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MMObility: The 16 MMOs in my pocket

Beau Hindman — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 16:00:00 EST

Filed under: Opinion, Free-to-play, Browser, Mobile, Hands-on, Casual, MMORTS, Miscellaneous, MMObility

I have a smartphone that is pretty much filled to the brim with actual, functional, persistent MMORPGs. Some of them are three-dimensional romps through massive worlds filled with dungeons and dragons; others are representational browser-based games that work through the phone's native browser; and the rest are hardly nothing more than a few dots on the screen and impressionistic gameplay.

Still, they are MMOs. I love having access to them, and over the last year I have actually grown to love simple, clever design and basic artwork over almost anything else. Forget Guild Wars 2; we'll hear enough about that to make us choke. Sure, it might be a fun game, but I'm a tech guy from the Bizarro universe. I prefer to see how little tech I need to game with. I want to push the limits even lower.

Anyway, it's springtime here in Texas, so it's time to clean out all sorts of crap from my life. I organize all of my hundreds of songs, films, movies and art pieces and get my digital life in order as well. This process includes tweaking my current line-up of basic technology and downloading any updates for the games that exist on those devices. It's time to cull the weak and glorify the wonderful.

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MMObility: The 16 MMOs in my pocket originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 02 Mar 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MMObility: Some new gear, and some new news

Beau Hindman — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 11:00:00 EST

Filed under: Business models, Launches, MMO industry, New titles, Previews, Opinion, Free-to-play, Browser, Mobile, Casual, Miscellaneous, MMObility

It's been a pretty exciting time in mobile gaming this week. Not only am I finding more reasons to love minimal specs and portable gaming, but I see even more applications coming down the pike that will make mobile gaming even more exciting and possible. I envision a future in which cloud computing, storage and high-speed internet make devices thinner, lighter, and faster. Of course, this all depends on several factors from developers who might wish to take advantage of the technologies to companies that will provide the pipeline to us all.

In my opinion, it's not a matter of if but when this switch to portable, cloud-based gaming happens. It just makes sense when you look at all of the ways we have switched to a more cloud-based world. I write these articles through the cloud; I do my banking on a website that is hosted somewhere far, far away. If you've ever bought a product online, you have trusted the internet in more ways than one.

So let's take a look at some of the exciting new mobile goodies I discovered this week!

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MMObility: Some new gear, and some new news originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 13 Jan 2012 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MMObility: The year in mobile

Beau Hindman — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 18:00:00 EST

Filed under: Screenshots, Interviews, News items, Opinion, Free-to-play, Mobile, Casual, MMObility

What a year, huh? We gamers have seen a lot of changes, but especially in the mobile market. New devices came and went, technologies spread out even further in the world, and MMO gaming established itself on the smallest screens possible. Of course, the mobile market is not as large as the standard MMO market, but it is definitely growing. As more devices appear, more players come to fill up the games.

Our phones are not what they used to be, even five years ago. They are now truly tiny and powerful computing devices that are always connected. A player can literally live all of his digital life on one small device. If we look at the laptop and netbook market, we see even more growth and power. All of these devices need games to play on them, and MMOs fit perfectly into the mobile lifestyle.

Click past the cut and I'll recap many of the best stories from Massively's mobile coverage!

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MMObility: The year in mobile originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 30 Dec 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MMObility: OnLive might just be perfect for MMOs

Beau Hindman — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 15:00:00 EST

Filed under: Business models, Opinion, Browser, Consoles, Casual, MMOFPS, Miscellaneous, MMObility

I sat in my bed last night, wanting to play something. I had already been playing my staple of browser-based MMOs. I had already crafted a bunch of arrows to grind on in RuneScape, ensured something was being built in Illyriad, and made note to try some of the new content in a few more of my favorites. I wanted to try something single-player, though, but my desktop was in the other room. It was chilly, and my dogs had weighed down the covers.

So I pulled up my laptop and actually plugged it into my router instead of going wireless. I fired up OnLive, the miracle service that streams games to your device. Within a few minutes, I was shooting, exploring, and leveling in games that my little laptop would probably have had a very hard time running on its own. This got me thinking about OnLive's recent announcement about working with MMOs to stream them to players all over the world. Would it work? How would it work?

Click past the cut and let's discuss it!

