Massively^™

Back in March we mentioned an article at the OC Register talking all about the design lessons you can take away from World of Warcraft. It turns out that was just a small part of a longer series on the site. Via a reminder link from Tobold, we can head back to the OC to get the full look. In all the site offered up 11 design lessons from the game, each taking on a specific game element and laying it out in layman's terms. We particuarly enjoyed the quip "Demand excellence or you'll get mediocrity." That's the 9th lesson J. Allen Brack laid out for the site, and one that I think most Blizzard players would agree is a core philosophy for the company.

Accompanying this piece was a follow-up, asking readers to be sure and read the lively comments that accompanied the original '11 lessons' article. Many commenters took the site to task, stating that Blizzard wasn't particularly innovative in bringing World of Warcraft to market. Instead, they offered, the game 'merely' polished what the genre already had to offer. What's your view? Did Blizzard innovate, or are they just rock-polishers following in Sony Online's wake?

With WWI past us, BlizzCon not due for several more months, and no more major patches due until the expansion hits, now is the time for discontent among World of Warcraft players. While accounts will surge back to life with the arrival of Arthus and Northrend, from now until then it's going to be increasingly hard to get your guildmates in-game. Raids will flag, Arena teams will disband, and /gquit will be a common 4am turn of phrase.

What about you? Are you sticking with Azeroth through to the new expansion content? Or are you going to give Blizzard's behemoth a break until then, and let visions of snowdrifts in the North carry you happily through the summer months? What's your account look like for next month, faithful readers?

Ignorance is bliss.
-- Thomas Grey

Knowing is half the battle.
-- G.I. Joe

It goes by many names -- Rumor. Speculation. Innuendo. Suggestion. Suble hints. Vague allusions. Nudge nudge, wink wink. Slips of the keyboard. Loose lips sinking ships. Detective work. Snooping. Unearthing forbidden knowledge. Call it what you will, by whatever method you choose, but it's become an increasingly inescapable fact of life regarding the games we play, especially those in the shared iterations of persistent worlds.

We're referring, of course, to knowing about content before it's on our hot little hard drives.

[Note: Many of the links that follow do, in fact, go to information about pending updates and patches. If you're averse to reading this sort of information, please skip over link text that contains an asterisk. (*)]

Lets go back about ten years or so to the original EverQuest. Now it isn't my intention to pick on any one game, I just happen to be more familiar with it than Ultima Online or Meridian 59. For the sake of immersion let me assume the role of a 1999 copy of EverQuest that you happen to be playing on your gaming machine back in the last year of the last century.

You just died in EverQuest. How dare you die! Since you had the nerve to be defeated in combat, you'll now be required to run from your binding point -- which could potentially be very far away -- to your dead body, which contains all of your equipment and bags that just happen to hold all of your inventory. If you fail to do this, then you lose all of these items. Oh but you've already lost some experience and possibly de-leveled if you happened to have recently leveled up.

Hey! Why are you logging out? So what if you think you'd rather play Half-Life right now, this is the game you're paying for monthly. Don't you think you'd better get the most out of it? Hah! See? I knew you were only bluffing. All right, now get to running, noob.

Sure, the price of oil may seem harsh tese days, and pulling up to the pump is certainly no bargain ... But the worst is yet to come. Those whose business it is to track the price World of Warcraft gold goes for on the black market have seen the price of gold double in the past couple of weeks, likely due to a mighty swing of Blizzard's ban hammer. With the highly profitable gold farming operations shutting down due to the suddenly lowered demand and supply, an easy source of liquid assets is now gone. The ripple effects will be felt globally. Until those brave gold farmers can get back in business, long lines at the pump may translate to long lines in the unemployment office.

An over-reaction? Perhaps. But Andrew at GameRates describes, in a tongue-in-cheek way, how protests against the high price of fuel will lead to protests against the high price of gold. So seriously -- have you stopped buying gold until the price comes down? What's the best price point for WoW gold? And would you consider buying gold at a higher price in order to help the Chinese gold farmers over this difficult hump?

Note: Massively in no way condones the buying and selling of gold or the breaking of any EULA in any way We're just interested in hearing from people who choose to on their own accord.

In January, we introduced you to a World of Warcraft machinima series, Azerothian Super Villains, by featuring the five episodes that had been produced at the time. Ian Beckman is back with the sixth episode, "The Virgin Kael'thas," a humorous video about Illidan's plot to take over the isle of Theramore by distracting the leader, Proudmoore. When he realizes that there are no other options, he enlists Kael'thas, the village idiot of the group, to complete the job, but as always, there are some complications ...

[Via Warcraftmovies.com]

If you have machinima or movie suggestions from any MMO, please send them to machinima AT massively DOT com, along with any information you might have about them.

Happy Fourth of July! Yes, here in America it's the day to celebrate our nation's birthday with fireworks and BBQ, and lots of different games are going to be shooting off their own fireworks and otherwise holding celebrations this afternoon and evening to enjoy. Our Tip of the Day has a nicely comprehensive list of what's going on around the virtual realms already -- from free food and beer in Warcraft to a Void Storm in Everquest and the Dragon Festival of Guild Wars, there's tons of stuff to do ingame, no matter where you are.

