MMO Updates |
- Repopulation adds adversarial camps, preps for Alpha 3
- Total Kickstarter pledges surpass $1 billion
- Grinding Gear's Wilson talks F2P ethics in Path of Exile
- Pathfinder Online's Ryan Dancey on crowdforging a 'minimum viable product'
- Drakensang Online now available for the Mac
- DayZ's dev team doubling up
- The Daily Grind: Have you created any pro-quality MMO fan content?
- MMO Week in Review: Maintenance mode is better than a sunset
- EVE Evolved: What to expect from EVE Fanfest 2014
- Harry Potter Online in limited production
- This 42-minute video contains all you need to know about Destiny
| Repopulation adds adversarial camps, preps for Alpha 3 Posted: 03 Mar 2014 09:00 AM PST Filed under: Betas, Sci-Fi, Game Mechanics, MMO Industry, New Titles, News Items, PvE, Dev Diaries, Sandbox, The Repopulation  Additional work was done on the title's customizable XML-based UI, the harvesting mechanics, and a fitting system for robotic pets. February's "largest changes" came in the form of additional world content, as the dev team is looking forward to adding more testers for Alpha 3 "in a few weeks."
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| Total Kickstarter pledges surpass $1 billion Posted: 03 Mar 2014 08:00 AM PST Filed under: Business Models, MMO Industry, News Items, Crowdfunding  On April 28, 2009 -- Kickstarter's first day -- a total of 40 people pledged $1,084 to seven projects. On March 13, 2013 -- Kickstarter's biggest day to date -- 54,187 backers forked over $4 million-plus for 1,985 different projects. While Kickstarter isn't restricted to gaming drives, they do lead the way in terms of total funding with over $215 million in pledges as of press time.
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| Grinding Gear's Wilson talks F2P ethics in Path of Exile Posted: 03 Mar 2014 07:30 AM PST Filed under: Fantasy, Business Models, Game Mechanics, Interviews, MMO Industry, News Items, Free-to-Play, Crowdfunding, Path of Exile  Unlike most F2P titles, Path of Exile completely avoids gameplay gates and delaying mechanisms and thus avoids the dreaded pay-to-win stigma. Microtransactions are purely cosmetic, and Grinding Gear's crowdfunding campaign has now morphed "into a permanent rewards-based structure for monetization." Managing director Chris Wilson tells Gamasutra that PoE's supporter packs are a big part of the game's success story in addition to traditional microtransactions, the latter of which offer "enough money to run the company on" by themselves. Wilson says that players want to support PoE because its business model puts gameplay first. "We've been careful when designing the game so there's no paying for game content or advantage in the game," he explained. "We've purposefully divorced any game mechanics from the monetization."
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| Pathfinder Online's Ryan Dancey on crowdforging a 'minimum viable product' Posted: 03 Mar 2014 07:00 AM PST Filed under: Fantasy, Business Models, Game Mechanics, MMO Industry, Dev Diaries, Sandbox, Crowdfunding, Subscription, Pathfinder Online  Dancey hopes to clarify his game's outlook today. Read on for his dev blog, in which he discusses what he means by "minimum viable product," distances Pathfinder from the cripplingly expensive graphical arms race plaguing the industry, and elaborates on just how Goblinworks plans to roll out this "crowdforged" MMO. Continue reading Pathfinder Online's Ryan Dancey on crowdforging a 'minimum viable product'
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| Drakensang Online now available for the Mac Posted: 03 Mar 2014 06:30 AM PST Filed under: Betas, Fantasy, Free-to-Play, Mac  "Our aim is to provide everybody easy access to Drakensang Online regardless of the operating system they use. We are very happy to invite Mac users everywhere to join our large community centered on the best 'hack and slay' gameplay available, with truly outstanding graphics and an epic story. We believe that this will enrich the Mac MMO space significantly," says Jürgen Frerichs, Associate Producer of Drakensang Online. This move now brings Bigpoint's entire game library to for the Mac. You can download the Apple OS X beta client for Drakensang Online on the game's official site. [Source: Bigpoint press release]
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| Posted: 03 Mar 2014 06:00 AM PST Filed under: Betas, Horror, MMO Industry, News Items, Sandbox, Buy-to-Play  GamesIndustry.biz reports that Hall also reiterated his intention to move on, but stated that he will remain "in a leadership role until at least the end of the year."
