| The Game Archaeologist: Classic MMOs in October Posted: 26 Oct 2013 10:00 AM PDT Filed under: Asheron's Call, Dark Age of Camelot, EverQuest, Lineage 2, News Items, Ultima Online, The Game Archaeologist, Miscellaneous You think your fancy modern MMOs have the patent on Halloween? Mister, classic games own this holiday. They were out picking pumpkins and decapitating spooks long before you were a twinkle in the character creator's eye. Halloween's back in many of our older titles this month, and for those of you who have been away from a beloved classic, it may just be the best time to return for another go. Anarchy Online not only has the return of Uncle Pumpkinhead but some pretty good subscription deals right now. EverQuest has the Haunting of Norrath, Pixel Pirates is offering seasonal items in the store, Guild Wars probably toggled its Halloween 2013 switch, RuneScape's got a brand-new questline, and Dark Age of Camelot is up to its standard tricks with the Pumpkin Moon. Of course, October wasn't just about trick-or-treating; plenty of other events have happened to the classic MMO collective. From a record-setting expansion to invasions to a very happy birthday, this month kept hopping (and growling, slithering, and lurking). Let's check it out! Continue reading The Game Archaeologist: Classic MMOs in October  The Game Archaeologist: Classic MMOs in October originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 26 Oct 2013 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| WRUP: Situations in which we may in fact be royals edition Posted: 26 Oct 2013 08:00 AM PDT Filed under: Massively Meta, Miscellaneous I think it's a little presumptuous to say that we'll never be royals. For starters, have you seen the succession lists for the British throne? Those are crazy long. All you really need to do is be on the list right where it would otherwise stop, also known as the King Ralph effect. Assuming that doesn't come to pass, there are still more possibilities. For instance, you could come across a royal in the woods with a thorn in his or her foot, as I assume royalty works much like lions in fables and requires the aid of random strangers in the woods for thorn removal. Plus, you might happen to meet a member of the royal family and marry him. That's worked well for a few people. Speaking of horrible segues, it's time for this week's installment of WRUP, in which the Massively staff shares our plans for the weekend. Let us know what you'll be up to in the comments! Continue reading WRUP: Situations in which we may in fact be royals edition WRUP: Situations in which we may in fact be royals edition originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 26 Oct 2013 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| The Daily Grind: How do you leave a game? Posted: 26 Oct 2013 06:00 AM PDT Filed under: Culture, Opinion, The Daily Grind, Miscellaneous Everyone leaves an MMO eventually. Sometimes it's a low-key affair; you realize you haven't logged on to Lord of the Rings Online in forever, you cancel your subscription if you have one, and you move on. Sometimes it's done in the heat of the moment, with one failed World of Warcraft raid leading directly to a cancelled subscription and the angriest uninstall you can manage. Sometimes it's even a planned absence, like a month-long vacation from The Secret World just to keep your interest going. That's not even getting into the question of whether you keep the client around or not (on the basis that you might go back some day) or if you get in touch with your in-game friends to let you know. There are a lot of ways to leave, in other words. So how do you leave a game? Do you tend to quit in a huff or just slowly drop off?  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: How do you leave a game? originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 26 Oct 2013 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| Betawatch: October 19 - 25, 2013 Posted: 25 Oct 2013 06:00 PM PDT Filed under: Betas, MMO Industry, News Items, Betawatch, Miscellaneous It's beta time, ladies and gentlemen, and there's been a lot of fuss this week about the first beta for Black Desert in South Korea. We've had a look at housing, at parkour, and at the free-for-all PvP that's turned a lot of people off from the game just from that combination of phrases. But this week's header nod goes to Aura Kingdom and its class reveal, chiefly because any jokes to be made about Black Desert never coming to the West have already been made. Aside from that, we've got Hero of the Obelisk having just finished its first closed test. Oh, and there are the usual suspects past the break in the full game list. If something has sneakily added a cash shop or opened its beta without us noticing, let us know so we can double-check that. Being banished from our list is apparently kind of a big deal in some circles. Continue reading Betawatch: October 19 - 25, 2013 Betawatch: October 19 - 25, 2013 originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 25 Oct 2013 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| Storyboard: This is your next character Posted: 25 Oct 2013 05:00 PM PDT Filed under: Culture, Roleplaying, Storyboard, Miscellaneous Coming up with a new character concept is hard. Not as tough as it could be, obviously, but it's still challenging. For some people, the hardest part of roleplaying is figuring out whom to play, and once you figure that part out, the rest is just down to the execution. But coming up with a character concept requires hard work, careful consideration, and quite possibly a few blood sacrifices. Or it requires someone who wants to do a Halloween column that's more about dressing up than the usual plague of ghosts and demonic pumpkins. In today's Storyboard, I'm going to just give you your next character and make it as easy as slipping on a costume. I'm even giving you choices. I'm even making it more of a system than an outright list, so you can use it from here to eternity. It's everything you could want except for