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Wikipedia brings personalized reading options to its iOS app
Wikipedia is full of news today. Along with the announcement that it's working on a crowdsourced speech engine, the service has also rolled out a redesigned app for iOS. With this new version (5.0), users will get a ton of fresh content on their daily feed, including recommended, random and top-read articles, as well as things like a picture of the day. In addition to that, Wikipedia's iOS application now supports 3D Touch on the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, letting you search its site with a single and find information about nearby places. The app is definitely much better than before, which will be appreciated by all the Wikipedia buffs out there.
Classic Guild Wars' ninth anniversary celebration is underway
If you're not too busy checking out the new feature pack in Guild Wars 2's version of Tyria, you might be interested to know that the more classic edition of the game world is celebrating its ninth birthday this month. Also, it has Cantha. Just saying. Yes, Guild Wars 1 is having a party, and you're invited. Though the anniversary update was originally scheduled to begin on April 22nd, a note from Joe Kimmes on the official wiki mentions that a fortuitous typo led to the event's partial stealth-implementation on April 2nd instead, so while you'll have to wait until next week for the complete event, players are reporting that bonus items have been dropping all month and that some of the minigames are underway as of today. The official site is silent about the anniversary so far, but the login screen announces the festivities: The party is on for the anniversary of Guild Wars! Starting April 22nd at Noon Pacific (-7 GMT), we open Shing Jea Boardwalk, Dragon Arena, and the Rollerbeetle Races. In addition, Birthday Cupcakes and many other special items will drop all throughout this weeklong event.
EVE Evolved: Top five tips for new EVE players
I often hear people say that EVE Online is a lot more fun to read about than actually play, and I've even caught myself saying it jokingly to friends and writing it in articles. But the truth is that amazing stories like the recent world record-breaking Bloodbath of B-R5RB are a hell of a lot better when you're a part of the action or have the first-hand experience to put the event into a wider context. All of EVE was impacted by that battle, with its effects rippling through the in-game markets and reshaping the political landscape of New Eden. But to read about it, you'd think the carnage in B-R5RB ended when $310,000 US worth of titans went up in smoke. EVE has seen a huge influx of fresh faces since that colossal battle at the end of January, with thousands of new characters being created and the Rookie Help channel bursting at the seams. Whether you've always been a closet fan of EVE who has finally been convinced to take the plunge or you just want to join the ranks of the warring alliances you've read so much about, starting out can be a daunting experience. The sheer amount of information there is out there to absorb and sort through is overwhelming, and not all of it is up to date. CCP released a great new player guide recently to help newcomers assimilate, but I've still received several emails asking for advice on getting started. In this week's EVE Evolved, I delve into the new-player experience with a 14-day free trial and reveal my top tips for starting out on the road to creating your own sandbox story.
EVE Evolved: Making EVE history
EVE Online has the odd distinction of being one of the only MMOs in which the developers have almost no control over the active storyline. There have been plenty of fiction articles written about the game's backstory, and the NPC factions occasionally butt heads in short news pieces, but none of it feels very real. It's only when these events actually occur inside the game world that they become real, and when that happens, the outcome is at the mercy of players. 2010's spectacular Sansha abduction live event was the perfect example of this, with thousands of players becoming immersed in a very real emerging storyline. The story was fluid and evolved based on what players did, and so it made the NPC factions come alive in a way that fiction never could. While the scripted NPC portions of these storylines certainly constitute part of EVE's history, the most interesting tales follow the unexpected actions of players and alliances. The fascinating thing is that the audience for these stories extends far beyond the playerbase itself, with news of high-profile events occasionally taking the global gaming media by storm. But for every 3,000-man battle and 200 billion ISK scam that's reported, there are hundreds of smaller events that would be just as interesting to read about or watch a video on. Most of these events have been lost to the mists of time, kept secret or talked about only among those directly involved ... until now. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at the types of NPC-based and player-run stories that happen regularly in EVE and speculate on CCP's upcoming plans to document and preserve that history.
