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MacTech Conference offers TUAW reader pricing
You know how you see TUAW staffers on the ground at various conferences? Well here's another to add to the list: TUAW is once again sponsoring the MacTech Conference, and as in the past, you can find some of us in attendance. If you haven't checked out MacTech Conference 2013, this year's speaker lineup is (as usual) fantastic -- including keynote speaker Jacqui Cheng from Ars Technica, and an incredible cast of IT leaders, as well as developers from around the world. Not to brag, but I've made it on the speaker list too, so you can hear me talk about things in person instead of on a podcast! This year's event has not only a new venue, but also an expanded schedule, a wide array of pre-conference workshops, more sessions, more labs, more certifications and a new Vendor Forum. Here are the two most important things to know about MacTech: You've heard me talk about the "hallway track" at conferences, and particularly for developers and IT folks, this hallway track is second to none. So not only do you get to hang out and chat with awesome attendees, but you also get to do it over some of the finest food available at any conference I've attended. Organizer Neil Ticktin has said on more than one occasion, "You will never walk away hungry from a MacTech event." Truly, if you are hungry at MacTech, you are actively doing it wrong. Not only is the conference full of great material, but also this year, MacTech has added four full-day pre-conference workshops. They are: iOS Development 101 by RayWenderlich.com; Mastering Auto Layout for developers by Rich Warren; The Automation Mindset-Scripting, Command Line, and More by Scott Neal; and iOS Mobility Solutions by Russell Poucher. Pricing for the pre-conference workshops is currently US$299, and includes lunch. Early Bird pricing of $999 for the three-day conference will end Monday, September 30. However, as a TUAW reader, you can save an extra $100 -- but you need to act quick. Discounted hotel guest rooms are selling out fast, and you don't want to miss out!
The Daily Grind: Will you be playing Aion open beta this weekend?
With Aion's open beta set to launch this weekend (September 6-13), we're curious: Do you plan on giving it a shot? The game has gone through several closed beta phases dating back to early June. All closed beta phases leading up until the very last one were using an older version of the game client (1.1). They've recently upgraded to 1.5, so we highly suggest giving it a try before making any final judgments based on early testing experiences. We also hear the open beta version will be the version Aion launches with in North America and Europe. Be sure to read up on Shadow of the Balaur.Open beta characters will be capped at level 30, which is high enough to test a good mix of what the game has to offer including Rifts and the Abyss. Rifts are portals that will take you into your enemy's PvE lands and the Abyss is a giant PvPvE zone where the game's three factions battle for supremacy. I'm personally going to play a bit next week as an Elyos Gladiator named Snafzg on the NA servers, so make sure to say "Hi!" if you see me putzing around. Settling on a class has been challenging thus far. Want to know more about Aion? NCsoft invites you into the world of Atreia where the Elyos and the Asmodians fight each other and the evil Balaur for control of the shattered planet. Check out out all our coverage of this must-play MMO!
