VirginWorlds MMORPG News Host: Brent VirginWorlds is a weekly news podcast covering Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) such as World of Warcraft, EverQuest, Guild Wars, City of Heroes, Eve Online, Vanguard, Lord of the Rings Online and many many more. The VirginWorlds MMORPG Podcast is the flagship podcast of the VirginWorlds MMO Podcast Collective found at http://www.virginworlds.com
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Another slow news week, but we mix it up with a guest appearance from occasional co-host extraordinaire Brenden from FalconTwin.com. Topics this week include:
- Age of Conan is taking beta signups.
- Guild Wars 2
- Lord of the Rings Online World Tour
- Voyage Century launches
- Gaming Industry salaries
- Brenden's GDC highlights
- What we're playing
- Contest winner
- Featured podcast: CoMutiny
- Featured Blog: Cuppytalk
Thanks for listening!
VirginWorlds is a weekly news podcast covering Massively Multiplayer
Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) such as World of Warcraft,
EverQuest, Guild Wars, City of Heroes, Eve Online, Vanguard, and many
many more. The main site can be found at http://www.VirginWorlds.com Login to post a comment
'Enjoyable stuff!' by scytale2 Submitted on 2007-04-09 19:48:24 CST Thanks once again to Brent and Bren - voices of the future in MMO TV, I hope.
Most boring segment award went to "Gaming industry salaries" - a bit too much jargon in here too. What on earth is QA? And why do they only deserve half the salary? Do I really want to know?
You'll be pleased to hear the Conan signups are now working!
'QA' by darrenl Submitted on 2007-04-09 20:06:24 CST QA = Quality Assurance...which is a name I hate because I work in this field in the telecom industry. I prefer Product Verification or Product Validation.
Why do they get half the salary? Because designing a product is more valuable than making sure it works. No...I'm not bitter, just jaded :)
'MMO Racer' by Gio Submitted on 2007-04-09 21:57:51 CST I'd just like to add that when Motor City Online came out that its failure was probably due to the limited number of households that had broadband connections. You had some people on dial-up some on various broadband ISPs and in a racing game that just isn't acceptable. People quit playing because their latency was ruining their fun. FPS/RPG MMOs there is tons of teamwork, for the most part, that allows players with higher pings or slower connections to manage playing. Also if a company was to come out with a newer racing MMO it could/should be very easy to do one with little or no monthly fee's due to ingame advertising. Yes everyone hates it, but I'm not sure there could be a better outlet for in game adds then on a racing game.
Sorry if this turns out to be a dbl post, user malfunction!
'QA Salaries' by Lostinspace Submitted on 2007-04-10 00:39:54 CST My wife has worked in QA for many years - if you want a polished product you absolutely need the best Quality Assurance team you can hire. Luckily she doesn not work in the games industry but rather in the financial/compliance/HR areas where a failure in QA means the customer falls short on Sarbanes Oxley aka SOX and they can go to jail!
Of course many publishers don't bother with QA, stick the game out there and let us gamers do the QA for them...for free - well until we stop buying their titles because of no QA :)
'Listener Mails, Epics and Music' by Akely Submitted on 2007-04-10 07:56:24 CST Good show. Thanks guys.
Listener Mails:
I reall miss listener mails. Any update on when (if) they are coming back into the show?
Epic (x2)
I like the Epic shows a lot. Especially since the sound quality is good. If it was bad I would get annoyed and tune out.
Music:
Brent: Could you find it in your heart to post what band/song you use in the show? Sometimes I've heard stuff I like, but not recognized.
'QA - the forgotten people.' by Dathmar Submitted on 2007-04-10 10:58:54 CST I work for a very large software company and although we have a QA department...you wouldn't know it sometimes !
I also have done some QA for development (and some development as well) in the past and you would be so suprised how bad some companies are at QA.
Basically I just wanted to say the reason that QA gets poorly paid compared to Programmers...etc - QA and Technical Support are the *mushrooms of a software house normally (closely followed by the documentation team - if they have one)
Most software houses don't see to the value in QA , Support and documentation teams....well not until its too late anyway.
* Kept in the dark and fed S**T
BTW - another excellent show chaps
MMORPG - I loved their coverage of GDC
HISS, HISS , PARDON - WHAT DID YOU SAY GARRETT ?
'Conan signups' by twistah Submitted on 2007-04-13 05:21:05 CST Over 100.000 signups !
(is that much though?)
http://aoc.warcry.com/forums/read/160.40608
'Conan signups' by fl1pper Submitted on 2007-04-13 06:26:43 CST twistah said:
" 100,000. Is that much though"
It's about 99,999 more than I wanted there to be 8-)
Seriously though, it sounds like a reasonable number to me. How many of the MMORPG community read sites like this and monitor what's up and coming? I suspect that the vast majority play the game they are playing and only really become aware of the new stuff when it releases and it's on the shelf in front of them.
'Conan signups' by scytale2 Submitted on 2007-04-13 06:33:55 CST I believe that it is several factors fewer than for LOTRO, which had several hundred thousand. Perhaps this is just popular mythology - can anyone confirm?
'1M' by Sente Submitted on 2007-04-13 09:45:23 CST Well, LoTRO was aiming for 1 million in open beta I believe. I don't think they have quite reached that, but may perhaps do that with the Euro open beta starting tomorrow.
