Game developers blog

World of Warcraft Client Patch 3.2.2

2009-09-25T05:46:00.001-07:00

After the good news that the China server for World of Warcraft <a href="http://mmorpgindex.com" title="MMORPG">mmorpg</a> is now back up and running after two months of hiatus, it's time to get all patched up. Patch 3.2.2 has just been released by Blizzard, and we're giving you a sneak peek at what's in it. 

It's a lengthy list, you'll have to go to their site for the full update: 

General 

a, The Brood Mother Returns 
- After years of lurking in her lair battling the many brave adventurers who travelled from afar to challenge her, Onyxia returns stronger than before to commemorate <a href="http://mmorpgindex.com" title="World of Warcraft MMORPG">World of Warcraft</a>'s five-year anniversary. 
- Onyxia has been scaled to offer new challenges to level 80 players in 10- and 25-player modes. 
- Adjusted for modern raiding, but with the fundamental experience of fighting the Brood Mother still in effect, including the horrors of her Deep Breaths! 
- Onyxia will now drop level 80 item versions of some classic loot items from the level 60 encounter. 
- Brood of Onyxia, a very rare 310%-speed mount modeled after Onyxia herself will be available for the luckiest of challengers. 
b, Armor Penetration Rating: The amount of armor penetration gained per point of this rating has been reduced by 12%.

PvP 

- Battlegrounds 
- Players level 11 and higher will now always see a daily Battleground quest, as the quest giver will only offer daily quests for a Battleground in which a player is eligible to participate according to level bracket (i.e. players levels 11-20 will always be offered a Warsong Gulch daily quest, while players levels 11-50 will be offered either an Arathi Basin or a Warsong Gulch daily quest, etc.). 

Source : <a href="http://mmorpgindex.com" title="MMORPG">Mmorpg Index</a>

Test blog entry

2009-09-19T08:21:00.001-07:00

This is an mmorpg blog, and a blog entry of this mmorpg blog made for testing if it is still working.

New online game - Booze Tycoon

2008-09-28T21:11:00.001-07:00

Booze Tycoon is a brand new web game that grants you the opportunity to transform a basic backyard moonshine still into a powerful business empire of booze! You start at the bottom and build your way up buying better burners, factories, nightclubs, coalmines and everything else you need to become a true business man.
Apart from handling deliveries and expanding with new buildings you compete against other players ingame and can challenge them in fights or team up with them. A cool feature is that you are able to create a gang with your friends and have your own chat channel, you can also challenge other gangs in fight. The game has just released its english version and there are already alot of new languages and cool functions in development. You really need to check this game out, did I mention it was free?

By : MMORPG X - Ggot
check out the world's best world of warcraft cabal online privat server list !

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Level 50 at least...

2008-09-15T19:25:00.000-07:00

Hello mates, welcome! I'm very happy to inform that around week ago my first character advanced through all level and now I'm on 50 level :-) (until premiere of Mines of Moria anyway...)

What's new? first of all like other players on my level I'm doing deeds, there are lots of deeds in game but i pick few and all my time im spending on grinding..i don't like this after playing in Lord of the Rings Onlinebut some traits ( when you complete deed you get traits) are very good.

On the screen Mikevorn (me) vs Helchgam, he killed then all my fellowship including me :/

For the example when you reach Valor trait on level 10 you've got:

+ 286 to Morale (something like HP)

+ 10 Mighty

+ 5.8 non-Combat Morale Regeneration (if i remember correctly )

another cool trait for my class is Discipline you can get on level 10:

+30 Might

+5.0% Disease Resistance

-1.5% Melee Vulnerability

You can pick max 5 at the same time traits and when you add each one to your character, you became really strong. I will write something about other traits for combat next time.

I'm playing champion, and if you are player from Gilrain server you can find me under name

Mikevorn :-)

leave a comment if you know me cya mates on Lotro

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MMO Gaming Community

2008-09-13T07:04:00.000-07:00

Who loves playing online games ? I do. You might decide me as a computer game freak but yes, I am one of those millions of various online gamers from around the world that spends a lot of time playing in front of the computer screen.

Anyway, what's the occasion to not get hooked? You get the chance to play the latest and coolest games. You get the occasion to talk and interact to other players. Plus you gain the opportunity to show to the whole online game society of how skillful you are as a gamer.

It is true that I have been an online gamer for many years now. It is just that the feeling of winning online matches has never been this sweeter, and the idea of tasting online defeat has never been this worse. Hopping from one online game sites to other is also not new to me, for I am the type of gamer that loves to analysis of what each of those game sites offer. But between my latest online game site expeditions, I just recently found out a golden find: free online games. Don't shrivel in fear now. Keep from being dumbfounded by the stunning name. Instead, be very excited. Fly or die might not be known as of the moment but its rate of membership growth is phenomenal ever since the first day it was formally launched. There's must be a great reason behind that, isn't it?
I am definitely serious on saying that this is one of those multiplayer online gaming sites that will get your attention, and will totally deserve your gaming appreciation. And if you are an online gaming fan yourself.
What is something not to love about online multiplayer games site? The free online games you can play here will totally bring the best gamer in you. Love strategy games? Try their 8-Ball and 9-Ball pool games. Do you love number puzzles? Then brace yourselves when you play the very innovative Xudoku, their online game version of the most fashionable number puzzle game. Or how about some nice chess matches?

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BattleField 2 Update today

2008-09-07T16:43:00.001-07:00

I had registered my game with the company when i first bought it but was amazed to know that i was getting a free upgrade to the game for free. I got it on the email and accepted the offer and i had to fill out my address and so on and said that i should receive a new cd in a week or two with lots more maps and weapons :D Anyways, free stuffs are always fun but i love battle field games. Just the online play tho. I hate to play it offline as all the challenges i get are computer. human touch to the game is totally different and your playing with someone who can shoot u back , unlike the computer programmed shooters who you can easily fool like the time i went from back of the guy and shot him and he never looked back. Game programmers need to really think about all this.

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Midnight Club 3's Hacked!

2008-08-19T18:54:00.001-07:00

As usual, I was playing my favorite game midnight club 3. For those of you who don't know what this game is. Its a nice car racing game. From the first time i bought this game i started to do offline races and won all the nice cars. After that i stopped playing offline and just played online as its more fun playing with real humans than computers . When i used to play Midnight Club 2 on computer, me and my friends used to modify the files of the games and make cars faster and other great stuff on it but i though it was not possible to do it on consoles. Seems some people have edited mc3's files and burned it back on a cd for ps2 and have started to cheat on the game. I was racing as usual and this guy came super fast. And do tricks that were not even available for the game and i asked him to teach me and he told me that that he had modded the game. So i copied my game files to computer and looked over the files and most of the files were same as might night club 2 so i edited few things to make me go faster and ripped the files back to cd and used my magic swap to get online with a ripped files cd and was amazed that it worked flawlessly and then in few minutes. Everyone who saw me started asking me how i am doing it and annoyed me so much and i put my default cd back on to play it the normal way because i don't support cheating on the game. so guys go ahead mod your mc3. Till next time.

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GTA Goes Live !

2008-08-08T17:41:00.000-07:00

Sales of GTA has been going up in Thailand and seems everyone loves it as much i love GTA but there is a difference between a game and a real life. My friend was telling me he wants another child after his computer been having problem too much since kids now days learn so fast. A teenager in Thailand confessed on robbing and killing a taxi driver. Seems he has been playing GTA just too much. I wouldn't be surprised if some teenager wore armors and went to school and tried to kill his fellow friends. I hope he can reload his life and do a fresh start when he gets out of jail. I also heard in news last night that some kid jumped over 10 story building hoping that superman would come and save him. unfortunately superman was busy playing GTA. For last time there is no real superman but don't be so sure about that regarding batman tho. Well, I am warning all of you guys not to believe too much on these fairly land stuff because they are only good to see on tv and play them but don't ever try to actually do it! or else you will end up as that Thailand Guy! :O But i wonder how it would feel to live such life.. like lets say world of warcraft, It sure would be fun to wear those cool armors and kill monsters and doing what you want without any consequences. That would be a care free wonderful life but unfortunately life is not like that or else i would be killing another goblin in runescape right now and would own 10 cars on GTA. Also guys don't forget to comment on this article telling me of the funny things you know about games taking over real life. I would love to hear the comments from you guys! and did you know you can subscribe to our RSS feed and be update with latest news. Till next time!

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Star Trek Online webcast

2008-08-08T17:03:00.000-07:00

"Mr. Leonard Nimoy will be appearing at our event at the Official Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas."-Cryptic. The event will take place at 1:30 p.m. PDT on Sunday, August 10th in the Gene Roddenberry Theater at the Las Vegas Hilton. The startrek online do not want to leave you out! They will broadcast the event LIVE via webcast. Please visit the Startrek online website for details on how to join the webcast. Join the Star Trek Online community by 11:59 p.m. PDT on Sunday, August 17, for a chance to win a copy of Star Trek Online and a lifetime subscription!(Sounds good!!)

Source : MMORPG-X - Online games news website

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Gold farming research

2008-08-05T03:30:00.000-07:00

Via Broken Toys I scholarly most this academic essay on metallic farming. 87 pages of research, with engrossing estimates, same for the sort of metallic farmers (400,000) and metallic buyers (5 to 10 million).
The essay covers everything from the statement of what RMT is, to jural aspects, to discussing metallic job as a designate of money from matured to nonindustrial countries.
What it fails to name is that metallic job is a termination of intense mettlesome design. Gold job effectuation that whatever lawful contestant finds whatever portion state in a MMORPG so boring, but necessary, that he is primed to clear somebody added to endeavor the mettlesome for him. And that is pretty exceptional in the earth of entertainment.
Nobody pays somebody added to go and check a flick for him, or to go and dispense a pair of hoops for him in a cordial mettlesome of basketball. Nobody buys a highscore for Tetris, or an modern spend mettlesome for Grand Theft Auto. In nearly every forms of recreation and games, the outlay of instance is the *purpose* of the activity.
At whatever saucer in the forthcoming somebody module conceive how to attain a MMORPG in which every parts of the mettlesome are recreation to play, and there are no parts to "grind" to attain whatever termination of realistic nowness or level. And that mettlesome module hit no metallic farming.
Not because it would be impossible, or because of existence threatened with bans, but meet because it wouldn't attain significance to clear somebody added to hit every that recreation for you. The ineffectual rages of mettlesome developers against RMT are rattling meet a alikeness of their possess unfortunate to attain their games recreation in every areas.

By : Tobold

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10 Signs Of MMO Addiction

2008-06-18T12:22:00.001-07:00

With the advent of Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG), a lot of people have suffered from MMORPG over-addiction, so much so that some of them have slowly confused the real world with the fantasy environment of the games they're playing. I kid you not! This seeming merger of truth and fiction is not restricted to costume plays (or cosplays), sci-fi conventions or game launches. It has extended to everyday life. And if you have been playing a particular MMORPG for hours upon hours, each and every day, you might be suffering from MMORPG over-addiction yourself!

How would you know?

Here are 10 signs that can be observed if ever you have too much MMORPG adrenaline in your system.

1. Whenever you want to buy something, you think in terms of gold instead of dollars. Gold, of course, is the unit of currency in most MMORPG game worlds.

2. Whenever you accomplish a significant deed, you subconsciously expect to level up, coupled with a sound in the background to inform the world of such a feat. MMORPG programs reward players with experience points which can be used to increase their levels.

3. You find yourself speaking in Old English. Quite a number of MMORPG systems require the players to role play their characters as if they're living in a fantastical, medieval world. This includes conversing in Old English. So hear 'ye, hear 'ye, hear 'ye, if thou hath been speaking the tongue of ages yore, thou hath been possessed by the soul of thy machinated character.

4. You start referring to you bag as your inventory. A staple of MMORPG programs is a limited inventory screen that allows your character to carry a certain number of implements.

5. You start describing your irritating acquaintance as a "re-spawning monster." The monsters in all MMORPG systems persistently re-spawn so that players would always have something to kill for some experience points.

6. Whenever an item, like a gadget perhaps or a book, is priced beyond your budget, you start to subconsciously hope that you'll get it soon with a future "drop." In MMORPG programs, monsters drop useful items whenever they're destroyed. Sometimes, they drop some very rare and very valuable items.

7. When ever you need the help of a friend in the real world, you sometimes inform him by screaming "tank!" or "aggro!" The terms tank and aggro are MMORPG-generic words that refer to a variety of support from party members. Tank refers to the act of having someone with higher HP attack a monster first. The monster would focus on such a player, and the other player with lower HP would attack it from behind and claim a majority of the experience points. Aggro refers to a slew of support spells from the magic users of the same adventuring party.

8. At the end of every month, you'd be surprised to discover that you have exhausted all your vacation and sick leaves from work. In South Korea, for example, where MMORPG programs are a huge hit, employers complain of massive employee absences whenever a major game is released. Indeed, an MMORPG has the power to take over your virtual as well as your real life.

9. You spend countless sleepless nights thinking of strategies that would help you build your character, or defeat a seemingly undefeatable boss. FREE MMORPGs programs often require more strategy that what you'd expect, and trying to discover the best tactics that work is part of the fun.

10. Whenever you're planning your monthly budget, you give paramount importance to allotting payment for your MMORPG's subscription. There is no shame here. We're all guilty of the same thing.

Should you start worrying?

Should you begin to consider a change in lifestyle?

Should you consult a therapist?

For as long as the other aspects of your life, which are more important than your need for an MMORPG fix, are not compromised, then your preference for MMORPG programs, whether casual of a product of an addictive tendency, can still be considered as healthy.

But if you start jeopardizing your health, your job, your family and your overall wellbeing, then dude! You have to realize that though an MMORPG offers a world of endless fun, it's just a game, and your life is not.

Source : www.bharatbhasha.com

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Test Server Patches 14th June

2008-06-17T20:02:00.001-07:00

General

You should no longer do the loot animation while swiming.
The flame on the Torch of Eiglophian will now die after a while.
Now all spells can be casted with dagger and staff without problems.
When you train Basic or Advanced Riding, you will no longer be teleported
Fixed an alignment issue with quest indicators over quest NPC’s heads.
Transition Quest Goal Markers have been updated to fit where the NPC’s now stand.
Locking to raid instances have been fixed. All players participating in a raid will now be locked.
Fixed problem that would cause the resource manager to hang indefinitely if the client consistantly fails to download a resource.
Bonus spell damage now increases both minimum and maximum damage, instead of just maximum (average damage will remain unchanged).
Stat bonuses from items (strength, wisdom, dexterity and constitution) will now properly affect your character (Note that strength now directly affects your DPS, not your attack rating).

GUI

All Assassin abilities which stack multiple times now have a stack count in the buff GUI.
All Bear Shaman, Priest of Mitra, and Tempest of Set abilities which stack multiple times now have a stack count in the buff GUI.

Items

Hood of Jagged Barbs has been revamped.
Polearms should now be the intended size.
Added new purple rare drops to world loot.
Conqueror Spear should now look the right size.
Cimmeria hide light wrist should no longer clip with arms
Changed reference to Steelsilk to Gossamer Silk in the Full Trade Response.
Average, Fair, Fine and Superior Meat will no longer end up in the quest inventory.
Crafting Item: Renamed item “Bloodsilver-studded Boots” to “Bloodsilver-mail Boots”
The purchase price of vendor-bought alchemy reagents are now one third of what they were.
Hek’lar’s Accursed Dagger will now appear with the correct icon in the player’s inventory.
Fixed an issue with ‘Darfari Armbands’, they should be visible on female characters and have stats now.
Crafting Item: Skymetal-studded Wristbands and Bluesteel-studded Wristbands (rare) And should be different from each other.

