| EverQuest II producer talks May updates, player-made dungeon tweaks Posted: 04 May 2012 10:00 AM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, EverQuest II, Game mechanics, MMO industry, Patches, News items, Free-to-play May is shaping up to be an interesting month for EverQuest II fans. Producer Holly " Windstalker" Longdale has given us a new blog entry that talks about new testing tools, NPC quest-update functionality, and of course the usual optimizations and bug-fixing that follow any large game update. Also of note is the upcoming ability to take your own avatars into the game's Dungeon Maker utility. Initially, content creators and fans could only select from pre-made avatars when running through player-made dungeon constructs. Last December, EQII devs introduced the ability to run player-generated content with your own avatars, but the update wasn't quite ready for prime time. It still isn't, according to Longdale, but she does say that substantial progress has been made. Look for the new "level agnostic" gameplay on the test server soon, and look for more analysis of EQII's changes in tomorrow's Tattered Notebook.  EverQuest II producer talks May updates, player-made dungeon tweaks originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 04 May 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| MMObility: The pros and cons of Tibia's browser version Posted: 04 May 2012 09:00 AM PDT Filed under: Betas, Fantasy, Previews, Opinion, Free-to-play, Browser, Casual, Miscellaneous, MMObility Tibia is an MMO that has been hanging in there for many, many years. You have to give it respect for that alone. When you add on the fact that the game seems to be updated relatively frequently and boasts a pretty good-sized playerbase, it becomes even more intriguing. I've played it in the past and have enjoyed the simple graphics and slower-paced gameplay. I like how NPCs chat with you, old-school EverQuest-style, and how there seems to be a lot more to the game than meets the eye. There are plenty of eyesores, however. The developers recently released Tibia in a beta browser form. While the client was always easy enough to download and run on my multitude of devices, I always prefer to just jump into my browser and load it up. I found a lot of neat little systems but also quite a few bugs or odd design choices. Colors and layout can be a problem, and I am not the biggest fan of Flash-based MMOs. Still, I am enjoying myself so far and look forward to more. Let's talk about what I found over these last several hours with Tibia's browser-based version. Continue reading MMObility: The pros and cons of Tibia's browser version MMObility: The pros and cons of Tibia's browser version originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 04 May 2012 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| ZeniMax reveals Elder Scrolls Online teaser trailer Posted: 04 May 2012 08:30 AM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, Trailers, Video, MMO industry, New titles, News items, The Elder Scrolls Online ZeniMax has unveiled the first trailer for its newly announced The Elder Scrolls Online MMORPG. There's no gameplay on offer at this early stage, and the clip itself is rather short. It's long on subtle bits of awesomeness, though, including a brief tease of the familiar Elder Scrolls melody and a glimpse of the game's logo (which features a telling three-part design to go along with the game's announced three-faction PvP). At this point, we're still in the dark about almost everything TESO-related. Will it be a sandbox? A themepark? A marriage of the two? How's the crafting, the character customization, and the questing? Your guess is as good as ours, so take a look at the clip after the break and let us know what you think in the comments. [Source: ZeniMax press release] Continue reading ZeniMax reveals Elder Scrolls Online teaser trailer ZeniMax reveals Elder Scrolls Online teaser trailer originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 04 May 2012 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| The Firing Line: Hands-on with Firefall's beta Posted: 04 May 2012 08:00 AM PDT Filed under: Betas, Sci-fi, Game mechanics, MMO industry, New titles, Opinion, Free-to-play, Hands-on, MMOFPS, First Impressions, The Firing Line, Firefall I'm dying on the beautiful beach outside Firefall's starter town. As I lay bleeding from a hundred holes and generally making a mess of my shiny new bumble bee-colored battleframe, my avatar collapses to the sand and says the funniest thing I've heard in a while. "Grandpa!" This is delivered in his best rural Georgia twang, and it lessens the sting of my latest newbie move. The whole scene is Firefall in a nutshell: It's fun, frustrating, and funny all at once. Continue reading The Firing Line: Hands-on with Firefall's beta The Firing Line: Hands-on with Firefall's beta originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 04 May 2012 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| Elder Scrolls Online announcement generates fan backlash Posted: 04 May 2012 07:20 AM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, Culture, MMO industry, New titles, News items, The Elder Scrolls Online We've yet to see even a hint of gameplay for the newly announced Elder Scrolls Online, but a good portion of the fan reaction to the news has been negative, according to a report at GamesIndustry.biz. The site says that many of the comments on Bethesda's blog were filled with despair at the prospect of an online title gobbling up development resources or otherwise impacting one of gaming's most beloved single-player franchises. A Bethesda moderator even chimed in to calm down the angst-ridden faithful. "The teams working on these games are separate. Todd Howard's team at BGS will keep doing the type of games they like making, and the