iTZKooPA – All your MMO & MOBA Needs – Lore Hound https://lorehound.com MMO Game & MOBA Opinions, Videos & Reviews Mon, 12 Dec 2016 19:50:50 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.8.13 Blizzard’s Extensive Extended Universe https://lorehound.com/news/blizzards-extensive-extended-universe-list/ https://lorehound.com/news/blizzards-extensive-extended-universe-list/#comments Mon, 12 Dec 2016 14:00:43 +0000 http://lorehound.com/?p=9155 [...]]]>

Last update: December 2016

Many people spent Martin Luther King Jr’s holiday schlepping around their house, possibly at work or, and this is the really good-natured people out there, donating their time to a charity. Me, well I spent my time re-organizing my gaming shelves (due to in-home construction).

During the shuffling of games, the mingling of HDDVD (fail) and BluRay and coupling of previous and current generation peripherals I stumbled across a “lost” form of entertainment, the tactile sensations of books, board games and graphic novella. During the organization of this unconnected form of entertainment I realized one important fact: There’s a lot of Expanded Universe material to Blizzard’s universes.

Hit the Continue Reading stub to have your mind blown by the vast amounts of novels, board games, manga, comics and trading card game paraphernalia that have been created to extend one of Blizzard’s four universes. Did we miss something? Let us know in the comments!

Naturally, the growing Blizzard Store offers additional physical items from the games, from keychains to plushies.

Jump to:

Diablo is easily the least licensed universe that Blizzard has created. One can only assume that this will dramatically change as Diablo III’s release date slowly approaches. At the very least, expect a tie in novel. Welp, that assume certainly came to the cliche conclusion. At least we did get the expected novels.

Comics:

Games:

Novels:

Shorts & Novellas:

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StarCraft took the crown of the most licensed universe until World of Warcraft began to dominate the universe, all of them. The franchise is seeing its expanded universe rekindle thanks to the continued success of StarCraft II domestically and abroad.

Board Games:

Comics:

Games:

Manga:

Novels:

Web Stories (free):

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Warcraft is the leader in Blizzard’s licensing war with dozens of items spread across all forms of nerdy entertainment. The comic, trading card game, manga and miniatures endeavors have each seen a bit of turmoil, but the novels garnered Blizzard and Christie Golden their first New York Times Bestseller honors.

Board Games & RPG Books:

Comics:

Games:

Manga:

Novels:

Trading Card Game & Miniatures:

Web Stories (free):

Leader Web Stories (free):

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Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft is a spin-off to Warcraft that is deserving of its own category. Sure, said category is sparse, but that’s because it’s a free-to-play behemoth. Check out the Warcraft section for more from the universe.
Games:

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Heroes of the Storm takes all the individual universes in this posts and smashes them together. There may only be a few dedicated items for HotS below. Thankfully, anything from the exhaustive list will do the trick. Pick your target’s favorite universe and grab something.
Games:

Figures:

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Overwatch is the latest universe from Blizzard. Honestly, it’s the first since StarCraft debuted oh, so long ago. Rising from the ashes of a follow-up MMORPG comes the 2016 Game of the Year.

Games:

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That took way longer to research and compile than I expected…

Notes:
When available, compilations are listed instead of individual pieces.
* denotes upcoming or on-going releases.

]]> https://lorehound.com/news/blizzards-extensive-extended-universe-list/feed/ 11 SMITE: Demigods, Deities and Gods Explained – Anubis https://lorehound.com/news/smite-demigods-deities-and-gods-explained-anubis/ https://lorehound.com/news/smite-demigods-deities-and-gods-explained-anubis/#comments Thu, 17 May 2012 13:00:29 +0000 http://lorehound.com/?p=28189 [...]]]>

SMITE: Demigods, Deities and Gods Explained is a new column dedicated to introducing prospective players of SMITE to its massive back story of lore. From the Greek to Hindi, each week we’ll look at two characters from a major pantheon and provide a quick recap of their history and in what capacity their digital incarnation will represent on the field of Hi-Rez Studios upcoming MOBA.

