Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Classes, Game Mechanics, Patches, News Items, Subscription
The first major patch for
World of Warcraft's latest expansion is here! If by "here" you mean "on the test realm," anyhow. So not here at all. The opposite of here; still preparing to be here. One might even go so far as to say it's
there. But
the full (preliminary) patch notes for the test realm are available right now for those who'd like to see what's around the corner aside from brand-new Blood Elf models.
Garrison fans will have plenty of things to enjoy, with new visitors offering quests, new follower missions, and a new music box available. Players can also make use of a new Twitter integration feature and the new heirloom collection tab. Several classes are also seeing talent and balance adjustments, including across-the-board buffs to healer damage output for adventuring in the world. No word yet on when the patch will drop, but
you can see what it contains from the patch notes.
World of Warcraft unleashes its full patch 6.1 patch notes originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 26 Jan 2015 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Fantasy, Events (Real-World), Interviews, New Titles, Opinion, Events (Massively's Coverage), MMORPG
When the assignment for
Life Is Feudal came to me, I questioned why I was covering a game that really didn't seem to be an MMORPG in my eyes because of its separate servers and the survival feel of the setting. It felt to me initially that I was covering another
DayZ, one set in a medieval era and no zombies. But as I found out at this year's PAX South, I was completely wrong.
Interestingly, I didn't find out what kind of mistake I made from the head honcho of Bitbox,
Vladimir Piskunov. I found out from someone who has been playing for a long time and was invited to play at the
Life Is Feudal booth. His name is Bill, and he's the "superfan" who demoed the game for me. He explained the ins and outs of the mechanics until I started having
Ultima Online flashbacks. We discussed the skill system and trekked around the world, and then reminded me that
LiF will eventually be an MMORPG. And I could certainly see how. If sandboxes are your thing as they are mine, then maybe this game is up our alley.
Continue reading PAX South 2015: Life is Feudal revives the good ol' MMO feel
PAX South 2015: Life is Feudal revives the good ol' MMO feel originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 26 Jan 2015 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Sci-Fi, PlanetSide, MMO Industry, Free-to-Play, MMOFPS, PlanetSide 2
Those of you who turned out to help
PlanetSide 2 set a world record this past Saturday now have the satisfaction of knowing that you're officially a part of gaming history.
The Guinness World Records title for "Most Players Online in a Single FPS Battle" was set by the combined efforts of three factions and 1,158 players on January 24th in the game. The immense fight took place in a single instance and surpassed the previous record holder of
Man vs. Machine, which reached only 999 players in 2012. The title will be included in the Gamer's Edition of the World Records.
PlanetSide 2 Producer
David Carey wanted to thank those who participated, adding that this put the title right back where it belonged: "
PlanetSide held the original record for this achievement and we're thrilled to have officially taken it back with
PlanetSide 2."
[Source:
SOE press release]
PlanetSide 2 smashes world record for biggest FPS battle originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 26 Jan 2015 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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This week's free champion rotation has been posted. These champions will become free to play starting tomorrow January 27th.
Time for a little survival horror this week, with the release of Dying Light on PS4, Xbox One and PC. Assuming you're not tired of zombie apocalypse games, and there's a good chance that you actually are, Polish developer Techland and Warner Brothers offer up a dynamic day night cycle, tons of weapons and a large urban environment. There seems to be a very action-oriented bent to Dying Light with shades of Dead Island, and I do have to admit that I'm intrigued.
That said, my appetite for zombie games is decidedly waning. I used to be interested in what the zombie fascination says about our cultural mindset, but honestly that conversation doesn't even interest me anymore. Zombies are starting to feel like an easy, video game friendly, stock bad guy. Doesn't tend to require a lot of AI programming. Shows off cool visuals. Fun to hit with sticks.
Zombies check off a lot of convenient boxes. But, all the games are just starting to meld together in my mind, and the apocalypse is becoming as boringly standard as a trip to Target to pick up dishwashing tabs and milk. Even as I look at my Steam featured items, no fewer than three of them are zombie centered -- H1Z1, Dying Light and Resident Evil HD.
