MMO Roundup: Last week on Massively
by Alex Ziebart 
May 4th 2010 at 2:30PM
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ArenaNet unveils the Guild Wars 2 Elementalist and combat details The floodgates of Guild Wars 2 news have opened, and ArenaNet has revealed the first confirmed class for Guild Wars 2: the Elementalist. Not only do we get confirmation of the class, but we get an exciting amount of detail and another huge update on overall combat. |
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Age of Conan unveils offline leveling Funcom has announced their new Age of Conan offline leveling mechanic, introduced in the 1.07.2 patch that hit the live servers the other day. Senior Community Manager Oliver 'Tarib' Kunz details the system in a post on the game's official forums. Have you ever wanted to level up as a reward for not playing? You're in luck! |
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Avatar movie producer interested in Avatar MMO It probably shouldn't come as much of a surprise. James Cameron's Avatar caught the attention of gamers from the moment the first trailer was released. Its appearance alone was extremely familiar to anyone who's spent more than a few minutes in any number of fantasy MMOs, and the movie's plot centered around what could be called the most immersive MMO ever. |
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Final Fantasy XIV interview highlights breadth of feedback While testing for Final Fantasy XIV has continued, the huge gush of news that we saw at the beginning has slowed to more of a trickle. There are player questions abounds about both the login issues plaguing the test and the necessary wonder about how much the developers are actually listening. A recent interview with Hiromichi Tanaka and Nobuaki Komoto goes into detail about the login issues as well as the feedback from various regions of testing. |
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Star Trek Online three month retrospective It's been three months since the launch of Star Trek Online. It has been quite the trip since those laggy first steps (or first flights) during the game's launch. As we are wont to do with our favorite games at Massively, let's look back at STO's first few months and take stock of its past, present and future. |
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Fallen Earth team responds to layoff concerns Icarus dropped quite a bombshell on the gaming world late last week with the restructuring of the Fallen Earth team. Restructuring in this case led to the layoff of the vast majority of the staff, leaving the Fallen Earth community shocked and wondering what this meant for the game. Fallen Earth Marketing Manager Jessica "Circatrix" Orr took some time out of her busy schedule to let us know where matters stand. |
Filed under: MMO Roundup
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Brian Voelz May 4th 2010 2:35PM
/yawn
Booooorrrrrriiiinnng.
Tokkar May 4th 2010 2:53PM
Hey, WoW.com? Can we ban this individual?
Past comments:
(Today) /yawn
Booooorrrrrriiiinnng.
Cataclysm beta art assets appearing on Battle.net {WoW}
May 1st 2010 2:11AM I think I've seen 3rd graders write better articles.
Screenshot of the day revived for Cataclysm {WoW}
Apr 30th 2010 1:25PM Geez, where did this author learn to write? So bad. Probably dates a walrus too.
MMO Roundup: Star horses, extreme multi-boxing and more {WoW}
Apr 21st 2010 6:33PM *sigh* Where did you go to school? You're writing skills are lawlrusly bad.
The Queue: Goblins and worgen {WoW}
Apr 21st 2010 6:30PM Another terrible article by an obviously uneducated writer.
Breakfast Topic: Who gets to grow up? {WoW}
Apr 16th 2010 1:43PM Another bad article by another bad writer.
WoW.com Guest Post: What Cataclysm might mean for guild alliances {WoW}
Mar 5th 2010 1:33AM "mage blogger and all-around nice gal" - Um....anyone who has see this authors true colors laughs.
WoW.com Guest Post: What Cataclysm might mean for guild alliances {WoW}
Mar 5th 2010 1:09AM Probably just a drama llama.
WoW.com Guest Post: What Cataclysm might mean for guild alliances {WoW}
Mar 4th 2010 7:56PM That was a pretty bad read.
Alex Ziebart May 4th 2010 2:56PM
Sure can, Tokkar.
I give it a few hours before he thinks he's clever and starts using a proxy, though.
Sehvekah May 4th 2010 4:36PM
You know what I'd really like to see, in terms of moderation? "Invisible" bans. What I mean is, obnoxious person X gets invisa-banned, but they can still read the site. The difference is when they make a post, they'll be the only person who can see it. Sure, they'd figure it out eventually, but in the mean time they'd just be spinning their wheels while the rest of us were blissfully unaware of their existence.
CaryEverett May 4th 2010 5:20PM
@Sehvekah
You my friend... are a genius.
Seriously. Get to work programming that. You could be a millionaire :P
BRB, stealing your idea and making all the money off of it.
