Quickies Get Massive 48
More movement on the massive scale. WoW Players should be aware that Patch 1.7 was released today. It's a big one, with a new raid instance, Hunter changes, and the inclusion of a new type of server (Roleplaying PVP) available. Get downloading. City of Heroes has seen Issue 5's Release, with a new zone, new power sets, and a big tweak to the Blaster archetype. Late last week a whole bunch of new City of Villains Beta invites went out, and Gamespot has a rundown on the upcoming stand-alone sequel. Major changes are afoot in Everquest II's Producer Letter, with changes to combat, classes, items, NPCs, buffs, crafting, and grouping. Is it even the same game? On a final non-commercial note, CNet has news that the Second Life virtual world is now free to enter, with the Linden Dollars economy expected to prop up the costs associated with running it. Interesting. From that article: "Currently, Rosedale said, "Second Life" has 45,000 members and is growing at about 10 percent a month. There are now more than 16,000 acres of owned land in the virtual world, and new land sells for about $129. Users must pay a fee of about $25 a month to maintain their land. Thus, Linden Lab is earning about $400,000 a month without ever factoring in membership fees." Update: 09/14 05:50 GMT by Z : Cutriss rightly points out that I overlooked the interesting Ballista Royale update to FFXI. Additionally, a new patch for Dark Age of Camelot was released today, and the main site revamped for the upcoming expansion.
If you're interested in the PvP/RP server.. (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, because the article lies (it's $9.95/mo). (Score:0, Informative)
With a monthly subscription at $9.95 a month, you can own up to 512 square meters of land. It's tiered above that, though, so you can spend quite a bit if you want to rent a huge plot of land (but you can easily sublet to groups of friends if you want).
See these three pages for details:
http://secondlife.com/pricing/ [secondlife.com]
http://secondlife.com/vland/cost.php [secondlife.com]
http://secondlife.com/vland/fees.php [secondlife.com]
You can even buy an entire virtual island for $195 a month should you wish - if you wanted to build a virtual theme park... or whatever you want to use a huge plot of virtual land for. Think of it like renting a private server in other games like Battlefield (which can be equally expensive).
Re:$25 a month, isn't a bit stiff for a MMORPG? (Score:2, Informative)
If you want more land, there is a tiered monthly fee structure beyong the normal fee. Land can cost you anywhere between $L3-$L5/sm. The $L is currently trading around $US3.50 per $L1000.
Alan Palmerstone - SL resident since June 2004.
I5 for COH (Score:4, Informative)
What about FFXI? (Score:5, Informative)
FFXI has the North American Ballista Royale [square-enix.com] gearing up for team-based PVP tournaments which will eventually be held on a server-versus-server tournament level. A new update will be out in October that will add new zones and expand the functionality of the NPC buddies that were added in one of the recent patches, and a host of other new things. Also, with TGS right around the corner, everyone's expecting the official announcement of the new expansion pack, which will be included on the FFXI release for the Xbox 360.
Re:Second life may be free, but still requires cc. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:What about FFXI? (Score:4, Informative)
FFXI requires a degree of sadism and time investment (it can literally take hours just to find a group, and this isn't rare) that seems high even in comparison to Lineage 2. The economy has been utterly devastated by farmers, and encounters (and therefore groups, which are absolutely necessary - you can't even blow your nose in FFXI without a white mage to help you) are so demanding that you often won't be admitted into a group unless you have the absolute best equipment available. Which means either, A) competing with professional farmers, B), farming for gold for days to buy the most trivial equipment, or C) shelling out to the farmers on eBay.
FFXI isn't covered because it's not a game, it's punishment in digital form; it's a damned job with no benefits and no pay. It's a game so slow, boring, repetetive, and frustrating that even old-time EverQuest players say "whoa, that's too much." "Playing" FFXI is like choing on tinfoil while a donkey kicks you in the nuts and a midget in a bondage outfit sodomizes you with a red-hot, spiked dildo.
Re:Second life may be free, but still requires cc. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I'll give it another shot (Score:2, Informative)
Of course it has no gameplay, it's not a game.
The whole point is that you have fun creating stuff.
You know, vaguely like Lego blocks? Except you have a heap of different shapes, that are infinitely customizable, and a scripting language with which you can do anything, from simple doors and cars, to complex physics simulations, and massive distributed systems.
Or, of course, if you're not the creative type, you can socialize and buy stuff, play house, attend events, have cybersex with hot nubile avatars who may or may not be 50 year old men, the works.
There's also a heap of games to play inside it, all created by users.
Re:$25 a month, isn't a bit stiff for a MMORPG? (Score:3, Informative)
You can get a free account which you can use to explore and create content just like anyone else. The free account is quite sufficient for all but the most full-control-obsessed land owning requirements.
If you need to own land for your project, you can still keep your account free and rent land from other players (on negotiated terms), or you can upgrade your account to pay a monthly hosting fee to own land. You can own as little as 512 square meters for $7-10/month, or one or more whole regions for $195/month.
Keep in mind too, the company that runs SL isn't creating artificial scarcity with land like so many people assume. Each region of land (65,536 square meters) requires one server-unit of resources to be maintained for running things such as:
- the simulator itself
- the Havok physics engine
- local asset storage and transfer
- synchronizing updates to active agents within and near the region
- running hundreds or even thousands of user scripts
The result is each region requires a decent piece of hardware to run without noticably lagging the region's simulator (incurring "time dilation", slower script execution, etc).
So the title is wrong. You can enjoy SL for free. And even if you pay, there are many pricing tiers between free and a full region. According to their Land FAQ [secondlife.com], it is $25/month only if you absolutely need to have complete ownership control over 4,608 square meters of land.
PS: BTW, An odd quirk in the current economy makes it actually profitable to buy a minimal (512 sq m landowning) annual subscription, assuming the virtual currency (L$) value holds above a L$1000:US$3 ratio. The landowning accounts receive a weekly grant of L$500. At the end of a year, that comes to L$26k, which is currently valued [gamingopenmarket.com] at more than the price of the US$72 annual subscription fee.