Posts with tag swtor

This post originally appeared on Massively from Editor-in-Chief Brianna Royce. At the end of every week, we round up the best and most popular news stories, exclusive features, and insightful columns published on Massively and then present them all in one convenient place. If you missed a big MMO story last week, you've come to the right post.

Star Wars: The Old Republic's Shadow of Revan expansion launched for early-access players this week, adding new locations and storylines, revamping skill trees, selling strongholds for a song, and nuking training costs. And yes, it's that Revan. Massively's SWTOR expert Larry Everett scoped out the expansion ahead of launch and judged it worthy even for soloers.

Read on for a look at the rest of this week's top MMO stories.

This post originally appeared on Massively from Editor-in-Chief Brianna Royce. At the end of every week, we round up the best and most popular news stories, exclusive features, and insightful columns published on Massively and then present them all in one convenient place. If you missed a big MMO story last week, you've come to the right post.

Time to brush up on your Greek! Elite: Dangerous' gamma phase launched last week, marking the last test phase before launch on December 16th. Backers can jump in and play now, but for those who are late to the buying party, there's a solo mode to check out in the meantime. Massively's Mike Foster, who toured the game in September, returned this weekend for hands-on time with and a stream of the final build.

Read on for a look at the rest of this week's top MMO stories.

This post originally appeared on Massively from Editor-in-Chief Brianna Royce. At the end of every week, we round up the best and most popular news stories, exclusive features, and insightful columns published on Massively and then present them all in one convenient place. If you missed a big MMO story last week, you've come to the right post.

After a shockingly long content drought and disappointing expansion previews, World of Warcraft proved that no one cares about content droughts and disappointing expansion previews by resecuring over 10,000,000 subscriptions, just in time for its 10th anniversary celebration. To compensate for the trainwreck launch of Warlords of Draenor, Blizzard granted the entire playerbase five extra days of gametime.

Read on for a look at the rest of this week's top MMO stories.

This post originally appeared on Massively from Editor-in-Chief Brianna Royce. At the end of every week, we round up the best and most popular news stories, exclusive features, and insightful columns published on Massively and then present them all in one convenient place. If you missed a big MMO story last week, you've come to the right post.

This week, everything happened. WildStar suffered significant staff layoffs, Final Fantasy unveiled another new class, RIFT launched a new expansion, ArcheAge waged war on exploiters, and Guild Wars 2 resolved its currency controversy. Keep it coming, MMO industry. Well, maybe skip the layoffs next time.

Read on for a look at all of these and more top MMO stories.

This post originally appeared on Massively from Editor-in-Chief Brianna Royce. At the end of every week, we round up the best and most popular news stories, exclusive features, and insightful columns published on Massively and then present them all in one convenient place. If you missed a big MMO story last week, you've come to the right post

This week, BioWare officially announced Star Wars: The Old Republic's Shadows of Revan expansion, complete with reduced grind, fast-track bonuses for story-minded players, and a major overhaul of the game's class specialization system. For those who'd like to catch up on Revan-related lore, Massively's SWTOR expert Larry Everett has chronicled the relevant in-game quests.

Read on for a look at the rest of this week's top MMO stories.

This post originally appeared on Massively from Editor-in-Chief Brianna Royce. At the end of every week, we round up the best and most popular news stories, exclusive features, and insightful columns published on Massively and then present them all in one convenient place. If you missed a big MMO story last week, you've come to the right post.

You may not be able to play Uncle Owen on your very own moisture farm in Star Wars: The Old Republic, but you can come pretty darn close in the Galactic Strongholds expansion, which added housing to the game when it launched for subscribers earlier this week.

Read on for a look at the rest of this week's top MMO stories, including more of our SOE Live coverage.

At the end of every week, we round up the best and most popular news stories, exclusive features, and insightful columns published on Massively and then present them all in one convenient place. If you missed a big MMO or WoW Insider story last week, you've come to the right post.

This week, the MMO world has been preoccupied with SOE Live, Gamescom, and Blizzard's Warlords of Draenor shindig. Massively's MJ Guthrie has been reporting from SOE Live in Las Vegas, delivering fresh info on Landmark's and EverQuest Next's combat systems.

