Total MMO

Don’t call it a comeback!

Sat, 16 Feb 2008 22:25:52 EST

Seconds after the announcement that a Marvel MMO was not going to be possible (wink, wink!), Cryptic throws some D’s on that bitch and assured us that there will be a return of the mack. In the preview cover for the March issue of Game Informer we learn that Cryptic Studios is already working on their next MMO, Champions Online will continue their legacy of superhero MMOs that is sure to take us to the next level of greatness.

Everyone that has ever played COH/V should run to their nearest game shop and reserve this game RIGHT NOW! Cryptic ended up the worst out of this whole Marvel v. NCsoft deal and they deserve a little something from the fans.

Game informer Cover.

Cryptic website.

PS- that little pic was the only thing I could find about Champions Online. Cryptic hasn’t even officially posted anything on their site.

PPS- while I was researching this thing I found that several folks think that this game is based on a Pen and Paper RPG called…. Champions! Which is funny because Marvel had to change the name of one of their comics, The Initiative Champions, because the folks that own the RPG hold the rights to the name now. So it looks like Cryptic has been working behind enemy lines ever since their CO (NC soft) left them there.
Good job Cryptic!

It comes in 3’s, Marvel MMO isn’t coming back from Hell this time.

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:27:14 EST

MTV’s multiplayer blog posted an interview with Shane Kim, head of Microsoft Games Studios, discussing the current state of the Marvel MMO. He finally confirms the rumors that Marvel’s MMO was heading down the toilet by saying that the MMO is in fact dead. When asked for the reason the project was nixed Kim replied that they could not “create another subscription-based MMO.” He then went on to say, “ And if you really look at the data there’s basically one that’s successful and everything else wouldn’t meet our level or definition of commercial success.” Basically he threw out a bunch of random stuff that doesn’t really make sense when you really look at what was said.

This thing all started out bad when Marvel sued NCsoft because of City of Heroes and ended in a settlement that had Cryptic making this MMO. This all started with bad blood and there was only one way it would have ended. There is really no surprise here.

MTV Interview.

Don’t worry true believers this will probably be retconned later !
Keep buying comics !
Wolverine just killed Sabertooth with a sword that has part of his soul in it so it stops the regeneration process…..

Good stuff.

Blizzard Worldwide Invitational Announced.

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 00:11:05 EST

Hear ye! Hear Ye! Blizzard’s Worldwide Invitational for the year of 2008 has just been announced.
Do you want to show your skills in all those popular Blizzard games and compete with some of the top player worldwide? Do you want to meet many of the folks that bring us all these beautiful games that always end up killing around the world? Do you want to get a chance to play Wrath of the Lich King and Starcraft II before they are released? If all the answers to these questions are YES! Then get your tickets for Blizzard’s Worldwide Invitational 2008 now before they are sold out.

Press Release.

WWI website.

Make sure to read the F.A.Q. to learn some very important information about the event. Things like, can you bring your Ipod? Or if you can bring actual clubs, maces, and “crushing weapons.” You know, all the very important stuff we need to know.

One more nail in the Ryzom coffin

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 03:26:12 EST

MMOs seem to be caught in some bad spell ( get it? ) since October of last year and it doesn’t look like it‘s going to stop any time soon. From that point on we’ve had at least one MMO head to that big server in the sky and this month’s second victim is Ryzom, the first one being Myst Online. The Saga of Ryzom has been in trouble because of it’s owners since November of '06 but it looks like this time around there isn’t going to be a last minute save like it’s gotten a couple of times before. Servers are being shut down and there is no information about them being brought back any time soon. There is always a sliver of hope that something might be pulled off at the last second but I suggest to the population of this game that they start looking into some of the new MMOs that are coming soon that show real promise. Age of Conan just assured players that the game will have nipples… that sounds good, right?

Read the post straight from the Ryzom forum.

Extra! Extra! There will be nipples in Age of Conan! There will be nipples!

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 00:01:27 EST

There was big flip out on Tuesday on the AoC boards when a Community Manager made a post informing us on the “final say” on the rating for the game. The post said that the US version of Conan would be rated M for mature but it will not include nipples on naked female breasts. People quickly complained for having the need to include an accurate depiction of graphical boobies because the game ended up being rated M, what’s the point of getting that rating and not using it? Luckily in less than a day we got a correction and nipples will in fact be shown whenever we see virtual bosoms in the Age of Conan.

In the end it isn’t really about using the rating but keeping the spirit of the source material. When Robert E. Howard was creating the world of Conan in the 1930’s I’m sure that he was thinking that when some one would eventually create a massively multiplayer video game about Conan they should include nipples when boobies would be shown.

First Post.

Correction.

Myst Online dies again. 7 more lives to go.

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 23:44:12 EST

Announced yesterday by the VP of Content and Creative Director for GameTap, Rrrrrricardo Sanchezzzzz, Myst/Uru Online will discontinue it’s service on Gametap. This marks the second time that an online version of Myst has come to an untimely end. The first attempt ended while still in open beta in 2004 and now this one ended just a little over a year after the game was declared live.

The biggest source of anger from the players when news is heard of an MMO cancellation comes from the guys that just paid for their next subscription term. Specially the people that paid for a long term subscription plan just when the cancellation is announced. With Myst this is also turns out to be the case but the unique problem here is that there were signs and rumors that the game might be cancelled for the last two months but there was no official word made when it sort of seemed clear that the end was coming. This led some players to believe that Gametap just waited for a first set of yearly subscriptions to re-up before telling players the news, the players feel that Gametap just cheated them out of the money when they fully knew that this game wasn’t going to continue.

Another problem is that people also think that this was the Gametap plan from the very beginning. The first year of content for Myst Uru Live…. Online ( what is the game really called? ) was basically all the material seen in the recent expansions that was just adjusted for multiplay, so basically Gametap tricked fans into buying Myst:The Gametap Edition. There wasn’t really a plan to continue on after all the previous content was adjusted for internet play. Whatever the reason Myst Online: Uru live is dead, again.

Myst Online will be live for the next 60 days so people can say their goodbyes and the like.

Announcement

Politicians in other countries also hate videogames

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 17:44:59 EST

Since Super Tuesday is Super coming up tomorrow and I thought we should have a little discussion about politics and videogames. The main discussion when these two worlds collide seems to always be the same argument no matter what part of the world you are located: censor the games more and more! The Finnish Christian Democratic Party just started a little ruckus wanting video games that enter Finland to go through a “preliminary inspection” to properly censor them. The problem here comes from the fact that they already go through inspections setup by the PEGI (Pan European Game Information) which rate the games much like our own ESRB, giving people proper warning on what they are buying. If you can figure out that you shouldn’t take your seven year old to a movie that’s rated R you should be able to figure out NOT to buy a game that says MATURE in their ratings section. It’s not that difficult.

PEGI website.

Afterdawn original post.

La Era de Conan foro en Español

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 17:53:28 EST

Las personas que estan trabajando con La Era De Conan estan haciendo algo muy inteligente con el juego sacandolo en diferente idiomas. Para preparar todo el mundo Funcom esta sancando foros en todo eso idiomas, I hoy ellos sacaron uno en Español para todos esos hermanos que tambien quieren agarrar sus espadas para conquistar La Era de Conan!

Translation;

Funcom released a Spanish Community Forum preparing for the mega worldwide launch of the game.

Unde aquí para mas información.

Unde aquí para ver el foro en Español.

Warhammer Online Special Edition Details

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 15:12:40 EST

A Swedish video game website just added an entry for the special edition of Warhammer Online giving us all the little details for which some of you folks will pay an exorbitant amount for this game. So far this is the only place this information can be found so its validity is in question. If it’s fake, too bad, but if it’s real, I don’t really see a problem with what we are shown. The bonus items look pretty cool for that extra cash you are going to pay. Getting past the usual soundtrack, art book, and extra doodads all Special Eds come with are 12 quests (2 for each army) that will each give a special reward, the rewards are not specified but making you go through the quest rather than just handing you the item feels a 100% better. On top of that you also get 12 exclusive characters heads, although they don’t describe how they are spread out but it’s safe to say that it will be 2 per army similar to the quests. This is definitely the real prize of purchasing the Special Edition, and having a unique graphic for your character does make this a little sweet.

Click here for the entry.

UPDATE!

the entry was taken off so apparently it seems that it was fake, or it could be that the Warhammer folks want to hold on to this and release the information themselves.

Click here for the original entry.

You wanted to play as Aliens? Richard Garriot gives you the Chance

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 17:57:40 EST

One of things I liked about Tabula Rasa was that you can only play as humans. The rich story really pumped me up, and explained how you are one of the few humans chosen to escape Earth after massive alien devastation and then are responsible for getting get some payback. The forum kiddies didn’t see this the same way I did and they complained and complained about adding some aliens species to be able to choose from and the folks behind TR finally gave in. Well they say in the Wired interview that aliens were always in the plan but the demand made them rush the time of implementation.

