General Gaming Article

General Gaming Article


Lenovo IdeaPad Y500 Review

Posted: 06 May 2013 02:56 PM PDT

A good idea and a great value

What's not to like about the Lenovo IdeaPad Y500? Imagine a 2.4GHz Core i7-3630QM CPU notebook armed with two GeForce GT 650Ms, 16GB of RAM, and a 1TB hard drive with a 16GB caching SSD, all for $1,250!

If the impressive specs weren't enough, the Y500 is also quite handsome with its sharp angles, rounded corners, and brushed aluminum finish. It eschews the "extreme" gaming laptop design in favor of a simple and clean aesthetic, but a flaming-red, LED-backlit keyboard adds just enough flare to keep things interesting. Its 15.2x10.2x1.4-inch chassis also makes it much smaller and more portable than our 15.6-inch MSI GT60 zero-point laptop, and  the Y500 weighs in at just six pounds, 6.8 ounces. Although it may not be Ultrabook-light, it's lighter than the very-slim Razer Blade gaming laptop (reviewed Holiday 2012), but it's much heftier power brick does increase its carry weight by more than a pound.

Lenovo IdeaPad Y500

 

One unique design feature is the Y500's modular ultrabay underneath the notebook, which allows you to swap in different components. Our unit came with a second 650M GPU, but you can easily unlock this and swap it out with Lenovo's expanded 750GB HDD tray ($190), a DVD burner ($70), or cooling fan ($30). The extra flexibility is appreciated, as it allows you to transform the gaming laptop into a workstation or entertainment system.

You'll be able to enjoy each configuration with the Y500's excellent JBL speakers and sharp 15.6-inch display. Even though the 1920x1080-resolution screen is a TN panel, it offers very good viewing angles all around, and the audio is loud and crisp, partially thanks to Dolby's Home Theatre V4 software. While it can't quite compare to a dedicated 2.1 setup, laptop speakers don't get much better than this.

We also really liked the chiclet keyboard and found the keys to be quiet and responsive. Unfortunately, the trackpad was a big letdown. It supports all of Windows 8 multitouch gestures, like swiping in the Charms bar and pinch-to-zoom, but we often found ourselves triggering these gestures on accident. Though we were able to disable these features, which largely fixed the annoyances, but there were still occasions where the trackpad proved unresponsive. In addition, because both click buttons are clunkily integrated beneath the trackpad rather than being separate buttons, we often found ourselves unintentionally sliding the cursor when clicking. 

Fortunately, the internal components performed quite well—beyond what we'd expect given the Y500's affordability. This is the first time we've reviewed a laptop with two 650M GPUs in SLI and we're happy to say it had no problems blowing away our zero-point's single GTX 670. In both our STALKER and 3DMark 11 graphics benchmarks, it smoked the zero-point by more than 20 percent. The only issue we experienced was that we had to enable SLI in the Nvidia control panel, as it was disabled by default. The Y500's Core i7-3630QM's100MHz advantage over the GT60's Core i7-3610QM gave the former a marginal advantage—Lenovo's biggest lead here was 2.5 percent in the multithread-hungry x264 benchmark. 

In our experiential gameplay tests, the Y500 handled Portal 2 like a piece of cake, as it were, and achieved average frame rates in the 130 range. On the much more graphically formidable Far Cry 3, it achieved a 40fps average at 1080p on the default medium settings, which we consider to be in the realm of playable. But the laptop does falter when it comes to battery life, as it only lasted 163 minutes in our test—24 minutes less than the GT60.

While we're withholding a Kick Ass rating on account of the lackluster battery and frustrating trackpad, those issues can be mitigated if you carry a mouse and charger with you. In general, this is a handsome, portable notebook that can compete in performance with laptops that cost hundreds more. True to its name, the IdeaPad sounds like a great idea to us.

