MMO Updates

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• The Mog Log: Final Fantasy XIV 2.5 dungeons
• PAX South 2015: Why aren't MMOs more social?
• Defiance developers answer a dozen player questions
• PAX South 2015: Moonrise and State of Decay shine at the Undead Labs booth
• The Elder Scrolls Online answers player questions on its buy-to-play model
• The Daily Grind: Did you get anything out of PAX South?
• MMO Week in Review: Expansion or riot
• PAX South 2015: Camelot Unchained's proactive approach to community management
• One Shots: Haiku edition
• MMO Burnout: Engineers in spaaace

The Mog Log: Final Fantasy XIV 2.5 dungeons Posted: 26 Jan 2015 09:00 AM PST Filed under: Fantasy, Patches, Endgame, Opinion, Consoles, Final Fantasy XIV, The Mog Log, Dungeons, Subscription I mentioned a while back that it was kind of neat how the whole setup of Final Fantasy XIV had come full circle. At the start of the 2.0 patch cycle we were scurrying away from tonberries and bashing our heads against Demon Wall; in the final patch, we're back to both of those spots, along with the oft-seen and never-explored Keeper of the Lake in the midst of Mor Dhona's wreckage. It's a neat counterpoint. Having played through all of the dungeons now, well, you get to rescue tonberries. That alone makes the last set of dungeons worthy. As in every set of dungeons, there are winners and losers amidst the bosses, good points and bad ones. The dungeons as a whole are very reluctant to let you do much speeding through, with pulls being pretty aggressively gated. So let's talk mechanics, let's talk atmosphere, and let's carefully coach you through the process of kicking the crap out of your final expert roulette competitors. Continue reading The Mog Log: Final Fantasy XIV 2.5 dungeons The Mog Log: Final Fantasy XIV 2.5 dungeons originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 26 Jan 2015 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments

PAX South 2015: Why aren't MMOs more social? Posted: 26 Jan 2015 08:00 AM PST Filed under: World of Warcraft, Culture, Economy, Events (Real-World), MMO Industry, Endgame, Star Wars Galaxies, Virtual Worlds, Events (Massively's Coverage), Crafting, MMORPG On Friday, Alex Albrecht from ZergID and formerly of the Totally Rad Show headed up a PAX South panel about the social side of MMOs, inviting Patrick Mulhern from Lorehound, Jenesee Grey from Camelot Unchained, and me to join to discuss community in MMOs and why it's seemed so absent in recent years. Meg Campbell from YouTube moderated the panel discussion, calling us the PAX MMO guild. I admit that I considered naming this piece, "How Star Wars Galaxies did everything right and World of Warcraft did everything wrong" because I am obviously biased. But I really was completely surprised at how much SWG came up during the panel. Many former Galaxies players will tell you that there was a lot about that game that was pure crap, but when you talk about the social implementations of SWG, there just aren't many games that compare. Continue reading PAX South 2015: Why aren't MMOs more social? PAX South 2015: Why aren't MMOs more social? originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 26 Jan 2015 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments

Defiance developers answer a dozen player questions Posted: 26 Jan 2015 07:30 AM PST Filed under: Sci-Fi, Game Mechanics, Patches, News Items, Consoles, Community Q&A, Post-Apocalyptic, Defiance, Buy-to-Play Good news, Defiance fans: Your questions have been answered. Assuming that your questions were closely tied to the 12 questions answered here, of course. Otherwise your questions remain unanswered. But if you want to know more about expeditions or the upcoming Alcatraz hub, the answers have you covered. Whether or not you'll like the answers is another story entirely; expeditions are very much about straightforward shooting engagements with a full group using a drop-in-drop-out approach to forming a party. At this point there's no exact ETA for when the Alcatraz update will be available on the game's test server, although the developers are hopeful for "soon." The answers also discuss some long-standing issues and a few bugs as well as take on the issue of character customization, which isn't going to be expanded any time soon. Even if your question isn't among the ones answered, it still would behoove Defiance players to take a peek at what's in store for the game. Defiance developers answer a dozen player questions originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 26 Jan 2015 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments Source: Dev Q&A

PAX South 2015: Moonrise and State of Decay shine at the Undead Labs booth Posted: 26 Jan 2015 07:00 AM PST Filed under: Fantasy, Events (Real-World), Interviews, New Titles, PvP, PvE, Free-to-Play, Mobile, Hands-On, First Impressions, Events (Massively's Coverage), Post-Apocalyptic, Miscellaneous, Buy-to-Play Most media appointments at an event like PAX South 2015 work like this: You meet the person you're supposed to meet, that person shows you the game her studio is working on, and then you rush off to the next booth on your list while cursing yourself for not scheduling time for a snack. Undead Labs handled my PAX appointment a bit differently, sitting me down for back-to-back play sessions with brand-new tablet game Moonrise and a remastered version of State of Decay, the zombie survival game that put the studio on the map. It was a little jarring to go from adorable pet battles to being torn in half by a zombie, but the two-for-one session provided a nice glimpse of where Undead Labs has been and where it intends to go. Continue reading PAX South 2015: Moonrise and State of Decay shine at the Undead Labs booth PAX South 2015: Moonrise and State of Decay shine at the Undead Labs booth originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 26 Jan 2015 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments

The Elder Scrolls Online answers player questions on its buy-to-play model Posted: 26 Jan 2015 06:00 AM PST Filed under: Fantasy, Business Models, News Items, Consoles, The Elder Scrolls Online, Buy-to-Play Even if you were among the many players predicting a business model shift for The Elder Scrolls Online, a change in business models can be kind of disturbing. Suddenly the game doesn't behave according to all of the same rules you've been familiar with since launch. To help alleviate that confusion, the ESO dev team hosted a quick question-and-answer session with players over the weekend to help answer some of the major questions about the change, the next major patch, and balance issues moving forward in the game. To start with, if you've still got time cards for the game on your desk, fret not; you can still use them after the model transition to add the equivalent amount of subscription time to your account. You might want to use them ahead of time, though, since there are plans to add in a special veteran reward for players who stayed subscribed during the game's entire subscription lifespan. DLC prices are not finalized, but they are intended to be around the normal DLC price points for other games. Take a look through the whole of the answers for more details on balancing and issues like controller support. The Elder Scrolls Online answers player questions on its buy-to-play model originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 26 Jan 2015 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments Source: ESO Unlimited AMA

The Daily Grind: Did you get anything out of PAX South? Posted: 26 Jan 2015 05:00 AM PST Filed under: Events (Real-World), MMO Industry, Opinion, The Daily Grind, Star Citizen PAX South came and went, and outside of the jumpgate and mobiglass UI reveals for Star Citizen, none of the news coming from the con really interested me. What about you, Massively readers? Did you get anything out of this year's PAX South? 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: Did you get anything out of PAX South? originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 26 Jan 2015 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments

MMO Week in Review: Expansion or riot Posted: 25 Jan 2015 05:00 PM PST Filed under: Business Models, Events (Real-World), Expansions, MMO Industry, News Items, Massively Meta, Events (Massively's Coverage), Miscellaneous At the end of every week, we round up the best and most popular news stories, exclusive features, and insightful columns published on Massively and then present them all in one convenient place. If you missed a big MMO or WoW Insider story last week, you've come to the right post. You gotta love a week with tons of huge MMO news! Guild Wars 2 avoided a riot by announcing its first expansion, The Elder Scrolls Online revealed it's going buy-to-play ahead of its June console launch, and Star Citizen declared that its persistent MMO portion will roll out to testers this year. Meanwhile, PAX South has wrapped up; here's a look at what we've published so far: PAX South 2015: O'Brien and Johanson on Guild Wars 2's Heart of Thorns PAX South 2015: Garriott and Long talk Shroud of the Avatar PAX South 2015: Camelot Unchained's proactive community management PAX South 2015: Hangin' with Frontier, playin' Elite on the Oculus Rift PAX South 2015: SWTOR reveals its plans for this year PAX South 2015: Notes from a Star Citizen town hall PAX South 2015: Slaying giants in Motiga's Gigantic PAX South 2015: The Untitled Game is whatever you want it to be PAX South 2015: The Guild Wars 2 Heart of Thorns experience Read on for the rest of this week's top MMO stories. Continue reading MMO Week in Review: Expansion or riot MMO Week in Review: Expansion or riot originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 25 Jan 2015 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments

PAX South 2015: Camelot Unchained's proactive approach to community management Posted: 25 Jan 2015 03:00 PM PST Filed under: Fantasy, Events (Real-World), Interviews, New Titles, Opinion, Events (Massively's Coverage), Camelot Unchained, MMORPG In the crowdfunded independent industry, we are starting to see some ups and downs. Backers have seen some games fail and other games soar. One of those games that seems to be doing very well, at least if you ask its Community Manager Jenesee Grey and its legions of fans, is Camelot Unchained. At this weekend's PAX South, I spoke to Grey about her experience as a CM for a crowdfunded game. Continue reading PAX South 2015: Camelot Unchained's proactive approach to community management PAX South 2015: Camelot Unchained's proactive approach to community management originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 25 Jan 2015 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments

One Shots: Haiku edition Posted: 25 Jan 2015 01:00 PM PST Filed under: Screenshots, Culture, Star Trek Online, One Shots, The Secret World, Final Fantasy XIV, Miscellaneous, Elite: Dangerous Believe it or not, I have been listening to you guys in the comments, and I know that there's been an ongoing desire for One Shots to provide the full-size pictures that are otherwise shrunk by our size limitations. So I'm happy to announce that starting this week, I'm including a gallery at the end of the column that will allow you to pull up larger screenshots if so desired. A few weeks ago I issued a screenshot challenge for folks to send in a haiku poem in addition to their picture. A select few of you did, starting with this striking pose from Final Fantasy XIV by reader Wolfyseyes: Facing this challenge One thought repeats in my mind: Please, please, please don't suck Continue reading One Shots: Haiku edition One Shots: Haiku edition originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 25 Jan 2015 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments

MMO Burnout: Engineers in spaaace Posted: 25 Jan 2015 11:00 AM PST Filed under: Sci-Fi, Game Mechanics, MMO Industry, PvP, PvE, Opinion, Sandbox I missed the whole Minecraft craze. I was stupidly grinding my virtual life away in various MMORPGs, plus I couldn't get past Minecraft's so-fugly-it's-hip aesthetic. No matter, though, because Space Engineers takes Minecraft's core concepts and dolls them up with pleasing visuals, a nifty near future sci-fi setting, and addictive gameplay that's much more than the sum of its parts. Continue reading MMO Burnout: Engineers in spaaace MMO Burnout: Engineers in spaaace originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 25 Jan 2015 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments

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