MMO Roundup: The Old Republic's beta pulls 2 million players
by Alex Ziebart 
Dec 7th 2011 at 3:00PM
 |
Star Wars: The Old Republic beta test attracts 2 million players It's no secret that Star Wars: The Old Republic is one of the most highly anticipated MMORPGs in recent memory, and the game's recently concluded public testing phase confirms the hype. The game's publisher, EA, announced that the SWTOR test phase drew in over 2 million players, and of those 2 million, 750,000 unique players jumped into the game over the Thanksgiving weekend alone. |
 |
Diablo III game designers talk Inferno difficulty and twinking Diablo III has a lot of expectations to live up to, several of which are discussed in a recent PC Gamer interview with Wyatt Cheng and Andrew Chambers. Both designers discuss the challenge level of the new Inferno difficulty, which is aimed at max-level characters in good gear who have already completed the Hell difficulty level. They confirm that while it's meant to be brutal, it can be played and beaten solo -- although having a friend won't hurt. |
 |
Neverwinter tempts your lust for glory with its first teaser trailer Like any good Dungeons & Dragons session, Neverwinter's maiden trailer begins in a fantasy tavern, where locals and adventurers are mingling and swapping stories. Everyone is curious about a pitched battle that happened the night before on a bridge, but only one mysterious figure is able to tell them the truth. |
 |
Richard Garriott predicts the death of consoles as a gaming medium Considering his influence on the realm of MMOs, many gamers would argue that it's hard to dismiss Richard Garriott's thoughts on development out of hand. A recent interview with the man includes him predicting the fall of traditional console gaming in favor of portable devices, and the end of MMOs as a major market share compared to social and casual games. |
 |
Massively Speaking Episode 177 Massively Speaking returns this week with hosts Justin and Rubi discussing the week's MMO news, including Glitch's unlaunching, Lineage II's move to F2P, EVE Online's Crucible update, Justin's love for Bobby Kotick, and much more. |
 |
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 3)
Seedcake Dec 7th 2011 3:02PM
Good to see that Garriot's still mad as a hatter.
Kaphik Dec 7th 2011 6:10PM
Wait til you see the first game his new company announced today. Mad as a hatter doesn't begin to describe him.
http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/12/07/portalarium-announces-ultimate-collector-garage-sale-as-first-t/
SR Dec 7th 2011 3:08PM
What. The fuck. Is in. That picture.
Noyou Dec 7th 2011 3:20PM
Wontons gone wild! That's what happens when you leave it in the broth too long!
Pinochet Dec 7th 2011 3:21PM
It's clearly a dumpling with a face and legs.
SR Dec 7th 2011 3:23PM
I know it's a wonton with legs and a face.
But WHAT. THE FUCK. IS THAT.
Anne Stickney Dec 7th 2011 3:46PM
It's a wonton hussy.
Task Dec 7th 2011 4:17PM
@Anne Stickney
"It's a wonton hussy."
I see what you did there... hehe.
+10 wontons and +15 steamed dumplings to you.
Oteo Dec 7th 2011 4:57PM
WTB baozi!...
bruce Dec 7th 2011 6:26PM
A wantan wonton?
Jabouty Dec 7th 2011 6:54PM
And now I want wonton soup ... thanks ...
goldeneye Dec 8th 2011 6:51AM
@SR Also : eat THAT mature language filter
:-p
Bynde Dec 7th 2011 3:11PM
What in the name of Grabthar's Hammer is that ?
Saltypoison Dec 7th 2011 3:11PM
KILL IT WITH FIRE!!!!
Gordal Dec 7th 2011 5:04PM
Take off an nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
Sarah Bee Dec 7th 2011 3:12PM
Yay! I really like WoW, but I'm glad another MMO appears to be doing successfully. World of Warcraft has had too much of a dominance over the genre, thereby stifling innovation, for far too long in my opinion.
raingod Dec 7th 2011 5:49PM
You can't blame WoW for stifling innovation, that makes no sense at all. The blame lies with lazy developers who copy what they see works, rather than use their imagination.
Chance Dec 7th 2011 4:55PM
What Raingod said. If anything WoW holding the throne for so long should inspire innovation seeing as everybody who has tried to clone WoW with nothing but a few tweaks has failed miserably. I'm not a fan of ToR but I give them props for not staying within the "safe zone" that has lead to the downfall of so many potential competitors. Hopefully they inspire other games to use some out of the box thinking in the future, id love a different themed MMO to play during the months when WoW just feels stale, but jumping to RIFT would just feel like rolling alts on a slightly modded WoW server and as I said I'm not a fan of how Bioware did ToR, just isn't for me.
Pyromelter Dec 7th 2011 5:12PM
I don't think Sarah was implying that wow/blizzard was stifling innovation. I think she means that a lack of competition from other MMO's has been what has been stifling the genre. What this means is that blizz has not had the push it's needed to really improve upon wow, as many (legitimate non-trolling) people feel that cataclysm has been a step back compared to wrath.
There have been many contenders (pretenders?) to the wow MMO throne, however all of them have ended up being nothing more than cupcake opponents that Wow completely steamrolled.
One of the things that is impossible to predict about MMO's is the PvE endgame. That is where wow has shined the most, and why they are so successful. You can beta test things and do low level dungeons and pvp all you want. In the end, you need to have your players progressing in a meaningful fashion at level cap. This is where Rift was an absolute bomb - the endgame was a korean-level grind, completely filled with horrific buggy encounters and an almost complete lack of class balance. 1-49.9 in Rift is pretty darn fun, some grindy leveling but not too bad, but once you hit 50, you've got a few hundred hours of grind in before you can be any kinds of effective, let alone min/maxed.
This is why we need to hold our horses on SWTOR. No one has been even close to wow when it comes to the quality of end-game PvE content. A large percentage of the TOR playerbase will be level capped within 3 months, so months 3-6 will be most telling in terms of their long-term success. If you start seeing people talk about guilds getting famous for world first raid kills, with lots of youtube hits and twitch tv viewers, there is a good chance TOR will be able to compete. If it falls flat (ala Rift), you'll see a massive migration from TOR back to WoW.
Pyromelter Dec 7th 2011 5:14PM
sorry for wall of text, here's a tl;dr - It's other companies sucking that has stifled innovation in wow as well as the genre overall, and it's too early to call SWTOR a success. Wait till next summer and see what their numbers are and then we'll see some real effects on wow and the mmo industry, otherwise it'll be just another "okay this one's done, everyone back on the wow pile!"