The week in Massively Features

The Digital Continuum: Moria or Wrath?
tanding in the tiny store, I found myself at a crossroads. I'd put a lot of thought into this, but now that the decision was starting back at me, it seemed much more daunting. The question kept repeating in my head, "Do I buy Wrath, or Moria?"

NCsoft clarifies its rationale for closing Tabula Rasa
Last week we spoke very briefly with NCsoft's Director of Public Relations David Swofford about the company's decision to close Tabula Rasa. He reiterated the basic statement we heard from several sources surrounding the call: this was all about the bottom line.

Anti-Aliased: You've been Auto-Assaulted
I saw the warning signs, and I tried to bring it up nicely. I kept seeing the constant staff shake-ups, and continued to grin and hope for the best. I even saw Richard Garriott himself walk away from the development, a very bad omen in hindsight, and the lot of us gamers just nodded along and thought that TR was going to continue along smoothly.

Know Your LotRO Lore: The Rings of Power
You may realize that the essential plot for the Lord of the Rings books has something to do with a ring, or at least we'd hope you do. Perhaps you know that there is this one ring that keeps making Hobbits invisible, and a bunch of Orcs want it really, really badly. But other than that, you're lost to the origins and impact that this ring has in relation to the grand scheme of things.

Massively Speaking Podcast Episode 34
Massively Speaking Episode 34 is all about Lord of the Rings Online and the game's first expansion, Mines of Moria. Shawn and Michael are joined by Jeffrey Steefel, Producer at Turbine, to talk about the new classes, content, and dungeon-crawling goodness added in this gigantic expansion. They even talk about the future of the game a bit! Well worth checking out.

EVE Evolved: Exploring New Eden
A common theme in popular MMOs today is the idea of exploration. For a surprisingly large number of players, their reason for playing an MMO is to experience new content and explore new lands. Each new MMO or expansion becomes a new country to explore with its own set of features and game mechanics.

The Digital Continuum: Blurring the line between co-op and MMO
There has been a flood of co-op games this year, and they've been really popular. People love to play with one another. Everything from Red Alert 3 to LittleBigPlanet shipped with some form of online co-op, people are eating up the co-op experience. And why shouldn't they? It's a whole heaping ton of fun.

Why you should be playing EverQuest II: Crafting
An accusation that gets leveled at MMOs a lot is that they're too violent. Most people who play videogames have sort of a laissez' faire attitude towards roughing up virtual baddies, and rightly so. It's all make-believe, after all. The problem is that this 'bonking out the baddies' gameplay is the bread and butter of the online gaming trope.

Why you should be playing RuneScape: Free Mad Skillz
RuneScape is about to celebrate its 8th birthday (January 4th, 2009). It's amazing that in this industry, where high-powered games come and go, a java-based in-browser game has not only lasted but absolutely thrived for this long. Why is that? My personal feeling is that it's got the skills to ... well, you know the rest of that saying.

The 26 Shields of City of Heroes
When we logged into City of Heroes to check out the new Shield powerset released in yesterday's Issue 13 patch, the one thing that we were not expecting was to find 26 shield types to choose from. It took us quite a while to settle on a shield, as our impulse was to have them all.

Ask Massively: Is this all there is?
If, like me, you are seeking a break from your Wrath of the Lich King addiction, join me for another weekly installment of Ask Massively. If you are one of the two people on the Internet who play something other than World of Warcraft, feel free to look in as well. It is only a matter of time before you decide to join us in Azeroth/Outland/Northrend.

Player Consequences: Closing Time
If you look into the history of modern MMOs, you will notice that most games in the genre are still up and running. In over ten years only a handful have failed and been taken offline by their publishers. That's not to say every MMO has had outstanding success.

Behind the Curtain: Are we having fun?
The thrust of the argument SLASH discussion was whether or not we should be tracking raid progression any more. It got me thinking. Not about raid progression exactly; about how different people approach MMOs and the content they offer; about how different people find 'fun' in different playstyles.

Celebrating the holidays in EverQuest II
Fantasy MMO gamers playing EverQuest II will be able to ring in the New Year with some holiday fun, including gift giving and snowball fights. "Frostfell" is the EverQuest II flavor of a Christmas celebration, which kicks off on December 11th and lasts through January 6th of 2009.