Today we offer this selection of the 10 best browser games of January of 2014. Here you can take a look to the 10 best browser games that most caught our attention this month. This month there have been several changes in the ranking compared to the last month. First of all, the top 10 […]
Troxit Servicies Limited is partening with FREEMMORPGlist.com and MMOReviews.com to giveaway Crystal Packs for Panzar (Each Crystal Pack includes 100 crystals) The game is a modern competitive free-to-play third-person action MMO focused on team-based play that presents role-playing elements such as character growth and experience-based levelling. Players will be thrown into a fantasy world where […]
NCSOFT and ArenaNet, have offered today a glimpse of Origins of Madness, Guild Wars new update which is going to add new adversaries and that is going to be the beginning of an epic end to a storyline that began more than a year ago. In Origins of Madness, Guild Wars 2 players will have to fight […]
InnoGames has just released the Modern Era, the tenth era for Forge of Empires. This new era introduces a new quest line, the longest so far, with nearly 100 missions, new technologies such as "Commercial Aviation" and "Hollywood", and numerous Modern Era buildings. In this new video the game’s designer Peer details the most striking features of […]
NEXON Europe announced that the closed beta of their latest free-to-play, browser-based MMORPG, Arcane Chronicles is going to begin on January 16. All those who want to have an opportunity to participate in the game’s closed beta, can register an account on the official website, as registration will no longer be available after the Closed Beta […]
Today we invite you to see a couple of videos in which you can see Ground Forces, War Thunder‘s new expansion, which adds the possibility to control tanks in scenarios with both air and ground battles at the very same time.
R2Games Entertainment Inc is partening with FREEMMORPGlist.com and MMOReviews.com to giveaway 3000 Gold Card Item Packs for League of Angels. League of Angels a hybrid turn-based fantasy MMORPG/strategy game developed by UZUU, which takes place in a fantasy world, in which players can complete missions, combat in huge PvP battles and take part in fun events. […]
Possibility of a browser free from NSA surveillence
Mozilla Foundation chief technology officer Brendan Eich believes that Firefox can befree from surveillance by government organizations.
In a recent blog post, Eich pointed out that other browsers will be unable to offer such an assurance explaining, "Every major browser today is distributed by an organization within reach of surveillance laws."
Eich went on to say that many governments and their agencies might force service operators to allow surveillance, pointing to the Lavabit case as an example of this predicament. Governments could not only force services to enable surveillance, but issue a gag orderpreventing these services from informing their users.
As a solution to this problem, Eich offers that Firefox's open-source nature gives it a "critical advantage" over other browser vendors because security researchers are able to compare and vary its executable bits with the official distribution.
Because of this advantage, Eich went on to provide several actions that, if enforced by security researchers and organizations, could prevent anyone from "injecting undetected surveillance code into Firefox." According to Eich they will need to, "Regularly audit Mozilla source and verified builds by all effective means, establish automated systems to verify official Mozilla builds from source, and raise an alert if the verified bits differ from official bits."
Eich concluded, "Through international collaboration of independent entities we can give users the confidence that Firefox cannot be subverted without the world noticing, and offer a browser that verifiably meets users' privacy expectations."
While all of this sounds promising, do you think that Firefox could be surveillance-free if these steps are taken?
Court says FCC lacks authority to impose net neutrality rules on ISPs
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia pulled the rug out from under the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) by ruling on Verizon v. FCC that the agency doesn't have the legal power to impose net neutrality laws on Internet Service Providers (ISPs). What this ultimately means is that ISPs are free to allow certain types of Internet traffic run faster than others or even block services altogether rather than treating it all the same.
If you have the time or inclination, the 81-page ruling can be found in its entirety on Scribd.com, but to the point, Judge David Tatel said that ISPs aren't classified as "common carriers," therefore they're not subject to same rules and regulations that the telecommunications industry must follow.
Proponents of net neutrality fear that ISPs will abuse their power to treat Internet traffic different, and indeed Judge Tatel voiced his own concerns.
"In support of its conclusion that broadband providers could and would act to limit Internet openness, the Commission pointed to four prior instances in which they had done just that. These involved a mobile broadband provider blocking online payment services after entering into a contract with a competing service; a mobile broadband provider restricting the availability of competing VoIP and streaming video services; a fixed broadband provider blocking VoIP applications; and, of course, Comcast's impairment of peer-to-peer file sharing that was the subject of the Comcast Order," Judge Tatel wrote.
