The Digital Continuum: Expanding horizontally
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Age of Conan, Expansions, Opinion, The Digital Continuum
The worlds we live in are always expanding some way or another. In our real world, we get promotions or new career opportunities. In our virtual equivalents, it’s level cap raises and new classes. Yet for years and years, too many expansions have overlooked what they’re truly capable of accomplishing.
In real life, we can’t go back and make our teens, twenties and thirties better than they once were because that’s physically impossible. So why in these worlds of infinite possibilities, have countless developers scoffed at the chance to do this very thing?
Lucky for us, Funcom and Blizzard recently both asked themselves this very question. While the latter may be doing something much more grandiose than the former, both deserve our praise for finally turning around and swimming upstream in a current of same old grind goals. Plus, it doesn’t hurt that Blizzard is sitting on the Mt. Everest of money hills.
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The Digital Continuum: Expanding horizontally originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 24 Aug 2009 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The Digital Continuum: Expanding horizontally part 2
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Age of Conan, Expansions, Opinion, The Digital Continuum
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The Digital Continuum: Expanding horizontally part 2 originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 24 Aug 2009 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The Digital Continuum: The people problem
Filed under: Age of Conan, News items, Opinion, The Digital Continuum
As I’ve spent time with Age of Conan this last week, something has been preventing me from finding a nice groove to settle down into. Mostly, it’s from people being jerks. Then again, that could be what I get for venturing into a PvP server. If you haven’t already guessed, this week’s The Digital Continuum strives to dig down deep into what makes a community tick, and why that can potentially matter more than any game feature on the back of the box.
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The Digital Continuum: The people problem originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 20 Jul 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The Daily Grind: Does playing an MMO pique your interest about its origins?
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Sci-fi, Age of Conan, Lord of the Rings Online, Culture, Lore, MMO industry, Star Trek Online, The Daily Grind
MMOs are rarely stand-alone entities; there are exceptions of course but most are created thanks to a fan base from some other medium. Some, like WoW, are based on older games (often completely different types of games like an RTS or RPG) with a rich mythology that lends themselves perfectly to transcend its original form and become an MMO. Others, like Age of Conan and Star Trek, have their origins in novels, film franchises or even a TV series. I know, I know, I’m still waiting and living in hope of that Firefly MMO just like the rest of you.
So my question for you is this: Do you play an MMO because of where it came from? Are you a Trekkie who is dying to captain your own ship? Did you play Warcraft back in the days of The Frozen Throne and gravitate naturally to the MMO? On the flipside, did the lore of LotRO make you want to read Tolkien’s books? For you, what came first, the origins or the game?
The Daily Grind: Does playing an MMO pique your interest about its origins? originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 18 Jul 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The Daily Grind: What part of MMOs do you not like?
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Sci-fi, Age of Conan, Aion, EVE Online, Game mechanics, The Daily Grind
MMOs are well known for variety, in fact they’re famous for it. The world (whichever you might choose) is quite literally your oyster, You can mine, you can craft, you can kill and you can quest. Part of the charm of these virtual worlds is the freedom to do or not do whatever you want. Some people, for example, live for PvP, while others spend their time making things, digging up plants or drifting in the depths of space mining asteroids and other celestial bodies.
However most people have one thing that they hate doing. No MMO out there is perfect, there’s always going to be some aspect of them which drives people bonkers. This could be a nitpick with game mechanics, or perhaps a boring quest. What about long flight times to get from A to B or a raid lock out period? Perhaps you hate fishing or squinting looking for herb nodes. Maybe it’s PUGs or running a specific instance. Mine is PvP, waiting for an hour for raids to get started and rescuing scantily-clad maidens tied to trees (AoC I’m looking at you). What’s yours?
The Daily Grind: What part of MMOs do you not like? originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 14 Jul 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The Daily Grind: How did you discover MMOs?
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Age of Conan, EverQuest, Lord of the Rings Online, Culture, MMO industry, The Daily Grind
So, constant readers, how did you discover the strange new world of the MMO? Do you just play one or do you now find yourself torn between many different words and cultures. Were you initially sceptical about this MMO lark, or did you embrace online gaming with enthusiasm and have not looked back since?
The Daily Grind: How did you discover MMOs? originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 26 Jun 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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GDC09: A candid interview with Age of Conan’s game director
Filed under: Fantasy, Age of Conan, News items, Massively Interviews, Massively Event Coverage
Last week at GDC 2009 was exceptionally busy, but that didn’t stop us from talking with Age of Conan’s game director Craig Morrison and discussing what went wrong with the game at launch and what’s been done since to improve upon it.
You’re in for a treat, we think.
After the jump, you’ll also find discussion on free trails for this year, the DX10 client, successful MMOs and upcoming content philosopy for Age of Conan. It’s a bounty of information even King Conan would be proud to see!%Gallery-9836%
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GDC09: A candid interview with Age of Conan’s game director originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 30 Mar 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The World outside Warcraft
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Sci-fi, Age of Conan, EVE Online, Lord of the Rings Online, Game mechanics, MMO industry, Warhammer Online, Opinion, Vanguard
Blizzard’s fantasy title World of Warcraft is everywhere these days, perhaps the only title to really pierce the veil between MMOs and mainstream media. For some massively multiplayer online gamers, WoW is the end-all be-all of titles out there. Can over 11 million people be wrong? Definitely not, we’d say. World of Warcraft has very much shaped the industry and writers at Massively have racked up ludicrous amounts of time spent in the game. But there are other engaging options out there, which is the point of an article written by Earnest Cavalli for The Portland Mercury’s ‘Blogtown’.
In “What’s Your Anti-Warcraft?” Cavalli looks at the good, bad, and the ugly among the MMOs on the market. He praises the virtues of Lord of the Rings Online with its ability to pull you into the setting, the riskier style of EVE Online, and the personal legacy of achievements you can establish in Warhammer Online. Cavalli takes aim at Age of Conan though, and lambasts Vanguard: Saga of Heroes as well.
If you’re offended by strong language, look away, because Cavalli doesn’t really pull any punches in his assessment of these titles. Check out “What’s Your Anti-Warcraft?” and see if you agree with his take on the MMO world beyond WoW’s ever-expanding borders.
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The World outside Warcraft originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 09 Feb 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Behind the Curtain: Multiple MMOs
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Sci-fi, Age of Conan, EVE Online, Culture, Game mechanics, Opinion, Star Wars Galaxies, Behind the Curtain
Is one MMO ever enough?
Lots of people play more than one MMO. Among the staff here at Massively, you would be hard pressed to find a writer with only one active subscription. Ever the exception however, I am a one-game kind of guy.
“Is that through choice, or necessity though, Craig?” I hear you cry. The answer is that it’s a little of both. It’s easy to say that I don’t have enough time to play a couple of MMOs, but if I was really honest with myself, I’d admit to that being a lie. If I’m able to free up a couple of hours every couple of nights to play World of Warcraft, then why can’t I alternate those nights, for example, between WoW and another game?
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Behind the Curtain: Multiple MMOs originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 20 Dec 2008 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The Best of Massively: Five stories that scandalized you
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Age of Conan, Culture, Warhammer Online
Massively is just a week and a half away from its first birthday, and we’re winding our Best of Massively series down in the final days! This week we’re listing five stories we wrote that caused a lot of people to get very angry — sometimes at us, sometimes at game developers or other industry figures, and sometimes at all of the above!
If you have a thick skin for controversy (or if you’re drawn to it like a moth to a flame like a lot of us are!), check out the list. Just… let’s not let it come to violence, okay?
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