player housing

Ultima Online plans rentable storage vaults for F2P players, plus new castle and keep designs

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With the game’s 100th patch in the rear-view mirror, Ultima Online’s developers are already hard at work on the 101st patch due out in September, according to Broadsword’s latest newsletter. Notably, Bonnie “Mesanna” Armstrong says that the planned housing refresh is indeed coming that month, with new castle and keep designs on the way, subject to a player contest to decide which ones make the final cut.

Broadsword is also still working on “storage solutions” in the wake of the game’s free-to-play conversation last spring; players will be able to effectively rent 125-slot vaults for their account, shared across all characters, at a price roughly equal to $3 per month. If you don’t pay up, you lose the storage space – oh, and everything in it. It might be easier to just pay the $10-$13 sub and get a house, yeah?

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Fractured’s player city system is the evolution of Star Wars Galaxies

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MMORPG sandbox Fractured has five days to secure another 16K to make its $116K Kickstarter goal – and it just broke the $100K barrier as I’m typing this sentence. Dynamight Studios has a big housing and town update out today that ought to give players a reason to push it over the edge.

“In Fractured, having a base of operation is something really desirable for all players,” says the studio. “As with all our features, we don’t want to exclude any part of our userbase from enjoying the game, and that’s why we’re giving everyone plenty of options on how to live their social life. In the system we’re building, lone wolves can claim their own lot of land outside of a town, where they can build a home, basic crafting stations, cultivations and livestock. More social players can instead band together and start a settlement, or join an existing one. The most ambitious players can become the elected leaders of a free town through politics, or autonomously rule one connected (and dedicated to) their guild.”

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Darkfall: Rise of Agon looks forward to big new systems like dynamic housing

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The last patch for Darkfall: Rise of Agon had a whole gaggle of stuff in it. There’s even a video walking through all of the stuff contained therein below, if you want to check it out. But that’s all in the past now, and so the developers are looking ahead to future additions and improvements for the game. First on the list? The Relic system, which will allow players to pick up powerful Relics and attune to them, thus building characters in new and interesting ways and differentiating individual playstyles further.

The team is also hard at work on building the game’s dynamic housing system, allowing players to drop houses anywhere they’d like within the game world. That ties into expanded territory control mechanics in the game, as well as the upcoming Clan Platinum currency for purchasing clan-related things like siege weapons. So when you’re done enjoying the newest features the patch has to offer, you can start peering into the game’s future and get excited about that.

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Global Chat: Looking back at World of Warcraft’s Legion

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Now that the next World of Warcraft expansion is almost upon us, it’s time to say farewell to Legion and all that that entails. MMO blog Leo’s Life took some time for a retrospective that examines the highs, lows, and patch rollout over the past two years.

“Aside from the penalties to alts, I think Legion delivered an amazing package,” he said. “The timing of content release was good, the content was relatively bug-free, the lore was solid, the flows inside each zone worked… it was all rather seamless.”

We’ve got plenty of additional MMO essays for you after the break, covering topics such as player housing, grouping, events, ageless MMO thrills, and more!

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The Game Archaeologist: A history of EverQuest’s expansions

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I don’t know if EverQuest holds the crown title for the MMO with the most expansions, but I’m sure it’s among the top three if not at the number one spot on that list. It’s astounding to count them up and realize that two dozen expansions have come out for that game between 2000 and 2017. That averages to a little more than one per year!

Today I want to pay tribute to the 24 expansions of EverQuest by going through them, one by one, and seeing how they grew and enriched the game over the past decade-and-a-half. I would also love to hear testimonies in the comments as to which EverQuest expansion you enjoyed the most!

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Interview and excerpt: The ‘Braving Britannia’ book preserves Ultima Online’s oral history

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Earlier this week, we wrote about the launch of a new book that’s right up MMORPG fans’ alley. Dubbed Braving Britannia: Tales of Life, Love, and Adventure in Ultima Online, the book gathers together 35 interviews with players and both former and current Ultima Online devs to effectively become the first published oral history of the MMORPG that started it all.

Author Wes Locher was kind enough to answer a bunch of our questions about the book and provide us an excerpt to help you folks understand what you’re getting into if you decide to pick it up. Read on for the whole scoop!

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Identity’s town module — with player housing — is about ready to go live

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While the idea of a mere “town square” taking up the total landscape for an upcoming MMO test might seem small, that’s only the case if the game in question isn’t Identity. If it is, then you should expect a huge amount of detail and content packed into this “social gameplay module.”

Part of that content is player housing, which will initially take the form of purchasable apartments. The team is currently putting the finishing touches on the housing system (at least for this version), promising players that they will be able to tour all of the apartment types before they make a decision to buy.

