Trolling the WoW Clone meme
 

This article is in connection with: “The Art and Science of Trolling.”

The phrase “WoW clone” has been a rampant comment or reply to numerous articles from gaming websites, like MMOsite.com. It has been a running discussion in many BBS / forum sites ever since World of Warcraft went online a few years ago. Despite the numerous rebuttals from WoW fans, newbies and veteran gamers alike, people trolling the “WoW clone” meme does not show any signs of dying down. Thus, this article is to answer, or scratch the surface, of the popular meme known as “WoW clone.” We might not be able to completely stop it, but we can at least shed some light into this topic.

This article shall discuss the meme by answering the following questions:
What, When, Where, Why, Who, and How.

What are the terms concerned with this article?
First of all, let us define the following concerned words.
Troll: According to Dictionary.com, a troll is “to utter a posting [on Usenet] designed to attract predictable responses or flames.” See the article on trolling in conjunction with this article.
Meme: Wikipedia defines a meme as

The Art and Science of Trolling

This article is in conjunction with “Trolling the WoW Clone Meme”

The vast virtual world of the internet houses not only the greatest minds, but also the most cunning pranksters. These pranksters are those who deliberately stir up heated arguments for personal pleasure. Others would consider this attention-seeking method a lifestyle choice. We call them trolls, anonymous people geared toward inciting numerous reactions from the other readers.

The object of this article is to define the incidence of trolling. Many would recognize trolls as a nuisance to the virtual society. Many would consider trolling as a violent way to keep discussions alive, avert readers to a different topic or kill a certain thread altogether. But regardless of justifications, trolling is in itself an art and a science. Not everyone can be a successful troll. It takes the right response and audience to create a highly-flammable discussion and get away with it.

Definition:
Dictionary.com defines a troll as: “to utter a posting [on Usenet] designed to attract predictable responses or flames; an individual [who chronically trolls in sense] regularly posts sp

Record of Lunia War
 

After a couple of server transitions, Record of Lunia War, more commonly known as Lunia, is returning for another chance at MMO supremacy. The game has the look and feel of an arcade beat-‘em-up, much like Gauntlet Legends, mixed with the RPG feel. Others might agree that Lunia can be a top contender if the game was released in the coin-op or console market. But is the game good enough to live as an MMORPG?

Lost in Lunia
The epic of Lunia begins with the gods of Rodesia Continent. The gods – Lunia, Foriel, Ceres and Wlydur – created their own respective races (humans, elves, hobbits and orcs) to inhabit the land of Rodesia. These gods gave divine protection towards their created races, and in return, they needed their race’s faith and worship to maintain their divine power. In time, the races conflicted with each other due to differences in religious beliefs, causing an all-out war. Upon the end of the war, the gods agreed to tone down the attributes of each race to prevent further conflict. Many years later, the dominant races are on the move again. To what purpose it will serve, no one knows.

The story is typically based fro

Project Powder

Attention, snowboarding afficionados -- Outspark's Project Powder trailblazes the online world as the fastest and wildest snowboarding game today. Its snow-melting gameplay, easy-to-pull tricks and powdered-up race tracks will have you shredding to the last snowflake. But wait... it's an online game? 

Snow Business

Project Powder is a game for both snowboarding pros and newbies alike. It contains the basic features to satisfy any snowboarder-wannabe. You're stuck with choosing from only three snowboarders, not really a superb lineup for an extreme sports game. The characters' fashion can be customized in the mall section of the game using coins you earn from all the game modes. A variety of shirts, jackets, shorts, pants, shoes, decks and headgears are available for "rent." The apparel you purchase is sadly limited to a number of days. If, however, Project Powder only had a select few rentables and more of the permanent apparel (like the rented ones have stat bonuses, while permanent ones are just eye candy), you won't have to feel the guilt of wasting time not playing the game just because all your items are ticking away. Money is hard t

Allow me to start this article with a short story. This uneventful situation happened a couple of days ago, one that sparked interest in writing this article.

I visited a game store to browse through their "old games" bin, meaning discounted prices on games released in 2004 or earlier. I was lucky enough to snag Clive Barker's Undying and Thief: Deadly Shadows for half their original prices. I approached another rack and found the Online Games section. I was feeling lucky, seeing a boxed set of Final Fantasy Online (with all the expansions) was on sale for 30% less the actual price. I continued browsing for new stuff like some PSP and NDS games before I decided to pay for what I got. It was then I had noticed a boy, probably 10 years old, and his father enter the store. I saw the little kid reach for Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. I quote from the child: "I wanna play this, daddy. I saw <insert some name here> play and it's fun!" The dad gave some money and notioned this child to send the game to the counter. I, being the courteous one, let the child first in the cashier before me. What followed after piqued my interest. The sales guy didn't accept the chil

After more than 7 years, Jagex still gets things right.

Runescape

One of the highly-populated, highly-immersive MMORPG games to date, Runescape, still never ceases to amaze even after so many years. The game is expansive, stimulating, and addicting. It’s seriously one of the best games I have ever played.

 

Forsooth, brilliance is thine!
Runescape does what every amazing game should do: iron out bugs and glitches, smoothen the gameplay and graphics, while continually offering new content to improve the already incredible game. And to think this masterpiece is actually browser-based.

For players of Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights, Runescape would feel very familiar – point-and-click gameplay, the default isometric view, numerous different locales, and dozens of hours of gameplay. Then, you’ll reconsider the thought… Runescape isn’t as similar as these games! Runescape is an entirely different gaming universe! Within the first few minutes (or hours), you’ll find that this game stands tall on it own as a fun MMO with an amazing story and unique gameplay. 

Runescape partly has the looks of a typical MMORPG. Aside from the usual M

A lot of people usually ignore the food they take in until it's too late. Only a small percetage seems to mind the meals they eat, all for the benefit of having a better body and improved health. Let's face it, careless eating of what is really "unwanted" or "excessive" hasn't sunk into our minds yet, since we haven't experienced the effects first hand. And perhaps true enough, there are a lot of gamers out there, console or PC alike, who spend their time playing like it was their day job. And for some of us too, hunger is an annoyance like toilet breaks. More so, if you're heavily concentrated in a PvP battle or an epic boss battle. Yeah sure, MMOs have no pause button, thus we either skip meals or just scrounge up what's easy to grab; perhaps day-old donuts? cold pizza? leftover chinese takeouts? a can of soda? Anything to fill that tummy until it pokes you again to eat.  

This article is simple: give gamers a few meal suggestions to get their diet right back on track, and still get your game on!

Let's recap first: "What is a healthy, well-balanced diet?"

A well-balanced diet includes food from the five main food groups. These are: