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Demand for Linux Skills on the Rise, Along With Wages
Apple Grants ABC Reporters Full Access to Foxconn in China
Rumor: SkyDrive Planning to Offer Paid Storage Plans, and Offer PC / OS X Apps
Microsoft Ditches Iconic Windows Flag

Demand for Linux Skills on the Rise, Along With Wages

Posted: 19 Feb 2012 06:43 PM PST

Linux Tie Young enthusiasts who are looking for a future in IT might well decide to specialize on Microsoft, but before you do here is an interesting point to consider. Linux developers and system administrators will be the ones making the big money, at least if current trends continue. According to a recent survey conducted by the Linux Foundation, developers and system administrators saw pay increases of 5% last year, and bonuses averaging around 15%.

In a recent interview with Alice Hill, managing director of dice.com, it was reported that currently the site is advertising over 11,000 jobs that require Linux experience, an increase of 17% from last year. "It's really hard to find talent in a market that is competitive, and that leads to poaching and new ways to attract talent," Hill said. The average salary for a Linux professional last year was around $86,432, up from $82,575 just one year prior.

Apple Grants ABC Reporters Full Access to Foxconn in China

Posted: 19 Feb 2012 06:14 PM PST

Foxconn Apple news rarely makes the headlines around here because, well, we love our PC's. iOS devices on the other hand is a completely different story. Since the vast majority of iOS users are in-fact running Windows, (an interesting bit of trivia you'll never hear them advertise), it never hurts to bring up the odd news tidbit. This week we would like to bring your attention to the controversy surrounding Foxconn, and the allegations which basically accuse Apple of running a modern day, high tech sweat shop. To try and counter the mounting consumer unrest, Apple is pulling open the kimono, and letting ABC Nightline reporters take a tour of the assembly lines, and interview key personnel.

The special edition of Nightline will air on Tuesday, February 21st at 11:35PM ET on ABC, however anchorman Bill Weir has already released a few early impressions. "For years, Apple and Foxconn have been synonymous with monster profits and total secrecy so it was fascinating to wander the iphone and iPod production lines, meet the people who build them and see how they live. Our cameras were rolling when thousands of hopeful applicants rushed the Foxconn gates and I spoke with dozens of line workers and a top executive about everything from hours and pay to the controversies over suicides at the plant and the infamous "jumper nets" that line the factories in Shenzhen. After this trip, I'll never see an Apple product the same way again" said Weir

Regardless of your personal feelings towards Apple, this special promises to shed a bit of light on the lives of the poor souls who toil away day and night to make sure we can buy cheap electronics. It will be interesting to see if it is a fair and balanced view, or if it will still get caught up in the Apple reality distortion field.

Rumor: SkyDrive Planning to Offer Paid Storage Plans, and Offer PC / OS X Apps

Posted: 19 Feb 2012 11:37 AM PST

With 25GB of absolutely no strings attached free storage, SkyDrive has always been an amazing value. Of course that's not to say its best in class, far from it actually for one key reason; it's painfully difficult to access. Logging into the SkyDrive site using Windows Live is easy enough, but having to add files one at a time is painfully in-efficient. If you modify a photo for example, you need to download it fully, make your changes, upload the new version, and then manually delete the old one. Office Web Apps integration and batch file adding have helped, but it is still no substitute for Dropbox. If the rumors are correct though, this could all be changing soon. Both paid storage, along with Windows and OS X clients are apparently just around the corner.

The evidence of paid storage options comes in the form a leaked screenshot, and if it's a fake, it's a pretty darn convincing one. All accounts get to keep the initial 25GB for free, but users will soon have the option to add on 20GB for $10 per year, 50GB for $25, or 100GB for $50. This makes it extremely competitive with Dropbox who currently only offers 50GB for $99 per year, or 100GB for $199.

The PC and Mac clients will join the recently released iOS and Windows Phone offerings, and while the exact functionality they will offer is not known, we can only speculate it will only be storage access only, and not sync. Dropbox for example gives users the option to edit files offline, and then have them sync to the cloud and other devices when they come online. Microsoft's current sync offering comes in the form of Live Mesh, and is a completely separate offering from SkyDrive. Microsoft could merge these two services of course, and would be wise to do so, but it's unknown when, or if ever that will ever happen.

