Man, I just wish there would have been some sort of warning that there would be a 2-to-1 Destro/Order imbalance… I mean really, the open beta didn’t foreshadow this at all. I really feel bad for all of the Destruction players too, at this point if they wanted to switch to Order for a better game experience they’d have to walk away from a whole 5 days invested in the game so far to start over. It’s really not fair.

Lets take a core server for instance: There are only 5 core servers for the CE launch. So for the lucky folks that have the CE they get to play in a nice little environment with a healthy population. Then the SE headstart starts… Mythic opens another set of servers. The five core servers that were already open continue to get flooded with an inordinate amount of new players because you have people joining up with their friends who were already part of the CE headstart. Finally when the official launch happens everyone else flocks to those 5 servers because all of their friends have already started there. I bet those 5 servers are plagued with queues until people get fed up with it and just consider it a loss and abandon the server wholesale for when with a robust yet not queue inducing population (nice run on).

I have PvP’ed in several MMOs (SWG, WoW, and EQ2) and have never had the level a level of enjoyment as I have had playing WAR. I consider myself a PvP’er at heart. I’m not particularly good at MMOs or PvP but I enjoy the persistence and interactions with the many people that play MMOs. I am in a guild that is fairly organized and has an active membership. When we get groups/warbands together we dominate.

There is no way a PuG can compete against an organized group with with voice communication.

Now, with that said, how does this affect the solo-MMOer? First of all, WAR has mechanics to make it easy for soloers to band together with the open party system (pure genius by the way). BUT, I don’t think it will be enough for the solo minded player to truly enjoy the game. So much of what makes WAR fun is the PvP. PvP can be a miserable experience when you are getting thumped.

On my beta server, the hotspot for Tier 1 PvP is Nordland. In Nordland, there have been epic battles raging all night long. Most of the time the Destruction zerg is overwhelming and the good guys are pinned back to their Warcamp (shooting the warcamp cannons at a horde of destruction players is great fun too though). With a couple of guild groups formed in a warband we can usually push the zerg back to their camp - great fun. What do you do if you aren’t in a guild though? You are always at the mercy of riding someone’s coattails or usually getting beat. You can’t decide to make a difference, you can only just wait for some other group to make the decision and then tag along. The times that I have gone in the RvR area as a solo player have been fun… but not great fun. As the game progresses and players become more organized I see the solo-player being more and more marginalized.

The same thing goes for scenarios. Join a scenario as a solo player, you will probably lose. Join as a group you will probably win. Now, have we lost a scenario joining as a guild group? Yes, but not often.

Winning at PvP is fun and PvP is at the heart of WAR. If you are going to plays solo… expect to get Pwnt.

I have two primary observations: 1) Inside Nagafen is not nominated. 2) I have never heard of any of the gaming podcasts on the list except for Guildcast.

First of all, I’m joking about my podcast being on the list. Our 500 weekly listeners (who we love dearly) probably aren’t going to get us nominated for anything. I do however wonder why on earth some of these podcasts are nominated for an award. I sampled a few and I can say that I will not be adding any of them to my podcast weekly listening list. Guildcast is good but I don’t play Guild Wars anymore so I don’t listen. Several on the list are general gaming podcasts which I do enjoy listening too; however I thought they were all a bit dull. Anyway, I am just a bit disappointed not to see any of the podcasts from my playlist up there.

I have tried most MMOs on the market and I agree with this rating wholeheartedly. EQ2 has nice blend of questing, solo play, crafting, raiding and pvp (on pvp servers that is). I have had an account since launch and have seen the changes in the game; SOE has done a great pushing out new, meaningful content along with fixing bugs along the way. There are other games that are better than EQ2 in certain areas but for overall MMO goodness EQ2 is the best on the market.

w00t… or waaaaaghhh… or whatever! I’m stoked!

GFW Radio - probably my favorite podcast out there now. These dudes are pretty damn funny. I don’t even play any of the games they talk about but it is highly entertaining. The Whiskey Nerd rapping is some classic comedy that I suggest everyone check out in the July 3rd episode.

VirginWorlds - very informative, professional podcast by Brent. It was the first podcast that I really started listening to on a regular basis. A must listen for any MMO enthusiast.

MOG - Gary and Ryan don’t really seem to talk about games that much and rant about the same topics week after week but I still find myself coming back to them. Ryan had a pretty ridiculous rant about Manhunt 2 that devolved into microchips being placed in your brains by George Bush or some nonsense. Other than the occasional bouts of delusion they are worth a weekly listen.

Inside Nagafen - pathetic, I know, I listened to my own podcast again. I don’t like the sound of my own voice but I do like to critique myself. I get sad when I notice a missed opportunity to inject some great humor.

Anyway, after I listened to those four podcasts and watched the Astronaut Farmer, I was in London. It really made the trip go by fast. The flight back was much different and noticeably more miserable since I had little to entertain me. Bravo to the great podcasters out there!

Inside Nagafen and Sifosblog fully endorses Pink for Ms. Eq2flames! Go to www.eq2flames.com register and vote here!!!