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Update to the Massively makeover
Hello, readers! It's been a few weeks since our massive Massively site overhaul landed, and our web gurus have been scurrying in the background fixing bugs and responding to your reports. Not all of the bugs have been vaporized just yet, but we'd like to update you on the status of some of the problems that most affect you. RSS -- Our most-reported problem over the last few weeks revolved around our RSS feeds. Many users reported a doubling-up of posts as the site spewed out two copies of every post. Others reported an inability to subscribe to specific categories and bloggers, and still others were finding that every RSS feed was producing copies of the podcast (great news for podcast fans, I guess!). Our techs currently report that all of our RSS feeds should be functioning now, but they note that many RSS readers do not well tolerate the kind of switcheroo we had to do. If you're still having problems, unsubscribe again from all of your Massively feeds and try resubbing one more time. I can tell you that I am using Google Reader and stopped having problems a few days ago. If you need to resub to specific feeds, this will help: for the writers, visit the individual pages on our team portal; for columns and features, hop over to our columns list; and for specific games, click on your chosen game in the games list for a category with a feed button. There's more behind the cut... follow along!
TUAW Giveaway: Win a subscription to Slacker Radio Plus for Austin City Limits Music Festival
The Austin City Limits Music Festival is going on next week in Austin, TX (as is GDC Online, which I'll be covering for TUAW). The festival has teamed up with Slacker Internet Radio and Seed Labs to spread the word and share some of the music from the artists performing there. They've produced a free app to check out the lineup of artists at the show, as well as make your own schedule, see a map of the event, post your own pictures and stories directly from the show, and even use a virtual lighter if a performance moves you to do so. You're on your own trying to get them to play "Freebird," though. Slacker Radio is also tied in to the app -- you can listen to an Internet radio station called Austin City Limits Radio, playing tunes and providing insight exclusively from the artists at the festival. To celebrate, Slacker has offered TUAW readers some free subscriptions to the Slacker Radio Plus service, which is used in conjunction with the original Slacker Radio app. That app is also free, but a Slacker Radio Plus subscription allows you to get song lyrics, get rid of the ads, skip songs whenever you want, and listen to your favorite stations offline. We've got four one-year subscriptions (usually US$47.99 each) and three three-month subscriptions (usually $14.99) to give away to seven lucky TUAW readers. Hit the "Read More" link below to find out how to win your own, and if you're interested in the Austin City Limits festival, be sure to check out the free app on the App Store now.
TUAW Giveaway: Chuck Gnome
Chuck Gnome was chosen as our Daily App here on the site about a month ago, and now Movable Sprites has offered us a few copies to give away to you readers. Since we last posted about it, the game has updated to version 1.1 and added in a new episode, a new mini game, new music, and lots more. Plus, the price was lowered to 99 cents (and there's still a lite version available for you to check out). But if a buck is still too much for you to check out this gnome tossin' good time, you can enter below to win one of 10 copies from TUAW and Movable Sprites! To enter the giveaway, leave us a comment telling us what you'd like to chuck Chuck at in real life. Here are the official rules: Open to legal US residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia, and Canada (excluding Quebec) who are 18 and older. To enter, leave a comment telling us what real-life object, place, or thing you'd like to throw Chuck Gnome at. The comment must be left before midnight on Monday, September 6, 2010, 11:59PM Eastern Daylight Time. You may enter only once. Ten winners will be selected. All will receive one promo code for Chuck Gnome, valued at $0.99 each. Click Here for complete Official Rules. Good luck!
Gartner: Symbian is 're-arranging the deck chairs,' losing buoyancy fast
We all know that Symbian is still holding the fort as the globe's most widely used mobile OS, but anyone interested in criticizing it nowadays will have to get into a queue. Nick Jones from Gartner is latest to launch a broadside against the apparently complacent market leader, opining that its user experience has been surpassed by iOS and Android, and arguing that future iterations do not promise enough innovation to make the platform stand out. He underpins these observations with his firm's latest estimates, which indicate Symbian's decline in share is accelerating, before positing the idea that the Foundation sets aside some talent for skunkworks projects in order to give itself fallback options should Symbian^4 not be blindingly marvelous. Nick might be going a little overboard with the bleakness of his outlook, but there's no questioning his "Android iceberg" analogy -- if Symbian doesn't find the right course soon, Google might well end up collecting a big chunk of its exasperated users.
