iPad World

It’s not subscription MMOs that are dying, Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons & Dragons Online maker Turbine told Eurogamer – it’s antiquated games that insist upon a single method of payment.

“People now in the West expect to have full control over their entertainment dollar and spend it the way they want to,” explained Adam Mersky, Warner’s (Turbine’s owner) digital communications Witch King.

“It’s probably not right to say the subscription MMO is dying, it’s probably more right to say the idea of forcing a player to only have one option for having to consume your content – that’s probably … Continue Reading

Club Penguin is no hybrid chocolate bar.

It’s a browser MMO about cartoon penguins and their snowy online world of mini-games and igloo decorating. It’s a giant; a business boasting 150 million registered accounts and 10 to 15 million active monthly users. And a portion of those pay £5 every month.

Lane Merrifield created it for his children.

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Labelling Star Wars: The Old Republic competent but not innovative is “unfair”, BioWare told Eurogamer – the MMO does more than today’s FPS and action games to push its respective genre forward.

“It’s been a little bit of an unfair characterisation,” SWTOR game director James Ohlen remarked to Eurogamer. “Because if you look at other game genres, if you look at a Battlefield or a Call of Duty or a Gears of War or even a Half-Life – those games use the same tried and true interface and the same tried and true game mechanics of the first-person … Continue Reading

A free beta version of a Rift iOS app has just gone on the App Store, developer Trion Worlds has announced.

Playable by anyone with an account for the popular MMO, the app offers various social features, including real time chat with friends and guild mates. There are also a number of mini-games included – titled Planar Invasion, Crafty Critters and Shinies – with loot, crafting materials and artifacts up for grabs.

Finally, the app gives you an alert when a Zone Event is getting underway on your shard.

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Maybe I’m being wilfully perverse. It wouldn’t be the first time. If the game of the week were determined by buzz or importance or sheer weight of numbers – of players, of man-years of effort, of many millions of dollars in budget, of hours of queuing for a precious spot on a live server – then this week it would unquestionably belong to Star Wars: The Old Republic.

BioWare’s behemoth isn’t just (very likely) the most expensive game ever made, it’s the most challenging online game launch ever – and that from a developer with limited experience in … Continue Reading

The Guinness Book of Records: Gamer’s Edition must be having a field day with Star Wars: The Old Republic; most expensive game ever, most vocal recording in a game, longest hype, most embarrassing cosplayer, most Jedi teabagging…

Yet despite the long list of superlatives already attached to it, SWTOR feels like the last of its kind; a game that was started at the end of one era of the MMO, and one that will be released at the beginning of another.

There are uneasy parallels that can be drawn with Star Wars: Galaxies, SWTOR’s much-maligned predecessor, here. Galaxies … Continue Reading

Something going by the name of Batman: Arkham World was teased at this weekend’s Spike VGA event in Los Angeles.

Developer Rocksteady Studio’s CG acceptance video for its Best Character award saw The Joker holding up a script marked “Batman: Arkham World” before saying “Whoops! Spoilers.” Take a look below.

Hardly an official confirmation, but intriguing nonetheless. Given the title, could it be an MMO perhaps?

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One day with Funcom’s (post-)modern MMO.

ArenaNet reveals MMO’s narrative system.

Original WOW hardware up for grabs.

Blizzard is auctioning a number of server blades used in the early days its hugely successful World of Warcraft MMO.

Around 2000 original Hewlett Packard ProLiant blades that once housed 500 hundred Warcraft different realms across North America and Europe are being sold off.

Net proceeds go to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, one of the world’s premier centers for the research and treatment of pediatric cancer and other catastrophic childhood diseases.

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