Be that as it may, the rules were written specifically for common carriers and not ISPs. That said, the court did agree that the FCC should hold some authority to regulate service providers. In addition, FCC chairman Tom Wheeler said this isn't over, vowing to "consider all available options, including those for appeal."
The big news in processors today is the official launch of AMD's Kaveri APUs with Radeon R7 graphics, but if you'd rather wait to see what Intel has up its sleeve, you'll have to get cozy for a few months. Word on the web is that Intel is preparing to refresh its Haswell processor line with nearly two dozen new CPUs sometime in the second quarter of 2014, likely starting in May.
According to Digitimes, May is when the new parts will hit the retail channel. That will include 20 new processors, including the Core i7 4790, Core i5 4690, Core i3 4360, Pentium G3450, and Celeron G1840. Intel will also launch some low power CPUs, such as the Core i7 4790S, Core i5 4590S, and Core i3 4150T.
Slipping into retail a month ahead of time will be Intel's new Z97 and H97 chipsets. This will give board partners like Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, and ASRock time to build silicon around the new chipsets before the refreshed Haswell processors land on store shelves.
Finally, Digitimes says Intel will follow this up by refreshing its Haswell K series and Haswell-E in the third quarter, while phasing out its Core i5 3350P, Core i3 3225, and Core i3 3210 processors in Q1. Beyond that, the news and rumor site didn't provide any information on pricing.
Our CES coverage concludes with a look at Silverstone's enclosures
Officially, the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) concluded last Friday, but for us, the festivities don't come to an end until Silverstone pays us a visit with its latest cases in tow. That's our story, anyway -- another explanation why Silverstone had to come to us post CES is because, well, have you ever seen The Hangover? Replace the setting with CES and insert Gordon and Jimmy as two of the characters, and you begin to see why we'd prefer to keep those videos under lock and key.
In any event, Silverstone was kind enough to make the trip and take us through a tour of its cases, starting with two brand new models, the Raven RV05 and Fortress FT05. The newest Raven is smaller than the original, which Silverstone was able to accomplish by getting rid of the 5.25-inch drive bays, though there is a slot-fed bay if you still rely on optical media. Take a look:
Next up, Silverstone gave us a glimpe of its SG12 and DS380 cases. These are both small form factor (SFF) cases, the SG12 being a micro ATX with a single 5.25-inch drive bay and a sturdy handle on front, and the new DS380 being a hybrid mini ITX chassis primarily intended for NAS duties. It has eight 3.5-inch drive bays up front and four 2.5-inch drive bays inside. Take a gander:
Moving right along, Silverstone gave us a look at a bunch of NUC-like case and an external graphics cabinet, the latter of which the case maker worked on with Asus. Inside is a full size graphics card, 450W SFX power supply, fan, and PCB. It uses a Thunderbolt connector to hook up to your NUC or laptop for a boost in graphics performance. Here's a closer look:
Finally, Gordon got a close up look at Silverstone's new HTPC (GD09 and GD10) and micro-tower (RVZ01 and ML07) enclosures. Any of these cases are home brewed Steam Machine candidates. Check them out:
NZXT's latest computer case, the H440, is a forward looking enclosure that encourages you to retire your optical media. That's because it doesn't come with any 5.25-inch drive bays, so if you want to save data to discs or install games and applications the old school way, you'll need an external optical drive to get the task done. NZXT made the sacrifice in order to facilitate a cleaner design.
"NZXT has taken a bold step and completely removed the antiquated and often unused 5.25-inch optical bays to make room for a host of chassis improvements and innovations. Looking through the H440's massive full-view window will reveal an interior specially engineered to make any build seamless and beautiful," NZXT says.
The H440 sports an integrated power supply shroud that completely conceals cables and offers a ton of space to tuck those wires out of sight. Just above the shroud are a pair of mounted SSD trays with cable routing coutouts. Four steel HDD trays further assist storage chores.
For cooling, the H440 is the first case to come with NZXT's next generation case fans, the FN V2. These come in the form of a 140mm rear exhaust fan and three 120mm front inake fans. There's also room for two 140mm or three 120mm fans on top. In addition, the top and front panels are "Kraken" ready and will fit radiators up to 360mm in size.