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| The Daily Grind: Have you created any pro-quality MMO fan content? Posted: 03 Mar 2014 05:00 AM PST Filed under: Sci-Fi, Culture, MMO Industry, News Items, Opinion, The Daily Grind, Sandbox, Music, Crowdfunding, Star Citizen, Buy-to-Play  What about you, Massively readers? Have you created any noteworthy fan content for your favorite game?  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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| MMO Week in Review: Maintenance mode is better than a sunset Posted: 02 Mar 2014 05:00 PM PST Filed under: MMO Industry, Massively Meta, Week in Review, Miscellaneous  As one of the first three MMORPGs ever, Asheron's Call made its mark in the genre with live events, hybrid character development, and a failed but later resurrected sequel. This week, Turbine comforted veteran players with the news that the venerable old sandbox will retreat to maintenance mode rather than sunset in the wake of the company's recent layoffs. The studio plans to make both classic AC and its sequel, Asheron's Call 2, free-to-play and allow player-run servers by the end of the year. Read on for the rest of this week's top MMO stories. Continue reading MMO Week in Review: Maintenance mode is better than a sunset
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| EVE Evolved: What to expect from EVE Fanfest 2014 Posted: 02 Mar 2014 03:00 PM PST Filed under: Video, EVE Online, Business Models, Culture, Events (Real-World), Expansions, Game Mechanics, MMO Industry, New Titles, PvP, Opinion, Hands-On, Events (Massively's Coverage), World of Darkness, EVE Evolved, DUST 514, Dev Diaries, Player-Generated Content  The Fanfest weekend is typically a packed schedule of panels, talks, roundtable discussions with developers, and keynote speeches revealing the future of the game. While the event is understandably focused on EVE Online, it's recently expanded to cover aspects of DUST 514, the latest goings-on with World of Darkness, and even CCP's new virtual reality dogfighter EVE Valkyrie. CCP has announced that this year's event will see a monument to the EVE playerbase unveiled in Reykjavik Harbor as well as the first reveal of EVE's summer expansion, but what else can we hope to glean from this year's event at the start of May? In this edition of EVE Evolved, I delve into the EVE Fanfest announcement and speculate on what we might expect to hear from this year's event. Will this be the year that World of Darkness gets some serious news? And what's new for DUST 514? Continue reading EVE Evolved: What to expect from EVE Fanfest 2014
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| Harry Potter Online in limited production Posted: 02 Mar 2014 01:00 PM PST Filed under: Betas, Fantasy, Video, New Titles  The production website for Harry Potter Online is up and running with forums, a gallery, and some basic information about the game. However, it looks as though developer Bio-Hazard Entertainment has yet to receive the full go-ahead from Warner Bros.: "Seeing that it could be a really great business plan, a license was given that would allow the company to begin production on the MMO up until beta. Once beta was hit it would then be decided [by Warner Bros.] if the production would be a good investment or not." The proposed Harry Potter Online would allow players to choose to attend one of three schools of magic, take on roles like Aurors and Lamorians, and become masters of various professions such as potions and herbalism. And yes, if you were wondering, there will be Quidditch. The developers said that a promotional video, trailer, and live interview will be coming soon. You can see some of the game's concept art and hear the devs talking about the game in a video after the break. [Thanks to Cherie for the tip!] Continue reading Harry Potter Online in limited production
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| This 42-minute video contains all you need to know about Destiny Posted: 02 Mar 2014 11:00 AM PST Filed under: Sci-Fi, Video, Game Mechanics, Lore, MMO Industry, New Titles, PvP, News Items, PvE, Destiny, Buy-to-Play  The video is filled with timestamp links, so if you want to skip ahead to the section on, say, cooperative multiplayer, you can. Click past the cut for the full clip. Continue reading This 42-minute video contains all you need to know about Destiny
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