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Japan is building a 'Neon Genesis Evangelion' bullet train
Japan is yet to create any towering bio-machines in the style of Neon Genesis Evangelion, but it's doing the next best thing: decorating a Shinkansen bullet train to look like the iconic purple Unit-01. It's being put together by Japanese train operator JR West to celebrate the the 20th anniversary of the hit mecha anime, as well as the 40 years that have passed since the completion of the Sanyo Shinkansen line. In addition to its striking paint job, the "500 Type Eva" train will have an Evangelion-themed interior and heaps of special memorabilia for fans to buy. JR West says it'll launch this autumn and run until March next year, completing two trips between Hakata and Shin-Osaka each day. We're on board, as long as the train isn't required to fight any formidable Angels along the way.
The Think Tank: Did Star Wars Galaxies' NGE poison the MMO development well?
The MMO community's favorite hyperbole must surely be "that's such-and-such-a-game's NGE." Star Wars: The Old Republic redoes talent trees? SWTOR's NGE! Guild Wars 2 revamps its noob game? GW2's NGE! World of Warcraft adds a panda race? WoW's NGE! This bugs me for several reasons. It distorts and devalues the very real impact the NGE had on Star Wars Galaxies, which if nothing else is annoying from a historical perspective. The NGE was a lot more than a talent tree revamp or goofy race, and it also changed over time. But more importantly, lazy use of the term might make MMO developers change-averse, even when changes are desperately needed. Do people overuse the term? Has there ever been an MMO trainwreck as big as the NGE? And above all else, did NGE poison the well -- are developers afraid of making sweeping changes, however much they are needed, lest they be unfavorably compared to one of the worst disasters in MMO history? These are the questions I asked the Massively team in today's Think Tank.
The Daily Grind: What sort of mechanical changes would cause you to quit an MMO?
MMOs often undergo extensive mechanical changes throughout their lifespan, and while sometimes said changes do serve the larger game and its future profitability, other changes seem destined to piss off current players in service of chasing a new potential player group. If you've played in one particular MMO long enough, chances are you've lived through significant game changes, whether they're basic class revamps or more severe alterations like combat system makeovers or the removal of core mechanics like item decay. Assuming you haven't quit your MMO of choice over extensive mechanical changes, what kind of tweaks could prompt you to do so? 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!
Leaderboard: What's the worst MMO design decision of all time?
Naoki Yoshida has spoken, and it seems as if Final Fantasy XIV players can take or leave the title's exorbitantly expensive free company housing. The fan outcry surrounding this particular brouhaha has been considerable, so much so that I'm reminded of other game company gaffes that elicited howls of protest from all corners of a particular fandom. While it's a bit of a stretch to compare FFXIV's housing debacle to the likes of, say, the NGE, it's not a stretch to ask which MMO design decision tops your list as the worst of all time. Vote after the cut! Ever wish that you could put to rest a long-standing MMO debate once and for all? Then welcome to the battle royal of Massively's Leaderboard, where two sides enter the pit o' judgment -- and only one leaves. Vote to make your opinion known, and see whether your choice tops the Leaderboard!
The Daily Grind: What MMO slang are you sick of hearing?
Wrath babies. I hate the term. I hate everything it stands for. I hate the way it's used by old-school World of Warcraft players to dismiss the opinions of those who started playing later. It doesn't even make sense -- in pretty much every genre, there's always someone more old-school than you. You started in Vanilla? Someone else started in beta. And someone else started in alpha. And someone else before that. And a whole bunch of people started in games long before WoW showed up; all WoW players are "babies" by comparison. It's a pointless pissing contest that shuts down real debate about the quality of a game's content in any era. I'd rather never hear the terms "fail," "pay-to-win," "TORtanic," "frothies," and "dumbing down" again, either, and "such-and-such-game's NGE" can jump off a nice tall cliff. They're overused to the point that they are meaningless. But those are just my pet peeves. What MMO slang would you love to see nuked from orbit? 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!
Massively reminisces on Star Wars Galaxies' 10th anniversary
Has it really been 10 years? Yep, Star Wars Galaxies did indeed launch on June 26th, 2003. And yep, this is indeed an anniversary post for an MMORPG that closed down in December of 2011. Why the reminiscing about a game that we can't -- ahem -- play any longer? Simply put, SWG deserves it. If you're reading this article, you already know why it deserves it, so we'll skip the sandbox proselytizing and get right to the part where Massively's Starsider veterans raise a glass and share a few of their favorite launch-era memories.
Ask Massively: Developers, players, and respect
Welcome back to Ask Massively We're pleased you could join us on the deck of the Massively yacht for today's edition. You should really try a mojito. It's the best. In between drinks today, we're talking about respect -- the earned kind, not the given kind. Don't worry; I'm not talking about respect you have for us or even for each other. (We all know that's non-existent.) I'm talking about the respect game studios have (and don't have) for MMO gamers in general.
Hyperspace Beacon: Gearing up for SWTOR Update 1.5
Star Wars: The Old Republic fans have been anticipating this week since the middle of the summer, and many players who dropped the game shortly after launch are looking forward to trying it out again. Veteran players are most likely familiar with how gear progression works in this game, but those returning will probably need a refresher course. After all, BioWare has made some significant changes, especially to PvP, since the game launched. It's quite understandable if you return to the game and are completely lost when considering how viable your current gear is. Today, I'm going to speak to the returning players and help them put their gear to rights once Update 1.5 launches. If you are a solo PvEer who hasn't looked too hard at endgame gear progression, a PvPer who hasn't looked at the PvE side much, or a raider who wants to dabble in PvP, this mini-guide will help you get started and will give you the gear-progression goals you should shoot for.
SOE's John Smedley expresses regrets over SWG mishaps
Star Wars Galaxies may be no more, but its legacy lives on in memories, discussion, and hindsight analysis. Sony Online Entertainment's John Smedley had a frank talk with Industry Gamers in which he owns up to the mistakes of how the studio handled the title, particularly surrounding the much-maligned Combat Upgrade and New Game Enhancements. What would Smedley do if he could go back and give it another try? His first regret is launching the game before the space combat system was done, and his second is that SOE didn't talk and listen to its players more. "We would have encouraged more in-depth discussion with the community surrounding the idea of any game modifications," he said. Smedley is highly optimistic for the studio's future, particularly in its fervent belief in the free-to-play business model: "We think that 'Free to Play, Your Way' is our future. Giving players choices is the theme of how we're moving forward as a company, which means greater flexibility for our player base."
Ten things to do in Star Wars Galaxies before it's gone
When SOE announced that Star Wars Galaxies would be sunsetted by the end of the year, many players despaired. They gave up. They saw their long years (eight years!) of play turn to dust. But others looked on the impending closure as incentive to do all those things they'd been putting off, all the activities they just hadn't gotten around to. There hadn't been time. The game is too big for anyone to do it all. And that's precisely why Star Wars Galaxies is a legend among sandbox fans despite the NGE disaster. It's a living museum of great MMO ideas from the past, of player-driven economies, of open-world housing, of high-end, game-supported roleplay, of roaming in a game that lets you dictate the terms of your play. It's a rare relic you should see in the flesh, today, right now, before it's gone. You can pick up a weapon and fight in any MMO (excepting A Tale in the Desert, that is), but there are so many things you can do in Star Wars Galaxies that you can't do anywhere else with the same level of immersion. And I'm going to tell you which 10 you should do first... before it's too late.
The Anvil of Crom: Surviving the craftpocalypse
So last week we started talking a bit about Age of Conan's 2012 crafting revamp. I laid out a few things that foul up the current system -- from a tradeskiller's point of view, naturally -- but I didn't quite get around to talking about solutions. Though that's on the to-do list, I may not get around to it this week either, since a few mails and some forum discussions brought up a couple of interesting tangential points that I hadn't considered. Surprisingly, I got email from folks who aren't really looking forward to the big tradeskill upheaval that Funcom game director Craig Morrison hinted at in the August development update. Even more mind-boggling was the fact that these folks aren't even crafters.
