All Posts by Stradden

October 4th-5th in Amsterdam, FINAL FANTASY XI was demonstrated at the X05 event held by Microsoft. Several new areas included in the forthcoming expansion pack announced at TGS 2005, "Treasures of Aht Urhgan", were shown. It was the first opportunity to see FFXI on Xbox 360™ connecting to one of the actual worlds currently in service. The development of the Xbox 360 version of FFXI is in its final stages meaning that it is already possible to connect to actual worlds with other players from the Windows or PlayStation 2 versions! Further optimization remains to be done, so you can expect to see Beta test information announced in the near future!

During the beta test period, all beta testers using Xbox 360 will connect to the dedicated beta worlds. Existing worlds will be available for Xbox 360 users when the beta test is complete.

The Xbox 360 consoles which were used to connect to the public server were fitted with USB keyboards. Using the combination of its controller and the additional keyboard, FFXI handled like a dream!

First, your friends in the CS pit would like to make sure everyone saw this note:

"All sub-class abilities have been removed and points refunded back to players due to a bug in the sub-class ability selection process which allowed players to attain abilities beyond the design of sub-class limitations. Players may repurchase sub-class abilities at the base trainers, and abilities will now be given in accordance with the design of the sub-class system. Previously, players were able to purchase sub-class abilities from one class trainer, up to level 3, and then go to different class trainer and purchase sub-class abilities beginning at level 4, allowing them to skip levels 1 - 3 at that particular class trainer. This has been fixed."

It means exactly what it says. No one was nerfed, no one lost points, and the system works exactly the way the documentation says it's supposed to work. The ability to go from level 3 in one line to level 4 in a completely different line was a bug, and we appreciate all those who brought our attention to the problem.

Second - if you were at the Vegas Roundtable, and you did not get your gargoyle, you need to email roundtable AT mythicentertainment DOT com. We have given gargoyles to all but a small list of our attendees. There was a short list of names that were mispelled or mistyped or something fruity. Use that email address, be sure to give us your account name, and we'll check it against our records. Then we'll get that gargoyle into your inventory where it belongs.

A very, very few people are running into a problem - there's a cap on the number of abilities that one character can have at the moment. Any abilities: realm, champion, ML. This cap was set years ago, and the people getting new abilities (people who already have lots of them) might be hitting that ceiling in the near future.

We are going to fix this, obviously. But it's going to take a few days, and then we'll need to take down the servers to tag every character with the new cap.

If you're one of the rare ones near the cap, and you add a new ability, it may not show up on your character sheet. But if you were to try and buy it again, the game would tell you that you already have it. Please do not be worried, and please do not appeal. Just watch the Herald for the announcement of downtime, and once we run the fix, the ability will simply appear.

Steadfastly approaching their first anniversary, PIE was formed during the Guild Wars World Preview Event. The guild was founded by, and is composed of, a group of friends who know each other both from online games and from friendships in the outside world. With their arrival into Guild Wars, the group set about making a guild of their own and creating a name for themselves. The distinctive name of their guild traces its origins back to an inside joke from a previous gaming community, the essence of which was preserved and became the moniker under which the group united.

As a guild, PIE focuses on maintaining a tight-knit group, rather than expanding indiscriminately. They believe that by ensuring that every member can be called a friend, the guild can grow into a healthy community unto itself. It should be noted, however, that those who prefer cake over pie need not apply.

Have you ever leveled to ten so fast you were certain you set some type of record? At BlizzCon, you'll have an opportunity to test your elite leveling skills by competing against others in the World of Warcraft Leveling contest, sponsored by Intel. Just stop by the Intel booth for details on how to enter this contest and show off your elite leveling skills! Prizes include an Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor Extreme Edition supporting Hyper-Threading Technology and more!

When you go clubbing, is everyone in awe of your Trollish Capoeira or... "unique" Gnomish style? Well, we want to see you strut your stuff at BlizzCon! Show us your smooth dance moves taken from any dance in World of Warcraft. Five lucky winners will receive an Ideazon Z-Board with the World of Warcraft keyset and Zalman 5.1 surround sound headphones! Haul out that full-length mirror -- there's not much time to polish your performance before the show!

NCsoft’s City of Villains Goes Gold

Stand-alone sequel to City of Heroes to be on retail shelves Oct. 31 with two-day head start for pre-order customers

AUSTIN, Texas, Oct. 18, 2005—NCsoft® North America announces that City of Villains™ has reached gold master status and will appear on retailers’ shelves in North America at the end of the month. NCsoft also confirmed that customers who purchased and registered their City of Villains pre-order boxes will receive a two-day head start for game play.

