MMO Updates |
- Enter at Your Own Rift: A carnival recap and a war on the horizon
- RuneScape: Seventh anniversary retrospective
- Why I Play: EVE Online
- Ngmoco exec: Free-to-play is not exploitative
- The Daily Grind: How do you roleplay betas?
- MapleStory gets political, players respond with bewilderment
- SOE answers Vanguard free-to-play questions
- Guild Wars 2 pre-purchase locations announced
- Lead your Legion into Final Fantasy XI's March version update
- Anarchy Online's Fia Tjernberg talks graphics engine update and the future of the game
- The Soapbox: Leveling isn't bad -- its implementation is
- Massively Speaking Episode 194: Bookah bookah!
| Enter at Your Own Rift: A carnival recap and a war on the horizon Posted: 28 Mar 2012 10:00 AM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, Events, in-game, RIFT, Enter at Your Own Rift, Anniversary  Continue reading Enter at Your Own Rift: A carnival recap and a war on the horizon
|
| RuneScape: Seventh anniversary retrospective Posted: 28 Mar 2012 09:00 AM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, Video, Game mechanics, MMO industry, RuneScape, Free-to-play, Browser  Understandably, most people will likely remember this year for one thing: This was the year that RuneScape beat the bots. Following the momentous Bot Nuking Day, players logged in to find a distinctly emptier world but one filled with real people. RuneFest 2011 was a success, with presentations from the game's developers and a special focus on breaking the bots. This year also saw the interesting story that the Dutch Supreme Court ruling that stealing RuneScape items is the same as theft of real life goods. In this anniversary retrospective, I look back at some of RuneScape's top news stories and game additions of the year. Continue reading RuneScape: Seventh anniversary retrospective
|
| Posted: 28 Mar 2012 08:00 AM PDT Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Culture, Economy, Game mechanics, Opinion, Roleplaying, Sandbox, Dungeons, Crafting, Why I Play  For these reasons and others like them, CCP seems to have topped out somewhere around half a million active subs at the game's high point. EVE is seen as unfriendly in some ways, but in actuality it's the friendliest MMO around if you're an imaginative sort with the desire to direct your own in-game destiny. Could the tutorials be better? Sure. Could PvE missions be more engaging? Absolutely. Does either of these failings, or numerous others, detract from what is the genre's premier emergent experience? Nope. Continue reading Why I Play: EVE Online
|
| Ngmoco exec: Free-to-play is not exploitative Posted: 28 Mar 2012 07:00 AM PDT Filed under: Business models, MMO industry, Free-to-play, Mobile, Massively Event Coverage  As most F2P players never spend money in such games and tend to play the most, Cousins thinks that the model works in favor of the gamer. He also stated that freemium games are not set up to trick people into paying, saying that it's "ineffective" if that was the case as a vast majority resists doing so. Cousins addressed the news stories of people who dangerously splurge on in-game purchases as a rarity: "I've never come across a big spender on a free-to-play game who has maxed out their credit cards. The big spenders I've met generally know what they're doing. Even the $5,000 spenders are not being exploited, they are just people who have found their big hobby." Ngmoco publishes freemium titles on the iOS and Android platforms, including games like We Rule and We City.
|
| The Daily Grind: How do you roleplay betas? Posted: 28 Mar 2012 06:00 AM PDT Filed under: Betas, Culture, Opinion, Roleplaying, Miscellaneous  What surprised me were the thoughtful and interesting responses I received. I had just assumed nobody actually bothered with RP in betas, but that's not the truth; on the contrary, many of my friends used the time to experiment with characters, to begin to fashion stories, or even play their character as an ancestor of their soon-to-come main. So what about you? How do you -- or would you -- roleplay betas with their unstable, transitory worlds?  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!
|
| MapleStory gets political, players respond with bewilderment Posted: 27 Mar 2012 07:00 PM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, MapleStory, Culture, News items, Free-to-play  The respondents were also polled on the most important issue facing the presidential candidates, with unemployment taking the top spot (40%) and the gap between rich and poor taking second place (28%). It's not necessarily indicative of much, but even though it's an informal poll conducted by Nexon America of a fairly random playerbase, there's a staggering degree of confusion at work. Or MapleStory players really like President Obama, one or the other.