more familiarity with the game's lore. Continue reading Storyboard: This is your next character Storyboard: This is your next character originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 25 Oct 2013 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| MMObility: Combat Monsters still needs some tweaking Posted: 25 Oct 2013 04:00 PM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, Bugs, Game Mechanics, Launches, New Titles, Previews, PvP, Opinion, Hands-On, Trading Card Games, First Impressions, Miscellaneous, MMObility Combat Monsters is made by the folks at Rubicon, the same people who brought us the cute Great Little War Game and others. This made me almost immediately happy as I've spent a lot of time playing some of those titles and loved the way the developers kept things simple to play yet hard to master. Combat Monsters is supposed to be a multiplayer, turn-based, card-based, arena-style combat game with optional in-game purchases. I found it to be most of those things, but I also found that it still needed more time in the oven. You start off in a tutorial that does a relatively good job of explaining how everything works. You have a card deck with a limited number of cards, mojo for card creation that's earned every round, and several different types of cards that do different things during a round. It's all pretty straightforward... until the frustration kicks in. Continue reading MMObility: Combat Monsters still needs some tweaking MMObility: Combat Monsters still needs some tweaking originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 25 Oct 2013 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| Final Fantasy XIV tops 1.5M registered users Posted: 25 Oct 2013 03:00 PM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, Events (In-Game), MMO Industry, Final Fantasy XIV, Subscription Final Fantasy XIV is going strong even with the subscription-only model, topping 1,500,000 registered users this week according to Famitsu. Of course, "registered user" is a murky term that may or may not apply to active players, but it's still a figure worth noting. The reborn title also is in the midst of its All Saints' Wake in-game holiday. Check out the website's lore for the event, and then head in-game to speak to a member of one of the shifty traveling troupes to get a special quest during this spooky time of year. All Saints' Wake will continue until November 1st, and our own Eliot will be talking about it in-depth in his column tomorrow. Final Fantasy XIV tops 1.5M registered users originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 25 Oct 2013 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| Diablo III dev blog demystifies the Mystic Posted: 25 Oct 2013 02:00 PM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, Expansions, Previews, News Items, Consoles, Dev Diaries, Diablo III  Diablo III's latest dev blog unveils more tasty information about a new artisan NPC, the Mystic, coming to the game in the Reaper of Souls expansion. As many Diablo III fans are undoubtedly aware, Reaper of Souls will mark the introduction of a set of features, known colloquially as Loot 2.0, which aims to rebalance Diablo III's loot and item systems in an effort to make loot more interesting to players. The Mystic is an integral part of this effort thanks to her unique skills of enchanting and transmogrification. Through Enchantment, the Mystic is capable of rerolling a single property on a piece of equipment, making her the go-to artisan for those items that are almost-but-not-quite perfect. While you can choose only a single property to reroll on each item, that property can be rerolled as many times as you can afford. Don't worry about buyer's remorse, though; if the newly rolled property is worse than the old one, the Mystic can reverse the process. The Mystic is also the number one stylist in Sanctuary thanks to her transmogrification ability which, as World of Warcraft players know, allows players to replace an item's visual appearance with that of a different item. To get all the arcane details on Myriam the Mystic, you can check out the full post on Diablo III's official site. Diablo III dev blog demystifies the Mystic originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 25 Oct 2013 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| Looking for Guild: FFXIV and Fallen Earth Posted: 25 Oct 2013 01:00 PM PDT |
| Mechanist Games working to restore faith with City of Steam's community Posted: 25 Oct 2013 12:30 PM PDT Filed under: Betas, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, MMO Industry, Free-to-Play, Browser, City of Steam, Steampunk Mechanist Games will be taking actions to "restore faith" by those affected from City of Steam's impending shutdown and rebirth as City of Steam: Arkadia. The studio announced three initiatives to draw back players. First, it will be recharging alpha and beta supporters' Electrum, although it doesn't look like refunds are in the cards. Second, it will be compensating returning players who will need to start fresh on a new server. And third, Mechanist is opening up a new English-speaking forums on the website for the community to use. The exact nature of the compensation for affected players was not revealed, as the studio said it has yet to finalize details in that regard. Mechanist paid to reclaim the English publishing rights for City of Steam and will be self-publishing the title going forward. Other language editions of the game will continue to be operated as is. [Source: Mechanist Games' press release] Mechanist Games working to restore faith with City of Steam's community originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 25 Oct 2013 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| World of Tanks named online game of the year at Golden Joysticks Posted: 25 Oct 2013 12:00 PM PDT Filed under: Historical, Real-Life, Events (Real-World), MMO Industry, News Items, War, Free-to-Play, World of Tanks, MOBA, League of Legends, MMORPG World of Tanks, the ever-popular tank-based MMO from