$1,250, www.lenovo.com

Lenovo IdeaPad Y500 Benchmarks

10 Things You Need To Know About Intel’s New Atom

Posted: 06 May 2013 12:57 PM PDT

How Intel's new Atom CPUs may be a game changer

10. It won't suck.

Atom parts have long been the butt of our jokes for being the anti-performance parts that inspired the Netbook but anyone who ever tried to drive a Netbook for anything beyond browsing knows how much Atom's sucked in performance. A dual-core, Hyper-Threaded 1.6Ghz Atom N2600 gives up a Cinebench 11.5 score of 0.47. That's just barely faster than  a single-core Athlon 64 3200's score of 0.42. For reference, a Core i7-2600K gives up about 8.1 and a 3.2GHz Core 2 Duo E8200 gives you about 1.91. The actual performance isn't known, but the new "Silvermont" version of Atom should offer far more performance than we've ever seen before.

intel atom

Meet the new Intel Atom family

9. No more process sloppy seconds

Atom has long been the bottom bin of Intel CPUs. It didn't get access to the latest process technologies and while Core 2 and Core i7 have been on a "tick tock" strategy where two new designs are produced on each process, Atom has plowed along with a one "new" design for each process. With Silvermont, the chip gets moved to the latest 22nm process 3D transistors. Even better for Atom will be the next-generation. With the introduction of the 14nm process, Intel will introduce a "tick" Airmont and then a "tock" chip that doesn't even have a codename yet. This is just another sign of just how important Intel sees Atom to its future.

intel atom

Intel Atom core block diagram

8. Silvermont probably won't bring back Netbooks.

The Netbook was the hottest piece of tech that was introduced at the right time. Who didn't want a $300 mini-notebook when the entire financial world was collapsing? Unfortunately most users who bought them quickly became disenfranchised with the performance of the Netbook. In fact, Netbook sales numbers look like a failed rocket launch. Netbook sales peaked in 2010 with 32 million Netbooks sold, according to IHS. This year, 3.97 million Netbooks will sell with IHS predicting just 264,000 Netbooks will sell next year before Netbooks go extinct by 2015. Many blame the death of the Netbook on the iPad and other ARM-based tablets but we like to blame Atom. If Netbooks had had decent performance from day one, they might not have cratered so badly. Even with Silvermont and say, Core i7-lite performance, will OEMs try Netbooks again or have they had enough? We think OEMs have moved beyond the Netbook which is a bit of a shame because if they had decent performance years ago, maybe they wouldn't be the Dodo bird of PCs.

intel silvermont

Silvermont's wide range of operation

7. Think of it as Atom i7 or Atom 2 Quad

Silvermont will be built around a modular design. Each module will feature two cores and Intel can stitch together up to eight cores on a die. Unlike AMD's modular design that shares chip resources, Silvermont's cores are separate cores that only share a common L2 cache. All previous Atom chips have continued to use the ancient front side bus to connect the chips but Silvermont will feature a point-to-point interface connecting to a system agent which will hook into the memory controller. Also important in Silvermont is the move from the in-order design of all previous Atoms to an out-of-order design. Out-of-order designs allow instructions to be executed out of order to greatly increase performance over in-order designs. For perspective, out-of-order CPU designs have been used by Intel since the Pentium Pro chip. Most ARM-based CPUs have also been in order up until the Cortex A9 chips.

The main penalty to out-of-order designs has been an increase in power consumption and die space which is why Intel turned to an in-order design for the original Bonnell-based Atoms in 2008.  Intel says with its advanced 22nm process, it can now do an out-of-order design while keeping power consumption and die space to a minimum. Intel has also completely redesign Silvermont with larger branch predictors, improved decoders, redesigned execution units, larger L2 and reduced L2 cache latency. In a nutshell, performance of Silvermont will be a factor of 3x over the current fastest Atom's with 5x lower power consumption.

Oh yeah, Silvertmont also gets SSE3.1, SSE4.2, hardware AES-NI encyprtion, hardware random number generation and several other instructions from the Westmere generation of CPUs.

6. Atom now gets Turbo too.

Intel's popular and effective Turbo Boost makes an appearance in Silvermont which can now "burst" different cores up depending on the load. Intel says Atom also has the ability to run cores at different speeds as well. The company has previously pooh-poohed such an approach and still says it's more efficient to run all cores at the same speed when needed, but certain server, notebook, tablet and phone makers may want to intentionally run cores at asymmetric speeds to reduce power consumption sometimes. 

atom cores

Intel Atom Power Sharing

Click the next page to read about how it's faster and more efficient than ARM


5. Yup. From servers to phones

Silvertmont will go into micro-servers and scale down to phone iterations after introduced. And no, you aren't likely to get a tablet or phone with an 8-core Silverton variant. Those are likely aimed at micro-servers which aren't as power sensitive as a phone or tablet.

