Know Your LotRO Lore: The Elves
Filed under: Fantasy, Lord of the Rings Online, Lore, Education, Know Your LotRO Lore
Welcome to Know Your LotRO Lore, a new weekly column here at Massively showcasing the lore of J.R.R. Tolkien’s world as it intersects with Turbine’s Lord of the Rings Online. The Elf is possibly the most intricately-detailed race in all of J.R.R. Tolkien’s works. He created their histories, bloodlines and origins throughout his entire life, from before The Hobbit to works published after his death. Did Tolkien invent Elves? No, but he did redefine them as they’re portrayed today in modern fantasy settings. Mostly everything we see in WoW, Warhammer, and of course LotRO come from Tolkien’s…
Know Your LotRO Lore: The Elves originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 06 Jan 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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MMOGology: Looking for incentive to group
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Game mechanics, Leveling, Grouping, Opinion, MMOGology
In a post-World of Warcraft world the concept of grouping while leveling has changed. Where grouping was once essential to survival in MMOGs, today it’s an optional extra. As a result, leveling up can feel pretty lonely. In most MMOGs it’s no longer necessary to group unless you’re running an instanced dungeon or the rare quest geared toward a specific number of players. While I love the fact that I can play WoW on my own terms and my own schedule I feel like I’m missing out on the whole “massively multiplayer” thing. Isn’t that the reason we play MMOGs to begin with? Why should we wait until end-game raid content to play together?
Most people don’t group while leveling because there’s no real incentive to group. Soloing nets you more XP than grouping and most of the content is easy to take on by yourself. There’s no waiting around for others, no sharing of loot, and no arguing about what to do when. So why bother? I’d like to see developers provide players with more incentive to level up together. In my opinion, MMOGs should always work to increase entertainment value when players work together. Read on to explore ways to achieve that objective.
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MMOGology: Looking for incentive to group originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 05 Jan 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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EVE Evolved: The art of tanking - Armour tanking
Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Game mechanics, Guides, PvP, Tips and tricks, PvE, Hands-on, Education, EVE Evolved
Back in 2005, I became obsessed with the art of tanking in EVE Online. Before writing the definitive tanking guide for EON issue 2 (for which the EVE community dubbed me “the tanking guy”), I spent a lot of time working out the mathematics behind the art. At a time when people preferred a trial and error approach to combat, I went as far as to create a spreadsheet to automate calculations on the strength of your tank. Over the years, more advanced tools like EFT (EVE Fitting Tool) have been released which have this functionality and more. In this short series of articles, I aim to cover…
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EVE Evolved: The art of tanking - Armour tanking originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 05 Jan 2009 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The week in Massively features
Filed under: At a glance, Massively meta
GamerDNA and Massively look back at the MMO year in review Today’s column features data from July through December. GamerDNA being a startup, our data collection in the first half of the year was not consistent enough to use for anything but wild guessing and drinking games. Listen, a start up tech company can make ANYTHING into a drinking game.
Anti-Aliased: Top 5 things MMOs should learn in the new year I am absolutely no more inventive than every other blog in existence, this edition of Anti-Aliased is dedicated to the top 5 things the industry…
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The week in Massively features originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 04 Jan 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Behind the Curtain: Take a look back
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Sci-fi, Fury, Culture, Events, in-game, Expansions, Game mechanics, Launches, MMO industry, New titles, Warhammer Online, Opinion, Tabula Rasa, Behind the Curtain
Brace yourself for the obligatory ‘New Year’ post. I’d resolve to lose weight, tone up and be kinder to my fellow man, but I’d be lying. Not because I’m weak and won’t follow through on them, but because I don’t need to. I’m practically perfect in every way.
Except not really. I’m lying. I also hate Mary Poppins with a cold, implacable hatred. But that’s neither here nor there.
It’s been a year of ups and downs in the MMO world. We’ve seen World of Warcraft go from strength to strength with an expansion pack which knocked the socks off of Burning Crusade. Say what you will about Blizzard, but it’s always good to see a company that’s willing and able to learn not only from its past mistakes, but its past successes. We’ve seen the long-awaitied launch of Warhammer Online, but we’ve also seen some downers, with Tabula Rasa going down the tubes, and Fury falling over. Although, not as many people were upset about Fury, given that it was terrible from start to finish.