Either way it looks like SkyDrive is about to get much more useful.

(Image Credit = gemind.com.br)

UPDATE: After publishing we also caught wind of the fact that Microsoft is adding support for ODF documents, BitLocker key management, URL shortening and more.

Microsoft Ditches Iconic Windows Flag

Posted: 19 Feb 2012 10:17 AM PST

Windows 8 The Windows logo has evolved over the years, but has always followed a carefully crafted theme. The Iconic Windows Flag is one of the most recognizable logos of our generation, being printed literally billions of times on the stickers we find plastered to our cases and laptops, as well as the ever so handy start key on just about every keyboard made in the last 10 years. Love it or leave it, everyone knew it, and isn't that the whole point? Apparently not, as Microsoft has now publically declared their intent to ditch it in favor of something new.

The new logo design isn't a radical departure, sticking with 4 separated piece design, but it's still a curious choice. Most companies pay millions to achieve the type of brand recognition Microsoft is voluntarily giving up.

Smart move? Or marketing disaster? You be the judge.

Windows 1

Windows 1

Windows 3.1

Windows XP

Windows Vista

Windows 8

Latest Gaming and MMORPG Updates

A Peek Inside Vita’s Development
Nexon
Blade & Soul
Metal Gear Solid 3: The Boss of Stealth Action Games
Weekend Deals: The Witcher II, Game of Thrones, and Blood Bowl

A Peek Inside Vita’s Development

Posted: 19 Feb 2012 02:27 AM PST

Shuhei Yoshida

As the man in charge of Sony’s Worldwide Studios, Shuhei Yoshida (above) oversees the teams behind Uncharted, Gran Turismo, Little Big Planet, and many others. And for the past few years he’s also played a key role on Vita, serving as a sort of middleman between the company’s software teams and its hardware division. At last week’s DICE conference, I asked him a handful of questions about Vita’s development history to date.

1UP: Do you remember the first meeting you ever had talking about Vita?

Shuhei Yoshida: Actually I do. Thank you. That’s a great question. It was April or March, around that timeframe, of 2008… It’s always the chip, the CPU or GPU, that takes the longest in terms of the development cycle. But it first started with RD. After the PSP, they moved onto RD for the next thing.

So early spring 2008, there was a management offsite meeting. And at the time, I was based here in the U.S. as head of Worldwide Studios America. I called in to that meeting and saw the unveiling of the portable project for the next generation. And actually, for this project, Kaz [Hirai, now Sony president and CEO] said, “We want Worldwide Studios [to be involved] from the beginning to the end.”

So that was a total change. That was about the time Phil Harrison announced his departure to Atari, and eventually I succeeded him as the president of Worldwide Studios, so I discussed with Kaz that maybe I should move to Japan… Running our studios, the main activity is in the U.S. and Europe; we have much bigger development [staff numbers] outside Japan. But because of this new way to work between hardware guys and the software side [it made sense for me to be closer to the hardware team].

There was very limited communication in the past, especially when it comes to new hardware, because of the secrecy involved. They had very tight security in terms of sharing information with us up through PS3 days, so I saw a big sea change of culture and process. That has to be developed, right? It just doesn’t happen when Kaz says “You two, talk!” It’s not like that, so someone like me needed to be embedded in Tokyo and attend every platform discussion meeting… They might talk about, “Oh we have this new technology that might be great for the next thing,” then I could relate them to the proper Worldwide Studios teams…

PS Vita

So specifically, hardware ideas. There’s a long list of features that we could have put into this system that eventually we cut down. So with that, we have the target price range for the hardware — we said, “$250, this is the price” — and the size of the unit, and the power consumption. Cost of goods, of course. Everything has to fit. So it’s great that people say PS Vita has everything, but it doesn’t. We cut a lot of potential features.

