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MMO Roundup: Last week on Massively

Sometimes you'd like to know that there are other MMOs out there, right? Our sister site Massively can provide you with everything you need to know about all those other shiny MMOs! Check out this roundup of the latest news from the wider MMO world.

Boobs and you
This week's topic is one that's near and dear to my heart. Well, it's near to my heart, at least, and I mean that quite literally. It's also a perfect topic for today's holiday! I mean, who doesn't like to talk about large breasts on Thanksgiving? (Score one for the terrible synonym.)

Disguising the grind
Believe it or not, grind is an essential part of an MMO and we might be pretty lost without it. Repetitive content is the cornerstone of the MMO genre but it's not all just smacking monsters over the head for hours on end or completing yet another "kill ten rats" quest. The repetitive elements in an MMO give us predictable gameplay in a form we can digest.

The trouble with goals in MMOs
One of the major problems of a game in which you can do anything is that... well, there's not necessarily much of a reason to do anything. That's a Terrible Idea recently had an interesting piece on the difficulty of generating goals and objectives in MMOs, especially in contrast with single-player games where your goals are equally pre-generated.

The9 sees enormous drop in profits after split with Blizzard
In a news story that we're sure will surprise precisely nobody at all, The9 -- China's previous operator for World of Warcraft -- has reported a serious decline in profits for this last quarter. Since last year when The9 still had World of Warcraft in its stable of games to now, they have seen a staggering 94% drop in revenue.

Massively Speaking Episode 78: An interview with LotRO's Jeffrey Steefel
Massively Speaking Episode 78 is back with Rubi, Shawn and special guest Jeffrey Steefel, executive producer for Lord of the Rings Online. They talk about Siege of Mirkwood, LotRO's future, Jeffrey's past and much more!

Alderaan added to SWTOR's list of planets
If you're like us, you've probably always wondered what Alderaan looked like before it was blown into space dust by the first Death Star. It's lucky that BioWare seems to feel the same way, as we'll now be able to see the planet in all its regal glory. The first set of screens make the world seem like one whole planet covered by landscape from Washington state, but a closer look at the concept art reveals some truly breathtaking imagery that we can't wait to see rendered into the game.

MMOrigins: Dissection of a gamer
Oh the memories! That text-based multi-user dungeon (MUD) experience may have been the most influential on my gaming career, but it certainly wasn't the first. No, for that we'd have to travel back in time several more years; the day I unwrapped my first gaming console. It was a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and the year was 1989. Follow me as I take a trip down memory lane and recount the main influencers on my MMO timeline.

Space combat! Star Trek Online community Q&A answers
It's a little late due to the impending Thanksgiving day gorging, but we've got your second wave of community answers for space combat in Star Trek Online! As this week lands us on a holiday, we'll be putting up the next post for your third wave of questions on Monday, November 30th. For now, we hope you enjoy the answers given by Al Rivera, senior game designer on Star Trek Online.