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Ask Massively: The order of all the things
This week in Ask Massively, we're fielding two queries about how we position games in some of our weekly roundup columns. As an obsessive list-maker, I understand the need to make sense of list chaos, believe me. I actually have lists of my lists. I'm not kidding. Our first question is from Siphaed, who wondered about the entries in our Week in Review: I'm a bit confused why The Elder Scrolls Online and Star Citizen got above FFXIV. Don't get me wrong, I honestly don't like either game and still prefer the one above all three (Guild Wars 2). However, I see that FFXIV has four key articles dedicated to it this past week and the other two have only three each. I would think that it would get a slight priority in the pecking order based on that. If not, what are the credentials for one game getting priority over the others in the article listing? I love that you guys think we're sitting around steepling our fingers trying to decide which game should go on top and get the golden star sticker for the week, but unfortunately, it's nowhere near that much fun!
Tuesday Morning Post: Third time's the charm edition
For the past few weeks, Blizzard's toyed with us just a bit. Monday night bought a posted announcement of extended downtime, only for the morning to feature naught but rolling restarts. As of this writing, we're once again starting with a 3 a.m. to 11 a.m. PST downtime announcement. Will it stick this time? I suppose by the time you read this, we'll know. Still, it's a win-win situation. If I'm right, I'm right. If Blizzard changes back to rolling restarts, we get to play the game again sooner. In the meantime, there's still stuff to read while the game's down. The biggest news we've gotten out of Blizzard thus far has been one of negatives: BlizzCon is gone, at least for this year. This means we'll have to party even harder in 2013, but what do we do in the meantime? For now, I suggest we catch up on reading. We've kept busy even with the dearth of news, offering guides and opinions you'll want to read. While you wait for the servers to come back up, why not read on? Our usual roundup of the best stuff from the past seven days awaits.
Tuesday Morning Post: Are we there yet?
Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. The steady trickle of blue posts hinting at the possibility of maybe kind of sort of somewhat having some new news about Mists of Pandaria keep coming, but they also speak of a long time before we get something like an alpha test or any meaty updates. And so we are in something of a drought, and it looks like we'll be journeying toward Pandaria for some time yet. Of course, that's not say we've had no news at all. The Dragon Soul nerf news came down the pipe this week, for example, and as you might expect caused a whole lot of uproar. In addition, the Lunar Festival has started up for the year, and we have our usual achievement guide ready to guide you. We even have an interview with a guy who made 1 million gold and gave it all away. Realm maintenance this morning is a nice, extended 3 a.m. to 11 a.m. PST, so you'll have plenty of time to get caught up on everything. Read on for our usual roundup.
Tuesday Morning Post: Raids with friends edition
Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. The big news of this week is probably patch 4.3.2, which is on the PTR. For the most part, it's bringing us minor balance changes and bug fixes, but there are a few big things in there, including a 64-bit client and the advent of raiding with your cross-realm friends. You still can't raid Dragon Soul with your friends from that PvP server you refuse to roll on, but you can at least do Raid Finder runs, as well as any classic raid your heart desires. Now you can sucker even more people into those legendary farming runs! With a new patch on test the servers and the last of the post-holiday doldrums more or less shaken off, you better believe there's plenty of good news and interesting stuff to read from the past week. Downtime this week is a series of rolling restarts at 10 a.m. PST, which of course gives you time for a nice mid-morning or early afternoon break to catch up on the news. Read on for the usual run-down.
Tuesday Morning Post: Good night, sweet corgi edition
Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. This week has had its share of silence, for sure. I'm not sure if the folks at Blizzard's just enjoying the last bit of the holidays or secretly playing that other game, but either way, they didn't have much to say this week. That's not say there wasn't activity and stuff to discuss, not at all. The Darkmoon Faire's back in town, for one, and we've all been looking back at some of the best and worst stuff to come out of 2011. This is also the week we had to say goodbye to that freaking sweet corgi in the picture above. We can only pray Blizzard gives him back to us a pet some time in the future. If they do not, it shall surely go down in the annals of history as one of the greatest MMO tragedies of all time. Downtime this morning is a series of rolling restarts starting at 10 a.m. PST, so you should have time to dig in to all the retrospectives and guides we have ready for you. Read on for the usual roundup.
Tuesday Morning Post: Vacation's over edition
Happy Tuesday morning, everyone! Hopefully everyone has successfully roused themselves from their holiday food comas and dug themselves out of piles of wrapping paper. For most of us, today probably marks a return to the good old-fashioned work grind, but hey. We still have a few more days of Winter Veil, and think of it this way: Now that the holidays are over, we can go back to focusing on the important stuff, like figuring out when Mists of Pandaria's going into beta. Downtime this morning is limited to a series of rolling restarts at 10 a.m. PST, but hey, you should still have time to get caught up on the news from the past few days. Don't let the holiday season fool you -- there was a lot of it. Read on to catch up.
