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The Mog Log: Staying off the grid in Gridania

Eliot Lefebvre — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 18:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Lore, Opinion, Consoles, Final Fantasy XIV, The Mog Log

At first glance on a trip through Final Fantasy XIV's cities, Gridania probably seems like the nicest city in Eorzea. Ul'dah always has the smile of a used car salesman, Limsa Lominsa stinks of fish and is full of pirates, Ishgard isn't welcoming even without the dragons, and Ala Mhigo sort of has a bad case of Garlean occupation. But Gridania is built in the middle of rather nice forest territory, and it doesn't seem to suffer from any of the power struggles or unfriendly residents that your other options have. Sure, the forest can be a bit tempermental, but it's a peaceful spot.

But as you may have guessed, it only looks that way until you actually spend some time there. Then you realize that the city is not nearly so welcoming as you initially thought -- it's a hotbed of activity, stuffed to the brim with spirits that do not necessarily have the best interests of adventurers or anyone else at heart. Gridania doesn't suffer the internal conflicts of the other cities, but that's mostly because the place is already being crushed too thoroughly by all of the external threats it has to face just to keep treading water.

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The Mog Log: Staying off the grid in Gridania originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 10 Mar 2012 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Massively Exclusive: The story and presents behind RIFT's Fae Yule

Justin Olivetti — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 20:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Events, in-game, Lore, RIFT

All in-game holiday festivals were not born equal, but they do seem to share a family resemblance when it comes to being merry and bright. RIFT's Fae Yule is but one of many, many Christmastime MMO holidays that we're witnessing this month, but the team at Trion Worlds is looking to make it stand out from the rest of the crowd with its depth and sense of fun.

So why do the inhabitants of Telara celebrate Fae Yule and take time out of their busy schedule of slaughter and soul-absorbing to decorate the town and scarf down bucketfuls of eggnog? What do they sing about when gathered around a crackling fire? What kind of present is appropriate for the fellow who already has the gift of immortality?

It's time to sit on Trion's lap and ask for your greatest wish in game while jolly St. Hartsman tells you all about the lore and in-game goodies behind RIFT's festivities. Ho-ho-hit that jump and let's get started!

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Massively Exclusive: The story and presents behind RIFT's Fae Yule originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 13 Dec 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The first part of the first signature arc now available for City of Heroes

Eliot Lefebvre — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 18:30:00 EST

Filed under: Super-hero, City of Heroes, City of Villains, Lore, Patches, News items, Free-to-play

It's no real secret, but the Surviving Eight of City of Heroes are soon to be the Surviving Seven And There Used To Be One Other Guy. The first installment of the arc is now available for players on the live server, with the arc available in the store for free players coming in after the fact. It's a chance for players to interact in a big way with some of the game's major lore characters and see which of the setting-defining heroes is going to be taking a permanent trip to the land of wind and ghosts.

So what was the process behind the arc? As is often the case these days, Paragon Studios has furnished players with a new installment of the Intrepid Informer with more details on what the arcs entail and the major challenges of design. To the surprise of almost no one, the biggest issue that the designers faced was the simple question of relevance -- making sure that players felt important as they played through an arc focusing on the life and death of several NPCs. How successfully that goal was met remains to be seen, but CoH players can judge the first installment on its own merits right now.

The first part of the first signature arc now available for City of Heroes originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 21 Sep 2011 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Spotlight on the Trolls

Eliot Lefebvre — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 19:00:00 EST

Filed under: Super-hero, City of Heroes, City of Villains, Lore, Opinion, A Mild-Mannered Reporter

The low-level gangs that heroes face in City of Heroes follow a pretty set pattern. At the absolute bottom are street thugs with a little bit of superhuman muscle at the very top, just enough to remind you that you are in a city swarming with mutants and magic and all of that fun stuff. One step up, however, and you start to find gangs that are just a little more vicious, ones that genuinely couldn't thrive at all outside of the superheroic milieu. That's where the Trolls sit -- as a group of legitimately superhuman street thugs mostly kept in line by their own issues.

The Trolls are most likely the first villain group out of the starter areas that you'll encounter in numbers, if for no other reason than the simple fact that they're swarming the Hollows. You're also likely to start running into them if you deal with the Skulls long enough because the Skulls are what keeps the Trolls up and running. Trolls aren't like their lower-level counterparts -- they suffer from a disease, and feeding that ailment is the source of their power and reputation.

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A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Spotlight on the Trolls originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 24 Aug 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Funcom's Craig Morrison on background, story, and immersion

Jef Reahard — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 13:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Age of Conan, Culture, Game mechanics, MMO industry, News items, Opinion, Dev Diaries

It's been a while since we checked up on Age of Conan game director Craig Morrison's personal blog, and the latest update is a lengthy morsel designed to get gamers thinking about MMO story as something more than a marketing bullet point. Along the way, we get a glimpse of Morrison's thoughts on games ranging from MMOs, to Brink, to id Software's forthcoming RAGE.

While you might think that story is all about narrative and characterization, Morrison opines that a sense of place and attention to world-building details like societal structures are equally important. Quest text can be crucial too, and while gameplay is obviously a big deal, Morrison says that it's only part of the equation.