Wizardry Online revealing class and chat info this evening
If you have more questions about Wizardry Online than have been answered to date, hopefully you'll start to fill in those gaps come this evening. The devs are preparing to release a post on the official Wizardry Online Wiki that will shed some light on the various classes as well as the in-game chat system. The classes set to be revealed are the melee Fighters, healer Priests, hard-hitting Thieves, and ranged Mages. The studio is giving each class a difficulty and survivability rating, as well as the alignment and requirements to roll one. It looks as though Wizardry Online will handle its game population through automatic world instances called channels. New channels will be created when the number of players demand it, and players can choose a specific channel, a type of channel, or the first available channel upon logging in. Keep an eye on the wiki for the dev blog to go live at 6:00 p.m. EST tonight. [Source: SOE press release]
The Secret World community guide
Today marks the beginning of the end of the world -- you know, if you believed in that conspiracy theory stuff. And if you so happened to buy into all that, then you probably are pinning your hopes on a few stalwart souls to wedge themselves between you and the forces of the apocalypse. Those brave people are beginning to wage war in The Secret World as of today (if they have early access and a copy of the necronomicon, of course). As per tradition here at Massively, we want to give everyone a fighting chance by putting as much information at your fingertips as possible. So presented for your approval is our community guide to TSW. Because information is power -- now more than ever.
ArenaNet launches French and German wikis for Guild Wars 2
It's hard for some folks to imagine MMOs without wikis for looking up where the seventh Heart of a Stinky Womp Rat can be found or where that one dratted quest NPC is. ArenaNet has news for those people: In a blog post this morning, French Community Manager Stéphane Lo Presti introduced the official French and German Guild Wars 2 wikis. The ever-growing official Guild Wars 2 English wiki already has over 4,700 articles, and the new wikis will hopefully be caught up to speed quickly now that they're open for contribution. Because most ArenaNet employees aren't French- or German-speakers, the team is relying more heavily on user-generated content for these wikis. Lo Presti also brought out news of a Spanish wiki still in development. Once that's released, there will be official wikis for all the localized languages in the game.
Dear Aunt TUAW: How do I post a website on Dropbox?
Dear Aunt TUAW, I read Uncle Steve's write-up about posting an iWeb site to a Dropbox folder. It's a great blog post and neat trick! But it's using the Public folder... Is there a way to use a non-public folder to do the same? Your loving nephew, Seb Dear Seb, Auntie is fond of Kissr.co, not just because of its name, of course, but because it makes setting up a website on Dropbox super easy. Just register for a name, and use Uncle Steve's save-from-iWeb secret techniques, and boom, you'll have a full website running from your Dropbox in no-time. If you want a custom domain, Kissr offers those for a small charge. If you're more interested in wikis than blogs, take a look at WikiPack. It's a markdown-powered Wiki service that also serves from Dropbox. (And Uncle Brett consulted on the project!) Auntie has tried both services (albeit, just poking around, no serious testing) and both seem to offer practical, portable, usable solutions. Hugs, Auntie T.
The Road to Mordor: Five ways LotRO should be streamlined
You would think that growth and expansion is nothing but a good thing for MMOs -- after all, those are the hallmarks of the genre. But as these games get bigger, issues emerge as the developers add new zones, features, and systems. In short, maturing MMOs gravitate toward complexity, and this can have an adverse effect on the game as a whole. The problem is that there is eventually too much a brand-new player has to absorb and master, not to mention the hassle of rolling alts and having to navigate all of that content once more. If developers don't stay on top of the situation, then the game starts to lose overall cohesion and becomes a befuddling mess. With three expansions and numerous updates under its belt, Lord of the Rings Online is venturing deep into this territory. I have friends who are leveling up for the first time and finding themselves overwhelmed with everything that needs doing as well as all the systems that are not clearly explained. So today I want to play backseat developer and talk about five ways that LotRO should be streamlined for the good of all players, old and new.
VoodooPad 5: wiki magic
For those of us who nerd out about things like desktop wikis, VoodooPad 5 (from the creator of Acorn) is an exciting release. It brings new capabilities so powerful that they should come with a "for good, not evil" warning. If you're not familiar with VoodooPad, it's a desktop wiki with media embedding capabilities, a scriptable interface and a lot of power under the hood. Whether you want to use it for note-taking, project management or even maintaining documentation and live websites, it's a powerhouse. We may have mentioned it once or twice before. What's so great about version 5? First, Dropbox sync is greatly improved. You can even share docs with multiple people and see who edited what, when. For those of us of the Markdown persuasion, there's a new page type specifically for Markdown, with editing features and syntax highlighting. If you build large documents -- say, a documentation project for your software -- you can publish the entire document as a PDF or ePub book. There's a new feature called "Collections" that lets you create tables of contents and determine page order, which makes the export features much more useful for more linear output formats. We've always been able to do fun things like write event scripts that search for certain @tags and compile them, but the new To-Dos palette offers a faster, customizable solution for this. There are more flexible event scripts, new scripting language support (including the ability to write scripts in JavaScript). There are even "scriptlets," your own small scripts that can be embedded directly within a page. There's plenty more, as you can see in the release notes. VoodooPad 5 is available in the Mac App Store for US$24.99 (limited time price), or directly from Flying Meat's store (same price).
