fifth-anniversary
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Star Trek Online starts its fifth anniversary celebration
It was five years ago February 2nd that Star Trek Online came mewing into the MMO world, bringing with it final frontiers, infinite diversity, and canon-approved lockboxes. Cryptic's so excited to share this milestone that it's starting the celebrations a little early with a daily giveaway from today through Thursday, beginning with a free research and development pack. The real special treat is more than just casual freebies, however. The team's introducing a brand-new featured episode, Dust to Dust, starring Garrett Wang as Harry Kim. Q is also returning with his annual events, although this time around he's adding an Omega Particle minigame to the mix. Completing both the featured episode and Q events will earn tokens to spend on various rewards (including a Kobali Samsar Cruiser) and fragments that can be assembled for an Omega upgrade kits.
Aion's 5th anniversary video thanks players, teases upcoming zones
While Aion's fifth anniversary celebration kicked off early with social media events, Daeva's Day -- with all its gifts and goodies -- is just getting started today. And Associate Product Manager Sean Orlikowski has shared with us a special video commemorating the occasion that highlights a bit of the journey through Atreia over the past years and thanks players for joining it. But this clip does more than just take viewers on a jaunt down memory lane; it also jumps ahead to the future! The second half sweeps through the new zones coming in the next update, showing off the places players will soon be able to visit. Go ahead and take a moment to reminisce a bit about what has been and sneak a peek at what's to come in the video below.
Some Assembly Required: An anniversary look at Darkfall's fifth year
Gimme five! Five years that is, in honor of Darkfall's anniversary. This week the PvP-centric sandbox celebrated its fifth year of bringing murder, mayhem, and fun to friends and foes alike in the brutal world of Agon. And while it may seem as though you could pretty much sum up the entirety of Darkfall's last 12 months in two words (Unholy Wars) and call it a day, there's actually been much more to the game than just the reboot's long-awaited release. In fact, that was only the beginning. The game has continued to expand and develop even after the initial launch of Unholy Wars, shaping it into the experience that it is today. That's precisely what we're here to toast together -- the ups and down of 52 weeks in Aventurine's hardcore sandbox. Be sure to leave your favorite memories from the past year in Agon before you go!
4 lessons from 5 years of Officers' Quarters
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available from No Starch Press. Amazingly enough, exactly five years ago today -- at 11:15 a.m. on May 7, 2007 -- the very first Officers' Quarters went live on WoW Insider. It was so long ago that I actually used Thottbot links. Since then, yours truly has composed more than 250 OQs. At about 1,000 words per column, I've written enough words on the topic of guild leadership to fill up a large fantasy novel. (Of course, I've also written an actual book on the topic.) For this column, I briefly thought about pulling out the best and worst of OQ to share my personal favorites (and my shame) from the past five years. I decided against it. Maybe some day I'll do that -- maybe right before I hang up my WoW Insider columnist sash -- but that day is not today. Rather, I thought I'd do something more personal. OQ has always been about learning how to do a better job as an officer and a guild leader, both for your members and yourself. During the past five years, I've done my best to give advice on exactly that. However, I've never claimed to have it all figured out. I've also learned a lot, too. On this anniversary, I'd like to share four things that I've learned over the past five years. (Five would have been better, but I'm long-winded.)
The Road to Mordor: Happy fifth anniversary, LotRO!
Great Ghost Bear, has it really been five years? Why... it must have been, although it truly seems like yesterday that a magazine article caught my eye about an upcoming game based on Lord of the Rings. Just yesterday it was, when I called my brother-in-law to tell him that he could drop his World of Warcraft subscription because something better was on the horizon. It wasn't but a day ago that we Founders jumped into the head-start and power-leveled all the way to 15. Let me tell you, those Tuckborough Library raids were brutal back then! So it has indeed been five years since Lord of the Rings Online released, a half-decade of Middle-earth stomping, Brandywine swimming, and Weathertop free-climbing. I can't even believe that this is the third such anniversary that I've covered for Massively; boy, how the time flies. Perhaps to make up for last year's lackluster and flawed anniversary celebration, Turbine's pulled out all the stops to make LotRO's birthday an event to remember. We've got a lot to cover and plenty of fireworks left to shoot off, so let's get to it!
LotRO launches its Fifth Anniversary Festival
Lord of the Rings Online's fifth anniversary is upon us, and Turbine is determined to make it a party to remember! Today the studio has released LotRO's Update 6.1, the centerpiece of which is the completely revamped and upgraded Anniversary Festival. While the anniversary was perceived as a haphazard affair in previous years, Turbine's devs have fleshed it out to rival the other four annual festivals. The focus of the Anniversary Festival is on fireworks and lots of them. There are several new quests to discover, a new fireworks-themed mount to obtain, and beer battles to win. Because reaching five years is a big deal for any MMO, Turbine's also showering players with free gifts if they log in during this period. The gifts range from fireworks to cloaks to a special mount that is reserved for five-year veterans of the game. During the anniversary, monsters will drop special tokens that can be redeemed for a wide variety of prizes. There's also a double-XP weekend coming up, which will run from April 24th through the 30th.