Their Founders pre-order package will of course attract a number of players to open beta that otherwise would have waited until release, since they can keep their open beta characters.
'CoX news?' by mattw Submitted on 2007-04-19 10:48:20 CST Long time listener, first time commenter. Where's all the City Of X news? City of Heroes has been running their Issue 9 through the beta phase (closed then open) and are releasing a HUGE crafting system. One of the biggest complaints I heard about City of Heroes was the lack of a non-combat system like crafting; and now it's here.
'Enjoyable stuff!' by scytale2
Submitted on 2007-04-09 19:48:24 CST
Thanks once again to Brent and Bren - voices of the future in MMO TV, I hope.
Most boring segment award went to "Gaming industry salaries" - a bit too much jargon in here too. What on earth is QA? And why do they only deserve half the salary? Do I really want to know?
You'll be pleased to hear the Conan signups are now working!
'QA' by darrenl
Submitted on 2007-04-09 20:06:24 CST
QA = Quality Assurance...which is a name I hate because I work in this field in the telecom industry. I prefer Product Verification or Product Validation.
Why do they get half the salary? Because designing a product is more valuable than making sure it works. No...I'm not bitter, just jaded :)
'MMO Racer' by Gio
Submitted on 2007-04-09 21:57:51 CST
I'd just like to add that when Motor City Online came out that its failure was probably due to the limited number of households that had broadband connections. You had some people on dial-up some on various broadband ISPs and in a racing game that just isn't acceptable. People quit playing because their latency was ruining their fun. FPS/RPG MMOs there is tons of teamwork, for the most part, that allows players with higher pings or slower connections to manage playing. Also if a company was to come out with a newer racing MMO it could/should be very easy to do one with little or no monthly fee's due to ingame advertising. Yes everyone hates it, but I'm not sure there could be a better outlet for in game adds then on a racing game.
Sorry if this turns out to be a dbl post, user malfunction!
'QA Salaries' by Lostinspace
Submitted on 2007-04-10 00:39:54 CST
My wife has worked in QA for many years - if you want a polished product you absolutely need the best Quality Assurance team you can hire. Luckily she doesn not work in the games industry but rather in the financial/compliance/HR areas where a failure in QA means the customer falls short on Sarbanes Oxley aka SOX and they can go to jail!
Of course many publishers don't bother with QA, stick the game out there and let us gamers do the QA for them...for free - well until we stop buying their titles because of no QA :)
'Listener Mails, Epics and Music' by Akely
Submitted on 2007-04-10 07:56:24 CST
Good show. Thanks guys.
Listener Mails:
I reall miss listener mails. Any update on when (if) they are coming back into the show?
Epic (x2)
I like the Epic shows a lot. Especially since the sound quality is good. If it was bad I would get annoyed and tune out.
Music:
Brent: Could you find it in your heart to post what band/song you use in the show? Sometimes I've heard stuff I like, but not recognized.
'QA - the forgotten people.' by Dathmar
Submitted on 2007-04-10 10:58:54 CST
I work for a very large software company and although we have a QA department...you wouldn't know it sometimes !
I also have done some QA for development (and some development as well) in the past and you would be so suprised how bad some companies are at QA.
Basically I just wanted to say the reason that QA gets poorly paid compared to Programmers...etc - QA and Technical Support are the *mushrooms of a software house normally (closely followed by the documentation team - if they have one)
Most software houses don't see to the value in QA , Support and documentation teams....well not until its too late anyway.
* Kept in the dark and fed S**T
BTW - another excellent show chaps
MMORPG - I loved their coverage of GDC
HISS, HISS , PARDON - WHAT DID YOU SAY GARRETT ?
'Conan signups' by twistah
Submitted on 2007-04-13 05:21:05 CST
Over 100.000 signups !
(is that much though?)
http://aoc.warcry.com/forums/read/160.40608
'Conan signups' by fl1pper
Submitted on 2007-04-13 06:26:43 CST
twistah said:
" 100,000. Is that much though"
It's about 99,999 more than I wanted there to be 8-)
Seriously though, it sounds like a reasonable number to me. How many of the MMORPG community read sites like this and monitor what's up and coming? I suspect that the vast majority play the game they are playing and only really become aware of the new stuff when it releases and it's on the shelf in front of them.
'Conan signups' by scytale2
Submitted on 2007-04-13 06:33:55 CST
I believe that it is several factors fewer than for LOTRO, which had several hundred thousand. Perhaps this is just popular mythology - can anyone confirm?
'1M' by Sente
Submitted on 2007-04-13 09:45:23 CST
Well, LoTRO was aiming for 1 million in open beta I believe. I don't think they have quite reached that, but may perhaps do that with the Euro open beta starting tomorrow.
Their Founders pre-order package will of course attract a number of players to open beta that otherwise would have waited until release, since they can keep their open beta characters.
'CoX news?' by mattw
Submitted on 2007-04-19 10:48:20 CST
Long time listener, first time commenter. Where's all the City Of X news? City of Heroes has been running their Issue 9 through the beta phase (closed then open) and are releasing a HUGE crafting system. One of the biggest complaints I heard about City of Heroes was the lack of a non-combat system like crafting; and now it's here.