Massively

Third-party development acquiring monetization options from EVE Online

Eliot Lefebvre — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 20:30:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Business models, MMO industry, New titles

If you're running a service in EVE Online at the moment, you're running it for free. If you're developing an application for the game, you're doing it for free. This isn't unusual, really -- pretty much any fan-developed application or service is done free of charge. But that's soon to change for fans of CCP's cutthroat game, as a new developer blog outlines upcoming changes that will allow developers to charge for services, applications, and website access.

For a $99 license fee, developers and service providers will be able to sign up and start charging money for their products while having full access to the EVE Online API. The entry itself goes into more details on the restrictions of the program and what it will mean for non-commercial sites (which will not be required to pay any sort of fee). It's an interesting move, one that means that the game will be able to develop a more robust real-world economy to complement the in-game activities.

Third-party development acquiring monetization options from EVE Online originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 15 Jun 2011 20:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Guild Counsel: Want to join my guild?

Karen Bryan — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 14:00:00 EST

Filed under: Guilds, Opinion, The Guild Counsel, Miscellaneous

Out of all the issues involved with guild management, there's nothing more important to a long-lasting guild than a solid, time-tested process of screening potential members.

Surprisingly, when you look at many of the traditional methods of filtering potential members, very few of them actually succeed in rooting out whether an applicant will be a good fit or not. Sure, a guild and its applicant both want to progress, they both want loot, and they both want to succeed. But when it comes to things like pace, behavior, playtimes, or guild culture, it suddenly becomes a lot harder to find that perfect match.

I've seen many ways to screen applicants, and believe me, I've let some real stinkers into guilds I've led. Let's look at some of the more popular screening techniques and see why they're not always the best ways to evaluate applicants.

Continue reading The Guild Counsel: Want to join my guild?

The Guild Counsel: Want to join my guild? originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 16 Dec 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Heading to Gamescom? Massively is looking to pay for fan coverage

Shawn Schuster — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 09:00:00 EST

Filed under: Culture, Events, real-world, Massively Meta

Are you attending Gamescom in Cologne, Germany next month? If you'd like to make a bit of your money back from the event, we want to help you out. We're paying for the best coverage we can get without actually doing it ourselves!

Not only is this a way to recoup some of your expenses, but it's also a great way to have your article or photography viewed by millions of MMO gamers. Sound like something for you? Follow along after the jump for all the details.

Continue reading Heading to Gamescom? Massively is looking to pay for fan coverage

Heading to Gamescom? Massively is looking to pay for fan coverage originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 27 Jul 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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EVE Evolved: A sneak peak at EVE Gate

Brendan Drain — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 18:00:00 EST

Filed under: At a glance, Sci-fi, EVE Online, Culture, Expansions, Previews, Opinion, Hands-on, EVE Evolved

Some time ago, CCP announced their unusual plans to develop their own EVE Online social networking website. Their plan was to tie it into the game, giving players a site they could visit to stay in touch with their EVE contacts and corporation while not logged in. It was expected to be ready by Winter 2009 but never materialised when the Dominion expansion was released. Now named EVE Gate, the website has been rescheduled for the upcoming Tyrannis expansion on May 18th. Recently, CCP released an early alpha version of the EVE Gate website and have begun the slow process of adding features and working out bugs. Some of the features are not active and the site is not yet tied into the active EVE server. Nevertheless, the current alpha build shows what we can expect from the site when it launches.

In this article, I give a run-down of what features we can expect from EVE Gate at launch and what we can expect from it in future iterations.

Continue reading EVE Evolved: A sneak peak at EVE Gate

EVE Evolved: A sneak peak at EVE Gate originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 11 Apr 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Final Fantasy XI players get a little help from their iPhone

Eliot Lefebvre — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 10:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Final Fantasy XI, Game mechanics, News items, Consoles

There's a lot of information to keep track of in Final Fantasy XI, much of it not covered by the in-game interface. There's no easy way to access the all-important airship schedules or the often-loathed Race Specific Equipment quest eligibility. Since the game has been out for several years, there are naturally more than a few applications to track these events... but due to the game's issues with alt-tabbing, they require a bit of a workaround for the player. Now there's another option available to anyone with an iPhone or an iPod Touch -- a new app from Duodyne Studios.

