[GameRatty] tag: week

The MMO Report: Thursday, December 4th

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 10:18:43 +0000

The MMO Report is provided by G4TV. From this week, we will start our cooperation with G4TV in The MMO Report to share the episodes about MMO games and the very industry happened this week.

Guardian slams NME's misjudged gaming slur

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 09:45:34 +0000

NME: "Rock 'n' roll is about f*****g, games are about w*****g"

Games - not the 'new' Rock n' Roll... thankfully.

This week, ailing music weekly the NME ran a feature on the 'power-struggle' between games and music, with some all-too-predictable shock-value reporting from ageing punk journalist Steven Wells, and some even-more-predicable quotes from writer David Quantick and the joke band Nickleback.

NME writer David Quantick chipped in with: "Games are not rock 'n' roll, they're metal – aggressive, loud, violent and scared of women. You can't dance to a game or have sex to it.

Up to 50% off all Woolworths stock today

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 08:11:33 +0000

And that includes games, apparently. The UK retailer went into administration last week, and has now announced its “Biggest Ever Sale”. Administrator Deloitte told MCV in a statement: “We anticipate increased footfall in the stores and have hired additional staff to cope with increased demand. Additional goods have been moved to all stores and further stock will [...]

Meet the Team: Colin Brennan

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 06:00:00 +0000

Filed under: Massively meta, Meet the Team

Once a week our writers will give you a glimpse into their lives, to let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more Meet the Team. What do you do for Massively.com? You probably know me as the opinionated guy who writes the Anti-Aliased column here on Massively, which covers the culture and dynamics of both developers and players in the MMO industry. Past that, I'm also one of the blogging staff, so you'll see a news post from me every now and then. Gallery: Meet the Team...

Continue reading Meet the Team: Colin Brennan

Meet the Team: Colin Brennan originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 05 Dec 2008 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Being second with Gears 2 on Live is amazing, says Rein

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 04:58:51 +0000

Epic boss Mark Rein’s said it’s no surprise Gears of War 2’s come in at second place in the Live play charts to Halo 3 in the last week, pointing out that cut-price DLC for the 9 million-strong Bungie shooter is always going to be a tough act to beat. “Gears is in second because Halo [...]

US PSN update, December 11

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 04:24:33 +0000

Good one this week, with Qore issue seven being free, and all. Good news if you’re a starved PSP fan, too: Everyday Shooter and Super Stardust Portable are both there for $10. A nice extra’s a Flock demo for PS3, included in the Qore edition: there’s a heap of info on that here. It’s the Capcom [...]

MGS 4 coming to 360 ... maybe ... or not, who the hell knows anymore?

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 01:00:00 +0000

Hey, guess what? Today is a day that ends in “y” -- and coincidentally, here’s another rumor that Metal Gear Solid 4 is making its way to the Xbox 360! This one seems at once more concrete, and yet more circumstantial, than anything we’ve had so far. The header image was screencapped from this Web site, which is a simple Flash placeholder that’s linked from Kojima Productions’ English page (see upper right). The site merely rotates between the above image and Konami’s logo.

Destructoid tipster extraordinaire Joe Burling and I have been brainstorming for the past half hour about what exactly this could mean, because it’s important to note that -- of course -- this confirms nothing. Sure, the image is in neon green, which instantly brings the Xbox 360’s ring of light to mind ... but if you think about it, that symbol is recognized worldwide as a power or on/off sign (after all, the PS3’s power button looks like this). After racking our brains and considering the facts, we’ve come up with a few observations and notes.

Both the URL of the Flash site itself, and the URL of the linking image, feature the phrase/initialism “MGST” -- though we’re pretty much stumped as to what that could mean. Joe instantly thought of “Metal Gear Solid: Tactics,” which could suggest: (A) an entirely new game in the franchise, (B) simply an altered name for the 360 version, and/or (C) the “special edition” of MGS 4 that we all guessed was coming after Substance and Subsistence. Another interesting thing to note is that MGS 4 came out on June 12, 2008, and today (December 5) is exactly one week before the six-month anniversary of the release.

In addition, Konami’s stock has been flagging of late, so Joe speculated that this could be the precursor to some sort of announcement to try and reverse that trend. Still, the iconography here must be of some significance -- exclamation points appear above soldiers’ heads in the games when they’ve spotted you, but why are two of them inverted here? Orcist wasn’t so quick to jump to the obvious conclusion (i.e., that MGS 4 is coming to the 360), saying that he figured Kojima would have something more mysterious up his sleeve in this age of viral marketing and alternate reality games. So hit the comments, Dtoiders, and help us out with your thoughts on what “a next Metal Gear is...”!

WAR Guild Transfer Debacle

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 00:41:06 +0000

I’ve mentioned the situation surrounding my guild’s failed transfer to Dark Crag.

