Hey guys, I just realized something interesting that I came upon. As I am a huge NBA fan I wanted to get involved in an NBA fantasy league. But getting involved in a league and running a successful team is much harder than I thought it was going to be at first. I tried joining a league and creating a team on ESPN’s fantasy league, but everything went just over my head. So I asked a friend to show me and educate about the ins and outs of running a fantasy team. The thing I realized immediately and found to be really interesting was the similarity between an MMO and the fantasy leagues. Things like having a successful avatar with the proper (most efficient, best) gear and skills, can be seen the same as having a successful team with the right mix of talented NBA players that complement each other and produce positive results. Other things like the auction house or a bank system and shops in MMOs can be seen to be similar to the draft and free agents system in fantasy leagues. Also you can socialize in both medium with a great and vibrant community to support both types of medium. The main reason I found these similarity surprising and interesting is because the perception and stereotypers associated with both activities are pretty much pure opposites. People who play MMOs are considered “geeks” while people who are associated with fantasy leagues and thus sports are considered “non-geeks”. But the fact is that despite the opposite stereotypes of both, the activities done in both are pretty much identical.

EVE online carries a certain reputation among the general gaming populace for having a notoriously unfriendly learning curve and being frankly quite boring. I can’t dispute that EVE has it’s boring points as I have been guilty of playing in windowed mode so that I could surf the internet or do other unrelated activities while waiting for my character to finish mining an asteroid or jumping half way across the galaxy.

What I would like to do with this post is to provide an alternative viewpoint and a few key things that anyone interested in checking out EVE online should be aware of before jumping right in.

The biggest hurdle to overcome for new players is the way the skill system works. In EVE online, skill training is done strictly based on time the character has been alive. Even when you are not playing the game, your character is still training skills, which means that you’ll have to set up a training queue every time you log off for the first few days until you burn through the low level skills you want to train which can take anywhere from 10 minutes to 2 hours.

As a consequence of this system, you cannot of course increase the speed with which you gain skill points by spending more time in the game. Additionally, new players are now given so many skill points that before you even start playing you have to make some serious decisions about just what kind of activities you want your character to engage in without being given the opportunity to experiment and see what things do. This more than anything is likely a major cause of the feeling that EVE is supremely unfriendly to new players. EVE demands a lot from players and that starts before you even disembark on your first space flight.

A good first stop when looking for information on the skills and ships in EVE online would be the wiki located at the EVE Online Wiki. Beyond that, both the in game “Rookie Help” and normal help channels are usually filled with people that are more than willing to give pointers to people who ask for help.

For people simply looking for help with the controls, the in game tutorial, while lengthy and boring, is probably one of the best resources for describing how to deal with the controls.

If you are willing to put in the effort that is required to get over that initial learning curve, the game becomes much easier to understand and can be very rewarding. And if that’s too much work, you can always start up an in game bank and then run away with everyones money like this guy did while listening to the player run internet radio station.

From one geek to many others….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jbATEEmM2o

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! 

In an article found at massively joystiq on December 12th, they posed the question: Does Eve make you better at other MMOs? The author of this article found that by playing EVE for many years before playing other MMOs gave him experience and helped him be much more effective. The PvP experience gained by playing EVE was very resourceful in the application of other games.  It gave the writer (Brendan ‘Nyphur’ Drain) tactical skills and a heightened sense of awareness as well as group experience he would not have had if he hadn’t played EVE first. It is possible to say that any game you start with because you will take things that you have learned and apply them to any MMO you play afterwards but it is believed that this is exceptionally true with EVE. Lastly he poses the question of whether or not other MMO’s will help make you better at EVE.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/12/12/eve-evolved-does-eve-make-players-better-at-other-mmos/

Runescape is a very well known MMORPG and it is popular not just because it’s free but because players can cheat easily.

There are a lot of ways that players can cheat in Runescape the most common way is by botting, which means players will download some software such as autoclicker, autominer, autofighter,autotalker, autobuyer to help players level up their skills or disguise themselves and act like normal players. I have seen a lot of players using bots in the game (Runescape) and it is pretty easy to tell, I have never cheated in a MMORPG before and since I will no longer use my Runescape account after this course i decided to try cheating in Runescape.

Here’s a video of Runescape Botting

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRQKZ5VQGQw&feature=fvst

My botting activity has been successful so far and I have nearly reach level 99 Fishing Skill ,  even though a lot of work is done by the botting software, but bot user is still responsible to have a frequent check on the character because “Random Event” might occur and it is possible that the botting software is not functioning well. Here are some random events that occurred when I am botting

Random Event # 1: A Maze….

Random Event #2: Puzzles

Random Event # 3: Grave Digging

There’s nothing much that I can talk about botting since my personal research is base on that , Runescape is a pretty fun game and I enjoy it a lot even though botting is more complicated than I expected.

So tell me guys have you guys ever cheated in any MMOs? Why and How?

P.S saw bundle this in Amazon earlier today…..hope you guys won’t be playing too much games during the holidays….

I left off my last blog about Second Life stating I will most likely continue to play Second Life after this course.  I have continued to have interest in the game. I still find it hard to use some of the features. I wanted to discuss the side bar on the right side of the game play.  To help other newbies understand how to get around, the side bar consists of six options, including each of their own subsections.

