Roger Edwards posted this on July 4th, 2011.
Categorized as Age of Conan, endless trial, F2P, gaming, Green Lantern, lotro, movies, podcast, summer blockbusters, transformers 3, wow.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://www.containsmoderateperil.com/2011/07/contains-moderate-peril-episode-12.html
As summer is now upon us, the twelfth "Contains Moderate peril" podcasts looks at the phenomenon of the cinematic blockbuster. We assess what's been released so far during the season and what is to come. I ponder whether the big studio releases actually mean less choice while Brian reflects on his disdain for Ryan Reynolds in spandex.
Turbine are making further changes to the Lore-master class in LOTRO's next expansion, "Rise Of Isengard". Does removing the item component required to use the resurrection skill, make things too easy and will the new Auroch pet prove useful or simply another way to block everyone else's line of sight? Are you fed up with spending hours looking at another player's pets butt?
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Roger Edwards posted this on June 24th, 2011.
Categorized as Age of Conan, Assassins Creed, Battlefield 3, Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 3, gaming, L.A. Noire, lotro, Star Trek Online, Steam.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://www.containsmoderateperil.com/2011/06/my-summer-of-discontent.html
So the "Rise Of Isengard" is shaping up to be an interesting expansion for LOTRO and I am certainly looking forward to it's release on 27th September. At present my LOTRO activities have waned somewhat as once again I have simply reached the point where I have nothing I particularly wish to do in the game. As I have said before, this is more a reflection of my style of play and the fact that I only have one primary alt. The net result is that I shan't be spending as much time ingame for the next three months. So naturally, I have looked to see what is available in the summer month that can fill the gap. There's a handy schedule over at
"Eurogamer" that I have been perusing of late, that shows all major releases to the end of the year. Unfortunately from my perspective, the summer seems a bit lacking and it's not until Q4 that any titles are released that I'm interested in.
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Roger Edwards posted this on May 30th, 2011.
Categorized as Age of Conan, Chris Taylor, Cryptic Studios, F2P, Funcom, lotro, podcast, Ryan Seabury, Sapience, swtor, The Tunnel, Turbine Global Service.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://www.containsmoderateperil.com/2011/05/contains-moderate-peril-episode-7.html
It's been a interesting week since that last podcast, with lot's of major developments in the gaming and film industry. As per usual, Brian and I attempt to discuss some of these with many a digression and decent into prurient humour. Once again we bring are collective experience and expertise, based on decades of playing games and watching TV, to bear on the matters in hand. Here are just a few of the subjects we look at in episode :
- “The Tunnel” is released free of charge for download. Is the film industry finally coming to terms with distribution in the 21st century?
- Is F2P the panacea for the MMO genre?
- European LOTRO account migration.
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DocHoliday posted this on May 25th, 2011.
Categorized as Age of Conan, AoC, F2P, Free to Play, Funcom, lord of the rings online, lotro, OtherMMOs, store, turbine.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidaymmo.com/2011/05/25/age-of-conan-shakes-things-up/
Two big announcements from Funcom with regards to its flagship MMO, Age of Conan – it is going Free to Play as well as shifting to Unrated. You can check out the interview either on PCGamer or check out the announcement on the AoC forums.
Conan had already adopted a bit of a hybrid model with their extended trial such that you could play in the entire starter area for free for as long as you want. Now many claim this still is the best part of the game and I think the sharp difference between Tortage and the rest of the game will always pose a significant problem for Conan going forward. According to both the interview and post it seems like they’re pretty much selling anything and everything in the store so the skeptic in me has the concern about the “Pay to Win” idea. Turbine has flirted with this quite a bit (and many feel have crossed it) but they at least started out much further away from the line then it appears Funcom is. For me, these seems more like a last ditch effort to see if there is more money they can make off this title as the numbers for AoC have been very low of late. People who want to try this game have had the opportunity for a long time now (at least a year) and that hasn’t boosted their numbers so I’m not sure that going F2P will benefit those numbers either. However, this will help get more money from their existing base. Don’t get me wrong, I like competition and want to see AoC do well but I’m just not sure this will help them as much as they need. For those curious, check out the comparison between free and premium as well as the FAQ. One thing that jumped out was that only 4 of the 12 classes are available for free.
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Roger Edwards posted this on May 25th, 2011.
Categorized as Age of Conan, APB, champions online, Craig Morrison, Cryptic Studios, F2P, Funcom, gaming, lotro, PC Gamer, turbine, wow.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://www.containsmoderateperil.com/2011/05/f2p-another-title-adopts-hybrid-model.html
Funcom have announced that "Age Of Conan" will be adopting the
free to play business model as used by LOTRO and DDO. The relaunch will take place this summer under the new title of "Age Of Conan: Unrated". The game will be financed by a mixture of subscriptions and micro-transactions and will include material and characters from the forthcoming Conan movie. The games content will also contain more adult material to further reflect Robert E. Howard's work. Age of Conan’s Executive Producer, Craig Morrison, made the following statement in an interview with
PC Gamer.
"We’ve always felt that [going free-to-play] is a natural progression for an MMO title at a certain stage in it’s life cycle. We were really pioneers with this format back when we did it in 2005 with Anarchy Online, so it was natural for us that we would adopt a similar approach for Age of Conan".
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Roger Edwards posted this on April 11th, 2011.
