BOTSnHACKS

World of Warcraft: Version 3.3 Now Live!

2009-12-10T10:50:00.000+08:00

The hotly anticipated version 3.3 of World of Warcraft is now live! 3.3 is a major update to WoW and includes three new five man dungeons (The Forge of Souls, Pit of Saron, and Halls of Reflection) within the Icecrown Citadel, a cross realm dungeon finder, updates to the introductory experience for new players, and finally, quest tracking!

The usual class balances and tweaks are part of this patch as well, though Warriors may be feeling a bit left out, not much for you this patch! Sorry guys!

Read More...

Effective Feedback

2009-12-10T10:41:00.000+08:00

Article By : Victor Wachter

My last two columns have been a little bit on the negative side, and to be frank that's how I feel about MMOs right now. But I talk about it because I think the industry can do better. Also, I'm a community manager because I truly believe that our players can help us make better games. So this week, I wanted to talk a little bit, and in general terms, about how to deliver feedback for best results. I'm not going to name any games or point any fingers to the past. Just think a little bit about how gamers can best interact with and persuade game developers when they deliver their feedback for discussion.

Choosing the Right Soapbox

When you want to post feedback and make your voice heard, where's the best place to do it? Official forums are the most obvious place. They're close to home and you know for certain that the developers know the URL. But they're not always optimal. Depending on the population of your game, you might be a single voice among thousands of posters who never gets to stand out. Official forums are also governed by rules set by the company, and their effectiveness will vary by the level of moderation in effect and forum codes of conduct. It's unfortunate, but there are a lot of forums out there with rules that limit feedback, due to incidents with previous posters who were less than tactful with their feedback.

A number of small to mid-size external blogs and forums are popular with developers and you'll see some who are more comfortable discussing their game over there than in their own yard (but speaking as a community/PR guy, I have a whole other set of opinions about devs posting off the reservation). This may be more productive, as you'll be discussing the topic with people who are more invested with the game and a little more serious than the lowest common denominator of humanity that you may find on the official forums. I haven't seen a whole lot of continued dev interaction on larger network forums like IGN or, well, here at MMORPG.com (don't fire me, guys). Devs tend to only visit the large sites for news and reviews, but move back to official forums or third party for discussion.

Then there is social networking. Twitter hashtags are great for starting conversations, which are more powerful than single posts, but it's hard to know if you are reaching the devs at all in the flurry of tweets going by.

Be Equally Prepared

When you present feedback, you have to recognize that you are delivering a message to a group of people who constructed the game and have an intimate understanding of how each mechanic and piece of content was implemented. They can and will refer back to this knowledge whenever it comes time to debate issues about the game's current status and future direction. Quite simply, they have experience and expertise that the player can't match.

But as a player, you have something they don't: an intimate understanding of how game mechanics play out in the context of your experience. That knowledge grows exponentially with the experiences of your fellow players who can further contextualize the real-world execution of game mechanics. No developer or quality assurance can possibly predict every possible human input and variable that can affect their systems. But you've been adding to that data set just by playing.

The important thing to remember is that so far, you are armed only with stories, whereas the developer has the code and data variables for everything they put in the game. If you really want to get your point across, you should come prepared too. Screenshots are a good thing to keep in your feedback utility belt as they can often describe bugs and issues much better than words. Sequential screenshots or video are even better, as you can demonstrate your issue, what you did and the end result.

Remember that the game is persuasion and you'll need to build support for your case. This means that when you present it, you have to first win over the community. You don't necessarily have to get agreement from them, but their willingness to listen to you is key. It's hard to take a ranter seriously when half the post is insulting. The community marginalizes that kind of poster and that trickles down to the developers. The community doesn't want to pay attention to the guy who calls anyone who disagrees with him an idiot and neither will the developers.

Meeting Developers

Sometimes, you'll have the opportunity to meet developers at conventions or marketing and community events. This is a solid entry into getting your voice heard, but the opportunity has to be handled carefully.

First of all, don't even bother going to the event if your sole purpose is to talk to a dev about issues in the game. Your chances of getting their attention are good, but not great. They're busy running demos, talking to the press and handing out schwag. Their breaks are spent guzzling coffee and nursing aching feet. In short, their attention is hard to hold at these events.

If you approach someone at a con booth and tell them that you want to talk specifically about the issues you have in a game, you'll immediately invite a standoffish posture from them. You may not even be talking with someone who has any power to do something about the issue. Besides that, they're speaking from a script provided by their PR department which instructs them on how to evade such a scenario.

Instead, introduce yourself as a person who plays their games, enjoys it and has ideas. Ask them if they read any forums and make it a point to visit them. Try and get some kind of contact info for them to talk about the issue further. There's a good chance that even when you do write them after the event, you won't get an answer directly. But it all goes to establishing the credibility you need to get someone to take your feedback seriously.

If All Else Fails, Vote With Your Dollars

The magnitude of feedback will vary, from some minorly annoying things that you would like to see fixed to issues that break the whole game for you. If you've tried to express your feedback but the developer is still going another direction, then you shouldn't be playing that game. You've got better things to do with your time.

Not every forum allows them, but I see value in the "I'm quitting" post, particularly when it is better thought out than "Screw you guys, I'm going home." It's an exit interview, basically, and the opportunity for a developer to get inside the mind of the players they lost. If you quit a game with the intention of coming back when it gets better, it is helpful for the devs to know what "better" is.

I could talk all day about feedback and games, in a much lengthier column than this. I'd love to hear your thoughts on how feedback can be optimized both from the player and the developer forums. I feel like I scratched only the surface here but think we have the opportunity for a nice little forum conversation. Join me, won't you?

http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/loadFeature/3811/page/1

Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures: Looking at Rise of the Godslayer, Part 1

2009-12-10T10:31:00.002+08:00

Article By : John Humphrey

On August 18, 2009, FunCom announced the release of the first expansion for Age of Conan, Rise of the the Godslayer. With FunCom soon to release Age of Conan to servers in Korea, it is very appropriate that the next expansion include elements of the Far East, in the form of Khitai, Robert E. Howard's vision of Hyboria that later evolved into what we now know as China and Korea. This ancient society lends itself well to the feudal, factioned-based warfare that many players have envisioned in Age of Conan, since before its initial release. Expansive regions, brutal faction-based conflict, and political intrigue draw the players into a world of epic storylines and sexy adventure.

New to Rise of the Godslayer is the feature of interconnected zones. When you look over your shoulder, you can see the playzones you just left and you can look into new zones before you cross their borders. If you see a tower in the mountains on the far side of the playzone, you can cross that zone, climb the mountain, and enter that tower. Each playfield will have a tremendous amount of explorable space to a much greater degree than the original Age of Conan experience.

The Story

Before recorded history, Yag-kosha and other beings of great celestial power arrived on our world. Before the dawn of man, before the apes evolved into our ancestors, these beings strode across our world as conquerors of the great beasts that controlled it. They were feared, and they were respected. They made their home in the dim jungles of the east before the time of the Lemurians and the Lost Kingdom of Mu. The ancient kingdoms of Hyboria rose, fell, and rose again. Atlanteans, Picts, and Acheronians rose to control the west until a great cataclysm destroyed and submerged their civilizations. From the ashes rose the shining kingdoms of the west, such as Aquilonia, Nemedia, Brythunia, Hyperborea, Koth, Ophir, Argos, Corinthia, and the Border Kingdom. Lemuria and Mu rose and fell in the east to be replaced with Khitai, Vendhya, and Hyrkania. Stygia, Shem, Zamora, and Zingara rose to claim the shattered remains of what once was Acheron and its sorcerous and demonic legacy.

Over the eons, the beings of Yag slowly died off, since they were not immortal despite their impossibly long lifespans. So it came to pass that Yag-kosha, also known as Yogah, lived alone in the jungles that became Khitai. His power was respected by an ancient, peaceful, yellow-skinned people whose music could inspire the indigenous grey apes to dance.

After centuries of peaceful co-existence and worship as a benevolent god, Yag-kosha was approached by a seer of ancient Zamora seeking to become a student. Yara sought Yag's wisdom and power. When Yara learned all he could through civilized means, his lust for power and blind ambition led him to enspell Yag-kosha and drag him far away from his home in Khitai to the decadent land of Zamora.

Yag-kosha was imprisoned, tortured, and forced to perform all manner of perverse and evil acts. For three hundred years, Yag-kosha suffered and lamented under Yara's control. At that time, a young Cimmerian thief of barely seventeen summers sought to steal a very valuable gem from Yara's cursed ivory tower. In an act of mercy, young Conan slew the being known as Yag-kosha and unleashed the remaining power of Yag upon the sorcerer Yara. From there young Conan grew into the man who would free Aquilonia from the reign of a sadistic tyrant and become King by his own hand.

No good deed often goes unpunished, as the land of Khitai soon began to wither from within as the protection and blessings of Yag-kosha faded from their realm. Upon hearing of the death of their deity at the hands of the Cimmerian who became king, all blame for their misfortunes fell upon the broad shoulders of an infidel defiler. For twenty-five years, Khitai has been wilting as it slowly dies from the corruption growing within.

Exploration

As you travel across the surface, a majority of the buildings are explorable throughout. Keep your eyes open for caves and other hidden interior spaces; you may run into a group of brigands or uncover a long-lost hidden treasure or weapon. Be prepared to dig on occasion. Some hidden places may even be found underwater. I am having flashbacks here of the crypt that Arnold's Conan stumbled into where he discovered the ancient Atlantean King and the Sword of the Kings that served him well throughout his lifetime.

FunCom listened to players after the initial release and proactively attempted to remove all sense of linear gameplay from the expansion, consciously attempting to open up the world and allow more exploration. As a result, a player will not see any travel NPCs; there will be no wagons, caravans, boats, or guides to transport a player from one region to another. You will travel across the countrysides by foot or by mount.

This concept of separated regions was necessary in the original release, because each playfield was separated by miles and days of travel according to the maps of the Hyborian world. In Khitai though, everything is as it is represented on the map. Each border is adjacent to the next region's border. As you cross through playzones, you will experience numerous environmental effects. These effects include smoke on the battlefields, mist and fog, and an encroaching darkness as you approach significantly corrupted areas. Using a technology adapted from Anarchy Online, the dungeons will be interconnected to a degree, allowing you to repeat boss encounters quickly without repeating the preliminary path through the dungeon, once they have been successfully completed by your group. This function can usually repeated in clusters of three or four, and you can move to others very quickly and easily.

The Look

FunCom has long had strong ties to China. In the Collector's Edition of Age of Conan, we met the other half of the art design team of Age of Conan. We are well-aware of the dedicated staff of the design and development team in Oslo, Norway. Many hours of dedicated labor were also contributed by the talented individuals of the FunCom art team in Beijing, China. Coming full circle, we have drawn the Hyborian world together, and we return home to the talented artists of Beijing.

What's New

The Empire of Khitai expands upon the Hyborian world as it was laid out by Howard, including five of the largest playfield regions ever made for the game. One playfield is aimed at level 20-40 content, and the other four playfields are aimed at level 80 content. Rise of the Godslayer will not introduce new levels above the level 80 cap, and there will be no new classes. FunCom wanted to give all existing classes more content, as opposed to building the expansion with content aimed at one new class. We start out with the new playable Khitan race that will sail from Tortage to the beginning zone in Khitai. Khitan characters will have a very different destiny quest from what we have seen in the other three playable races of Age of Conan.

New content starts around level 20 and extensive new content has been added all the way to level 80 for current players of all races. The new horizontal alternate advancement system allows even level 80 avatars to learn new spells, feats, combos, new ways to interact with the world, and different special abilities, further defining your unique character. This allows more replayability as players have achievements that take time and effort to bring to fruition. For example, there are two new mounts available as quest content, the Tamarind Tiger and the Nightrunner Wolf.