NPC

Vistrix’ Profanity debuff has been tweaked.
Ice Cave: Ice worms should now attack correctly.
Field of the dead: Dusk wolf should reset properly.
The Acheronian Warlord will drop bossloot armor again.
The trader in Lacheish Plains has been removed as intended.
Toirdealbach should now be a more fun and playable encounter.
The Catacombes: Necromancer Undead should now attack correctly.
The Champion of the Honorguard now uses its correct abilities again.
Ethi woke up with his height a bit smaller than what it was yesturday.
Villa Lentulus: Gurges the Nimble should react normally to players.
Yakhmar’s Cave: Yakhmar should no longer get stuck if it cannot reach its target.
Kyllikki’s Crypt: Kyllikki should reset properly when noone is in her hate list.
Khopshef Province: Freed Rogue Slave should now use his weapons correctly.

Mounts

Revamped translation so the blood is displayed relative to horse as well.
The targetting arrow should now be positioned correctly when targetting a horse, gorilla and Mtilator
You will half your chance of beeing knocked off the horse from the sides. You cannot be knocked off the horse if the attacker is standing in front of you
Monsters lower level than you will have a much lower chance of knocking you off the horse. Monsters higher level than you will have a much higher chance of knocking you off the horse.
Fixed a problem where advanced mount abilities were being given out by the basic training. Mammoth and Rhino owners - Please use /claim again. This will train the attack abilities associated with these two mount types.

Playfields

Purple Lotus Swamp: Ladders should now work correctly.
Tarantia Noble: Players should now be able to teleport into the arena by clicking on the door.
Tarantia Noble: The Arena in Armsman Tavern has been redone. If you are looking for challenging arena fights, you can do so either alone or as part of a group.

Player Cities

Player Cities will now have the Trader NPC now.
The stack-size of building materials has been raised to 1000.

Player Characters

Archetype

New buff counters were added to a number of mage and soldier effects.
All gathering feats should now have the correct proficiency suffix in their name.
The Goad ability can be trained and used on a NPC that does not have aggro on you. You must be in combat to use this ability.
The buffs from rogue general feats Concealment, Distraction and Mountaineer will now be removed from characters when they untrain feats.
You can no longer enter spellweaving when climbing or swimming. If you are hiding or crouching and enter spellweaving, you will leave that state immediately.

Assassin

Flesh Rot now applies a separate debuff for each player Lotus Weapons now now applies a separate debuff for each player.

Bear Shaman

Wreck Armor I+II+III combos now have improved visuals and sound.

Conqueror

You may now use Incite the Ranks if Fire Weave is running.
Throat Slash can now only be used with a melee weapon and not a ranged weapon.

Dark Templar

Soul Barrier’s cast time has been reduced from 3 seconds to 1 second.
Changed the Cooldown of Unhallowed Blight III to 20s.
Changed the Unholy Debuff to be 5% on all combos. - Changed the duration of the debuff to last for 25s.
Reduced the Mana cost of the following spells by 50%:
- Aura of Dread Fury (Ranks 1 - 4)
- Aura of Infusion (Ranks 1 - 5)
- Covenant of Pestilence (Ranks 1 - 4)
- Covenant of War (Ranks 1 - 3)
- Covenant of Death
- Covenant of Invulnerability (Ranks 1 - 3)
- Covenant of Vengeance
- Drain Life (Ranks 1 - 5)

Demonologist

Waves of Flame now inflicts more damage each tick.
The animation for the Demonologist-spell Unholy Hate has been slowed down by 25%.
Resolved an minor issue with Demonologist spellweaving not affecting stamina potion effects.

Herald of Xotli

Resolved a issue with “Blood Pit” so it will always spawn if you successfully kill a minion with the “I Eat Your Heat” combo.

Necromancer

You no longer lose the Cannibalism spell when investing the second feat.
Vile Insight now gives the intended Unholy Specialization as reflected in the description.
Plauged Heart Curse will now correctly increase in damage with more feats trained.
Parasitic Soul Swarm now inflicts more damage each tick.
Pestilential Blast now has an additional skull visual.

Priest of Mitra

Revoled a problem with the priest of mitra spellweaving ability.
Repulse has had its base damage lowered slightly and contribution from bonus magic damage increased.
Cleansing Fire now has a slightly lower manacost and now scales correctly across all levels.
The damage bonus applied to Repulse, Cleansing Fire, and Lance of Mitra from Force of Will has been lowered to the correct amount.
The damage bonus from Improved Repulse has been significantly increased

Ranger

The buffs from ranger stances Shattering Stance, Piercing Stance, Fire Stance and Sniper Stance will now be removed from characters when they untrain feats.

Tempest of Set

Brutal Lightning Strike should no correctly increase the critical strike chance of Lightning Strike.

Tradeskills

Obsidian has been renamed to Feldspar.
Orichalcum has been renamed to Duskmetal.
Tigereye Gems will now end up in the resource inventory.
Skinning Trainer will now tell you were to get skins.
Your harvesting will no longer get interrupted by someone outside of the resource and building playfields.
Resource nodes can now always be harvested while their health is at 10%.
The Weaponsmith Trainer now gives the cooldown warning when the cooldown is in effect.
The dialogues of the Resource Gatherer Trainers and Crafter Trainers now check if the player has the appropriate feats set on them, in addition to quests. If the player has the quest to gather resources or craft, but has lost the feat that enables him to do so, the feat is now retrained (to the correct tier).

Quests

Dealing with Dila: Dila should now attack.
Hunting the Spider: Quest can now be completed.
The Lost Scouts: Waypoint to Dairmad was fixed.
Oasis of Zaara: Waypoints for quest were fixed.
In Defense of Beauty: Quest can be completed now.
Flowers of the Snow: The flowers way markers were adjusted.
Paetus and the Nemedian Crown: Waypoint for Armsman’s Tavern was fixed.
Wanted posters should now give proper feedback if the player already has the quest or does not meet the requirements.
Rahim & Lord Camillus: had it’s journal text modified, as he doesn’t stand near the Armsman’s Tavern.
Death to the Undead: Indicators for minimap were displaying to small. This has been resolved.
The Mark of Acheron: Players will now be able to experience the destiny event in the Field of Chiefs.
The Mark of Acheron: The Mark of Acheron is permanently removed when performing the Medallion Ritual now.
Soul Chamber: If you die in the soul chamber you now lose the tablet in your quest inventory.
Destiny Quest: The quest rewards ‘King Conan’s Tribute’ & ‘King Conan’s Esteem’ are no longer tradeable.
The Lost Bottles: Wine bottles will now have a blue flame indicating you can interact with them.
Tradeskill Quests: You can now delete all tradeskill quests but tradeskill progression quests.
Tradeskill Quests: Resolved various level requirement issues with the quests.

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Age of Conan MMORPG : 1Million Copies

2008-06-15T14:23:00.001-07:00

Funcom is proud to announce that Age of Conan will pass the astounding "One Million Copies Shipped" milestone, in less than three weeks after the launch of the game. Due to overwhelming demand Funcom's retail partner is now re-supplying retail boxes rapidly while also including new markets to the mix. As a result of the tremendous interest from gamers, Age of Conan has for the past few weeks been claiming number one spots on the sales charts across the western world – including the US, Germany, France and the UK – while receiving glowing review scores from gaming media.

"Sales data shows that Age of Conan is the biggest MMORPG launch since World of Warcraft," says Funcom Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Morten Larssen. "The numbers are very promising, and we are very proud to be one of the fastest selling PC games ever in a launch month and the biggest simultaneous Europe/US MMO launch in history."

In the US, Age of Conan has a strong # 1 chart position and is now moving past the 500.000 shipped mark. Meanwhile the attention for the game is growing across the globe, with over 8 million unique visitors from over 200 countries to the Age of Conan websites so far in 2008. The community surrounding the game is also growing fast, with over 800,000 signing up as members of the Clan of Conan fan club.

Age of Conan was launched May 20th in the US and May 23rd in Europe, receiving critical acclaim from media across the globe. "Age of Conan has raised the bar," wrote US gaming website Gamezone, giving the game a score of 94 out of 100. Gamespot, one of the world's leading gaming websites, rewarded Age of Conan a 8,5 score calling it "one of the finest online RPGs available". The game is also receiving acclaim in Europe, where a broad range of early reviews gave an average score of over 90 percent. Funcom is committed to continue to expand and improve on the game by adding more content, features and fixes in order to make Hyboria a favorite place for gamers across the globe, and players can expect some exciting news in the weeks and months ahead.

More information about the game can be found on www.ageofconan.com

About Funcom - Funcom is an independent developer and publisher of online games for PC, consoles and mobile platforms. Funcom has provided outstanding entertainment since 1993 and continues to expand its track-record of more than twenty released games. Recent titles include 'The Longest Journey', 'Anarchy Online' and 'Dreamfall: The Longest Journey'. For corporate information please visit www.funcom.com. For information about Funcom games visit www.anarchy-online.com, www.dreamfall.com, www.darkdaysarecoming.com or www.ageofconan.com. Funcom is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange under the ticker FUNCOM.

Source : mmorpg-x

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Zu Online : Silver Coin Event

2008-06-15T14:08:00.001-07:00

IGG will be holding an event in Zu Online on June 14th with the aim of getting as many players online at he same time as possible, with a reward of 10 times the number of players online in silver coins.

Event Duration:
From 1:00pm till 2:00pm on June 14th

Event Contents:
You play the game to win silver coins. We will offer 10 times as many silver coins as there are players online from 1:00pm to 2:00pm on June 14th. So, the more players get online at that time, the more silver coins you may win. Now it is the time to test your popularity and invite as many friends as you can to play our game and enjoy the fun and rewards.

Requirements:
1. Characters level must be above 60+
2. You must be online during the event period
3. If there are two characters at level 60+ in one account, silver coins will be given to the character with the higher level.
4. If there are more than two characters in one account at level 60+ and their levels are the same, silver coins will be given to the character with shorter history.

Rewards:
At 2:00 pm, June 16th, all online players characters meeting the requirements mentioned above will be given 10 times as many silver coins as there are players online from 1:00pm to 2:00pm on June 14th.

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World of Warcraft Server Problems

2008-06-10T10:09:00.001-07:00

With six million subscribers, keeping World of Warcraft (WoW) private servers up and running is probably the biggest challenge facing Blizzard. WoW has been plagued by server problems that cause the game to crash without warning. Complaints from angry players have been pouring in about long lag times. Blizzard acknowledged that there is a problem and they've been religiously informing customers about system problems, but players contend that Blizzard has been slow to react to their complaints.

The wow private servers problems have been severe after Blizzard implemented its last major patch to WoW in late March. In an interview with CNET News.com, Evgeney Krevets, a WoW player said, Being a system administrator myself, I have some understanding of what goes on in a corporate data center. I don't know Blizzard's system setup. What I do know is that if I kept performing 'urgent maintenance' and taking the service down without warning for eight-hour periods, I would be out of a job.

To diffuse the ire of millions of subscribers, Blizzard blames its network provider AT&T for some of the problems. Blizzard also argues that massive online games like Wow are simply prone to network issues. Blizzard's official stand: "Due to the complex nature of massively multiplayer games like 'World of Warcraft,' technical issues such as the ones some of our players have experienced recently may occur on occasion. Our commitment to our players is to provide effective solutions as quickly and carefully as possible whenever any such situation occurs.

With no real solution in sight, some players have come to accept that private server problems won't go away and they will just keep playing. While some players wait for Blizzard to resolve the server problem, some try to solve it on their own by choosing other private servers . It seemed to work for them.

But what boggles the mind is even with a slew of multiplayer online games, such as Everquest, City of Heroes, Ultima Online and others, WoW players refuse to walk away from WoW. Blizzard is probably banking on the idea that there is no real alternative to WoW. But with the number of unhappy subscribers increasing every time a server goes down, Blizzard should start to take the problems more seriously.

Source : wow.qj.net

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EVE Online meets Half-Life 2 in machinima masterpiece

2008-06-10T01:18:00.001-07:00

Clear Skies is a groundbreaking machinima produced by Ian Chisholm, which takes place entirely within the galactic setting of EVE Online, known as New Eden. Any attempt to lump Clear Skies in with your run-of-the-mill machinima would be a disservice to the scope of the work; the film clocks in at just under 40 minutes and was a labor of love for two years in the lives of its creators.

Clear Skies follows a trio of down-and-out misfits who've seen no end of bad luck. John Rourke is the obstinate captain of the Clear Skies, a Tempest class battleship manufactured by the downtrodden Minmatar race of New Eden. Rourke's attitude toward his hazardous chosen lifestyle is cavalier, although this does not sit well with his friends among the crew. Solomon Burke is the pessimistic ship's engineer, while Charlie Fodder -- a gunner with an ironic name -- does his best to keep the crew alive. Typical of life in New Eden, Fodder is doomed to remain a rather busy man.

These likeable dropouts from the entrenched corporate lifestyle of New Eden eke out a meager living on trade runs and the odd courier job here and there. Still, they manage to find humor in their grim lot as they narrowly avoid being blown out of the stars by pirates, hired thugs, or whatever threat awaits them on the other side of the next jump gate. This is life aboard the Clear Skies. It's not a comfortable lifestyle by any means, but the crew is free to live and die by their own terms. Of course, their exploits do make for some good stories.

Just back from their last job gone awry, Rourke and crew are faced with a gargantuan repair bill for what's left of the Clear Skies when they dock in the nearest space station they can reach. They have to choose between parting with the Clear Skies or going broke to fix her. They opt to spend all of their isk to resurrect their ship and home, going back to square one in the process, with no choice but to make more shady deals just to continue getting by. The latest of their exploits is to transport 'an idiot in a shiny suit' a few jumps to the Hek solar system. Their passenger, however, wishes to remain anonymous, is paying too much money, and insists upon being ferried in a battleship. These are all omens of a deathtrap, but the crew has little choice but to accept. And so begins the story -- epic by machinima standards -- that exposes the viewer to the seedier aspects of life on New Eden's fringe.

The execution of the film is brilliant; Clear Skies is a hybrid between Half-Life 2's character design and EVE Online's backstory. The ship that is the film's namesake serves as the primary setting for the story; and in some respects acts as another character in the film -- with its quirky malfunctioning systems, familiar EVE-style interfaces, and its Minmatar heritage of looking like 'an explosion in a girder factory'.

That's a running gag throughout Clear Skies. Many of the Minmatar race's ships resemble scrapheaps somehow imbued with great speed, but they look as if they could shake apart at any moment. The adage familiar to so many EVE players, that duct tape is standard issue on any Minmatar ship, is alive and well in Clear Skies.

The film is punctuated with humor from start to finish, much of which borders on inside jokes for fans of EVE Online -- little rewards for knowing and being part of the system that is the machinima's backdrop.

Clear Skies stands as a significant work in a number of ways. Looking beyond the intense time commitment involved with producing something of this caliber, the film has found nearly universal acceptance among EVE Online's often divisive community. If fact, there's been little but echoes of praise for Clear Skies on the game's forums by Chisholm's newfound fanbase.

This is surprising, since Clear Skies breaks from the established background in EVE by removing the concept of a capsuleer who controls the essential systems onboard the ship, instead turning the reigns over to the crew itself. Chisholm takes the more accessible angle of having the pilots man the bridge, engine room and gunnery station, but this is an altered perspective for anyone accustomed to EVE Online's gameplay. The battleship in Clear Skies is no longer an extension of one's self, which is a core idea in EVE Online. While this would threaten to be sacrilege to some of EVE Online's more dedicated fans of the backstory, the positive reception to Chisholm's project shows that he made the right choices. Even the developers at CCP Games have congratulated Chisholm and his friends on the achievement.