Hollow Leviathan May 4th 2010 2:37PM
Everyone and their mother is interested in an MMO. The question is, are nerds actually as interested in Avatar as the general public? Too many MMOs can't find a healthy medium between quality and development scale so that they can still turn a profit if they only get a modest 50,000 subscribers.
deluded spider May 4th 2010 2:55PM
As a nerd, I can assure you that I am actually actively DIS-interested in anything to do with Avatar.
Eshbringer May 4th 2010 3:04PM
@deluded spider Pff. Don't try to give me that, cool guy. I know you're not a nerd.
Tokkar May 4th 2010 3:10PM
(peeks out of the closet)
...but...but what about all us COOL nerds who LOVE Avatar?
Marita May 4th 2010 3:19PM
I like avatar for their amazing job as story-tellers
but from there to a MMO... you need more movies, more LORE to fill a world with real life
and maybe THEN you can get enough subscribers to make the effort pay off
Al May 4th 2010 3:22PM
Enough with Avatar, already. A colourful world with an incredibly weak story and zero characterization?
They've done that before. It was called Aion.
CaryEverett May 4th 2010 5:24PM
I have high hopes and low expectations for an Avatar MMO.
I really really hope it will be amazing, cause there really is so much potential in that movie. You could tell the work put into creating the Avatar universe and making sure it was compelling, rivals many big names like Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Star Trek, and even Blizzard's own Warcraft/Starcraft.
It's just a question of will it be properly utilized? And in that case, I'm expecting the worse... After all, they already made one videogame based on Avatar which was lackluster at best.
Tokkar May 4th 2010 5:54PM
An Avatar game...will the message of the movie remain intact?
Do kobolds give their candles away?
The whole lore surrounding the Na'vi centers around their reverence for, and living in balance with, nature - that all things are connected and that nothing is wasted nor taken for granted. All life is sacred and what is consumed is done so reverently and with respect and honor.
To have this as an MMO would have to incorporate all of these elements, especially in the realm of quests that followed along the lines of Jake Sulley's training, or it's all for naught. As someone already pointed out, "Go kill X ______ and bring me their _______ and I'll give you [money/material goods/reputation]" doesn't fit into that understanding...nor do the people who just run around killing critters "for fun".
So...would I love to see an Avatar game with adherence to this? You betcha! Is it gonna happen? Highly improbable.
eman.yomon May 4th 2010 3:32PM
I didn't hate Avatar, in fact I found it very entertaining. However, I do not give two cares though about the Avatar universe. When I was watching the movie I was wondering about Earth economics and what year it is, but I would not pay to go around Pandora and/or the surrounding planets. Nothing about the film made me wonder "I wonder what's outside of this place", because I was too engrossed in the cinematic marvel that was Pandora. I really wish Cameron would move on and do something else. Take over the Terminator franchise please?
ether May 4th 2010 3:46PM
I loved the movie, but Avatar as a MMO? I just don't think it'd be interesting. No matter how splendidly photorealistic, it'd get boring wandering around Pandora once the visual appeal wore off. Plus, with MMOs tending to center around "Slaughter x of this creature"... not gonna work.
Artificial May 4th 2010 6:08PM
"Plus, with MMOs tending to center around 'Slaughter x of this creature'... not gonna work."
Only bad MMO's center around that sort of thing.
Baba May 4th 2010 3:46PM
Methinks something closer to EvE than WoW is the only possible MMO to do for Avatar :/
You need a complete lore base to make a decent MMO, one that will be able to compete with the current pack, which avatar is currently lacking.
Perhaps a blend? Incorporating starship piloting as seen in EvE, along with space warfare, but you can land and then explore planet cities and bases. Bosses could be on asteroids or select planets, rather than secreted somewhere on Pandora.
jlpknights82 May 4th 2010 3:53PM
James Cameron developed a LOT of lore for the Avatar "universe." We only saw a part of it in the film. I think it could easily be expanded to create a game with great depth. However, the audience would have to buy into it very fast, and be very immersed in the story and environments, becuase it is not an existing franchise in the same way WoW/LotR/D&D etc were before they became MMOs.
jlpknights82 May 4th 2010 3:51PM
I would play an Avatar game in a second. IF IT WAS A GOOD GAME.
I loved the movie, and I love the environment it's set in. I think it could be a really great game, but they have to get it right.
The console game that came out was done far too quickly. For me, it was nearly unplayable and not terribly interesting. Then again, I've always much preferred MMOs.
Sinfulle May 4th 2010 3:56PM
I took part in the original Guild Wars beta, and played an Elementalist during that time. This news is exciting to me, and the videos available of the skills make me giddy. I love WoW but at times I need a break from it, and GW2 looks like a possible candidate to play during those times.