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Global Chat: Guild Wars 2's economy is broken
Guild Wars 2's economy remains a hot-button issue even two-and-a-half years after its release. In this week's exploration of the blogosphere, one writer pulls out all the stops to let you know what's broken about this MMO's economy -- and how it can be fixed. In addition to this thoughtful read, Global Chat will hear some snark on silly hotbar icons, pontificate about poor MMO names, deliver The Repopulation first impressions, and invite you to participate in a grand MUD experiment. Let's get going!
Global Chat: The 2014 MMO blogosphere in review
The end of the year is a traditional time of reflection, especially among writers and gamers who want to put a pretty bow on progress and journeys made before the next chapter is explored. So it is with bloggers, as practically everyone is using the last days of 2014 to look back at the year and its MMOs. So today we'll be going on a trip to see what the blogging community members thought of this year, what they did in it, and whether their January 2014 predictions came true. My summary of each article will be shorter than usual simply because there are so many of them!
Global Chat: Die, DPS meters, die!
Hey you! Yes, you! Are you sick of damage meters ruining your life? Do you rebel against the virtual man by questioning such long-established gaming tropes as levels? Then have we got the column for you! In our last community blog round-up of the year, we've collected some fine pieces of discussion, debate, and introspection -- not to mention a first impression or two to tide you over until 2015. We've also got an essay about the joy of healing, what it's like to play an MMO as a bear, going back to the Isle of Refuge, and more!
Global Chat: Gamers Secret Santa
One of the yearly traditions in the blogosphere that I always look forward to is Stargrace's Annual Gamers Secret Santa. Currently in its sixth year, Gamers Secret Santa accepts any and all who want to sign up to be a part of a gift exchange. You'll end up sending a gift ($20 maximum) to someone and will receive a gift from another person during the month of December. There's even a digital exchange for more remote locations. It's always a blast to see what gifts I end up getting (and they are always geeky), and I wanted to encourage others to be a part of this. You'll need to sign up by December 1st if you do, however! It's grown every year, but this year I'm giving a bit of Massively publicity, so let's see if we can make this the biggest year ever! Another blogger-driven Christmas initiative is Syl's Blogosphere Xmas Countdown, during which she's assigning various blogs a day to write about the theme of positive gaming and community. Keep an eye on MMO Gypsy to see this advent countdown progress!
Global Chat: Why we blog
Why an MMO player decides that he or she needs to take up an additional hobby of writing about these games isn't much of a mystery. We may all blog about a huge variety of topics, but the impetus behind it tends to be very common: We have so many thoughts about and so much love for these games that we can't hold it in. To blog is to open up and share experiences, observations, and hopes. It's to connect with others and to perhaps give another layer of meaning to the time that we spend in-game. We don't blog because we have to; we blog because we simply could not not blog. So let's see a few examples of what MMO bloggers couldn't keep inside of them! From spooky stories to rapturous tales of exploration, it's a testament to the power of words and goofy rejoinders.
Obituary: Mac OS X Hints might be "pining for the fjords"
Over the years, one of the top websites other than TUAW for getting hints about Mac OS X was Macworld's Mac OS X Hints. Now a post by former Macworld blogger Rob Griffiths is paying last respects to the site 14 years after it first went live. The site is still online, but as Griffiths notes, it hasn't been updated in over 45 days. Whether the silence from Mac OS X Hints is part of Macworld's recent downsizing or just a momentary lapse in new hints thanks to a "perfect" OS X Yosemite, that type of silence from a blog usually doesn't spell good news. Griffiths created a chart showing just how few hints have been published this year compared to earlier years when things were really moving along: The site used to be one of my favorites when I was doing consulting in the mid to late 00's, as it was the place to find tips and hints that you just couldn't find anywhere else. It could be that the shakeups at IDG have caused the Macworld team to forget about Mac OS X Hints, or perhaps it is gone for good and they're just keeping the corpse warm as a courtesy for folks who still want help with OS X. Whatever the cause, it's sad to see such a great site leave the blogosphere. Note: if you're wondering what "pining for the fjords" means, I suggest watching the classic Monty Python "Dead Parrot" sketch.
Global Chat: Going negative
It's hard to be positive as a blogger, I'd say. It's not only really easy to get whipped up into a writing lather when you're upset about something, but negativity sells as well, at least in the short-term. People love a good rant, especially when it mirrors their line of thinking and doesn't bash a game they like. Even I, though I try to stay positive as a rule, have fallen into such patterns. This week in Global Chat, we're going to see more negativity than normal -- or perhaps, more critical analysis with vivid metaphors. That doesn't mean it's all downers nor mindless emotional wordsplosions. But I thought it was fascinating how these stories caught my eye over the past couple of weeks of MMO blog reading.
