RIFT: The Planes of Telara Announces Free-to-Play for Levels 1-20
Trion Worlds, the developer of Rift: The Planes of Telara, has officially announced that they game will be going free-to-play for levels 1-20. This is similar to when Blizzard opened up World of Warcraft for levels 1-10 (now -20) free as well, but with massive restrictions. Rift is far less restricted and makes a game certainly worth its merits. Interested? Then check out MMO Anthropology, they have the story.
Star Wars: the Old Republic Ilum PvP After Patch 1.1 and Faction Imbalances
With patch 1.1, Star Wars: the Old Republic discovered that faction imbalance can really wreck open-world PvP and by offering incentives for players to play open-world, but without a mechanism that permits regrouping really amplifies the problem. As a result, BioWare discovered with SWtOR culture that some things come with unintended consequences.
As a relatively new property, SWtOR is still growing up.
Link, via MMO Anthropology and YouTube.
Massive Multiplayer Online — It’s Not Just for Games
Ever wonder where captchas come from? These days, they’re usually part of a massive online project to digitize books, one word at a time. This talk from the TED conference shows the power of the internet when organized for massive collaborative projects. It can even make 4chan useful.
Star Trek Online and the Social Implications of Becoming Free-to-Play
In the newest MMO Anthropology the transition from subscription services to free-to-play for the video game Star Trek Online. Over the past three months Cryptic Studios and Perfect World Entertainment have been preparing their MMO property for this transition and there have been numerous changes to the game world. The most significant of which the addition of dilithium—a commodity/reward currency that overtook other reward currencies and melded them into one—and the addition of a pay-currency called Cryptic Points.
Other changes have been the addition of a virtual item shop and a tier system between Silver (free-to-play) and Gold (subscription) accounts with access to different bonuses and additional game enhancements such as more character slots, ship slots, inventory, and etc. for subscribers.
The introduction of a sudden rush of free-to-play users
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Dungeon Defenders Video Review
The folks over at GameOgre recently asked me to take a look at Dungeon Defenders, a game that’s a cross between tower defense and Diablo. In Dungeon Defenders, you play one of four classes with their own powers and abilities, and your goal is to defend a giant crystal from the incoming hordes of evil. Also, levels and loot. Here’s the video.
BioWare Responds to Bans/Suspensions Involving ‘/getdown’ Exploit and Looting Boxes on Ilum
You too can become invulnerable in Star Wars: The Old Republic but just getting down and grooving — with the /getdown bug — although BioWare has fixed this exploit as of the 5th of Jan 2012. Also, keep in mind that looting boxes on Ilum could lead to getting suspended (or banned) from the game.
Link, via MMO Anthropology and YouTube.
City of Heroes — The Free to Play Review
A while back, I did a review of DC Universe Online for the four hit-dice humanoids over at GameOgre.com. The ogres liked what they saw, and so sent me back into the MMO mines to take a look at the grandfather of superhero MMORPGs, City of Heroes. Gaze in wonder as VideOgre punches hobos, falls into the Hollows, and dances in Atlas park.
Tim Schafer Pitches a Game Idea to Cookie Monster
You know, the Psychonauts guy? And the blue furry thing that isn’t goddamn Elmo?
It’s a City of Heroes Christmas and who doesn’t miss the Level Lord
Back in the early days of MMORPGs—and those days it was 2004—the MMOs started to realize that people wanted more to do than just new content involving episodes and new villains and higher level caps. Instead, MMO companies discovered that people wanted to experience in-game what happened to them outside in the global culture. So City of Heroes added the Winter Event.
With that winter event came some unexpected bugs…currently best described in the most recent MMO Anthropology article,
By far the most amusing phenomena that rose out of the original 2004 Winter Event in City of Heroes happened to be the city-region bosses the Winter Lords. These were gigantic snowmen appearing about ten stories tall, textured as if made entirely out of snow, with icicle noses.
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DC Universe Online Video Review
The happy forest creatures over at GameOgre.com asked me to review the superhero MMORPG DC Universe Online. This time, the request came with a twist. “Build an ogre,” they said, “An ogre to save the world!” Thus, VideOgre was forged.
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