Jeremy Stratton

PC Gaming By Jeremy Stratton

Choose My Adventure: The Guild Wars 2 way

This week has been severely under-productive in light of my lofty Guild Wars 2 goals, but that's not a bad thing. Pippy Peat, the sad yet determined I-think-I-can Mesmer has wielded his two-handed greatsword with gusto and has been fighting a valiant fight. The jarring emptiness of Metrica Province has left me wondering whether some of GW2's events are scaling improperly, are set too high, or aren't scaling at all. Nevertheless, there were plenty of events for me to take part in, and they've been my main source of experience for this week's Choose My Adventure. I've also come across some bugs and glitches that Massively's resident GW2 expert, Elisabeth Cardy, has helped me with. My greatsword is proving incredibly handy, mixed with clones of myself to distract the Inquest and random grumpy animals. I couldn't resist zapping some of the innocent critters littering the landscape. I'm sorry. Pippy is a sad, depressed, maybe narcissistic little Mesmer. Every once in a while, he takes his aggression out on the local fauna. Setting up a reasonable amount of polls is proving to be difficult. There are so many options for traits, weapons, and skills. It's staggering. Instead of trying to be all-inclusive for every aspect of the game, I'm trying to take into consideration how readers feel from votes and comments and use that as a guide. So what has Pippy has gotten himself into this week?%Gallery-170307%

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PC Gaming By Jeremy Stratton

Choose My Adventure: Guild Wars 2, Tyria and beyond

Last week's polls were interesting to watch. I wasn't sure which Guild Wars 2 class I was going to end up with. As it turns out, I'll be playing a male Asura Mesmer. The Mesmer won out by a measley seven votes, thus changing my fate from a turret-dropping, technological mastermind to that of a magical duelist. My illusion-shattering Mesmer made its first steps into Metrica Province. I didn't want to accomplish too much without you voting for me, but I did want to get the cube spinning. Check out my initial adventures after the break be sure to and vote on next week's polls which cover weapons, zones, and more.

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Gaming By Jeremy Stratton

Choose My Adventure: Guild Wars 2 takes the polls

MMOs come and go. They get popular and sink to obscurity. Expansions can give a suffering MMO another chance, make an average MMO the popular kid on the block, or change the industry completely. No matter which MMOs come and go or what expansions push an MMO into the sunlight for a spell, many MMOs will keep on running with a larger community than there were votes on this poll. Not to mention people who aren't playing but want to see someone else play! Guild Wars 2 and Allods were initially close enough in the poll to leave a little doubt as to who might win, but GW2 swept ahead and held on to the end. So before I let you vote on what you want me to do in Guild Wars 2, let me tell you a bit about my playstyle so you can make your decision. You'll find all of this week's polls at the end!

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Gaming By Jeremy Stratton

Choose My Adventure: You decide the MMO and how I play it

It's finally time for my second round of Choose My Adventure. The last time I helmed CMA, Lineage II was top pick, and I had a lot of fun with it. I took tons of screenshots and video to keep you in the loop as to my progress, and you can expect the same, whichever game is chosen this time. MJ's turn with The Secret World was a lot of fun to read and follow. She even livestreamed some of her shenanigans... I mean, adventures. You can bet I'll be playing with one finger over the PrtScn button and livestreaming some of my adventures as well. I hope to make this a multimedia extravaganza of epic proportions. Take a look through your choices and vote, vote, vote. And make sure to get those votes in by 11:59 p.m. on Sunday the 21st!

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Gaming By Jeremy Stratton

Vanguard releases October producer's letter

Vanguard's new producer, Harvey "Rahtiz" Burgess, released a new producer's letter today to keep players informed on what's been going on since the F2P launch. Burgess mentions more team members coming aboard, more changes in the coming weeks, and what may be a big blow to the community involving Salim "Silius" Grant, but it's not exactly bad news for him. While it's not exactly a giant pumpkin full of news-candy, Burgess also makes mention that City of Brass will finally be out by late November, plus more information on top of last week's SOE Webcast about player studio. For the full story, hop on over to the official Vanguard website.

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PC Gaming By Jeremy Stratton

Massively Exclusive: SOE elaborates on Vanguard's F2P conversion

Vanguard news is ramping up in preparation for the August 14th free-to-play conversion date. In fact, Sony Online Entertainment quietly kicked off a soft launch of the revamped game yesterday, giving players a first glimpse of the new website, pricing matrix, and in-game station store. Massively sat down with Andy Sites, the game's director of development at SOE, to ask him what players can expect during and after Vanguard's F2P transition. We've got the official scoop on transition content, housing and boats, server types, and more beyond the break!

