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The Daily Grind: What characters do you love to hate?

Eliot Lefebvre — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 08:00:00 EST

Filed under: Culture, Opinion, The Daily Grind, Miscellaneous

Kaliyo Djannis is one of my favorite companions in Star Wars: The Old Republic. Not because I like her as a person; she's really pretty unambiguously awful. But she's entertainingly awful, and working around the hindrances she provides makes the overall experience more entertaining.

Every MMO has its important NPCs, and some of them either are just plain annoying or fade into the woodwork. But then there are the enemies you love to hate, the allies who frustrate you in amusing ways. Some of the Guild Wars henchmen (Orion and Alesia in particular) were half-useless, but charmingly so. Every Final Fantasy XI player got nightmares about running from goblins, but they had a strange charm despite that.

So what about you? What's your favorite character whom you love to hate? An ally who's totally useless but makes life more interesting? An enemy who kills you in entertaining ways? Or just a story character who prompts a smile at his or her ineptitude?

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!

The Daily Grind: What characters do you love to hate? originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 02 Oct 2012 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Pirate101 head start begins on October 8th

Mike Foster — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 11:00:00 EST

Filed under: Interviews, Launches, New Titles, Free-to-Play, Interviews (Massively's), Kids, Wizard101, Family, Pirate101

If you're a fan of family-friendly MMO Wizard101 and can't wait to get a taste of KingsIsle's next project, then this is your lucky week because Pirate101 is set to begin its head start on October 8th. While the game doesn't officially hit digital shelves until October 15th, you can hop in and get to pirating beginning on the 8th by picking up specific membership types or snagging a pre-launch game bundle (beta participants are also invited). Additionally, Pirate101 game cards will be available in retail stores as of October 8th.

Pirate101 is in many ways the spiritual successor to Wizard101 and marks an ambitious undertaking by KingsIsle to build another engaging and successful MMO that is also family friendly and safe. We talked to producer Jay Gordon and associate producer Mike Stone to get an idea of the challenges the team faced and what may lie in store for those looking to loot and plunder.

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Pirate101 head start begins on October 8th originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 01 Oct 2012 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Storyboard: Demands

Eliot Lefebvre — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 12:00:00 EST

Filed under: Game Mechanics, Opinion, Roleplaying, Humor, Storyboard

Hello, fellow roleplayers! I'm here to yell at all of you, myself included, as well as pretty much every single company producing MMOs at the moment. If possible, I'd also like the opportunity to yell at Gary Gygax for perpetuating certain modes of play far past the point that they were healthy for roleplaying games as a genre, but these days that just seems disrespectful. (Yelling at him about Lejendary Adventure should still be fair game.)

What am I so whiny about? The fact that we're now more than a decade into the existence of MMOs as a genre, and yet the most successful games out there don't give the tiniest crap about roleplayers. And yes, you might say, that's their fault for being bad hosts -- but it's also our own fault. Because while the idea of trying to roleplay has been marginalized, we've been sitting by and nodding our heads and agreeing that yes, we're not doing anything important. So it's time for a rant.

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Storyboard: Demands originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MMOs: Are the fees worth it?

James Egan — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 17:30:00 EST

Filed under: Business Models, MMO Industry, Opinion

Do you feel you're getting enough value for your $15 per month MMO subscription? Casual gamers or people who are just too busy at times for games would likely say they're not getting their money's worth. It's one of the big reasons free-to-play business models are becoming increasingly popular. Dave Spohn, who covers internet games at About.com, looks at how game expenses compare to other forms of entertainment.

A lot of MMO gamers use this to justify their time sinks -- but the more time you play, the more value you get for your money. So if you play beyond 10 hours in a given week, you're actually getting your kicks for less than 50 cents per hour. Sometimes you're paying far less than 50 cents if you're a hardcore player of a particular title you sub to. But do you need to rack up ludicrous amounts of gaming time to really get the full benefit from that sub? To answer that question, Spohn looks at a few of the most popular forms of entertainment and breaks down their costs per hour in comparison to subscription games.

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MMOs: Are the fees worth it? originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 17 Jun 2008 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Cinemassively: Making of Richard Hawley's Second Life

Moo Money — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 12:30:00 EST

Filed under: Video, Second Life, Cinemassively

It's not every day that a musician takes you behind the scenes on how he performed. However, that's exactly what the team behind Richard Hawley's appearance in Second Life did. Hawley was there as a cheeky response to a ban on smoking in the UK, dubbing it the "first" virtual gig for "puffers." He even encouraged his fans in-world to light up. The American Cancer Society would not be pleased ...

What I'm more interested in, though, is the technology behind the performance. As you can see from the video, he was fitted with motion capture sensors, so that his real-life movements would be mimicked in-world. Most performers in SL use canned animations, which makes this quite refreshing!

Cinemassively: Making of Richard Hawley's Second Life originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 04 Dec 2007 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Why Second Life belongs at Massively

Barb Dybwad — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 07:30:00 EST

Filed under: MMO Industry, Second Life, Massively Meta, Virtual Worlds

Or: Why gamers and virtual worlders should care about each other.

We're shy of a month in to Massively's existence, and one of the more persistent bits of feedback we continue to receive regards the inclusion of Second Life content on a site about MMOs. There are really two questions to answer here:

Does Second Life coverage belong on Massively at all?
Is the amount of Second Life content disproportionate to its mindshare?

I will herein state a claim for a definitive yes on point 1, and readily admit that point 2 is arguably a matter of taste. Maintaining editorial balance surrounding all of the many, varied games we cover is an ongoing process, and we've selected a suite of "core games" based on many factors including subscriber/member numbers, overall buzz and mindshare in the industry, and input from a secret algorithm I would love to call "interestingness" if it weren't already taken. We are proud to offer in-depth Second Life coverage as one of those core current titles.

Overall, we're taking a broad definition of the concept of MMO here at Massively. While the majority of our coverage concerns traditionally "gamer"-oriented titles like City of Heroes, Tabula Rasa, Lord of the Rings Online et al, we're also providing both news and feature content surrounding more casual, often browser-based titles like Dofus, Runescape, and Flyff. Despite popular perception as niche titles, some of these games are rivaling the big dogs in terms of membership and hours played. In an industry toying with the idea of whether or not Facebook is an MMO and witnessing Google almost surely building one, we see projects like MetaPlace further blurring the lines between web-based social networking and Gaming with a capital G. In the middle of those two trends -- hardcore and casual games getting mashed up, and MMOs and the web getting mashed up -- sits Massively; and we're excited to be covering it all as it happens.

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Why Second Life belongs at Massively originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 28 Nov 2007 07:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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