NCsoft posts

Free trials ahoy for Lineage II

by Seraphina Brennan Feb 8th 2010 at 5:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Lineage 2, MMO industry, News items

Has it been a while since you stepped into Aden? Or perhaps you were never formally introduced to the world of Lineage II but always wanted to give it a shot? Well thanks to NCsoft's newest trial program, you now have a chance.

Lineage II's new 14-day free trial program is welcoming both new users and returning players back to experience the newest free expansion to the game, Gracia Epilogue. While returning players won't be able to use their old accounts, they can use the trial keys to create a brand new account that will let them play up to level 40 with three characters for the 14 days.

So if you've been looking for a game to fill your need to spill blood and siege castles, this might be a good time to try out Lineage II to see if it's for you.

Tags: 14-day-trial, free-trial, gracia-epilogue, l2, lineage-2, ncsoft, pvp, trial

Aion releases first Eye on Community for February

by Rubi Bayer Feb 7th 2010 at 8:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Aion, News items

Aion team member Tamat is back with the first Eye on Community for February, in which he answers player questions and talks a bit about what the developers have in store.

This week's player question was regarding the fort timer surveys from a while back, and Tamat revealed that they've finished looking over the surveys and will be changing the capture timer to an hour next week.

Eye on Community lived up to its name by providing a pretty extensive community roundup this time, directing players to a handy application to monitor server status, a guide to a couple of bosses (Kratia and Harpback -- if you're having trouble with them this is the place to go),a look a one players first month in Aion, and a new reason to keep one eye on the skies in PvP.

Head over to the official Aion site to read the full Eye on Community.

Tags: aion, eye-on-community, ncsoft, tamat

City of Heroes announces Secret Admirer Contest

by Rubi Bayer Feb 5th 2010 at 9:00AM

Filed under: Super-hero, City of Heroes, Contests, News items

Valentine's Day is just around the corner, and City of Heroes is ready and willing to help you woo your sweetheart. Well, as long as your sweetheart is the War Witch -- anyone else and you're on your own.

They're making it worth your while, though. The City of Heroes Secret Admirer Contest invites you to create a digital or homemade Valentine's Day card for the War Witch and submit it for the chance to win some great prizes. While we can't guarantee that the lady herself will be presenting you with her phone number, three people in each category (homemade and digital) will be presented with prize packages including Logitech gaming headsets and a pile of CoH goodies.

The contest is going on now and will last until the submission deadline of February 28th. Take a look at all the rules and regulations here, and good luck to you!

Tags: city-of-heroes, cryptic-studios, ncsoft, paragon-studios, secret-admirer, secret-admirer-contest, valentines day, valentines-day-2010, ValentinesDay, war-witch

The Digital Continuum: The 'Next Big Thing' in MMOs

by Kyle Horner Feb 1st 2010 at 12:00PM

Filed under: MMO industry, New titles, Opinion, The Digital Continuum, All Points Bulletin, Crime

Is All Points Bulletin the "Next Big Thing" in MMOs? While I'm fully aware that Realtime Worlds doesn't specifically prefer to associate the game with this genre, it's very much a part of it -- but it also orbits the fringes of what we commonly refer to as a massively multiplayer online game.

Guild Wars, Guild Wars 2 and All Points Bulletin come from a different school of business models. These games hinge on the idea that most people dislike coughing up 15 bucks a month to keep playing their favorite title. Just look to the success of the original Guild Wars, having a year ago passed six million copies sold. That's a pretty great start for non-subscription MMOs, and because of that success we now have GW's sequel and APB on the way.