The Daily Grind: When have changes overwhelmed you?
Ask most Star Wars Galaxies fans what the problems were with the NGE, and you're likely to get a list that dwarfs most screenplays. But it's hard to argue that one of the major failings was that it was trying to make too many changes to the core of the game in too short a span of time. Even if the changes were good ones -- and many players were of the mind that they weren't -- it was a massive shift in a game without enough time to adapt to all the alterations. Few MMO players would argue that games never need to change, if only to remove parts of the gameplay that are unintentionally broken. But changes that rush on too fast can leave players disoriented, unhappy, and more than a little confused. So when has the pace of change in a game overwhelmed your ability to cope? Was it a major change like World of Warcraft's massive overhaul of the old world, or even something simple but far-reaching like City of Heroes' Enhancement Diversification? 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!
The Daily Grind: What's your favorite SWG memory?
So yeah, millions of sandbox fans cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. Something terrible has happened, yada yada. By now the news of Star Wars Galaxies' untimely demise has circled round the interwebs a few million times. What better time, then, to get on with a bit of nostalgia, amirite? Whether you're a dyed-in-the-wool Pre-CU-loving NGE-hating John-Smedley-cussing veteran, a former player who took a break and planned on returning one day, or a newly interested curiosity-seeker a bit late to the party, chances are you've got an SWG memory or two in your back pocket (along with all your droids and speeder bikes). Today's Daily Grind is pretty simple. What's your favorite SWG memory? Tell us. Tell us now (or we'll force you to watch Attack of the Clones). 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!
The Soapbox: The Uncle Owen paradox
Disclaimer: The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week's writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column. This week, the venerable Star Wars Galaxies celebrates its eighth year of existence. I was there in the beginning -- before the beginning, in fact. I did what a lot of you early SWG players probably did: I had a guild and a guild city, multiple accounts, a booming business as a chef, and a character who could entertain and fight. Even then, we realized how different SWG was from its immediate predecessors like EverQuest and Dark Age of Camelot. We'd returned to the earlier age of Ultima Online, of persistent worlds (as the term was used back then). It was more a world than a game, and in it we could roleplay whatever we liked, to a point. Nowadays, we'd call it a sandbox. Old-school MMO gamers know well that the sandbox is under attack. Some will blame it on EverQuest, some on World of Warcraft, some on the free-to-play phenomenon. Among the Massively commenters, there's a large contingent of gamers who consider SWG's own NGE to be the beginning of the end of the classic sandbox. I can't say they're wrong when it comes to the philosophy governing new MMOs, but the sandbox isn't dead yet.
Rise and Shiny recap: Allods Online
Oh, Allods Online. You poor, misunderstood beast. Those who love you speak very little, while those who once loved you and were burned for whatever reason... well, they speak the most. I tried to keep this in mind when I took an "official" look at (or re-visit in) the game. Allods has been called many, many things since first rearing its beautiful head, but no one seems to talk about how fun, or not fun, it is. Generally all you hear about are cash-shop woes. I already have a character that I never leveled past 11, so I logged him in and got right to it. Despite all the patches, fixes, tweaks and cash-shop rearranges that went on since I last actively played, the game seemed pretty much the same. It was still beautiful, ran well, and sounded nice. So what was I looking for? What would I notice that I had not noticed before? Click past the cut and I'll tell you all about it.
The Perfect Ten: Death penalties
Death penalties belong in that tier of MMO discussion topics that is reserved for the most controversial subjects, along with skimpy armor and the New Game Enhancements. Death, as we know well, comes for us all with big, nasty, pointy teeth. But for some reason, we are not fans of it, neither in real life nor in online games. One of the reasons death penalties continue to be a divisive subject is that they used to be brutal beyond belief in MMOs back in the olden days of yore. As the MMO genre progressed, the penalties were lightened and experimented with in an effort to avoid driving players barking mad because of them. So we've ended up with two camps: one group of gamers who campaign for harsh death penalties to make the world seem exciting and dangerous, and another group that campaigns for lenient penalties in the interests of sanity. So today we're going to go through 10 of the most-used types of death penalties in MMOs, starting with the most brutal and ending with the most lenient. Stay for the after-column party as well, as you'll get a taste for this debate in the comments section!