But the process of doing so was in the past in total secrecy, because of the hardware engineering-driven approach. How their guys kind of imagined “this is more important than that,” or “this performance is needed this much.” But for the first time with PS Vita for them, instead of answering those questions themselves, now they were able to ask us directly. And not only would we voice opinions or give them ideas — you know, “if you have a touch panel on the back of the unit maybe we could use this,” and that’s a start — but the best part is they created prototypes. For example they created a PS3 controller that had a screen and touch on the top and bottom. So our guys that created PS3 games experimented to use it to simulate what it would feel like to touch with a screen, and gave that code back to them to let them try, so that we could together decide about the performance and what size is necessary to do. For every single piece of tech, we have gone through this process.

So there are two big benefits to that. One is the hardware feature choices — we are very confident we presented what software developers want for a game system. The other benefit, I hope, is that because they were involved in the process, our teams know why each feature for PS Vita was included. We had lots of time thinking about and prototyping ideas, so hopefully in the launch titles, the new features of PS Vita can be integrated in our titles.

1UP: Were there certain Worldwide Studios teams that put more input in than others? I would assume Bend would since they were making one of the first big games [Uncharted: Golden Abyss, seen below].

SY: Bend was a big part. Their position was to push the graphical limit, right, and break the SDK drivers. [Laughs] They had the hardest time, I imagine, because they were pushing the limit and they had to create a high-end game for the launch, so they worked really closely with especially the graphics and library teams. The other teams had a different kind of focus…

Uncharted: Golden Abyss

The Wipeout guys came up with this idea of letting [people play cross-platform], and when we announced that at E3 we had very good positive reactions. And Warrior’s Lair — the “Ruin” game — you can save to the cloud server and continue the game. So many different teams came up with interesting use cases for PS Vita. Bend [made] a big effort, but different teams contributed. And let’s not forget Bigbig Studios. They are the reason we decided to have the rear touch pad… Before the Little Deviants demo, I was skeptical about having a rear touch panel, but when I tried that and saw the game world push up as I touched, I thought this was so fresh, so new…

1UP: Do you remember what the first game you guys greenlit was?

SY: [Long pause] It’s hard to remember. Some games were concepted after this project was revealed. Like Uncharted was started after they finished Resistance: Retribution — it was the beginning of 2009, so sometime late 2008 they already were having conversations about the next thing. So that should be one of the early ones. And Little Deviants, because of that tech demo, we said “Let’s make it a game.” And possibly Wipeout, because people in the UK say it’s a UK law to have Wipeout when you launch a PlayStation platform. And Gravity Daze — I’m so excited. It just came out yesterday in Japan, [and is known as] Gravity Rush in America. That game was in early concepts and prototypes on PS3, actually. That project started on PS3, but as soon as this concept of having a very high-end gyro sensor included came along, we went “this should be made for PS Vita.” So that game concept existed before PS Vita [and therefore wasn't necessarily "greenlit" first, but the developers were likely working on it the longest].

1UP: Looking back now, is there anything that you would do differently if you were making Vita all over again?

SY: Because it was the very first process for the new SCE under Kaz to involve Worldwide Studios with the hardware development team, he didn’t go so far as to invite the marketing or business side — what we call our HQs, like SCEA or SCEE, to SCE Japan’s side from the beginning. He wanted to take it one step at a time. So Worldwide Studios had daily contact with our HQs and marketing teams and talking about portfolios, and they are very important in the process for making sure what we are making can match with the marketing platform business side’s expectations. But for Vita at the early stage we had to keep it kind of secret, so we were part of SCE Japan from that standpoint. It was only after two years or so that Kaz said, “OK, now let’s bring in the marketing side to the project.” And at that point, there were certain things more business related that we were not looking at. So as soon as the marketing side entered the project…certain key issues were raised. So we had to go back and re-do some of the work.

So to answer your question, going forward, because we are a more integrated company, we should and we will involve the business and marketing side earlier in the process.

Posted by: admin in Gaming News
Find related article at: http://www.1up.com/news/inside-vita-development

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Nexon

Posted: 19 Feb 2012 02:27 AM PST

While going through a Japanese gaming website for news, I chanced upon the latest financial reports for Nexon. While it is indeed strange for a Korean-based company to have its full financial information on a Japanese website, 2 gems were discovered. Can you find them in the picture below?

