The QCon Forums hit the exit gates of yesterday’s DOOM reveal to catch reactions the first folks to see the game… they’re pretty amazing! On behalf of everyone at id and Bethesda, thank you for coming and making the game’s reveal so memorable. And for more on the reveal, read reactions from Game Informer’s Andrew Reiner.

On this episode of The Instance, HearthStone get's it's Naxx on next week. Meeting Stone is out for the count. Scott did a LOT in beta and Gary's house. Who want's to ride the horehound? Some nice hunter talk. Garrisons get musical. Let my dye my damned armor already! What about the future of holidays in the game? How does WoD compare to previous efforts visually and in tone? Pandas are not welcome here! The fall and rise of features in WoW, and more!


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Filed under: Fantasy, Business Models, Interviews, MMO Industry, News Items, Legal, Miscellaneous, Sandbox, Crowdfunding

Yesterday, Massively reported on the impending bankruptcy filing and cancellation of Kickstarted Winterkewl/Yogscast game Yogventures! and the alleged transfer of its assets over to TUG, a sandbox game by Nerd Kingdom that we've written about since its reveal last year. Journalists and gamers have suggested that in spite its claims to the contrary, Yogcast itself might be liable for refunds, as would any beneficiary of assets entangled in a future bankruptcy filing. We spoke to TUG's Peter "Ino" Salinas to shed light on the situation and its implications for TUG.

Massively: Yogscast has distanced itself from Winterkewl, the studio making Yogventures!, but statements made by Winterkewl seem to suggest that Yogscast is simply transferring its support for Winterkewl's game to your pre-existing game, TUG, causing Yogventures to go bankrupt and disavowing any obligation to underwrite the spent half million in Kickstarter funds. Is that your understanding of the situation? Can you clarify it for our readers?

Nerd Kingdom's Peter Salinas: There are a lot of details to the discussions that Yogs and Winterkewl had before we started to develop our friendship with the Yogscast. We were also honestly wary of the situation ourselves at first, having been aware of Yogventures! around the time we did our own Kickstarter campaign. The reality of the situation was this: A young and ambitious developer overscoped a project... this would not be the first time that happened; it's just a total bummer that it had to happen with a massive community involved. And during that time, the Yogscast group, knowing little enough about development, agreed to let them use their likeness in their own project. Yogs knew that Yogscast itself was not equipped to manage the project, so they let Winterkewl use their brand and a community to build on. Sadly in that process, all the milestones that were set by Winterkewl, which would have allowed the Yogscast to promote the project, never were hit. How can you promote or make an experience with nothing to share? Even we had our own time to put in before we were able to demonstrate anything reasonable.

Continue reading Nerd Kingdom on Yogventures!'s implosion and the future of TUG

Nerd Kingdom on Yogventures!'s implosion and the future of TUG originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 18 Jul 2014 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Betas, Sci-Fi, Video, MMO Industry, New Titles, Consoles, MMOFPS, Destiny

When Peter Dinklage, aka Tyrion Lannister, was announced as the voice of Destiny's voice-in-your-head companion, Ghost, fans went nuts. That is, until they heard the lines in the game's alpha build. Many complained that the Game of Thrones star wasn't giving the role his best effort, and a bit of a meme even formed from some particularly lackluster lines in the game's trailer.

But now, it seems Bungie listened to players and added a bit of effect to Dinklage's voice to spice things up a bit. The studio even went so far as to remove the now-internet-famous line, "That wizard came from the moon." Take a listen to the voiceover comparisons in the CVG video after the break to decide for yourself: did the mechanization of the audio improve things? Heck, it supposedly works for Britney Spears, right?

Continue reading Destiny beta changes Dinklage's voice after criticism

Destiny beta changes Dinklage's voice after criticism originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 18 Jul 2014 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• Source: CVG
• Via: Joystiq

I am on the press release list along with a lot of real media outlets, so my inbox is often stuffed with the raw material that is barely recycled for content a lot of places around the web. I skim through them every day, but don’t bother to mention 99% of them as they tend […]

Filed under: Podcasts

This week's Super Joystiq Podcast has totally nailed the episodic format.

