| The Anvil of Crom: AA resets, tradeskills, and hardcore PvP stagnation Posted: 09 Oct 2011 10:00 AM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, Age of Conan, Game mechanics, MMO industry, PvP, Opinion, Free-to-play, The Anvil of Crom, Crafting Welcome back to the Anvil of Crom, dear readers. After the content explosion of the past couple of months, it seems almost strange to be relatively relaxed when it comes to Age of Conan. I'd gotten so used to scrambling around re-writing columns at the last minute -- and polishing up interviews and impression pieces -- that I had almost forgotten what it feels like to settle into a comfortable gameplay groove. In looking around for interesting topics this week, I realized that it's been quite some time since I turned the column over to the community. So without further ado, join me after the cut to see what's on the minds of Hyborians at home and abroad as we power through the week's hot topics. Continue reading The Anvil of Crom: AA resets, tradeskills, and hardcore PvP stagnation  The Anvil of Crom: AA resets, tradeskills, and hardcore PvP stagnation originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 09 Oct 2011 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | Comments |
| Global Chat: October 2-8, 2011 Posted: 09 Oct 2011 08:00 AM PDT Filed under: Opinion, Massively meta, Global Chat, Miscellaneous Welcome to this week's Global Chat! We love hearing what you have to say at Massively, and we love it even more when we can share the best comments with all of our readers. Massively staffers will be contributing some of their favorite comments every week, so keep an eye out every Sunday for more Global Chat! While almost all of our news stories and columns are game-specific, the conversation that follows in the comments often expands beyond the game in question. Discussion turns to mechanics, development styles, and industry trends. Even if the game in the original story isn't your thing, you may find some interesting conversation, so follow along after the jump to see what some of our readers had to say last week. Continue reading Global Chat: October 2-8, 2011 Global Chat: October 2-8, 2011 originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 09 Oct 2011 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | Comments |
| The Daily Grind: Which environments tend to drain your interest? Posted: 09 Oct 2011 06:00 AM PDT Filed under: Opinion, The Daily Grind, Miscellaneous, Dungeons The problem with fantasy settings is that the imagery is pretty well played out. You know there will be an area with a lot of trees, probably a desert, probably a set of rolling plains, and of course there will be caves. And the odds are good that at least one of those environments won't make you feel like you're off on an epic adventure; it will make you feel as if you're traipsing through the same environments you've traipsed through hundred of times. Until you just log off, that is. Maybe it's another promise of brown or gray caves winding about interminably. Maybe it's the thought of another forest, or another plain, or another rocky mountainous area. Or perhaps it's the more surreal and fanciful environments that make you roll your eyes and want to just stop playing. Which environments tend to drain your interest in the game? No matter how interesting any other part of the zone might be, what sort of regions just make you feel burnt out and bored?  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: Which environments tend to drain your interest? originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 09 Oct 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | Comments |
| Age of Wulin closed beta begins Posted: 08 Oct 2011 06:00 PM PDT Filed under: Betas, Fantasy, Video, Game mechanics, MMO industry, New titles, News items, Free-to-play, Sandbox Age of Wulin's Chinese closed beta kicked off this weekend and according to a report at MMO Culture, it's been a "less than enjoyable" experience. The free-to-play fantasy sandbox has an ambitious feature list, and Snail Games has attracted a lot of players anxious to get their hands on the upcoming title. Said gamers flooded the beta shard, which occasionally buckled under the onslaught and served up disconnects, stuck characters, and more byproducts of the early testing phase. The good news is that MMO Culture's coverage features a ton of embedded video, and you can get a look at the title's character creation process, some beginner areas, and the accessory training interface after the break. [Thanks to Chris for the tip!] Continue reading Age of Wulin closed beta begins Age of Wulin closed beta begins originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 08 Oct 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | Comments |
| The Mog Log: Patch 1.19 Posted: 08 Oct 2011 04:00 PM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, Game mechanics, Lore, Patches, Opinion, Consoles, Final Fantasy XIV, The Mog Log So there was a Final Fantasy XIV patch on Tuesday. Maybe you heard about it. It was only all over the parts of the internet that care about Final Fantasy XIV, and even some that don't. This was not a patch in the traditional sense; it was a huge reworking and revamping of several parts of the game. It's a big patch, that's what I'm getting at. And I've spent the past several days diving into it with all the time I've had because this is the sort of thing that really changes a lot of core assumptions about the game. So it's been a time of empirical testing, a time of leveling, a time of dropping a lot of gil on new pieces of equipment and getting ready to tell my readers whether this patch was everything promised or fell flat. And truth be told, there's too much to address even in one column. But I can at least get started. Continue reading The Mog Log: Patch 1.19 The Mog Log: Patch 1.19 originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 08 Oct 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | Comments |