Technically you are not playing an alien but a human that has injected himself with alien DNA to gain some advantages . Click here to read the complete Wired interview.

WotLK website update: Bestiary

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 18:30:28 EST

The Wrath of the Lich King website has just been updated with addition of two beasties we will be facing when we journey into the lands of Northrend. They made the wise decision of not starting the preview of the monsters with the Ice Troll and Wendigo but with the Nerubian Vizier and Plague Eruptor. The Nerubian Vizier looks like a very humanoid looking member of the Nerubian race that is able to wield magics to kick major buttocks, while the Plague Eruptor seems to be Abominations 2.0, they are big, they are mean, and they wreck some serious shop.

Check out the website for a more detailed but less entertaining description of these new mobs.

By the way, why ARE the Ice Troll and Wendigo in the preview list of mobs for the expo? I’m pretty sure that the Ice Trolls in the expo will be the similar to the ones in WoW now, and this goes double for the Wendigos. A color swap doesn’t really warrant a preview slot to draw people into the game, I think.

WOW reaches 10 Million subscriptions

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 16:38:34 EST

WoW is quickly becoming a real life Skynet as it covers more and more parts of the world and draws in more and more people to play. 10 million worldwide subscriptions doesn’t come close to the numbers MapleStory has but that game isn’t American so it doesn’t count. One interesting thing about the press release is that they apparently reached this mark because of, “new and returning players signing up through the holiday season.” Which sort of brings up the hypothesis that now that the holiday season is over, wouldn’t the “returning players” return to their status before the holiday season? Weren't they not playing the game because they didn't have time? MEANING: WOW can go below the 10 million sub mark by the end of this month.

That would be something really interesting to try to find out but it’s unlikely that anyone will and very unlikely that some one would release that information to the public. On top of this, four months from now WOW is going to probably be out in another in another region and they will definitely pick up enough subs to get the 11 million mark.

All these upcoming MMOs better quickly adopt this blanket release tactic because WOW is becoming the EQ to a lot of these areas, and with no competition WoW is just going to be picking up more and more players.

Blizzard Press Release.

Aaarrrrr! Pirates of the Burning Sea is out, aaarrrrr!

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 00:18:14 EST

Have you ever wanted to experience what it would be like to live in a ship during the 18th century with a bunch of drunken men with nothing to do but to get even more drunk while you are waiting for a ship to attack? If you have, then Pirates of the Burning ship is the game for you! With the option of playing a Pirate, Privateer, or a Naval Officer, you will be able to experience all sides of the great age of Pirates. You also have the option of playing as a Freetrader but as we all know this is just going to be your mule (this is why I didn’t add it to the playing options just now.). So have a parley with your mother/wife/female companion to make sure you can pick up this newly released MMO that will take up more of your time.

PotBS site

PotBS site 2

Blizzard hates WOW hunters. Case File # 348-C

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 18:37:00 EST

This case file is similar to earlier files # 55-C, # 97-C, and the like. For those of you who don’t know what this is I’ll provide a little description. This basically means that Blizzard took away the ability of the Hunter class from taming some mob that they didn’t “expect” to be tamable. Meaning one of two things; first, they just didn’t bother to add the “cannot tame” to the code, which connects the second point, they didn’t think that people would be bored enough to explore the World of Warcraft to figure out what was tamable or not. The conclusion to all of this is that the mob is no longer tamable. According to Blizz Poster Drysc, the people that currently have the mob tamed are going to be able to keep it, which is a 100 times better than what they did with the snakes.

REEEEWIND! At one time, for some strange unknown reason, Blizzard didn’t want people to have snake pets, but, much like the ghost wolf here, there were some snakes in the game that could be tamed. Some MMO entrepreneurs figured out a way to tame them and they did. Word of their accomplishment spread through the interwebs and the people that wanted to go through the trouble of taming them did. The snakes provided nothing but a different looking animal, nothing else was gained but the praises of a few kids that cared when they saw you with the snake walking around. When Blizzard saw this they put a stop to it with a grand kick in the balls, one of the greatest kick in the balls of WOW hunter history. No one could tame the snakes but the people that had them could keep them. This sounds good, right? Here comes the kick in the balls, by the way, you can no longer feed your pet snake……( In WOW you have to feed you pet to keep them happy or they run away) excellent, ain’t it? The bigger kick in the balls was that later on they went to add snakes to the group of tamable pets.

One funny thing I have to point out before I finish this post is that the Blizzard Posters never disappoint in coming up with excuses that make no sense whatsoever. Every time I read one of their posts I question their knowledge of the game because some of those answers…… well let me just show you.

This is the funny part of the excuse for taking out the ghost wolf.

“The removal of the spirit guide has been debated within design discussions for a while now as to what impact the pet and its precedent has on the game.
The unintended nature of the taming, the undead status of the guide, appearance of the wolf in relation to the feel of the hunter class, and the complex processes of taming were all issues touched upon and discussed.”

Ok, so here are some of the things they used to come to the conclusion that this wolf is no longer tamable.

1. It was never meant to be tamed.

This is ok because I’m sure the developers have some weird idea that if its left tamable people will start looking for other mobs to tame, it sets a bad precedent or something like that. Well, like I said earlier, when people are bored they will find things that will not make them bored. This isn’t the first time and this isn’t going to be the last

2. The undead nature of the mob.

Meaning that hunters shouldn’t have pets that are undead, right? Well guess what? There are like 4 other UNDEAD mobs out there that CAN be tamed. So….. 5 undead mobs are too much or something?

3. Appearance of wolf in relation to “feel” of Hunter class.

I don’t really know what all this means but if they are talking about the semi-transparent look of the wolf then all I have to say is Ghost Saber. You know Blizz, that transparent cat that’s tamable?

4. the complex processes of taming.

It takes some cash, a couple of buddies helping, and some other stuff. So if you have that wolf it means that you reeeeally wanted to get that wolf. But Blizzard is telling us that it’s too much work, what’s the point? All he does is have a unique look, why are you going through all that work for just a different look? Just pick one of the other 5 different looks and you’ll be fine.

Man, I don’t think I have laughed harder from a Blizz post.
It’s….too…much….work.

Blizz Post USA.

BLizz Post EU saying they weren't going to change the tamable status of the mob.

Which we now know it isn't true.

Stargate beats Star Trek yet again

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 16:31:39 EST

I have to call and talk to the creators of the Stargate TV series and ask them for the Devil’s phone number, because these dudes continue on, and on, and on, with the franchise with no end while the competitors keep dropping off. Earlier this week reports appeared out of nowhere, like the borg, saying that P2 Entertainment ( The new name for Perpetual Entertaiment ) is no longer developing STO, the game’s intellectual properties were transferred to another video game company who will apparently continue on with the development but there is no confirmation of this at the moment. According to Warcry the video game code wasn’t transferred, this means that the new development team are going to basically start from almost the very bottom again.

This doesn’t really come as a surprised since Perpetual has been taking a steep dive since they put Gods & Heroes on “indefinite hold” back in October of last year. Now it’s very likely that Stargate, which was announced 2 year after STO, will come out before STO and will likely steal that “star nerd” demographic.

STO was supposed to be released along with the new Trek film but now it’s looking like it will probably be coming out when the next Trek series comes to T.V.

Warcry post

Wired post

Age of Conan Special Edition announced.

Sat, 12 Jan 2008 18:21:52 EST

Special editions aren’t really as cool as they were back in the day (two, three years ago) because now every MMO released has them, special edition have turned into just another way of moving more subscriptions out of the people. They all end up coming with the usual suspects of goodies, a soundtrack, an art book, some poster, and an item that you better pray that it can be sold because, god, that thing will become useless faster than you can say [insert funny comment here] so it only ends up wasting space. The last time that a special edition item/ability that ended up being actually useful for some time was the fast travel ability from City of Heroes. Having the ability to travel around the world quickly from the start is awesome, there’s nothing else to say, but on top of that the graphics effect of the ability was different based on the store you got your game from. So the gamestop edition had a glowing trail behind you while the EB games version ( back when they weren’t owned by Gamestop) had some particle star effect or something like that. The Folks at Nc Soft really went to some lengths to make the special edition ability SPECIAL.

Age of Conan follows suit with the usual special edition stuff but they do have one time that will probably last for some time IF they don’t decided to add something similar later on. That special item is The Drinking Cape, the cape gives you the ability to get free drinks from all taverns across Hyboria! Why is this special you ask? Well, there will apparently be a drunken brawling PvP mini game included and having the ability to participate in this without taking a hit in your wallet as you try to save cash for you war elephant mount is something that’s very welcome.

Click here to find out the whole list of goodies the SE will bring.

Click here for the press release with the actual price.

Blizzard brings us the Blizzcast, your official Blizzard podcast.

