Free-to-play

Deep under the soil of Middle-earth are riches galore, and only the Dwarves know where to dig. Fortunately for players, the Dwarves are totally fine with interlopers coming along to try their luck at finding a bit of buried treasure -- and they've even made an event out of it.

While we previously saw a test run of the Buried Treasure event in Lord of the Rings Online, Turbine's put forth a dev diary that indicates we should be seeing more of it fairly soon. The event challenges players to flock to a treasure field, grab some picks, and get diggin' for booty. There's a strategy behind it that utilizes trained animals and dowsing sticks to find the best goods, although treasure hunters can just start digging randomly as well.

The treasure will vary in size and quality, ranging from special mounts and cosmetic gear to more picks and barter tokens. While players can earn picks in-game through a repeatable quest, Turbine will also be selling them through the LotRO store for those who want to speed up their winnings.

The dev diary posted several pictures of the nifty rewards that can be mined and states that the event is "seasonally agnostic," coming and going at various times during the year.

Welcome back to The Firing Line, shooter fans. Some interesting stuff went down this week, much of it related to DUST 514. Even if you're not partial to what some have dubbed "the controller wars," there's still plenty of online shooter news for you to peruse after the cut.

Join me on the other side for a glimpse of Hawken, Firefall, and my PlanetSide character!

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Last week I started working with Dave Toulouse, indie developer of Golemizer and Star Corsairs, to build our very own mobile MMO. For the sake of completing the project within the month of February, we kept our game designs simple and easy for anyone to play. The idea was not to create a state-of-the-art video game but instead to build a working framework that illustrated some of the basics of MMO design.

Ironically, my first column on the subject was received rather coolly when I consider my normal column response, but last week's responses taught me a valuable lesson about design: Players often want to talk about what is not possible rather than what is. Dave told me how his players often told him what they wished his games would achieve, without ever considering just how difficult it is to make a game.

Still, there were several great ideas in the comments section. I'm going to use those ideas to break down this week's update.

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If you haven't made any MMO-centric plans for Valentine's Day, consider the offerings from free-to-play giant Perfect World Entertainment. The company is playing cupid in several of its online titles, and players can acquire "wedding fashions, romantic items, spectacular mounts, mystery boxes, and more."

Jade Dynasty features a wedding event and items for marriage-minded avatars, while Perfect World International GMs will be interacting with players and giving out a rare mount. Rusty Hearts is putting on an art contest, and the prize is Roselle Vegerius (the game's latest premium character).

Forsaken World players will receive a Valentine's Day card and random items, while War of the Immortals fans can collect chocolate and trade it for additional XP. Finally, Ether Saga Odyssey players can enter a screenshot contest to win XP and bonus items, as well as bid for rare pets and send custom broadcast messages.

[Source: Perfect World Entertainment press release]

Hello, sandbox faithful, and welcome to a special interview edition of Some Assembly Required. We recently had a chance to pitch some questions to the team behind Seatribe's upcoming Salem title, and creative director Björn Johannessen was kind enough to answer them.

Salem is being advertised by publisher Paradox as "the crafting MMO," but it's also rife with throw-back mechanics including a huge amount of player freedom and a permadeath/punishment system similar to the one in Johannessen's Haven & Hearth.

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Are you more into looking good in Lord of the Rings Online than defeating the very heart of evil? Then Turbine's got a special week planned just for you. Starting today and going through the 16th, Fashion Week will be blazing through LotRO.

LotRO's cosmetic system allows players to assemble their own outfit looks independent of slotted gear and has become a popular feature in the game ever since its inception. Through Fashion Week, Turbine will call on the best-dressed to strut their stuff in the hopes that in-game CMs will see them and award special titles.

Also included in the week will be fashion-themed lotteries and a screenshot contest in which the best entries will be voted upon by the community. To give players inspiration, Turbine links to three game outfit blogs -- Lotro Fashion, Lotro Stylist, and Cosmetic Lotro -- and has given each of the blogs special codes to hand out for free in-game dyes.

Red 5 Studios is making a little marketing push for Firefall, and the first salvo takes the form of a new dev diary video starring CEO Mark Kern.

If you're not familiar with the game, this clip is a great place to start. Kern explains how Firefall is really two titles in one, with the first game being a ginormous open world featuring loads of PvE content. The second game is centered around Firefall's e-sport components, which include ranked leaderboard matches ranging from 5-on-5 to 15-on-15.

Kern also mentions the game's unique take on beta and launch. In basic terms, Red 5 implements feature sets, collects beta feedback, and iterates on down the line (as opposed to presenting a finished product for mass beta testing). This staged approach will also apply to the game's launch, and Kern says the game will be rolled out "organically" much like Google's Gmail service.

Finally, content expansion in Firefall will be player-driven. Cross-server cooperation will be necessary to craft MRU units that will expand the playable area from 10 square miles to an entire globe. Kern also touches on the trendy games-as-a-service mandate, and he says that as long as players are around to support Firefall, Red 5 will be around to generate new content. Watch the full video after the break.

