| 10 things I wish I had known before building an MMO Continuing with our countdown to EverQuest's 10th Anniversary, today marks the first of three special articles containing the retrospective thoughts on MMO development from the team that made it so popular. Today's "10 things I wish I had known before building an MMO" starts off with Steve Klug, Lead Programmer for EverQuest. |
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| Massively's EVE Online Apocrypha expansion hands-on Massively got word that EVE Online lead game designer Noah Ward, aka CCP Hammerhead, would be in New York City last week. We jumped at the chance to find out more about the Apocrypha expansion, and Ward was kind enough to give us our own hands-on demo while answering our questions about where EVE Online is heading. |
| The secret of EVE Online's success When it launched in 2003, space-borne MMO EVE Online wasn't an overnight success. EVE was aimed at a relatively untested sci-fi niche within the MMO market and the number of players in that niche who would be interested was impossible to accurately estimate. To make matters worse, World of Warcraft was released in late 2004 and a large portion of the MMO market latched on to it, spelling disaster for its competitor's subscription numbers. Despite all of these initial problems, EVE Online has been a massive success with consistent subscriber growth. So what has been the secret to their success? |
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| Just when I thought I was out I'm not sure if I should blame BT for my frequently crappy connection speed, or Blizzard because they can't seem to create a decent downloader. It doesn't matter really, as I can QQ about both equally. |
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| Beyond Warhammer Online patch 1.2 Warhammer Online players are in the midst of the Bitter Rivals live event, plus another big new patch. I'm going to guess that it probably took a lot of development muscle to get the Black Guard, Knight of the Blazing Sun, Slayer and Choppa in a fun, playable shape. Not to mention the improvements to open RvR, Scenarios, PvE and general quality of life fixes. |
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| Don't make roleplaying servers if you can't handle it For those of you who don't know, I'm super in to roleplaying. No, I'm not a Shakespearean nutjob who spouts "I shall put my sword betwixt thine evil heart!" No, nothing like that. I'm just a guy who likes getting into the setting of game. When you go into Naxxramas and see Anub'Rekhan, you see a boss where I see a commander of Anub'arak, the traitor king. |
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| Starting out in Vana'diel: The Fields of Valor Hello there Adventurers! I hope everything is going well for you in Final Fantasy XI since we last spoke. Where we last left off, we were speaking with the initial NPC trainer and getting through the opening "tutorial." |
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| Massively re-arms for WAR: Meet Da' Choppa With the release of the orc choppa only days away, Massively thought you might be interested in a career guide. I had a chance to try out the choppa this past weekend on the public test server (PTS). Mythic was giving out free rank 40, renown rank 41 templates and asked us to wreck some havoc in the world of Warhammer Online. I played my choppa extensively in open RvR and even tried a bit of PvE. |
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| Massively re-arms for WAR: Slayer Dwarf Slayers are just about ready to start hitting the live Warhammer Online servers for all their worth. With the orange tide imminent, I've been running around the test server for the past several days, looking to learn all I could about these wonders of Dwarven kind. Including -- but not limited to -- the underlying cogs of their special mechanic, how they handle PvP and PvE, and most importantly where they hide their booze -- here's a hint: it's underneath something. |