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 14:48:32 EST

You thought you got no information from the forum post Blizz makes? Well get ready to learn even less from Blizzard’s official podcast, the Blizzcast. Nah, I’m just messing around guy…guys. On this first podcast we get an interview with the very popular Blizzard Artist Samwise, and WoW’s famous dungeon designer Tigole. Sam talks about the art of the upcoming Starcraft 2 game while Tigole discusses the new raid dungeon coming up in patch 2.4 for the World of Warcraft.

Click here to listen to the podcast.

New WOW player stories are up.

Wed, 09 Jan 2008 21:06:20 EST

WOW player stories are umm…. They a….. well they the ultimate level of nerdiness that a person can show for a game. These stories are supposed show, I guess, that there are several things that people can gain out of playing World of Warcraft or something like that. To me this looks like a PR move on Blizzard’s part to show that their MMO isn’t just something that only kids with social anxiety disorder play, or that wives shouldn't worry that they are going to loose their husbands because he plays the game too much, or this game will lead to your son to be burned on 43% of his body because the kid he bullied thought he was a firemage and went nuts with some gas and matches.

In the end they seriously end up being hilariously funny more than anything. For example, the first new story tells of a mother that had a 7 year old kid that had troubles at school and by playing WOW he miraculously became a better student, well it wasn‘t that miraculously but that’s the essence of the story, that WoW had a severely positive effect on the kid. Now the funny part isn’t that spiel the funny part is when the mother says that her son once in a while joins Battleground fights and “goofs off .” And if we see a level 46 human warrior running around naked in WSG we shouldn’t get mad…. Cause he’s just a kid. So now we all know why the Alliance sucks in Battlegrounds.

Read more stories and LAUGH!

PS- another story tells of a guy that go his mother-in-law to play, she also rolled Alliance. We definitely know why Alliance suck in BGs…

Stargate Worlds teaser trailer.

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 21:22:30 EST

The trailer is like ten seconds long (it's longer than that) but it's still cool enough to check out.

Here is the HD version brought to you by Gametrailers.com. It looks purdier.

Mature Korean MMO coming to the U.S.

Sat, 05 Jan 2008 00:55:16 EST

GRAVITY INTERACTIVE UNLEASHES A NIGHTMARE OF VIOLENCE AND DEATH INTO THE MMO WORLD

Requiem: Bloodymare Delivers Intense Experience for Mature Gamers

MARINA DEL REY, Calif. -- Jan. 3, 2007 -- Gravity Interactive, developer and publisher of a wide variety of online games including both casual and hardcore MMOs, is bringing the bloody horror of Requiem: Bloodymare to the United States in early 2008. The title introduces a world where the misuse of science and magic has warped the natural world into a twisted vision of death.

Set in the world of Ethegia, players take on the role of the Temperions, beings created through genetic engineering and arcane rites to engage in bloody combat with the walking nightmares stalking the land.

Using the Havok engine, Requiem: Bloodymare brings to life a visually stunning realm where fallout from generations of scientific and mystical warfare has polluted the natural world and given birth to horribly mutated monsters. The battles between players and these grotesque creatures are rendered with intense sequences of bloody and gory graphics.

“We’ve dedicated more than four years of intense development to be sure Requiem: Bloodymare really brings something unique in the MMO market.” Peter Kang, CEO, Gravity Interactive, said. “We very consciously decided when we started the project that we wanted to diversify our offering to include much more than the cute, anime inspired gameplay of our previous hits. Requiem isn’t a game for kids; this is for mature players that are looking for hardcore content that conjures up their deepest nightmares and fears.”

Requiem: Bloodymare also brings several game mechanics that set it apart from the rest of the MMO market. The time of day will be an extremely important factor for players under the Nightmare System with incredibly powerful creatures awakening to terrorize the world at night. To defeat these challenges players will be able to draw upon the DNA System and the Beast Possession System. Players will use genetic engineering to modify their DNA to obtain characteristics and abilities nature never intended. The mystic arts will enable players to possess and transform into different bestial beings with extraordinary abilities.

More information about the Requiem: Bloodymare can be found at http://www.playrequiem.com.

About Gravity Interactive, Inc.
Headquartered in Marina Del Rey, Calif., Gravity Interactive, Inc. is the U.S. subsidiary of Korea-based Gravity Corp (GRVY). Gravity is a leading global developer and publisher of a wide variety of online games including both casual and hardcore MMOs. The company’s most successful title, Ragnarok Online, has more than 40 million registered users worldwide, ranking the title amongst the most popular online games played throughout the world. Ragnarok Online is operated across 62 countries worldwide in Europe, North America, South America and Asia. More information is available at http://www.gravity.co.kr.

Here is the Korean website you can surf for the fun of it. There isn't much info on this game outside of the Korean market, the English website just shows a 10 second vid so there's no point in going there.

Extra! Extra! Wrath of the Lich King will have PvP zones!

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 02:30:08 EST

That’s right folks! The new expansion to World of Warcraft WILL included Player vs. Player zones, so now you can all stop worrying about this and start freaking out about something else.

Actually this is not the point of the post but this is what a post I read in www.computerandvideogames.com sounds like after I read it. The new issue of PC Zone (U.K. video game mag) has an interview with Tigole were he talks about one new feature that WoLK will include. This addition is apparently a PvP zone the size of Westfall that will not be instanced and will not support PvE players at all…. Whatever that means.

This is basically all the information provided in that post and with that alone it doesn’t really come across as something mega stupendous. Hopefully this is just a little tease and the whole interview elaborates on what this open PvP zone really entails because with this current info it sounds like an Alterac Valley zone without the quests? And saying that this huge PvP zone is not instanced doesn’t add to the coolness factor of the idea, it just brings the question of how is the game going to handle all of this. Anyone that has played WOW knows that this game can’t take more than 50 people in one spot fighting each other outside of an instance. The choppiness that happens in these occasions seriously make the game unplayable at those levels of interaction. The way the game is right now guarantees that for a long time after the launch of the expo this PvP zone will be unplayable and at worst case scenario the lagginess will bleed into the adjacent zones screwing over other players that don’t want to be involved until it‘s fixed.

Let’s cross our fingers and hope that Blizz FINALLY delivers yet another thing they promised to be in the game years ago. Hopefully this huge delay in delivery means that they are perfecting this little new addition.

Click here to read the post.

II Street Fighters appearing in a Korean MMO!

Fri, 28 Dec 2007 03:44:58 EST

Hot on the heels from reports that our favorite Lana Lang, Kristin Kreuk, has just signed up to play Chun Li in the next Street Fighter movie, we get news that Chun Li is also making an appearance, along with Ken, in a new Korean MMO called Perfect KO. Can’t tell you much about the game because I don’t know Korean but from the videos that I’ve seen the game looks like an online version of Urban Reign. Hmmm… don’t think a lot of you folks would know about Urban Reign so let’s just say it looks like an online version of the many 3D beat’em ups games that came out on the PS2. You know, Bouncer, Final Fight: Streetwise, God Hand, etc, etc. Hopefully this thing gets a translation with the quickness and it turns out good because it looks like a bit of fun. Running around and punching people is always fun.

Perfect KO website.

Chun Li page.Click on the video on the right to see her in action

Ken Page.Click on the video on the right to see him in action.

Gameplay video.

PS- doesn’t this dude look like a pre-mutated version of Blanka? They might as well get the rights to use Blanka too.

Chinese kid sets another on fire claiming to be a fire mage

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 21:49:17 EST

How come all this stuff happens only in China? How come there’s no European or American crazy-nut-love dealing with videogames? Seriously, in the U.S. people are still blaming Doom and Counter Strike, we have to move past all the old PC games into the next generation.

There isn’t much to the story, in fact it looks like they are using the WoW fire mage thing as an excuse to get a lowered sentence. A kid lost a fight and then he came back later and poured some gas on the guy who beat him and … toasteeee! This just seems like another case of don’t mess with the nerd because, unlike the bullies, they have some imagination.

Report.

You can’t be a troll again

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 16:43:43 EST

Turbine has discontinued the ability to play as a troll or ranger for the Monster Play section of Lord of the Rings Online one more time. Like the last time this was done, there isn’t any information provided past the one sentence post telling us that this is happening, but the folks at Massively did find a possible reason for this turn of events in a post made in Curse.com.

The post states that a person in the Brandywine server was haxxing with a ranger and getting the ability to regain health and continue playing as a ranger for an extended amount of time. There is a response from a LOTRO Community Manager giving this possible reason a little validity.

LOTRO post.

Curse.com post.

December Special Task Force Report for FFXI

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 16:01:06 EST

The only MMO, it seems, that is actually actively stomping the evils of gold farming just put out what is now its monthly report on their accomplishments. Since they began the usual amount of banned accounts were in the range of 7 to 8k but the Christmas holidays brought about their biggest catch yet. This time around they terminated a total of “around 12,460 PlayOnline accounts.” This is sort of a double edge sword in that they are taking out all these folks but… its sort of showing the number of players that they actually have, which in this case its going to end up being small. I wonder how many of the 9.6 million folks WOW has worldwide are made up of farmers and hackers.

