Last Week on Massively: Warcraft related stories
by Dan O'Halloran 
Nov 25th 2007 at 9:00AM
Here at WoW Insider we cover the many aspects of World of Warcraft. Over at our sister site, Massively, we give the same in-depth coverage to all MMOs. And many of those stories cover Warcraft in one way or another. Here is a compilation of posts from Massively this past week that will feed your need for all things WoW.
Playing by different rules: should mobs be subject to interrupts?
Chris Chester explores the reasoning behind different combat rules between players and mobs.
WoW tournament resurrected at Dreamhack, $75,000 in prizes
The WSVG may be dead, but the Dreamhack convention in Sweden is hosting a 3v3 tournament and you won't believe the 1st place cash prize amount.
Guildcafe merges with Uberguilds
Guild site hosting meets community building tools. Is it any better than Guildportal?
WoW is the "train driving PC gaming," says John Carmack
The creator of Quake and Doom talks about the enormous influence of MMOs in bringing new gamers to the PC gaming. But will the PC retain its dominant status for MMOs in development?
This just in: games are TiVo-licious
Discovery Channel is running a retrospective on video games and an upcoming episode is dedicated to MMOs, including our beloved WoW.
Building a better MMOusetrap: Buildings, barrens and beyond (Part 2)
Dave Moss continues his weekly feature exploring MMO mechanics. This week, he continues with a column about the function and design opportunities of in-game cities.
Industry panel says MMOs are just getting started
A Harvard Business School panel discussion on MMOs included Blizzard's team leader Mark Kern. See what he has to say about the future of online gaming.
Gamer Interrupted: How to turn your wife into a gamer
Our very own Robin Torres has moved her Azeroth Interrupted weekly column to Massively as Gamer Interrupted. By popular demand she gives you tips and strategies to entice your significant other to join you in your passion for gaming.
How WoW works
Amanda Rivera points us to a site that covers the basics of the game. Though many of us are veterans of WoW, there are sure to be a few tidbits in there that you never knew.
The Escapist explains how your guild can avoid a "failure cascade"
One small problem in your guild can leave it decimated in a short amount of time if you don't address it immediately. The Escapist delves into the problem and offers solutions.
Darkmoon Faire dazzles London
The World of Warcraft trading card game tournament comes to London and top players compete against Blizzard Community Managers. Who won and who took a dirt nap?
The coming of mudflation
Mike Schramm explores why mudflation may not be a bad thing. Other than being able to 5-man Onyxia.
MMOGology: Roleplaying is dead
Marc Nottke continues his weekly column, this time exploring how MMO's do away with the RP aspect that made its Pen and Paper predecessors so entertaining.
Seagate shuts the gate
After certain Seagate hard drives were discovered to have an account stealing program inserted at the manufacturer, the company remained tight lipped about the details. Until now.
Behind the Curtain: Sex sells
Should in-game brothels be allowed? Columnist Craig Whithers explores the issues surrounding the controversial idea.
Skill leveling: manual or automatic?
Akela Talamasca explores the pros and cons of leveling skills, including WoW's push button system.
The9 buys shares in ... itself
The Chinese carrier of WoW had a surprising stock plummet and used the opportunity to buy back its own shares. Smart move or bad business?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, News items, Features, Guides
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Kevin Wyld Nov 25th 2007 9:48AM
Thanks for this - as I said in an email to you, don't know why this wasn't done before
peter scott Dec 23rd 2007 3:42PM
i entirely agree with that - contact me and we can discuss further
csarcops Nov 25th 2007 2:13PM
Um, I can't see Robin's column, just the comments. Anybody else having this issue?
notabigfan Nov 25th 2007 2:20PM
I like a lot of the writers on Massively (many of them come from here), and I was really looking forward to adding it to my daily reading when I found out about it. But....
The big problem with Massively is that it is dominated by Second Life posts. Personally I don't think SL is an MMO - although I acknowledge that that is a debate that rages all over the place. To me it is a chat program with graphics. Anyway, Second Life posts outnumber the next closest (WoW) by more than 2 to 1. You'll find yourself endlessly scrolling past useless SL info.
I don't have a problem with SL being included on the blog, but for gods' sake, whoever is in charge of editing and approving the content should strive for better balance. As it is, I don't visit Massively anymore.