City of Villains, a stand-alone sequel to last year’s hit, City of Heroes®, is expected to be released on Oct. 31, with a subscription price of $14.99 per month. The two-day head start will begin after 12 a.m. EST on Oct. 29. Purchasers of the City of Villains pre-order box, which is currently available at retailers across North America, have been invited into the City of Villains beta test and may participate in the head-start.

Existing City of Heroes’ customers can purchase City of Villains and subscribe to both games for the single subscription price of $14.99. Both games were developed by Cryptic Studios™.

“City of Heroes was a big hit for NCsoft last year and our retail partners anticipate City of Villains to be one of the top PC games of the holiday season,” said Robert Garriott, CEO of NCsoft North America. “I also know that our customers are happy about our single subscription rate for both games, which makes it a tremendous value as well.”

In City of Villains, players will be able to take on villainous personas, customizing villain costumes and building bases for their super-powered groups. Additionally, the game has a variety of graphical and technological improvements and provides players a huge set of criminal missions and events within the Rogue Isles™. City of Villains will also include the ability to fight against player controlled heroes and villains within special designated zones.

City of Villains will hit retail shelves with an anticipated price of $49.99 for its standard edition and $79.99 for the feature-packed collector’s DVD edition.

For more information about City of Villains, go to: www.cityofvillains.com.

When the decorations of Hallow's End light up Azeroth's cities, you know there's mischief afoot! Seek special vendors in Orgrimmar or Ironforge and get your hands on treats! Aid a sick orphan in a little trick-or-treating! Deathcaller Yanka, attending the Forsaken's Wickerman Festival, and Sergeant Hartman of Southshore are seeking your aid in keeping the enemy out of their holiday affairs -- are you up to the challenge?

This new gameplay trailer features a group of adventurers exploring the long forgotten city of Zul'Gurub. What ancient, unspeakable evil awaits our heroes as they move deeper and deeper into the trolls' cursed sanctuary? Download the trailer and see for yourself...

Attention Players,

We would like to announce the upcoming release of the Einbroch. The new content will be implemented on the Chaos, Loki, and Iris servers during our scheduled maintenance on October 18, 2005.

For more information about this update please view our Updates section.

The Einbroch patch is now available on our downloads Section. The downloads section may be accessed by following the downloads link from our websites main menu. All players are encouraged to download and install this patch prior to logging in after our scheduled maintenance to avoid possible delays in updating their clients.

We hope all our players enjoy the newly implemented content.

iRO GM Team

Gravity Interactive, LLC.

We here at MMO Center are extremely thrilled to announce the official closed beta signups for our first title, The Chronicle. Though all of our pre-order customers thus far have been guaranteed slots in the test, we have decided to give everyone else the opportunity to join them in a random lottery style selection of all applicants. These closed beta accounts will not role over to live. If you’re interested in helping us improve The Chronicle and get it ready for the massive open beta test we have planned, then be sure to register in our forums at www.mmocenter.com/forum and submit your information to our closed beta signup site at www.mmocenter.com/closedbeta/ . Closed Beta is going to include a lot of people, but don’t wait too long to sign up; registration ends October 27th, 2005!

BlizzCon is about more than just the games. It's also about the hardware, accessories, and gaming lifestyle. The exhibitors we've partnered with for BlizzCon will be there to celebrate all aspects of gaming culture. Exhibitors ranging from NVIDIA to Intel to Games for Windows and more will be on hand with their latest gaming products. Come to their booths to see hands-on demonstrations, win prizes and promotions, and purchase their products at the show. Click here to view the full exhibitor list.

In order to ensure that World of Warcraft players enjoy an optimal gaming experience during peak hours, we're opening realm-to-realm character transfers for the realms listed below. These transfers will help bring the overall concurrency of these realms down to a level that not only improves performance and stability, but also alleviates queues. Please note that we constantly monitor realm populations. If other realms begin to experience long queues or other issues caused by overpopulation, we will address them accordingly.

• Warsong to Gurubashi
• Skullcrusher to Smolderthorn
• Blackrock to Frostwolf

The realm transfers listed above will open on Thursday, October 20 at 3:00 AM and will be open daily from 3:00 AM to 3:00 PM until October 27. We thank you for your patience in dealing with the high population realms and wish you luck on your adventures in Azeroth!

Pumpkin-Carving Contest!

October's longstanding tradition is upon us! Every year, Blizzard encourages legions of gamers to attack countless pumpkins with sharp utensils in the name of art, and this year is no exception. Take inspiration from any Blizzard game you like and carve your pumpkin in the theme of that game.

Halloween Screenshot Contest!

All Hallow's Eve is almost upon us, and the inhabitants of Azeroth are reveling in their own frightful festivities! It's time to polish the lens of your Super Snapper FX and capture those monstrous moments.

Winners of both contests will receive:

• One Copy of World of Warcraft
• A six month subscription of "game time" to the World of Warcraft gaming service applied to the World of Warcraft account of their choosing.

