I wasn’t a fan of Guild Wars 1.  I think it was a pretty game with decent gameplay, but the fact that they instanced it all and gave you hub-like towns as the only means of community interaction didn’t fly with me. Guild Wars 2 is coming along and it’s gorgeous.   Watch this trailer and [...]

There hasn’t been a MMO like EverQuest since EverQuest.  Let’s not get lost in the semantics by saying that WoW is like EQ because they’re all “diku” or whatever.  EQ2 comes close, mind you, but even the developers acknowledged that they are two quite different games. The discussions here over the past few days have [...]

I’m reading this more and more about how certain mechanics in a MMO won’t work or how a certain type of game wouldn’t work today because it wouldn’t attract large number of players.  “That would be a niche game and just wouldn’t work”. In yesterday’s entry smthin comments exactly how I feel. “It is hilarious [...]

Lots of additional information coming in from the SoE Fan Faire about EverQuest ‘Next’! These EQ fans are astonishing! They’re amazing! I might actually have to go to the next SoE Fan Faire if it’s going to be attended by players like these. The questions they asked steered the developers to speak directly to the [...]

The Future of EverQuest:  EverQuest Next. The announcement from Smedley at SoE’s fan faire that the EverQuest universe would be expanding is amazing news.  It’s nothing but an announcement right now with a followup coming this weekend though. Time for some speculation.  SoE has defined a very clear trend for their games over the past [...]

In the comments of yesterday’s entry I was asked whether or not I play MMO’s anymore because I have not been talking about or reviewing them (other than WoW).   My answer to that question is definitely a discussion starter. What MMO’s have come out or are coming out, which I haven’t already commented on, that [...]

A bit of good news to read over this morning’s Diet Coke: Torchlight 2 has been announced.  This time there will be some much needed multiplayer via peer to peer and LAN.  I just know there’s probably some comments like “LAN? Already better than Diablo 3!” popping up out there.  The first, since it lacked [...]

Warcraft 3 and StarCraft sparked a remarkable custom map community.   One would assume that StarCraft 2 would continue this legacy by kicking it up a notch as they’ve done with several of their RTS elements.  However, that’s not the case.  There are some serious problems. In WC3 and SC you created a game and it [...]

To add a bit more discussion to our weekends we’ve decided to start a new segment on the blog that will run every Saturday morning called Keen and Graev’s  ‘Weekend of Gaming’. We’ll tell you what we’re playing or doing that’s gaming related.  We hope that you’ll find it interesting, perhaps informative, and want to [...]

The Lich King has fallen! Happy Fun Guyz took down the Lich King tonight in a terrific battle.  We extended our lockout from last week and decided to give him two solid nights.  Last night we got him to 23% (only 13% from winning since you need to get him to 10%) and ended up [...]

Another one bites the dust… sorta.  It’s the snowball effect in action.  One company takes their game “Free to play” (cough BS cough) and others follow because they don’t want to miss out.  We’re seeing that here with SoE creating a “Free to play” option for EQ2 called “Everquest II Extended”.   You know that I [...]

The title says it all.  I’ve spent the entire day playing the campaign (not even near finished) and I can’t put it down.  Blizzard has taken the RTS model that they already mastered — and were leading in the industry — and innovated on top of it and reset the bar even further out of [...]

I’m way late to this party but I really want to let you guys know that if you haven’t given Mount&Blade Warband a try then you need to.  It plays like Pirates Vikings and Knights (half life mod) mixed with Darkfall.  There are servers with up to 222 players and various game modes. I haven’t [...]

Trailers in the gaming industry are the first step in building hype for a game.  Often the trailer will come out as a teaser years ahead of the actual game.  Nearly every trailer features zero actual gameplay and the vast majority are done in CGI with scenes having little or nothing to do with what [...]

I’m really getting excited about 38 Studios’ RPG.  I was refreshing the official website all morning while it was my turn to watch the new puppy and I refreshed it the exact second the trailer came up and they changed websites.  Yeah, no life.  The trailer did not disappoint me. It’s only a trailer but [...]