Special Task Force press release.

Special Task Force numbers.

More WoW Commercials

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 12:20:44 EST

Like Nemo, I've also come across the new WoW commercials which is pretty amazing considering I don't own a tv. Here's the latest commercial featuring Verne Troyer of Austin Powers fame, but my favorite celebrity commercial is Mr. T's. I pity the foo who thinks otherwise. Okay, I'm done now.

Verne Troyer Commercial

Mr. T Commercial

And just for fun, here's also the Capt. William Shatner commercial

And the French commercial with Jean-Claude Van Damme

By the way, I transated "Bloodsport's" words from French because I have way too much time on my hands and came up with "C'est Fini" = "It's over." "Puissants" = "Powerful." And "Mouton" = "sheep," of course.

New WoW commercials

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 22:42:43 EST

I just saw a new WOW commercial featuring Verne Troyer and I quickly ran through the interwebs looking for it to show it to you loyal fans. Couldn’t find it but I did find international versions that you might want to check out as well. The first one features some Spanish actor that most, if not all, of you will have no idea who he is, but the second one has one of our favorite film action hero from the 90s, Jean-Claude Van Damme. The commercials are in Spanish and French but they do have transcripts so we can all enjoy the wit.

WOW commercials page.

Former Trek Online designers says STO is nigh impossible to make

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 18:29:39 EST

Former senior system designer Eric Heimburg made a post in www.eldergame.com stating the many difficulties there are in making an MMO based on the Star Trek universe. Let me first stated that, yes I am not a video game designer or anything that comes close to that, but this post read with defeatist attitude written all over it.

He first complains that they need to make two games, a space ship one and a ground one. I don’t really know why there is a need when there have been a whole bunch of Trek games out there that do not include these two aspects and do fine. Then he goes on to complain that space is basically featureless so people would find it hard to relate to the landmarks which will be variations of the same anomaly and so on. All I have to say to this is that these dude should’ve been sat down and required to watch that History Channel show The Universe, after watching that I dare this guy to say that creating space features are very difficult to convey to players.

This really looks like the last couple attempts at Trek shows that were trying to appease a certain group of fans and ended up making everyone else angry. This along the troubles Perpetual is having with all their dealing really looks like this Trek... enterprise should be put in the agony both and zapped to death.

Le post.

Now that Fury is free to play they fire everybody

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 17:06:29 EST

Well it’s not as evil as it sounds but Auran, the developers of Fury, have filled for bankruptcy and let go most of the people working with Fury. There’s still “a small but committed team to continue developing FURY on an ongoing basis.” So the game will still have content updates and the like. The end of this year looks like its proving that anyone cannot make an MMO out of anything with the death of Auran, God & Heroes, Perpetual Entertainment’s trouble, Marvel little mess with their MMO, and I’m sure I’m missing a few other things.

It’s an MMO apocalypse man! It’s all over, all over man!

The Future of FURY post

Blizzard prepares Russian version of WoW and Conan prepares to chops its legs

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 05:32:29 EST

Blizzard really wants the “Biggest MMO in the world” title for their game don’t they ? They are now preparing a Russian version of WoW which will be the fifth European language version of the game. They are going to have to do a lot of hard work to beat the colossus known as Maplestory if they want that MMO crown. Maplestory numbers are tremendous but are not really known because… well because its not an American game, and if its not AMERICAN it doesn’t count!

Conan, King of Aquilonia, is also preparing to take over the world as Funcom just put out job openings for Spanish, German, and French translators. Along with Warhammer online, it looks like WoW is finally going to get some competitors to the throne of greatest American MMO.

Blizz press release.

Conan, Funcom job openings.

Free to play Fury becomes free to play

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 16:30:54 EST

Ok, this is sort of a weird news article because I can’t find anything on it past the post from Kotaku. I didn’t see any info in the Fury website, the developer’s, or the publisher’s. Maybe I didn’t look deep enough but since this is sort of a big change to the game I thought that it would be featured somewhere it would be easy to find.

The big news is that Fury, a free to play game, is now free to play. How can a free to play game become even more free to play? The first thing you need to know is that this is all marketing BS to get you people to play, and now that you know this we can get on to the real answer. When Fury was released the game was said to be free to play but you needed to actually purchase a game box to get to play it and if you paid 10 bucks a month you got a few extra bonuses to your gameplay. Now you don’t have to buy the game to play it you just download the installer and you are done, but there is still the option to still pay a subscription to get some extra stuff that you normally wouldn’t get. Ergo, it was free to play and now it becomes… free to play… FOR REAL!

Maybe the reason the press release of the new free to play model isn’t to be found anywhere in their sites is because they want to squeeze a few more dollars in this last couple of days before is implemented?

Kotaku press release.

Special Holiday pricing for LOTRO

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 14:36:49 EST

If you sign up for the 3 month plan for LOTRO during the month of December until January 31 of 08 you will be treated to a special Holiday pricing to celebrate…. the Holidays. The new price for the 3 month service will be 9.99 per month, lowering the usual price by a couple buck but it still offers a good amount of savings. If you decide to continue with this plan the price will not change at all, it will stay at this lowered rate. Now this is the real bonus to all of this. Special pricing is usually done for a set amount of time but one that continues indefinitely is unheard of!

If you are tired of the current MMO you are playing I seriously suggest you folks download the trial to test this game out, and if you end up liking it quickly sign up for this special offer.

LOTRO promotion.

Exteel is now live

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 18:57:28 EST

I think Exteel gets the record from going from open beta to live game in the shortest amount of time; it took only 20 days of open testing for the folks at NC Soft to say this game was ready for launch. Going live means that a full patch of the game was tested… and basically no changes were made. They added 3 new mechs, a boosters, and a new set of weapons that are just palette swaps of other weapons with slightly different stats. The one actual big change from the beta version is how all the new equipment can only be purchased through NC Coins using real world cash. So far I haven't seen any big differences or reasons to get the newest game additions but later down the line maybe they will add something that will actually be worth spending real cash.

All the info from the Open Beta accounts was kept intact so you wont have to level your mech again from the start. The funny thing about this is that if they would’ve wiped the info there would probably some folks that wouldn’t want to level their characters up again and would’ve spent some cash to get the new equipment.

Go to the Exteel website for further info.

The beginning of the end for WoW

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 17:23:21 EST

Vivendi announced that their video game department, Vivendi Games, is going to merge with Activision to create a new company called Activision Blizzard. All the people that follow Blizz know that they were safe under the wing of Vivendi because they were, apparently, far off from all the mess and influence of the main company, but now they are coming closer and closer to becoming part of the main entity. This, of course, should worry fans since mergers usually end up being bad for one side and excellent for the other. Blizz has being doing nothing but the best for years now so if you add all this up they look like the ones that will end up on the bad side of this deal.

Blizz put out a FAQ to alleviate worries but their first response says everything you need to know: “We do not anticipate any difference in Blizzard’s operations as a result of the combination.” Of course they don’t anticipate anything but people didn’t anticipate Black Swans either. For you philistines out there, there was a point in time when the world thought that there were only white swans. Because of this there was a saying for rare things that said, “ X thing is as rare as a black swan.” …the more you know... Anyway, if, according to the FAQ, nothing at all but the name of one company will change why did they merge? Because of cash man! Also in the FAQ is a response that I’m pretty sure 95% of the people playing WOW don’t really care about, but Activision is a public company and with the merge it will stay that way. So all of you folks out there can now be even closer to your favorite game by buying Activision Blizzard, Inc stock. Hooray and stuff.

Press release.

Blizz FAQ on the merge.

Friday update #12 for Age of Conan: Mounted combat!

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 17:29:46 EST

In today’s weekly Age of Conan update there’s news that mounted combat will be added to the game. There is going to be different types of mounts depending on speed and health and within each of those types there will be further variations. This game is adding a lot of excellent features that no other MMO has and it's starting to look like the next great MMO that everyone has to play.

Friday update #12

Reviewer got fired, allegedly, for reviewing

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 16:57:35 EST

Much like TenTonHammer said, this has nothing to do with MMOs but it’s funny as hell so I decided to post it. Jeff Gerstmann, an executive editor at Gamespot, gave a mediocre review to Kane & Lynch: Dead Men. Eidos, the game's publisher, got mad and threatened to cancel all the advertising of that game in the Gamespot website. This apparently got the big wigs at Gamespot angry or something and Gersstmann got the boot.

My Questions:

To Eidos:

Did the advertising contract state that Gamespot HAD to give Kane & Lynch a good review?
Because if it didn’t… why are you guys flipping out? It’s a videogame review website, didn’t anyone at Eidos consider that the site might give a review that didn’t call K&L the greatest game since … what’s a good game? Um… since Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army?

To Gamespot:

What was the point in firing him?
What are the chances that some other reviewer would have given a similar review? Or one worse?
You folks have to either let your reviewers review, or start telling them what can they write about a game and what they cannot. The second choice will probably be the downfall of your site though.