Which is why my game of the week isn't Dying Light. It's Grim Fandango Remastered, a game that would be really hard to pigeonhole into some overly repetitious game type. Go play that!
read more
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Culture, Economy, Events (Real-World), MMO Industry, Endgame, Star Wars Galaxies, Virtual Worlds, Events (Massively's Coverage), Crafting, MMORPG
On Friday,
Alex Albrecht from
ZergID and formerly of the
Totally Rad Show headed up a
PAX South panel about the social side of MMOs, inviting
Patrick Mulhern from
Lorehound,
Jenesee Grey from
Camelot Unchained, and me to join to discuss community in MMOs and why it's seemed so absent in recent years.
Meg Campbell from
YouTube moderated the panel discussion, calling us the PAX MMO guild.
I admit that I considered naming this piece, "How
Star Wars Galaxies did everything right and
World of Warcraft did everything wrong" because I am
obviously biased. But I really was completely surprised at how much
SWG came up during the panel. Many former
Galaxies players will tell you that there was a lot about that game that was pure crap, but when you talk about the social implementations of
SWG, there just aren't many games that compare.
Continue reading PAX South 2015: Why aren't MMOs more social?
PAX South 2015: Why aren't MMOs more social? originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 26 Jan 2015 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Fantasy, Patches, Endgame, Opinion, Consoles, Final Fantasy XIV, The Mog Log, Dungeons, Subscription
I mentioned a while back that it was kind of neat how the whole setup of
Final Fantasy XIV had come full circle. At the start of the 2.0 patch cycle we were scurrying away from tonberries and bashing our heads against Demon Wall; in the final patch, we're back to both of those spots, along with the oft-seen and never-explored Keeper of the Lake in the midst of Mor Dhona's wreckage. It's a neat counterpoint.
Having played through all of the dungeons now, well,
you get to rescue tonberries. That alone makes the last set of dungeons worthy.
As in every set of dungeons, there are winners and losers amidst the bosses, good points and bad ones. The dungeons as a whole are
very reluctant to let you do much speeding through, with pulls being pretty aggressively gated. So let's talk mechanics, let's talk atmosphere, and let's carefully coach you through the process of kicking the crap out of your final expert roulette competitors.
Continue reading The Mog Log: Final Fantasy XIV 2.5 dungeons
The Mog Log: Final Fantasy XIV 2.5 dungeons originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 26 Jan 2015 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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I finally got around to trying out NES Remix 2 on my Wii U yesterday and I found it surprisingly fun.
I bought and played NES Remix 1 when it released but was underwhelmed by the game. This series takes small portions of various Nintendo Entertainment System games and samples them. It gives a taste of each game while giving you minor challenges and teaching you the basic mechanics. Then it gives bonus stages that remix everything you know about the games.
While NES Remix 1 wasn't fantastic, it was an interesting format. It's major failing was the games that it sampled from. They were all very early NES games and the majority weren't great.
NES Remix 2 solves this problem by pulling from later NES games. I'm having so much more fun with this second entry in the series than I did with the first. It's giving me a feel for a bunch of games that I never tried, which is really fun. It's also a blast from the past since it gives me a chance to replay bits of games I liked as a kid.
NES Remix 2 is probably worth the asking price on Wii U. Take a look at it if you haven't yet.
That being said, I don't think I would buy another game in this series if it sampled from more NES games again. But, if they started diving into their Super Nintendo backlog... that's a whole different story.
Filed under: Fantasy, Business Models, News Items, Consoles, The Elder Scrolls Online, Buy-to-Play
Even if you were among the many players predicting a business model shift for
The Elder Scrolls Online, a change in business models can be kind of disturbing. Suddenly the game doesn't behave according to all of the same rules you've been familiar with since launch. To help alleviate that confusion, the
ESO dev team
hosted a quick question-and-answer session with players over the weekend to help answer some of the major questions about the change, the next major patch, and balance issues moving forward in the game.
To start with, if you've still got time cards for the game on your desk, fret not; you can still use them after the model transition to add the equivalent amount of subscription time to your account. You might want to use them ahead of time, though, since there are plans to add in a special veteran reward for players who stayed subscribed during the game's entire subscription lifespan. DLC prices are not finalized, but they are intended to be around the normal DLC price points for other games.
Take a look through the whole of the answers for more details on balancing and issues like controller support.
The Elder Scrolls Online answers player questions on its buy-to-play model originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 26 Jan 2015 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Fantasy, Events (Real-World), Interviews, New Titles, PvP, PvE, Free-to-Play, Mobile, Hands-On, First Impressions, Events (Massively's Coverage), Post-Apocalyptic, Miscellaneous, Buy-to-Play
Most media appointments at an event like
PAX South 2015 work like this: You meet the person you're supposed to meet, that person shows you the game her studio is working on, and then you rush off to the next booth on your list while cursing yourself for not scheduling time for a snack.
