MMO Updates |
- Free for All: Looking at Second Life's mesh with Bernhard Drax
- Why I Play: RuneScape
- DDO expansion screens take you inside Demonweb
- Elder Scrolls Online devs talk questing and public dungeons
- Allods Online releases Astral Storm update
- Trion trademarks 'Storm Legion' for possible next RIFT expansion name
- The Daily Grind: Is platforming welcome in MMOs?
- Raptr handing out 10,000 copies of RIFT and RIFT CEs
- TERA's Chris Lee shares the trials and joys of transforming an MMO
- Face of Mankind rolling out major updates
- CCP contemplates selling more EVE Online physical merchandise
- The Elder Scrolls Online embraces solo story, traditional MMO format
- Flameseeker Chronicles: WvW primer
- SOE names 2012 G.I.R.L. scholarship winner
- Hyperspace Beacon: PR nightmare
- Curt Schilling posts more images of Copernicus
| Free for All: Looking at Second Life's mesh with Bernhard Drax Posted: 30 May 2012 10:00 AM PDT Filed under: Screenshots, Trailers, Video, Culture, Opinion, Free-to-play, Free for All, Miscellaneous  I decided to get some help from Bernhard Drax, known in Second Life as machinima artist Draxtor Drespes. He works with Bytegang, a group responsible for Flufee and the first series of fully-mesh avatars in Second Life. Even with his explanation, it won't be easy for me to explain mesh, but let's have a go at it. Mesh is important to understand because it represents a huge shift in not only how Second Life residents build, but how they play as well. Continue reading Free for All: Looking at Second Life's mesh with Bernhard Drax
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| Posted: 30 May 2012 09:00 AM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, Screenshots, Culture, Opinion, RuneScape, Free-to-play, Browser, Casual, Miscellaneous, Why I Play  RuneScape is one of the few titles that I find myself coming back to when I don't need to game, when I am just looking for something fun to do or a world to explore. RuneScape has it all, to the point that it can almost be too much. Continue reading Why I Play: RuneScape
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| DDO expansion screens take you inside Demonweb Posted: 30 May 2012 08:00 AM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, Galleries, Screenshots, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Expansions, MMO industry, News items, Free-to-play  This batch centers on the Demonweb region. If you're not up on your Forgotten Realms lore, Demonweb is basically the spider goddess Lolth's home plane. As a result, arachnophobes will want to move on to the next post. For everyone else, there's our MotU gallery below.
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| Elder Scrolls Online devs talk questing and public dungeons Posted: 30 May 2012 07:30 AM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, Game mechanics, MMO industry, New titles, News items, The Elder Scrolls Online  The other feature centers on the game's questing mechanics, and it finds Firor and creative director Paul Sage talking at length about what makes a good quest as well as various high-level creative approaches taken by the dev team.
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| Allods Online releases Astral Storm update Posted: 30 May 2012 07:00 AM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, Patches, PvP, Free-to-play, Allods Online  GPotato also nerfed its own free-to-play penalties in the update, as it removed Tep's Curse and Holy Charms from the game in order to protect players' gear. Dying will no longer cause player items to be cursed, which means that the charms are no longer needed as well. To celebrate the release of Astral Storm, gPotato brought back the tropical Atoll for three weeks. Catch up on all of the 3.0.2 goodness on Allods' special minisite devoted to the patch. [Source: gPotato press release]
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| Trion trademarks 'Storm Legion' for possible next RIFT expansion name Posted: 30 May 2012 06:30 AM PDT Filed under: Sci-fi, Expansions, Lore, MMO industry, Rumors, RIFT  While there is no official word on an expansion, signs are certainly pointing towards one. As soon as we get more information we will pass it along. [Thanks to Marc for the tip!]
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| The Daily Grind: Is platforming welcome in MMOs? Posted: 30 May 2012 06:00 AM PDT Filed under: Culture, Game mechanics, Opinion, The Daily Grind, Miscellaneous  From Star Wars: The Old Republic's Super Mario Datacrons experience to hopping along tree branches in order to get one of RIFT's shinies, platforming seems all the rage -- and I don't know if it's a welcome thing or not. It can be terribly frustrating to try to time the right jumps in a 3-D environment, but it's hard to rail against additional gameplay options in MMOs as a matter of principle. So what say you? Do you like or hate platforming in MMOs, and is the style welcome in our games?  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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| Raptr handing out 10,000 copies of RIFT and RIFT CEs Posted: 29 May 2012 06:00 PM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, RIFT, Promotions  This offer comes through the new Raptr Rewards program. Players can sign up to the program through Facebook and then earn points by playing games and hitting certain milestones. The copy of RIFT -- which includes the core game and a month of game time -- will be given away to members who have hit the "experienced" level in one of Raptr's sponsored RPGs. These copies will be available on a first-come, first-served basis starting Thursday, May 31st. Raptr players who take this copy of RIFT and hit "amateur" on the program will get an in-game Dwarven Smithy Goggles, while "experienced" achievers will be granted a free upgrade to RIFT's collector's edition. These rewards are only available to players in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, and Germany. [Source: Trion Worlds press release]
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| TERA's Chris Lee shares the trials and joys of transforming an MMO Posted: 29 May 2012 05:00 PM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, Launches, TERA, Dev Diaries  Saying that it was a "different game" when the studio first got involved with TERA's Westernization, Lee said that the team had to identify problem spots that would need changing in order to bring it to market in North America and Europe. One of the biggest changes was making the game far more solo-friendly after level 20. Lee shared a few anecdotes about life at En Masse, including a competition between team members to level as quickly as possible in beta and then again in live. He's excited to see the game gaining traction with a diverse community: "What's really interesting is the variety of people that TERA has drawn. In addition to our strong community, we have seen tweets from NFL players, Penny Arcade editors, and even Felicia Day about playing the game."
