So in leaving my IM running overnight, Ophelea sent me a link to the site Ten Ton Hammer. She knows I don't typically read a lot of gaming sites other than GamersInfo.net, especially given the week I had last week and the weekend I had.

EA/Mythic (is it still right to call them that? I forget) is PAYING people to test Warhammer: Age of Reckoning.

Four hours a night, five days a week, 6 months, $10 an hour! Of course, you have to be local to their offices. As I have a full-time job, and live in Arlington, and they're out in BFE (i.e. outside the Beltway), I won't be applying.

But it makes me happy to see! Too often lately crappy games have been released with promises of later patches, and MMOs often have the balance/re-balance/buff&nerf cycle almost built into them from the start.

In fact, I remember a lot of the nerfs that Midgard got from the beginning of DAoC until when I left it.

So the fact that they're actively hiring people to play and test a game like WAR fills me up with joy. This is a game that's going to be heavily PvP, and spending the time and money to do a more thorough testing job means that it should be a more exciting, balanced experience from the beginning.

I'd love to see more companies do that! Of course, that's approximately $4800 a tester, but you know what - it's a bargain at twice that price if it makes the game that much smoother at launch.

Okay, so we’ve talked about previews. Now let’s talk about sequels.

Possibly one of the bigger issues when it comes to sequels is not the fact that there are so many of them, but rather that companies seem to insist on calling additional games sequels when they’re only loosely tied into the first one.

Let’s look at the different types of sequels:

1. The Direct Sequel

The direct sequel is fairly straight forward. Typically the same studio/company does each sequel, they tie into the previous games, and have similar game play. Look at, say, the Brothers in Arms games, the Halo series, Diablo 1 & 2. Each might have refinements and improvements in gameplay, but they’re telling an interlocked (or continuing) story. In Mercenaries 2, one character, a Chinese colonel, comes back from Mercenaries 1, but is now promoted and a general. He’s an NPC, but you’ve got the same “main characters” that the player can pick from the original, too.

These are true sequels. They’re like good movie or book sequels – not when the studio says “let’s add more of the same!” to something, but rather when they concentrate on making a solid contribution to the on-going storyline.

(Halo Wars makes for more of the re-imagined sequel, down below, though it’s a prequel (technically), and manages to keep – from what we’ve seen so far – a lot of the same feel.)

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I've touched on this a bit in other forums, but given my relative quietness in these where-abouts I thought I'd talk about it a bit more.

Recently I was given a 90 day trial of Lord of the Rings Online to try out and review. I logged in and played it more than a few times before I realized something.

I just - well - couldn't.

For a variety of reasons.

Now, don't take this as a review of LotRO. I would guess, in a way, it is, but it's more of a statement of where I am in terms of MMORPGs and my current gaming habits versus, say, where you may be. There are a lot of good things about LotRO, and especially if you're into the source material, I highly recommend it.

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