Home consists of the Destination Guide, which allows you to discover and explore the hottest spots in Second Life. Here, new places are added daily, and you can select categories including romance, roleplaying, music, fashion, and more. In my opinion, unless it is a holiday destination, I struggle to find fellow avatars at most of these destinations. Another feature within Home is the World Map. With the World map, you can follow the green dots (other avatars) to find people and explore thousands of unique places. This was a great way for me to meet new people fast and in mass amounts (where the popular places are). The third feature within Home is My Appearance. Here you can change your outfit and appearance in seconds. An avatar can try on whole outfits, or mix and match items from different folders. Since I do not have any Linden dollars, my choices are limited in what options I have.  The fourth feature within the Home tab is Linden Homes. Here, you can get a free Linden Home if you sign up for a Premium Membership. The fifth feature within Home is My Dashboard, where you can use your personal Dashboard on Second Life to manage you account and real estate, see which friends are online now, search for live events, and buy more Linden dollars. Another feature within Home is the Quick Start Guide. This is a simple guide that will help you quickly learn the basics. This includes modifying your appearance, basic navigation tips, how to teleport to new locations, and keyboard shortcuts and more. This was very helpful for me because I played the tutorial weeks before I actually played Second Life. At the beginning of your Second Life journey, believe me when I say that this feature will come in handy.  The last feature on the Home sidebar is Learn the basics. Here you can learn how to walk, chat, change your appearance, fly, add a friend, use your inventory, or change your camera angles.

Another category within the helpful sidebar, is My Profile. Here you can build a lore for your avatar, or many use this to show their love for their significant other(s) within Second Life. Here you can also find out information about the players Real World life. Both avatar and player are able to have a picture of themselves. You may also find out how long a certain resident has been a member of Second Life. Also whether the player is a paying member.

The next category is People. Here, you can locate other avatars if they are nearby, view my friends, and view any groups you have joined.

Places allows you to view you landmarks. The places you have visited recently, including your teleport history.

The fifth category is My Inventory. Here, you ca find any collected items along the way within Second Life. With my experience, I find that many people offer you random artifacts, that have not come in handy at this point in the game.

The final section is My Appearance. As I have already discussed above, here, you can change your wardrobe. The Home page had this link for easy access.

Every time I play Second Life, I learn something new. I hope that this can help a fellow newb to understand more easily.

With DC comics in conjunction with Sony Online Entertainment working on DC Universe Online for the PS3 which is set for release in 2011 and Cryptic Studios (City of Heroes/Villains) working on the Xbox 360 version of Champions Online, how do you guys feel about MMOs on gaming consoles (Xbox 360, PS3, Wii).

I personally find it really hard to image and play an MMO on a console where your main source of input is a simple controller. Having played World of Warcraft I can say for sure that I will probably dislike playing an MMO on my Xbox 360. As I play the game on my laptop I remember that when I first bought the game and started playing it, it was a nightmare not having a mouse as I used my touch pad. Even when I bought a mouse for the game I still used a good portion of my keyboard to map shortcut and found it to be a necessity to do well in the game. I can’t begin to image how they will map out all the important keys on something like a Xbox controller. What do you guys think about this?

Hey guys, I just read an interesting article on engadget that showed a guy in china playing the MMO Magic World Online 2 on a huge TV. To be exact it was on three LCDs that span a massive seven thousand and five hundred square meters. He was playing the game outside in the middle of the street looking up where the TVs were located.

Though I bet it was awesome to have TVs that big, I could not imagine that setup for his MMO playing experience was that comfortable. My home setup is just a crappy HP laptop on my regular old desk and chair. I was just curious what kind of setup you guys have for playing your MMOs. Like an expensive computer, with a crazy gaming chair or anything fancy like that?

A great deal of humor on the internet in general is based on the existence of memes. That is the creation of individual instances of humorous images videos or statements which become pervasive throughout the internet and soon mold and change incorporating multiple memes or spawning variations of themselves. While this humor is largely contained to the internet it occasionally spills over into the mainstream as has happened with lolcats, pictures of cats with captions. Memes are often found in humor online, an example of this can be found in the infamous Barrens chat on World of Warcraft where many conversations have devolved into Chuck Norris jokes, an example of a text based meme that has spilled into the mainstream. Other examples of memes include Courage Wolf:

Once a meme becomes established it begins to cross over into other memes and spawn variations of themselves, for example courage wolf is itself a variation of advice dog:

And then of course they begin to intersect:

Memes are used not only as a source of humor but as a kind of measure of acceptance, if you get the jokes in the meme and are able to contribute to it then you are clearly involved in the community.

I used this in WotlK for speed leveling and now since the World has entirely changed the Leveling Guides aren’t up to date.

The guides i have been using are for free and everyone can download them. Just follow the steps shown on the link below.

WoWPro – Leveling Guide and Add-On for In-game LvLn

some of the guides are not yet ready.

Currently avaliable are Alliance 1-83
Horde 1-83

The 1-80 Guides are not yet all uploaded, but the Page is beeing updated daily and the Full guide should be avaliable until the 7th Dec! So no worries you rushers, you will get it soon enough!!

Race leveling guides (for the ones starting a new Character)

Alliance: Night Elf
Human
Draenai
Worgen

Horde: Troll
Blood Elf
Goblin

And again!! The 1-80 Guides are not yet all uploaded, but the Page is being updated daily and the Full guide should be available by the 7th Dec! So no worries you rushers, you will get it soon enough!!

Hope this will help you guys. – Source

!! YouTube Video Explaning the Guide !!