Meet the Team: Tim Dale
Once a week our writers will give you a glimpse into their lives, to let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more Meet the Team.What do you do for Massively.com?I'm a Columnist which is a fancy way of saying that I tend to go on at great length on a much more infrequent basis than real news writers. I'm quite new here so am still working out the rest of this answer as I go!What's your favorite MMO?I think I'm still looking for my favourite MMO, which might be one reason I tend not to settle in any one title for years at a time. With any luck, I'll know it when I do see it! Past MMO lifetimes I have enjoyed a great deal include Star Wars: Galaxies, back when it was new, and not a very Star-Warsey game at all, a long spell in Anarchy Online living a very Bladerunnerish life in an imaginary distant future and my first and only run from 1 to 60 in pre Burning Crusade World of Warcraft, a game which is as popular as it is for good reason.%Gallery-33889%
Meet the team: Jon Shute
Once a week our writers will give you a glimpse into their lives, to let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more Meet the Team.What do you do for Massively.com?I'm a blogger, so it's my job to write about the news and try and write interesting things about what's happening in the world of MMOs. What's your favorite MMO?Now that's an unfair question as I like several games for different reasons. Hands down the game I've played the longest is EVE Online as my main character has just hit six years old. After that long I think you pretty much have to accept that you really like the game. There's really nothing that can beat letting the players define their own game in my book, although you have to be the type of player who seeks out content or wants to provide content for others through corporations in order to get the most from it. I think that deep down it's one of the most hardcore whilst still actually being carebear friendly games there is. It's hard for me to argue how important so called carebears are to the game considering how many industry activities my corp is involved in at the moment, and I know it's become a cliche but if you find the right corp there's a useful role for everybody.%Gallery-33889%
Meet the Team: Lemuel Pew
Once a week our writers will give you a glimpse into their lives, to let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more Meet the Team.What do you do for Massively.com?I'm a webcartoonist, I draw the weekly Massively feature, Grinders. That's pretty much the full and half of it. What is your favourite MMO?City of Heroes, hands down. I've played most of the MMOs that have come to market since EverQuest, looking for the Next Big Thing, and I didn't even realize I had found it until I was on my third year of playing City. I'm still going strong. The game has enough variety to entertain my short attention span, the gameplay, while unarguably repetitive, has a rhythm that really entertains and relaxes me, no matter what role on a team I'm playing. I never was a fan for loot ("Judge a toon not by the color of their armor, but the content of their attributes."), I blame this mostly on not growing up on Dungeons & Dragons. I'd rather spend points on stats behind the scenes than wear a hand-me-down piece of clothing from a corpse... seriously, am I the only person bothered by that?%Gallery-33889%
Meet the Team: Lesley Smith
Once a week our writers will give you a glimpse into their lives, to let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more Meet the Team.What do you do for Massively.com?Well I've just started as a Contributing Editor for Massively and WoW Insider so I write news, source interviews and generally do whatever I'm told. IRL I'm a journalist specialising in, amongst other things, computer games. I was tapped because I have experience with covering lots of MMOs, even if I don't play them myself. At the same time, I'm based in the UK so that's got to be worth something, right?%Gallery-33889%
Meet the Team: James Egan
Once a week our writers will give you a glimpse into their lives, to let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more Meet the Team.What do you do for Massively.com?I'm a Contributing Editor at Massively and am focused on our day-to-day news coverage of the MMO industry. While I cover pretty much anything that happens in the MMO world, I'm largely responsible for our EVE Online coverage (beyond Brendan Drain's excellent column here, EVE Evolved.) So I hit much of the big news as it relates to EVE, either from an industry standpoint or (what I much prefer) a player's standpoint. I also conduct most of Massively's interviews as they relate to this particular sci-fi game, whether it's with the devs or the players themselves. Of course I don't just write about EVE though and I'll cover pretty much whatever captures my interest. While I've enjoyed some fantasy games, namely Warhammer Online, I have this kind of disconnect with the fantasy genre in general and am more drawn to sci-fi titles and their lore. More often than not, when you see my name beneath a headline at Massively, it's in connection with something sci-fi. The impending wave of science fiction and post-apocalyptic themed MMOs means this is a great time for me, both as a gamer and a writer, and I hope I'm carrying this over to my work here.%Gallery-33889%
