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World of Warcraft brings back its anniversary event
Did you get everything done that you wanted during World of Warcraft's 10-year anniversary event? If you did, great, but if you didn't... well, still great because you're getting another shot at it. Community manager Bashiok posted on the forums that the team is bringing back the anniversary event for one more week, starting today at 1:00 p.m. EST and ending on January 13th at the same time. The reactivation is confined to the North American servers, so players elsewhere in the world hoping for more time with anniversary antics will be sadly disappointed. There's also nothing new in the event, so if you have everything, you can sit this round out. Otherwise, log in today and start celebrating a decade of the game's operation... like, again.
Best of the Rest: Sam's picks of 2014
WildStar I grew up during what I'd consider "the golden age" of MMO games. I was there for the launch of World of Warcraft, as well as earlier titles like EverQuest and Ultima Online. The genre has a very special place in my heart, and WildStar felt like the last, major, "true" MMO (as opposed to games like Bungie's Destiny that possess MMO-like features) release that we would see in a long time, possibly ever again. A last hurrah, if you will. And what a hurrah it is. We don't really "review" MMOs here, but through a series of postcards, I chronicled my time with a game that is in no uncertain language a fantastic piece of craftsmanship. The visuals are bright and colorful, with a Pixar-esque personality evident throughout. The gameplay is fresh and fast, requiring constant focus instead of hotkey rotation memorization. And of course, the housing. Oh, how I could spend hours simply customizing my plot of land with various wallpapers, decor, even mini-quest objectives. WildStar is a thoughtfully-constructed game with a wealth of content. True that it relied a bit too much on large-scale endgame raids and the promised monthly updates fizzled shortly after launch, but I don't regret a moment spent on Planet Nexus.
One Shots: Shadow play
Welcome to a new year -- and the best year of One Shots you'll ever see. I know this because I've been to the future (December 31st, 2015) and spent those precious time-bending moments flipping through all of the One Shots column this year. Amazing stuff, people. Really well done. Well, we might as well get started with your glorious photo journeys! Our very first pic of the year is from reader Becca, who sends us this groovy bit of shadow play in Elder Scrolls Online: "While waiting for a boss to spawn in a public dungeon, my friend Arkslan and my character Rozyn had some fun with lighting." Great. Now I know what will be lurking under my bed tonight: a sing-songy bard. Terror knows no name, but it does sing harmony.
WoW Archivist: 3.0.8, the 'disaster' patch
WoW Archivist is a biweekly column by WoW Insider's Scott Andrews, who explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? It first appeared on our sister site on January 2nd, 2015, and is included here by permission. Any game that survives for 10 years and counting will have its growing pains. There will be moments when the urge to deliver the best possible content gets the better of the developers, when they reach too far but only figure that out after it's too late. Wrath of the Lich King was so ambitious in scope as originally conceived that Blizzard simply couldn't deliver what it announced. Blizzard cut major features before the expansion even went into beta testing. Wrath's systems went live with patch 3.0.2 in October 2008, and the expansion hit live realms two months later. As with most expansions, there were early problems. In patch 3.0.8, Blizzard tried to fix those problems. Instead, it made them worse. Far worse. WoW Insider itself called the patch a "disaster."
The Game Archaeologist: How DikuMUD shaped modern MMOs
Even though there are hundreds and thousands of MMOs spanning several decades, only a small handful were so incredibly influential that they changed the course of development for games from then on out. DikuMUD is one of these games, and it is responsible for more of what you experience in your current MMOs than you even know. Of course, that doesn't mean everyone knows what DikuMUD is or how it shaped the MMOs that came out after it. You might have seen it used as a pejorative in enough comments that you know it is loathed by many gamers, but I find that there are varying degrees of ignorance about DikuMUD in the community. What is it, exactly? Why is it just the worst? And is it really the worst if we like the games that can point to this text-based MMO as a key ancestor? Today we're going to dispel the mystery and myths of DikuMUD to lay it out there as it was and is today.