The Daily Grind: Would you use an official wiki in your game of choice?
Some of us were chatting around the Massively (virtual) water cooler yesterday and came to the conclusion that one thing a lot of MMOs are missing is a reliable, up-to-date official wiki. With a few exceptions like the Guild Wars Wiki or EVElopedia, the majority of the MMO game list lacks a comprehensive official wiki -- a central hub for update news, gear and loot details, gameplay guides, and so on. Many games have but don't maintain them, and many more don't have them at all. Is this something that should be remedied, or is the lack of supply due to the lack of demand? What do you think -- should more developers put resources toward the creation, expansion, and maintenance of this sort of thing? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Jagex unveils new RuneScape website
Jagex announced today that it is giving the official RuneScape website a makeover. The update will add a couple of features to the popular F2P title's website, such as a new wiki and an events section, which should help the community pull together. The studio is also updating the site's news feed in order to ensure that players can get the latest in RuneScape news all the time. To check it out for yourself, just head on over to the official RuneScape site. [Source: Jagex press release]
Captain's Log: Class spotlight - Engineer
Captain's Log, Stardate 65205.7... Hello, computer (and players)! As you may or may not know, the Star Trek franchise celebrated a momentous birthday last week as it turned 45 years old. While humankind first set out to "boldly going where no one has gone before" in the late 1960s, its legacy lives on today, four decades later, through Star Trek Online. Although the game has had its fair shares of ups and downs, I am not afraid to stand behind it and be proud of it for being able to continue Gene Roddenberry's dream. I am also extremely honored to play a small part in its history by bringing you Captain's Log each week, and I look forward to what the next 45 years hold. I'd like to welcome each of you to the third and final installment of my three-part series focusing on the classes within STO. After checking out the awesome DPS that Tactical captains can dish out a couple of weeks back, we now shift our focus to the Scottys, LaForges, Obriens, and Torreses of the game -- the Engineering captains. Players taking on this role often find themselves having a blast, literally, as they materialize their defense and medical turrets, call on their support and seeker drones, and deploy their force fields and cover shields. While there are a variety of powers that this career can utilize, I would like to showcase a few of them past the jump. Ensign, warp... actually, no; it's actually time to realign the dilithium matrix...
DAoC rolling out new website, allowing server transfers
As Dark Age of Camelot counts down to its 10th year anniversary in October, Stuart Zissu breaks out a few early presents by revealing four "big ticket items" in his latest producer's letter. An upgraded new player experience is on its way for the game to help new and returning players get up to speed for epic RvR battles. Dubbed the "New User Journey," this extended tutorial will give pointers on everything from pets to crowd control. The team's also hard at work on a new website for the game, which should be coming soon. Or "soon." The new website will operate in conjunction with the third big ticket item, which is a DAoC wiki. Zissu put out a call for players to help fill the wiki once it's up and running. Finally, players on the Glamorgan cluster will be able to transfer to Ywain in the near future. You can read all of the nitty-gritty details of these items on the Camelot Herald.
Behind the Mask: Chatting with Champions Online's wiki mistress
A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I was planning on interviewing some key members of the Champions Online community. There were a few questions raised to me on just what constituted a "key member." This week, I got to chat with CO's resident wiki mistress, Lohr. She's the owner and administrator of the biggest Champions fansite on the internet, Champions Online Wiki. CO-Wiki is the largest repository of information on the game available anywhere on the internet, and it includes everything from information on missions to powers and levels. Early in its youth, CO-Wiki was not the biggest, being dwarfed by a Wikia site dedicated to Champions Online (which is still being updated). However, CO-Wiki drew contributors and quickly became a striking success. Today, players can access CO-Wiki directly from the Champions Online website. Lohr and I chatted about how she got to where she is now and what she thinks about the path the game is taking. Hit the jump to read the full scoop!
The Daily Grind: How do you find your strategy?
