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[PAX East 2020] Stack Up Looking After Veterans
In these uncertain times, it's good to reflect on the organizations which are providing assistance to others. At PAX East, we had the privilege of speaking with Stack Up's founder and CEO, Stephen Machuga about their mission. Stack Up is a nonprofit organization that was founded from a simple idea: veterans and active-serving military needed something to help their mental health. Read more...
[PAX East 2020] Population Zero Gives You 168 Hours to Survive
Population Zero is a new entry into the genre of exploration/survival games, created by Enplex Games. Stranded on the planet Kepler with the survivors of colonization expedition, it's the player's goal to survive for 168 hours (7 earthly days) before they surrender to madness due to a mysterious Sphere. Read more...
[PAX East 2020] Panel Review: Build Your Guild: Make and Support Friends in Gaming
What's interesting is that many large game companies tend to do the occasional celebration of this sort of camaraderie, but it's rare that a company continues the tradition and in fact doubles down on it. ArenaNet started such an initiative last year called Friend/Ships, acknowledging both romantic and non-romantic lasting relationships that sprung up amongst their Guild Wars 2 community, and it continued this year with a modest booth on the show floor and a special panel at PAX East. Read more...
A Decade of Change: Early Access
The internet got introspective in the past couple of months when it wasn't arguing over exactly when the decade ended. Setting pedantry aside for a moment, let's discuss changes to the concept of early access over the past ten years and whether or not it it has a positive effect on games. Back in the day, most games were released to the public at launch, and only folks who knew someone was able to finesse their way into a closed beta, with a rarefied fewer getting alpha access, both of which were frequently covered by non-disclosure agreements. Read more...
A Retrospective on MMOs in 2019
While it wasn't a supremely transformative year for MMOs, in 2019, the industry has started to see more and more of a paradigm shift in the kinds of MMOs being released, worked on, or even theorycrafted. For years, players and the general public equated MMO to games that followed World of Warcraft's model, which was a more cemented version of EverQuest's model, and the industry shied away from innovation because that was risky. Read more...

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[PAX East 2020] Population Zero Gives You 168 Hours to Survive

[PAX East 2020] Azeroth Reborn: Nostalgia Trips at PAX

by Jean "Druidsfire" Prior | Mar 16, 2020 | Media

Nostalgia can be a heady thing. It’s also currently trendy, with two primary camps of opinions on the matter. There are those who honestly believe you can never go home again and that dipping too deep into nostalgia is a bad thing, often because it blinds people to the cool stuff already around them or prevents them from looking to the future and making progress

[PAX East 2020] Stack Up Looking After Veterans

by Jean "Druidsfire" Prior | Mar 14, 2020 | Articles

In these uncertain times, it’s good to reflect on the organizations which are providing assistance to others. At PAX East, we had the privilege of speaking with Stack Up’s founder and CEO, Stephen Machuga about their mission. Stack Up is a nonprofit organization that was founded from a simple idea: veterans and active-serving military needed something to help their mental health.

[PAX East 2020] Marvel and Netmarble Announce Marvel Future Revolution

by Jean "Druidsfire" Prior | Mar 13, 2020 | News

The resulting experience is the open-world RPG Marvel Future Revolution. The basic premise is a sort of mash-up of worlds called the Convergence where the heroes from each reality will be teaming up to save them all in conjunction with Omega Flight. The panel revealed expansive landscapes pasted onto our world that featured Sakaar from World War Hulk and Xandar from the Nova books, as well as mentioning a New Stark City where the heroes had Iron Man-ized costumes.

[PAX East 2020] Population Zero Gives You 168 Hours to Survive

by Jean "Druidsfire" Prior | Mar 11, 2020 | Articles

Population Zero is a new entry into the genre of exploration/survival games, created by Enplex Games. Stranded on the planet Kepler with the survivors of colonization expedition, it’s the player’s goal to survive for 168 hours (7 earthly days) before they surrender to madness due to a mysterious Sphere.

[PAX East 2020] Panel Review: Build Your Guild: Make and Support Friends in Gaming

by Jean "Druidsfire" Prior | Mar 9, 2020 | Articles

What’s interesting is that many large game companies tend to do the occasional celebration of this sort of camaraderie, but it’s rare that a company continues the tradition and in fact doubles down on it. ArenaNet started such an initiative last year called Friend/Ships, acknowledging both romantic and non-romantic lasting relationships that sprung up amongst their Guild Wars 2 community, and it continued this year with a modest booth on the show floor and a special panel at PAX East.

Holly Longdale to Depart Darkpaw Games

by Jean "Druidsfire" Prior | Mar 7, 2020 | News

In a heartfelt March Producer’s Letter on both the EverQuest and EverQuest 2 sites, Executive Producer Holly ‘The Windstalker’ Longdale announced her departure from both games’ leadership for a ‘once-in-a-lifetime opportunity’. She named Franchise Technical Director Jennifer Chan as her replacement and stated she would remain involved in the games as a player going forward.

[PAX East 2020] Exclusive Interview with LotRO Composer Bill Champagne

by Jean "Druidsfire" Prior | Mar 5, 2020 | Media

Big-time raiders aren’t the only ones who get world firsts. We here at MMO Central are pleased to bring you a world first, an exclusive interview with Lord of the Rings Online’s head of Quality Assurance and also the reigning game composer, Bill ‘Darth Celtics’ Champagne. We discussed a number of topics from both his spheres of influence in the game, so here’s the video of that interview, recorded at Standing Stone Games during PAX East.

[PAX East 2020] Interview with SSG Executive Producer Rob Ciccolini

by Jean "Druidsfire" Prior | Mar 5, 2020 | Media

With PAX East being in Boston, it’s natural for us to reach out to the resident MMO studio in the neighborhood every year, especially in light of the recent announcements made at their player meetup last week. We sat down with Standing Stone Games’ Executive Producer Rob ‘Severlin’ Ciccolini to ask questions about the state of both MMOs being developed by his studio, Dungeons and Dragons Online and Lord of the Rings Online, and to gather more details on the big ticket items announced at the Adventure Pub.

[PAX East 2020] Big News at the Standing Stone PAX East Meetup

by Jean "Druidsfire" Prior | Feb 29, 2020 | News

Standing Stone Games and their players raided the Adventure Pub in Arlington, MA on Friday night at PAX East 2020. It coincided with the 14th anniversary of Dungeons and Dragons Online, and the big news was the announcements from DDO and Lord of the Rings Online’s Executive Producer Rob ‘Severlin’ Ciccolini, including an explanation why the LotRO Producer’s Letter is still pending.

Perfect World Entertainment Announces Star Trek Online: Legacy

by Jean "Druidsfire" Prior | Jan 28, 2020 | News

This time, the update includes an homage to Original Series episode ‘The Savage Curtain’, returning players to the planet Excalbia in a two-part episode to pit them against villains from previous game content updates. They will have the benefit of some of Starfleet’s finest at their side, such as Seven (voiced by Jeri Ryan of Voyager and Picard) and Michael Burnham (voiced by Sonequa Martin-Green from Discovery).