Radioweb

While having far too much time on my hands thanks to the USA's brilliant policy of not allowing me to work for nearly a year after arriving in the country I found myself drawn towards the murky world of podcasting.
Podcasting really is an extension of the web; anyone with a computer and a mic and the basic knowledge of mpeg formatting can produce their very own episodic radio show with whatever content they please, and not all of it is porn.

To begin with, podcasts allowed me to keep up with the football action I miss so dearly through downloadable episodes of 606 (still the best phone-in show going thanks mainly to Alan Green's unwavering opinions) and from there I started to search around for content to satisfy my geeky hunger.

For comics I go no further than the superb iFanboy and Around Comics podcasts. iFanboy release a Pick of The week show every Sunday in which one of the hosts (Josh, Conor and Ron) review their favourite single issue in depth and then go on to discuss the other releases in an intelligent, knowledgeable and entertaining way. They have differing tastes, know their stuff and have an obvious love of the medium they talk about.
On Saturdays the trio also release a video-cast where they pick a comics related subject and add their thoughts in an informative style that is often aimed at the comics newcomer but always of interest to any fan of the medium.

Around Comics has a similar outline for their twice weekly shows but are slightly more raucous and irreverant in their approach, they cover comics news, reviews (in their Top of The Stack segment), future releases and creator interviews in a round table style, which often disintegrates into name-calling and vulgarity which has left me laughing loudly on a regular basis.

For podcasts dedicated to gaming MOG and Virginworlds are the two stand out shows which are utterly different and absolutely complimentary.

MOG (Massively Online Gamer) was once entirely focused on MMO news and discussion but as hosts Gary Gannon and Ryan Verniere became bored senseless with the new releases they have shifted to add console gaming to their perview. MOG isn't for those who are easily offended (their interview with the star of Whorecraft being a classic example) and the duo go from the philosophical and esoteric to ball-shaving and world class ranting with furiously funny ease.
Their sporadic video podcasts have "amaaaazing" production values and the chemistry between the two long-time friends keeps the show fresh, thought-provoking and consistently entertaining.
Definitely one to go through the archives and listen to.

Brent, the host of Virginworlds, is highly respected in the community due to his knowledge of the industry and his commitment to producing content with astounding regularity and quality. Virginworlds is a weekly MMO news show in which Brent goes through the stories making waves in the community and though he does add his own opinions on the burgeoning genre he isn't as rabid as many poseurs on the block. Brent recently opened up the Virginworlds label as a hub for a number of podcasts all of which can be accessed through his website which itself is a fantastic resource for the MMO enthusiast or "noob".
Brent's episode on how to make a podcast is about all you could wish for in a how-to guide.
If you want to know what I sound like at 2am with a shoddy mic and a pounding headache you can hear me reviewing an MMO on an episode in the Virginworlds archives.


There is a lot of dross out there, but let's face it that is true about the Internet in general, but look around and you'll find some really good content.
When I have spent an hour and a half listening to a podcast that I have enjoyed immensely produced by someone in their bedroom then switch on the gogglebox and find an inordinate amount of garbage that costs a fortune to produce I feel glad that the revolution won't be televised.


I honestly spend more time listening to podcasts than I do watching television these days, then again with the horrific advertising policy that is standard in television broadcasting in America I watch most television via DVD anyway.


There are other shows I listen to but my time is short this afternoon, but any suggestions for good podcasts would always be appreciated.

WoW part 1.

The last time I checked, World of Warcraft had a subscriber base of around 9 million accounts.
For game producers Blizzard (owned by Vivendi) this means an annual income from this game that outstrips the combined Box-Office of The Matrix Trilogy.
One might define WoW as being successful.

Before WoW was launched in 2004 the Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (which I'll refer to as MMO henceforth) market was seen as lucrative but rather niche. It was a playground for the Dungeons and Dragons pen and paper set with little scope for growth.
Everquest (also known as Evercrack for its life consuming properties) had a subscriber base of around 200,000 people who marvelled at its persistant world and graphics that actually needed a 3D Graphics Card.
The model of paying around $15 a month for the pleasure of having a character in worlds full of Elves and dragons and so on became the industry standard income model and persists to this day.

