MMO Updates |
- The Road to Mordor: Delay, delay, delay
- WRUP: This weekend, you can sleep edition
- The Daily Grind: Do you log in for chance-based daily activities?
- Betawatch: August 18 - 24, 2012
- Storyboard: Lessons from what roleplaying resembles most
- A song of trees and fire: A deeper look at DDO's Update 15
- Dungeon Fighter Online counts over 3 million concurrent Chinese users
- The Firing Line: What DayZ means to core gamers
- Mythic: Help us convince execs to make Ultima Online 2
- Clone Wars Adventures adds embattled Carlac to planetary roster
- MMObility: Trying to find real MMOs on the app market
| The Road to Mordor: Delay, delay, delay Posted: 25 Aug 2012 10:00 AM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, Lord of the Rings Online, Expansions, Free-to-play, The Road to Mordor  Yes, the LotRO community got thrown for a loop this week, as Turbine announced that Riders of Rohan has been shoved back a month and a half for additional work. So we've gone from a mere two-week countdown to nearly two months, and that takes a bit of mental adjustment. On top of all that, the studio demolished the NDA wall, which sort of seems like a risky move when you've just disappointed players with news of a delay. I think we should talk about it, don't you? I'll say this up front: It's actually a very good thing. Continue reading The Road to Mordor: Delay, delay, delay
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| WRUP: This weekend, you can sleep edition Posted: 25 Aug 2012 08:00 AM PDT Filed under: Massively Meta, Miscellaneous  Also I guess some game or another is launching early for certain players or something. You could do that, too. If you don't feel like sleeping. As will be revealed in this week's installment of WRUP, the Massively crew is not a big fan of sleeping. We are fans of video games, though, so we talk about what games we'll be playing for the weekend after the cut. And we talk about our favorite business models for video games. You get the idea. Let us know what you'll be up to down in the comments! Continue reading WRUP: This weekend, you can sleep edition
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| The Daily Grind: Do you log in for chance-based daily activities? Posted: 25 Aug 2012 06:00 AM PDT Filed under: Business models, Game mechanics, MMO industry, Opinion, Free-to-play, Massively Meta, The Daily Grind, Miscellaneous  These types of "dailies" can sometimes put players who play in a few long bursts at a disadvantage to those who play in many short bursts. I know I'm annoyed when I constantly feel as if I need to log in and perform routine maintenance on a game so that my "real" playtime is enhanced. And that's without mentioning that some games will happily sell the equivalent of wheel spins to those players who didn't like the results of their freebie. Today, Massively's wondering what you think of non-combat daily quests transparently designed to keep you thinking about the game even when you're not playing it. Do you log in to spin wheels, shuffle cards, and scratch off virtual lottery tickets? Or do you ignore those daily activities?  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!
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| Betawatch: August 18 - 24, 2012 Posted: 24 Aug 2012 06:00 PM PDT Filed under: Betas, Launches, MMO industry, Massively Meta, Betawatch, Miscellaneous  Lord of the Rings Online's Riders of Rohan expansion has been delayed, extending the beta period more than a month. We also learned that gPotato's Sevencore open beta will kick off on September 6th, Age of Wushu is launching in the States on October 18th, DUST 514's Precursor beta client is now live, and Knight Age named August 28th as the date for its open beta. And remember that Otherland beta we told you about last week? It's been delayed indefinitely. Finally, we got a close look at RIFT's housing-system-in-testing and the beta version of Pirate 101. Hit the jump for the complete Betawatch roundup! Continue reading Betawatch: August 18 - 24, 2012
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| Storyboard: Lessons from what roleplaying resembles most Posted: 24 Aug 2012 05:00 PM PDT Filed under: Culture, Opinion, Roleplaying, Storyboard, Miscellaneous  Think about it. You have a number of charcters with superhuman abilities getting into conflicts on a regular basis. Sometimes those characters pan out into a satisfying story arc, but other times characters show up and then vanish, either because they were awful or because the author didn't know what to do with them. There's a real risk of running on into boredom, and there are a lot of times when characters get kludged into other storylines for cross-promotional purposes. Regular readers will probably guess that I don't think of this as a bad thing. I like comics a lot, after all. And it means that we can take some interesting lessons from the long lifespan of comics because when you realize you're making a big collaborative comic, you earn the right to use some tricks of the trade. Continue reading Storyboard: Lessons from what roleplaying resembles most