The H440 is avialable to pre-order now for $119. To go along with the case, NZXT also announced a matching mechanical keyboard, the Shine 3. This is an "extremely limited edition" plank available in black/white and black/red color options (same as the H440) featuring Cherry MX Red switches and robust LED backlight options. It's available now for $150.
Do you feel the need, the need for speed? Sure you do, and if 1980s movies taught you anything, it's that you shouldn't wait too long to pull the trigger, lest things quickly spiral out of control, Goose dies, and you end up divorcing Mimi Rogers, Nicole Kidman, and Katie Holmes. Wait, what? We might have veered off course here a bit. Getting back on track, to satiate your need for speed, have a look at today's top deal for a Samsung 840 Pro Series 256GB Solid State Drive for $195 with shipping for $1 (normally $200 -- use coupon code: [EMCYTZT5439]). This is one of the fastest 2.5-inch SATA 6Gbps SSDs available with rated sustainted sequential read and write speeds of up to 540MB/s and 520Mb/s, respectively.
The boys and girls at AMD officially launched the company's 2014 A-Series Accelerated Processing Units (APUs) with integrated Radeon R7 graphics. You know the parts by their codename "Kaveri," which AMD says is representative of a major architecture improvement. Kaveri sports completely redesigned cores, new Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) features, new accelerators, and enhanced power management on a new 28nm manufacturing process.
Kaveri boasts up to 12 compute cores (4 "Steamroller" CPU cores + 8 GCN GPU cores) on a die measuring 245mm2 with 2.41 billion transistors. AMD made a concerted effort to improve the graphics in Kaveri, which include the latest technologies found in Hawaii -- Graphics Core Next (GCN), TrueAudio, Eyefinity, UVD, and VCE technologies. One thing that's interesting with AMD's focus on graphics is that the chip designer is embracing its role as a preferred choice among virtual coin miners. Apparetly Kaveri parts will be good at digging up Bitcoins, Litecoins, and other virtual currencies.
"AMD maintains our technology leadership with the 2014 AMD A-Series APUs, a revolutionary next generation APU that marks a new era of computing," said Bernd Lienhard, corporate vice president and general manager, Client Business Unit, AMD. "With world-class graphics and compute technology on a single chip, the AMD A-Series APU is an effective and efficient solution for our customers and enable industry-leading computing experiences."
The other big focus is on performance per watt. Kaveri will push better battery life on notebooks. AMD says Kaveri can scale up or down to other segments, such as embedded and server platforms, while bringing new features to small form factor (SFF) desktops.
AMD is kicking off the Kaveri launch with its A10-7850K and A10-7700K APUS, both available this month and both coming bundled with Battlefield 4. Sometime later this quarter, AMD will release its lower end A8-7600 APU. As far as we know, the A8-7600 will not come with a game bundle.
Have you been missing something in Guild Wars 2? Do you wish your character had a way to unlock new abilities that was more involved than spending a handful of skill points? Did you ever dream of subclasses?
If you've wanted any of that -- or, conversely, if you haven't -- it might interest you to check out the progress of the horizontal progression collaborative development initiativethread on the GW2 official forums. Colin Johanson and Chris Whiteside have both been involved, givingfeedback on everything from reward systems to ways in which subclasses might be unlocked and helping direct the discussion. If ArenaNet were to implement anything similar to what's being proposed, it would mean a massive shakeup in how GW2 plays, so let's break down how it could be implemented and why it might be useful for enhancing character progression.
The massively multiplayer online game industry is constantly changing, but one thing about it never will so long as capitalism stands: MMOs have ongoing costs, and those costs are passed on to the end user. Exactly how they're passed on is one of the things that has been changing, but new methods don't mean old methods don't have their place.
New isn't good because it's new. New is good because it can provide solutions to old problems. When an old method is seen as the source of a problem actually caused by something unrelated, shoving a new method in there can just create new problems. So why all the wailing and gnashing of teeth over games trying out a subscription before they move onto other models? And why all the wailing and gnashing of teeth in retaliation to this opinion?
In a move to ensure that RuneScape's continued direction is shaped at a grassroots level by its players, Jagex has introduced an in-game polling system and launched the first question: Invention skill vs. Elf City -- which do you want first? If you have a preference as to which content releases first, you have until January 31st to log in and vote.
