The Guildmasters

There is a real simple way to get more people to buy more games, it’s been done before and I really don’t know why it isn’t done more often, especially since it is also a great marketing technique and works for both gamers and gaming companies alike.

Offering a substantial amount of prize money isn’t something new as i’ve said, it is a way of enticing more players to buy a specific game, it even gives gamers more of a reason to give more hours to a game, also gives them the perfect excuse as to why they play games so much, not just enjoyment but a chance to get hold of some serious cash.

This wouldn’t even be something the game developers (or marketers) would have to dig in their own pockets for either. A $50 game could quite easily add $15 or even $25 more for one that offered say 1 million in prize money, and that would be like a drop in the ocean compared to the huge profits it would generate.

Let’s take a game, any game, white knight chronicles for instance, this could be any game but just as an example, they could hide extra treasure boxes that actually contained cash rewards, or even extremely hard to find harvest points. You could quite easily incorporate something like this into a game so that even several hundred players had a real chance of winning say $100 up to $500, not a great amount but for those that did win, wow, what a great feeling, how cool would that be.

It’s been done before? When? Many years ago actually when the commodore 64 was the “in” thing, a computer keyboard which took games by way of a slot in the side or back of the keyboard. A game called Eureka offered 25,000 british pounds to the first person to solve the game, it was won by a 15yr old, man how must he have felt, like the richest kid in the world, but no loss to the game makers, that prize money generated millions in extra sales.

How much more satisfying and enjoying would a game be if it offered prize money for solving certain quests?

Any thoughts on this? With game sales at record lows and in the biggest recession ever how better to draw those players back?

Tony:)

Last night was actually the worse for me in terms of helping people, I tried to complete Jackals and Hides with Ryan but it just didn’t happen and I felt bad for that, we did manage to kill the one ahwanee in the area where there is just one but when it came to the boss (2 of them) I just couldn’t keep it together, sorry Ryan. We did manage to get 2 other players to join for the next one so we did complete it once with 4 and he did get his item that he was after so made up for it a bit.

After that things just got worse as I ran with Cuffy and Jeff and we was doing Exterminator I think, I hate that place and have never really worked it all out, felt like a total noob down there, was following cuffy when I knew we was supposed to split but I never know where to go, always get lost, tried it a second time and it was better but i’m certainly not in my element in greede. I did let people down a bit who I was initially trying to help and I have to aplogise for that.

Other than that it was a lot of fun, I still can’t get over the fact 12 people actually came to my town, I believe once BO came in other players came in because BO was there and I thankyou for popping in BO, makes all the difference. I enjoyed it and I think some even got to get my sense of humor.

Tony:)
P.S. We are adding more info in the forum all the time, regular posters posting a few times a day so if your thinking of joining come on in, it’s a friendly place and full of help. We are still looking for more WKC players to join us ready for when WKC 2 comes out so we go in with people we know and in turn can help others with the posts.

Met plenty of new players again tonight, seems to work well doing a post on the WKC message board and hour before I go into town, think we had 6 or 7 overall and I was only there 2hrs.

Good to see BO again, hated doing take your lumps but it was a request so we did it, that particular quest seems a lot to do just for one gold golem whereas you could just do arena and take either two or three gold golems.

We also ran trials, overall it was another good night, made some people happy which is the point of helping out.

Thanks again BO, appreciate it, hopefully get some more in tomorrow.

Tony:)

Had some fun tonight, BO popped in and caught me in my town and while we was waiting for Death to finish a solo quest Henrietta popped in too so we ran belly of the beast quest, pretty cool.

After BO left another person came in and we ran Monumental treasure and the Windwalker quest, S rank and some decent amount of items got, shame we didn’t have longer as I was starting to enjoy it even though I didn’t need any of the items myself it was just good fun running with some friends who I hadn’t caught up with in a while, thanks guys/girls.

Tony:)

It’s 1:30pm in the afternoon and I just hit Platinum. A great feeling and sense of achievement indeed.

This has been a memorable one, the longest time i’ve ever spent getting a Platinum trophy and it was so nice to see it pop up on the screen.

From a personal point of view I don’t really have anything left to do but i’m not going to stop playing, the Plat was for me, now I have more time to do what others did for me and help players achieve their goals.

There are several weapons I still want but lost hope of getting those but I still might get lucky over the coming weeks, I would like to try my hand at tanking but just haven’t been able to pick up the spears, or I have the spear but can’t get the mats.

It doesn’t matter anymore though, i’m happy and it’s not just about me or my game plan anymore, even though I was helping others it was always in the back of my mind that “will I ever get that last trophy” now I don’t have to worry about it, it’s been a great game and i’m not done yet.

I actually feel a sense of relief now that I have the Plat, good feeling.

Tony:)

With Oblivion there are two ways to write this review, your either going to compare it to Morrowind or write it as a  totally seperate game, on it’s own.

To compare it to Morrowind could be disappointing and also unfair to both games so i’m just going to write this review as if I had never played another game, just Oblivion.

After being freed from my cell one of the first things that really grabbed my attention was the first encounter I had with an enemy, it was a rat, that’s not so unusual but the graphics and reality of how that rat behaved were unbelievable, so lifelike.

When you eventually work your wait out in to the actual world of Oblivion it’s astounding, the scenery, the grass, the trees, yes this sounds like i’m making a big deal out of something which should appear ordinary, but it’s not ordinary, this is the first game which actually had grass that moved in the wind, trees that dropped autumn leaves, like something more out of a movie than a game.

Without trying to make this review an epic, as I could write about it all day and still not get it all down, you have to play this game even if it’s just to experience what can now be  achieved with these new gaming systems.  For graphics and the way they work I have to give 10 out of 10, the trouble is I think the play has suffered a little probably because of the graphics, you can complete the main quest fairly quickly but again as with a few others the side quests are far and wide and are many which can give you a lot of hours of play time, this is certainly another game I will keep hold of as I will undoubtedly play it over and over again.

If your looking for a follow on to Morrowind you could be disappointed so treat it like a completely unassociated game and you’ll be fine, it’s definitely worth the money especially now as it’s a lot cheaper, I mean even Oblivion must be a couple of years old now.

My overall score for Oblivion would be around 8 out of 10 but that’s simply because I was expecting a Morrowind like game with added extra’s and in fact they took things away which I really liked in Morrowind, I know I said I wouldn’t compare the two games but it’s really hard for me not to when I spent more than two years playing Morrowind so even though I was amazed by the graphics, personally I would have preferred slightly less focus on graphics if it meant sacrificing what could have been a 10 out of 10 game,  I mean lets  face it, it was great to see moving grass and falling leaves but it’s not essential in a game, grass is grass and plays no relevance in the story so why spend so much extra time and resources making it sway in the wind, my guess is this was an experiment to show what really could be achieved with the latest technology and I can’t blame the makers for that, it’s nice to see, I just think ultimately something was taken away from the gameplay itself, still a great game to play though, go get it if you haven’t yet.

Tony