In other game systems, including the original release of Age of Conan, mounts are simply a speed increase and are just purchased from vendors or acquired as Veteran rewards. Age of Conan designers wanted to make all of their mounts more meaningful, so players would want to collect all of them. The Tamarind Tiger is a stealth mount, allowing you to cross battlefields in stealth mode, and you can use it to sneak around in PvE and PvP playfields. The Tiger is an explosive mount; it has a very quick speed for a very short amount of time. For the Tamarind Tiger, you must find and join the cult that worships the tiger and advance to its highest ranks where you gain the right to learn the ritual to tame a tiger. You must then disarm yourself of weapons and armor, find and defeat a mother tiger with your bare hands, and steal a cub from her den. At that point, you must feed and train your cub to hunt, to stalk, and to kill, preparing it to accept you as its rider and companion; this is no simple effort and it will take you time to complete. These are naturally wild animals, and if you attempt to rush the training, you may lose a hand. You must then make a choice; you can find materials and create a saddle for your new mount, or you can prepare it to fight at your side as a very powerful combat pet. This choice is non-reversible. Consider carefully.

Players will be able to set their new skills into an offline training mode or focus mode, allowing their character to advance in its abilities while they are offline using a form of meditation, further study, or katas. Other new skills include learning martial arts from various masters throughout Khitai. It appears that the new feat points gained for the alternate advancement system will be pooled in such a way so as to allow the player, whether level 20 or level 80, to spend his or her new feat points as they see fit to make the avatar more unique.

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/191/feature/3810/page/1

Aion: December Eye on Community

2009-12-08T22:52:00.000+08:00

This month's Eye on Community feature focuses on the recently released "Visions of the Future" Aion trailer.

The video has been the source of much confusion for many, and so NCsoft has taken this opportunity to clear a few things up about the trailer:

Read More...

Pirates of the Burning Sea: The Feast of Nicholas Noël Holiday Event

2009-12-08T22:42:00.002+08:00

Flying Lab Software has announced this year's Pirates of the Burning Sea holiday event: The Feast of Nicholas Noël! The event centers around the plight of Nicholas Noel whose yearly Junkanoo fest is in jeopardy due to the fact his rum has been stolen. In the event, players will either aid Nicholas against the pirates by protecting his rum shipments, or join forces with the evil Henrick Humbug to spoil the holiday festivities!

The event will run from Saturday, December 19th, to Sunday, December 20th. The event schedule is available below:

Live Event: The Feast of Nicholas Noël Wax Seal Decoration
Nicholas Noël is known across the Burning Sea for his annual Junkanoo feast, however this year his rum shipments have drawn the attentions of De Zeetrekkers pirates, and he needs assistance!

Do you have what it takes to assist Nicholas Noël in protecting his shipments, or will you aid the evil Henrick Humbug and De Zeetrekkers in stealing the rum, spoiling Junkanoo for everyone?

This special holiday season event will be held on each server and kicks off a schedule of live events that will continue throughout 2010. To take part in this event, simply make your way to Roseau and speak with Nicholas Noël at the following times:

Saturday, December 19th

Roberts: 8pm GMT (3pm Eastern, Midday Pacific)
Blackbeard: 11pm GMT (6pm Eastern, 3pm Pacific)
Rackham: 2am GMT (9pm Eastern, 6pm Pacific)
Antigua: 5am GMT (Midnight Eastern, 9pm Pacific)

Sunday, December 20th

Defiant: 10am GMT (5am Eastern, 2am Pacific, 9pm AEDT)

All event participants will receive the unique title “Jolly Reveller” to use on a character of their choice!

http://www.burningsea.com/page/news/article&article_id=11338

Champions Online: Bill Roper Interview

2009-12-08T22:39:00.000+08:00

Champions Online has been on the market for three months, and during our recent trip down to Cryptic HQ in Los Gatos, CA we spoke to Design Director Bill Roper about the game's launch, and where it stands today.

Nemesis Confrontation was the game's most recent big push, which the developers hoped would make each player's created enemy a bigger part of their life. It includes a five man end-game mission where the player is captured by a Nemesis and locked in a super prison. The five man dungeon includes an encounter with a nemesis for each person in the instance as you try to break out. Finally, as you uncover who is behind it (and no, I won't toss in the spoiler!) there is an epic battle on a changing battlefield that Roper was quite excited about.

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Allods Online: Introductory Interview

2009-12-08T22:29:00.004+08:00

Article By : Garrett Fuller

Talk about the history of Allods Online. How did developing the game start?

The overall history of the Allods world began in the mid-90s when the game Rage of Mages was released. In Russia the game was known as Allods: Sealed Mystery. It was Nival's first project and also one of the biggest successes in the Russian game development industry.

During the following years several games based on the Allods universe were released. Finally, the developers were ready to make the online game they had always wanted to create and to see players having fun and evolving in it. One day, during a meeting involving veterans of the Nival game development team, the concept of this future MMORPG began. It was in July 2006. Following this meeting, the company started to assemble a team for the Allods Online project. In the first year, the Allods Online team was composed of twenty members, most of whom worked on previous games from the Allods series but also from the core development team of Heroes of Might and Magic 5. In April 2007, the first playable version was ready.

This was a first step in the creation of Allods Online. Since then many stages have passed and much of the content and game features reworked.

Players will finally see and appreciate the result of three and a half years of development.

The game is about to enter Closed Beta 2, what type of feedback have you gotten from players?

The game entered Closed Beta Test 2 in North America at www.gPotato.com on the 1st of December, and the European CBT2 is imminent at www.gPotato.eu. The feedback has been very constructive all along for every aspect of the game. We are lucky to have such dedicated players who are willing to provide us with quality feedback throughout this process. Players will see that some of their suggestions were taken into account in the upcoming patches and CBT milestones. We are very grateful for the dedication and involvement of our Beta Testers.

Give us some back story on the Allods lore. The game has some interesting designs to it.

The Allods Online universe is a unique interpretation of Russian history and folklore set in a post apocalyptic dystopia. Of course, homage has been paid to the standard swords and sorcery motifs of the genre, but the Allods Online design team has also seamlessly blended these fantastical elements with those of Science Fiction. With many modern and popular culture allusions peppering the dialogue, the Allods Online universe is rich and complex, with a little of something for everyone to enjoy.

After the destruction of the planet Sarnaut, the warring factions brought their conflict to the Astral, where players will join in from the very first moment of game play. They will eventually venture into the Astral on their own terms, with their own allies gathered on their own ships, to obliterate any enemy who would stand in their way. With such a delicate mix of genres and over 12 years of rich storyline to immerse themselves in, players will have no trouble delving into the world of Allods Online.

How will the game launch in Europe, the U.S?

Allods Online is published by Gala Networks Europe all over Europe on www.gPotato.eu in 3 languages to start with: English, German and French. It is published in English in North America by Gala-Net at www.gPotato.com.

The American and the European services are distinct and the game itself may have some differences between the two continents.

For CBT, as well as for OBT and the release of the game, we do provide dedicated realms for each language, as well as in-house Customer Support and Community Management.

The European and North American Open Beta Test will be launched simultaneously in early 2010.

How do the two factions in Allods work against each other? What can players do to fight it out?

Allods Online offers more than your standard Player versus Player combat. Players can enjoy land based PvP throughout the allods, arena style combat for same faction dueling, sports style competitions through Goblin-O-Ball, as well as the unique Astral ship combat. Used to travel between the allods and explore the deep Astral, these ships have been outfitted with cannons, shields, and repair crews. Akin to space or under-water movement, ships must be controlled by multiple players to fight efficiently in this 3-D realm, those crafty enough can even use the Astral environment to their advantage.

Using the combat Glory and Victory system, rewards are given and special items become available to players who are active in the war against the opposing faction. Quests and Raids will help to put factions at odds, as well as the ever present danger of Astral Demons! In addition to gaining combat Glory and Victory points, a game of Goblin-O-Ball can be enjoyed by sports teams and spectators alike. Teams may compete against the same or opposite faction, without death as a risk factor. Although much like football your team must chase down a Goblin, the unwilling ball for these events.

Can you talk about the crafting skills in Allods? Players have seen the classes, but they may not know much about the crafting options they have.

Crafting is unique in two ways. First there are mini-games to help determine the outcome of your crafting success. Second, there is good old Lady Luck to consider. Recipes will include the reagents needed to craft an item, but the end result may change based on chance... some would say luck.

Anyone has a chance to produce something better, worse, or just different, on every crafting attempt. Some of the items may have funny or even beneficial outcomes, so don't throw it away just because it's not exactly what you wanted. Although there will be ways to have more crafting skills at the same time, the auction system will be very useful for many looking for a few bits and bobs.

What will the item mall be like in the game? Will items impact game play?

Allods Online was developed by Astrum Nival from the very early stages to be Free to Play. Hence, the Allods Shop was not a layer added later in the game. There was a team from the beginning of development in charge of taking care of the shop, and to make sure that it would not alter game play.

Astrum Nival is the leading developer of Free to Play MMORPGs in Russia as well as the leading publisher of Free to Play MMORPG games. Gala Networks Europe is the leading publisher of Free to Play MMORPGs in Europe. With the experience of those two companies in the field, players can rest assured; the Allods Shop will be fine-tuned to its best.

Can we have some insight on the sky ships in the game. Will players ever be commanding their own sky ships?

Astral Ships ... I could talk for hours about them ? Here is a small description, but I will not go into much detail, so as to not spoil the high level content. When players reach level 35 a quest chain opens allowing them to build their own Astral ship. Yes, every single player can have and build their own Astral ship, just like a floating home. Onboard with friends, exploring the Astral, raiding, group challenges, and even fighting Astral demons. Players can also choose to be pirates and live on the edge.

Let's say you have built your own Astral ship, you go in the Astral with a group of friends and discover an allod where you kill a boss mob. You will not be able to split the loot from the allod, you must get back to your pier where a specific NPC can open the treasure.

So, you are with your group on the ship, happy with what you have achieved, but carrying your ph4t loot to your base. That is when a unique part of game play enters into action: Piracy!

Other players may have decided to live as pirates and will attack you to steal your precious loot. To that end, they will board your ship, which will become a PvP area, and you will have to protect your loot or lose it to the pirates. Attack, defend, loot or plunder!

What end game scenarios do you have planned for Allods?

The end game scenario is not something that I am going to divulge right now. The overall story is one of the most fascinating features of Allods Online. If I were to disclose any secrets before the launch of the game, our players might start to lose some interest in the game and I do not wish that. At release Allods Online offers over 1500 quests in which players will be able to discover what happened to the planet and what's at risk.

All I could tell you right now is that the overall storyline does not end in the presented content. The storyline has been worked on for over a decade, it started with the series Rage of Mages in the mid 90s, and Allods Online is the fourth opus, fully online as a MMORPG. No one knows how many allods arose in this universe after the Great Cataclysm, and exploration in the Astral will constantly open new allods and archipelagos with a continuous storyline and new mysteries.

What is your favorite part of the game?

There are many great parts to consider, Goblin-O-Ball, PvP action throughout the game, the Astral Demons, and the in depth history are all great aspects of Allods Online. Overall, I really love the freedom a player is given from the very start.

You have many quests to help you learn the ropes and progress through the various allods (over 1500 at release), but if you want to just explore or try your luck at more difficult areas, you are able to. As one progresses through the game and gains access to the Astral, the real potential of Allods Online is presented. Travelling throughout the deep Astral, raiding Astral Demons, and watching out for possible pirates all adds to the excitement as well as the storyline... with much more to come.

On my private account I will definitely be a pirate!

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/414/feature/3807/page/1

EverQuest II: Game Update 54 Video & Producer's Letter

2009-12-08T22:22:00.004+08:00

Game Update 54, Will of a Tyrant, will launch this Wednesday, December 9th, and we've got a new trailer featuring the update to get you excited!

GU54 will introduce City Festivals to the game, Kunark Tradeskill Missions, new Station Cash items, the holiday "Frostfell" event, as well as tons of bug fixes.

In addition, a new Producer's Letter by EQ2 Producer Alan Crosby has been released. In the letter, Mr. Crosby discusses Game Update 54, the Item Rating system, the Fighter Revamp, and provides an update on the Shader 3.0 conversion, which will sadly not make it as part of the "Will of a Tyrant" update.

