Guild Wars 2

There are literally millions of disabled citizens in the United States alone. How many of these millions play games or would love to if the developers and hardware manufacturers provided more options for control and accessibility? During my time volunteering with Ablegamers.com, I learned a lot about how disabled gamers are often ignored or simply forgotten during the making of a title. Despite the fact that MMOs are generally more accessible than, say, the latest FPS, the community and developers still have a long way to go.

Don't tell that to Keith "Aieron" Knight. Besides having a killer name, he hasn't let his muscular dystrophy stop him at all. Recently he gained a bit of fame after being promoted by the official Guild Wars 2 and AbleGamers Twitter accounts. It turns out he was streaming his gameplay live, along with his webcam, as he played games to raise money for research. When I first tuned in to watch, he had over 3,000 viewers. The chat was mostly civil and showed just how educational it can be to show how a disabled player actually accesses a game. Many in the chat room didn't believe it was real. Why? Well, because Knight can pretty much kick some butt in both Guild Wars 2 and League of Legends... all while playing by using a pen in his mouth and his cheek on the mouse.

I had to ask this guy some questions!

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I have two big announcements today. The first is that Jukebox Heroes is switching from a bi-weekly to a weekly schedule, which should delight my 30 readers and cause an epidemic of indifference elsewhere. The second is that we're going to take a week off examining specific soundtracks to have a little fun with how silly MMO studios can get.

If you haven't figured it out already, this column is kind of a not-so-subtle outlet for sharing my MMO music collection with you. I don't have any firm method of collection other than I just acquire tracks that my ear tells me I'd like to hear again. So along the way, I've acquired a few oddball pieces that you probably won't find on any OST but that are notable enough to share.

In some cases, these tracks represent studios' attempts (successful or otherwise) to let down their hair and be humorous. In others, these songs are parodies or one-time special events. So let's take a sidebar to look at the whimsical and odd songs of gaming.

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It's that time of the week again, people! Time for those unlucky few who missed our livestreams as they went live to click beyond the cut and enjoy my favorites of the week. It's hard picking them out, so I reach out to the team and ask which ones deserve to be highlighted. Honestly, all of the livestreams deserve the spotlight, but it should be no surprise to find out that individual streamers find their own streams to be the best of the best. I tend to agree, and every week I am surprised at just how no-nonsense and informative our streams are. Be sure to bookmark our livestream schedule calender so that each week you can tune in to your favorite. Feel free to suggest titles for streaming and to chat it up with our streamers live as they play!

This week we have MJ returning with her favorite games like EverQuest II, Aion, The Secret World, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, and Guild Wars 2. Richie joins in with his current favorite, Guild Wars 2, and I round things off with an hour spent with the Ultima Online developer team, a goblinball session with community leaders in Allods Online, and a tutorial on building a house in Wurm Online! Trust me, if there is one goblin-kicking, dev-interviewing, house-building livestream series that you should watch, it's this one!

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Think you have what it takes to work for ArenaNet? Are you willing to spend a year toiling for peanuts and attaboys?

If you answered yes to both of those questions, head to the official ArenaNet blog and read over the company's class of 2013 internship post. ANet is offering experience in disciplines ranging from character and environmental art to animation and programming. Best of all, you'll get a year's worth of networking opportunities, not to mention resume fodder from one of the industry's most successful firms.

If you've had your fill of helping NPCs around the world and advancing your personal story in Guild Wars 2, you're probably going to head into one of the game's dungeons. You may have noticed some changes to the way that the dungeon rewarded your accomplishments if you've already done that today. These changes are the result of the game's newest patch, which has altered the reward structure for dungeon tokens and some of the encounter mechanics within individual dungeons.

Players now receive dungeon tokens by reaching the end of an explorable chain rather than via individual boss kills, which prevents players from farming the first boss that drops tokens. To help increase the overall rewards from a single run, the chains will offer 20 tokens on completion and an additional 40 the first time you clear one in a given day. Thus, clearing all three chains in a given dungeon in one day will reward you with 180 tokens in total. Read up on the full changes, along with some minor balance adjustments and bugfixes, in the full patch notes.

With this week -- and this podcast -- Massively's Editor-in Chief Shawn Schuster departs from helming this barge of insane writers, and an era comes to an end. To mark this occasion, we invited him to join us for one last Massively Speaking with the ultimate goal of seeing whether we could get him to cry. That's easy: All you have to do is mention Tabula Rasa three or more times.

Have a comment for the podcasters? Shoot an email to podcast@massively.com. We may just read your email on the air!

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Read below the cut for the full show notes.

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Have you heard about Guild Wars 2? You haven't? Cool -- ArenaNet put out a brand-new video just for you. A new video, called What is Guild Wars 2, has sprung up on ArenaNet's YouTube channel. Starring a sombre narrator, music from the official soundtrack, and copious in-game footage, the video is an introduction to the races, professions, and mechanics of the game. While not exactly a trailer, this video seems like a much more accessible and straight-forward counterpart to the recently released official launch trailer.

Skip below the cut to check it out.

[Thanks to savvy reader Divalicious Diva for the tip!]

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Ah, what a week in livestreaming for the Massively crew! Luckily, no one was discouraged by the fact that I was unable to stream my usual amount because I was waiting on a new PC to arrive. What brave soldiers, what fearless souls! I begged them to go on without me, and... well, they did. Pretty easily, actually. Be sure to bookmark our livestream schedule page so you won't miss another!

Anyway, what did we do on to stream? Well, tons of stuff. I took some of the very best streams from last week and assembled them in one easy-to-swallow pill. All you have to do is sit back, relax, and watch the wackiness! Like what? Like Richie taking on some more Guild Wars 2 in beautiful HD; MJ leaping bravely into The Secret World, EverQuest II, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, City of Heroes and Aion; and Mike PvPing in EVE Online and World of Tanks. I rounded things off with my one stream of the week: a look at IMVU, a social MMO for those who really, really like to go goth.

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Among the many map locations Guild Wars 2 entices its players to explore are vistas, and let's not kid ourselves: Vistas are jumping puzzles. Some are easier than others, of course, and some don't require much jumping at all (like those that ask you to take a leap of faith into an Asura gate or dive deep into a lagoon). But most of the time, your spacebar skills will be tested.

Though I am no platforming champion, Guild Wars 2's jumping puzzles have seemed very doable for me. A few have been frustrating enough to annoy me, especially those that require a few minutes of set-up so easily spoiled by a single overshot. But I like that MMO developers are bringing in new gameplay elements that both challenge and reward us and aren't just another round of "click here to make the foozle go."

What do you think -- do jumping puzzles belong in MMOs?

Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!