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| A song of trees and fire: A deeper look at DDO's Update 15 Posted: 24 Aug 2012 04:30 PM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Patches, Previews, Opinion, Free-to-play, Hands-on, Humor  Lead Content Designer Ricardo Liu and Community Manager Amanda Grove invited us along to a tour of the new content. Liu said that the speed of Update 15's arrival is a sign that Turbine wants to kick up the pace of releases. The update includes a new four-quest adventure pack, the monster manual, and an additional challenge. With Update 15, many more options are available in the DDO store. Turbine's set the pricing as follows: Menace of the Underdark adventure packs are 2495 Turbine Points for all, account-wide epic destiny unlock is 995 TP, the Eveningstar Challenge Pack is free for VIPs and 695 TP for others, and the Druid class is free for VIPs and 1495 TP for others. The pricing details out of the way, we got right into the fun of all of Update 15's new adventures. It's a tale that will give the green thumbs among you a plague of nightmares. Continue reading A song of trees and fire: A deeper look at DDO's Update 15
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| Dungeon Fighter Online counts over 3 million concurrent Chinese users Posted: 24 Aug 2012 04:00 PM PDT Filed under: Culture, MMO industry, News items, Free-to-play, Dungeon Fighter Online  Neople, the developer of Dungeon Fighter Online and a subsidiary of Nexon, has been working with Tencent Games to help adapt the game for the Chinese audience, as China has a long list of rules about what is and is not acceptable in a game. If you want to see what all the fuss is about, you can play the game now on your PC or an XBox 360, depending on your preferred platform.
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| The Firing Line: What DayZ means to core gamers Posted: 24 Aug 2012 03:00 PM PDT Filed under: Betas, Horror, Game mechanics, MMO industry, News items, Opinion, Free-to-play, MMOFPS, Sandbox, The Firing Line, Housing  There's still hope, though, and so far it's not coming from any of the usual sandbox suspects in the MMO space. Continue reading The Firing Line: What DayZ means to core gamers
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| Mythic: Help us convince execs to make Ultima Online 2 Posted: 24 Aug 2012 02:00 PM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, Ultima Online, Free-to-play, Dev Diaries  Skalski says that it's important to realize that Ultima Forever and Ultima Online are being worked on by separate teams, so there's no draining of resources from one into the other. "We have a phrase here in the office that every generation deserves an Ultima game," he said. "It's been far too long." When the 15th anniversary hits, expect fun surprises, Skalski promised. He finished by making a plea for fans to support Ultima Forever, saying that it might lead to better things: "For those interested in seeing an UO2: No surprise announcements on that today, but what I will say by everyone continuing to support UO and Ultima Forever this is the kind of ammunition I need to convince the high level execs that the market is ready for more Ultima."
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| Clone Wars Adventures adds embattled Carlac to planetary roster Posted: 24 Aug 2012 01:00 PM PDT Filed under: Sci-fi, Patches, Free-to-play, Kids, Family, Clone Wars Adventures  Or that could be a car. The 2012 Pre Vizsla: It'll make the Kessel run on 30 miles to the gallon. Carlac has an impressive array of attractions for players, including four instanced missions, eight collections, two world bosses, and hundreds of enemies. SOE says that it's about the same size as CWA's Umbara. [Source: SOE press release]
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| MMObility: Trying to find real MMOs on the app market Posted: 24 Aug 2012 12:00 PM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, Business models, Culture, Game mechanics, Opinion, Free-to-play, Mobile, Casual, Miscellaneous, MMObility  The fact is that there are a lot of great MMOs on the mobile markets. Most are available on both Android or iOS as well. I also search on Google a lot, but the results from the search giant can sometimes be more unreliable. When it comes down to it, the only way to know whether a game is a true MMO is to download it and try it out. Or, of course, keep an eye on columns like mine. Continue reading MMObility: Trying to find real MMOs on the app market
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