Identity has raised $1.26 million to date from 28,152 backers. These are pretty patient backers, too, since the promised town square module has been repeatedly delayed. Check out some housing goodness below!

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Perfect Ten: Best MMO debuts by year, 2007-2017

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Continuing from my previous column, I’m going to be running through the second decade of graphical MMORPG launches and picking the best title to debut in any given year. From doing the first decade, I know that this thought exercise isn’t always fair; some years have several great contenders, while others see one mediocre one rise due to a lack of competition.

Still, it’s kind of fun to look back at MMO history and to see which game was really the best of that year. And if you ever felt sore that a particular title got overlooked, well, consider this a retroactive awards ceremony of some sort.

Let’s dive right in where we left off with 2007!

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SWTOR tests the new Rishi Hideout and Battle Ring arena

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Is there a new hope for entertainment in a galaxy far, far away? At the end of this month on July 31st, Star Wars: The Old Republic is going to push back against the sinister threat of summer boredom with its Galactic Legend update.

You won’t have to wait until then to check out the patch, however. Game Update 5.9.2 is up on the public test server right now for any who would like to put it through its paces.

The patch is primarily focused on PvP, with a new 4v4 arena map that uses Mandalore’s Battle Ring, Season 9 rewards, better PvP matchmaking, and multiple warzone improvements. Housing addicts can move into the Rishi Hideout stronghold, which is a tropical bungalow that offers players the opportunity to host their own PvP battles in that instance.

This is the 10th update to follow the Eternal Throne and Fallen Empire expansions.

Source: SWTOR

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One Shots: My name is Captain Vanity

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As I’m off on vacation this week, I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to cull through the previous One Shots comment section for great pics like I usually do. So I’m going to have to beg your forgiveness for a little indulgence here, because in this edition, I’ll be sharing nothing but my own screenshots. Feels like a cheat, because I do that all the time in normal news articles and columns, but why not?

First up is my tribute to the late, great Marvel Heroes. However sad it went out, I had some great times in that MMO and loved the crazy superhero encounters. Such as, in this instance, Captain Marvel giving Carnage a little something to think about before he swings that hand-axe around.

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The Daily Grind: What MMO is theoretically perfect but fails to click with you?

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Let’s talk about Final Fantasy XIV for a minute. This game really frustrates me because, on paper, it has so much of what I’m looking for in an MMORPG. It’s a polished and popular title with tons of story, player housing, swappable classes, incredible music, gorgeous visuals, and plenty of solo and grouping content. Yet every time I’ve made an honest effort to get into the game, I can only last about a month before I give up and head elsewhere.

I think it’s one of those cases of a game where the parts come together to make an objectively great product that doesn’t click with me personally. I’m routinely bored by the story and the slow pace, not to mention put off by the clunky controls and UI. I wish I could love it more, but I just don’t.

I’ve heard many of you say something similar about various games. There are titles that should be great for you, but so far, every time you try them, they don’t click. There’s something about these MMOs that keep them from being as fun for you as they might otherwise be. Which games are like this for you and why do you think this is the case?

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One Shots: Better virtual homes and gardens

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Lately I’ve been overdosing on some serious Sims 4 time (blame the Seasons expansion announcement for this!) and indulging in my long-standing passion for player housing. I don’t always get that fix in every MMO I play — looking sideways at you, Blizzard — but I do enjoy expressing myself and seeing what other players have come up in their own living spaces.

Let’s take a tour of some excellent virtual abodes today! We’ll start with Rees Racer: “I’ve been a Elder Scrolls Online plus player for… a long time. I don’t buy much, so I had some crowns to spend. I eventually purchased the Alinor Crest Townhouse in Summerset. I’m a Bosmer, and it’s technically Altmer architecture, but I really like the colours and the courtyard fountain, and I’m fairly certain I saved the rule of Queen Ayrenn a few years ago. It’s more extravagant (like all High Elf accoutrements) than I need (or like), but I earned it.”

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Vampire MMO Shadow’s Kiss turns on its alpha servers

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Six months after raising over $80,000 in its Kickstarter campaign, Shadow’s Kiss is drawing players into its dark alpha test.

The alpha servers are now online for this horror-themed MMORPG, which the team describes as a “modern Game of Thrones for vampires,” whatever that means. If you don’t have alpha access yet, the most straight-forward way to obtaining a key is to purchase one of the game’s housing packages (which range from $40 to $99).

Creative Director Thomas Sitch gives players an idea of what they’ll find in the alpha: “At this point players can create a character, choose story motivation, go through a full tutorial (complete with voice talent), and then explore various quests in the fictional city of San Cipriano […] We’re excited to show our fans that Shadow’s Kiss is a reality, and getting better with each update.”

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