Undead Labs handled my PAX appointment a bit differently, sitting me down for back-to-back play sessions with brand-new tablet game
Moonrise and a remastered version of
State of Decay, the zombie survival game that put the studio on the map.
It was a little jarring to go from adorable pet battles to being torn in half by a zombie, but the two-for-one session provided a nice glimpse of where Undead Labs has been and where it intends to go.
Continue reading PAX South 2015: Moonrise and State of Decay shine at the Undead Labs booth
PAX South 2015: Moonrise and State of Decay shine at the Undead Labs booth originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 26 Jan 2015 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Sci-Fi, Game Mechanics, Patches, News Items, Consoles, Community Q&A, Post-Apocalyptic, Defiance, Buy-to-Play
Good news,
Defiance fans: Your questions have been answered. Assuming that your questions were
closely tied to the 12 questions answered here, of course. Otherwise your questions remain
unanswered. But if you want to know more about expeditions or the upcoming Alcatraz hub, the answers have you covered. Whether or not you'll like the answers is another story entirely; expeditions are very much about straightforward shooting engagements with a full group using a drop-in-drop-out approach to forming a party.
At this point there's no exact ETA for when the Alcatraz update will be available on the game's test server, although the developers are hopeful for "soon." The answers also discuss some long-standing issues and a few bugs as well as take on the issue of character customization, which isn't going to be expanded any time soon. Even if your question isn't among the ones answered, it still would behoove
Defiance players to
take a peek at what's in store for the game.
Defiance developers answer a dozen player questions originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 26 Jan 2015 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Events (Real-World), MMO Industry, Opinion, The Daily Grind, Star Citizen
Massively's on the ground in San Antonio during the weekend of January 23rd to January 25th, bringing you all the best news from PAX South 2015. Whether you're dying to know more about Guild Wars 2's Heart of Thorns, hoping to catch a glimpse of Elite: Dangerous on the Oculus Rift, or angling for some rumors from the SWTOR cantina crawl, you can bet we'll have it covered!
PAX South came and went, and outside of the
jumpgate and mobiglass UI reveals for
Star Citizen, none of the news coming from the con really interested me. What about you, Massively readers? Did you get anything out of this year's PAX South?
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: Did you get anything out of PAX South? originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 26 Jan 2015 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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It was all going to plan. My basecamp was in good shape to survive the few remaining days of winter. My strategy of eating hand to mouth because I lacked an Ice Box was working. Whenever I was hungry, I collected a fresh rabbit from one of my 10 traps and cooked up some vittles.
Stabs
is playing Magic the Gathering Online, and says:
"Of course the thing about pecking order games is that those at the top become very invested while those at the bottom tend to leave so it's always a pool of players that are refining themselves by success. But dog eat dog is kinda fun, nothing like seeing people rage when they lose :)". His statement of
"Magic is an extreme of competitive gaming, the game is built around redistributing assets from unsuccessful players to successful ones." is a good description of why I left. Not that I was completely unsuccessful, but the whole atmosphere of the game was too much like swimming in a tank full of sharks to be enjoyable.
Of course there are still ways to have fun in such games, especially by subverting them. For example MtGO has a format called "draft", in which players each open a booster, pick the best card for their deck, and pass the rest to the next player, in a circle. The player who picks the best deck that way will then probably win the draft tournament and get more boosters as reward than he needs to continue playing. If you are good enough, you can endlessly play for free, while the unsuccessful players pay for boosters and entrance fee and go home empty, except for the cards they picked. The way to subvert a draft is to rare pick, that is not taking the cards that win the tournament, but taking the cards that are worth most to other players. As rare cards rarely are the best to build a winning deck, a good player passing you his leftover cards means he probably didn't pick the rare of his pack. Of course rare drafting messes with the draft tournament, as the rare drafter nearly automatically loses, giving a free win to his lucky opponent. But it is a great way to redistribute assets from successful players to unsuccessful ones, in reverse of the normal situation.