For the complete Jeff G saga visit these sites.

The Shacknews report.

Kotaku posting.

Penny Arcade making fun.

New Developer Vid for the Age of Conan

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 16:43:19 EST

This time around the topic discussed is the enemies you will come upon when you delve into the age of Hyboria - what they are, what they do, how they act, etc, etc. From what we hear in the vid it looks like Age of Conan might turn out to be very immersive, something that most current MMOs fail to accomplish in any sort of level or just never attempt.

See what’s best in the Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures

G4 doesn’t know anything about MMOs

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 00:06:12 EST

G4’s website just added a new feature detailing “great failures” in several fields they think viewers might be interested in. One of those fields includes video games which eventually leads us to reaching the MMO side of this industry. The greatest failure in recent video game history -- I repeat: THE GREATEST FAILURE -- iiiiiiiiiiis…. “Every North American MMO Since World of Warcraft.”

That’s right, apparently no MMO since WoW has done anything other than crashed and burned. Before even coming to a decision on anything dealing with this choice I just had to see how they defended this. They start by giving the usual explanation why WoW is so cool, the fact that it's casual friendly and hardcore crazy at the same time and all that jazz you have seen or heard before from video game mags, sites, shows, etc. Then they go on to show us some of those games that have failed because of WoW. The two examples they bring up are -- get ready for this -- The Sims Online and Star Wars: Galaxies… this is when I finally began to laugh. Why? The Sims Online came out 2 years before WoW and was well into the graveyard by the time WoW came out. And there’s nothing more to say about this subject.

With Galaxies they still had a chance to make a point but they didn’t. They brought up the fact that Jedis went from being super-mega-ultra-hard to obtain to being available to anyone from the start, and that during the time of the original (holy) trilogy there were a handful of Jedis running around but the game killed that atmosphere because everyone started playing Jedis. Well to the dude at G4 that wrote this, welcome to Burning Crusade and patch 2.3 and also remember that this little saying “Lore LOL!” was created because of WoW. The explanation given for the history change from previous Warcraft games was actually “Oops.” Yes the guy telling us what was the reason for the change said, “Oops I forgot.” And let’s not forget that the horde has Warlocks, the Draenei can become Paladins, and with the new expansion EVERYONE is going to be able to become a Dark Knight.

All I can say about this is that either the person writing this has no idea about anything dealing with the world of Massively Multiplayer Games, or that they purposely went in this direction to create a ruckus to draw attention.

One last question, how did you folks get the new WoW commercials on air first? They usually start with the Sci-fi Channel, or TBS, or something like that.

Here is the list of failures.

Perpetual Entertainment’s MMO development is going from bad to worse

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 23:44:48 EST

At the beginning of October, Perpetual put its Roman-themed MMO, Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising, on “indefinite hold” as the company was shifting its focus on platform games and concentrating on making Star Trek Online "...lives up to the high level of expectation set by the dedicated Star Trek fan base.” A month passes by and some business stuff happens and now Perpetual is under new management and new bosses. And it seems like the new bosses aren’t heading in the same direction as what the press release for Gods & Heroes said and Trek Online is going to take the path of the “Korean MMO.” It's going to be more “casual friendly” and it's going to have micro payments to get the good stuff.

I don’t know what’s happening with this third generation of MMOs but they are all heading downhill. The Marvel MMO apparently is heading for the chair and now this; all the small studios are being tossed around and this creates a mess with the current projects they are working on. The MMO industry seems to be taking the same steps as the Video Game industry back during its development. We are now in the stage where only the big boys are surviving and the rest are trying to make due by putting out anything.

Report

WoW 3rd Anniversary giveaways start today

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 14:00:29 EST

To celebrate World of Warcraft’s third birthday as a live MMO, Blizzard is giving away prizes starting today. Once a week until December 15th, Blizzard will give away a different prize ranging from gift certificates, WoW action figure sets, and finally ending with the BIG ONE, an iPod Touch. To be eligible to win these prizes all you need is a WoW user account in “good standing” during the time of the sweepstakes and then you're set. Well, 'cept folks in Florida and Rhode Island. They are excluded from the sweepstakes because Florida’s winner will probably be some elderly person that is going to die before he figures out how to turn on the iPod Touch, and in Rhode Island technology is still considered “Dark Magic.” So you will be risking your life just to play this game.

Here are the whole set of rules and list of prizes.

Worldofwarcraft.com

Addicted to MMOs? Move to South Korea

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 14:58:54 EST

We at Total MMO know that MMOs can be great fun as long as your guild isn't disbanding because your guild leader got drunk at a party and made out with some random girl and then your guild leader's girlfriend found out about it and logged on to his account and destroyed all his items, gave away all his gold, and sent obscene messages to every guild member. So as long as that isn't happening, MMOs can be pretty sweet.

So sweet, in fact, that MMOs might even be addicting! Fortunately, new hope exists for the MMO addicted. A nytimes.com article reports how South Korea, among the world's leaders in technology, is now seeking to be the world's leader in treating technology addiction -- specifically, addiction to the Internet.

Participants in South Korea's boot-camp style rehab center (creatively named the "Jump Up Internet Rescue School" or JUIRS) get to live in an isolated compound and run obstacle courses until the burning need to play WoW passes. Most participants are young boys but we think JUIRS would probably admit exceptionally addicted females as well. The camp is entirely funded by the South Korean government so it's free! Entry to the program is highly competitive so begin writing your personal essays today.

Angry at the GCD change in WOW? This is what you should do

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 13:39:23 EST

Blizzard joins the AMPTP and Broadway producers in being on the evil end of a workers strike. Carpenters Local 1506 are mad at Blizz for hiring independent contractors for their carpentry work, because of this they are now having a strike in front of the Universal Music Group offices in Santa Monica....

We players have to learn from these good folks and stop with the board BS and take it to the streets! WE WANT OUR OLD COOL DOWN BACK!

Source...?

NC Soft DID come out on top from the Marvel lawsuit

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 13:07:47 EST

NCsoft recently acquired total control of COH/COV as Cryptic Studios headed over to make the Marvel MMO. I made this post a week ago speculating on how this whole deal went about and how NC Soft came out basically untouched. Now, according to 1UP.com and Next-gen, the Marvel Universe MMO is looking like it's heading the way of the West African Black Rhino. This means that you are probably not going to find this game in your local game shop. Apparently the game is so fugly that if there isn't a turn around soon the game is going to be axed.

And like I speculated in my earlier post, after the dust settles NC Soft will be the only ones that actually come out clean from all this chaos, because it looks like Marvel might not be getting their MMO and Cryptic is going to have to move on and start something else.

NC Soft must have made a deal with some aliens from the future or something comparable because these dudes have a lot of good stuff out now and some excellent things coming up.

Fury celebrates it's one month anniversary!

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 11:58:47 EST

Whoooooo! Fury is 30 days old whooooo! One whole month of being a live MMO, everybody rejoice... But seriously, in their one month celebration address they mention a few things they will be working on to make Fury a better game. New 1v1 games, and new "Carnage" match, changes to abilities, and lots more. During this celebration weekend they are also doubling the amount of of gold and essence you receive from combat, so if you want to try to unleash your Fury download the 10 day free trial and show the world how strong your kung fu is.

Free Trial

Celebration press release.

Exteel open beta launches!

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 18:08:03 EST

Exteel is NC Soft's next MMO up to bat in it's very, very big lineup. According to their description it "blends the immersive thrill of an FPS with the furious and brutal intensity of Hong Kong gun-play mixed with the feel of classic robot anime." So this game should really be called Gundam Boiled Arena or something like that.

I haven't jumped into the action yet but from the info on the site it looks like it's going to be a very fast pace version of the Armored Core games. So if you are a fan of mechs and shooting at your enemies at weird angles that in reality it would be nigh impossible, start the download and prepare to face off in some intense metal on metal action.

Exteel site.

Trolls and Rangers unavailable in LOTRO

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 14:47:32 EST

The folks at Turbine have taken out the ability to use Trolls and Rangers for the monster combat part of the game. Actually let me just copy/paste what they wrote.

"Greetings,

Trolls and Ranger session play will be unavailable until further notice.

We're still examining the issue and we'll keep you posted about any future changes.

Sorry guys. We'll let you know when we can open the session play back up."

There is really no info past this. In the board you can gather a bit more of what looks to be the problem, Rangers were apparently broken somehow and some people didn't like having Trolls and Rangers involved at all.

I just played a bit of monster play and I kind of liked having those two super powered classes there. The trolls totally recreated the scenes from the movies, they are so strong that a couple could basically clear house with enough backing them up. I found it rather enjoyable covering the trolls as is stampeded through anything in their path.

I don't know what was the beef people had with these two guys but now that they are gone the advantage really goes to the PC side. Without the Trolls the only way the monster can win is to outnumber the players by at least 3/1.

Here is the post.