And those friends certainly deserve some mention as well. The character of Solomon Burke is voiced by Richie Powles, while Charlie Fodder's voice is provided by John Guthrie. What's interesting here is that they've now taken roleplay in EVE to new heights; the characters that Chisholm, Powles, and Guthrie portray are also their own characters in-game. The trio of characters are all members of Pure Alliance, and can be found in their respective corporations of The Wild Hunt (Rourke) and Dawn of a New Empire (Powles and Guthrie).

Ian Chisholm has stated that a sequel to Clear Skies is being planned, largely due to the fan response to his effort, which he found simply overwhelming. He never expected interest in his machinima to hit the levels it has so far, thus a website for Clear Skies wasn't in place for the film's release. But this hasn't prevented the film from being seen by thousands of viewers willing to track it down. In lieu of a dedicated website for the project, which Chisholm assures is already in the works, the film is being distributed through a loose network of fansites. The most comprehensive collection of links to date related to Clear Skies was put together by a fan on the EVE forums. The most popular place to download Clear Skies is at the fan-run site EVE Files, which is hosting the film's trailer as well as the full version. An embedded version of the film is currently offered at LivePvP.

Despite the fact that Clear Skies is set in the EVE Online universe, the film is accessible to virtually any fan of machinima or the sci-fi genre as a whole. Check out what all the hype is about; Clear Skies won't disappoint.

Source : massively.com

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The end of the age of the amateur game designer?

2008-06-10T01:01:00.001-07:00

NCSoft's first quarter report came out, and they don't want to talk about their space marine-fps-mmo, Tabula Rasa, except to say they are fairly disappointed bu its performance.

I should refer to it by its full name, Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa.

Richard Garriott, if you don't know of him, is "the legendary video game programmer and designer, noted as one of the PC Gamer's "Game Gods". I found this little tidbit on a vanity web site called "Richard in Space", where you can meet Richard Garriott as he prepares for his space tourist flight to the International Space Station aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket.

Last year, Game God Brad McQuaid was likewise absent for the disappointment that was Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. I'm sure he was as well paid as Richard Garriott, AKA the sixth Earth human to go to the space station as a tourist. We could be next, gushes the "Richard in Space" site. Maybe if we can get someone to shovel money at us because our Game God status demands it.

I feel sad for the people who did their best to finish these games while the Gods got all the press and the limelight. All the real developers got were schedules, pressure, disappointment and exciting trips to the unemployment office.

Now Brad is in hiding, and Richard Garriott is going up to space (still unknown: did he leave a clone behind in case he wanted to respec? Or in case the Soyuz castle lands just a little *too* hard this time?).

Past success is no indicator of future success in this world. Maybe it makes a difference if you put as much as yourself into the next game as you did in the one that made you a Game God. I think you really have to step back and reassess your life if you find yourself being promoted as a Game God. Hey, you could say, don't call me that. I'm no better than anyone else. I had a hit game but all I have to show for it is that I have to work twice as hard on the next one.

John Romero, American McGee, Brad McQuaid, Richard Garriott and many, many more; Game Gods all.

Source : westkarana.com

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Free Online Games know-how

2008-06-09T09:33:00.001-07:00

When Frooga.com was lunched 3 years ago it only had 50 free online games, as the years passed and free online gaming became more and more popular than ever, they kept adding new games to the site and now it currently has over 600 games. Since 2003 many gaming sites have came out and the only thing you need to do is type in the word "free online games" in Google or Yahoo and you'll find 100s of them. But the unique thing about Frooga.com is that they won't spam your brower with pop-ads or make you sign-up after playing couple of games on their site. No. When you play games at Frooga.com it's only games and nothing else, it's simple as that.

All their free online games are hand selected from different games developers and updated on Frooga.com. So you won't find any boring games there.

They have wide selection of different online games, online action games, online puzzle games, sports, dress them up, online shooting games and many others.

With Frooga.com you don't download any software to play the games you only need to have a good browser like Interent Explorer, FireFox, Safari and many other plus Flash Player 9 or above and you are set.

If you haven't played any online games before it's real easy and most of their online games come with insturction on how to play them. So check them out and leave a comment here for other people about what you think of their free online games.

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Fallen Earth: Complete Skills Update

2008-06-07T12:19:00.001-07:00

Fallen Earth's lead designer, Lee Hammock, delivered this week an up-to-date skill sets list, covering the Active Skills, Tradeskills, Mutation Paths and the Faction Specialties. Hammock also noted that the team is finishing four major areas in addition to raids and vehicles in preparation for some polish work next week:

As promised last week, I'm going to go through some of the older information and note things that have changed, starting this week with skills. Things have shifted around a bit, mainly with some skills being removed or their purposes switched.

For those who are keeping up on the weekly goings on in the office, this week we're finishing up Boneclaw, Sunshine Corners, Terance, Kingman Prison, and South Burb, in addition to some work on raids, vehicles, etc. Next week is a polish week so we're working on making everything run a bit more smoothly as opposed to implementing more content.

Skills

Currently FE has three categories of skills: Active skills, Tradeskills, and Mutation Paths.

Active Skills

These are skills that are involved in normal, non-mutation based combat, using items, and interacting with the environment. All players have some rating in all the active skills. Active skills start out equal to .75 of one attribute and .25 of a second attribute. For example, a character's base Melee is equal to .75 of their Strength and .25 of their Coordination. Active skills are raised at a cost of 1 AP per point up to double the base value of the skill.

- Animal Training: Allows for the training of horses currently, but other functionality will be added later. Animal Training is based on .75 Charisma and .25 Perception.

- Armor Use: Allows the character to learn defensive special abilities, use a wider selection of armor, and is factored into determining how effective a character's armor is when the character is damaged. Armor Use is based on .75 Strength and .25 Endurance.

- Athletics: Allows the character to learn a variety of self-buff effects, such as increasing movement rates or hit point recovery. Athletics is based on .75 Endurance and .25 Coordination.

- Dodge: When a character is attacked in ranged combat, the target's Dodge skill is compared to the attacker's Rifle or Pistol to determine critical hit chance, damage bonuses, etc. Dodge is determined by .75 Coordination and .25 Perception.

- First Aid: Allows the character to use a number of healing items and special abilities, such as recovering Health over time, restoring Stamina, or removing poison and disease effects. First Aid is based on .75 Intelligence and .25 Perception.

- Group Tactics: Allows the character to use a number of group buffs. Group Tactics is based on .75 Charisma and .25 Perception.

- Melee: Determines effectiveness of melee combat, including chance of critical hits, weapon selection, and special attacks. Melee is based on .75 Strength and .25 Coordination. Melee has a subskill called Melee Defense which is equal to a character's Melee, but may be modified separately by effects, items, etc. When a character is attacked, the character's Melee Defense is compared to the attacker's Melee to determine the chance of critical hit, any damage bonus, etc.

- Pistol: Determines effectiveness of pistols in combat, including chance of critical hits, weapon selection, and special attacks. Pistol is based on .75 Dexterity and .25 Perception. Pistols don't have the range of rifles, but can be used in close combat without penalty.

- Rifle: Determines effectiveness of rifles in combat, including chance of critical hits, weapon selection, and special attacks. Rifle is based on .75 Dexerity and .25 Perception. Rifles have the longest range but characters suffer a penalty to Melee Defense while wielding a rifle.

- Stealth: Determines character's ability to avoid detection via noise and learn a number of effects and special attacks, including the ability to alter your faction ratings (and reveal those alterations in others). Stealth is based on .75 Coordination and .25 Perception.

Tradeskills

These skills allow players to craft items by learning instructions (our new term replacing "recipes"), collecting the appropriate tool kits and components, and spending the required time to make the item. Characters can learn as many tradeskill as they want. All Tradeskills are based on .75 Intelligence and .25 Perception. Tradeskills are raised through use, up to double the base value of the skill.

- Armorcraft: Covers the making of armor and clothes.

- Ballistics: Covers the creation of rifles and pistols, from zip guns and crossbows to sub-machine guns and assault rifles.

- Cooking: Covers the preparation of food, which can provide a number of recovery-oriented buffs.

- Geology: Allows the player to harvest minerals from mining nodes and to refine metals into higher-grade components.

- Medicine: Covers the creation of all manner of medical equipment.

- Mutagenics (formerly Genetics): Covers the creation of mutation injectors and other devices that support the use of mutations, such as gamma restorers.

- Nature: Allows the character to harvest components from animals and plants in addition to producing some items and refine some components.

- Scavenging: Allows the character to harvest scavenging nodes, which can yield a wide variety of items.

- Science: Covers the creation of chemical boosters, special optics, and similarly advanced items. Also allows the refinement of some components.

- Weaponry: Covers the creation of melee weapons.

You may notice the Teaching skill is no longer included. The functionality still exists, but is contained within in each skill instead of a separate skill. So if you learn an advanced Armorcraft knowledge, you can make a book that can teach it to someone else.

Mutation Paths

Each mutation path covers a specific type of mutation and allows the player to learn special abilities within that mutation. Mutation paths are raised with APs, with each AP raising the mutation path 1 point, up to double the base value of the skill.

- Alpha Mutation: Fairly low-power mutations possessed by all characters as part of the cloning process. They provide some basic buffs, recovery abilities, and speed modifiers.

- Empathic: The character can alter the bodies of others, allowing a limited ability to heal or harm others. Empathic is primarily a healing and buffing mutation. Empathic is based on .75 Endurance and .25 Willpower.

- Enhancement: The character can nudge the molecular structure and properties of some common items, exaggerating the already present chemical properties of an item. Enhancement is primarily a crowd-control and damage mutation. Enhancement is based on .75 Intelligence and .25 Willpower.

- Nano-Manipulation: The character can control some of the nanites left on their bodies from the regeneration process, allowing them to increase their own abilities. Nano-Manipulation is primarily a self-buff mutation with a few attack abilities. Nano-Manipulation is based on .75 Intelligence and .25 Willpower.

- Patho-Transmission: The character is a walking plague carrier, and can use these infections to attack others. Patho-Transmission is primarily a debuff and damage-over-time mutation. Patho-Transmission is based on .75 Endurance and .25 Willpower.

- Primal: The character has developed genetic traits he can use to increase his strength, speed, etc. Primal is primarily a self-buff mutation path. Primal is based on .75 Strength and .25 Willpower.

- Sonic Manipulation: The character can control sound waves, reducing or increasing sound. Sonic Manipulation has many facets including buffs, crowd control, and damage abilities, but is not as focused as other mutation paths. Sonic Manipulation is based on .75 Perception and .25 Willpower.

- Suppression: Suppression allows a character to drain gamma energy from other mutations, remove mutation buffs, and increase his own resistance to mutations. Suppression is based on .75 Perception and .25 Willpower.

- Telekinesis: The character can move objects with his mind. Telekinesis is primarily a damage and crowd-control mutation. Telekinesis is based on .75 Intelligence and .25 Willpower.

- Telepathy: The character can affect the minds of others, such as distracting opponents or making himself seem more likable. Telepathy is primarily a crowd-control and self-buffing mutation. Telepathy is based on .75 Charisma and .25 Willpower.

- Thermal Manipulation: The player can control the movement of molecules, increasing or decreasing heat in an area. Thermal Manipulation is primarily a damage, damage-over-time, and self-buff mutation. Thermal Manipulation is based on .75 Perception and .25 Willpower. Faction Skill Specialties

Each faction has nine skills they excel at and ten skills they are average at. To learn skills besides these nineteen skills, faction members must seek out instructors from allied factions or neutral instructors. You'll notice Scavenging isn't on any of these lists; it has no instructions or special abilities associated with it. It only serves to meet requirements for scavenging nodes.

Enforcers:

- Primary Skills: Armor Use, Armorcraft, Ballistics, Dodge, First Aid, Group Tactics, Pistols, Rifles, Suppression

- Secondary Skills: Animal Training, Athletics, Empathic, Geology, Medicine, Melee, Nano-Manipulation, Science, Stealth, Weaponry

Techs:

- Primary Skills: Armorcraft, Ballistics, Enhancement, Mutagenics, Geology, Nano-Manipulation, Pistol, Science, Thermal Manipulation

- Secondary Skills: Armor Use, Dodge, First Aid, Medicine, Rifles, Sonic Manipulation, Suppression, Telekinesis, Telepathy, Weaponry

Travelers:

- Primary Skills: Cooking, Athletics, Dodge, Melee, Pistol, Science, Sonic Manipulation, Stealth, Telepathy

- Secondary Skills: Armor use, Armorcraft, Ballistics, Enhancement, Geology, First Aid, Nano-Manipulation, Nature, Rifle, Weaponry

CHOTA:

- Primary Skills: Armor Use, Athletics, Dodge, Melee, Mutagenics, Patho-Transmission, Primal, Thermal Manipulation, Weaponry

- Secondary Skills: Animal Training, Armorcraft, Cooking, Empathic, Nature, Group Tactics, Pistol, Rifle, Stealth, Suppression

Vista:

- Primary Skills: Animal Training, Athletics, Cooking, Dodge, Nature, Primal, Rifle, Sonic Manipulation, Stealth

- Secondary Skills: Ballistics, Armorcraft, Weaponry, First Aid, Geology, Group Tactics, Medicine, Melee, Pistol, Science

Lightbearers:

- Primary Skills: Dodge, Empathic, First Aid, Mutagenics, Medicine, Melee, Stealth, Telekinesis, Telepathy

- Secondary Skills: Armorcraft, Athletics, Group Tactics, Nature, Primal, Science, Sonic Manipulation, Suppression, Thermal Manipulation, Weaponry

Source : WarCry Network

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Warhammer imbalance fears

2008-06-07T11:57:00.001-07:00

When Warhammer Online releases later this year do you think there will be a skewed realm population? The GREENSkin blog seems to think so, but history would disagree with them. Whenever a game has been faction-based the "evil" races tend to be popular during the beta period. This fear of imbalance was a issue in Dark Age of Camelot and in World of Warcraft. During both of those instances beta testers expressed worry that the more evil of the realms would be entirely overpopulated post launch. However, the exact opposite happened to the complete befuddlement of beta testers everywhere.

Everyone was left wondering why this had happened but the truth is that there's no simple explanation. It's not simply a matter of players liking the good guys more than the bad ones, as many would guess. In the case of World of Warcraft, many players would also argue that Alliance 1-60 content was simply paced much better than the Horde side. Of course with WoW there was only one class specific to each side (Paladin and Shaman) until a patch much later. In Warhammer Online each side has a bevy of classes all to their own. While all of these classes share similarities mechanically, they do differ in terms of flavor. So you can see how even these two games have different factors affecting realm balance.

That's only scratching the surface as there are lots of worries to have with any MMO beyond even realm balance. There's even the possibility that players coming from WoW to WAR might decide to break tradition and flood the evil races over the good ones. All we know is that we'll be in the thick of it playing our Gobbos, Orcs, Chaos and Dark Elves.

Source : Massively.com

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AoC : Upcoming Demonologist and Necromancer Changes

2008-06-05T17:01:00.001-07:00

Demonologists * The duration of Protection of Set will be substantially increased. * The maximum damage absorbed before Protection of Set fails will be increased to be more in line with damage dealt in leveling scenarios. Additional survivability increases are also being evaluated. * Players will gain a visible debuff to indicate when Protection of Set has run out of absorbable damage. * The base splash damage dealt by Fires of Gehenna, Hellfire Stream, Shockstrike, and Shock will be substantially increased. * The amount of damage dealt by most damage sources will be reevaluated. * The cooldown of Inferno of Ahmner and Shockblast will be reduced to 2.5 seconds to match the casting time of Fires of Gehenna and Shockstrike. * The Archmage feat will be moved to tier 2 instead of tier 3 in the Mage general tree to make it more easily accessible to varying builds. * All crowd control will have a significantly reduced chance to break from damage dealt by pets. * Fiery Torment (Rank 1) will be introduced at level 30 instead of level 45. * The casting time of certain long-duration buffs will be reduced. * The run speed of pets will be increased significantly. * Various bugfixes and alterations to existing feats and abilities; for example, decreasing the casting time of Detonation.

