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Catch an insider glimpse of a Fallen Earth meeting
If you ever thought to yourself how cool it would be to work for a video game company - well, obviously you're not alone. However, the team at Fallen Earth, LLC have decided to release a video that's part-trailer and part behind-the-scenes at their indie studio. Entitled only "Fallen Earth Marketing Meeting" it shows off not only the team's passion for Fallen Earth, but reveals that one guy who still hopes for "elves... magic" in the mix. Aww, poor misguided soul. For a very silly look at an up-and-coming studio (and of course, their new MMO) be sure to check out the very tongue-in-cheek "marketing meeting" video behind the break.
The Daily Grind: How many MMOs do you have installed?
Recently there's been a handful of MMO bloggers who have decided to go on a game purge. The idea is to take a really close look at all the games on your drive and blow all the MMORPGs off your machine that you're not playing anymore - and don't expect to play again. While I'm not suggesting everyone do drive maintenance (of course, if you're in the mood to, feel free) it did stop to make me think. Apparently Ardwulf had 13 MMOs on his drive before he purged them down to 4, Heartless_ went from 6 to (potentially) 2, and while Syncaine doesn't report the number of games blown away in the reformat, he's down to 2 as well. Gordon from We Fly Spitfires isn't quite sure what to uninstall, since - as he rightly notes - MMOs are a pain in the arse to reinstall and patch again later. In the spirit of a good hard look at your desktop, this morning I figured it would be fun to ask how many MMOs everyone has on their machines currently? I'm a bit of an abberation at 30, however I built my office desktop with 2+ terabytes of drive space specifically so I could leave MMOs on it. (You never know when you'll need to log in for work.) In comparison, my other half (also an MMO fiend) generally keeps only about 4-5 on his drive at a time, if that many. How about you? How many MMOs are currently on your machine? How many are collecting dust? How many are you actively playing?
One Shots: Needs more Snuggie Wizards
Last night we attended the Sony Online Entertainment party here at Dragon*Con 2009. While there, we were introduced to something new courtesy of EverQuest II's Senior Producer, Alan "Brenlo" Crosby - Snuggie Wizards! Today, in honor of last night's momentous Snuggie Wizard spotting, we bring you a great EverQuest II image from Ratwarlock, MMO blogger, who has sent in several gorgeous EverQuest II images. Ratwarlock writes in: [This] is simply a snapshot of an adventuring party deep within the halls of Guk. Guk is a dungeon zone introduced in the most recent expansion, and is among the hardest 6-man dungeon instances currently in the game. I believe this group was a paladin, a fury, a troubador, a warlock, inquisitor, and necromancer. We'd bet a Snuggie Wizard would tear that place up - or at least make his group-mates jealous of his comfortable warmth, anyway. If you've got a great image showing a group adventuring, we'd love to see it. Just email it to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the name of the game, and a quick description. All games from large to small are welcome! All it takes is a few minutes of your time. (Bonus points for Snuggie Wizard screens.)%Gallery-9798%
Massively multiplayer online... boobs?
Did you know that MMOs and breasts have a long history with one another? It's true, you know. From the time MMOs came onto the scene, so too did scantily clad women with huge hooters. Also, yes, this is indeed one of "those" articles. The article where we talk about breasts seriously, I mean.Sanya Weathers, no stranger to the MMO industry (or breasts, for that matter) just recently took a pretty funny tour of how breasts work into advertising, whether we like it or not. From box art to marketing departments, she looks at some of the good, the bad, and the downright horrible when it comes to putting hot women on boxes to sell games.If you're up for a laugh, go check out her article over at MMORPG.com. It's funny, it's insightful, it's historical, and it's full of what men want most -- awesome games. (Get your head out of the gutter if you thought that last line was going to be another boob joke.)
BlizzCon 2009: BlizzCon Bingo
It's that time of year again: BlizzCon is almost here, and WoW.com is proud to present our annual game of BlizzCon Bingo. The rules are simple: just print out this year's bingo card, bring it along with you to the show, and then when you see something printed on the card (like Chris Metzen with his sunglasses off, or Ghostcrawler drinking a liquid that may or may not contain gin), mark it off. Observe five in a row (you can have the welfare epics in the middle for free), and you win!You'll notice that the options run the gamut, from an expansion named Cataclysm (a pretty safe bet) to seeing Ozzy play a Blizzard game (not so likely). Almost all of this stuff is probably available somewhere on the convention floor, though you'll have to really look to find everything.And if you do win, make sure to find one of us from WoW.com at the show and show off your finished bingo card. We might just have a nice prize for you, from a pat on the back to something even better.%Gallery-5359% BlizzCon 2009 is coming up on August 21st and 22nd! We've got all the latest news and information. At BlizzCon you can play the latest games, meet your guildmates, and ask the developers your questions. Plus, there's some great looking costumes.
