Archives for Nov 19th, 2007
Patch 0.5 for Hellgate: London coming tomorrow
The Hellgate: London servers will be down tomorrow, November 20th, from 9am to 11am PST to implement Patch 0.5. I'm very excited about the new patch because the game as is has some cumbersome bugs and clunky features. One bugfix that will not be in tomorrow's patch is the Invisible Party Members ...
What's new with Metaplace?
Last week MMOG development veteran Raph Koster updated his site with some insights about his newest project, Metaplace. The extraordinarily unique mmo-in-a-website concept is proceeding apace, with their Alpha test now closed and furious systems development work continuing in the background. Raph ...
New Second Life release candidate 1.18.5(RC1)
Linden Lab have just released a new release candidate view for Second Life, the second release-candidate in the 1.18.5 series - perhaps confusingly dubbed RC1 (the previous one was actually RC0). This viewer incorporates several fixes to search, restores the teleport function to the context menu for ...
Darkmoon Faire dazzles London
The World of Warcraft TCG Darkmoon Faire has been touring Europe, and most recently stopped in London, England for a small tournament filled with fierce competition. Blizzard in partnership with Upper Deck Entertainment sponsored previous competitions in Frankfurt, Germany and Milan, Italy, and ...
Academic research on Second Life
Although you may not realise it, Second Life has a huge group of educators active within it, many of whom have been active for some time. The process of writing academic papers however, is long and sometimes painful. We are starting to see these papers appearing dotted around the place: Jennings ...
The coming of mudflation
Keen (of Keen and Graev) has a great post up about what he calls "mudflation" (a combination of the words MUD and inflation). If you've been playing any MMO through the introduction of an expansion, you'll know exactly what he's talking about. That shiny bit of loot you worked for weeks to obtain ...
Fury drops in price, still sucks
As a final humiliation to what might be, according to the reviews, the worst MMO of the year, WarCry reports that EB Games is now selling Fury for only $29.99. Yes, for only $30, you too can play the game that reviewers said "fails on literally every front." Poor Fury. They tried so hard, and ...
PvP FTW
Do you prefer the blood-lust of PvP to the bloody boring banality of PvE missions? Do you live for the bloodletting, the torment, the outrage of the poor fool who tried to walk in front of you while you were sharpening your dagger or honing your casting skills? Do you like the thought of playing ...
Zu Online showcases the Holy City
With the alpha closed and lips zipped on IGG's Zu Online, the developers have released some info on one of the major focal points in the game, the Holy City. I think it's important that game makers give the public information like this, teasers if you will, about what they can expect in the game. ...
Exclusive EQ 2 item for MOG readers
Massive Online Gamer is looking to reward (or bribe, depending on how you look at it) their subscribers who are also fans of EQ2. The first one thousand people to purchase a subscription will have access to an exclusive in game item. Now there isn't much info on what the item actually is, although ...
What if EVE was a fantasy MMO?
West Karana recently posted an article that speculates on how you might translate EVE Online to the fantasy genre. As Tipa says, all the elements are already there in the game, you just have to find them. I particularly liked the analogy of a ship being akin to a hero's group of cohorts. While ...
The music of EVE Online
Can't get enough of EVE's ingame tunes? An Anarchyyt over on the forums has posted a link to a ZIP file of EVE's entire soundtrack, so that even out of game you can listen to those dulcet tones floating in space. I'm not sure how stable EVE Files' servers are, but if you can get in and download it, ...
Zu Online end of alpha
Development is chugging along for Onwind Digital's newest MMO offering, Zu Online. They recently closed their alpha testing to make way for bigger and better things. The players, it seems, are having a ball playing the game, and let the developers know that they particularly enjoy the game's ...
Could smaller be better?
The great Raph Koster and Anyway Games' Aaron Miller have a little conversation going that inspired an interesting question for me: when it comes to MMOs, could smaller actually be better? Raph started it-- he put forth the idea that most MMOs these days are designed like theme parks-- they're ...