"Sure, a game can be good on its own mechanical merits, and first and foremost a game must be a compelling gameplay experience... but those truly great games? Those are the games that also create a sense of place for the player. A world they can believe in," he writes.

Funcom's Craig Morrison on background, story, and immersion originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 10 Aug 2011 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Quaggan SMASH: Guild Wars 2 reveals its most cute -- and deadly -- race yet

Justin Olivetti — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 16:30:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Previews, Guild Wars 2, Races

Look at that guy up there? Isn't he just the cutest thing ever? Oh, ignore the teeth -- Quaggans are big softies, really.

ArenaNet is back with another exposé on the races of Guild Wars 2. This time the studio's focusing on the Quaggan, which it calls "our most cuddly race." But what do cuddles and creatures that look as though they should already be sold as plushie dolls through the ArenaNet gift shop have to do with the rough-and-tumble fantasy world of Guild Wars 2?

While the peaceful and polite race wouldn't normally make waves, the Quaggans have an interesting ability to "hulk out" and go on rampages when they get mad. As the saying goes, "Do not make Quaggan angry. You would not like Quaggan when Quaggan is angry." Therefore Quaggans have to be mellow to avoid a non-stop WWE battle royal -- although at times, unleashing their inner aggression can save their hides. It's this dynamic ArenaNet latched onto while fleshing out the race's place in the world.

You can read more about the dolphin-like Quaggans over on the ArenaNet blog.

Quaggan SMASH: Guild Wars 2 reveals its most cute -- and deadly -- race yet originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 15 Jun 2011 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Mog Log: Class act

Eliot Lefebvre — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 18:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Final Fantasy XI, Classes, Culture, Lore, Opinion, Consoles, Final Fantasy XIV, The Mog Log

It's been an exciting couple of weeks of news if you're a fan of fantasies that claim a certain degree of finality. I could talk more about some of the slated changes for Final Fantasy XI, or I could talk about all of the updates we know about for Final Fantasy XIV... but I've already done the former, and I think I want a little more information before I do the latter. This week, we're sticking with the original plan, and that's talking about the classes as they intersect with the game's lore, because it's pretty blessedly astonishing.

Think about it for a second. Both Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XIV essentially let you be any class at any time. You aren't locked into a single selection a la World of Warcraft; your role is maleable based on the circumstance and what you feel like playing at any given time. By all rights, these classes could essentially be throw-away distinctions for abilities, without any sort of larger framework to live in. There's no strict mechanical reason why it would have to matter that a character was a White Mage if he could just as easily be a Warrior or a Scholar after a quick trip to the Mog House.

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The Mog Log: Class act originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 16 Apr 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Storyboard: The story of the story

Eliot Lefebvre — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 12:00:00 EST

Filed under: Culture, Events, in-game, Roleplaying, Storyboard, Miscellaneous

Two weeks ago, I went over the bare minimums of running a long-standing story in an MMO. Specifically, I was covering the more administrative and less narrative aspects of keeping a story going, due in no small part to the fact that you can't actually plan most of a story in a consensual environment. Instead, what you plan are setpieces and isolated incidents for everyone to interact with, smaller bits of stage setting that weave together into a larger and more satisfying whole.

If you couldn't guess, though, today I'm going to focus more on the latter. For an ongoing story in a game, you need to have some structure and some motivation to keep moving, so you're going to have to know a bit about creating engaging scenes and keeping everyone engaged. This, of course, is no small task in a tabletop game, where you have complete control of surrounding events and are creating a scene to facilitate the characters of others. It gets wonderfully more complex when you're setting up a scene for your character without any control of NPCs or surrounding environments.

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Storyboard: The story of the story originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 04 Mar 2011 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A look at the Norn events of Guild Wars 2

Eliot Lefebvre — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 18:30:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Game mechanics, Previews, News items, Guild Wars 2, Races

Norn Week continues for Guild Wars 2, and while that may sound a bit like Shark Week, it's not quite the same deal. The Norn are a bit more personable, for one. They're also the center of a new piece on designing and redesigning events on the official blog, penned by Jeffrey Vaughn. Focusing on the event design of the Wayfarer Hills (the starting area for Norn characters), the article covers both the general design procedure as well as the specifics for new Norn.

As Vaughn puts it, one of the centerpieces of the area's design is the four shrines to the Norn totem animals -- Bear, Raven, Wolf, and Snow Leopard. Originally all four were slated to be attacked by the Dragon-worshipping Sons of Svanir, but those events felt mechanically identical, resulting in changes being made to each shrine's event. Guild Wars 2 players can enjoy a slice of the Norn's Nordic flavor and lore with the latest installment of the week.

A look at the Norn events of Guild Wars 2 originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 23 Feb 2011 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Storyboard: Archetype discussion - the Mentor

Eliot Lefebvre — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 13:00:00 EST

Filed under: Opinion, Roleplaying, Storyboard, Miscellaneous

I keep expecting to run out of ideas for the various archetypes that I've been discussing, but more of them keep coming to me. The past six columns have all highlighted characters who are distinct from one another yet at the same time make compelling centers to their own stories. For roleplaying purposes, they move to the forefront of the ensemble cast when needed and slip to the middle the rest of the time.

