MMO Clerks

Are you ready to ring in the New Year? Nexon is helping Vindictus players kick off 2011 with a bang by offering the New Year’s Renewal Pack in the Supply Depot for a limited time only. From today through Jan. 11, you can purchase the pack and gain the following:

• Storage Chest Expansion Ticket (90 Days)
• 30 Day Hair Coupon (worth up to NX 1900)
• 30 Body Tattoo Coupon
• Title: “Might of the Lepus”
• 10,000 Gold

The entire package costs 9,900 NX and is only available to purchase once per character.

Blizzard has kicked off a new blog series that examines the transformations of key characters in World of Warcraft, and the first entry focuses on Thrall:

“One of the most notable metamorphoses in Cataclysm is that of Thrall. Thrall He’s worn many titles in his lifetime: slave, gladiator, shaman, chieftain of the Frostwolf Clan, and, most recently, warchief of the Horde. Now, as the son of Durotan puts down the mantle of warchief and takes up the simple garb of a shaman once again, we take a look back at his journey and the events that shaped him into the orc he is today.”

You can read the lore behind Thrall’s switch from warchief to shaman after the jump. In the coming months, Blizzard will focus on characters like Garrosh, Anduin Wrynn and Magni Bronzebeard. Which character do you think deserves a feature in this new series?

Thrall: Then and Now

The orcish Horde was once a demonic weapon of indiscriminate slaughter — a far departure from the orcs’ proud and shamanic origins. Thrall’s rise to become Horde warchief, however, changed everything. After escaping from his enslavement by the human Aedelas Blackmoore, Thrall helped rally the remnants of the Horde, revitalized the orcs’ shamanic traditions, and established a refuge for his embattled race in the arid land of Durotar. In the years that followed, the image of Warchief Thrall bearing the legendary warhammer and battle-worn black armor of the late Orgrim Doomhammer was etched in the minds of friends and foes alike. All that the Horde had become — its courage, its strength, and its honor — Thrall embodied.

When Azeroth’s elemental spirits grew increasingly erratic just prior to the Shattering, Thrall was torn between his worldly responsibilities as warchief and his spiritual duties as a shaman. Ultimately, he followed his instincts and entrusted control over the Horde — and everything he had labored to build — to Garrosh Hellscream. Thrall also shed the armor that had come to symbolize him as warchief and donned the simplistic robes and prayer beads of a shaman. While Garrosh has made questionable changes to the Horde in recent times, Thrall remains focused on allaying the forces that threaten to tear Azeroth itself apart. Some members of the Horde might want him as their warchief, but the world needs him as a shaman above all else.

Updates for Electronic Arts’ Need for Speed World MMO have been racing along at a steady pace. The game went free-to-play in September and recently received a new performance customization system that added more depth to the game. To top it off, EA studio Black Box announced earlier this month that NFSW has surpassed three million registered users.

We got the chance to talk with Technical Director Eneko Bilbao about the customization system, the game’s free-to-play model and the future of Need for Speed World. Keep reading after the jump for his answers!

ZAM: Patch 5.00 introduced several new features, the most revolutionary of which was the new performance customization system. Please describe how this system differs from the one in place before?

Eneko Bilbao: Back in 4.0, we provided customization packages which would affect overall performance of the cars in 3 stages: street, race, pro. Today we have a system that allows you to change individual parts: engine, induction, transmission, suspension, brakes, tires and the “special slot” we reserve for future use. This system is very flexible and will allow you to tune a ride the way you want without having to worry too much about how a car works. It works by modifying the performance of the car on 3 axes: Handling, Acceleration and Top Speed. We’ve created some fictional part manufacturers, each with a certain bias towards one of the axes. Parts have also a rarity associated with them, and the rarer a part the better it generally is. You can get parts by buying booster packs or by racing; they drop at the end of the races during lucky draw.

ZAM: About how many new performance parts were added? Do you plan to add others in future patches, and, if so, how often will they be released?

Bilbao: We currently have close to 2,000 performance parts and we have plans to add many more. The release pace will mainly depend on how fast users progress through the content, which we are following on a daily basis.

ZAM: The new customization system seems to add an RPG-type feeling to this racing MMO. Is that a fair assessment? What were your goals with the new system?

Bilbao: Absolutely, we like racing games and MMOs. Most of us are gamers and we play a lot together. It felt like sometimes some racing games made it unnecessarily complex or mandatory to understand the ins and outs of car performance to be able to enjoy the game. We took another approach and tried to make it as much fun as gearing up your character in a RPG. You can approach it from a min-maxer point of view and try to build the ultimate ride, or just collect parts; up to you.

