MMO Roundup: Last week on Massively
by Alex Ziebart 
Nov 30th 2010 at 9:00AM
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Gamer pays a buttload of cash to play an MMO on a huge screen If you had $15,000, what would you do with it? Pay some bills? Maybe upgrade a few holiday gifts? Nope! Apparently, the thing to do with all that spare cash is renting out the biggest honking video screen one can find and playing an MMO. |
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Massively Speaking episode 124: Fallen Earth's Marie Croall Massively Speaking, Massively's MMO podcast, is back this week with episode 124. This week, Editor-in-Chief Shawn Schuster speaks with Fallen Earth Senior Game Designer Marie Croall. |
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BioWare releases new TOR inhabitants entries On the afternoon of Black Friday, BioWare released its usual Friday update for Star Wars: The Old Republic. This time around, BioWare focused on some new inhabitants made available in the Holonet database: the terentatek, the vine cat, the Sith pureblood, the M3-M1 med droid and the S3-F5 probe droid. |
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The Game Archaeologist and the Nights of Old Winter Massively's Justin Olivetti is on a mission to send every single one of us into a nostalgic seizure. This past week, he dug into Neverwinter Nights, one of the earliest games resembling an MMO on the market. You think $15 a month is harsh? Try $8 per hour. |
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Final Fantasy XIV sends the November update live Everyone in the United States got to spend the day gorging on turkey and pie, but Final Fantasy XIV players got to gorge themselves on something else -- a large patch. The far-reaching November version update has gone live, bringing with it a host of updates and improvements to help bring the game up to speed in both content and accessibility. |
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Community Detective Issue #13: A conversation with Funcom customer service Community Detective, Massively's weekly column analyzing and assessing the strength of community (or lack thereof) in all of our favorite MMOs, takes a break from the undercover research to speak with Funcom's customer service directly about the trials and tribulations of dealing with the problems a large gaming community faces. |
Filed under: MMO Roundup
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
bep4815 Nov 30th 2010 9:11AM
$15,000 for 10 minutes? i'm all for wasteful spending, but that's just the stupidest thing i've ever heard. it really isn't that cool anyways. i wouldn't spend $100 for 10 minutes.
Terrant Nov 30th 2010 10:19AM
Yes, I'd much rather spend my $15,000 on 1,875 hours in Neverwinter Nights!
gewalt Nov 30th 2010 9:27AM
MMO roundup was better when it prominently displayed the raw sexuality available in other games. I was sad the day someone complained about it because I knew from that moment on, the weekly eye candy was going to disappear. and disappear it did.
osyrysfey Nov 30th 2010 9:55AM
There is also the weirdness inherent in the fact that this wealthy guy's game of choice is some obscure free thing. Can you really build up such funds just from quitting WOW?
Mr. Tastix Nov 30th 2010 10:00AM
If he had saved $15 a month from the release date of World of Warcraft, he still wouldn't have nearly enough to save up for this kind of spending.
It would take you 83.33 years, at $15 a month, to save up for this.
AishaLove Nov 30th 2010 9:56AM
LOL that's when he goes to log in and he sees "SERVER MAINTENANCE"
Mr. Tastix Nov 30th 2010 9:55AM
Whilst I have no right to tell this guy how to use his money, it just seems well... so wasteful.
If he's rich enough to waste money he obviously doesn't have any problem paying bills or whatnot, he could have at least given it to a decent charity or something. >.>
Shinhan Dec 1st 2010 2:19AM
Huh?
Nobody gives 100% of their income to charities.
How does doing this stunt preclude him from charitable giving?
Pat Nov 30th 2010 10:03AM
o.O That was just ridiculous, I cannot think of a reason to play on a screen of that size in a public area like that.
When I see things like that I always hope they mess up somehow in game and die.. And an old school "Gameover" Screen shows up so even those people who know nothing about games can imitate Nelson.
Huzurahh Nov 30th 2010 10:38AM
The FFXIV patch notes look really good - it's unfortunate that it's 3 months too late. This was what they should have released at game launch. My friends and I canceled our accounts last month and won't be back.
