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	<title>Kranky Kraut</title>
	<link>http://www.krankykraut.net</link>
	<description>Musings of a German MMORPG Nerd</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Sun, 16 Sep 2007 14:19:50 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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	<item>
		<title>AoC and WAR at GC 2007</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I didn&#8217;t attend this year&#8217;s Game Convention in Leipzig, mainly because I am too damn lazy to&#160;drag&#160;my nerd ass&#160;out of my parents&#8217; basement, unless absolutely neccessary. Thanks to teh Interwebs, I rarely have to.

Age of Conan
There&#8217;s a video of siege gameplay. It looks like something that potentially could be&#160;fun if Funcom manage to reduce lag [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.krankykraut.net/index.php/2007/09/06/aoc-and-war-at-gc-2007/</link>
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		<title>I&#8217;m Glad I Quit Vanguard</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Looks like Vanguard Game Update #2 was patched to live servers about a week ago.&#160;It&#8217;s the first patch since SOE took over Sigil and fired more than half of the staff. After reading the patch notes, I&#8217;m glad I cancelled my subscription. What a letdown. Let&#8217;s have a look at the major changes and new [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.krankykraut.net/index.php/2007/08/25/im-glad-i-quit-vanguard/</link>
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		<title>EVE is Unforgiving, Alright</title>
		<description><![CDATA[After weeks of carebearing in&#160;high-sec space, I finally had my first PvP encounter. I got popped in 0.4 space by a gatecamp consisting of 3 battleships, 2 battlecruisers and a speed-pimped cruiser acting as a tackler. A hundred millon ISK worth of&#160;equipment&#160;down the drain. Oh joy.
The experience was rather anti-climactic&#160;-&#160;my Drake battlecruiser&#160;didn&#8217;t even stand a [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.krankykraut.net/index.php/2007/08/24/eve-is-unforgiving-alright/</link>
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		<title>Age of Conan Delayed</title>
		<description><![CDATA[It&#8217;s old news by now: Funcom announced that the release date for Age of Conan&#160;was pushed back to&#160;March 25th 2008, citing &#34;recent beta feedback&#34; and a &#34;need to polish some aspects of the game even further, especially when it comes to the entry barriers&#34; as reasons for the delay. Huge shocker, I know. Somehow, I [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.krankykraut.net/index.php/2007/08/17/age-of-conan-delayed/</link>
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		<title>What&#8217;s Going on with Age of Conan?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[AoC has been on my rather short list of MMORPGs to keep tabs on for quite a while. I like FunCom as a company and&#160;I have confidence in their ability to innovate. I love the fact that AoC is supposed to be a game for mature audiences. I&#8217;m sick and tired of the current trend [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.krankykraut.net/index.php/2007/08/06/whats-going-on-with-age-of-conan/</link>
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		<title>Some Things Vanguard Did Right</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I cancelled my Vanguard subscription a few days ago, I&#8217;ve rarely been&#160;playing&#160;in recent months anyway. Despite&#160;the flaws,&#160;Vanguard&#160;had kept me entertained for for about four months of intensive gaming and then some, which is more than the combined time I spent during my three stints in EQ2 and&#160;about half&#160;the time WoW managed to keep me interested. [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.krankykraut.net/index.php/2007/08/02/some-things-vanguard-did-right/</link>
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		<title>EVE&#8230; Again</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;m not sure what makes me keep coming back to games that I have played and rejected before. I gave EQ2 three tries. I hated Vanguard during beta,&#160;yet I&#160;gave it another try at release. Back when I played DAoC, I quit the game only to return a few months later. Now it&#8217;s EVE Online. I [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.krankykraut.net/index.php/2007/07/04/eve-again/</link>
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		<title>A Night in Tehatamani</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Tehatamani is&#160;a&#160;level 45+ zone with an ancient Egypt style theme. It&#8217;s one of the three or so areas that currently pass&#160;for high-end content in Vanguard.&#160;Some&#160;really cool stuff is going on there, but&#160;it too makes use of one of Vanguard&#8217;s most overused time sinks: the faction grind.
The associated quest line revolves around gaining rank with the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.krankykraut.net/index.php/2007/06/05/a-night-in-tehatamani/</link>
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		<title>Fallout MMO, Fallout 3 and &#8220;Van Buren&#8221;</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;ve been a longtime Fallout fan. I must have played through each of the two Fallout games half a dozen times. The first Fallout game has been one of the defining gaming experiences for me, only surpassed by Everquest.
Recently, Fallout fan-site Now Mutants Allowed managed to get their hands on an early tech demo of [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.krankykraut.net/index.php/2007/05/29/fallout-mmo-fallout-3-and-van-buren/</link>
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		<title>Jesus Take The Wheel</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I reread F13.net&#8217;s interview with McQuaid last night, mainly because I wanted to read again&#160;Brad&#8217;s hilariously schizophrenic rationalisation for why he thinks&#160;that it&#8217;s okey-dokey to have witchcraft, wizardry,&#160;polytheistic gods, occult symbolism and genocidal violence (&#34;Kill 100 sentient fluffies&#34;) in games, while demons and angels are problematic. Does he seriously&#160;think that there&#160;Christian parents who believe that [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.krankykraut.net/index.php/2007/05/22/jesus-take-the-wheel/</link>
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		<title>Why I&#8217;m Still Playing Vanguard</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;m not going to bullshit you with worthless phrases like &#34;the game has potential&#34;. I don&#8217;t care about Vanguard&#8217;s potential, you don&#8217;t care about it, nobody cares. A game is either worth&#160;wasting your time&#160;on or it isn&#8217;t. It&#8217;s binary like that.&#160;Besides, whatever potential Vanguard might have, it&#8217;s going to take a whole hell of a [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.krankykraut.net/index.php/2007/05/20/why-im-still-playing-vanguard/</link>
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		<title>McQuaid Speaks</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I usually try to avoid commenting on stuff written by other people. It&#8217;s lame and&#160;a sorry excuse for not coming up with content of your own.&#160;Yet, I&#8217;m doing it for the third time within one week, simply because these things&#160;are too relevant to be ignored. So here it goes:
F13.net has posted an interview with the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.krankykraut.net/index.php/2007/05/19/mcquaid-speaks/</link>
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		<title>Ex-Sigil Dev Spills the Beans</title>
		<description><![CDATA[F13.net has an interview with an ex-Sigil employee. It&#8217;s a morbidly fascinating read. Some of the sad high points:

Ex-Sigil: There was input all around, but at each level, that input was simply discarded by the decision makers. Basically there were a handful of people who made decisions, regardless of input from anyone else.
[&#8230;]
Ex-Sigil: [&#8230;] The [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.krankykraut.net/index.php/2007/05/16/ex-sigil-dev-spills-the-beans/</link>
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		<title>Vanguard&#8217;s Future</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Details on SOE&#8217;s acquisition of Sigil are slowly emerging. It doesn&#8217;t look pretty but it could be worse. From Smed&#8217;s posting on the official forums and his interview with GameSpot:

Staff&#160;will be downsized from about 100 employees to 50
The remaining developement team will be approximately the size of EQ2&#8217;s developement team
Dave Gilbertson will be responsible for [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.krankykraut.net/index.php/2007/05/16/vanguards-future/</link>
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		<title>Sigil Gutted</title>
		<description><![CDATA[F13.net reports of mass-firings at Sigil, Grouchy Gamer corroborates it. Ugly businiss, especially the fact that the people who busted their asses for&#160;Sigil and Vanguard&#160;are treated in such a manner.&#160;It&#8217;s&#160;not awfully&#160;surprising in&#160;a socio-economic climate in which employees aren&#8217;t seen as&#160;human beings&#160;but as resources to be used (up)&#160;and discarded on a whim.
An interesting bit from Grouchy [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.krankykraut.net/index.php/2007/05/15/sigil-gutted/</link>
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		<title>Vanguard: Saga of Failure</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Before I dive into any specifics about the game itself, let&#8217;s have a look at where Vanguard stands three and a half months after release.
The game hit the market amidst a torrent of really bad word of mouth from beta testers, shortly after Blizzard released&#160;their Burning Crusade expansion for&#160;World of Warcraft.&#160;Bad timing. Negative game magazine [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.krankykraut.net/index.php/2007/05/13/vanguard-saga-of-failure/</link>
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		<title>Are You Dead Yet?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Not quite. This blog used to be dead, though, not only because I haven&#8217;t written anything&#160;in&#160;almost a year but also because it&#160;got hacked by a bunch of Kurdish hax0rz who, apparently, think that they can gather sympathy for the plight of their people by pissing people off. Since I&#8217;m a complete retard when it comes [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.krankykraut.net/index.php/2007/05/12/are-you-dead-yet/</link>
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		<title>No Updates</title>
		<description><![CDATA[If anyone should wonder why there haven&#8217;t been&#160;any updates recently (yah, fat chance) - I have been in crunch mode for a bunch of tough university exams. Anyway, I&#8217;ll be back with more useless drivel in maybe two weeks. One thing I&#8217;d like to share is how much I fucking hate guild drama. Cooperative gameplay [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.krankykraut.net/index.php/2006/07/03/no-updates/</link>
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		<title>Vanguard Beta Leaks Like a Russian Pipeline</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Vanguard Beta has been plagued by a number of NDA breaches, most of them distinctly negative. Some of the juicier details that have leaked in the past are the low beta attendance numbers (100-200 players at peak times, out of several thousand testers) and word of a huge 130+ questions survey that Sigil sent out [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.krankykraut.net/index.php/2006/05/28/vanguard-beta-leaks-like-a-russian-pipeline/</link>
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		<title>SOE + SGO = Vanbois Going Apeshit</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Rabid hatred of SOE has always been part of the Vanguard fan community identity. Apparently, Brad McQuaid is seen by some as an impeccable knight in shining armor whose strong sense of integrity prompted him to leave that den of nefarious money grubbing that is SOE and set out to build a better company that [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.krankykraut.net/index.php/2006/05/07/soe-sgo-vanbois-going-apeshit/</link>
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