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Online games know-how !

2008-06-01T18:23:00.001-07:00

Online gaming is a new era of the evolution of technology and with the rising demand of different ways to spend our leisure time and with the increase in demand for our services in the working environment. Online gaming is among the most interesting and modern way of entertainment according most of the surveys done worldwide. Many people from all age groups indulge themselves in online game to refresh their minds as well as educate themselves at the same time. Online games are the games played on the computers by the means of internet connection. As the number of internet users is increasing the number of online gamers is also increasing. Games range from the simplest to the most complex depending on the type of game that pleases you. One of the most interesting things about online games is use of graphics and virtual worlds populated by many players simultaneously.There are different kinds of game that are found online which include adventure games , castle building, jet fighting, puzzle games , mind games, pools and many more. These are just some of the games mostly found free online what you need to do is clicking your mouse. Fascinatingly all these games target people from all ages and does not leave anyone out of the loop. The rising of its popularity is due to the perfection of the games with the revolution of internet where websites could stream out videos, audio and a whole new set of user interactivity.

Among the benefit of the online gaming is that it broaden and widens the thinking capacity of people with games such as scrabble which involves thinking and being creative. Problem solving has been known to improve the brain function in its speed and function. While spending time on internet multiplayer games and online gaming communities, players get an opportunity to strengthen existing relationships and at the same time meet new and different people online. With this it promotes social interactions with people who might be very far and still play a game of chess together on the internet.

There is also a potential possibility for online games to help people and families to deal with chronic diseases and other illness that involve the mind. Since games are easier to understand than books then most of schools use online gaming as a way to educate people especially children. From fighting cancer cells to managing pain free online games allow families to use imagination and creativity, while also opening doors to the chance of recovery and understanding.

Let us not forget the prizes to be won after winning the games. Some of the website encourage people to place by awarding prizes to the winners of the games. All this is due to the increase of technology that has also helped in lifting the living standards of our lives. This is a new era that has to be exploited and spread all over for more effectiveness on people. Take a step forward and you will never regret.

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City of Heroes re-review for Issue 12

2008-06-01T17:36:00.001-07:00

If you haven't noticed, recently Eurogamer has been doing a series of re-reviews for the most popular MMOs, especially older ones. The City of Heroes/City of Villains games are a perfect candidate for this re-review, since they're a little over four years old now, and have just released an update. So in this re-review, Eurogamer takes a look at a few major points of the game, including the state of the server population, the most recent update entitled Issue 12: Midnight Hour, and their general view of how the game held up over all these years and where it could be headed.

Their consensus for the server population is grim, stating that the game seemed empty in the lower-level areas. This is quite common in MMOs of this age, as high level "end-game" content is usually first priority on the developers' agendas. But perhaps the underlying point that Eurogamer reiterates to us here at the end of the article is the fact that Champions Online "will inevitably take its throne". That's a whole new blog post in itself.
Source : massively.com

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Age of Conan dethrones Grand Theft Auto IV in Europe

2008-06-01T17:23:00.001-07:00

With the amount of hype, advertising, positive reviews and media attention Grand Theft Auto IV has received over the past few months, we wholly expected it to remain on top of the software sales charts until our video game consoles grew sentient and attempted to purge humanity from the planet. Strangely enough, a dark horse recently overtook Rockstar's well-received crime drama in many European territories -- a horse mounted by a brawny, rippling Cimmerian.

Yes, Funcom's decapitation-rich MMORPG Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures recently outsold GTA IV in a number of European locations, including Germany and Sweden. Since Rockstar's latest opus is still selling like freshly baked hotcakes in North America, we can't help but wonder if GTA's themes of living the American dream and hooker brutalization got lost in translation as the title crossed the Atlantic -- or whether Age of Conan's musclebound mascot reminds German gamers of a certain pop culture icon who is quite revered in their country.
Source : massively.com

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MMORPG EVE Online targets Battlestar Galactica fandom

2008-06-01T08:47:00.001-07:00

EVE Online has made first contact with a whole new group of sci-fi fans, through some carefully chosen TV advertising. EVE's first TV ads were shown during the most recent Battlestar Galactica episode on the SciFi network. If CCP Games wanted to target the viewers who would be the most receptive to checking out EVE, they didn't go wrong by choosing Galactica fans. The TV ads were an unexpected move, and came as a big surprise to many EVE players. Ethic at Kill Ten Rats said: "My jaw hit the floor while watching the latest episode of Battlestar Galactica on SciFi tonight. There, before my eyes, was a commercial for EVE Online. Amazing. Nice work CCP!"
High visibility TV adverts for an MMO had previously been something only associated with Night Elf mohawks, Shatner, and a company with some rather deep pockets. EVE Online dev CCP Wrangler made a full announcement about the company's leap into prime time advertising.
"For the first time ever, EVE Online can be seen on TV! A revised version of the Empyrean Age teaser trailer will be run during the last few episodes of Battlestar Galactica starting tonight! It will run six times total, four times during "prime time" shows and twice during "late night" shows (after 2300 local time). Check local listings for availability and times."
This is a great move on CCP's part, but no doubt an expensive one. However the steady progression made by CCP Games, seen over the relatively short time since this Massively writer joined the ranks of New Eden's capsuleers, is impressive: A merger with White Wolf Publishing and a second gothic horror MMO in the works; quarterly economic newsletters and E-ON magazine issues; in-world journalism and collaborative fiction; a player-elected representative council; EVE TV; and live broadcasts of PvP tournaments. The Icelandic innovators are clearly willing to take some risks by breaking out of the MMO industry's status quo, and co-opting fans from another sci-fi IP is just one bold move among many by CCP. With any luck, the Empyrean Age teaser trailer will be enough to tempt diehard Galactica fans to put that search for Earth on pause and finally check out this 'New-fracking-Eden.'

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Real-to-Virtual Transaction: Making a Fortune in Online Games

2008-05-31T08:38:00.001-07:00

Playing video games for a living is the fantasy of thousands of gamers across the wold, but in this internet age it is fantasy no longer. All over the world regular gamers are purchasing online game currencies and filling the pockets of virtual entrepreneurs. Those competing in the real-money trading industry include dedicated professionals to part-time players, big-city businesses to the bedroom entrepreneur. The "virtual warehouse" of workers is immense, with the working population of thousands in the People's Republic of China working alongside the millions of avid MMORPG gamers.
The industry is rarely reported in the media and so it remains an unknown property to the majority of the world's population. Despite this the industry is well known in the communities of popular titles like EverQuest, EVE Online, FFXI and the famous World of Warcraft. A prime example is in EQ2 where players compete through a series of themed tasks in order to stockpile the game's currency. Most blow their fortune within the game's stores or marketplace, but others decide to make real-world profit from their virtual acquisitions ; and there are plenty of them.
Morality, and even the ethics, of this practice is often debated, but it is clear that many gamers and executives alike disapprove. Intellectual property infringement is the most commonly given reason for objection by gaming companies, but there are also accusations of hacking, scamming and phishing within the industry. Developers often try to persuade players within the game that the practice is detrimental to game-play or the world's economy. Legally, real-money trading breaks no laws and has led to no convictions within the Western world, but pressure for government intervention grows each day.
Even though some take issue with the ethics or principles of the practices, virtual trading is here to stay. There is certainly money to be made, whether it's by developers or entrepreneurs, and the market shows no sign of slowing. A bright future lies ahead with new opportunities available in yet unreleased titles, the most promising of which being Warhammer Online.
Research conducted by www.MOGS.com - reatailer of Age of Conan Gold

Age of Conan: Early Impressions

2008-05-30T02:35:00.001-07:00

The character creation screen is more in depth than many MMOs. However, if you're brave enough to admit you've played The Sims, then you've certainly seen better. In the end does it really matter in games where you're likely to be covered head to toe in armor? I think not so much but I sense that people do enjoy the versatility. What I would personally have preferred more than being able to tweak the length of my nose or the size of my boobs, was not to look like a ragamuffin. If you thought your character's gear looked thrown together in LOTRO you ain't seen nothin' yet. To date, Age of Conan and LOTRO are the only games that I've played where I looked like mixed-match mess.

I appreciate the circumstance of a recently escaped/freed slave. I understand they don't plan on making the game as gear dependant as others. However, do I really have to look that bad? Or am I that vain??? I found myself looking through the multiple tops, pants and shoes in my bag trying to find something that at least seemed like it went together. The stats were all the same but the styles, colors and textures didn't jive. I looked a hot mess. It was slightly similar to AC2 in that, there was a lot of variety in the same piece of armor so you can be in a red robe that has +1 Defense and I can be in a black one if I prefer and that's without dying your items. However, Age of Conan hacks made the stuff even at the lower levels look decent and you could easily match your items. Hopefully, I'll get to look better at some point.

AOC has a nice variety of classes within the four archetypes of Soldier, Priest, Mage and Assassin. Only certain classes can be played by certain races, which is a common implementation. However, in AOC whole archetypes are exclusive to certain races. For example, if you want to be a Mage of any kind, then you must be Stygian. On the PVE and PVP servers so what, but I wonder how this plays out on the Culture PVP servers where a race is completely locked out of an archetype?

Even though AOC has the usual suspects for classes, not all of them are the typical fare. Priests and Mages are battle versions of those classes. Everyone gets to have decent offensive skills and from what I've read so far, it appears that HOT and AOE healing spells are more prevalent than the "heal one" scenario. I think this might make playing a healer more pleasurable. If you can heal many more often with a single action, you'll have more opportunity to actual watch the battle – see the instances and bosses.

One of the Mage's has melee as its primary DPS, as does at least one of the Priests. It's little twists like these that add a bit of freshness into the game. I'll discuss the classes in more detail after I've finished testing my would-be mains.

Lastly, the combat system which is VERY different from any MMO I've ever played. At least in terms of PVE, it's not giving me nearly the trouble I expected. I never did well on the console games and don't consider myself adept at FPS style combat but so far, so good. The inclusion of combos which deal more damage when successfully executed is interesting. I do wish that I could move where they displayed. For some reason focusing left side of the screen doesn't work as well for me, as it would if I could place it right side or better yet, closer to my character and my Age of Conan cheats. I want to watch the combat but with the combos slightly off to the left, my eye is focused there. Oh well, definitely not a huge deal. It would just be nice to be able to move it to match my preferred field of view.

That's where I'm at for now. It's pretty, different, combat feels fresh, UI could be better but no deal breaker. I'm on a PVE server at the moment. I'm going to do a Bear Shaman on a PVP or Cultural PVP server at some point. The only pitfall I can foresee at the moment is if I MUST quest. Forced questing for leveling is why I'm not playing LOTRO or EQ2. Grinding XP is a play-style and as much as some people hate it, others enjoy and actually prefer it. I don't mind questing in moderation but when I'm not in the mood, I really do need the freedom to just go whack stuff and still level at a decent rate. This philosophy is one of the major reasons I'm excited about Warhammer Online.

May 29, 2008 in Age of Conan | Permalink

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Graphics Pains with Age of Conan

2008-05-29T02:34:00.001-07:00

Late into the US holiday weekend, I was finally able to register/activate my game code so that I could play Age of Conan (AoC). I quickly found out that my inability to register wasn't going to be my only problem.

I knew going in that the graphics requirements were pretty steep. I did however, think that my computer, Dell XPS gaming system was up to the test. My only real concern was reading that some players with AMD graphics cards were having issues, which meant that my Radeon 850 XT might give me a problem related to performance. Unfortunately, what I had was bigger than performance problems. First I had the black screen issue which I found an answer for on MMORPG.com. Then there was the screen stutter which I found an answer to on some other web site. After a couple of hours I finally got into the game and created a character.

To even move around reasonably, I had to have everything on low which left the visual absolutely unacceptable to me. I must have good looking graphics. They don't have to be realistic but they have to be high quality or I just can't be bothered. I pushed on anyway to get a feel for the game and then I started getting over heating warning from my graphics card. At first it happened once in an hour, then twice then every few minutes. I would stop playing for a while and turn the PC off. Unfortunately, that didn't resolve the issue for long the messages just kept coming. The card's fan was running and the air flow fine. I went back to the internet, did some research and downloaded some tools. By this time it's Monday midday and I've spent more time on the internet trying to resolve problems than playing.

Finally, I said, 'Screw it, let me go buy a new graphics card before Best Buy closes. Not wanting to jack around, I grabbed the best thing they had to offer since I didn't want to have to come back. I bought the GeForce 9800 GTX and raced back home to install it. I got the thing in and loaded up the game expecting to seem some really nice graphics. Uh not quite what happened. With graphics on high I could barely move. Set on medium it was okay but I had to go into the settings and dial a few things down and remove grass, water reflections and the alike. After doing that I was still sort of lagging and was like WTF? That's when I noticed my frame rate was only 9. My son's computer which also a Dell but not XPS and different graphics card, wasn't having any issues on Medium quality and getting 30+ FPS.

By this time I was annoyed and not very interested in playing anyway. Later that night I did some more research and found an article on GameSpot stating that using High with some very specific changes is actually better for the FPS than using the Low setting. The AoC servers are down right now but as soon as they come up I'm going to give this a try. If this doesn't work I won't be a happy camper. At this point I've been on the internet trying to figure out why I couldn't register my game code, then why I couldn't see anything and now why my FPS sucks, etc more than I've spent time playing. Grrrrrrr.

Source : notadiary.typepad.com

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Online Game communities are social in nature

2008-05-28T09:24:00.001-07:00

By Cindy Ahuna

Who are the friendly characters that will play with you if you play with them?

In 1969, "SpaceWar", developed by Rick Blomme, was the first two-player game designed to play on PLATO. In 1961, the "Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations" was the first network to run on the Illiac computer system. PLATO was created by Professor Chalmers Sherwin, under the direction of electrical engineering professor Don Bitzer, co-inventor of the plasma display pane at the University of Illinois.

During 1970 through 1977, multiplayer games included "SpaceWar"; a version of "Star Trek"; "Avatar", a Dungeons and Dragons-style game; "Airflight", a flight simulator; and "Empire", which supported 32 players on PLATO. In 1972, PLATO hosted 1,000 simultaneous users. In May 2001, Sony's "EverQuest", a massive multiplayer online role-playing game, hosted 60,000 to 80,000 players daily.

In 1973, David R. Woolley designed "Notes", a communications software for PLATO. Due to the release of this software, "Talkomatic", precursor to IRC with handles and chat rooms, was developed for PLATO. A maximum of five people wrote and read each other's messages on the same screen. Chat rooms were open and uncensored. A player logged on using their real or an anonymous name, and played either gender role.

In various online chat rooms found on AOL's games and in Sony's "EverQuest", text is censored when gamers use brand or offensive words. Role-playing genders, sometimes referred to as gender swapping or multiple representations, is possible when gamers change or hide the genders of their characters using anonymous names.

In "EverQuest", with more than 360,000 subscribers, thousands of gamers play characters of the opposite gender. Gamers are free to explore relationships while in character. Male gamers find that female characters generally get treated better in male-dominated virtual worlds. Sometimes men find it easier to chat with other characters and escape the competition. In free online games list, multiple representations allow players to see how other players solve problems. "There are a lot of rumors and anecdotes about people referring to play games as men or women because they are treated differently," says avid gamer J. MacLean.