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Greetings, summoners, and welcome to the first installment of the Summoner's Guidebook! For a new player, the Guidebook is a one-stop-shop to gaining familiarity with the various elements of League of Legends. For the more advanced players, we'll also be covering ways to improve on weak areas of your play and how to deal with the toughest of matchups.

I was a new player once, and I remember being extremely daunted by the number of things I needed to learn to be competitive in LoL. Although the journey from newbie to expert was long and difficult, I learned a lot about common mistakes and how to reduce them. If you're looking to step up your game or if you're just getting into the League, the Summoner's Guidebook is the place for you to learn without being treated like you're a noob.

This week, we're going to cover the community resources available to you. There are a lot of websites dedicated to League of Legends, and it would be foolish to assume that this column is the only place to get advice on the game. If there's something I haven't covered yet or there's a topic I'm unfamiliar with, you can be sure that one of these places will have the info you're looking for. This article can't possibly cover all the League fansites on the internet (there are probably hundreds), but I can focus on the ones with the best information.

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MMO global chat is a funny thing. I've met friends in it, I've ignored half the server because of it, and I'm amused (and appalled) by it on a daily basis. One thing I normally don't do is turn it off completely, unless I'm gunning for an immersive solo or small-group session that's heavy on roleplay.

My EverQuest II Sage has 19 (19!) channels on his UI, and though I rarely see any activity in the ratonga or evil chat rooms, I keep tabs on them anyway in case a useful nugget happens by.

What about you, dear readers? Does your MMO of choice have multiple global chat channels, and if so, how many do you monitor at once?

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!

Bulgarian developer Masthead Studios has announced that it's shutting down the servers for its post-apocalyptic sandbox MMO, Earthrise. Said Atanas Atanasov, Director of Masthead Studios:

"One year after the launch of the game, we have decided to stop the Earthrise servers. Earthrise was released too early and did not meet the expectations of its fans. We did our best to revive the game in 2011, but the time was not enough to keep up with the user requirements. There is a huge interest in high quality open world sandbox MMORPGs, unfortunately the big publishers do not show any interest in the genre. It is unfortunate that low budget companies like ours are trying to bring innovativeness in the already saturated MMO market. I hope that one day an independent studio will be able to release the long anticipated open world sandbox MMO, which everyone is talking about, but no one is making. We tried, but did not succeed. We would like to apologize to those who were disappointed from Earthrise and to thank everyone who supported us during the years."

The studio does mention that the planned free-to-play version for this year may still launch if any investor interest is shown, but there has been no word on this yet.

[Source: Masthead Studios press release]

I'm going to let all of you in on a secret. Actually, it might not be a secret; everyone might have figured this out by now independent of any admission on my part. But here it is, just the same.

I'm not actually a very good City of Heroes player.

I mean, I'm "good" in the sense that I play the game, enjoy it, think about it, try to improve my character appropriately... but I'm not actually very skilled at the game. My rotations look awkward, my slotting is usually sub-optimal, and my ability to recall important data is pretty paltry. I understand the mechanics just fine, but when it comes time to log into the game, somehow I wind up as the guy who just subtly makes the entire team worse. I'm not terribly skilled. And for all that I'm going to be playing the game for some time to come, I don't think that I'm ever going to reach the point that I say I'm really any good.

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Going toe-to-toe with your first big, recurring villain in a final showdown is an important moment in every superhero's life and an experience that DC Universe Online players will get to treasure in the game's next content pack. The update will bring Brainiac, the main scumbag since DCUO launched last January, to his knees -- and bring players to Paradise Island, home of Wonder Woman and the Amazons.

Players will find Brainiac as he's assaulting the Amazons' island and have their final confrontation with him there. But don't worry about the ache of missing your main antagonist, heroes! If there's one thing that comic books have taught us, it's that you should never count a villain out for good -- and that the conclusion of one story arc doesn't mean that things are going to settle down at all. As Jens Anderson (Creative Director for DCUO) says, Brainiac's future isn't settled; his fight "will be an ongoing one as he tries to recover from the player's resistance and future Luthor's manipulation of everyone... The story will then move into a new phase, but Brainiac's actions will always have a lasting effect on DC Universe Online." Moving forward, players can anticipate learning more about the shady figures of Future Lex Luthor and Future Batman.

I thought it might be a cool idea to do a comparison of free-to-play models for my next few articles. As free-to-play has become more and more popular, cash shops and tiers of service have become much more important to how a player might enjoy or interact with a game. While the standard free-to-play model, the most popular one by far, is one that allows players to download a free client, has no subscription at all, and tacks on a cash-shop, the freemium variant is quickly becoming widespread. Freemium seems to be the model of choice for many Western games that were previously subscription-only.

The problem is that I do not really like the freemium model. I'm old-school, I guess. I enjoy the model that was imported to the States maybe eight years ago. A free client with a cash shop on top is all I need to steer my fun by. I'd rather skip any sort of tiered service as well.

There are exceptions to the rule, of course.

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