The week in Massively features

Massively Exclusive: Tabula Rasa's AFS War College
Last week we got a chance to visit NCsoft's Austin offices to attend the first ever AFS War College, where some of Tabula Rasa's finest soldiers were invited to join NCsoft's developers for a day of discussions, questions, and demos.

Gearing up for Guild Wars 2
It's been a long time since we've heard any news about Guild Wars 2, so we thought it was about time to sit down and have a refresher course on what we can expect with the sequel to one of the most successful MMOs of all time.

Anti-Aliased: Fourth Edition and the Kamehameha Fallacy
I've wanted to do a post on Dungeons and Dragons Fourth Edition for a while now, but I just couldn't put my finger on what I wanted to talk about with it. The rules are very much made in the vein of World of Warcraft -- you can tell that by just opening up the book.

Player vs. Everything: The quirks of D&D Online
From the first time I stepped into Turbine's Dungeons and Dragons Online: Stormreach, I was amazed by how well it managed to capture the dungeon crawling feel of the franchise that I knew, loved, and grew up with.

Player Consequences: Pervasive Map Features
There are a lot of reasons for the increasing popularity of MMOs and the amount of game developers who are entering into the market. I personally think that MMOs with their rich and complex fantasy worlds have a huge advantage over most single player games.

Exclusive: Richard Bartle on how he'd make World of Warcraft better
oday we have the other side of that coin: what Blizzard could honestly do to make the game even better. Click on through below the cut for Dr. Richard Bartle's view on Karazahn, playing MMOs as a player, and his overall view on the near future of the genre's darlings.

EVE Evolved: Faction warfare unleashed
When talk of how Faction Warfare was going to work began, the goals it hoped to achieve were laid bare for all to see. EVE Online developers CCP wanted to encourage small-scale PvP combat and make the experience easy for even new players to get involved in.

Dredging up the past - the Star Wars Galaxies NGE re-examined
To say that the Star Wars Galaxies update known as the NGE is controversial would be a fantastic understatement. Almost certainly the biggest change to a live MMO ever, the New Game Enhancements were a bold attempt by the SOE-Austin studio to relaunch the game with an entirely different aesthetic.

A Hunter's guide to fast-travel in LotRO
In this guide, we're going to focus on one of the most valuable aspects of the Hunter: the wayfaring or "guide" skills that allow you to quickly and easily teleport yourself or your entire fellowship to certain spots across the map instantly.

The Gaming Iconoclast: A side of PlanetSide
Our efforts could politely have been called "lambs to the slaughter." They could less-politely be visualized as a well-worn combat boot meeting a sensitive part of TGI's anatomy, perhaps the one he sits upon, repeatedly and with great vigor. It was glorious.

Player vs. Everything: The MMO clone wars
For some reason, MMOG players in particular just love to cite the classic "It's just a clone of (whatever)" when they're trying to challenge the very essence of a particular title.

The Social Gaming Summit: Casual MMOs and Immersive Worlds
A particular highlight of the conference for this blogger was the panel entitled "Casual MMOs and Immersive Worlds", which provided a lively discussion on what it means to create a virtual social space, how to monetize free-to-play content, and what exactly is a casual MMO?

Have Clone, Will Travel: 3 Essential Tools for Capsuleers
With Empyrean Age finally released, I wanted to give it a try to get this old Carebear in some pew pew action. Since my main character, Treenara Mazouk, was part of an industrial corporation that wanted to remain neutral throughout this war time, I decided to create an alternate character (Alt) to test out Factional Warfare.

MMO MMOnkey: The greed game
Greed. Countries go to war so that the powerful can take land, gold, oil from the weak, can kill them and take their stuff. Greed. The richest 1% of the population of the United States control over 30% of the country's wealth as they clamor for and are given massive tax cuts by the government while, by the government's own estimates, roughly 12.5% of its citizens live in poverty.

Massively Speaking Episode 10
With the Empyrean Age freshly warped through the gates, Shawn and Michael sit down with a pair of EVE Online veterans to talk all about the newest addition to CCP's game.

Behind the Curtain: My turn to get hacked
It's official – my guildies are 'teh awesomez'. The reason? My World of Warcraft account was hacked yesterday afternoon, and I've already been inundated by offers of assistance and gold from my friends, should things go South once I log back into my account.

Making/Money: Virtual Red Paperclips
A few years ago now, I heard a news story about a man who traded one red paperclip for a house. There were several intermediate trades, but the basic gist of it was that he started with a paperclip and traded up from there until, eventually, he was offered a house in Saskatchewan in exchange for a movie role.

The Digital Continuum: Square Enix's next MMO
There isn't much meat on them bones as far as the next project goes, but the interview does get the team to talk just a little bit about it. It seems as though one thing is clear: Their newest MMO won't be too similar to Final Fantasy XI.

Under The Hood: Factional Warfare
Why is this such a major factor in most MMOs? Why is it that most major MMOs today have clearly defined sides? Why are those Horde jerks so mean in World PvP? It all boils down to the classic factional warfare model.