ZAM: Durability has made repairing a necessity, but currently is only applied by the number of races, not the damage taken during races themselves. How has feedback been with this new system? Any plans to change it in the future?

Bilbao: Our intention is to provide a great and fair experience and we felt that taking damage during races (like collisions) into account would open the door to griefing which is something we are trying to prevent as much as we can. The feedback has been very positive. For now we are very happy with the system and have no plans to change it. But as with any other feature, we listen and adapt when we feel we have to.

ZAM: The patch notes mentioned over 150 bugs had been resolved, but they were not posted in the notes in an effort to keep them short. Could you provide some examples of the bugs that were squashed?

Bilbao: We usually only mention the main issues fixed in a patch. This time we fixed lots of minor issues such as clipping shadows which didn’t need to be listed or explained. Patch details are usually focused on features, UI improvements and major bug fixes. I just want to add that this team has been doing a tremendous job fixing issues weekly and improving the overall experience since launch.

ZAM: With the new performance parts, has maintaining balance in the game become more difficult? How about balance between the free-to-play players and the Speedboost purchasers?

Bilbao: Not really. All parts can be obtained by just playing the game. Speedboost is an accelerator for people who simply cannot commit as much time in gaming as they used to.

ZAM: Following the last question, what are the strengths and difficulties you’ve found using a free-to-play model and Speedboost currency? How has the model been received by your players?

Bilbao: The difficulty is creating good value for money, what does make sense to sell and what does not. From what we are seeing, our players are sophisticated enough to understand that we are not a charity and somehow need to pay the bills. At the same time, we believe that money should only be an accelerator, it does not make you better, it just allows you to reach better things faster.

ZAM: What is next on the plate for the game? Any tidbits of upcoming NFSW action for our readers?

Bilbao: We have just released night time which looks absolutely amazing and makes the gameplay experience that much more interesting when racing the same tracks at night. Even if you don’t have the latest high-end PC you can enjoy all the effects we have added and it looks gorgeous. Next is Team Escape, the long awaited multiplayer co-op pursuit mode. Be ready for some frantic cop chases with your friends! The longer term plans are very exciting but it is too early to talk about. Let’s just say that players can expect more cars, more customization and more game modes!

Get your Pokéballs ready. The next installment of Pokémon is coming to the U.S. on March 6.

Pokémon Black and Pokémon White, the latest installments in what seems to be a never-ending series, will feature over 150 new Pokémon as well as a new group of antagonists called Team Plasma.

The Nintendo DS games will also include season changes to compliment the old day/night cycle — some Pokémon will show up in the winter, others during summertime. Some areas will open and close based on the seasons, and some Pokémon will even shift forms along with the weather.

Players will start the game with one of three Pokémon: Grass-type Snivy, Fire-type Tepig, or Water-type Oshawott.

Other new features in Black and White include three-on-three Triple Battles and an online function called the Dream World that allows players to upload Pokémon to the Internet and use them to play minigames via a web browser.

Black and White, the first completely new Pokémon games since Diamond and Silver back in 2006, represent the series’ fifth generation.

See Also:

• Pokémon Masters Battle for Championship in Indianapolis
• Review: New Pokémon Games Blend Classic Monsters, Modern Gameplay
• Victors Crowned in Pokémon National Championships

In-game title="Marriage in MMORPGs" href="http://mmohut.com/editorials/marriage-in-mmorpgs">marriages in MMORPGs are nothing new. It’s something we’ve become fairly used to as online gamers, and it’s achieved at least a small amount of acceptance (even if plenty of us still find it a little strange). So then there’s this other thing, called dating in MMORPGs. Dating in an MMORPG? I have no idea how that even works, really, but I suppose it’s similar to just meeting someone you like online, hitting it off, playing together a lot, and then maybe deciding you might like to eventually meet each other in person. That’s nothing new. Hell, I’ve done that. It’s old hat, it’s been happening since online gaming began.

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Video, MMO industry, News items, Miscellaneous

Isn’t the Xbox Kinect only for crazy dancing games? No one would ever use that to play a real game like World of Warcraft, right? Well, the researchers at the Institute for Creative Technologies at USC have put an end to that notion. The university engineers have created a Flexible Action and Articulated Skeleton Toolkit or FAAST that associates keyboard events with body movements. This gives the Kinect device a new, wider range of possibilities because it can now be utilized on a standard PC. As Skip Rizzo of the Institute explains in a video presentation, “This opens up the doorway for building rehabilitation exercises after a stroke or traumatic brain injury and in a area that’s getting a lot of attention: the area of childhood obesity and diabetes. This is a major area that people in the United States need to develop new ways to get kids up and moving around.“

Now instead of sitting around for six hours fighting the Horde, you can get up out of your seat and punch an orc in the face. Although the technology is just in its infancy, it is still very possible to play your favorite MMO games with your body movements. Check out the video after the break to see all the (literal) action, then head to ICT’s site to see more.

