The Guild Season 5 episode 1 Review: Road Trip

Vork takes the guild on the road as season 5 rolls on

by Ariel Carmona Jr

It was 9:25 PST and I was in a community chatroom at watchtheguild.com eagerly waiting for the first episode of the new season of Felicia Day’s intoxicating web series about a group of eccentric online gamers. Some had already watched the ep. on Xbox Live or MSN’s Zune, but the majority eagerly anticipated the return of the show which had yet to be posted on the official website or on Microsoft’s Bing website.

Things have changed since last season, now the episodes are rolling out on a split schedule with paying members enjoying the 2 day advanced view. Such is the price for corporate sponsors, but for the fans, it was a exercise in torturous anticipation.

“We’re a bunch of internet nerds anxious for their season 5 fix,” remarked a community member jokingly. Only he was right, Day’s web series had turned us all into impatient ninnies, and why not? The show is a little gem of a series and the very first to consistently employ the gaming community in a smart, well written manner.

Was the wait worth it?

I would say yes. The Guild rolls on with the same irreverence and wit with which it debuted with back in 2007, and despite the minor cult web following, the characters continue to be intriguing (in their own weird way) and the dialogue is still fun, though not as rife with gaming parlance as previous installments.

Day continues to mine gold from the vast pool of gaming references (excuse the mixed metaphors) and her own personal experience with gaming communities, humming the familiar theme to Tetris at the end of her customary opening soliloquy, further cementing her place as the internet’s reigning gamer chick queen (She’s due to star in Dragon Age Redemption based on Bioware’s immensely popular RPG series later this year.)

There are a number of gags which elicit a few chuckles, (none of which I will spoil here) but perhaps the greatest reward for fans choosing to return to Codex and friends’ cyberspace milieu is the interaction between a cast of familiar players, Tink the self absorbed materialistic gold digger, Vork the misanthropic father figure, Clara the irresponsible parent, Zaboo, who almost defies categorization, and Blades, now reveling in his 15 minutes through Cheesybeards pirate guy fame.

Codex’s romantic interest with Zaboo, hinted at in the season 4 finale also begins here.

The characters live in their own little worlds while continuing to venture into their virtual realities and in so doing continue to take us along, so we can revel in the escapism of temporarily stepping away from ours.

Product placement maybe more prevalent now, such as the Guild’s connection with “The World of Munchkin” series of games, but despite all the changes, characterization continues to be the Guild’s formula for success.

The p2p mmo dilemma: which retro game to choose?

My Savage is having fun in the catacombs in Midgard

I’m in a bit of a quandry.

Perhaps you can help me out. I am a retro-mmo gamer, but I would like to subscribe to one game this summer/fall season to explore further before the new crop of mmos come a calling. I have found that some of the best games are (unfortunately for our pocketbooks) the pay to play format. While there are plenty of games out there which are fun and you don’t really have to pay for (LOTRO, DDO and Anarchy Online just to name a few) I find that some of the more polished games are not f2p. Such is life. We deal.

Recently I have been trying two games almost to the exclusivity of all others: Mythic’s Dark Age of Camelot, an oldie but a goodie, and Blizzard’s massive World of Warcraft. I like them both, I would like to play both but I can only choose one because I can only afford one subscription. Of DAoC, being the older game, I have heard from people that the problem is that being very pvp oriented (RvR really is its claim to fame) that it is a bit of a graveyard until you reach the level cap.

Be that as it may, the little time I have spent on the game I have found fun, even if the population is not nearly as big as the one for say Warcraft. Usually on the one mega server, newbies are all lumped into one big “starting out” guild and I have found plenty of people to ask advice from while playing my Midgard Savage. The warcraft community is not nearly as friendly in my opinion, but the game is still fun, especially battlegrounds and pvp.

For the horde! Hordemaster always rolls horde for the win!

