Testing, 1, 2, 3. Today is MOBAs and MMORPGs day.

Hello.

I'm Pwyff.

You may remember me.

This is a test. A test to see if writing once or twice a week is really as bad as I think it totally will be.

Now, you might be asking "but Pwyff, aren't you, like... busy as a bat?" And this is very true. Bats are very busy.

But first a rewind with a pink text header:

I'm Chris “Pwyff” Tom. World Famous Handsome, former writer of the TBC Arena Blog “The Ooglar,” and owner of Handsome Gladiator Pwyff of the level 70 population of Ner’zhul. Some of you might remember me from the Serennidramabomb that was and others might remember my affectionate relationship with the written word. These days I’m a part-time Associate Editor for a major MMO gaming website, a professional freelance script writer, a Creative Director of a small business, a senior editor for a small web-based essay business and I moonlight as a Ninja when the weather is good. Only when the weather is good.

With that out of the way, I'll let you know that I was going to just do a weekly DotA article for the Ohcee and talk about how to get the most mileage out of... pubbing, but they don't like me, or they think I'm gay (totallynot). On another note, I'll also say that this entry is not a promise of further handsomeness or anything of the sort, rather, it is a test to see just how much I miss writing the word *****. Even though it looks like I have a lot of work, you'd be surprised how little of that work really lets me refer to genitalia (except when writing personal scripts), so this is my little puppy project. Puppy project, in this case, meaning that this is a small project that at the slightest indication of other work stuff, will be sacrificed. If you think that this means I'd sometimes rather play League of Legends than write an article, you are very, very correct.

Anywho, as a quick jumper into of things related to video-gamery, and just so I don't get smashed by some kind of content filter, today is 2010 speculation day for the only two industries that matter to me; MMORPGs and MOBAs.

At this point, while you may not know what MOBA means, I'm fairly certain that you've played the genre. MOBA means Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, or in some cases, Museum of Bad Art (personally, I find it awesome that there's a museum that strives to "share the best bad art ever assembled," and they actually have "interpretation challenges" for said awesome art). In other words, MOBA refers to games that involve several players playing against each other in a controlled 'arena' setting. Or, in other other words, MOBA refers to Warcraft III's "Defence of the Ancients" (DotA) map.

Either way, the MOBA genre is going to be doubled (I say doubled here because the genre is currently sitting pretty with DotA and Demigods)in population in the next year (or two?) with two gorgeous looking MOBAs on their way: the fairly well-known "League of Legends," and the lesser known "Heroes of Newerth." While I personally have not played Heroes of Newerth (I may look into getting into the beta), I can say, with confidence, that League of Legends is going to be very fun. I wish I could elaborate more on this, but the game is currently under a fairly strict NDA. The moment they lift the press NDA, or I manage to convince them to let me crack it, I'll write a little bit more on it. I'm also aware that there are other press outlets talking about playing LoL at E3 (Riot Games wasn't actually 'at' E3 - they set up at a bowling alley next door and siphoned everyone away), but I don't believe there are any press, aside from myself and my editor-in-chief, in the closed beta. I could also be very wrong, so we've ultimately established nothing.

What I can talk about, I suppose, is anything that appears in the official trailer.And... now that I'm looking at the trailer, I also realize that there is no real 'gameplay' footage. *****. Graphics are, as you can see, fairly cartoony in nature, but I honestly feel that this is a great way to evolve the game and make it look pretty. I'm a massive sucker for anything remotely related to sprites, so this is probably a lot of bias speaking. League of Legends is currently being developed by some of the big dudes who made DotA into what it is right now; some of you DotA nerdsies may know Guinsoo, Pendragon and Zileas? I don't. All I know is that Guinsoo plays like he just wants to make me rage.

Heroes of Newerth I have not heard much about and, in my eyes, that is definitely not a good thing.  On the other hand, I checked out some actual gameplay footage on the Youtoubery and I've got to admit that it does look pretty smooth. Then again... did they just... remake Krob in that clip? Actually, now that I think about it, if they really did just 'remake' DotA with better graphics and some updated mechanics... I think I might actually be interested.

This entire above paragraph was stream of consciousness. *****.

Actually, I really can't seem to find any information on HoN so it could be that they're much more behind the development path than LoL, or they want to surprise ******* the MOBA community by coming out at a random date with an uber polished product. Either way, I know that I'm very much looking forward to some remixes on this lovely 7 year old genre. Oh, and by the way, go ahead and talk about Demigods, but I'm fairly certain they shot themselves in the foot when they released a MOBA style game... without proper multiplayer support. I've also heard that the game is pretty decent - just buggy as all ****, but that just means I don't have to buy another game.

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In the MMORPG industry, we have a couple big games coming out in the big 2010 - all of which are predicted to be the next WoW killer, and all of which will probably fail to do any lasting damage. For a lot of players, while Aion is probably the biggest hyped game in all of the industry, some of you nerdier dudes might be following games like Final Fantasy XIV (that's not pronounced "ecksive" you retard), Jumpgate Online, Star Trek Online, Champions Online or maybe even The lolAgency for the PS3.

Personally speaking, I will say that I'm enjoying Aion in its closed beta, but it's very much reminding me of Lineage II's grindtastic grindiness. This makes me one very sad puppy. The PvP looks like it's going to be a solid addition to the MMO competitive industry, but, in all honesty, this looks like a grind-game rather than World of Warcraft's 'catering-to-the-kids-with-downs' market. The only reason why Blizzard might feel threatened by this hype-tastic Aion game is potentially because The9 lost those publishing rights to World of Warcraft, and China has really been getting owned with the yet-to-be-released Wrath of the Lich King. Games like Aion, however, are already up and about, so I can see why it's awesomely frustrating for Blizzard to see one of their biggest markets forced to endlessly play Season 4 (lol?) and raid Sunwell for a year straight.

On the other hand, I'm sure we can all remember last year when Age of Conan and Warhammer Online came hurtling out the doors to take advantage of the Summer lull of '08 that saw dick all for WoW updates (OHWAIT, SUNWELL NERF). AoC was pushed out as a 5 month baby fetus and Warhammer Online slashed and burned a ton of its content just so it could stagger out like a drunken pony before WotLK came and anally molested their subscriber numbers.

Anywho, I realize at this point that I've written a decent amount, so I'm going to chop this thing in half to extend my mileage. Personally speaking, I'm a big fan of shorter blog entries, but a good amount of time spent on each entry (BUT I WRITE AWESOME PERIOD). I'm willing to bet that Mr. Phuoc is finally learning that real life does cross over into one's writing: you're decent for the first moments, but stamina may not be your strong point. You can still start the SK-Aion division!

P.S. Gameriot did not have these pink textual things before, and so I am now taking full, flamboyant advantage.

P.P.S. *****.