Massively Speaking Episode 166

Here's some of that Wednesday news Massivly Speaking fans might be interested in: Dawntide's Oct 1 release was (probably wisely...) moved to "Sometime".

I totally agree with you guys on the spotty voice acting. Nothing ruins an otherwise good game for me faster than lame VOs and extremely boring or jerky animations. Graphics are nice, but I'll take lower resolution textures and a basic lighting engine if they do those two things well.

Personally I hope more MMOs take routes similar to GW's. Pay an entry fee, get access to all of the content with no sub, but have acceleration and other convenience item's and cosmetic options available for purchase. Not to mention the old standard of big ol' MMO expansions are becoming a lost art. Other genres have completely replaced them with DLC, but I'd rather pay a lump sum of $30 bucks for a bunch of new zones than having to cobble them together in 3 "easy" payments of $9.99.

Shawn, maybe look into Eden Eternal for you an your wife? I discovered it from a Livestream with Beau and figured I'd give it a whirl and ended up being hooked on it's somewhat casual approach. I convinced a lady-friend to play it with strategic Llama screenshot sharing and it was alot of fun. You can switch your class at any time so if things get stale, try some new partner combos! There's also a "Sweetheart" system that's kind of funny, but you can get bonuses when partying with "That special someone", so it's even better for couples. Of course if she doesn't like cutesy... Hmm.

And finally, THANK YOU RUBI for defending Da' WAAAGH!

World of Darkness will be nothing like Troika's master piece.

Perhaps trying to make the RPG in MMOPRG actually mean something more than just choosing a branch in a skill tree.

First, World of Darkness is definitly something that has my interest that I really had not cared about before.

Also, I realize you may have been mostly talking about MMOs' voice acting but you did mention fallout so I figured it wouldn't be to far off to mention Uncharted. The game has incredible voice acting, largely due to the characterization being perfect. It doesn't seem like something you would notice but when a game does it that well you can really pick up on it. So there are some games out there that do an exceptional job of it, but most developers don't seem terribly concerened with the difference between ok voice acting and great voice acting.

Well that was a bit of a ramble, but I feel voice acting can really help pull a player into the world. So while I am ok with it in most games I definitly take notice when its done well.

Nice job on the TWIMMO show folks. I agree with Rubi on the financial models topic... simply too crazy to even attempt to predict what direction that critter will scurry towards...

Regarding the section of this podcast where you folks discussed SOE's John Smedley; You folks seemed a little bit dismissive of all of the folks who have expressed concerns with, or outright dislike of, the decisions and direction that he and that company have gone in. It's not like they are just making up excuses to not like the guy, or his company. Every single one of those folks started out as SOE customers and became disillusioned or disgruntled in reaction to some of the monumental F*** ups perpetrated by SOE.

I've said before, and I still maintain, that I will never have anything to do with any project associated with SOE in the future no matter how appealing it may appear. I have complete confidence they will find a way to make it an extremely unpleasant experience somehow - they have a proven track record in that regard.

Rather than simply dismissing the expressions of outrage and frustration as the ramblings of "internet idiots" you should at least acknowledge that mistakes... huge, freakin unbelievable, are you F***ing kidding me, type mistakes have in fact been made which caused those reactions to exist.