Tuesday Morning Post: On the first day of Winter Veil edition
Happy Tuesday morning, everybody, and a very merry Winter Veil. Hopefully you've been celebrating, either by entering our 12 Days of Winter Veil contests or by going for in-game achievements. Then again, maybe you just don't care for that stuff and want to keep doing what you normally do -- and hey, that's cool too. No matter how you celebrate, you'll have to take a short break this morning as Blizzard applies rolling restarts to the servers starting at 10 a.m. PST. Don't worry though, we got lots of stuff for you to read while you wait. Read on after the break for our usual roundup of the last week's content, including some awesome Warcraft gift ideas for you last-minute shoppers.
Tuesday Morning Post: Kiss From a Rose edition
Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. I would just like to make it known that I agree with Sacco. In fact, just to show solidarity, above please find the most awesome karaoke rendition of the song yet distributed via mass media. As far as WoW news goes, the post-patch 4.3 world has been, as expected, a bit tumultuous. Paragon was sorry they cheated by exploiting the Raid Finder, but Blizzard handed down some hefty bans anyway. Still, don't let all that drama that dampen your spirits. Patch 4.3 is pretty awesome, and Blizzard's even offering some sweet deals if you want to buy it for a friend or get yourself a second (or even first) account. It's a great Christmas gift idea, right? Maintenance this morning is short, from 5 a.m. to 7 a.m. PST, but there's plenty of stuff to catch up on, from hotfixes to raid boss guides. Read on after the break for a full roundup.
Tuesday Morning Post: Darkmoon's back edition
Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. It's Darkmoon Faire week this week, and since this is also the first week of patch 4.3, that means it's a brand new faire. There are new games, new quests, and new mount and pet rewards to get excited over. If you haven't visited yet, I strongly suggest you do. I don't think you'll regret it, unless you hate fun or something. If you're still trying to get a grip on the wide, wide world of patch 4.3, be sure to check out our patch 4.3 guide. I've also put a pretty awesome fan-modified version of the patch 4.3 trailer above for your amusement. If you're in the midst of pugging those new dungeons, you'll also definitely want to check out our 5-second guides to each of the new bosses. They're perfect for pasting into chat just to make sure the other newbs in your group know what's up. We also have a 5-second guide for the bosses of Dragon Soul's Raid Finder version. Scheduled maintenance today is from 5 a.m. to 11 a.m. PST, so you should have time to read up. Check out our usual roundup after the break.
Tuesday Morning Post: On the edge of patch 4.3 edition
Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. CM Bashiok has already confirmed that patch 4.3 will going live today, after the traditional 3 a.m.-to-11 a.m. Pacific downtime. The patch may even be downloadable by the time you read this. With that in mind, it may be a good idea to spend this downtime getting ready and reading up on some of the week's news. To start, I'd strongly suggest you check our guides to the three new 5-man dungeons: End Time Well of Eternity Hour of Twilight You'll probably be queuing up soon to get your first valor points, so make sure you're in the know. Beyond that, we'll have more patch 4.3 FAQs and guides for you as the day goes on, and you'll want to check our guide to patch 4.3 as well. Our usual roundup of the past week's news awaits you after the break.
Western Digital, Seagate and Hitachi square off in 3TB hard drive roundup
We've seen 3TB hard drives trickling onto the market for the better part of a year, but it's only now that we're seeing more UEFI-equipped motherboards that can actually handle all that storage capacity. So, the benchmarking wizards over at HotHardware decided now would be a fine time to pit a few of 'em against each other, rounding up models from the likes of Western Digital, Seagate and Hitachi and subjecting them to a grueling battery of 28 tests. We'll leave it to you to peruse the scores, but suffice to say the Seagate Barracuda XT swept about half the benchmarks, and notched a close second the rest of the time. But is it worth spending an extra $30 over Western Digital's consistently trailing Caviar Green? We'll leave that to you and your wallet.
Massively's April Fools' Day [adjective] roundup
The favorite day of the year for anyone named April has [verb ending in ed] the internet, making some web surfers [emotion] and others [emotion]. In [adjective] Massively fashion, we felt it best to gather all this news [adverb]. After all, what would an event be without a [adjective] Massively roundup? World of Warcraft [past tense verb] not just one internet prank but four for the [plural noun] of BattleNet. Turbine invited its [plural noun] to be the broccoli for [adjective] race in Dungeons and Dragons Online. The [plural title] of Star Wars: The Old Republic did not want to leave the Wookiee [plural noun] from playing their [adjective] game, so they created a Shyriiwook interface for all those [adjective] people. However, the prank that takes the [food] has to be ArenaNet's new Guild Wars 2 class, the Commando; Anet created [adjective] videos complete with jiggle physics and placed helicopters into the current Guild Wars game. After the cut, we have [past tense verb] all the [adjective] pranks in this year's batch of favorite MMOs. Now you won't have to [verb] around the internet to find them yourself! But if you do [verb] something not on our list, let us know in the comments.