Choose My Adventure: World of Warcraft High
Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft launched on November 23rd, 2004. For anyone having a hard time putting that date into context, consider this: My sister, who's now in college, was eight years old when WoW's gates first opened. Some of our readers with nice jobs and adorable children were still in middle school or high school. I've personally been playing WoW off and on since 2005, giving me about nine years of history with the game. This month's Choose My Adventure was two parts adventure and one part nostalgia. And as it turns out, sometimes the past really does belong in the past.
Choose My Adventure: On autopilot in World of Warcraft
Life as a shadow Priest in World of Warcraft is pretty mellow. Mostly you bounce around from quest to quest and enemy to enemy, ticking off objectives by murdering orcs with dark magic and scaring everyone with your spooky shadow face. It's not a career path I'd recommend for your average citizen, but if you're looking to become an instigator in the clan wars of Warlords of Draenor, there are worse paths to take. We accomplished quite a bit this week in Choose My Adventure. Our Blood Elf Priest gained a couple of levels, DPSed his very first Warlords of Draenor dungeon, and completed the Frostfire Ridge set of story quests. And while it's all been very, very good, I'm still having a hard time connecting to this latest World of Warcraft expansion.
The Daily Grind: Which MMO has the most content?
A Massively commenter weeks ago wrote that World of Warcraft has the most content out of any MMO, full-stop, and everyone around him seemed to take that at face value, which astonished me. Look, I'm subbing to WoW even as I type this, and I think WoW has gobs more systems than some people give it credit for, but the most content of any MMO? Not a chance! Even if we discount wide-open, pure sandboxes -- which, depending on whom you ask, have either no content or infinite content -- we'd still have to factor in sandparks and classic MMOs that have 20 expansions, more updates than WoW per year, multiple expansions per year, and so many systems and zones that it's just flat out overwhelming. There are a dozen MMOs that intimidate people with how much stuff they pack in. You'd never finish them. By comparison, WoW is a mere snack -- an awesome, polished snack, but a snack all the same. I don't know which MMO has the "most" content, but I'm pretty sure WoW wouldn't make even the inevitable top 10 list. What about you other folks who've been around the MMO block a time or two? Which MMO has the most content? 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!
WoW Archivist: A Glyphmas story
WoW Archivist is a biweekly column by WoW Insider's Scott Andrews, who explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? It first appeared on our sister site on December 17th and is included here by permission. Professions in Warlords of Draenor feel completely different than in any other era in WoW. Creating powerful items is no longer a matter of farming, luck, or gold. Instead, we have to produce their key ingredients via garrison work orders. Leveling crafting professions is no longer about creating a bunch of useless items that we instantly vendor or disenchant, and reaching max level is now a slow burn instead of a quick grind. This is the first expansion where I haven't hit max level on all my professions within the first week or two. The profession that has changed the most is the most recent: Wrath of the Lich King's inscription, added in 2008. Even the interface changed: The glyph window was originally part of the spellbook UI, not the talent pane. Because of those changes, for a few very special weeks, inscription transformed the financial futures of countless WoW players. I was one of them. We called it Glyphmas, and it was magical.
World of Warcraft proposes tradable subscription currency
Six-point-one. That's all you World of Warcraft players need to hear to get psyched for the new year. The dev team took a brief pause in rolling in all of the money from Warlords of Draenor sales to talk about what's coming up with Patch 6.1 as well as a proposed new subscription currency. The patch, which will go into testing soon, will contain improvements to garrisons, a legendary follower, the ability to send tweets from the game, the new Blood Elf models, shorter flight master routes, incentives for visiting friends' garrisons, and the new heirloom collection tab. Even bigger than this news is word that Blizzard is "exploring" adding a subscription currency that sounds like EVE Online's PLEX. The proposed idea would allow players to buy and sell game-time tokens for in-game gold: "Our current thought on this is that it would give players a way to use their surplus gold to cover some of their subscription cost, while giving players who might have less play time an option for acquiring gold from other players through a legit and secure system."