FFXI, banning people, you know the rest

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 14:58:18 EST

Ok, so this is my third post commenting about Square Enix's zero tolerance on any shenanigans from players in FFXI so you should know what's going on. If you don't then read these posts.

Second set of bans

First set of bans

This time around they have banned 4,400 accounts and temporarily suspended 1,210. This brings a total of around 20,000 accounts banned from the game in three months. And that brings up a couple of questions;

1. How much of the population of FFXI is made up of farmers?

2. How many people buy gold/cheat/etc?

These numbers are ridiculous! And this game has, from the last time I checked, around 350,000 active subscriptions. Imagine if you took these numbers to some of the other MMOs that have very sizable population. The strange thing about all of this is that I thought people were still complaining over the 15 bucks a month they are paying to play the game. I didn't think that they would want to spend more just to cut down a small part of the usual annoying play time.

Press release

Keyloggers have double agents!

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 13:57:24 EST

Seagate has announced that their Maxtor Basics Personal Storage 3200 external hard drives are infected with a virus that steals passwords for online games and sends the info to some evil Chinese servers. Most of the games are Chinese BUT! (there is always a but) the one infected game that isn't Chinese just happens to be one of the most popular MMOs out there. That MMO is World of Warcraft of course.

So if you have one of these drives from about August of 07 you might have an infected drive.

*So if you have one of this suckers i suggest you grab it right now and throw it out the window.

Seagate Press Release.

*Next New Networks is not responsible for any broken windows or injuries incurred from talked about object coming in contact with a person as it was thrown from a high altitude.

Patch 2.3 The Gods of Zul'Aman is out

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 11:47:41 EST

The newest patch for the World of Warcraft came out and, like always, sparks are flying!
Hunters got "buffed" so everyone is crying; the way Global Cooldown was changed also has everyone crying; Zul' Aman is on contested territory so everyone is crying, etc, etc, etc. Either people in WOW cry more than in other games, or there are so many people playing that game that there is always going to be some one crying one of the changes.

For example, one thing that annoyed me from this patch was the change in the Rogue's Blind ability. Blind had its reagent need removed which means that Fadeleaf (the reagent needed) might drop a lot in price since a major part of the people who usually buy it is gone. Yes, this herb isn't the one that sells for the most but it's one that is always being bought. In the past when you put a stack of Fade-leaves up for auction you knew it was going to be sold. You didn't have to put it up a couple of times because a bunch of folks undercut your price. There is always something with Blizzard isn't there?

Read the patch and CRY!!!!

Wrath of the Lich King website update

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 17:33:41 EST

Blizzard has added new information about one of the dungeons that will be included in the next expo to World of Warcraft. Utgarde Keep (do all evil dudes hang out in keeps?) is the home of the half-giant Vrykul. Think of the Vrykul as Beowulf times two, who have also tamed proto-dragons. Think of the proto-dragons as a Gronn times two. These beasts are the Vrykul mounts and add to their already tremendous strength in combat.

Now that Illidan has been killed for no reason at all it's time for all the adventures from Azeroth to head back to their home lands to kill other things for no reason whatsoever. Start preparing for your new adventures by delving into the lore(lol!) and creation of one of the many dangers you will experience when Wrath of the Lich King is released upon us.

Utgarde Keep info

NC Soft Comes out on top from the Marvel suit?

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 13:40:12 EST

Earlier this week Cryptic Studios announced that they we selling EVERYTHING about City of Heroes/Villians to NC Soft, the intellectual and proprietary of both of those games are now in the hands of NC Soft. They have 100% control over what happens in all aspects of either game.

*** From this point on this is all speculation***

To me this all looks like another evil master plan by Marvel. They sued NC Soft because they apparently they were profiting from their property because people created character based on Marvel characters. Apparently no one involved in all this mess ever played any other MMO and saw the thousands of Drizzt copies all over the place. Marvel's actual plan was to cheaply acquire a game developing company for a MMO project they decided to start. Everyone is making MMOs these days (Halo? Animal Crossing, KOTOR?)so why shouldn't Marvel, right?

NC Soft decided to give up because Marvel could've kept this thing going on for a long time, so they agreed to a settlement that has Cryptic developing the Marvel MMO based on their universe. Since Cryptic now has to spend all of their resources in creating this Marvel MMO they decided to be the good guys in all of this and sold their property so both COH and COV can continue on for the fans.

NC soft has to rebuild a team to keep the games going but they now completely own everything that has to do with them. So they kind of didn't end up taking a really big hit from all of this.

*** Speculation over***

So now we have NCSoft completely in charge while, "Cryptic will work closely with the team at NCsoft to create a smooth transition and gameplay will not be affected."

Hopefully the NCSoft will keep the same level of work and does completely change the way the games are built to bring in more fans or something other crazy idea.

Cryptic post about the sale.

Cryptic Faq about the transition

NC Soft press release

"WOW it’s basically a remake of EverQuest." -Lord British

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 15:45:34 EDT

In an interview with the NY Times Richard Garriott, the Godfather of MMOs, puts forth some wise words about the MMO genre. The Lord turned General mentions one of the faults of one the most popular MMO in the article, he says,

"As many kudos as I would like to give World of Warcraft, it’s basically a remake of EverQuest, just incredibly polished and refined.There are harbingers of failure in that model. Everyone in these games is obsessed with the concept of how much damage-per-second they are inflicting and maximizing their D.P.S. When you do that, you are no longer playing a role; you are playing an inventory-management game.”

This is pretty much right on the money, anyone that plays WoW has to have met at least one of these twinks running around asking to duel everyone around their level to see how their set up is, right? Hell, the whole concept of twinking proves his point.

Here is the NY Times article with Lord Genius so you can get learned.

Tabula Rasa is out!

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 12:42:13 EDT

Richard Garriott's, a.k.a Lord British a.k.a General British, Tabula Rasa officially launches today. This futuristic MMO that takes place in the present brings on the new, and trademarked, cloning system that allows you to make copies of your characters at certain points of your advancement to give the choice to take a different path later on if you decided to.

For some reason futuristic MMOs never really catch on even though everyone says that they are tired of the usual fantasy setting. Will this be the first to break through and step up to join the other MMO greats? Now you can decide by running to your closest computer and digitally downloading it. Does anyone actually buy the boxes anymore?

Tabula Rasa Website.

Game Launch Press Release.

Looks like the recent rumor of a KOTOR MMO might be panning out

Tue, 30 Oct 2007 16:36:08 EDT

Lucasarts and Bioware just issued a press release on their brand new website saying that they have come to an agreement “To Develop [a] Ground-Breaking Interactive Entertainment Product.” They don’t mention what the product is but they do say that this information will be released at a later date.

This little move does bring a bit of weight to the rumor Primotechnology put out a week ago saying that the MMO Bioware was working on is going to be based on the Knights of the Old Republic universe.

Lucararts Bioware press release.

Primotechnology rumor.

Halloween goodies for Kartrider

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 12:56:42 EDT

Like most MMOs out there, Kartrider decided to join in the fun of Halloween and added a couple of goodies that will put all players in a frightful and ghouslish mood.

First we have the Pumpkin Racer E2. Pick this up as quickly as you can because it has the best stats of any kart out there. And if you like playing the single player races you need to have the best kart to put up a fight.

They have also added two new themed tracks for us enjoy.

Hidden Monastery for the Item players.

And Fright Fight for the Drift Kings.

There is also a quest that if completed will give a special prize.

Remember this game is free-to-play so go download it and enjoy.
Only for PC though.

Evil EA is being evil again

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 15:53:27 EDT

EA mythic has closed down the San Francisco studio of UO and will be moving it to Fairfax, VA to have one huge MMO megahub. They will be housed along the DAO and Warhammer Online teams making everyone into one big, happy, joyful family. The problem is that, according to some dude from the Q&A team, most everyone is not making the move. There is just one person that is definitely going over and two others still considering it. In the long term, the game may end up changing a bit from what we are used to if most of the team will be made up of new people.

I don't know what's going on over at EA Mythic but people are leaving and dropping like (insert funny statement here). It looks that there will eventually be one super team working on all their MMOs at the same time. Since they are the Evil EA they might have the ability to do what Perpetual Entertainment couldn't with Gods & Heroes and Star Trek Online.

The future of a lot of MMOs has changed rapidly over the last month and hopefully all the changes end up turning out good because right now they look bad.

Some dude saying that only one person is moving.

official statement.

WoW Atlas added to WoW.com

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 12:25:21 EDT

Blizzard in its infinite wisdom finally decided to provide a detailed world map of the World of Warcraft. The Atlas provides some information breakdown about each zone in the game; it contains flight paths, dungeon locations with level info, town locations with npcs of interest, and some other bits of info.

Since this is three years too late there really isn't a use for the Atlas aside from looking at all the pretty Blizzard art. I don't know why Blizzard takes so long to implement things that are obviously needed, but I guess this will help the new people that are coming into WOW for the first time and are MMO rookies.

