Criticize This Blog

[ZEE]

.

[DaShi]

dr;is

[ZEE]

.

[MrFun]

You still need to get laid.

[duke o' york]

You still need to get laid.

QF

[Blaupanzer]

This was very interesting/informative.

[Asher]

ForumWarz is a good reason for why we should have a content standards guideline for the internet.

[ZEE]

.

[Darius871]

The biggest mistake Mr. Ward did was quit his IRL job and work on this full time.

How does he pay the bills?

And WTF is forumwarz?

[ZEE]

.

[Darius871]

Like WoW/KoL in a way.

So people expend real money in relation to WoW also? And WTF is KoL?

[ZEE]

.

[-Jrabbit]

And WTF is KoL?

That would be Kingdom of Loathing.

It's a goofy browser-based online RPG, vaguely D&D-like, but totally silly. I played it for over a year when it was in beta. You play one of 6 character types (pastamancer, disco bandit, turtle tamer, etc) and wander through a lengthy series of locations, defeating opponents, finding items, accumulating cash ("meat") and completing quests. There's a puzzle-solving aspect to it that ranges from semi-logic tests to obscure and idiosycratic. There's also a whole PvP battle thing, but I never got into that.

In game play, you get a base of x number of "adventures" (turns) per day, which can be upgraded through various means. Basically, you progress through various levels until you're strong enough to complete the main quest (saving King Ralph from the Naughty Sorceress). Completing the quest gains you special rewards and sends you back to the beginning, where you start a new character, retaining the items you accumulated.

Their business model is to sell special game equipment, most notably new "familiars" that are released the beginning of each month. These items are, by definition, relatively rare. Thus there is demand. This taps into the other big part of the game -- a marketplace where you can spend your character's meat to obtain needed/desired items, which help in combat, can be used in combination to build other items, etc etc.

The depth of content and constant updates are (or, at least when I played, were) pretty impressive. The player base is pretty maniacally fanboyish, with clans, whole websites devoted to uncovering game secrets, etc.

The appeal is in the writing and artwork. The artwork is deliberately primitive, all stick figures. The copywriting is pretty damned good and was my favorite part -- rife with pop culture references and horrific puns.

So there you go.

[Darius871]

That would be Kingdom of Loathing.

It's a goofy browser-based online RGP, vaguely D&D-like, but totally silly. I played it for over a year when it was in beta. You play one of 6 character types (pastamancer, disco bandit, turtle tamer, etc) and wander through a lengthy series of locations, defeating opponents, finding items, accumulating cash ("meat") and completing quests. There's a puzzle-solving aspect to it that ranges from semi-logic tests to obscure and idiosycratic. There's also a whole PvP battle thing, but I never got into that.

In game play, you get a base of x number of "adventures" (turns) per day, which can be upgraded through various means. Basically, you progress through various levels until you're strong enough to complete the main quest (saving King Ralph from the Naughty Sorceress). Completing the quest gains you special rewards and sends you back to the beginning, where you start a new character, retaining the items you accumulated.

Their business model is to sell special game equipment, most notably new "familiars" that are released the beginning of each month. These items are, by definition, relatively rare. Thus there is demand. This taps into the other big part of the game -- a marketplace where you can spend your character's meat to obtain needed/desired items, which help in combat, can be used in combination to build other items, etc etc.

The depth of content and constant updates are (or, at least when I played, were) pretty impressive. The player base is pretty maniacally fanboyish, with clans, whole websites devoted to uncovering game secrets, etc.

The appeal is in the writing and artwork. The artwork is deliberately primitive, all stick figures. The copywriting is pretty damned good and was my favorite part -- rife with pop culture references and horrific puns.

So there you go.

I wish I hadn't asked.

[-Jrabbit]

Back to the question AAHZ asked, this isn't so much a blog post as it is a "dig me" puff piece. The most interesting thing is that nothing in the article suggests trouble at Forumwarz except the title -- "We're not dead yet." Maybe I'm missing some context, but the only problems he talks about are update implementation issues and user complaints -- pretty normal stuff.

That makes me think that the game/site is in financial trouble.