Author Archives: SynCaine

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About SynCaine

Former hardcore raider turned casual gamer.

Even DarkFall devs love WoW

Posted on December 4, 2009 by SynCaine

Between zoning out with headphones on, inter-office romance, being female, not showing up, ForumFall’ing while waiting for the server to come up, and doing a WoW review for EuroGamer, I now understand why the DarkFall expansion is delayed. Fail Aventurine, … Continue reading →

Posted in Darkfall Online | 11 Comments

Reasons to skip SW:TOR, +1.

Posted on December 4, 2009 by SynCaine

While I’ll very likely be skipping SW:TOR for a few reasons (It’s SW, it’s ‘casual’, it’s a mega-themepark), the news about henchmen being added to allow you to solo everything makes that choice even easier. Hopefully the idea of designing … Continue reading →

Posted in MMO design, Rant, SW:TOR, Ultima Online | 50 Comments

Expansion day is here for DarkFall!

Posted on December 3, 2009 by SynCaine

Ah patch day, a time for all those with a little too much time to swarm the forums, for the devs to order pizza and prepare for the worst, and for everyone to wonder exactly wtf DarkFall is going to … Continue reading →

Posted in Darkfall Online, Patch Notes | 39 Comments

Passing MMO judgment

Posted on December 1, 2009 by SynCaine

I few days ago a wrote a post about why I believe Warhammer Online failed to live up to it’s potential/hype, and Tobold took the following line and ran (out of context) with it: Because unless you are a believer … Continue reading →

Posted in Aion, beta, Combat Systems, Console Gaming, crafting, Darkfall Online, DDO, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Fallen Earth, Mass Media, MMO design, PvP, Rant, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft | 76 Comments

DarkFall: Lessons from the fall of TRA

Posted on November 30, 2009 by SynCaine

Sunday night saw VAMP and co (the alliance either has no name, or the name changes on a daily basis, so I’ll just refer to our side as VAMP going forward) siege another TRA city on Yssam. While there was … Continue reading →

Posted in Combat Systems, Darkfall Online, Housing, MMO design, Patch Notes, PvP | 10 Comments

DarkFall: CtS gets a Q&A and a release date.

Posted on November 27, 2009 by SynCaine

Taking a break from tourist talk and doomed MMOs for a moment, lets talk about what really matters to MMO gamers, DarkFall! First off the next expansion got delayed until Thursday, with a notice that DF might be down for … Continue reading →

Posted in Darkfall Online, MMO design, Patch Notes | 21 Comments

Mark Jacobs should have listened to his own blog.

Posted on November 27, 2009 by SynCaine

File this one under “Dark Humor”, but Mark Jacob’s (former Warhammer Online lead designer) now-dead blog was called “Online Games Are a Niche Market”, a title that at the time was used as a joke because Mark believed MMOs had … Continue reading →

Posted in Aion, EVE Online, Lord of the Rings Online, Mass Media, MMO design, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft | 33 Comments

What caused Warhammer Online to fail?

Posted on November 26, 2009 by SynCaine

Today Tobold is asking why Warhammer Online failed to live up to it’s mega-title expectations (expectations that I was grossly wrong about as well), give readers either the choice that WotLK killed it (tourists) or that WAR was just a … Continue reading →

Posted in Aion, Darkfall Online, Fallen Earth, Mass Media, MMO design, RvR, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft | 39 Comments

DarkFall: Spotlight on ship-related changes

Posted on November 25, 2009 by SynCaine

For the TL:DR crowd, I’ll just sum up the new spotlight for you: bla bla bla pure gold bla bla bla. I’m curious to see how the new collision detection works with bigger ships pushing smaller ones, and whether this … Continue reading →

Posted in Combat Systems, crafting, Darkfall Online, MMO design, Patch Notes, PvP | 2 Comments

Dragon Age: Thoughts after the finish.

Posted on November 25, 2009 by SynCaine

I finished Dragon Age last night, and I must say the ending was somewhat disappointing. I mean the actual ending, not the events leading up to it and the final fight with the Archdemon (did I just spoil that for … Continue reading →

Posted in Combat Systems, Random, Site update | 5 Comments