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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.
Jagex pregnant with its third MMO
Look who's expecting: Jagex, the maker of RuneScape, not only has one bun in the oven (Stellar Dawn) but another MMO cooking as well. In an interview with Eurogamer, Jagex CEO Mark Gerhard announced that the company is working on a new fantasy title. "A lot of what we've done to push the boundary for Stellar Dawn will benefit RuneScape and another MMO we're working on," Gerhard said. "We've got the advantage in that we share the same MMO tech platform. From there it's really down to the studios to decide how its [sic] used." While he was reluctant to share the name of the baby, er, new game, Gerhard said that it was not a sequel to RuneScape. This follows their recent announcement of Stellar Dawn, the company's "biggest MMO to date." You can read the full article at Eurogamer.
Runescape's Mark Gerhard talks self-publishing success
Jagex, makers of the successful browser-based MMORPG Runescape, went through a who's who listing of game publishers before ultimately deciding to fly solo and self-publish their free-to-play fantasy title. Company CEO Mark Gerhard minced few words when speaking about the trials and tribulations of securing a publishing deal during a talk at this week's Develop Conference. "We went to publishers like Activision and EA and said we've got an awesome browser game, and they said **** off. We went back and said we've got a million users and they said bull****. The necessity forced us to become a publisher," Gerhard said. Ultimately, Jagex was able to parlay their success into an investment deal with Sony, and is also releasing multiple additional titles including War of Legends, an iPhone game called Bouncedown, and numerous casual titles via the FunOrb gaming portal. Check out the original article at Game Politics for more details.
RuneScape announces 2010 Jagex Cup
RuneScape has announced the 2010 Jagex Cup, an annual competition for clan members featuring both in-game and real-world prizes. The 2009 event drew more than 500 participating clans and 80,000 players, all competing for commemorative plaques, lifetime game memberships, and trips to visit the Jagex development studio. This year's Jagex competition is broken down into three sub-classes: the Combat Cup (PvP), the Skilling Cup (PvE), and the Combined Cup. The tournament boasts weekly challenges in each, all feeding into the Grand Finals. "The Jagex Clan Cup is the largest player event in RuneScape's annual calendar, with three separate competitions run over the summer, culminating in three ultimate clan champions; this will be the most complex and engaging event RuneScape's Community Team will run for our loyal player base," says Mod Kelvin, Jagex Head of Community Management. The tourney will begin on Monday, June 28th, and you can register your clan from now until Friday, June 25th. Check out the official competition regulations for more info.
What if...? Ten canceled MMOs that could've changed history
What if...? Some of the most intriguing questions known to mankind start with those two words, as well as the most maddening. What if...? An entire genre known as "alternate history" is derived from these questions, with scholars and average blokes alike speculating on what might have happened if things went just a little differently. What if Hitler got the bomb first? What if Microsoft developed the iPod instead of Apple? What if Abraham Lincoln decided to see a different play that night? When it comes to MMORPGs, what if's can drive one up the wall. In this volatile genre, more projects have started, canceled, launched, struggled, faded and morphed into new creations than most of us know. Today, we want to look at 10 MMOs that were axed before their launch, 10 MMOs that could've changed gaming history as we know it... if only they got the chance to prove themselves. Let's take a journey, you and I, through history itself, and ponder the greatest of questions: How would the MMO industry be different if these titles had made it to release? Click the first picture on the gallery below to start. %Gallery-94702%
The Daily Grind: Who's your MMO mistress?
Many in MMO circles look down on what they consider to be the second-class citizens of online gaming: browser-based MMOs. In fact, just about every time that we post a news article about a browser MMO here on Massively, it's inevitable that someone will pish-posh the game on the general principle that "all browser MMOs suck." Yet that attitude overlooks one of the key demographics of browser MMO players: us. It's not uncommon for many of us to be stuck with a non-gaming computer for a good chunk of time, i.e. at "school" and "work" and "in the Batcave." While we may not talk about it in mixed company out of fear of being ostracized, I believe many of us have an on-the-side MMO that feeds our addiction when we're away from our main gaming rig. Whether it be on Facebook, a browser or even on a mobile device, what MMO do you visit on the sly when you can't access the real thing? Have you spent time doodling around in City of Eternals, RuneScape or even Pocket Legends when your boss isn't looking? Who's your MMO mistress?
