MMORPG

I should be preparing for my trip to NH for a family reunion tonight, but I couldn’t resist the opportunity to help a friend with Labyrinth… a couple of times… and also finish up the Dragonspyre stone rose and books quests. Combined with another side quest I’d totally missed first time around, and Marissa gained the last two bubbles to hit Grandmaster Conjurer. First thing: Put on the Malistaire robe she won. Second thing: Take that UGLY THING OFF AGAIN! Since she had hit the money cap (150,000 gold), she couldn’t even sell her stuff, so she went to the Bazaar and bought a good outfit for stitching – price was no object. Stitched it to her robe and level 45 hat and boots and another well-dressed Myth wizard is ready for Celestia. ...

Having saved the Undine from forced assimilation at the hands of the Borg in the previous episode, Assimilation, Starfleet believes the Undine might be convinced to form an alliance with the Federation to remove the Borg from the galaxy AND from fluidic space, forever. Scout ships have reported a number of anomalies forming in the center of a nearby star ckuster, and the USS Monterey is to investigate them. If a safe portal to fluidic space is to be had, we are to enter it and make contact with the Undine. ...

In a vain attempt to get my Myth wizard to 50 (so close!) AND also get the rest of her level 50 gear, I’ve been farming Yeva Spiderkeeper for her Myth hat. No luck so far after about ten tries, but I DID get the Queen Spider pet (seen above) on my first try. So that’s something. The big question to my mind, though, is… where’s Celestia? I was hoping it would be out in July, but we’re approaching the middle of August and it’s not here. ...

Click to expand (very large) Massively’s Jeremy Stratton asked on Twitter what Autostitch would do with a panorama taken from an MMO like World of Warcraft or Runes of Magic. I’m not currently subscribed to WoW, but RoM is free, so…. I logged in and found my 14/14 scout/priest had morphed into a level 8 scout in the starting zone! OMG! And my permanent chocobo ostrich mount was disappeared! My house – GONE! ...

Yes, desperately catching up on all the posts I should have made this week, but did not. Undine Front: The Return is the second of the two episodes given you by Starfleet as you embark upon Season Two. It opens similarly to the other mission, Undine Front: Assimilation, with a sudden congregation of Borg ships causing some concern in the quadrant. Not only that, but there have been reports of non-Borg ships in the area as well. It would be terrible to lose such a fine crew, Starfleet assures us, but we need to head in and do what we can. ...

I started last night on the main plot missions for Star Trek Online’s Season Two. Season Two is all about trying to find a way to form an alliance with the Undine. The Undine don’t have much respect for the beings of normal space, but the Federation hopes we can find common cause with them against the Borg. ...

Want to see what a Rear Admiral, Upper Half looks like? Just like that. My character is sporting the new Veteran’s uniform top and the fleet insignia for the Federation News Service on her left shoulder. Season Two, which arrived yesterday after considerable anticipation, brings with it not only fleet emblems, new uniform bits and six new levels, but also ship interiors, diplomacy missions, dabo, additional transwarps, holographic ship cloaking, three new elite ships, the vice admiral rank, and a series of missions that put you up against the only foe that scare the Borg – Species 8472, the Undine. ...

Carefully avoiding the words “jumping” and “on the” and “bandwagon” here, is it true that the “freemium” business model can save the ENTIRE MMO INDUSTRY? Aside from WoW, the only MMO that doesn’t need saving? A couple of years back, you had your free to play MMOs (AKA “cheap Asian games”) and your subscription MMOs (AKA “Western games we like”). Then Wizard101 comes out with their two tier free/subscription plan, and then Turbine saves Dungeons & Dragons Online by making their game free-ish. DDO, a game most people had written off as a good try, suddenly became the belle of the ball and the industry Took Notice. It was only a matter of time before other marginal MMOs tried something similar. ...

(This game will absolutely hook me if it becomes the first game to ever look anything like its concept art. Alas.) We’re going to get our first look behind 38 Studios’ veil of secrecy this week when the gaming studio teases their non-MMO, Action RPG-ish game “Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning”. This is not the MMO we have known as “Copernicus”, but a RPG (I don’t know if it is single player or not) set in the same world and developed by Big Huge Games, which 38 Studios acquired last year. ...

When I start a new MMO, I want to be dazzled – right up front. I know that MMOs want you to start out weak, with few abilities and few decisions to make, and introduce new abilities to you as you progress through the levels…. But I don’t care about all that. Drop me in the middle of the action, put me in an epic storyline, show me where I fit into the world, and you’ve got my attention. Lord of the Rings Online does that. I may not be LotRO’s biggest fan, but they know how to start a MMO. EverQuest USED to have custom starting areas for every single race, and by the time you ventured into the wider world, you knew your race – and class’ – place in the world. EQ2 USED to have race-specific villages around their capitals that did the same thing, after a common tutorial zone. ...