ZeniMax Online team will focus on MMO games like this newly announced title," the spokesman said. ZeniMax is scheduled to release the game's first trailer at some point this morning. Elder Scrolls Online announcement generates fan backlash originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 04 May 2012 09:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| LotRO Update 7 to add new skirmish, revamp old content Posted: 04 May 2012 07:00 AM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, Lord of the Rings Online, Patches, Previews, Free-to-play Even a good anniversary celebration can't delay Turbine from delivering the content through snow, rain, and volcanic ash from Mt. Doom. The team has posted an outline of Lord of the Rings Online's next content patch, Update 7, with word that it will go to the test server soon. Update 7: Shades of the Past promises to add a new endgame skirmish called Storm on Methedras. The skirmish will be free for VIP players and tasks groups of one to 12 players with taking on Saruman's ally, Gwyllion, in the Misty Mountains. The update will also contain two huge renovations to existing content. Turbine will be divvying up the massive Fornost dungeon into four scalable instances accessible from levels 30 on up. More importantly, the team is renovating great parts of Moria with better graphics and a smoother quest flow. LotRO Update 7 to add new skirmish, revamp old content originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 04 May 2012 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| The Daily Grind: How do you handle random party invites? Posted: 04 May 2012 06:00 AM PDT Filed under: Opinion, The Daily Grind, Miscellaneous I don't know why, but sometimes I get discouraged when a random person sends me a party invite while I'm in the middle of questing. I know it sounds odd, but when I'm not playing with my regular group of friends or guildies, I like to just play alone. When someone whispers me to ask if he can join me, I usually turn him down (politely!), but if I get a random party invite without so much as a hello, I simply ignore it. My own antisocial issues aside, I want to know how you feel about this topic. Do you think a random invite is a healthy way to find companions and possibly friends, or do you see it as an invasion of privacy while you're trying to quest?  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 handle random party invites? originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 04 May 2012 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| World of Tanks appreciates the military with a World of Thanks Posted: 03 May 2012 07:00 PM PDT Filed under: Historical, Culture, Events, in-game, News items, War, Free-to-play, World of Tanks When you log in and play World of Tanks, you're playing the entertaining part of war, the part with cool machines wreaking havoc. Real wars obviously aren't fought by logging in and choosing a tank; they're fought by brave men and women willing to lay down their lives for their country if necessary. Thus, in honor of National Military Appreciation Month, Wargaming.net is donating to several charities for American veterans with your purchases. Four charities -- AMVETS, Homes for our Troops, the Military Families Fund, and Paralyzed Veterans of America -- will be receiving 10% of the proceeds from all American purchases of larger Gold packs and 75% of the proceeds for all American purchases of the T14 package. To help raise awareness of veteran concerns, the company will also be hosting several giveaways through the month. It's a nice nod toward the reality of armed conflicts, and it lets you play at a private little war while still donating to survivors of real battles. World of Tanks appreciates the military with a World of Thanks originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 03 May 2012 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| Ask Massively: Moving shop edition Posted: 03 May 2012 06:00 PM PDT Filed under: Culture, Events, in-game, Opinion, Ask Massively, Miscellaneous As you read this, I'm making my final preparations to move from my home for the past three years into a new and much nicer home. Of course, this brings with it certain concerns. Will the utility companies reconnect everything correctly? Will the movers drop something I can't easily replace? Will I forget something in the old apartment and have to go back? So, if my posts next week seem a bit off, assume that the move resulted in fiery death all around and I've been replaced by a crude AI pasted in Visual Basic. This week's Ask Massively, sadly, does not include anything about AI or my new apartment. Instead, it's about player-run events and why we cover some of them but not all. If you've got a question you'd like to see answered in a future installment of the column, send it to ask@massively.com or leave it in the comments. Questions may be edited slightly for clarity and/or brevity. Continue reading Ask Massively: Moving shop edition Ask Massively: Moving shop edition originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 03 May 2012 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| TERA gives players a guide to guilds Posted: 03 May 2012 05:30 PM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, Culture, Game mechanics, Guilds, News items, TERA Maybe TERA is your first MMO, maybe you want to learn about what TERA offers its guilds, or maybe you just want to see guilds defined as something other than small-scale drama generators for once. There are a lot of reasons you might want to look at TERA's new guide to guilds in the game, but whatever your motivation, the guide will provide you with all the answers you need to start guilding away with ease. The main benefit to being in a guild in TERA are the guild quests; available all across the game, each guild quest