404 Radio #31, “Babbling buckets of thoughts”

This week we have an episode packed with awesome, including some deep thoughts on the global economy, the state of free to play games and wish a late happy birthday to war hammer online. Also what's with this Love thing?

Get us over at: http://www.tamworthgamers.co.uk

we are also hanging out at: http://mmovoices.ning.com/page/404-radio

Our RSS is here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/404-Radio

Direct Download/Play Link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/404-Radio/~5/k4z7cqolN2o/404radiopodcast-187328-09-30-2009.mp3

Do i have to pay for fun?

Today is an interesting day, I have nowhere to be and nothing to do, you would think I would fire up an MMO and put my day to good use levelling a character or chatting to friends. But no. and here is why...

I cancelled my LotRO subscription because I just wasn't enjoying it as much as I had been, mostly because I over indulged and got burnout. The plan was to both save some penny's and to diversify my gaming interests, then to return to LotRO in six months all fired up.

This has worked, the £8.99 a month I have saved over the past three months or so has aided me in paying a nice chunk of my windows 7 pre-order, and because money is tight in my house (as is it everywhere I assume) I will probably wait another three months or so before subscribing again. I know that less than a tenner a month is good value for entertainment but at the moment, its money I would rather not spend.

So, what does one play when looking for some cheap or even better some free MMO fix? Well, when I first cancelled my LotRO subscription I had Guild wars to play but with all these free to play games things should be going well for me...

Runes of Magic: I really enjoy this game, its a quality WoW-Like experience but as it ages its becoming a beast of its own and with every patch it 'feels' less like a WoW experience, there's some great lore and the community is wonderfully helpful.

BUT and here is the kicker. My ISP is British Telecom (BT Internet) and for some bizarre reason between the hours of 18:00 and 23:00 they do something that results in my ping hitting 15K.

So, a game I really like and would even spend some money on is not playable during 'prime time' its a known problem and BT don't appear to care, and don't feel like they have to answer to me (no email reply). But as I am stuck in an 18 month contract it does not look like I will be enjoying RoM any time soon.

Chronicles of Spellborn: It is free to play now, its a great game and has no micro transactions to worry about. But its got a major downside that people don't tell you about... its hard to play. I mean that. I really like it and play it a lot but damn, its not very accessible. You get little to no help decipher the instructions in the quest log. The game would benefit greatly from a basic hotter-colder style quest helper. Maybe I have gotten lazy in my old age but it seams to be that the game too 'hard core' for its own good when it comes to quests.

Don't get me wrong, I am not moaning and saying I'm too much of a baby to play it, I play it a lot, I like it. Its a great game, but at least the times I play its not particularly well populated, and the accessibility its probably the reason.

I also don't want to get overly attached to the game because there's a good chance that the re-development taking place will result in the game being closed rather than re-launched.

Guild Wars: now, I am a fan-boy, and as I already owned every Guild Wars campaign before I went on this money saving drive I have been diving back in. the problem is though that even though Guild Wars is a fantastic game it lacks that persistence that other MMO's have, and other than raising a new character there's little for me to do any more.

I find myself logging in, doing some PvP, a little title grinding then logging out again. The game is great but with no new content since Eye of the North its not one I can play as I used to.

The result is that I am lacking any motivation to play any of the games that should be firing me up, I want a community, I want guild to call my own. Unless a new game comes along that makes me tingle, it looks like I will be bored until I resubscribe to LotRO. In a few months, or I'll buckle earlier and re-subscribe sooner than that.

Here's what I want in a game at the moment.

Free To play, Micro Transactions are fine too.

Active Players, a good population is important to me.

Interesting, I need a world I can explore and get lost in.

Casual play, I have a real life and the Hardcore stuff just annoys me

Not bandwidth blocked by My ISP, the only reason I am not playing RoM More.

Am I asking for too much? If I wanted to play a subscription there would be stacks of games that fit my criteria, (WoW, LotRO, WAR, AoC, CO to name a few) so where are the F2P games that can scratch my itch?

What issues do you have with UI's - Map tools

In Guild Wars you can draw on the Compass (minimap) and the whole party can see the drawings. you can draw an arrow, you can draw a line, or anything else you want to. You can also tap it a few times to 'ping' your location to the rest of the team (shows as a red dot on the compass)

It's a simple thing that give you the ability to direct your team mates and plan things in a useful way without voice chat.

Its great, why is it not a standard feature in games?

My Gaming Hole

For the purpose of historical archiving (mostly for personal interest) I have photographed my gaming hole and even tagged the points of interest. Click on the images for larger pictures.

Anyway, I decided to share it here, not sure if anyone is interested or not but hey, its here now so ignore it or take a look, I don't mind :P


That's behind my desk. its my big shelf thing. there's a bit of the image you may noticed I smoothed out a section of the image. that's because there was a bit of paper there with my address on it, and I don't want any mail from you guys, i had the camera hooked up to the PC so I edited it rather than retaking it.


That's my shelf close up. you can see the stuff on it. so i didn't tag it up. I do have more games but they live inside Steam.

this is my actual 'Hole' the keyboard slides out from under the desk. very professional I know. looking at this even I have to agree that it looks like a teenagers room. its not, I'm 29 and married, this proved that us boys, we never grow up.

