MMO Roundup: Last week on Massively
by Shawn Schuster 
Oct 27th 2009 at 1:00PM
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LotRO: Siege of Mirkwood developer tour If you've been faithfully following along with the Lord of the Rings Online: Siege of Mirkwood beta, you may be excited by what you've heard -- or even seen yourself -- so far. The new expansion, which is set to launch on December 1st of this year (December 3rd for EU), centers around the forest of Mirkwood, just to the east of Lothlorien. |
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GameX 2009: Massively.com talks with The Guild GameX 2009 was insane this weekend and we were all over the place, but one of the first groups that we set a chunk of time aside for was Jeff Lewis (Vork), Sandeep Parikh (Zaboo), and Robin Thorsen (Clara) from The Guild. We weren't missing out on catching up with those three. |
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A look back at Aion's first month and impressions 43,829 minutes. That's roughly how long Aion's been out in the West. Depending on your tolerance for grinding, it may or may not have felt like that amount of time passed. There's no doubt it's been a busy month full of ups and downs, so we'd like to take an extensive look back at the last 30-days and give our impressions on the game. |
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Star Trek Online closed beta has begun The Star Trek Online closed beta has officially begun as of today, October 22, Cryptic Studios announced. Rekhan from Cryptic Studios writes: "If you've signed up, keep an eye on your email, as we'll periodically be inviting people to join in and share their feedback." He also pointed out that the "Closed Beta" graphic seen on the game's homepage will change to read "ACCEPTED" in big, bold letters once you're in. |
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Players to get hands-on time with Star Trek Online at Eurogamer Expo Some people have already gotten into the closed beta for Star Trek Online, but for the rest of us it's going to be a waiting game. There may be good news for some of our UK-based readers, though. Those in attendance at this week's Eurogamer Expo will get to experience both ship-based action and ground combat firsthand in a Star Trek Online demo Cryptic Studios has set up. According to Eurogamer, Cryptic will allow Expo attendees to fight a fleet of Klingons and follow that up with an away mission on a planet's surface, where they will encounter the "Guardian of Forever." |
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Warhammer Online interview about 1.3.2 It can be safely said that every Warhammer Online player was absolutely in love with the changes made in patch 1.3.2, for a given value of "every Warhammer Online player" or a very interesting definition of "absolutely in love." Okay, the patch might not have actually been as well-received as all that. There was some controversy, more so than the usual patch day wailing and gnashing of teeth. |
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MMO Family: The family that groups together Now that we've established why and how to stay plugged into your children's gaming interests, some general internet safety rules for kids and a variety of ways to choose games that are suitable for your family, you're probably ready to log in and get some XP. But if it's the whole family we're trying to consider here, we're not quite buffed and ready to pull. Gaming for kids and gaming with kids are two different things. Have you considered the benefits of fitting both into your gaming family? |
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Ragnar Tørnquist on what sets The Secret World apart One of the games we've seen a lot of reader interest in at Massively is The Secret World, in development at Funcom. One of the key people behind the upcoming horror MMO is Ragnar Tørnquist, Producer and Director of The Secret World. Tørnquist recently sat down for an interview with Vladimir "Evoker" Georgiev from UGDB.com to discuss what will set The Secret World apart from other MMOs we've played. |
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Why You Should Be Playing Aion: Chain combat I didn't give Aion the world's most glowing set of remarks last time I visited it, so I thought I should at least stop by and spend some time on a part of the game that I do actually like -- chain attacks. Chain attacks do many things to help Aion's combat move smoothly and efficiently. They clean up the UI, they offer flexible choices, they keep the combat looking fluid, and they're a lot of fun to pull off. |
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, News items, Features, MMO Roundup
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Scott Oct 27th 2009 1:52PM
While taking a WoW break, I picked up Aion to try something different. While beta chat was filled with WoW v. Aion chat, it was replaced with non-stop gold spammers. Like me, I found turning all but the 'class' channel off relieved me of becoming annoyed. Many of the quests are indeed "kill 10x (insert anything" and run back which is disheartening, but it's something different. The gameplay is smooth and load times are incredibly fast.