RIFT launch-day roundup
The day many MMO gamers have been waiting for is here -- it's time for the official launch of Trion Worlds' epic fantasy MMO, RIFT! For those of you who decided not to take the pre-order plunge and will instead be starting with the second wave of players, we've assembled a pile of posts to help speed you on your way. From some of our spotlight columns and impression postings on the game to exclusive soul reveals and more, there's a little something for everyone. So grab your favorite beverage, fire up your installer or downloader, and settle in for some of the highlights of our RIFT coverage. Of course, if you manage to make it through all of these posts before you're able to log in and play, there are tons of other great information in our RIFT archives to check out as well! Enter At Your Own Rift: The first day FAQ For this week's Enter At Your Own Rift, we'll take a look at a few common questions that players might have. Are you wondering about how to form a guild? Have you already made a soul build that you regret and want to reset? Are you lost trying to find an auctioneer or a mount merchant? Read on for some answers! Ten levels of RIFT: A guide to your first day in Telara With two RIFT beta events under my belt, I was given the supreme honor of creating a guide to the first 10 levels of the game. Naturally, I fell apart under the stress, assumed the fetal position for a couple days while whimpering about "frame rates," and then was prodded into action by our editors. That's quite literally "prodded," mind you -- Massively purchased a pair of cattle prods last year at a police auction. It's going to be years until the scorch marks fade from my spine.
The Anvil of Crom: Greatest Hits Vol. 2010
Oh no! It's the end of a calendar year! It's that arbitrary point in space and time at which bloggers, journalists, and basically anyone who makes a living via the written word foists off a bunch of top 10 (or five, or other random number) lists on his loyal readers. Sadly folks, I'm no different, and though I'll gladly poke fun at the tradition, I'll also engage in it this week here at The Anvil of Crom. Looking back, it's been quite an eventful year, both for Age of Conan and for Massively's coverage of the game. From the Rise of the Godslayer expansion to the various nerfs, buffs, rants, and interviews, 2010 has been one for the Hyborian history books. Turn the page for eight reasons why.
Tuesday Morning Post: Beginning of the end edition
Happy Tuesday morning, everyone! I name this week's post not in a negative sense, but in a sense that it does seem like we've officially started winding down Wrath. Specifically, we recently saw the addition of the first edition of the Icecrown Citadel raid buff. It has started at 5%, but will eventually rise to 30%, allowing more and more people to power through the dungeon and see Arthas fall at their feet. It's the end of an era, but I feel the start of a much better one. Of course, that's not to say we're completely out of Wrath yet. We have at least 2 more patches to go, and Patch 3.3.3 PTR news keeps rolling in, as does tons of other news. You'll have the usual maintenance break from WoW this morning, 5 AM to 11 AM pacific, so you have time to get caught up. As usual, here's our list of some of the major stuff from the past 7 days or so:
Tuesday Morning Post: Cataclysmic content edition
Happy Tuesday Morning, everyone. While it was not perhaps a deluge, we did get a few tidbits of Cataclysm news this past week, beginning with the latest Twitter Developer Chat, where the devs dropped hints on such sundry topics as the purification of the plaguelands, cross-realm mail and raids, submarines, a new caverns of time instance, the new class/race combos, and the dance studio. Then we got a very nice info-dump with an informative post on the way statistics will work in Cataclysm. We've already started breaking down what the stat changes mean to various classes and specs, and if your class hasn't been analyzed yet, chances are it will be today or tomorrow. Combine that with some new info from the Patch 3.3.3 PTR, and Blizzard's really packed on the news this cycle. It's only rolling restarts this morning, but don't you deserve a break anyway? Check out our roundup of all the news after the break while you wait for your server to restart and for Ghostcrawler to deliver your moose.
