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Choose My Adventure: World of Warcraft High
Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft launched on November 23rd, 2004. For anyone having a hard time putting that date into context, consider this: My sister, who's now in college, was eight years old when WoW's gates first opened. Some of our readers with nice jobs and adorable children were still in middle school or high school. I've personally been playing WoW off and on since 2005, giving me about nine years of history with the game. This month's Choose My Adventure was two parts adventure and one part nostalgia. And as it turns out, sometimes the past really does belong in the past.
Elite: Dangerous' launch-day roundup
Successfully Kickstarted just over two years ago, David Braben's space MMO Elite: Dangerous formally launched early this morning, a rare buy-to-play entry in the MMO market and one of the most high-profile Kickstarter MMOs to actually reach launch to date. If you're heading to the comments right now to inform us that Elite isn't an MMO because of its single-player mode, know that the tide's against you; even Frontier, in the midst of controversy over the cancelation of its originally promised offline mode, justified that decision because Elite is an MMO and "technically [...] always has been." Elite: Dangerous won Massively's Most Underrated MMO of the year by a hair just last week. Check out the launch trailer and our roundup of the best Elite news, streams, and hands-on articles by the Massively staff below!
Choose My Adventure: I am so confused in World of Warcraft
Last week's Choose My Adventure polls for World of Warcraft set me on a very unexpected path. Male Blood Elf? Really? If you had asked me to predict the result of the class/race/gender/faction polls, I would have been extremely super-wrong. I thought for sure Massively's readership was full of carebear Alliance sympathizers who spend their WoW hours hosting hug parties in Darnassus. Anyway. This week saw me creating our new character, using the included-with-Warlords of Draenor instant level 90 character boost, and diving through the Dark Portal to experience the starting moments of Blizzard Entertainment's latest bundle of WoW content. It was... something.
Choose My Adventure: Can't stop the World of Warcraft
It's been 10 years since Blizzard Entertainment launched World of Warcraft and ignited the great MMO gold rush of the aughts. In that time, World of Warcraft has grown into something more than a game; it's a cultural icon, an immensely valuable piece of intellectual property, and a brooding presence any new MMO has to consider before launch. WoW has gravity. Just when World of Warcraft's numbers start to slide and the naysayers start planning their "WoW is dead" parties, Blizzard finds a way to make WoW resurgent. Warlords of Draenor, WoW's fifth expansion, launched late last month, bringing three million subscribers back into the game's warm embrace. For those keeping score: That's more subscribers than most MMOs ever see at their peaks. Warlords of Draenor reworks some core World of Warcraft systems, changes up character models, implements a version of housing, and more. And with so many people returning to check it out, there's no better time for Choose My Adventure to join the fray.
Hyperspace Beacon: Previewing SWTOR's Shadow of Revan
When I was first introduced to the expansion for Star Wars: The Old Republic, there were two things I wanted to see: the continuation of the class story and Yavin 4. And I'm happy to say that this expansion delivered both of those in a satisfying way. When I spoke to studio game director James Ohlen and lead writer Charles Boyd about the expansion a few weeks ago, they told me that Shadow of Revan would close one major chapter and open a new book for SWTOR. After seeing the expansion, I have to agree that Shadow of Revan does put a great cap on a class stories and opens the door for an exciting future for the game. I don't want to give you the impression that everything in the expansion is exactly what I wanted, though. There is a surprising lack of exploration, the amount of content fell short, and parts of the maps felt slapped together. The screenshots depict beautiful scenes, but sometimes form outweighs function. Before I continue, I feel obligated to tell you that there are spoilers of previous content in this piece, but the important parts of the new content will remain unspoiled.
Living and dying in the Elite: Dangerous gamma build
When we last looked at Elite: Dangerous during August's Choose My Adventure, the game was in a barebones beta format with just a few of its promised eventual features. Frontier Developments' crowdfunded space-sim certainly brought a lot to the table with its pretty graphics, realistic flight physics, and down-to-the-details sim structure, but anyone not interested in running courier missions or blowing up other ships was probably left wanting. Now, however, Elite is a different beast. Just two weeks from final official launch, Elite is in what Frontier Developments is calling the "gamma" stage. It's as close to the finished version of the game anyone is going to get until launch on December 16th. So naturally, I took another dive in Elite to see what exactly has changed.
