MMO Updates

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• The Stream Team: Healing adventures in Aion
• WRUP: Look guys I finally found another picture of a man with a hat edition
• The Daily Grind: Is there an ideal patch schedule for games?
• The Stream Team: Questing through TERA's dead zone
• The Stream Team: Tis the season for World of Warcraft dungeons
• Betawatch: December 21 - 27, 2013
• Second Wind: City of Steam: Arkadia
• Square Enix tweaks Final Fantasy XIV housing prices
• Storyboard: Working without /random
• Infinite money exploit plagues GTA Online

The Stream Team: Healing adventures in Aion Posted: 28 Dec 2013 08:00 AM PST Filed under: Fantasy, Video, Aion, Free-to-Play, Livestream, The Stream Team It's no secret that Massively's MJ prefers to play healers. Other than her Assassin, all the classes that she plays with regularity in Aion are ones that can give your health bar a boost. No, the real question is: Which one should she play now? She has an Asmodian Songweaver slowly inching up the level ladder, an Elyos Chanter that never sees enough play time, and of course her Elyos Cleric that needs a few more levels herself to hit max. So who will the lucky healer be that gets the love and attention (not to mention the air time) today? Join us live at 11:00 a.m. to see. Game: Aion Host: MJ Guthrie Date: Saturday, December 28th, 2013 Time: 11:00 a.m. EST Enjoy our Steam Team video below. Continue reading The Stream Team: Healing adventures in Aion The Stream Team: Healing adventures in Aion originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 28 Dec 2013 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments

WRUP: Look guys I finally found another picture of a man with a hat edition Posted: 28 Dec 2013 07:00 AM PST Filed under: Massively Meta, Miscellaneous I'm a complicated man, and no one understands me but my fellow searchers for pictures of men wearing hats. Three years ago, I found a picture of a man with a hat, and for a brief moment all seemed to be right in the world. Since then, despite a tireless complete lack of searching, I had not found another picture that matched my simple criterion of "man with a hat that I wanted to use as an article header." But now I've found another picture of a man with a hat! Although his hat isn't all that great. Are you going to spend your entire weekend looking for pictures of men with hats to leave in the comments? Or are you just going to look at what the Massively staff will be doing in WRUP just past the break and then inform us of your plans? If you're unsure, consider the problems of men wearing hats. Continue reading WRUP: Look guys I finally found another picture of a man with a hat edition WRUP: Look guys I finally found another picture of a man with a hat edition originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 28 Dec 2013 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments

The Daily Grind: Is there an ideal patch schedule for games? Posted: 28 Dec 2013 05:00 AM PST Filed under: Patches, Opinion, The Daily Grind, Miscellaneous Guild Wars 2 is very proud of its every-two-week patches, but I find that those frequent patches wind up being so small that they're not really engaging. This is no fault of the developers, really; two weeks is not much time to design anything substantial. It's fast, but is that enough? By contrast, Final Fantasy XIV packed a lot into its first major patch post-launch, which is a good thing, as it was released nearly four months after the relaunch and came when a lot of people were pretty burned out by the options in the game at that time. Having gotten most of the relevant content into farm mode myself, I can say that the next update definitely needs to come along faster than the last one. That put me to thinking: Is there an ideal patch schedule for games? Is there a sweet spot with enough time to develop new content and not enough time for people to get bored with what's there? Should it be all about the content when it's done, or should it be a fast cadence even if things need to be tweaked later? 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: Is there an ideal patch schedule for games? originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 28 Dec 2013 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments

The Stream Team: Questing through TERA's dead zone Posted: 27 Dec 2013 05:30 PM PST Filed under: Fantasy, Video, PvE, Free-to-Play, Massively Meta, Hands-On, TERA, Livestream, The Stream Team, MMORPG Massively's Mike Foster prefers to level by running dungeons. Unfortunately for him, TERA has several dead zones in which characters are too high to queue for one dungeon but too low to queue for the next. This means that Mike must step into that thing he dreads so much: lore. Tune in tonight at 8:30 p.m. EST as Mike begrudgingly quests through TERA's storyline, gathering XP and items all the while. Game: TERA Host: Mike Foster Date: Friday, December 27, 2013 Time: 8:30 p.m. EST Enjoy our Steam Team video below. Continue reading The Stream Team: Questing through TERA's dead zone The Stream Team: Questing through TERA's dead zone originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 27 Dec 2013 20:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments

The Stream Team: Tis the season for World of Warcraft dungeons Posted: 27 Dec 2013 04:00 PM PST Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Video, PvE, Massively Meta, Hands-On, Livestream, The Stream Team, Subscription, MMORPG Massively's Mike Foster is still on the hunt for epic gear and items good enough to get him ready for World of Warcraft's lower tier of raid instances. Tonight, he's continuing his sometimes-frustrating habit of healing pickup-group heroic dungeons in the hopes of sweet loot drops. Perhaps he'll end up with a talented, over-geared group that clears dungeons in seconds. Perhaps he'll end up with a Death Knight tank who doesn't know he has more than one presence. Either way, it's going to be an adventure. Tune in for the action at 7:00 p.m. EST. Game: World of Warcraft Host: Mike Foster Date: Friday, December 17th, 2013 Time: 7:00 p.m. EST Enjoy our Steam Team video below. Continue reading The Stream Team: Tis the season for World of Warcraft dungeons The Stream Team: Tis the season for World of Warcraft dungeons originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 27 Dec 2013 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments

Betawatch: December 21 - 27, 2013 Posted: 27 Dec 2013 03:00 PM PST Filed under: Betas, MMO Industry, News Items, Betawatch, Miscellaneous If you had fond memories of Sevencore during its brief original run, you'll be happy to know that the game is getting a new lease on life via Ignited Games. Whether or not it will go better than the game's first go-round remains to be seen, but the beta is set to last until January 13th of next year. Otherwise, it's been a quiet week for betas, almost as if some major holiday took place over the week. War Thunder expanded its Ground Forces beta for more players, and Black Desert plans on adding a new region during its next beta test. It's region-locked, for the record. Oh yeah, and we also have that full list of games in testing just past the break as we always do, in case none of the above stories meets with your particular tastes. As always, let us know if something added an active cash shop without our noticing or otherwise switched beta phases. Continue reading Betawatch: December 21 - 27, 2013 Betawatch: December 21 - 27, 2013 originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 27 Dec 2013 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments

Second Wind: City of Steam: Arkadia Posted: 27 Dec 2013 01:00 PM PST Filed under: Fantasy, Opinion, Free-to-Play, Browser, Hands-On, City of Steam, Second Wind, Steampunk I've been rooting for City of Steam ever since it was first announced, mostly due to my sheer love of the steampunk genre. We've got high fantasy and gritty sci-fi games galore, but steampunk has been largely neglected in the realm of gaming. That's why it was so disheartening to hear that City of Steam's first incarnation (of which I spoke rather highly when I saw it at PAX East in early 2013) would be shutting down after only about five months of opening its doors to players. It was a bold move for Mechanist Games to make the jump to self-publishing, and when I saw the game featured on Kongregate, I decided I'd check and see how the troubled title was holding up in its new form. The question is, does City of Steam: Arkadia manage to stoke the fires or is it just a bunch of hot air? Continue reading Second Wind: City of Steam: Arkadia Second Wind: City of Steam: Arkadia originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 27 Dec 2013 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments

Square Enix tweaks Final Fantasy XIV housing prices Posted: 27 Dec 2013 12:00 PM PST Filed under: Fantasy, Economy, News Items, PvE, Final Fantasy XIV, Housing, Subscription, MMORPG Thanks to what Square-Enix has called a "prodigious amount of gil in circulation" on certain Final Fantasy XIV worlds, it appears as though new players and those returning from a break are priced completely out of the housing market. In the interest of getting the system under control, Square announced yesterday that it will be dramatically reducing the price of land across numerous servers. According to the announcement, land pricing for legacy worlds will be adjusted to match land pricing of non-legacy worlds. This will result in land values on certain worlds being reduced by 2.5 to 5 times their current value over the course of several weeks. Additionally, Square plans to "re-evaluate" the final price of land across all worlds sometime in late January. Check out the full post to see which worlds have which pricing and how values are about to change. [Thanks to Zengarzombolt for the tip!] Square Enix tweaks Final Fantasy XIV housing prices originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 27 Dec 2013 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments Housing Price Adjustments