Massively's EVE Dominion launch day roundup
The Dominion expansion for EVE Online may not add an entirely new dimension to gameplay as Apocrypha did with wormhole exploration, but Dominion will redefine New Eden's equivalent of an endgame. The sovereignty game mechanics, essentially the rules of territorial control, have been revamped and will change how EVE Online's alliances claim and tap resources in the lawless expanses of nullsec space. Of course there's a lot more to Dominion than sov changes. So while you're braving that 19-hour downtime and then patching (or repairing) your client, have a look through our roundup of Massively's news coverage and columns focused on how EVE Online is going to change in Dominion. EVE announces Dominion expansion, Walking in Stations renamed Incarna CCP Games has announced their 11th free expansion for EVE Online, called "Dominion." As the name suggests, the winter expansion focuses on territories and player control over them. New faction battleships coming to EVE with Dominion The developers at CCP Games only just recently announced the next EVE Online expansion called Dominion, and its focus on planetary control. While they say it will bring new features like the COSMOS social network and Epic Mission Arcs for pirate factions, that's not to say that CCP Games isn't looking at other aspects of the game, particularly when it comes to those factions. Breaking the chains of Sovereignty in EVE's Dominion expansion While a large percentage of the game's playerbase remains in high security space controlled by NPC factions, for others it's 0.0 space (aka nullsec) where the real action is. In a nutshell, 0.0 is a lawless frontier where the rarest ores and minerals, the highest bounty NPCs, the most lucrative exploration content (in known space) is found. Of course, these regions are the most hotly contested territories in EVE Online and those resources found within are a driver for the continual conflict that engulfs New Eden.
FiOS TV expansions: August 23, 2009
Time goes by and FiOS TV just keeps on crawling along, most recently into a few more New york communities and NYU housing. Also of note in NYC is a deal to stream Yankees games over the internet, while customers everywhere can take advantage of new and newly expanded features, Read - Verizon and YES Network Team Up to Bring Online Yankees Games to FiOS TV, Broadband Customers Read - Verizon Wins Approval From New York University to Install FiOS Services in Faculty Housing Read - Two Additional Central New York Communities Take Step Closer to Real TV Competition Read - Advanced Multimedia and Remote DVR Features Now Available to FiOS TV DVR Customers Read - More New Choices Now Available From the No. 1 Video-on-Demand Service - Verizon FiOS TV Read - Verizon Adds Even More Interactivity to FiOS TV's Facebook and Twitter Social TV Widgets
The best of WoW Insider: December 2-9, 2008
Joystiq's sister site WoW Insider celebrated our third anniversary this week, just after the game we play celebrated its fourth. So it was a week of looking both back and forward, as we checked out our top 10 most popular stories of all time, and covered all of the latest and greatest secrets in Northrend and the new expansion. From polar bears to proto drakes, here's to many more years of both World of Warcraft and WoW Insider. News Loken the most dangerous mob in the gameA look at the game's stats pages shows we've got a new player-killer in town. Storm Peaks daily quests reward a polar bear mountDo your dailies, get a mount. Blizzard legal targets private serversBlizzard lays the smack down on anyone running an unauthorized server. Ghostcrawler's thoughts on Death KnightsA dev tells us what he thinks of Death Knights and where they're at. Seeking the Time-Lost Proto DrakeHere's a practically free mount, a 100% drop from a soloable mob. The catch? Good luck finding it. Features WoW Insider's top ten stories of all timeOn our third anniversary, we take a look back at some of the biggest stories we've posted so far. Wrath 101: The sons of HodirAn endgame reputation grind that's "God of War meets WoW." The Queue: Trinkets, sigils, and death by OrcsOur Q&A column has instant insight every day on what players want to know about most. WoW, Casually: 7 reasons to make a Death KnightSeven reasons for casual players to try out the newest class in the game. Know Your Lore: DalaranHere's a look at the history of the game's new Northrend hub, and these are some historic streets we're walking.
Worldwide Invitational Paris: The roundup
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/The_best_of_WoW_dev_panels_at_the_Paris_Invitational'; Happy Monday morning everyone! If you're a fan of World of Warcraft, chances are you heard about the big old shindig Blizzard threw in Paris this week. If you didn't a chance to get to Paris this year or catch any of the news over the weekend, you'll want to keep reading. We had a crack team on the convention floor, and more of us watching the live feeds all weekend, all working hard to deliver up to date reports and analysis. What that means for you is that this is the perfect place to catch up on all the WoW news from Paris. This handy list will direct you to exactly where you want to go to get the information you need. Liveblogs and other event reporting: Opening Ceremony liveblog: If you haven't heard yet, there was a pretty big announcement at this one. Developer's Class Panel: There's a little something for every class in here. Find out what's coming for your favorite character! Q&A Grab Bag Panel: See what WWI attendees had on their minds, and how the developers answered. Dungeons and raids panel: See what's next in the Caverns of Time, Ulduar, and more. Don't forget to check out parts two, three, and four for the whole scoop. PvP panel: Find out about Lake Winterspring, siege engines, Arenas, Battlegrounds, and pretty much everything except class balance. Includes pictures! Be sure to check parts two, three, and four as well. Arena Tournament, day 1: Amanda Dean breaks down the results. Notes from the costume contest: See how creative your fellow fans are -- includes pictures! The goodie bag: Even in real life, we like our epic loot. Let us show you the swag. Of course, if the flood of liveblog information makes your head spin, no worries, we have analysis on every angle and every little tidbit discussed during the Invitational. Check them out after the break.
