MMO Updates

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• Forking over your cash to play for free!
• Embers of Caerus team LFM
• The Nexus Telegraph: What the Luminai mean for WildStar
• The Stream Team: Seis de Mayo edition, May 6 - 12, 2013
• The Daily Grind: Does gamification stymie your roleplay?
• MMO Week in Review: Neverwinter is... well, actually, it's here
• EVE Evolved: Ten years of EVE Online
• Stick and Rudder: Star Citizen celebrates $9 million with Auroras, space suits, and LTI

Forking over your cash to play for free! Posted: 06 May 2013 10:00 AM PDT Filed under: Super-hero, Economy, MMO Industry, New Titles, News Items, Free-to-Play, Marvel Heroes Free-to-play means you can play for free, right? Not if you've got your sights set on the top founders packs for upcoming games like Marvel Heroes. In a blog on Gamasutra, virtual world economist Ramin Shokrizade explores the trend of these F2P collector-edition equivalents and whether the value justifies the price or if it's all a con to push players into making uninformed purchases before they have enough info. Shokrizade compares the value of both Marvel Heroes and MechWarrior Tactics founders packs. At $199.99 and $120 respectively, both come with a hefty price tag, but both also claim significantly higher values. Do you really get your money's worth? Because of the replayability inherent in trying each superhero, Shokrizade rated Marvel Heroes as "pricey but reasonable." MechWarrior Tactics, however, received a "poor value" rating due to the tremendous in-game advantage that the founders pack gives. How will these titles ultimately fare? Shokrizade stated that it all depends on enjoyable player interactions. "[Players] should not have to spend a lot in order to be able to have a positive social experience," he said. "Taking this one step further, if [players] can spend to lower the experience of other players, this will cause a rapid collapse of revenues." Forking over your cash to play for free! originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 06 May 2013 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments Source: Gamasutra

Embers of Caerus team LFM Posted: 06 May 2013 09:00 AM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, MMO Industry, New Titles, News Items, Dev Diaries, Sandbox If you've wanted to get in on developing a game, now could be your chance. In Embers of Caerus' April dev letter, technical director Dave Belcher invites folks interested in filling newly opened positions on the dev team, from programmers to animators to sound designers, to send in an email and apply. Positions are also available in community and PR roles. Along with the job opportunity announcement, Belcher notes that the team's first on-site weekend of code crunching was successful and that another is planned for the end of May. This time, however, more of the team is invited and the event will be livestreamed. More details for that will become available as the time draws closer. Embers of Caerus team LFM originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 06 May 2013 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments Source: April dev letter

The Nexus Telegraph: What the Luminai mean for WildStar Posted: 06 May 2013 08:00 AM PDT Filed under: Sci-Fi, Lore, Opinion, WildStar, The Nexus Telegraph I spend a lot of time playing around with theories about lore. I can't do a whole lot more in regard to playing with WildStar at the moment, so that works out well anyway, but I do enjoy throwing out theories and seeing what sticks. Sometimes that invalidates earlier theories I had in the process, but that's the business. This week I don't want to invalidate something I already speculated upon but build upon a previous column. People seemed to like my musings on what the deal is with Nexus, but even as I was writing that column, I noticed one screaming problem: The Luminai don't fit. Obviously the Luminai are kind of a big deal, what with their addition marking the creation of the Dominion and all that. These guys are important, and their creation was obviously intentional. But they still prompt some questions because they don't serve an obvious purpose in the larger scheme of things. Continue reading The Nexus Telegraph: What the Luminai mean for WildStar The Nexus Telegraph: What the Luminai mean for WildStar originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 06 May 2013 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments

The Stream Team: Seis de Mayo edition, May 6 - 12, 2013 Posted: 06 May 2013 07:00 AM PDT Filed under: Polls, Massively Meta, Miscellaneous, The Stream Team You have to agree, May is one month that's full of holidays. The first week alone contains May Day, (unofficial) Star Wars Day, and Cinco de Mayo. But the party doesn't stop there! Following quickly on the heels of these is perhaps one you are less familiar with: Seis de Mayo. Not unlike its cousin the day before, Seis de Mayo is a day of celebration; however, this celebration centers on freedom from boredom via visual entertainment. No, really! And to commemorate the day, we're releasing an all-new Massively TV schedule, giving you the means to celebrate the whole week through with The Stream Team. If you can't celebrate live, just tune into a rerun and party whenever. Well, even if you don't believe us, you can still commemorate the occasion with us. Just check out the past the cut for a heaping helping of daily festivities. Continue reading The Stream Team: Seis de Mayo edition, May 6 - 12, 2013 The Stream Team: Seis de Mayo edition, May 6 - 12, 2013 originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 06 May 2013 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments

The Daily Grind: Does gamification stymie your roleplay? Posted: 06 May 2013 06:00 AM PDT Filed under: Opinion, The Daily Grind, Roleplaying Some colleagues and I were discussing roleplay in MMOs the other day, and the conversation briefly touched on our preferences for MMOs as games or MMOs as virtual worlds. One of my co-workers explained that mass gamification and an inability to affect the world or other players isn't a detriment to his roleplay because it's private and personal, whereas I find myself roleplaying much less than I used to because my actions can't affect anyone or anything in most current MMOs. What about you, Massively readers? Does gamification stymie your roleplay? 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: Does gamification stymie your roleplay? originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 06 May 2013 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments

MMO Week in Review: Neverwinter is... well, actually, it's here Posted: 05 May 2013 06:00 PM PDT Filed under: Massively Meta, Week in Review, Miscellaneous At the end of every week, we round up the best and most popular news stories, exclusive features, and insightful columns published on Massively and then present them all in one convenient place. If you missed a big MMO or WoW Insider story last week, you've come to the right post. Dungeons and Dragons-flavored action-MMO Neverwinter soft-launched into open beta this week, free-to-play for all comers except for the inconvenient parts where you're probably going to pay. Massively was prepared, if lacking in pants, with a two-part hands-on launch diary and a formal (if irreverent) first impressions piece. Read on for a look at this week's other top MMO stories. Continue reading MMO Week in Review: Neverwinter is... well, actually, it's here MMO Week in Review: Neverwinter is... well, actually, it's here originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 05 May 2013 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments

EVE Evolved: Ten years of EVE Online Posted: 05 May 2013 04:00 PM PDT Filed under: Betas, Sci-Fi, Trailers, Video, EVE Online, Culture, Events (In-Game), Expansions, Game Mechanics, Interviews, Lore, MMO Industry, Patches, PvP, News Items, Opinion, Consoles, MMOFPS, EVE Evolved, DUST 514, Dev Diaries, Sandbox, Anniversaries, Player-Generated Content, Subscription Tomorrow marks a huge milestone in MMO history as sci-fi sandbox EVE Online officially turns ten years old. Released by a tiny icelandic development studio whose only previous release was a board game featuring Reykjavik's favourite cross-dressing mayor, EVE has slowly grown over the past decade to become one of the industry's biggest and most stable subscription titles. Following 2011's monoclegate scandal that led to around 8% of players quitting and CCP Games shedding 20% of its employees, this year saw EVE Online climb to new heights as it regained the playerbase's confidence and smashed the 500,000 subscriber barrier. As a special side-note, the EVE Evolved column also turned five years old last week; it has now officially been running for over half of EVE's lifetime. The past year has been remarkably successful for CCP, with both of the year's EVE expansions being extremely well received and console MMOFPS DUST 514 finally starting to take shape. The Inferno and Retribution expansions fixed a staggering number of small issues that were broken in the game while also making big changes to bounty-hunting, piracy, and PvP across the board. We also saw huge emergent events like the Battle of Asakai, a $6,000 ship kill, and the five trillion ISK faction warfare exploit this year. With DUST 514 officially launching in just over a week on May 14th and players fired up about the upcoming Odyssey expansion, the future's looking bright for EVE Online as it heads into its second decade. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look back at some of year's top EVE stories, stories that touched real life, and what the future holds for EVE's second decade. Continue reading EVE Evolved: Ten years of EVE Online EVE Evolved: Ten years of EVE Online originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 05 May 2013 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments

Stick and Rudder: Star Citizen celebrates $9 million with Auroras, space suits, and LTI Posted: 05 May 2013 12:00 PM PDT Filed under: Game Mechanics, MMO Industry, New Titles, News Items, Opinion, Roleplaying, Sandbox, Crowdfunding, Stick and Rudder, Star Citizen, Buy-to-Play You know, Star Citizen occasionally seems too good to be true. Take this past week, for example. It saw not one, not two, but three major news releases focused on the fledgling space sandbox, all of which were well-received by most in the community and all of which generated even more buzz and positive word-of-mouth for Chris Roberts' crowdfunded juggernaut. I'm certainly not complaining, mind you; it's just that Cloud Imperium's game is doing a damned fine job of turning a cynic hardened by years of sub-standard MMO releases into a wide-eyed game-loving kid again. So let's talk after the cut about the Aurora, our new space suits, and lifetime insurance, shall we? Continue reading Stick and Rudder: Star Citizen celebrates $9 million with Auroras, space suits, and LTI Stick and Rudder: Star Citizen celebrates $9 million with Auroras, space suits, and LTI originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 05 May 2013 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments

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