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Gaming By Jeremy Stratton

The Soapbox: 'L2P' and the antisocial MMO

Disclaimer: The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week's writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column. I'm amazed how often I still hear the phrase "learn to play." It's become a nasty term that makes me suspect those saying it just don't want other gamers around at all. And I can hardly blame them when the MMO market is pushing a markedly single-player agenda. MMOs tout our ability to play with friends and interact with others, but in the end, they are selfish games that breed and attract selfish gamers. In modern MMOs, interaction barely rises above single-player co-op. Guild Wars 2 exemplifies this by dropping you in a world with the potential for thousands of players to be all around you, but its alienating mechanics often make you feel like a lonely ghost who wants nothing more than to hug someone. L2P and other stock insults are rooted in something ugly: the literally antisocial nature of many MMOs.

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Gaming By Jeremy Stratton

New patch and level-jumping event for Vindictus Europe

Between now and August 1st, Vindictus EU will be holding a jumping event. No, this isn't a late Easter event but a chance for any player to jump a new character straight to level 50. Special armor and weapon sets will be provided to get your new character on the path to glory. Nexon Europe apparently thinks you need even more incentive to skip 50 levels of grinding. Plus, jumped characters will grant their entire party double experience and see a chance for extra evil cores to drop. [Source: Nexon Europe press release]

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Gaming By Jeremy Stratton

MMO Blender: Jeremy's unholy MMO concoction

Have you ever wished MMO developers could put away their checkbooks, pluck out the best bits of their respective MMOs, and weld them together to construct the megalopolis of MMOs? We do too! So today, we're launching a brand-new opinion column, MMO Blender, in which the Massively writers will mix and match their favorite features from existing MMOs for your amusement. But do our choices create a perfectly honed machine or a lumbering, speechless frankenstein of an MMO that deserves to be put out of its misery? First up: Livestreamer extraordinaire and Contributing Editor Jeremy Stratton with a potent, sandboxy blend of Fallen Earth, EVE Online, Lord of the Rings Online, and more. Wet your whistle after the break and look for more MMO Blenders from the rest of our staff in the coming weeks!

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Gaming By Jeremy Stratton

The Soapbox: The hidden perils of Guild Wars 2's microtransactions

Disclaimer: The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week's writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column. The ArenaNet post about microtransactions in Guild Wars 2 reveals that the "gems" currency will be bought with real money and be available for purchase with in-game gold in GW2. But people seem to have forgetten that Runes of Magic's cash shop operated this way three years ago. I've been playing RoM since closed beta, and the cash shop is one of the reasons RoM is so different from other F2P MMOs of its era. Frogster eventually removed the ability to buy diamonds with gold because of fraud, so I'm curious to see how ArenaNet handles that issue. My time in RoM has shown me that there are other issues involved here, issues of security, players gaming the system, botting, and pay-to-win debates. In other words, there's more at stake here than whether cash shops sell gear or items toward gaining power.

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Gaming By Jeremy Stratton

Runes of Magic on its third anniversary

Runes of Magic's third anniversary is finally upon us. Frogster has been gearing up for the event by holding diamond sales and cash-shop specials. Each anniversary, you can also take part in multiple frog-related quests and events. Frog-bashing, frog disguises, and more frog-bashing have long been a staple. Frog-racing and frog etiquette have been added to the roster. What's frog etiquette? Why, it's either insulting or complimenting frogs, silly. During the festivities, various freebies are usually handed out to players who log in, as well. The real question is what's new in the land of Taborea, but if you wanted to know about new lands or dungeons, you'll have to wait a little bit longer. There's no official word, but given the time that's passed and the unofficial images and information that are floating around the Internet, we know Chapter 5 can't be too far off. There are still players out there who are far from making their way through the Chapter 4 content, but many guilds on the cutting edge are starting to trample Tomb of the Seven Heroes into a well-worn path. During this intermediary period, Runewaker added the random attribute extractor and the costume interface. This isn't a replacement to aggregating; it's more like an extension. Most recently, the team introduced a patch containing bug fixes and a sprinkling of changes to the user interface, guilds, pets, vendor NPCs, quests, crafting, and skills. Some of the most exciting information is sketchy but does point to two possible new classes. And what class (or race?) could possibly have skills with names like "forge" and "runecraft" in them? Hmm...