Meet the Team: Kyle Horner
Once a week our writers will give you a glimpse into their lives, to let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more Meet the Team.What do you do for Massively.com?As a news monkey - aka blogger -- I'm responsible for rubbing two neurons together in my head and making posts. In addition to that, I also put together a weekly column, The Digital Continuum. That's my regular thing, but you'll probably see interviews or other forms of one-off features on the site from me as well. And I'm also the fellow who puts together those nifty little images you see along the right of the website.Massively is more or less a full-time thing for me, and I love every minute of it. Well, expect when we're electroshocked. That part stings.%Gallery-33889%
Meet the Team: Michael Zenke
Once a week our writers will give you a glimpse into their lives, to let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more Meet the Team. What do you do for Massively.com? I'm the Managing Editor for the site. That means that in addition to doing regular news blogging and the occasional feature, I help the contributing editors focus their coverage and writing. I try my best to connect the site with development houses and publishers, and generally work towards getting new and better content on the site every day. For the past year plus the site's been my life and fulltime work, and I'm really very fond of it. That probably sounds weird, but that's the way it is.%Gallery-33889%
Meet the Team: Craig Withers
Once a week our writers will give you a glimpse into their lives, to let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more Meet the Team.What do you do for Massively.com? I contribute the weekly column, Behind the Curtain. Instead of having a real job on the site posting up actual news, I'm lucky enough to just hang around and ramble on for a few hundred words every seven days, in a general opinion-based format. What's your favorite MMO? World of Warcraft, easily. Like the T, I feel like a bit of a sell-out choosing WoW, but this is my time in the spotlight, and I'll pick whatever game I want to, and there's not a thing you can do to stop me! Sorry. My entry into the MMO world started with Star Wars Galaxies, which I still dabble in occasionally. I've also spent a fair bit of time in EVE Online, but haven't had an active account in either for quite some time.%Gallery-33889%
Meet The Team - Mark Turpin (The T)
Once a week our writers will give you a glimpse into their lives, to let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more Meet the Team. Above is Turpster, my main character in World of Warcraft, and his crotch-mounted parachute (What? Where do you keep yours?)What do you do for Massively.com?I am the host of Massively's number one rated video podcast 'TurpsterVision' I am proud to have won many prestigious awards such as 'Massively's #1 Video Podcast MMO Review Show' and 'Most improved odor'.What's your favorite MMO?Without a doubt it's World of Warcraft but that is a terrible answer; I feel like such a sell out saying it. It's the MMO equivalent of someone asking what your favorite band is and you giving the answer 'The Beatles' - everyone loves the Beatles, it doesn't say much about you. So in an extremely long winded way of saying it, I guess I really liked Lord of the Rings Online and Warhammer Online, but gosh darn it! I love the Beatles.%Gallery-33889%
Meet the Team: Colin Brennan
Once a week our writers will give you a glimpse into their lives, to let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more Meet the Team. What do you do for Massively.com? You probably know me as the opinionated guy who writes the Anti-Aliased column here on Massively, which covers the culture and dynamics of both developers and players in the MMO industry. Past that, I'm also one of the blogging staff, so you'll see a news post from me every now and then.%Gallery-33889%
Meet the Team: Brendan Drain
Once a week our writers will give you a glimpse into their lives, to let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more Meet the Team. What do you do for Massively.com? I'm an EVE Online columnist here at Massively. Rather than writing short blog posts, I write the EVE Evolved column every Sunday and cover EVE topics ranging from guides and game mechanic commentaries to PvP and economics. I'm also the resident EVE Online expert and occasionally people call on me with questions. Sometimes I'll write a featured article about another game that I'm enjoying such as when I looked at free running and urban exploration in MMOs and when I took a tour of Age of Conan's player cities.%Gallery-33889%
Meet the Team: Krystalle Voecks
Once a week our writers will give you a glimpse into their lives, to let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more Meet the Team.What do you do for Massively.com?Currently, I'm a staff writer, which means I do a bit of this and a bit of that. Additionally, I do One Shots daily and have just picked up the mantle of First Impressions, which we'll be restarting soon. Originally, I helped found the site as a co-lead, but I stepped down last month to dedicate more time towards my degree and certifications. That adult responsibility thing gets in the way of the fun stuff at times.%Gallery-33889%
Meet the Team: Samuel Axon
