In retrospect, after refining the holiday schedule a bit (meaning that plans changed today,) it looks like I will be doing a show next week. This may or may not preclude the special episode I’m working on.

And is is just me, or is the music I used in Episode 06 a real downer? Cool track, but just not punchy and lowers the general energy level. Or so it seems to me.

Number 6 in the can! This will be the final podcast of 2009, thanks to pressing holiday business. I plan to do the next one in the first week of January. There is a possibility that you will see a special episode in the meantime, but no promises.

As usual, the show should be available on iTunes, and the direct download link will be HERE once the feed refreshes.

Show Notes

• Last show of 2009… happy holidays to all!
• Playing WoW, Audiosurf, Guild Wars.
• Metaplace to Close January 1st.
• Aion to introduce bonus XP weekends.
• City of Heroes offers free character transfers for the holidays.
• EverQuest II to launch cross-server PvP Battlegrounds. WTF?
• D&D Online pushing out second major content update since going free-to-play. Dire possibilities in the Hasbro-Atari lawsuit.
• EVE Online offers new freebie exploration ship, free 5-day reactivation and YouTube Exploration Tutorials.
• New Producer’s letter, and new producer, for Warhammer Online.
• Blog Post of the Week: “Eating Crow With Guild Wars” by Rog at NecroRogIcon.
• This week’s music: “Staring at the Sea” by Recycler.
• Running Time: 15:10.

For the benefit of those not currently subscribed to EVE, this video shows off thne new planet graphics. Feel free to follow the vid to YouTube and watch it in glorious 1080p.

As promised, episode #5! That I felt a bit run down by the process of creating it, but I blame that on the (hopefully) final dwindling of whatever it is that’s kept me under the weather for weeks.

Should be available any time on iTunes, and available for direct download HERE.

Show Notes

• Ardwulf News: Playing WoW, along with Soul of the Ultimate Nation and Earth Eternal. Some discussion of WoW’s new Dungeon Finder tool.
• More mutterings about show length.
• Top Story: Stargate Worlds is now Stargate: Resistance, a 3rd-person Shooter.
• Dust 514 to include RTS elements.
• EverQuest II Producer’s Letter from Alan “Brenlo” Crosby.
• FunCom spins off Sweet Robot to do kid-friendly casual games.
• LotRO to get increased hardware requirements.
• BioWare announces voice talent for Mass Effect 2.
• Runes of Magic Best International PC Game of 2009 by the German Game Developer Awards.
• WoW News: 3.3, Armory Enhancements and Fall of the Lich King Trailer.
• Listener Mail from Andrew. More discussion of the sandbox.
• Blog Post of the Week: Sandbox Envy by SynCaine.
• This Week’s Music: “Past Within the Future” by Fractals.
• Running Time: 21:30.

Ardwulf Unplugged #5 is now recorded. It still needs editing and music added, and the podcast notes need to be assembled. Plan on it releasing later today, tomorrow at the latest. Right now I’m taking a break – this one took a lot out of me for some reason.

This show is going to run long as well, probably in the neighborhood of 22-23 minutes. This is longer than I’d originally envisioned, but I’m finding a comfort level at about this length. So right now I’m saying that the target length for regular episodes is going to be between 20-25 minutes after all is said and done. (It’s not impossible that I will do occasional longer “Specials,” but I have no specific plans in that department right now.)

I got the story from OpenEdge. If you’ve a hankering, go check on your old EQ2 accounts!

Blockbuster show, over twice as long as previous shows. Available on iTunes. Direct download link HERE.

This episode is closer to how I originally envisioned the show. By that I mean that I get to go off and rant a bit, giving the podcast a different tone than the blog. I recorded one rant segment, and another grew into a rant in the recording process. Enjoy!

Show Notes

• Ardwulf News: Still sick, now with nasal. Neither rain nor sleet and all that stuff.
• Now playing: Waiting on Mount & Blade, Audiosurf, World of Warcraft, Portal. Plan to play: Fallen Earth.
• New RSS Feed.
• Review/Rate Ardwulf Unplugged on iTunes!
• The Worldplay Research Initiative.
• Dork Beats WoW. Demented and Sad Armory profile HERE.
• New Guild Wars 2 Trailer.
• Final SWTOR classes announced.
• EVE Online 4th Council of Stellar Management Elections concluded. RESULTS.
• Hellgate: Resurrection. Hellgate: Tokyo Trailer.
• Blizzard News: WoW Patch 3.3. Blizzard games now on Facebook.
• Darkfall “Expansion,” Conquest of the Seas now live.
• DDO Catacombs Trailer. Ardwulf unimpressed.
• Keeping an eye on Allods Online. Korean MMOs suck.
• Ardwulf Rants: Warhammer Online. A bit more freeform than the rest of the podcast.
• MMO Blog Post of the week: The Ultimate Sandbox MMO. Also a rant about sandbox MMOs and why some in the MMO commentator class claim to want sandbox games, then ignore them when they arise.
• Music this week is “Happy Life” by InspiredBM.
• Running Time: 23:12.

All things considered, I’m pretty neutral on Darkfall. I’m sure I’ll get around to trying it at some point. But I have to admit that the action shown in this video, a ship’s crew against a Kraken, is pretty damn cool.

Thanks to SynCaine for the pointer.

Various Items:

• Parts of Ardwulf Unplugged Episode 04 are already recorded, including a new rant segment. No, it’s not about Aion, at least this time. However, there is a sterling YouTube review of Aion HERE. The creator of said video also has a number of other videos worth watching.
• Episode 04 is looking like the longest so far. It will likely still be under 15 minutes unless some huge news breaks in the next couple of days. I’m shooting to record on Monday. The idea is to release weekly, but I’m being a bit vague on the whole schedule thing right now.
• For those who don’t know, I’m on Facebook. If you want to friend me, that’s cool, but identify yourself as such so I don’t let any jerkwads in by mistake. If you don’t generally post replies to this blog, do so on this post so I know who’s who.
• There’s a giant flood of SWTOR info out today, much of which deals with the last two classes to be revealed. I’m not even going to link anything, much less paw through all that data myself. SWOTOR awesome, yadda, yadda yadda. The details are in your feedreader.
• Word is that patch 3.3 for WoW will be rolling out next week. Should this prove to be the case I will likely use the opportunity to reactivate my account for free for a week. Still no idea what I’ll do with my 80.

The third show is in the can, despite all the trials and tribulations! It’s already on iTunes, or you can download the file from HERE. This is only about three days worth of news, plus a little bit on the older Warhammer news that I thought was important enough to talk about. This likely means that some future shows may be longer. Feedback, as ever, is appreciated.

Show Notes

• Running Time: 8:42
• What I’m playing: World of Warcraft, Audiosurf, Mount & Blade
• Dominion Expansion launched for EVE Online
• Siege of Mirkwood Expansion launched for Lord of the Rings Online
• Warhammer Online Death Spiral: Endless Trial (Free Tier 1 play,) more server merges
• Mythos Nearing launch, new Mythos website
• NCSoft News: More Korean money down the drain
• CrimeCraft banned in Australia
• Music for this episode: Planet Chemical by kil the king

Also: Did anyone have an issue downloading the last episode (02) from iTunes?

UPDATE: The aforementioned iTunes issue may have been a one-time bug. But if anyone has a problem, let me know.