Although not officially affiliated with Square-Enix, the application is aimed at giving players easy access to the most commonly needed timers. That includes a recast timer feature that allows players to simply tap the ability when they use it, followed by an alert on the phone when it becomes ready again. It's not as useful as simple macro checks for short abilities like Provoke, but longer abilities will benefit from having the timer feature. At $0.99 for players in the US and comparable prices for other markets, Final Fantasy XI players might want to take a look.

Final Fantasy XI players get a little help from their iPhone originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 30 Mar 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Metaplace: Now accepting beta applications

Shawn Schuster — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 16:00:00 EST

Filed under: Betas, Business models, MMO industry, New titles, MetaPlace

If you missed the first round of beta applications being accepted last year, now's your second chance for an early look at Raph Koster's Metaplace. According to an announcement today, their brand new temporary website is up to promote an expanded beta and their mailing list, both of which you can sign up for quite easily.

To sign up, simply go to the main webpage and click on the "Apply Now" button on the upper left-hand side. From there, you just enter your name and email address, and they will contact you when they're ready. It's as easy as that! Also, look for their newly-designed website to launch soon, as they prepare for what might just be the long-awaited final stages of Metaplace's development.

Metaplace: Now accepting beta applications originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 08 Oct 2008 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Stargate Worlds reaches 200k beta signups, dev chat on Friday

Samuel Axon — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 11:00:00 EST

Filed under: Betas, Sci-fi, New titles, Stargate Worlds, News items

The Stargate Worlds team announced yesterday that 200,000 people have signed up for the game's beta test. That's not an unimpressive number, although both Age of Conan and Warhammer Online reported a lot more (but at later stages in development). Of course, history has shown that the number of beta applicants doesn't necessarily reflect on a game's post-launch popularity.

In other Stargate Worlds-related news, the game's sound designer (Nick LaMartina) will be participating in a live dev chat that will be open to all on Friday the 22nd at 11:00 AM Pacific time. Head over to the Stargate Worlds website for details and links on reaching the IRC chat room where it will take place.

When we visited Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment just over a month ago, a representative told us that the company was hoping to start the closed beta phase before the end of the summer. We've been a bit skeptical. Time's a-tickin'!

Stargate Worlds reaches 200k beta signups, dev chat on Friday originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 20 Aug 2008 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Movies that could be MMOs: Tron

Akela Talamasca — Fri, 30 May 2008 15:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Classes, Culture, Game mechanics, Guilds, Crafting, PvP, Opinion, Academic

"Greetings, programs." These are the first words you hear as you enter the vast, coldly glittering chamber, prodded forward by a hulking, cowled figure wielding a shockstaff. You glance nervously around you. Your companions seem equally confused and frightened. High above you upon a raised platform, glowing redly, is an Enforcer -- one of the Master Control Program's elite warriors. "You have been chosen to compete against each other for our amusement. Failure to compete is rewarded with deresolution. A victory ensures another day of life. You shall compete until you lose. A loss is punished with deresolution. Today you will receive training. Tomorrow you shall compete. End of line."

One of the cowled figures roughly thrusts a glowing blue disc into your trembling hands, which you hold to yourself like a lifeline, which it is. Your training begins.

Released into theaters in 1982, Tron is a movie about computers, written before the emergence of the World Wide Web. It posited a world inside the hardware, occupied by anthropomorphized programs. Though some of its ideas bear little resemblance to reality, the story and themes still hold up to repeated viewing, and it's a fun ride with interesting visuals. Despite the numerous adaptations into videogame form the movie has endured, the world of Tron could make a fun and engaging MMO. We'll take a look at how its mechanics might work after the jump.

Continue reading Movies that could be MMOs: Tron

Movies that could be MMOs: Tron originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 30 May 2008 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mythic expects WAR beta apps to reach one million

Samuel Axon — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 22:00:00 EST

Filed under: Betas, Fantasy, Forums, MMO industry, New titles, Warhammer Online, News items

Forumites at the Vault Network boards started a thread speculating as to whether or not EA Mythic's Warhammer Online will reach one million beta apps when all's said and done. Mythic CEO and WAR lead designer Mark Jacobs promptly responded (as he's been known to do), assuring everyone that he and the WAR team have every expectation of achieving that goal.