provides players with Catharnac Awards that can be used to improve the guild's level and buy special items from vendors. You also need to be part of a level 3 guild to run for public office, which is all the more reason for politically minded players to make friends. But don't take our word for it -- after all, there's a guide to tell you all of this in detail. TERA gives players a guide to guilds originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 03 May 2012 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| City of Heroes player summit promises Water Blast power set, cyberpunk costumes Posted: 03 May 2012 05:00 PM PDT Filed under: Super-hero, City of Heroes, Events, real-world, Previews, News items, Free-to-play If you weren't in California over the past weekend, you sadly had to miss out on the City of Heroes player summit. That means no voice in the several panels during which the doors were thrown open for new suggestions. But you can at least read through the summary of the weekend's events to find out what nifty new elements will be coming to the game in the near future, including four new powersets and several new costumes. While there's not a firm launch schedule, players can look forward to Water Blast (exactly what it says on the tin), Natural Affinity (healing over time and debuffing), Symbiotic Armor (a new defensive set based around absorbing damage types), and Radiation Armor (again, what it says on the tin). Players can also look forward to another Super Pack as well as the upcoming Retro Sci-Fi costumes and a Cyberpunk set. There's a lot of interesting tidbits, so if you want to get excited about the future, best to read through the event summary at OnRPG. City of Heroes player summit promises Water Blast power set, cyberpunk costumes originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 03 May 2012 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| The Summoner's Guidebook: Dealing with rage and bad players Posted: 03 May 2012 04:00 PM PDT Filed under: MMO industry, Opinion, Free-to-play, MOBA, League of Legends, The Summoner's Guidebook Like any competitive multiplayer game, League of Legends induces its fair share of rage. People hate to lose. When your team is only three to five people, each contributor has a distinct identity, making it very easy to single out that feeding Ezreal. Compared to a game like Global Agenda, where teams are very large and individual contribution is harder to measure, League of Legends makes blame very easy to assign. This week in the Summoner's Guidebook, we're going to talk about the effects of nerdrage on your team and how to deal with those violent emotions in a more productive manner. Continue reading The Summoner's Guidebook: Dealing with rage and bad players The Summoner's Guidebook: Dealing with rage and bad players originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 03 May 2012 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| The Guild Counsel: What's your guild really worth? Posted: 03 May 2012 03:00 PM PDT Filed under: Guilds, MMO industry, Opinion, The Guild Counsel, Miscellaneous One age-old debate in MMOs revolves around the buying and selling of characters, and the argument becomes especially contentious when it involves the exchange of real-life money. The members of one camp will staunchly defend the practice, saying they put the time and effort into the toons and that those characters are theirs to do with as they please. Others argue the opposite, saying that there are plenty of characters who were given help from others in leveling and acquiring gear, and it's not right to take that collective effort and market it to the highest bidder. It's a complicated issue for sure, but it's mainly centered around one single character. But what if it involved an entire guild? That's a question that players have had to tackle recently in World of Warcraft, as the practice of buying and selling guilds has become more and more popular. Would you buy a guild if you were just starting out? And would you sell your guild if you were done with the game? As usual, there are three sides to this coin, and it's something that we might see more of in other MMOs, so let's take a look at some of the arguments both for and against in today's Guild Counsel. Continue reading The Guild Counsel: What's your guild really worth? The Guild Counsel: What's your guild really worth? originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 03 May 2012 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| TERA subscription error affects thousands [Updated] Posted: 03 May 2012 02:00 PM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, Bugs, Launches, TERA According to several tipsters and many, many pages on TERA's forums, something's gone badly wrong with En Masse's account system. The studio admits that some players have been billed immediately upon selecting a subscription plan instead of being billed after the 30 days. Other players have reported not being able to log in at all, as the game cannot find their subscriptions or free time and delivers an "expired account" error. En Masse posted that it is aware of the situation and is working to resolve it. The studio says that players who purchased a physical copy of the game and signed up for a subscription before entering their game code triggered this problem. However, we've also had reports of players who have encountered this error when dealing with digital copies. Affected players should now be able to log in to TERA while En Masse works on fixing the error. [Thanks to Andrew, Schippie, and Alex for the tip!] [Update: En Masse has contacted us to note that the 2000 players have been affected by the "insufficient remaining subscription time" issue, not the "immediate billing" error. En Masse says that these are two separate issues that the studio is actively working