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Two senior staff members depart from ArenaNet
ArenaNet is going to be down two staff members in the very near future. Community Team Leader Martin Kerstein and UI Lead Kate Welch are both leaving the company; Welch's final day with the developer is September 4th, while Kerstein has apparently already departed. Both of their farewell letters speak highly of the team and give no cause for the departures, and neither yet has any announcements of future plans. Both Welch and Kerstein have been working on Guild Wars 2 since before its launch. These departures come directly on the heels of the conclusion of the game's second season of living story updates. [Thanks to Sharvis for the tip!]
Final Fantasy XI to merge PlayOnline accounts with Square-Enix accounts
For a long time now, PlayOnline has been the albatross that Final Fantasy XI players have to contend with. The fact that the service essentially serves as an oversized launcher for the game has long been a point of mild frustration to console gamers and a massive annoyance to PC players. But change is coming in the form of an upcoming account merge, merging all PlayOnline IDs into Square-Enix accounts and removing the cumbersome launcher-based process for handling service changes. The change will begin rolling out at the end of July and will run until August 31st, giving players ample opportunity to complete the transfer process and manage accounts solely through the website. While a full walkthrough is not yet available, preliminary questions have already been answered in an official support topic. Final Fantasy XI will still need to launch through the PlayOnline service, but it should be a boon to players to have at least one less set of account credentials to misplace.
The Daily Grind: What game did you spend the most time not playing?
Picture this: it's Saturday afternoon, and you're absolutely determined that you're going to spend some time leveling up in your game of choice. It could be World of Warcraft, it could be Star Trek Online, it could be anything. But you log in, and you note that before you go to town, you just need to check up on your auctions. And, oh, right, there's a bit of crafting you should do. Plus an old friend sent you a letter, you should respond, and the next thing you know four hours have passed and you have to log off without having gotten a single experience point. This doesn't mean that the time spent was a wash, naturally, but looking back you didn't really wind up playing the game so much as existing in the game space whilst doing other things. Sometimes you might even have more fun playing the auctioneer, but it's still time spent in a game all about orc-punching wherein no orcs were punched. So when did you spend the most time not actually playing the game you were logged in with? Was it in-game business that needed your attention, or were you alt-tabbing away until you lost track of time? 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!
Ask Massively: I have eaten so much birthday cake edition
It gets absolutely crazy around here once November 2nd rolls around. You'd think that another year of operation was something that only came around once every 9,000 hours or so. Of course, this means an opportunity for me to gorge myself on so much cake that I can't walk under my own power any longer without its just being arbitrary gluttony, and who can say no to that? I certainly can't. I'm still unable to walk two days later. This week, in honor of our anniversary, I've pulled a few questions straight from our anniversary edition of The Daily Grind, so that readers who missed the answers before can see the answers again... and questions unanswered can get a response. So click on past the break for our offerings, and as always, you can leave a question right here or send it along to ask@massively.com. Hopefully by next week I will be able to walk again.
Ask Massively: Look guys I found a picture of a man with a hat edition
When I took over this past weekend's Week in Review column, I informed the usual steward that I would probably give the post some Dadaist nonsense title like, well, the exact title I used for this week's Ask Massively. I realized that the title was really too good to use for just a generic roundup. I have no idea who that man is, why someone painted him with a hat, or any of that. But he definitely has a pretty awesome hat. This week we have a lot of administrative questions, talking about the comment system, the different types of MMOs, and the many different games which feature spaceships. And, as usual, we have the requisite silly question which I try to include every week, because you shouldn't click on a post with a ridiculous title without something to laugh at. Click on past the break for our answers for the week, and as always, leave further questions in the comment field, or send them along to ask@massively.com!
Ask Massively: It's all the fault of this ocelot edition
I think it's time that we got a new scapegoat. We have things that we're angry about, and since we are no longer allowed to be angry at World of Warcraft due to reasons, our new target shall be... this ocelot. The one pictured above, just sitting on some rocks like he or she owns the place. (I cannot differentiate from faces whether an ocelot is male or female.) So to heck with you, ocelot! Yeah, you know what you did. Don't think we're fooled by your looking cute. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, we can make it through the rest of Ask Massively in peace. We will be free to contemplate this week's questions, which cover the upcoming World of Darkness along with reviews and a terrible personal secret. Or just a funny one. Either way, click on past the cut, and send in your questions for next week to ask@massively.com, or just leave them in the comment field. If your question is not answered next week, well, ocelot again.
Ask Massively: New Mega Man games edition
I'm really happy to see that we're getting two new Mega Man games at long last. Mega Man Universe looks like it's going to be pretty awesome, even if it should really be taking cues from later installments, and Mega Man Legends 3 is a game that I've been waiting to see for... yeah, just about 10 years. Unfortunately, that does mean that I'm going to have to purchase another platform for the game, but that's all right by me. I already have a few dozen systems in my house; one more isn't going to hurt. But we're not here to talk about my pet causes -- we're here for the latest edition of Ask Massively. This week's questions were all about Chronicles of Spellborn and administrative details, so click on past the cut for our answers, and send your questions in to ask@massively.com! Or just leave them right here in the comments, makes no nevermind to us.
