Plenty of idiocy to go around!

I've heard several stories that begin with a baby being left all alone. Almost all of them end up with the baby dying or someone getting arrested--sometimes both. Either way, the outcome is traditionally bad. Just the same, there are always more of such stories being added to the pile, the most recent I heard being one about an MMO-playing couple in Korea.

The Yu parents tucked their only daughter--an infant--into bed at about 4:00 p.m. on May 24, then ingeniously left to go play some MMORPGs at a local Cybercafe. (I am not revealing the name of the game so as to not make this story seem connected to it.) You can see where this is going already; the couple returned home five hours later to find their daughter face-down, dead of suffocation.

Not realizing suffocation takes mere minutes with an infant, the couple tried to justify the action by telling police, "We were thinking of playing for just an hour or two and returning home like usual, but the game took longer that day." So during the whole five-hour course of the game, the couple didn't once think that...you know, I don't have the heart to finish this observation. Even worse, the wife's mother lives right upstairs and could have taken care of the baby.

Games are great, but stories like this fuel anti-game propaganda and attempts at ridiculous lawmaking. I'm not talking about good ideas like not selling M-rated game to minors, but increased censorship and whatever else would come from that slippery slope. Play your games, but don't be retarded about them. There's nothing wrong being a "gamer geek" or whatever name popular culture gives those who spend a lot of time and money on games, but have enough sense to know how to prioritize. Thank you for reading.

Ever make a mistake? I know I sure have. So did Mythic when it released half of the stuff in the Trials of Atlantis expansion to Dark Age of Camelot. Using the Camelot Herald as the method of announcement, Mythic told the world about its upcoming "Alternate Rules" servers. These will be free of many burdens put on the game by the horrifically unpopular Trials of Atlantis expansion pack.

Mythic's Jeff Hickman said, "We are very pleased to announce our plan for the next server type for Dark Age of Camelot. We've made this decision based on your feedback from our polls and Herald feedback forms – thank you all for your passionate and detailed feedback on these issues. The new server type will be called "Alternative Rules" and has two main features: no access to Trials of Atlantis and ranged buffs. ...ToA zones will not be available, nor will Artifacts or Master Levels. You will be able to play ToA races, however."

The company plans to launch two of these new server types on July 14, with two days of early access given to all those who have active accounts as of July 1.

Recently, my homies over at Stratics posted their E3 Awards. For the most part, I nod at the list, but I really must wonder how World of Warcraft got "Best Persistent World." Psh, Hero's Journey all the way. Here are their winners:

Best Persistent World: Worlds of Warcraft
Runner-up: Dark & Light

Best Graphics: City of Villains
Runner-up: Hero's Journey

Best Sound: Tabula Rasa
Runner-up: Auto Assault

Best Gameplay: Auto Assault
Runner-up: Dungeons and Dragons Online

Best Booth: NCSoft
Runner-up: Electronic Arts

Biggest Surprise: Tabula Rasa
Runner-up: Hero's Journey

Best of Show: Dungeons and Dragons Online
Runner-up: Auto Assault

An MMORPG strategy guide company called Guidefox recently released a "Final Fantasy XI Gil Guide." The Ebook-formatted guide sells for $20, but is it worth the purchase? The citizens of Vana'diel that work here at RPGamer took a look at it and gave brief evaluations.

Cortney Stone said, "The guide is a mixed bag. It's a decent collection of information, but it also has plenty of bad advice. For example, it suggests leaving silent oil and prism powder behind when mining, and using WHM to sneak and [make yourself invisible] through dangerous zones like Ifrit's Cauldron. It neglects to mention that monsters in this zone aggro to magic. It also asserts that the Treasure Hunter ability does not help with Rare/Ex drops. As a Thief, I know this is false. Anyone who buys this guide should be eaten alive by a Yagudo. This information is available free at sites like Allakazham, Killing Ifrit, and many more. There are far better guides on gardening, mining, logging, fishing, and so forth for free on the internet. If this were a free guide, it would still be inferior to the excellent free guides that are available on the internet."

Ed Walker said, "With all the mistakes and mis-information in this guide, I highly recommend it to anybody who wants to go out and buy a lv75 character to make gil. But for those who have actually played the game [much], this information is completely redundant when you consider you can hit sites like Allakhazam and Mystery Tour and get the same information without paying a dime."

Looks like Guidefox has something with a few decent tips, but will have to get a bit more input from more players before venturing into FFXI again.

To mark the celebration of Anarchy Online's fourth anniversary, veteran players will now have access to special shops that offer some unique items. Veteran shops are located in Tir, Borealis and Omni-Ent. Players will be awarded veteran points based on how many months they have paid for access to Anarchy Online, so those froobies who've been loitering around for six months won't have any points. One point will be given for every six months a vet has played, and points will apply to every character on an account, including newly created ones.

On the Anarchy Online official website, developer Funcom says, "What we did not want to do was create a “them and us” situation where veteran items were seen as in some way essential to have a good character. To that end you will not find any items in the veterans program that make your characters more powerful or add stats. ...It's also worth being aware that We may also be adding more items over time so players should be aware of that when spending all their veteran points."

Sony Online Entertainment has just announced another expansion to the original EverQuest. The big new feature of this pack will be the ability to temporarily take the form of a monster and complete various Monster Quests. Chris Sturr, senior brand manager, Sony Online Entertainment, said, "Depths of Darkhollow offers something for players of all levels as they battle their way through spectacular new underground environments and countless new missions, raids and events."

Another new addition is the "evolving items." Just as the name suggests, these are items with changing properties and intelligence all their own. Of course, standard additions such as new zones and quests will also appear. You can view a whole lot of media at SOE's official EverQuest site.

In more SOE news, EverQuest II is on its way to Japan. To make things more appealing to the Japanese audience, the developers are changing the character models a bit. SOE is working with a Japanese company called Gamania to create a new Sony branch to be named "SOGA." When launched, the Japanese character models will also become available to those who play the US and UK versions of the game. This had garnered mixed reactions from the community, but the overall feelings seem more positive than negative. A reader by the code name "Radiation Hazard" emailed me saying, "Personally, I really like the SOGA models and am eagerly awaiting for this release."

You can see a side-by-side comparison of SOE models and SOGA models here. It hasn't been announced exactly when this going to happen, but the developers are working as quickly as possible.

Just a single Guild Wars screenshot this week, from Xero. He says, "A friend caught this while playing Guild Wars. Orion said he was feeling lightheaded"

Thanks for the funny submission, Xero. The rest of you can join the fun and send screens here.

Readers Speak

Quick letter about the WoW battlegrounds update. Next week, email me stories about total boneheads who have ruined your adventure! Complain away!

Battkegrounds opinion Dear Heath, all I can say about battlegrounds is that they are fun, but not worth the 3 hour wait to get into one, especcially when you have an estimated wait time of 2 minutes. It is to be expected from blizzard that they would screw battlegrounds up. -TheBluick HEATH Thanks for the update from the inside. Good to hear the Battlegrounds are being better received than the Honor points.

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The video I linked in my DAoC story (click the "I sure have") got me thinking about all the clowns I've met in MMORPGs. For the letters section next week, let's hear some of your stories about that certain toolshack that stands out in your mind as being the most inept MMORPGamer who've ever played with. Let's whine about other people, shall we? Yeah!

They can't tell Heath Hindman what to do, what to do, uh uh uh uh uh rage@rpgamer.com