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Archive for September, 2009
Lord of the Rings Online: New Expansion: "Siege of Mirkwood"
Sep 4th
A new digital expansion for The Lord of The Rings Online has been announced today. The new expansion, entitled "Siege of Mirkwood", will bring the culmination of the epic storyline that began with the Mines of Moria, or more specifically bring the game to Book II Chapter 9, and will include the Epilogue as well. In addition to the story content, the expansion will bring a level cap bump to 65, introduce a new 12 man raid, and a smattering of three to six man instances.
A new game system will be introduced as well, called Skirmishes. Some information on the skirmish system is available below:
Skirmishes offer endless action in repeatable, randomized instances where players can create and lead customizable soldiers into battle, training them to greater skill as they earn victories against the forces of shadow. Answer the call of war wherever violence erupts with the new "World Join" function that lets players and their fellowships band together to fight in various locations throughout Middle-earth.
The official Siege of Mirkwood site can be found here.
Dungeons & Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimited: Atari: Turbine Lawsuit "Frivolous"
Sep 4th
If you recall, we recently reported on the news that Turbine is suing Atari over Dungeons & Dragons Online. Well, it looks like Atari is ready to talk about it, and that is putting it lightly.
In a recent statement given to ShackNews, Atari fires back at Turbine, calling the lawsuit "frivolous" and is intending to have the courts throw Turbine’s claim out altogether:
"Last week, with no warning, Turbine filed what can only be viewed as a frivolous lawsuit against Atari. This action can ultimately do a great disservice to D&D fans and to the MMO community at large."
Via ShackNews.
City of Heroes: Mission Architect Guest Author Program
Sep 4th
NCsoft and Paragon Studios have announced a new Guest Author program for the Mission Architect system in City of Heroes. The Guest Author program will allow the City of Heroes team to collaborate with well-known writers and would-be game designers to publish custom missions directly into the game world.
NCsoft and Paragon Studios plan on announcing their guests on a "rolling basis". We’ve got details on the first two participants below:
- Rooster Teeth (www.roosterteeth.com): The machinima producers that brought the gaming world the Red vs. Blue series and created a series of live-action shorts for City of Heroes and Mission Architect (starring Barenaked Ladies’ front man, Ed Robertson, as Captain Dynamic) is ready to put their designer skills to the test. Rooster Teeth plans to bring Captain Dynamic and his nemesis, The Great Face, from YouTube to City of Heroes.
- Scott Kurtz (www.pvponline.com): The creator of the popular PvP web comic has already begun collaborating with the City of Heroes team on bringing LolBat to life within Mission Architect.
Scott Kurtz and Rooster Teeth’s Joel Heyman will talk about their experiences creating custom content for City of Heroes on a panel at PAX this weekend. The panel, entitled "Mission Architect: A Funny Thing Happened on the More >
EVE Online: Alliance Tournament VII This Weekend
Sep 3rd
The seventh EVE Alliance tournament will begin this weekend, September 5th, 2009, at 15:00 GMT. The tournament will pit EVE Online guilds against each other in brutal PvP competitions spread over three weekends, with the tournament finals to be broadcast over live video.
CCP Games has selected certain EVE Online players to provide live commentary for the tournament, which can be listened to over EVE Voice by joining the "Alliance Tournament" channel.
The tournament finals will be held on September 19th, and 20th, and as we mentioned previously, will be broadcast in live (and HD!) video. A teaser trailer for the Alliance Tournament is available, showing off the "Alliance Tournament" player that will be used to broadcast the finals.
The original announcement can be viewed here. You can also view the match schedule, available here.
The Warhammer Mistake – The Same Problem Aion Encountered
Sep 3rd
The Warhammer MistakeBy Jaime
Jaime grew up in southern CA, but has been living in Salt Lake City, UT for five years. Since the days of Ultima Online – she has been playing MMORPGs with a passion. Online gaming has become one of her most passionate hobbies, as the games internally and externally evolve over time, providing an ever-changing gaming experience. Her professional experience comes from the fields of retail, telecomm, customer service, and investing. Her hobbies include photography, writing, crafting, outdoor activities, and, of course, video gaming.
I was discussing upcoming MMOs with a friend a few weeks ago when she mentioned a term I hadn’t heard before: The Warhammer Mistake. She explained that the "Warhammer Mistake" is when an MMO developer decides to make PvP the only viable means of end-game entertainment. She argued that this same problem was to plague Aion, a PvPvE game.
