Items tagged with MMO
It seems that even Blizzard's World of Warcraft can be a cruel, cruel mistress. Unfortunate fans of the classic WoW experience had their days ruined today by a sustained DDOS attack on Blizzard's servers, according to multiple sources. It isn't just WoW Classic, either. Several independent sources are reporting that servers for the latest expansion, Battle of Azeroth, are also under attack. WoW Classic only launched on August 26th, 2019, which is just a couple of weeks ago at the time of writing. What kind of heartless monster would attack classic MMO fans at a time like this? Could it be a nefarious attack by North Korea, like the Sony breach of 2014? Could it be the work of jilted lovers,...
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Love the tactile nature and accuracy of mechanical keyboards for PC gaming, but prefer to ditch the noise associated with them? Need an MMO mouse that accommodates your fat thumbs? Perhaps a new headset that thoughtfully uses LEDs on its microphone to indicate the status of various sound settings? If you answered yes to any of the previous questions, Corsair just unleashed some new weapons in their gaming arsenal that might fit the bill, including the STRAFE RGB Silent -- the world's first keyboard to incorporate Cherry MX Silent gaming switches. Into the VOID "One of the biggest complaints we hear from gamers is that they have to stop their game to change their audio settings," explains...
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When Blizzard released World of Warcraft in 2004, the MMO world didn't know what was about to hit it. At the time of the game's release, I played two different MMOs, and post-WoW launch, I was amazed at the number of people who abandoned those games in favor of Blizzard's new hotness. In fact, in many ways, WoW caused the death of many an MMO. It's not just the fact that WoW was a good MMO; it was seriously accessible, and once most of your MMO-playing friends are in there, it's hard to break free. Well, it appears that free-to-play MMOs have been having the same effect on WoW that it had on other MMOs. Over the course of the game's lifetime, it's topped the charts of most subscription-based...
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This might not come off as a major surprise to those who've been waiting all this time - 7 years - to see CCP's World of Darkness come out, but it's still incredibly unfortunate. Despite being in development since at least November, 2006, CCP's hand has been forced to pull the plug on the project; at the same time, it has also had to cull 56 workers from its Atlanta studio. World of Darkness was an MMO announced at the EVE Online fanfest in Reykjavik, Iceland, to much praise. It was to bring players into an enormous vision of the World of Darkness, a world first introduced to RPG fans in 1991, with Vampire: The Masquerade. The series eventually evolved into different card games, tabletop...
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War. War never changes. Once, humans waged war for domination of a single planet. In EVE Online, players and guilds battle for control of entire star systems. They scheme over resource-rich worlds, they vie for areas of strategic importance. And sometimes -- despite all the advances of modern technology -- somebody does something stupid, and everybody else thinks it's a great idea. Last night, due to the equivalent of a clerk error, one side of EVE Online's eternal war lost control of a key staging system. Recovering control of a system takes eight hours -- with one hour left to go, the online equivalent of the Red Army dropped in and took the system. The response from the N3PL? An all-in, total...
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The good news is that Bungie’s eagerly anticipated Destiny finally has a release date. The bad news is that date is September 9th, 2014, which is several long months away. The Destiny Beta will kick off this summer, so those involved on that front won’t have to wait as long to dive in, but that still may be disappointing news for some--it was previously thought that the beta would launch sometime in Q1 2014. As we noted earlier, the beta will launch first for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4, offering a tasty early selling point for Sony’s consoles over Microsoft’s. The latter’s Xbox 360 and Xbox One will get the game soon enough, though. Destiny is an ambitious...
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When the Oculus Rift Kickstarter project dropped last fall, I admit that I was a little slow to buy into it. Maybe it's just the old fuddy duddy in me, or maybe it's the fact that VR products have been done before, and none to my recollection have ever seen much success. Well, I was clearly wrong about Oculus Rift, as its potential is high, and success thus far, beyond impressive. Cementing that fact further a couple of weeks ago was the news that industry legend John Carmack would be becoming Oculus' CTO. At this point, it seemed like things could only go up for Oculus, and today, we have another example of how that's going to happen. As a tech demo to show off what's possible with the Oculus...