Tags: all-points-bulletin, all-points-bulletin-game, apb, apb-ea, apb-game, arenanet, blizzard, brutal-legend, crimecraft, double-fine, ea, ea-all-points-bulletin, ea-apb, ea-games, ea-partners, electronic-arts, electronic-arts-all-points-bulletin, featured, gamerankings, guild-wars, jack-black, metacritic, ncsoft, opinion, realtime-worlds, the-digital-continuum, world-of-warcraft, wow

AionSource.com compromised, e-mails possibly leaked to hackers

by Seraphina Brennan Jan 29th 2010 at 4:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Aion, Events, real-world, Exploits, News items

Yesterday we reported that a wide number of e-mail password phishing scams were being sent out to Aion users. Today, AionSource.com has sent out an e-mail announcement to all of their users that this new wave of scams may have been due to a hacking attack on their website.

Knite Shadowbane, administrator of AionSource, has posted that AionSource.com had been under hacker attack five days ago on the 24th of January. The staff has since cleared the attack and has proceeded to beef up their security, but today's e-mail to all AionSource members warns that their database could have been used for these phishing scams. So, if you are a member of AionSource, keep an eye out for any unusual e-mails coming your way.

Even if you aren't a member, always remember to check the source of any e-mails coming to you that request for you to "access your account" or "confirm your password" or require you to log into an unverified source.

Knite has also posted a handy guide to securing your account, such as changing your password and installing anti-virus software.

Tags: account-security, aion, aionsource, aionsource.com, breaking, e-mail-scam, hacking, knite, knite-shadowbane, ncsoft, password-security, phishing, scam, security, website-hack, website-security

Aion players: Watch your e-mails for scams

by Seraphina Brennan Jan 28th 2010 at 10:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Aion, News items

Keeping your password for your favorite game safe is always a top priority. No one wants to have their accounts hacked or have their passwords lost to someone who's willing to sell all of their items for gold, kinah, or what have you.

So today, as a friendly public service announcement, we here at Massively would like to remind you to make sure you double and triple check any correspondence that looks like it comes from NCsoft or your favorite game company. Today we've received an e-mail telling us that our Aion account password had been changed, and if it wasn't us that we needed to go to the NCsoft master account site and change it back.

We can guarantee you that the link provided was not for NCsoft's account management, but a phishing scam. While the scam letter was pretty obvious, always be wary of e-mails you don't anticipate. If you think there's something wrong, don't click any links in the e-mail -- instead go to your account management website directly to check on your account.

Tags: account-security, aion, e-mail-scam, hacking, ncsoft, ncsoft-master-account, passwords, phishing, public-service-announcement, security

ArenaNet LFM for Guild Wars 2

by Krystalle Voecks Jan 28th 2010 at 1:30PM

Filed under: MMO industry, New titles, News items, Guild Wars 2

Do you have mad programming, writing, or art skills? (We're going to assume you love MMOs since you're here.) If you do and are either in the Bellevue, WA area, or are willing to relocate, then you'll want to check this out. The ArenaNet team have over a dozen positions currently posted on their website, and looking for more people to help them bring Guild Wars 2 to life.

Current openings are for a host of positions: animators; QT specialists; web services and game programming; writing; and even a French community manager. So if you've ever wanted to join the ranks of the games industry and have the chops, get your resume and cover letter together and send them over to ArenaNet! Who knows -- perhaps we'll wind up interviewing you for Massively some day!

Tags: arenanet, games-industry, guild-wars-2, gw2, hiring, jobs, ncsoft, writers

Interview sheds more light on latest City of Heroes guest authors

by Eliot Lefebvre Jan 28th 2010 at 11:00AM

Filed under: Super-hero, City of Heroes, City of Villains, Culture, Events, in-game, Interviews, Opinion

With the recent introduction of three new arcs in the guest author series, City of Heroes gets to enjoy a bit more time in the limelight thanks to the Mission Architect system. The arcs are currently available on the live servers, and while they won't provide weeks of enjoyment, they'll certainly pass a fair bit of time and be a fun ride in the process. Gamepro recently had the opportunity to talk to the newest guest authors about their experience working on the arcs and playing the game.

If there's one unifying strand to all of the author comments, it's that working on Mission Architect doesn't just help create content, it forces creators to train themselves to write better. With limitations on how much speech can appear and when, all three authors mention that it forces the story down to its essentials. But it's not a limiting factor in making things weaker -- rather, it forces you to craft something that's entertaining even without a lot of flowery dialogue.

