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Massively (www.massively.com) has great World of Warcraft news, photos, videos and more
Today
Podcast: 1UP layoffs and the ripples therein
When half of the staff leave/are laid off from a gaming site as notable as 1UP, it affects essentially everyone within the industry -- as does the closure of EGM, one of the very best gaming magazines around. Their excellent coverage of games like Final Fantasy XI, Warhammer Online and Worl...
Yesterday
'Beat World of Warcraft' a game developer resolution for 2009
GameDaily's fourth resolution it hopes the gaming industry adopts is: "Beat World of Warcraft." They're not knocking the game when they say this. In fact GameDaily says, "World of Warcraft is great, and deserving of its status as the 900-pound gorilla of the gaming world. But as fans of vide...
MUD history dissolving into the waters of time
While many modern MMO users may never have looked at a screen of white text on a black background and typed "go north," multi-user dungeons, or MUDs, were the forerunners to modern graphical MMOs. Without their appeal and gameplay concepts, we wouldn't be playing World of Warcraft or even...
Monday, Jan 5
MMOGology: Looking for incentive to group
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 a...
Sunday, Jan 4
One Shots: Meep!
There are times when you just know you've gotten in over your head. Of course, to the resourceful player, this just means a fun challenge! One such occasion is the subject of today's World of Warcraft One Shots, sent in to us by Greeen, who has been playing a Gnome Death Knight. Greeen writes in...
The Daily Grind: Online character profiles?
Web-accessible online profiles for characters in MMOs have been around for a while. The first ones I remember were profiles available for EverQuest players. In the years that have passed, they've slowly popped up everywhere. Now you can generally find something about people's character...
Saturday, Jan 3
Ten 2008 machinima worth checking out
Filed under: Culture, News items, Humor IGN has put together a top ten 2008 machinima movie list that's most definitely great for killing some time, should you have any in need of slaying. The list is surprisingly diverse, with movies created in Age of Conan, City of Heroes, Pirates of the B...
Friday, Jan 2
World of Warcraft tops most played list of 2008
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Runescape, AcademicNielsen Research has published its January through October numbers about the top 10 PC games and top 10 consoles by amount of time played. Once again World of Warcraft tops the charts. In fact, WoW has more time played than the ot...
The Daily Grind: Are sci-fi MMOs cursed?
Or are they just waiting for a savior, a la World of Warcraft? Yesterday we covered a recent interview done by Ten Ton Hammer with representatives of Trion World Group, the developers behind the upcoming SCI-FI channel MMORPG, that covered the viability of science fiction MMOs. While the...
Thursday, Jan 1
Teenager arrested for making suicide threat to Blizzard rep
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...
Wednesday, Dec 31
Gaming promotes life skills according to IBM exec
David Laux, head of games and interactive entertainment at IBM, has listed a myriad of positive skills gained by gamers from the problems they must face and overcome. Specifically mentioned is teaming in World of Warcraft as it emphasizes building diverse teams to accomplish tasks. It's...
Gaming promotes life skills according to IBM exec
Filed under: Fantasy, News items, Consoles, MMOFPS Gamers have become something of a stereotype in recent times. In everything from the job market to South Park, players are perceived as nerdy, pimply-faced, basement-dwellers with no social skills who do nothing outside of work other...
The Daily Grind: How much have you spent on your MMO habit?
Filed under: Economy, Opinion, The Daily GrindOnce upon a time, I sat down with a calculator and counted the months I'd spent playing World of Warcraft, multiplied by $15, added in costs for game boxes and character transfers... and came to a sum, in the end, that shocked me. (Though, consider...
Tuesday, Dec 30
Demons ready for summoning, Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine goes open beta
For anyone whose played Persona 3 or the more recently released Persona 4, an MMO set in the world of SMT is a very interesting proposition. The game has all the demon fusing and combat from the other games (beyond even the Persona series) but it's all done in real-time instead of through turn...
Saturday, Dec 27
News flash: MMOs rule
Not surprisingly, Fong focuses on the W's -- Warhammer Online and World of Warcraft -- with a few boxing references worked in. While we all know that, in terms of subscribers, World of Warcraft is the reigning champ, it's clear that Warhammer Online won't be throwing in the towel anytime so...