Although under less catchy names, I’ve seen the argument many times before: MMOs should provide full and equal experiences for PvE and PvP. The argument comes from both PvE and PvP fans, usually when a game offers little of the game play they want. This demand for PvE/PvP equality didn’t really take foothold in popular opinion More >
Dofus: Guide to Soul Stones
Sep 3rd
MMORPG.com Dofus Correspondent Christy Bazell writes this guide to Soul Stones in Ankama’s MMO.
Have you ever hunted for an elusive drop only to spend countless hours in battles with little results? How about waited for monsters to re-spawn in remote locations? How about the hours it takes to repeatedly run dungeons looking for drops? Or, trying to find the perfect group with the perfect drop level for an item?
If you have answered yes to any of these questions I have a solution for you. The solution is to capture the fight!
Capture a fight! Here is how: First you must have the spell, Soul Capture. Once you have the spell you can buy soul stones to fill.
Read the Guide to Soul Stones
Final Fantasy XI: All-in-One Bundle Coming
Sep 2nd
For players looking to get started on Final Fantasy XI, a new FFXI all-in-one bundle will be arriving this November. The bundle, entitled "Vana’diel Collection 2" will contain the original Final Fantasy XI, as well as the Rise of the Zilart, Wings of the Goddess, Treasures of Aht Urhgan, and Chains of Promathia expansions.
In addition to the expansions, all the scenario updates will also be includedl, namely, A Moogle Kupo d’etat, A Crystalline Prophecy, as well as the upcoming A Shantoto Ascension scenario.
The bundle will be available on November 12th, 2009 in Japan and will retail for 6,090 yen on the XBOX 360 and PS2, with no current price set for the PC version.
Via Andriasang.
Final Fantasy XIV: Cross-Platform Play, Int’l Servers
Sep 1st
The folks over at One Last Continue sat down with FFXIV producer Hiromichi Tanaka and global online producer Sage Sundi at this year’s GamesCom for an interview on Square Enix’s sophomore MMOG effort, Final Fantasy XIV.
The interview has produced some interesting information, namely, that Final Fantasy XIV would feature cross-platform play between the PC and PS3, but it doesn’t end there either! In addition to cross-platform play, international servers will also be a focus.
How will this affect naming conflicts with such a global and multi-platform community sharing the same space? Square Enix seems keen on the idea of making use of surnames this time around, so, for example, if two players want the name Paranoos, one could choose a surname, like say, Volvere, and voila! Problem solved!
Via One Last Continue.
Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures: August ’09 Game Director’s Letter
Sep 1st
Game Director Craig Morrison addresses the Conan community in this latest issue of the "Letter From the Game Director".
This month’s topics include the recently announced expansion, "Rise of the Godslayer", the 1.06 update schedule, the House of Crom, Veteran Rewards, Tier three raiding, and more.
On the subject of the new expansion, Mr. Morrison discusses the expansion’s setting, and how it allows the designers certain levels of freedom that they didn’t necessarily have before with the existing zones. This is due to the fact that Robert E. Howard had the lands of Stygia, Cimmeria and Aquilonia mapped out pretty well, but the lands of Khitai were covered a bit less, allowing for more creative freedom. These new lands will also have roughly 30% more explorable terrain when compared to the existing zones.
When discussing more imminent changes, Mr. Morrison states that there will be a Conqueror update, and a new level 80 instanced called "Iron Tower" preceding the 1.06 patch. The 1.06 update will follow, but may be split into smaller parts to get chunks of the features out to players sooner, rather than releasing the patch in it’s entirety at a later date.
The House of Crom might be finally seeing the More >
Dungeons & Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimited: Eberron Unlimited: Headstart and Notes
Sep 1st
The head start for Dungeons & Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimited begins today for current and former subscribers, as well as closed beta participants. Patch notes for the release day version of Eberron Unlimited are also available.
The head start program will run from today September 1st, 2009 through to September 9th, 2009. The program will be taking place on the live servers so current subscribers should be able to simply patch and log on.
However, non-subscribers who only participated in the closed beta test of Eberron Unlimited will be required to download the live game client in order to participate in the head start. The high-resolution live client can be downloaded here, while the standard version client is available here.
Get the absolutely massive list of patch notes here!