World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor launch-day roundup
The fifth expansion to 2004's World of Warcraft MMO is now live. First announced at BlizzCon 2013, Warlords of Draenor opened its doors at 3 a.m. EST this morning, so you would be forgiven for having slept through the start. And what would a launch day be without rolling restarts, giant patch notes, and overloaded, bottlenecked entry zones? Wheee! In honor of the launch, we've rounded up the best WoW and Draenor stories from the past year for your perusal during today's inevitable downtimes. Who's playin'?
Age of Iron Trailer: Take your place on the front lines
"Are you so eager to meet death?" - Grom Hellscream In case you weren't excited enough for the imminent launch of Warlords, Blizzard just released this new Age of Iron trailer to whet your appetite even more. The trailer is composed of in-game cinematic footage, so if you're still trying to remain spoiler-free you may want to wait until the expansion launches to see it for yourself. Otherwise, get hyped!
Khadgar is ready to send you into Draenor, mount and collision restrictions
If you've stopped by the Dark Portal in the past several hours, you may have noticed some changes. Alliance and Horde forces have begun to push the Iron Horde back closer to the portal. Khadgar, along with Thrall and Maraad, have taken up station in front of the portal. When the clock strikes 12 a.m. PST (North America) or 12 a.m. CET (Europe), you'll be prompted to visit Khadgar in the Blasted Lands to start your journey into Draenor. In past expansions, the NPC which gave you the first quest tended to be a bottleneck of sorts. Usually it was because of some unsavory individuals who decided to sit on their oversized mammoth mounts right on top of said NPC. You'll be happy to know that Khadgar has collisions around him, meaning no one can sit directly on top of him. And best of all, mounting is disallowed in a 15 yard radius around Khadgar. Sorry to disappoint you, mammoth trolls.
Massively interviews Trion's Scott Hartsman on ArcheAge's rocky launch
ArcheAge's server issues, endless queues, and housing woes are the subject of hot debate in comment sections across the MMO world this week as players wonder just how in the heck the sandbox's launch went so awry. Massively spoke to Trion Worlds' Scott Hartsman to ask him exactly what went wrong with the launch and what the studio is doing to fix it. Massively: Prior to the head start, Trion seemed to be aware of the huge interest in ArcheAge, citing a million signups for beta and knowing of the launch problems faced when the game launched in other countries. And yet Trion has seemed largely unprepared for the deluge of players for the head start and even for the F2P launch. Why? Were there really far more people trying to play than expected? Scott Hartsman: Yes. There's a lot of science that goes into forecasting how many people are going to show up for a new game, when they're going to show up, and how long they'll stick around. Beyond that, external factors such as what else is going on in online games can also have a huge impact.
Massively's ArcheAge launch diary: Day six - P2W and the early verdict
Is ArcheAge pay-to-win? That's a question I've been asked several times in recent days. Before I answer it, let's get something out of the way up front. And by "out of the way," I mean that this is the most important part of the article and needs to be emphasized in the intro. Pay-to-win is 100% subjective. There is no scientific or universally accepted definition of pay-to-win. Some things in this life are absolutes. Pay-to-win is not one of them.
Massively's ArcheAge launch diary: Day five - Random knowledge
Today's diary entry is going to skip around a bit, as I'm still dabbling all over ArcheAge and finding it nearly impossible to convey everything important inside of a few thousand words. If you're just joining us, this is day five of Massively's launch chronicle because even though the game "launched" yesterday, it really launched last Friday via the founder head start. I'm aware that some people had disconnect issues and nightmare two-hour login queues on the 16th. I did not have much trouble with either, presumably because of my Patron account status regarding the latter. Trion does have some work to do, though, as I noticed a lot of slow-down in high-traffic areas throughout much of my play session last night, and I also logged into a black screen more than once and had to re-queue as a result. In other words, it was a typical MMO launch day. I've seen better, but I've also seen far, far worse.