Lore: Anubis – Anapa in Egyptian – is the jackal-headed son of Nephthys and is most closely related with the Egyptian process of mummification and thus, the afterlife. The association is strengthened further in hieroglyphics, which sees a jackal, Anubis’ animal form, sitting atop a tomb. In addition to protecting those during their travel to Datu, the underworld, Anubis was the “Guardian of Scales”, weighing the fate of the soul of the deceased.

His parentage is complicated, changing depending on the timeframe and legend of the texts. In the earliest texts, Anubis was of Ra’s seed. Later texts claim the father as Osiris. A near-equal amount attribute his patronage to that of Osiris’ brother, Set. Murkier still, one legend claims that Nephthys used alcohol to seduce Osiris, another that his mother impersonated Isis for the same purpose.

Hit the jump for the rest of Anubis’ lore and how it’s used in-game.

Anubis, actually a Greek name, was associated with Greek and Roman mythology in various capacities, despite the cultures considering the half-animal gods of Egypt as primitive.

In-Game: Anubis is a ranged spellcaster that makes full use of his embalming and underworld knowledge. Donning his full jackal appearance, Anubis also possesses personal movement bonuses and attacks, such as Death from Below.

Further reading:

Head over to SMITE: Demigods, Deities and Gods Explained for access to details for all of the playable characters.

]]> https://lorehound.com/news/smite-demigods-deities-and-gods-explained-anubis/feed/ 2 SMITE: Demigods, Deities and Gods Explained – Ao Kuang (Guang) https://lorehound.com/news/smite-demigods-deities-and-gods-explained-ao-kuang-guang/ https://lorehound.com/news/smite-demigods-deities-and-gods-explained-ao-kuang-guang/#comments Tue, 15 May 2012 19:11:59 +0000 http://lorehound.com/?p=28158 [...]]]>

SMITE: Demigods, Deities and Gods Explained is a new column dedicated to introducing prospective players of SMITE to its massive back story of lore. From the Greek to Hindi, each week we’ll look at two characters from a major pantheon and provide a quick recap of their history and in what capacity their digital incarnation will represent on the field of Hi-Rez Studios upcoming MOBA.

Lore: Ao Kuang, usually spelled Ao Guang, is the destructive god known as the Dragon King of the East Sea. During his early years, Ao Guang reigned terror on man through the forces of nature. Droughts, storms and other natural disasters were his weapons of choice and his destruction continued unabated until Nezha, a protective deity, intervenes. After suffering a humiliating defeat at the hands of Nezha, Ao Guang seeks vengeance by kidnapping Nezha’s parents.

Hit the jump for the rest of Ao Guang’s story, how he’ll play in-game and further reading.

A common antagonist, Ao Guang is actually responsible for helping Sun WuKong achieve his most powerful relic, the transforming staff known as Ruyi Jingu Bang. Unsuspecting that the staff, which was holding down the ocean, would react to the Monkey King, the dragon-king teased the diminutive figure to attempt to acquire the heavenly weapon. Upon approach, the magical weapon reacted to him, confirming that he is the rightful owner. The sea, now unconstrained after Ruyi Jingu Bang’s removal, went into turmoil, wreaking further havoc that was attributed to Ao Guang.

In-Game: Despite the back lore (and misspelling), Hi-Rez Studios is currently tailoring its incarnation of Ao Kuang as a wind serpent. The character is a classic ranged spell caster, featuring wind-based attacks and little crowd control.

Further reading:

Head over to SMITE: Demigods, Deities and Gods Explained for details on all of the playable characters.

]]> https://lorehound.com/news/smite-demigods-deities-and-gods-explained-ao-kuang-guang/feed/ 83 SMITE: Demigods, Deities and Gods Explained https://lorehound.com/news/smite-demigods-deities-and-gods-explained/ https://lorehound.com/news/smite-demigods-deities-and-gods-explained/#comments Tue, 15 May 2012 19:09:09 +0000 http://lorehound.com/?p=28154 [...]]]>

SMITE: Demigods, Deities and Gods Explained is a new column dedicated to introducing prospective players of SMITE to its massive back story of lore. From the Greek to Hindu, each week we’ll look at two characters from a major pantheon and provide a quick recap of their history and in what capacity their digital incarnation will represent on the field of Hi-Rez Studios upcoming MOBA.

