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The Game Archaeologist and the Quest for Camelot: The history
After a two-week hiatus to recover from rattlesnake bites and a bear to the face, the Game Archeologist returns to travel to England, but not the England we know today. No, this is the England-That-Could-Have-Been, the England of King Arthur, Excalibur and pointy-hatted Vikings. This is the England of fairy tales and legends and blocky 2001-era polygon models. It is the England of three realms constantly jockeying for supremacy and power. It is Dark Age of Camelot. It's a pretty awesome place to live, even though the property values are way, way down after the last 18 marauding hordes trampled through the neighborhood. This month, the Game Archaeologist is trading in his copyright-infringement fedora and whip for a sturdy suit of armor and a fiery sword as he slashes his way into Dark Age of Camelot. It doesn't matter if it's only a model -- it still inspires him to break out into song anyway.
Lineage readies Season 3, Episode 1 update
Massively is traveling back in time this week with regard to NCsoft titles, first with news about updates to Lineage II and now with word on an exciting bit of new content for the original Lineage. Yes, you heard right -- the first-gen MMORPG (originally released in 1998) is still alive, kicking, and updating. July 29th will bring players the opportunity to experience Episode 1 of Season 3 on NCsoft's Play Test Servers. Subtitled Crack of Time and featuring new classes, a dungeon, and an expanded storyline, the update has yet to receive an official live release window. New classes include the dragon knight (a damage-dealer featuring the ability to shape-shift into beast forms) and the illusionist (a PvP-centric class with substantial debuff magic and area-of-effect attacks). The update also brings revamped starting areas, Thebes Dungeon (which features a random entrance-spawn and a challenging completion timer), and tweaks specifically designed to cater to North American audiences. These changes include double XP, higher item drop-rates, and higher boss-spawn rates.
ArcheAge closed beta announced
We'll forgive you if you haven't yet heard of ArcheAge, an in-development MMORPG from XLGames. You probably have heard of lead developer Jake Song, though, or at the very least, you've probably played one of his games. The native South Korean is the brains behind the original Lineage, and he worked with Richard Garriott on Tabula Rasa. Also while at NCsoft, Song lent his talents to the conceptualization and creation of an MMORPG called Lineage Forever, which subsequently morphed into Aion. These days, Song's XLGames is busily putting the CryENGINE 2 through its paces to bring you ArcheAge, and it is gearing up for the game's first closed beta test. The testing, scheduled for late July, looks to gather player feedback on some of the title's more unique features including destructible architecture. Unfortunately, you'll need to speak Korean (and probably know someone on the inside) to get an invite, but stay with Massively for more on this new game as it develops.
Looking back at six years of Lineage II
Released in South Korea in 2003 and North America a year later, Lineage II came out as an old-school hardcore grind just as MMOs like City of Heroes, World of Warcraft and Guild Wars arrived on the scene and signaled a decisive shift toward more user-friendly, casual-accessible gameplay. Even so, Lineage II charged ahead to capture an impressive amount of players -- a reported 610,000 gamers were playing the title three years after launch -- and the game both endured and grew as time progressed. A six-year anniversary doesn't have quite the gravitas as a five- or ten-year one, yet it's still an accomplishment that many of Lineage II's contemporaries failed to achieve before closing their doors. Travel with us then as we step back in time to an era when MMOs were the equivalent of a dangerous playground, with players leaping about despite rusty swings, harsh death penalties and a never-ending monkey bar grind. Join us as we examine Lineage II's history and seek to understand the secrets of this game's popularity, and what it still has to offer for the contemporary gamer.