[1.Local]: Gigantic
Reader comments -- ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week. Yes, I am just naming this column after Pixies songs so I can embed them and not even attempt a theme. Thank you for noticing. I do have a gigantic love for many of our comments, though. They are fun to read and the threads are gigantically entertaining. I also really like when a gigantically different viewpoint is presented for discussion. My love for the new guild perks in Cataclysm is gigantic, and so is Cyanea's: This list is the reason why we couldn't have "guild talents" and why we get all of them instead. Any hardcore PVE or PVP guild that doesn't have either the Honor point or the Hero point gain talent is not going to be competitive. A lot of more casual guilds could've easily picked them both up, but when you're in a hardcore guild striving for world/realm firsts or whatever the equivalent is for PVP you're going to go for the most effective point distribution, forcing players who do both (like me) or who are in a primarily PVE guild and mostly PVP and vice versa to leave their friends and find other guilds just to stay competitive. All that whining about Guild Talents was pointless. Pointless indeed. Turn the page for some more gigantically fun and/or interesting comments from the past week.
[1.Local]: Where is my mind?
Reader comments -- ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week. I can tell you where my mind is. It's still pole dancing outside of Booty Bay after the Midsummer Flamefest. At least, that's where I think I left it. That's the last I remember knowing where it was. I should probably go check. Before I do, we have some comments to nod our heads and/or snicker over. First, the Roleplaying Spotlight goes to Bobury aka Razell: Hi! It's Razzell here. My parents were great researchers. If you could name it, they would study it. They studied alchemy, herbs, various creatures, blacksmithing, etc. Unfortunately, they were killed. I was at their house when Gnomeregan was invaded. My house was overrun with troggs. My parents were killed, their research destroyed. I escaped. I do miss them so. It is a good thing we are taking back Gnomeregan. For the Alliance, For Gnomeregan, and for the parents! I, uh, hope you weren't expecting a theme this week, because I don't have one again. But go ahead and turn the page for some more themeless fun.
[1. Local]: I'm a slacker
Reader comments -- ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week. Hi. My name is Robin Torres and I'm a slacker. I have totally slacked on my [1. Local] duties for weeks now, so I have tons of goodies stored up for this time. I know that the above video is called Loser and not Slacker, but it still seemed appropriate. I would have embedded the Glee version, but those never stay up very long. Anyone who has ever worked retail must appreciate that version of the -- oh, great. Now I'm slacking and writing at the same time. A couple weeks ago, we talked about a guy named Mr. Green and a Spineless Jellyfish GM in Drama Mamas. An alternate solution to ours was suggested: Russ: You could always lure Mr. Green into the Billiards room, hand him a candlestick, and drag Mr. Body into the room and accuse him of murder! Grovinofdarkhour: But everybody knows, it was Professor Plum, in the Study, with the Revolver. So that would never work. I hope you weren't looking for continuity this week, because that's not going to happen. We've got too many fun and insightful things to go over to try to squeeze them into a coherent theme. It's all my fault, because I'm a slacker. So let's just turn the page and have at it.
[Updated] You have questions and developers have answers: Send us your burning E3 questions!
"When we're at a show, you're at the show." If you've never heard our event coverage motto before, well, let me tell you exactly what it means. It means that you're going to get up-to-the-minute news about your favorite MMOs, both current and upcoming. It means that you're going to get pictures, screenshots, videos, and more from the editors on the ground at E3. And, lastly, it means that you're going to get analysis from our opinion columnists and game-specific columnists on the MMOs you want to hear about most. If you don't believe us, take a look at our recent history. It means that the minute we hear it, you'll hear it and more. And, to that end, we want you to be more involved in our coverage! This year we have more appointments with MMO developers than ever before, and we want to make sure that we're asking the questions you want answered. So if you have a burning question that you want to make sure is asked, simply drop it here on this post in the comments section! Plus, we want to hear what you're looking forward to hearing about at this E3 too, so tell us your favorites! Keep an eye on the site next week for all of our E3 2010 coverage, starting June 15th! You won't want to miss it! For a full list of the companies we'll be interviewing, click past the break! [Update: Added Electronic Arts to the list for Need for Speed World.]
The new Massively.com Code of Conduct
Well hey there readers! Today I come to you with a brief but important announcement -- we have a new code of conduct! What does that mean for you? Well, in short, we want to take care of our comment section a little more closely than we have in the past. You're going to see us more frequently in the comments, discussing the news with you guys, and you're also going to see us moderating the comment section from time to time. What does this not mean for you? Well, we're certainly not going to squelch your opinions. We're doing this to make our comments section a great place to discuss games, news, and MMOs at large, no matter your opinion. We just want to put a few ground rules into place, and let you all know what is and what is not acceptable to write down in our comments section. For most of you, you're already abiding by the new code of conduct, so don't go worrying yourself. However, we certainly invite you all to go check out the new home of the Code of Conduct and familiarize yourself with the five basic rules of commenting. Plus, if you have any comments, questions, or concerns about any of this, you can always contact me personally at seraphina AT massively DOT com. So no worries! Comment away, dear readers! We can't wait to see what opinions you have to share with us!