The full interview also covers each author's experiences in balancing the arcs, as well as Ms. Lackey's discussion of her history as a player. Whether you've already experienced the new City of Heroes arcs or have yet to take them for a spin, it's clear that a great deal of thought and effort went into them.

Tags: austin-grossman, city-of-heroes, city-of-villains, coh, cov, cox, guest-author, guest-author-program, mercedes-lackey, mission-architect, ncsoft, troy-hickman

One Shots: Chained

by Krystalle Voecks Jan 26th 2010 at 2:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Screenshots, Guild Wars, One Shots

One of the things many people love about Guild Wars is the tremendous imagination and feel of the artwork in the games. While we didn't get a description to go with this interesting screenshot taken by Logen, it reminds me of a gorgeous piece of art from Guild Wars. The work in question won a prize at the Into The Pixel showing at E3 2008. Thankfully, the artwork is available on the Into The Pixel site for everyone to enjoy. Check out today's great One Shots full size, and then look at the ITP gallery piece from artist Tyler West. We think you'll see the connection too.

Are you one of the people who really love the artwork in Guild Wars? We'd love to show off more, but we need your screenshots to make that happen. Send your best screenshots (all MMOs welcome) to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, a description of the area, and the name of the game. We'll post them out here for everyone to enjoy and give you the credit.

Gallery: One Shots

Tags: arenanet, guild-wars, gw, into-the-pixel, logen, ncsoft, one-shots, screenshot, screenshots

Star Trek Online official dev blog: Jeremy Mattson

by Kyle Horner Jan 25th 2010 at 4:00PM

Filed under: Sci-fi, New titles, Opinion, Star Trek Online

Today marks the first of this week's three exclusive developer blogs from Cryptic's Star Trek Online team here at Massively. For Monday, we've got Jeremy Mattson discussing what it's like being a Principal Artist for Cryptic and giving some insight into their powerful character customization tools. He also delves into the past a bit, which should interest any of you City of Heroes fans out there, too.

Be sure to come back again on Wednesday for our second installment of this week's developer blogs. We'll have an animator's perspective of life at Cryptic and working on Star Trek Online.

Tags: 3-sto-dev-blogs, artist, atari, blog, city-of-heroes, coh, cryptic, cryptic-star-trek, cryptic-studios, dev-blog, developer-blog, featured, featured-carousel, jeremy-mattson, ncsoft, principal-artist, st-online, star-trek-mmo, star-trek-online, sto, trek-online

Aion's community address for January

by Eliot Lefebvre Jan 22nd 2010 at 6:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Aion, Events, in-game, Previews, Leveling, News items

Approaching the end of the month means it's time for another Aion community address. It's reliable enough to set your watch by, assuming your watch runs in one-month increments of time. This address promises an increased number of double experience weekends, with one currently running to help players accelerate their leveling. It also promises that character re-customization and gender changing services are on the horizon for players who would like said services, and briefly discusses the need for ongoing improvement in the website. There's a scarcity of hard facts, however, beyond a promise that some of these features should be available in early February.

If you were guessing that the community seems a bit... unhappy about this, you'd be guessing right. The comments for this particular entry already stretch into the triple digits, with several players calling for server merges and additional content. It also has no mention about the recent security issues that NCsoft has been contending with, a somewhat sore point for several players. Coupled with the January Eye On Community, the natives seem to be getting a tad restless, especially with no news on the many features previewed in the Visions trailer. We're sure that Aion's team is hard at work, but the fan community seems a bit less docile than before.