atom tablets

Intel Atom in tablets

4. No damnit, it's not ARM

Analysts and self-appointed Internet experts have long speculated that Intel needs an ARM chip to compete with ARM because x86 can't "get er done." For what it's worth, Intel had an entire ARM division when DEC sold it the StrongARM family which turned into XScale. Intel sold XScale to Marvell in 2006 and apparently still has no regrets about it. Silvermont is pure x86.

intel atom module

Intel Atom workflow

3. Faster and more efficient—than ARM

The battle of the last three years has clearly not been Intel vs. AMD, but x86 vs ARM. ARMchair commandos have long said x86 can't compete because it's just too power hungry. But remember, ARM is no brainiac chip. Even the super weak sauce old iterations of Atom have been performance and on power parity with ARM chips (non-believers see here). Intel says Silvermont will easily stomp all ARM chips into the dirt. While, Intel didn't actually directly say the ARM word during press briefings but you don't have to be Steven Hawking to guess what CPU architecture Intel is comparing Silverton to. Even with the power consumption of ARM chips far exceeding Silvermont, those CPUs still can't match Silvermont's performance. Up against four competing ARM chips, Intel says at the same power use, Silvermont will be from 1.6 times to 2.3 times faster and consume from 3 to 5.8 times less power.

2. But the competition has eight cores.

Intel's arrogance is pretty well known. But the truth is you can't be arrogant if your products suck. That gloat has been fading of late but during our media briefings with Intel engineers, we could see the spring in their PowerPoint decks. We know, the proof is in the pudding, but Intel says Silvermont's better cores out-perform competing ARM CPUs that use inefficient quad-cores. And yeah, that thing where they have eight cores? Remember four of the cores are low power cores that take over when the high performance cores aren't needed. Intel says it's long explored such little core, big core approach and it's never been optimal. 

atom cores

Intel Atom's cores

1. Intel's war begins with Silvermont

When did the x86 vs. ARM war begin? That's hard to say. Some say 2010, others say 2011 or even 2012. We'd say that when the war began didn't really matter. What matters is how each side reacts. Intel has long been a dangerous dragon tends to slumber when not challenged. Need proof? Go and Bing Pentium 4 or Intel's lack of interest at the high-end desktop game today.  So does anyone want to piss that dragon off? ARM does. Over the last few years it and a merry band of dwarves have walked into the slumbering dragon's cave, stuck a short sword in its side and threatened the dragon's hoard of gold. Silvermont—if Intel's claims are true—could very well indicate that someone's going to get roasted.

Adobe Says Goodbye to Creative Suite, Hello to Creative Cloud

Posted: 06 May 2013 12:28 PM PDT

Creative CloudIt's the cloud or bust for Adobe and its customers.

Can you feel the ground shaking? That's just Adobe, which today made an earth-rattling announcement regarding its plans to go all-in with the cloud. Adobe Creative Cloud is the company's new flagship offering, a re-imagining of the Creative Suite, if you will, which will no longer see new releases (so no Creative Suite 7, which many anticipated would be announced today) but will continue to be supported.

"We launched Creative Cloud a year ago and it has been a runaway success," said David Wadhwani, senior vice president and general manager, Digital Media, Adobe. "By focusing our energy -- and our talented engineers -- on Creative Cloud, we're able to put innovation in our members' hands at a much faster pace."

With today's update, files can be stored, synced, and shared via its Creative Cloud subscription service on Mac OS, Windows, iOS, and Android. Furthermore, a Creative Cloud subscription gives users access to just about every product Adobe offers, including Photoshop, for $50/month (those who own a Creative Suite product are eligible for a discounted $30/month rate for the first year).

Adobe is also releasing an updated suite of cloud applications, now called CC apps, that include Photoshop CC, InDesign CC, Illustrator CC, Dreamwever CC, and Premier Pro CC. If all you're interested in is a single app, you'll still have the option of subscribing to it for $20/month rather than being forced to pay for the entire Creative Cloud collection.

