We have moved...



...And Consolidated!

I was running 3 different blogs for gaming and decided to consolidate them into one.

This site will no longer be updated as I have moved to wordpress hosting and will be focusing my time there.

The new site can be found here: http://www.mmosyn.wordpress.com

-Vudu

Don't stand in fire... An ode' to the end of gaming as we know it!

Today while reading over a daily grind article and it's comments, I realized how much the MMO industry has changed and why it has changed over the last 10 years.

Let's get into a few of my comments and some comments from others:

Me...
The days of endless raiding are coming to a halt, even the guys like me who loved it for YEARS are starting to realize, it's more of a time sink than it is fun. BryanCole  got it right in a sort. FFXI would never have been "THE" game regardless of the shadow it was cast under, it lacked a few simple things liked the ability to jump, and the ability to solo.

The type of game play that is considered fun has changed. MMO Veterans (as my self and I'm sure others who have commented here) are outnumbered and it's the economies fault. The economy has made it a far better choice to spend time home gaming instead of vacationing and spending loads of money on other hobbies. This has rapidly grown the MMO industry and as such the industry must change to stay current with it customer base. We the "Veterans" were conditioned to progression (most of us) and now we are about to be re-conditioned into the new era of MMO gaming.

Point is the market changed because new people arrived and they are the  majority now. Progression raiding had it's moment in the sun and now it's time to give up that crown and watch as the new leader emerges.
Progression raiding was fun and exciting for the 10 or so years that we had it, and for some this will be the breaking point that will make them either stay with a sinking ship or abandon it all together. The others will adapt as the MMO changes.

I for one look forward to Guild Wars 2, with it's anti-end game attitude as I have adapted to a new favorite style of play (Casual gaming).

Waiting on perfection: An SW:ToR story…

Today I had a chance to get on the official SW:ToR forums and do a little chatting. The topic was “My take on Talent trees. Dual Spec, and ACs”. I commented and was immediately quoted with a good albeit not entirely thought out retort but it got me thinking. This brings about my topic for this week. Here are the excerpts from the conversation to get you up to speed…

Me…
I really don’t care either way, what I do care about is pressure from the outside influencing the game…
Let Bioware release the game before starting threads that turn into “Bioware could / should / will /would / might have done something wrong“…

The other guy…
Hmm, I can’t agree with that.  Sometimes the time to change what things are is before you get things halfway started.
Like right now, I’m having some home renovations done, but they’ve set things up a certain way.
I can’t say I like it, but now that it’s done, I’m kinda stuck with it unless I want to pay a higher price than I want.


While I understand the house reference, it’s not a very good one… The games budget far exceeds a 50-100 dollars purchase on the game so far, and until anyone (including me) has become a subsidizing evangelist for SW:TOR we have no right to “make changes“…

Back with a vengence...

I think the last time you guys heard from me I was probably neck deep in links trying to sort out a few things about SW:TOR... That has obviously changed, as we now know a launch date, have more insight on the game itself and all in all the quality of information has been stepped up 10 fold.

To get you up to speed on whats going on with me and the recent changes....

I decided to change up the look of MMO Syndicate because honestly I got tired of looking at a grey screen and realized that the articles I have/will write will be better viewed in this format. I will soon be working on a blogroll (Addition to Rags I Read) in the near future and I'm tackling a response topic to a VERY old article (written in 2009 I think) about the WoW versus the "Insert MMO name here" debate focusing on SW:TOR. It will likely be followed up with a speculation of opinions made by real MMO market analyst...

I will be writing quite a bit until the early access is granted to me (SW:TOR) about many things but my focus will likely switch over to SW:TOR for quite a while as I have been asked to be an officer in a world ranking progression guild (Paradoxum)...

Otherwise, Glad to be back, hope to get back to work on the "Blogless blogger" project and keep it going once in the swing of things with ToR...

-Vudu

Launch of a new site, writting a program...

Touching base again. This time to let you guys know I'm working on a new project for SW:TOR, called the "ACC" or Advanced Class Calculator. You can find more information on it @ swtortools.com. The site hasn't seen many updates since I started working on the project but I try to keep others updated VIA twitter (@swtortoolscom) on the site. The program is a stand alone .EXE and it is just now in the alpha stages (I have a working .EXE on my PC). The beta will obviously not be coming out until the NDA is lifted. If you have any questions or suggestions please ask them @ swtortools.com.

-Vudu