Producer's Letter :

Producer’s Letter – 12.4.09

Hello Norrathians!

Lots going on in the EQII world! We are just about to release our next update, Will of a Tyrant. With this update you are going to see a few hundred lingering bugs fixed in EQII. Some of these bugs date back to launch and are being knocked out before we gear up for the expansion. In fact, we have taken to calling this update our “bug bash” as we pulled out our hammers and smashed them into oblivion. As for content in this update, well it is a little lighter than recent updates, and there is a reason for that, well actually a couple of reasons. The first is that it was a shorter cycle for us, with only about two months of time between this update and last. The second is that we are starting to shift many of our resources over to expansion work as that gets closer to launching. In addition, we have some as yet to be announced surprises coming. They’re some rather large features, which we hope will excite many of you. More on those in the months ahead.

One feature we have been receiving a lot of questions over, is the Item Ratings system. I know that since it was announced, there has been a great deal of confusion over the system and what it is intended to accomplish. After many internal discussions, and listening to feedback from you, we have decided not to move forward with this system. We are exploring alternatives that would allow us to continue to grow items and allow your gear to advance in meaningful ways, without giving the impression that you are going backward.

Another long announced and long awaited feature has been the rework on the “fighter revamp”. This is another project that is going to fall by the wayside as we now focus on small changes, rather than sweeping revamps. Fighters are going to see some love here in the near future, thanks to Xelgad, who is taking on some of the class balance responsibilities. First and foremost, we have identified a problem with a couple of abilities for Crusaders; Holy Ground and Grave Sacrament. Those abilities, rather than generating an amount of hate toward the hate list, were in fact moving the crusader up by ranks; thereby practically guaranteeing that crusaders would dominate agro. We are modifying those abilities to generate raw hate, as well as a much more modest rank increase., so that they are still very viable for tanking, but not an automatic pass to the top of the hate list. Additionally both abilities will have other bonuses added to them. We want to make sure these are abilities that the Crusader classes will want to keep on their hotbars.

Other classes will be seeing improvements and tweaks as we take a hard look at how each class performs in solo, group and raid play. Our goal is to make sure every class has a role and will be wanted in groups and raids, as well as being able to successfully solo, for those of you who play these Massive Multiplayer games all alone, like me. =P

Shader 3.0 work is pretty much complete at this point, with all of the shaders being converted to the new system. However we will not be releasing it with Will of a Tyrant. We are not seeing the performance increases that we had hoped so we will continue to optimize and tweak until they provide not only a visual boost, but a performance boost as well. We do not want to take a step backwards in performance just to make things look shiny. Currently it looks as though this feature will land with the next game update, on expansion launch day.

I know you are all excited about the upcoming expansion, or at least I hope you are. We are very excited as a lot of hard work has gone into making Sentinel’s Fate. We still have a lot to do but the time for release is getting close! So close, in fact, that you can now sign up for beta which should begin admitting folks in under two weeks. You can sign up on the EQII players site, so if you are interested in joining in, make sure you sign up soon.

So again, lots going on,

See you soon in Norrath!

Alan Crosby
Sr. Producer - EQII
eq2players.com

Source: http://eq2players.station.sony.com/news_archive_content.vm?id=3371&section=News&locale=en_US

Darkfall: "Conquer the Seas" Now Live!

2009-12-08T22:11:00.004+08:00

"Conquer the Seas" is the latest major update to hit Darkfall, finally hitting live servers over the weekend, despite some recent delays.

Naturally, the update is quite focused on the seafaring aspects of Darkfall, including the introduction of sea fortresses as epic new sea objectives, sea villages players can control and fight over, as well as many changes to ships and swimming.

Full Report :

Conquer the Seas" Expansion - December 2009

"Conquer the Seas" is Darkfall’s second major free expansion, the largest one ever. In this expansion the seas come alive with epic objectives, floating villages with player owned housing , the siege mechanics completely overhauled, characters with more specialization, racial differentiation, monsters completely reworked, player owned vendors together with hundreds of new features introduced, and thousands of improvements, and fixes implemented. This expansion represents a massive undertaking by the Darkfall developers and months of player feedback leading to the best Darkfall ever, and this is just the beginning.

Sea Fortresses

These are the epic new sea objectives we’ve introduced in this expansion and we’ll continue building on them.

Two Huge fortresses located in the North and the South Seas
You need to use ships to conquer them.
You must be a member of a clan
You have to get the last shot in for a successful take-over.
Sea fortresses offer great opportunities for epic loot.
When a fortress is conquered, it belongs to the conquering clan for three days.
All over Agon, Clan Stations will display your clan’s name for the ultimate bragging rights.
Clan Stations can be used to apply to the clan displayed on them (in accordance with the clan’s policy for accepting new members).
The countdown timer for when the fortresses become vulnerable is displayed on the world map for everyone to see.
It’s impossible to climb on the fortress, intruders are repelled.
Sea Fortress cannons are the most powerful weapons currently in the game.
Also see the spotlight article on Sea Fortresses
Sea Fortresses are an important part of Darkfall’s Dynamic Lore System.

Ships

There is a new powerful ship added in this expansion: The Schooner. Cannons on this ship are placed in the front and back.
Ship speeds have been increased and rebalanced.
Raft speed remains the same.
Ship and player collision has been corrected so that players cannot stick to the side of a ship while it’s moving.
All ships now can push the raft which cannot block ship movement anymore.
Ships are now less costly to create.
Also see the spotlight article on ships

Sea Villages

A variety of sea villages have been added to Agon for players to discover and control.

Swimming Balancing

Swimming will now drain stamina

Siege System

If a Siege is supposed to start less than 3 hours before daily server maintenance, it will get postponed.
Siege hammers will now only damage clan city stones, hamlet stones, village control points and siege stones. They will not damage walls.
Walls are now slightly easier to destroy.
A new challenge can be iniatiated against a clan that had just been defending in one, without any waiting period.
When a challenge begins, a 22 hour countdown period starts. The
attackers must place their siegestones within the first hour of this
period, or the challenge will be lost.
After the 22 hour countdown period, a 3 hour siege period starts. The
attackers are vulnerable the entire time. The defenders go vulnerable
when less than 50% of their city walls remain standing, and at least one
hour of the siege period has passed.

Siege Stones

A new type of bind-stone has been introduced to the game. It’s called a Siege Stone.
There are 3 kinds of Siege Stones available: small, medium and large. They can be bought at the same place you buy a Clan Shard.
Small: Half the health of a Clan Stone. 10 clan members can bind to it.
Medium: Same health as a Clan Stone. 20 clan members can bind to it.
Large: Twice the health of a Clan Stone. 30 clan members can bind to it.

Conquering a city or hamlet that is not owned by anyone:

You need to be a member of a Clan.
You need to hold the rank of General or higher.
You need a Clan Shard in your backpack.
Go within the city limits and double click the clan shard.
If you’re successful, the clan shard will be removed from your backpack and your clan is now the new owner of the city.

Initiating a Siege where attackers DON’T own any cities
You need to be a member of a Clan.
Your clan needs to be at war with the clan you’re attacking.
You need to hold the rank of General or higher.
You need a Clan Shard in your backpack.
The owners of the other city cannot already be engaged in a siege.
You need enough funds in your Clan Vault to cover the wager, 20k minimum, or more depending on the size of the city you are challenging.
Within city limits you double click the clan shard.
When a challenge begins, a 22 hour countdown period starts. You must place at least one siege stone within the first hour of this period, or the challenge will be lost.
The city you are challenging is NOT allowed to build anything from this point and until the siege ends but they can repair.
You can place up to 3 Siege Stones of any type.
You need to be a Colonel or higher to place a siege stone.
The siege stone must be placed as close as 100m and no further than 750m from the city limits.
This stage will end when the attackers have placed the maximum number of siege stones or when the hour is up.
After the 22 hour countdown period, a 3 hour siege period starts. You are vulnerable the entire time. The defenders go vulnerable when less than 50% of their city walls remain standing, and at least one hour of the siege period has passed.
If the defenders manage to destroy the siege stone(s) before the challenge is over, they will win the challenge and receive the wager.
If the siege stone(s) or the Clan Stone aren’t destroyed within the allotted time, challenge will end in a draw.
If you manage to destroy the challenged city's Clan Stone, you will win.
After the attack is over, siege stones will automatically self-destruct and all people bound to them will be kicked to the closest clan stone if available, or to closest chaos or greater stones, based on alignment.
All Sieges can be broken off as a draw by both parties accepting a peace treaty.

Initiating a Siege where attackers own one or more cities.
You need to be a member of a Clan.
Your clan has to be at war with the clan you are attacking.
You need to hold the rank of General or higher.
You need a Clan Shard in your backpack.
The owners of the other city cannot already be engaged in a siege.
Go within the city limits and double click the clan shard.
When a challenge begins, a 22 hour countdown period starts.
The city you are challenging is NOT allowed to build anything from this point and until the siege ends, and you are NOT allowed to build anything in your cities, but you may both repair.
You now have 1 Hour to place OPTIONAL Siege Stones.
You can place up to 3 Siege Stones of any type.
You need to be a Colonel or higher to place a siege stone.
If any of them are destroyed it will not affect the outcome directly.
After the 22 hour countdown period, a 3 hour siege period starts. You are vulnerable the entire time. The defenders go vulnerable when less than 50% of their city walls remain standing, and at least one hour of the siege period has passed.
The challenged city will be vulnerable for 2 hours.
If you manage to destroy the challenged city’s clan stone you win.
If the defenders capture enough city points or all of your assets, they win.
If the defenders have not captured enough city points and the Clan Stone is not destroyed, the challenge will end in a draw.
After the attack is over, siege stones will automatically self-destruct and all people bound to them will be kicked to the closest clan stone if available, or to closest chaos or greater stones based on alignment.
All Sieges can be broken off as a draw by both parties accepting a peace treaty.

Player Housing

There’s a new impressive housing structure added, the Player Keep.
Extensions for Large Villas have been added, so you can now have up to 4 more people living in the house for a grand total of 6.
Extensions for the Keep have been added, you can have up to 9 more people living in the house bringing the total up to 11.
Local bank extensions are added to player houses so that you can store items in the local bank. If you lose the house (by not paying taxes) or transfer the house, the items in the local bank will be available to the new house owner.
The grace period for not paying taxes on your house has been extended to 13 days. If you haven't paid your taxes for 13 days, the house will become free for anyone to claim.
If you have not paid taxes for your house and the tax payment runs out during the server downtime, you have a guaranteed grace period of 6 hours to pay taxes after the servers return.
If you lose the house (after 13 days of not paying tax) the items on the player vendor will go to the next owner.
Remember: anyone can pay your taxes for you.
Slot machine items added:
There are currently 2 types of slot machines added to the world of Agon. The first costs 10 gold to gamble and the second costs 100 gold to gamble.
Gold will first be subtracted from your bank (using Agon Fast Transfer) and if you have none there it will try to get gold from your backpack.
There are 2 global jackpots available (one for each slot machine) that are persistent. As players gamble, the jackpot will increase.
All winnings are transferred to your backpack. When someone hits the jackpot, there will be a server wide notification.
Player Vendor extension added to houses.
Owners: You can upload your wares to the player vendor and have him sell them for you. He will shout out to nearby players that he has items to sell.
You can customize pricing for everything you upload.
Customers: You can buy things from the vendor using gold in your backpack or using Agon Fast Transfer and have it subtracted directly from the bank. There will be a fee associated with this service.

Melee Special Attacks

We’ve added special attacks which allow a critical hit for 30% extra damage after 4 successful hits on the same target. The 5th critical hit doesn’t need to be on the same target.