So for you noobs, click here and get some learning on.

Actually, everyone needs to check the Atlas just for the intro. Blizz makes a spectacle out of everything and this wasn't going to be left out. The intro reminds me of the Colbert Report.

Square Enix bans around 8,000 more accounts.

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 11:49:31 EDT

Square Enix has definitely put their foot down on illegal actions in their MMO, for the second month in a row they have banned around 8,000 accounts related to RMT (Real Money Trading). They have even set up a special task force to deal specifically with all of these types of illegal acts. The hammer has been brought down son! These are the types of measures all MMOs should take to stop the plight of the gold farmer/sellers. Implementing small delays to the process of farming and selling is in reality affecting the players more than the farmers *COUGHWOWCOUGH!* and it isn't really the answer. Then again it's easier for FFXI because they don't allow anything to be added to their games, you have the play the game how they have given it to you.

I wouldn't say better late than never for FFXI but I would say that this should be an example for all other MMOs out there.

Special Task Force.

Ban reports.

Last blog post about first set of bans.

Lore LOL : Age of Conan edition.

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:22:23 EDT

In today's Friday Update for Age of Conan the topic was the women. When this topic is brought up it usually ends up going two ways, either its reeeeally good or it turns out bad. In this occasion is the later, the guys in the development team dropped the ball on this one. They were doing so good with the violence and drinking and bam! they tripped on the woman hurdle.

Here is exactly where they dropped the ball, "As some of you may have picked up during our development, we have chosen a somewhat updated view on women compared to the works of Robert E. Howard. The world circa-2007 is very different, in most places, than the 1930’s in which the original Conan stories came around. Early on in our development, we therefore made a very clear and conscious choice: Namely that any female player in Hyboria should be just as strong and able as any man! The strong, fierce and independent female is perfectly in line with the lore of Howard, however, we have expanded it to include ALL the female players. And seriously guys, you wouldn’t want anything else, now would you? (let the discussions start!)"

Yes we are in the world of circa-2007 but much like the world of circa-1930 the Age of Conan is a fantasy world. It's fake, there's magic, there's demons, and many other strange things, but god forbid they have women be the sensual creatures of the novels.

They do go on to mention that they have put a lot of detail into making the female models, armor, emotes, into something that will still make female models a draw to the people that love the female shape. Just keep the male models with their bullnecks, don't change that.

Here's the full article

Preview site for the new update of Lineage II is up.

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:05:08 EDT

The new upcoming update for Lineage II just received a website to give a preview of what brand new goodies will come with the release. A new race, the Kamael, will be added to the game as well as new lands, new items, and fortress battles will now be happening 24/7! Watch your back people cause an attack could be happening RIGHT NOW! well... when the update happens.

Preview site.

I think they are running out of ideas...

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 13:30:15 EDT

That pic is a preview of one of the new monsters in the new EQ II expo Rise of Kunark.

Is it only me or does this thing just looks like a floating male sex cell with teeth?

I wonder what's next, an evil gastic juice monster? Maybe the story of EQ II is they are in reality living inside a human body and they are trying to fight off all the evil diseases the person they live in has.

Halloween has begun!

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 12:51:10 EDT

In the many lands of MMOs. World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy XI, Maple Story, Guild Wars, City of Heroes, Tabula Rasa, and many other games are having Halloween-like activities to give all you nerds something to do as you folks stay home and don't go to parties. Even Hellgate London is being released on this day. So everyone go join the festivities all over the many MMO lands to get some cool trinkets and things you can mess around with.

LINKS!

World of Warcraft

City of Heroes

Maplesory

Hellgate London

Final Fantasy XI

What the pic says #2

Thu, 18 Oct 2007 13:00:18 EDT

Click on the pic to find out how.

Book 11: LoL LoTRO Lore is coming soon.

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 17:49:18 EDT

Turbine has just officially announced that the next content update for Lord of the Rings Online will be coming in October! Hopefully they are talking about this October which ends in about two weeks so... i guess this is coming out real soon right?

Some of the new content that Book 11: Defenders of Eriador will introduce is;

- Player housing!
I have never really cared for this but for some reason MMO players like to have it. I mean i also do stupid things like collecting pets and stuff but housing? There will be different styles of housing based on the four races in the game and you can further customize your crib with over 250 extra decorations!

- Month of the Lore-master/Minstrel.
The two classes will be reworked to try to iron out some of the weaknesses they currently have. With the adding New skills, new abilities, new pets, etc, etc.

And the biggest addition for the update!

-The Rift of Nûrz Ghâshu.
Better known as LoL LoTRO Lore. This is a new 12 man dungeon that brings in the infamous Balrog to Lord of the Rings Online, whether you like it or not Balrog Thaurlach is here to stay. Apparently he is in a "weakened state" which will sort of explain why a dozen folks can take out a thing of such power that one defeated one of the five wizards. In another moment of Lore LOL they are introducing the "Fire-Orcs" into this dungeon as well, they were specifically bred to have a different color orc in the game.

There are more exciting things included in this update so make sure to visit the Book 11 page to get all the info.

ELENDIEL!!

What the pic says!

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 15:56:48 EDT

You have to join Warcry then fill out a form.

Just hurry and get it done!

The Consumerist freaks out because EB was still taking pre-orders for Gods & Heroes.

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 15:23:10 EDT

The website that fights for the people, consumerist.com, was bugging out yesterday because the EB games website was still taking pre-orders for Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising a week after the makers announced that the game was put on "indefinite hold." The game is basically dead, it's vaporware.

The Consumerist thinks that, apparently, a week is too long to have left the pre-order page up on the website, that this was some sort of eeeeevil EB games tactic to steal your cash and get away it and gain profits? I don't really know what the beef is. It just looks like people going nuts over nothing. What most likely happened, I know because i worked in a Gamestop, was that either an employee or one of the "regulars" found out about the G & H cancellation and told a manager, the manager then wrote an e-mail to evil headquarters about the information they just received. This could've likely happened days after the official announcement by the way because... well people have lives, not everyone is on the spot freaking out 24/7. Headquarters then confirms the email and has to come up with an evil strategy to keep your cash by probably offering to move your credit to another game. Coming up with a plan takes a couple of days until all the evil headmasters agree and give the go-ahead. They then bleed this information to everyone and it eventually gets to the dude thats overseeing the site. He then has to contact the guys that work on the site and tell him about this change, but since he has to finish some other things take priority over this getting to this.... anyway the point is that stuff takes time to do.

One week isn't really news guys, one month is when you have permission to get angry and make a big hoopla. Specially when the news is about a small game that probably has few people keeping an eye on it. This isn't Halo or GTA for god's sake, this didn't cause a wave that sounded like millions of gamers cry at the same time . The information about the cancellation coming from the game website instead of a big press release also slows down the pickup of this. You shoppers need to learn when to bite back, you guys need some training there because you really missed the mark here, so stop it, SPLATZ! SPLATZ!!

RF Online is finally free to play.

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 13:32:56 EDT

Well... technically RF Online has been free to play for some time now but it wasn't really promoted. You had to go through the trial account to get into the game and you ended up with a full account, it was some sort of a weird trip you took and you ended up with the full game but it showed as a trial account. Anyway, Codemasters Online relaunched the game as a free-to-play MMO and now they offer everything you need on their website. All you have to provide is a computer with internet access and a lot of time to get into this game, no work around, no crazy stuff, just go to the site, install and get it cracking.

RF Online press release.

RF Online website.

WoW engineers get a special flying mount! Bring on the hate.

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 16:04:41 EDT

Just posted on the WoW general forum are videos of a flying mount that only Engineers can get. Check out the vids and get angry, because that's what most people are going to do.

Vid 1

Vid 2

Bioware in the early stages of development of an MMO.

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 12:06:46 EDT

EA just acquired Bioware and Pandemic Studios, (Darth Vader like) NOOOOOOOOO! In the press release a few extra bits of information were leaked that might be of more interest than the actual acquirement. One of those interesting bits was that Bioware the, US, kings of RPGs have decided to throw their gloves into the MMO ring. They have done excellent work with Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire, Neverwinter Nights, and are getting good praise from the upcoming Mass Effect. Though they are on the early stages and this acquisition might slow things a bit, does Bioware have the chance at creating the next MMO Juggernaut? and what scenario will they like to tackle?

Press release.

Bioware website.

Happy B day Dark Age of Camelot !

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 16:45:31 EDT

In this dark week for the MMO community, with Gods & Heroes being put in "indefinite hold" and the closing of Warhammer beta for two months, comes a little ray of light. Dark Age of Camelot Celebrated six years of age on October 10. While most people (and websites) have moved on to third generation MMOs we here at TotalMMO.com care about all MMOs. So from the crew of TotalMMO to everyone at DAOC, we would like to wish you a very happy birthday... that's a day late. And by crew i mean me.

DAOC is also celebration the occasion by offering bonuses to Exp and BP depending on server, and by having fireworks near border keeps at night.

