The New Dwarven Forge Set

I guess the "mystery set" DF has been hinting about is what's advertised in the back of the latest issue of Dungeon: A Medieval Building Set. Basically looks like the dungeon room set, but with wooden floors and walls with exposed timbers and white cracked plaster. There are walls with windows, a few doors, and a bookcase/secret door piece.

Cool idea, but it doesn't quite look right to me; I think there are too many timbers when you put the pieces together. But since I'm a MasterMaze lemming, I'll still probably get it. I believe I suggested something like this years ago, so I probably have a royalty check coming anyway...

What I'd really like to see are pieces to add to the dungeon sets so they can be used to make castles - like walls with gothic-arched windows in them, or wall pieces with battlements.

Eagle Games Closes Down

Unfortuantely, Eagle Games has had to cease operations.

It's always sad to hear that another game company has had to close down. I only had one game from these guys (Attack!, and its expansion), but I liked their stuff. If I had more time and more willing players I'd probably have bought a few more of their games.

Best of luck to the people involved.

Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo

This site discusses and displays photos of the Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo, a very interesting - and very creepy - place in Palermo, Italty.

It's International Hasselhoff Day!

No, not really. But I wouldn't be surprised to see something like that get a lot of support. Especially from the Germans. Germans love David Hasselhoff.

Seriously - What are you people thinking?

Hooked on a Feeling
Secret Agent Man
Jump in My Car

Hey, I just had the most awesome idea - a duet album feature David Hasselhoff and William Shatner! As ridiculous as that is, I'd buy it in a second.

Hear thee now the arias of his Lordship, John of Osbourne

From this site:

"Can You imagine what Black Sabbath would have sounded like if Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward would have formed the band in the 14th century?"

That pretty much sums up Sabbatum, an album from an "Estonian medieval music band". I haven't been able to find the CD anywhere yet but the samples on that site are very cool. Kind of reminds me of Apocalyptica.

Freelancing MMORPG adventure writing?

I would have to disagree with Ryan Dancey about this. Jared's response seems to be more on target.

From other things I've read, Dancey seems to have pretty much closed the book on non-electronic RPGs, assuming they're dead in light of MMORPGs. So his perspective seems to be that the only future for RPGs is on-line. Not that he's entirely off-base, but I think he's giving the on-line games more credit than they deserve.

Now, it might be nice to have better adventure content in MMORPGs, but it's not going to happen. Why? Most players don't care. He states: "Literally thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of such adventures are needed for the average MMORPG." They'll only be needed if people want them. And who's going to test these adventures and supervise/review their development? It's an interesting idea, but the 6 million plus players of WoW suggest that this isn't something people want. Add to that the fact that in most MMORPGs, regardless of what you do you don't have a permanent effect on the world. Ergo, your actions in the grand scheme of things are useless. The only permanent effect you have is on your character - what their skills are, what their gear is (especially what their gear is), etc.

The players that would want - or appreciate - such content are small enough that I don't believe companies like Blizzard would find it worth their time to do this. Most people who play MMORPGs...or, rather, WoW, which is really the only one that counts at present, are casual players who don't play long enough to cap out, so the existing content is more than enough. New content is primarily added to keep the hardcore raiders paying their monthly fee. And these are people that spend hour upon hour doing the same thing over and over again to get a piece of armor for themselves or a guildmate. They couldn't give two craps about "adventure content".