Melee Skill Extensions

Melee skills have 2 groups of extensions that they can add and you can only have one extension from each group active at a time.
First group:

Side-Step

Effect: Allows a quick sidestep. Use by double tapping the movement key in the direction you want to go in
Limitation: Max mana reduced by 5%. (Permanent penalty as long as you have the extension active. Stacks with all other extension penalties)

Double-Jump

Effect: Allows double-jump. Activate by pressing jump again in the air
Limitation: Max Mana reduced by 5 %.( Permanent penalty as long as you have the extension active. Stacks with all other extension penalties)

Second Group:

Guardsman

Effect: Reduces stamina drain on parrying by 75%.
Limitation: Max Mana reduced by 10%. (Permanent penalty as long as you have the extension active. Stacks with all other extension penalties)
Also requires a Parry skill of 50.

Unfazed

Effect: Reduces stamina drain when taking damage by 50%.
Limitation: Max Mana reduced by 10%. (Permanent penalty as long as you have the extension active. Stacks with all other extension penalties)

Indestructible

Effect: Increases all magic protections by 5.0. Increases max Health by 10 points.
Limitation: Max Mana reduced by 5%. Blocks elemental magic, arcane magic, and necromancy. (Permanent penalty for as long as you have the extension active. Stacks with all other extension penalties)

Destroyer

Effect: Increases melee damage against targets wielding a staff by 40%.
Limitation: Max Mana reduced by 5%, Blocks elemental magic, arcane magic, and necromancy. (Permanent penalty as long as you have the extension active. Stacks with all other extension penalties)

Archery Skill Extensions:

Mage Hunter

Effect: Increases all magic protections by 3.0. Increases max health by 10 points.
Limitation: Max Mana reduced by 5%. Blocks elemental magic, arcane magic, and necromancy. (Permanent penalty as long as you have the extension active. Stacks with all other extension penalties)
Also Requires an Archery skill level of at least 50.

Mage Killer

Effect: Increases archery damage against targets wielding a staff by 20%.
Limitation: Max Mana reduced by 5%. Blocks elemental magic, arcane magic, and necromancy. (Permanent penalty as long as you have the extension active. Stacks with all other extension penalties)
Also requires an Archery skill level of at least 90.

Jump Shot

Effect: Allows archery while jumping.
Limitation: Max Mana reduced by 10%.

Aquatic Shot

Effect: Allows archery under water.
Limitation: Max Mana reduced by 5%.

Master Scout

Effect: Increases max ID range by 15 units.

Mana Shield

Effect: Every 10% of incoming damage points are traded against 15% points of mana as long as you have mana

New Racial Skills:

Alfar:

Alfar Cunning – Increase to max Mana by 0-10
Alfar Resilience - Acid Protection bonus 0.5-3.0

Dwarves:

Dwarven Durability - Increases max Health by 0-5
Dwarven Perseverance - Melee skill, less stamina loss, protection against
debuffs
Dwarven Steelmaster - Increases durability when crafting armor by up to 10%

Mirdain:

Elfsight - Increases maximum ID range
Mirdain Insight - Increases max Mana by 0-10

Human:

Human Ingenuity - Up to 50% longer Nourishment duration
Human Willpower - Increases max Mana by 0-10

Mahirim:

Mahirim Endurance - Increases max Health by 0-5
Mahirim Huntspeed - Faster run speed

Orks:

Orkish brutality - up to +3 damage bonus for orks with high ranked greataxes
Orkish Toughness - Increases max Health by 0-5

New Skills

Disabling Blow - melee skill disables parry on target for a short duration. This includes a visual indication that the player is not able to perform a block/parry.
Disabling Shot - archery attack disables parry on target for a short duration. This includes a visual indication that the player is not able to perform a block/parry.
Industry - reduces crafting time by up to one third.
Rage - Instantly increases all magical resistances by 1 - 3 points for 40-50 seconds. Self heals for 10-30 hitpoints. Costs 100 mana to use. You need a melee weapon unsheathed to use it. If you equip any non-melee weapon, the bonus will be removed.
Spotter - Increases maximum ID range when ID'ing players using the crosshairs.
BloodCraft
When bloodcrafted, armors will give you a health bonus and a mana penalty.
When wearing a bloodcrafted armor, visual effects allow everyone to see that you’re wearing one.
Shadecraft
When shadecrafted, armors will give you a mana bonus and a health penalty.
When wearing a shadecrafted armor, visual effects allow everyone to see that you’re wearing one.

Monsters:

The Kraken:
A new huge sea monster that eats ships for breakfast has been added to the world.

Wildlife:

Random moving wildlife creatures for you to hunt down and skin have been added.
There’s a small chance of them dropping epic loot.

ALL MONSTERS

All monsters have undergone complete rebalancing in the largest AI tactics update in Darkfall’s history.
Monsters will also draw on the new skills added like disabling blow etc.
Also see the Developer Spotlight on AI

Free-Spawn Objects

A plethora of new free-spawn objects are being dynamically added to the world of Agon.
Travel around and you might see such things as broken chests, lobster cages etc.
Some of these can be found everywhere, while some can only be found around the coastline of Agon or near water.
Press use on them and reap their reward.

Trade Routes

There are 2 societies involved in assigning trade-routes. 'The House of Galder' and 'The Ruby Conclave'.
These societies will offer you a job as a trade route runner.
Trade route locations are displayed on the world map with a countdown timer for when they become available. (This can happen at random intervals during the day).
They will be a global announcement when they open up and when they shut down. They will shut down either because they timed out, or they are out of goods for the time being and need time to restock their inventories.
To use them go to their representative and press the use button. Once you accept the Trade Route Run, you will get a backpack on you that is visible to everyone.
You can access the representatives again to get more goods. You can do this several times, until you can't carry more, or until the trade route is out of goods.
When you have accepted the Trade Route Run, you can no longer teleport (you can however use mounts/ships etc.).
The faster you deliver the goods to the end station, the larger your reward will be.
You’ll always get more gold than you spend if you successfully deliver the goods. There’s also a chance that you might get an extra reward upon delivery.
Every trade route run completed for each one of the societies is recorded and you can look them up in you journal.
Factions will take notice of the number of successfully completed trade route runs you’ve achieved and this will be incorporated in the trade requirements in the future.
If someone kills you while you’re on your trade route run (remember you’re wearing a visible backpack), your grave will contain 80% of the gold you paid for the trade route run.
If you log out during a trade route run you’ll be reimbursed for 50% of the gold you paid to do the trade route run.

Item Counter / Ammo Bar

An item counter bar has been added to the GUI.
You can drag and drop resources there and it will show you how much you have left of this resource in your backpack.
There is a visual indicator when you’re running low on a specific resource.
You can configure how many slots you want to have in your bar in the GUI options.

Elixirs: New elixirs can be found in chaos chests, on monsters etc.

Ambrosia, +1 strength
Elixir of Life, +1 vitality
Herbal Tea, +1 quickness
Vintage Wine, +1 wisdom
Weird Concoction, +1 intelligence
Wyrm Oil, +1 dexterity

Potions:

Clean Slate, restores health and stamina
Clear Mind, restores mana
First Aid, restores health
Panacea, restores health, stamina and mana
Rejuvenation, restores stamina
Remedy, restores health and mana
Suppress Weakness, restores mana and stamina
Herbalism potions have had their effects increased.

Barbers

Some of the merchants in the capital are now skilled in the arts of piercing, shaving, and hair coloring.
Travel to your racial capital and change your character’s appearance for a fee.

Campfire

You can now deploy a fully operational cooking station practically anywhere. Use this to cook out in the wilderness.
This a one- time deployment that lasts for 30 minutes.

Clan Guard Towers

Clan guard towers have been upgraded and will give out slightly more damage with a small chance of inflicting critical damage.
You may now build lesser guard towers in clan hamlets.
Fixed some guard tower bugs.
Clan city building placement has been improved across Agon.

Village Control Points

Village Control Point vulnerability timers will now show up on the world map.

Cannons

All cannons in Agon have seen significant firepower increases. This includes cannons on ships, warhulks, stationary cannons and clan city cannons.
Many cannons have also seen improvements in reload time.
Cannons now require one unit of black powder per shot.
Black Powder can be crafted or looted from monsters.

Warhulks

Warhulk speed has been increased
Warhulk steering has been improved
Warhulks now have third person perspective as default view.
All warhulks are now less expensive to make.

In-Game Browser for Journal and Clans

We have changed to in-game browser to Chrome based framework.
Mouse wheel scrolling now functioning as intended.
In-game clan boards have been improved.
Several issues have been addressed.

Tomb Stones:

New model for player tombstones
New model for monster tombstones
New model for wildlife tombstones
New model for dragon tombstones

World Map

World map and minimap have received visual updates.

Gore

Blood splatter effects have received a visual update.

Player Character Animations:

New random idle animations for all player characters have been added.

Spell Effects:

Earth magic spell effects have been upgraded. Other magic schools to follow.

Spells and cool-downs:

We’ve added global cool-down timers to most high level spells. The timers are grouped across magic schools. Global cool-down timers are half of the original cool-down. The groups are the following:

Group 1:

Acid rain
Death fog
Flames of vengeance
Ice storm
Mana blast
Thunderstorm
Toxic rain
Volcano
Wall of fire

Group 2:

Blizzard
Disintegrate
Exploding charge
Inferno
Unholy flames
Virtuous wrath
Meteor strike

Quests

Quest Journal has been completely revamped
A Quest Diary has been implemented for all quests
All quest info now goes to its own chat tab.
There are many new and exciting quests added:

NEW HUMAN QUESTS:

Hunting for Sandbrook
For Sandbrook's Archers
Catherine's Archery Test
A forgotten bag
Hunting for Monkfield
Equipping Monkfield's Archers
Stonegar's Archery Challenge
The unlucky merchant
Hunting for Heart of Eanna
Heart of Eanna's Future Protectors
Kai on Archery
The late report

NEW ALFAR QUESTS:

Hunting for Akathos
Archers for Akathos
Gaelshek's Archery Test
The forgotten bag
Hunting for Bel Melek
Equipping Onghral's Archers
Zulgal's Archery Challenge
An unlucky merchant
Hunting for Deep Yishku
Deep Yishku's Future Protectors
Raenthar on Archery
The merchant's report
The new occupants of mount Qurjah
The foolish apprentice
A treasure in Zahnal
Interesting News
That annoying human
Little Box of Magic
Lyrissa's Information
Destroying the Demon Tombstone

NEW MIRDAIN QUESTS:

Hunting for Loriedan
Archers for Beladin's Rest
Delian's Archery Test
The merchant's bag
Hunting for Adaithel
Training Archers in King's Holdfast
Meadhin's Archery Challenge
Change in Plans
Hunting for Mir Bellith
Leafhelm's Future Protectors
Eolindir on Archery
The trade report
Find the Brownies
The venom fueled Sarlid
The paranoid Arthain
Destroying the Orb
The missing Arrowhead Agent
Searching for a tombstone
Nairath the Expert
A forgotten book
The forgotten book
A dark letter
The information dealer
Doing somebody else's dirty work
Darker information
Disabling the Demon Tombstone

NEW MAHIRIM QUESTS:

Hunting for Inner Ormhold
Archers for Leenglow
Yman's Archery Test
The forgetful merchant
Hunting for Sarthain
Training Archers in Silverspear
Uryar's Archery Challenge
Denari-yin the Merchant
Hunting for Whiteclaw
Hunter's Moon's Future Protectors
Lymyan on Archery
The trading report
Sister Lyrissa
A List with Names
A New Power
Behind the Cult
Enough with the Cult
Mardem-kai's report to Tivasta
Final Materials for Samalon-tai
Delivery for Samalon-tai
The Missing Scholar
Searching for a Ring
People of the Ice

NEW DWARVEN QUESTS:

Hunting for Gulgrumir
For Hammerdelve's Archers
Eikvangr's Archery Test
Helga the Merchant
Hunting for Heimdal
Equipping Eirhelm's Archers
Vargstein's Archery Challenge
Ornulf the Merchant
Hunting for Idawoll
Protectors of Valfather's Egde
Ulfrik on Archery
The forgotten report

NEW ORK QUESTS:

Hunting for Nerzok
Equipment for the New
Biggor's Archery Test
Small but important
Hunting for Fire Run
Equipping Metal Heart's Archers
Killoroth's Archery Challenge
Delivery for Kulgarash
Hunting for Lesser Faukul
Defenders for Chopping Necks
Angorok on Archery
Akzar the Merchant

Alfar Area World Building:

There have been major world-building improvements in the following Alfar areas

Moradar Edge
Yannedar
Obad
Daemesh
Gul Jarnath
Mar Shral
Hithe
Drydale
Stonehame
Issanhal
Rhagaus
Sulsar

Fixes / Corrections

City walls now display 3 visual stages of destruction.
Screenshot command fixed. Default is Alt-S. Takes a bitmap of the screen and stores it in Users/YourAccount/Pictures/Darkfall
Ganking a player has been updated, so you can't move before the gank is completed anymore.
Bag labeling: You can now label your bags/sacks/containers. Slow click on the bag to enable it.
Fixed a bug where mounts would not take lava/acid/damage if you rode into a lava/acid lake or ended up in players taking endless lava damage.
Jumping in water while casting isn’t possible anymore unless you have bought the appropiate extension for the spell that is being cast.
Clan Shard price has been increased to 20k
Fixed a crash bug where players accessing their bank would lag and eventually crash.
When attaching/equipping a tool now, shields will automatically be unequipped.
AOE spells:
In order for AOE spells to damage a player, that player needs to be in line of sight from the spell’s point of impact.
AOE spells will no longer go through walls and objects.
You can no longer instantaneously change clothing/robes/armor. Depending on what you equip/unequip there’s a delay which doesn’t allow you to change quickly during battle.
While equipping/unequipping armor/clothes, you won’t be able to attack.
Several sound issues have been fixed (where you could not hear yourself or other people gather for example)
Many sounds have been updated and improved.
Characters: The crouching 'hit box' has been modified for all races.
Existing Skills/Spells:
Meteor Strike is now a 2 second DOT spell.
Vampiric Touch is now a health penalty effect instead of unholy damage.
Shrapnel has an increased cool-down timer .
Earthquake now has an increased area of effect.
Witches brew: Area of effect size increased from 0.5m to a maximum of 6m. Cool-down has also increased
Impale is now a direct damage spell.
Blizzard missile speed increased.
Battlespikes are now much cheaper to craft.
Some high end mage staffs are now more expensive to craft.
Shields have had their elemental protections increased by up to 150%.
Certain shields now protect more against a specific damage type; fire, cold, acid or lightning.
Increased Encumbrance for all heavy armor by 15%.
Significantly increased the following protections for Chain, Banded, Scale, Plate, Full Plate, Infernal, and Dragon armors:
Fire
Cold
Acid
Lightning
Holy
Unholy
Knives have seen their damage, range and chance of critical hit increased.
Polearms now swing slightly slower.
A crafting difficulty bug for Einherjar has been fixed.
Thousands of bug fixes and improvements across the board.
Fixed a bug where whirlwind would momentarily block a player’s movement (if it was executed from standstill).
Encumbrance penalties for Infernal and Dragon armor have been increased by 10% and 20%
Modified armor penalties for archery. Approximately -1 damage per 10 Encumbrance in excess of 50. Armored archery may reduce this penalty by about one third.

Source: http://www.darkfallonline.com/expansion/1209.html

Lord of the Rings Online: Mirkwood Screenshots

2009-12-08T22:09:00.000+08:00

Earthrise: Talking to Atanas Atanasov

2009-12-08T22:03:00.003+08:00

Article By : Garrett Fuller

Tell us about character customization in Earthrise. What will make players unique?

Aside from the initial character customization which lets players choose from a broad list of physical traits, facial expression and haircuts, a character is made unique through customization of his abilities and gear. While advancing in combat skills is straightforward and offers players a steady stream of new and powerful Abilities to experiment with, a broad list of Tactics can be added to an Ability to modify its properties and change its gameplay role and advantages to fit each player's play style. Gear plays no lesser role with each piece of armor or weapon being manufactured by players. Every player has the opportunity to invest time in customizing each piece of gear using Designs that play the role of Tactics for crafted items.

Players will be working with a skill system. Can you give us a preview of some of the skills in the game?

Probably the most important skills are the combat skills which will ensure player survival in the dangerous areas of the game. Players will learn and advance into skills for each type of weapon available in the game with predominantly offensive attacks. An example of this would be the Assault Gun weapon skill that includes different types of burst attacks. Devices that players place in their gear will also provide support, control and defensive Abilities such as energy channeling, recharging, shielding capabilities and more.

Crafting Skills differ from combat skills where instead of Abilities they provide Technologies - recipes for manufacturing certain items. There are skills for each step of manufacturing - recycling resources, building modules and combining modules into final items. An example of a crafting skill would be an Advanced Processor Engineering skill that allows manufacturing of processors used in AI-controlled weaponry and gear, including vehicles.

In an open world environment, players will have a lot to explore, are there systems in place for players to learn and know the terrain?

We have delegated motivation for exploring the world to the storyline, reputation system and crafting system. The main linear storyline will make sure that players explore the main area of the island of Enterra, while secondary quests cover the rest of the world map. Players who like to explore will always find interesting things to do no matter where they travel. The Reputation system will tie in with each Organization's territory, and that of their allies and enemies, and will provide incentive for players to look at the world as a political map of interests and intrigue.

Finally, the crafting system is highly dependent on finding the right factory for the items that you wish to manufacture. There will be many factories, each specialized in different types of items, and a crafter who wants to manufacture various goods will have to travel to find the best location for his business.

You spoke about the sci-fi influences of Earthrise, how will they translate into the look and feel of the characters that players create?

Yes, we have found inspiration from many books, movies and games; these influences have been rooted into the lore, artwork direction and of course, the mechanics of the game. We draw from the sandbox experience and complex economy of titles such as EVE Online, the flexibility and customization of games such as Guild Wars, and various aspects from many others. Instead of approaching influences as an exact infusion of ideas into strict portions of the game, we take on ideas from our own perspective, fuse them with every other detail of the game and then come up with something that is often strikingly different and original. For example, while combat has been influenced by the flexibility of Guild Wars, we have combined that influence with the dynamics of games such as Planetside to come up with action-based combat from a third-person perspective.

With a player created economy in place, what steps are you taking to control the market? EVE has an economist on staff; will you take a similar approach?

At Masthead Studios the design team has taken time to study both real world and game economics before we approached the player-driven economy in Earthrise. Each source of income, spending option or transaction process is being designed with flexibility in mind and can be modified in real time with both automatic and manual intervention. Many economic factors can be modified by collaboration among all players on the server - such as modifying prices of basic resources based on their availability from mines which are constantly under attack by mutants and require large groups of players to defend them - but within an acceptable range. We are already preparing to be very involved in the economy actions and make sure it maintains stable operations.

How do you see ranged and melee combat balancing out? This has been a challenge for every sci-fi MMO that is land based.

It's no less challenging in Earthrise's development as well. When approaching Melee combat it is always important to consider the drawback of approaching a ranged combatant in close range. Abilities that slow down, paralyze, weaken, and allow the melee character to get into the enemy to deliver his attack are essential. Once face to face, the melee character can deliver a sizable amount of damage, but at the same time we make sure the ranged combatant is not at a complete disadvantage. Allowing him to regain distance again is essential, but more situational and requires timing and planning.

Can you give us some insight into the types of weapons players will have access to?

There are six distinctive groups of weaponry in the game. While two have already been widely mentioned - melee weaponry and standard ranged arsenal - the rest are still being finalized as artwork. Some of the other weapon groups are based around power gauntlets, suited for both close and short-ranged combat. Cybermentalists have weapons that look similar to ranged guns, but fuse with the body of the wearer and are controlled by his emotions. Psychics have locuses, mental power enhancers that use holographic technology to channel energy around the characters. Nanobotic controllers use nanite devices as weapons, shooting waves of nanoparticles at their enemies. Other weapons are yet to be fully finalized and will be revealed soon.

When players form up into their guilds, what features will they have access to?

Many of our guild features will be similar to other MMOs on the market; however, players who are part of a guild will be able to participate in the capturing and control of the siege territories on the island, which will give the best resources and some other guild bonuses.

Will players be able to build their own fortresses in the game?

Territory control gameplay is all about conquering and defense. Guilds that claim control over a territory will be able to build different types of buildings for mining rare resources, providing defense and even administrative functions such as local access to market. Building bases will be freeform and guild managers will decide the exact location of each building within the perimeter of the base. Terrain and shape of the perimeter will vary with each territory, so what works for one base will not for another. Guild managers will have to consider not only the space constraints, but how combat would be play out within that perimeter if the enemy breaks through the defenses.

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/331/feature/3805

An Intriguing Year for F2P

2009-12-08T12:11:00.001+08:00

Articles By : Richard Aihoshi

With 2009 winding down, it seems only natural to look back at some notable things that have happened in the free to play space since the beginning of the year. Of course, since the topics I've chosen to discuss - note that they're in no particular order - represent a completely personal, non-comprehensive selection, it's a dead certainty other people's lists will differ, quite significantly in some cases.

In this respect, I'm not expecting or aiming for any form of consensus. I look forward to seeing some very interesting and well thought out comments, whether they align closely with mine or not at all.

Continued growth despite the harsh economy

It's abundantly clear that F2P's market share is still growing, although due to the scarcity of empirical data, it's hard to gauge how quickly. My main focus here is dollars, not the grossly inflated and thus essentially useless registrant counts put out by publishers, or the incessantly increasing number of titles.

Here in North America, it's easy to get some distorted impressions related to the global MMOG market. We see World of Warcraft having 10 million subscribers, and mentally multiply that by $15 per month. Blizzard's game does bring in a huge amount of revenue, but not that much. What we don't take into account is the fact that more than half of the accounts, namely the ones in China, pay far less.

We also tend to discount how many people around the world play F2P games. I haven't seen any recent figures I'd be confident quoting, but whatever the actual number may be, it's huge. So even taking into consideration that the demographics are weighted such that the average revenue per user is less than the typical subscription rate, we still arrive at a whole lot of dollars.

If you choose to think total F2P revenue is smaller than it really is or that it's not growing, both here and globally, you won't be alone. But don't claim you weren't told otherwise.

Continued growth despite limited visibility

If you read this column at least semi-regularly, it's not news for you that I believe the amount of coverage most game publications provide on the F2P sector doesn't come close to corresponding with its overall importance. This is so even if we only consider North America. But it hasn't prevented growth. Slowed, it seems like a reasonable assumption, although how much is a matter of conjecture.

Larger development budgets

Nival has publicly stated that Allods Online, which is live in the Russian-speaking countries and in closed beta in both North America and Western Europe, was budgeted at $12 million. There are others in the same ballpark, just without specific amounts stated for them. This doesn't nearly measure up to the cost of a major subscription game, but it does indicate very clearly that large F2P projects are now substantially more expensive than their counterparts from only a few years ago.

Smaller development budgets

Okay, I'm primarily not talking about "traditional" MMOGs here. But the growth of the F2P space has helped open up opportunities for other types that can be created for much less money. For example, thinking outside the box enough to adopt a standard of graphics that's available via web-based technologies reduces your total costs very dramatically.

If you combine this with other steps such as not trying to be all things to all people and avoiding rampant feature creep, it's possible to bring a game to market with only a few people and a budget level that's within reach for independent studios of that size. Just as important, such projects' cost structures can allow them to be profitable with relatively small numbers of players. Personally, I'd welcome more of these since I think they're more likely to incorporate unconventional thinking and elements.

The entry of SOE and Turbine

We knew for quite some time that Free Realms was coming, but it's probably safe to say the shift of DDO wasn't widely anticipated. Although this column is about looking back, I have to admit I'm even more interested to see what both companies will do in the F2P category as we move into 2010.

And it's not just them. I also wonder what the other familiar players have on their planning boards. How long can they stay away? As stated previously, there's more revenue out there than many people realize - millions upon millions of dollars. Right now, almost all of it is flowing into other coffers. It seems rather unlikely that the big boys will be satisfied to let this go on for long without taking action to grab their "fair" shares.