But not everyone whose name is in the credits is necessarily going to be The Hero. Today's archetype probably won't be remembered as the one who accomplished any great deeds, unless you look at it by association. But she's still a vital character to any group, someone who provides an emotional and moral center amidst a horde of conflicting personalities -- even if no one might remember it. Today we're taking a look at the Mentor and all of the things that she brings to the table even from a more subtle role.

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Storyboard: Archetype discussion - the Mentor originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 11 Feb 2011 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Storyboard: Problem children, part the second

Eliot Lefebvre — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 13:30:00 EST

Filed under: Culture, Opinion, Roleplaying, Storyboard

Creating characters is hard work. It's hard enough when you're just concerned with making a really cool melee character who can kick other melee characters up and down the block, and it gets infinitely harder when you're trying to put together something that at least looks like a three-dimensional individual at the right angle. That having been said, there are certain ideas that are just problematic, character types that might seem like a good idea when you're staring at the screen but become a really bad one as soon as you hit "create."

Our last look at problem characters focused on the sort that you know you're creating at the time, the sort that sound nifty in your head but cause some serious problems in actual play. This time we're looking at the other side, the sort of thing that's far easier to notice while interacting with characters rather than while creating them. But it's still well worth keeping these types in mind so that if you start traveling down these roads, you can make a turn. On to the problem children!

Continue reading Storyboard: Problem children, part the second

Storyboard: Problem children, part the second originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 22 Oct 2010 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Earthrise offers new insights into weaponry

Eliot Lefebvre — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 09:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, Game mechanics, Previews, News items, Earthrise, Post-Apocalyptic

Weapons are useful. Nearly any MMO player will be happy to expound on the virtues of them, and so it's no surprise that Earthrise will be featuring its own selection. The development team recently released information and a few renders of the weapons that will be coming out for the post-apocalyptic game, detailing shotguns, assault rifles, and precision rifles. the forum post also details that each skill line is tied to a specific item -- meaning that shotguns don't simply encompass firing shells, but an entire suite of abilities based around using a shotgun.

Assault rifles are flexible, with both burst fire and sustained fire possible, as well as grenade launchers to give them area-of-effect attacks. Shotguns, meanwhile, specialize in close-range brutality, allowing for crowd control and quick dispatching of targets. Precision rifles take the "sniper" role, allowing players to hit single targets with extreme force over long distances. The full rundown can be found on the post on the official forums, which should be welcome news for players eager to hear more on the slightly-delayed science fiction MMO.

Earthrise offers new insights into weaponry originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 11 Aug 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Fan-run EVE competition offers prizes for best wallpaper

Brendan Drain — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 12:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, Screenshots, EVE Online, Contests, Wallpapers

EVE Online player Xiphos83 has teamed up with our friends over at Crazykinux's Musing to make an EVE competition that's definitely worth entering. Always on the look-out for a new desktop background, for this competition he wants to see your best attempt at a visually stunning EVE wallpaper. With all the graphical upgrades EVE has received over the years, it's always kept its spot as one of the most visually stunning MMOs out there. It lends itself spectacularly to taking awesome screenshots and making dramatic videos. Entries must be at a minimum resolution of 1280 x 1024 and should fit into either an "Action" or "Scenic" theme. Anything from well-posed snaps of your favourite EVE planet to full-on PvP shots are in with a chance to win.

Entry costs 10 million ISK and the winners will split the entire pot between them, with an additional 175 million ISK contributed by donors. Judging by the number of comments the competition has received so far, there could be a lot of ISK in that prize pot up for grabs. To enter, simply email your screenshot to crazykinux [AT] gmail [DOT] com along with your EVE character's name and wire your entry fee to character "CrazyKinux" in-game. Entries must be in by March 26th and to be in with a chance to win, make sure you read the contest rules.

Fan-run EVE competition offers prizes for best wallpaper originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 15 Mar 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Daily Grind: Watching while playing

Mike Schramm — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 08:00:00 EST

Filed under: Culture, Leveling, The Daily Grind

Let's be honest. As captivating as some of these games are, you can only kill hundreds of boars before the urge to multitask raises its ugly head. And so while many new players probably take in the game on its own merits, listening to the soundtrack and drinking in every clash and yell, I'd guess that the majority of us need something more than the game we've already played for many, many hours.

So today's question: what is it you do while playing? Me, I like catching up on television shows while I play-- while a show like Heroes or Lost demands my full attention, there are plenty of sitcoms and reruns that I like to just let roll in the background while I mine for ore or slaughter orcs. I know lots of other people listen to music while they play, and while I personally have never done it, some bloggers even tell me they blog while playing. I will admit, however, to practicing my ukulele while playing-- sitting in the battleground queue (way back when there were battleground queues) doesn't require me to do much with my hands.

So what do you find yourself doing most to divert your attention while playing?

The Daily Grind: Watching while playing originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 23 Nov 2007 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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