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MMObility: OnLive might just be perfect for MMOs originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 21 Oct 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MMO impressions from Eurogamer Expo 2011

Brendan Drain — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 13:00:00 EST

Filed under: Betas, Fantasy, Sci-fi, Galleries, Culture, Events, real-world, Game mechanics, New titles, PvE, Opinion, Guild Wars 2, Hands-on, Star Wars: The Old Republic

Some of the industry's biggest names were at Eurogamer Expo last week, including BioWare, NCsoft and Trion Worlds. I was on the floor at the expo to get some hands-on experience with several upcoming MMOs and countless singleplayer games. Guild Wars 2 and Star Wars: The Old Republic stole the show, with hands-on gameplay sessions and in-depth developer talks. BioWare also made the bold move of announcing SWTOR's official release date during its talk at the convention. In addition to promoting the heck out of RIFT, Trion showed off upcoming MMORTS End of Nations with a hands-on demo and encouraged attendees to sign up to the End of Nations newsletter.

RIFT and World of Tanks were both playable on the show floor for the entire weekend, but nothing new was being shown. Hack-and-slash adventure RPG Dark Souls and the beautifully zen Journey both demonstrated incredibly innovative multiplayer aspects that I'll likely cover in my weekly Not So Massively column, but neither falls neatly into the MMO box. OnLive had a spectacular showing at the expo, giving away free home consoles to every attendee and demonstrating the system's surprisingly lag-free gameplay on the floor. We discovered that although there are no MMOs in OnLive's current lineup, this isn't due to technical infeasibility, so we may yet see MMOs launched on the service.

Skip past the cut for my in-depth hands-on impressions of Guild Wars 2, Star Wars: The Old Republic and End of Nations from Eurogamer Expo 2011.

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MMO impressions from Eurogamer Expo 2011 originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 01 Oct 2011 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MMOs may be on the horizon for OnLive

Brendan Drain — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 22:00:00 EST

Filed under: Business models, MMO industry, News items, Miscellaneous

The OnLive gaming platform officially launched in the US last year, bringing a new on-demand gaming service to homes with broadband internet connections. OnLive hosts and renders games on a computing cloud and delivers the resulting video feed over the internet. The potentially revolutionary system lets people play high-end games on low-end computers, but has a minimum bandwidth requirement of 2Mbit.

OnLive celebrated its UK release this week during Eurogamer Expo in London, and we were on the floor to ask the OnLive staff some questions about the service. Representatives were able to confirm that there are plans to bring MMOs to the OnLive service in the future but no solid deals had been made. The only thing keeping MMOs out of the game catalogue is the fact that no deals have been signed with MMO publishers.

OnLive representatives stated that it would be unlikely to see Activision-Blizzard's games like World of Warcraft on OnLive, but that Star Wars: The Old Republic and other MMOs could eventually be licensed to both the PC client and the home console. Talks are already underway with Electronic Arts, which released its first game on the system this week to coincide with the UK launch. When asked about latency issues, staff explained that the service already supports a large number of multiplayer titles with similar connectivity requirements to MMOs and latency is not a problem in those games.

MMOs may be on the horizon for OnLive originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 23 Sep 2011 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Free for All: The end of physical media

Beau Hindman — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 15:00:00 EST

Filed under: Culture, Opinion, Humor, Free for All, Miscellaneous

In my ongoing journey to find my next laptop, I have begun to suffer from tunnel vision. After all, there are only so many ways to package a processor, some RAM and a graphics card or chip. Sure, sure, I can become an obsessed overclocker and work hard to squeeze the most power out of a PC possible, but instead I would rather pay for a good-quality, mid-range device. I use the heck out of the one I have now, and it was only $500.

One thing I am noticing is that I always snicker when I read websites that brag about included optical drives, which do me very little good but cost me more money. I rarely, if ever, use a CD or DVD burner. There's just no reason to. I can upload 20gb videos to my YouTube account and use services to send larger files. I rarely have a need even for that. Now that my wife and I have Pandora and Spotify, we don't even need to worry about physical libraries of music... it's streamed to us wirelessly.

What does this lack of physical media mean for the free-to-play gaming world? Well, a lot. click past the cut and we'll discuss it.

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Free for All: The end of physical media originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 31 Aug 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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EA's Riccitiello says game discs aren't going away

Jef Reahard — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 13:00:00 EST

Filed under: Business models, Interviews, MMO industry, Miscellaneous

While Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello thinks digital distribution will finally outstrip its physical counterpart in 2011, he stops short of predicting the demise of retail packaging. In the second part of an interview conducted by Industry Gamers, the EA bossman sings the praises of the disc and debunks trendy cloud computing-based notions of gaming's near future.

"Sometimes you're not going to play because your internet connection is down and sometimes delivering a game by streaming is a really inefficient way to do it," Riccitiello says, in what might be music to the ears of gaming luddites dismayed at the thought of renouncing actual ownership of their collections. Riccitiello goes on to posit that services like OnLive will struggle with latency-dependent titles (your average first person shooter, for example) and ultimately concludes that the days of 100% digital delivery are pretty far into the future.