Yes, the pictures actually shows what the studios under Nexon are working on, with Wizet showing a preview of MapleStory 2 and DevCat showing a new screenshot of Mabinogi 2. I know the resolution ain’t ideal, but hey, it is a find after all Other info in the picture shows how many staff each studio has, with the recently purchased Ndoors tops with 205 employees.

Financial wise, Nexon’s 2011 sales increased by 26% compared to 201, while revenue increased by a whopping 27%. Strangely, there is no mention of GameHi, another studio which Nexon acquired recently.

Posted by: admin in Gaming News
Find related article at: http://www.mmoculture.com/2012/02/nexon-maplestory-2-screenshot-spotted.html

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Blade & Soul

Posted: 19 Feb 2012 01:27 AM PST

(Source) According to an official press release made public earlier today, the CEO of NCsoft Japan and Global Marketing Director of NCsoft Korea, Mr Kim Taek Hun (below), confirmed that Blade Soul Japan is currently in the works. This comes after the China (link) and Taiwan (link) servers were confirmed earlier this year.

In the statement made, Mr Kim talked about how he has had successes leading Lineage II in Japan since the game started services in 2003, and that he is currently traveling between Japan, Taiwan and Korea to prepare the 3 Blade Soul services for launch. Although there is nothing said about a simultaneous launch, it does seem possible currently.

日本のオンラインゲームファンの皆様、こんにちは。
私は韓国NCsoftグローバルビジネス部門長及び8月1日付でエヌ・シー・ジャパン株式会社代表取締役に就任致しましたキムテクホンです。
エヌ・シー・ジャパンの代表取締役になったのも今回で2回目になりますが、1回目は2003年「リネージュ2」のサービス立ち上げの際ご縁があり、当時ファンの皆様に応援を頂き「リネージュ2」は大成功いたしました。
その後も多くのお客様に愛されるタイトルに成長し、今でも「リネージュ2」は当社の主軸のサービスのひとつとなっております。
現在、私は日本・韓国・台湾を行き来しながら「Blade＆Soul』の各国でのサービス準備に注力しています。
韓国では2回目のクローズドβサービスを行いましたが、予想以上の反響と好評をいただいている状況です。
日本での「Blade＆Soul」のサービス開始準備も着々と進められております。
『Blade＆Soul』は韓国だけでなく、日本でもオンラインゲーム業界に新たな歴史を刻み込む作品になると信じています。
私も、皆様にいち早く楽しいゲームをご提供できるよう、8年前のような初心に戻って「Blade＆Soul」のサービス準備をしていくつもりです。
是非とも日本での「Blade＆Soul」のサービス開始が訪れる日を楽しみにしていて下さい。
エヌ・シー・ジャパン株式会社代表取締役兼
NCsoft グローバルマーケティングディレクター
キムテクホン

Below are some awesome screenshots taken from the Closed Beta phases of Blade Soul Korea. For more videos and game footage, visit my YouTube Blade Soul collection here (link).

Posted by: admin in Gaming News
Find related article at: http://www.mmoculture.com/2011/10/blade-soul-japan-server-confirmed.html

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Metal Gear Solid 3: The Boss of Stealth Action Games

Posted: 18 Feb 2012 02:27 PM PST

Hideo Kojima has been trying to make a video game for 25 years now. With Metal Gear Solid 3, he very nearly succeeded.

This isn’t to say Kojima hasn’t overseen the creation of quite a few games in his time — from whimsical penguin racers to vampiric spaghetti westerns with overtones of Norse legend, he’s had his hand in several greats. But he’s best known for the Metal Gear series, the ongoing saga of a guy named Dave who constantly, reluctantly finds himself as the world’s last resort against utter nuclear armageddon, and all just because he happens to possess an acute genetic disposition to be adept at killing people. (He inherited it from his dad. Whom he killed. Twice. Once with hairspray.)