More instance-based games

It's not that we hadn't seen any before, but they seemed to take on greater prominence in North America this year. In part, this was simply due to more of them launching. However, I think it's too simplistic to assume this was the sole reason. For one thing, designs with persistent characters and impermanent maps lend themselves to genres like sports and shooters.

RPGs aren't the most popular category in the single-player sphere, so why should they be when we go online? Don't get me wrong; virtual worlds with thousands of people on a server are great. Instance-based games can certainly be seen as quasi-MMOs, but since they offer additional ways to have fun, I'm not surprised they're gaining traction.

http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/loadFeature/3804/page/1

EVE Online: Play.EVEOnline.com Launched!

2009-12-08T11:52:00.003+08:00

A new site called Play EVE Online has been launched by CCP Games with the intent to answer potential new players' most pressing questions about the game, such as, "What exactly is EVE Online?"

The new site will serve as a hub of information for newbies of the game in order to help get them acclimated to the oftentimes overwhelming universe of EVE Online.

visit the site on this link http://play.eveonline.com/

Dragonica Online: Assassin Screenshots

2009-12-08T11:51:00.000+08:00

World of Warcraft: Health & Healing Changes in Cataclysm

2009-12-06T20:47:00.000+08:00

Blizzard's Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street recently chimed in on an ongoing discussion about health and healing in World of Warcraft in order to shed some light on the changes Blizzard plans for those two aspects of the game come Cataclysm:

"Health pools will be much larger in Cataclysm and healing will be lower. That should help address some of the overly binary feel of PvP and PvE encounters. You'll still be able to kill people as well as be able to heal them. The pace will just be a little slower and both healing and killing should require more than 1-2 buttons."

Read More...

Star Wars: The Old Republic: Jedi Consular HoloNet Update

2009-12-06T20:37:00.002+08:00

The recently revealed Jedi Consular class has been added to the HoloNet section of the game's official website as part of today's Friday Update. Only one class remains to be added to the HoloNet: the Sith Inquisitor, which we assume will be added next week.

Overview:

Visionary, Ambassador, Seeker of Jedi Wisdom
For more than 20,000 years, the Jedi Order has worked to promote peace and balance in the Galactic Republic, but each new day brings with it a new threat, promising to rip the Jedi and the entire galaxy apart. If the Republic is to survive, it needs leaders and visionaries; it needs the Jedi Consular.

Jedi Consulars channel the power of the Force for strength in combat and wisdom in diplomacy. Years of arduous training and meditation have sharpened Consulars’ minds to cut to the truth as cleanly as their Lightsabers cut through their foes. Whether unlocking long forgotten mysteries of the Jedi, raising armies to fight for the Republic or engaging in mortal combat with Dark Lords of the Sith, the Consulars’ deep attunement to the Force gives them all the power they need to rise to the occasion with poise and balance.

Intimate attunement with the deepest Force mysteries gives Jedi Consulars the insight and empathy to deftly handle charged conflicts that confound even the most cunning Senators and governors—but Consulars know when it’s time to talk and when it’s time to fight. When negotiations turn aggressive, Consulars demonstrate their gifts of foresight—anticipating and deflecting enemy attacks with fluid strikes from their dual-bladed Lightsaber.
Facing the Darkness Within

Jedi Consulars always seek to grow their knowledge of the galaxy, in understanding of themselves, and in comprehension of the Force that binds it all together. The commitment to this pursuit gives Consulars an unrivaled capacity for clarity in situations otherwise shrouded in darkness. However, this same dedication can also prove to be extremely perilous—inviting Consulars to explore paths that are better left untraveled. Some of the Jedi Order’s greatest minds have been seduced to the dark side through purely academic inquiries. The Consular knows the pain of this temptation as a battle-hardened warrior knows the throbbing of an old wound.
Before they can dispel the darkness in the galaxy, Jedi Consulars know they must first come to terms with the darkness within. There’s no avoiding the temptation to take shortcuts or even to use their knowledge for personal power; Consulars must constantly check their own motives. When tempted to step onto the path leading to darkness, Consulars must remember the tormented fate of the Jedi who have passed that way before. This is the only way they can unite the Jedi Order and the Republic and rally the troops to rescue the galaxy from the menacing darkness.

Star Trek Online: Collector's Edition to Include Communicator Badge

2009-12-06T20:33:00.001+08:00

According to GameStop's product listing, customers who purchase the Collector's Edition of Star Trek Online are in for a few treats!

The Collector's Edition of the game will come packaged in "deluxe packaging" consisting of futuristic "3DX holography" with a brushed aluminum finish, and will contain a number of goodies, including, a hardbound manual, art book, and disc case, three buddy passes, a "Red Matter Capacitor" exclusive in-game item, exclusive The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine uniforms, and lastly the crown jewel of the package: a fully 3D sculpted (and wearable!), cast metal Communicator badge fashioned after the in-game badge model.

Star Trek Online is scheduled to launch on February 2nd, 2010.

2009's Most Interesting Stories, Part 1

2009-12-06T20:29:00.001+08:00

2009 was a year of adjustment, which is a polite way of saying that the economy crashed into the sea, all the would-be World of Warcraft killers couldn't leave a dent in the beast, and a significant numbers of us wound up looking for jobs at one point or another, your humble correspondent included.

On the other hand, there were launches, shutdowns, announcements, pushbacks, and all the other usual causes for celebration and Internet Drama in the MMO space, and there were other interesting stories that came and went, maybe noticed at the time, but quickly forgotten as the latest story came to the fore.

As an aside, announcements and pushbacks do not (usually) concern me, because the following were all marked "coming in 2009" at some point, be it by the press or be it by official company line: Darkfall, DC Universe Online, All Points Bulletin, The Agency, Stargate Worlds, Free Realms, Aion, Lego Universe, FusionFall, Jumpgate Evolution, Black Prophecy, Earthrise, MechScape, Huxley, The Chronicles of Spellborn (US), Guild Wars 2. Of these, only Darkfall, Free Realms, Aion, FusionFall, and Spellborn (US) made it out. Announcing a game is something pretty much anyone can do (see Dawn, " in development" for almost a decade) and pushing back a game is something pretty much everyone does. Actually releasing a game, though, proves to be the tricky bit, which is why there aren't any announcements in here (though there certainly were some intriguing ones).

Accordingly, this is my own highly biased take on what I found most interesting in 2009, with a focus on the business side, because very, very few companies spend $30 million on a game out of the kindness and benevolence of their golden hearts.

In no particular order, my Most Important MMO Stories of 2009 are:

FusionFall Launches.

January begins with Big Content stomping into the MMO space in the form of Cartoon Network Universe: Fusionfall. Originally scheduled for a Summer 2008 release, the family-friendly game featured a powerhouse lineup of Cartoon Network properties, the financial backing of Turner Broadcasting, and the development expertise of Korea's Grigon Entertainment and drew writeups from Wired, MacWorld, and The Washington Post in addition to the usual MMO and tech sites. The world held its breath. Would Fusionfall herald a new world of entertainment synergy, where we'd play alongside our favorite characters from our favorite movie and TV properties?

The answer is pretty much: no.

The problem with launching an MMO targeted at kids (and stoners watching Adult Swim) is that the average MMO player is 26 and other studies show gamers tend to be older, male, and possibly deeply depressed, which is hardly a market down for hanging out with Dexter, Dee Dee, and the Kids Next Door (though others are certainly trying to compete in the space).

Fusionfall is not unsuccessful, persay, since it is currently still active, but it rather remarkably disappeared off the face of the earth after its January launch. The game rolled out, and nobody seems to have said a word about it since, save for a few mentions in Unity engine promotional materials and a blurb or two on them moving it into Asian markets, and silence seldom indicates "our game is massively successful," especially among publicly held companies, where you trumpet anything remotely good to boost your stock price and make everyone happy. Aside from its initial burst of buzz, nobody seems to be saying anything good or bad about FusionFall, proving it is possible to launch with a massive budget and promotional backing from a major network and still slip into obscurity.

No new MMO actually makes it onto the 360 or the Playstation 3.

This one is simple. Of the new games announced with console support--including Champions Online and Age of Conan--how many can you actually play right now on your XBox 360 or Playstation 3? While some are coming or "still in development, we promise," the answer is none, none whatsoever. Time to renew that Final Fantasy XI subscription, hunker down, and hope for the best.

Darkfall and Fallen Earth Launches.

Darkfall was something of an internet in-joke for years, with an eight year development timeline and a hyperaggressive, hyperdefensive community dedicated to the "hardcorer than thou" PvP aesthetic that largely died out after the launch of Trammel.

And then it actually came out, launching in July (and earlier in Europe). Despite ongoing Internet Drama, it continues to be out, and people continue to play it, with two expansions out and the team working away on more new content and features, proving that at least some of their most-vocal fans are putting their money where their mouth is and are signing up to play the game they've been clamoring about for years.

The big question for Darkfall in 2010 will be the same one that confronts PvP games and servers everywhere: can a game full of the "wolves" survive without a steady stream of "sheep" to keep them entertained? PvP servers and games tend to launch in big bursts of hype, then deflate as the 90% of would-be hardcore players realize no, they're not actually as good as the 10% that actually are the wolves, the way the loudmouth on any FPS server mysteriously disappears when someone better than him shows up.

Fallen Earth is in a similar niche product vein, though with considerably less drama. Post-apocalyptic games are hard enough to come by, but a post-apocalyptic modern game built around the sort of serious crafting game play last seen in pre-NGE Star Wars Galaxies? More than that, the world is desolate and rather bleak. While it is appealing to a certain part of the brain to romp around being chased by giant mutants, it takes a different sort of aesthetic taste to enjoy doing it in the reds and tans of the Arizona desert, surrounded by the remains of modern human civilization.

Still, the launch and continued success of Darkfall is heartening, if only for providing proof that a niche game with a specific for a specialized, niche audience can make it through launch and do well enough to merit subscriptions and playtime. Perhaps more developers will consider it, rather than taking a swing at the AAA MMO fences.

Mythic is Gutted.

Speculation was rampant when Mythic Entertainment was absorbed into the body of the all-consuming Electronic Arts. EA's history with MMOs hasn't exactly been sterling and successful, but they also brought a serious budget and promotional campaign to the launch of Warhammer: Age of Reckoning, enough that any game should theoretically get off the ground. And it did seem to be doing well--1.2 million box sales as of September 2008 and 300,000 subscribers as of the end of March 2009--though considering Mark Jacobs' claim that anything less than 500,000 subscribers would be considered a failure, as would having to merge servers, the game obviously didn't meet its projections.

The usual bloodletting occurred throughout the year, with layoffs in January and February, as well as Jacobs' own resignation in June and another round of layoffs in November as EA cleaned house on, well, pretty much everything. Thus the mouthy upstart that launched Dark Age of Camelot becomes another of those EA acquisitions that tend to be benignly (or not-so-benignly) neglected, though Warhammer soldiers on, much depleted, but still hanging in there. For now.

Champions Online Charges for Respecs.

While Champions Online is (or can be) a largely enjoyable game, there was one hint of microtransaction creep that might prove ominous in the future. While Free to Play games usually have all kinds of ways to charge you, from EXP Boosts to shiny new hairstyles, subscription games have largely kept the microtransactions to fluff items like pets and other non-gameplay items. However, when Champions launched, perched right there in with the costumes and emblems and other doodads were in-game respecs (Retcons), which was a bit of a concern for three reasons:

The first was that respecs usually had an in-game cost, rather than a real dollar cost, though defenders were quick to maintain that respecs should be infrequent and quite painful to keep people from constantly changing whatever they were specialized in and stick with a character concept. The second concern was Champions' rather opaque skill system, which requires quite a bit of dabbling to get right (ask me about the three gimped/broken characters perched above my play character!) and figure out what you want to do and what powers are actually worth taking.