Storyboard: Working without /random Posted: 27 Dec 2013 11:00 AM PST Filed under: Game Mechanics, Opinion, Roleplaying, Storyboard, Miscellaneous Two weeks ago, you might recall, I ranted about using random rolls as a mechanic of resolution when roleplaying in MMOs. For those of you who can't be bothered to go back and read the whole thing now (which I totally understand; you probably have holiday games burning a hole in your pocket), the core point was that random rolls don't actually tie to anything for resolution and wind up coming off as an obvious and unfun kludge for the sake of random resolution. "Well, if you're so smart, why don't you come up with alternatives?" And I did. Readers also had some wonderful suggestions and feedback in the comments last week, which make the article even more worth reading, so really, go ahead and take a look at it. This week, I'm taking a look at how you're going to resolve conflicts in roleplaying without relying on what amounts to a coin flip. And as you may have expected, they're all taking tips from tabletop games. Continue reading Storyboard: Working without /random Storyboard: Working without /random originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 27 Dec 2013 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments

Infinite money exploit plagues GTA Online Posted: 27 Dec 2013 10:00 AM PST Filed under: Real-Life, Culture, Economy, Game Mechanics, MMO Industry, News Items, Sandbox, Buy-to-Play Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto Online is beset with hackers flooding the game's economy with billions of ill-gotten dollars. Kotaku reports that a networking exploit leads to "infinite amounts of cash," and that dupers have taken to gifting huge windfalls to random players. This is of course problematic since Rockstar flags accounts "holding obscene amounts of money" during its banning sweeps. The company has yet to offer a comment on or a fix for the issue. Meanwhile, some players have taken to hard resetting their consoles so that the gifted money doesn't save. Infinite money exploit plagues GTA Online originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 27 Dec 2013 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments Kotaku

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MMORPG News

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• General: Magic Barrage Beta Key Gift Pack Giveaway!
• Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn: Housing Prices Reduced
• Trove: So Update. Much Fastness.
• Camelot Unchained: The Becoming: The Trials of Nuada Part III
• General: Edge of Space - The World is Alive & Working Against You
• Novus Aeterno: Novus Aeterno - A Seamless AAA MMORTS

General: Magic Barrage Beta Key Gift Pack Giveaway! Posted: 26 Dec 2013 05:12 PM PST MMORPG.com and Reality Squared Games are pleased to present a new gift key offer for our members! To help celebrate the recent launch of the Magic Barrage beta test we are giving away keys that will give players in game goodies such as Star Soul Stones, Iron Soul Stones and more! Get your key now!

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn: Housing Prices Reduced Posted: 27 Dec 2013 12:51 PM PST Hearing the voice of its community, Square Enix has announced that housing prices in Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn have been reduced to give new and returning players a fair chance at obtaining the land and materials necessary for home building.

Trove: So Update. Much Fastness. Posted: 27 Dec 2013 06:36 AM PST Yes, we just used the tired Doge meme. Deal with it. Late last week, I sat down to chat with Trove's Creative Director, Andrew Krausnick about all the work their small team's done on the game since opening it up to an NDA-less Alpha. Before the nice long deserved break at Trion's San Francisco offices, Andrew and I went over everything the team's added in the past couple of weeks since we last took a look at Trove.

Camelot Unchained: The Becoming: The Trials of Nuada Part III Posted: 26 Dec 2013 02:39 PM PST MMORPG.com has teamed up with City-State Entertainment to bring our readers a brand new developer blog that gives insight into the design process behind one of Camelot Unchained's iconic heroes, Nuadha Airgetlám. Read the third installment of the series to find out more and let us know what you think in the comments. Then head to the Camelot Unchained site to read the lore.

General: Edge of Space - The World is Alive & Working Against You Posted: 27 Dec 2013 02:59 AM PST In our latest RPG Files, we take a look at a brand new sandbox title, Edge of Space, that is currently in its beta phase of development. Described as a world hostile to players, it's a game that should have sandboxers excited. Read on to find out more.

Novus Aeterno: Novus Aeterno - A Seamless AAA MMORTS Posted: 26 Dec 2013 02:22 PM PST Novus Aeterno is described by its team as a "seamless AAA MMORTS" that is aimed squarely at fans of both MMO and RTS genres. We caught up with Taitale Studios CEO Nick Nieuwoudt to talk about Novus Aeterno. See what he's got to say before leaving your impressions in the comments.

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