It may be international Destiny Beta week, but why not give the Pat Benatar a rest for a couple hours and educate yourself on video games while destroying those Fallen? This week, Ludwig, Susan, Jess, and Sam talk "WOW-killer" Wildstar, Nintendo games from E3, The Wolf Among Us finale, Dragon Age: Inquisition, and the benefits of being inclusive. Diversity in games likely means more of what you want, not less-- except we were going to exclusively reveal Rockstar's next big title on this very show, but we swapped it out for this conversation.*

Listen to the Super Joystiq Podcast:

• Subscribe to the Super Joystiq Podcast in iTunes
• Add the Super Joystiq Podcast feed to your RSS aggregator
• Download the MP3 directly

Podcast timestamps and relevant links are available after the break.

*Senses of humor are available after the break as well if you need one. If not, fun joke right?!?

Continue reading Super Joystiq Podcast 105: Wildstar, Dragon Age Inquisition, The Wolf Among Us, GaymerX2

Super Joystiq Podcast 105: Wildstar, Dragon Age Inquisition, The Wolf Among Us, GaymerX2 originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 18 Jul 2014 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Our brief glimpse into 1994 allowed me to relive a part of my life when things were comfortable and simple. The biggest concern I had was usually what to watch on the new cable system, when to finish my homework, or how I would pay for the newest issue of EGM. It was a time when my world was a few blocks big, arcade machines and comic books where everywhere, and where worries about career, life, and love were abstract, incomprehensible fictions in the face of the playground. 1994 was the last hurrah of childhood—of games during recess, of choosing sides in the Nintendo vs. Sega battle, of pizza, sleepovers and friends. When 1995 rolled over, I had lost family members, lost the friends that had been my elementary school life, and was, more and more, being pushed towards adolescence. 1995 brought quiet school days spent on the bleachers reading, a wardrobe of fat-concealing vests (handy for pockets as well as confidence), and the inexplicable afternoons where I would lock myself away, curl up, and just cry.

Somewhere along 1995’s march to middle school, I ran across EarthBound. That’s not entirely true, though. I had known of EarthBound because of the publisher’s extensive marketing campaign, which leaked a number of ads into Nintendo Power as a lead up to its release. As with other games I knew I would never own, EB was recognizable but not formed. I knew it was an RPG, in a time when Lunar: The Silver Star and Final Fantasy II/III were the only RPGs I cared for. I knew that it had gorgeously quirky Claymation ads, which weren’t part of the game proper. And probably most importantly, there were a number of Scratch-n-Sniff promos for the game that made everything just so silly.

It was a game with humor, and a game that smelled. That's what I knew. Now grown, I understand the importance of sense memory – how, neurologically, scents can enhance recall and, when paired with an experience, cause moments in our histories to become inexplicably conjoined. But as a child, smelly ad stickers were probably the best way to get my attention.

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Filed under: World of Warcraft, Betas, Fantasy, Expansions, Game Mechanics, Opinion, First Impressions, Subscription

My time with the Draenor beta has been an overwhelming disappointment.

Warlords of Draenor is to World of Warcraft as Man of Steel is to the Superman mythos. It's an effort to collect classic elements with no regard for the setting in which they make sense, throwing them together like line items. It's aware of the history of the franchise only as a resource to mine, and it's just giving us all of the old familiar pieces without the parts that made those pieces memorable.

Imagine watching Harrison Ford pretending to be Indiana Jones despite being far too old for the role now, locked in a script with no sense of momentum or energy, going through the motions in a way that's not just lackluster but actively kind of shameful. Imagine Frank Miller writing Batman as a parody of what people thought his original versions of Batman were anyway without the slightest sense of irony. That should give you some idea of where I am when it comes to Warlords of Draenor. It's loads of classic ideas, stuff that I desperately want to like, but it's ultimately just not very good, and it certainly doesn't come together.

Continue reading WoW's Warlords of Draenor beta: A disappointing start

WoW's Warlords of Draenor beta: A disappointing start originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 18 Jul 2014 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Sci-Fi, Game Mechanics, MMO Industry, New Titles, Elite: Dangerous

Time is not always kind to video games -- especially MMOs. So Frontier Developments decided to plan ahead by future proofing its sci-fi space MMO Elite: Dangerous.

"Moore's law is our friend," company head David Braben told Eurogamer in a recent interview. "Even if your PC of today can't run [Elite] with all the features on, your PC of tomorrow might." The thought is to plan ahead by implementing graphical features that are so advanced, they can't even be run on modern computers yet. So when technology catches up, the advancements will already be in place.

