Articles

[PAX East 2020] Stack Up Looking After Veterans

by Jean "Druidsfire" Prior | Mar 14, 2020

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] Population Zero Gives You 168 Hours to Survive

by Jean "Druidsfire" Prior | Mar 11, 2020

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

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.

A Decade of Change: Early Access

by Jean "Druidsfire" Prior | Jan 14, 2020

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.

A Retrospective on MMOs in 2019

by Jean "Druidsfire" Prior | Jan 13, 2020

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.

Exclusive Neverwinter Undermountain Cloak Giveaway

by Andy "Zap-Robo" Barber | May 9, 2019

With Neverwinter bringing the Undermountain update to the PC version of the title, we have once more teamed up with our friends at Perfect World and Cryptic Studios for a new giveaway.

[PAX East 2019] Bless Unleashed Invites Players to Make Them Pray

by Jean "Druidsfire" Prior | Apr 19, 2019

Bless Unleashed is a free-to-play action RPG MMO imported by Bandai Namco from the Asian market with the tagline ‘Make Them Pray’. It’s coming to Xbox One at first later this year, and to other platforms at some point in the future. We had the opportunity to have a go at their combat demo at PAX East in Boston this year, and it seems to be getting ready to provide some button-mashing fun to Western audiences.

[PAX East 2019] Dauntless Adds More Behemoths and More Fun

by Jean "Druidsfire" Prior | Apr 18, 2019

Dauntless remains an unusual action RPG, using a small-party mechanic to group people together to hunt Behemoths of various abilities, then taking the spoils back to the hub town of Ramsgate to complete quests and level up one’s gear through crafting. While the demo on the floor didn’t truly give a good view of this other behavior, what we got was the main gameplay loop, which was to go a-huntin’.

[PAX East 2019] Legends of Aria Shows Off Their Updates at PAX

by Jean "Druidsfire" Prior | Apr 10, 2019

At PAX East, we got another look at Citadel Studios’ indie MMO Legends of Aria, a sandbox with a completely player-driven economy that has been given a visual overhaul since last year’s PAX. I sat down with CEO Derek Brinkmann and had another go at their updated game. The first thing he said after mentioning the visual update is that the game has had its final beta phase character wipe, so that players are playing it for real now.

[PAX East 2019] Overview of This Year’s PAX East

by Jean "Druidsfire" Prior | Apr 5, 2019

This year’s PAX East in Boston, MA, was very different in tone than in previous years. The abdication of Twitch left a vacuum for streaming services that was more than capably filled by Mixer and Facebook Gaming with large booths and partners doing meet and greets and broadcasting live on the show floor.

Gamigo Acquires Trion Worlds Studio and Games, Dev Layoffs Confirmed

by Andy "Zap-Robo" Barber | Oct 23, 2018

It has been confirmed that Trion Worlds and it’s assets (including Defiance and RIFT), have been acquired by the gamigo group and as part of this acquisition, a number of Trion Worlds’ former staff have been reportedly laid off.

Mike Morhaime Steps Down as Blizzard President and CEO

by Jean "Druidsfire" Prior | Oct 7, 2018

On October 3rd, 2018, Mike Morhaime announced that he was stepping down as president and CEO of Blizzard Entertainment and, in the same joint post, he announced his successor as J. Allen Brack, a 12-year veteran of Blizzard.

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