Riding into Rohan: LotRO maps out 2012
In the words of Frank Sinatra, 2011 "was a very good year" for Lord of the Rings Online. Executive Producer Kate Paiz and Director of Communications Adam Mersky sat down with us to talk about the future of the game, but before they got to the juicy details, they wanted to give a quick recap of the previous year for the game and the studio. The big emphasis for LotRO in 2011 was the unifying of the global community and the release of the game's third (and best-selling) expansion, Rise of Isengard. While the aforementioned unification of the NA and EU sides of the game presented many challenges for the team including localization, it paid off in spades. Turbine plans to continue to add more payment options for those used to methods other than the ones currently available. The team was most proud of unveiling Saruman "in all of his glory" and the inclusion of free players into the sphere of Monster Play. "The game definitely grew last year," Mersky said in response to a question about the current number of players. He noted that the playerbase has changed somewhat in the past two years, becoming more casual in some respects. But it's time to move forward! Turbine is prepared to take LotRO players on a dizzying chase around the wilds of Middle-earth with a few significant changes and additions to the game -- and the release of the brand-new expansion later this year, Riders of Rohan. Mounted combat, ho!
Make a wish and blow out the candles: Vanguard celebrates five years
In the midst of the cold winds of January, it's the warmth of the Winter Solstice that keeps Vanguard players alive and happy. With Vanguard's fifth anniversary here at last, SOE is blowing on the coals of this simmering MMO in the hopes of raising the flames of community interest. First up is the Winter Solstice in-game event, which started on January 21st. Players can participate by locating the event NPC in New Targonor. On next Sunday, the 29th, the Vanguard CMs will be throwing an anniversary bash and handing out gifts on the Telon server starting at 1:00 p.m. EST. SOE's also throwing a Facebook contest to give away one of five in-game items. Interested parties are encouraged to head over to Vanguard's Facebook page for more information on how to enter. Massively will also be on the scene for Vanguard's fifth celebration this weekend with two special livestreams on Massively TV, so stay tuned!
Bigpoint's DarkOrbit turns five this month
If you'd never heard of Bigpoint's browser MMO known as DarkOrbit prior to last month's space drone microtransaction brouhaha, you're not alone. According to the company, though, lots of people have heard of the game, which launched in 2006 and is currently celebrating its fifth anniversary. Bigpoint claims a community of over 65 million registered players, and a news release says that DarkOrbit is "the most popular and biggest space game worldwide." DarkOrbit is a 2-D flash game that puts players in control of a spaceship while working for one of three corporations. [Source: Bigpoint press release]
Crashing the parrrty: DDO's producer joins the fifth anniversary festivities
What's better: birthdays or pirates? For Dungeons and Dragons Online Executive Prodicer Fernando Paiz, both are equally awesome, which is why DDO's fifth anniversary is smoothered in secret pirate sauce. In a birthday letter to DDO's playerbase, Paiz gushes about the game's accomplishments over the past half-decade, including its action-based combat, DX11 graphics and free-to-play transition. But all that is the past, as he talks up the myriad of in-game events that are currently happening in the game, which include fighting off pirates, collecting lost goodies and claiming your rightful booty. Paiz also expressed excitement about DDO's future, starting with the European F2P edition that's coming soon to the international community. He also hints at several developments that are coming down the pike for the game, such as a new crafting system, high-level adventure packs, and a never-before-seen content system. You can read the full producer's letter over at DDO.
Exploring Eberron: The calm before the storm
Dungeons and Dragons Online will be celebrating its fifth birthday in exactly one month. There's no doubt that the game has come a very long way in the past five years, bringing wonderful or horrible changes, depending on whom you ask. Turbine is hinting at big things coming during the month of February as part of the events commemorating the fifth anniversary, but since all is quiet for now, I thought it might be a good time to look at how Turbine has done things up to this point and at what's planned for Exploring Eberron in February. Before we continue, I want to mention a great sale in the DDO store. The store is always marking down some item or another, but this one is broader than the standard "20% off this or that" sale. (Not that those aren't great -- we all love to save our Turbine Points!) This weekend's sale knocks half the point cost off all XP, SP, and HP potions, so it's a great time to stock up. Follow along after the jump and let's start gearing up for February!