|
| SOE answers Vanguard free-to-play questions Posted: 27 Mar 2012 06:00 PM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, Business models, Interviews, Vanguard, Free-to-play, Massively Interviews  We received our answers from Andy Sites, Director of Development, and the ever-familiar Salim Grant, Creative Director. It's an exciting time to be a Vanguard player, but will putting a free title on a game that has struggled in the past make any difference? Time will tell. In the meanwhile, click past the cut to check out what SOE had to say! Continue reading SOE answers Vanguard free-to-play questions
|
| Guild Wars 2 pre-purchase locations announced Posted: 27 Mar 2012 05:00 PM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, News items, Guild Wars 2  April 10th is fast approaching, and the ArenaNet team is doing its best to be sure fans are totally informed on how best to give up their money when Guild Wars 2 is finally available for pre-purchase. French Community Manager Stephane Lo Presti has put a list of retailers participating in the pre-purchase program up on the Guild Wars 2 Wiki. According to the game's FAQ page, fans will be able to order the digital Standard and the Digital Deluxe editions directly from NCsoft (Steam is not on the list, so they're out for digital pre-purchasing). These physical retailers, though, will offer at least the Standard and possibly the Collector's editions of the game, which means that fans will have a special interest in which of the listed retailers provide the CE version of the pre-purchase. Keep in mind that these are the retailers for pre-purchase, not necessarily launch or pre-order. The list is pretty lengthy; it's almost like ArenaNet wants to make pre-purchase as convenient as possible for as many fans as possible. Hit up the list if you want to figure out where you're headed on April 10th.
|
| Lead your Legion into Final Fantasy XI's March version update Posted: 27 Mar 2012 04:00 PM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, Final Fantasy XI, Patches, News items, PvE, Consoles  Final Fantasy XI's March version update has hit the live servers, and it brings with it a few new bits of content as well as a wealth of updates and adjustments to current systems. The big new feature with this content update is the new Legion battle system, which "is a new battle system intended to challenge high-level adventurers in alliances of eighteen to thirty-six combatants." The Legion system seems to play out like a cross between a survival and a time-attack game mode wherein players are tasked with eliminating as many high-level notorious monsters as they can within a 30-minute time limit. Each notorious monster the team successfully defeats will yield valuable items and Legion points that can be redeemed for a number of rewards. This is only a part of the new additions to the game available with the March update, though, so if you're interested in the complete details, just head on over to the Final Fantasy XI official forums and have a look.
|
| Anarchy Online's Fia Tjernberg talks graphics engine update and the future of the game Posted: 27 Mar 2012 02:00 PM PDT Filed under: Sci-fi, Video, Anarchy Online, Interviews, Previews, News items, Free-to-play  Anarchy Online players have been anxiously awaiting the game's upcoming graphics engine upgrade for some time now, and new details are slowly but surely beginning to drip down the pipeline. The latest of these new bits of information is an interview with Game Director Fia Tjernberg that also includes a new preview video showing off "dynamic grass, shadow, water, and god-rays" in the new engine. The interview itself only touches very briefly on the subject of the new engine itself, however, and in fact focuses more on the history of Anarchy Online as well as the direction that the team plans to take the game in the future. Tjernberg reveals that the team is "working towards a massive overhaul of [the game's] systems mechanics and content interaction," as well as "releasing a new starting area - nay strike that - a completely new starting experience," which should give new players and veterans alike plenty to look forward to in the future. To check out the new graphics engine preview video, just skip on past the cut, then click over to MMORPG.com for the full interview.
|
| The Soapbox: Leveling isn't bad -- its implementation is Posted: 27 Mar 2012 12:00 PM PDT Filed under: Culture, Game mechanics, Opinion, The Soapbox, Miscellaneous  It's funny how tastes can change. I know mine certainly have, especially when it comes to entertainment. Heck, I used to swear by The Ramones and a bit of Slayer; now I tend to think that this Joni Mitchell song is a work of sheer genius. It seems that as I grow older, the less I care about impressing other people. My gaming tastes have changed, but maybe not as dramatically. I've never been a hardcore player and have never enjoyed spending countless hours repeating the same task. That sort of behavior tends to turn a hobby into a boring job. MMORPGs are notorious for being filled with content that is often ripped off from other games, so it surprised me when I thought about today's topic. I came to the conclusion that leveling is not a bad thing. When I say leveling, I mean growing a character by performing an activity, getting better at it, gaining experience and hitting a new level. It's not a bad way to represent real-life growth. The problems come when developers use the same boring systems that are based on leveling to facilitate that growth. Continue reading The Soapbox: Leveling isn't bad -- its implementation is
|
| Massively Speaking Episode 194: Bookah bookah! Posted: 27 Mar 2012 11:00 AM PDT Filed under: Podcasts, Star Trek Online, Vanguard, Guild Wars 2, Massively Meta, Humor, World of Darkness, Massively Speaking, Runes of Magic, Miscellaneous  Have a comment for the podcasters? Shoot an email to podcast@massively.com. We may just read your email on the air! Get the podcast: [iTunes] Subscribe to Massively Speaking directly in iTunes. [RSS] Add Massively Speaking to your RSS aggregator. [MP3] Download the MP3 directly. Listen here on the page: Read below the cut for the full show notes. Continue reading Massively Speaking Episode 194: Bookah bookah!
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Massively To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
