| The Anvil of Crom: Greatest hits vol. 2011 Posted: 25 Dec 2011 09:00 AM PST Filed under: Fantasy, Age of Conan, Game mechanics, MMO industry, Opinion, Free-to-play, The Anvil of Crom By Crom! Can you believe we've made it through another year? Well, almost, at any rate. Technically there are a few days left in 2011, but as I'll be taking some of them off for the purposes of gaining weight and opening presents, it seems like as good a time as any to do a little recapping. Saying that 2011 was a big year for Age of Conan probably qualifies as severe understatement rather than simply understatement. The big news, of course, was the Unchained free-to-play conversion, but that was really just the tip of the gigantic Hyborian iceberg. Join me after the break for my top seven Anvil of Crom issues from the past year. Continue reading The Anvil of Crom: Greatest hits vol. 2011  The Anvil of Crom: Greatest hits vol. 2011 originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 25 Dec 2011 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| Global Chat: December 18-24, 2011 Posted: 25 Dec 2011 07:00 AM PST Filed under: Opinion, Massively Meta, Global Chat, Miscellaneous 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! Merry Christmas, Massively readers! We're enjoying some time with our loved ones today here at Massively, and we hope you're doing the same. We've prepared a few things for you to read in your downtime today, though. One of them is this week's Global Chat, so follow along after the break for the best of what our readers had to say last week! Continue reading Global Chat: December 18-24, 2011 Global Chat: December 18-24, 2011 originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 25 Dec 2011 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| The Daily Grind: Are you still on the gaming train today? Posted: 25 Dec 2011 05:00 AM PST Filed under: Culture, Opinion, The Daily Grind, Miscellaneous If you're in the US, today is probably the one day of the year when pretty much everyone gets to take time off and have a holiday. December 25th is acknowledged as a day of rest and relaxation with friends and family. Of course, it wouldn't be much of a holiday if you didn't get to do things you enjoyed... but for some of us, this is also a day when we take a break even from our sometimes stressful hobby of online games. So what about you? Obviously you're still on the browsing train for the day, but are you still planning on logging in and grinding out a few quests today? Or is this a day off all 'round? And please, feel free to let us know what you'll be up to for the day either way because we'd like to hope that all of our readers are having a happy day doing what they love. It's the season for that, after all.  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: Are you still on the gaming train today? originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 25 Dec 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| On the twelfth day of giveaways, KingsIsle gave to me... Posted: 24 Dec 2011 05:00 PM PST Filed under: Contests, Free-to-play, Kids, Wizard101, Giveaways On the twelfth day of giveaways, KingsIsle gave to me... twelve super bundles!
On the eleventh day of giveaways, Funcom gave to me... eleven prize packages!
On the tenth day of giveaways, PerfectWorld gave to me... ten grab bag items!
On the ninth day of giveaways, GamersFirst gave to me... nine SWG mementos!
On the eighth day of giveaways, Enjin gave to me... eight guild-wide gifts!
On the seventh day of giveaways, NCsoft gave to me... seven years of memories!
On the sixth day of giveaways, GamersFirst gave to me... six retail packs!
On the fifth day of giveaways, Trion gave to me... five subscription codes!
On the fourth day of giveaways, Nexon gave to me... four pet items!
On the third day of giveaways, Wargaming.net gave to me... three premium years!
On the second day of giveaways, BioWare gave to me... two warring factions!