Massively Mobile: iPhone apps for your favorite MMOs part 2
Every two weeks, Massively Mobile brings you the latest news, guides and analysis about MMOs on mobile devices. Covering iPhone, iPad and Android platforms, we're on the lookout for the next generation of MMOs. In the last column, I covered a number of iPhone apps for MMOs. Some kept you connected to the game world, others offered you information at your fingertips, while still others were entire games unto themselves. Today I continue with the second half of the list starting with Final Fantasy XI all the way through Wizard101. In the next Massively Mobile column, I will focus specifically on World of Warcraft mobile apps for both the iPhone and the Android. I have to admit that in the process of researching this column, I became obsessed with one particular app, Warrior Epic: Sagas. I don't even play the MMO, but I found the app to be one I returned to again and again throughout the week. It's very addictive, has an engaging storyline and is a dream come true for equipment micromanagers like myself. Check it out along with the rest of the apps after the jump.
PC Gamer's reader poll honors EVE as the #3 PC game of all time
Reader polls always tend to be an exercise in popularity, bucking conventional wisdom and surprise upsets -- and perhaps never so much as a recent annual PC Gamer poll that asked readers to rank the top 100 PC games of all time. EVE Online scored a surprising #3 spot on the list (falling from last year's #2 position), behind only Fallout 3 and Half-Life 2. This certainly is a testament to EVE's devoted and outspoken fans. Several other MMOs appeared in the top 100, including World of Warcraft (#10), WURM Online (#20), World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (#25), Lord of the Rings Online: The Mines of Moria (#31), Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar (#36), RuneScape (#45), Guild Wars (#72), World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade (#97) and EverQuest (#100). Of course, reader polls should always be taken with a grain of salt (mmm... salty goodness), as large organizational efforts and promotion from one studio or group of fans is often enough to create a skewed result. Still, it's a decent list, and terrific to see so many MMOs given the top honors.
DDO jumps to third-most-popular spot in MMO survey
Market research company NPD has completed its annual survey of online gamers with some fascinating results. They surveyed nearly 19,000 gamers of all ages in January of this year, looking at every aspect from hours played per week to what former WoW fans are currently playing. The results are interesting not only for their variety but because it's such an extensive survey from a company that's been doing this very thing for years. Several interesting changes have come about in the past year: former World of Warcraft players are turning to different games than they have in the past, the subscription model is a lot less popular these days, and Dungeons and Dragons Online has knocked Guild Wars out of the comfy #3 spot it enjoyed for the two previous years. Follow along after the jump as we take a closer look at some of the survey results.
Jagex Founders join Sunday Times Rich List
Earlier this month, we talked a bit about the impressive revenue and profits that Jagex have seen over the past few years, mostly thanks to the long-running success of Runescape. The company began small but saw steadily increasing success over the years, eventually pulling in record profits. The revenue numbers gave Jagex another feather in their cap as founders Andrew and Paul Gower joined the Sunday Times Rich List with their £138 million fortune. The brothers earned another £39 million in 2009, making them the "483rd richest in the UK, ahead of the likes of David Bowie (£100m), Sir Tom Jones (£135m) and Phil Collins (£108m)." Solely from a game industry standpoint, the runner-up for the richest developer title goes to Jon Burton, the developer of Traveller's Tales. He netted a respectable £75 million when his company was purchased by Time Warner. Check out the full story at Develop Online. [via Gamasutra]
RuneScape introduces largest update in game's history
Hot on the heels of some pretty nice financial news for Jagex and comes some good news for RuneScape players: new content. Not just any new content, either. Jagex is calling the Dungeons of Daemonheim expansion the biggest update in RuneScape's history. This expansion is going to keep players busy for quite a while: it's added a completely new underground world consisting of five separate levels, each of which gives "customized rooms." The customization feature is what makes this update so exciting for players: "Every room in the Dungeons is randomly generated and customized to the skill level and abilities of the players that enter it. No two rooms and no two experiences will ever be the same, providing billions of different play-experience combinations." The update adds the Dungeoneering skill as well, giving players a brand new avenue to explore. The Dungeons of Daemonheim expansion is live now, so if you're a RuneScape fan and haven't checked it out yet, it's definitely time!