Global Chat: Through a monitor, darkly
No matter who you are, and even if you are independently rich and can game all day, it's impossible to get around to playing all of the MMOs out there -- even all of the major ones. This is why I love MMO blogs, since they allow me to vicariously visit many of the games that I lack time to play. Even if they're silly observations or dutiful reporting on last night's activities, these posts are my window into a universe of virtual worlds. In today's edition of Global Chat, we'll hear from a gamer visiting an older MMO for the first time, a rant about Guild Wars 2's new player experience, a tribute to the late Rusty Hearts, and why "entitlement" is overused as an attack in our community.
Global Chat: Blaugust triumphant
Last month, Tales of the Aggronaut issued a community-wide challenge for MMO bloggers to commit to posting (at least) once a day for all 31 days. This challenge was called Blaugust, and it caused a tidal wave of additional posts, top 10 lists, and random cat pictures as writers struggled to keep up with the rate of output. While not everyone who signed up succeeded in sticking out the entire month, it certainly injected some life into summer doldrums and got people talking. The 2014 Blaugust Wrap-up does a great job giving an overview of the challenge and a list of all of the blogs involved. If you're looking for outspoken opinions put forth at a prodigious rate, I'd suggest checking these out. Speaking of outspoken opinions, we've also got plenty of them in the form of the most interesting posts from the past two weeks! Global Chat... away!
Global Chat: Let it go
Now that I've cursed your day by triggering that earworm song from Frozen, you're probably going to be in a grumpy mood. Don't fret; snow empowerment isn't the only way to set you free. Sometimes it's the well-penned prose of MMO bloggers who put to the page what only previously existed in your thoughts. On today's edition of Global Chat, one blogger and developer has a gaming heresy to share, another has a few harsh words to say about crowdfunding, and a third thinks that the future of the genre is all in getting smaller, not bigger. Check out these great posts from the past couple of weeks!
Blogo 2 brings a native WordPress app to OS X
For those who use the popular WordPress content management system for blogging, there are a lot of iOS tools. In the OS X world, however, you're generally content to use a Markdown tool that also happens to upload content to WordPress blogs. Blogo 2.0 (US$29.99, available at introductory price of $14.99) has been designed from the ground up as a native OS X WordPress app. The app will soon support Tumblr and Blogger as well according to the developer. Once Blogo has been purchased and installed from the Mac App Store, about the only thing you need to do to get started is to add the addresses and login credentials for any WordPress blogs that you write on. As soon as that is done, you're asked if you want to install a Safari (or other browser) extension to make it easier to insert content from other sites. I primarily use Safari, so I chose to add the extension. Most bloggers are probably going to choose to create a new post at this time. Instead, i went into my personal blog and used Post List (Command-2) to see all of the posts and pages I've created. I wanted to add a reminder to PR types not to pitch products to me via my personal site, so I selected my contact page and was greeted by the text and form codes. With a quick click and a little bit of typing, I had added a line to the page and formatted it. Before I published the revised page, I decided to preview it. The first time Blogo 2 prepares a preview, it needs to actually create and destroy a bogus post in order to get some information. While that's usually not going to cause any issues, I have some auto-tweets set up and started getting puzzled tweets from followers when the app sent out a tweet under my name that said %%TITLE%% along with a URL. That was really my fault -- I should have turned off the auto-tweeting feature. One thing you'll notice when you bring connect Blogo 2 to an existing WordPress site with a lot of content is that images are replaced with a placeholder icon and that your formatting -- while still OK on the actual site -- may not come across properly. For example, the post seen in the screenshot at the top of this post has a lot of paragraph breaks in it that don't appear in Blogo, and I'd really like to be able to see my actual images in the posts instead of that image icon. On the plus side, if you click on the place holder, it will show you your image and provide a way to quickly align it with a click. Next, I decided to create a new post just to see how easy it was to do it using Blogo. At the top of the left toolbar is a "New Post" button that -- unsurprisingly -- brings up an empty page. There are spots for a title and your content, a calendar icon for scheduling the post, and an edit field for categories and tags. A settings "gear" button at the bottom brings up the options pane shown above, and if your WordPress template uses featured images, you can add one here. Posts are saved in draft until you click Publish to set them free on the world -- and it should be noted that you'll be able to do your