Online games become a hot issue in Israeli politics
Filed under: Real life, Culture, Events, real-world, PoliticsThroughout the recent American presidential campaign for Barack Obama, online gaming played a fairly important role. Not only did Obama use in-game advertising, but some of his appointed staff are vocal World of Warcraft...
Behind the Curtain: The spirit of competition
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Culture, Game mechanics, PvP, PvE, Opinion, Behind the CurtainI was going to write a little about the differences between making better games, and making games better. Instead, I got to thinking about competition. I'm not really competitive at a...
Thursday, Dec 25
Warhammer Online wins X-Play MMO of the Year
Other contenders mentioned in the segment were World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King and Age of Conan. Each brought a new twist to the party, but ultimately could not top Warhammer in originality. So congratulations to Mythic for all that they've achieved in 2008. We can hardly wait for mo...
Wednesday, Dec 24
Red 5's upcoming MMO to be announced soon
We've been following Red 5 and their upcoming game's development for a while now, and they never cease to crank up the anticipation level with what they tell us. This interview gives us a better look into their plans to not only go in a different direction than Kern's former employer and thei...
SWTOR might be EA's best chance at improving profitability
EA acquired BioWare, the developers of SWTOR, back in October last year. Creutz is of the belief that EA has really messed up their console campaign this generation, and SWTOR could be the "best chance" they have to increase profitability -- that is, if it can hold its own against the reigni...
The Daily Grind: Best holiday event of the season
To jog your memory, we've had the Yule Festival in Lord of the Rings Online, the Saving Santa event in Lineage II, Keg End in Warhammer Online, the Feast of Winter Veil in World of Warcraft, Frostfell Wonderland Village in EverQuest II, the Winter Event in City of Heroes -- we'll cut the list...
Tuesday, Dec 23
World of Warcraft claims 11.5 million souls of the faithful
Minion: Sir, millions more have come into our grasp through the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. World of Warcraft reigns supreme, my lord. Minion: Gamesindustry.biz reports that 11.5 million subscribers have been claimed by World of Warcraft, boosted by over 4 million copies of Wrath of t...
Monday, Dec 22
Global Online Games Awards honors multiple MMORPGs
The recently held Global Online Games Awards in Seoul, South Korea, just handed out awards to World of Warcraft, City of Heroes, and EVE Online for excellence in their respective genres. World of Warcraft took the top spot in the roleplaying game category, City of Heroes took the award hom...
The Daily Grind: 'Tis the season
It's that time of year again -- when every MMO on the market decides to break out in some form of winter-y celebration. Festivities abound! AoC is handing out gifts, EVE offers snowball fights, Nexon holds festivals, Warhammer celebrates Keg End, Lineage II lets you save Santa, the World o...
Sunday, Dec 21
Ask Massively: Would you hire a gamer?
I'm not going to direct this answer to you gamers out there. You probably have a good idea of what my answer is going to be. This is for all of the corporate recruiters, hiring managers, and corporate paper pushers out there who think games like World of Warcraft sufficient reason to disqualif...
Saturday, Dec 20
Warhammer Online launches Recruit-a-Friend offer
What we haven't mentioned yet is that Warhammer Online has a Recruit-a-Friend program. It doesn't give the experience bonuses that the World of Warcraft offer of the same name does. In fact, the WAR Recruit-a-Friend is similar to what's happening with EVE Online: you invite a friend to a fr...
Do we really ever want full immersion?
A recent article at Gamasutra explores this topic and the whole psychology of immersion. Despite what some of the most vocal advocates of immersion might preach, the truth is that graphical realism in a game usually only applies to a niche market. For example, just look at the Nintendo Wii a...
Anti-Aliased: Who decided brown was such an awesome color? pt. 2
So, with all of that in mind, let's turn to something more relevant. Let's turn to World of Warcraft. Say what you will about the game, but I think we can all agree that the game design of WoW is solid. It's not the holy grail, but it's certainly good enough to make 11 million people play it. Now ask yo...
Behind the Curtain: Multiple MMOs pt. 2
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Sci-fi, EVE Online, Culture, Game mechanics, Opinion, Star Wars Galaxies, Behind the CurtainWhen I started thinking about this subject, I remembered reading something on the subject a while back on the Daedalus Project.
Behind the Curtain: Multiple MMOs
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 coup...