The series of polls -- part of the company's Power to the Players strategy for this next year -- will involve monthly Dragonstone questions on major topics like the one presented as well as more frequent Diamond and Ruby polls, which focus on mid- to low-tier topics like what dragon to add to the game and themes of holiday festivals.
In this week's riotous podcast, Bree and Justin give each other the silent treatment. Yup, it's 65 minutes of pure cold, stony silence that will make you feel so uncomfortable that you yourself will end up babbling just to hear someone talk.
Naw, we actually have a lot to talk about, including what's coming in 2014 for many of your favorite MMOs and studios. What, you thought we could actually shut up? Never!
Have a comment for the podcasters? Shoot an email to podcast@massively.com. We may just read your email on the air!
Get the podcast: [RSS] Add Massively Speaking to your RSS aggregator. [MP3] Download the MP3 directly. [iTunes] Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. [Stitcher] Follow the podcast on Stitcher Radio. Listen here on the page:
The end is near! After a brief period of peace and quiet, Guild Wars 2's update cadence will begin again, and ArenaNet has no plans to ease Tyria gently back into the groove. Next week brings the first of four releases, which will culminate in the end of GW2's Scarlet Briar story arc.
Massively was invited to sit down with Colin Johanson and Meelad Sedat to discuss the teaser trailer for the upcoming release, Origin of Madness. While we can't reveal too many of the secrets we've learned about Tyria's future (we wouldn't want to spoil any big surprises), we're pleased to bring you an exclusive peek at some of the content you'll find in the January 21st release. Read on to check it out!
I run a lot of random dungeons in Final Fantasy XIV. It's not uncommon to wind up grouped with someone who hasn't seen one of the newer dungeons, or even someone who just happened to forget the mechanics in a lower-level fight. That's fine, and I have no problem explaining the fight in detail to people. What gets my goat is trying to re-explain as someone either ignores the directions or does exactly the opposite time and again.
Some people are far more patient than I am. I've watched players explain the same mechanics a dozen times without ever showing signs of irritation. And of course, there are people far less patient than I -- people who explain the fight only once in mangled shorthand or even outright refuse to explain anything. So what about you, dear reader? How patient are you with explanations about fights, areas, mechanics, or anything else in your game of choice?
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!
Members of competitive League of Legends team Absolute Legends revealed this week that they still haven't seen a penny of the combined $11,500 in winnings from November 2012's IEM Singapore tournament. Absolute Legends CEO Tim "WetDreaM" Buysse has been accused of holding onto all of the prize money despite his contracts with players entitling him to only a small cut. Dota 2's unique monthly player total broke the 7,000,000 mark this week, and new stats suggest that almost 10% of those logged into Steam may be playing the game. And SMITE announced details of its $100,000 launch tournament, which will see four of North America's best teams take on Europe's finest four at the end of March.
Chris Roberts answered more fan questions on Star Citizen this week, revealing further details on exploration and mapping space and confirming that plotting a new jump point will be a very risky business. In a new interview on Elite: Dangerous, David Braben outlined the massive scope of the game's upcoming online features, which will include huge conflicts between NPC factions that players can influence. Blizzard announced that it's aiming to release the pre-download for Diablo III's upcoming Reaper of Souls expansion by the end of January and confirmed that vendor-sold items will no longer be salvageable in the next expansion beta patch. Finally, Path of Exile kicked off race season six this week with some fantastic prizes and revealed that PvP tournaments may be coming in Patch 1.0.6.
When December wrapped up, so too did The Secret World's first full calendar year, having debuted the summer prior. Coincidentally, the timing also marked the first year of the buy-to-play business model; the game transitioned in December 2012. Looking back over those 12 months, I wonder what can be said of the horror-themed MMO. Certainly updates and new content didn't come as quickly as players would have preferred (what game can ever deliver that?!), but there was still plenty of activity during that time. We're going to delve into highlights of TSW's year that started with awarding all players a coveted pet to counter an exploit discovered during the 2012 holiday event and ended with Hel on earth.
Dota 2 is a MOBA of immense depth. Just when you think you understand it, you discover something entirely new that dramatically alters the way you approach the game. Outside of the raw strategy element, there are numerous mechanical things to learn. Last-hitting, denying, creep stacking, and positioning are all critical, fundamental components to Dota 2's gameplay.
