Filed under: World of Warcraft , Fantasy , Screenshots , Age of Conan , EverQuest II , Lord of the Rings Online , MMO industry , Hands-on , Academic , Virtual worlds Landscapes have been a staple component of almost every MMO in recent memory. With the exception of some sci-fi titles , most MMOs take place on the land of some imagined island or continent.

Filed under: World of Warcraft , EverQuest , Guild Wars , Lord of the Rings Online , Business models , News items , Runescape , Legal , Virtual worlds It seems to be a World of Lawsuits (TM) recently in our industry. Bloggers are being sued for libel, NCsoft is being sued for patent infringement, Linden Labs is being sued for trademark violations, Turbine is suing Atari , and now five companies are all being sued over a patent dispute.

Filed under: World of Warcraft , Betas , Fantasy , Sci-fi , Aion , City of Heroes , Guild Wars , Lord of the Rings Online , Lore , MMO industry , The Daily Grind MMOs tend to have dedicated fan bases and everyone has their favourite: Aion , City of Heroes , WoW , Guild Wars , Lord of the Rings Online …

Filed under: World of Warcraft , Betas , Fantasy , Sci-fi , Aion , City of Heroes , Guild Wars , Lord of the Rings Online , Lore , MMO industry , The Daily Grind MMOs tend to have dedicated fan bases and everyone has their favourite: Aion , City of Heroes , WoW , Guild Wars , Lord of the Rings Online …

Filed under: World of Warcraft , Fantasy , Sci-fi , Lord of the Rings Online , Business models , New titles , The Matrix Online , Tabula Rasa , Star Trek Online , The Daily Grind , Casual , Champions Online On Monday we told you Cryptic had announced a lifetime membership for Champions Online . For $199 you get access to the Star Trek Online closed beta, special costumes not available to anyone else and other juicy perks. Cool huh

Filed under: World of Warcraft , Fantasy , Sci-fi , Age of Conan , EVE Online , Lord of the Rings Online , Culture , Economy , Game mechanics , The Daily Grind These days, without descending into total geek fan girl mode, phones are all about apps. Whether you have a Pre, an iPhone, a Google Android handset or one of the new, shiny Nokia phones, apps (short for applications) are usually an important part of how phones work

Filed under: World of Warcraft , Fantasy , Sci-fi , Age of Conan , Lord of the Rings Online , Culture , Lore , MMO industry , Star Trek Online , The Daily Grind MMOs are rarely stand-alone entities; there are exceptions of course but most are created thanks to a fan base from some other medium. Some, like WoW , are based on older games (often completely different types of games like an RTS or RPG) with a rich mythology that lends themselves perfectly to transcend its original form and become an MMO.

Examiner.com Trial run: Lord of the Rings Online Examiner.com There is a bit more you can do to customize the initial look of your character than you can in World of Warcraft , so it’s got that going for it.

Filed under: World of Warcraft , Fantasy , Lord of the Rings Online , Events, real-world , Events, in-game , The Daily Grind My American sources tell me this is a long weekend for you folks across the pond. Something about independence from Blighty a few hundred years ago.

Filed under: World of Warcraft , Fantasy , Lord of the Rings Online , Events, real-world , Events, in-game , The Daily Grind My American sources tell me this is a long weekend for you folks across the pond.

Filed under: World of Warcraft , Fantasy , Age of Conan , EverQuest , Lord of the Rings Online , Culture , MMO industry , The Daily Grind MMOs are a strange kind of genre to get into.

Escapist Magazine Lord of the Rings Online not merging servers, still growing Destructoid,?Florida While other big name MMOs not named World of Warcraft suffer, LOTRO keeps chugging. In fact, its user base is on the rise. In a conversation with VG247, live producer Aaron Campbell said as much when asked about server merging or dwindling player ..

Filed under: World of Warcraft , Fantasy , Age of Conan , Lord of the Rings Online , Lore , The Daily Grind Lore is the keystone of every good MMO, it crafts the raid instances and pushes the game to new heights in the form of expansions and patches. For many it is the lure of the lore — and by extension the playable races — which pulls them into the game. When I was a little younger than I am now, I studied classics and religious studies and theology at a uni in London for almost four years.

Filed under: World of Warcraft , Fantasy , Sci-fi , Entropia Universe , Culture , Game mechanics , Opinion , Second Life , Behind the Curtain , Virtual worlds I was feeling lost for a little while there. My mojo wasn’t working, the Force was not strong with me, etc

Filed under: World of Warcraft , Fantasy , Sci-fi , Entropia Universe , Lord of the Rings Online , Culture , Game mechanics , Opinion , Star Wars Galaxies , Behind the Curtain It’s funny the things that can suck you right back in, just when you thought you were out. I’ve been feeling pretty burned out with World of Warcraft over the last couple of weeks, and I wasn’t enjoying the feeling at all. There was a brief interlude where the Argent Tournament piqued my curiosity, so I grabbed the PTR downloader to give that a try

Filed under: World of Warcraft , Fantasy , Sci-fi , Anarchy Online , EVE Online , EverQuest II , Lord of the Rings Online , Culture , Opinion , Star Wars Galaxies , Behind the Curtain I haven’t been playing World of Warcraft as much as I should have this week, and I feel bad about it. Last week, my Warrior hit the Defence cap, I got my first 25 Emblems of Heroism , and I tanked Archavon on 10-man.

Filed under: World of Warcraft , Fantasy , Sci-fi , Age of Conan , EVE Online , Lord of the Rings Online , Game mechanics , MMO industry , Warhammer Online , Opinion , Vanguard Blizzard’s fantasy title World of Warcraft is everywhere these days, perhaps the only title to really pierce the veil between MMOs and mainstream media . For some massively multiplayer online gamers, WoW is the end-all be-all of titles out there. Can over 11 million people be wrong? Definitely not, we’d say. World of Warcraft has very much shaped the industry and writers at Massively have racked up ludicrous amounts of time spent in the game. But there are other engaging options out there, which is the point of an article written by Earnest Cavalli for The Portland Mercury’s ‘Blogtown’. In ” What’s Your Anti-Warcraft? ” Cavalli looks at the good, bad, and the ugly among the MMOs on the market. He praises the virtues of Lord of the Rings Online with its ability to pull you into the setting, the riskier style of EVE Online , and the personal legacy of achievements you can establish in Warhammer Online . Cavalli takes aim at Age of Conan though, and lambasts Vanguard: Saga of Heroes as well. If you’re offended by strong language, look away, because Cavalli doesn’t really pull any punches in his assessment of these titles. Check out ” What’s Your Anti-Warcraft? ” and see if you agree with his take on the MMO world beyond WoW ’s ever-expanding borders. One of Azeroth’s millions of citizens? Check out our ongoing coverage of the World of Warcraft , and be sure to touch base with our sister site WoW Insider for all your Lich King needs! The World outside Warcraft originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 09 Feb 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . ? Read ?|? Permalink ?|? Email this ?|? Linking?Blogs ?|? Comments