Customer greeted with malware on Vodafone-issued HTC Magic (good thing it's discontinued)
Crapware's bad enough, but having your life torn asunder simply by plugging in that shiny new (insert USB-connected device here) is an exciting new trend -- viruses find their way into the darnedest places, don't they? It seems an employee at anti-malware firm Panda Research who'd ordered a new Magic off Vodafone UK's site was greeted with no fewer than three nefarious executables upon plugging the device into her PC: a bot client, a password stealer, and a Conficker variant, and running a network sniffer quickly confirmed that the virii were live and ready to do harm as soon as the autorun in the Magic's mounted mass storage was executed on her Windows machine. If this were a widespread issue, we'd certainly have heard about it in other places, so odds are good (as Panda points out) that this was simply a case of HTC or Vodafone doing an awful job of wiping a refurbished set -- but it gives you pause and kind of makes you wish you worked for an anti-malware firm, at least on days when you're plugging in a new phone for the first time. The silver lining, we suppose, is that Vodafone has recently discontinued the Magic, though that creates another problem: the only Android device it currently stocks now is the lowly Tattoo, so the X10 and Nexus One can't come soon enough.
Lineage I patch to go live tomorrow
Lineage I players who think they've done everything there is to do in the game, hold that thought, because Episode U goes live tomorrow and you won't be bored for a very long time. The patch notes encompass a very long list of new content as well as updates to old content. There are new zones, bosses, and quests, as well as some new mini-games such as pet racing. The content isn't limited to gameplay, however. Take a look at the new mail system, the many new furniture items, and the new alliance system as well. The patch has been in testing, and there are still some bugs to be worked out. The patch announcement states "We are still committed to fixing more bugs, but we do not wish to delay the patch any longer," and notes that none of the current bugs are game-breaking. Take a look at the full patch notes here, and enjoy Episode U!
NCsoft shows record profits in latest quarterly report
NCsoft has released information on the latest fiscal quarter, and the numbers presumably made some happy faces at NCsoft according to a report at Gamasutra. Just a few short months after the September launch of Aion for North America and Europe, NCsoft reports record profits in its fiscal fourth quarter. Sales were up 99% year-on-year, thanks in large part to the hugely hyped Aion, which sold over 300,000 copies through pre-order alone. While Aion is responsible for 48% of the sales numbers, the Lineage IP held its own easily, with Lineage accounting for 27% of sales and Lineage 2 holding 20%. Lineage has been around and performing steadily since 1998, but the recently revitalized franchise was a big factor in NCsoft's success over the past year. The full report can be viewed here.
NCsoft 2009 financials get high on Aion
Generally speaking, when a company can post a year-over-year growth in the double digits, it's doing pretty well. We write up a lot of financial news here at the 'Stiq, and it's not often that we can report that a company managed a 623 percent increase in its income. And yet, here we are, as GameSpot reports that NCsoft has done exactly that -- thanks in no small part to its latest MMO, Aion. Specifically, NCsoft reported revenues of KRW634.7 billion ($546 million) for its fiscal 2009, an 83 percent increase over the previous year. Actual income (profit, in other words) reached KRW185.4 billion ($160 million), a 623 percent increase over 2008. Narrowing things down solely to the company's 4th quarter, income was actually up 1009 percent over the same period last year, with NCsoft reporting KRW72.1 billion ($62 million). Fourth quarter revenues, meanwhile were up 99 percent at KRW197.3 billion ($170 million). Again, all this is mostly on the fantastic back of Aion, which brought in 43 percent of the company's game revenue for 2009, followed by Lineage II with 26 percent, the original Lineage with 23, City of Heroes with 4, Guild Wars with 3 and other titles with 1 percent. [Via Edge]
Massively's 2009 Winter Holiday Event Guide
It's that time of year again -- whatever holiday you are celebrating, the denizens of your favorite MMO are sure to be celebrating it too. Whether it's Festivult in Dungeons and Dragons Online, Wintersday in Guild Wars, or the Starlight Celebration in Final Fantasy XI, the theme is the same. There are presents, some sort of sugary treats, and tons of fun. Follow along with us as we check out who's partying in your favorite MMO and what you need to do to get in on the fun.