So what are you going to be playing in the world of MMOs this holiday weekend? Leave a comment below and let us know which games you'll be playing on your day off this weekend (or, if you're not in America, which games you'll be playing when you get off of work).

And from all of us at Massively, have a safe and happy Fourth of July!

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and in Runes of Magic (AKA Radiant Arcana), Runewaker Entertainment has taken all they loved about Ultima Online and World of Warcraft, combined that with elements from EverQuest, EverQuest II and Final Fantasy XI Online to make a free-to-play MMORPG combining all the elements of both Western and Eastern games. It's like a highly-concentrated booster shot of high fantasy goodness -- and it's free!

Runes of Magic will include a dual class system, where you will choose a primary and a secondary class, armor dying, player housing, crafting, an auction house, unique mounts, a fully customizable user interface and either click-to-move or WASD controls.

The starter zone of Taborea has a deep and rich lore, a colony struggling to stave off the darkness, with your help. You'll need a PDF reader to read that, but we have some of the highlights in our gallery. Can a free-to-play homage to some of the Western world's greatest MMOs succeed on in North America? Distributor Frogster is looking for a US publisher to take that chance.

The game play video from the Chinese open beta (you can find that after the break) shows clearly the developers at Runewaker loved World of Warcraft perhaps more than is really healthy. Still, a free-to-play WoW clone may be exactly what players want, and Runes of Magic may just be different enough to make it interesting.

On this 232nd day marking Independence in the United States, we wanted to feature some of the patriotic videos created in MMOs. They range from quick videos showing off fireworks in platforms such as Second Life, Everquest, and World of Warcraft, to artistic videos set to Bruce Springsteen, all the way to silly safety tips from the Red vs. Blue boys. As you're planning your real life festivities this year, considering taking some time to pop into your favorite game to get in on some of the action. Happy 4th of July!

If you have machinima or movie suggestions from any MMO, please send them to machinima AT massively DOT com, along with any information you might have about them.

Check out more videos after the jump!

Massively Speaking Episode 12 runs down news and features from Massively.com for the week of June 25th - July 1st. This week Colin Brennan and Adrian Bott up the respectability level something fierce, with considered opinions and thoughtful commentary on the week's topics. It's true that most of those topics are Blizzard-related, but they just had a big event. Sorry for our WoW-weary listeners. We also chat about Lord of the Rings Online book 14 and Star Wars Galaxies big anniversary.

Have a comment for the podcasters? Shoot us an email to podcast AT massively DOT com. Maybe we'll read your letter on the air!

Get the podcast:
[iTunes] Subscribe to Massively Speaking directly in iTunes (MP3)
[RSS] Add Massively Speaking to your RSS aggregator.
[Digg] Like the show? Digg it.
[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.
[VW] Listen at VirginWorlds.com
Listen here on the page:



Read below the cut for the full show notes.

It's a hectic summer over at Blizzard HQ. Inundating the masses with Wrath of the Lich King across the pond at the World Wide Invitational, announcing Diablo 3 on top of that, and battling it out in the courts against the kingpin responsible for World of Warcraft's bot brigade. Aside from all that, there's the whole pending merger with Activision and Vivendi approval process with Blizzard Entertainment right in the middle.

The latest legal development involves a preliminary injunction filed by some shareholders who weren't satisfied with the $27.50 per share offer. The injunction suit was filed in the Delaware Court of Chancery last February by the Wayne County Employee's Retirement System in an attempt to halt the merger. Activision has announced that a Delaware Court junked that preliminary injunction, a decision made by the very illuminated and WoW-knowledgeable Chief Judge William B. Chandler III. Activision will be holding a stockholder meeting next Tuesday on July 8, if approved the merger will complete on July 9th and a new titan, Activision Blizzard will join forces and the gaming world will never be the same again.

We wonder how many level 70 characters the Judge plays or maybe he's already level 75 in the WotlK beta?

Today's question actually comes from Age of Conan's in-game chat. While the sane among you may marvel at the fact that my brain cells did not immediately shrivel and die upon coming into contact with your average chat channel ranter, I'll describe the discussion using enough creative editing to shield you, our loyal readers, from some of the more mind-numbing motes of mental malfeasance on display that night.

• "This game sucks, they only designed one class to be a main tank!"
• "No game should ever be released with bugs. Look at how Blizzard did with WoW!"
• "My class sucks. They should make it more powerful and nerf everyone else. There is no balance in this game."

I think you get the idea. To the valiant souls who tried to answer these criticisms intelligently and thoughtfully, I salute you. When faced with intelligent responses to their rants, one of our misguided miscreants fired back with a very good question.

What do you know about designing an MMO? If you know so much, how come you don't write games?

As a former game developer myself, and as someone with several years of experience in the commercial software development industry, allow me a chance to use my bully pulpit in order to answer their points.