So I have made some pros and cons listings to help me decide between the two games:

Wow

pros: great game, lots of quests, battlegrounds are fun, intuitive UI, great lore,

cons: community not always fun, hard to get advice if you are a noob, level grind sometimes feels too repetitive, 85 levels until endgame content

DAoC

pros: great atmosphere for older game, outstanding in game help when players are around, only 50 levels to end game content, three realms instead of two factions, not as grind heavy

cons: can feel underpopulated during some hours, older game so mechanics not as refined as wow, UI not as intuitive, higher learning curve than other games of its ilk.

I still plan to find the time in the near future to play Anarchy Online, DDO and LOTRO, but given the choice between these two p2p games and only these two games, which would you choose to play and why??

The Guild returns to comic-con

Comic Con 2011 is history, I didn’t go but I remember braving the crowds last year, not to mention the incredibly long line to get into the Hilton Bayfront Hotel in San Diego (At least I think that’s what it’s called) so I could witness the Guild’s panel. What did I get out of it? A button with Wil Wheaton and Felicia’s faces on it which I promptly lost somewhere since. I also realized that it’s harder to get into some of these panels (even with a press pass) because fans stay at one room and never leave their seats. It’s really unfair and I don’t think comic con ever fixed this problem. But I digress…

I found this video online of this year’s panel and I am very happy that Felicia Day is bringing the show back another season. What I am not so thrilled about is that the episodes roll out to x-Box Live subscribers on Tuesday and don’t get posted on the internet until Thursdays. So basically most of us will get to watch them two days later. Either way, can’t wait to watch the new season starting next week. I looked all over the web to see if any footage of season 5 ep.1 had been leaked, but no dice.

The Guild really is the best web show about gaming and has been very engaging since its debut, but I am sure most of you know this if you game and spend time on the web. (At least until Dragon Age Redemption drops later this summer.) I plan to write up some reviews of the entire season, which I understand takes place at a gaming convention.

Felicia Day should always remember that The Guild would not be as successful without wow and wow was a descendant of DAoC and other mmos like Everquest and EQ2.

Google plus sparks social media in gaming

My friends are probably sick and tired about me talking and writing about Google’s new social media network Google Plus, but one of the nice new features being rolled out by the service is referred to as “sparks” which are categories of topics which are tailored for each individual user based on  his or her particular interests. These topics are then fed into the user’s page via a sytem simlar to facebook’s wall.

In other words, you have a news feed of every interesting article regarding the topic you choose, and there appears to be no limit to the number of sparks you can be reading about.

sparks are little topics on google plus of interest to the end users

For example in my page right now are sparks dealing with mmorpg topics like LOTRO, ddo, chess and cal poly pomona (my alma matter) but to name a few.

Facebook has a similar feature and it’s a big way in which their algorithms appear to track the user’s interest in order to tailor specific ads to target them with, but google’s seems to be less intrusive and more intuitive.

Consequently, I think this is what news outlets in the digital age are coming to, strictly speaking from a journalistic perspective, I am not really sure if sparks are good or bad. In a sense, a surfing experience unique to the end user is already happening, as people have bookmarked their sites and always return again and again to the pages and websites they like most, there is even a feature on most browsers to customize one’s start page to whatever one pleases, but sparks tailor the experience to the individual and traditional media has always been about reaching a mass audience.

As far as gaming is concerned, it’s a pretty nifty tool to have in your arsenal if you are a webmaster, a blogger, or just a casual or hard core gamer looking for the latest patch notes, news, or developer insights. I could just Google World of Warcraft of course and get the latest news, but the feed eliminates a lot of the unwanted junk that comes up like sites dedicated to selling me a leveling guide, the game’s official page and the wiki and goes straight for the latest news about the game. I really like that.

Of course, the true potential of google’s emerging social network and its sparks feature as an extension of it won’t be fully realized until after the testing phase is complete, or when and if the social network takes off. Like a friend put it, “Google+ so far is like a party the Chess Club & the Mathletes are throwing and everyone is at the Frat Party (Facebook)”

What do the rest of you think?

