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Previously on MV TV: Week of January 23rd
Welcome to Previously on MV TV! Our livestreaming schedule has picked up a lot over the past few weeks, and our readers have busy lives, so we know it's impossible to watch every single streaming event live. Fortunately for you, we save all of our streams all for posterity on Massively's Twitch TV channel, so you can view them at your leisure. Even better, we've got a roundup of a few of last week's MV TV highlights from the livestream team. Follow along after the jump for the best of the best, and check out our full library of videos for the other games we've streamed last week as we begin to ramp up our streaming even more in February!
MV Guide: January 23-29, 2012
MV Guide is a weekly rundown of the MMO gaming events planned on Massively TV. Every week, the Massively staff logs in to play various MMOs live and in person, and we'd love for you to drop by the channel and visit. We have a combination of regular weekly games and new surprises, so you'll find a variety of titles to take a look at. During our streamed events, you can participate in the live chat, ask questions to learn about the game, and simply spend some time with Massively staff and readers. (Of course, streaming is subject to the whims of outside forces like server-side gremlins once in a while.) Follow along after the jump to see what's on this week's schedule!
MV Guide: January 16-22, 2012
MV Guide is a weekly rundown of the MMO gaming events planned on Massively TV. Every week, the Massively staff logs in to play various MMOs live and in person, and we'd love for you to drop by the channel and visit. We have a combination of regular weekly games and new surprises, so you'll find a variety of titles to take a look at. During our streamed events, you can participate in the live chat, ask questions to learn about the game, and simply spend some time with Massively staff and readers. (Of course, streaming is subject to the whims of outside forces like server-side gremlins once in a while.) Follow along after the jump to see what's on this week's schedule!
Previously on MV TV: Week of January 9th, 2012
Welcome to the brand-new Previously on MV TV! Our livestreaming schedule has picked up a lot over the past few weeks, and our readers have busy lives, so we know it's impossible to watch every single streaming event live. Fortunately for you, we save all of our streams all for posterity on Massively's Twitch TV channel, so you can view them at your leisure. Even better, we've got a roundup of a few of last week's MV TV highlights from the livestream team. Follow along after the jump for the best of the best!
Some Assembly Required: A virtual world roundup
If you are perusing this column, chances are you are a fan of virtual worlds and the sandbox genre. Join the club! (Dues will be due on the third Tuesday.) The aspect that compels many aficionados to delve into a game is the ability to make an impact on the world in some small respect instead of making them into Hive Member 1593072 running a static, predetermined gauntlet. How that impact is accomplished, however, varies; there are multiple features that can facilitate it, and which ones are considered most important depends on the player. With the loss of one of the best sandbox games just last month, some players may be feeling a void. Others still are looking/hoping for the "ultimate" sandbox that contains nearly every virtual world feature. Certainly, there are some upcoming games that make some drool-worthy promises, but what about playing something now? There are actually games out on the market that have at least one aspect of the genre, if not more. To start off the new year, Some Assembly Required looks at some of the top features of virtual worlds and lists games that incorporate these features. While this list isn't exhaustive (considering the sheer number of games when you include all of the smaller free-to-play titles, I'd run out of column space!), it is a comprehensive enough overview to point you toward some games worth playing that perhaps you hadn't considered before.
Second Life rolls out Linden Realms publicly on December 1st
Something very unusual is coming to Second Life on December 1st: a game. All right, that in and of itself isn't all that unusual, since the virtual world has long empowered users to create their own systems and their own games. But this is still something different because it's not a user-created game. Linden Realms has been developed specifically by Linden Lab, and as of December 1st all users will be able to experience what a first-party game for the virtual environment feels like. Second Life content creators will, rather unfortunately, be facing off against an in-house project. Luckily, the tools used in the development of Linden Realms will also be made available to the community, giving everyone a chance to play with the new tools and improve upon gameplay experiences. Whether or not this is a good thing or not for the game's overall health remains to be seen, but it may well provide an interesting boost to the community's user-created content.
The MMO Report: Giving it away for free edition
Today on The MMO Report, Casey chronicles DC Universe Online's F2P growing pains ("It's almost like they're giving it away for free," he says cheekily) before moving on to the Total Recall MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic's server types, Guild Wars 2's pet system, and the bizarre addition of Second Life to the FBI's watch list for criminal gangs and drug traffickers. "Way to give criminal organizations a wonderful idea, FBI," jokes The Beard. This episode also sees the return of Uncle Casey's mailbag and a new contest to devise an MMO Report-themed drinking game. Winners will receive (what else?) World of Warcraft-themed MEGA Bloks. Casey ends the show on a Skyrim note: "For some reason, I am always drawn to the most useless skills and end up creating a character that's only good at talking to people and getting lower prices on things but not so great at killing things." Sounds like some of my toons! Hit the break for the full episode!