Cliffs Notes: The transfer was supposed to work. It didn’t. Petitioned November 26. No response. Updated petition. No response. Made a forum post. No help there. Last resort = Blog post to make noise about it.

Long version/forum post:

My guild transfered off of Wolfenburg to Dark Crag on November 26. I went through the transfer process, following all of the procedures to the letter, and the guild was disbanded on Wolfenburg accordingly. The next step was the create a new guild on Dark Crag after transferring my character. Upon creating this new guild my previous guild’s level and renown should have transfered to the new guild. Well, it didn’t. It created a new guild without the renown or the level. I promptly relogged, refreshed my UI, asked other guildies, and reread the transfer process several times. Nothing on my end went wrong or should have gone wrong.

When I exhausted all self-troubleshooting I sent in a petition. There wasn’t a reply so I updated my current one and still have not heard anything. It’s been over a week now and my guild is rather agitated that we don’t have our guild heraldry or scrolls, or any of the other perks we spent time earning from launch until this point.

Has anyone else experienced similar problems? I heard from someone that this happened to other guilds during previous transfers and the issue was resolved. Does anyone know how I would go about getting this resolved? Obviously the petition isn’t doing anything.

Help is appreciated.

So now I have posted this here on my blog because, honestly, I have no other place to turn. Do I call CSR’s and complain or hope that one day my in-game petition is answered?

Someone in the forum post that I made had this to say:

“Our guilds petition for them to fix it was in the hands of CSRs for over a month(we were rank 19). They didnt help us and around when our “new” guild hit rank 9 — every single officier we had quit the game. They do not even have a category for guild issues on the appeal thing.

My best advice to you to avoid heartache is to merge with another guild NOW and count the old one lost.”

I’m trying to be cool about it, but honestly it’s killing my desire to log in. I don’t want to get nasty or start throwing out wild accusations about customer service’s performance. I’ll simply leave it at this for now: Please help, Mythic. (Character name: Morkeen // Guild name: Happy Fun Guyz // Server: Dark Crag)

Defending the Plastic Guitar!

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 00:09:45 +0000

That Gaming Site Writes: "I play real Guitar and Guitar Hero.

Being a fan of both, I've been subject to numerous arguments over and over about how playing Guitar Hero or Rock Band is a waste of time and that 'nerds' should try picking up a real instrument and do something productive for a change. It was in this week's edition of NME (a British Indie Music Publication) that brought me this comment, in an article that........"

The Daily Hotness: Run! Run! Run!

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 21:17:00 +0000

The upcoming Mirror's Edge DLC looks pretty trippy to say the least. It's not the bear suit costume I was hoping for, but I'm still working on that. Speaking of Mirror's Edge, check out the sweet contest we got going on right now! We still have around 69 copies of the game to give away and it's as simple as finding a sign to win the prize.

Conrad reviews Tomb Raider Underworld, Square Enix is eying Eidos, Penn talks about Desert Bus, I actually experienced Desert Bus in real life on my bus ride to an event down in Los Angeles two nights ago, and plenty more happened on 12/04/08.

Thursday Regulars:
No RetroforceGO! this week: We all have SARS
The Memory Card .46: Insult swordfighting!

Review:
Tomb Raider Underworld

Contest:
Get your running shoes on: we have 80 copies of Mirror's Edge to give away!

News:
Gran Turismo 5 release date still in the air, fast car devs build slow
Virtual Peace 'better than shooting 'em up'
Ken Levine likes PC gaming, would like to have it back
Square Enix expected to bid for Eidos
Character in Animal Crossing tosses out the N-word, Nintendo rescues our eyes
Harrison: Kids will soon refuse to buy discs
Research group says that consoles are the new hotness for on-demand video
Could Brutal Legend news be coming? We all hope so
Qore episode 7 is free this week at the PlayStation Store
How Sirlin struggled with Street Fighter 2 HD
Dress up your Xbox 360 avatar in new duds -- for free, no less!
Animal Crossing Wii character imports region locked: Because that's not dumb
Real bands vs fake ones: the argument goes on
WiiWare manga starts this January with Princess Ai Monogatari
Penn describes motivation behind Desert Bus minigame
Buy this PS3 for the every day low price of $736.99 [Update]
List of streamable videogame movies on Netflix

Rumortoid:
SCEE reminds staff of their NDA after PS3 price drop talk

Offbeat:
The Daily Mail: Win a Sega Megadrive! Or ... not

Galleries:
Screenshots for Suikoden Tierkreis: Because the DS needs more RPGs
Go to Burger King for a heart attack/Nintendo toy combo

Videos:
Mirror's Edge DLC announced, looks bloody weird [update]
Banjo goes to Paris in this absurd Nuts & Bolts promo video
New 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand video displays the art of Counter-Kills

Community:
C Blogs of 12/04/08