community-guide
Latest
Stick and Rudder: A guide to Star Citizen's community
Welcome aboard pilots, privateers, and pillaging pirate queens; you've found Stick and Rudder, the gaming press' first Star Citizen column! I'm putting all pretenses of objectivity aside today because I'm terribly frackin' excited for this game. That's why we're here, now, talking about it way out in front of its release. With all of this expectation comes the potential for massive disappointment, of course, but the good news is that Cloud Imperium is being pretty open about its development process. This has the added benefit of giving us lots to chew on while we sit through the agonizing months leading up to launch. Anyway, now that some of my fanboy gushing is out of the way, let's get down to brass tacks and carry on the time-honored Massively tradition of kicking off a new game column with a community guide.
Hyperspace Beacon: Returning to SWTOR
With Update 1.5 and free-to-play looming on the Star Wars: The Old Republic horizon, many players are feeling the itch to come back to the game. Two and half years ago when I started the Hyperspace Beacon, I compared that itch to that of a freshly shaved Wookiee. Now it can probably be compared to a Gungan rash. But it's still there; you still have to scratch it. Unanswered questions remain. Has BioWare fixed the launch issues? Is there a compelling reason to play every day? And probably the biggest question of them all: Is free-to-play going to make SWTOR worth coming back to? Personally, I'd like to answer yes to all those questions, but I can truly speak only for myself. If you want a real answer, you're going to have to come back to try it. Hyperspace beacons in the Star Wars lore are stationary probes that navicomputers lock on to so that starships speeding through hyperspace don't crash into a star, planet, or other celestial object. Today, this column will be your guide through the reaches of internet-space so that you can find the information you need to get back into the Star Wars MMORPG. Angle the deflector shields as I boot up the navicomputer. We will make stops around the best fan sites for news, guides, and community building. If you've been away for a while, you'll notice that galaxy-scape has changed, but I will show you the new landmarks. If you're ready, punch it, Chewie!
The Secret World community guide
Today marks the beginning of the end of the world -- you know, if you believed in that conspiracy theory stuff. And if you so happened to buy into all that, then you probably are pinning your hopes on a few stalwart souls to wedge themselves between you and the forces of the apocalypse. Those brave people are beginning to wage war in The Secret World as of today (if they have early access and a copy of the necronomicon, of course). As per tradition here at Massively, we want to give everyone a fighting chance by putting as much information at your fingertips as possible. So presented for your approval is our community guide to TSW. Because information is power -- now more than ever.
Alter-Ego: A community guide to DCUO
You don't know me. You think you do. You think you have me figured out. I keep to myself. I do what I'm told to do. I'm the one whose name people forget instantly. I'm average. Boring. Forgettable. That's what I want you to think, if you even think of me at all. They called me a masked vigilante. They're wrong. The mask is the face I wear during the day. The one you see when I'm flying over the streets of Gotham on mechanical wings? That's the real me. All else is Alter-Ego. Whether they love all things heroic or prefer the dark and twisted ways of the villain lifestyle, DC Universe Online players know by now that their characters' powers have been granted by a time-traveling Lex Luthor -- or more properly, from exobytes he carried back. As the story goes, Braniac had traveled back to Earth at various times and stolen powers from the world's greatest heroes and villains. As a means of reversing the future, Lex has also traveled back in time, scattering exobytes holding those stolen powers. Welcome to a new day, full of all manner of new heroes and villains around the world. Will this stop Braniac? Only time will tell. In the meantime, allow me to welcome you to Alter-Ego, the newest column here on Massively, which will deal with all things DC Universe Online! I'll be your host on this adventure, covering all the details players are curious about when it comes to this action-packed MMO. Also, our very own Larry Everett will be taking charge of the official Alter-Ego livestream on Wednesdays, offering a fast-paced look at the game. However, as this is our first week, allow me to get things rolling in fine Massively tradition -- a community roundup! %Gallery-50201%
Enter at Your Own Rift: Community guide to RIFT
BLOG POST OPENED! Swiftly, readers rally together to fight the imminent threat to the internet as dark words stream down from the tear in cyberspace. Unholy pronouns and sentence fragments begin to march toward civilized forums, remolding the fabric of reality in their image. Fortunately, valiant defenders of all that is true and grammatically correct push back against the invasion, suffering heavy losses until... BLOG POST SEALED! If you couldn't tell, this is the maiden voyage of Massively's weekly column devoted to Trion World's upcoming MMO, RIFT. We've been excited about this game for a while now, and with the NDA drop, the announcement of the launch date, news of the collector's edition, and upcoming beta events, it's as good a time as any to start talking about this addictive fantasy experience. Karen Bryan and I will be trading off weeks to cover RIFT from our different vantage points, and we're pretty geeked at the prospect. To kick off the very first Enter at Your Own Rift, we'll be following the Massively tradition of posting a community guide to all the hottest and most helpful links about this game after the jump.