Friday, Dec 19
The WoW vs. WAR debate makes Top 10 list of video game rage
Meer writes, "We've already talked today about the absurd, insane fanboy fallout from our own comparisons between Warhammer Online and World of Warcraft, but in truth it was a torrent of poison that briefly gripped MMO sites the world over. Notably, MUDfather Richard Bartle endured cha...
Thursday, Dec 18
WoW Code: Better than a pocket protector
What you see above you, besides a whole pile of utter confusion, is actually a World of Warcraft character broken down into very basic terms using the WoW Code method. Everything from name, to talent build, date joined, and player preferences are included!
Wednesday, Dec 17
Wrath of the Lich King ranks in Edge's top games for 2008
It's been a good year for the second expansion to World of Warcraft, but things just got even better. Edge Magazine has tossed up it's top 30 of 2008 and Wrath of the Lick King placed at number sixteen. The expansion is the only MMO on the list, which is saying a lot in a year when Warhammer Online a...
The Daily Grind: How much would you pay for triple experience?
All this microtransaction talk has got us wondering, how much -- if at all -- would you pay for increased experience gain for kills and quests? In World of Warcraft, it pretty much cost you about 20 bucks so long as you have a friend. This is of course not including the cost of moving your newly p...
Tuesday, Dec 16
Player Consequences: Movie Magic and MMOs
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Business models, Culture, MMO industry, The Matrix Online, Opinion, Player Consequences
Massively's best of - Favorite game of 2008
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online Winner: World of Warcraft (writeup by Michael Zenke) There's a reason this game has so many players. It's as simple as that: World of Warcraft is the best fantasy MMO on the marketplace. It's probably the best AAA MMO period.
Massively's best of - Favorite expansion of 2008
When Blizzard released their first expansion to World of Warcraft, they made some improvements while at the same time making plenty of new mistakes. With Wrath of the Lich King, Blizzard has leapt beyond the original game's vision to introduce substantial new improvements to the title.
Employers screening WoW players during recruitment?
Would you consider your MMO-gaming habits to be detrimental to your performance as an employee? Lucky for us, we here at Massively are kind of expected to be invested in the MMO world, but it seems that it may be best to keep your playing a secret when looking for other lines of work. Raph Koste...
Tuesday, Nov 25
Bartle calls Blizzard out on torture quest in Wrath of the Lich King
Richard Bartle, co-creator of the first multi-user dungeon MUD, has expressed his displeasure with Blizzard over a Wrath of the Lich King quest -- titled, "The Art of Persuasion" -- that involves the torture of a character for information. "I'm not at all happy with this. I was expecting fo...
Thursday, Nov 13
Blizzard execs haven't played Wrath as yet
Last night was generally a time for merriment and revelry, as many World of Warcraft players talked in lines around the world about just what they were going to do when they first got into game. Would it be the frozen tundra of Northrend, with new races and achievements by the score? Or would t...
Wednesday, Nov 12
Anti-Aliased: Mourning Frostmourne, part 2
This leads us to the most noble road of all -- simply not putting the sword into the game. If the players kill Arthas, the sword needs to go somewhere that isn't the hands of the player community. Another NPC perhaps, back into the ice, or to simply never leave the corpse of the Lich King.
Thursday, Nov 6
Famed felon seeks to join MDY vs Blizzard
If you've been keeping up, you already know of the court battle between Blizzard and MDY over the Glider automation software used with World of Warcraft. Another amicus brief has been filed in the case, and this one is a real attention-getter.
Monday, Nov 3
MMOGology: The price to play pt. 2
The first reason is one I alluded to earlier: versatility. You can do so many other things with a PC besides game. You can surf the web, you can email your friends, you can edit your photographs and mix your own music, you can edit your goofy home movies and upload them to YouTube. These are all thi...
MMOGology: The price to play
Modern MMOGs like World of Warcraft ushered in a new era of gaming and a very different demographic of gamer. WoW's colorful, friendly style, easy to use interface and simple gameplay concepts make it very easy to pick up and play. WoW appeals to almost everyone: parents, kids, men, women, a...
Friday, Oct 31
Since the WoW movie probably won't happen anyway, here's why it shouldn't
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Culture, Opinion Above is the sole bit of evidence that the World of Warcraft movie has seen any completed work at all -- one item of concept art. We know very little about the film, and the only news we've gotten recently is that Uwe Boll will not be dir...
