November 2009 – Page 3

Like the rest of us, MMOs are born, they live, and eventually they all die. Although 2009 has seen the passing of Richard Garriot’s Tabula Rasa, Shadowbane, and The Matrix Online, it has also seen the continuing run of Ultima Online (celebrating twelve years), Everquest (ten years), and now Asheron’s Call hitting ten years old. Sadly, we celebrate this over the death of Asheron’s Call 2, that occurred less than four years ago.

Happy birthday Asheron’s Call! Have a seat…no, not there, that’s the chair that hurts your back. Sit in your rocking chair, right over there. You old coot you.

I think he just fell asleep.

nutshell — This article doesn't have much to do with Darkfall.

You find yourself in a room with one thousand small tables, each table adorned with two objects; a button and a number from one to one thousand. A voice comes over the system and says “only one of these buttons will not electrocute you. Good luck.” You gaze upon the legion of buttons as the voice softly cackles.

You are now a Quality Assurance agent for a massively multiplayer online game. Now imagine this scenario: You are in the same room, same tables, same buttons, same numbers. This time, however, you have one hundred helpers at your side. Common sense says that you send each one down the line, starting with number one and moving up (or however you want to do it) shocking each one until you get to the right button.

Continue reading “You Have Public Tests? USE THEM!”