The gaming renaissance
In the early 70's, some clever chap programmed a pile of circuits to create a primitive game we all know as Pong. Fast-forward some forty years down the line and we're now battling Orcs in Azeroth and flying spaceships in the far-reaches of another galaxy. An entire games industry has erupted from those first simple arcade systems, with people designing and programming games for kids and adults alike. In the 90's, the first generation of kids that grew up with those early game systems became the ones making them and a virtual renaissance in game design ensued. Those kids that grew up wishing they could make their own games started to realise their dreams and the games industry as we know it came forth. More recently, the people that grew up with early MMOs have begun to hit the games industry and we're seeing a rebirth of the genre.In this article, I look at the games industry explosion and how it relates to the generations growing up with games. I ask whether the MMO genre is headed for its own great gaming renaissance and take a speculative look ahead at the future for MMOs and the games industry as a whole.
The gaming renaissance, part 2
Unlike the fledgling gaming industry of the 1980's, the industry today is a robust creature with a huge consumer-base and long-established development houses. MMOs are no longer seen as the risky ventures they once were and some have even secured eight-figure investment deals. Jobs working on a next gen MMO are possibly the most prized in the entire games industry and there is more competition for those spots than ever.
Watch "Another Perfect World" live in Metaplace at 3 PM ET here on Massively
"Another Perfect World", a documentary featuring some of our favorite MMO developers, is going to be shown today in Metaplace at 3 PM ET, 12 PM PT. Jump in with other virtual users and watch the video live via streaming connection, all from the comfort of your home computer.The documentary focuses on the creation of virtual utopias and how man strives to create the perfect world, even if it's only a virtual one. Speakers in the documentary include Raph Koster from Metaplace, Philip Rosedale from Second Life, Jae-Kyung Song from Lineage, and Hilmar Veigar Petursson from EVE Online, making this an interesting tale for many MMO users.The best part about all of this is that you don't even have to leave Massively to jump into Metaplace! We've embedded The Stage here after the break, so you can watch the movie and chat with fellow virtual world enthusiasts (and Massively readers) right from the comfort of this very post! It can't better than that! So make the leap and continue reading to log into Metaplace and watch "Another Perfect World" today at 3 PM!
Score some cheap NCsoft game time
If you, like us, are always looking for a way to save a few dollars in your monthly MMO budget, then you may be glad to hear this news. After all, replacing all those robot minions when they get trashed can be really expensive - or maybe that's just us. In either case, if you're an avid City of Heroes or City of Villains, Lineage, or Lineage II player, then you'll be glad to hear that our friends over at GoGamer have a great sale on NCsoft time cards going on now. (We'd assume they'll work on Aion as well, considering their site lists these cards as being valid for Auto Assault....) Right now, you can score two months of prepaid game time for the seriously cheap price of $18.90. While there is a shipping cost, the charge becomes very minor compared to the overall savings when you stock up on multiple cards. Of course, if you don't really want several months of cheap game time, you could always go in on an order with friends - or just send them to us. We'd gladly take any spare pre-paid time off your hands. Expensive robot minion replacements and all that, you know.
NCsoft's open letter to the Aion community targets all players of NCsoft games
It's not everyday that we find a letter addressed to an entire company's audience when it's posted on a specific game site, but that's what NCsoft West's executive producer, Lance Stites has done with his recent letter to the Aion community.To sum up his letter, it's been a busy series of restructuring the company and preparing for their next big release: Aion. While much of the focusing has been on Aion, the company isn't looking away from Lineage, Lineage II or Exteel. Those are still high on the company's priority list, according to Stites.But things are going along smoothly for Aion, as more voice overs are currently being recorded, the localization is continuing smoothly, and tutorial videos are in production. It sounds like Aion really is the golden game of the studio, but it's also nice to hear about all of the staffing changes going on with the other games.For the full letter and all of the nitty gritty of what's going on with the studio, head on over to Aion's website and check out Stites's report.