blogging offline, then publish when you're connected to a network. Adding text is just a matter of typing, and adding categories and tags is easy -- just type in the categories, and tags are added by prefacing them with a pound sign (#). There's a great image insertion tool -- Command-D brings it up (I personally wish they'd add a small image button that could be click), and the tool lets you select or drag-and-drop an image. Once the photo is in the image tool, you can set the size of the thumbnail or full-size image, add captions and alt text, crop it, make adjustments to brightness, contrast, and color temperature, even add filters. This is perhaps my favorite part of Blogo, since it removes the need to use multiple applications -- Safari, Preview, maybe an app like Pixelmator or SnapHeal -- to prepare images for upload to WordPress. Once you click the "Done" button after making changes to your image, it's uploaded to the server and a placeholder is inserted into your draft post. One oddity: when uploading a second photo to a post, it is placed at the top of the post by default, leaving you to drag it down to the proper location later. I also found that the preview did some weird things -- at least with the theme I use for WordPress. It showed the post over the background of the page, then displayed it a second time correctly. The Safari extension worked very well -- I tested it with both Vimeo and YouTube videos, and it let me add either links or full embeds with the click of a button. I tested the scheduling features of Blogo and it worked just fine; that should be a useful feature to those who blog professionally and need to get posts timed to an editorial timetable. Some other features to consider are the comment moderation capability and Evernote integration. The latter feature lets you save all of your drafts out on Evernote. All in all, I was quite impressed with Blogo 2. To me, it makes a lot more sense to use the app for writing and publishing to WordPress blogs than using the traditional web-based editor, primarily because of the well-designed image insertion and editing tools. There are still a few bugs in the app that the developers are painfully aware of, but Blogo is definitely worthwhile -- especially at the introductory price.
Global Chat: A dozen MMO podcasts you should check out
Quite a few MMO bloggers that I know wear more than one hat. Some are book reviewers, some do livestreams, some have regular YouTube shows, one deluded guy has a Pinterest board, and several host podcasts. In fact, I've seen several bloggers develop friendships by deciding to do a show together. In this week's edition of Global Chat, I thought we'd take a break from sharing interesting MMO blog posts to pointing you toward a dozen excellent MMO podcasts that I heartily endorse. Most of them fall in the category of "general MMO" discussion, although a few hew to a specific title. It's often a hoot when you get two or more opinionated and informative podcasters together, so if you're looking to fill up your MP3 player (in addition to the Pulitzer Prize-nominated Massively Speaking show, of course), I've got just the 12 things for you!
Global Chat: A blast from the past
As many of you know, Massively doesn't really believe in reviews of MMOs, as they are ever-changing and shifting targets. Instead, we've provided impressions and continuing coverage of these games during their lifespans (and even after), which is something that many bloggers also favor. In this edition of Global Chat, we have several hands-on impressions of MMOs both new and old from the blogosphere. What is it like to head back to Asheron's Call after a long time away? Is Guild Wars 2's and Lord of the Rings Online's new content hitting the mark? And what will we miss most of all now that Vanguard has departed? It's all there and more, right after the break!
Global Chat: Doom and WAAAGH!
It's time for our second edition of Global Chat, the column that scours the blogosphere (or blogorama if you prefer) for engaging insights, intelligent essays, and whoopie cushion goofiness. We had a good response to our first column, so I'm glad you all want to hear more about what bloggers are saying regarding MMOs! In this week's edition, we'll look at Warhammer Online's fatal flaw, adventure through Neverwinter's foundry missions, and speculate on the status of a certain Norrathian sandpark. Remember that it's not all doom and WAAAGH! in this community; it's excitement and cherished outings as well!
Global Chat: Being the bad guy
As an MMO enthusiast blog, Massively has always had a special appreciation of the dedicated (and unpaid!) writing that gamers put out on their own blogs every day. Every week there are dozens if not hundreds of terrific posts on MMOs out there, and since I'm the resident loon here who reads pretty much all of them, I decided to start up a biweekly column to point you in the direction of some of the best discussions going on in the blogosphere. We'll see posts on specific games and general topics, geeky gushings and zany rantings. For our inagural edition of Global Chat (yes, I'm recycling the name from a long-dormant feature on this site), we'll take a look at how outfits tie into identity, surviving MMOs as a chicken, a requiem for a gold farmer, and so much more!