The Daily Grind: Would you roll back a portion of your favorite MMO?
Jagex is making headlines lately with its trailblazing Wilderness vote. Whether you're a fan of the long-running Runescape MMO or not, you have to admit that it's pretty cool that developers would leave an enormous and game-altering decision up to the players. Aside from that novelty, the potential rollback got us to thinking about sweeping changes to our favorite MMOs, and whether or not we'd reverse them given a Jagex-style choice. Whether it's earthquakes like Ultima Online's Trammel or Star Wars Galaxies' NGE, or subtler and more recent tweaks like Age of Conan's removal of Tortage PvP, the MMO landscape is littered with changes both large and small. Are there any features of your favorite MMO that you'd revert or roll back if you could? Which ones and why? 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!
The Game Archaeologist and the year that was 2010
Earlier in the year when I started this column, I realized two things. First, I'd be giving myself as much as any of you a crash-course education in older MMOs, particularly with some of the more fringe titles that I'd never really explored up to this point. And second, it would be a challenge to find the right mix of elements to do these MMOs justice. So before we look back at all the games this column covered in 2010, I'd like to ask each and every one of you to take a minute and drop a comment about what you'd like to see The Game Archaeologist do next. What titles would you love to see honored in 2011? What features are the most interesting to you -- dev interviews, player interviews, history overviews, photo galleries, first impression playthroughs, or links to community fansites and blogs? What could I add to make The Game Archaeologist even better? I also want to take a minute to thank the readers, players and developers who have contributed to this column so far. While there are MMOs that get a lion's share of the press these days, we at Massively are committed to spotlighting as many of these games as possible, particularly if there's a passionate community and dev team behind them. I've loved hearing your stories and hope that in passing them along, perhaps we've opened a door or two to games that you might've never considered before. So let's hop in our hot air balloon and soar over the year that was 2010!
The Daily Grind: What are your MMO regrets?
"Regrets, I've had a few -- but then again, too few to mention," Frank Sinatra once sang. "I did what I had to do and followed through without exemption." Tell me all about it, brother. Most of us have accumulated regrets from our gaming experiences over the years. Perhaps you didn't jump on board a terrific title back in its hayday and now can only experience it in its twilight years. Maybe there's a guild with which you built up tight relationships -- and then you let those relationships fall to the wayside as your interest in the game faltered. It could even be something as small as choosing a class ill-suited to you but refusing to give it up after you put a heap-load of time into it. What do you regret doing -- or not doing -- in MMOs? And more importantly, how have you been able to live with yourself ever since? Perhaps we should start a Massively Regret Recovery support group. Anyone who purchased Star Wars Galaxies' Trials of Obi-Wan right before the NGE is invited to be the keynote speaker of the first session. 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!
The Perfect Ten: MMO cataclysms
Today sees the launch of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, which represents a destructive "reboot" button on the world of Azeroth. The old has been made new by virtue of fiery explosions that have rent the very earth in twain, and WoW gamers will have to find their footing all over again. As you might imagine, it's made one big-ass mess, which is compounded by the fact that there are no janitor classes in the game to sweep it up (the next hero class, perhaps?). However, the notion of an in-game cataclysm is hardly the sole domain of Activision-Blizzard; on the contrary, large-scale apocalypses pop up all the time in MMOs. After all, nothing grabs the attention like the end of the world (but hey, you still feel fine)! In a list that in no way is meant to capitalize on any expansions that may or may not be on the market, we're going to strap on our Kevlar suits, slather our arms with 1000 SPF sunblock, and take a brief tour of 10 worlds that have dated cataclysms -- and lived to tell the tale.
