MMO Roundup: SWTOR watching WoW, the Smuggler, and more
by Alex Ziebart 
Sep 13th 2011 at 3:00PM
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Star Wars: The Old Republic is keeping a close eye on World of Warcraft It probably comes as no real surprise to learn that Electronic Arts is studying WoW when it comes to SWTOR's upcoming launch -- but not in the way you might think. The company isn't concerned as much with the mechanical side of the equation, but with the question of what happens post-launch and how to increase player retention. |
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Bigpoint says game publishers should sell in-game advantages In case you were wondering where browser MMO specialist Bigpoint stands on the issue of selling in-game advantages, a new interview with the company's chief games officer leaves little to the imagination. "[...] if they want to pay, don't just offer hats -- offer them something that will help them." |
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Diablo 3 faces competition as it enters closed beta Blizzard confirmed that the public beta for Diablo 3 is due to begin very soon. The friends and family portion of the closed beta official began this week, and Blizzard has surprisingly opted not to put an NDA on those involved. Videos of gameplay have begun to surface on YouTube, expanding on last week's brief leaked footage with some real, first-hand game experience. |
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SWTOR shows us how to level like a Smuggler Star Wars: The Old Republic showed off the armor progression of the game's Smuggler class in last week's Friday community update. The two-and-a-half-minute video displays not only the class's awesome armor, but also some never-before-seen gameplay elements of the class. |
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Massively Speaking Episode 164: Dragon*Con 2011 Massively Speaking Episode 164 returns this week as Shawn is joined by Jef Reahard and MJ Guthrie to discuss their experiences at Dragon*Con 2011 last weekend. Have a comment for the podcasters? Shoot an email to shawn@massively.com. They may just read your email on the air! |
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Massively's week in review Don't let WoW Insider do all of the talking when it comes to Massively's best content of the week. The Massively staff themselves have picked out what they think is the best content their site has to offer, in their own weekly roundup. |
Filed under: MMO Roundup
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Kunikenwad! Sep 13th 2011 3:43PM
Ruh roh ... incoming nerdrage concerning SWTOR. I've never really understood how some (and I do mean some, not all) WoW players and SWTOR players can never get along. Can't their be two big MMOs out at the same time and both be financially successful?
DBriggs304 Sep 13th 2011 3:58PM
"Can't their be two big MMOs out at the same time and both be financially successful?"
In a perfect world...yes. In the real world...No, Absolutely Not, and negative!
WoW fanboys will always have it out for anyone out there trying to compete with WoW and any other MMO fanboys will want nothing but WoW's destruction. Just the way it is. Blizzard has been winning the battle for years though. Warhammer, Aion, Final Fantasy, AOC, and yes...even Rift have all fallen to Wow when everyone was going on and on about them being the 'WoW Killer'. However, SW:TOR is the ONLY one that may actually do it AND has the deep pockets to withstand the first turbulent six months to a year that every new MMO has to go through until it gets it's footing. Would be nice if everyone could play nice, but I don't see that happening.
CrimsonKing Sep 13th 2011 5:23PM
@ DBriggs304: WoW killer is such a horrible buzz word. It should honestly just be struck from the vocab of the MMO community. Also saying that games are failures or have fallen just because they didn't live up to the horrible buzz word of "WoW killer" is equally as bad and stupid. If a game is running and making a profit for their respective companies then that is a success. There are reasons why people make up a top 10 MMO list after all and that is because multiple MMOs can and do run simultaneously while being financially successful it just happens to be that WoW is at the top of the list, it doesn't mean it's the only successful MMO though.
AnotherDude Sep 13th 2011 4:14PM
"Star Wars: The Old Republic is keeping a close eye on World of Warcraft"
Aren't those old news? I guess I've read about it in the last week.
Ice Sep 13th 2011 7:00PM
You know what roundup means, right?
Kadamon Sep 13th 2011 4:20PM
Most of the people I've played WoW with are Star Wars fans first and WoW fans second. I'm including myself in that spot, and most every person I know wants to play TOR and hopes it succeeds. Again, I'm one of them.
However, I'm not going to be playing at Launch because of a few factors. One being that EA's throttling subscriptions for the first while and I didn't pre-order, the second is that I don't trust a new MMO launch. They've all been bad and experience shows that this'll follow through on that.
The third reason is personal, so nyah. :P
Well, I've got more opinions on the matter, but I need to go do some stuff so...oh well.
StClair Sep 14th 2011 2:30AM
Unless you want to be able to say "I was there" later on, never play a new MMO, try a new online service, install a new OS or service patch, etc etc for the first 1-3 months. Or at least think about it long and hard before you do.
furrama Sep 13th 2011 5:07PM
Another one of these and no GW2 news. SWTOR got two. I has a sad.
Sorry, I just don't care about Star Wars. I'll take any news on Wildstar too, come on internet, give up the goods!
Kaphik Sep 13th 2011 5:29PM
Maybe because SW: The Old Republic is in beta and has a projected launch for later this year and Guild Wars 2 has a projected launch sometime in 2012 and not in beta?
furrama Sep 13th 2011 5:48PM
Doesn't make it any less exciting or noteworthy. I'm fine with Arena Net taking working on it till it's done, but I still like to hear about it.
Alex Ziebart Sep 13th 2011 5:59PM
This week was Asura week on the GW2 website! All of Massively's Guild Wars 2 coverage is here: http://massively.joystiq.com/category/guild-wars-2
And if you're an RSS feed kinda person and only want to follow Massively's GW2 news, you can stick this in your reader: http://massively.joystiq.com/category/guild-wars-2/rss.xml
furrama Sep 13th 2011 6:38PM
Thanks Alex! I knew about asura week, but now I have other things to peruse.
I hope most of these new MMO's get as good a website as Wowinsider.
Bart Sep 13th 2011 5:30PM
”The crucial part of the design is not having to invest, but wanting to. Most people in the Bigpoint universe don’t ever pay,” says Philip Reisberger. ”But if they want to pay, don’t just offer hats — offer them something that will help them. It wouldn’t ruin the game. If selling an advantage ruins the game, you haven’t done the balancing right,”
No amount of facedesking...
zweitblom Sep 13th 2011 6:35PM
"If selling an advantage ruins the game, you haven’t done the balancing right"
Of course it ups the challenge, but in my opinion most people only accept that in one of two cases:
a) the 'dumb machine' having an advantage by design to make up for its lack of intelligence, or
b) them being able to *choose* to give another player an advantage.
In the end what will happen is either everyone buying the advantage, or the people not willing or able to buy it leaving. The result will be the same: everyone left in the game will have the advantage and thus - negating it. It's a con scheme, plain and simple.
cloudhopper013 Sep 13th 2011 11:18PM
So... if giving players who pay an opportunity to tilt the game's balance in their favor causes balance problems then it's your fault for not balancing the unbalancing?
... what?
General Zod Sep 14th 2011 12:28AM
I'm very interested in seeing how the classes are balanced in SWTOR, as well as how the game turns out in the end. Like a previous commenter said, I'd be happy to see two heavyweights both competing for my 15 dollars a month.
Ice Sep 14th 2011 1:20PM
Well based on the PvP footage from gamescom it seem pretty tight on PvP part at least it def didnt feel like "wrath pvp where you would explode in 5 seconds" but its not really some old school rpg where fights take 10 minutes. I would say its more like dota style..not 3 seconds but not 2 minutes either..at least at those mid-levels.
The battlegrounds seem to be more about fun and action than lot of stressing. The healers seem to have more of dps/actionish role rather than standind LoS throwing heals constantly to keep up with the damage.