| The Anvil of Crom: Beggars, choosers, and why Unrated isn't a sign of "failure" Posted: 29 May 2011 10:00 AM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, Age of Conan, Business models, Culture, MMO industry, Opinion, Free-to-play, The Anvil of Crom Hi folks, and welcome back to The Anvil of Crom. First off I'd like to thank Funcom for single-handedly making my writing life absurdly easy for the foreseeable future. The tidal wave of Age of Conan announcements this past week have basically pushed all my carefully laid column plans back about two months. Which is fantastic. The only problem is what to talk about first. F2P? The Savage Coast? Various Craig Morrison interviews as well as an obscure quote that's more interesting (and exciting) than the rest of this stuff put together? I guess it only makes sense to get the reaction to Unrated out of the way first, so join me after the cut as I do just that. Continue reading The Anvil of Crom: Beggars, choosers, and why Unrated isn't a sign of "failure"  The Anvil of Crom: Beggars, choosers, and why Unrated isn't a sign of "failure" originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 29 May 2011 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| Global Chat: Room for improvement edition Posted: 29 May 2011 08:00 AM PDT Filed under: Opinion, Massively meta, Global Chat, Miscellaneous Welcome to this week's Global Chat! We love hearing what you have to say at Massively, and we love it even more when we can share the best comments with all of our readers. Massively staffers will be contributing some of their favorite comments every week, so keep an eye out every Sunday for more Global Chat! We love our MMOs here at Massively, but we'll be the first to tell you that nothing's perfect. There's always room for improvement, but sometimes things just are what they are and you find a way to work with the situation and enjoy yourself anyway. Today's Global Chat is all about acknowledging those limitations and less-than-fun aspects of gaming and what you can do in spite of those potential roadblocks. Follow along after the jump to see what the Massively community had to say this week! Continue reading Global Chat: Room for improvement edition Global Chat: Room for improvement edition originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 29 May 2011 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| The Daily Grind: Which AAA F2P conversion is your favorite? Posted: 29 May 2011 06:00 AM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, Age of Conan, Dungeons and Dragons Online, EverQuest II, Lord of the Rings Online, Business models, MMO industry, Opinion, Free-to-play So Age of Conan is jumping on the hybrid payment bandwagon, and to no one's surprise, there are wildly differing viewpoints as to the services on offer from Funcom. A few folks are grateful to get a free look at most of the game's original content, while others are a bit upset over the lack of free alternate advancement and access to eight of the game's twelve classes. With AoC's conversion, Western gamers now have their choice of free access to four different AAA fantasy themeparks in the form of AoC, EverQuest II, Dungeons and Dragons Online, and Lord of the Rings Online. Since each game, and business model, has its own strengths and weaknesses, we're curious to know which of the four you're currently playing (or planning on playing).  Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!The Daily Grind: Which AAA F2P conversion is your favorite? originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 29 May 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| Not So Massively: Clockwork girls, ban tribunals, and runestones Posted: 28 May 2011 06:00 PM PDT Filed under: Trailers, Video, Culture, Lore, MMO industry, News items, Free-to-play, Not So Massively  Welcome to Not So Massively, our weekly roundup of the top news from popular multiplayer online battle arenas (MOBAs) and other multiplayer online games that aren't quite MMOs. Published every Saturday, the column covers games such as League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth, Defense of the Ancients, Bloodline Champions, and more. With the growing popularity of MMOs, it's great to see developers borrowing ideas from them and making them work in other online game formats. A growing number of online games are being released featuring elements of online persistence, iterative development, and character progression that we've come to expect only from MMOs. In last week's Not So Massively, we reveled in League of Legends' dubstep, got technical with Heroes of Newerth's new hero Martyr, and looked at Bloodline Champions' new match replay system. We also introduced Rise of Immortals' immortal Aislynn and looked at the huge Realm of the Titans content update arriving just in time for closed beta. In this week's Not So Massively, we introduce Ubisoft's upcoming online FPS Ghost Recon Online, look at Bloodline Champions' huge patch 1.2 update, and peruse development plans for the Rise of Immortals cash shop and its co-op PvE. This week is also a big week for League of Legends, with the player-mediated banning Tribunal now in live testing and the awesome new clockwork champion Orianna on the way. Skip past the cut for all this week's news from the land of not-quite-an-MMO-but-pretty-close-to-it. Continue reading Not So Massively: Clockwork girls, ban tribunals, and runestones Not So Massively: Clockwork girls, ban tribunals, and runestones originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 28 May 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| One shots: My home is my castle Posted: 28 May 2011 02:00 PM PDT Filed under: Galleries, Screenshots, Free-to-play, One Shots, Kids, Wizard101 Wizard101 players have been turning out in droves for this week's One Shots theme, with good reason. Player housing in the game is extensive, diverse, and most of all fun. Today's extra-grandiose submission comes to us from Virginia: Here is a screenshot of Jenna Dawnheart's Wizard101 house, taken from the remote island that is part of the house. In the front is a carousel crafted by Jenna -- it took many, many hours to gather all the components. We've got one more day for you to show off your character's home, so send us a screenshot at oneshots@massively.com along with your name and the name of the game. Tell us anything you like about the decor, memorabilia, trophies, and so on, and we'll show it off here on One Shots so everyone can admire your digs! We'll be featuring awesome mounts next week, so it's time to grab a screenshot of your finest ride, be it hooved, feathered, wheeled, or otherwise. Do you think you've got the best-looking or most unusual mount around? Prove it by sending it in! If you'd like a head start on the following week, we'll be focusing on weird foes. Do you have a great shot of a dancing Abaddon in Guild Wars or a nose-picking foe from Gates of Andaron? Send those in too and we'll feature them on One Shots! One shots: My home is my castle originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 28 May 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| The Mog Log: Pre-reaction Posted: 28 May 2011 12:00 PM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, Game mechanics, Patches, Opinion, Consoles, Final Fantasy XIV, The Mog Log So Naoki Yoshida's producer's letter came just a bit too late last week for me to rewrite my column, which focused mostly on the dungeons and rampant speculation regarding same. This week, however, I can write about all of the things that came out of both his producer's letter and Akihiko Matsui's combat revision document, both of which provide a lot of meaty information for Final Fantasy XIV players to digest. Pretty much all of it is good, with only a couple of downsides here and there. Since there's way too much to possibly digest point-by-point, I'm going to hit the parts that strike me as having the most far-reaching impact and the most concrete data. A lot of this is going to pertain specifically to the combat revisions, as well, since let's face it -- the meat of the game is in fighting things off, solo or in groups. And it's with the battle revisions that one of the biggest changes is coming to Final Fantasy XIV, namely, the removal of physical levels altogether. Continue reading The Mog Log: Pre-reaction The Mog Log: Pre-reaction originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 28 May 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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