Wednesday, Oct 29
Anti-Aliased: Killing the auctioneers is a perfect reason to go to Northrend pt. 2
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Events, in-game, Expansions, PvP, Opinion, Roleplaying, Anti-Aliased
Sunday, Oct 26
Ezra "Ephoenix" Chatterton passes away
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Culture, Events, real-world, News itemsThe news had been encouraging overall. Ezra "Ephoenix" Chatterton, the Make-A-Wish recipient who had visited the Blizzard offices and been granted a lot of wonderful World of Warcraft gifts, seemed to be doing be...
Sunday, Oct 19
Explore your class changes in WoW's 3.0.2 patch
WoW Insider is, as we may have mentioned before, your exhaustive source for all things World of Warcraft. The recent patch 3.0.2 has left folks with a lot of questions; even just yesterday we heard players wondering aloud about their class changes in open chat. Massively's big sister site has...
Friday, Oct 17
Blizzard: World of Warcraft will do fine, global economic collapse be damned
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Interviews, MMO industry, News items Alright, so the sky is falling. Pretty soon, the world will be dominated by mohawks, black leather and hand-built muscle cars in a never-ending deathmatch over who gets to eat the roadkill. Okay, maybe it won't...
Monday, Oct 6
MMOGology: I lost a friend to WAR
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Culture, New titles, Warhammer Online, Opinion, MMOGologyLast week I wrote about Blizzard's Recruit-a-Friend program and my experience leveling through World of Warcraft with triple XP. The Recruit-a-Friend program is a seemingly brilliant strate...
Sunday, Oct 5
The week in Massively features
This event runs from now until October 12th, so you have plenty of time to gather festival tokens, complete special quests and compete in the horse races! Follow along on our complete guide by clicking the link below, and be sure to also check out our enormous 33-image gallery of Fall Harve...
Tuesday, Sep 30
Urban exploration in Age of Conan
Free running and urban exploration in virtual worlds have both taken off significantly in recent years. Players can be seen clambering around buildings and jumping between the rooftops in games from World of Warcraft to Everquest 2 and Funcom's Age of Conan is no different. Like a lot of pl...
Saturday, Sep 27
Anti-Aliased: WAR, huh, what is it good for?
We're in the thick of it now -- WAR has launched and been installed on the machines of many. Some proclaim it to be the new timewaster, others find it to be a rip-off of World of Warcraft, and still others believe that it is, in fact, the digital messiah.
Friday, Sep 12
Meta-review: Warhammer Online
Eurogamer (8/10): "Until it's been out in the wild a while, this extremely well-made and highly enjoyable MMO remains unproven. And it remains - until our first re-review, at least - one step short of true greatness."Kill Ten Rats (Buy): "If you would like a sequel to World of Warcraft with a...
Monday, Aug 25
Opinion: MTV's weekend with Lich King
In a sea of Wrath of the Lich King beta reviews, it's nice to occasionally get some that aren't aimed towards the hardest of the hardcore, consisting of flavor-of-the-week buzzwords and catchy acronyms. Over at the MTV Multiplayer blog, we get treated to a casual review of the Wrath beta, f...
Tuesday, Jul 15
World of Warcraft 2.4.3 patch welcomes mounts at level 30, 22 slot bags, and loads more
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Classes, Patches, News itemsWorld of Warcraft players are in for a special treat today. The 2.4.3 patch has finally arrived! The live servers have been updated to the latest build and the patch size is 27.2 megabytes. The full patch notes are available...
Thursday, Jul 10
Player Consequences: Item Decay, No Way
Filed under: World of Warcraft, EVE Online, EverQuest, Economy, Game mechanics, PvP, Warhammer Online, Opinion, Player Consequences With the recent announcement of Diablo 3 I felt it might be a good idea to actually look into the series. I don't know how I missed one of the most popular LA...
Friday, Jul 4
Massively Speaking Podcast Episode 12
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Podcasts, Lord of the Rings Online, Culture, Star Wars Galaxies, Massively SpeakingMassively Speaking Episode 12 runs down news and features from Massively.com for the week of June 25th - July 1st. This week Colin Brennan and Adrian Bott up the respectabi...
Tuesday, Jun 24
Opinion: TurpsterVision : Oh and one more Ding!
