Last Week on Massively: WoW-related stories

Could Blizzard be shipping Lich King without the polish it needs?
By pushing Lich King out the door on November 13th, is Blizzard giving short shrift to their legendary dedication to polish?

MMOGology: WoW on easy mode
My buddy Rob and I play World of Warcraft frequently, but between the two of us he's got the most /played time. He's got a few 70s on a PvP server and a few 70s on the PvE server where we're spending most of our time. He's also an alt-a-holic and has tons of mid-level characters. He's played every class in the game; most of them thoroughly. After spending so much time leveling so many characters he recently resolved not to level another character until the release of Wrath of the Lich King.

Mark Jacobs makes the case for playing WAR instead of WoW
Tracey John over on the MTV multiplayer blog recently caught up with Mark Jacobs, General Manager of EA Mythic and lead Warhammer Online designer. Some of the questions posed have already been covered, and we've been busy giving out all the information we can get our eager little hands on, but possibly the most loaded of them all has been left until the day of WAR's launch: why should a World of Warcraft player come over and play WAR?

The allegedly incontestable momentum of World of Warcraft
We relish informed opinion pieces here at Massively. That's what the professional site gamesindustry.biz is serving up for us, in the form of an editorial by site founder Rob Fahey. He tackles a subject we've looked at ourselves fairly often in the last few weeks: the nature of World of Warcraft's dominion, how long it can last, and whether challenging WoW is even worthwhile.

The Best of Massively: Our ten most important interviews
We have exciting news, dear readers. In just over a month, Massively will be one year old! We're very proud of how far we've come since last November, and we'd like to thank you for sticking with us through all these months. To celebrate our first birthday we're looking back at the most interesting stuff we've experienced so far!

Behind the Curtain: MMOre Morality
So, it seems like Knights of the Old Republic Online is a definite thing now. I've actually been trying not to think to hard about that – I normally end up having to change my pants afterwards – it hasn't worked though, so my washing machine's been taking a serious beating recently.

What is the potential lifespan of an MMO?
"All online games have a lifespan." True, there's no denying that everything has a lifespan (except maybe plastic), but we all know what he's saying here.

Raptr tracks you and your friends' WoW progress, plus more
If you're the type of person who loves to watch (re: stalk) their friends and Twitter just isn't doing it for you, then check out the Raptr beta. This nifty social networking site focuses on gaming and will track your activity over a plethora of platforms and games such as Steam, Xbox Live, Spore and of course World of Warcraft.

An MMO showdown: City of Heroes vs. WoW vs. EVE
For some gamers born and bred with traditional first person shooters and console games, MMOs are a daunting prospect, with an appeal that's not fully understood. The stereotypes (which are sometimes true) that persist are that "MMOs are boring, MMOs are too slow, all it is is kill quests, item gathering, stat-gazing and crafting -- and all those things are boring, boring, boring."

The Best of Massively: Our most helpful guides
In just over one month, Massively will celebrate its first birthday! Last week we started a countdown to the event by kicking off a series of features highlighting the best stuff from the site so far. We started with our ten most important interviews. Today, we're continuing the weekly countdown by listing some of your (and our) favorite guides!

Player Consequences: Are MMOs finished with forums?
The creation of the Internet has made communication affordable, fast, and almost completely reliable. It's no wonder that almost every facet of our lives has been affected by it, especially our entertainment. Mainstream entertainment like mp3s and streaming television have only recently found their way online.

Anti-Aliased: PvPissed
It's in the nature of every MMO player to snap at change -- it's what we do. When the patch notes reveal that Class X got a decrease in DPS to make them of a "more balanced power", you can expect all players of Class X to lead a revolt across the forums with pitchforks and torches. This behavior has become so commonplace that we tend to just ignore it after a while.

One Shots: If you thought Fel Reavers were bad
Today we'd like to introduce you to the Northrend's bigger, badder version of the Fel Reaver, courtesy of this awesome screenshot sent in to us by Deadend, who is playing on the Northrend server in the Wrath of the Lich King beta.