rss posts

Rumor: Imminent closed beta announcement for Star Wars: The Old Republic?

by Seraphina Brennan Sep 28th 2009 at 5:00PM

Filed under: Betas, Sci-fi, Culture, MMO industry, News items, Rumors, Star Wars: The Old Republic

Bioware might have tipped their hand accidentally today as they briefly updated the Star Wars: The Old Republic website with a call for testers for the highly anticipated MMO. The announcement only lasted a few minutes before being taken down off of the site, indicating an accidental posting.

While the news announcement has been removed from the website, some screenshot happy community members have snapped pictures of their RSS feeds, which still show the call for testers. This has, of course, sent the community into an uproar of anticipation for the ~~intended date of the announcement.~~

Update: The intended date of the closed beta signups is today! We have all of the details over in this post!

Tags: accident, announcement, bioware, breaking, closed-beta, closed-beta-announcement, forums, leak, rss, star-wars-the-old-republic, swtor

New Eden's virtual reporters

by James Egan May 20th 2008 at 6:30PM

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, News items

Volunteer organizations directly involved with MMO's isn't a new idea, but the Interstellar Services Department (ISD) of EVE Online is rather unique in the industry. ISD actually works with CCP Games to create and enhance several aspects of EVE.

ISD has several branches, including Support Team and Resources (STAR), which provides new player support; Mercury (M), responsible for creating New Eden's fiction; Equipment Certification and Anomaly Investigations Division (ECAID), tasked with solving technical issues; and Interstellar Correspondents (IC), an in-game news organization. The last of those divisions, Interstellar Correspondents, is one that is often misunderstood.

Tags: audio, dev-blog, eve-online, isd, rss, sci-fi, video, volunteer

Metaplace sends Metachat live on Myspace

by Mike Schramm Mar 13th 2008 at 10:00PM

Filed under: Business models, Culture, Launches, MMO industry, Free-to-play, Browser, Casual

A few of the Metaplace folks have announced that their first virtual world has been released on MySpace in the form of an app called Metachat, which you can add to your Myspace account right now. In terms of virtual worlds, it's not much -- there's a chat room, obviously, and a little soccer ball kicking area, and some RSS integration in terms of stock quotes, some weather info, and even translation features.

But even better than what it is is the potential that something like this represents. Social networks are already dabbling in social games (and planning even more interaction between the two), so a virtual space like Metachat may be the first virtual world that most of its users enter. It's a far cry from some of the more mature virtual worlds like World of Warcraft and Second Life (not that those two are all that mature, actually), but spaces like Metachat are a big sign of the coming collision of social networking and virtual worlds.

Tags: facebook, fun, metachat, metaplace, myspace, rss, soccer, social-networking, virtual-spaces, virtual-worlds

Ask Massively: The beginning

by Mike Schramm Jan 3rd 2008 at 10:45PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Game mechanics, MMO industry, Tips and tricks, Opinion, Free-to-play, Massively meta, Ask Massively

Ask Massively is a brand new feature here on Massively-- it's your chance to take control of the little conversation we've got going on, and ask us MMO experts whatever you want. Want to know what MMO you should be playing, or why something in your favorite MMO is a little strange? Have a question about the site, or need an MMO standby explained? We're here to explain and elucidate the answers to all your queries, whatever they be.

To ask a question of Ask Massively, you can either put it in the comments on this post (for next week's edition), or drop us a note on the tipline. And this column will run entirely on your questions, so please let us know if there's something you want to know, no matter how complicated or how silly.

Click the link below to check out the first edition of Ask Massively! A warning: for the first edition, I cheated a little bit-- these are all questions from my friends. But next week, you'll have the chance to get a question of your own answered.

Tags: advice, answers, ask-massively, commenters, design, featured, mmo, questions, readers, rss, travel, traveling, world-of-warcraft

Beta update for Age of Conan, more invites sent

by William Dobson Nov 25th 2007 at 8:10PM

Filed under: Betas, Fantasy, Screenshots, Age of Conan, New titles, PvP

Following the latest newsletter from Hyboria, the Age of Conan website now has details of the new beta update. Apparently there was a very large patch that added lots of new content, and because of this, Funcom has decided to send out some more beta invites, so check your inbox and spam filters if you have previously signed up. This update also saw the introduction of the Capture the Flag PvP game for the beta test.

In website related news, there are some new RSS feeds that you can nab in a few different languages to get the latest AoC information as soon as it's out, and a couple of screenshots of the freshly revamped Picts have been posted. Above you'll see one of them, but there are more at the site. Very scary indeed, and they do have that "wear your face as a hat" look that Funcom mention they are going for.

Tags: aoc, beta-invites, beta-update, breaking, capture-the-flag, funcom, hyborian-adventures, patch, picts, rss