Buy some MMO games, save some cash on Steam this weekend
We're not usually ones who talk about sales or point out discounts, but this is one of those offers that we just couldn't refuse. It's the weekend, so Steam has to put some of their games on sale, as per the usual. This weekend however, it's most of their massively multiplayer collection.This isn't just a select few games. No sir. We're talking about EverQuest, Everquest II, Pirates of the Burning Sea, Lineage, Lineage II, City of Heroes, the Guild Wars trilogy pack, Age of Conan, EVE Online, and Vanguard have all been discounted. Most of the games have been marked down by 20%, but EVE Online has been cut down by 50% while EverQuest II: The Shadow Odyssey has been slashed by a 75% hit, bringing it down to the wonderful price of 10 bucks! That's all of EverQuest II for 10 bucks!So why are you still here, reading this post? Get over to Steam!
Should MMOs have sequels?
From movies and books to computer games, the concept of the sequel is firmly embedded in the entertainment industry. It's usually a much safer bet to make a new part to an existing successful intellectual property than it is to back an untested product. In the games industry, sequels are a great way to make more money from the same game concept but as usual MMOs have proven to be something of a different animal. Subscription MMOs don't conform to the same rules as non-subscription games, favouring recurring orders and longer-term customer commitment over single purchases. While development studios often take sequels for granted, I'm forced to ask whether MMOs should have sequels at all or if a different paradigm is more appropriate.In this article, I explore the games industry's obsession with repetition as I ask the question "Should MMOs have sequels?"
NCsoft games get Steamed
NCsoft has announced that it's bringing its stable of MMOs to Valve's Steam distribution platform. Starting right damn now, you can download Lineage, Lineage II, City of Heroes and every flavor of Guild Wars. Lineage II and Guild Wars Game of the Year Edition are even on sale. NCsoft's upcoming MMO Aion will also be made available on Steam when it launches later this year. The press release notes that there will be more deals on NCsoft games in the coming weeks.So, is it too soon for a Tabula Rasa joke?[Via Massively]
NCSoft adds its titles to Steam
If you're one of those gamers who prefers the digital minimalist approach as opposed to having game boxes everywhere then you're in luck. MMO-giant NCSoft have announced they will be offering their titles -- including City of Heroes, Guild Wars, and Lineage -- via Steam. They're also planning to offer their latest, most anticipated and shiny MMO, Aion as well when the game launches later this autumn.The company seem really excited and the press release sent to Massively Towers includes not one but two quotes. NCSoft are especially keen to note that there will be plenty of special offers on their products via the site and it's a great opportunity for anyone who prefers digital downloading.
Putting MMOG research under the ethical microscope
As MMOGs creep into mainstream culture they are becoming a valuable place to conduct scientific research on social systems and behaviors. Are certain MMOGs as addictive as cocaine? Do certain MMOG players use these games to escape from real life or stay more connected? Do certain MMOG players make better citizens? These are just some of the recent questions being asked by academics around the world.An interesting and informative paper titled Playing a Good Game: Ethical Issues in Researching MMOGs and Virtual Worlds has just been published in the International Journal of Internet Research Ethics. The paper examines a number of ethical issues encountered when researching MMOGs and virtual worlds. What should be considered public or private in these spaces? What can researchers study, record, and reproduce without informed consent or permission? Should researchers simply observe or actively participate in the online community/ies they are studying? Part one of this paper develops a theoretical framework for researching MMOGs and part two presents qualitative data from interviews with five MMOG researchers (City of Heroes, City of Villains, Lineage I, Lineage II, and Second Life). The resulting data can be used to guide future research ethics in the MMOG space. [Via Terra Nova]
Top 10 money-making MMOs of 2008
In an upcoming "comprehensive study" by DFC Intelligence, they take a look at the top money-makers in the MMO space worldwide. To no one's surprise, World of Warcaft has topped the list, followed by several Asian MMOs like MapleStory, Lineage I and II, Shanda and Fantasy Westward Journey. As for the most users, this study doesn't touch on that. With such a wide discrepancy between active subscribers and prepaid game card users, it's a difficult number to tack down.What makes this list frustrating is the complete lack of details involved. While WoW is reported to have earned $500 million+ in 2008, the next four on the list are reporting $150-$500 million, and the final five are reporting anything in the $50-$150 million range. To the company's credit, this isn't the final analysis. Their detailed February 16th report promises to give more information on each of the top 10 games. We certainly look forward to that.