to resolve as fast as possible. We've updated this article accordingly.]TERA subscription error affects thousands [Updated] originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 03 May 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| The Secret War draws over 200,000 players to its Facebook battle Posted: 03 May 2012 01:00 PM PDT Filed under: Betas, Horror, Sci-fi, Events, in-game, The Secret World Funcom's Facebook prologue to The Secret World is a sizable success, even if it had a rocky beginning. The studio reports that over 200,000 players have taken the side of one of the game's three factions and are supporting their side through this " unique browser-based social experience." Over the course of two weeks, participants have unleashed 50 million agents as part of the event, visited the site 1,200,000 times, and spent an average of 20 minutes each visit participating in the game. Since launching The Secret War, Funcom's added goals for the factions to work toward each week. The current prize is a Heart of Africa health talisman. Two-hundred thousand participants is a solid win for Senior Vice President Morten Larssen, who sees this as an excellent way to prepare players for the factional struggle of the MMO: "This conflict has always been a key driver for activity in our own community, and we are excited to see that more and more people are coming in to join the conflict from outside the community as well." [Source: Funcom press release] The Secret War draws over 200,000 players to its Facebook battle originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 03 May 2012 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| DDO's Menace of the Underdark expansion beta starts May 10th Posted: 03 May 2012 12:00 PM PDT Filed under: Betas, Fantasy, Galleries, Screenshots, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Expansions, MMO industry, News items, Free-to-play Last week we showed you some screenshots of Eveningstar, a new town in Dungeons and Dragons Online's upcoming Menace of the Underdark expansion. Today Turbine has released four additional shots taken in and around the small settlement that greets players as they transition from Eberron to the Forgotten Realms. Turbine has also told us that the expansion closed beta will kick off on May 10th. The testing period will be exclusive to pre-order purchasers of MotU, so head to the official DDO site to learn more! [Source: Turbine press release] DDO's Menace of the Underdark expansion beta starts May 10th originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 03 May 2012 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| EVE producer: F2P converts were 'failing,' subs still viable Posted: 03 May 2012 11:00 AM PDT Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Business models, Culture, Interviews, MMO industry, New titles, News items, Free-to-play, DUST 514, Sandbox The death of the subscription model has been greatly exaggerated, according to CCP. This view isn't terribly surprising if you consider the fact that the company's fortunes ebb and flow with sub-based EVE Online. What is somewhat surprising is the frankness with which EVE producer Jon Lander talks about the free-to-play mania that's gripped western dev studios in recent years. "You look at the companies who did go free-to-play. They retrofitted it on, and that was because their games were failing. They didn't care about the tiny nugget of players who were still playing, because they knew they would get a huge number of other players and it would be more profitable," Lander told PC Gamer, before going on to explain how such a retrofit would kill EVE's essence. Overall quality and the desire for long-term play also factor into a title's business model, Lander says. "If you have a really good game [...] and people want to spend a long time playing it, not like a month or two but like EVE players for years at a time, they're prepared to pay a subscription fee for a good quality gaming experience." He also mentions EVE's PLEX system, which allows for real-world money to be injected into the EVE economy sans shady third-party brokers. And of course, CCP is experimenting with free-to-play via its new DUST 514 shooter, which Lander says was built from the ground up for the new business model. It's not necessarily the future, though. "People say the subscription MMO is dead. I fundamentally disagree with that. It's simply not the case," he says. Hit the jump for video excerpts from the interview. Continue reading EVE producer: F2P converts were 'failing,' subs still viable EVE producer: F2P converts were 'failing,' subs still viable originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 03 May 2012 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| Bethesda confirms Elder Scrolls MMO, three-faction PvP Posted: 03 May 2012 10:27 AM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, Game mechanics, MMO industry, New titles, News items, The Elder Scrolls Online Well, one of the industry's worst-kept secrets has been officially put to rest courtesy of Game Informer. There is in fact an Elder Scrolls MMO in the works, and ZeniMax Online has chosen the print magazine for its initial reveal. Despite a professed lack of interest in MMOs from Elder Scrolls notable Todd Howard, the project has been ongoing for a number of years now, according to the game's first press release. The dev team is headed up by Matt Firor, known primarily to gamers for his work on Dark Age of Camelot. Like DAoC, the new Elder Scrolls title will feature three-faction PvP. We'll keep you updated as Bethesda releases additional details. Bethesda confirms Elder Scrolls MMO, three-faction PvP originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 03 May 2012 12:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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