"I'd be surprised if we didn't hit 1M once we start taking beta apps for our Asian partners," he said. "Even without Asia, based on our current sign-up rate, we should blow through 750K and we have a decent shot at 1M." He also noted that his original goalpost was 500,000 in North America and Europe, a goal which EA Mythic has "far surpassed."

Maybe Funcom should take this as a throwing down of the gauntlet. Age of Conan's 500,000 beta sign-up number is impressive, but it looks like Funcom will have to do better than that to beat Warhammer!

[Via Keen and Graev]

Mythic expects WAR beta apps to reach one million originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 02 Apr 2008 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dungeon Runners releases characters in XML

Mike Schramm — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 15:30:00 EST

Filed under: Dungeon Runners, MMO industry, Tips and tricks, Free-to-play

This isn't quite the idea of MMO-to-go yet, but it's the first step towards something really huge in MMO gaming: a character API. An API is an Application Programming Interface-- basically a document or method of how to get computers to talk to each other through different applications. Facebook apps are made with the Facebook API, applications that hook into iTunes use the iTunes API, and so on. With an API, programmers can take information from one source, and do almost anything they want with it in other programs. Players have already done some amazing things with World of Warcraft's Armory (even without an actual API-- I'm pretty sure most of that is just HTML scraping), but now NCSoft's Dungeon Runners has upped the ante-- they've made all the character data in the game available to anyone as an XML file. With just a URL, you can access info on any player in the game, already marked up in XML.

What does this mean to you as a player? It means that programmers can create any number of applications using this data-- they can display your DR character's info almost anywhere at any time. And a skilled programmer could even track the info over time-- tell you how fast you leveled, how often you change your armor or gear, or how fast you've earned gold in the last day. And who knows what else people could come up with-- the best part about opening up information like this is that it gets used in all sorts of ways that no one could ever predict.

Jeff Freeman's exactly right: "This is really cool... just in case you don't get that." We're just scratching the surface of this stuff, but eventually you'll be able to do things like get text messages on your phone when your WoW auctions sell, or be able to monitor your guild's bank or your PvP team's wins via RSS (which itself can then plug into almost anything) When developers break out data like this for players, the possibilities are endless.

Dungeon Runners releases characters in XML originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 31 Jan 2008 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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EVE Online Skill Monitor widget monitors your skills

Mike Schramm — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 13:30:00 EST

Filed under: EVE Online, Game mechanics, Leveling, Server downtime

We've posted before about EVEMon, a program that you absolutely must use if you're playing EVE Online, but here's another cool dohickey for tracking your EVE character out-of-game. Corp Teacher on the forums posts about the EVE Yahoo! Widget, a slick little widget that shows all the important stats for your character, including where your skill training is at, and how long you've got left. It doesn't have nearly as much functionality as EVEMon, obviously, but if you want to watch your SP rise at work where applications aren't allowed, but widgets are, it's perfect.

And though it used to ask for your name and password (a security risk if there ever was one), it now works through EVE's API key program, so you don't have to worry about giving an untrusted program all your personal info. According to the changelog, it hasn't been updated too recently, but if you're looking for a low-footprint way to track your SP, and figure out whether Tranquility is up or down (so you can pine for the vastness of space while trapped in your tiny cubicle at work), here it is.

EVE Online Skill Monitor widget monitors your skills originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 08 Jan 2008 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Scrapblog your virtual adventures

Moo Money — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 17:30:00 EST

Filed under: Events, real-world, Events, in-game, Second Life

I'm a big fan of all things Web 2.0, so when I read about Scrapblog on Mashable, I decided to give it a try. Scrapblog capitalizes on the real life hobby of scrapbooking, something I've always been fascinated by, but too lazy to do. This fits perfectly with the gamer lifestyle, as I often want to show off my screenshots and videos from Second Life.

Setup is very easy, allowing you to play with the tools without signing up, which is free anyway, unless you want to publish your Scrapblog. Within the web-based application, you can add pictures from a variety of sites, as well as upload them from your hard drive, choose backgrounds, apply stickers, add music, and even use transitions between slides. Once you've completed all the slides, you can publish your book, allowing you to share your creation, embed it on blogs, and even add it to Facebook!

[Via Mashable]

Scrapblog your virtual adventures originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 10 Dec 2007 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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