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Not So Massively: MOBAs, shooters, and dungeon crawlers

Brendan Drain — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 20:00:00 EST

Filed under: Betas, Fantasy, Sci-fi, Video, Events, real-world, Game mechanics, New titles, PvP, News items, Free-to-play, Dev Diaries, Not So Massively, MOBA, League of Legends

This week's Torchlight II developer update visits the game's animation department, and Path of Exile reset all beta players' passive skills this week following the launch of patch 0.9.7. Blacklight: Retribution revealed some impressive usage statistics from its first few weeks of open beta, and Firefall showed off its impressive Mourningstar and Typhon costumes at gaming convention SXSW.

In the world of MOBAs, League of Legends released its new champion Lulu this week and published her official champion spotlight video. Dota 2 added classic hero Lycan and introduced a new private rating system to help players track which heroes they're good at playing. Finally, Wrath of Heroes has entered open beta and is already selling items in its cash shop.

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Not So Massively: MOBAs, shooters, and dungeon crawlers originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 26 Mar 2012 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Garriott's Mission trailer offers a sneak peek before SXSW

Krystalle Voecks — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 20:00:00 EST

Filed under: Video, MMO industry, News items

You may love him, or you may hate him; but nobody can deny the influence Lord British has had on the MMO industry. Many feel that Ultima Online was a shining example of MMO mechanics, not since repeated in quite the right combination. Later, Richard Garriott went on to create Tabula Rasa for NCsoft -- a game beloved by some, reviled by others. As part of his own trip to space, he launched Operation Immortality, in an attempt to draw more interest to Tabula Rasa. He went up in space, he came back down, NCsoft released him. We all know the story by now.

But what you may not know is that Garriott had a crew filming the entire time he was involved with the space program. They've compiled the footage into a documentary called Man on a Mission, which is slated to be released later this year at South by Southwest. However, for those who would like a little taste what life was like for Garriott during those hectic days juggling public appearances and training in Russia, you can check out the trailer on his Facebook page now.

[via GameSetWatch]

Garriott's Mission trailer offers a sneak peek before SXSW originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Multiverse co-founder describes new virtual world order

Samuel Axon — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 21:00:00 EST

Filed under: Business models, MMO industry, News items, Virtual worlds

Multiverse's Corey Bridges spoke at the SXSW conference about the effects digital distribution and the democratization of advanced development tools will have on the industries of gaming, social networks, and virtual worlds.

Gamasutra put together a great summary of the talk. The thesis: just as they are stripping the entrenched establishments of the music and film industries of much of their oligarchical power, new technologies will transform online gaming and virtual worlds. According to Bridges, virtual worlds are just getting started. "WoW is not a fad," he said, "it's a harbinger." Furthermore, the virtual worlds will be in the hands of indies, not the major conglomerates, and they'll be synergized with social networks.

Bridges also touched on the notion of a more splintered industry made up of smaller projects catering to lots of niche tastes, as opposed to the huge Hollywood-budget productions we see today. A while back someone said that it would take at least a $1 billion super project to take on World of Warcraft. But maybe, as it was with the Roman Empire, the wolves at Blizzard's gate will be countless smaller tribes made up of the so-called unwashed hordes.

Multiverse co-founder describes new virtual world order originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 12 Mar 2008 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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PMOG beta opens up for passively multiplayer fun

Mike Schramm — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 14:30:00 EST

Filed under: Betas, Business models, Launches, New titles, Tips and tricks

PMOG, the "passively multiplayer MMO," has been seeing some action around the virtual Massively office lately -- the game is basically a Firefox extension that sits in your browser, and lets you deploy mines, leave goodies, and create quests out of the actual webpages that you visit, and since we visit lots of pages around here, we're some pretty good players.

And now, after a showing at SXSW this week (which we should hear about soon), PMOG has opened its doors to the beta -- if you haven't started playing yet, you can sign up on their main page. In fact, here's an even better deal: I'm working on an achievement in game for inviting people, so you want an invite, leave a comment below, and I'll send you one myself.

