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A Tale in the Desert is under new management
After years of inactivity on the A Tale in the Desert front, you might be forgiven from not noticing that the title changed hands last month. That's OK, we didn't see it before now either. Citing preoccupation with another project, eGenesis has handed over management and development of A Tale in the Desert to Pluribus Games. The upside to this transition for gamers is two-fold: The new owners have made the game free for the time being and are preparing to start up the next iteration of the story, Tale VII. "EGenesis has been overwhelmed with their newest project, Dragon's Tale, and has not been able to devote the time needed to ATitD. It is our belief that we will be able to greatly improve the game for you, our customers," Pluribus announced. [Thanks to Alan for the tip!]
Some Assembly Required: Virtual world roundup for 2014 and beyond
Just over two years ago there was a great disturbance, as if millions (or so) of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. Yes, something terrible had happened: a beloved virtual world was destroyed. And that left a number of sandbox refugees looking for a new place to call home. At that time, Some Assembly Required offered a roundup of the then available virtual worlds that could possibly offer accommodation, depending on what qualities players most desired in their games. But as things are wont to, they changed; a lot can happen in the MMOverse in 24 months, from additional features in existing games to new games to the loss of more worlds. So it's time to update this list of virtual worlds to reflect 2014 and beyond. Take a look and see what titles or titles-to-be have the sandbox features that best make a game a home for you.
The Daily Grind: What tale do you like to tell?
Everyone has a story. If you play MMOs, chances are you have many of them and you like to tell a few choice ones from time to time. Today, I'm inviting you to do so. One of my favorite stories comes from The Burning Crusade era in World of Warcraft. I played a Druid, and one day my guildmate Val was auto-following me to a dungeon while she was eating some dinner at the keyboard. Well, I couldn't resist tweaking her, so I juked quickly and jumped off a cliff, taking her character with me. My Druid shape-shifted into flight form instantly while Val went splatty-splat, with screams and laughter and curses pouring out of Vent at me. So what tale do you like to tell? Let's hear it today! 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: Which MMO story has moved you?
Sometimes I don't think that MMO writers get enough credit for the truly great tales that are embedded into our game experiences. Perhaps that's because there's a lot of fluffy nonsense tales that surround them, or perhaps it's because we're just so used to skipping past the story to reach the objective. Even so, I have to believe that there are stories that touch and move us in MMOs, because I've encountered several of them. I have a particularly strong connection to many of the accounts that unfold in The Secret World. One story that I pieced together via lore discoveries and missions is the tale of Carrie Killian. We never meet her in the game, but we do explore the burned shell of the Black House, where this fortune teller was burned alive after a mob rampage. After learning all of the events, I had a lot more sympathy for this poltergeist than I did for the townsfolk. So which MMO story has moved you? Which has remained lodged in your memories even unto this day? 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!
Choose My Adventure: My tale in the desert begins
Last week's Choose My Adventure poll was a real nail-biter! There were four games that were all within a few votes of each other. In the end, the winner by five votes was A Tale in the Desert, and I'm thrilled to be able to write about this game for my turn at CMA. As much as I like elves and orcs, I'm ready for obelisks, pyramids, and plenty of sand. I created my character over the weekend and began my path to citizenship. Did I make it through, or did flax farming get the better of me? Help me plan my course!
MMO Blender: Beyond Shawn's Thunderdome
If there's one thing I've noticed about these MMO Blender articles, it's that the Massively staff members seem to really like their sandboxes. Maybe it's not even so much a staff preference as it is a statement about where we all are as MMO players. Themeparks have been done and have been perfected, but many of us want to stretch the limitations of a truly persistent and open online world. At least that's what I'd like to think. It's an ideal situation I can dream about, but do we all really want a truly open world with limitless possibilities? What would we do with so few rules? My perfect MMO has what I'd consider to be the best of all worlds. The trick is, of course, getting it all to work in one game.
Guild Wars 2 weaves together three story types
ArenaNet Continuity and Lore Designer Jeff Grubb claims that there are three types of stories that players will encounter in Guild Wars 2, and he's written up an informative post explaining how the team has woven these tales into the game. "This is an underlying theme of the game -- people coming together and cooperating to fight a greater foe," Grubb explains. The first type is what he calls Story of the World. This is the over-arching narrative that deals with the biggest threat to the world (the Elder Dragons) and how it is to be countered. ArenaNet chose to use dynamic events to tell these stories so that players are gradually made aware of the threat. The second story type is your personal one, which tells of your own rise to power, fame, and glory in a variety of ways. Finally, there's the story of the five central iconic characters in the game (Destiny's Edge) and how they relate to you and each other.
One Shots: Woodland critters
TERA isn't quite two weeks old, but it's already offering up some spectacular views. Kromic on the Dragonfall server paused while riding on his mount to take this shot. He writes in, While doing some exploring on my trusty steed in TERA, I found a great view of the capital city Velika. His screenshot is just after the cut, along with three more images of woodland critters doing their duty to spice up our MMO scenery.
The Soapbox: The battle for story
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. When I was in grad school, one of my favorite classes spent a couple of sessions talking about the use and importance of story in teaching. It opened my eyes to the fact that stories are one of the most universal elements of the human experience, from antiquity to modern times, ranging from a little kid playing with toys to an adult penning a novel. We simply love to tell and listen to stories -- they grab our attention, spark our imagination, teach us valuable lessons, and create lasting memories. But somewhere along the years, something went horribly wrong when it came to MMOs and stories. MMOs were always supposed to be the ultimate platform for storytelling, as both developers and players could pitch in to weave epic sagas, and for a while that seemed to be the case. Lately, however, I've seen a movement that is thrashing hard against stories in MMOs, typically using one of the following two statements: "Get your stupid story out of my game!" or "Stories are better left to other forms of entertainment." It's made me a sad panda to realize that MMO storytelling is under attack by the very players who should embrace it, and often they're acting as if they're being dragged, kicking and screaming, into future MMOs where story is placed as a priority. Make no mistake: The battle for story is on, and the stakes have never been higher.