Over the course of half a dozen games — we’ll disregard the spin-offs and ports, as Kojima handed the directorial reins to his lackeys for those — Konami’s most visible auteur appears to have been struggling to create a game that conforms to his grand inner vision. Granted, it’s a vision that seems to have evolved along with the games; the original Metal Gear, for instance, featured a game design motivated primarily by the noble, artistic desire not to choke the MSX’s hardware by juggling too many sprites at once. (Pure action was out of the question, so he turned to avoiding action as a solution.) His vision began to coalesce in the sequel, even if he kind of cheated by copying his answers straight from the notes he’d cribbed from Hollywood. Still, the ambition was all there, its realization choked somewhat by occasionally questionable design choices — the conflicted hero, the double-crosses, the brief but intense grief (quickly forgotten) at the death of someone you’d met for the very first time a couple of hours prior. And most of all, the tricksy, innovative use of things, such as guns, cigarettes, cardboard boxes and rubber duckies.

With each subsequent sequel, Kojima has been drawing closer to realizing some platonic ideal of “video games” that exists only in his mind — well, except perhaps for Metal Gear Solid 2, which comes off less as Kojima making the game he’s longed to create and more like Kojima very deliberately not making the game everyone else wanted him to create. Gamers weren’t too amused by MGS2′s ten-hour face-slap and decided that perhaps the series had taken a good running jump over a pool of sharks, meaning that a good deal of gamers missed out on its sequel. And too bad, because with MGS3 Kojima came closer to creating a game that seems to obey what we can only assume are his criteria for excellence while also falling right in line with what the kids want.

The truest, clearest picture of the series’ steady evolution can be found in its boss battles. On MSX, they were pretty unimaginative: Stand out of the guy’s line of sight, shoot him with guided missiles, or toss grenades, or whatever. Basic stuff, and rarely challenging. Later, despite the fact that Metal Gear Solid was basically a high-spec remake of Metal Gear 2, the move to 3D allowed the boss encounters to take on new life: A dynamic fistfight in a cluttered office, the violence of your struggle against a stealth-cloaked ninja disturbing papers and destroying computers. A game of cat-and-mouse against a human giant with a deadly accurate minigun. A tense sniper duel, a race against time, physical damage, and your nerves (which could only be steadied until you ran out of diazepam). Impressive stuff, only slightly overshadowed by the other, more impressive details, like the discovery that dogs would pee on you if you hid in a cardboard box for too long.

MGS2′s bosses took a step back in quality, though apparently everything bad about the game was done quite deliberately. Dead Cell’s warriors focused less on doing new and unexpected thing than on rehashing their predecessors’ legendary fights in order to make a Very Important Point. Yet even then, the fights could still thrill — particularly the final battle, in which the player’s silver-haired Solid Snake Simulation finally took control of his own destiny by killing his own “father”, mimicking Snake’s legacy… but with a sword rather than a makeshift flamethrower.

But Metal Gear Solid 3′s bosses? Now those are some fights. At worst, MGS3 offers slick renditions of the bog-standard video game tropes: find a pattern or weakness, use a certain weapon to exploit it, lay into the boss while he’s stunned, repeat until you’re sick of it. At best, though, the protagonist’s struggles against the warriors of Cobra Squad make you completely reconsider what a boss fight can actually be. And I’m pretty sure that, in the end, that’s all Kojima really wants: To come up with a game packed with ideas so clever, so counter to the expectations and clichés of the medium, that he’ll forever be regarded as the ultimate genius of game design. Any director who would pull the “HIDEO” trick from the Psycho Mantis fight, interrupting a gimmick battle with a blank screen displaying nothing but his own name, is clearly a man driven by ego. But if that ego results in more boss encounters like The Joy or The End, he’s welcome to hire a team of skywriters to scribble his name from horizon to horizon over Tokyo every morning for all we care.

Posted by: admin in Gaming News
Find related article at: http://www.1up.com/features/metal-gear-solid-3-boss-stealth-action

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Weekend Deals: The Witcher II, Game of Thrones, and Blood Bowl

Posted: 18 Feb 2012 01:27 PM PST

Blood Bowl

Amazon’s deals on PC downloads continue with some of the same titles we’ve seen in recent weeks — Dead Island ($36.99), Deus Ex: Human Revolution ($39.99), and Tropico 4 ($31.99). One noteworthy addition is the newly-released real-time strategy game based on George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, A Game of Thrones: Genesis, for $31.99.