CoX Splasher
Poking around on the CoX forums this morning I came across an amazing little tool brought to us by the blossoming development community surfacing in the player base of the game. This fabulous bit of coding is called Splasher, and it's a program that allows you to customize the login and character ...
Turbine talks Korean LotRO, Book 11, Book 12, and more
There's a lot of buzz going for The Lord of the Rings Online. Book 11 was recently released, and it was the game's biggest update so far. Book 12 is in the works. Most importantly from a big-picture standpoint, Turbine has secured deals to launch the game in the Korean and Chinese markets. Turbine's ...
Kindly State University - School is back in session
The Kindly High School students have graduated and entered college this fall. After closing down the high school, amidst pressure from anti-ageplay groups in Second Life, Redd Columbia immediately began working on the new campus, which opened last month. With a grown-up look and feel, school is ...
MMOG pirates jailed for running illegal Priston Tale servers [updated]
Jail sucks, jailed in China probably sucks a lot more. Going to jail over running illegal Priston Tale servers -- the irony and endless puns are hilarious. Five Chinese men were arrested earlier this month when they were busted for running illegal MMOG servers and were also found with defrauding ...
MMOGology: Roleplaying is dead
A red sun set over the ashen wastelands of Searing Gorge. Three shadows crept up a snaking path toward the encampment on Firewatch Ridge. The first shadow struck her victim hard in the back. The second pounced in cat form, lacerating and stunning her prey. The third finished off his hapless victim ...
Why virtual thefts matter
Real thefts occur in the real world all the time - we know that, and our respective justice systems have long since evolved to deal with them. When it comes down to virtual theft (characters, gold, or items) whether actually taken from an account or replicated by use of an exploit - most people ...
One Shots: Jump to lightspeed? But we were admiring the view!
Reader RogueJedi86 sends in this shot taken of some of the astonishing space scenery in the Star Wars Galaxies Jump to Lightspeed expansion. He believes this particular nebula was over Kashyyyk, but it can be difficult to tell which region the shot was taken in. Do any SWG experts in the audience ...
Details on Book 12's player housing updates
So here's a scenario for you: you buy a house for your character in The Lord of the Rings Online. How exciting! You check it out; it looks good, if a bit sparse. You buy all sorts of decorations to solve the sparseness problem -- a chair, a table, a painting or two, some plants, and so on. You set ...
Massively weekly highlights: November 12-18
Breaking news Blizzard is not even thinking about making World of Warcraft II EQ2's producer responds to expansion grouping concerns Virtual theft in Habbo Hotel leads to real arrest Rumormill: Marvel Universe Online canceled? Interplay to rez Fallout MMO project, looking for ...
FFXI: The Allied Campaign is about to begin... Wings of the Goddess launches tomorrow!
Give it up for the holiday weeks that involve stuffing our gullets with chocobos and consuming new MMOG expansions for dessert. The next FFXI expansion, Wings of the Goddess, is hitting desktops tomorrow. I recommend current players clear some room -- you know, for the bird.... We didn't ...
And the first EQ2 player to reach level 80 is...
Stratics reports that the first player to reach level 80 on EverQuest II's live servers is the Monk Taucher of the guild Second Dawn on the Najena server. The word is that Taucher reached level 80 at 7:37 AM EST on Thursday the 15th of November; that's approximately 36 hours after Rise of Kunark ...
Cinemassively: "Worth Dying For" Trailer
On November 27th, 2007, Nica Studios will be premiering their first film, Worth Dying For. They have released several trailers and teasers for the Machinima, which was made in World of Warcraft. While there aren't many details yet, the director, Manuel Sequeira, has warned that it may be upwards of ...
Scott Hartsman of EQ2 gets profiled
Now that EverQuest II's latest expansion Rise of Kunark has been released, you'd hope that Senior Producer and Creative Director Scott Hartsman would be able to take a bit of a break -- but you can be sure it won't be too long, because its obvious that he really digs his job. TenTonHammer has a ...