The third, and largest, was what happened when the inevitable balancing patches changed your previously awesome character into a pile of nerf blocks? The inevitable happened, in that patches came out and changed everything, Cryptic swore up and down they couldn't give anybody free retcons, no-way no-how, then mysteriously discovered that they could actually give everybody retcons after a significant amount of forum drama. To their credit, retcons regularly come after balancing patches now, but it made for an interesting few days since the question came down to: Do I shell out a bunch of money to fix my broken character, do I soldier on, or do I quit the game?

Tabula Rasa Shuts Down.

Richard Garriott was the creator of the Ultima series, one of the first great RPG series, and owner of a castle from his RPG deeds and "Lord British" days, so things looked bright when he stepped in at NCSoft Austin. And then Tabula Rasa, Garriott's baby and pride and joy (to the point that he even changed his name to General British) went through seven years of development hell and several overhauls, revisions, and changes along the way.

At one point, it featured unicorns, giant spiders, and magic (and screenshot evidence exists here, too!), a far cry from the semi-grim sci-fi game that eventually staggered out the door.

The game did poorly, and, depending on whose account you believe, Garriott resigned with an official letter on the Tabula Rasa site or was shoved out the door as quickly as possible. He went on to become a Rocketman, fleeing/run out of an industry that he helped create, as well as suing NCSoft for potential shenanigans. It's a sad way for one of the old lions of the industry to go out.

Blizzard Provokes A Governmental Crisis.

Ah, China, the golden land where by some accounts everyone plays MMORPGs all the time and companies can't wait to get a slice of millions and millions of Chinese gamers, as well as the revenue they represent. World of Warcraft went to China--since it's everywhere in the known universe--and seemed to be doing well there. But there are some perils even World of Warcraft can't overcome, a lesson that while China may be a potential goldmine for revenues, access to that goldmine is controlled by a government that can pretty much do what it wants, even if sometimes it doesn't know what that is.

Previous clashes have involved Chinese values and internet skeletons, delays of the Wrath of the Lich Kinge expansion and slapfighting with Chinese operator The9, and picking a new service provider, but this year, Blizzard managed to provoke a governmental crisis. November saw the Chinese General Administration of Press and Publication and the Ministry of Culture slapfighting in the press about who had the authority to regulate World of Warcraft. There ain't no drama like WoW Drama and it's even more intense when a multibillion dollar industry is at risk because of it.

However, the big challenge confronting the China goldrushers is simply this: the government, obviously, can turn off the money tap any time it wants. From talking to Chinese developers, they work within a bizarre realm of government restrictions--which explains some of the genre's eccentricity--and the Chinese government takes a dim view of outside companies bringing in corrupting influences, which means whatever they want it to mean at any given moment. So while there may be a vast market to be tapped, one government decree stops the money train, and it could go away at any given time.

http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/feature/3802/page/1

Earthrise: Exclusive Screens From The Borderlands

2009-12-06T20:26:00.001+08:00

Guild Wars 2: Races of Tyria Trailer and Q&A

2009-12-06T20:21:00.001+08:00

In the Races of Tyria, the latest preview video for NCsoft’s upcoming MMO Guild Wars 2, we explore the world of Tyria through the eyes of the five playable races in the game. Meet the noble and resilient humans, the war-mongering charr, the brilliant inventors known as the asura, the mighty shapeshifting norn, and a new race of nature spirits, the sylvari. From these five races, mighty heroes shall rise!

Who are these characters in this video and what’s their significance in the overall story of the game?

The characters in the video are the members of the famous adventuring group, Destiny’s Edge, renowned for their bravery and skill. Although Destiny’s Edge no longer travels together, tales of their heroic deeds are told in every part of Tyria.

Logan Thackeray—Captain Logan Thackeray is a commander in the Seraph guard of Divinity’s Reach, defender of the last human kingdom. When danger threatens, Logan faces it with the determination of a man who knows that he is the only thing standing between all that he loves… and its utter destruction.
Rytlock Brimstone—This ruthless charr warrior has risen quickly through the ranks of the Blood Legion to become a Tribune of great renown. He stands foremost among the charr of the Black Citadel, carrying a sword of fire and leading their armies to greatness.
Eir Stegalkin—Eir is a norn hero and tactician of great renown. There are those who call her a visionary, who say she speaks to the Spirits of the Wild. With her companion wolf, Garm, Eir roams the icy Shiverpeaks, bow and blade in hand, searching for meaning in the snow’s silence.
Zojja— The foremost apprentice of the venerable asura inventor Snaff, Zojja seeks to live up to her mentor’s legacy. Zojja’s intellect is unrivaled even by members of the Arcane Council of Rata Sum, and her ability to multitask across a spectrum of disciplines inspires awe and jealousy among her fellow asura.
Caithe— Her blades are as swift as a blooded sunset, her movement as silent as the fall of night. Caithe was among the first sylvari to step upon the earth of Tyria, but where the others turned toward the sun, she sought shadow. She has never been afraid to gaze into darkness – or to seek truths that others fear.

You show off some very interesting environments in the Races of Tyria video. Can you tell us more about them?

The video takes us across the vastness of Tyria to the homelands of each of the five signature races of Guild Wars 2.

Divinity’s Reach—A breathtaking monument to the human spirit, this shining city is the capital of Kryta and a bastion of hope to embattled mankind.
The Black Citadel—Capital of the Iron Legion, this massive charr war-keep was built on the ruins of the conquered human kingdom of Ascalon.
Hoelbrak – In the frigid heights of the Shiverpeaks the norn have built this grand encampment, with huge lodges where they seek the wisdom of the Spirits of the Wild.
The Grove—Deep in the Maguuma Jungle, this mystical settlement has grown around the Pale Tree, the birthplace of all sylvari.
Rata Sum—Rising from the jungle, this metropolis of geomystic generators and giant ziggurats is full of brilliant asura and their golem servants.

Some of the voices in this video seem familiar, can you identify the actors? How big is voice going to be in Guild Wars 2?

Seamlessly integrating voice into the game experience is a key feature of Guild Wars 2, so we have gathered world-class voice talent to help bring the world of Tyria alive. This video introduces the five iconic heroes of each race, all voiced by accomplished actors:

Logan Thackeray the human defender is voiced by Troy Baker (Fullmetal Alchemist, One Piece).
Rytlock Brimstone the charr warrior is voiced by Steve Blum (Spectacular Spider-Man).
Eir Stegalkin the norn is voiced by Jocelyn Blue (Invader Zim, Space Jam).
Zojja the asura is voiced by Felicia Day (Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, The Guild, Buffy the Vampire Slayer).
Caithe the sylvari is voiced by Kari Wuhlgren (Wolverine and the X-Men, Aliens in the Attic).

The video ends with the question, “What’s your story?” – how important is story in Guild Wars 2?

Story is a huge element in Guild Wars 2. From the moment you choose your character’s race, you’re taking your first step down a road that only you can travel. You’ll explore a vast, living world where your actions have real consequences. You’ll immerse yourself in a rich, powerful narrative that is personalized to and influenced by your character.

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/feature/3800/page/1

World of Warcraft: Glory of a Hero, Part Two

2009-12-06T20:18:00.000+08:00

Drak'tharon Keep

Consumption Junction

Defeat Trollgore on Heroic difficulty before Consume reaches ten stacks.

Trollgore casts Consume every 15 seconds. That's 15 seconds for the tank to position Trollgore in a niche or hallway that gives time for the DPS and healer to run out of Trollgore's line-of-sight.

Position an off-tank or melee DPS at the top of the stairs to deal with the adds that show up while the rest of the team takes to the fight downstairs.

Tank him in the hallway that you used to enter the room, with the DPS and healer standing behind either column. Every 10 seconds, everyone but the tank should hide before Trollgore casts consume.

Read More...

Love Gone Sour: MMO Relationships

2009-12-06T20:11:00.001+08:00

Article By : Jaime Skelton

With Christmas a few weeks away, it's time we started dusting off the hearts in our chest to look for those warm, fuzzy feelings. Yes, Valentine's Day is a few months away, but I think it's time I turned away from looking at the, us versus them mentality of customers versus the MMO companies, and took a look at a more interesting aspect of gaming: us versus us.

There are a lot of schisms that can happen between players in an MMO environment, but there are none so strange or uncomfortable as those that come from relationships - and not just from break ups. If online dating wasn't awkward enough, imagine doing so in the public presence of hundreds or thousands. Sure, your real face may be on a dating site - but your relationship isn't up to public scrutiny, and when you're done dating one person on a dating site, you can move on to the next without your last haunting you (normally, at least).

The main problem is that MMOs are social games, and the communities that form around them generally become like small towns or clubs. A lot of social bonding happens on servers, and whether you've even been on a speaking basis with someone, most players know the names of dozens, even hundreds, of those that share their server. As we spend time on the server, we become exposed to the business of dozens of people through guilds, pick up groups, forums, and gossip. There's not always an opportunity to dodge the people you've burned bridges with, but there's a huge difference between an ex-guild leader and an ex-lover.

Now let's pause here, because you're possibly thinking, "Wait, back it up. People maybe have cyber flings in MMOs, but no one really has real relationships, and certainly none that last!" For those of you that are skeptical, I don't blame you. Most articles about "dating in MMOs" have the same kind of vague language that frequents urban legends: "my guildmate's sister plays on another server and she totally knows someone who hooked up after they ran Molten Core!" Well guess what: this author is one of those weirdos who met someone via MMOs, met them in real life, and even got married later. I know, some of you are so surprised.

However, I'm not going to be all bright-eyed about it and recommend it to all the socially anxious youngsters out there who think dating in a game will be easier for them than finding someone in the flesh first. Don't get me wrong: I'm perfectly happy in my marriage - my marriage isn't perfect but no one's is. The process of finding "someone special" in an online game, intentional or not, and pursuing a life long relationship is not a pleasant process. For me, five years of long-distance relationship was emotional hell, and I often thought it wasn't worth it to continue trying to manage my social relationships and my romantic relationships in the same game at the same time. Add over five years of marriage and living in close proximity to someone you game online with, and yes, it still drives me stir crazy from time to time, and he knows it. It's not just about managing a relationship online either: we'll be blunt and say I was damn lucky the guy I found turned out to be healthy and, more importantly, not a criminal.

In short: if you're looking for love in an MMO, don't assume that you're going to be part of the handfuls of successful relationships out there. They are, indeed, the minority of relationships started online.

So what's all the drama about? Let's take a semi-hypothetical situation: Mary Sue meets Slater in a group one day, and they hit it off, sharing lots of jokes. They continue to talk privately for days after the group is over, and soon they start to flirt a bit. Flirting may or may not lead to cyber sex, but somewhere along the line affection is professed, and a relationship - albeit sans a dinner and a movie - is born. She joins his guild, is welcomed in with smiles, and makes a lot of friends and acquaintances in the process. All is well, or so it seems.

The more Mary Sue and Slater get to know each other, the more they find they don't mix. He's a PvPer; she's a hard core raider. They can't find time to spend together. She insists they do things together and whines if they don't. He, not out of callousness, but out of disinterest in the activities she wants to do, could care less. Mary Sue realizes that Slater can't meet her emotional needs; Slater realizes that Mary Sue isn't his type of gal, and they break up after a fight that starts in their guild channel about whether he should help her level her new alt.

Sometimes, it just goes south.

Mary Sue tries to stay in the guild, but people stop talking to her - they knew Slater first, and tend to side with him, although they were annoyed by the fussing in guild chat over who had to sit out so they could run instances together and how bad she was at PvP. She figures they must hate her, because they're on his side and must like him more, so she quits the guild. She finally finds another guild to join, but a lot of people are friends with Slater's guild mates, and she finds herself in groups with not only her former guild mates, but even her ex.

This is one of the less complex situations I've seen in my years of gaming online. It's uncomfortable for everyone involved, and it's interesting to see the level of possession some people reach. We understand "spouse aggro," and usually attribute it to either a spouse who doesn't game online or a player not getting their priorities straight; yet many players suffer a different kind of "aggro" that dictates what they can do and with whom. Ever known a couple playing together that just has to group together, or neither goes at all? It might be sweet and endearing to the couple, but it's nothing but annoying to those of us who have to adjust groups based on the emotional needs and insecurities of the two of them. It's like newlyweds who can't part each other's side for more than a moment anywhere. The rest of us know it's just too sickly sweet and unnatural.