I'm just fortunate enough to have a wife that lets me do whatever I want (as long as my random stuff stays in the office section of the landing)



Just in case my gaming hole pictures are boring I included this picture of my aunt's cat, in a handbag. I know its not at all on topic but its damned cute, its name is bog brush (it fell into the toilet at an early age, the name seems to have stuck)

anyway, thanks for taking to time to look at my totally self indulgent post. i love seeing other people gaming area's so I thought I would share. Maybe everyone else is a nosey as me.

404 Radio #30, “Rambling Randomness”

The week we celibate our 30th birthday (Episodes that is, not years) where we have a full compliment of hosts, as well as plenty of rambling about this weeks news. We cover many topics including some interesting legal action, an interesting screen shot and some Dungeons and Dragons talk.

Get us over at: http://www.tamworthgamers.co.uk

we are also hanging out at: http://mmovoices.ning.com/page/404-radio

Our RSS is here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/404-Radio

A picture: http://www.blogcdn.com/www.massively.com/media/2009/09/os666_wow_10...

404 Radio #29, 'Gh0sty hates Magical Runes'

This week we have a relaxing discussion about the secret world, Eve online's new console game, Dungeons and Dragons Online for EU players and then gh0sty shouts at everyone who plays Runes of Magic, even thought I am sure they are sorry we do get to the bottom of his rage.

Get us over at: http://www.tamworthgamers.co.uk

we are also hanging out at: http://mmovoices.ning.com/page/404-radio

Our RSS is here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/404-Radio

thanks for listening, and remember, its okay to play RoM.

RHE blog, in the company of kings.

This is just a quick post to let people know that the last RHE topic blog (blog episode 2, vampires) has been read an apparently enjoyed by Mr Jon King, a man I have great respect for. The article has been reposted on Mr Kings website at the following address and is accessible form the front page.

Here it is: http://www.consciousape.com/discussion-topics/werewolves-and-vampires/

Thanks for reading folks, I know its not a massive step forward for RHE but I really does make me feel appreciated. Thank you very much for reading.

Chronicles of Spellborn, Combat show and tell.

For my first ever video post I present for your watching pleasure The Chronicles of Spellborn combat show and tell.

i noticed that lots of people on forums and in comments are saying that the 'twitch' combat has put them off downloading the game, so I decided that I would show people what the combat is about so they can get a clear view. I hope this video serves its purpose. sorry for audio quality, my Mic was way too sensitive.

404 Radio #28, “Too many MMO's”

With all the choice in MMO's its no shock that turbine have some new content for LotRO but we are a little shocked a all the hate they have for Atari. There's some thought on the Champions launch, panda loves it, the others don't, we even manage not to argue.

Get us over at: http://www.tamworthgamers.co.uk

Our RSS: http://feeds.feedburner.com/404-Radio

iTunes: itpc://feeds.feedburner.com/404-Radio

Thanks for listening and please comment where appropriate ;)

mmo voices asked... What MMO system would you love to do away with?

Levelling in online games, and why I don’t like it.

It has been said to me over the years that levelling is an important process for any player to undertake when playing a new MMO.


We generate a new character, we name him (or her, but for me usually him) and give him a face and a look that we like, or at least can grow to like.


We are then told that we must get XP to progress to the next level, we get this XP by killing rats and helping NPC’s with stupid tasks.

Now, here is my problem. All that stuff above, it’s stilly. We play games to be the hero, or villain in some cases, but we want to feel epic and powerful, we can not be this powerhouse until we hit that elusive ‘max level’ and/or ‘max armour’

Here is my point, and I’m afraid I have to use guild wars as my example (yes, fan boy alert) you see, if I where to raise my character to max level without picking up a single new skill or item and not doing a single mission (a hard task but not impossible at all) then I was to give that character to my mom (or anyone else) they would feel a sense of progression not by hunting XP, because they would not have to, they would enjoy the process of unlocking skills, earning gold, and following the well written story of the game.

We only think levels are important because that is the way we are told games are built.
The levelling system comes from D&D games (pen paper and occasionally mountain dew) and in these games a level was a measurement of how long a character has been alive. Without permanent death levels don’t really mean a lot by D&D standard.


So, I ask you, why do we play games and happily say things like ‘the game starts at max level’ ? ? ? ? – START US THERE THEN!!!!

404 Radio #27, 'Too much GW love?'

With HexDSL being such a pathetic and hopeless Guild Wars fan boy it should come as no shock this this week we talk a lot about the GW2 news items that are floating around the internet. We also give some love to The Chronicles of Spellborn, a wonderful and free game that is truly worth a play.

Our RSS is this one here http://feeds.feedburner.com/404-Radio and click here for a direct listen

of jsut visit us us over on: http://www.tamworthgamers.co.uk or http://mmovoices.ning.com/

TCoS lvl 19 Area's

Mr Bau Turkey over at MMOVoices has done this wonderful video showing off TCoS area's, its great.



Some real love for TCoS there, and the game deserves it.

thanks Mr Turkey