The Witcher II is being offered on the cheap at a number of places, though Amazon seems to have the best price at $23.99. Steam, GamersGate, and Good Old Games all have it for $29.99.

Steam is offering 80% off the Legendary Edition of Blood Bowl this weekend, bringing its price down to just $8.00 from $39.99. Also of note is Good Old Games giving away Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templar until tomorrow morning, so be sure to jump on that deal as quickly as possible.

Read on for a look at this week’s deals.

Amazon

Dead Island (PC download) — $36.99 (from $49.99)
Deus Ex: Human Revolution — $39.99 (from $49.99)
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine (PC download) — $39.99 (from $49.99)
A Game of Thrones: Genesis (PC download) — $31.99 (from $39.99)
Tropico 4 (PC download) — $31.99 (from $39.99)
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings (PC download) — $23.99 (from $39.99)
Darkspore (PC download) — $11.99 (from $29.99)
Driver: San Francisco (PC download) — $39.99 (from $49.99)
Driver: San Francisco (360) — $39.99 (from $59.99)

Direct2Drive

Dragon Age: Origins Ultimate Edition — $7.50 (from $29.95)
Medal of Honor — $4.95 (from $19.95)
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Vietnam — $3.75 (from $14.95)
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit — $7.50 (from $29.95)

GamersGate

The Witcher 2 — $29.95 ($39.95)
STALKER: Call of Pripyat Loyalty Edition — $7.48 (from $14.95)
FEAR — $3.98 (from $9.95)
FEAR 2: Project Origin — $3.98 (from $9.95)
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time — $3.98 (from $9.95)
Prince of Persia — $3.98 (from $9.95)
Unreal Anthology — $7.98 (from $19.95)
Unreal Complete Pack — $23.18 (from $57.95)
Unreal Tournament: Game of the Year Edition — $3.98 (from $9.95)
Unreal Tournament 2004 — $3.98 (from $9.95)
Unreal Tournament 3 Black — $7.98 (from $19.95)
Painkiller — $2.50 (from $4.99)
Painkiller: Pandemonium – $4.99 (from $19.95)
Painkiller Black Edition — $4.98 (from $9.95)
Painkiller: Redemption — $2.50 (from $4.99)

GameStop

Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions — $19.99 (from $29.99)
Call of Duty: Black Ops (DS) — $19.99 (from $29.99)
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm — $29.99 (from $39.99)
Wipeout: In the Zone — $39.99 (from $49.99)
Buy Gears of War 3 and a 12-month Xbox Live Gold card — save $20

Good Old Games

Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templar — free (until October 1)
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings — $29.99 (from $39.99)
Rebellion games — 50% off

Impulse

Dead Rising 2 — $14.99 (from $29.99)
Lost Planet 2 — $14.99 (from $29.99)
Lost Planet: Extreme Condition Colonies Edition — $9.99 (from $19.99)
Driver: Parallel Lines — $3.39 (from $9.99)
Dark Void Zero — $2.49 (from $4.99)
Dark Void — $4.99 (from $9.99)
Devil May Cry 4 — $9.99 (from $19.99)
Resident Evil 5 — $9.99 (from $19.99)
Street Fighter IV — $9.99 (from $19.99)
Flock — $2.49 (from $4.99)
Age of Booty — $2.49 (from $4.99)
MotoGP 08 — $4.99 (from $9.99)

Steam

Transformers: War for Cybertron — $7.50 (from $29.99)
Blood Bowl Legendary Edition — $8.00 (from $39.99)
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings — $29.99 (from $39.99)
Dungeon Siege III — $24.99 (from $49.99)
Post Apocalyptic Mayhem — $4.99 (from $9.99)

Posted by: admin in Gaming News
Find related article at: http://www.1up.com/news/weekend-deals-witcher-ii-game-of-thrones-blood-bowl

Thank you for Visiting Gameforumer.com, Hope you enjoyed the stay with us.