It boils down to this: relationships online aren't any prettier than real world relationships. They can be as happy, as roller coaster, or as creepy as anything the real world can throw at you. Your only real benefit is you immediately share a common interest and, at least to start, you have anonymity on your side protecting you. The drama is just as drawn out and complex, only it often involves a lot more people whether you, or they, actually want to be involved. There is just as much lying and manipulation, plenty of good intentions gone bad and promises broken. Certainly, it works for some people, myself included, but don't count yourself in that group unless it really does work out. If it does, count yourself among the lucky few. It's better to pass and wander out into the sunshine with sunglasses and a smile.

http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/loadFeature/3798/page/1

Face of Mankind: Open Beta Begins December 5th!

2009-12-06T19:55:00.003+08:00

The Open Beta start date for Face of Mankind has been announced today on the official Face of Mankind forums.

Duplex Systems' Managing Director cautions that while the game may not be perfectly balanced, or contain all the features that Closed Beta testers were eager to see, that the game would never be able to attain "perfection" without widespread testing, and so the game will be open for testing to anyone interested come Saturday, December 5th 2009.

"Most things" will be wiped in the transition from closed to open beta, though the faction leader structure will remain in place to ensure a smoother transition.

A new comprehensive tutorial will also make its debut with the beginning of the open beta program. Which, according to Duplex Systems, is encouraged even for those of you who played Face of Mankind in its previous incarnation due to the myriad changes the game has undergone since then.

Full Report :

Open Beta Announcement

The time has come. We are finally releasing Face of Mankind for open testing by all interested parties in our Open Beta phase, to be officially opened on the 5th of December, 2009. The game may not yet be perfectly balanced, nor with all the features our Closed Beta testers would have liked to see, but we will perhaps never reach a state of perfection without widespread testing with an unrestricted playerbase. As such, this release of Face of Mankind’s Open Beta is simply a matter of necessity for us to reach newer and greater heights.

There will be a wipe of most things from this final phase of Closed Beta, but we have decided to keep the faction leader structures in place to facilitate a smoother transition, and to ensure that players, both new and old, will have some semblance of organization to get them settled into the world of Face of Mankind.

We are also including a comprehensive tutorial for your perusal. Face of Mankind has gone through many transformational changes in myriad aspects of the game, ranging from combat, to the final battle mechanics, and various new features, just to name a few. Even players from the previous incarnations of Face of Mankind before we reopened this new version of Face of Mankind will very likely feel like a proverbial duck out of water. Hence, we highly recommend you take a look at this tutorial to get you up to speed on Face of Mankind, whether you are a veteran or completely new to the community.

On behalf of Duplex Systems, neXeon Technologies, and all of the Face of Mankind staff, I hereby welcome you to join us in Face of Mankind for our final stage of testing before we go live. Please, immerse yourself in the diverse and expansive worlds Face of Mankind has to offer, the intricacies of the politics between the factions and the player government, and above all, enjoy yourselves!

Download Mirrors:
http://www.fileplanet.com/206095/200...lient-v1.4.9.0
http://www.filefront.com/15057407/Fa...n-Beta-Client/
http://www.timkotech.com/dlmirror.php

Source: http://forum.fomportal.com/showthread.php?t=20870

Star Trek Online: Fleet Actions Trailer

2009-12-06T19:47:00.004+08:00

Senior Game Designer Zeke Sparkes and Producer Daniel Stahl walk us through "Fleet Actions" in this latest trailer available over at IGN.

Fleet Actions are basically large scale events taking place in specific sectors of the universe that players are alerted to as needing attention as they travel through space. These events span multiple tiers and will require the cooperation of numerous captains to succeed. This might be a stretch, but think Champions Online "Open Missions" or Warhammer Online "Public Quests" in space.

Star Wars: The Old Republic: Hands-On Preview

2009-12-06T19:40:00.003+08:00

Article By : Dana Massey

Last month, LucasArts and Bioware showed off the final two classes to be added to Star Wars: The Old Republic during a demonstration in San Francisco. There, we had the chance to get hands-on with the Sith Inquisitor, take a good long look at the Jedi Consular and talk to the team that put them together.

"[We wanted to] make sure we fulfill the fantasy first," they told us during a presentation on a massive movie screen inside the LucasArts compound. Many MMOs take the basic RPG roles that a game needs and designs classes that fit those roles. With Star Wars, the team felt it important to deliver that authentic Star Wars experience first. While they made sure everyone has a role to play, they didn't want to be trapped by MMO archetypes and miss something Star Wars fans really wanted.

The Jedi Consular is Yoda to the Jedi Knight's Luke, or as Associate Producer Tim Tiemmerman put it, "the ying to the Jedi Knight's yang."

Where a Knight dives in, lightsaber whirring, the Consular seems to use his mostly to swat away stray fire. That's not to say he cannot cut them down, but he is far more focused on using the Force to control the battlefield and dominate his enemies.

"[The Jedi Consular uses] telekinetic Force powers to take down the enemy," we were told as we watched him grasp and slam enemies into the ground with invisible force powers, or grasp on and pull them in close for the kill.

When in a group, the Jedi Consular focuses predominantly on crowd control and managing the battle. While other classes can be a bit more hectic, the Jedi Consular is "the thinking man's Jedi," explained Temmerman. You're the archetypal general supervising everyone else, coolly surveying the battlefield and reading the situation before dropping some poor bastard on his head for getting too close.

The Sith Inquisitor is inspired by Emperor Palpatine, exploring the "mystical" side of the Dark Side of the Force by shooting lightning out of your hands and tapping into a deeper understanding of what the Dark Side is all about. If this were a fantasy game, he'd be one part Wizard, one part light-fighter. The class has elements of both. He can stand back and fire off DPS, but he can also hurt you in close.

Our characters (myself and MMORPG.com contributor Shannon P. Drake took in the event) were exploring an old Sith temple looking for artifacts, so ruins and sand were in abundance, and naturally people were trying to stop us. Our young Sith were pretty low level and had only a few skills to choose from, but recognizable MMO skills were there, from short range AoEs to classic crowd control spells, with a Star Wars flavor. I easily developed a routine of running into a room, firing off the AOE knockdown, and using my other skills as need dictated.

Combat was fast-paced and felt like Star Wars - lots of humming lightsabers, chirping blasters, and crackling force lightning - but it was far too early to judge in any depth. It was recognizable MMO combat, however, it was just a matter of figuring out what my "stun" "knockdown" and "crowd control" were and learning how to apply them.

It goes without saying that the game is still at a very early stage, and the level we saw was rough around the edges. Developers frequently had to nudge us back on the right track because it was easy to get lost, and monsters would respawn behind and beside you, complicating your progress through the level. The AI was similarly rough, seeming restricted to "Someone is shooting me? I should shoot them back!" That will (hopefully) change before launch.

The interface was similarly recognizable, a hotbar at the bottom of your screen with spells and skills, fired off as necessary to kill the monster. The demonstration was too short to form a detailed opinion, but it seemed to do what you wanted without getting in the way and learning to play was easy, just a matter of figuring out what button to push when.

What I can say with confidence though is that they've gone a long way to capture the mood and feel of Star Wars. The spells looked and felt powerful, the animations are as good as any game out there (single-player and MMO). Just seeing a character flick away lasers with the lightsaber as he ran toward an enemy was satisfying.

The dialogue though struck me as a bit odd. I'm used to the old Bioware standard of having a silent character that the world bounces off of. In Dragon Age, for example, your character never actually talks. It's kind of silly, in a way, but it's the standard Bioware themselves set for RPGs. To be fair though, this dialogue system is far more like Mass Effect, which didn't have silent protagonists.

In Old Republic, your character is fully voice acted. It was well done, the acting was serviceable, and maybe this is only because I was using a pre-fabricated character and not one of my own creation, but it only served to remind me that I was playing a game and was not a part of the experience. In an RPG, I want to sink into my character fully, and when he has his own voice and acting, it felt like I was watching a movie starring someone else. That complaint though could well just be a personal quirk. I am sure others will love the fully voice acted PCs.

The dialogue trees themselves were also done much like Mass Effect. The NPC speaks, and you select from a wheel of dialogue options that more or less summarize what your guy is about to say. That said, those summaries might need some buffing. Avatars say the darndest things. Occasionally, I'd pick what I thought was a nice response and he'd spout off something I never would have chosen. The dialogue options fit the usual range, from, "Of course I will do what you say as I comply with every request an NPC makes of me because I am a boot licking lackey that loves EXP" to "My, my, my I am a lippy and saucy lad." But I digress, it's still early in development.

While the demonstration and hands on time were still very rough, I wouldn't worry too much given the amount of time left in development. MMOs tend to come together over the last few months. There is a long way to go and the theme of their demonstration was "theme" itself. So, if the question is, "Does this game feel and look like Star Wars?" the answer is an emphatic "Yes!" If the main Star Wars Galaxies complaint was "I wanted to be Luke or Han running around killing bad guys, not Uncle Owen farming moisture," they seem to have taken it to heart and all the classes we've seen seem to map to recognizable figures from the movies.

Drilling down, they also for the first time let us peek under the hood at some of the mechanics they have planned.

While each class can roughly be traced to an iconic Star Wars personality, that doesn't mean each will be a carbon copy of the next. As an example, they used the Smuggler. Each class has a variety of skills it can focus on and the choices you make can have a large impact and tailor that class to your play style. For example, a Smuggler can be more of a long distance gunner all the way down to a stealth and, to an extent, healing class. It depends on the choices you make as you progress.

Companions are another very Bioware wrinkle to the game. They made a big point of how they wanted iconic classes, even if that was at the expense of the traditional RPG archetypes. As much of the game will be about the player's personal story, there was a need to balance out these classes. Companions do just that.

They're exactly what the name implies: full blown NPC side-kicks who travel with you on your adventures through the world. Each class has their own that join and help them with the story and allows the player to play the way they want while the Companion does what is necessary to keep things going. They showed us Xalek, a melee character like Darth Maul, who can dive in and keep the enemies busy hand-to-hand while your Inquisitor sits back and deals damage.

The inclusion of single-player RPG style companions though is sure to worry some fans who are worried about the MMO part of this game. Not only is your character off on his own story arc, but now he has NPCs to fill the role of group members? So we asked.

Temmerman told us that while each of the eight classes has its own unique, solo story-line that takes them all around the world, they've gone to a fair amount of trouble to make sure it doesn't just feel like an RPG. That content is instanced, but it is laced throughout the common game world.

Each class has its own personal arc, and that arc takes them from planet to planet, but each planet also has its own arc, and that one is aimed at groups of players. To fully experience the game and all of its content, players will want to break off as they travel through new areas to work with friends and complete some of that content.

Effectively, The Old Republic is eight RPGs woven together so that when the stories take players through towns, they're in MMO environments. It forces people to go out in the world and see other people. Sure, they can plow through the single-player arcs, but they'd miss half the game.

They can also bring friends along for their story missions. The actual mechanics were not yet available, but they are aware that people don't necessarily want to play alone and as such will have full scaling.

"We will make sure there is always a challenge," was about as far as Temmerman would explain it.

He was also tight lipped about the other traditional MMO content, save to say that they do intend to have crafting, raids, and all of the regular MMO hallmarks. This last year has been focused on atmosphere, the classes and the story. This is their differentiator. They assure is the traditional elements are there, and we take them at their word so far, but so far it seems the focus has been on what is different. Once they finish with that, expect to see the online aspects rolled out.

Star Wars: The Old Republic has a long way to go and the team is obviously aware of it. Their goal was to show off the classes and theme. It looks and feels like Star Wars and that's all anyone can hope for so long before launch. Over the coming months they have a lot of work to do to make sure it reaches its potential.

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/367/feature/3797/page/1