Bad Company 2 marches into Q1 2010 battlefield
Such fantastic, eloquent wordplay! Man! You see, the headline says that developer DICE's latest first-person shooter marches into the early 2010 battlefield ... because March is when the vehicular, open-world mayhem begins (that's the 2nd in North America, the 5th in Europe). Perhaps it went over your head: "march" is what soldiers do ... into a battlefield. Woah ... but isn't that also the name of the franchise? Oh, snap, it's Battlefield! So, let's recap: Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is marching this March into a video game battlefield because that is what soldiers do and this is a video game called Battlefield about soldiers in a battlefield. This March. Battlefield. Field of battle.%Gallery-43916%
Wolfenstein RPG out now on iPhone and iPod touch
Electronic Arts has released the Wolfenstein RPG for the iPhone and iPod touch -- the game is available on the App Store for $4.99 right now. It's based in the world of Wolfenstein, but it's not your normal first-person shooter. Instead, it's actually a mobile turn-based RPG, adapted from an older cellphone platform for Apple's handheld. Considering its origins, the game looks pretty good, and it's got a silly sense of humor as well -- you can read books to gain abilities and power-ups, or play a chicken-kicking minigame. Reviews are pretty excellent on iTunes, so if you're looking for something a little different to play as a role-playing game, it might be worth a look. Even more anticipated than this game is the Doom RPG, with the same type of gameplay, but set in id software's Doom universe (notable, among other things, for its BFG weapon). Odds are that if this game does well, the Doom RPG (and maybe even Orcs and Elves, originally seen on the DS) probably won't be far behind.
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.
One Shots: Behind me? I'm not falling for that one
There's something to be said for putting one over on someone. There again, some bad guys are just stupid to begin with. Take for example this mean-looking bandit from Lord of the Rings Online. You can almost imagine his friends trying to warn him about what's coming, but he doesn't listen. That said, the real story isn't that far off from the made-up one! Artarus from the Snowbourn (EU) server writes in: When you outlevel your enemies you can do all sort of funny things. Dance with them, eat with them, laugh at them, and they wont ever notice you. In Archet, planting a fire arrow in the back of this Blackwold's head adds one to the list.If you've read this far, it means you like One Shots, so why not do us a favor and send in some screenshots from your MMO gaming? We need lots more screenshot love, and you're the best ones to help us out. Just grab screenshots from your favorite game (or hey, least favorite, if you're playing it) and send it to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name and a quick description. We'll showcase the screenshot and give you the credit for sending it along.%Gallery-9798%
Wrath of the Who?
I love this comic from the very talented miggy over at WoW Ladies, not only because it's funny, but because she's got a point. Back when the Battle for Mount Hyjal instance in the Caverns of Time appeared in game, we all wondered why we were going there in the first place -- unlike the other CoT instances, there were no dragons to fight or strange factions messing with the continuum. All that could happen in there is that we'd screw everything up and ruin time as we know it (and given all the wipes that went on in there, we probably did). But with the Argent Tournament, Blizzard seems to have gone even further: not only is there no clear reason for us to do it, but we're actually ignoring the threat at hand.As you know if you've read Sacco's excellent (and completely spoilerrific) guides to the Coliseum raid and the Tournament 5-man, there is a tacked-on reason we're doing all of this stuff, and it's that the Horde and Alliance want to send their strongest people to go after Arthas, and the Tournament is a way of sussing out who's most worthy. But though that makes for some great lore cutscenes, doesn't it still undermine Arthas' strength? How powerful can the guy be if there are so many people lining up to kill him we have to fight over it?Don't get me wrong, we're definitely looking forward to the Coliseum, and it's definitely brought some interesting things and rewards to the game. Just like CoT, in the light of the lore and the MMO genre at large, it's a great addition. But it is funny that the great Lich King's main tactic seems to be to have us fight it out between ourselves way before we ever bother taking a shot at him.