Flameseeker Chronicles: Community guide, part two
As information about Guild Wars 2 continues to be made available, community activity has increased greatly. The sheer number of resources can be pretty overwhelming at this point, and for a while I considered updating the original community guide. However, there are new podcasts, fansites, images, and much more, so in the end I decided that it was more than enough to warrant a new community guide. So without further delay, I bring you Community Guide Two (go ahead and say electric boogaloo, you know you want to. I'll wait.). Hit the jump to see what's what in the Guild Wars 2 community these days.
Waging WAR: Community guide to Warhammer Online
v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} So here it is: the first installment of Waging WAR, a weekly column about Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. Every Saturday, the column will deliver the latest in information, press news, stories, debates, and more about WAR. What happened in Praag this week? Are they serious about such-and-such going live with the next patch? Are Shadow Warriors fixed yet? As it is with all new Massively game-specific columns, Waging WAR is launching with a community guide for fans of the game -- old-schoolers, re-enlistees, and new-comers alike -- to use as a collective resource of links and information about WAR. Join us after the break to check it out!
EVE Evolved: A community guide to EVE Online
Some time ago, Massively started up a whole slew of new weekly columns, each covering a specific MMO. Each week, they bring guides, editorials, interviews and community news in a similar way to what I've been doing with EVE Evolved over the past two years. Each of the new columns started with a definitive community guide showcasing handy links to useful websites, blogs and tools. This week it's my turn to give EVE Online the community guide treatment. This article will be updated periodically with new links as they make themselves known. If you have a useful EVE link you think would belong in the community guide, leave a comment with it. Skip past the cut for a breakdown of some of EVE's most important community links.
The Anvil of Crom: AoC community guide
Cue the Basil Poledouris music, the lamentations of women, and the sounds of armor and steel, for Massively has come to Hyborea. Join me as I kick off the column and chronicle the trials and tribulations of a newb making his way through Funcom's version of Robert E. Howard's harsh realm. Every week we'll bring you Age of Conan tidbits, commentary, and news and views straight from the horse's mouth in the form of Funcom guests and Q&A. This week, per Massively tradition, we'll take a quick look at the game's community and examine the resources available to the neophyte barbarian and the seasoned throat-slitter alike. Follow along after the break for a listing of essential resources for the new or returning Age of Conan player.
Behind the Mask: A community guide to Champions Online
Behind the Mask is the new Massively column devoted to everything you might want to know about Champions Online. Fortunately for Massively readers, the guys at UNITY have given me the go-ahead to declassify my stories as a super-powered operative. As a result, we'll be giving you the down and dirty facts that you'll need to make it in the superhero world, as well as bits of news you won't hear anywhere else. Behind the Mask will cover issues related to life in Millennium City as well as detailed info about criminal hotspots around the globe. Our first column will be a community resource for Champions Online. While there were a fair number of community sites at launch, most of them have suffered from a lack of new content in recent months. The ones that continue to be updated are the best of the best -- ranging from community hubs for roleplayers to detailed info on the game's many missions. If there's one thing to be said about the fans of Champions, it's that they are devoted to their game and eager to put out new content for it.
Lost Pages of Taborea: Community guide to Runes of Magic
Welcome to the new Runes of Magic column here at Massively. The Varanas Council has mandated that I bring you word from Taborea, every Monday. Upon failure to do so, I am ordered to take part in endless repeatable quests in the Ystra Highlands. This would be fine, if it were not for me being a charter member of the Society for the Preservation of the Ystra Ferret. You can see how I can't let that happen. So you, dear readers, reap the benefits of me staying timely and bringing you gobs of interesting and useful information, and saving a few cute fuzzy ferrets at the same time. With that, Let's dive right into our first post with a selection of sites and resources to get the would-be Taborean traveler started leveling and exploring.
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Community guide to City of Heroes
Welcome to A Mild-Mannered Reporter, Massively's new weekly column all about City of Heroes! We were originally going to spin you a dynamic yarn about how I had watched my parents die, then spent years training in secret to strike fear into the hearts of criminals by writing about video games, but that was eliminated during the concept stage due to copyright infringement. Instead, we're just going with a column. For our first installment, we're highlighting a number of sites that are useful in one way or another to the City of Heroes playerbase. While the game has enjoyed quite a lifespan, the web presence on it has been a bit more limited than some other games, probably due in no small part to the fact that it's much easier to simply pick up and play. That doesn't mean there's nothing here, though -- the community has developed a number of excellent tools and community gathering points to improve everyone's experience in Paragon City or the Rogue Isles. Take a look at what we've looked at and see as the highlights.
