I recently had the chance to sit down with Ofir “DrDread” Maimon, the lead developer of the upcoming browser MMORTS Barons of the Galaxy. We talked about in-game politics, release schedule, typical browser MMORTS conventions, and more. Me: How long has Barons of the Galaxy been in development? Maimon: I probably said “start new website” maybe three years ago, but [...]
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In the opening movie of Star Wars the Old Republic, Satele Shan clutches her forehead and announces “I sense.....a great darkness.” I can’t help but echo her sentiments as 11th February edges closer into view from Bioware’s development horizon. “Anarchy in Paradise” is the first major update (4.1) since the release of the “Knights of the Fallen Empire” expansion. This [...]
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1. No moderators on official servers Rampant hacking, racism, verbal abuse, and threats are constant in the global chat of Ark: Survival Evolved. Players record video evidence of hackers in the act and are met with zero response from Steam or developers. Entire servers have been rendered unplayable due to this unmanaged invasion of game-breaking hacks. Players that work for [...]
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When I hit level 60 in vanilla World of Warcraft I typed in "/played" and read 8 days, 6 hours. I spent days, and then months, grinding, raiding, and PvPing in WoW. For periods of time Blizzard's MMORPG was the second life I lived when I wasn't bogged down by responsibility. It may be the game I've spent more time in than [...]
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This week’s hottest eSports news and highlights for League of Legends, CS:GO, and Dota 2. Expect spoilers! Contents (Click to Jump to Section) League of Legends NA LCS EU LCS LCK LPL Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Dota 2 League of Legends NA LCS: Immortals remain undefeated once again, CLG, Liquid, and Cloud9 have strong performances. EU LCS: G2 Esports and H2k surge to [...]
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Last month, I posed a question: “Is the concept of an endgame part of the problem?” In the accompanying article, I suggested that splitting an MMORPG into two distinctive halves may, in fact, be part of the problem with MMORPGs. I did not, however, offer any solutions to the problem. Today, I am going to offer several alternatives to the [...]
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Sometimes leaving a good impression can mean more than the overall quality of a game, which is coincidentally something I tell myself to reconcile the fact that I played World of Warcraft by myself for 7 months during the Burning Crusade. The reality is that games don’t survive on good impressions alone, which has caused many great idea to be [...]
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The MMO genre has grown almost exclusively on PC for decades, while console players have generally been excluded. With the current generation of consoles pushing processing power beyond previous limits, and requiring always-connected broadband connections, the MMO genre has burst into the consoles world with a suite of impressive titles: games like The Elder Scrolls Online and Final Fantasy XIV [...]
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The new year is barely a month old and the 2016 MMO line-up continues to grow. It's easy to get whirled away on the hype-train express in eager anticipation of an upcoming title. I was amped for WildStar, spoon-fed excitement by online communities and gossip from friends telling me that World of Warcraft's killer was about to be unleashed. Hype rarely lives up [...]
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This week’s hottest eSports news and highlights for League of Legends, CS:GO, and Dota 2. Expect spoilers! Contents (Click to Jump to Section) League of Legends NA LCS EU LCS LCK LPL Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Dota 2 League of Legends NA LCS: Immortals remain undefeated, Liquid comes back into form and other teams are inconsistent. EU LCS: G2 Esports and H2k surge [...]
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