Continue reading Move around in your favorite MMO with Kinect

Move around in your favorite MMO with Kinect originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 28 Dec 2010 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Economy, Expansions, Game mechanics, Professions, Dev Diaries

There are many professions open to players in EVE Online, but it’s the trading that often draws players to the game. Due to the number of players buying and selling on EVE’s single server and the fact that items are destroyed on death, a savvy player can find countless opportunities for profit. To avoid overloading the market window with thousands of items most players will never need to buy, CCP limits rare and unusual items to being sold on the contract system. Items can be listed as auctions or direct sales, and players can search for items by name.

The system has been working amicably for years, but recently several back-end performance issues were identified in it. As part of CCP’s on-going war on lag, major back-end optimisations were made. Due to this restructuring of how contracts are handled on the EVE server, several new features have suddenly become possible. In a new devblog, CCP Atlas explains the back-end improvements and what they mean for the average player. Several features players have asked for over the years are on the way, such as the ability to put damaged items into contracts.

Ammo in the guns of a ship being contracted will now be moved into the ship’s cargo hold rather than the item hangar, and ship insurance will no longer be voided when a ship is contracted. A whole host of improvements are also on the way to make the terms of courier missions more obvious. Players will be informed of the dangers of a contract before they accept it, including dangerous systems en-route and whether the destination station might refuse them docking rights. The upgrades are already live on the EVE test server and will be hitting the live server as part of the Incursion expansion’s third phase in January.

Improvements on the way for EVE Online’s contract system originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 28 Dec 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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src="http://www.youtube.com/v/POLYgfYL-o4?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385">

To Learn More About the Game, Check out our title="Neosaurs" href="../browser-games/neosaurs" target="_blank">Neosaurs Page.

Neosaurs is a 2D side scrolling fantasy MMORPG on the browser published by Microsoft. In its core the game plays a lot like MapleStory and LaTale, except with a more distinct kiddy feel to it. The game has a unique player housing system where players can customize their own homes. For a browser based game, Neosaurs is definitely pretty interesting. To learn more about Neosaurs check out the official MMOHut Neosaurs page which includes a detailed review, tons of screenshots, and additional videos.

Filed under: Fantasy, Sci-fi, Anarchy Online, Dark Age of Camelot, Star Wars Galaxies, Ultima Online, Runescape, Kids, The Game Archaeologist, Family

Earlier in the year when I started this column, I realized two things. First, I’d be giving myself as much as any of you a crash-course education in older MMOs, particularly with some of the more fringe titles that I’d never really explored up to this point. And second, it would be a challenge to find the right mix of elements to do these MMOs justice.

So before we look back at all the games this column covered in 2010, I’d like to ask each and every one of you to take a minute and drop a comment about what you’d like to see The Game Archaeologist do next. What titles would you love to see honored in 2011? What features are the most interesting to you — dev interviews, player interviews, history overviews, photo galleries, first impression playthroughs, or links to community fansites and blogs? What could I add to make The Game Archaeologist even better?

I also want to take a minute to thank the readers, players and developers who have contributed to this column so far. While there are MMOs that get a lion’s share of the press these days, we at Massively are committed to spotlighting as many of these games as possible, particularly if there’s a passionate community and dev team behind them. I’ve loved hearing your stories and hope that in passing them along, perhaps we’ve opened a door or two to games that you might’ve never considered before.

So let’s hop in our hot air balloon and soar over the year that was 2010!

Continue reading The Game Archaeologist and the year that was 2010

The Game Archaeologist and the year that was 2010 originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 28 Dec 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Fantasy, Launches, New titles, News items, RIFT

Start salivating, RIFT fans, as Trion has taken the wraps off its collector’s edition plans for the upcoming fantasy MMORPG. The limited packaging will feature the requisite in-game items including a level 20 turtle mount, a satchel that boosts inventory space, and a Bogling Wastrel pet. If you opt to purchase the retail box version of the collector’s edition, you’ll get the aforementioned items plus the Telara Chronicles graphic novel hardcover, a RIFT-emblazoned gaming mouse, the official game soundtrack, and an 8GB USB drive featuring the RIFT logo.

Pre-order customers will be able to select one of three unique pets, and depending on their pre-order retailer of choice, they’ll also receive exclusive weapon enhancements. Full details are available via the official RIFT website.

Trion details RIFT collector’s edition originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 28 Dec 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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