One Shots: Enjoy the silence
With the fifth anniversary rolling in Guild Wars, there are tons of players on the servers taking part in the events going on. But even with all the commotion, you can still locate quiet places to reflect on being part of the community for the last five years, such as this lovely spot that was sent in to us by Geoffrey L. He writes in to give us his thoughts: "One thing about most MMOs is that sometimes you just have to sit back and enjoy the scenery. Occasionally, it takes a bit of a jaunt out to the middle of nowhere to really get a look at the stranger and [more] interesting sights. This shot is from the Nightfall campaign of Guild Wars, in the Crystal Overlook area -- the west side of the map and close to the teleporter that leads to the Crystal Desert. When you finally get a chance to look out over the mountains that block your way, you're treated to the visual of a statue in the distance, known as the Statue of the Female Warrior. The game is absolutely full of beautiful views, but this is easily a favorite." If you've captured a screenshot of an area we haven't seen yet - or maybe just a different perspective on one we have - then send that screenshot in! One Shots is all about reader contributions, so we need to hear from you. Just email your images, thoughts, name and the rest to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com. We'll post it out here for everyone to enjoy. %Gallery-85937%
WoW Insider Show Episode 118: Taking sides
We had a great time as always on last weekend's podcast -- Kelly "Cadistra" Aarons and C. Christian Moore (a.k.a. Colby, a.k.a. C-money) joined us on the podcast to talk about comics and PvP, respectively, and we hit on the most popular posts of the past week as well, including wrapping up Pilgrim's Bounty, our favorite memories of the game for the fifth anniversary, and how GDKP works -- both in terms of mechanics and as a loot system. Additionally, we talked again about the Dungeon Finder system and how it will affect the game, as well as why Blizzard probably won't provide any more character slots per realm, even in Cataclysm. And we hear some more great fan-made intros -- if you'd like to send us one (or anything else, really), the address as always is theshow@wow.com. Thanks for listening and enjoy! Get the podcast: [iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes. [RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator. [MP3] Download the MP3 directly. Listen here on the page:
Cory Stockton breaks down the process of making an instance
Blizzard has done a lot of press regarding the fifth anniversary of the game (and there's probably more to come), but Curse has done one of the more interesting pieces so far. Instead of just chatting with Cory Stockton about his experiences, they had him sit down and explain just how Blizzard puts an instance together. They specifically talked about Ulduar, but the process Stockton reveals works for all of the instances Blizzard has created for the game. A few interesting things -- they "block out" the instances first, create lower-res versions of them to play around in and create the mechanics for the fights. They also do some boss testing outside of the environments -- Razorscale, specifically, says Stockton, was actually tested down in the Stranglethorn Arena. Finally, once the encounter team works out the basics of the encounters, the art and item teams move in, and create art and loot, sometimes with the two of them collaborating (the art team will make a cool item for a boss, and then the item team, with the help of Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street, will give the item stats and balance). Interesting just how collaborative the whole process is -- even the Ironbound Proto-drake mount came from the team seeing Razorscale and wanting to put him in mount form. It's nice and all hearing Blizzard remember the Fry's launch, but it's nicer getting an inside look at their process.
WoW Fifth Anniversary Sweepstakes
If you're a resident of the United States, Canada, or New Zealand, kindly whack yourself on the head as a show of solidarity for other players who don't qualify for the World of Warcraft Five Year Anniversary Sweepstakes. If you are a resident of the aforementioned countries or are some Asian or European or Other-Unqualified-Country-an willing to subject themselves to a little geek envy, then read on. Our favorite game turns five this November 23, 2009, and to celebrate, Blizzard is giving away a whole bunch of swag every week for the next four weeks. Essentially, as long as you're a player whose account is active when they pull your name out of a kodo-skin hat and hasn't gotten into trouble for breaking the EULA, you're automatically entered in the sweepstakes. Players qualify for certain prizes depending on how long they've been playing the game. Check out the list of prizes and player eligibility after the jump.
WoW Magazine site now live, hints at Doomhammer
Coming from left field, much to the surprise of everyone here at Team WoW.com, was the announcement of World of Warcraft: The Magazine which will be published by Future later this year. As promised, the website for the subscription-only quarterly went live in the wee small hours of this morning (GMT).You're probably scratching your heads and wondering why we're mentioning this when there's all the BlizzCon fun and games to talk about. Well, amonght other things, there's a really nice piece of artwork of the Lich King by Wei Wang, who we believe is going to be named the Eighth Son of the Storm at BlizzCon. On top of that are the first hints at what the first issue will contain: a piece on the game's fifth anniversary (which suggests we may well see it around November time), articles focusing on new content (which I'm assuming is either code for Cataclysm or a peek at patch 3.3), and the lore behind the legendary weapon Doomhammer.This is probably the entry which is going to have theorists asking intriguing questions. The Doomhammer is currently held by Thrall, and it's one of those uber weapons which most players want to get their hands on but can't get (because it's not actually implemented). It turns out this weapon will be the next 'Frostmourne', a replica weapon that if you have the cash you will be able to purchase and hang on your wall to confirm your hardcoreness.Either way, check out the website and hit the link to subscribe if you like what you see. Alternatively, if you're at BlizzCon this weekend, you can visit the Future booth and do it there. BlizzCon 2009 is here! WoW.com has continuing coverage, bringing you the latest in Cataclysm news, live blogs, galleries, and reports right from the convention floor. Check out WoW.com's Guide to BlizzCon for the latest!
