Quickies Get Massive

More movement on the massive scale. WoW Players should be aware that Patch 1.7 was released today. It's a big one, with a new raid instance, Hunter changes, and the inclusion of a new type of server (Roleplaying PVP) available. Get downloading. City of Heroes has seen Issue 5's Release, with a new zone, new power sets, and a big tweak to the Blaster archetype. Late last week a whole bunch of new City of Villains Beta invites went out, and Gamespot has a rundown on the upcoming stand-alone sequel. Major changes are afoot in Everquest II's Producer Letter, with changes to combat, classes, items, NPCs, buffs, crafting, and grouping. Is it even the same game? On a final non-commercial note, CNet has news that the Second Life virtual world is now free to enter, with the Linden Dollars economy expected to prop up the costs associated with running it. Interesting. From that article: "Currently, Rosedale said, "Second Life" has 45,000 members and is growing at about 10 percent a month. There are now more than 16,000 acres of owned land in the virtual world, and new land sells for about $129. Users must pay a fee of about $25 a month to maintain their land. Thus, Linden Lab is earning about $400,000 a month without ever factoring in membership fees." Update: 09/14 05:50 GMT by Z : Cutriss rightly points out that I overlooked the interesting Ballista Royale update to FFXI. Additionally, a new patch for Dark Age of Camelot was released today, and the main site revamped for the upcoming expansion.

Comments

If you're interested in the PvP/RP server..

[wuie]

don't bother right now with it. The queues are already 600+ with people waiting for hours just to login and make a character. Blizzard limited the maximum size of the server's capacity so that starting areas won't be jam-packed. Wait a couples days or a week until making a character.

I5 for COH

[MagicDude]

Issue 5 for City of Heroes has not gone over well with most of the players. Many people are very critical of the massive nerfing that took place with this issue across all of the archtypes (better known as classes). As well, COH is still lacking in any kind of end game content. Once you get the level 50, the only thing there is to do from there is to roll up a new character and start over. I believe this is the effect of what is probably COH's most unique qualities, no economy. There is no loot huntning in the game, which I think makes the game more enjoyable with no griefing or spawn camping or doing the same quest over and over again because the ending boss has a 2% change of dropping the legendary boots of butt kicking. Your only job is to go out there and bring villians to justice which is great. However, it doesn't provide your character with many incentives to get to level 50 since gameplay just hits a brick wall after that since there's no benefit to being lvl 50 in terms of making your character better. Most of the previous updates have added mainly low and mid level content, but many players are salivating for something like a lvl 50 only zone chock full of high end content, rather than your only option being to become a noob again and go do Lt. Wincott's Hollows missions for the 5th time.

What about FFXI?

[Cutriss]

What is it with Slashdot and not covering FFXI? Every time there's a MMORPG wrapup, it almost always gets omitted from the newspost in favor of WOW (understandable), and then far less populated MMOs.

FFXI has the North American Ballista Royale gearing up for team-based PVP tournaments which will eventually be held on a server-versus-server tournament level. A new update will be out in October that will add new zones and expand the functionality of the NPC buddies that were added in one of the recent patches, and a host of other new things. Also, with TGS right around the corner, everyone's expecting the official announcement of the new expansion pack, which will be included on the FFXI release for the Xbox 360.

Re:What about FFXI?

[Dragoon412]

It's because FFXI is an evil, twisted, abortion of a game that's tanked miserably in the US.

FFXI requires a degree of sadism and time investment (it can literally take hours just to find a group, and this isn't rare) that seems high even in comparison to Lineage 2. The economy has been utterly devastated by farmers, and encounters (and therefore groups, which are absolutely necessary - you can't even blow your nose in FFXI without a white mage to help you) are so demanding that you often won't be admitted into a group unless you have the absolute best equipment available. Which means either, A) competing with professional farmers, B), farming for gold for days to buy the most trivial equipment, or C) shelling out to the farmers on eBay.

FFXI isn't covered because it's not a game, it's punishment in digital form; it's a damned job with no benefits and no pay. It's a game so slow, boring, repetetive, and frustrating that even old-time EverQuest players say "whoa, that's too much." "Playing" FFXI is like choing on tinfoil while a donkey kicks you in the nuts and a midget in a bondage outfit sodomizes you with a red-hot, spiked dildo.

Re:Second life may be free, but still requires cc.

[andy_fish]

I agree that it's annoying. But in this case, it's not a sleazy marketing thing to make it easier for you to make an impulse buy. It really is necessary. Free characters start out with a base allowance of Linden dollars, so they need the credit card check to prevent someone from making a ton of throwaway emails/accounts and harvesting the money.