	SOE Live 2014: Details on EverQuest Next combat, classes, and races
	SOE Live 2014: Combat comes to Landmark August 27th
	SOE Live 2014: EverQuest will release The Darkened Sea expansion October 28th
	SOE Live 2014: EverQuest II's Altar of Malice expansion includes new playable race
	SOE Live 2014: Thursday keynote liveblog announces EQ and EQII expansions, more

This post originally appeared on Massively from Editor-in-Chief Brianna Royce. At the end of every week, we round up the best and most popular news stories, exclusive features, and insightful columns published on Massively and then present them all in one convenient place. If you missed a big MMO story last week, you've come to the right post.

Console fans were treated to a hefty dose of sci-fi pseudo-MMO Destiny this week as the beta opened up for PS3, PS4, and XBone and developers showered trinkets on players. In spite of the game's lack of cross-platform play, at least one analyst predicts Bungie could sell as many as 20 million units.

Meanwhile, we finished up our trio of articles previewing the World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor beta.

	WoW's Warlords of Draenor beta: A disappointing start
	WoW's Warlords of Draenor beta: The disappointment of garrisons
	WoW's Warlords of Draenor beta: Questing, mechanics, and concerns

Read on for a look at the rest of this week's top MMO stories.

This post originally appeared on Massively from Editor-in-Chief Brianna Royce. At the end of every week, we round up the best and most popular news stories, exclusive features, and insightful columns published on Massively and then present them all in one convenient place. If you missed a big MMO story last week, you've come to the right post.

This week, The Elder Scrolls Online team revealed plans for its third major patch; due in August, the update will include the first part of a slash-and-burn overhaul of the unpopular veteran ranks system. Meanwhile, Massively ESO columnist Jef Reahard opined on why immersion is so important for ZeniMax's MMO.

Read on for a look at the rest of this week's top MMO stories.

This post originally appeared on Massively from Editor-in-Chief Brianna Royce. At the end of every week, we round up the best and most popular news stories, exclusive features, and insightful columns published on Massively and then present them all in one convenient place. If you missed a big MMO story last week, you've come to the right post.

This week, ArenaNet launched the second season of Guild Wars 2's living story, introducing the first part of a new zone, Dry Top, to the almost-two-year-old MMO. Don't worry if you miss an installment, however; the new living journal will allow you to replay past storylines, nullifying complaints about temporary content.

Read on for a look at the rest of this week's top MMO stories.

This post originally appeared on Massively from Jef Reahard. At the end of every week, we round up the best and most popular news stories, exclusive features, and insightful columns published on Massively and then present them all in one convenient place. If you missed a big MMO story last week, you've come to the right post.

WildStar's headstart kicked off this weekend, and apart from the DDoS attacks, all appears to be going... exactly as most AAA launches go. Some people are irate, some people don't care, and some people are too busy forgoing sleep in favor of playing. Prior to the early access period, Carbine dangled some account security incentives, released an official server list, and unveiled the final pre-launch trailer.

Click past the cut for the rest of this week's top MMO stories.

This post originally appeared on Massively by Editor-in-Chief Brianna Royce. At the end of every week, we round up the best and most popular news stories, exclusive features, and insightful columns published on Massively and then present them all in one convenient place.

This week, BioWare performed an abrupt about-face on housing in MMORPGs, revealing during a livestream that Star Wars: The Old Republic will install its own system of player apartments to complement the existing private ship instances. Massively's Larry Everett broke down the video, speculating that housing will be faction-based and will have kiosks for mail, missions, decorating, appearance/outfit design, and HBO Go. Kidding.

Read on for a look at the rest of this week's top MMO stories.

Sometimes, you'd like to know that there are other MMOs out there, right? It's not all WoW, all the time! Our sister site Massively can provide you with everything you need to know about all of the other MMOs around -- past, present and future.

