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Archive for May, 2009
Runescape: Bounty Worlds Overview
May 6th
The folks at Runescape have posted an overview of the game’s new ‘Wilderness-only’ PvP worlds, also known as ‘Bounty Worlds’.
This week’s update introduces Bounty Hunter ‘Wilderness-only’ PvP worlds (or ‘Bounty Worlds’). Our aim was to get something that feels as close to the original Wilderness as we can manage, and to add another thrill with the Bounty Hunter mechanic. The new worlds are limited to the Wilderness, and use the old ‘who can attack who’ levels.
Bounty Worlds are basically a mix of 3 previous PvP games. It has the best bits we can reuse from Bounty Hunter, PvP worlds, and the old Wilderness. In short, we’ve increased the chance to get your opponent’s items and we added the thrill of hunting a bounty within the Wilderness while surrounded by hundreds of potential PKers.
Read more here.
Lineage 2: Clans and Alliances
May 6th
In the first part of Chris Sides’ Getting Into Lineage II series, he looked at the New Player Experience. Today, he looks more closely at clans and alliances.
Clan Skills
Clan skills can now be learned by clans level five and above. These skills can be acquired by collecting items from dangerous monsters known as raid bosses and spending clan reputation points. Once mastered, each skill is available to every eligible clan member until the clan is disbanded. As the clan gains levels, more clan skills are available for purchase. These new clan skills can benefit clan members by increasing their attacks and defense, increasing their resistance to attacks from others, and can even reduce the penalty for death.
Read Clans and Alliances
Developer Introduction: Jarle Snertingdalen – Hyborian Adventures
May 6th
Developer Introduction: Jarle Snertingdalen
Today we bring you the developer introduction of Jarle Snertingdalen the Associate Producer on Age of Conan Systems Team.
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You’ll take a ride inside the mind of the man who helps manage and drive all of the game systems under the rainbow from within the world of Hyboria.
"Famine: For those who might not know, can you tell us what an Associate Producer actually entails?
We have a few Associate Producers on Conan responsible for different areas of the game. Without getting into too much detail, my team is responsible for combat, class design, character development, RPG systems, items and loot tables. We are also involved with any feature thats produced for the game.
My job is to make sure our plans are followed, well thought through, out on time and of quality. Its also my task to ensure that the people on my team are able to work as efficiently as possible and that everyone has the right focus.
A normal day for me involves reading and discussing feedback, attending production, planning and design meetings, following up on tasks, coordinating with other teams and departments, and reviewing work we have done inside the team. I try to squeeze in time More >
Global Agenda: Meet the Team: Jeff Voeltner
May 5th
Hi-Rez Studios has posted an internal interview with Jeff Voeltner, Senior Environment Artist for Global Agenda.
What do you do at Hi-Rez Studios?
I’m a Senior Environment Artist. I design and build the areas or "sets" that the players run around in. Most of my time working on Global Agenda has been on designing and developing the social spaces for the game (cities, agency headquarters, etc.).
How long have you worked in Gaming, and what did you do before Global Agenda?
I’ve been working in the industry for about seven years now. The first game that I worked on was Call of Duty: Finest Hour. I also worked on the games Legendary and Turning Point: Fall of Liberty during the beginning stages.
Prior to working on games, I’ve had the fortunate opportunities of working within feature film, advertising, and in comic books where I began my career as a color artist with Image Comics in the 90s.
Read more here.
Runescape: Dwarf Quest Dev Journal Part 3
May 5th
The folks at Runescape have posted the third part of their dev journal on the new Dwarf Quest.
Good news, everyone! The design brief for the new dwarf quest is complete. This is the core design document of the project that defines all the important details of the new quest. The initial concept document said things like “there’s a puzzle here involving such-and-such a thing”; the design brief defines exactly how the puzzles will work.
Creating the design brief involved a lot of back and forth between me, Mod Mark (RuneScape’s lead designer) and our balancing expert. We agreed on the bulk of the document pretty quickly, but a few of the details took a bit of haggling to get worked out. This took a while, but it’s important to get things right at the design brief stage, rather than trying to balance the project at the last minute.
Read more here.
Final Fantasy XI: A Crystaline Prophecy Tour
May 1st
MMORPG.com’s Carolyn Koh writes this report of her recent tour of the Crystaline Prophecy scenario for Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XI.
A Crystalline Prophecy – An Ode of Life Bestowing is the first of three scenarios, or mini-expansions, launching in Final Fantasy XI. Masato Kato, who oversaw the initial plot conception and event direction for the original Final Fantasy XI and the Rise of the Zilart expansion had been approached to write continuing storylines and the three new scenarios are a result of that. These mini-expansions aren’t about new maps, but are strictly storyline expansions expanding on the history and myth of Vana’diel via missions and cutscenes… and of course cool loot.
Read A Crystaline Prophecy Tour