One Shots: Noisy ninja
When we heard the infectious Free Realms theme song by The Dares, we knew we were headed for some silliness. After all, if a game is truly about "your world" as the song declared - meaning player choice - well, that's the stuff today's bubble-gum pink One Shots is made of. It comes to us courtesy of Brian H, who tells us a bit more about this image: Just a fun little screen shot I captured of my level 20 ninja being a real ninja, you know, in pink...One Shots relies on you, dear readers, to send in your images of adventure, silliness, or battle! It's easy to participate. Just email an interesting, cool, etc. screenshot to us at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the name of the game, and a brief description. We'll put it up here for everyone to check out and give you the credit. So send in those screenshots!%Gallery-9798%
Snow Leopard out in September, wallpaper available now
Snow Leopard is going to be uber cheap, so there's not really any reason to not pick it up -- if you make good, regular use of your Mac, odds are that you'll also make enough use of a copy to justify the value. But even if you're not taking the $30 plunge, Macenstein has the most important part of the OS upgrade covered: the wallpaper. Just like the OS itself, Snow Leopard's wallpaper is only an incremental update from the current version (Macenstein says it looks "faster," and we can see what he means), but just in case you want to at least make your old G5's look like they're all upgraded, just "Set as Desktop Background" and there you go.Rumors that the wallpaper will actually make your computer faster (or give you back that 6GB of hard drive space that the actual upgrade will give you) are unfounded, and probably shouldn't be trusted. But then again, you never know.
One Shots: Obvious statement is obvious
We love easter eggs and other strange little things from various video games. Today's One Shots showing one off from EVE Online is pretty fun - and thankfully more OK with the GMs than some of the can art we've had sent in to us. This particular shot was sent in to us by Nicholas J, who also sent the following note: [Here's] a little easter egg that you can occasionally find in a few places. Of course, if you want to see the obvious statement, you'll have to click on through to the full-size image to see it; it just doesn't work when the image is small.If you've found something strange, unusual, or just easter-eggish on your recent journeys in MMOdom, we'd love to see a screenshot. Just email it to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the game it's from, and a brief description. We'll post it up and give you the nod for pointing it out. %Gallery-9798%
WoW Insider Show special video edition live tomorrow
The day has arrived. A little while ago, we challenged you fans to get us over 9000 Twitter followers, and somehow, some way, you delivered. So now we have to keep our promises -- tomorrow, the WoW Insider Show, which has only ever been an audio podcast, will include video with our live feed, and you'll be able to see the faces of all your favorite bloggers (for better or worse). Turpster and I will be dressed in our finest threads, we'll be toasting champagne (so bring your own if you want to toast with us, 21+ please), and we'll host a cavalcade of bloggers and friends of the show on live video. We've got some surprises planned, and hopefully Ustream will hold up under the strain -- whatever happens, it'll surely be wild.The show begins our Ustream page at May 23, 2009 3:30 PM EDT var date_span = document.getElementById("date"); var date = new Date(date_span.innerHTML); var monthname=new Array("Jan","Feb","Mar","Apr","May","Jun","Jul","Aug", "Sep","Oct","Nov","Dec"); var weekday=new Array("Sunday","Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday", "Friday","Saturday"); var year = date.getFullYear(); var day_of_month = date.getDate(); var month = monthname[date.getMonth()]; var day = weekday[date.getDay()]; var hour = date.getHours(); if (hour > 11) { if (hour > 12) {hour -= 12} am_pm = "PM"; } else { am_pm = "AM"; } var minute = date.getMinutes(); if (minute < 10) { minute = "0"+minute; } date_string = day + ", " + month + " " + day_of_month; date_string += " at " + hour + ":" + minute + " " + am_pm; offset = -date.getTimezoneOffset()/60; if (offset >= 0) { offset = "+"+offset; } date_string += " in your time zone (GMT"+offset+")"; date_span.innerHTML = (date_string); , or you can jump after the break to see an embedded feed. The audio archive of the show will appear here on Monday, and we'll have a video version on Ustream, but unfortunately Ustream will only save one video stream -- mine. So if you want to see Turpster and our guests on video, someone in the live audience might have to Fraps it out. And directly after the show, we'll be spending some time on Zangarmarsh (It Came From the Blog is our guild over there on Horde side, and I'll be hanging out and dueling Peggle if you want to stop by).Whew. It will be memorable, I can guarantee that. We'll also talk a little bit of Warcraft, and of course we'll talk about the new WoW.com and what it means for the podcast as well. We'll see you (and by see you, I mean you'll actually see us) tomorrow afternoon.
One Shots: Snakes on a plain
It's the blockbuster action-adventure screenshot of the summer! This is the one everybody's been waiting for! It's full of intrigue, sand [snow?], and Age of Conan graphics... it's snakes on a plain! Okay, okay, so we don't know much about this screenshot other than it came from Age of Conan, and it's not really a plain, but that's why we have a note from Brenden M. who sent today's One Shots in to us. He explains a bit about it: Just came out of the black castle in Khopshef Province and saw this view. Thought you might like it. Any screenshot where we get to make a pop-culture reference is cool with us. It's the weekend! Time for gaming! So when you're out adventuring, why not grab some screenshots to send in to us. Email your images to oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the name of the game, and a quick description. We'll post it here and give you the credit. %Gallery-9798%
Why do crap apps still exist? They sell.