Visit the DAOC game site.

And the community one as well.

Editorial- WoW players want WoW turned into Warcraft.

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 14:27:31 EDT

News about changes for leveling between 20 - 60 were announced a couple days ago and the response to these adjustments has been nothing gold. Almost everyone loves the changes for different reasons that for the most part answer some problem they have (the person) with the game but they forget to take into account that this is a MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ONLINE GAME. I know people are selfish and all but come on, have some compassion in the game world.

First of the 70s; They are glad that the leveling is going to be streamlined because this gives them the opportunity to level alts faster, which gives them the ability of an option when they are grinding those dungeons over, and over, and over. But they forget that there are other people playing the game will also fly through the early levels and don't the ability to get into guilds to grind for those instances at the later levels. So fast may be good for you but it's going to be bad for others.

For the full time job family man with kids; Sure now you might have a chance at getting you character pass the halfway point because you are going to be cruising faster through the levels since some areas will become soloable, but... what do you folks think it happens when you reach those top levels when you reach them? You guys have to read up on the pain the top levels become man. All those things you will be avoiding with the new patch come back at the top levels and slap you in the face hard. Some folks were posting that this change will let them stay with the game longer but in reality what this does is actually put a flag on spot you are going to stop playing the game. Once you hit this spot there are only two things left to do, you either try to find more time to complete these quests that require grouping, or start leveling another character that you are going to drop when you reach that limit.

Everyone needs to take into account that they are playing a game with other people when these changes are made. This changes affect the whole community and while it may seem good to you now the aftershocks of the real effects will eventually hit you. There this big thing about making everything soloable when this is an MMO, not saying force players into grouping but dont take every opportunity out from the game. Several areas loosing elite status and dungeons having a smaller level gap basically takes grouping away from the 20-60 level range. There should be a good amount of grouping quest and a good amount of solo stuff. Where are those soloable dungeons i was hearing about? Why not actually have two paths for leveling?

Anyway, since this is just preview announcement for upcoming changes posted on monday and we have no idea when its going to come out... I'm mostly talking out by butt. In all seriousness WOW is the most popular Korean MMO out there.

New karts added for Kartrider open beta.

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 17:41:58 EDT

Two new driving options have been added for all the racers in the Kartrider open beta, bringing in a little more diversity to the tactics you can develop for the different race modes.

The Solid C1 is kind of strange choice to bring into the game since durability doesn't play a part in any of the games modes. I have not seen any sort of health bar anywhere so i don't know how the kart can be used at the moment. Maybe it can play the role of a "blocker" for the item mode if "durability" means that you don't get bounced around when you get hit or hit some one.

These descriptions of the karts really don't say a lot about what they can do. I guess Marathon C1 has very good speed in straight-aways? Which means that the kart can be used as the "runner" for the item mode to build up distance, and it can possibly be useful for the speed mode since you spend most of the time sliding around curves, which slow your speed anyway, and boosting in straights.

Head over to the Kartrider website to try the open beta that's on right now and to find out more info about the game.

The greatest MMO to be already took down it's first victim.

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 15:39:09 EDT

Perpetual Entertainment just announced that one of their MMOs currently in production has been put "on indefinite hold." God & Heroes: Rome Rising has officially become vaporware. And what was one of the reasons given for such a change? Star Trek Online. That's right! The MMO that will become a global sensation just destroyed the first roadblock in its climb to the top of the MMO mountain to become The MMO Titan! Perpetual is shifting its focus to Stark Trek Online because the game demmands that attention, Stark Trek Online cannot be denied! Oh and apparently the cash flow stopped as well. This was probably the main reason.

The ripples of this Titan making his first steps into the vast MMO landscape have also been felt by other MMOs. Mythic just took down the Warhammer Online Beta Test as well, but the reason for this wasn't the same as the reason Gods & Heroes' Beta was taken down. According to a post made by Mark Jacobs in the F13 forum, the shutdown was just to look at the "data" they have compiled so far from the testing to "act on what we got." Did you guys catch the keyword there? No? The keyword was "Data." Much like in Star Trek Nemesis the Enterprise crew are sending over their android to spy on the enemy and possibly destroy them.

It's too early to tell but the MMO wars are heading up, and there is a lot of good competition heading to the main stage.

Gods & Heroes:Rome Rising obituary.

Changes to leveling in patch 2.3 for WOW.

Tue, 09 Oct 2007 17:00:20 EDT

Last night Nathaera (Blizzard poster) made a post previewing some of the changes that will be added in patch 2.3 for leveling in the Azeroth part of WOW. People have been asking for a while for a retuning of the leveling process to 60 and Blizzard finally decided to comply. On the board this has been met with a 99.9% accepted as a good change by… guess who? I’ll give you folks 25 seconds to come up with an answer. Actually it doesn’t take that long to figure out that people with level 65+ characters that are tired of that Outland grind and want to level an alt see this as a good change. But like all Blizzard changes it addresses some of the problems of the game while building new ones. When you really read what the changes are you’ll notice that in reality all they have done is put some training wheels on the way to 60 with little adjustment to the game experience.

Ok let’s start the breakdown of what was posted:

“The first notable change was to simply reduce the amount of experience needed each level by approximately 15% between levels 20 and 60.”

We start of on a sort of a good note? They cut down the time needed to get to the next level a bit. So far this is ok but doesn’t change anything at all for the actual process.

“Questing plays a very large role in World of Warcraft, especially while leveling and we felt that improvements to this front were necessary as well. Experience gained for completing quests (on average) between levels 30 and 60 is being increased. The increase becomes more substantial as you make your way towards 60”

Again, something really not that great, It’s good but its not great. Cutting down the time to level some more.

“Additionally, many outdoor elite mobs will become non-elites, making many quests which were previously too difficult or required a group much easier and offer the same rewards (in some cases better!). A good example of this change would be Stromgarde Keep in Arathi Highlands, which will become a solo friendly environment when patch 2.3 goes live.”

This reads good but in practice it might end up being bad.

Good:
Taking out elites solves the problem of being able to do the open area elite quests in old servers that have most of the population in outland and in empty servers.

Bad:
But when they remove the elite status to the mobs does it mean that they also remove the exp bonus they have as well? Because if they do they just slowed down that little kick you got when you ran those areas, but if they don’t lower the exp then this will end up as an ok change. We will have to wait and see what its really done.

“We've also added approximately 60 new quests in Dustwallow Marsh. This should help players who find themselves lacking quests in the 30-40 range.”

Good:
Finally using one of the many empty areas in Azeroth for something.

Bad:
This is mostly a PvP server problem; If this turn out to be a very good leveling area… welcome to STV part 2. People are going to end up spending more time fighting each other than leveling. In PvE it might be less of a commotion but it still going to have some troubles with people trying to grief and so on. If this turns into a bad leveling area then it will just be ignored.

“We're making other improvements to pre-bc leveling dungeons that players will likely find most agreeable. The level range for most every dungeon is being adjusted so that there is a much smaller range between the level of mobs found early in the dungeon to those found towards the end. For example, Shadowfang Keep is currently designed for levels 18-25 which means that right now, players who are towards the bottom of that range (18) will find it nearly impossible to complete the dungeon, while players towards the top of the range (25) will find most of the dungeon trivial. Using our new model (similar to what you'll notice with Burning Crusade leveling dungeons), Shadowfang Keep is being retuned for levels 18-21.”

Good:
More “casual” friendly.

Bad:
More “casual” friendly.

I don’t know man but running Shadowfang and Deadmines with a group of 18s is a kick ass experience. Of course you need a group of 18s that know what they are doing, but finishing these quests with characters on the lower end of the levels isn’t big trouble. The real “Bad” of lowering the level range is that you now you are going to run this instances only a couple of times before they become useless. And there were plenty of times that while I was questing I flew pass some levels before realizing that I needed to complete some dungeon quests. With this new change you could possibly completely miss some dungeons because of the short range.

“We also want to make running a leveling up dungeon more worth while. In addition to increasing quest experience for dungeon quests, we're also upgrading all pre-bc dungeon boss drops to blue quality items. Some examples are listed below:"

Good: more exp whoo…

Bad: wait… item levels!

So we get more exp which… makes you level a bit faster, again, but this brings the question of items. If they lower the level requirement for the dungeons that means that they are going to have to lower the levels for the drops correct? Cant say because they don’t say, they just provide some info with no context.

All in all I think they didn’t really do that much, the real problem people have with leveling in WOW to 60 is that since this is one of the easiest MMO to level in players head for, of course, path of least resistance. Players end up running the same trip over and over again when they get another character going. In reality People are tired of going through that same path to 60 instead of the time it takes to get to 60. Opening one area is a good start on building a new path to take but you need to follow up and open more. Keep people entertained instead through the trip instead of trying to push them out to Outland faster.

My prediction on this is that about 75% of the people that restart leveling that alt are just going to give up after not actually noticing the "new speed" of leveling.

Here is a link to the post.