Tags: account-security, aion, aion-community-address, aion-the-tower-of-eternity, character-customization, community-address, double-exp-weeked, double-experience, gender-change, ncsoft, security, visions-trailer

One Shots: Girls on the internets?

by Krystalle Voecks Jan 22nd 2010 at 2:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Screenshots, Aion, One Shots

Occasionally we get some interesting -- or at least amusing -- stories from players who send in screenshots. Speaking as a female who plays MMOGs, I'm personally always amused when guys don't believe I'm a girl. Alternately, I'm equally amused by my male friends who play nothing but females. What am I on about? Well, here's a note from Julian H. that came with today's sunny Aion screenshot to explain: My friends and I were rounding up some Krall marks with an alleged real "girl" who decided to cuddle next to my friend. We are all Elyos on the Vaizel server. Gotta love MMO culture -- where everyone is male until proven otherwise.

Have you taken a silly screenshot when you've been out running around? If so, we'd love to see it. Just email it in to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the name of the game, and a quick description. We'll post it out here and give you the credit. Easy enough to do!

Gallery: One Shots

Tags: aion, aion-the-tower-of-eternity, julian-h, ncsoft, omg-a-girl, one-shots, screenshot, screenshots

When crafting community, little goes a long way

by Eliot Lefebvre Jan 21st 2010 at 10:00PM

Filed under: Culture, Forums, Grouping, Opinion

Yes, that looks like a typo in the subject line and it ought to be "a little goes a long way." It isn't. Little itself goes a long way in making a community, as discussed in this recent post by Eric Heimburg. Speaking from his experiences both on Asheron's Call 2 as a producer and Aion as a player, his core contention is that smaller communities decrease anonymity and make politeness far more common for interactions among strangers.

One of the core reasons behind this is the question of reliance. The community of group-based games tends to be stonger than that of games where you can be almost wholly independent, since you rely upon others to work with you. By way of contrast, examine some of the behavior found in World of Warcraft's random dungeon tool, where you find yourself working with people whom you're statistically unlikely to ever see again.

One of the laments about solo-friendly games is the death of community, and while that's not altogether true, Heimburg's post certainly makes a number of compelling points. Well worth examining if you're interested in building a community or just in the ways groups develop.

Tags: ac, ac2, aion, anonymity, asherons-call, asherons-call-2, blizzard, community, community-building, elder-game, eric-heimburg, manners, ncsoft, politeness, turbine, world-of-warcraft, wow

NCsoft's Game Survelliance Unit speaks out on account security

by Rubi Bayer Jan 20th 2010 at 4:00PM

Filed under: MMO industry, News items

The extra attention to security measures at NCsoft continues, with the latest being a message on the Aion site from Scott Jennings (GM Luminary) of NCsoft's Game Surveillance Unit.

The point of the message is to make sure the players understand what a large, aggressive business the RMT market is. There is a huge amount of money on the line, and those involved are working very hard to make sure the profits keep rolling in. Jennings explained what NCsoft views as their job in this fight and what they've been doing on their end, even detailing a few specific examples of security testing.

The message continued with a much longer list: what players can do on their end to protect themselves. While much of it may seem obvious to veteran players, with account security attacks becoming ever more frequent and aggressive, it's a pretty good idea for everyone to read through what Jennings has to say, and be sure you're protecting yourself as much as you can.

Tags: Account-Security, aion, guild-wars, ncsoft, rmt, scott-jennings

Double XP in Aion this weekend

by Kyle Horner Jan 20th 2010 at 11:00AM

Filed under: Fantasy, Aion, Events, in-game, News items

Since we're aware many of you get your MMO time in on the weekends, double XP events are always something we're keen to post about in a timely manner. This is especially true if you're stuck in a level spread that's seemingly impossible to grind past without developing a desire to redistribute objects on your desk in a forceful manner. Double XP weekends can be a real life saver for the jaded MMO gamer.

That's why we're here to tell you that Aion is having one starting on Friday, January 22nd -- although make sure to take a gander at the official post, as it contains the starting time for each server timezone. The weekend ends at 8am (server time) the following Monday, so check which timezone your character's server is set to and plan accordingly.

[Thanks, AterNox!]

Tags: aion, double-xp, double-xp-weekend, grind, january, leveling, ncsoft