Ubisoft's new anti toxicity measures for Rainbox Six Siege kicked in this week and the results have been mixed. The new policy includes a list of forbidden words which when typed, result in an automatic ban. First time offenders cannot play any game mode, including custom matches, for ~27 minutes. Second and third time offenses last 2 hours while additional [...]
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The Guild Wars 2 community was ignited this week by the firing of two staff members, writer Jessica Price and a developer who defended her actions on twitter. It was a post on said social media platform that set this train in motion. Jessica Price responded to what seems like an innocuous tweet then dug in her heels in the [...]
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The last time we discussed the EU, the GDPR, a sweeping data privacy bill had just come in force. Starting on May 25, 2018 all companies serving the EU region had to offer users a simple way to view what personal data was being stored on them and an easy way to opt out of said data collection. The burden [...]
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What happens when MMORPG drama leaks into the real world? This week a local issue in the Final Fantasy 14 community made headlines when outlets like PCGamer published a lengthy expose on the ongoing controversy. Dubbed MoogleGate, the story centers on a 30-something year old player with the in-game name OldBear. The allegations involve using his position as the head [...]
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Valve's Steam platform has dominated the PC gaming market for years now. If you're reading this post, its likely you too are active on Steam. Despite publishers like EA, Ubisoft, and Blizzard creating their own launchers, most of us still prefer to use Steam. Part of the continued attraction of Steam as a platform are the constant sales Valve runs, [...]
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While E3 official starts today and runs until June 14, all of the major studios have already held their press conferences. There were few surprises, no new consoles were announced afterall. But we did get a few controversial morsels. Perhaps the most contentious announcement was that the previous announced Fallout 76 would be online-only and contain no singleplayer mode or [...]
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On May 29, 2018 a new MMO project launched its Kickstarter campaign and quickly shot past its modest $70,000 funding goal. While most MMO Kickstarter campaigns promise a litany of ground breaking features, Temtem stood out for a different reason. Crema, the Madrid, Spain based studio behind Temtem, is developing an unapologetic Pokemon clone with MMORPG elements. The Steam page, [...]
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Its finally here! The Western version of the highly anticipated fantasy MMORPG Bless Online had its founders launch on May 28, 2018. Players willing to pay $40, $70, or $150 for the various Founders' Pack flocked on to the single server on launch day. The server soon crashed and NeoWiz was forced to add additional servers. This process repeated itself [...]
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The impact of user created content, including such things as mods, maps, addons, and so on, can hardly be overstated. Entire genres have spawned from mods like Counter-Strike, Dota, and various Battle Royale modes. The dream of bringing the creativity and scale made possible by user generated content into the MMO genre has been around for years. Before Minecraft, Notch [...]
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As I considered entering a silent retreat to find Zen among cacti and burnt out hippies, a digital monastery rose out of my Steam library. I could find my center from the comfort of a chair designed for 250 and up. What was it? A game. Not just any game. But the kind of game that dances in dreams, tantalizes [...]
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