Filed under: Meet the Team

Captain's Log: Impressions of diplomacy in Star Trek Online

by Ryan Greene Aug 12th 2010 at 11:00AM

Filed under: Sci-fi, Patches, Opinion, Star Trek Online, Meet the Team, Captain's Log, Guides

Peace be with you, readers. Today, we convene once again for a new edition of Captain's Log, in which we discuss, with mutual respect for all opinions, Star Trek Online. Begging your pardon if you disagree, but I thought it appropriate that we explore one of the game's brand-new features: diplomacy.

With the advent of Season 2: Ancient Enemies, Treksters and STO fans the world over may breathe a sigh of relief. Cryptic Studios finally introduced a dedicated system for being all peaceable and stuff, like on the teevee. So how does this diplomacy business work, and is it any good? Read on to find out.

Meet the Team: Tim Dale

by Tim Dale Jun 12th 2009 at 12:00PM

Filed under: Culture, Interviews, Massively meta, Meet the Team

Once a week our writers will give you a glimpse into their lives, to let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more Meet the Team.

What do you do for Massively.com?

I'm a Columnist which is a fancy way of saying that I tend to go on at great length on a much more infrequent basis than real news writers. I'm quite new here so am still working out the rest of this answer as I go!

What's your favorite MMO?

I think I'm still looking for my favourite MMO, which might be one reason I tend not to settle in any one title for years at a time. With any luck, I'll know it when I do see it! Past MMO lifetimes I have enjoyed a great deal include Star Wars: Galaxies, back when it was new, and not a very Star-Warsey game at all, a long spell in Anarchy Online living a very Bladerunnerish life in an imaginary distant future and my first and only run from 1 to 60 in pre Burning Crusade World of Warcraft, a game which is as popular as it is for good reason.

Gallery: Meet the Team

Meet the team: Jon Shute

by Jon Shute May 15th 2009 at 5:30PM

Filed under: Massively meta, Meet the Team

Once a week our writers will give you a glimpse into their lives, to let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more Meet the Team.

What do you do for Massively.com?
I'm a blogger, so it's my job to write about the news and try and write interesting things about what's happening in the world of MMOs.

What's your favorite MMO?
Now that's an unfair question as I like several games for different reasons. Hands down the game I've played the longest is EVE Online as my main character has just hit six years old. After that long I think you pretty much have to accept that you really like the game. There's really nothing that can beat letting the players define their own game in my book, although you have to be the type of player who seeks out content or wants to provide content for others through corporations in order to get the most from it. I think that deep down it's one of the most hardcore whilst still actually being carebear friendly games there is. It's hard for me to argue how important so called carebears are to the game considering how many industry activities my corp is involved in at the moment, and I know it's become a cliche but if you find the right corp there's a useful role for everybody.

Gallery: Meet the Team

Meet the Team: Lemuel Pew

by Lemuel Pew May 8th 2009 at 6:00PM

Filed under: Super-hero, City of Heroes, Culture, Interviews, Massively meta, Meet the Team

Once a week our writers will give you a glimpse into their lives, to let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more Meet the Team.

What do you do for Massively.com?

I'm a webcartoonist, I draw the weekly Massively feature, Grinders. That's pretty much the full and half of it.

What is your favourite MMO?

City of Heroes, hands down. I've played most of the MMOs that have come to market since EverQuest, looking for the Next Big Thing, and I didn't even realize I had found it until I was on my third year of playing City. I'm still going strong. The game has enough variety to entertain my short attention span, the gameplay, while unarguably repetitive, has a rhythm that really entertains and relaxes me, no matter what role on a team I'm playing. I never was a fan for loot ("Judge a toon not by the color of their armor, but the content of their attributes."), I blame this mostly on not growing up on Dungeons & Dragons. I'd rather spend points on stats behind the scenes than wear a hand-me-down piece of clothing from a corpse... seriously, am I the only person bothered by that?

Gallery: Meet the Team

Meet the Team: Lesley Smith

by Lesley Smith Apr 23rd 2009 at 5:00PM

Filed under: Massively meta, Meet the Team

Once a week our writers will give you a glimpse into their lives, to let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more Meet the Team.

What do you do for Massively.com?
Well I've just started as a Contributing Editor for Massively and WoW Insider so I write news, source interviews and generally do whatever I'm told. IRL I'm a journalist specialising in, amongst other things, computer games. I was tapped because I have experience with covering lots of MMOs, even if I don't play them myself. At the same time, I'm based in the UK so that's got to be worth something, right?

