Loading... Josh Drescher of Warhammer Online Gets Personal

Welcome to the 835th Edition of Loading...

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Daily Column

Loading... It's like double-experience weekend, every day.

First, the Ten Ton Pulse, your finger on the beating heart of the MMOG industry.

If the Top 10 isn't enough, we now show the Top 20 and Top 50 lists as well, available to everyone on our homepage. (What is Pulse?)

Age of Conan - 200 BPM
World of Warcraft - 22 BPM
Lord of the Rings Online - 7 BPM
EverQuest 2 - 6 BPM
Warhammer Online - 5 BPM
EVE Online - 4 BPM
Guild Wars - 4 BPM
Lineage 2 - 4 BPM
Vanguard - 4 BPM
Dungeons and Dragons Online - 3 BPM

Those of you who aren't already entrenched in a MMOG or who have a real-time-strategy craving, may want to check out the Dreamlords Open Beta.

"After an extensive closed beta testing, endless hours without sleep and fighting bugs, The Reawakening is now ready to move on to the public beta stage. Amazing feedback, constructive criticism and love letters from the truly devoted testers of the closed beta, has been invaluable and helped the team whip the game into shape.

Dreamlords The Reawakening is the follow-up to last year’s acclaimed MMORTS debut title from Swedish Lockpick Entertainment. Blending the popular RTS and RPG genres, The Reawkening is set in a ravaged world where the players each controls a Dreamlord, a celestial warlord, in their quest to restore order and peace.

Free to Play.
Recruit and manage your troops, form alliances with other players or crush them…
Bring your Dreamlord with you all the time in the game, equip it with various exciting gear and cool stuff.
Simplified rules system, easy to get into – hard to master."

If you prefer to delve deeper into the mines of game development than beta testing then visit Cryptic Studios, the team behind Champions Online. They have more careers available than Planter's has peanuts.

It was a quiet day on the MMOG front. I did have a number of readers mail me asking me to point out that although the Age of Conan launch was relatively smooth there were some problems. One zone is unusable, causing players to get stuck. The traders don't work and many customers did not receive their pre-orders (From Amazon mostly) on time. The last issue might be the most annoying as pre-ordering is putting your money where your mouth is. When that box doesn't show up on time it is a bit of a slap in the face. I have never had good luck with Amazon and game shipping, but your mileage may vary.

I leave you to your weekend of uninterrupted bliss by getting personal with Josh Drescher, Associate Producer on Warhammer Online.

Enjoy!

1. What brand of computer do you use?

I have an old Dell desktop that I bought the week after Camelot launched that I still use as my day to day home/web surfing machine. I have an array of laptops I use for gaming – but my favorite is my Dell XPS 1210. Super-tiny, great battery life, plays WAR like a champ.

2. If you could live anywhere, where would you live?

Graceland. Barring that, probably London.

3. What is your favorite food?

Kobe beef.

4. What brand/model of vehicle do you drive?

I have an old and much-abused Saturn '01 coupe with nearly 200k miles on it. Prior to that, I drove an '82 Toyota Celica that looked like it belonged in a Mad Max film.

5. Who is your favorite industry personality?

Clearly, the two-headed beast that is JeffAndPaul.

6. When was the last time that you cried?

When was the last time I watched "Field of Dreams"?

7. Do you have pets? If so, what are they? Names?

No pets. I have terrible allergies.

8. The time you remember most when a teacher yelled at you.

I remember when a teacher got MAD at me back in high school, but they didn't yell because I'd arranged for an audience of their peers to be in the room.

I had an…let's just say adversarial relationship with my Calc teacher in high school. My friends and I didn't want to take our last test of the quarter because, well, we weren't very good at Calculus and our GPAs were teetering precariously on the edge of "acceptable". Why risk that by taking ANOTHER test?

The test was taking place on the last day before the Winter break started, so if we could derail it there'd be no way to make it up until the following year. So a week ahead of the test, we sent notes to a bunch of teachers saying that we'd be holding a surprise "Appreciation Day" party for our Calc teacher on the day of the test and invited them to attend. We baked a cake, bought random gifts and snuck everyone into class ahead of time. Most of the teachers showed up too, thinking we really WERE deeply appreciative of our Calculus education. When the teacher arrived, the entire thing was so elaborate and so many people were involved that there was no good way to stop it and still administer the test, so he just glared at me while he opened presents and ate cake. The test was scrapped and – in a moment of added joy – NOT rescheduled.

On that day, I was King of the Calc World.

9. Favorite candy bar

I hate sweet things, so whatever the least sweet candy bar would be. Do they make candy bars out of meat?

10. What games did you play in the last week?

Zombie Fluxx, Golden Axe on the Wii virtual console, Halo 3 (I'm always a year behind the Cool Kids) and – of course – oodles of WAR.

11. Favorite Cereal

Kashi Good Friends.

12. What are your hobbies?

I'm a huge comic book nerd, so I spend a lot of time reading funnybooks. I was a Political Science Major in college, so I also spend a lot of time attempting to analyze the current state of political affairs in the US. Conclusion: The current state of affairs is tragilarious!

13. Where did you grow up?

In a farm-town valley an hour north of Washington, D.C. No one's ever heard of it.

I went to school in Baltimore and lived there for about five years after I graduated.

14. What is the last YouTube video that you watched?

I have no idea. Probably something terrible.

15. What is your favorite TV show?

Battlestar Galactica when it's not godawful (which is becoming more and more rare as of late). The Simpsons remains my all-time go-to program.

16. Oprah or Springer?

Throw brick at TV.

17. Dogs or cats?

Dogs.

18. What is the first MMOG or MUD that you ever played?

Hrm… in terms of MUDs, probably Avalon. In terms of MMORPGs, I piggy-backed on a roommate's Ultima Online account back in college.

19. You have been chosen to represent the human race, aliens pick you up and bring you to their leader, your first sentence is?

"Hey, good lookin'." It worked for Kissinger, so it's good enough for me,

20. Benny Hill...genius or idiot?

Yes.

21. Favorite Looney Tunes line....

Something smarmy that Bugs Bunny said. Probably in drag.

22. What is the first game that you ever worked on?

Elvis Quest – which I wrote as a kid with my best friend Bill Gibbs. Professionally, Dark Age of Camelot.

23. Coffee or Tea?

Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.

24. Cake or Pie or Pi?

Pi.

25. What is your favorite sport to watch?

Football. American football, that is.

26. What is your favorite sport to play?

Kickball or golf.

And Finally….

27. The Universe decides you hold all the cards....what's your first move?

Tough call. I'd either punch William Shakespeare in the mouth or watch the Superbowl with Richard Nixon.

Thanks Josh!!! Have a great weekend folks!

Until tomorrow. The Loading Forums await you. Do you feel the need to contact me personally with naughty pictures or derogatory comments? Here's my E-mail.

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[A big thanks to Phil Comeau for putting together the links, headlines and taglines today. ]

19 new MMOG hand-crafted articles today! 214 in May! 1233 in 2008!

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Age of Conan Launch Event