Can noobs survive in the world of retro mmos?

battling mobs in Dark Age of Camelot is more fun in a group

“The legendary learning curves of yesterday’s MMOs have been severely smoothed in the post-World of Warcraft era….”

So begins an intriguing article by Sean Kavanagh on a new player’s perspective while playing an older mmo detailed in the September/October edition of Beckett’s Massive Online Gamer magazine. I’m not going to spoil the article for you guys, but suffice it to say that Kavanagh’s premise that gamers can actually enjoy a classic mmo experience (in his case adventuring through 1999′s Asheron’s Call) is a valid one.

I found this article interesting because I have come to the same conclusion playing Dark Age of Camelot, a game which along with Ultima Online and Everquest, is probably as classic in the mmo genre as you’re likely to get without going as far back as the graphical MUD days in which some of the conventions now associated with the genre were not yet invented.

The interesting thing is that I myself rolled a toon in AC not too long ago, only in my case it wasn’t a low population that turned me off the game, but I just could not get used to the graphics. As Kavanagh points out in his piece, a game like Asheron’s Call is no match visually for a modern mmo theme park like RIFT, but if you can get past the limitations of playing in a world whose graphic engine hasn’t been updated for several years, you can get some excitement out of the unique features the game has to offer. I experienced one of those features right off the bat on my first night adventuring through the game’s open ended world.

I was befriended by a long time player who agreed to be my patron and I bound allegiance to his character. This was a cool thing, but I must admit to having been perplexed by the myriad of buffs, spells and gear I was given in order to advance my noobish character. Even with the extra help, I just could not stomach those ancient graphics, Dark Age of Camelot has been an entirely different story.

That is not to say that there aren’t some things which newer MMOs have taken from a game like AC and improved upon. The interface isn’t as polished, for example, and it is true that the learning curve for this game is higher than other games, but someone willing to put in the time can get much enjoyment out of it. Turbine still updates the game and  continues to manage it along with its newer properties like Dungeons and Dragons Online.

now where have we seen this before??

As far as DAoC is concerned, playing it has left me astounded in regards to how many of the conventions now taken for granted by players in a game like wow were present in this game: flying from zone to zone, trading items between characters, etc. etc. I like DAoC’s combat mechanics better than wow’s myself, with the familiar D&D phrasing (“You hit the rat for 10 points of damage”) refreshingly intact.

I can’t really say if some of these conventions were in place in DAoC prior to their adoption by modern games like wow because I wasn’t playing DAoC back in the day and warcraft was one of the first truly modern mmos I tried, so maybe some of you mmo veterans can help me out. I know DAoC predates wow by at least 3 years, but there have been expansions along the way. It’s really a question of the chicken and the egg: which game adopted which convention from which.

No matter, if you feel like trying an old mmo like Asheron’s Call or DAoC I say more power to you, you will find there are those along the way who are willing to help. The games may have seen more popular days, but it’s refreshing to see players come back to them and it’s good to have them around as alternatives to the more modern games.

NEStalgia is the retro mmorpg getting a lot of press

So I finally gave up on Wow. At least for the time being, since I have been playing older mmos and games that are a bit more gentle on my ancient video card. I simply have too many financial investments at the moment to spring for a new vid card. There are still a great number of games that I can play. One game that looks intriguing is NEStagia, it’s probably not for me as I was not really a big NES player, but for those who grew up in the 90s, this retro-style MMO might be just right up their goblin ridden alleys.

According to g4tv.com, the game has small servers with a “close-knit” community of gamers. Sounds intriguing, especially to those who might want to play an 8-bit amalgamation of wow, DragonQuest, Final Fantasy and other games from the past. Well, since it is f2p, I might eventually give it a shot, but for now I am pretty content with exploring DAoC. More to come.