[1. Local]: Tooting of horns
Reader comments -- ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week. Tootoootoootoooooot! Yeah, I'm about to toot my own horn -- well, the horn I share with fellow Drama Mama Lisa. We so rarely get to hear the results of the advice we give on Drama Mamas, but last week we got the best feedback ever. Tootootooooot! We told AFK to make it work, and he responded: Hey, Drama Mamas! I really appreciate your answering my questions. You weren't kidding when you said that you were going to do a lot of finger wagging. I read your answers, and I read the comments as well. I found Arann and Soonerwolf's comments especially helpful. I talked to my wife today about setting a date night every week for just the two of us, a family day to spend uninterrupted time with our toddler, and a personal day where we are to pursue individual activities. She actually really liked the idea. My wife has told me that she feels neglected before, but I spend every moment that I am not at work with her. I guess guaranteeing her a night together every week was something she wanted all along. Lisa, Robin, and all of the commentators: thanks so much for your input, AFK Tootootoooooot! We've got more horns to toot. I may even toot my own horn again, I haven't decided yet. You'll just have to look after the break to see.
[1. Local]: Hey
Reader comments -- ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week. Hey. Reader comments have been cracking us up all week. From completely inane threads to humorous ways of explaining things, compiling this week's sampling has given me the giggles. There were some serious, insightful comments as well, of course. In fact, we'll start off with one from Drama Mamas. We answered a letter about some loot nastiness. A priest accidentally rolled need and won a weapon that a rogue wanted. Drama ensued. Scooter offered some added insight: My friends and I call this situation the "Ticking Loot-Bomb Scenario". Basically the rogue was all set to go off on someone and the priest happened to cut the wrong wire. Everyone goes off like this at least once in their lives. It takes a level of maturity to recognize this in yourself and take action to calm down. Unfortunately this is something that even most adults never obtain. It's also important to recognize when people do take that important deep breath and either calm down or remove themselves from the situation. The rogue should have just left the group. True, this inconveniences any friends/guild mates also on the run but 10 minutes of waiting for a replacement is still an improvement over 10 minutes of yelling. There's a ticking funny bomb waiting to go off on the next page.
Enter to win a copy of Fruit Ninja from TUAW and Halfbrick Studios
I wrote about Fruit Ninja last week, and since then it's been very popular on the App Store. Creators Halfbrick Studios tell us it's sold quite well so far. The game's simple, but well-polished and a lot of pick-up-and-play fun. It's only $1, so there's no reason not to go over and get it yourself. Just in case you haven't, though, Halfbrick has sent us a few promo codes for the game to give away to five lucky TUAW commenters. Want to win a copy of Fruit Ninja? Here are the rules: Open to legal US residents of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia who are 18 and older. To enter, leave a comment on this post telling us what kind of fruit you like slashing most. The comment must be left before midnight EST on Thursday, May 6th, 2010. You may enter only once. 5 winners will be selected in a random drawing. Prize: A promo code redeemable for a copy of Fruit Ninja (Value: US$0.99 ) Click Here for complete Official Rules. Good luck to everyone who enters!
[1. Local]: Psychology
Reader comments -- ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week. It's an interesting coincidence that so many quotables this week had something to do with our mental processes. For example, when Brian Wood pretended to interview Ghostcrawler for Scattered Shots, the faux-Ghostcrawler said the following: Anyway, so the chimp has a lever, and when it pulls the lever it gets a piece of lettuce. Chimps like lettuce; it's tasty. So the chimp loves the experiment to death. Pull the lever, get more lettuce, eat the lettuce and pull the lever. Then after a while, the researchers change things up. One time, the chimp pulls the lever and gets a grape. Chimps love grapes; they're way better than lettuce. But then the chimp pulls the lever again and it goes back to getting lettuce. Now the chimp gets pissed off and throws the lettuce at the researchers. So just a minute ago the chimp was loving the lettuce, and now it's insulted to be given that garbage. The lettuce didn't get any worse or any less tasty, but the chimp's perception of the value of the lettuce changed. MMO players are even more extreme -- in an MMO if the players even hear that we considered giving grapes, they'll suddenly be insulted with the lettuce that they loved until that point. So while we can't avoid every nerf, we really try to avoid as many as we possibly can. Brian's favorite response was from Undra: Ghostcrawler promised me a grape! Promises, promises. I promise we have more psychology related comments and some that only slightly have to do with what's in our noggin. And I also promise no mention of sparkle ponies. Well, except that one. I broke my promise while making my promise. Wrap your noggin around that.
