Our latest coverage of The Weekly Raid.
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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The European Union passed a set regulations back in April 2016 called the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR for short. While that was over two years ago, the actual enforcement of the new regulations only come into effect starting on May 25, 2018. Broadly speaking, the goal of the GDPR is "to protect and empower all EU citizens data [...]
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The Battle Royale genre has taken the gaming industry by storm. Playerunknown's Battlegrounds and Fortnite were the defining titles of 2017 and both continue to increase in popularity well into 2018. They've been joined by a few new comers like Darwin Project and Radical Heights, and there's surely dozens more Battle Royale games currently in development. But does this new [...]
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After months of rumors, Nexon has official confirmed that MapleStory 2 is coming to the West! The official website went live on April 16 which immediately started taking applications for a closed beta test scheduled to start on May 9th. The official launch trailer, embedded below, shows prospective players what MapleStory is all about. While the game never enjoyed the [...]
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The highly anticipated movie adaptation of Ready Player One hit theaters this week and while its undeniably aimed at children, it does offer the astute MMO player some food for thought. Setting aside the unbelievable timeline of the technology (life-like VR by 2045), the primary VR platform of Ready Player One, The OASIS, seems to be a single centralized service [...]
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Mastering any new hobby requires learning a variety of skills, and video games are no exception. While some genres focus mainly on a single skill like hand-eye coordination, MMOs require a far greater variety of skills. Time management, resource management, and most importantly social skills are rewarded handsomely in most MMORPGs. Many of the skills we learn from MMOs can [...]
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It seems like MMO monetization follows the same trends as the fashion industry. A long time ago subscriptions were in, then they were out. The subscription MMORPGs that launched in the wake of World of Warcraft quickly bled out players once the included 30-day game time expired. A rush of free to play games, mostly from Asia, that were supported [...]
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