Choose My Adventure: World of Warcraft and the shadowy priest
It's been one week since Choose My Adventure's voters sent me on the path of darkness in World of Warcraft, daring me to cast off my healing roots and adventure forward as a Priest who deals only in shadow. I've gained a couple of levels, tinkered with my garrison, and killed hundreds and hundreds of orcs. I've even managed to work out some of last week's confusion, finding a spell rotation that works for me and laying waste to any PvE enemies that cross my path. I've also completed about a million quests, Warlords of Draenor-style.
WoW and FFXIV see boosted playtime on Raptr; ArcheAge playtime 'cratered'
Another month, another Raptr report. Yesterday Raptr.com posted its most played PC games list for November, and MMOs did rather well. Unsurprisingly, World of Warcraft surged up the list to #2 thanks to the Warlords of Draenor expansion. "The MMO's monthly play time was up 71.3% versus October," Raptr's press release says. And though WoW "likely" drew from League of Legends' numbers, it couldn't quite usurp the MOBA's #1 seat. Among other MMOs, ArcheAge playtime "cratered by 39.97%," but World of Tanks and Final Fantasy XIV both saw rises in theirs. Guild Wars 2 rose in rank, Raptr says, but lost playtime in November vs. October. SWTOR fell two places since October. As always, Raptr roundups come with the caveat that they represent Raptr users on PC, not all gamers; some MMO studios are also known to boost their Raptr numbers with in-game incentives. But since some of these games refuse to release population data, you might call this the next best snapshot of popularity outside of touring the servers yourself.
One Shots: It came from the comments section!
In addition to sending in your favorite MMO screenshots to oneshots@massively.com, some of you have taken to the comments section in these columns to share your pictures and stories as well. That's totally fine with me, by the way, as long as the email submissions continue as well! However, today I'd like to call attention to a few of these comments section shots and give them a little more attention up above the line. Our first entry is from commenter Ausj3w3l, and I have to admit that it made me laugh. I think it's something about the way that this character is standing. Fat and proud, just like Mother Nature intended! "Most of the armours in TERA are completely over the top but fabulous, but eh... nothing beats the fuzzball in swim pants," she posted. The fun doesn't stop here! We've still got three more smashing pics to go!
Perfect Ten: Looking back at the biggest MMO news of 2014
Well, my chums, here we are at the tail-end of 2014, having achieved all of our goals and new year's resolutions. Even better, we've survived what's turned out to be one of the wildest, rockiest, and most exciting years of MMO news in recent memory. This was the year of high-profile game launches, even more popular expansions, layoffs, and some epic-level studio face-palming decisions. It's easy to sit here and say that we predicted everything that was going to happen this year, but c'mon, you have to admit that you were surprised by at least one or two events in this industry. It's incredibly difficult to sum up the biggest news of the year without coming to grips with the fact that many stories aren't one-and-done; a lot of what I'm going to be talking about in this list happened over the course of weeks or months and still may not be fully over. That's how news stories are sometimes!
The Daily Grind: Would you play on a WoW progression server?
Recently I resubscribed to World of Warcraft, spent about two hours back in the game, and then uninstalled it once again. Call it $15 spent on a nostalgia trip of curiosity. The overwhelming feeling that I got coming back after being mostly gone for four years is that everything had moved on and I wasn't there to move on with it. Sure, I could catch up in time, but I lacked the will to do so. But you know what would get me back and in a big way? If WoW took a page from EverQuest and instituted a progression server. Maybe the devs can't recreate the game as it once was, but I'd play a WoW that started out only with the core content and then slowly unlocked the expansions over a series of months so that the server's playerbase could go through it together. It's a pipe dream, I know. But would you play on a WoW progression server? 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: I am so confused in World of Warcraft
Last week's Choose My Adventure polls for World of Warcraft set me on a very unexpected path. Male Blood Elf? Really? If you had asked me to predict the result of the class/race/gender/faction polls, I would have been extremely super-wrong. I thought for sure Massively's readership was full of carebear Alliance sympathizers who spend their WoW hours hosting hug parties in Darnassus. Anyway. This week saw me creating our new character, using the included-with-Warlords of Draenor instant level 90 character boost, and diving through the Dark Portal to experience the starting moments of Blizzard Entertainment's latest bundle of WoW content. It was... something.
