Even if it is an ad. Well, duh! Here’s a link to an article about how advertisers are having success reaching gamers with their messaging through compelling video games. I’ve come around to the side of liking this type of advertisement. If the product or ad feels natural in its setting, then it will be affective and possibly liked by potential customers. The advertiser is meeting a need or somehow delighting a customer which is all good for everyone involved.
I do like the warning in the this article about creating a bad experience. I imagine a poorly executed game could cause gamers to lose all respect for a brand. This is tough, because gamers are a communicative bunch, so both good recommendation and bad recommendations travel fast and broadly. It’s also tough to keep on the cutting edge of “gamer cool”.
Thinking on the recent ads for WOW, I’m not sure as a gamer I like the idea of folks like Shatner being a part of that world. Perhaps it’s cool for the boomer crowd … okay, it could be cool if there was a custom Shat character that used Capt. Kirk’s hand-to-hand combat fighting style. I could get into that! That would be so surreal and hilarious!
My husband has been trying to convince me that the best way to get experience and reknown points in Warhammer Online is to capture flags and take keeps. So I went on a patrolling adventure with him last night. He found a nearly full warband with ~20-members. I was the 23/24 possible members. We captured some flags in the elf campaign and, full of ourselves, we tried to take one of the keeps in the dwarf vs. greenskins campaign. We took out the door guards, then took the keep door down with a battering ram, followed by clearing the 1st floor and then moved onto the second floor. To take a keep, the opposite faction must kill the keepmaster. The keepmaster is a high level hero — HEARTY as a roach!
Taking out the keepmaster and his guards was about all our warband could take. Problems happened when players from Destruction joined to defend the keep. We attempted 4 times and at least four times I found my “tank” character alone on the second floor surrounding by the Destruction crew. Ouch! No exp and no renown points — 2-hours of my time wasted that we could have been doing quests and playing in scenarios. So we went back to taking flags. The warband’s numbers had decreased significantly due to demoralization. We felt that we needed more tanks and healers to actually take a keep. So we decided to take the Unicorn flag with our smaller warband. But alas, the hero bug still existed and when we had done significant damage to the hero, he would retreat and regain all of his hit points. Soooo irritating …
Anyhow, I went along with my husband for a night of keep patrol and I didn’t like it. I think the most irritating things for me were the heros retreating and the lack of coordination of the warband. I don’t blame it on the players, though, because we were trying our hardest. I guess what I would like is for the leader of the warband to be able to decide the composition of the warband and for people to join that fit what is needed — sorta like hiring mercenaries. I think that is sorta what a guild is supposed to be like. So far neither of the guilds I have joined have created a full warband patrol. Perhaps that is something I can suggest … hmmm …
I’ve always liked the look and ruggedness of aluminum, so I’m eager to see what Apple has done. Otherwise, I don’t see anything radical about these laptops in terms of styling. I do like, though, how Apple has continued to push on weight and thiness instead of overall size. For my previous thoughts on mini-notes, here’s a link.
On a side note about the video, Steve Jobs does look alarmingly thin. I hope he’s ok for the sake of his family and his employees.
More Rambling 