SMITE isn’t just another DotA knockoff. The developers at Hi-Rez Studios has put its own massive spin on the genre, aside from cherry picking from earlier legendary lore. The title will be familiar, featuring lane pushing, towers, creeping, item building and personal spell selection. The major change is the camera. The camera will not be presented in the typical isometric view, like most MOBA games, but locked behind your player in a third-person perspective. This allows for complete ganks – no need for weeds to “hide” in – forcing players to keep tabs on blind spots and use them to their advantage.

The full list of characters and their titles are after the jump along with a video interview by iTZKooPA with a more comprehensive introduction to the title from COO Todd Harris.

New additions to come every Tuesday and Thursday.

Chinese

Egyptian

Greek

Hindu

Japanese

Mayan

Norse

Roman

]]> https://lorehound.com/news/smite-demigods-deities-and-gods-explained/feed/ 9 TERA’s 2012 Election Season Almost Upon Us https://lorehound.com/news/teras-2012-election-season-almost-upon-us/ https://lorehound.com/news/teras-2012-election-season-almost-upon-us/#comments Mon, 14 May 2012 17:31:08 +0000 http://lorehound.com/?p=28111 [...]]]>

TERA’s political system was not technically delayed shortly before the title’s launch earlier this month, but En Masse Entertainment hasn’t done anything with the system since. Until now, that is. The politicking will begin in earnest this Friday, May 18, for those interested!

The political system is a one-of-a-kind feature enabling high-ranking members to wield untold power over the direction of the realm. For better or worse, the reign of prosperity (or terror) will only last three weeks before another Vanarch is elected. Once elected – more on that in a second – a Vanarch is able to mandate and collect taxes and select which special vendors to open for business. Both the powers of community-elected officials and the process itself are set to mature with the game.

Like any real political system, you have to work at being an electable official before you can be elected. Thankfully, millions of dollars aren’t the only requirement. Players must be level 50 (experience), be a leader of a guild of level 3 or higher with 20+ members (leadership) and pay 3,000 gold and 100 Catharnach Awards (currency sink) to get on the ballot.

If you’re interested, registration begins this Friday, May 18, followed by a week of voting. If you’re not interested in the responsibility, you can vote for a candidate of your choice once per continent per server per account.

Time to go work on my soapbox speeches.

Stay tuned on the latest election happenings by visiting the Election Calendar.

]]> https://lorehound.com/news/teras-2012-election-season-almost-upon-us/feed/ 4 Tribes: Ascend – One Month Later with Todd Harris (Interview) https://lorehound.com/news/tribes-ascend-one-month-later-with-todd-harris-interview/ https://lorehound.com/news/tribes-ascend-one-month-later-with-todd-harris-interview/#comments Fri, 11 May 2012 13:00:01 +0000 http://lorehound.com/?p=28046 [...]]]>

On April 12, 2012, Hi-Rez Studios delivered on its promise to rejuvenate the Tribes franchise when it launched the fast-paced, skill-based Tribes: Ascend. Just shy of a month since release, we caught up with Todd  Harris, COO of Hi-Rez Studios, to discuss the launch process, the future of the game and to facilitate a little industry jabbing.

LoreHound: First of all, congratulations on the launch of Tribes: Ascend. Did the team do anything special to celebrate the milestone? Besides praying to the server gods for a smooth launch, that is.

Todd Harris: Team T-shirts, cake and booze!

LH: Overall, the transition from beta to live has seemed relatively smooth. Yet many developers tend to have issues between last-minute patches and server stability. How did Hi-Rez prepare for the changeover?