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The Sims 4 Ships to PC in 2014

Posted: 06 May 2013 11:49 AM PDT

The Sims 4The next Sims title is currently in development

Maxis and Electronics Arts today confirmed that they've begun work on The Sims 4 at The Sims Studio. If all goes to plan, the next major installment in the highly popular Sims franchise will launch to PC and Mac systems sometime in 2014, though it's unknown if the Maxis and EA are targeting an early, mid, or late year release. What we do know is that there will be new and intuitive tools to play with, along with the ability to share items with friends.

We also know that The Sims 4 is being designed as a single-player title to be played offline. Maxis and EA say they want players to have a deeper connection with their on-screen characters, as well as be able to personalize their worlds like never before.

"The Sims franchise is fueled by the passion and creativity of its millions of fans around the world. Your continued devotion to the franchise ignites the fire of creativity of the team at The Sims Studio, driving them to continually improve and innovate on one of the world's most successful simulation game that has sold more than 150 million copies," Maxis and EA stated in a blog post.

One thing that's interesting is that there's no mention of a console release, though such an announcement could come at a later date. If you want to be one of the first to know about The Sims 4, you can sign up for alerts on a special page designed for the game.

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Intel Details Atom "Silvermont" Architecture

Posted: 06 May 2013 11:30 AM PDT

Intel SilvermontSilvermont is significantly different from Atom architectures that have preceded it.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Silvermont, the codename for the next generation of Intel's Atom line and the first in a family of yearly refreshes. Oh, and forget any preconceived notions you have about Atom, Silvermont is far different from the architecture found in your first or second generation notebook. It's a brand new design using Intel's 22nm 3D Tri-Gate SoC (System-on-Chip), which Intel claims will deliver "significant increases in performance and energy efficiency."

How significant? According to Intel, Silvermont can deliver 3x more peak performance or the same performance at 1/5th the power over current generation Atom parts. As a result of these improvements, Intel foresees Silvermont being used in a wide range of applications, including smartphones, tablets, microservers, network infrastructure, storage, entry level laptops, in-vehicle infotainment, and more.

"Silvermont is a leap forward and an entirely new technology foundation for the future that will address a broad range of products and market segments," said Dadi Perlmutter, Intel executive vice president and chief product officer. "Early sampling of our 22nm SoCs, including 'Bay Trail' and 'Avoton' is already garnering positive feedback from our customers. Going forward, we will accelerate future generations of this low-power microarchitecture on a yearly cadence."

This is the first time Intel has used its 22nm 3D Tri-Gate technology to build an SoC. Some highlights of Silvermont include a new out-of-order execution engine to improve single-threaded performance, a multi-core and system fabric architecture that's scalable up to eight cores, new IA instructions and technologies built on top of existing support for 64-bit, and enhanced power management capabilities, including a new intelligent burst technology and low power C states.

Intel provided release dates for a handful of Silvermont CPUs. They include:

  • Bay Trail: Quad-core processor for tablets, shipping holiday 2013.
  • Merrifield: Smartphone processor, shipping by the end of 2013.
  • Avoton: Microserver chip, shipping in the second half of this year.
  • Rangeley: Routers and other networking gear, shipping second half of this year.

Intel Atom Roadmap

Silvermont is Intel's first real attempt at competing in mobile markets. It will be interesting to see if Silvermont can live up to the hype.

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Newegg Daily Deals

Posted: 06 May 2013 10:42 AM PDT

borderlands 2Newegg

Top Deal:

Today's top deal is the very kick-ass Borderlands 2 game. The highly-acclaimed FPS is running for $20 with free shipping (normally $40). When we reviewed the game last year we praised it for it's hilarious writing, nonstop action, and high replayability. The game also has amazing PhysX effects which will give your video card a nice workout. 

Other Deals:

Seagate GoFlex Satellite 500GB mobile wireless storage for $100 with free shipping (normally $200 - use coupon code: EMCXRXT62)

AMD FX-4100 Zambezi 3.6GHz desktop processor for $90 with free shipping (normally $100 - use coupon code: EMCXRXT43

Seagate SV35 Series 2TB 7200 RPM hard drive for $100 with free shipping (normally $160 - use coupon code: EMCXRXT27

Samsung 840 Series 120GB SATA III SSD for $99 with free shipping (normally $130 - use coupon code: EMCXRXT28)

Stinky Footboard Controller Skips Past Funding Goal

Posted: 06 May 2013 08:47 AM PDT

Stinky FootboardIt was close, but the Stinky Footboard Kickstarter campaign was ultimately successful.