Gallery: Meet the Team

Meet the Team: James Egan

by James Egan Apr 17th 2009 at 10:00AM

Filed under: Massively meta, Meet the Team

Once a week our writers will give you a glimpse into their lives, to let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more Meet the Team.

What do you do for Massively.com?

I'm a Contributing Editor at Massively and am focused on our day-to-day news coverage of the MMO industry. While I cover pretty much anything that happens in the MMO world, I'm largely responsible for our EVE Online coverage (beyond Brendan Drain's excellent column here, EVE Evolved.)

So I hit much of the big news as it relates to EVE, either from an industry standpoint or (what I much prefer) a player's standpoint. I also conduct most of Massively's interviews as they relate to this particular sci-fi game, whether it's with the devs or the players themselves.

Of course I don't just write about EVE though and I'll cover pretty much whatever captures my interest. While I've enjoyed some fantasy games, namely Warhammer Online, I have this kind of disconnect with the fantasy genre in general and am more drawn to sci-fi titles and their lore. More often than not, when you see my name beneath a headline at Massively, it's in connection with something sci-fi. The impending wave of science fiction and post-apocalyptic themed MMOs means this is a great time for me, both as a gamer and a writer, and I hope I'm carrying this over to my work here.

Gallery: Meet the Team

Meet the Team: Brooke Pilley

by Brooke Pilley Apr 9th 2009 at 11:00AM

Filed under: Massively meta, Meet the Team

Once a week our writers will give you a glimpse into their lives, to let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more Meet the Team.

What do you do for Massively.com?

As a contributing editor, my job is to bring the latest and greatest MMO news to the people who play them. I am also one of the few team members who actively play Warhammer Online, so I try to cover it as much as I can in terms of news, features, and insights. Since I'm still a relative newbie at Massively, I try to learn as much as I can from my amazing team mates and contribute my own ideas when possible. In a nutshell, I get to research and play MMOs and then write about them. How cool is that?!

Gallery: Meet the Team

Meet the Team: Kyle Horner

by Kyle Horner Mar 23rd 2009 at 9:00AM

Filed under: Massively meta, Meet the Team

Once a week our writers will give you a glimpse into their lives, to let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more Meet the Team.

What do you do for Massively.com?

As a news monkey - aka blogger -- I'm responsible for rubbing two neurons together in my head and making posts. In addition to that, I also put together a weekly column, The Digital Continuum. That's my regular thing, but you'll probably see interviews or other forms of one-off features on the site from me as well. And I'm also the fellow who puts together those nifty little images you see along the right of the website.

Massively is more or less a full-time thing for me, and I love every minute of it. Well, expect when we're electroshocked. That part stings.

Gallery: Meet the Team

Meet the Team: Michael Zenke

by Michael Zenke Feb 2nd 2009 at 10:00AM

Filed under: Massively meta, Meet the Team

Once a week our writers will give you a glimpse into their lives, to let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more Meet the Team.

What do you do for Massively.com?

I'm the Managing Editor for the site. That means that in addition to doing regular news blogging and the occasional feature, I help the contributing editors focus their coverage and writing. I try my best to connect the site with development houses and publishers, and generally work towards getting new and better content on the site every day. For the past year plus the site's been my life and fulltime work, and I'm really very fond of it.

That probably sounds weird, but that's the way it is.

Gallery: Meet the Team

Meet the Team: Craig Withers

by Craig Withers Jan 5th 2009 at 12:00PM

Filed under: Massively meta, Meet the Team

Once a week our writers will give you a glimpse into their lives, to let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more Meet the Team.

What do you do for Massively.com?
I contribute the weekly column, Behind the Curtain. Instead of having a real job on the site posting up actual news, I'm lucky enough to just hang around and ramble on for a few hundred words every seven days, in a general opinion-based format.

What's your favorite MMO?
World of Warcraft, easily. Like the T, I feel like a bit of a sell-out choosing WoW, but this is my time in the spotlight, and I'll pick whatever game I want to, and there's not a thing you can do to stop me!

Sorry.

My entry into the MMO world started with Star Wars Galaxies, which I still dabble in occasionally. I've also spent a fair bit of time in EVE Online, but haven't had an active account in either for quite some time.

Gallery: Meet the Team

Meet The Team - Mark Turpin (The T)

by Mark Turpin Dec 16th 2008 at 12:00PM

Filed under: Massively meta, Meet the Team

Gnomish made crotch-mounted parachutes - They've saved my ass from a beating more than once!

