DDO, or Dungeons and Dragons Online, had a pre-order beta test pre-play gig going on last week, and despite myself I decided to pick up a copy. I say “despite myself” because my impression before reading up on the game was that it was going to follow in the molds of its MMORPG predecessors and be a wholly unfulfilling prospect, (with the notable exception of WoW, which feels like its own type of game in my mind.)

After reading up on it, several enticing aspects drew my attention.

• No “killing fields” where players simply devastate populations of wild animals or tribes of humanoids to gain the dubious experience that makes them more powerful.
• Close adherence to 3rd edition D&D corebook rules, which as a very critical gamer I find to be streamlined and simple, yet capable of producing complex results.
• All quests are “instanced,” meaning that everything is reset for you and your group specifically. Like Guild Wars, you don’t wait for a specific thing to “respawn” due to someone else having just completed the same quest.
• A sincere focus on making every quest interesting and detailed. No “kill X number of Y creature” or “find X number of Y doodad by killing Z creature,” etc.
• Experience granted on a per dungeon basis. You get quest XP plus bonuses based on the way you solved the dungeon. A rogue gets mischief/stealth bonuses, a fighter gets ransack and assault bonuses, etc.

All this adds up to a game that doesn’t feel like a MMORPG. Or maybe feels like a MMORPG was meant to be.
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This Gamer’s Manifesto brought a tear to my eye. Unite!

(side note: I may have to rip off Headless Hollow and have my own “Diversions” section. Seems silly to use a whole blog post when I just want to record a link.)

Typetester does something that shold have occurred to all us web geeks sooner. Check any type you like and you can see how it will display in different sizes, colors, treatments, etc.

Fellow webslinger Czeltic Girl hipped me to it.

Concerned is one of those comics that really touches the heart of gamers everywhere, using the game itself as the medium. I’ve added it to my dailies.

Today’s is particularly swell.

Concerned: A humor comic based on the world of of Half-Life 2. Updated every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

These guys did a swell job cleaning up Neil Gaiman’s site. Part of why I wasn’t reading it as much as I would have liked was due to the sort of slapdash, haphazard old design.

I do have to complain, though, in three stages. The first is that I should have patented the Webslinger moniker for web programmers and design when I first thought of it about three years ago. I humbly admit these guys beat me to it, but I wholeheartedly object to the S at the end being replaced with a Z.

The second stage is that their main site’s design is simple enough to accommodate a clean standards-compliant, forward-thinking, table-free layout, but they have several legacy techniques cluttering it up. If I had just done such a smart job on a well-read site like Neil’s, I would have taken some time to quickly update my own site to match.

Edit: Upon looking at the source for Neil’s site, let me rescind that comment: it’s just as ugly as their corporate site. Such a clean design is deserving of better code. Call me, webslingers, and let me hook you up.

The third stage is that someone has written Neil, in regards to those complaining about the new far-superior design, that he should take the CSS Zen Garden approach and allow people to “skin” his site and perhaps even submit skins. While I’m all for this open approach to viewing, I now must rapidly finish my own “skinning” project for this blog to beat the more famous Mr. Gaiman to the punch. And that’s just not likely.

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UPDATE: Neil’s response: I loved the idea of doing the CSS thing (http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=/184/184.css&page=0) and letting people create “skins” for the blog, but the reply I got from our webmistress, Stephanie, was As for the reader’s suggestion: I’m told this is extremely difficult to implement as this was not considered before the site was created, and involves the integration of many different web technologies. Also, every “skin” submitted would have to be tested on all major browsers and platforms as we did for the current site to make sure it looked correct for each user. Coupled with that, it would require hours of testing for each skin created to fix any bugs. Which seems to be a polite way of saying no.
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I take similar issue with the advertising for Microsoft’s upcoming Internet Explorer 7. in true microsoft fashion they are extolling the virtues of their new browser by implying that their browser does things that other browsers does not. In actuality they are playing catch-up on technologies that have been adopted more that a year ago, essentially copying Firefox as they did the Mac OS so long ago.

Is it better for everyone that they try to give people what they want by “upgrading?” Yes, i suppose. Did they do it because they are becoming more progressive? Not at all; they originally branded the browser a dead technology and only decided to release a new version when people got wise to Firefox and its popularity threatened the 25% mark. Will IE7 be the new IE6? No doubt.

We will be stuck with it because it will have further integration with .NET, a dubiously popular technology, and any other irresponsibly coded Microsoft claptrap that attracts the lazy or ignorant. Le sigh. I know I sound like a zealot, but it simply comes down to progress, people. Let’s move forward, not let Microsoft dictate just how long we stagnate.

Czeltic Girl pointed me toward this interesting article that explains why “soloing” is so common in games specifically designed to be social, MMORPGs.

Indeed, several of my friends have asked me why I bother to play the game if I’m not going to group up with other people. Particularly in City of Heroes, I was known as someone who *never* wanted to group, even with my friends. The reasons for that were clear to me, but not to my friends. When it comes down to it, the things I like about that game are not the things my friends like. It became a grind so quickly, without even thinly veiled character growth in the form of crafting, exploration or new gear. The goal in CoH is *always* just the next level.
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A truly amazing human interactivity experience shows us how intuitive things could be if only we took the time. Make sure you watch the video. Thanks to TK for the heads up.

Multi-touch interactivity experiments

Every geek who’s read Marvel comics knows that he has to show up in every new premiere comic, sort of as a seal of approval. As a Spiderman fan since I was a kid, I never had any problem with it.

Apparently, movies are no exception to that rule.

YouTube – X-Men the Movie – Spiderman outtakes

Stay far away from this pastime if you know what’s good for you. And remember always: Jesus Saves… and takes half damage.

Dark Dungeons

Chewbacca sings! [embedded sound], thanks to Dynagirl.