	Disney shutters LucasArts Following Disney's acquisition of Star Wars and its related companies and properties, gaming fans have wondered what might happen to developer LucasArts. Out of all of the possible scenarios, the worst has happened: Disney has stopped development in the studio and laid off its employees.
	Rumor: Titan might be a time-traveling, earthbound MMO Titan rumors are more common than water, but that doesn't make them any less fun to read. The latest rumor suggest Titan is set on Earth and makes heavy use of time travel.
	Diablo III's auction house 'really hurt the game' Remember that one time when a guy used Diablo III's real-money auction house to bank a cool $10,000? That apparently wasn't what Blizzard foresaw when creating and implementing the auction house. According to former Diablo III Game Director Jay Wilson, the auction house "really hurt the game."
	GDC 2013: James Ohlen on how F2P saved SWTOR Developers speak most candidly about their games and professions at GDC, and at GDC13, SWTOR's James Ohlen laid out exactly how the game's F2P transition ensured its survival. He also dispels many myths that have built up around the game, explaining exactly what costs so much money in game development -- and what doesn't cost much at all, relatively speaking.
	Jet Li: There's 'no good reason to debunk virtual gaming as a sport' Jet Li may be known for his martial arts prowess, but he's also an avid gamer according to an interview translation at MMO Culture. Li recently attended an Age of Wushu PvP tournament and had some interesting things to say about e-sports and the validity of video gaming as a sport in general.
	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.

Sometimes, you'd like to know that there are other MMOs out there, right? It's not all WoW, all the time! Our sister site Massively can provide you with everything you need to know about all of the other MMOs around -- past, present and future.

	Elder Scrolls Online releases cinematic, begins beta signups A new press release from Bethesda and Zenimax trumpets the announcement (though "timing and details of the start of playtests will be provided at a later date"), and the firms have also released a slick new cinematic trailer that will whet your appetite for Tamriel over the course of its whopping six-minute run time.
	Fox News discusses Star Wars: The Old Republic's "gay planet" Star Wars: The Old Republic's upcoming expansion, Rise of the Cartel, will feature the first implementation of same-gender romances in the game. However, these romances will be limited (segregated?) to characters on the planet Makeb, and aren't truly relationships -- only flirtations with the local NPCs. Makeb has been dubbed "gay planet."
	Guild Wars 2 sells 3 million copies, looks to the future ArenaNet Game Director Colin Johanson took to the company's blog to talk about their game plan for 2013. Johanson kicked things off by dropping the fact that Guild Wars 2 has now surpassed three million copies sold. New events, polishing PvP, and giving guilds some love are all on the agenda for ArenaNet.
	Diablo III's Jay Wilson steps down as game director It's hard to imagine working on the same game for seven years, but for Diablo III's Jay Wilson, that was his reality. The game director won't be making it eight, however, as Wilson is stepping down to move to another position in Blizzard. Wilson stressed that the ongoing development of Diablo III will "carry forward as normal" and that he'll remain available to the team for consultation and advice.
	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.

Sometimes, you'd like to know that there are other MMOs out there, right? It's not all WoW, all the time! Our sister site Massively can provide you with everything you need to know about all of the other MMOs around -- past, present and future.

	The Secret World no longer requires a subscription Early last week, the urban fantasy MMO The Secret World has officially dropped its subscription fee. Effective immediately, you only need to purchase the game itself to play. Subscription-free players are not restricted from accessing any content or gameplay features.
	Turbine brings back Asheron's Call 2 Though Asheron's Call is still running, Asheron's Call 2, which launched in 2002, closed its doors in 2005. Now, nearly 7 years later, Turbine is bringing Asheron's Call 2 back. The game is currently in beta phase, and to access the game, you need to be an Asheron's Call subscriber.
	EVE Online breaks the 450k subscriber mark Between the recent launch of the Retribution expansion and a relaunch in China, EVE Online has accumulated more than 450,000 subscribers. EVE developer CCP partnered up with TianCity to bring the sandbox back into the Chinese market. According to a CCP press release, the game's business in China has surpassed expectations.
	Did SWTOR make things worse by going F2P? Star Wars: The Old Republic has caught a lot of heat over its approach to F2P gaming. With severely restricted gameplay for free players and exorbitant prices in its cash shop, The Old Republic may have done more harm than good for its game -- a surprise misstep in a market that has seen great success with F2P games in the past.
	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.

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