| LotRO introduces Mithril Edition, Dwarves swarm local retailers Posted: 08 Oct 2011 02:00 PM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, Lord of the Rings Online, Free-to-play, Promotions Every Hobbit and Dwarf knows that, ounce for ounce, Mithril is far more valuable than gold or silver. With a new Mithril Edition of Lord of the Rings Online, Turbine is hoping that players will value this deal just as much. Coming soon to an online or brick-and-mortar retailer near you, LotRO's Mithril Edition is designed to give new players a leg up in the game while perhaps tempting current free players into spending a little something and getting a well-rounded experience in return. Priced at $29.99, the Mithril Edition includes the game discs, starter guide, keyboard map, 2,000 Turbine Points to spend in the in-game store, an exclusive Steed of the Horse-lords mount, and a bundled quest pack covering the Trollshaws, Eregion, Moria and Lothlorien. Turbine claims that this is a $50 value, so it might be worth taking a close look. At the very least, you can keep it tucked inside your shirt for the next time a troll throws a spear your way, as it could save your life! LotRO introduces Mithril Edition, Dwarves swarm local retailers originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 08 Oct 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | Comments |
| The Tattered Notebook: A 'Top Gear' look at mounts Posted: 08 Oct 2011 12:00 PM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, EverQuest II, Opinion, Free-to-play, The Tattered Notebook Previously, I've been writing about the weighty topic of free-to-play vs. live subscription servers in EverQuest II. This week, I'd like to switch gears, both figuratively and literally, to talk about speed. I've recently become a fan of the show Top Gear, a British program(me) that is completely devoted to the love of cars. I don't know why -- I'm not really into cars, and my Volkswagon Passat Wagon hardly qualifies as a car with a soul. But I was watching a recent episode, the one in which Jeremy was driving an Aston Martin across country, and I thought about how far EQII's mount selection has grown. Gone are the days when your choices ranged from a horse with brown spots to a horse with white spots to the really impressive horse with brown and white spots. The only unique mounts back then were the Paladin and Shadow Knight "fun" mounts. Today, there are dozens of different types of mounts that run, leap, glide, and fly. And they're not all just marketplace quick hits; several are easily attained from simple quests or live events. In this week's Tattered Notebook, I'll look at a few of my favorite mounts with an ode to Top Gear. Continue reading The Tattered Notebook: A 'Top Gear' look at mounts The Tattered Notebook: A 'Top Gear' look at mounts originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 08 Oct 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | Comments |
Microsoft has been pretty clear in its message regarding the system requirements for Windows 8. If it will run Windows 7, it will run Windows 8. Promising to add new features, all while keeping the OS footprint steady is no easy task, but why stop there. 
Mechanical drives might be a bit on the slow side, but the price per GB still makes them king among digital packrats. The technology behind today's 2 & 3TB drives is currently known as perpendicular magnetic recording, but recently we seem to have hit a wall. Manufacturers are already hard at work on 4 platter-4TB drives, but were starting to reach the limitations of what's possible. Luckily a recent collaboration by the remaining mechanical drive makers has begun to pay off, and the Storage Technology Alliance believes it has discovered a way to use 
Research in Motion has been struggling lately to find a solid direction for it's iconic Blackberry OS, but a recent acquisition might give us a few clues as to what the Canadian device maker has in store for the future. According to AllThingsD, RIM has dropped down an estimated $100 million to buy NewBay, a cloud-based media management service, which allows users to store and share pictures, videos, and anything else they'd care to broadcast.
Planes, trains, and automobiles are often singled out as technologies that are destroying the planet, but whether we care to admit it or not, data centers are increasingly becoming part of the problem. An individuals lifetime of Google searches probably doesn't add up to much, but multiply that across a billion inquiry's per day, and you've got a carbon footprint big enough to give mother nature quite the ass kicking. Many companies have talked about ways to reduce the amount of fossil fuels needed to keep our massive server farms running, but Verne Global thinks they've found the answer, 