It remains to be seen how the folks behind PMOG are going to fund this thing, but while it's in beta, things are ad-free and passively fun. The virtual landscape is still a little empty (most geek sites are pretty much plotted out, but some of the farther reaches of the net are completely quiet), but the more people that get in the beta, the more fun this game promises to be.

PMOG beta opens up for passively multiplayer fun originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 11 Mar 2008 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SXSW08: How gamers are adopting the wiki way

Barb Dybwad — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 19:00:00 EST

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Culture, Events, real-world, Tabula Rasa, Massively Event Coverage

One of the many excellent sessions in the ScreenBurn track at SXSW Interactive this year, the "How Gamers Are Adopting the Wiki Way" panel featured George Pribul (lead admin of WoWWiki.com), April "CuppaJo" Burba (Community Manager for Tabula Rasa), Angelique Shelton (GM of Wikia Gaming at Wikia Inc), and Jake McKee (Principal at Ant's Eye View) talking about the symbiotic relationship between gamers and wikis. Interesting factoid: WoWWiki is now the second largest English-language wiki in the world behind Wikipedia. At 3 million unique users per month, a full half of English-speaking WoW players visit WoWWiki every month.

One of the initial questions was the obvious, "Why wikis?" Pribul answered that forums, the traditional places where gamer communities gather, aren't very good formats for organizing information. Wikis not only organize information very well but allow community collaboration on data that changes over time. A question from the audience next asked about the significance of wikis for other industries besides gaming. Shelton responded, "Whatever people have a natural passion about, and any way you can enable your customers to come together and collaborate on their passion -- wikis are an amazing tool for that. Individuals can step up and take ownership of something." She mentioned that people often wonder why anyone would want to write content for free, and used a basketball analogy to counter that: even though you could get paid to do it in the NBA, people still play pickup games on the street. The social dynamics within a wiki give participants pride, attribution, and community elevation -- people get social status for sharing this information.

Gallery: SXSW 2008

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SXSW08: How gamers are adopting the wiki way originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 08 Mar 2008 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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WRUP: In like a lamb edition

Mike Schramm — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 14:00:00 EST

Filed under: Culture, Quests, Massively Meta

Is it just me or has March been pretty slow so far? Guess that means things will get a little crazier in the second half of the month -- with SXSW and Connect08 on the way, that's probably not too far off from the truth.

But in the meantime, What aRe yoU Playing this weekend? Me, I've been in Guild Wars more than anything else lately, but I've also been jonesing for Age of Conan more than ever -- May seems like it's a long way away. I've been on an extended break from EVE Online as well, but I may get back in the mining barge this weekend if the urge hits me.

What's your game in the world of MMOs this weekend?

Previously on WRUP...

WRUP: In like a lamb edition originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 07 Mar 2008 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tracking Second Life Twitterers with Tweet Scan

Moo Money — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 11:00:00 EST

Filed under: Second Life

I first heard of Twitter, a site where you can post mini-entries of 140 characters or less, right before SXSW. In Austin, using it was practically mandatory, or you wouldn't know where anyone was. After that, it tapered off, but then suddenly everyone in Second Life was using it. However, because there's not really a search function, it's been difficult to tell who from SL actually uses Twitter.

Sure, you could always use Twitter Tracking, but if you value your text messages, or have trouble with the IM client, it's hard to follow. There was once a way to find people through your Gmail contacts, but that's been disabled. Enter Tweet Scan, which allows you to search for up to five keywords and have their results delivered by email.

A quick scan of Second Life turns up many people I don't have on my list. I was also able to sift through tweets about Massively, to see what our readers think. While it's not perfect, and some results will be erroneous, it can certainly make it easier to find your friends. Don't forget to sign up for inbox delivery!

[Via VTOR]

Tracking Second Life Twitterers with Tweet Scan originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 11 Nov 2007 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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