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PC Gaming By Jeremy Stratton

Choose My Adventure: So long, Lineage II

I'm here at the end of the line. Six weeks and 48 levels brings me to the close of my time on Choose My Adventure with Lineage II. It became a little grindy toward the end, but that's due to my inability to find a group, something that's important in order to experience some of the content. When I began this little adventure, I knew nothing of Lineage II. I'm walking away a regular player who's looking forward to trying out the numerous PvP options. I wanted to finish this ride with a bang, and I was lucky enough to be ending after a siege weekend. Lineage II has some rather involved sieges and other PvP content that should please many players at mid- to high-level. I was a litle confused at first, but I was able to use the broadcast crystal to watch some siege gameplay. This final farewell covers a lot of PvP in the game, so buckle up!%Gallery-141708%

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PC Gaming By Jeremy Stratton

Choose My Adventure: How Lineage II feels to a Western newcomer

We're down to the wire for Lineage II's Choose My Adventure, with one more week to go. My Abyss Walker quickly rushed to the 40s, at which point leveling has slowed down considerably. I've talked about pets, explored (only a fraction of) the countryside, and touched on crafting and other features. What else could we possibly talk about? I haven't really shared a lot of my experiences with my character class or how the class-transfers and skills affect my overall enjoyment of Lineage II. My third class-transfer is set in stone thanks to your poll choices and the game mechanics; now that I'm an Abyss Walker, I'm locked-in to become a Ghost Hunter, which makes sense. Ghost Hunter is melee, like my Abyss Walker. I can't really jump ship at this point and go ranged. So let's look a little more at my character, what the future could hold for him in terms of more class-transfers, and my opinions on non-situational combat and how that makes the game feel to me.%Gallery-141708%

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News

News By Jeremy Stratton

Choose My Adventure: Post-Christmas update

A turkey and ham coma, family soiree, and the biggest calendar holiday of the year have left my Lineage II escapades a wee bit smaller this week, but not without some fun happenings. Speaking of holidays, I hope everyone had a terrific one! Random events, miraculously revived dead pets, more amazing scenery, and lots of killing are on deck in today's Choose My Adventure. It turns out that I am terrible at raising my pet wolf and even got into an accidental scuffle with another player that left her pet dead and me even deader. I returned to the Path to Awakening because that's what you voted for last week. I've also neared the end of the uber-fast leveling cycle via quests and am turning to grinding for the majority of my experience gain. The fun-level has yet to dip for me; there's higher level gameplay I'm really hoping to dip my dagger into, and I'm curious to see what level I can reach by the end of this trip. As always, check out the extensive gallery and livestreams, and tune in to MV Guide to see when my next livestream will be.%Gallery-141708%

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Gaming By Jeremy Stratton

Massively's MMO predictions for 2012: Jeremy Stratton

Star Wars:The Old Republic will continue to be a success, through the three-month mark. Voice-overs and an extremely solid build won't be enough to push it to the top without a major redesign to focus on future trends. It won't prove to be a replacement for World of Warcraft, damage any other MMOs subscription numbers or spawn any large, dedicated, commercial websites, but it will become a regular among the deeply rooted MMOs like Lord of the Rings Online, RIFT, and the many others doing quite well. WoW's Mists of Pandaria won't be the magic sauce that keeps or raises subscription numbers. Blizzard will have to deal with juggling the business end of the MMO to remain on top. MoP's big claim to fame will be how it becomes a major contender in shifting design philosophy and changing player expectations to issue in a wider variety of gameplay between MMOs, which we'll only start to see toward the end of the new year. Following in the wake of a slow, almost imperceptible shift in design and expectations will be a slow and steady rise in the popularity of existing MMOs, like Fallen Earth. For the first time, since it launched, EVE Online will struggle with declining numbers as CCP suffers from growing pains with a rocky DUST 514 launch and a series of substantial hiccups. MMOs, in general, will continue to look at console-based gameplay as a road-map for fun but less for massively multiplayer online gaming. The industries will converge somewhat, but this will also help profitable spots open up for more traditional MMORPG design. One of the bigger movers and shakers that will continue pushing the evolution of the genre will be EverQuest Next, as new info and art trickle out to, causing a world-wide gamer blackout as computers everywhere short-circuit from all the drool. None of the MMOs set to come out in the next year will do miraculously well, but the industry will be primed for more old-school meets new-school gaming experiences. The money-side of the industry will be able to afford to make room for much more than on-rails, repeat dungeon-running MMOs or fantasy-less sandboxes, as it will need to meet new expectations, resulting in a great year for more diverse MMOs catering to veterans and newbs alike. This next year will spearhead the next revolution in MMOs, and gamers will reap the rewards of more choices, different experiences, and more of it all in a shorter span of time in the next few years. Want more staff predictions for 2012? Pick a writer below: Beau Hindman | Bree Royce | Brendan Drain | Eliot Lefebvre | Jef Reahard | Jeremy Stratton | Justin Olivetti | Shawn Schuster