Welcome back, it's been two weeks too long - though I blame that on the fact that its been time to party! Forgetting that, today is a special post, its a game close to my heart, and it isn't a review. It's World of Warcraft folks; there is no need to review it, what do you want me to say? Honestly, it...
Wednesday, May 21
New book showcases the sociology of WoW
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Game mechanics, Reviews, Opinion, Academic, EducationWith over 10 million players strong (and growing), it seems that anything associated with World of Warcraft would be an instant success. We're talking movies, merchandise, novels and any...
Thursday, May 15
Player vs. Everything: Rebuilding EverQuest
However, not everyone agrees with all of the "improvements" that Blizzard made to the genre when they created WoW. The arguments over what should and shouldn't be left out of a great MMORPG continue to this day, and there's no quick and easy guide to what's MMOG gold. Plenty of companies are l...
Thursday, May 8
Massively Speaking Podcast Episode 4
Filed under: Podcasts, Culture, Massively SpeakingMassively Speaking Episode 4 runs down news and features from Massively.com for the week of April 28th- May 4th. Two of our talented columnists fill the third and fourth chairs this week: James Murff and Player vs. Everything's Cameron S...
Wednesday, Feb 6
On the topic of sheep in Warhammer Online
Filed under: Fantasy, PvP, Warhammer Online, Opinion Over on West Karana you can find a very good post about her take on PvP in Warhammer Online. Whether or not you agree with it is beside the fact, because the read is just so absorbing. Of course we here at Massively have discussed the PvP subj...
Tuesday, Feb 5
Daily WoW News
It seems like they just can't leave Alterac Valley alone. In this case, that's probably a good thing, because there is a lot of discontentment with the state of that battleground right now ... The Legendary Sisterhood shakes up Sentinels
Podcast: Are MMOs killing the single-player game?
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Podcasts, Business models, Culture, Game mechanics, MMO industry, PvP, OpinionListening to the Penny Arcade podcast, Downloadable Content, as I am wont to do when playing something, the topic of discussion turned to how World of Warcraft has ruined Mi...
Saturday, Jan 19
The WoW starts now!
I'm not quite sure when someone first suggested I might like to try World of Warcraft. I know someone who went into World of Warcraft about 3 years ago now and tried, half-heartedly, to suck me over with her, but it didn't happen. Then, for my birthday earlier this month someone gave me a free mo...
Friday, Jan 18
MMOG Podcast Roundup: Dec. 28th - Jan. 18th
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Podcasts, Culture, Economy, Events, in-game, Game mechanics, Guides, Endgame, Warhammer Online, The Agency, Opinion, Tabula Rasa, Hands-on, Education, Humor, Rumors
Monday, Jan 7
Opinion: MMOGology: Keep it simple, stupid
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Dungeon Runners, EverQuest, Classes, Culture, Game mechanics, Opinion, Free-to-play, MMOGology, CasualI've been playing a lot of Dungeon Runners lately. Doing so has reminded me that simplicity can be a very good thing. With the exception of its tongue...
Wednesday, Dec 12
Opinion: As the Worlds Turn: Land of the Free
How could a notion like the ArchLord be transplanted into our other lovely MMOs? Well, right now, expansions and the overall direction of the game lies solely in the hands of the developers and we simply follow along with their visions. What if the developers were to create a common instanc...
Wednesday, Nov 28
Opinion: Gamer Interrupted: Gamers behaving badly
Don't complain about cheaters and then take advantage of an exploit. Don't go off on someone for being racist and then use the word "gay" derogatorily. Even if nobody finds out that you bought gold, you are perpetuating a non-fun atmosphere by supporting goldfarmers.
Monday, Nov 26
Opinion: MMOGology: End game means game over for casual players
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Culture, Guilds, Endgame, Opinion, MMOGologyAt long last I finally hit level 70 in World of Warcarft! Thank you, thank you! I know many of you out there probably hit 70 a month or two after the launch of Burning Crusade (almost a year ago), but being the alt-a...
Thursday, Nov 15
Opinion: Behind the Curtain: Save our bosses
There's a reason that Blizzard aren't removing old world content from WoW, and it's not because they feel bad that the old bosses don't have anything to do with their time it's because they're scared. Scared of what might happen if there were no more bad guys for us to kill. New content only las...
