As anyone that knows me knows, I once was a huge MMO player. Originally, I played a lot of Asheron’s Call and World of Warcraft, but I’ve also dabbled in many of the other online games as well. I had played the original Guild Wars for a few months back when it initially released. And due to my relationship with IGN, I was lucky enough to beta test Guild Wars 2, but I never got too far with either game. Last month, Guild Wars 2 announced that they were going free-to-play in preparation for an upcoming expansion, so I thought I’d download it and take it for a spin.

The game starts off much like every other MMO. I was placed in a starter town, and a bunch of onscreen tool tips held my hand as I ran around the map. I saved some farmers, collected some tools for the workers, and performed other minor tasks. Somewhere around level 5, I ran into a large group of players that happened to be passing through. Brother Drake invited me to join their RP adventure as they trek across the lands.
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I’m a few months late with this update, and promise my one reader that it won’t happen again! In order to make sure this blog remains the one-stop-shop for my written work, here is the coverage I did for this year’s San Diego ComicCon.

While a haven for geeks, ComicCon as the name suggests doesn’t typically cater to gamers as much as some of the other conventions. Of course, it is hard to talk entertainment without mentioning some games, and as such, a few of the big boys had MMO games on display at this year’s convention in San Diego.

Sony Online Entertainment had a sizeable floor display showcasing DC Universe and some of the latest content patches released. Likewise, NCSoft was present with their City of Heroes Freedom, the new free-to-play version, and a 30-minute playable demo for the upcoming Guild Wars 2. This is ComicCon though, so there really was little interest in these games, and our IGN press pass was not needed to try out these demos. The only MMO that seemed to really gather the crowds was Star Wars: The Old Republic. So let’s work our way backwards and start with our 20-minute hands-on with this highly anticipated release!

Head on over to IGN’s Vault for the entire article: MMOs Amongst the ComicCon

Odds are that you are already hearing the buzz in the media regarding E3 2011 and all the big video game announcements that are no doubt forthcoming. Monday morning will begin with big press conferences from industry big dogs and Sprawl’s Scrawl will be there representing IGN Entertainment’s Vault Network division, which focuses exclusively on MMOs and RPGs.

Stay tuned to the otherwise slow moving Vault Hub, located at http://vault.ign.com, or just bookmark this site for the updates each evening after we wander around the show floor interviewing all of the MMO and RPG players. This is pretty much the big main event for the entire industry cram packed into a few days of non-stop entertainment.
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