On the eighth day of gaming Carbine gave to me; Eight Wild Races

With winter finally here it means the spring of WildStar’s launch is that much closer. In order to help celebrate ZAM’s eighth day of gaming, I thought it would be good for us to talk about these eight races and their involvement in the over-arching story of WildStar. And with me being a lore nerd, what better way to bring in the New Year than to share some WildStar history with you all.

You see, It all began with the mysterious and ancient hyper-advanced race known as the Eldan. Planet Nexus used to be their home until the entire race suddenly disappearaed without a trace. How does the most advanced group of people in the galaxy suddenly vanish you ask? Well, that'll be up for you to find out upon completing your descent to this legendary planet. However, what I can say is that whether you’re with the races of the Exiles or the Dominion, you’ll have a reason to fight for Planet Nexus. Let’s begin!

Norrath is a magical place. It has endured so many people and changes. It has stood the test of time and has left a plethora of dedicated, fanatical gamers in its wake. Not everyone has stayed through all the years, but even those of us who have moved on have many fond memories to look back on.

Though I’ve kept an active EverQuest account and pop in to chat with friends and dink around from time-to-time, the last time I seriously buckled down and played was during the Seeds of Destruction era. Over so many years I’ve forged more memories than I can recount in a single article. While reading through the many great stories of people talking about their favorite places in Norrath for the recent EverQuest Franchise Contest (which ends tonight!), it kindled the fire to share some of my memories of the game with you all as well.

Sadly, many screenshots of my early memories are lost to time, but I did finally settle on my seven memories of Norrath!

It was 1998. The table I sat at in eigth grade math class was considered the "geek" table, and there was always one thing on our minds when we gathered 'round before class began: Starcraft. As a game that was considered a common late-night or weekend venture, none of us cared much for any activities indoors besides Blizzard's futuristic RTS game. Fast-forward fifteen years later and the one memorable line from Starcraft II's trailer that resonates in everyone's mind is "It's about time." Indeed it is about time, because who would have thought such an IP would have solidified itself for a decade and a half? Now nine months after the first expansion, Heart of the Swarm, there's no sign of this game stopping in terms of popularity.

Did you know that the word “duck” not only refers to the animal, but also to sail canvas? Who said that video games couldn’t be educational?!

A few months ago I didn’t even consider the fact that I would play an Assassin’s Creed title. My normal gaming genres are MMO, RPG, strategy, puzzle and a variety of Indies. I’ll occasionally break the mold for games such as the Grand Theft Auto series, but the AC titles never got my attention in the past. As increasingly more PlayStation 4 launch titles became delayed, I decided to give Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag a chance.

I honestly thought that AC4 would be a game I’d tinker around in for a few hours before leaving it abandoned for my husband to play. Instead I’ve played it at least 4-6 days each week since getting my PS4. Yeah, you can say I’m a bit addicted. Let me tell you a story of my love-hate-love relationship with Edward Kenway.

Hello and welcome to 2013’s last issue of the Eorzea Examiner, ZAM’s column about Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. Normally in these columns, I’d find a specific aspect of FFXIV to discuss, be it ways to improve existing systems or looking into a world event and where they did well or poorly. As much as I’d really like to do that with FFXIV’s crafting system, we’re going to hold off on that for when everyone’s not on holiday travel. Instead for this week’s column, we’ll be looking back over 2013 for FFXIV, both the good and the bad.

Hey WildStar fans! With the epic-six week class drop finally at an end and the press NDA lifting for levels 1-15, we’ve seen a lot of combat and action-packed info from the WildStar community. Today I want to take a step back and look at a different aspect of the game, one that can sometimes be overlooked in many MMOs. However, in the case of WildStar, our topic of discussion is actually one of the key systems that holds the entire game together and is also one that you might not think of right away. This is the game’s crafting system.

In some games, crafting is included as a “side-project” or something that isn’t given much attention compared to other design aspects. This can often make those dedicated crafters out there feel unimportant, especially once the majority of the player base has reached end-game and crafted gear becomes obsolete. However, In WildStar crafting serves a very important role and not only allows crafters to serve an important economic purpose in the game, but it also allows them to specialize in a specific crafting area and make crafted items that are generally better than other rewards given in various parts of the game.

Today I’ll walk you through the basics of the crafting system and touch on the individual parts that fit into the greater picture. And while this won’t cover every nook and cranny of each crafting skill--and there are a lot of them--it should get you started on the right road to becoming a master crafter at the very least. And one final note before we get started, keep in mind that while you will see some of the crafting UI that is currently in beta, all of the UI and even information we cover isn't final and may be subject to change; beta is beta remember. So without further ado, let’s jump into some crafting!

In a gaming landscape filled with gritty action, there's always room for a little light-hearted adventure. Enter Cube World and Trove, two games in alpha which revel in a voxel landscape of bright colors and cubes. Although Trove's recent reveal drew many visual comparisons to Cube World, the development style of these two titles couldn't be more different.

On the first day of gaming, Trion gave to me, a good friend questing for free!

As gaming progresses, we move further and further away from the intimate, tightly knit setting that once existed. Even on consoles, split screen is seldom included, and multiplayer games tend to be very impersonal. Until early this year I forgot how much a gaming experience can be improved if you share it with a good friend. 

I've known my friend Callum since we were 8 years old, and we've been gaming together for almost as long. In grade 3 or 4 we played Runescape together, and followed it up with Guild Wars, Warcraft, Battlefield and StarCraft II to name a few. However, over the past year or so our time has been so divided with school and work, that neither of us really had an opportunity to play games together. Despite our lack of time, when we both had an opening in our schedules just before summer, we decided to get together and play some games.

Callum has two computers in his den, and we were deciding what to install before we started. Neither of us had played RIFT seriously before it went free to play, and we decided to give it a shot. The experience I had playing it with him was fantastic. I find it easy to forget how much more fun you have when you are playing with someone you genuinely like. RIFT is a good game, which definitely helped, but even the collect quests and kill quests, which are so often tedious, become funny and entertaining. We played through until level 20, doing a few dungeons and taking our time with the crafting and leveling, stopping to enjoy the scenery and simply have fun.

There are many things that go into making a great game. Story, art, sound and mechanics come together to create wonderful backdrops and tools for us to live out great adventures in an artistic medium quite unlike any other. But as MMO gamers, we know none of that matters if you don't have Endgame.

It is Star Wars: The Old Republic's second birthday this week, and it's pretty safe to say it's not been as smooth a ride as many expected, though I will hastily add that I understand why many people like it and continue to play it.

SWTOR was sold to us with the promise of grand, fully voiced story that would lead us across the galaxy we traversed so many times in our imaginations. A grand ambition for any developer, being able to achieve this in an MMO setting pushed even Bioware's abilities to the limits. And by golly, they pulled it off. The stories were compelling, the characters were rich and the settings were well sculpted and felt authentic. Only later did we realise it was all for nothing.

In single player games, a lovingly crafted interactive experience can be an absolute joy. I could have cried at the ending of Telltale's The Walking Dead (though of course I didn't as I'm a big tough guy), and the world of Fallout has been my home for more hours than I care to think about. But MMOs are not bespoke solo adventures, you are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. 

The staff at ZAM has spent many hours debating which of the games we’ve played over the past year were most deserving of an award. In several cases the votes were neck-and-neck while others had an overwhelming victory. We had so much love to spread around that we expanded our voting categories from six to twelve this year.

Congratulations to the final six winners and runners up of 2013!