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According to a now-pulled update pushed to Age of Empires Online, Microsoft's Games for Windows Live will shut down altogether by July 1, 2014. That unofficial announcement follows official word that the Games for Windows Live marketplace would close on August 22 without a replacement service being offered. MS has refused to comment on whether the July 1, 2014 date is legitimate, but it raises real questions of what's going to happen to the games that require GFWL to authenticate and save data. The list of titles isn't small. Batman: Arkham Asylum, Arkham City, BioShock 2, Dark Souls: Prepare to Die, DiRT 2 & 3, F1 2010 and F1 2011, Fallout 3, GTA IV, and the Lost Planet series are all games...
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The Elder Scrolls Online got a pair of new videos this week and a lengthy multiplayer demonstration at Quakecon.Buzz around the new MMO has been building steadily for months. Much of what the two trailers show indicates a game that hews closely to Elder Scrolls conventions as well as Skyrim UI standards. There's an onscreen compass at the top of the screen that shows both the direction you're facing and points of interest. Like most modern MMOs, Elder Scrolls Online will also reward exploration and backstory research. Both first and third-person viewpoints will be an option. The Quakecon demo focused on multiplayer combat with a demo of how groups of enemies will work together to fight players....
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Razer’s Naga gaming mouse has proven popular with MMO gamers since its release in 2009, but the company announced today that it has improved on the design. The new Razer Naga has the same 12-button grid on the thumb side of the mouse, but now those buttons feature mechanical switches, which are designed to enhance “tactility, speed, and actuation assurance”. The mouse has also been given a new shape, which is broader and offers a gentler down-slope which is designed to offer reduced fatigue and a better overall grip, and the scroll wheel has tilt-click functionality, so gamers can use it to click in and out as well as left and right. Users can also use the Naga’s configurator...
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When Bungie revealed its upcoming MMO Destiny back in February, it's safe to say that most people were impressed not only by the game's look, but its ambitions. Bungie effectively wants to make sure that Destiny is a "10 year" MMO, one that you know you can sign into on day one and plan to stick with for quite a while. Of course, to want to do that, the game has to be good, and from all we've seen so far, it has the potential. This is made all the more clearer thanks to a gameplay video that the company has posted this week. Even as a die-hard PC gamer, I have to admit that these graphics are pretty great, and leaps and bounds beyond the current collection of consoles. We're not only talking...
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We got a taste of “Destiny”, a new MMO being developed by Activision and Bungie, back in February, and now the companies are teasing the game even more with a trailer called “Law of the Jungle”. Directed by Jon Favreau and featuring Giancarlo Esposito, the trailer teases what appear to be cut shots interspersed with a bit of gameplay action. There are three protagonists fighting side-by-side against an invading alien force, and each of the three has a different look and different weapons. For example, one has a hood and cape while another has a quasi Boba Fett-style helmet. In terms of weaponry, we see that there’s a Street Fighter II-esque ball of energy that the...
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This is an announcement that's been a long time coming. Steam has added support for subscription-based games, including conventional MMOs, and has debuted the function with the recently launched Darkfall Unholy Wars. DUW is a self-described "hardcore PvP" title with an emphasis on crafting and player-vs-player action. The game was originally supposed to launch last fall, but was delayed and went through an extensive beta process. It launched on April 16. It's not clear what the payment processing details are, or which MMOs will be adding Steam support. On the one hand, it gives gamers a simple way to manage subscriptions and expands Steam's "one stop" gaming center credentials. The flip side,...
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Bungie, the company that brought forth Halo, is embarking on a new MMO called Destiny that is designed to be unlike any gaming experience we’ve seen. There are few hard details available, such as a launch date or pricing, but Bungie gave a preview that teased the game and showed off concept art. It’s a large-scale MMO set in a post-apocalyptic world, but the gameplay and social interaction is supposed to be far more natural and fluid than other MMOs. There will apparently not be any subscription model, so gamers won’t have monthly fees to deal with, either. If nothing else, the concept sounds like a fun setup for a game. Some alien force nearly wiped out humanity, but a mysterious...