REINVENTING PUBLIC DIPLOMACY THROUGH GAMES

Announcing a competition to design, conceive, and build a game or game prototype that employs the principles of public diplomacy. How can video games improve public diplomacy?

The USC Center on Public Diplomacy is looking for people to showcase their talent with a bit of world class game-making. The challenge to the game mod community, and current and aspiring game designers is as follows: design a prototype or modify a game incorporating the fundamental characteristics of public diplomacy.

What comes to mind when you think of diplomacy? Some ideas include cross-cultural communication, conflict negotiation, shared goals, and international exchange of knowledge. For more on our definition of public diplomacy, please visit our website.

Now incorporate that into a game or virtual world. How? That's for you to decide.

Interested applicants should subscribe to the contest mailing list for updates on the competition, deadline dates, etc.

The following must be postmarked on or before March 1, 2006:

• Title of entry
• Game prototype, modified game and/or short film giving a tour of the space (MPG, MPEG, MOV or AVI)
• Description of your public space and why it promotes public diplomacy
• Legal name and address # Contact information (physical mail address, email and phone number)

E-mail entries to: cpd@usc.edu

Subject line: PD Virtual Worlds Competition

Entries should be mailed to: USC Center on Public Diplomacy Attn: PD Virtual Worlds Competition 3502 Watt Way, Suite 103 Los Angeles, California 90089-0281

PRIZES:

1st Place Prize: $5,000 + airfare and hotel to the May 8, 2006 awards ceremony in Los Angeles, California; Private dinner and screening with world class judges including John Seely Brown, Bing Gordon, T.L. Taylor, and Cory Ondrejka, among other industry leaders.

Finalists: Airfare and hotel to the May 8, 2006 awards ceremony in Los Angeles, California; Private dinner and screening with world class judges including John Seely Brown, Bing Gordon, T.L. Taylor, and Cory Ondrejka, among other industry leaders.

November 2005, the first pionners will tread upon the land of Ganareth, choose their character, their Dark or Light alignment, and begin the reconquest of territories in Ganareth… You will be the first conquerors to reclaim Ganareth, also you will be the first to build the fortresses, and the first to obtain the titles of nobility...

8881, The settlers of Ganareth, the prelude of the great epic that is Dark and Light begins!

This Dark and Light prelude will be free to access. Also a limited number of Dark and Light game keys will be available from November via pre-ordering, and this will give access to an inevitable pack of features. Keep your eyes open, Dark and Light, the genesis, is on its way!

Settlers of Ganareth – November 2005

Dark and Light – April 2006

Al Drifa is still standing and thriving despite the conflicts. Men and women can live there in safety. This harbour is the last stronghold of civilization, the arts and literature… Kingdoms have been taken, but not the hearts of the free peoples. There is a rumour in the air, carried by birds in their flight, by insects in their chirring: Immortals have been seen in many places, bringing Dragons down with outstanding easiness. The rumour swells. Men and women come back, and with them, the teachings from the gods themselves, as the secret experiments taking place in the Zone finally give some result.

People discover magic and hope once again: with the help of gods, they can defeat Dragoon and his minions.

Everybody now feels war is coming to an end; Dragons may even be pushed back out of the first kingdoms that people will soon retake. But an even greater peril looms at the horizon… An invisible, unexpected threat: the people themselves. Today divided, tomorrow torn apart, with nothing to stop their will of power and conquest once their fears have vanished. Competition has started in advance, a vicious spiral in which all want to enforce their own vision of magic and the world. Not really Dark or Light yet, these people are seeking their new identity as the War draws its last breath.

The year is 8881 and soon, a new age will come. The will of the Dragons are getting weaker, while the peoples grow stronger.

• You will learn the teachings and kill Dragoon.
• You will recapture the territories and bring civilization back to them.
• You will choose to belong to the Dark or Light.
• You will rebuild an economic system after 8000 years of strife that has uterly destroyed it to the ground.

Only the bravest will be tomorrow’s legends and brand their name upon the history book of the world. If you are lucky enough to be a part of these first fighters, you can set the future of Ganareth...

MEN AND WOMEN WANTED for Perilous Duty. Unpaid, harrowing delays, long months of grueling work, chance of setbacks extreme. Glory and fame upon success. – Qeirias Noll, Ill Omen part 2

We are pleased to announce that The Chronicles of Spellborn has opened up International Closed Beta Test applications. The application can be reached via our main site: www.tcos.com . We will be moving into the Beta testing with a limited number of applicants, and growing our testing base smoothly over time. In Q1 2006 we plan to hold a large-scale Open/Stress period in which the majority of applicants will be able to take part in testing. In the meantime, individuals not selected as beta participants can increase their chances (and help out the development team) by taking active part in our official www.tcos.com forums.