I posted comments like this in a couple of threads on the Massively site, and of course I was told that I should just subscribe to the feeds for the MMOs I am interested in. I don't want to do that, I like the idea of scrolling through a site and reading all about lots of different MMOs, but the balance right now is so heavily SL that it sucks.
The blog should be called "Massively Second Life, and a Little Bit of Other Stuff".
Ghen Nov 25th 2007 2:27PM
Nota:
Second Life insider was shut down to create Massively. It was bound to be that way as they transfer over year old columns from SLI to Massively.
Personally I enjoy reading everything there, and if its a boring SL post then I just skip it. No need to boycott.
Magnetite2 Nov 25th 2007 3:45PM
The more I think about this, the more nonsensical it is.
Take the Seagate issue, for instance - this was never posted on WowInsider, and yet it is something that only relates to WoW, according to the article over on Massively.
I think that the powers that be should post WoW related material here, and the rest over there, with the WoWInsider Weekly as a feature.
I only play WoW, and am not interested in wading through material on other games to find things there that should be here.
Time for a rethink.
notabigfan Nov 25th 2007 5:07PM
@4
Well that explains some stuff.
What a stupid idea, and what a terrible way to start a new blog: take the 'MMO' which least fits the term (or at the very least is the most controversially an MMO) and make its own dedicated blog the basis for the new supposedly broad-based MMO blog.
Smart thinking! Smart execution. ROFL.
Krystalle Voecks Nov 25th 2007 5:49PM
@Notabigfan:
I've replied to you at least twice about this. But I will try once again, even though this may be futile.
SLI was rolled into Massively when we opened it. The concept for Massively pre-dated any merge by quite some time, and the merge was very much a last minute decision, enabling a crack team of excellent writers to both expand their own knowledge-base and bring Second Life to a large multiverse readership. That said, there are three reasons why there appears to be an imbalance:
#1 - We have five trained SLI writers we inherited. All of them are used to putting out between 50-100 posts as they were pretty well all of SLI's writer base. They are producing at the levels they are used to. Now, to give them credit -- if you'll look around, you'll see that they've been working very hard at diversifying their content beyond the one virtual world that they know extremely well. I'm proud as hell of each and every one of them for reaching out and taking time to learn new things and write about them. This leads into the next point...
#2 - Many of the rest of the Massively force are (as you noticed) from here, or are new hires. The folks from WI have to split time between WI and Massively. As such we may not see as much from them on Massively due to WoW being their primary game -- most of their WoW news lands here. The new people are being trained now and thus they aren't producing at the numbers they are targeted for eventually. Believe it or not, it takes time to be able to put out 50-100 posts a month, but they will get there. Have no doubt of that. In the meantime, we have agreed that we are not going to manage writers down; we'd rather help everyone work up to the same levels as those producing a great many posts. This means more multiverse/MMO coverage, which is our goal.
And finally #3 - We have a listing of well over 120 MMOs to cover. You are basing your comparison on category numbers, so things will always seem disproportionate depending on what virtual world is hot that day. To give you a hypothetical example; we could take a day and write one post on each of the 120 games we have on our list, and write two on SL. If you were looking purely at the category numbers which only show tags for each game and not the overall volume of posts, you'd be of the opinion that the SL coverage was still the focus. Of course, it would be a whole whopping two of 121 posts, showing the lie of tracking via category versus the whole volume.
I'm sorry you decided to leave Massively, but perhaps now you will understand why things are the way they are. We will not bring our writers down; we will bring them all up to the same smokin' hot levels of coverage and get everyone on the same page so we can best serve our readers. To do this properly takes time. Rest assured we will achieve our goals.
Ghen Nov 26th 2007 8:24AM
most of the 121 are the daily boring stuff anyway that SLI people are used to seeing.
notabigfan Nov 26th 2007 12:40PM
@ Krystalle (#7)
Well I do appreciate your detailed answer. I really don't think SL is an MMO, but as I said I know that is a debate which rages all over the place.
I certainly do acknowledge that Massively is new and as such will no doubt be subject to changes and tweaking. I hope you guys are able to find the right balance to keep a diverse readership happy.
notabigfan Nov 26th 2007 12:41PM
@ Krystalle (#7)
Well I do appreciate your detailed answer. I really don't think SL
is an MMO, but as I said I know that is a debate which rages all over
the place.
I certainly do acknowledge that Massively is new and as such will no
doubt be subject to changes and tweaking. I hope you guys are able
to find the right balance to keep a diverse readership happy.