Enter at Your Own Rift: Five advantages RIFT has over WoW
From its inception, RIFT has taken the position of being both a World of Warcraft clone and a direct competitor for its playerbase. It's not as if Trion Worlds has been subtle about it: The early campaign slogan of "You're not in Azeroth anymore" all but reached over and tweaked Blizzard's nose. While some didn't like the direct comparison, I thought it was a wise move for RIFT to acknowledge its obvious ancestry and its position as a cocky upstart. While I've never been of the opinion that only one MMO can "win" or that we should always disparage games other than the ones we play, I won't deny that comparisons get made. Listen, World of Warcraft is a fun, slick game, one I spent many years playing. But just because it's one of the most popular MMOs in the world and stuffed full of 10 years of content doesn't mean it holds all of the cards (nor is it the MMO that currently grabs most of my gaming time). In fact, RIFT has several distinct advantages that it's used and continues to use against Big Blizz, and it's those advantages that I want to praise today.
WoW Archivist: Upper Blackrock Spire
WoW Archivist is a biweekly column by WoW Insider's Scott Andrews, who explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? It first appeared on our sister site on December 4th and is included here by permission. You may have taken Upper Blackrock Spire, Warlord Zaela, but the classic version lives in our hearts, where your orc friends can't get to it. In 2005, UBRS was the dungeon everyone desperately aspired to run. We begged to run it. We paid to run it. We sat in capital cities for hours just hoping, dreaming, that someone, somehow, would put together an UBRS group. The dungeon was the pinnacle of content for classic WoW's "nonraiders" and the gateway to raiding for raiders. Quests here attuned you for Onyxia's Lair and Blackwing Lair. (And who doesn't love a good lair?) Another quest allowed your Molten Core raid to summon Majordomo Executus. No endgame PvE'er could avoid UBRS, even if he or she wanted to. We didn't avoid it, though, because the original "Ubers" (ooo-berz), as players affectionately called it, was awesome. What made it so special? Why was it so revered, and why are some players sad that it has been removed from WoW forever? Let's turn back the Empowered Hourglass to 2005 to find out.
The Daily Grind: Who's your favorite child NPC?
This might be a difficult topic because in truth we have not seen an over-abundance of children NPCs in MMOs, nevermind ones that speak or are part of missions. I'm mostly reminded of the tag-along I had in World of Warcraft's Children Week when I think of young characters. However, I'm most impressed with the handling of Taimi in Guild Wars 2's storyline. She's easily the best character of the group, and somewhat unique in being very young and also partially disabled. I love that those two characteristics don't define who she is, but instead her vivacious and sometimes reckless genius does. So who is your favorite child NPC in an MMO? 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!
WoW's garrisons aren't a guarantee in future expansions
It was open season for World of Warcraft fans yesterday as the development team opened up with an AMA session on Reddit. The eight-person team taking on player questions included director Tom Chilton and lead designers Ion Hazzikostas and Cory Stockton, meaning that fans got plenty of in-depth answers to almost everything. Whether or not you liked all of the answers is another story altogether, but there's a handy-dandy summary of answered questions and links to the full answers that should save a great deal of scrolling through comments. Chilton confirmed that there are currently no plans for queued scenarios in Warlords of Draenor, although they're not off the table for future expansions. He also stated that there may or may not be Garrison-like elements in future expansions and that there will be "a surprise" regarding the last boss of the expansion. Check out the full summary for more quick links; there's a lot of information in there.