In a lecture titled "Programs, Emotions and Common Sense", Marvin Minsky emphasized in his book the idea of multiple representation. "If you understand something very precisely in one way", Minsky claims "you don't understand it at all." "You know it by rote. What does the word understand mean? Understanding means having many different ways to deal with things," said Minsky. Children memorize history by rote, but they usually don't understand it how free online games work. Sometimes gamers falsely assume they are interacting with a person who matches the gender's name. Perhaps on one level, Minsky's definition can be applied as a working analogy for multiplayers who role-play playing games. If multiplayers had more ways of identifying the characters, they might be able to understand who the friendly characters were when they played with them, but then again, that might take all of the fun out of the game.

Artist/curator Anne-Marie Schleiner, describes social developments in gaming: "Multiplayer games can be very social. In the shooter genre, players sometimes band together into "clans", groups who fight against other groups. Sometimes the social bonds developed in these clans extend beyond the game into friendship and players offer each other moral support through personal hardship and help each other find jobs," said Schleiner.

Social environments evolve from online game communities. "A great example is "Air Warrior", a WW2 flight simulation with players are so dedicated, they've held conventions. Massive multiplayer role-playing games are also famous for the strength of their communities "the guilds in "EverQuest" are a great example of this phenomenon," says MacLean. In contrast to single player games, communities are vital depending on the game. For example, "for a game like chess, where skill levels can be critical, many people prefer to play with someone of relatively similar skill," says MacLean.

In a global point of view, the Internet is the living organism that hosts many online games systems. Boundaries of geography, economy, culture, degrees of education and family traditions have disappeared. Gamers are co-authors that take part in the experience. Communities are playing fields for social interaction. When gamers send messages to other gamers, they are free to exchange email addresses and meet beyond the game community. Communities have become an extension, a new medium of human touch.

When communities form, a semantic world of sharing knowledge, solving problems, working as a team, playing, building, quarreling, cooperating, planning and forming relationships develop. Games are formal because they have a set of rules. A game is a system because it has a collection of parts that interact with each other in complex ways. In "EverQuest", the Game Masters hold the most power. Online games run on a '24x7' calendar. Generally, online the role-playing games are maintained by paid subscriptions, whereas, online fighting games are free. Communities exist in time by free and paid subscriptions. Gamers occupy real estate within the online game. Communities live in both space and time. Thus, it is a lifelike system.

Popular game boxes vary from Sony PlayStation, PlayStation 2; Nintendo's GameCube projected to ship Nov 5, '01 in the US; and Microsoft's Xbox projected to ship Nov 8, '01 in the US. "Although game boxes offer higher resolution graphics in comparison to PC gaming, they are a closed hardware platform and less amenable to multiplayer social games. Multiplayer gamers cannot insert their own character skins into shooter games in a game box or with a multiplayer game, such as "EverQuest". "EverQuest" can easily receive updates on the game over time that get rewritten over the original game software," says Schleiner. Many gamers develop friendships with other gamers in different countries using the chat session in "EverQuest".

In some ways, there are as many different types of gamers as there are games. General definitions include:

* Generally, casual gamers are people who enjoy simple decision making games and typically play less technical 3D graphic games. * Generally, traditional gamers are people who enjoy a more complex game. * Multiplayers (simultaneous players) are defined as those who play with other gamers in the same game.

What makes an online game exciting, interesting, social or more fun than another game? Motivation evolves from sensory gratification, role-playing, personality, taste, adrenaline, sociology, immersive and engaging environments, and the element of fun. Games in general motivate ideas. Topics include life, survival, strategy, role-playing, and building relationships. In all circumstances, the player learns by playing. "Building colossal virtual worlds are very important. In a virtual world, everything has a purpose. I love games, " said Minsky during his lecture, "Programs, Emotions and Common Sense".

In Star Trek CCG, gamers can buy and sell, trade and collect digital cards, watch or judge games, and attend tournaments. One disadvantage, prior to downloading the plug-in, a high risk is indicated. The risk is associated with the possibility of gamers accessing your computer if you proceed with download. This warning appears with this statement: "JavaScript or a java applet from DigitalDeck, Inc. is requesting additional privileges." This plug-in is required to run the application.

Because game communities are social in nature, knowledge and understanding are more apparent in virtual worlds. "Wouldn't it be nice to connect two thoughts," said Minsky.

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MMO 2.0

2008-05-28T07:01:00.001-07:00

Lately, there has been a lot to talk about in the MMO-verse, with Age of Conan just getting released and a World of Warcraft expansion pack on track for a holiday unveiling there seems to be nothing that can stop the momentum gained by the industry. However, despite all the success being thrown around by the top five MMOs (World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Age of Conan, EVE Online, Final Fantasy XI) there seems to be very little that is truly pushing the genre towards the "next step."

In every walk of the technological life there are upgrades to the original. Even something as simple as the web was fully upgraded into what has become to lovingly termed: web 2.0. So the same should hold true for MMO, right? You'd think so, but very little has actually changed since the dawning of the 3D MMORPG in the heyday of Everquest. There has been smaller changes like the advent of a quest based storyline and an enhanced mini-map and traveling system, but nothing I'd really call revolutionary, or next generation. Let's face it, nobody out there is really attempting to do anything to set a new standard in the industry.

Now I know that there is at least one EVE Online fan reading this right now in disgust. Let me say this right now, EVE Online is definitely a different experience and CCP has done a marvelous job and creating a successful MMO that strays from the typical archtype that most MMOs follow today. However, that said, they are not setting a standard in the industry. EVE Online and CCP will not be changing the way the industry makes its games and there probably won't be any long lasting affects from their technology. The original Xbox was the first to really incorporate seamless online and now it has become the standard. MySpace truly pushed the bounds of "web 2.0″ with it's social networking applications and it has now become the standard. Apple created the first truly desirable MP3 player and it has now become the standard. All of these are examples of an industry that was expanded on by companies that wished to create a fresh experience on an old application and as such truly changed the landscape of how everybody else played in that field. So despite EVE Online's unique gameplay they certainly haven't changed the way developers make games.

So, where does that leave the industry? With the huge success of World of Warcraft, which handily dashes the success of the other top four MMOs combined, game developers desperately need to find new ways to make their games different and if that means employing a new combat system (Age of Conan) or seriously enhancing the PvP and RvR settings (Warhammer Online) then thats what these companies will do. Unfortunately, many of these "enhancements" are gimmicky at best and won't be offering any true MMO 2.0 anytime soon. However, and this is just my prediction, I think it's safe to say that after all the so called "WoW-killers" have debuted to date, the only MMO that will truly begin to pick away at the house that Blizzard built will be an MMO 2.0 game. Personally, I'm keeping my eye on Copernicus.

P.S. I am in no way calling Age of Conan's combat system or WAR's RvR system bad or flawed, but, rather, non-revolutionary. Yes I have tested out both; Age of Conan beta, Warhammer Online at E for All 2007.

Source : MMOCrunch.com

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What AoC means for WoW

2008-05-27T15:48:00.001-07:00

According to Michael Zenke from Massively, Age of Conan has sold 400,000 copies, out of 700,000 boxes they put on the shelves. Not bad for the first week. And, kudos to Funcom, the release launch went a lot smoother than the beta or early access. The reception of AoC in the blogosphere was a mixed. Keen and Graev already cancelled their accounts again. Tipa from West Karana sees AoC challenging WoW. The Ancient Gaming Noob correctly points out that "MMOs are a long haul proposition" and reserves judgement until having played it more. And the Common Sense Gamer thinks that WoW won't even notice AoC is out.

So here is what I think. I don't have proof, only anecdotal evidence, so preface every phrase here with "In my humble opinion": I think that World of Warcraft suffers from a cycle of peaks and troughs in subscription numbers. This is largely self-inflicted, numbers peak after big content patches and expansions, and fall in long periods of no new content added. Other factors, like summer holidays, also play a role. I do believe that WoW is heading for a major trough of subscription numbers in the western world. Remember that of the 10.7 million WoW players about 6 million are Chinese, who are on a different cycle, and who pay much less. There are less than 5 million players in the US and Europe, and the number will be falling over the summer, because the Burning Crusade is getting long in the tooth, and not everyone likes to spend his summer holidays in front of a computer.

Age of Conan will reach between half a million and one million subscribers this year. Most of which will be ex-WoW players. A good number of them will have stopped playing WoW anyway, with or without AoC, but a couple of hundred thousand will be pushed over the edge and quit WoW for the prospect of a new game. And Blizzard will notice that, because all of these are the well-paying US/Euro kind of subscribers. Age of Conan will not "kill" World of Warcraft, but it will dent it a bit.

Summer will end, christmas will approach, and now everything is possible. WoW could bring out Wrath of the Lich King in November, and it's subscription numbers would peak again. And personally I don't see Age of Conan having much staying power, not in a game where the first people reached the level cap in the first week already. Wrath of the Lich King will make a much larger dent into Age of Conan's subscription numbers than AoC does into WoW's now. But another possibility is that Blizzard misses a 2008 release date for WotLK. And it is also quite possible that Warhammer Online makes that date, and comes out for christmas. And then Blizzard would really start feeling the pain. I do believe that WAR has an even bigger potential of getting subscribers away from WoW than AoC has. If WAR comes out for christmas and WotLK doesn't, they could easily sell a million copies this year. Again, these are all Americans and Europeans, and if WAR beats WotLK to a christmas release, WoW numbers could suffer an even deeper trough.

None of this will "kill" World of Warcraft. But we are talking numbers here that are big enough to show up in a companies annual report of revenue and profits. If Wrath of the Lich King doesn't come out by the end of this year, the 2008 profits from WoW will be significantly lower than those of 2007, and investors and people at Vivendi will notice. Blizzard would bounce back to a dominating position when they bring out Wrath of the Lich King, but then what? If the third expansion is still another 2 years away, the overall trend of WoW subscription numbers could well go into permanent decline. One day WoW won't be the biggest kid on the block any more, not because of one WoW killer, but because of a death by a thousand cuts. The best Blizzard can hope for is that the new champion will be their next generation MMORPG, but that is not a given.

Source : www.Tobold.com

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Anti-Aliased: Age of Con-troversy

2008-05-27T09:50:00.001-07:00

I'm going to hijack my own column this week to cover a topic that I believe is worth spending some space on - Age of Conan and the buzz of negative media attention it has been getting. Age of Conan's controversy spans almost all aspects of the game, from fatalities, to nudity, to even such odd things like race selection.

Now, I've written a few of these articles. I enjoy controversy as the next person and I'm always interested in seeing the opposite viewpoint. It wasn't until I started getting some very, very nice hate mail in my inbox that I began to wonder if anyone understood my own viewpoint on the matter. So, this column is dedicated to other people's opinions, my opinions, controversies and, of course, Age of Conan.

I'm not sure what people expected from a Conan game. It sounds like those who knew their mythos well knew exactly what to expect and embrace it. However, there is, as always, a large amount of the populace who don't know anything about Conan the Barbarian, Robert E. Howard, or the land of Hyboria. So, one must imagine the surprise when this "Age of Conan" game starts to hit the media and attract attention. Imagine more of their surprise when they realize that you can make a woman and flash her boobies to the rest of the virtual population. If I didn't know about Conan the Barbarian, I'd probably be a little uneasy as well.

Conan's risque features have even had us here at Massively guessing in regards to what we can and cannot put into our writing. Our normal office talk about levels, italicizing game names, and standard debates on what MMOs we should be playing have been punctuated by wonderful lines such as, "Hey, can I say 'nipple toggle'?" (Which I can, apparently.)

Yet... all we have here is an adaptation of Robert E. Howard's fictional world and the people who live in it. The legacy of Conan the Barbarian has been available to the public for over 70 years. The population was even exposed to the violent world of Conan in everyone's favorite movie adaptation starring the Governator. All that's really being done here is the introduction of a visual world. If I may say it, Funcom really hit the mark on this one. Instead of giving us a cheap imitation of what goes on in Hyboria, they cut right to the chase and gave us a good interpretation. For the most part, they stuck to the book and the original fiction. That should be commended, not regarded as lunacy.

I've seen movies bloodier than Age of Conan. I've read books scarier and creepier than Age of Conan. And I've seen enough statues and paintings of nude women to last me a lifetime. Yet, here we are, screaming about exposed bosoms and how it might taint the populace. Has anyone walked through Firenze, Italy recently? Seriously, if anyone wants free "porn", just go to your local museum and check out some of the renaissance art.

And that brings me to my point on nudity - there is nothing to be ashamed about concerning the naked form. Surprise, women have breasts! Who knew, right?

Then the inevitable argument comes up concerning the children. Should our children be allowed to see this violent fantasy world? Should we let the young ones step into the world of Hyboria?

Short answer is no. The long answer is no you crazy parents please do not buy this game for your child for Christmas and then leave your child unattended during their game playing on the intarwebz. First of all, I don't want to babysit your child on Age of Conan and explain to them why that lady is naked in the tavern. Second of all, use the ESRB ratings that are so thoughtfully put down in the corner of the front of every game's box.

For those of you who haven't read the back of Conan's box, let me tell you what the ESRB says is in the game's content. The ESRB rates this game as a mature title, meant for children and adults age 17 and over, as this game contains: blood and gore, intense violence, mature language, nudity, and sexual themes. So, please, do not send me e-mails and do not harass your local GameStop employee regarding the fact you had absolutely no clue that there was nudity and violence in this game. It's seriously on the back of the box.

Controversy starts and stops with the parents. I'm begging you, parents of the world, don't go out and blindly purchase games for your child. We of the game industry have the ESRB ratings system in place for a reason; we want you parents to use it. On the back of every game, in the bottom right hand corner, there is a description of what the game contains so you can see if you really want your child being exposed to this material. If you don't want them to buy this MMO, then there are a sea of other MMOs they can play. Some of them are very welcoming to children and a blast to play. They're also much cheaper than Age of Conan. Cheap as free, in fact.

Make no mistake - Hyboria is a dark world that explores dark themes. The women are beautiful, the ale is great, and the treasures are unmistakably epic. But all of these things come with very steep prices that wouldn't be as steep without the mature content. Hyboria is a world that is built on split blood, slave trade, and ruthlessness. In fact, it sounds very much like the history of a certain world that I'm very well acquainted with. Cimmerians remind me of a certain northern people, Aquilonians remind me of a certain set of ancient people who love debates, and Stygians remind me of a certain group of people who built those triangular thingies in the desert. I guess Hyboria isn't that separated from our world after all.

If you ask me, the only controversy that I can see is letting irresponsible parents have children and inconsiderate nutjobs (NSFW) opening their mouths to the media. Maybe we should have a law that will give jail time to parents who give consent to clerks to sell their 10-year-olds Age of Conan and Grand Theft Auto IV, instead of jailing the clerks.

Because I was on vacation last week and was unable to post my column, you all get a bonus! Look for a second edition of Anti-Aliased hitting Massively.com on Thursday. It's like early Christmas, except it's not Christmas and you're not getting any extra presents except my ramblings. But, honestly, is there any better present? I think not.

Source : massively.com

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Age of Conan one of the fastest selling PC games of all time

2008-05-26T09:30:00.000-07:00

Over 400,000 gamers have entered game - First 20 reviews with an average review score above 90%

Durham, USA - May 26th, 2008 - Funcom is proud to announce that Age of Conan is one of the fastest selling PC games of all time. More than 400.000 gamers have entered Hyboria over the last few days, with almost half coming from the North American market. This amazing figure for a PC game shows that the positive pre-order trend has transferred into actual sales, and people from all over the world are now flocking to the most savage, sexy and brutal MMO ever created.