TH: The long beta was helpful in flushing out most of the major bugs and polishing gameplay before launch.  In terms of servers, the programming team built a great technology platform that allows us to add servers very easily.  So, even with the huge influx of players we’ve generally able to add servers fast enough to keep up.

LH: Fans want to know: What happened to the Lance?

TH: We’ll see.  We’ve been doing updates every 2-3 weeks so we need to save some cool weapon ideas for consideration in future updates.

LH: A large draw to earlier franchise installments was user-created maps. Is there anything in the works on that front?

TH: Nothing in the works right now.  As you know we just rolled out Custom Servers with a bunch of user-managed gameplay settings and admin features.  So we are currently monitoring how players are using Custom Servers and want to make sure they work well for different communities.

LH: Any word on female models and voices?

TH: We have some concept art for females now.  But no timelines to announce.

LH: Did the F2P model have much impact on game design? For the most part, the current model is a typical F2P store. Can players expect Hi-Rez to put a Tribes slant on the offerings in the future?

TH: We’ve been discussing a few new microtransaction types with a Tribes slant – including the idea of custom voice packs.

LH: You mentioned that many publishers snubbed Tribes: Ascend claiming a fast-paced and skill-based shooter wouldn’t work. At what point does Hi-Rez feel comfortable dropping an “I told you so!”?

TH: Now seems good.  I told you so!  :)

Actually we’ve been very flattered by the critical acclaim.  We knew there was a PC gamer audience wanting Tribes to return.  But we weren’t sure how Tribes: Ascend was going to be received by professional game reviewers since it isn’t your typical military shooter.  In theory those external reviews shouldn’t matter, but in reality, they do.  After so much time and energy and passion it does feel good to get those positive reviews.

LH: Industry jabs aside, is Hi-Rez Studios experimenting with all-new game modes tailored specifically to the core nature of Tribes: Ascend. Not adapting common FPS game modes, but innovating for this style of gameplay alone.

TH: Yes.  We’ll continue to experiment with other game-modes.  However we suspect that Capture The Flag will remain the marquee and most popular mode.

LH: We have a fistful of Tribes: Ascend currency codes that we…uhh…requisitioned from the PAX East booth. Can you tell your community that anyone that retweets the article’s link or posts it on their Facebook wall will earn a code while supplies last?

TH:  I was wondering where those PAX codes disappeared to.  :)  You share the codes and we’ll spread the word.

LH: Thanks for your time. All the best in the future.

]]> https://lorehound.com/news/tribes-ascend-one-month-later-with-todd-harris-interview/feed/ 7 What’s Behind Star Wars: The Old Republic’s Decline? https://lorehound.com/news/whats-behind-star-wars-the-old-republics-decline/ https://lorehound.com/news/whats-behind-star-wars-the-old-republics-decline/#comments Tue, 08 May 2012 02:56:30 +0000 http://lorehound.com/?p=27946 [...]]]>
Pew, pew, pew. Now only 1.3 million to deal with!

Earlier today, Electronic Arts had its stuffy quarterly report. The number, fact, and strategy filled report was of little interest to most MMO gamers until the mention of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Following the recent trend of LoreHound coverage, the mention wasn’t good. According to the publisher, TOR lost 24% of its subscribers, shedding 400,000 paying customers from the peak of 1.7 million a quarter earlier (during the included free month).

That places the second Star Wars-based MMORPG over the million subscriber mark, at 1.3 million, but still showing a decline as troubling as the current, yet declining, kind of World of Warcraft. This is roughly on target with the estimate made by an analyst group in mid April.

This has left many players scratching their heads. TOR was easily one of, if not the most, anticipated MMOG releases of 2011. Sure, there’s the just released action-oriented TERA, or a flood of F2P games available and coming, but is there one core aspect that has drained TOR’s base?

Conspiracy theories will abound as analysts and players attempt to isolate the trend. Hit the jump for our perspective reasons.