Rod Humble details experimentation and innovation at Linden Lab
Linden Lab's popular Second Life is known for being one of the more creative, outside-the-box titles available on the market. That tradition carries over into Linden Lab CEO Rod Humble's newest initiative, which he says "puts the 'lab' in Linden Lab." Rather than having his developers spend all their time between projects working on bug-fixes, Humble has begun a rapid-prototyping R&D initiative. For all the information on this new project, head on over to Gamasutra and check out the full feature.
Second Life's CEO Rod Humble talks anniversaries
Second Life recently hit a milestone in the MMORPG industry: eight years in service. This is ancient in MMO terms, and yet the game has shown continued growth. How would you explain such success, especially when the game... er, world... is such an enigma? Even the players are not sure how to describe it. Well, we called out the big guns and sat down with Rod Humble, CEO of Linden Lab, the maker of Second Life. He was kind enough to not only do the interview but allow us to embed the audio in the article for you to hear! Don't worry; we've also written up much of what was said, so you can choose to listen, read, or both! Click past the cut and let's get right to the interview with Rod as he talks about success, explaining Second Life and some of the surprises he's met with along the way.
Global Chat: Room for improvement edition
Welcome to this week's Global Chat! We love hearing what you have to say at Massively, and we love it even more when we can share the best comments with all of our readers. Massively staffers will be contributing some of their favorite comments every week, so keep an eye out every Sunday for more Global Chat! We love our MMOs here at Massively, but we'll be the first to tell you that nothing's perfect. There's always room for improvement, but sometimes things just are what they are and you find a way to work with the situation and enjoy yourself anyway. Today's Global Chat is all about acknowledging those limitations and less-than-fun aspects of gaming and what you can do in spite of those potential roadblocks. Follow along after the jump to see what the Massively community had to say this week!
Rise and Shiny recap: Second Life
I thought writing about Second Life would be easy. I figured that my seven-year experience with the game -- er, world -- would make writing this that much easier. I was wrong about that. I could list many of the technical specifications, telling you how to build something or how to script a basic weapon. I could also tell you how to host an event or how to form a group. In fact, I could make this recap a list brimming with specific details about the most sandbox of sandbox games in existence. Instead I decided to let you watch the embedded video for building details while I write up how I felt during this week long revisit. Technically I have never left the world of Second Life, but over the last week I crammed in more hours building, buying and exploring than I have in a long time. I found many new ways of doing things and many wonderful places. Second Life is not, and never was, about one specific thing, so let me just tell you what I found over the last week. Click past the cut to read it, and be sure to leave any questions or experiences in the comments section!
Samsung Galaxy SL drops AMOLED for Super Clear LCD, Hummingbird for OMAP3
You're Samsung, and you want to make sure you have enough still-limited S-AMOLED displays for the upcoming Galaxy S 2, but you don't want to discontinue the original Galaxy S. What to do? Well, you could always take a cue from the Galaxy S-based Russian Nexus S and use an LCD instead-- and so here we have the Galaxy SL GT-i9003, which is destined to hit the Middle East and Asia with both a Super Clear LCD and a processor swap from Sammy's Humingbird to a 1GHz TI OMAP 3630, along with a bump in thickness and weight due to a slightly larger battery. Apart from that it's pretty much just a Galaxy S, all the way down to the maddening stagnation on Android 2.2 -- but hey, give us 2.3 (or even 3.0) on the Galaxy S 2 and we'll be all smiles and giggles. Update: BestBoyz got a Vodafone price list that seems to indicate that the SL will hit Germany as well. Achtung, AMOLED fans!
Project Skylight puts Second Life right into your browser
When most people (who don't play) think of Second Life, they don't have a terribly flattering picture in their head. That's neither fair nor even-handed, but it's hard to convince someone to download a new game and install it on the basis that it might be better than expected. So it's a good thing all around that Project Skylight, a new viewer for the game, is now available. It's a viewer with a crucial difference -- it's a browser-based client that allows players to start tooling around immediately with no prior installation. According to players, the client works well enough, albeit with some caveats such as a limited amount of time allowed per day. The service is clearly aimed at new players, as a 45-second promotional video plays before the client can be accessed, and players can only log in using guest accounts. That being said, it's a full client inside your web browser, requiring no extra setup or commitment beyond the willingness to try the game. Second Life fans should be happy, but people who have never tried the game should be happier, as it just got easier to see if the virtual world might be the place for them.
Storyboard: Winner's circle
It's time for another rant here on Storyboard, or at least an animal that's in the same general family as the dreaded rant-beast. Considering that both this column and WoW Insider's resident RP columnist Michael Gray have been covering similar ground over the past few weeks, it seems only appropriate to dip back into the well of the tools that roleplayers need, deserve, and want. And while I had considered a different column, it occurred to me that I wanted to take a very different tack this week. The past couple ranty columns have both focused on what games are getting wrong and what we deserve that we're not getting. But generally speaking, I prefer to be positive instead of negative, and amidst all of my justifiable complaints, that was getting lost. So this week, we're going to look at five games that are doing pretty well at supporting roleplayers. My list is far from exhaustive, and it doesn't include every game I'm personally involved with at the moment -- Final Fantasy XIV isn't on there, for instance -- but it is a good snapshot of who's on Team RP.