RuneScape sees heavy profits for 2009
Jagex, the company behind long-running MMO RuneScape, is seeing happy faces all around these days. To absolutely nobody's surprise, profits from past years have seen a sharp rise and the latest round of numbers is no exception. RuneScape has been a growing success for Jagex, and Gamesbrief recently took a look at the company's profits for March 2008 - March 2009: "UK studio Jagex [...] generated £38.4 million in revenues ($59.3M) and £18 million in profits ($27.8M) during the March 2008 to March 2009 period." That's a pretty impressive figure, particularly when you take into account how far Jagex has come from £5.2 million ($8M) in revenues and a £2.7 million profit ($4.2M) back in 2004. Jagex definitely has RuneScape to thank for the majority of this, of course. 94% of this most recent round of profits came from RuneScape subscriptions, according to the Gamesbrief report. Considering that the game is free-to-play, the figures are nothing short of impressive. Take a look at Gamesbrief for the full story.
Bunny hop through our Easter holiday roundup
As Massively readers everywhere recover from the second-greatest candy holiday of the year, many MMOs have also enticed players with virtual sweetness. Easter may not be the most popular of in-game holidays, but there's something very MMO-ish with "collecting" eggs and hunting down giant, man-eating rabbits wherever they trod. Even future MMOs like TERA are eager to get their own virtual bunny event up and running. Take a gander through our Easter holiday roundup, and let us know what your favorite in-game event is! Final Fantasy XI: An Egg-hunter Is Hatched "Initial eggs" are eggs of avian persuasion that have been inscribed with a single letter of the alphabet. During the Egg Hunt, adventurers can receive a random initial egg from the festival moogles once every Vana'dielian day. Collecting and forming certain combinations of initial eggs will garner you event egg-sclusive prizes. World of Warcraft: Noblegarden 2010 Noblegarden will run this year from Sunday, April 4 (this Sunday) through Sunday, April 11. If you've never done Noblegarden before or only done its fairly low-key, pre-2009 version, it helps to know that Noble Gardener (the holiday's meta) is part of the year-long What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been achievement that rewards the 310% speed Violet Proto-Drake.
Jagex Community Dev Diary: Striking a balance
Massively has invited Jagex Games Studio, developer of RuneScape and other online titles, to share with the MMO community some of the unique challenges and tasks that they deal with on a daily basis. In the first of a regular dev diary series, Jagex's Kelvin Plomer (Head of Community Management) and Paul Mayer (RuneScape Community Manager) open up about the difficulty of striking a balance between the needs of players and the direction of developers. The Community Has Spoken: How MMO Creators Balance Development Plans with Player Feedback Community and player involvement are the backbone of any good MMO. One of the huge issues we face as a Community Management team, and as a game developer and publisher, is that all of our players have an opinion on pretty much every aspect of our games...and they're not afraid to let us know about it! What's the issue, then? Well, when you have the largest free MMO in the world in your game catalogue with millions of players, that's one hell of a lot of opinion to attempt to digest, respond to and factor into game development.
Free for All: Are kids' games valid?
I had the dream again, but this time with a twist. I walked through the store, admiring the shelves and shelves of tiny robots, toy trains and action figures. Cool toys lined every shelf, articulated robots and little army men with swappable guns. Tanks, space marines, huge dragons and all sort of wind-ups tempted me. This time, though, I talked to the store owner about how I frequently have this dream, and that normally I find a section of really cheap toys that I pile up in my arms to buy. He proceeded to show me a stack of those type of toys, clearance toys, and offered me entire armies and model kits for just a few dollars. As usual, I woke up before I can buy them and take them home to adorn my office with. It's a slightly frustrating dream, but always a lot of fun. In the meanwhile, I stopped long ago with collecting toys. They take up too much space, gather too much dust and generally get no use at all. I have replaced these toys, though, and now have a new collection of bright and shinies: kids' free-to-play MMORPGs. I have played every one of them I can get my hands on, sometimes getting pretty high up in the game, and sometimes just exploring or talking with other players. They give me that same feeling that a toy gives you. Yes, adult reader, you know the one I am talking about and surely you too have at least a few toys adorning your office as well?