[1. Local]: Chariots and cheats
Reader comments -- ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week. Dominic Hobbs, our warlock columnist, speculated about flying mounts for warlocks in this week's Blood Pact. He found the following suggestion the best one from the readers (though there were many): Tidelord: Dear Hobbs, While I agree with your idea of Metamorphosis or sprouting wings, I find the thought of being carried by my shoulders by a Doomguard to be utterly demeaning, and if you have seen the model for Invincible and the new "Sparkle Pony," you would see that while the wings are ingenious, the steed itself has legs stumpier than a dwarf's! No, my dear friend. For a warlock, the only mount suitable for us masters of shadow and fire is nothing else than an enormous, obsidian-black chariot with wheels made of the bones and skulls of magi, pulled by a pack of at least ten or twelve fel-green hellhounds. The animation would be so full of demonic splendor and top-of-the-line graphics that it would cause the video card of any cowardly mage to explode violently. Grow In Shadows- Caneyn Ravenshield, Future Worgen Warlock Continue reading for an in-depth discussion of cheating -- and what's this about breeding WoW.com staff?
[1.Local]: Celestial RMT and the Fresh Steed
Reader comments -- ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week. Would it be wrong of us to lead off this week's [1.Local] with a comment from someplace other than WoW.com? This comment on Blizzard's astounding sales of the Celestial Steed comes from our sister publication, Massively, where one would think readers would be a little more objective about MMOs and microtransactions as a whole. Pingles: I play Allods, a free-to-play cash shop game and have purchased items to support the game. So at first I was a bit perturbed at how anyone can accept a subscription game charging for things in a cash shop but I think that Blizzard may very well get a pass on this one. The reason: WoW is a behemoth. People don't mind throwing $25 at something that ALL of their friends are going to see and that they envision spending the next few years playing with. This isn't just a game to some folks. This is a social and long-term commitment. I have to admit that when I purchased a bag in Allods I wondered whether I'd be playing the game a year from now. I don't think folks wonder the same thing with WoW. Back here at home at WoW.com, opinion about the new ride seems fairly split. Pull up a seat and let's chew on it some more. Oh, and you'll want to be sure to check out a truly epic take on the situation from [1.Local] regular (cutaia), whose fiancée Autumn Kosik created the headline photo, above. (Thanks for sharing!) Most definitely worth a trip to the end of the post.
[1.Local]: The lore according to James Cameron
Reader comments -- ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week. When it comes to the chatter in [1.Local], sometimes it's the sidetracks and the tangents that pull up the most interesting results. By now, we've all heard comparisons between James Cameron's "Avatar" and Disney's "Pocahontas." ("Pocahontas in Space," anyone?) Leave it to our readers to take things a step farther. sherekhan88: Actually, maybe because of too much WoW, I was able to piece together Avatar as "The World of Warcraft movie, as envisioned by James Cameron." It goes like this: Guy log ins on his new Night Elf Hunter WoW character. He tries to cast Tame Beast on a panther that's too high level and almost dies. He gets Apprentice Riding and Exalted with Stormwind and gets a pony mount. He skips Journeyman Riding, but later gets Expert Riding in Outland. After much grinding, gets Netherdrake mount. Meanwhile, humans want to mine giant Titanium node under Teldressil. They use vehicles to raid Darnussus. The World Tree crashes, lots of Nelfs ragequit. Meanwhile, Sigourney Weaver tries to do a server transfer, but fails. Stuck with Blizzard's customer service for a week. Main guy finally gets Artisan riding and bags a Time-Lost Proto-Drake mount. He then epeens it in Shattrath. Nelves follow him. Gathers more people with Netherdrake mounts and Stormwind horses. Later they forgot Blizzard never gave them mounted combat. Main guy and Nelves defeat Humans using greens; midway through the battle main guy's game time card almost runs out. Humans ragequit after losing, Nelves call them noobs. Main guy Feigns Death for lulz, does server transfer, but comes back when he found out Paragon AND Ensidia are both on the same server. Coming up after the break: More (unique? lovable? twisted? overenthusiastic?) nuggets of wisdom, plus the World of Warcraft week in review from WoW.com's commenters.
