire to seem them fail. It's because most of us were either in the beta or KTTC and tried to post feedback to RTW, telling them their business plan would fail, and guess what it did and now they can join the unemployment line.

I strongly agree with you. Oh, wait. You are now a hater and Ruby will tell on you then giggle.

A sexy voice does not make up for having nothing interesting to contribute to a conversation.