Free for All: How free is freemium?
Welcome to Free for All, a weekly column highlighting the world of Free to Play/Freemium games! The new generation of free-to-play games are not only of the same quality as many "standard" MMOs, but they give players a chance to try them out before they ever spend a dime (if they choose to). I am going to try to make sense out of the masses with this column, so wish me luck and thanks for reading! Freemium is one of those rare hybrid terms that is used to describe some games in the MMO market. Yet, what does it mean? I prefer to use the term "velvet rope", because it places a good picture in your head as to how the game might work. I decided to examine what the term means, and what it might say to a potential player. The best way for me to do this is to look at some "freemium" games that not only do it well, but are some of the most successful games out there, regardless of subscription model.
Runescape announces bonus XP weekend
If you're a Runescape fan, you'll be happy to hear the latest news from Jagex. Runescape is jumping aboard the bonus XP event bandwagon, offering players a first ever Bonus XP Weekend. From Friday March 12th until Monday March 15th, Runescape members will enjoy a heavy buff to XP points on all standard training skills. Whether you're cutting wood, fishing, thieving, or just running around hitting things, you'll receive roughly 2.7 times the amount of XP for all normal training activities. Now don't prepare for a 24/7 gaming marathon quite yet, because it doesn't work like that in this case. You'll get a total of ten in-game hours during the weekend to enjoy the bonus, so keep an eye on your remaining time while you're playing, which will be displayed when you log in. You'll also get a running total of your XP bonus, so look over the official announcement, and enjoy the weekend!
MMOrigins: Life's funny like that, page 2
What started as simple forum posts on tanking and a little number crunching bloomed into a full guide in Issue 2 of EON, EVE's official magazine. When the article was finally in print, EON editor Richie 'Zapatero' Shoemaker came to me with a work proposal. After writing several more articles for EON and acting as editor on countless others, university work began piling up and I had to stop.
MMOrigins: Life's funny like that
We all got started gaming somewhere. For a lot of people, it was the Sega Mega-drive, the Atari 2600 or the NES that signaled their first steps into gaming. For me, it was the Commodore Amiga, a machine that was more a complete home computer than a games console. It was on the Amiga that groups like Team 17, Ocean, Electronic Arts and Blizzard first really made their mark on gaming and it was a great time of innovation in the industry. I recall long nights spent playing Frontier: Elite II, scooping hydrogen fuel from the corona of a star or wormholing into deep space. Another favourite that I still play occasionally was K240, an early space 4x game and still one of the best I've ever played. It was the public domain market on the Amiga that really caught my attention. It's one thing to play a game, but here was the opportunity to make one and sell it via a page in CU Amiga magazine or a PD order disk. I've always been more interested in making games than playing them but being young with no programming experience, I was limited in what I could do. I tooled endlessly with the "Shoot 'em up Construction Kit" and "Reality Game Creator" packages, making countless primitive prototype games that only I ever played.
Study finds explicit material for minors in virtual worlds
Along with violence and game addiction, inappropriate content is one of the bugbears that video games in general and MMOs in specific can't get away from. A recent FTC study took a look at the general safety available in twenty-seven different virtual worlds, including Second Life and Runescape, and their findings were... well, if you're at all familiar with Second Life, you can kind of guess at the results. Nineteen of the worlds surveyed featured some sort of inappropriate content. The worlds targeted explicitly at minors didn't fare a great deal better, with a full half of the fourteen kid-oriented worlds having some explicit content. The report goes on to suggest certain approaches to better handle gating content for younger children, including further prevention of children from fraudulently registering in worlds that are supposed to be exclusive to adults. However, some elements of the study's methodology are a bit questionable, especially as their list of explicit material included words common to anyone with a history of playing video games. (Or cable television.) The full report is worth looking at if you're a parent or if you're interested in the findings, and we'd be remiss not to mention our own ongoing series about playing MMOs in a family setting.
