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Carnival of Gamers

Carnival of Gamers

Written by Charles Husemann on 4/5/2007 for
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Welcome, welcome boys and girls, men and women, gamers and those who stumbled upon this carnival by accident.  Welcome to the Carnival of Gamers hosted for April 2007.  Welcome to our humble virtual fair of gaming goodness here on GamingNexus.  This month we have nearly two dozen acts for you to read through and react to, we've got everything from questioning consoles to minding MMO's and everything in between.

Tales About the Gaming Industry
First up is this massive missive from Man Bytes Blog about the game industries constant battle with the concept of Intellectual Property.  It's a solid read and gives some solutions to one of the biggest battles going on within the industry.

The folks over at Jigsaw have found a way to get $5 off a month on GameFly's game rental service.  It does involve you sacrificing some of your own time and possibly a small portion of sanity.  It doesn't sound like much but $5 a month is $60 a year which is just enough to buy you one of those fancy, schmancy next gen video games.  Of course you used to read about those kinds of games in a monthly periodical, those things that that postman brings to your door and haunts your reading tables and bathrooms until you throw them away.  I believe they call them "magazines".  Of course I'm a little biased as I help run an online gamingwebsite but Jigsaw is thinking the same thing, so it's not just me.

Next up we have Duncan Gough at Suttree who has some concerns about how the mainstream acceptance of gaming could have on the industry and if the poor design choices made to get things out won't set the industry back a few years (or more). 

Pocket Change has a good look at the five most difficult games ever.  Contra?  Check.  Legend of Zelda?  Want the rest of the list?  Well head go read the list as I'm not going to spoil it for you.

While we are in the same zip code of the the hardcore/casual gamer topic, it might be good to take a whack at defining what is hardcore gamer and what is a causal gamers.  Luckily the folks at Nerfbat have take the time define these terms.  They hypothesize that the more time and effort you put into learning a game identifies how far up on the casual/hardcoe totem poll you are.  I'd tell you more but the article does a much better job than I could ever hope to.


It's an MMO world but not everybody has an Alt
While you're there you might also want to check this discussion of of artificial intelligence in MMO's.  Do you really want really intelligent mobs chasing you all around the virtual world or do you want want a dumb group of orcs who's sole purpose in life is to take damage and die.  Most people say they want more of a challenge but the data doesn't quite back up those claims.

The folks over at the Idiom ponder if it really is possible that terrorists are using Second Life as a training ground for new recruits and then points out other, much cooler things they could be doing in Linden Lab's virtual world.  Personally I think the terrorists are going to avoid second life because of the random flying penis attacks but that's just me.

Ever wanted to know what it takes to work on a popular MMO?  Well you'll have to look some place else, if you want an interview with a MMO podcaster, artist,and renaissance man then you'll want to read this interview with Scott Johnson over at MMO Evolution.

Continuing the MMO theme the folks over at MMOG Nation have an excellent breakdown of the winners and losers of the recent price increase for Sony Station access.  They also offer some suggestions as to what Sony could to do to make the package even better value for both Sony and their customers.  Will SOE listen?  Well, that's a good question in and of itself. 

MMOG Nation also submitted their article questioning if the annoucement of Guild Wars 2 last week was premature and if Arena.Net would have been better off waiting to announce the game.  It's an excellent read and gives you insight into one of the more interesting games on the market.


Girls play games too you know
Switching gears a bit (OK a lot), we've got this article from Shrub.com asking what kind of game covers women want to see and by extentson what kind of roles they are looking for in games.  This may come as a surprise to most men but women aren't all about the leather bikini, fishnets, and twelve inch stiletto heals and if developers want to expand your audience outside of the male dominated population you might want to check this article and the articles linked from it.

Speaking of the fairer sex, New Game Plus has an post on what Final Fantasy XI taught her about being a woman.  It's such a shame that online gamers constantly prove the Penny-Arcade anonymity theory over and over again.  On behalf of all civilized gentlemen everywhere I'd like to apologize for the total douchebags that seem to haunt the internet now.

Do Wii have a problem?
Everybody loves the Wii right?  Well there's a nice love letter to the Wii and it's innovative controller over at GameGimp.  They touch on all the cool features of the Wii and explain why everyone should consider the Wii as a second console.  

The folks over at Tea Leaves continue the love fest with a fine dissertation on why the separate friends codes for each game is not a bad idea.  I can't say I agree with Nintendo on this one but this isn't an excellent overview of why this isn't as big of a deal as most fanboys are making it to be.

Sure it's a corporate blog but the folks over at the AT&T Blue Room are wondering if in a next gen world of no exclusives if the Wii is going to be the real winner.

Of course it's not all roses for the Wii as Sean Colelli, our in house Nintendo Fanboy, takes Nintendo to task for a variety of unfilled promises.  It's a bit of a read so you'll probably want to grab something to eat before clicking on the link.

Charity and the PS3 but not at the same time
Are you always chatting up people on Instant Messenger?  Well, if you're using MS Messenger to do so there's an easy way to help out some charitiable organizations while you do so and if you're interested there are directions online with how to do so.  Of course you could also find out how to buy a Sony PS3 for only $10 but somethings are not what they seem to be.

If you've got a PS3 and the desire to do a little home improvement on it then this article over on Arogan is a can't miss article.  It shows you how to upgrade your PS3 with a bigger hard drive and install Yellow Dog Linux with a set of handy pictures. 

That's all we've got for this carnival, thanks for stopping by and thank you to all the contributers for their excellent submissions.  Be sure to monitor the Carnival HQ page so you know where the carnival will show up next month.

* The product in this article was sent to us by the developer/company.


About Author

Hi, my name is Charles Husemann and I've been gaming for longer than I care to admit. For me it's always been about competing and a burning off stress. It started off simply enough with Choplifter and Lode Runner on the Apple //e, then it was the curse of Tank and Yars Revenge on the 2600. The addiction subsided somewhat until I went to college where dramatic decreases in my GPA could be traced to the release of X:Com and Doom. I was a Microsoft Xbox MVP from 2009 to 2014.  I currently own stock in Microsoft, AMD, and nVidia.
 

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