Check out the entire interview for more on how the team at Frontier aims to plan for the future in Elite: Dangerous.

Elite: Dangerous aims to be future-proof originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 18 Jul 2014 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• Source: Eurogamer interview

Hello everyone and welcome to the quarterfinals bracket of OGN Champions Summer 2014. Kicking things off we have NaJin White Shield vs KT Arrows. These teams have really had opposite stories throughout the group stages. Coming off a 2nd place finish in Spring, NaJin has been on a bit of a downswing as many of […]

The post OGN Quarterfinals NaJin W Shield vs KT Arrows appeared first on Cloth5.

Filed under: Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Business Models, MMO Industry, News Items, Free-to-Play, Star Wars: The Old Republic, The Elder Scrolls Online, Subscription

Market intelligence firm Superdata says that Star Wars: The Old Republic earned $165 million in worldwide revenue last year. This would make SWTOR the fourth biggest sub MMO in the world (behind World of Warcraft, Lineage, and TERA).

Superdata's report also says that the pay-to-play MMO market has been in a constant decline since 2010, with monthly active worldwide subscribers bottoming out at 23.4 million. "Despite the overall decline, this category has so far managed to maximize their ability to monetize a shrinking yet loyal player base," the firm says.

Finally, Superdata says that Elder Scrolls Online has a subscriber base of 772,374 while WildStar is seeing "four to five times" as many concurrent users as it saw during open beta. Superdata's information is purportedly "pulled directly from publishers and developers."

Report: SWTOR fourth biggest sub MMO, Elder Scrolls has over 770k subscribers originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 18 Jul 2014 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• Source: Digital games market, June 2014
• Via: GI.biz

Filed under: Betas, Real-Life, Events (Real-World), Game Mechanics, MMO Industry, New Titles, News Items

Ubisoft's open-world racer The Crew kicks off its PC closed beta on July 21st. The firm has posted a news blurb on its website stating that the first test phase will run through July 25th, which is earlier than previously announced.

Players will be able to "explore the entire United States with no loading screen" including all missions and skill challenges in the Midwest, all skill challenges on the East Coast, and free roaming in the South, Mountain State, and West Coast regions.

The Crew launches on November 11th.

Continue reading The Crew's PC closed beta starts July 21

The Crew's PC closed beta starts July 21 originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 18 Jul 2014 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• Source: Beta announcement

I’d just like to congratulate the entire CFC on losing over 627 ruptures in the last five days. Good work, all. Keep it up. ### Original broadcast from blawrf_mctaggart at 2014-07-17 01:28:10.494439 ### It looks like my experience so far with Gamma Fleet Ruptures is not unique. Gamma Fleet is a low cost doctrine that […]

From a comic diary to a collection of essays on culture and belonging, the most recent published works by WordPress.com authors are great additions to your bookshelf.

A Portal game without portals? “Why, that’s like removing puppies from the Puppy Bowl,” you might say. “What is even the point?” The point, fellow small dog See Full Article Link This link was shared via our social networks and tagged to automatically post to the blog.

Due to a wicked combination of rerolling, real life, general pokiness, and housing fascination, I only hit level 23 in WildStar for the first time last night and wrapped up everything I needed to get done in Galeras.  Even so, … Continue reading →

Filed under: Fantasy, Final Fantasy XIV, Promotions, Subscription

Final Fantasy XIV is looking to pull back in its lost brothers, sisters, and furries with a free login weekend. From 3:00 a.m. EDT on Friday, July 18th, through Monday at the same time, inactive accounts will be switched on.

The free weekend is only for previous players who purchased the game and have since stopped paying for it. Square Enix is hoping that the new Patch 2.3 and its features will woo returning players to sub back up after getting a taste during these three days.

Final Fantasy XIV offers a free weekend to lapsed accounts originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 18 Jul 2014 06:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• Source: Free login weekend details

Filed under: Fantasy, Game Mechanics, MMO Industry, Patches, PvP, News Items, PvE, Opinion, The Elder Scrolls Online, Subscription, Tamriel Infinium

Earlier this week, Elder Scrolls Online creative director Paul Sage dropped by the Elder Scrolls OTR podcast and proceeded to drop a ton of update info on fans of ZeniMax's fantasy themepark MMO. We put out a corresponding news post, of course, but there was so much meat on those bones that I couldn't let an issue of Tamriel Infinium go by without adding my two cents.