I myself played the game for about 5 years and thanks to it I made a number of good friends, travelled to visit one, met a girl, got all mushy, got married and emigrated. You will understand if I have a fondness for EQ.

What Everquest did was make computer gaming feel epic. As scratchy as the graphics look now, standing alongside a garish gang of 70 players on a raid in a cavern to take down a 60 foot long ice dragon was exciting. Hours of gaining experience, questing for an epic class weapon that could take over a year to get (never got my final epic blade for my Paladin in the whole 5 years), exploring dungeons and huge raiding events were enthralling and many an evening I would realise it was morning.

The problem EQ had was that it really was as niche as the rest of the market. To travel to the other side of the game world you might need to go by boat. The boat might take 30 minutes to arrive, the journey itself might take as long.
You might be in a place that wasn't safe to exit the game at and have to plan ahead by an hour to get back to a town to end your session.
The creature you need to kill to get that item you had been dribbling over had a respawn timer which was random over 72 hours and lots of other people wanted it. First to hit it got to kill it and loot. I know of people who "camped" that creature for 72 hours straight, sitting in that spot on a snow covered iceberg waiting for it to appear, then coming back after taking a bathroom break to find it had spawned and a passer-by had killed it.

To gain experience in the higher levels you were pretty much forced to group with other players to be able to do anything, which meant if there were a lot of people playing the same class they could sit for hours on end looking for group (LFG) and wind up doing nothing. Also the penalty for dying meant that at higher levels one death could mean 4 hours of gameplay to recover the loss. Unskilled players didn't last long in those groups.

Then the raiding progression mentality arose and the top guilds would race through content to be the first to kill Amazing Creature of Awesomeness No. 345, to slow their progression the developers made new raids which required you to defeat them in order before you could begin the next tier of raiding.
This then meant that you absolutely had to be in a high end raiding guild to do any of the big monster kills and thereby get the best equipment to go to the next raid.

Those people who could not treat the game as a second job (though they probably needed to put more hours in than the first job) were left behind.
EQ, like most MMOs had accessibility problems.
Like I said, niche.

Then came WoW.
All the staple MMO ideas are there. A fantasy setting (descended from Tolkien) with elves, dwarves, trolls et al. A choice of classes based on the healer, damage dealer and tank (big brawny git who can take a beating) gameplay staple. And of course the amazingly well-proportioned female characters who run around protected by chainmail that barely covers their Brazilian wax.


What WoW did was bring the revolutionary idea of making everything as fun as possible. You do not need a quad-carded PC beast to play the game. Everything is set out before you and explained to make picking up the gameplay as easy as possible without getting in the way of the hacking/clubbing/clawing/iceblasting.

Quests are found everywhere and you are given all the information you need to complete them within the description from the NPC, which is stored in a Quest Log for an easy reminder (I still can't believe I used to have to write down pages of notes of cryptic words that I would have to try and guess how to move on).
The game design is stylised to keep the framerates high and smooth and it looks pretty beautiful.

Levelling does not take forever, you can log on, do something for an hour and log off and feel like you have achieved something, the group dynamic in dungeon runs works with graceful simplicity and raiding can be hugely enjoyable and exciting.
My wife plays the game now after watching me for a lifetime and I still remember her nervous excitement on her first raid. Fun stuff.

But astonishingly for the long-time MMO player like myself, you can actually go from level 1 to level 70 (currently the highest point) without ever having to form a group (5 people working together) or a raid (6 to 40 people working together).

There are plenty of Pop Culture references to amuse scattered across the world (Ogres dance like Chris Farley, certain large gorillas will drop empty barrels when killed, I've weilded a Hanzo sword and hundreds of other fun Easter Eggs referencing everything from Ace Ventura to Siouxsie and The Banshees) and the whole game when levelling up is based on being entertaining all the time.

So that's my introduction to World of Warcraft. I know of a few friends who have pondered trying it out and haven't been sure and thought I'd offer some information.

The next time I post about WoW I'll give a rundown on why I'm taking a break from the game and how it makes me "want to drown things".