By definition half of the players in any game are worse than average (median, to be precise). More modern and more successful online games have managed to keep those less successful players playing, by having a reward structure where there are only winners. You don't actually "lose" a game of World of Tanks, you just "win less". Note that the reward structure is external to the rules of the game, Magic the Gathering Online could just as well have used such a reward structure which doesn't overly punish the losers. As a result the most successful physical card trading game in history managed only a disappointing online success, with just a fraction of the number of players that for example Hearthstone has.
"Seeing people rage when they lose" might be fun for Stabs. But I believe that as a business model it is inherently self-destructive. Successful competitive games make life easy for the losers, because you just can't run a game without them.
So I played about 60 games with this deck in January, about 1/2 way through i decided to start recording what level i was at. Overall the deck does pretty well but seem to average around 14.4 (14 with 2 stars). What i found with the deck is that it is pretty hit [...]
Filed under: Business Models, Events (Real-World), Expansions, MMO Industry, News Items, Massively Meta, Events (Massively's Coverage), Miscellaneous
At the end of every week, we round up the best and most popular news stories, exclusive features, and insightful columns published on Massively and then present them all in one convenient place. If you missed a big MMO or WoW Insider story last week, you've come to the right post.
You gotta love a week with tons of huge MMO news!
Guild Wars 2 avoided a riot by announcing its first expansion,
The Elder Scrolls Online revealed it's going buy-to-play ahead of its June console launch, and
Star Citizen declared that its persistent MMO portion will roll out to testers this year. Meanwhile,
PAX South has wrapped up; here's a look at what we've published so far:
Read on for the rest of this week's top MMO stories.
Continue reading MMO Week in Review: Expansion or riot
MMO Week in Review: Expansion or riot originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 25 Jan 2015 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Fantasy, Events (Real-World), Interviews, New Titles, Opinion, Events (Massively's Coverage), Camelot Unchained, MMORPG
In the crowdfunded independent industry, we are starting to see some ups and downs. Backers have seen some games fail and other games soar. One of those games that seems to be doing very well, at least if you ask its Community Manager
Jenesee Grey and its legions of fans, is
Camelot Unchained. At this weekend's
PAX South, I spoke to Grey about her experience as a CM for a crowdfunded game.
Continue reading PAX South 2015: Camelot Unchained's proactive approach to community management
PAX South 2015: Camelot Unchained's proactive approach to community management originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 25 Jan 2015 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Screenshots, Culture, Star Trek Online, One Shots, The Secret World, Final Fantasy XIV, Miscellaneous, Elite: Dangerous
Believe it or not, I have been listening to you guys in the comments, and I know that there's been an ongoing desire for
One Shots to provide the full-size pictures that are otherwise shrunk by our size limitations. So I'm happy to announce that starting this week, I'm including a gallery at the end of the column that will allow you to pull up larger screenshots if so desired.
A few weeks ago I issued a screenshot challenge for folks to send in a haiku poem in addition to their picture. A select few of you did, starting with this striking pose from
Final Fantasy XIV by reader Wolfyseyes:
Facing this challenge
One thought repeats in my mind:
Please, please, please don't suckContinue reading One Shots: Haiku edition
One Shots: Haiku edition originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 25 Jan 2015 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Sci-Fi, Game Mechanics, MMO Industry, PvP, PvE, Opinion, Sandbox
I missed the whole
Minecraft craze. I was stupidly grinding my virtual life away in various MMORPGs, plus I couldn't get past
Minecraft's so-fugly-it's-hip aesthetic. No matter, though, because
Space Engineers takes
Minecraft's core concepts and dolls them up with pleasing visuals, a nifty near future sci-fi setting, and addictive gameplay that's much more than the sum of its parts.
Continue reading MMO Burnout: Engineers in spaaace
MMO Burnout: Engineers in spaaace originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 25 Jan 2015 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Video, Events (Real-World), New Titles, PvP, Free-to-Play, Hands-On, MMOFPS, First Impressions, Events (Massively's Coverage), MOBA
Motiga's Gigantic is one part
Team Fortress, one part
Dota, and one part
Monster Hunter. The basic match structure will sound familiar to
MOBA lovers -- two teams of five slug it out for superiority by controlling resources, leveling up, and killing one another -- but the skill-based mechanics, multiple maps, and shifting strategy priorities make the game more than a three-lane farm fest.
Gigantic isn't about last-hitting or memorizing meta. Instead,
it's about slaying giants and aiming true.
