Loot is a big thing for MMOs. Having the right loot can mean the difference between a decently equipped character and the perfect setup. Having enough relevant loot for raid parties is also a big deal, which is why its always been a hot topic within World of Warcraft over its ten years of running.

Mists of Pandaria brought with it a new loot system called “Personal Loot”, a system which gave each player an individual chance of receiving items appropriate for their class and spec. It was successful enough to be continued on to the latest expansion of Warlords of Draenor for their five-man dungeons.

Recently though it was reverted back to an older system – the “Need Before Greed” one, with Blizzard citing that it was down to ‘community’ and ‘team’ feedback. The community responded with outcries and petitions, asking Blizzard to change their mind and less than 24 hours later the “Personal Loot” system is back for instance queue found groups. Both systems have also had an increase in the reward total.

Community manager Rygarius stated “We heard from sources both within our team and the community that the experience of defeating a boss and no ceremony beyond three gold on its corpse, or the possibility of finishing an entire dungeon without seeing any items, felt flat and even a bit broken. Based on those concerns, we decided to roll back a system that had been in place for a week to a system that had been in use for years, while we continued to polish and refine the personal loot system to deliver an optimal experience to players.”

The drop rates have been changed now so that Personal loot will now always drop an item for every player when killing the final boss of an instance, and Need Before Greed will drop three items instead of just two for final bosses as well.

Are you happy with these changes? Glad that Personal Loot is back in place? Tell us below!

Did you know that Civilization has an MMO form? Civilization Online has been a thing for about a year now, currently in closed beta in Korea. It’s a collaboration between 2K and XLGAMES and at this year’s G-Star event they showed off a new trailer.

In this trailer it demonstrates both sides of the play-styles in the game. The creative part and the destructive. For in other words, watch as players build something beautiful then bomb the living daylights out of it.

There’s been no word yet on a western release for the title, or any sort of pricing model or launch date. Sounds interesting though.

If you were interested in medieval hack n slash game Chivalry: Medieval Warfare when it was released but haven’t gotten around to purchasing again, eyes up. This weekend the game is free to play on Steam.

There is also a sale on the game, the 4-pack and the complete edition which includes the Deadliest Warrior expansion that lets you play as something other than one of the various forms of medieval knight available; for example a samurai or a Spartan. all of these are currently selling for a massive 75% off and with Steam that’s the discount you’re often told to wait for in the big sales.

For those of you who don’t know, Chivalry is a game where teams fight each other with weapons such as swords, bows and other things. There are arenas, death matches and castle sieges to play, which gives a nice rounded choice of play. Also, it’s possible to remove limbs from enemies. That’s cool.

It was a few months ago that CCP put out the call. They asked the players of EVE Online if they wouldn’t mind submitting a bunch of voice comms for a secret project they were working on.

Although it was revealed at EVE down Under what the project was, it’s only now that we can see the result – a trailer called simply “This is EVE” to explain the game’s complicated and ever-changing environment to new players and those who are just curious.

It’s a good decision. EVE is a rare thing, a game that is shaped in a lot of ways by the players themselves and their actions. Groups form, alliances are forged and broken, players are attacked and attack others; and it’s just grown so much that for someone on the outside it must be terrifying to attempt to fathom. Using the voices of players to tell their stories gets the very people responsible for forging such a virtual universe involved in explaining just what EVE is to them and to others they fly with every day.

You can check it out below, but be warned – this is the uncensored version. There is also a censored version available though if you’d rather watch that one.

If you can’t see the embed above here’s a link to the video: [x]

If you don’t follow the DayZ community closely here’s something you might not know. One fan has been coding a project for the last seven months that is essentially DayZ but in a top-down fashion, with updates going onto his Tumblr. Now it’s been made officially available by Bohemia on their store.

Russian fan CannedBits has been working on the project known as MiniDayZ and has coded in the typical DayZ experience – spawn with nothing, scavenge for something, shoot zombies, watch your back for your fellow survivor. Of course, it’s not the full experience that DayZ offers. A top-down is very different from an MMO after all.

The initial reception on the DayZ community subReddit has been a little underwhelming though, and CannedBits seems disappointed in this saying that “I see mostly overhyped rage here… “Its really sad, that people get mad from free stuff.”

DayZ figurehead Dean Hall was full of praise for the game though saying of it “I think it’s awesome, amazing, addictive, and brings something really new to the experience. I’m so glad you’ve been able to make it even better!”

To get a copy of the game you need to register an account on Bohemia’s site after which you can visit the studio’s store to pick up a ‘free’ copy of the HTML5 coded game. Otherwise head over to the experimental servers for the DayZ game proper where amongst other things it’s now possible to be a cannibal… although not recommended if you have another option.