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Entertainment

Entertainment By Jeremy Stratton

Choose My Adventure: Exploration week

From desert wastelands and salty shorelines to plateaus and ocean floors, I've been busy traveling in Aden, and I've seen but a glimpse of the entire continent. Last week, you voted for me to stray from the Path to Awakening and explore the world in Lineage II, and I've been having a blast doing just that. I discovered a monster racetrack, ran into raid bosses in the middle of nowhere, discovered a vast undersea temple, and so much more. I've also added 47 more screenshots to the gallery, uploaded a walkabout video, and have another livestream this week. We still aren't done yet. There are more chances for you to decide my fate in this week's Choose My Adventure.%Gallery-141708%

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Entertainment

Entertainment By Jeremy Stratton

Choose My Adventure: A male Dark Elf Fighter in Aden

Last week in Choose My Adventure, you voted for what kind of character I should make. I dutifully rolled him up and set off for fantastical adventures in Lineage II. Today, I bring you a dungeon video, many screenshots, first impressions, and even a livestream. It's a multi-media extravaganza! And we're also on to the next round of voting for what direction my character takes. Let's not get ahead of ourselves, though. I had to start out at the bottom of the barrel. For the first 20 levels, I called Talking Island Village home, until I was transported to the mainland and a little town called Gludio. I discovered, among other things, that there are many tantalizing spots to see in the game -- if you are willing to travel off the beaten path. These spots are well worth the layover, especially if you have a powerful-enough machine. As old as Lineage II is, it's strikingly gorgeous. I didn't dawdle for too long, as I had some leveling to do, and I made a few discoveries along the way.%Gallery-141708%

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PC Gaming By Jeremy Stratton

Choose My Adventure: Lineage II by a landslide

It was no contest from the get-go. Lineage II took an early lead in last week's poll and firmly held on to it. Color me shocked. I really thought that a few of the entries would be closely tied. Some contestants recently added some juicy content releases, but Lineage II crushed them, and all the others, by getting 1,320 votes. The runner-up, Black Prophecy, only managed to secure 299 votes. All its servers going F2P and the release of Age of Discovery weren't enough to put EverQuest II in the running. The F2P population boom in DC Universe Online's and its recent Lightning Strikes update weren't enough to create competition. Nope. The allure of Lineage II's F2P mode and the launch of the Goddess of Destruction expansion were just too much for voters to pass up. Now it's your turn to start steering my course in the lands of Lineage II. Race, class, gender and my first class-transfer are all on the table. I've tried to make voting as easy and clear as possible, but given how each race, and gender determine which classes you can choose from, you should make an effort to understand how all the choices work. Here's one example: Voting Dwarf and then Mystic is wasting a vote because Dwarves can only be Fighters, and it skews the results for those who are voting for a race that can be Mystics. You'll see what I mean.

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Gaming By Jeremy Stratton

Choose My Adventure: No Skyrim, unfortunately

For the next six weeks, you, dear readers, get to poke me with virtual sticks and jeer as I do your bidding in an MMO of your choosing. Who am I, you ask. Some of you know me from Massively TV's livestreams, during which I like to ninja loot Karen Bryan's kills. Some of you know me from reading my Runes of Magic articles. What none of you (likely) knows is that I actively play and enjoy many of the MMOs featured here on Massively. However, there are plenty of other MMOs I've either never played or have only sampled briefly. You are going to rectify that. I tend to have a casual, laid-back style of play. You'd typically find me crafting armor rather than running a dungeon in World of Warcraft. I'd rather be exploring the countryside in Vanguard than progressing through raid content. So whether you revel in the idea of throwing me out of my comfort zone or you want to sit next to me on my extra-soft carebear couch, now's your chance to vote. I'll also be livestreaming parts of Choose My Adventure in the coming weeks. Oh yeah -- and you have until Saturday to vote!

