All Posts by Szark

Auran Games has announced the full breakdown of the $25,000 in prizes that are available to be won in Fury League.

Auran Games, creators of the new free to play skill-based online competition “Fury League” (www.FuryLeague.com), today announced the breakdown of the $25,000 in cash prizes that will be won over the next few weeks.

“We have established Fury League to be more like a sport than a traditional computer game,” said Tony Hilliam, Auran CEO. “We want to encourage friendly rivalry and competition between players on a weekly basis rather than opting for larger more infrequent prizes that reward only the top few players. Fury League will offer Ladders with prizes every single week and to kick things off we are starting with two Cash Ladders with 1,000 individual prizes per Ladder.”

“We have created 10 prize brackets ensuring players at every skill level have a great chance of winning a prize,” said Cameron McNeil, Fury Lead Designer. “It is also a great incentive to play a little more to get into a higher prize bracket. The prizes range from $250 for the 8 winners in the top bracket, down to $5 for the 288 winners in the 10th bracket. I don’t know of any other totally free to enter competition that has offered this many cash prizes, and we are looking forward to seeing thousands of players in game in the coming weeks.”

“Even a player in 70th place will earn $25 cash,” said Hilliam, “Chances are if he came 70th in the first week, he could repeat that performance and win another $25 the next week. Of course just like my weekly Saturday golf game, it’s not really the money that counts, but rather the bragging rights amongst your mates that is more important.”

Entry into the special Fury League “Cash Ladders” is totally free and conditions of entry can be found at www.FuryLeague.com. The first Cash Ladder will kick off May 20 with players competing in 8 v 8 team Vortex. The second will begin on May 27 with players competing in the 4 v 4 Elimination game type.

A minimum of 2,000 players completing at least 10 games each prior to the commencement of the first Ladder period is required to justify the prize pool. Insufficient entries will result in either postponement or cancellation of the Ladders. Players can create their free account or log on to their old Fury account before May 20 to ensure a good level of competition for the cash prizes.

All players begin with all abilities and 10,000 Fury Gold to spend on the armor of their choice, so it is a level playing field from the very start.

Read more here.

A call to arms has gone out with the announcement that the open beta test for Requiem: Bloodymare begins today, May 15th.

The World of Ethergia beckons to worthy Temperions to challenge the horrors that walk Ethergia’s lands. An opportunity to take up this challenge is coming on May 15, 2008.

We will begin our Open Beta test on May 15, 2008 at 7pm PDT. This Open Beta test session will be open to all currently registered accounts as well as all the new Temperions that decide to join us.

All accounts and characters will be reset prior to this test session and will be placed in a new starting zone called Truba Island.

The new Requiem game client, which is available on our Client Download Section, is necessary to play during the Open Beta test.

Please note that this is still part of the beta testing process, and as such, does not fully represent the final product. Players who participate during this period may experience some lag or connection issues as we work to fine-tune and optimize our server capacity.

If you have questions, comments or wish to stay updated on the progress of the Beta Test please Register for news and notifications or check our Forums.

Read more here.

In advance of the Eden edition of Angels Online, IGG will be holding a Mysterious Exploration Event where players can explore a place called the Mysterious Area to seek out a wealth of treasures.

In order to celebrate the release of the new edition, Eden, Angels Online Team will be holding a Mysterious Exploration event so players can win abundant rewards.

Production system players can collect rare materials after entering the Mysterious Area, while Fighting System players can obtain more experience and in-game coins after defeating the mysterious monsters. In addition, superior weapons await you!

Event Details:

1. During the event, Angels can obtain a [Dawn Area Ticket], which is required to join the event, by buying any [Riddle City Lucky Bag] or [Dawn Lucky Bag].
2. Angels can go to find the new NPC [Assoc. Scholar] in Angel Lyceum with the [Dawn Area Ticket].

Read more here.

Players of Zu Online gathered together recently for an in-game prayer session to mourn the victims, and pray for those who are still missing, from Moday's devastating Earthquake in China’s Sichuan Province.

This week, a devastating earthquake hit southwest China’s Sichuan Province. The death toll continues to rise with over 12000 confirmed dead and almost 10000 people thought to be still trapped in the rubble.

As a show of support for those victims of this disaster, players in Zu Online spontaneously came together to mourn the deceased and extend prayers to their families and those still fighting to survive. You can watch a video of this special event here.

Read more here.

The folks at IGG have prepared a look at what goes into crafting furniture in Wonderland Online's Tent System.

The Wonderland Online team is going to take a look at how furniture is made through its tent system:

1. Storeroom.
It is made with a Stone Knife and has 50 inventory slots. Each tent can only have one Storeroom to enlarge its storage space.

2. Wardrobe
It is made with a Bench Saw and has 5 inventory slots. Each tent can hold a maximum of 10 Wardrobes. Drag an item into the wardrobe with the left mouse button. Right click to take items out.