Toshiba goes all LED with new HDTVs at IFA 2010
Besides that Android tablet, Toshiba's brought a whole slew LED-lit LCD televisions to IFA 2010. The REGZA WL Series is the company's first range of 3DTVs, available in 40-, 46- and 55-inch sizes (pictured above) with LED backlighting, 7,000,000:1 contrast ratios, it 3D Resolution+ upscaling tech and one pair of active shutter glasses bundled with each one. They're also DLNA enabled and ready for Windows 7, with the Toshiba Media Controller software making streaming content as easy as dragging and dropping a file. The rest of the lineup includes the high end VL series with LED backlighting, midrange REGZA 42SL738 42-inch HDTV and edge-lit SL738 series LCDs in smaller sizes from 9- to 32-inches. Check the press site or YouTube trailers embedded after the break for more details, and don't be surprised to see the 200Hz motion technology, millimeter measurements, DVB-T tuners and BBC streaming while these are due in October across the pond, we'll be keeping an eye out at CEDIA for US-bound variants.
Second Life's Emerald client facing obsolescence
Recent months have not been wholly kind to Second Life, and those circumstances don't seem finished just yet. The Emerald client, one of the most popular third-party viewers -- estimated to be used by as many as half of all players -- has fallen out of favor with Linden Labs and is no longer an officially endorsed option. Scott Jennings has posted a full rundown of the client's history, charting its progress from the earliest inception of the project to its current status of having fallen from grace. The short version (or as short a version as you can get for drama four years in the making) is that Emerald's coders included some rather... hack-tacular backdoors in the client's coding. This is a downside for reasons that should not need to be specified, but does add up to some major problems for the large playerbase still using Emerald. Second Life has had a hard time getting its users to switch to the 2.0 viewer, and about the only upside may be that the removal of Emerald will change that... but the overall drama isn't going to be kind for either the Emerald project or Linden Labs itself.
The Daily Grind: Threatening
While not every MMO features aggro mechanics (Second Life is remarkably free of them, for example), nine times out of ten endgame content will at least peripherally involve someone tanking something big and nasty. Usually with claws. And in almost every case, tanking involves a series of mechanics about threat. There has to be some reason why the big nasty is targeting the character in four-inch-thick armor with a shield instead of the robed priest that has a coughing fit when she walks too quickly, after all. For the upcoming expansion, World of Warcraft's team is considering making some changes to threat mechanics, something that Spinks summarizes and rails against quite eloquently. It does raise the question, however, of how responsible a tank ought to be for managing threat. How big a part of gameplay should tanking actually be? Do you prefer games where you never have to worry about threat, or games where tanking is a very near thing? Which game do you think featured the most engaging methods for holding enemy attention that you'd like to see more of?
Linden Lab hands down Second Life metrics for Q1 2010
Today, Linden Lab is releasing the quarterly metrics for Second Life, showing overall performance for Q1 2010, and contrasting that with the performance of previous quarters. Linden Lab claims that Q1 2010 was an all-time high for the Second Life economy. We'll drill down through the metrics and see if that's so.
Fahy vs Linden Lab: No case to answer?
Last week, on Thursday 8 April, Corey Fahy in Philadelphia filed a lawsuit against Linden Lab and more than 25 others, in the Pennsylvania East District Court (case number 2:2010cv01561, assigned to judge Joel Harvey Slomsky). Fahy alleges that an algorithm in one of his Second Life products has been subjected to copyright infringement, accompanied by the usual requests for damages, statutory damages, ten times damages, attorney's fees and all that. Where do we even begin? We'll spare you most of the cruft and go straight to the heart of the problems that we can see with this particular lawsuit.
The Daily Grind: Do you want player housing?
It features in Lord of the Rings Online, doesn't make an appearance in World of Warcraft, and an extended form is the heart of Second Life. It's player housing, and it's had a long and interesting history ever since Ultima Online pioneered the idea. There were hiccups to the approach back then, so many that some later designs have eschewed the entire idea. Other games that use it have gone with an instancing model a la Final Fantasy XI, ensuring that there's not actual game space being taken up by unused houses. But like so many features, there are debates as to its worth. For every person who loves the idea of player-run cities in Star Wars Galaxies, there's someone who would rather see the same amount of development time going toward endgame content or system balancing. Housing has always struggled to be an element that's meaningful beyond the cool factor of just owning a player-made house... but then again, many would argue that the cool factor itself is meaningful and why they want it. Where do you fall? Do you like the idea of player housing, are you opposed, or do you fall somewhere in the middle?