Plus, hey, it was only two weeks ago that I was advocating for an adjustment to the game's post-50 approach. Ask and ye shall receive, right?

Continue reading Tamriel Infinium: Elder Scrolls' ginormous post-50 update plan

Tamriel Infinium: Elder Scrolls' ginormous post-50 update plan originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 18 Jul 2014 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Game Mechanics, MMO Industry, Opinion, Massively Meta, The Daily Grind, Miscellaneous

If your first MMO was a modern themepark MMO, you might not realize that a corpse run and a small repair bill are fairly light penalties for death. In Ultima Online, if you couldn't make it back to your body in time, a devious player (or mob) might come along and relieve your corpse of its loot. If you were a murderer, you'd even lose stats! Your gear was safer in EverQuest, but you'd lose experience, and you'd still have to run from your bind spot back to your body, assuming it wasn't in such a dangerous place that you needed a Necromancer to summon it. And games like Asheron's Call and City of Heroes once had experience penalties so harsh that it was possible to cripple a character so much that you might as well just reroll.

MMOs are torn between wanting to make death feel meaningful enough that people are careful but not so punitive that players would rather log out than recover. What do you think is the ideal death penalty for an MMO?

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's the ideal death penalty for an MMO? originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 18 Jul 2014 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Important: Unofficial PBE Patch Notes for 7/17/2014 - New Vi and Ezreal Skins, Massive Splash Art Update, Champion Changes

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Meddler Q&A Once Again

Originally Posted by Riot (View Original Source)

I am studying to make games and i love the methods of balance yet variety that league offers, this also including a kinda rock-paper-scissors mentality.

So what i wanna know is, are champions in development required to have a champion that they are weak against/ is strong against them before it can be release?

Another question is, does the ever growing number of champions cause problems in balancing the game or does it somewhat solve a problem of balance?

We do want champions to have identified weaknesses, we don't want those weaknesses to be specific to a single other champion though. Many mages for example are vulnerable if you're able to dive them, which gives the other team a range of possible picks that can accomplish that. Having a single counterpick on the other hand can lead to very binary performance (did you ban out your counterpick? If so, grats, you win, if not you'll get stomped) and lack of choice for the opposition.

#LOTRO Free Sample July 18th – 24th Skill and Slayer Deed Boost x1 Use Coupon Code STA7 1/Account

Official website for The Lord of the Rings Online™ with game information, developers diaries, frequently asked questions and message boards. See Full Article Link This link was shared via our social networks and tagged to automatically post to the blog.

Announced today at QuakeCon, we’re ready to bring Shinji’s Mikami’s latest adventure to your darkly-lit living room a week early. On October 14th in North America (and October 16th and October 17th for Europe, The Evil Within will launch on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, and PC. To help you through Shinji’s […]

Filed under: Trailers, Video, Patches, War, Free-to-Play, Consoles, World of Tanks, MOBA

The Xbox 360 edition of World of Tanks has grown by leaps, bounds, and treads today with the sizable Rapid Fire update.

This patch added two new maps to the game: Arctic Region and Erlenberg. In addition, Rapid Fire has introduced American autoloader tanks and a group of additional German tank destroyers. We've got the action-packed trailer for this update lurking right below the cut, so be careful!

Continue reading World of Tanks delivers big Xbox 360 update

World of Tanks delivers big Xbox 360 update originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 17 Jul 2014 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• Source: Rapid Fire

Filed under: Fantasy, Trailers, Video, Classes, Previews, News Items, Free-to-Play, Vindictus

When you think about it, catwalk struts are seriously underused as a means of introducing new content to an MMO. Vindictus is taking the genre in a bold new direction with its latest reveal. The Korean reveal page for the new character makes it clear that Arisha is bringing a whole new style to the game. That style is... well... style, perhaps?

Seriously, the trailer doesn't reveal anything but a silhouette. Datamining has revealed that she's a hybrid melee/magical character, although that could go a lot of different routes. Still, you can get a very shadowy peek at her in the trailer past the break.

Based on that, she'll attack primarily with six-inch heels and fishnet stockings because hot pants, heels, and plunging necklines are crazy useful in combat.

Continue reading Vindictus highlights its new character with fashion silhouettes

Vindictus highlights its new character with fashion silhouettes originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 17 Jul 2014 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• Source: Steparu