Over the weekend an astounding amount of concurrent gamers were logged on to the game, making Age of Conan one of the busiest MMOs in the western hemisphere. With stock flying out of several retail chains, Funcom expects the number to increase in the days to come. In addition to the many gamers logging in, there was also substantial traffic to the Age of Conan websites, with more than 2,2 million unique visitors during the last ten days.

As a result of the great launch, players and press have been raving about the unique qualities of the game, and the first 20 reviews give Age of Conan an average score above 90%. The first US reviews are also live, with Gamezone.com giving the game an Editor's Choice Award, a 9.4 of 10 score, while heralding Age of Conan as a "Benchmark MMO". Sci-Fi.com was also an early mover and gave the game a straight A, stating that "If Robert E. Howard had been a game designer.., this is the Conan he would have invented."

"The initial sales and reviews are very encouraging, and it's great to see that so many are enjoying Age of Conan," said Funcom CEO Trond Arne Aas. "This is just the beginning, and we already look forward to massive updates and cool new features. We believe our focus on making Conan unique and groundbreaking is a key reason for the initial success. This is a focus we will keep and reinforce, and players can expect continued quality and innovation as we enter a new era for the game." Source : WarCry Network

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Seonyáron nem kesergek...

2008-05-25T10:45:00.000-07:00

Ennek a rövidke cikknek a lényege a seonyár2008 versenyen résztvevő oldalam poziciójának javítása. Tekintve hogy még ezt a seonyár2008 cikket is lusta vagyok megírni, így kénytelen leszek ide bemásolni valami szövegecskét megtűzdelni a kulcsszavakkal (pl seonyár2008) így aztán frankón releváns lesz a szöveg :D

Szupernóva-robbanás az első felvonás elejétől

A NASA Swift mesterséges holdjának és a véletlen szerencsének köszönhetően a csillagászat történetében először sikerült közvetlenül az elejétől nyomon követni egy szupernóva-robbanást.

A szupernóva-robbanások (ilyen pl. ahogy az oldalam berobban a seonyár20008 versenybe) a legnagyobb energiát felszabadító események közé tartoznak a Világegyetemben, ezért még óriási távolságból is jól megfigyelhetők. A robbanást magát azonban eddig még senki nem látta, ugyanis a felfedezéskor az objektum már túl van ezen az egyébként nagyon rövid ideig tartó fázison, s a megfigyelők csak a környező térrész és a robbanás által ledobott anyag kölcsönhatásának eredményét észlelhették. Ez a folyamat egy néhány hétig tartó kifényesedésből, ún. felszálló ágból, majd a maximális fényesség elérése után egy több hónapig tartó elhalványodásból, a leszállóágból áll. A robbanás (min az én seo-robbanásom :) a seonyár20008 versenyben) maga tehát mindezideig rejtve maradt a kutatók előtt, pedig észlelése rendkívül fontos lenne a fizikai részletek alaposabb megismeréséhez. Ehhez azonban tudni kellene, hogy a robbanás hol, az égbolt mely területén, mely galaxisában fog bekövetkezni. Ennek a valószínűsége azonban nyilván nullához nagyon közeli, bár nem lehetetlen.

IMAGE

A felső, röntgen- és ultraibolya tartományban készült képeken csak az SN 2007uy szupernóva látható az NGC 2770 galaxisban. A két nappal később készült felvételeket már az SN 2008D dominálja, melynek az előző képpáron még semmilyen nyoma nem észlelhető. [Soderberg és tsai]

2008. január 9-én a gyakorlatilag nulla valószínűségű esemény azonban mégis bekövetkezett, egy szerencsés véletlen a csillagászok segítségére sietett. Alicia Soderberg és Edo Berger (Princeton University) a NASA Swift mesterséges holdjának röntgenteleszkópjával éppen az NGC 2770 katalógusjelű, 90 millió fényévnyire levő galaxisban 2007 végén feltűnt, de már az elhalványulási szakaszban lévő SN 2007uy jelű szupernóvát vizsgálták, mikor a galaxis másik részében egy nagyon erős röntgenfelvillanást vettek észre. A forrás körülbelül 1 percig fényesedett, amit 7-8 percig tartó halványodás követett az észlelhetőségi határig. Soderbergék azonnal riasztották a földi és űrtávcsövek irányítóközpontjait, értesítve őket a különleges eseményről. A következő napok megfigyelései aztán megerősítették, hogy nem egy ismeretlen típusú objektumról van szó, hanem egy Ibc típusú szupernóva robbanását sikerült már rögtön a legelején elkapni. Az objektum az SN 2008D jelzést kapta, lévén a negyedikként felfedezett szupernóva 2008-ban.

IMAGE

Az SN 2008D helyén észlelt forrás röntgentartománybeli "fénygörbéje". Jól látható rajta a beütésszám gyors felfutása, az észlelés megkezdése után körülbelül 1 perccel bekövetkezett maximum, majd a csökkenés a berendezés érzékenységi határa alá. A leszálló szakaszban a beütésszám 129 másodperc alatt esett a maximális 1/e-szeresére. [Soderberg és tsai]

A modellek szerint az Ibc típusú szupernóvák szülőcsillagai az ún. Wolf-Rayet csillagok. Ezen magas hőmérsékletű objektumok mérete a Napéhoz hasonló, tömegük azonban jóval nagyobb annál, az adott esetben a becslések szerint körülbelül 30 naptömeg. Jellemzőjük, hogy életük során erős csillagszél formájában jelentős mennyiségű anyag távozik róluk, így szinte teljesen elveszítik a hidrogént még tartalmazó külső rétegeiket. A maradék rész nagyon gazdag héliumban, míg a csillag összeroppanás előtt álló sűrű magja szinte teljes egészében vasból áll - nem úgy mint az én seonyár20008 oldalam. A szupernóva-robbanás akkor következik be, amikor az erősen lecsökkent energiaprodukciójú mag már nem tud ellenállni a külső rétegek ránehezedő nyomásának, s pillanatszerűen összeomlik, kiindulási tömegtől függően egy neutroncsillagot vagy egy fekete lyukat létrehozva. Az összeroskadás által generált lökéshullám elegendő energiával rendelekezik ahhoz, hogy a csillag külső részeit ledobja, s a levetett anyagot a fénysebesség néhány százalékára gyorsítsa. Amikor ez a ledobott burok utoléri a csillagról korábban csillagszél formájában távozott anyagot, bekövetkezik az a felfénylés, ami alapján eddig felfedezték a szupernóvákat.

IMAGE A WR124 jelű Wolf-Rayet csillag körüli köd a Hubble űrteleszkóp felvételén. [Y. Grosdidier (University of Montreal, Observatoire de Strasbourg) és tsai]

A robbanás lefolyásával foglalkozó elméletek azt jósolják, hogy amikor a lökéshullám eléri a csillag felszínét, még mielőtt szétvetné, annyira felmelegíti az anyagot, hogy ennek eredményeként egy erős röntgen- és ultraibolya felvillanásnak kell bekövetkeznie. Ez lenne az első esemény tehát, ami a robbanás bekövetkeztét jelzi (eltekintve most a neutrinók áramától és a kollapszus okozta esetleges gravitációs hullámoktól), s az SN 2008D esetében a Swift éppen ezt a felvillanást kapta el! A közvetlenül ezután készült színképeken nem látszik közel fénysebességgel mozgó jet-ek nyoma, így kizárható, hogy az esemény esetleg egy gammavillanás (GRB, Gamma-Ray Burst) lett volna.

Egy másik, M. Modjaz (University of California, Berkeley) vezette kutatócsoport a robbanás után több hónappal készült spektrumok alapján, a neutrális oxigén tiltott vonalainak szerkezetéből ugyanakkor úgy találta, hogy a robbanás maga aszimmetrikus volt. A mag összeomlására vonatkozó egyik elképzelés szerint a felszabaduló energia jelentős része a mag forgástengelyének irányában közel fénysebességgel mozgó keskeny jet-ek formájában távozik. Ha ezek energiája kellően nagy, a pólusok körül szinte kilyukaszthatják a csillagot, s a tengely irányában egy gammavillanást, vagy egy röntgenflert eredményezhetnek. Ha energiájuk ehhez nem elegendő, vagy nyílásszögük nem eléggé kicsi, akkor nem jutnak ki a csillagból, hanem szétvetik azt, mégpedig aszimmetrikusan.

Sodeberg szerint a mostani, véletlennek köszönhető felfedezés csak az első lépés, a közeljövő röntgentartománybeli égboltfelmérései tömegével fedezhetik fel a szupernóvákat már a robbanás pillanatában, lásd seonyár20008.

Az eredményeket részletező szakcikk a Nature magazin 2008. május 22-i számában jelent meg.

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AoC - Next Generation of Button Masher?

2008-05-25T05:58:00.000-07:00

You'll have to excuse me whilst I think (…urmmm, type…) out loud here for a second…cause I'm not sure I'm convinced about what I'm about to write.

Firstly, you'll recall in my earlier writings that I think the whole premise of "next generation", well…anything …is usually a load of marketing BS. Usually, you're left scratching your head when you hear those words and then look at the feature list of the product that people are trying to sell. That's just it really, much like "polish", the words "next generation" is up there with "family values" and "concerned" parent groups when it comes to empty meanings.

Up to now, in terms of video game products, there is only one product that is truly generational…the Wii. Why? I've said it before…the interface to the player. The Wiimote makes it next generation. The 360 and the PS3 (*cough* abysmal failure *cough*) are not next generation. The only thing that makes them attractive to people is the shiny new graphics. They both still use the same old tried and true console control system. They still use the same old tried and true console gameplay. Nothing substantial…and I mean nothing…separates them from their previous incarnations.

In comes Age of Conan. I was not impressed by it's feature list…and to some extent, I'm still not. I'll have more on that later once I get my head around all of the thoughts swirling around. Now, one thing that AoC is doing differently is this "active" combat style. No….you can't just press "1, 2, 3″ and still win a fight. As you progress, these combat combinations get a little more complex (…I have no idea what they look like at level 80…) and you need to pay attention to your screen in order to fight…and there it is. The secret to "next generation", in my mind at least, is bringing the player into the game more. Getting the player to interact with the game at a different level. You can't just up the graphics and then call it a day…and personally, I think that's cheating the players and the industry as a whole. However, you want graphics, AoC has those in spades as well. Dear gawd does it ever have a nice look and feel to it. It feels like Conan. It looks like Conan…AND, it brings me in with a true next generation feature of a more interactive combat style.

OK…big frickin deal. So instead of pressing "1,2,3″, I'm now pressing "combo-power, 1,1,2″. Yeah, you are…hence why I'm talking out loud here and wondering how everyone else feels about this. Let's assume that I'm correct about what "next generation" actually means (i.e. player interaction with the game)…am I full of it when it comes to calling AoC next generation just for this feature? Is it actually a game that is doing something different with player interaction, or is it a combination of elements within the game that is combining to give me this impression?

D out.

P.S. Yes…you can pretty much expect AoC posts for the majority of the week ;)

Source : commonsensegamer.com

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Is WoW an unstoppable train?

2008-05-25T05:48:00.000-07:00

Right now? Perhaps, though I haven't really been a part of the community for over a year so I couldn't tell you first hand. Some people apparently do think so… In the future though? I just don't believe it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to pick on World of Warcraft specifically with this post, but it's a proven fact that time has been the dark red line creeping slowly towards the heart of every MMORPG to date. Time allows for competitive growth. Time leads to player complacency and boredom. Time is what makes the present become the past.

I've been checking out MMOG Chart lately and came across this interesting 2008 ION presentation from self-taught MMORPG analyst, Sir Bruce. The presentation is an analysis of MMORPG subscription growth based on some reasonably current data.

Here are some broad conclusions drawn by SirBruce on the state of World of Warcraft (based on historical trends in the genre).

* The MMOG subscription market continues to grow; 16M+ now, 20M+ in 2009 (pred. 2006), 30M+ in 2012
* World of Warcraft to peak at 11M – 12M by 2010
* Most retail-launched MMOGs have an initial growth phase during the first year, followed by 1 – 3 years of a more stable, "mature" subscription base, and then a noticeably and often sharp decline.
* New markets grow subscriptions, but expansions packs mostly cover churn and provide a retail presence.

Based on his charts in the presentation, most of the MMORPGs released prior to WoW saw a fairly large decline in subscriptions. We can assume the majority of these losses became gains for WoW. This just makes sense. It can't be denied, however, that the total number of people playing WoW last year is much larger than the sum of all previous MMORPG subscripions. This shows that WoW introduced many new players to the genre.

Sounds like common sense right? Duh? It's still nice to have the numbers tell the story.

What's to stop the same thing from happening again? It may not have happened with Vanguard, Pirates of the Burning Sea, or Lord of the Rings Online. These games haven't had any noticeable impact on WoW's subscriptions, but that doesn't mean it won't happen eventually.

Age of Conan had over one million beta signups and released over 700,000 copies of their game, which is the largest MMORPG launch to date. They haven't announced current subscription numbers yet, but heck, it's been less than a week. Given them some time. The time is ripe for a new AAA MMORPG and I think AoC will benefit greatly from this. It's only competing against older, established MMORPGs right now, which in my opinion, is better than competing against something new. As I said, time makes people susceptible to boredom. Boredom leads to trying out new things. And trying out new things leads to the dark side of the… Ugh.

Warhammer Online will also be launching this fall and by all rights should be an enormous success. Another delay is bad news for a whole bunch of obvious reasons. Competing directly against WotLK is also bad news if they hope to capitalize on the bored WoW player-base. As SirBruce says, expansions cover churn, in other words, customer attrition. They're a stop-gap measure to keep players from leaving for greener pastures. Competing directly against an expansion trying to keep 11M people playing WoW is just a whole new level of stupid, making bad business sense. You can get high and mighty, saying your game will be done when its done, but wait too long and the strategy will bite you in the ass. Theres a point where you have to compromise.

WoW is the current king but it won't remain that way forever. Heck, Blizzard is already working on another MMORPG and it could be that title that eventually dethrones it. I will eat these words if AoC and WAR aren't immensely successful, because if either of these two titles can't do it, it may take a lot longer than I expected. Still, it is inevitable - and resistance is futile (but strongly recommended if Vivendi wants to keep its shareholders happy).

Source : thegreenskin.com

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AoC downtime

2008-05-22T23:39:00.000-07:00

I solved my Age of Conan crash problems by following the advice of a friend and guild mate, who insisted that I buy a sound card, because that would make my computer faster than just using onboard sound. I'm not an expert, but it appears as if my Nvidia motherboard doesn't really have a sound chip, it only emulates one using CPU power. So adding a sound card would free the CPU to do other stuff. I found a Soundblaster Audigy SE for 40 Euro, installed it, and tested that my AoC crash problem when casting a certain spell with sound on was gone.

But that was all I did in AoC last night, because then the European servers had a server maintenance downtime for 8 pm to 1 am scheduled, in preparation for the Euro launch on the 23rd. I really don't understand why all this downtime always has to be scheduled during prime time. And I've read the US early access period was even worse, because it was only 3 days, and of that time the servers were up only 48 hours, with one downtime scheduled the evening of the last day. I so hope that once the game is launched everywhere, the maintenance window is moved to mornings, local time. I find scheduled server maintenance starting at in the evening or late afternoon unacceptable for a MMO.

Source : Tobold

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Warhammer Online takes you to school with Scenarios 101

2008-05-22T02:54:00.000-07:00

The official Warhammer Online site is a cornucopia of goodness. If you're not watching the production podcasts, Paul's video blogs are fantastic. If you're more in a text mood, there are zone previews and developer diaries to page through.

