MMO Updates |
- Blizzard LFM: eSports Director needed for Blizzard All-Stars
- WTFast service aims to slay lag
- Dragon's Prophet launch-day roundup
- RIFT China closing in November
- The Daily Grind: What older game deserves a graphical update?
- Pirate101 begins testing on Mac client
- Massively Exclusive: Reloaded Games' CEO explains APB's layoffs
- Monitor your profits with Star Trek Online's newest mine project
- Star Citizen's salvaging career unveiled
- Charging into the epic story of Lord of the Rings Online: Helm's Deep
- Flameseeker Chronicles: Ain't no party like a Guild Wars 2 party 'cause a GW2 party don't stop
- LotRO's Guardians to get off-tank build
- Massively Speaking Episode 264: Change never changes
- Diablo III shutting down auction houses next March
- APB: Reloaded loses more staff, teases upcoming threat changes
- Hyperspace Beacon: Exploring Oricon in SWTOR (Exploricon?)
| Blizzard LFM: eSports Director needed for Blizzard All-Stars Posted: 18 Sep 2013 10:00 AM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, MMO Industry, New Titles, News Items, Free-to-Play, MOBA  While the official site has nothing new to offer, 2P.com found a recruitment listing for a director to handle Blizzard's entire eSports program. This listing specifically mentions the upcoming MOBA, showing that the game has not been completely abandoned. This should give fans some hope that the game might still see the light of day sometime. And perhaps when director is found, we'll hear even more news on the progress of the game. [Thanks to Dengar for the tip!]
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| WTFast service aims to slay lag Posted: 18 Sep 2013 09:00 AM PDT Filed under: Video, MMO Industry, Miscellaneous  When playing MMOs, there is one common beast that players dread facing no matter the game: the lag monster. One very ill-timed spike can leave a player vulnerable to attack in PvP and turn near victory into defeat or cause a missed heal or cure that cascades into a massive wipe. After getting the best internet connection in your area and upgrading to the best PC you can, what's left for a player to do? WTFast suggests using a global private network connection established for gamers only.The WTFast service claims to improve game speed and reduce disconnects, response deviation, and lag by connecting players to game servers via Gamers Private Network (GPN), a private global data network/highway optimized for online games. The video after the break explains the premise behind the program. Can it work? If you want to find out for yourself, WTFast offers a free 30-day limited trial on the official site along with a detailed list of all the supported games. [Source: WTFast press release] Continue reading WTFast service aims to slay lag
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| Dragon's Prophet launch-day roundup Posted: 18 Sep 2013 08:00 AM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, Launches, New Titles, News Items, Free-to-Play, Dragon's Prophet  Of course, as much as you'd like to delve in right now you might be prevented from doing so by pesky things like work and responsibilities. That's OK -- we've got you covered if you've got to wait. We've got plenty of videos (even SUPER METAL ones), interviews, impressions pieces, and screenshots here to give you your dragon fix and tide you over until you can. You can even watch a livestreamed dev tour through the newest dungeons or a catch today's launch-day livestream at 3:00 p.m. EDT on Massively TV. Continue reading Dragon's Prophet launch-day roundup
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| RIFT China closing in November Posted: 18 Sep 2013 07:00 AM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, MMO Industry, Free-to-Play, RIFT, Sunsets  After an unsuccessful push to keep the pay-to-play model alive in China, Shanda cryptically cites "several reasons" as the purpose behind the closure. RIFT's Korean version has fared no better, closing on April 25th of this year, and recent studio closures in San Diego and Europe worry fans of the fantasy MMO.
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| The Daily Grind: What older game deserves a graphical update? Posted: 18 Sep 2013 06:00 AM PDT Filed under: Culture, Opinion, The Daily Grind, Miscellaneous  Fans of older MMOs always seem to be clamoring for improved graphics, so let's make that the topic for today's discussion. What older game deserves a graphical update? Would you go back and play it if it got one?  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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| Pirate101 begins testing on Mac client Posted: 17 Sep 2013 07:00 PM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, News Items, Free-to-Play, Kids, Family, Pirate101  There's no need to sign up for the testing, but not everyone is eligible. Active members and players who have made at least $6 worth of purchases in the last 30 days may download and try the new client; free-to-play players may not. Still, it's easy to become eligible if you really want to jump into some Mac-based piracy, so you can free your computer from having to run at least one game via Boot Camp.
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| Massively Exclusive: Reloaded Games' CEO explains APB's layoffs Posted: 17 Sep 2013 06:00 PM PDT Filed under: Fallen Earth, Events (Real-World), Interviews, MMO Industry, News Items, Free-to-Play, All Points Bulletin, Crime, Miscellaneous  That's hard news for any community to take, but apparently players have reason to be hopeful all the same. "It's a little more complicated than just layoffs," Bjorn Book-Larsson explained to me during a phone call this afternoon. Book-Larsson is the CEO of Reloaded, part of GamersFirst's assortment of MMO studios. He told me that the layoffs are part of a restructuring that's seen not just layoffs but the movement of developers between the APB and Fallen Earth teams, the latter of which has been given significant autonomy in terms of how it manages its resources. Continue reading Massively Exclusive: Reloaded Games' CEO explains APB's layoffs
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| Monitor your profits with Star Trek Online's newest mine project Posted: 17 Sep 2013 05:00 PM PDT Filed under: Sci-Fi, Patches, News Items, Star Trek Online, Free-to-Play  Fleets that successfully complete this project will have a variety of monitors, consoles, and displays added throughout the mining station, thus giving the environment the air of a futuristic space facility that has bothered to invest in a few wall displays. As with previous special projects, this one will be available only for a limited time, so your fleet will want to jump on this quickly if it seems right for you -- although those displays don't actually offer any real tracking benefits, so you still might want that spreadsheet.