Further WoW tourist syndrome? Possible. Players ditching story for the action of TERA? Acceptable. A steep decline in the price of a Rift subscription stealing away wishy-washy subscribers? The cash strapped would think twice. Consumers becoming weary of the subscription model? Numerous developers and publishers from Perfect World Entertainment to Red 5 Studios would have you believe F2P is the way to go. What about the upcoming closing of the core MMO season, ie during school? It’s had me venture before. Or was TOR, like so many other titles, over hyped and ultimately under delivered? Makes sense.

Considering the game never came close to captivating me, a dedicated MMORPG player, I’d say it’s mostly due to the title’s execution, with a splash of a shift in market expectation. The shift being a dose of raised expectations thanks to increasing competition from the F2P market.

Let us know where you stand in the comments.

 

]]> https://lorehound.com/news/whats-behind-star-wars-the-old-republics-decline/feed/ 15 TERA Live Today! LoreHound Has You Covered. https://lorehound.com/news/tera-live-today-lorehound-has-you-covered/ Tue, 01 May 2012 04:01:01 +0000 http://lorehound.com/?p=27631 [...]]]>

Party vs Gula - BAM

We Lore Hounds have been following TERA closely. It’s not a pet project or personal interest, it’s the community and a handful of writers that have been following the conversion of the hardcore action-oriented MMORPG from its Korean launch to the western audience.

For years, we have been sniffing out various tidbits of information, challenging producers, digesting marketing fluff and pooping the details out to you. Yeap, TERA has gone through our entire digestive tract. And it’s come out exactly as you’d expect; a shiny nugget for gamers to play with.

There’s a chance that metaphor ran its course a few thoughts ago. Moving on.

Like Mike, I’m incredibly excited for TERA, but for a different reason. It’s main draw for me has been it action-oriented PvE, which reminds me of the hardcore vanilla WoW days; my fondest MMOG memories.

Below you’ll find a summary of TERA information to review as your download and install commences. Here’s to hoping for flawless server performance, limited bottlenecking and seamless installs.

Bonus. Here’s my first character, which I modeled after one of my male ferrets.

]]> LoreHound Exclusive: Christina Sims Demos Penny Arcade Rumble in R’lyeh https://lorehound.com/news/penny-arcade-board-game/ Mon, 23 Apr 2012 20:06:14 +0000 http://lorehound.com/?p=27536 [...]]]>

Penny Arcade has entered the general pop culture realm of popularity and overall success. The mainstream may not be entirely aware of it yet, but it’s the truth. The formerly small following of video game nerds has exploded to cover all sorts of geeky media, from card to board and casual games. The two-man operation is now one of the most powerful, pervasive and certainly the most accessible in the industry.

It’s become so omnipresent that the comic has spawned its own line of entertainment products, encompassing video games and board games. iTZKooPA got to check out the latest from Cryptozoic, Penny Arcade: The Game – Rumble in R’lyeh. Christina Sims showed off the basic deck-building gameplay, explained what R’lyeh, a stand-alone expansion, adds to the franchise and a few of her personal favorite comic strips that have become cards.

Nipplecrabs. Need we say more?

Hit the jump for the full dose of ridiculousness.

]]> The Walking Dead Board Game – Don’t be Afraid of Death https://lorehound.com/news/the-walking-dead-board-game-dont-be-afraid-of-death/ https://lorehound.com/news/the-walking-dead-board-game-dont-be-afraid-of-death/#comments Mon, 23 Apr 2012 01:48:08 +0000 http://lorehound.com/?p=27520 [...]]]>

The Penny Arcade Expo is a celebration of all things gamer (and nerd). From music to video games to board and card games, there’s something for everyone. That’s as long as you’re one of those people who enjoys FUN.

iTZKooPA trudged over to the Cryptozoic booth to see what the growing analog company had on offer this pass. It didn’t take long before he sucked AnnaMaria into a demo session of The Walking Dead, getting all the details, strategy and gameplay mechanics locked down.

It sounds like he’s preparing to troll his first game by sacrificing to become a zombie to undo the rest of the group. What a jerk!

Hit the jump for the full interview.

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