And that dude should have spent his money putting a home theater in his house. That would have lasted a lot longer than 10 minutes.. Some people just have too much money.
watspr02 Nov 30th 2010 11:33AM
Is anyone else surprised that the Sith one for KoTR has only 2 comments (not actually a sarcastic comment)? Even though it was released on the day after Thanksgiving, the Sith have to be one of the most desired races for the dark side in the game and it only has 2 comments? If that (and the fact that they've already spent $100 million on it) doesn't say that it will not last long I don't know what will. At $15/month, they would need to have something like 4 million subscribers each month over a 6 month time period to break even, not counting the daily expenses for running the servers, ISP costs, etc. IMO I just don't see it lasting, but it focuses more on the single player element that almost any other MMO out there making it more of an online RPG rather than a MMO so it might surprise me. We shall see.
RogueJedi86 Nov 30th 2010 12:19PM
It's because we've known Sith Purebloods will be playable for months. This is just lore fluff. A post on a fansite about the Inhabitants has 56 comments. Massively's not the hot place for TOR news. Plus it's only lore fluff that doesn't impress most casual Massively posters. It's no sign of TOR being dead, just of casual people not caring for the lore stuff. I happen to love seeing how the Terentateks look in-game, looks just like the concept art we saw last year.
Also, it's TOR, not "KoTR" as you put it. What does KoTR mean?
watspr02 Nov 30th 2010 12:32PM
KoTR is Knights of the Old Republic which is what it was originally called when it was a console/computer game and what they started to call the MMO before they changed it to the Old Republic. When I hear TOR, I always think of the book company so I have trouble putting 2 and 2 together to mean the Old Republic. Thanks for the info about other websites for the game. I'm not really interested in another MMO (WoW takes up enough time without adding another), but I might go look at that info sometime. Also good point about casuals not caring about lore. Lore is one of the reasons why I love Star Wars, WoW, etc so I always attach more importance to it than the average person does I guess. I'll have to look into the Terentateks.
Hurbster Nov 30th 2010 12:57PM
People probably gone blind after the site 'redesign'.
RogueJedi86 Nov 30th 2010 1:08PM
KotOR was the first 2 games on Xbox/PC. TOR has always been SWTOR(though before it was formally announced we assume it'd be something like KotORO, KotOR Online). At least you're not calling it ToR, like a lot of WoWers who assume the O is for an improper noun like WoW.
And I see I forgot to mention the fansite, it's www.darthhater.com. Has some nice forums too, plus all sorts of TOR news. They're famous for how they dissect every TOR video for nice juicy details that might not be obvious.
Terentateks were the rancor-like beasties from KotOR and KotOR2, so KotOR fans will recognize them. Some of the Aurebesh on their Inhabitants page even mentions that Revan fought one on Kashyyyk. You can see their in-game version in the screenshots on their inhabitants page of that Friday update. :) It was their head spikes in particular that looked like concept art to me, the way they look like brush strokes. Specifically this screenshot http://www.swtor.com/media/screens/terentatek looks like this concept art http://www.swtor.com/media/concepts/terentatek
RogueJedi86 Nov 30th 2010 1:16PM
KotOR was the first 2 games on Xbox/PC. TOR has always been SWTOR(though before it was formally announced we assume it'd be something like KotORO, KotOR Online). At least you're not calling it ToR, like a lot of WoWers who assume the O is for an improper noun like WoW.
And I see I forgot to mention the fansite, it's www.darthhater.com. Has some nice forums too, plus all sorts of TOR news. They're famous for how they dissect every TOR video for nice juicy details that might not be obvious.
Terentateks were the rancor-like beasties from KotOR and KotOR2, so KotOR fans will recognize them. Some of the Aurebesh on their Inhabitants page even mentions that Revan fought one on Kashyyyk. You can see their in-game version in the screenshots on their inhabitants page of that Friday update. :) It was their head spikes in particular that looked like concept art to me, the way they look like brush strokes. Specifically this screenshot http://www.swtor.com/media/screens/terentatek looks like this concept art http://www.swtor.com/media/concepts/terentatek
(post didn't go through the first time, pardon the double-post if there is one)