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Gaming By Jeremy Stratton

Lost Pages of Taborea: Patch 4.0.3 changes

Last week, Runes of Magic's latest patch brought Knight skill balancing, saw the return of the Juice Festival, and tried to remove some macro functions. All in all, it wasn't a huge patch, but it was enough to light up the RoM forum with a lot of chatter. As it turns out, many vocal players were saddened to see the removal of macro functions that gave them an incredible amount of flexibility. The abilities given to players to make scripts, macros and addons with amazing freedom have been among RoM's strong points, but they also allowed so much freedom that they skirted the boundary between "helpful addon" and "botting." The proposed macro change may be one of the fastest retractions Frogster has ever had to make, but there's also the balancing that Knights received and the Juice Festival to talk about in this week's Lost Pages of Taborea. Grab your favorite juice and meet me after the break.

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PC Gaming By Jeremy Stratton

Lost Pages of Taborea: Fixing the economy

I've got one more article concerning the current state of Runes of Magic's economy. To round out my trilogy, I'm taking a look at actual fixes to what could be seen as a broken mechanic. If the current inflation is indeed seen as something that is broken and could quickly damage the playability in RoM, then the fixes would likely be band-aids. It would take too long to rework an entire system filled with thousands of items, each affecting the other. The fix would also need to be implemented quickly. That puts some limitations on our speculations. What does the fix need to concentrate on? The problem seems boil down to the excess amounts of gold that can be hoarded -- hundreds and hundreds of millions can be saved up. It's also possible for high-level, well-geared players to accumulate gold rather quickly. In this week's Lost Pages of Taborea, I want to take a look at gold sinks (including one Frogster is testing), gold-caps, and some other ways to tame the economy.

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PC Gaming By Jeremy Stratton

Lost Pages of Taborea: Beating the economy

Last week, I expounded on Runes of Magic's current economic situation. Prices are crazier than the obligatory car salesman's, only in reverse. That is to say, prices are extremely high for everything right now. It doesn't stop the game from functioning, but it does put a lot of gear and upgrading tools out of reach for new and free players. This week in Lost Pages of Taborea, I want to look at a handful of ways that you can continue to enjoy RoM until the storm blows over (if it blows over). Even though prices seem out of hand, you can still get equipped well enough from new quests to start running dungeons. The minigames have been rejuvenated into farming grounds, thanks to the introduction of crimson stats. And even though it is often scoffed at, arena gear is an option for those willing to grind honor points or materials.

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Gaming By Jeremy Stratton

Lost Pages of Taborea: State of the economy

For months now, it's been no secret that Runes of Magic's economy has been out of whack. I've been sitting on this article, watching and waiting to see what would happen next. The assumption, of course, is that I think something will happen. I keep thinking that Runewaker, Frogster and RoM will align like stars to zap the economy back to its previous state, or that RoM's economy will act like a large, slowly deflating balloon, but nothing's happened for months. That's not to say the something that could happen will never happen. This period of severe inflation is a drop in the bucket compared to the life of the game. But what if the economy stays the way it is? I've stopped asking questions that pointed and started asking how this new economy makes sense. I don't think anything is more wrong with the economy now than it was before. Prices are higher, much higher, on everything. For some, that's enough of a problem, but is it a problem for the operation of RoM? In this week's Lost Pages of Taborea, follow me down the rabbit hole to see how the weird might actually be normal.

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Technology

Technology By Jeremy Stratton

Lost Pages of Taborea: Test driving Magic Hub

I'm going to jump on this one before anyone else does. The company Overwolf developed a little application that provides MMO players with social networking, web, video and screenshot functionality without the need to alt+tab out of a game. It's a lot like what Trion has built into RIFT, only in a third-party package, and Frogster partnered with Overwolf to provide a Runes of Magic-branded version called Magic Hub -- complete with RoM-specific buttons. After some technical problems, I got Magic Hub to work and put it through its paces. There are other applications out there that provide a wide range of functionality for gamers, but since this one is customized for RoM, I thought I'd give my impressions.

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PC Gaming By Jeremy Stratton

Lost Pages of Taborea: Lions and tigers and bears, oh... mounts!

Summer is starting to wane, and the cold winds will soon be blustering through the city streets. Kids with chattering teeth and blue fingers will be sitting in front of stoves or fireplaces, rolling their eyes as grandpa proclaims that he had to walk to and from school barefoot through snow uphill both ways. While our grandfathers fantasize about the pride of hardships, we can slip off to the computer and live in our fantasy worlds that provide mounts to make traveling a bit more fun. Runes of Magic has a wide variety of mounts that can run, hover and float over water. Some of these mounts are more rare than others, like those seen only on holidays or during special fundraisers, while some are two-seaters. From the sleek and vicious to the large and powerful to the just plain wacky, RoM has a mount for all occasions. In this week's Lost Pages of Taborea, I go over the mounts that are available, their rarity, their speed, and some ways to give your preferred mount a boost.

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