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| Star Citizen's salvaging career unveiled Posted: 17 Sep 2013 04:30 PM PDT Filed under: Sci-Fi, Game Mechanics, MMO Industry, New Titles, News Items, Sandbox, Crowdfunding, Stick and Rudder, Star Citizen, Buy-to-Play  Don't look now, but there's some more, ahem, feature creep coming to Star Citizen. OK, not really, but Cloud Imperium has announced the $21 million stretch goal, and it is "a major gameplay feature we have been hoping to include," according to Chris Roberts' latest letter from the chairman. The feature is salvage, and "salvage isn't an aside: It's a career with its own mechanic, story tie-ins, and universe-shaping endgames."The dev team has also released some new concept art of a female explorer avatar, and Roberts also takes a moment to outline the options for continuing the fundraising campaign beyond the original fully-funded mark. "The more funds we can raise in the pre-launch phase, the more we can invest in additional content and perhaps more importantly we can apply greater numbers of resources to the various tasks to ensure we deliver the full functionality sooner rather than later," he explains. There's currently a poll at the end of the letter that offers three options for crowdfunding continuation. As of press time, 88% of the 13,000 respondents have voted to continue crowdfunding extra features and development milestones.
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| Charging into the epic story of Lord of the Rings Online: Helm's Deep Posted: 17 Sep 2013 04:00 PM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, Lord of the Rings Online, Expansions, Lore, Previews, Free-to-Play  While the epic story has always been a mixture of Turbine's storytelling creations and Tolkien's canonical events, Helm's Deep will hew a lot more closely to the books than ever before. This is the penultimate part of The Two Towers, and the dev team wants to do it right. That's not to say you won't get to see your favorite secondary characters, so fret not if you're looking for more inspiration for that Nona/Horn romance novel you've been writing. It's just that they'll be taking a backseat to the major players -- and a few surprises -- as events lead us to the titular fortress and the most important battle in the game to date. Continue reading Charging into the epic story of Lord of the Rings Online: Helm's Deep
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| Flameseeker Chronicles: Ain't no party like a Guild Wars 2 party 'cause a GW2 party don't stop Posted: 17 Sep 2013 03:00 PM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, Patches, Opinion, Guild Wars 2, Flameseeker Chronicles, Buy-to-Play  Tequila the Sunrise. Taco the Soft Shell. Loot Piñata. At the very least, poor Tequatl the Sunless will hopefully be shedding the last nickname with the upcoming Tequatl Rising content patch for Guild Wars 2. That one's kind of mean; the others are just affectionate. You know, as affectionate as we can be toward an undead servant of Zhaitan bent on subjugating all life. ArenaNet previewed the new and improved Tequatl fight mechanics at PAX Prime, but apart from that (and the new LFG tool and the new World vs. World mechanics), this latest GW2 release seems a little bit...quiet. I'm OK with that. In fact, it may be exactly what we need.
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| LotRO's Guardians to get off-tank build Posted: 17 Sep 2013 02:00 PM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, Lord of the Rings Online, Classes, Expansions, Free-to-Play, Dev Diaries  The new trait line is Fighter of Shadow, and it uses a marking mechanic to tag mobs for future proc buffs and heals. Guardians who pursue the Fighter of Shadow will become effective off-tanks, able to block with two-handed weapons and throw out more AoE attacks than the other two builds. That's not to say that the other two trait lines, focusing on tanking and DPS respectively, aren't seeing some work done. The tanking Guardian will get a stacking buff that can provide mitigation to himself or his fellowship, and the DPS Guardian will become a master of bleeds.
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| Massively Speaking Episode 264: Change never changes Posted: 17 Sep 2013 01:00 PM PDT Filed under: Podcasts, MMO Industry, News Items, Massively Meta, Massively Speaking, 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: [RSS] Add Massively Speaking to your RSS aggregator. [MP3] Download the MP3 directly. [iTunes] Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. [Stitcher] Follow the podcast on Stitcher Radio. Listen here on the page: Read below the cut for the full show notes. Continue reading Massively Speaking Episode 264: Change never changes
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| Diablo III shutting down auction houses next March Posted: 17 Sep 2013 12:25 PM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, Video, Economy, MMO Industry, Diablo III  The studio is giving a heads-up now so that players have enough time to prepare for the change, although specific details regarding the shutdown process are still forthcoming. This announcement comes as Blizzard has been making noise about an improved "Loot 2.0" system to put more of an emphasis on killing monsters for one's gear. The auction houses will come down at the same time, and after they do, players will be able to trade with each other only through the trade window. You can watch the developers explain their reasoning behind this decision after the jump. Continue reading Diablo III shutting down auction houses next March
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| APB: Reloaded loses more staff, teases upcoming threat changes Posted: 17 Sep 2013 12:00 PM PDT Filed under: MMO Industry, Free-to-Play, All Points Bulletin, Crime  To help alleviate the impending concern from fans of the resurrected shooter MMO, Linus points out some new content coming down the pipe, including threat changes that will allow friends with varying threat levels to play together, and another hopeful cure to the lag and performance issues. Look for more information on the staff changes and upcoming content in an interview we have with GamersFirst this afternoon. [Thanks to everyone who tipped us on this!]
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| Hyperspace Beacon: Exploring Oricon in SWTOR (Exploricon?) Posted: 17 Sep 2013 11:00 AM PDT Filed under: Sci-Fi, Lore, Patches, Endgame, PvE, Opinion, Free-to-Play, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Hyperspace Beacon, MMORPG  Warning: I will spoil a lot of the story that leads up to Oricon! Continue reading Hyperspace Beacon: Exploring Oricon in SWTOR (Exploricon?)
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