More and more often, players are turning to detailed guides to enhance and help their online gaming experiences. Whether you're looking for what mob drops a unique piece of loot, where to find a special kill for an accolade, or how to spec your talent tree, these types of information-centers are now a part of the normal MMO routine. While wikis and fan sites are popping up all over the internet, strategy guides are collecting dust at the local video game stores. "Homegrown" wikis seem to be a thing of the present and the way of the future -- they are special in the fact that they are created and evolved by the very same people who play the game. Strategy guides, on the other hand, are written by third-party companies that seem to have access to developer notes and other non-player-facing sources. So how do you find your strategy? Do you check out wikis or do you prefer buying the printed guides to keep in your library of "stuff-you-will-never-read-again"? Have you ever actually contributed to a wiki by filling in the gaps with missing information? When was the last time you bought a physical copy of a strategy guide? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
VoodooPad now available for your iPhone and iPad
VoodooPad gets its share of TUAW screen space, and it's one of the few apps that's always open on my desktop. As one of the original "personal" wikis, VoodooPad has a simple aesthetic and a great feature set for organizing and linking your important information, notes and everything from bookmarks to movies. It's a great desktop information manager, and as of last week, a great iPhone app, too. VoodooPad for iOS is simple, but it makes a great little wiki for iPhone and iPad. It probably has significantly more appeal to users of the desktop version than to people who just want a wiki on their iPad. It lacks some of the features that made me fall in love with apps like Trunk Notes, but the fact that it syncs with my desktop notes via WebDAV or MobileMe is spectacular. In my testing, the sync feature over WebDAV performed flawlessly. I could see changes made on iPad or desktop on the other device immediately, and I didn't run into any unresolvable conflicts if one was left open while working in the other. It even syncs over embedded media. Like the desktop version, though, it only edits the text of pages. Tags and other metadata can't be edited or viewed on iOS, but all of the info appears to stay intact. The same can't be said for Rich Text formatting, which is lost if you edit the page on an iOS device. iOS doesn't offer many options for the kind of customization I do in VoodooPad on my Mac, but as long as I'm using VoodooPad for iOS as a companion app for the desktop version, it's going to work out nicely. VoodooPad for iOS is available on the App Store for US$9.99. If you're a VoodooPad user (or looking for a new iPhone/iPad wiki), it's worth a look.
Trunk Notes: a Markdown-based wiki, to go
I know, I went and used "wiki" and "Markdown" in the headline and scared off all of the non-nerds. Nerds, welcome. If you're a non-nerd who kept reading, well, keep reading. Markdown is an easy way to create HTML, and wikis are a powerful means of connecting and organizing your notes. Your mobile note-taking deserves a peek at this. Trunk Notes is a note-taking app with a built-in wiki (similar to VoodooPad). It works for both iPad and iPhone and provides great tools for editing (and rendering) Markdown. It also syncs with Dropbox and sends emails in Markdown or rich text (HTML). The wiki feature allows you to create automatic links between pages using WikiWord syntax. It's an extremely fast way to create linked notes with rich formatting. If you don't know Markdown, take my word for it: it's easy. There is some great documentation included in the app, and you'll catch on quickly. Read on for a dive into Trunk Notes.
The Road to Mordor: Community check-up
It's a quiet week around these here parts, what with the Thanksgiving holiday in NA and the lull before the November Update hits on the 29th. As such, I thought it'd be a great time to catch up on the current state of the community, especially as we've seen so many new bloggers and sites and podcasts arrive on the scene in the past year. I've always said that Lord of the Rings Online is truly blessed with not just a stellar community but an active one as well. Some MMOs see very little in the way of fan-created sites, keeping most of the community action centered on official forums and the like. However, when it comes to LotRO, we have not only the MyLotro.com blogs set up by Turbine, but a cornucopia of web delights fashioned by hard-working players. So to say "Thanks!" to this wonderful community, today I want to highlight some of the best LotRO resource websites, blogs and podcasts that consistently go above and beyond in making our slice of the MMO landscape a delight to visit.
Guild Wars 2 uses iOS apps for 'extended experience'
Guild Wars 2 is going to become the latest big PC game to get a satellite iPhone app. Our friends at Massively have a post up about the "extended experience" that ArenaNet is going to offer in the MMO sequel. You won't be able to play the full game on your iPhone or iPad, but you will be able to chat with friends, browse the world of the game, access character and achievement information, and even wiki information about the game, either from a mobile location or just using the mobile device alongside you as you play. It all sounds really interesting, and actually very forward-thinking; lots of gamers have an extra device around them as they're playing these PC games, so why not use the iPhone or iPad to enable mobile connectivity and add on to the experience as you play. Guild Wars 2 is, of course, the sequel to the very popular first ArenaNet title, and it's expected out sometime in 2010 or 2011. The app will presumably be out sometime close to the game's release, though some of the functionality is mentioned as future plans, so we'll have to see. Meanwhile, there's a growing trend of supplementing PC gaming with iOS apps. Both Blizzard Entertainment and Fallen Earth developer Icarus Studios have released apps designed to work in tandem with their desktop titles. It's an intriguing idea -- most of the viewpoints on the App Store have it replacing traditional desktop computing, but these companies are using Apple's devices to supplement their other products.