Massively's ArcheAge launch diary: Day four - Trade runs, sea beasts, and pirates
I got ganked in ArcheAge last night, and believe it or not, it was one of the most enjoyable experiences I've had in an MMORPG in quite some time. I'm usually apathetic about MMO PvP. I mean, I will PvP with friends, but I don't think I've ever sat down to play an MMORPG and thought, "Hmm, maybe I'll go kill some players tonight!" PvP factors heavily into ArcheAge's design, though, so I knew going in that I'd be doing it more than in most of my other MMOs. I just didn't know it would end up being as fun as it was on last night's trade run.
Massively's ArcheAge launch diary: Day three - PvE, quests, and story
Welcome back to Massively's ArcheAge launch diary. I can't believe we're already on the third installment because there's still so much to see, do, and learn. That's a good thing, though, isn't it? Yeah, it is, and while ArcheAge has its share of issues, its breadth and depth is incredibly welcome in a genre that's gotten far too comfortable repackaging the same tired experience.
Massively's ArcheAge launch diary: Day one
I'm standing on a sun-baked rock along Nuia's northern coast. The waves lap at my feet, little bubbles are visible just off shore. Wispy strips of white cirrus float overhead, framing a baby blue sky that meets the ocean somewhere beyond a hazy horizon I can't quite see. I've been standing here a while because there goes the sun, melting into the water and leaking red-orange streaks across the purplish waves as I watch. Up the cliff face behind me, a gaggle of green-named newbs mosh about in the newb area doing what MMO newbs do. A couple of them make their way down the cliff face to join me. One of them jostles my character and apologizes. He didn't realize there was collision detection and he's very sorry and wow, this game is pretty, isn't it?
Destiny's launch-day roundup
Destiny is officially live today around the world. While it may never arrive on the platform most of us MMO players prefer and it's not squarely an MMORPG, we can still cheer the arrival of a worthy mainstream crossover. Welcome to the fringes of our genre! We've rounded up our Destiny coverage from announcement to launch to celebrate today's official release. Enjoy! (And if you want to see it live, our sister site Joystiq is streaming it right now!)
Firefall drops a launch trailer
After what seemed to be an interminable period of testing, Firefall is finally officially launched -- and in a very different state from its initial testing, at that. Did you play the game once and step away? Are you wondering what it's even like these days? The launch trailer is meant to address exactly that. A two-minute trailer can provide only a top-level overview, but this one does so while keeping its narrative entirely in-character, which is commendable. Click on past the break to get a picture of just what you can do within the game now, and if it sounds like your sort of shoot-happy armor-swapping festival, you can start playing the game now.
Firefall's launch-day roundup
MMOFPS Firefall officially launches today after several years of development drama and 180-degree design turns that saw CEO Mark Kern ousted last December as the game shifted from a PvP-oriented e-sport extravanganza to a game with no PvP at all to a game that just reintroduced battlegrounds in the last few weeks. To celebrate the fact that Firefall is (finally!) launching, we've rounded up some of our best news, opinions, and videos of the game from the past year after the cut. Enjoy!
The Nexus Telegraph: The first week in WildStar
Full launch for WildStar has come and gone, the servers have been up and running for a week, and I've been hacking away at various enemies of the Dominion like a good soldier. As I write this, my main is 23, although I'd probably be a fair bit higher by now if I hadn't stopped quite so many times for roleplaying and to decorate my house. (Not too much of that, though, I need to afford that spacious house once I get to a valid level.) It's safe to say that I'm enjoying the game a whole lot. Server loads seem to have largely stabilized, at least from my end, and the fullness of time has given me more opportunities to run more stuff and really enjoy a wider variety of what's in the game. There's some good stuff, some annoying stuff, and some things that kind of cut both ways at the same time. So let's just dive in, shall we?