Once a week our writers will give you a glimpse into their lives, to let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more Meet the Team.What do you do for Massively.com? I'm a core blogger. That means I'm one of a handful of writers who keep the regular flow of content going, hit news when it comes up, and sometimes do featured articles. What's your favorite MMO? My all-time favorite is Meridian 59. I still haven't played a game I liked half as much as that one. It was a completely different kind of game, and there hasn't been anything even remotely like it since. It was horribly flawed in many ways, but I'm sad no one -- except maybe CCP with EVE Online -- has refined what it tried to do.%Gallery-33889%
Meet the Team: Shawn Schuster
Once a week our writers will give you a glimpse into their lives, to let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more Meet the Team.What do you do for Massively.com? I'm the game lead for Lord of the Rings Online and Guild Wars. This gives me the responsibility of focusing on these two games with interviews, dev tours and feature articles. I'm also a general blogger, which basically means I handle news for the ever-growing list of games I feel comfortable writing about. I also co-host and edit the Massively Speaking podcast.What's your favorite MMO? Right now, it's LotRO. While it's not the one I've spent the most time with, it has most of the features I would consider for my Holy Grail of MMOs.%Gallery-33889%
Meet the Team: Alexis Kassan
Once a week our writers will give you a glimpse into their lives, to let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more Meet the Team.What do you do for Massively?My task is to write a column on in-game economics and crafting. Though I do not cover news about economics, I tend to analyze the aftermath of changes. I analyze a range of games, usually those I play. They include City of Heroes/City of Villains, World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Age of Conan, Runescape, and sometimes EVE Online (though I don't play that one much).What's your favorite MMO?I have a long-standing affection for Ultima Online: Renaissance. It was my first MMO (thanks to my then-SO) and drew me in. It also relied on a less structured group mentality for conquering larger challenges, which I thought was fascinating. And there was no end. Because there was no "leveling up" type of dynamic, you could train skills and stats to respec your character and take on enemies without having to worry so much about reaching the endgame content. One other aspect of UO that I enjoyed was the in-game housing. OK, so there was limited real estate... and housing was terribly expensive... but that housing was worthwhile to hold on to. You could set up crafting stations like forges and anvils in your home. That's something I miss in some of the current MMOs that have housing. The functionality seems to be limited to storage and a place to teleport to.%Gallery-33889%
Meet the Team: Adrian Bott
Once a week our writers will give you a glimpse into their lives, to let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more Meet the Team.What do you do for Massively.com?I'm a general writer, which means if I'm awake and stuff goes down, I cover it. Or I pass the buck to someone who knows more about that particular game than I do. I focus on City of Heroes/Villains, since I know it pretty well by now. I think I'm also the token 'guy who's never played World of Warcraft', but that's not an official position. What's your favorite MMO?It's still City of Heroes without a doubt. I'm really enjoying Warhammer Online and Age of Conan, but there are many aspects of CoX that just aren't like other games, and keep me coming back. The community, for one; people remark that the community is one of the friendliest and most helpful of any MMO, but then, you have to remember that many of them are people who initially signed up for a game where the whole point was to be a hero and help people, so it's perhaps not all that surprising, really.%Gallery-33889%
Meet the Team: Tateru Nino
Once a week our writers will give you a glimpse into their lives, to let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more Meet the Team. What do you do for Massively.com? I'm a general writer, though I act as the team specialist for collaborative virtual worlds (particularly Second Life), and legal analysis. I help brainstorm and do some proofreading, and examine the philosophy of MMOs and virtual environments. What's your favorite MMO?I spend more time with Second Life than anything else -- but NCsoft's CoX and Turbine's LotRO tie for first place for my MMO gaming time.%Gallery-33889%
Meet the Team: William Dobson
Starting this week, once a week, our writers will tell you more about themselves, and let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more Meet the Team.What do you do for Massively.com?Currently I contribute features and guides, and have just switched my main focus to Warhammer Online.What's your favorite MMO?I'll give two answers here. I think it's always hard to beat someone's first experience in an MMO world, which is why EverQuest has to be right up there with my all-time favorites. Looking at more recent times though (in the last few years), although it's early days I think that WAR has a lot going for it and will remain my current favorite for some time to come.%Gallery-33889%
