MMO Clerks

The Team Fortress 2 blog deliberately buried the lede in its post yesterday, following 84 words of trivial nonsense with “Oh, also: Crafting.” As in, yes, a weapon-making system will be coming to…

I’ll respectfully disagree with Geoff Keighley, the announcement of Batman: Arkham Asylum 2 doesn’t quite deliver the “biggest surprise premiere!” thrill he told us to expect. Granted, the Spike…

Quite possibly one of the stranger screenshots we’ve gotten from Star Wars Galaxies is today’s image sent in to us by Obraik. While at first glance you may think “oh, a lovely town image” it occurs to you, something isn’t quite right — you just can’t help but notice the enormous mechanical monstrosity stomping its way across the scene. We’ll turn it over to Obraik to explain: [This] screenshot is of a recent event that was held over a weekend or two in Star Wars Galaxies. The story was that a rogue AT-AT were attempting an escape and they’d show up in random locations around the Galaxy. The screenshot shows one making an appearance outside the Theed palace on Naboo on the Chilastra galaxy. We wonder — did the AT-AT manage to escape for good?

If you’ve found something strange in your favorite land, we’d love to see screenshots of it. Just email those in to us at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the game it’s from, and a quick note about what we’re seeing! We’ll post it here and give you the credit for sending it in.

Filed under: Sci-fi, Screenshots, Star Wars Galaxies, One Shots

One Shots: One of these things is not like the others originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 13 Dec 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When Chris Marazzo (pictured), a casting director, listed on his personal website that he’s casted more than 200 projects – “including most recently Star Wars: Battlefront 3 with LucasArts” – he…

These two minutes come from the opening cinematic of Halo: Reach, establishing the story of Noble Team, assigned to defend the planet. An accompanying press release announced the multiplayer beta -…

There’s a strong sense in most free-to-play games that the playerbase consists of two people: those who refuse to pay any money unless absolutely necessary, and those who will happily part with their income on a voluntary basis. This is largely true. What’s apparently less true is the notion which goes hand-in-hand, that there are a decided minority of players forking over cash for in-game perks. As it turns out, according to a recent survey, 58% of users in free-to-play games have bought items through the in-game store. On average, users who did pay apparently dropped around $75 over the period of one year.

Traditional pay-to-play MMOs have a significantly lower amount in terms of both revenue generated by in-game purchases and average amount spent. Of course, the debate that could be brought up is the question of how much of the money in free-to-play games went toward purchasing content that, in a subscription game, would have been included in the price. Those with an inclination toward math might also note that the monthly price for such a game comes out to just over eight dollars a month, versus the larger and more regular distribution of subscriptions. Still, it starts to raise questions about how accurate the image of the paying minority in free-to-play games really is, especially as the business model picks up steam.

[ via Gamasutra ]

Filed under: Business models, Economy, MMO industry, Free-to-play, Academic

Nearly three-fifths of users buy items in free-to-play games originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 13 Dec 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Official Playstation Community of Europe has been given a facelift just in time for the Christmas season. It changed the old red and grey look for the new light green featuring the PS3 slim and images in line with the new advertising campaigns. I recommend paying a visit as there are3 plenty of game night meetings and competitions with other forums in Killzone 2 and FIFA 10 etc.

You can check out the forum at http://community.eu.playstation.com/

Penny Arcade

published Dec. 11
PvPonline

published Dec. 11
ActionTrip

published Dec. 7
Digital Unrest

published Dec. 7
EXTRALIFE

published Dec. 10
2P Start!

published Dec. 9…

Cash flow in many games is almost as big a problem as it can be in real life. We’ve recently had our resident EVE Online column running a series on the best ways to make ISK in the game, and you can barely throw a stone without hitting a site offering a guide to make X ludicrous amount of gold per hour in World of Warcraft. But we may have reached the end of all this maneuvering, as We Fly Spitfires has recently posted the most efficient way to make money in every game, ever. Go ahead and take a look right now, but fair warning — it requires some out-of-game work. And your credit card.

Now, before you start sending angry letters, take a moment to consider the point. It’s not that the author is condoning RMT, simply that he’s pointing out how much we seem to want to streamline the process of playing the game when, really, we already know the absolute fastest way to increase our virtual coffers. That doesn’t make it commendable or ethical, but if we’re so keen on speeding ourselves up, we might do well to remember that the journey, not the destination, is more frequently our reason for playing.

Filed under: Culture, Economy, Making money, Opinion

The most efficient way to make money in MMOs originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 13 Dec 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You can’t really wrap up, say, a +1 sword in Dungeons and Dragons Online. But that doesn’t mean it makes a bad gift. After all, for some of your friends it’s cheaper to ship and more relevant to your friendship than a fruitcake. You can’t always trade the important things in MMOs, but even as the games celebrate the holidays by giving us several cosmetic items, it’s possible for the players to find a more personal and intimate way to share in the holiday spirit.

Today, we ask you if you’ve given a gift to a friend in a game, whether they’re an in-game buddy or a real-life chum. If so, what did you give them? Was it something that you farmed up or crafted just for them, a bit of equipment you had lying around that they always wanted, or something sentimental? If you havven’t, is it something you would consider doing? Today’s the right time of year for sharing these stories, so even if you’ve only been a giftee rather than a gifter, we’d like to hear about it. (And for safety’s sake, please, don’t try to wrap a +1 sword. Those things are sharp.)

Filed under: Culture, Opinion, The Daily Grind

The Daily Grind: Virtual worlds, real gifts originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 13 Dec 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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