MMO Updates

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• The Tattered Notebook: Changes in the Dark(light)
• WRUP: Remember that several people work here edition
• The Daily Grind: Is looting important in MMOs?
• LotRO: Riders of Rohan beta invites ride forth from Turbine [Updated]
• Betawatch: July 7 - 13, 2012
• Stabbing someone isn't OK, even if World of Warcraft is your life
• Star Wars: The Old Republic posts another weekly question-and-answer session
• ArenaNet posts studio tour video
• MMObility: Fourteen MMOs that you can play anywhere
• Storyboard: The RIFT project
• Sound guru brings The Secret World's ur draug monster to life
• Matt Higby says PlanetSide 2 beta is 'not just a game demo'
• The Firing Line: DayZ, Forge, and Rapid Assault

The Tattered Notebook: Changes in the Dark(light) Posted: 14 Jul 2012 10:00 AM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, EverQuest II, Patches, Opinion, Free-to-play, The Tattered Notebook EverQuest II's Qeynos update is due in just a few weeks. In recent editions of The Tattered Notebook, we've looked at some of the bigger changes, like "play as your avatar" and "level agnosticism" in the dungeon maker as well as the Qeynos city revamp. But in the build-up to the patch's due date, there has been a quiet change at the low levels. The new-player experience received yet another reworking with a few small, yet potentially significant, changes. In this week's Tattered Notebook, we'll spend some time looking at what's new for newbies in EverQuest II! Continue reading The Tattered Notebook: Changes in the Dark(light) The Tattered Notebook: Changes in the Dark(light) originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 14 Jul 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments

WRUP: Remember that several people work here edition Posted: 14 Jul 2012 08:00 AM PDT Filed under: Massively Meta, Miscellaneous It is important to note that Massively does not consist of one person hitting a keyboard furiously. There's a staff list to one side for a reason. Not every installment of Choose My Adventure was written by the same person, not every installment of The Soapbox was penned by the same person, and not every news post is reviewed by the entire staff. Equally relevant is the fact that the writers are not the people who moderate comments. There are a lot of moving pieces. As an example of the sheer number of moving pieces behind the scenes of the site, we present to you WRUP, in which the Massively staff members explain to you what they're doing over the weekend. We also talk about whether or not we've ever been intimidated starting an older game after it's been out for a while. So go on and take a look at our multiple separate plans, and then go ahead and tell us what you'll be up to in the comments. Continue reading WRUP: Remember that several people work here edition WRUP: Remember that several people work here edition originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 14 Jul 2012 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments

The Daily Grind: Is looting important in MMOs? Posted: 14 Jul 2012 06:00 AM PDT Filed under: Super-hero, City of Heroes, Game mechanics, MMO industry, Opinion, The Daily Grind, Miscellaneous, Dungeons As I play City of Heroes, rolling through the Summer Blockbuster content, I'm reminded that CoH's looting system is really weird. As in, there kind of isn't one. Recipes, enhancement, salvage, and influence just sort of magically appear in their respective trays. There are no sparkly bits to tell you that hey, you should totally come click this monster because its still-warm corpse has shinies for you. You never have to worry that you missed a piece of choice loot back in the last room. And players never, ever fight over loot because at the end of an important mission, everyone gets a drop. At the same time, CoH is missing some of the thrill that comes when you best the random number generator and finally get your purple shiny sword of doom. The near-intangibility of the game's drops means fewer crushing defeats when that freaking Hunter rolls on your tanking sword, but it also means fewer victory laps. You give up the rush from clicking on a monster just to see what he has; that step is completely stripped out. What do you think -- is a physical "looting" process critical to MMOs? 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: Is looting important in MMOs? originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 14 Jul 2012 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments

LotRO: Riders of Rohan beta invites ride forth from Turbine [Updated] Posted: 13 Jul 2012 07:00 PM PDT Filed under: Betas, Fantasy, Lord of the Rings Online, Expansions, Free-to-play According to reports from our readers, beta invites for Lord of the Rings Online's upcoming expansion are zipping across the electronic highways and into players' inboxes. The test will run on July 18th and July 20th: From 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, July 18, 2012, help us push the limits of LotRO! Get your first look at Rohan! Cross the Great River from Parth Celebrant and follow the road south through the Wold to the city of Langhold. Your first quest will be available in this city. Spend a couple hours exploring LotRO's newest regions, check out the new quests, admire the great scenery and battle your way through its newest creatures! From 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. on Friday, July 20, 2012, help us push the limits of LotRO! Get your first look at Mounted Combat! Go to Elthengels in the Norcrofts and prepare to fight from horseback in the open plains of Eastern Rohan! Riders of Rohan is releasing on September 5th. Massively recently got hands-on time with mounted combat in the expansion and was quite impressed! [Update: As A Casual Stroll to Mordor and Sapience on the forums rightly clarify, this beta is under a strict NDA. Please obey it, here and elsewhere!] [Thanks to Ron for the tip!] LotRO: Riders of Rohan beta invites ride forth from Turbine [Updated] originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 13 Jul 2012 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments

