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This week a sizable chunk of the gaming industry descends on downtown San Francisco for the annual Game Developers Convention. And yes, Massively will be there cornering every dev that gets in our sights, convincing them all to answer as many of our burning questions as possible before someone finds and rescues them!

I was even thinking how neat it would be to add these little tête-à-têtes to the Massively TV line up. Alas, I was thwarted; something about "evidence." Ah well, there are still plenty of live shows scheduled and a plethora of reruns to fill out your week while waiting on the GDC news.

If you have any burning questions about your favorite games, add them to the comments below and we'll see how many we can get answers for. And don't miss our two bonus polls at the end.

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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.

This week, Massively's Eliot Lefebvre, Karen Bryan, and Matt Daniel descended on PAX East 2013 in Boston (shown above) prepared to chew bubblegum and play video games, and they were all out of bubblegum. They've been regaling you with tales of their exploits in WildStar, Elder Scrolls Online, and Hearthstone all weekend, and now we've rounded up the rest of their coverage (so far!) and our non-PAX MMO coverage from the last seven days just beyond the break... just in time for GDC to begin.

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There's nothing quite like the experience of being on the show floor at PAX East. From fan gatherings to the booths to the general atmosphere throughout the show, it's a unique experience. It's also a unique experience you probably don't get to have if you're not in the northeastern part of the United States, since traveling to Boston is a dicey proposition at the best of times. And most people can't afford to give up rent for a month just to go to a game convention.

Obviously, the Massively away team is doing its best to give you a sense of the show floor through our articles about the big reveals, but what about the rest of the festivities? We've collected a gallery of our pictures taken on-site throughout the three-day exposition, and we'll be updating it through the remainder of the weekend. It's the next best thing to being in Boston and standing in line for an hour to see a panel about stuff you already knew!

Gallery: PAX East 2013 in pictures

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Massively's on the ground in Boston during the weekend of March 22nd to 24th, bringing you all the best news from PAX East 2013. Whether you're dying to know more about WildStar, DUST 514, or any MMO in between, we aim to have it covered!

Last week, Massively streamteamer Richie Procopio sat down to play Elder Scrolls Online at a press demo. Like most such "all-day" media events, the press demo was approximately four hours long -- four hours for Richie to see as much as he could and take notes to transform into articles worth reading.

"It must be so hard to write an MMO article based on four hours of gameplay," remarked a reader named Dularr.

It is and it isn't. Four hours is more than enough time to grok the basics. Of course, if you're expecting a detailed endgame critique after four hours, you're in for disappointment.

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It's one of the best perks of the job that we can sit back and talk about (a) superheroes, (b) Indiana Jones, (c) VeggieTales, (d) editor-endorsed kidnapping, (e) NES-era games, and (f) deep philosophical topics best reserved for college freshman jaw sessions. And then you get to listen to all of it! How special!

Have a comment for the podcasters? Shoot an email to podcast@massively.com. We may just read your email on the air!

Get the podcast:
[RSS] Add Massively Speaking to your RSS aggregator.
[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.
[iTunes] Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.
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Listen here on the page:



Read below the cut for the full show notes.

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It's strange, but every year around this time, someone sneaks into my room and manages to snatch an hour away from me, right from under my nose! Sometimes I stay up extra late trying to catch the thief, but he always eludes me. One of these days I am going to nab the scoundrel who pilfers precious time. I want that hour back; I need all of them I can get.

But I guess I have to make do now. My hour is probably being sold from the back of some truck in a dark alley to some desperate fellow as we speak anyway. What? You say it is banked, and I'll get it back? Well if it's in a bank, I expect it returned with interest. I want at least a 5% return on that time, compounded daily, when it's returned. That's right -- you take my time to invest, so you better be paying me the dividends! Wouldn't you agree? Weigh in with your opinion on Daylight Saving Time after the break.

Speaking of investing time, we've got a good place for that right here: Massively TV! Just drop in an hour or two at a time and you can withdraw laughter as needed. The Stream Team has plenty of live opportunities for your investment needs, or you can peruse the reruns section at your leisure. Invest as much or as little as you want, but remember: The more you do, the greater your return.

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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.

MMO gamers are used to studios applying the words "massively multiplayer online" to games that are barely online, only optionally multiplayer, and certainly not "massive" in any way, but this week, Maxis' Lucy Bradshaw took our acronym to new lows by suggesting that EA's beleaguered SimCity is effectively an MMO. Perhaps Bradshaw meant to frame her game's release fiasco as just another clownshoes MMO launch, but I think the MMO industry is perfectly capable of watering down its own terminology, thanks.

Read on for a roundup of the rest of our top MMO stories from the past week.

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Let's play a fun game I like to call hyena jinx! Are you excited? You're playing whether you want to or not. Here's how it works. You see those hyenas up there? They're going to follow you around and listen for you to say something. The sign that you've said the wrong thing by mistake will be one of the hyenas chewing your legs off while the other one wrecks your computer and car.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that the things you're supposed to avoid are almost indistinguishable from things that you can do at will. Have fun with the hyenas!

