Tag Archive for 'mmo'

Rift: Planes of Telara

Logo for Rift: Planes of TeleraOk Wodge has gone and done it again…

His post “Not Playing MMO’s” mentioned an upcoming game, Rift: Planes of Telara which I’ll admit I hadn’t really heard much about or looked into. Well thanks to the Short Shiny one (he plays dwarves in plate mail),  I have been having a read of the Rift website.

I have to say first of all it’s my kind of MMO, I’m a high fantasy MMO fan as you may know from my previous posts. I find high fantasy style worlds more interesting than the more futuristic worlds of Sci-Fi MMO’s, that’s not to say I don’t play those games, they are just not my preference.

Rift takes place in a world call Telara which was protected by a Ward setup by the Gods, due to the actions of the inhabitants of Telera this Ward was damaged and creatures from outside are now trying to get in. It’s a bit like the Shadow Odyssey expansion in EQ2 I guess though much more involved.

There are 2 factions on Telara which the players get to choose from, the Guardians and the Defiant. For the Guardians think religious “I’m going to cleanse the world to save it” types and for the Defiant think “Where are the Gods when we need them, we’ll save the world ourselves” types.

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My Cataclysm Wish-List…

Hi!  I’m Wyntr — I have a platoon of level-80 toons in World-of-Warcraft.  I’ve been playing this game steadily for the past five years, am active in end-game, and have slowly acquired a sense of proficiency across the available classes, races, and aspects.  I play the game with a programmer’s eye for details and I’ve written one or two mods over the years.  I have a WoW-blog at wowrantz.com where I nitpick (with a programmer’s sense of anal-retentiveness) or praise the work done by Blizzard on this epic piece of software.   I’m absolutely stoked at the invitation to contribute to MMO-Symposium and hope my WoW-based articles find an audience here!

Blizzard is currently upgrading the servers in a concentrated twenty-four-hour window of maintenance to prepare the realms for the release of the new Cataclysm expansion.  This is the third major revision, following Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King, for the World of Warcraft since vanilla WoW was first launched.

In this expansion, we’ll see a new level-cap taking our toons up to level-85, new instances and end-game content centered in Azeroth and the sundering of the lands by black dragon aspect known as Deathwing.  Two new races will be introduced: the Worgen for the Alliance, and the Goblins for the Horde, along with their corresponding starting-zones and quest lines.  Also on-tap for the expansion is a re-vamping of the talent-trees, and the addition of new classes to the existing races.  (Tauren Paladins FTW!)

However, as the old saying goes: the devil is in the details.  And, fwiw, I’d like to take a brief moment both as means of introducing myself, and as an outlet to pent-up frustrations, introduce my list of improvements that I’d like to see addressed in the new expansion.  Realistically, I understand that most of these issues are probably way far down on the features list and won’t be addressed anytime soon.  But, in spite of that, let’s gird our loins, hoist a lance, and go tilting at that Blizzard-owned windmill, shall we?

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The “M” in MMO

I received an email a while ago from a company about a world war 2 based free to play MMO that’s currently in beta. I have been asked if I would like to pose a few questions to them which they will answer to post on our blog here.  I’m all for this kind of interaction with game developers whether or not it’s a game I chose to play.

The MMO in question states on their site that you can have up to 60 players playing in battles, this is where my question of the day comes from.

What makes the M in MMO? I’m talking about the first M, the massively part of the acronym, the part that makes an MMO what it is for me. There is also the point some will make that it’s the world you play in and it’s scope that has to be large, but you can see this in offline games such as Oblivion and others. Continue reading ‘The “M” in MMO’

MMOsite – Reader’s Choice Awards 2009

Over at MMOsite they are running voting for their reader’s choice MMO awards for 2009. We have our own voting page for you to head over and cast you vote, there are various prizes that can be won for casting you vote including WoW game time, vouchers and a mystery big prize.

As MMOsite is a site mostly about free mmo’s it’s not suprising that the votes so far are going the way of various free to play titles, though there are voting options for all the popular pay to play MMO titles.

Head over to the MMO-Symposium Custom Voting Page and cast your vote.

Enforced MMO absence

As I said in an earlier post I have been without the net for a bit while I moved house.

The other day I finally had the net installed and setup my PC, albeit surrounded by boxes I still haven’t unpacked.

During my enforced MMO break I did miss playing EQ2 and BE, though I realised when I logged back in for the first time in a while, that I had actually missed one aspect of gaming more than the gameplay itself.

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Your year in MMO’s 2009?

Firstly a Merry Xmas  to all MMO-Symposium readers!

As I currently don’t have the net at home due to Virgin’s slack install dates. I’d like to know what you’ve all been up to this year in MMO terms?

What games have you played? Which ones kept you playing and which ones did you try and drop after a beta/first month?

Also which MMO’s are you looking forward to the most for 2010?

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Fancy airing your MMO views?

My posting is likely to be a bit sparse over the next few weeks and has been for the past few as I’m in the process of moving house.

It has reminded me of an idea I had previously.

Here at MMO-Symposium we have a few writers who drop in from time to time (some slacking more than others ;) ), though we are always open to more.

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Going Public

Having reached what I believe to be the tenth level of MMO hell, The Plateau of Eternal Soloing, I have decided to give Lord of the Rings Online a bit of a rest and spend some time investigating the merits of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. One aspect of MMO gameplay that Champions Online recently introduced me to that WAR also offers is the concept of the public quest.

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What kind of MMO gamer are you?

9 circles of MMO gaming hellA member of my guild linked this image on our site and I thought I’d drop a quick post here to let you know where to find me in MMO hell. It’s designed by Tim Buckley over at Ctrl+Alt+Del and I think all of us will be doomed to spend eternity in one circle or other.

Where do I fit Myself?

Well I’d enter at the gateway and go right by the first circle of Perpetual Noobness of course. ;) I would however give it a passing glance in memory of all those amusing MMO mistakes I made, like running of a cliff when looking at my map or edging just that bit too close to the big nasty mob for a better look.

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Getting Into Spandex

A couple of weeks ago, MMO Symposium received an invitation from Cryptic Studios to check out their newly released MMO, Champions Online. Although not a superhero and comic book fan myself, I decided that I would temporarily set aside my legendary weapons, flee the claustrophobic confines of Moria and don some very unflattering multi-coloured spandex – all in the name of blogging.

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