Their most recent addition to the site is over in the "special features" category, a continuation of their ongoing class in WAR: Scenarios 101. These pieces run down the rules and layout for the many and varied Realm Vs. Realm scenarios Warhammer Online will ship with. EA Mythic's answer to the WoW Battleground phenomenon, they're going to offer some of the game's meat and potatoes PvP combat over the course of a player's gameplay lifespan.

The newest 101 feature is all about the scenarios named Grovod Caverns and Reikland Hills. The caverns is a 'capture the flag'-style game, but with a twist. Flags and bases are up on a series of platforms, all connected with walkways. Every time a flag is captured, a walkway gives way; this changes the dynamic of the scenario's very surface, and forces players to adapt and change their strategies as the match progresses. Reikland, meanwhile, is a 'king of the hill'-style game that requires players to capture and hold a position for a few minutes at a time. The catch is that one of three 'hills' will be available at any given time, and the newest hill will overlap with the oldest one for some time. It's great to see how Mythic is planning to shake up some PvP assumptions with these maps. Source : massively.com

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Officers' Quarters: Jerk message of the day

2008-05-19T11:16:00.000-07:00

Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.
I've spent the past six weeks talking about raiding, so I think it's time to get away from the topic and talk about something less drama-ridden, like the guild message of the day feature. What could be more straightforward and less controversial, right? Well, as this week's e-mail reminds us, no part of leading a guild is completely free of incident.
Would rather not name the guild but it's on Bronzebeard EU. Only the Guildmasters (of which there are 10) can set the message of the day. Despite this security, an offensive homophobic message of the day appeared one day. I'm afraid I didn't see it as I wasn't online while it was up, but when another Guildmaster saw it, it was immediately removed. No one owned up to it and no one could think who would do it, so one Guildmaster (a friend of mine in real life) logged a complaint with Blizzard to try and find out who set this message.
He spent a couple of weeks chasing an answer but in the end they said that who set the message was private account information that they would not give out to someone else (great cop out isn't it :) ). And there we are stuck! A couple of guildmasters left for more hardcore raiding guilds, so maybe, hopefully it was one of them . . . but I guess we'll never know. Can you think of anything that could be done to avoid this or controls to avoid this kind of offensive message?
The only way to avoid this situation is to make sure the people who have access to the GMoTD are trustworthy and responsible people. If your own officers prove that they aren't, then the guild leader can actually modify the permissions so that only he or she can change the message. But there is no built-in censorship to this feature aside from the one that sits in everyone's interface panel, and even then I don't know if the profanity filter actually affects the GMoTD.
Since you (perhaps wisely) didn't specify what the message actually read, it's difficult to judge the severity of the situation. A lot of guys who are otherwise mature adults sometimes joke around in a way that could be construed as homophobic, but typically no offense is meant. It can be good-natured smack talk, but it can also go too far and get truly offensive. Since another officer went to the trouble of contacting Blizzard about the message, I'll have to assume it's the latter.
Even though this person wasn't "caught," I'd say the officers should meet with one another and ask the offending party to step forward. Based on your e-mail, they may have already done so. However, it's entirely possible that none of the officers know who did it. If an officer's friend or roommate snuck onto the officer's machine while he or she was AFK, then that person could have changed the message with no one the wiser.
More important than who did it is how the officers respond to the situation. An apology should be made to the guild's membership. It should also be communicated that effort was taken to look into the matter, even if the results were inconclusive. If members were upset by the message, they need to know that the officers weren't passive or dismissive of the insult.
In the end, it's not necessarily a huge deal and shouldn't be made into one by extended periods of finger-pointing. Sometimes overreacting to a situation can be just as bad as not reacting at all.

Source : WoWInsider.com

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Runescape Community

2008-05-16T08:20:00.000-07:00

Most RuneScape players speak English. Players who speak languages other than English tend to gravitate to servers populated by other players who speak the same language. Some worlds have larger numbers of players who speak Spanish, Dutch, French, German, or other languages. It is not uncommon, however, to see many languages on the chat screen throughout RuneScape. A German translation of RuneScape has also been released, while a French version of the game is in production.

A set of official forums is provided by Jagex on the RuneScape website. On the forums, members are able to participate in game discussions, play player-made forum games, arrange to buy or sell items, post suggestions for further game improvements, vote in polls and otherwise interact with the community. Free players can read the forums, but posting is reserved for paying members.
Unlike many MMORPG official forums, the Games like RuneScape forums have very limited features. User profiles do not exist and a user cannot set an avatar, signature, or separate display name. Users cannot use text formatting, post url address links, nor display images. A topic is automatically and permanently deleted after it surpasses the fiftieth page, so during busier times of the day, a topic can be deleted as quickly as a few minutes unless it is constantly "bumped".

Players can submit email questions to any non-player character in the game. Selected letters are answered in a monthly update called Postbag from the Hedge. This feature began on 26 September 2005 and has since become one of the most accessed pages of the site. Beginning 24 September 2002, players could submit questions to the RuneScape gods; however, this feature was discontinued on 9 December 2004.
Players can also submit original RuneScape related artwork, some of which is displayed in a gallery on the RuneScape website. Media featured have included sculpture, comics, drawings, and paintings.

Many Games like RuneScape fansites have been established by players, none of which are supported or recognized by Jagex. Although in the early days of RuneScape the official website had a links page which listed several fansites, this is no longer the case. In order to provide players with an alternative, official site to get the information they want or need, Jagex introduced the Knowledge Base, which offers information on gameplay, the main RuneScape rules, and account security.
Jagex discourages the discussion of fansites within the game or the official forums - and a rule specifically prohibits sharing web addresses. At least one major fansite has criticised Jagex for not recognising fansites' contributions to the development of its game.

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2008-05-15T14:54:00.000-07:00

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Why Mythic thinks Warhammer should be your first MMO

2008-05-15T04:59:00.000-07:00

It's always interesting to hear the reasons people don't play MMOs. The time commitment is a common and very valid concern - as is the boredom of the grind, the sameness of the games, and the meaninglessness of the avatar's story. Patrick Klepeck of MTV Games offers up a new reason, noting that the freedom of exploration often lauded by MMO fans is (to him) a significant drawback. Warhammer Online's content director Destin Bales responded to Klepeck's apathy with two words: public quests. At the MTV Multiplayer site they have a great description of the PQ Bales used to show him what the genre has to offer. A hydra attack on a Dark Elf sea vessel tops off the event, a setpiece battle we also touched on in our WAR update from a few weeks back.

Another recent rundown on EA Mythic's in-development title is available from Gamespy; they offer players unfamiliar with MMOs their own intro to the genre, with a description of the newbie Dark Elf and Dwarven areas. Despite some reservations that the game's new player area doesn't highlight many of Warhammer's standout features, writer Miguel Lopez was impressed with the 'sense of place' the starter zones impart. Says Lopez: "[WAR] quest areas don't seem to be places that wandering monsters simply arbitrarily inhabit; at least in the two areas we checked out, there was a definite rhyme and reason for mob X to be patrolling site Y. The effort to build the environments like this go a long way toward negating one of the most common criticisms levied against MMOs: that they feel like static wax museums inhabited by staid 3D models."

Source : massively.com

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Massively.com interviews Star Wars Galaxies producer Lorin Jameson

2008-05-08T20:58:00.000-07:00

In the wake of the Chapter 9 publish for Star Wars Galaxies, we had the chance to pass a few questions to the game's producer. Lorin "Deadmeat" Jameson has been with the project for some time, weathering the storms as they've come and gone. Today we have his responses, looking back at the impetus for the new Chapter and Update system of patches and ahead to future plans.

Read on below the cut for Mr. Jameson's take on the success of the Exar Kun instance, hints at a new expertise subsystem on level with the Beast Master, and hope for a better future in the Galaxy Far, Far Away. "We have fixed a number of long-standing issues and have added some dynamite new systems and a slew of new content. It is our intention to continue this trend and I expect to be saying the same thing about 2008 in mid-2009. We know we have a lot of work to do to meet our players' expectations for Star Wars Galaxies, but it is a fun challenge to have and we are lucky to have such a committed and loyal fan base."

Massively.com Interview with Lorin Jameson

How do you feel the player response has been to the Exar Kun instance?

Lorin Jameson: The reaction has been great so far. There is no doubt that this is the most challenging heroic encounter we have released to-date and it sets a very high visual bar. Players won't simply be able to go in and just blast away. Rather, you will really need to think about the encounter and come up with tactical strategies to win.

Now that you've had the chance to offer your first content update, after moving to the "Game Update" vs. "Chapter" system, do you feel like the concept has 'delivered'? Were you able to get what you wanted out of the Chapter despite working on the game updates as well?

LJ: The chapter and Game Updates alternating strategy has actually been going well for us. It is definitely a trickier process to manage from a production standpoint, but the ability to keep new and exciting game-play content and improvements coming at a constant rate definitely outweighs the challenges. In some respects I believe we have upped the quality and quantity of game-play enhancements overall with this new approach and we plan on keeping this system for a while.

The Storyteller system is almost unique in MMOs, and you've made great strides supporting it. Where did the idea for the blueprints come from? Can we expect more feature additions to the Storyteller system like this in the future?

LJ: A player had posted a 'battle arena' that he had constructed from storyteller parts which was just amazing. There were so many pieces used in interesting ways that it boggled my mind. When I spoke with the designers about the possibility of adding something like the arena to the game as a pre-made item, they said, "Why not just give the players a system to save what they have already made?" It always works best to give the players tools and let them [the players] be much more creative over time rather than limiting them to one item or option. We hope to add more elements to the Storyteller system with each new Chapter.

With the addition of the Exar Kun and Star Destroyer encounters, what lessons do you think the designers have taken away? Without giving anything away, is there anything we can expect to see in future instances?

LJ: With each new heroic encounter, we have increased the level of sophistication. With Exar Kun we added a lot of dynamic behavior and divergent gameplay based on strategy. There are a couple of interesting puzzles in that heroic encounter that really force the player to think about what they are doing and understand what they are seeing when an NPC's behavior changes. In the future, we are hoping to add some even bigger encounters that have multiple 'viewpoints.'

You've indicated a connection between the collections and other new content, and how that is enhanced by the tools you're using. Can you broadly talk about what tools improvements you've made that allow this?

LJ: The collection system itself is relatively straightforward and data driven, which makes adding new collections fairly easy compared to systems of the past. Having the collection system in place allows us to use different methods in addition to questing to allow players to earn rewards and get interesting loot in the game. Players are also recognized server-wide for completing many of these new collections first.

The game was not originally designed for themepark-like content, so adding new quests, etc. has always been a challenge. We still custom script most content in the game.

The idea of server merges has been on the table but not in the plans for some time. In response to player discussion of the population issue, the next Chapter Update will have a number of advanced search functions. Can you give us a few more details about what that will entail? Do you see this as a stopgap measure? Are there a set of criteria in the works that will give you a firm idea of when server merges are a must?

LJ: We are very sensitive to the population issues that exist on a few of the servers. It is our hope that this new community search interface will help players who are actively out looking to find groups as well as helping to facilitate players finding others that share similar interests in-game. The new search mechanism works server-wide and will allow players to more precisely pinpoint what they are looking for with respect to player groups and shared interests in-game.

Our goal is to help players on the lower population servers by actively identifying the issues and challenges they face and presenting ways to remove obstacles to increased game-play satisfaction. We are looking at a number of ways to help mitigate these population issues. With a game like SWG, which has player housing and cities along with server unique resources, it is difficult to use a standard merge approach without causing a lot of controversy and inconvenience. Quite honestly I want to avoid that by adding positive, experience-enhancing systems to the game that address the challenges by offering positive solutions in a way that adds something for everyone.

The collection system continues to see development and additions through this Chapter release. Can we expect to see new collections in every Chapter? Do you have any sense of what 'types' of collections we might see in the future?

LJ: I think it is safe to say that there will probably be new collections included with each Chapter, although perhaps not as many as we have added lately. I am truly amazed at the variety of unique types of collections our team has designed and implemented in the recent chapters. It is our hope that we can continue to come up with innovative and fun new collections as we move forward in the upcoming chapters.

We found the Rattletrap ITV collection really interesting, in that the item itself is a major break with Star Wars Galaxies' original thinking. The collection was very simple, essentially making this item available to every character. What philosophy or development goal did you have in mind with this collection? Do you see other 'quality of life' improvements being released to the players this way in the future?

LJ: In the past, instant travel vehicles have only been available as a premium with the purchase of one of our retail products, and it has been a touchy subject that such a useful item was only available as a value-added bonus with the purchase of a compilation pack or digital download bundle. We wanted to eliminate the perceived inequity but at the same time we did not want to undermine the value of the premium items. We set the instant travel vehicle up as a collection reward because we get feedback from our players that they get more enjoyment and value and have more fun from earning items as a reward than to just have it handed to them.

Recently there was a reference by a player on the boards to the concept of a "Droid Commander", with the official response from your team being that it's on the table for later this year. Would this be something similar to the Beast training system, only with droids? Can you elaborate on what it might include and when we might see it?

LJ: We have wanted to revisit the droid system and add Droid Commander to the game since last year. While not exactly like Beast Master, since building droids would still be the responsibility of droid engineers, it would share some aspects. Like Beast Master it will involve choices. To be a powerful Droid Commander you will have to sacrifice expertise in your profession. But also as with Beast Master, a high-level Droid Commander will have a lot of powerful options.

Moving into the middle of the year now, how do you feel SWG is compared to April of 2007? What do you hope you can say about the game in April of 2009?

LJ: I think the game has shown tremendous improvement in the past year as we have added new enhancements, collections, heroic adventures and upgrades. We have fixed a number of long-standing issues and have added some dynamite new systems and a slew of new content. It is our intention to continue this trend and I expect to be saying the same thing about 2008 in mid-2009. We know we have a lot of work to do to meet our players' expectations for Star Wars Galaxies, but it is a fun challenge to have and we are lucky to have such a committed and loyal fan base.

Many thanks for your time, sir.

Source : massively.com

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Solofication of Massive Multiplayer RPGs

2008-05-07T17:25:00.001-07:00

Once upon a time there was a MMORPG called Everquest, and it forced players to group to progress. For most classes you could only solo the newbie zones, and starting from about level 10 or so you would discover that the lowest level mob that still gave experience points to you was already too hard for you to kill alone.
But a few classes could use special tactics to solo anyway, druid were kiting mobs after them, and necromancers were fear kiting mobs away from them. (I played a quad kiting druid.) And it turned out that soloing was popular: far more people played druids or necromancers than playing any other class.

So every new generation of free MMORPGs made soloing easier and easier, because that was what the customer wanted, until we arrived at World of Warcraft, where every single class is basically expected to solo all the way up to the level cap. There are differences in the speed at which the different classes and talent trees can solo, but even least soloable class can kill mobs and do quests of his own level. And soloing is still popular, with classes that solo faster being played more than classes that solo slower.