MMO Updates

Rise and Shiny recap: Fiesta Online browser version
Previously on MV TV: The week of February 11th, 2012
The Daily Grind: What do you look for when taking screenshots?
The Tattered Notebook: The insider's guide to Erollisi Day
The Mog Log: Get together
The Road to Mordor: Ten things to do in East Bree-land before you die
Champions Online puts out Alerts for heroes

Rise and Shiny recap: Fiesta Online browser version

Posted: 19 Feb 2012 09:00 AM PST

Filed under: Screenshots, Previews, Opinion, Free-to-play, Browser, Hands-on, Casual, Humor, Rise and Shiny, Miscellaneous

Fiesta Online is getting pretty long in the tooth. Heck, it's a game I have played and returned to several times over the years, and I've never quite stuck with it. Don't get me wrong -- the game is quite nice-looking for its style and always seems to have a ton of players on, but there are a lot of titles I would love to be spending time with. Unfortunately, I have to pick and choose, and a game like Fiesta Online will normally land on the list of games that I play very infrequently. I had a great time recently when I toured some high-level content with the developers and was more excited to hear about a browser version of the game coming out soon.

Why would a browser version matter? I have predicted (and I am still sticking by this prediction) that most MMO content will be delivered via the browser within five years. The truth is that most MMO players probably play a browser game already, especially when you consider games like RuneScape, Dark Orbit, Battlestar Galactica Online, Club Penguin and scores of others, but I mean to say that the browser will become the accepted way to get your MMO content. Yes, one day we will look back, giggle, and say, "We used to download and install massive files just to play a game!"

So how does Fiesta Online's browser version perform, and what is the point of having one in the first place?

Continue reading Rise and Shiny recap: Fiesta Online browser version

Rise and Shiny recap: Fiesta Online browser version originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 19 Feb 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Previously on MV TV: The week of February 11th, 2012

Posted: 19 Feb 2012 07:00 AM PST

Filed under: Video, Events, real-world, Events, in-game, Massively Meta, Livestream, Miscellaneous, Previously on MV TV

It's time again to recap the best moments from the past week of livestreaming. Each week Massively hosts several livestreams and chats that showcase your favorite titles! Keep an eye on the Massively TV Guide so that you never miss a single event. We show off a large variety of different games and boast quite a few different personalities as well!

This week we had some Guild Wars goodness, house construction in RuneScape, more APB: Reloaded action on Tboo Thursday, a bit of Arcane Tranmuting in Runes of Magic with Jeremy, an explanation of magic in Ryzom with yours truly, and some Imp-ownage by Dylan in Star Wars: The Old Republic. And Adventure Mike returns with some Guild Wars and Nexus: Kingdom of the Winds streaming!

Continue reading Previously on MV TV: The week of February 11th, 2012

Previously on MV TV: The week of February 11th, 2012 originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 19 Feb 2012 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Daily Grind: What do you look for when taking screenshots?

Posted: 19 Feb 2012 05:00 AM PST

Filed under: Screenshots, Culture, Opinion, The Daily Grind, Miscellaneous

Not like she'll have many times to wield a shoulder-mounted cannon, right?

There's an art to taking a cool screenshot, an art that I'm sadly not very good at. I never seem to be able to take good shots in combat, and my attempts at picking out perfect environments are pretty much nonexistent. The one thing I can do is ensure that whether I'm in Final Fantasy XIV or Star Wars: The Old Republic, I have good screenshots of my characters looking cool. I've paused what I'm doing in-game on occasion just to make sure that I can line up a nice character shot perfectly.

Of course, some people can find perfect angles for landscapes. Some people look for a funny glitch or a strange character type. And some people just find the right art to capture an intense battle in one moment. What do you look for when you're taking a screenshot? Do you go to great lengths to set up the right shot, or do you just have a knack for getting a certain picture type just right?

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: What do you look for when taking screenshots? originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 19 Feb 2012 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Tattered Notebook: The insider's guide to Erollisi Day

Posted: 18 Feb 2012 03:00 PM PST

Filed under: Fantasy, EverQuest II, Events, in-game, Free-to-play, The Tattered Notebook, Guides

As EverQuest II gracefully ages, it's become a game that's rich with content. That's especially true of the in-game holidays, like the current live event, Erollisi Day. And now that Erollisi herself has returned, the holiday is cause for celebration rather than remembrance.