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Behind the Curtain: Take a look back originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 03 Jan 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The Digital Continuum: Sci-fi geeks need to experience Jumpgate Evolution
Filed under: Sci-fi, Jumpgate Evolution, New titles, Opinion
Spring is right around the corner and with it comes warmer weather, rain showers, blossoming fauna and Jumpgate Evolution. As much as I’d love to think there are thousands of you out there that know all about the game, I get the feeling that in actuality the number is significantly lower. Granted, real-time action space shooter MMOs aren’t exactly a mass market genre, so it’s probably a fair shake overall. But what’s really worrying me is that even those who should be excited for Jumpgate Evolution are seemingly unaware of it’s forthcoming release. This won’t do, and so I present to you the…
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The Digital Continuum: Sci-fi geeks need to experience Jumpgate Evolution originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 03 Jan 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Why you should be playing City of Heroes: Emotes
Filed under: Super-hero, Screenshots, City of Heroes, City of Villains, Opinion, Humor, Why You Should Be Playing
Sure, almost all MMOGs have emotes. They’ve been there forever. But much like the incredibly involved character creator, City of Heroes boasts a wide range of very silly and fun choices, perfect for those who love to add in that little oomph when role-playing or just messing around with friends. Also, unlike the fire-and-forget-it emote development of many other MMOs, the City of Heroes developers continue to slowly add new emotes in to the game, both through patches and microtransaction packs. Some are easy to find through the chat menus, while others are a bit off the beaten path, and short…
Why you should be playing City of Heroes: Emotes originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 02 Jan 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The death of Lively and some lessons about complexity
Filed under: Game mechanics, Opinion, Second Life, Virtual worlds, Lively
Google’s Lively presents us with an interesting scenario. It was literally a checklist of what critics have been saying that virtual environments such as Linden Lab’s Second Life absolutely must have in order to make it.
A simplified user-interface, embedded in the Web-browser, content designed by professionals rather than (mostly) amateurs, a ‘room’ (or contained space) model rather than a widespread world. While it was touted as having no requirement for a separate downloadable client, that wasn’t actually true — it did actually have one, though it was relatively painless to download and…
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The death of Lively and some lessons about complexity originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 02 Jan 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Anti-Aliased: Top 5 things MMOs should learn in the new year
Filed under: Culture, Game mechanics, MMO industry, Opinion, Virtual worlds, Anti-Aliased
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Well Happy New Year Massively readers! Hope everything is working out for you all on this second day of the year 2009! Did you get caught up on your favorite MMO yesterday during the holiday? With the new year finally here, we have all sorts of new games in production and slated for a 2009 release. But that doesn’t mean we should entirely forget about 2008. All sorts of things have happened in 2008 that the industry and players can learn from, but what should make the classic “end of…
Continue reading Anti-Aliased: Top 5 things MMOs should learn in the new year
Anti-Aliased: Top 5 things MMOs should learn in the new year originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 02 Jan 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Teenager arrested for making suicide threat to Blizzard rep
Filed under: World of Warcraft, News items, Opinion
In a sad bit of news to start the new year, it would appear that a teenager in Fairfield Township, Ohio, was taken into custody yesterday for falsely claiming that he would commit suicide if a Blizzard support representative did not give in to his request. The young man, who remains nameless due to being underage, was arrested for “inducing panic” which carries a first-degree misdemeanor charge according to the Middletown Journal.
The young man was chatting with a Blizzard rep and made the statement that he was “suicidal and that the game was the only thing that he had to live for.” Whether or not this was World of Warcraft or a Battle.net account was not disclosed, but even still, it has raised the question in a few circles if Blizzard was beyond the bounds in bringing the police into this situation - or why the police might arrest someone for it.
Continue reading Teenager arrested for making suicide threat to Blizzard rep
Teenager arrested for making suicide threat to Blizzard rep originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 01 Jan 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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