In Development: APB
It seems I spoke too soon regarding the lack of a Crackdown MMO! APB is Realtime Worlds' action MMO, and judging from the awesome character concept artwork, it's going to have a lot in common with Crackdown. And I'm interested because in at least one way it's going to feature something I wrote ...
Second Life stability problems continue into the new week
Linden Lab advises this-morning (and we're certainly seeing it reflected in the figures) that while they thought the issue had been resolved on Saturday evening, that it was not, and that the issues that plagued the Second Life grid over the weekend are still ongoing. Additionally, all voice ...
NCsoft working on PS3 project, CoX expansion
With a number of popular properties dominating the massively multiplayer arena and a few more on the way, NCsoft already makes a very strong case for being the most important publisher in the MMO genre. If a recent conversation between NCsoft CEO Geoff Heath and MCV are any indication however, this ...
Final Fantasy XI Fan Fest live: devs speak out on Wings of the Goddess
It's odd to think that any one game could inspire players from all walks of life to set aside two days and flock to one location in celebration, but MMORPGs are unique in that they are as much instruments for social networking as they are video games. Because of this, perhaps it isn't all that ...
Is Second Life one of the few, true MMORPGs?
Before the flame war starts (I realize it's inevitable on this one), let me clarify what I mean by "true roleplaying": the game engine and "rules" place have as few restrictions as possible;. While most of the MMOs we play are allegedly roleplaying games, most of them define your role. A great ...
The Soloist: Why I do it
After this post, I had it in mind to think through why I prefer to solo, and whether the reasons why are valid ones, given that I'm playing in a genre meant to provide a social experience. I'm going to try to list as many reasons as I can think of in favor of grouping and playing with buddies, and ...
CoX Issue 11: First Impressions
The newest expansion for City of Heroes and City of Villains, Issue 11 has been in open beta for a couple of weeks, and -- so far, at least -- it's proven to be a hit. As with all other releases, there have been the inevitable tweaks and adjustments to make sure that levels are being balanced and ...
Yesterday in Warcraft: November 18, 2007
Though weekends tend to be quiet time in Azeroth, with Blizzard news on standby until Monday and players busy raiding, PvPing, or just leveling, WoW Insider is dedicated to keeping you up to date with even the smallest Azerothian events. So without further ado, here's the latest from the World of ...
The Daily Grind: Are death penalties overkill?
This is one topic that never fails to wind up as a huge discussion any time we get together with gamer friends. Some of us who have been around since the early days of MMOs remember the harsh death penalties that many of these games included. If you died in EverQuest, you would lose experience -- ...
Yesterday on Massively, November 18, 2007
Ah Sunday, last bastion of weekendy goodness, how we love you. Did you get to spend some time gaming this weekend? We know we did! As is almost always true, it was a quiet weekend on the gaming news front. Just in case you didn't pop by yesterday, here's what you missed: Features MMOG Podcast ...
Yesterday in Second Life, Sunday 18 November, 2007
Yesterday in Second Life there was: 17,131 new signups bringing the total to 10,967,242 signups. A peak concurrency of 56,953 at 1:50PM, and a minimum concurrency of 30,097 at 1:35AM. Median concurrency for the day was 41,504. The Grid Stability Index for the day was 3.06 (lower is ...
Seagate shuts the gate
The horse has bolted. Do be a dear and go out and shut the gate. You may remember that news broke earlier this week that Maxtor/Seagate drives were coming out rigged to thieve your World of Warcraft account credentials, fresh from the factory. Seagate responded with a notice that is hard to find, ...
Yesterday's Money: 18th November
Yesterday in Second Life we: Spent US$1,232,000 at an exchange rate of L$266.7 to US$1 Exchanged US$201,000 at an average of US$8,400.0 per hour. Market buys were US$141,000 Market sales were US$60,000 Limit-limit buys were US$200 The busiest time was at 10am when about US$13,000 was ...
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