The Wall Street Journal's Digits blog takes a look at "crap apps" -- those pieces of junk on the App Store that do one thing and do it pointlessly, whether that thing be farting or belching or making the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard (yes, really) or what have you. And they come up with a very intriguing, albeit obvious, reason that the App Store seems so filled with completely terrible and silly apps. Why? Because they sell.Yes, even "legitimate" iPhone developers -- those people working hard to create an innovative touchscreen interface, or bring some crucial functionality to the iPhone -- are finding that of all the apps they release, the crudest and most stupid are the ones that sell. They profile a guy whose serious movie apps aren't selling, but whose cobbled-together-in-five-minutes gimmick apps are making a mint. In short, the reason our App Store is full of way more fart apps than apps like Twitterific 2.0 is because people are paying for the fart ones. The message we're sending with our wallets is that if you want to make a million dollars on the App Store, don't toil away to polish your groundbreaking award-winning puzzle game. Just give us a gag we can show to our friends.Is it right? I'd say no, but then again, even I have been pulled in to a gimmick app or two: I bought Cat Piano (in my defense, I've gotten enough entertainment out of it to find an easter egg: shake your iPhone while playing). But next time your finger is poised over the "Get App" button on that 99-cent belching app that you just know the friend you're seeing later will get a total kick out of, think to yourself: is that two-second gag worth an App Store full of crappy apps?
Free Realms shows off the fun with their launch video
Today's the day! The crowd over at Sony Online Entertainment are throwing open the doors to their new casual, fun for all ages MMO, Free Realms, and you're all invited. For those of you (maybe all, what, two of you?) who haven't noticed the deluge of Free Realms news we've put out since beta started, SOE has sent along a special video featuring their mascot, Chatty the Squirrel. At least, we think that's a squirrel.Regardless of just precisely what the madly-coiffed mammal is, one thing you cannot deny is that Free Realms boasts a lot of fun mini-games, a variety of things to do, and the always welcome price tag of free. So while we're waiting for the servers to come up later today, why not enjoy the new Free Realms official launch trailer behind the break. It was voted 'most likely to earwig you with that catchy theme song' by its class.
One Shots: Nooblegarden
There's something to be said for new characters. Sometimes it's a friend who came to game with us, sometimes it's a new alt, and once in a rare while, it's just a character rolled to relay one very silly image. No, we really don't think that's the only reason Johanis sent in a World of Warcraft screenshot of this shiny new Priestess, but we did get a good chuckle out of it when we read the brief note that came along with it. So, along with Noblegarden frippery, what gave us a smile? Check it out: Here is Faylana, a newly created Priest in World of Warcraft. She is fully enjoying her Spring Festival Dress and Bunny Ears. Next stop... Playboy Mansion!If you're enjoying a holiday event of some type, why not send in some screenshots of the merriment? We love to see what's going on in different MMOs throughout the year. Just email them to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the game it's from, and a brief description. We'll post them here on One Shots and give you the credit.%Gallery-9798%
This cake runs WoW
We've seen some awesome Warcraft-related cakes before, but this one is probably the most literal we've come across -- it's an actual representation of a laptop, complete with what looks like a to-scale keyboard, and little letters etched on the keys. Sure, it's a little more pillowy and frosted than your average MacBook, but that edible paper screenshot does look really cool. And before someone in the comments asks: what addon is that around the ability buttons?You can see all of the other cakes we've collected so far in the gallery below. And as always, if you spot (or even make) a WoW-related confectionary contraption, drop us a note so we can check it out.[via Wonderland] %Gallery-31459%
Guildwatch: Let them eat cupcakes
The Zug Initiative on Kael'thas turned two a little while ago, and to celebrate, their guildie Pacheco made these adorable cupcakes. The Horde symbols are red fondant, the Hearthstones are white chocolate (which sounds way too tasty), and of course the other ones say "Zug Zug." Very awesome. The guild had a little local gathering to celebrate, and we're sure these things were enjoyed. Congrats on two years!Lots more guild news about all of the drama, downed, and recruiting news from around the realm's in this week's Guildwatch (a little late, but given that it's Patch Day, you're probably used to delays by now, right?). To send us your guild information, drop a note to wowguildwatch@gmail.com. Click on to read on!
