Playin’ Half-Life For Cash

by Onder Skall

An official press release (see below) announces the launching of Tournament.com where players can wager real money on their skills playing popular first person shooter games. You can wager up to $10 per match and you’re limited to depositing $150 per month into the system, but that doesn’t mean that people won’t figure out how to cheat the system. I’d be shocked if there wasn’t somebody out there making a living playing FPS through this site within six months.

Even without cheating it’s still better than gold farming.

Pro gamers, of course, join the pro leagues. If you’re curious about that sort of thing, check out Major League Gaming (MLG), the Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL),  or the Global Gaming League (GGL). You can make a pretty good, honest living at it if you’re good enough.

Full press release after the jump.

What We Can Learn From SWG Foolishness

by Onder Skall

Allen Varney, creator of the brilliant pen-and-paper game PARANOIA, wrote up a brilliant piece about the terrible handling of Star Wars Galaxies for The Escapist. Here are the bullet-points:

• If your licensor wants you to launch your game before it’s ready, cancel it.
• It’s the community, stupid.
• Many players don’t experience a persistent online world as “a game.” They experience it as “my life.” An online world’s hardcore players view themselves as citizens. Some want to be good citizens, some bad, but the entire core wants to believe they belong to something permanent.
• Big changes after launch drive away existing players and make newcomers mistrust you.
• “Fix the bugs before release, or release now and fix later?” The NGE (among dozens of disastrous launches) confirms it beyond dispute: Fix the bugs. If you can’t fix them, cancel the launch.
• Oh yeah - don’t launch before you’re ready

SL RP Sims Are Safe - World of Darkness MMO in “4-5 years”

by Onder Skall

A few months ago I went through all of this nonsense with White Wolf, trying to arrange for an in-world interview. The idea was to show them how their game has impacted hundreds of people and how it has shaped a culture.

Unfortunately, White Wolf has handlers who are there specifically to keep the public at arm’s length. It never happened, with the excuse being that they were working on an MMO of their own thank-you-very-much.

Apparently that MMO is 4-5 years away now. Guys… we’re already moving on. Take the hint. Engage the virtual world NOW or we’ll just move on without you.

Free MMO: Dungeon Runners

by Onder Skall

This post officially marks the fact that I’m sick of holding back on cool gaming stories. If it’s a good story about online gaming, it goes up at Second Life Games. It’s official. I’m putting my foot down. My house, my rules. You don’t like it, there’s the door. You know, when I was your age … what was I writing about again? OH YEAH! FREE MMO!

NCSoft, makers of Lineage, City Of Heroes, and Guild Wars, have released Dungeon Runners. Free download, free to play, still not sure how they’re making any money although I’d bet it’s a micro-transaction deal like Habbo. I’m going to play it this weekend, I’ll take a few screencaps, and I’ll give you some first impressions.