Enter to win a Fallen Earth item from TUAW
Fallen Earth is a pretty popular post-apocalyptic MMO, and as we announced at GDC, not only have they released a Mac client, but they've got a pretty impressive iPhone app to go along with it coming later this year. To celebrate, they sent us a special code for some virtual in-game Brass Goggles -- we're not sure exactly what they do, but we're told that they're a third level item with the stats of a seventh level item, and that they'll provide some protection against piercing, fire, cold, and ballistic damage. So they've got that going for them. Which is nice. Anyway, if you're a Fallen Earth player and want a chance at some groovy in-game gear, just leave a comment on this post before Friday at 5pm, making sure to use a real email (so we can contact you if you happen to win). If you need something to comment about, tell us how you'll use your favorite Apple product after that apocalypse goes down. We'll choose one random winner to get the code, which you can then redeem in-game for your Brass Goggles. Good luck to everyone who enters! We'll keep an eye out for the Fallen Earth iPhone app, and let you know when it shows up in the store.
[1.Local]: Yo, it's April, fools!
Reader comments -- ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week. April Fool's Day around WoW.com usually means bracing for impact with emails and comments from nerd-raging readers who haven't ... quite ... caught on that there's something special going on. This year, though, you all really outdid yourselves. You played along! You danced, you sang, you /fishslapped, you showed us your sunflowery sunny dispositions, you popped back in every two hours like clockwork to see what new havoc was going on. Special thanks go to Kelly Aarons and Zach Yonzon for oudoing themselves on the fabulous artwork, and three cheers to Justin Glow for helping us change out the site header every two hours. Gather 'round for a group hug, everybody -- ya'll are an awesome bunch. Sedirex: All 5 iterations had their own logo, top stories, and hot topics (on the right). The evil part of this joke is that if you're like me, you felt obligated to check every 2 hours to see them, as, unlike the posts, they don't remain after the site changes focus again. Jayfitty: That was actually a pretty awesome routine. I'm not sure how I feel about so much turmoil happening here at WoW.com. Hopefully we can just settle on one type of Insider and commit to that. Every time the website changes I have to update my wardrope, Facebook page, Twitter and haircut to reflect said changes. And to go from Edward hair to Gaga hair in one day isn't easy.
[1.Local]: To meme, or not to meme?
Reader comments -- ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week. Sometimes puppies just aren't enough. Sometimes, it takes an industrial-strength WoW meme to bring a smile to your face -- or in the case of one lovelorn writer to the Drama Mamas, to soften the blow of dealing with a sticky situation. icepyro: "Despite seriousness of the issue, this had me laughing and loving every moment of it. Many internets are to be had by the mommas. TT, I would give my own internet to you, but I feel that is akin to giving the proverbial drowning man a glass of water. "To those that criticize the writing, I must say the fact that both the letter and responses took the time to find game terms that work to describe the problem showed how serious it was actually taken. While amusing to read, metaphors really drive home the underlying tone that the English language itself lacks. This is not some meme-filled, short letter that just tosses wow terms in for good measure. It's only purple prose if it felt like an attempt to market the product via excessive jargon rather than the jargon used to describe how he really feels. While the goal may have been to interpret it this way so that it would stand out (mission accomplished), I really didn't feel like he was holding himself back or hiding behind the jargon. "I do not want to recommend this style all the time lest we fall to overuse and making it a meme itself (see also: puppies). Still, it was supremely refreshing and quite the treat. "There were some rough spots for interpretation, but the mommas seemed to be able to interpret and their resulting advice made things much clearer. Still, anyone who compares a woman to iLevel 277 will have more problems (if you don't already) when Cataclysm comes out and better gear is to be had. Thinking about it, heirloom items may work. They level with you and while it may not always be BiS or shiny purple, there is no level limit to equip nor will you ever outlevel them. They even boost your own ability to level. ... Yeah, I overthink things." More observations (no overthinking necessary) from the past week, after the break.
[1.Local]: Making your comments matter
VIEWER DISCRETION ADVISED; language Not Safe For Work. Reader comments -- ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week. Internet comments and commenters -- gah. What does it take to get a comment spotlighted on [1.Local], anyway? Many readers assume that the comments we select each week represent the most popular posts, or the most controversial, or the most "important." That's true ... Sometimes. Humor is frequently the common denominator; after all, everybody loves a good laugh over the game we all enjoy. Beyond that, the factors that make a comment [1.Local]-worthy are more of a moving target. Maybe that comment is the seed of an intricate debate. Perhaps it's an inspired strategy worth sharing. Maybe it's simply a pointer towards a story we think more readers ought to see. There's no set formula. What is set, however, is our commitment to providing a place for our readers' voices to be heard. That doesn't mean we're throwing open the editorial doors to some sort of hegemony via comments. What it does mean is that we love a vibrant, energetic community of commenters just as much as you do. Blog comments do matter. How can you make your own viewpoints make an impact? Join us after the break for a refresher course on best practices for commenting on the internet.