Iran throws tech bloggers in prison for working with 'enemy media'
Most countries with internet access see the web as a tool for communication. But in Iran? It's a threat. The country has made a habit of censoring social platforms like Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram -- lifting its ban only for odd "technical failures." Now the country seems to be arresting local tech bloggers. The state is accusing eight bloggers from the Iranian site Narenji (now offline) of having ties to "enemy media" and plotting a "'soft overthrow' of the Iranian regime." Specifically, the group is accused of receiving funding from British intelligence and conducting espionage for BBC Persian. According to Mashable, the team is facing sentences between 18 months and 11 years in prison, or 36 years between them all.
Russia orders bloggers to register with government in attempt to control the internet
Russia: the home shirtless autocrats, vodka and a love of free speech rivaled by only China. The Kremlin is taking another step to squash people speaking their mind online. After building out an infrastructure that allows the government to more easily block sites it finds objectionable, now it's building a registry of bloggers. A newly approved law requires anyone who authors a blog in the country to "declare their family name and initials and e-mail address." To make matters worse, if someone's personal blog has more than 3,000 visitors per-day, they'll have to put their names on a special list and abide by a particularly onerous set of restrictions -- the same set of restrictions that many mass media outlets must obey. If they violate those laws, they'll be subject to fines or even have their site suspended for a period of time.
Tumblr gets two-step verification, makes your GIFs more secure
If you've scrolled through Tumblr lately and thought to yourself, "Hey, this could use some added security," the blogging platform has your back. Today the outfit announced that it's adding two-step authentication as a means of keeping your account safe. Authentication codes are sent either via a text message or an app like Google's Authenticator, and work akin to basically every other service that uses them: simply input the code with the rest of your login credentials and you should be good to go. Tumblr says that the verification process won't interfere with using the mobile apps, but you'll need to create a one-time password via your account settings page in order to sign in on your device. From the sounds of it, this shouldn't take any longer than finding your next favorite Emma Stone GIF might.
Day One launches Publish, adds social networks to the mix (updated)
Tomorrow, the Day One iPhone app (US$4.99) is going to get a big update and today Paul Mayne and the Day One team unveiled a critical part of that update -- Publish. Update: Actually, the Day One update to version 1.13 is already live today, March 11. Note that Publish is still only available for the iPhone version of the app. What Publish enables Day One users do is take selected journal entries and publish them to a private website. That website is hosted at http://dayone.me and the web address for a published entry is provided only to the Day One user and people that the user wishes to share it with. That distinction is important to me as a Day One user: I use the app on an almost daily basis to keep a private journal, and there are many of my entries that I do not want to share publicly. For those of you who are familiar with the Day One iPhone app, you'll find a new item in the list that traditionally shows a count of posts, photos, tags, etc... That new item? Published. A tap on that button shows just the items that you have chosen to share to the Publish website. The first time you use Day One to send an entry to Publish, you'll be asked to set up a free account. Those entries are tagged with whatever data you have chosen to add to your usual Day One entries -- things like the time and date, "gold star" for special occasions, weather, and activity. Yes, Day One makes use of the activity data stored on your iPhone 5s and can be used as a private -- or now public -- activity tracker. Once you've logged into the Publish website, you see a rather plain website (see image above) that focuses on your content. There's a place for a profile displaying your name, email address (I'm not fond of that feature...), a short bio, and a link to any other website you're associated with. Another menu link on the website points to a list of your published entries, while a third shows your linked social network accounts. At this time, Publish supports Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare, with more to come. What's nice is that with a single tap, you can publish your entries not only to your Day One account and the Publish website, but to all of your social networks as well. The social network entries include a link to the specific Publish website page so your followers can read a full post. At the bottom of those Publish pages are stats on how many people have viewed the page, retweeted or favorited your tweet, and so on. The update will be available for iPhone tomorrow, and turns Day One from a personal journal into an incredibly easy-to-use blogging tool as well. For me, that may mean that I'll finally start up a personal blog again.
LinkedIn opens its blog publishing platform to everyone
A handful of big-shot professionals have long had the freedom to express themselves through LinkedIn's blogging platform, but most careerists have had to sit on the sidelines. Starting today, though, just about everyone can have their voices heard -- LinkedIn is opening its publishing platform to all members. Users will soon have the chance to write long-form posts and attract followers from beyond their immediate networks. Only a fortunate 25,000 have access as of this writing, but the company plans to expand publishing privileges to the entire user base in the weeks ahead.