Tonight, Massively's Mike Foster is playing a mechanics-focused match in which he'll practice those basic skills that all Dota 2 players must know to ensure the success of their team. The action begins at 7:00 p.m. EST.
Game:Dota 2 Host: Mike Foster Date: Monday, January 13th, 2014 Time: 7:00 p.m. EST
Do you like space werewolves? Do you like Star Wars? If you answered yes to both of those questions, may I recommend some Dark Horse comics and an old BioWare RPG called Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. You've probably heard of it. If not, surely you've heard of its distant MMO cousin Star Wars: The Old Republic.
The latter also features space werewolves rakghouls, and according to a brief community team blurb on the SWTOR forums, the title's recurring rakghoul event is coming soon. BioWare's Courtney Woods wrote earlier this morning that "strange animal attacks have been reported by soldiers serving on Alderaan. An investigation is currently underway."
There are a couple of other in-character postings in this thread, but there's no firm date for the event just yet.
Community Manager Rick Heatonconfirmed the license renewal on the official forums today: "I just wanted to drop in and address the concerns surrounding the license, again. We have said as far back as July of 2013, we plan to support LotRO for many years to come. I really want to be as clear as possible on this subject to avoid any further confusion or misunderstanding. The license was renewed."
Myst Online: Uru Live has been through the ringer, as far as MMOs go. Despite being based on a very successful line of standalone adventure games, this MMO version just seemed to fall flat. Luckily the community and the developers agreed the game should be resurrected! Join Massively's Beau Hindman as he explores the mystery of this puzzle-based MMO.
Game:Myst Online: Uru Live Host: Beau Hindman Date: Monday, January 13th, 2014 Time: 4:00 p.m. EST
Visionary Realms head Brad McQuaid's super-secret project is labeled as "a group-focused MMORPG based on challenging gameplay and open world high fantasy." Pantheon takes place in a world where both gods and heroes roam and where players will be on a quest to reclaim their lost glory and power.
According to the feature list, Pantheon will have a heavy social focus, an open and non-linear world, the ability to customize your class by "bonding with the spirits of fallen warriors," action combat, an emphasis on travel instead of instant ports, exploration as part of character development, and "designed downtime" as part of the game experience.
While McQuaid is asking for $800,000 to add more employees and fund development of the game, his stretch goals continue to the $6.7 million mark. Will you help pony up the $3.2 million needed for a Bard class?
It's not very often that the devs at Star Trek Online manages to completely surprise the playerbase with something unanticipated. This week Star Trek Online Community Manager Brandon Felczer posted a list of patch notes for the Tribble test server as well as a new screenshot for the Friday gallery, stating that the screenshot was from the upcoming "Season 8.5" patch.
The patch notes contained a lot of changes that none of us was truly expecting, most of which (but not all, of course) are being generally well-received. The biggest shock is that the patch will include the first new PvP arena in years. Also included in the notes was the announcement that the devs have been busy revamping several of the low-level Starfleet missions to improve their look as well as their pacing.
I've had the opportunity to jump on the Tribble test server to check out some of the revamped missions. Of the 12 missions on the list, I've played four: Stranded in Space, Kuvah'Magh, Researcher Rescue, and The Ultimate Klingon. Many of the screenshots are from the updated missions, so beware -- there be spoilers ahead!
There's a subtle problem in WildStar that we've all seen lurking around the edges. It's not huge, and it's not glaring, but it's there, and it's pretty obvious. It's the elephant in the room, and much like the traditional elephant, it's something absolutely no one wants to actually point out because it is not fun to point out.
But it's pretty obvious as soon as you look at the races that the male Mechari are built like linebackers and the female Mechari are wasp-waisted blowup dolls in a permanent pair of heels.
I've been a fan of WildStar since its first teaser trailer, and while I'd hoped for detailed character customization, the beta came without any body sliders or any other options for customizing a character's build. And while the Mechari are easy to cite as problematic (mostly because none of the other women has high heels as part of her feet), this sort of subtle and passive sexism weaves its way into the game on a consistent basis.
Court says FCC lacks authority to impose net neutrality rules on ISPs
More Haswell options are on the way
Our CES coverage concludes with a look at Silverstone's enclosures
Say goodbye to 5.25-inch drive bays
Low power, high performance
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 