Once a week our writers will give you a glimpse into their lives, to let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more Meet the Team. Above is Turpster, my main character in World of Warcraft, and his crotch-mounted parachute (What? Where do you keep yours?)

What do you do for Massively.com?
I am the host of Massively's number one rated video podcast 'TurpsterVision' I am proud to have won many prestigious awards such as 'Massively's #1 Video Podcast MMO Review Show' and 'Most improved odor'.

What's your favorite MMO?
Without a doubt it's World of Warcraft but that is a terrible answer; I feel like such a sell out saying it. It's the MMO equivalent of someone asking what your favorite band is and you giving the answer 'The Beatles' - everyone loves the Beatles, it doesn't say much about you. So in an extremely long winded way of saying it, I guess I really liked Lord of the Rings Online and Warhammer Online, but gosh darn it! I love the Beatles.

Gallery: Meet the Team

Meet the Team: Colin Brennan

by Seraphina Brennan Dec 5th 2008 at 9:00AM

Filed under: Massively meta, Meet the Team

Once a week our writers will give you a glimpse into their lives, to let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more Meet the Team.

What do you do for Massively.com?
You probably know me as the opinionated guy who writes the Anti-Aliased column here on Massively, which covers the culture and dynamics of both developers and players in the MMO industry. Past that, I'm also one of the blogging staff, so you'll see a news post from me every now and then.

Gallery: Meet the Team

Meet the Team: Brendan Drain

by Brendan Drain Nov 26th 2008 at 11:00AM

Filed under: Massively meta, Meet the Team

Once a week our writers will give you a glimpse into their lives, to let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more Meet the Team.

What do you do for Massively.com?
I'm an EVE Online columnist here at Massively. Rather than writing short blog posts, I write the EVE Evolved column every Sunday and cover EVE topics ranging from guides and game mechanic commentaries to PvP and economics. I'm also the resident EVE Online expert and occasionally people call on me with questions.

Sometimes I'll write a featured article about another game that I'm enjoying such as when I looked at free running and urban exploration in MMOs and when I took a tour of Age of Conan's player cities.

Gallery: Meet the Team

Meet the Team: Krystalle Voecks

by Krystalle Voecks Nov 18th 2008 at 6:00PM

Filed under: Massively meta, Meet the Team

Once a week our writers will give you a glimpse into their lives, to let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more Meet the Team.

What do you do for Massively.com?
Currently, I'm a staff writer, which means I do a bit of this and a bit of that. Additionally, I do One Shots daily and have just picked up the mantle of First Impressions, which we'll be restarting soon. Originally, I helped found the site as a co-lead, but I stepped down last month to dedicate more time towards my degree and certifications. That adult responsibility thing gets in the way of the fun stuff at times.

Gallery: Meet the Team

Meet the Team: Samuel Axon

by Samuel Axon Nov 10th 2008 at 4:00PM

Filed under: Massively meta, Meet the Team

Once a week our writers will give you a glimpse into their lives, to let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more Meet the Team.

What do you do for Massively.com?
I'm a core blogger. That means I'm one of a handful of writers who keep the regular flow of content going, hit news when it comes up, and sometimes do featured articles.

What's your favorite MMO?
My all-time favorite is Meridian 59. I still haven't played a game I liked half as much as that one. It was a completely different kind of game, and there hasn't been anything even remotely like it since. It was horribly flawed in many ways, but I'm sad no one -- except maybe CCP with EVE Online -- has refined what it tried to do.

Gallery: Meet the Team

Massively Features

Events Calendar

Name	Date
Cataclysm Launch	Dec 7, 2010
DCUO Launch	Early 2011

Massively Staff

Name	Title
Shawn Schuster	Editor-in-Chief
Brianna Royce	Senior Editor
Rubi Bayer	Community Manager
Brendan Drain	Contributing Editor
Eliot Lefebvre	Contributing Editor
Jef Reahard	Contributing Editor
Justin Olivetti	Contributing Editor
Krystalle Voecks	Contributing Editor
Larry Everett	Contributing Editor
Beau Hindman	Columnist
Edward Marshall	Columnist
Greg Waller	Columnist
Jeremy Stratton	Columnist
Karen Bryan	Columnist
MJ Guthrie	Columnist
Patrick Mackey	Columnist
Ryan Greene	Columnist
Lisa Poisso	Columnist