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Thanks to the investigations kick-started by World of Warcraft player Sendatsu, it's been discovered that Activision Blizzard has been embedding hidden watermarks into screenshots taken with the game client over the past couple of years. The exact time the practice began has not been settled-upon, but it's believed to have begun somewhere during 2008 with patch 3+, and 2010 with patch 4+. It hasn't been mentioned how Sendatsu stumbled-upon this discovery, but simple instructions are given to allow you to verify the practice. You must find an area where a texture is as flat in color as possible - white ideally - and it's better if you're able to zoom in so that the solid color fills your screen....
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Guild Wars 2 has finally hit store shelves and the game, according to just about everyone, is a lot of fun. The full sequel to the popular game Guild Wars has been in development for a full five years; Guild Wars originally debuted in 2005. Today is the first day anyone could play; pre-orders were given a three day headstart that kicked off on the 25th. Like its predecessor, Guild Wars 2 is an MMO without a monthly subscription fee; character development and story arcs are handled by dynamic events rather than by static quests. Early reviews point towards a strong story, interesting crafting system, and a streamlined form of the skills / profession system that was used in the original game. It's...
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Bethesda Softworks last Thursday finally and officially announced The Elder Scrolls Online, an "epic MMO" of sorts that will become "the first Elder Scrolls game to allow players to explorer the series' universe with others." Following the announcement, Bethesda has now released its first teaser trailer, a 1-minute YouTube clip with a strong emphasis on 'teaser.' There's not a whole lot of reveal going on, just a nifty soundtrack and some gnarly narration to get you pumped about the upcoming game. According to Game Informer, which looks to have had an exclusive on announcing the MMO, Zenimax Online Studios is in charge of producing the title that will take place before the events of Skyrim. Check...
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Steam has become an important launch point for all modern PC games but it's concentrated on titles that were sold as discrete products. As of this week, that's changed--the company has announced that it's adding support for multiple free-to-play games. F2P games offer free access to much of the game, but use microtransactions to fund the purchase of extras. Said extras can variously take the form of new areas to explore, weapon upgrades, power-ups / unique abilities, and in-game currency. The exact options depend on the title in question, but the system is designed to offer an immersive, enjoyable experience without charge while reserving certain features for gamers willing to pay for them. The...
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One of the most significant impacts of the iPad (and of tablets more generally) has been the devices' perceived ability to alleviate the crushing financial woes currently afflicting most major newspapers and magazines. The general theory is that customers, who are used to reading web content for free, will pay a monthly charge for the privilege of reading content through an application. The New York Times has been working on its own paywall and has released some preliminary information on what the various services will cost. For now, at least, free service isn't going away. The Gray Lady will allow occasional readers to view a certain number of pages per month and has vowed that readers arriving...
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Over the last few years, Valve's Steam service has become the go-to location for digital gaming. This transition has generally been viewed positively by PC gamers—mainstream gaming retailers, while scarcely thrilled, have devoted less and less space to PC titles as time has gone on. This positive trend is being bucked in the UK, where angry retailers are calling Steam an unfair, monopolistic service. "If we have a digital service, then I don’t want to start selling a rival in-store,” the digital boss at one of the biggest UK games retailers told mcvuk.com. "Publishers are creating a monster – we are telling suppliers to stop using Steam in their games." Part of this hostility...
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Are you a fan of World of Warcraft? How big of a fan? So much of a fan that you went out and purchased Razer's Naga MMO mouse? If so, this new Razer keyboard is probably right down your alley. The company's first MMO gaming keyboard is being introduced today, with the Anansi featuring seven ergonomic modifier thumb keys. Like the Naga, this keyboard also presents gamers with an unprecedented slew of MMO functions and features such as dedicated thumb modifier keys and cutting-edge macro capabilities. Razer claims that the standard keyboard was just built for typing, and that this keyboard is well positioned for use in the gamer market. It also gives MMO gamers the power to instantly use up to...
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World of Warcraft is huge. MMOs are huge. And they're growing. The popularity is on the rise, and accessory makers are obviously looking to get in on the fun. Razer has always been quick to respond to market shifts and demands, and they introduced the original Naga last year in order to place more buttons onto a mouse for those who play MMOs religiously. But the one thing that the Naga lacked was wireless support. Now, Razer has fixed that with the introduction of the Naga Epic MMO Gaming Mouse, which features three interchangeable side panels for different hand grips as well as 17 MMO-optimized buttons, the choice to customize the backglow from over 16 million colors, and a dual mode wired/wireless...
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