I will tell you that reading this week's installment of WRUP will not result in unpleasant hyena-related events. It'll just let you know what we on the Massively staff will be up to over the weekend. So go ahead and read that, and then let us know what you'll be up to down in the comments. Beware of potential hyena triggers.

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Welcome to the first ever installment of this "roundtable" edition of Second Wind, where the best and brightest (or barring that, whoever's available) here at Massively get together for an evening to act stupid in video games and then talk about it. For our first trip down the rabbit hole, Bree, Eliot, Lis, and I decided to give our mouse-clickin'-fingers a workout by way of Runic Games' Torchlight II.

Our intrepid party of fearless adventurers was made up of Viase the Engineer (played by Eliot), ZERKIN the Berserker (played by Bree, and yes the caps are necessary), and a pair of Embermages played by Lis and me because it was the only class neither of us had played yet. We spent a few hours hacking and slashing our way through the first couple of zones of TL2's campaign, and much hilarity ensued. Click on past the cut for our full, insanity-fueled conversation on the ups and downs of our joint Torchlight II experience.

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Last week, Massively's Larry Everett finished off a miniseries of articles designed to help interested readers learn to livestream. Streaming has become a major part of Massively's purview; we stream about 20 hours a week. So why not use our expertise to help friends and potential future colleagues learn how to play for fun and profit?

Not everyone shares our idealism, apparently. In fact, one commenter told us we are ruining the internet.

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With five kajillion MMOs on the market, Bree and Justin struggle to remember just what's what, some weeks. That may seem like scrub behavior, but they ain't no scrubs; they're professional goof-offs with a master's degree in goofery from Goof State University. It's an exciting podcast full of patches, Kickstarters, compensation, and sandboxy talk.

Have a comment for the podcasters? Shoot an email to podcast@massively.com. We may just read your email on the air!

Get the podcast:
[RSS] Add Massively Speaking to your RSS aggregator.
[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.
[iTunes] Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.
[Stitcher] Follow the podcast on Stitcher Radio.
Listen here on the page:



Read below the cut for the full show notes.

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It's a magical time: Throughout this week there will be sightings of leprechauns, lucky shamrocks will sprout up everywhere, and folks will be chasing rainbows hoping to find a special treasure. It's also the time I can say "blarney" without everyone looking at me askance! Yup, Saint Paddy's is right around the corner, the day that capstones a week when untold masses find their inner-Irish self. Those brave enough to admit they've adopted the traditions of this time can stand up and be counted in the poll at the end.

Need more to do while awaiting Sunday's revelry and pinch-a-thon? Why not watch a smorgasbord of tomfoolery on Massively TV. You can join your favorite Stream Team hosts in chat or even in game and be a part the trouble they get themselves into! Just check the schedule for the when and the where. You can also catch previous shows at your own convenience and laugh at the crazy antics displayed (and trust us, they are plenty crazy). It's all waiting for you after the break!

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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.

Its flagship franchise might be turning 14 this month, but SOE is working hard to ensure its business model isn't as ancient as its first MMO. The company revealed this week that it plans to overhaul the F2P models of both EverQuest and EverQuest II (yes, again). Specifically, SOE is eliminating some of the more draconian restrictions on quests, bag slots, shared bank space, and most importantly, race and class selection, which is welcomed more by newcomers than by highbies, who will still be saddled with gear and spell tier constraints.

Read on for a roundup of the rest of this week's top MMO stories.

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This was a serious week for some of us. Or a serious Tuesday, anyway. One of our readers consequently asked for some brain bleach, like pictures of cats. This prompted a very serious discussion in the Massively virtual offices about whether we should be using cats or bleach for such purposes, and despite what you might think about people who work on the internet, bleach won by a single vote.

So enjoy your bleach, everyone. Your whites will never be whiter as this harsh chemical sears fabric into its brightest possible white. Do not mix it with ammonia in a closed room.

Of course, all of this is secondary to the main event, which is WRUP. It's just past the break, and while discussion of bleach and cats has been excised, all of the information about what we'll be doing over the weekend is still in place. You can also let us know what you'll be up to over the weekend down in the comments.

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We hear the phrase "you never get a second chance to make a first impression" all the time, right? Unfortunately, our first streams always seem to be the most buggy and give us the most trouble. I know if I had it my way, I'd rather have my audience catch my stream now rather than when I first started. Of course, we don't have that luxury all the time. What can we do to give that first impression an extra boost?

In past Learning to Livestream articles, I've addressed the issues regarding the quality of the stream itself. I won't rehash that. Instead, I will talk about one of my favorite subjects: graphics. The first part of my college and professional career was in graphic design -- mostly for print -- but in today's market, graphic designers cannot help but at least dabble in web and television graphics. It should come as no surprise that I did the same. Before you go thinking that you have to have some outlandish art degree to create graphics for your stream, finish reading the rest of this article. I'll show you a few tips to better your stream's first impression.

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