Wargaming.net, is 2013's online game of the year according to the Golden Joysticks. The title beat out heavy hitters like League of Legends and Dota 2 to take the crown. Here's Al King on the victory: You have to play together as a team. We're rolling out increasingly aggressively across the world -- we have 70 million active users. It's truly democratic, we have a tremendously loyal community. They just did everything we asked of them, they're phenomenal, and we love them. Other big winners? Assassin's Creed: Liberation (best handheld game, The Last of Us (best storytelling), and Grand Theft Auto V (game of the year). World of Tanks named online game of the year at Golden Joysticks originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 25 Oct 2013 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| RIFT shutting down in Russia [Updated] Posted: 25 Oct 2013 11:30 AM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, MMO Industry, News Items, Free-to-Play, RIFT, Subscription, Sunsets The last rift has closed for Russia's version of RIFT. An announcement has been sent to the players of the game that (roughly translated) claims that the game will have to be shut down due to Trion Worlds' refusal to continue supporting the localized version. That shutdown will happen... well, today. So if you play on the game's Russian servers, we really hope you didn't have any major plans for the evening. Belver Online, the company responsible for the localized version, is offering former players compensation in the other online games it operates. Russia's version of RIFT had continued to operate on a subscription-based model for several months, with several Russian players migrating to Trion's European servers out of a desire to play the game's free version. There are no plans for Trion to produce a Russian-localized client of its own. Our condolences to players affected by the shutdown. [Update 6:00 p.m. EDT] - Trion contacted Massively to provide an official statement. We, too, are saddened by the shut down of RIFT in Russia, which was announced in September. In trying to effect the smoothest transition possible, we kept the service running well beyond the October 10th sunset period to make sure as many customers as possible would be taken care of.
When a partner began charging its users nearly $100 each in unauthorized "transfer fees" as well as subscriptions that extended beyond the time they knew the servers were going to be closed, we can confirm that we did have to end the extended sunset period.
We've successfully transferred over thousands of Russian players and will continue to help any others who want to continue playing on the Trion servers. Anyone who was previously on a Russian server and was impacted by this shutdown can reach out to our customer service team and we will assist in any way we can to get them in back into RIFT as quickly as possible.
And it won't cost $100. [Thanks to Fredelas for the tip!] RIFT shutting down in Russia [Updated] originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 25 Oct 2013 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| Tamriel Infinium: Does The Elder Scrolls Online revolve around PvP? Posted: 25 Oct 2013 11:00 AM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, Economy, New Titles, PvP, Endgame, Opinion, The Elder Scrolls Online, Subscription, MMORPG, Tamriel Infinium At the conventions this summer, the ZeniMax staff gave us only a taste of what The Elder Scrolls Online will offer us in the PvE department. Massively's staff appeared to enjoy that PvE side of the game well enough, but why didn't ZeniMax show off PvP? Probably because that part of the game is not complete enough for public consumption. But if rumors are to be believed, beta testers have begun testing the PvP systems that will eventually appear in the launched game. And developers have begun to talk about the ESO PvP systems extensively, although we still don't know a whole lot. After examining our limited knowledge of ESO PvP, I have to wonder whether PvP is still the primary focus of endgame (though even if it's not the primary focus, it will likely consume a large chunk of development resources all the same). We already know many of the systems coming at launch and one that will be introduced shortly after, so let's break them down a bit. Continue reading Tamriel Infinium: Does The Elder Scrolls Online revolve around PvP? Tamriel Infinium: Does The Elder Scrolls Online revolve around PvP? originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 25 Oct 2013 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| It's storytime as Halloween event hits The Secret World Posted: 25 Oct 2013 10:30 AM PDT Filed under: Horror, Real-Life, Events (In-Game), News Items, The Secret World, Buy-to-Play  If you'd like to take a break from beating back the Filth in Agartha, take a trip to Solomon Island and delve into The Secret World's new Halloween events. What better place to celebrate this spooky holiday than the island covered in ominous fog and where pumpkins eternally decorate homes as well as try to kill you with chainsaws? In addition to the return of The Cat God (the chain of missions where players can visit ancient Stonehenge), players can participate in the new series based on various urban legends around the island. Those who gather all 10 stories by completing all the new missions will be rewarded with an in-game book of the full collection that can be enjoyed long after the holiday is done. Of course, there are rewards awaiting adventurers other than just a tome of stories; various Halloween-themed goodies are available from loot, quest rewards, and even the item shop. Many items are exclusive to the holiday, however, so if you want to get your bee-blessed hands on them, you have to get in before the event ends on November 8th! It's storytime as Halloween event hits The Secret World originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 25 Oct 2013 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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