If you're a hardcore PvP fan, levels =>25 will suite you well (go with a caster or ranged dps, as melee + flying is pretty frustrating).
Overall, I give it a B since release. No, it's not WoW, but having variants of gameplay can be refreshing.
Jamesisgreat Oct 27th 2009 3:59PM
I took a WoW break as well recently and tried DDO after reading it was free to play here. I'd urge people to give it a try as it's a great looking game with some interesting ideas (for example, all quests involve mini instances that you can solo or group up for and are right next to the quest giver).
Of course, I'm playing WoW again but pop back on too DDO when WoW servers are down or, interestingly enough, when the lag in WoW makes it unplayable (DDO doesn't seem to suffer from lag anywhere near as bad as WoW for me - maybe because as soon as there are too many players in one place, DDO creates a new instanced version of that place).
AnnieM Oct 27th 2009 5:09PM
I wasn't overly excited by Aion's release (feeling it was going to be another Conan Online) but my friends all wanted to try it. Some were so sure of it's success that they even canceled their WoW accounts.
Month later, and we've all declared Aion to be bland, boring, with lame quests and even lamer grinding. Back to WoW, and they ones who canceled their accounts have all been properly made fun of.
Dreadskull Oct 27th 2009 5:27PM
I don't know why I went back after playing it and not liking it in like... December of 2007 (maybe it was because of the email I got where I had a free reactivation weekend with bonus exp), but... Lord of the Rings Online really has me hooked now o_o
For anyone who enjoys RP, LotRO is literally -filled- with things that just scream RP, even though there are no official RP servers (or any specific type of server, though... some servers have become unofficial PvMP and RP ones). Not to mention the community (at least on the Landroval server) is awesome, and... seems way better than WoW's in comparison. Even though I never really read the books, I'm really loving it.
It has a HUGE layer of immersion to me that I think WoW just flatout lacks, and... while Blizzard's trying to do better with stuff like the Wrathgate and Death Knight quest stuff, LotRO's basically had a huuuuge chain that's like that, which is their epic quest line, which... is one of the coolest things to be put into an MMO imo for story-telling purposes. Especially when you enter an instance, with Gandalf narrating the sort of "opening scene" of you entering the area, and then usually after finishing that instance you get a cool cut-scene with Gandalf narrating... not to mention that this line of quests is like... playing right alongside the story of LotR, and often times you'll end up intersecting with the main story like... following Frodo's trail after he leaves the Shire, which is awesome.
Only downside is that the game isn't as broad as WoW is like... in terms of stuff to do with end game I think, but... I'm at least enjoying the ride to end game right now ^_^
varulv Oct 27th 2009 7:26PM
Tried Aion.. will just quote "bland, boring, with lame quests and even lamer grinding" and will also add that NCWest/soft is a joke company.. Aion had tons of issues, some 10 hours Queues etc.. and after these were gone - lag showed up, plus there's some kind of crash-bug since day one, which is 100% gamebreaking.. i didn't have it, but countless people did and more people & stuff going on your screen: equals constant crashes.. rendering the game unplayalble during sieges and mass pvp.
Looking forward to the Cataclysm expansion :) going to make myself a rogue wolfie
BlackTiger™ Oct 28th 2009 6:27AM
I've tried AION... Will stop payments.
This game has several fundamental issues...
It's too "overdetailed", my eyes just dies.
Too much unnecessary details everywhere, from landscape to mobs and armour (common issue of asian games like PW, LA etc).
No "n00b" stage in the beginning. Lame boring quests.
Even music is too... strong, too nervous, too unnecessry "classic", too "high freq".
Physics is wrong. Not just "normally wrong", it's just very wrong.
Body movements are wrong - too sharp, too fast. Body models itself are wrong. Even "perfect character creation process" with a lots of customizations cannot help.
Classic normal "cheap chinese crap". Yep, I know, it's korean crap. It doesn't make things smell better.
Make game more "rounded" - reduce number of "sharp angles" and triangles, increase number of "round shapes". And... go back to WoW.