The event is winding down, but there are still a few days left to participate. In this week's Tattered Notebook, we'll highlight some of the many things to do during Erollisi Day, including something old, something new, something borrowed, and something.... Gnome!

Continue reading The Tattered Notebook: The insider's guide to Erollisi Day

The Tattered Notebook: The insider's guide to Erollisi Day originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 18 Feb 2012 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Mog Log: Get together

Posted: 18 Feb 2012 01:00 PM PST

Filed under: Fantasy, Final Fantasy XI, Culture, Game mechanics, Opinion, Consoles, Final Fantasy XIV, The Mog Log

Grouping with other players is inconvenient. It can also be a lot of fun, but it takes more work to get a half-dozen people running in the same direction compared to just operating on your lonesome. But you're a lot more likely to stick with a game if you can find other people to play with, and thus both Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XIV have offered different approaches to grouping and encouraging parties.

When I started playing MMOs back when Final Fantasy XI launched, I wound up being soured by the game's insistence on grouping for a long while. These days, I can take a much more objective view of both sides because for all the hiccups that the system brings, Final Fantasy XIV's much more open environment has its own pitfalls -- some a result of basic game design, some a result of the less demanding approach. But why just look at this from the top down?

Continue reading The Mog Log: Get together

The Mog Log: Get together originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 18 Feb 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Road to Mordor: Ten things to do in East Bree-land before you die

Posted: 18 Feb 2012 11:00 AM PST

Filed under: Fantasy, Lord of the Rings Online, Free-to-play, Humor, The Road to Mordor, Guides

It's been a long, long time since I've been able to work on this series, going through each Lord of the Rings Online zone quest by quest and pulling the top 10 locations, points of interest, or missions for the aspiring adventurer to check out. There are many reasons I've been tardy in continuing it, but no excuses today! Today we dine in the Prancing Pony, for tomorrow we die!

I decided to divide Bree-land into two separate articles, with this one covering the eastern portion and Bree proper, and the upcoming one tackling the western and northern areas. This is not just because Bree-land is a pretty dang big zone but because it's pulling double-duty: East Bree-land and Bree serves as the 1-15 leveling area for Men, while the west invites all four races to continue the journey to level 20.

While it may seem like a generic fantasy zone on the surface, Bree-land is actually teeming with interesting details, stories, and activities. I've never regretted leveling in the area (it's a darn sight better than Ered Luin), and it was pretty tough to limit myself to just 10 activities for this list. So what should you do in East Bree-land before you die? Let's take a look!

Continue reading The Road to Mordor: Ten things to do in East Bree-land before you die

The Road to Mordor: Ten things to do in East Bree-land before you die originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 18 Feb 2012 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Champions Online puts out Alerts for heroes

Posted: 18 Feb 2012 09:00 AM PST

Filed under: Super-hero, Game mechanics, Previews, Free-to-play, Champions Online, Dev Diaries

Executive Producer Rob Overmeyer is beating the drums about the "big goals" for Champions Online's next update. Possibly one of the biggest of these goals is the addition of the Grab Alerts system, and in a new dev diary, Overmeyer outlines how these will work.

Grab Alerts are small team instances designed to allow players to get into exciting scenarios without a lot of waiting. Each Alert centers around a super-villain who's up to no good -- such as a heist or kidnapping -- and challenges players to thwart the evil-doer's efforts. Overmeyer promises that it will take just "two clicks" to get into an Alert, as the system will team up like-minded heroes automatically and then toss them into the instance.

Alerts will be shuffled around on a regular basis as to keep things fresh, so players will need to check the Alert Rotator to see which ones are available. If a player is looking for a specific reward that's tied to a certain Alert, the Rotator will help him or her find it. Overmeyer promises a wide range of rewards including costumes, gear, and bonuses.

Champions Online puts out Alerts for heroes originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 18 Feb 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: Champions Online

MMOGaming News

RO2 (KR) Open Beta Preview: Khara System and More

Posted:

South Korea-based Gravity has recently announced that the sequel to RO (Ragnarok Online) – RO2 will kick off its official OBT on Feb. 22. Just before the open beta, Gravity has released a brand new Ragnarok Online 2 anime trailer and a new official website to boast the game.