And as soloing was what the customer wanted, some unknown developer at Blizzard came up with a brilliant idea: What if PvP could be made soloable too? That sounded crazy, because by definition you need at least 2 players for PvP, and if you wanted more than just duels you needed large groups on both sides of a battle. But that unknown dev realized that it wasn't necessary to have players actually form pre-arranged groups to do PvP. It wasn't absolutely necessary for players to cooperate in PvP. Sure, a group that cooperated would beat a group that didn't, but you could very well create a balanced battle between two groups as long as both of them were equally unorganized. And thus battlegrounds were born, and once Blizzard tweaked the PvP reward system they were extremely popular. And the majority of people basically solo battlegrounds, that is queue up for them alone, and then do whatever they want once inside. I call that pseudo-solo. This goes so far that people actually complain if they end up against an organized group. I don't know if that unknown developer switched from Blizzard to EA Mythic, or whether EA Mythic had their own developer realizing that this solofication strategy could be applied to PvE raid content as well. Because what they did was they invented the "public quest". Which works basically like a battleground, just for PvE instead of PvP. People just join, without arranging groups, everyone does what he thinks is best, while a few frustrated players try to shout orders and are generally ignored. Pseudo-solo large group PvE content, where everyone gets rewarded, I'm sure people will love it. Soloing is what the customers want. But a free MMORPG has a large and diverse base of customers, and not all of them prefer solo play. As early as Everquest some people noticed that a group is stronger than the sums of its parts. The larger the group, and the better it is coordinated, the greater the challenges it can overcome. Moving from open world to instanced content, developers were able to limit how many players could attack a specific challenge. But they couldn't prevent players from organizing themselves better and better, training each encounter for hours and hours, until even a large raid group moved with a coordination that would make the bolshoi ballet green from envy. And thus an arms race evolved, on the other side of the MMORPG from the solo content, a race in which developers would design harder and harder challenges, and raiders would again and again prove that these challenges could be beaten with perfect coordination. To understand that arms race, Blizzard hired one of Everquest's top raiders as lead designer, and consequently spent a lot of development effort on designing ultra-hard raid content.
There were clearly *some* customers that wanted this, and not solo content. And while the number of top raiders wasn't large, they were deemed to be influence leaders, the kind of people that other players looked up to, and also the kind of players who were most likely to post a lot of comments on game forums or other places of the internet. And it worked! While the number of players actually experiencing the highest level of raid content is still tiny, the desire to be a raider is certainly far more wide-spread.

The problem is that these two parts of the game are drifting further and further apart in World of Warcraft and the MMORPG genre in general. Soloing becomes easier and easier, the need to group during leveling up has been nearly completely removed, elite mobs turned into soloable non-elites, and the rewards for pseudo-solo PvP have been much increased. It is now possible to go from level 1 to level 70 and full epic gear in World of Warcraft without ever joining a group once. And the classes who are best at soloing fast or best at PvP are the most popular and most played. Meanwhile raiding remains hard, because that is the very reason of being for it, and even harder raid content as added to the end with every content patch. But to overcome these challenges, people need to learn how to play rpg games in a coordinated way. And the mix of classes, talents, and gear required for raiding is very different from what is most popular and easy to achieve in the soloing part of the game. Slowly but surely the two modes of gameplay drift so far apart that cracks begin to appear, threatening the whole model. From a raider's point of view the leveling game now fails to fulfil it's function of getting people ready to raid. Sure, they might be level 70 and have epic gear, but they might still be totally useless for a raid: they have not even the most basic training of how to play their class in a group, and they are of the wrong class, wrong spec, and wearing gear with the wrong bonuses to succeed in raids. If the 40 people in an average Alterac Valley group decided to kick out the 15 least suitable among them and take the remaining 25 to any one of the 25-man raid dungeons, they would not be able to get past the trash mobs. The average player who soloed up to 70, invested some effort in PvP to get epic gear, and now wants to raid, will find himself rejected and laughed at by the top raiding guilds on his server. He'll complain about them being elitist, but in fact it is game design that created the gap between average player and raider. The solofication of MMORPGs creates a large number of characters who simply aren't viable for the top end raid game.
What needs to be done is to rethink the concept of solofication. Why is soloing popular? A part of it is due to Real Life ® contraints, if you solo you can play in smaller bits and bites, group play needs longer periods. But another part of it is just a Skinner box: people like soloing because the game teaches them that soloing is the easiest way to advance. So even if they would have the time for a group, they rather keep on playing solo, because setting up a group is so not worth it. Assembling the group is made complicated by a bad LFG system in WoW. Doing quests that aren't marked a group quests in a group is often bringing less experience points per hour than soloing them. And WoW's concept of teaching players how to group is equivalent of throwing them into deep water to teach him how to swim: some people learn it that way, but many get hurt and frustrated in the process.
Solofication not only opens up a gap to end game raid content, it also moves MMORPGs in a direction where they become vulnerable to competition from single-player games. When I recently asked whether people would play a single-player version of WoW without monthly fees, I was surprised of how many people would prefer such a game over an online MMORPG with monthly fees.
If game design minimizes your interaction with other players, then why pay $15 a month for that interaction?

I think that it is time for the pendulum to swing back towards MMORPGs being more about groups again. Not enforced grouping, nobody wants that. But to a situation where even during the leveling process forming a group would actually be easy and the incentives would encourage it. Where people would learn to cooperate, because it would be to their advantage, and where due to that cooperation they would make more friends and develop stronger social bonds. Where players would arrive at the end game and already know how to play well in a group. Where playing a "support class" like tank or healer was a reasonable choice, and not a niche way for raiders to gimp themselves for the rest of the game. Where MMORPGs would be massively multiplayer again, and not massively singleplayer in parallel, as they are now. Here's hoping.

Source : tobolds.blogspot.com

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EVE Online Speedlinking for May 5th, 2008

2008-05-06T11:27:00.001-07:00

The last week was crazy busy with real life. With the Montreal Canadiens being eliminated by the Philadelphia Flyers last Saturday, I'll now have more time for gaming, EVE and blogging! So here' s the items that caught my attention this past week.

* EVE Fitting Tool - We talked about it in The Drone Bay Podcast #9 (soon to be released)
* Reflection on the state of the economy - Part II! - from CSM candidate, La Vista Vista
* The Hiding of Treasure... - Van Hemlock's great piece on game design and keeping the game excited
* Documentary: History of Video Games - Thanks Xyliana for this video!
* On MMO longevity and MMO second versions - EVE for the next
* EON Magazine now has an EON Facebook group - Join us!
* PvP Communication - Phillip "Crovan" Manning's 2nd piece over at Massively.com
* EVE Newbie video - Here's a funny video of someone who really doesn't get EVE
* The Ancient Gaming Noob gets an offer from Goonswarn in "The proposition"
* The Cookie Monster Economy and "Guild Socialism" - via Terra Nova

Source : www.crazykinux.com

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Age of Conan impressions - 2

2008-05-05T13:28:00.000-07:00

After starting up Age of Conan and making my necessary multi-core adjustments, I actually got to play for a little while this evening, without memory leaks, without gameplay degrading, without crashing.

Well, that's almost true. The first time I logged in, appearing in the Inn in Tortage, I had graphic artifacting and I had to restart.

The second time, things went fine. I finished up one quest and started another, replacing a vial of blood atop the volcano outside Tortage. It's another step in the storyline/single player progression, and it's the first step I've been able to complete without laggy, stuttering gameplay.

I think there are some aspects of the 1-20 solo play that are attractive. It's a pretty good way to learn the AoC combat system. Combat is quite different than other mmorpg's, and by the time you've killed your way through a couple quests, things start to make a little sense. I could have stealthed my way through a lot of the volcano quest, but I think I gained some good combat experience.

The quest line is fairly simple, but I'm enjoying it. I don't think I've seen a mmorpg put this much effort into a story, and breaking it out into single player sections is a good introduction to some of the factions in Hyboria. I don't know how well Funcom will continue telling the story through questing once the single player portion is over at level 20, but so far, it's a nice change of pace from your standard mmorpg conventions. I don't think every mmorpg has to do this, or should do this, but Funcom should get some props trying something different.

Unfortunately, at the climax of the quest, when I stealthily exchanged a vial of blood to ruin a ceremony, the game switches to a cut scene, and the cut scene hung. I'm watching myself crouched before an altar (in pretty cool armor, another successful design point that I hadn't been able to appreciate before today), with soot and ash from the the volcano falling behind me, waiting for something to happen, but I think I have to restart the client. I know I have to, and it's a bummer.

I'm curious what prevented Funcom from finding problems with cut scenes in earlier betas. It's possible that I'm expecting too much, but it feels like a bad sign that your scripted events, just switching to a movie, is breaking this late in development.

There's a lot of talk on various message boards about the state of the game, and you get a couple points of view. Some people overreact and say they're not going to buy the game (and people of course ask for their stuff, in this case their beta key), and other people overreact and say things like "I guess you don't know what a beta test means".

The truth is somewhere in the middle, I suppose. Sure, it's a beta, and sure, it's rough on various people at the moment. There's a germ of truth in each reaction. But I think there's a good game in here, if Funcom can overcome their obstacles. I do think it's worth testing, bug reporting and feedbacking, and I don't think overreacting and claiming the sky is falling is an enlightened reaction.

That said, I am concerned about all the problems I'm seeing, and the types of problems. I've been in a lot of betas, and I've been in a lot of games at launch. There are two extremes in experience. The first extreme is games that launched fairly smoothly, and probably includes WoW, DAoC, LoTRO…hmm, that's all I can think of off the top of my head. There were server load issues, queuing, problems related to figuring out how to handle retail traffic. Those kind of problems, I really don't mind dealing with. There's no way to realistically test your game to scale, and if your game is successful, you're going to have issues you have to deal with while the game is live.

The second extreme, in my experience, was SWG, Anarchy Online, Shadowbane, L2 (in beta for me, didn't buy it). When I look back at those games, either in beta or at launch, I realize in hindsight that I probably knew subconsciously that those games were in trouble in one form or another, long before I admitted it out loud. See, I want games to succeed. I want to enjoy them, to experience a new world, a new place to adventure. But when a game goes bad, you kind of feel it. You see quests not finished, mobs falling through the ground, design choices that aren't intuitive or don't fit together smoothly, gameplay elements that feel tacked on or not well-integrated. For whatever server load issues WoW, DAoC, and LoTRO had at launch, they were coherent gameworlds; well-designed, the developer vision was communicated to the player and most of the gameplay elements just worked.

I'm not sure how I feel about AoC yet. There are things I like about the 1-20 storyline. I like that they tried something new with combat. The graphics are growing on me (although I haven't been too excited about either WAR or AoC). I'd like to see more of Hyboria, and I'd like to see it while I have a solid framerate and no stuttering.

That said, I worry about the problems I've seen. I worry about a gameworld that allows players to climb down into areas, but not be able to climb back out of them without recalling or killing themself. I've found far too many dead ends, and that's really frustrating. I don't like that I have to mess with my cores to get the game to run stably. Whether Funcom fixes it or not isn't really the issue; the decision to go with an older client that requires some people to disable cores, without communicating that clearly, was a bonehead move. I've had a couple BSOD's today (display-related), plus the artifacting. The load times are still fairly significant, although much better with a core disabled.

I'm in the middle today. I've seen enough to hope that there's a WoW/DAoC/LoTRO launch and future for AoC. Funcom has a lot of work to do between now and the 20th, but I prefer to hope, rather than hate :) Even if they fail, I give them credit for their ideas, their creativity, and for taking risks. I suspect we're going to see some major fixes in the next week; just the fact that the PvP weekend code was newer and more stable gives me hope that the multi-core and load time issues can be addressed. I'll keep my fingers crossed, and hope that I move from cautious to enthusiastic about AoC. We'll see!

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The Digital Continuum: Single-player MMO

2008-05-03T16:27:00.001-07:00

Injecting the single-player special sauce into MMOs is hardly a new idea. In fact Phantasy Star Online has done it more than once in the past. It's also been done in small amount, though. Nobody has taken the chance to go all out and merge the single-player and massively multiplayer styles of gaming together like a tasty digital version of peanut butter and chocolate.

My recent excursion into the Age of Conan closed beta has made me realize that I really enjoy having some singleplayer flavor in my massively multiplayer online games. There is definitely something to be said for a game that can give you the best of both worlds: solo story and grouping experiences.

Let me put it in another way. When recounting my exploits in the recently released GTA IV, I can have different types of amazing experiences from the offline mode versus the online multiplayer mode. I think that MMOs can harness this as well.

The recent purchase of Diablo3.com by Blizzard was perfect in its timing, as it got me thinking about what that game could be like. I really think that if Blizzard was going to make Diablo 3 at this point, it wouldn't be anything like the last two games. Diablo is dead, Baal is dead -- so what else can be done at this point?

A new world with new characters could be one thing. Maybe even a new storyline involving Diablo himself would be worth exploring. The big difference could be in the way the game is designed: as a single-player MMO.

It's simply, really. If you've ever played the first two Diablo games then you remember how much fun the single-player experience was. Just keep the singleplayer side of the game while throwing out the multiplayer aspect for more of an MMO experience. Blizzard could use an upgraded version of their Battle.net service to have players login to the play the single-player game (as to avoid cheating and such) and then if players wanted to they could jump into the MMO version of the game at one point or another. Of course, in Age of Conan you have to wait until you're level 20 to get into the full-blown MMO aspects of the game. I suppose a similar restriction would have to be put into place for Diablo 3.

All it really comes down to letting people choose the kind of experience they want from an RPG. Nobody has really done a full-on single-player RPG that dovetails into a complete persistent online RPG. There are all sorts of chances to blend together different gameplay experiences with a single-player MMO. You can have the traditional solo experience, play with a friend co-op style or even play the entire game like a big story-focused instance with five or more friends. Just imagine the kind of water cooler-style discussions you'd be able to have with friends about all your shared exploits. There are some very cool possibilities here.

Allowing people to play in the way they want with the people they want is what's most important about this idea, that's the single-player MMO at its core.

Source : Massively.com

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Age of Conan: Role Playing Server Rules

2008-05-02T21:40:00.000-07:00

These are the rules we are considering for the Roleplaying-tagged servers for Age of Conan.

We are extremely interested in the feedback of our hardcore roleplayers on this issue and hope you will let us know your thoughts in this thread. Please note nothing is final. We're planning a meeting to talk out some of the issues we're already seeing, so now is the perfect time to give us your input.

Preliminary Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures Roleplaying Server Rules

All names must fit within the universe of Hyboria. Sephiroths or Pikachus or names that are out of place with the setting are not permitted. This is in addition to our usual naming policy (for example, no copyrighted names).

No names (or obviously similar names) may be those used in the works of Robert E. Howard. Conan, Kohnan, Konan, Kohnan are all examples of names that are forbidden under this policy.

Please avoid Out of Character (OOC) chat as much as possible in the public channels. You are welcome to discuss whatever you like in your guild channels or in private messages. Examples of Out of Character chat include sports events, the weather, what you had for lunch, internet memes, catchphrases, and so on.

Please respect roleplayers. We recognize that not everyone is willing or able to maintain a persona at all times, and we welcome you to enjoy the atmosphere. However, please do not insult or harass the people in character, call them silly, or otherwise try to ruin their immersion.

Harassment and other behaviors covered in the rules of conduct are still covered on roleplaying servers. "I'm just roleplaying a homicidal maniac" is not an excuse for harassing, griefing, etc., other players. This extends to racism/nationalism as well. Roleplaying someone that hates Stygians/Aquilonians/Cimmerians is perfectly alright, however, real world racism is not acceptable.

Player-run events, guild meetings, and other roleplaying sessions may be present at anytime. Please do not interfere or harass players that are in character or running an event. We encourage you to join in and have a good time, but disrupting a wedding, guild meeting, etc. for non-roleplaying reasons may be cause for punishment.

Please keep in mind this is a mature setting for an M-rated game and the roleplay setting and environment may not be suitable for all players and temperaments. Likewise, while this is an M-rated game, please keep in mind that even in Hyboria, there are standards of conduct. Please keep overt and detailed adult conduct and chat in private channels.

In addition to the official rules provided by Funcom, the roleplaying community may have its own rules and customs. We encourage you to observe these as much as possible on your server of choice.

Source : WarCry

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