Patch 3.2.2 PTR: First impresssions of Onyxia
Onyxia. Pictures, text and video cannot express the emotions associated with this classic boss fight. I'm going to try nevertheless, though. Announced mere days ago, the idea that Onyxia will be revamped into a level 80 10 and 25 man raid (for a limited time) has suddenly become reality with the return of PTR testing for patch 3.2.2. Everyone and their best mate is currently swarming Onyxia's Lair, determined to dispatch the Broodmother once more. This time for kicks and enhanced loot.Her name is reverberating around the PTR right now. In fact, within three seconds of logging on with my premade I was asked if I wanted to join a 10-man raid to kick her scaly butt. Of course I accepted and found myself once more outside the scary gates of the Broodmother's lair. Let's me be straight about one thing, the only things which have been changed about this fight are the suped-up uber-trashkin and Onyxia herself. There's no need for a key or attunement, you just grab a raid and walk right on in. The cavern leading into her lair is the same as it ever was, except the trash now have the power to kick serious butt against level 80's wearing full epics. Such is the case, our group wiped the first time we pulled two of the dragonkin.%Gallery-70078%
PTR Patch 3.2.2: New pets and mounts revealed
Once again, our friend Boubouille over at MMO Champion has been a busy boy. With the surprise announcement that the PTRs were up for the testing of the WoW Anniversary Patch (aka patch 3.2.2), he's been digging deep into the patch files and guess what he found?Well the big news is aptly summed up in the image above. Yes, it's the Onyxia mount (though not actually the Broodmother herself). A picture really does say a thousand words, doesn't it? However that's not all he's found by datamining. There are yet more mounts, including a Spectral Tiger cub! I suspect this little cub may well be from a future TCG expansion. After all, where did this little guy's parent come from? Ditto the rather awesome Tuskarr kite.On top of that there are some regular mounts in the form of a Little White Stallion and yet another dino-centric mount, this time a Little Ivory Raptor. Boubouille also found the Onyxia Whelping, which is the pet everyone who logs in during November will recieve (think the Blizzard Bear). Ain't it a cutie?However the oddest thing he uncovered was a collection of Mohawk themed spells. These relate to the now memorable TV advert in which Mr. T creates his own class, the infamous Night Elf Mohawk. From the spell descriptions, I can't help thinking this is not some hint towards a new class in the next expansion but, rather, will be some kind of NPC or quest-related summonable pet. Either way, it sounds awesome.
A nostalgic look back on the Star Wars Galaxies beta
With Star Wars Galaxies, unbelievably, celebrating its fifth anniversary (and winner of the Spinal Tap, "Where are they now?" category, 2008) I was asked to reflect on my experiences in the beta program. Most likely, time healed a lot of wounds and I've probably got my new rose-colored glasses on, so forgive me I'm overly nostalgic. Like a lot of people, I'd applied to the beta program and would compulsively hit the refresh button on my webmail client whenever Kevin O'Hara (Q3PO) sent out the "we added more testers" e-mails. On February 18, 2003 (clearly, I keep too many e-mails to pull that one up) I got my acceptance letter and promptly ordered the CDs.Read on for an account of my love/hate relationship with Star Wars Galaxies' Beta program.
A Star Wars Galaxies history lesson: From launch to the NGE
Today marks the fifth anniversary of Star Wars Galaxies' launch. This day in 2003, thousands of people crowded the login and registration servers, all eager to carve out their own piece of the world Lucas had wrought. The reality today is very different, and despite celebrations over the new Empire Day event and recent chapter publishes, something lingers in the air - a sort of dark cloud on the SWG player's horizon. Today and tomorrow we're going to chart the path that has lead from there to here. We'll reflect on the game's early days, some of the early patches that added groundbreaking content and systems to the game, and even mull over the biggest change to hit the MMO scene, ever - the NGE. Tomorrow we'll discuss how the game has changed since the New Game Enhancements went in, and look to the future of the title. Join us for a galactic history lesson that begins "A long time ago ... "