Imagine using your foot to cast a spell or to kick an opponent in the gut when he charges so close you can smell what he ate for lunch through your monitor. Or maybe you'd step down when you want to crouch, jump, or sprint. These are just some ways you might use the Stinky Footboard, a PC game controller for your foot that recently hit its goal on Kickstarter with a few thousand dollars to spare.

The Stinky Footboard campaign drew interest from 479 backers who pledged a combined $79,562, surpassing the company's $75,000 goal. As such, the project will go forward, and we're told you'll be able to buy the peripheral in June for $119.

In case you missed our previous coverage, the Stinky Footboard is a 4-button gaming footboard with up to 16 game supported modifiers. The buttons use Cherry MX switches, which are nestled underneath heavy duty plastics, a steel U-channel backbone, and a T6 aluminum top plate.

There are no proprietary drivers to install; it's USB HID compatible, just like a USB footpedal. Unlike a traditional foot pedal, however, the Stinky Footboard comes with six spare replaceable springs and you can adjust the stiffness and responsiveness via the tension box. It also sports on-board memory to store active profiles.

Do you think this is something you'd be interested in using? Sound off in the comments section below!

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Barnes & Noble Slashes Nook HD and HD+ Prices for Mother's Day

Posted: 06 May 2013 08:16 AM PDT

Nook HD PlusYet another reason to consider the Nook HD/HD+.

With so many low-cost tablets entering the fray, Barnes & Noble wants to make sure it's Nook HD and Nook HD+ don't get overlooked. To help put them both in the spotlight, B&N last week issued a firmware update that added Google Play access to the tablets, making it much more difficult to pigeonhole them as glorified eBook readers. And if that wasn't enough incentive, B&N just dropped the price by about 30 percent for Mother's Day.

"In recognition that the best gift for Mother's Day is now even better, we're proud to offer this special limited-time offer for our award-winning 7- and 9-inch tablets," said Jamie Iannone, president of Nook Media. "Nook HD and Nook HD+ are not only beautifully designed, lightweight devices with stunning displays, they now offer customers the most reading and entertainment content we've ever offered, at the best prices ever."

Here's a look at the new pricing:

  • Nook HD 8GB: $149 (down from $199)
  • Nook HD 16GB: $179 (down from $229)
  • Nook HD+ 16GB: $179 (down from $269)
  • Nook HD+ 32GB: $209 (down from $299)

That's not a typo -- the 16GB Nook HD and HD+ are priced the same at $179, with the latter arguably the best value of the bunch. They're all priced competitively with the competition, though not to be outdone, Amazon is offering $20 off its Kindle FireHD line with coupon code FIRE4MOM:

  • Amazon Kindle Fire HD 16GB: $199 - $20 = $179
  • Amazon Kindle Fire HD 32GB: $229 - $20 = $209

The coupon doesn't work on the Kindle Fire HD 8.9-inch models, however, so B&N still has an edge overall.

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Latest Gaming and MMORPG Updates

Latest Gaming and MMORPG Updates


NCSOFT Prepared to Launch Lineage: The Second Moon to mobile games platform.

Posted: 05 May 2013 09:44 PM PDT

Lineage: The Second Moon – First of many NCsoft mobile games to come Out of many MMO games that has been released to Mobile platform or Mobile Games Market NCSoft’s Linage seems to be an edition….   NCsoft's first mobile game based on its hit online games, Lineage: The Second … Continue reading

RIFT China – Struggles to get players – A Local media Report

Posted: 05 May 2013 09:21 PM PDT

RIFT China – Local media reports game now struggling for players  Following the Trend of RIFT Korean we at Gameforumer are now personally not surprised at this news. Following the demise of RIFT Korea, the various gaming media outlets in China are all reporting on how RIFT China is currently … Continue reading

Everlane CEO Michael Preysman On Keeping An Edge Amidst The Copycats [TCTV]

Posted: 05 May 2013 08:15 PM PDT

Everlane has built a really unique business that straddles the tech and consumer spaces, by using technology to provide luxury quality apparel at much lower prices than traditional high-end designers. But with that success has also come copycats — particularly abroad, where Everlane has not yet expanded its business (at … Continue reading

On Rekindling A Sense Of Mystery

Posted: 05 May 2013 07:52 PM PDT

A little disconnection goes a long way. In the tangled web of digital social networks that we weave one thing is increasingly absent: a sense of mystery. We are so wrapped up in our digital social graphs there's rarely room for gaps. Our networks offer the promise of being entangled … Continue reading

MMO Updates

MMO Updates


Forking over your cash to play for free!