EA's Riccitiello says game discs aren't going away originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 12 Jan 2011 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Warner Bros. appoints Turbine's new boss

Justin Olivetti — Thu, 27 May 2010 11:30:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Asheron's Call, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Lord of the Rings Online, MMO industry

Ever since hearing the news of Turbine's acquisition by Warner Bros. last month, players have been anxiously awaiting a sign of how this might affect Asheron's Call, Dungeons & Dragons Online and Lord of the Rings Online. While answers are still in short supply, now we know who Turbine answers to: Jeff Junge.

Junge was named Senior Vice President of Online Games and Digital Games Platforms by Warner Bros., a new position for the company. He was a key player in the purchase of Turbine, and will now be Turbine's direct boss. Junge has had a lot of influence within Warner Bros. as they moved into the games industry -- he convinced them to invest in OnLive, and led the initiative to purchase other game studios, such as Rocksteady Games and Midway Games.

As one of the largest independent MMO studios is folded into the WB umbrella, we will continue to keep a close eye on the direction Junge and WB will take Turbine in the future. You can read the full press release here.

Warner Bros. appoints Turbine's new boss originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 27 May 2010 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Gaikai and OnLive both a no-show at E3 Expo 2009

James Egan — Wed, 27 May 2009 18:00:00 EST

Filed under: Events, real-world, MMO industry, News items, Browser

We heard about two competing gaming services at GDC 2009 that could revolutionize the video game industry, if the technology announced can live up to its claims: OnLive and Gaikai. Both services aim to stream game content to users while the graphics crunching is handled on company servers, thereby eliminating the escalating hardware barriers to playing the latest and greatest titles -- a home user's low-end machine would be able to run high-end games. Gaikai head David Perry (of Acclaim) has said that the company's "Streaming Worlds" technology is suited to handle MMOs, and has specifically stated that World of Warcraft and EVE Online can already be streamed to browsers.

When we heard about these companies at GDC we were hoping to hear more a bit later in the year, but it seems that neither OnLive nor Gaikai will be at the E3 Expo 2009. Gaikai cites patent filings as the reason they've had to pull out from E3 while OnLive states that their service doesn't fit in with the 'retail-orientation' of E3. We'll keep an eye on both companies as time goes on, though at this point only Gaikai has announced that they plan to stream MMOs.

Gaikai and OnLive both a no-show at E3 Expo 2009 originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 27 May 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Daily Grind: Will streaming technology revolutionize MMO gameplay?

James Egan — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 08:00:00 EST

Filed under: World of Warcraft, EVE Online, MMO industry, Opinion, Browser, The Daily Grind

Along with much of the gaming world, we were excited to hear the GDC 09 news about OnLive and Gaikai. The services both companies will offer (likely to enter beta testing in the next year) will eliminate the graphics performance of your computer as a barrier to play. The concept is that the company's servers do all the graphics crunching and stream the output to your computer, so all you would need is a decent broadband connection.

In the case of Gaikai and its Streaming Worlds technology, they've specifically mentioned MMO play through their service for World of Warcraft and EVE Online. You don't need to download clients or patches to your own machine, that'll be done remotely on the Gaikai servers. They'll stream games right to your web browser via Flash. If this all pans out as they say it will, it'll be feasible to run MMOs on older machines as well as on laptops that are normally considered below spec to run these titles.

While there are some big "IFs" with how this will work out, particularly as it concerns latency, do you feel the accessibility these services can offer could revolutionize MMO gaming?

The Daily Grind: Will streaming technology revolutionize MMO gameplay? originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 27 Mar 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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GDC09: Gaikai digital gaming service to stream MMOs to web browsers

James Egan — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 16:00:00 EST

Filed under: MMO industry, News items, Browser, Massively Event Coverage

One of the more interesting announcements to come out of GDC 2009 is OnLive, which will allow low-end PCs to play high-end games via streaming technology, piping in a game experience where all the heavy (graphics) lifting is done on the company's servers. It's a significant step forward in gaming provided it lives up to expectations, and the fact that it's fully cross-platform means that Mac users will be able to play PC titles never ported for the OS. OnLive isn't alone in wanting to make games more accessible though, particularly when it comes to MMOs.

Acclaim CEO David Perry told GameDaily, "We have already filed a patent on what OnLive is doing. I'm working with a team called Gaikai... we have World of Warcraft and EVE Online running." Since Gaikai's "Streaming Worlds" technology involves servers which remotely do the graphics crunching required of most modern games and streams the game to a web browser, all one needs is a machine with a good internet connection. No game client downloads are required. "You can play World of Warcraft anytime, on any browser," said Perry. The OnLive and Gaikai services are still in development and beta testing for both may begin this Winter, if not sooner.

GDC09: Gaikai digital gaming service to stream MMOs to web browsers originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 26 Mar 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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