Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Lord of the Rings Online, Events, real-world, Events, in-game, The Daily Grind

My American sources tell me this is a long weekend for you folks across the pond. Something about independence from Blighty a few hundred years ago. Essentially an excuse to let off fireworks, have BBQs, enjoy the fine weather and skive off work. Good on you. It seems like lots of MMOs are using it as an excuse to take the real celebrations in-game. For example, World of Warcraft has the Midsummer Fire Festival which concludes tomorrow with a bunch of snoozing goblin guards and a whopping fireworks display. Likewise, Lord of the Rings Online has one festival with four different names.

Given the fact the games are created by humans, it's no surprise the in-game festivals of all our favourite MMOs share a little in common with actual celebrations in real life. However they can also be handy for people too far away to meet up this 4th of July, most often troops on active duty or family members and friends separated by thousands of miles or even continents. So are any of you out there planning to eschew real celebrations in favour of meeting up with your guildies in-game? Are you going to travel around to see the fireworks or, if you play, WoW raid an enemy city. Do you prefer celebrating such events in-game? Do you mark them on your calendar and anticipate them as much as their real world counterparts? Do you wish the developers would expand world festivals to take account of more important holidays?

The Daily Grind: Celebrating real holidays virtually originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 03 Jul 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Screenshots, One Shots

One Shots: Playing with fire originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: World of Warcraft, Massively meta

You may have noticed that Massively doesn't talk very much about World of Warcraft. Even though it's the biggest MMO on the block, our friends at WoW.com cover it so comprehensively that it seems silly for us to duplicate their efforts. But WoW is an MMO too, and it only makes sense to talk about it when there's news. So, from here on out, we'll be co-opting WoW.com's coverage when appropriate. When you see a post on Massively that says "WoW.com" in the upper left (as in the image above) with an unfamiliar writer's name -- that means you're seeing a post directly from our WoW-centric sister site! It should look and feel the same to you, dear reader, but if you head off to comment, be advised that you'll be leaving Massively for WoW.com, where the WoW fans outnumber the rest of us. You'll be able to comment with your existing Massively account, but tread with caution!

WoW.com posts coming to Massively originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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