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| Face of Mankind rolling out major updates Posted: 29 May 2012 04:00 PM PDT Filed under: Sci-fi, Game mechanics, Patches, Previews, News items, Free-to-play, MMOFPS  The game is also removing the weight system, the quality levels system, and the factional restrictions on armor and equipment. This also has resulted in a change to the way that armor values are calculated in an effort to make more pieces of armor relevant to gameplay. And that's just the tip of the iceberg -- current or potential players would do well to take a look at the full development blog to see all of the changes en route for the game's mechanics. [Source: Nexeon press release]
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| CCP contemplates selling more EVE Online physical merchandise Posted: 29 May 2012 03:00 PM PDT Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Business models, Economy, Sandbox  The studio recently made 100 Nvidia graphics cards available to players in the game for 20 Plex apiece and sold out of them in two minutes. In addition to items like graphics cards, CCP is looking into ways to create and sell EVE Online merchandise. "We need to just look at what the right opportunities are now," Lander said. "We've got lots of people beavering away trying to work out what the right thing to do is." Due to players' ability to buy and sell Plex for other in-game goods, Lander reports that 25% of EVE Online players are able to enjoy the game for free.
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| The Elder Scrolls Online embraces solo story, traditional MMO format Posted: 29 May 2012 02:00 PM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, Classes, Lore, The Elder Scrolls Online  While portions of TESO's endgame and its PvP experience require grouping, Firor said that the core of the game will be played alone: "The way we do that in Elder Scrolls Online is there are parts of the game that you just do solo and you just do in a story instance. So the main backbone story of the game, which is your interaction with Molag Bal, one of the Daedric princes, you're the hero in that story, so you experience that only yourself." Firor also addressed the team's decision to eschew the skill-based system seen in newer Bethesda titles in favor of returning to systems seen in earlier Elder Scrolls games. "What we had to do to make it an MMO is to kind of evolve over to the multiplayer side and there are some things that come with that," he admitted. "Since we have a PVP component to our game, it's very difficult to make a skill-based game like in Skyrim."
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| Flameseeker Chronicles: WvW primer Posted: 29 May 2012 01:00 PM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, PvP, Opinion, Guild Wars 2, Flameseeker Chronicles, Guides  Welcome to the PvP primer, the post with everything you didn't think you wanted to know about PvP content in Guild Wars 2. If you're one of the people saying that Guild Wars 2 is a PvP-centric game and you might do personal story for a break every now and again, this probably isn't going to be new information to you. Think of it as something of crib notes for the uninitiated. Tempted to get into PvP but not sure where to start? Unsure if WvW is your speed? Let's start at the very beginning: There are two main types of PvP in Guild Wars 2. There's world vs. world (WvW), which pits three servers against each other in grand-scale, pitched battles. The other type is structured PvP (sPvP is becoming popular as an abbreviation for that), which takes two different forms but involves smaller, quicker battles on special maps. This week, we'll be looking at WvW. Continue reading Flameseeker Chronicles: WvW primer
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| SOE names 2012 G.I.R.L. scholarship winner Posted: 29 May 2012 12:30 PM PDT Filed under: Culture, MMO industry, News items, Miscellaneous  Larsen was awarded a $10,000 scholarship to put toward college tuition, and she has also accepted a 10-week internship at SOE headquarters in San Diego. Competitors were asked to submit concept art based on SOE titles as well as an essay on women in the gaming industry. More info on the scholarship is available at SOE's official website. [Source: SOE press release]
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| Hyperspace Beacon: PR nightmare Posted: 29 May 2012 12:00 PM PDT Filed under: Sci-fi, Opinion, Rumors, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Hyperspace Beacon  Obviously, the biggest news revolved around the 38 Studios fiasco. Perhaps it's hard when you're in the midst of a development cycle and concentrating on deadlines and milestones to see the larger picture and the proverbial writing on the wall. It should have been obvious to the developers behind the scenes the project was doomed, but I say that with 20/20 hindsight. Of course, Star Wars: The Old Republic won't be outdone by 38 Studios. BioWare had to flood the feeds with its own bad news in the form of layoffs. Then almost in the same breath, it announced that the game will be merging servers. I guess SWTOR couldn't be outdone by itself, either. It had to add insult to its own injury. Although the timing of the layoffs was a bit surprising, those of us observing from the outside could see the server merges coming. The stories in Star Wars aren't just about good conquering evil, but they are also about redemption and good coming out of a bad situation. The tragedy of Luke's aunt and uncle being killed was the catalyst that started his journey to becoming a great hero and Jedi Knight. Darth Vader was ultimately redeemed when he killed the emperor. But is there the same redemption for SWTOR? Will it ultimately become the great game everyone was hoping that it would be? Continue reading Hyperspace Beacon: PR nightmare
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| Curt Schilling posts more images of Copernicus Posted: 29 May 2012 11:00 AM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, Galleries, Screenshots  These six shots show the ready-for-primetime artwork that is a big part of why we're even more disappointed in the way things played out. As Schilling describes this set, these are "Images from the most magical, breathtaking and awe inspiring world ever created. Images I was 'allowed' to peek at along the way, when the team wanted us all to see the magical world we were building."
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