I hopped in on a quick
Gigantic match with some other press folks this afternoon at
PAX South 2015, and in the midst of delivering an absolute drubbing to the scrubs (kidding!) on the other side of the table, I was able to get a feel for the game's combat system, characters, and the way its massive guardians change the way battles play out.
Continue reading PAX South 2015: Slaying giants in Motiga's Gigantic
PAX South 2015: Slaying giants in Motiga's Gigantic originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 25 Jan 2015 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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For now over a decade, Discovery’s popular show MythBusters has helped put an end to longstanding myths relating to popular culture, news stories, and everyday life. For next week’s January 31st episode, they’re taking their expertise to video games. In this special episode dedicated to the hobby near and dear to our hearts, we’re excited […]
Filed under: Fantasy, Events (Real-World), Expansions, Interviews, New Titles, PvP, PvE, Guild Wars 2, Events (Massively's Coverage), MMORPG, Buy-to-Play
ArenaNet's Mike O'Brien and
Colin Johanson (and
Commander Shepard) took to the
PAX South 2015 stage yesterday morning to announce
Heart of Thorns, the first-ever expansion for
Guild Wars 2. If you're not up to speed,
check out our post covering the announcement and
the official site to get the broad strokes on the expansion's new zone, new profession, new progression system, and more.
News of the expansion raised many a question from our readers (and our staff!). Massively's Larry Everett and I sat down with O'Brien and Johanson to try to get those questions answered and dive a little deeper into the changes coming to
Guild Wars 2's living world.
And no, there isn't a release date.
Continue reading PAX South 2015: O'Brien and Johanson on Guild Wars 2's Heart of Thorns
PAX South 2015: O'Brien and Johanson on Guild Wars 2's Heart of Thorns originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 25 Jan 2015 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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I should really write about all the health/fitness apps I use, but for right now I want to talk about MyFitnessPal. The others might come up in the course of writing this anyway.
One of the things to do when you're trying to get healthier or change your diet is to start counting calories. Since I'm doing that right now I wanted to write about this app because it's the best calorie counter that I've found.
It's an app and also a website. All the information syncs between the two.
It has a huge library of food that is easily searchable. Any user can submit new food to it. Other users can then confirm nutritional info as correct and it will end up in their general library for everyone to use.
The last time I used it was over 6 months ago and since then they've added a new feature. Scanning barcodes! I can't believe how easy this makes it to track calories. Just point your phone at the barcodes of food or ingredients as you pull them out to make a meal. It's database is really good at giving you the exact information for different brand name foods.
MyFitnessPal also lets you set goals and adjusts calorie requirements to help you reach them. It's nice that it will do that for you and you don't have to manually adjust calorie goals from week to week.
It also integrates with other apps and services. I use it with Runkeeper and a Withings scale. It works flawlessly with them.
I step on my Withings scale every morning and my info is synced to their service, which updates my weight in MyFitnessPal.
Whenever I do physical activity I turn on Runkeeper and monitor my running, walking, or biking. Once an activity is completed it automatically uploads the activity and how many calories I burned to MyFitnessPal.
The MyFitnessPal app also works with the built in step tracker in iOS8. As I move around throughout the day MyFitnessPal will add my steps tracked through my iPhone to my daily exercise and adjust my calories accordingly.
Basically I'm using these apps in conjunction to automate monitoring my health as much as possible. It still requires a little bit of work, but with my current setup it's less than 5 minutes of effort for me each day.
I would highly suggest checking out MyFitnessPal. Especially if you've thought about tracking your calories before but have never gotten around to it. It's awesome and completely free.
Filed under: Culture, MMO Industry, Opinion, The Daily Grind
Raph Koster's involvement with
Crowfall has increased my interest in the game. I still doubt the title is for me, but given Koster's role at the forefront of my two favorite MMORPGs, I kinda have to pay attention.
What about you, Massively readers? Are there any MMO devs whose involvement causes you to follow a project?
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: Which MMO devs cause you to follow a project? originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 25 Jan 2015 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The premise is simple. The execution, not so much. I stumbled across Don’t Starve (DS) and its coop play alternative, Don’t Starve Together (DST), via Twitch.tv. After watching a few streams I wanted to try my own hand at not starving to death. From the outside looking in, it appeared to be The Sims meets Minecraft Survival Mode meets Harvest Moon. Okay y’all, I’m in.
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