Posted: 06 May 2013 10:00 AM PDT

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Forking over your cash to play for free!
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."

MassivelyForking 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.

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Embers of Caerus team LFM

Posted: 06 May 2013 09:00 AM PDT

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Embers of Caerus team LFM
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.

MassivelyEmbers 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.

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The Nexus Telegraph: What the Luminai mean for WildStar

Posted: 06 May 2013 08:00 AM PDT

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Looking closer sometimes means the light just becomes more blinding.
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

MassivelyThe 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.

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    The Stream Team: Seis de Mayo edition, May 6 - 12, 2013

    Posted: 06 May 2013 07:00 AM PDT

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    The Stream Team  Seis de Mayo edition, May 6  12, 2013
    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

    MassivelyThe 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.

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      The Daily Grind: Does gamification stymie your roleplay?

      Posted: 06 May 2013 06:00 AM PDT

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      Star Wars Galaxies - Corvette dungeon
      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!

      MassivelyThe 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.

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        MMO Week in Review: Neverwinter is... well, actually, it's here

        Posted: 05 May 2013 06:00 PM PDT

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        Neverwinter
        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

        MassivelyMMO 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.

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          EVE Evolved: Ten years of EVE Online

          Posted: 05 May 2013 04:00 PM PDT

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          EVE Evolved Ten years of EVE Online
          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

          MassivelyEVE 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.

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            Stick and Rudder: Star Citizen celebrates $9 million with Auroras, space suits, and LTI

            Posted: 05 May 2013 12:00 PM PDT

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            Stick and Rudder - Auroras, space suits, and $9 million
            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

            MassivelyStick 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.

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              MMORPG News

              MMORPG News


              General: This Week's Live Stream Schedule

              Posted: 06 May 2013 07:28 AM PDT

              This Week

              Be sure to check the MMORPG.com Live Stream Schedule to find the times of your favorite MMOs in action with our terrific team of streamers.

              Marvel Heroes: Delving Into Open Beta

              Posted: 06 May 2013 06:48 AM PDT

              Delving Into Open Beta

              Gazillion Entertainment invited players into an open beta event for Marvel Heroes this past weekend. We took the opportunity to take our super heroes out for a run and have a few thoughts to share. Read on and then let us know about your experiences with Marvel Heroes in the comments.

              General: Game On: Neverwinter Unchained

              Posted: 06 May 2013 06:25 AM PDT

              Game On: Neverwinter Unchained

              Welcome to another episode of Game On: Epic Slant Press Edition. This week Chris and Adam are joined by Green Armadillo of the Player Versus Developer MMO blog. Together we discuss the Vanguard: Saga of Heroes and The Old Republic's free-to-play versions, the success of the Camelot Unchained's kickstarter, the launch of Neverwinter, and the FFXIV: A Realm Reborn summer release announcement.

              Neverwinter: Foundry Focus: A Kidnapping in Blacklake

              Posted: 05 May 2013 01:14 PM PDT

              Foundry Focus: A Kidnapping in Blacklake

              Rob Lashley has started a terrific new series for MMORPG.com that is based around Neverwinter. Called Foundry Focus, Rob shines the spotlight on a specific Foundry quest each week. In this inaugural article, Rob takes a look at "A Kidnapping in Blacklake". Check it out and then tell us about your favorite Foundry quests in the comments.

              General: Game On: iTunes Review Giveaway on Official Podcast

              Posted: 04 May 2013 03:47 PM PDT

              Game On: iTunes Review Giveaway on Official Podcast

              Game On: Epic Slant Press Edition, the official podcast of MMORPG.com, is proud to announce its first iTunes review giveaway. From now until 3:00PM EST, May 19th, each written 5-star review will be entered to win a digital download copy of Defiance courtesy of Trion Worlds and Indigo Pearl. Chris and Adam will also be giving away these select indie games for each of the three weeks to follow,: Magicka, Strike Suit Zero, and A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2.

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