Betawatch: July 7 - 13, 2012 Posted: 13 Jul 2012 06:00 PM PDT Filed under: Betas, MMO industry, Massively Meta, Betawatch, Miscellaneous This week on Betawatch, we say farewell to Brick Force, which has officially launched! Soul Captor Online moves from our closed to open beta list, while both Sevencore and RaiderZ have announced closed beta dates (July 16th and August 8th, respectively). Meanwhile, PlanetSide 2's devs have confirmed that the game will be headed to beta within the next month, a new round of beta invites has gone out to ArcheAge's Korean testers, and Aeria is now accepting beta applications for its new F2P shooter, Born to Fire. Finally, we learned that the Sylvari and Asura will be playable in Guild Wars 2 final beta event. One more week to go! The complete Betawatch roundup is tucked beyond the fold. Continue reading Betawatch: July 7 - 13, 2012 Betawatch: July 7 - 13, 2012 originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 13 Jul 2012 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments

Stabbing someone isn't OK, even if World of Warcraft is your life Posted: 13 Jul 2012 05:00 PM PDT Filed under: World of Warcraft, Real life, Culture, Crime, Miscellaneous Just when we were basking in the warm glow of the charitable deed that World of Warcraft fans banded together to perform, someone decided to remind us that just as people can be really, truly awesome, people can be really, truly reprehensible. Two days ago WoW player Justin Williams decided it was a reasonable (or at least viable) course of action to stab his neighbor in the chest to convey how important the game is to him. According to Canoe, Williams was having a loud exchange of ideas about the game both in-person and via headset when his neighbor showed up and told him that there was no need to be "freaking out about World of Warcraft," that it was "just a game." Williams took that remark rather poorly and responded with, "It's not a game, it's my life," before grabbing the neighbor by the throat, punching him in the face, and then stabbing him in the chest. The neighbor was hospitalized but appears to have since been sent home, hopefully to an abundance of flowers and extremely sincere "I'm sorry I put you in the hospital" notes from Williams. Stabbing someone isn't OK, even if World of Warcraft is your life originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 13 Jul 2012 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments Source: Man stabbed over video game Via: GamePolitics

Star Wars: The Old Republic posts another weekly question-and-answer session Posted: 13 Jul 2012 04:00 PM PDT Filed under: Sci-fi, Classes, News items, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Community Q&A This week's set of community questions for Star Wars: The Old Republic asked about classes. Specifically, there were two big questions asked about Deception-specialized Sith Assassins and Operative melee mobility. Consequently, the two big answers this week were about those two classes. Operative mobility is apparently a hot topic among the developers at the moment, as high-mobility fights are seen as an excellent mechanic and they can cause issues with the class. Deception spec, by contrast, received a more in-depth response explaining that the developers consider the spec to very much be a hit-and-run playstyle rather than a melee class meant for long engagements. Its performance winds up varying a great deal depending on the player: Those who understand the design intent usually have more success than those expecting higher endurance. But even if neither of these answers appeals to you, there are still other questions answered in the latest round, and you can always post a question for next week. Star Wars: The Old Republic posts another weekly question-and-answer session originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 13 Jul 2012 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments Source: Community Q&A: July 13th, New question thread

ArenaNet posts studio tour video Posted: 13 Jul 2012 03:00 PM PDT Filed under: Betas, Fantasy, Video, MMO industry, New titles, News items, Guild Wars 2, Free-to-play This is a Guild Wars 2 news post. In fact, said news is a studio tour (though it is presented in video format, so that's something). Nevertheless, you will read this post and watch this video because you are achingly desperate for every tiny scrap of information even tangentially related to Tyria (we know, because we are too). We sincerely hope this nugget tides you over until next weekend's beta. Failing that, we hope that ArenaNet sees fit to give us something exciting to write about in the interim. As always, videos may be watched after the proverbial cut. But we bet you already knew that. Continue reading ArenaNet posts studio tour video ArenaNet posts studio tour video originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 13 Jul 2012 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments Source: YouTube

MMObility: Fourteen MMOs that you can play anywhere Posted: 13 Jul 2012 02:00 PM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, Business models, Culture, Previews, Opinion, War, Free-to-play, Browser, Mobile, Casual, MMORTS, MMObility, Sandbox I thought it'd be fun to make a list of go-anywhere MMOs this week. It's not really hard to find portable MMOs that run on laptops or netbooks. The real issue is locating MMOs that can be played on your desktop while you're at work (while the boss isn't looking, of course!), then on your phone at lunch, and then on your laptop while you sit in bed later that night. The technology to make constantly accessible MMOs is there, namely in the form of HTML5. Adobe recently announced that not only is it moving away from Flash for mobile devices, but it is also specifically targeting Android Jelly Bean. There is a new wave of web technologies coming that will hopefully, once and for all, put an end to the need for special lists like this one. Not all of my choices are HTML5-based, but I tried to keep all of them open for all devices. If you notice any oddities while playing them on a certain device, let me know in the comments section so I can note it. I get a lot of requests for lists like this, so I want to keep things tight. In the meanwhile, enjoy the list. There are others out there, but I wanted to pick out some that give pretty much the same result across whichever device you use. Continue reading MMObility: Fourteen MMOs that you can play anywhere MMObility: Fourteen MMOs that you can play anywhere originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 13 Jul 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments

Storyboard: The RIFT project Posted: 13 Jul 2012 01:00 PM PDT Filed under: Polls, Culture, Opinion, Roleplaying, Storyboard, Miscellaneous The biggest problem with roleplaying in an MMO is that there's a certain amount of enforced stasis. No matter how determined you are to bring about long-term change in your group, there's the simple fact that you generally need to have characters working together and staying alive. Game considerations force you to refrain from anything that would rock the boat too severely. So most main characters have plot armor, most relationships need to stay at a functional professional level, and most villains have to be guest stars. It's a compromise we make so that the game itself remains playable. But what if you didn't have to make that compromise? This isn't a story about RIFT, and it isn't a story about PAX East, but both of those elements come into play because that's how the idea came to me. What would it look like if you had a month during which there were no restrictions on roleplaying? How would things play out if you could feel confident about a month of play that's completely self-contained, with no need to preserve characters any longer than the story required? Would it make roleplaying more interesting, or would nothing change? Continue reading Storyboard: The RIFT project Storyboard: The RIFT project originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 13 Jul 2012 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments

Sound guru brings The Secret World's ur draug monster to life Posted: 13 Jul 2012 12:00 PM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, Horror, Video, MMO industry, New titles, News items, The Secret World If you've ever wondered how MMO sound designers do their thing, a new developer video by Creating Sound will probably be music to your ears. Sound designer and "audio generalist" Alexandre Saba takes us through the creation of The Secret World's ur draug sound suite. What the heck is an ur draug? It's a "creature from the deepest, darkest oceans, a Lovecraftian, god-like creature," according to TSW creative director Ragnar Tornquist. Since Funcom couldn't just go out and mic the nearest ur draug, it turned to Saba, who performs a number of foley tricks to bring the creature's bellow, skin, and wing sounds to life. Look, listen, and learn after the cut. Continue reading Sound guru brings The Secret World's ur draug monster to life Sound guru brings The Secret World's ur draug monster to life originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 13 Jul 2012 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments Source: Creating Sound

Matt Higby says PlanetSide 2 beta is 'not just a game demo' Posted: 13 Jul 2012 11:45 AM PDT Filed under: Betas, Sci-fi, PlanetSide, Events, in-game, MMO industry, New titles, PvP, News items, Free-to-play, MMOFPS, PlanetSide 2, Sandbox PlanetSide 2 faithful, your long wait is almost over. Well, for some of you anyway. Creative director Matt Higby took to the PlanetSide Universe forums recently to elaborate on the game's forthcoming beta schedule. He said that testing will begin this week (between July 9th and July 15th, to be specific). He also reiterated Sony Online Entertainment's invite priority system. The firm is staggering its closed beta invite phases. First up are a few PlanetSide veterans and those with priority keys from devs, E3 giveaways, and PC Gamer. Higby also encouraged vets to be sure and update the email addresses associated with their station accounts, as that's how they'll know exactly when they can log in and test. Test is the operative word, too, as this is definitely not a marketing beta. "We are doing true beta testing, not just a game demo, and we implore those of you who are invited to understand and respect that," Higby said. "Things will break, the server will be unavailable sometimes, and we will cancel scheduled tests when we find something that breaks before the test starts. All of this will help us make a better final game." [Thanks to Scott for the tip!] Matt Higby says PlanetSide 2 beta is 'not just a game demo' originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 13 Jul 2012 13:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments Source: PlanetSide Universe

The Firing Line: DayZ, Forge, and Rapid Assault Posted: 13 Jul 2012 11:00 AM PDT Filed under: Betas, Fantasy, Horror, Sci-fi, Game mechanics, MMO industry, New titles, PvP, News items, Free-to-play, MMOFPS, Post-Apocalyptic, Sandbox, The Firing Line A couple of interesting items came across The Firing Line desk this week. One of them was the fact that PlanetSide 2's beta will be cranking up inside of a month. And there was much rejoicing. OK, now that that's out of the way, the other items concern games that are decidedly smaller in scale but no less interesting. Join me after the break for a look at the latest from the devs behind World War II Online (or Battleground Europe, if you prefer), and a new title called Forge. Oh yeah, and 500,000 of you are playing something called DayZ. Continue reading The Firing Line: DayZ, Forge, and Rapid Assault The Firing Line: DayZ, Forge, and Rapid Assault originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 13 Jul 2012 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments

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