Project Lore

After five years on the Australian market with no classification, World of Warcraft finally has a rating. Late last week, the Australian Classification Board decided that WoW will be rated M for "Fantasy violence." As one comparison point in the U.S, WoW is rated T for teen for blood, suggestive themes, use of alcohol and violence. Earlier this year, questions were raised regarding the legality of selling the game in Australia since it was not rated. According to a Gamestop Australia article package, the mixup was more of a loophole, since the Classification Board until recently has not had a system in place for rating games with online-only content. This obviously included many online games other than just WoW, such as Warhammer, Age of Conan and Aion. Now, that's changed and WoW has a rating. But no word yet on ratings for any other online games. Now it seems the biggest contention is that the Australian Classification board is at minimum five years behind the times in terms of finding a way to rate online-only games. There also still seems to be some confusion as to whether there actually is any new classification system, or whether the game finally was just rated as a "computer game," under the same system that was in place five years ago when WoW came out. Here's what the Australian classification board told Gamespot AU :

“It is the Board's view that World of Warcraft meets the definition of a computer game provided in the Classification Act and therefore can be classified. This is consistent with the intention of the National Classification Scheme to provide parents and consumers with classification advice on the content of games.”

Meanwhile, Blizzard said that the same board told them five years ago that WoW was not classifiable:

“Blizzard Entertainment has always worked closely with the Classification Board for all its titles. However, back in 2004, we were advised by the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) that the online-only nature of World of Warcraft was unclassifiable under its definition of computer games at that time. Recent changes at the Classification Board have led to their ability to classify online-only games such as World of Warcraft.”

Whatever the case, at least WoW is now rated, and hopefully that means Cataclysm will have a more certain future on Australian shelves whenever it's released. Last time this topic came up, our dear Australian readers had a lot to say, many saying that was the first they had even heard of the matter. Do any of you think this will impact you at all, or is it pure politics? And do you think the M rating is appropriate?

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Can't post images from the other games in action. :*(

At the last minute I decided to take the short ride up to New York and stick around for this year's Comic Con.  I am not a huge comic buff by any means, but with the video game industry's annual trade show being nerfed a few year's ago, the comic con circuit has changed.  The publishers of the finest video games have branched out to other venues (PAX , San Diego Comic Con, the former Leipzig Games Convention, now Gamescon, and others) to reach their adoring public.  With no ticket to the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco this year, I took the plunge and headed to NYC. When I arrived at the venue I wasn't exactly sure I had the correct facility.   I expected there to be a good amount of fanfare going on outside the glass-enclosed venue, yet it lacked ridiculously sized banners, a steady stream of cosplayers or huge buses with teams of satellites on top.  Turns out everything was inside, rather than spilling onto the streets. I went to the show knowing that I'd miss Blizzard's presentations - and they won't be at E3 - but enough other anticipated games, including a pair of upcoming superhero MMOGs, were still available to me.

• Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (Mythic Entertainment/Electronic Arts) - Mythic Entertainment's MMOG has been hit by some hard times lately.  The company - along with numerous other internal developers - has been handed down directions from their overlords to cut costs.  This has caused over 60 people to lose their jobs , including development staff.  There really wasn't anything new shown in their hands-on area, but the panel discussion talked about their upcoming Call to Arms Live Expansion (free is good).  I also scored the spiffy, reversible poster you see above.  Regardless of the lack of new material, I was happy to see that EA is still throwing money around for WAR.
• Champions Online (Cryptic Studios/Atari) - Cryptic's newly purchased intellectual property is shaping up pretty nicely.  While it essentially looks and feels like City of Heroes 2.0, that isn't necessarily a bad thing.  The developer purchased the Champions property outright, giving them free reign over the material rather than being hamstrung by licensing ties.  I played through a bit of a mini-instance - essentially a small dungeon designed to be soloed or done in a small group - complete with destructible objects and numerous mini-bosses wrapped in a comic-inspired presentation.  Champions Online is supposed to be out this Spring and is currently in closed-beta, which I scored access to.
• DC Universe Online (SOE Austin/Sony) - DCUO is still in its pre-alpha stage according to the developer.  The game looks more advanced - and less polished - than its superhero competitor above, but both are to be expected.  According to the booth manager, Sony is treating DCUO like Blizzard treats its titles, it will be done when it is done.  While it was originally announced for 2009, that can change at any moment.  PS3 play also looked surprisingly manageable. What had me most excited about the title was the licensing agreement that is in place.  Rather than SOE having have all aspect of the title approved, DC is apparently working with them at every level.  The comic company is helping and/or developing the overall story arcs, quests and encounters as a team with SOE, with Jim Lee at the helm of the creative side.  From what I was told, players that manage to stand-out from the run of the mill MMO gamer may even have an opportunity to have their character brought into the larger DCU, such as a limited comic appearance!

It may be my deep appreciation for the arcade days gone by, or my fascination with all things of B quality, but the title that stole the show for me was the latest entry in the House of the Dead franchise.  The campy series has longed needed a reboot - HotD 2 was the last good one - and the first game to launch on a console will honor us with just what the franchise needed.  House of the Dead: Overkill looks fantastic (for a Wii title) and plays very well.  The release is tomorrow and I am slated to review it elsewhere, hopefully we find out why G was bleeding. Did anyone else manage to swing by the con?

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I have played my fair share of MMOGs. Many of them I only played for a few months, such as Ultima Online, Everquest, Asheron's Call, Auto Assault and Tabula Rasa. I can only truly say that I've been a hardcore player in World of Warcraft, sticking with it for years after its release – and still counting. But all of those games have at least one thing in common. And I don't mean that they have each sucked days of my life from me. As either a hardcore user or just a casual player looking for a new MMO world to immerse myself in, I always get tired of MMO music. After the first few hours, my hands will systematically reach for Control + M to see if that near-universal hotkey was added to the UI. More often than not, the combination will drop the soundtrack instantly. Finally, I am able to continue on my wolf/alien/bear/horde killing ways without hearing the same piece of music for the xth time. It isn't that I don't enjoy the music. In fact, I have shown my love for game music on numerous occasions. This is normally where I note some way to fix the problem. Unfortunately, I do not really have any suggestions on how a company could render the issue, other than constantly producing more tracks. Obviously, that is not really feasible in a business sense. At least, not unless the company is releasing the tracks as part of a large content patch or expansion. Perhaps the greatest screensaver ever created got it right. I am of course speaking of EVE Online. EVE works around the problem by incorporating an MP3 player into their client. This allows players to listen to their own soundtrack without having to alt-tab all the time. For EVE, the addition actually fits their game, but I doubt the citizens of Azeroth would listen to Journey or Tool during their hunting expeditions. What to do...

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