On the first day of giveaways, Turbine gave to me... a lifetime VIP! KingsIsle Entertainment is finishing off Massively's 12 Days of Giveaways with a bang by giving away 12 Super Bundles for Wizard101. What is a Super Bundle, you ask? It's a huge package of Wizard101 goodies, including everything listed in the image above plus 5,000 crowns to spend on whatever your heart desires. Ready to enter to win one of these? Just leave a comment here telling us why you love Wizard101 and what you'd do with your Super Bundle. Enter by the deadline of tomorrow, December 25th, at 8:00 p.m. EST, and don't forget to check the contest rules below for eligibility. Best of luck! Finally, please join us here at Massively in giving a warm thank-you to every developer and publisher who pitched in to make the 12 Days of Giveaways a huge success. Happy holidays! On the twelfth day of giveaways, KingsIsle gave to me... originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 24 Dec 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| The Mog Log: Eye of the earthquake Posted: 24 Dec 2011 03:00 PM PST Filed under: Fantasy, Final Fantasy XI, Game mechanics, Patches, Opinion, Consoles, Final Fantasy XIV, The Mog Log This has not been a normal year. Not for me, certainly -- I certainly didn't expect back in January that I'd be facing a week without power later in the year -- but not for Final Fantasy XI or Final Fantasy XIV either. None of us was expecting both games to be shut down for a while in response to a horrible earthquake hitting Japan, for example. But barring something truly bizarre happening over the next week, the year is finally winding down to a close, so we can look back on what's taken place with analytical minds. Even without the earthquake, though, this hasn't been a usual year for either game. Admittedly, Final Fantasy XIV hasn't had a "usual" year to use as a baseline, but it was certainly a tumultuous one for players and developers. And Final Fantasy XI... well, it's had an unusual year more in terms of what didn't happen. Take a look past the break as I take a look down memory lane. Continue reading The Mog Log: Eye of the earthquake The Mog Log: Eye of the earthquake originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 24 Dec 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| Star Wars: The Old Republic to receive combat log parsing, other analysis features Posted: 24 Dec 2011 02:00 PM PST Filed under: Sci-fi, Game mechanics, News items, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Dungeons Were you wondering whether DPS meters are en route to your favorite galaxy far, far away? Players on the Star Wars: The Old Republic official forums have dug up a Fansite Summit Q&A session with the game's lead combat designer Georg Zoeller in which he suggested that some new features will be coming to the game post-launch for those who want to ensure they're getting the most out of their character builds. During the talk, Zoeller claimed that combat log parsing and other such performance analysis features were "very high on [ BioWare's] priority list." For the full details, and to listen to the full session yourself, head on over to the SWTOR official forums. Star Wars: The Old Republic to receive combat log parsing, other analysis features originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 24 Dec 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| Captain's Log: Dilithium, attack ships, and lightsabers, oh my! Posted: 24 Dec 2011 01:00 PM PST Filed under: Sci-fi, Culture, Game mechanics, MMO industry, Patches, Opinion, Star Trek Online, Captain's Log So much has happened with Star Trek Online since Massively's last column on the game! The Captain's Log's previous author, Brandon Felczer, accepted a position with Perfect World Entertainment ( Cryptic Studios' parent company) and is now a community manager for Star Trek Online. We wish him the best in his future endeavors. And that makes me, Terilynn Shull, your new STO columnist! Since then, Cryptic's newest patch, A Call to Arms, was released to subscribers. The patch was really the preliminary push of the anticipated free-to-play model that Cryptic announced will occur on January 17th, 2012. To the dismay of many players, the patch did not contain any new mission content, and we've been told not to expect any new story-driven content until at least February of next year. However, A Call to Arms did include the nervously awaited single-currency economy, the highly anticipated duty officer system, and a revamped set of strategic task force (STF) missions, and it was soon followed by the controversial holiday event and "homage" to Star Wars: The Old Republic. Continue reading Captain's Log: Dilithium, attack ships, and lightsabers, oh my! Captain's Log: Dilithium, attack ships, and lightsabers, oh my! originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 24 Dec 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| The Tattered Notebook: A wish list for EQII's 'phase two' Posted: 24 Dec 2011 11:00 AM PST Filed under: EverQuest II, Opinion, Free-to-play, The Tattered Notebook EverQuest II has had quite a year, but I was recently thinking about a comment that Executive Producer Dave "SmokeJumper" Georgeson made regarding the future of the game. In a recent interview, he discussed plans for "phase two," which is an ongoing list of things the team wants to do to improve the game but don't make it to live. With all of the new changes to the game, the team usually comes up with lots of extra ideas, and Georgeson said the focus going forward will be to knock out some of those ideas on the "phase two" list. I thought it would be fun to put together a list of things I'd like to see on the phase two list, and since it's the season for wish lists anyway, the timing is perfect. Read on for a look at a few things I'd like to see in EQII next year, and then share your ideas below! Continue reading The Tattered Notebook: A wish list for EQII's 'phase two' The Tattered Notebook: A wish list for EQII's 'phase two' originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 24 Dec 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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