Categorized as Age of Conan, F2P, gaming, lotro, micro subscriptions., Star Trek Online, subscriptions.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://www.containsmoderateperil.com/2011/04/micro-subscriptions.html
I no longer subscribe to LOTRO via any regular method of payments. I use
pre-paid game time cards with 60 day credits, although these are quite difficult to acquire. Under the new F2P system, once the designated time period elapses, I simply drop from being a VIP customer to premium. It does not exclude me from the game and I can still log in at any time should I see fit. Whatever ones stance on the F2P business model, I cannot find fault with this particular aspect with its "open door" policy to account holders.
Over recent years I have tried several other MMO's that I have subsequently retired from. Every now and then, especially after reading of a new update or change to the game, I often get the urge to revisit them. A recent example of this would be "Age Of Conan". At present if I wish to log back in, I have to set up a new subscription and pay a minimum of a full months fee immediately. For UK customers like myself, the current rate is £10.34 (approximately $16.95). It may be that within a few days or even hours, I discover that the game is still not for me. Yet to ascertain this fact I still have to shell out for a entire months access.
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Roger Edwards posted this on March 31st, 2011.
Categorized as Age of Conan, Battlefield 1943, Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare, Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 2, Chance Thomas, game soundtrack, gaming, Hans Zimmer, Igor Vavrda, lotro, Star Trek Online, Tomb Raider.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://www.containsmoderateperil.com/2011/03/music-of-gaming-10-of-my-personal.html
I wrote a few months ago about the
LOTRO soundtrack and stated my intention to list some of my favourite tracks. As per usual, I have been delayed. As I finally got round to addressing this matter, I decided that rather than just limit the article to one game, it may be more interesting to broaden the remit. So I have decide to upload 10 of my favourite tracks and music cues from various games I have played over the last two decades. As with cinema, the soundtrack of a game plays a very important part and makes a substantial impact on the players perceptions and enjoyment. The following tracks are examples that I feel have greatly enhanced a game or that I've found particularly enjoyable. They are not in any order of preference.
N.B. I have endeavoured to ensure that each MP3 files are of sufficient quality. To do these tracks justice they are best listened to with the volume turned up.
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Kairos posted this on October 18th, 2010.
Categorized as Age of Conan, EA Louse, Electronic Arts, F2P, warhammer.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://lotro-chronicles.blogspot.com/2010/10/whistle-blower-in-elfland.html
A member of my kinship alerted us to this
thread, which will repay study by anybody interested in the reality of the sausage factories behind the games we play. The meat of it consists of some very angry whistle-blowing by an about-to-be sidelined employee of Electronic Arts - touching on, amongst other things, the reasons behind the poor performances of Warhammer and Age of Conan, and some pessimistic predictions about SWTOR. I can't judge his criticism about specific individuals, but I do have some first-hand knowledge of the disasters which can follow on the takeover by a rich but badly-run company of an poor and efficient one, and a lot of what EA Louse (the original poster) has to say rings true.
On a slight tangent, while reading though the thread, I was struck by the following comment which may well have some relevance to the recent content slowdown in LOTRO. And no, I don't mean the F2P delay on the European side, which I'm still convinced is due to legal shenanigans, but to the shortage of serious new
story content which tends to show through all the glitzy bells and whistles which will accompany the eventual arrival of F2P.
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DocHoliday posted this on August 20th, 2010.
Categorized as Age of Conan, General, Subscription.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/08/20/interesting-age-of-conan-announcement/
I originally saw the headline “Premium Subscription Campaign” and thought maybe they were following Turbine’s model and looking at a Free 2 Play system. I was pretty excited about that as I do like AoC (see my previous post on it) and their extended trial but I just couldn’t get past the high price point if I want to move past the starter zone.
However, AoC isn’t going F2P at all, what they’re doing is incentivizing people to buy longer subscriptions up front. Usually most do this by simply offering a cost discount, but AoC’s adding in-game perks to these as well. Now many of these perks are consumable but they do seem pretty darn powerful including teleportation, healing potions, and xp boosters.
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DocHoliday posted this on April 13th, 2010.
Categorized as Age of Conan, Awakening, Bioware, Dragon Age, Eve Online, expansion, festival, General, lotro, mount and blade, pvp, RPGs, Rune-keeper, Single player, Skirmishes, Warband, Warden.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidayj.wordpress.com/2010/04/13/shifting-play-style/
For the past couple of weeks I have been branching out for a bit from LOTRO mainly from a lack of dedicated time. Not that I don’t have time available but that time is frequently and without warning interrupted which makes it very hard to do some of the things I enjoy in LOTRO, like raiding and group content. Because of this I’ve been shifting a bit from my normal play style in LOTRO to some other avenues. This has also been part of the reason for a lack of activity here as I just haven’t had all that much to write about. But for now this just feels like a little bump in the road.
Inside of LOTRO this has included a lot of the spring festival and the Ale Association quests. I’ve also been running a fair number of skirmishes but those can require attention depending on what skirmish and tier I’m attempting. And I’ve also been running around with my baby RK who just dinged 22. I’ve been enjoying the new Lone Lands area quite a bit as it is a MUCH better flow from Bree, although for an RK it is a little dis-jointed. The transition along the book epic lines was great as it takes you straight from Bree to Candaith and for me I was around 20ish before finishing off book 1 as I had done a number of other things in Bree. The issue I ran to on my RK was the level 15 class quest for RKs is there in the Lone Lands and I ended up picking up some other quests that did throw me off a tad. Nothing terrible, but I’m really trying to walk through this zone in order and I ended up with some scattered quests as I normally grab all quests I can see 
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