3. Bookcase and Desk
They are made with a Bench Saw and are used to save furniture design drawings. Inventory space will not be taken up by these design drawings, if you possess one of them.

4. Kitchen Range
It is made with a Low-Temperature Kiln and used for cooking. You can cook something to increase your HP or SP by using materials obtained through fishing or killing monsters, or to trade with other players.

Read more here.

On Monday, Sichuan province in the South East of China was hit by a powerful earthquake which has killed over 12,000 people.  Gamers around the world have been helping out by making donations, sharing stories and pictures, or by simply vocalizing their support.  The folks at Peonix Dynasty Online have called our attention to just one example of gamers speaking up.

A 7.8 magnitude on the Richter's scale earthquake hit South East China in Sichuan province on Monday, May 12. The earthquake was felt as far away as Beijing and Shanghai, where office buildings swayed with the tremor, Pakistan, Thailand, and Vietnam. It killed more than 12,000 people and more are reported missing. This news shocked not only us Chinese but also people throughout the world.

A post was created in the forum of Phoenix Dynasty Online and to it tells about the sad news, which infected lots of players. They all replied the post with white flowers to express their deep sorrow and kind wish over this disaster. Soon this post was forwarded to other game forum like Legend of Golden Plume and get strong response as well.

In game players also express their condolences. The whole server of Phoenix Dynasty Online observed one minute of silence to mourn over the deaths. The blessings overseas bring us to the understanding that we are not alone in this devastating disaster.

Now troops have arrived in Wenchuan County at the epicenter, which was largely cut off by the quake. And heavy rain, which has hampered rescue operations for two days, come to an end. The massive search and rescue operation is under way. We thank all of the players who participated this and hope everything will be fine soon.

Read more here.

GameTribe has announced that their next content expansion for infinity online will open up Dorosi as a playable character as well as adding several other goodies.

Great news for all Infinity fans. The wrath rumbles!

The powerful Dorosi is awake. This mechanical colossus will be available to play to ravage the maps with his powerful strikes. Dorosi is not very agile but has an unmatched power among the Infinity characters. Naturally quiet, he quickly becomes ruthless if you wake up his anger!

Aside the long awaited coming of Dorosi as a playable character, new items will be added to the game:

• Awakening of Anger: this powerful potion awakes the stun/mezzed character and damages your enemies with area of effect strike.
• Essence of Gold: to increase the Luna coins looted by 50%

This new contents will be added to the game on May 21th Discover action, Play Infinity Online!

Read more here.

EverQuest designer Keith “Merloc” Turkowski has posted a behind the scenes look at the design process in the EQ Dev Blog, where he shares a picture of his white board and explains some ideas that didn't make it into the game.

In the upper left is a cubic representation of the different elements used to create power sources. I wrote some background lore that never actually made it into the game, but I’ll share here:

The Combine Alchemists fuse magic, science, and engineering together to achieve technological advancements.

The efforts of these alchemists have born much fruit over the centuries, teleportation, advanced construction techniques, and powerful magics (to name just a few).

Infused Armor is the most recent Combine achievement, and is a testimony to their continuing advancement. By understanding the 9 fundamental (known) elements of life: Water, Light, Shadow, Growth, Decay, Ice, Fire, Earth, and Air, the Combine are able to isolate the pure energy component. This energy, extracted by magic and concentrated by science, can be used to imbue carefully engineered armor with particular properties.

Read more here.

NCsoft has released their financial results for the first quarter of 2008.  They report $84.3 million (US) in sales, and a net profit of  $7.7 million (US), but there was no mention of Tabula Rasa and the game's influence on these figures.

SEOUL, South Korea, May 15, 2008—NCsoft® Corporation (KSE: 036570.KS) today announced financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2008. On a consolidated basis, sales came to KRW (Korean Won) 88.1 billion (US $84.3 million), operating income of KRW 19.7 billion (US $18.9 million), and net profit of KRW 8.1 billion (US $7.7 million). Operating profit showed significant improvements quarter over quarter (63%) and year over year (16%).

Popularity of the Lineage® series in Asia, sustained sales of Guild Wars® and City of Heroes® in North America and Europe, and a decrease in expenses such as advertising and other variable sales costs were some of the primary reasons for the increase in operating income. Of note in Q1 2008, Lineage II reached record-high sales since its 2003 release.

In Q1 2008, NCsoft decided to take a one time write-off expense for the advanced development costs associated with the Spacetime Studios project, after determining the project did not fit into the company’s core development plan. That left a net profit decrease of 22% quarter over quarter and 43% year over year. However, excluding the write-off expenses, net profit would be KRW 15.2 billion (US $14.5 million) an increase of 48% quarter over quarter and 8% from the same quarter last year.

Read more here.

SOE has announced that qualifying rounds for for the Legends of Norrath Championships will be held this weekend on 17th and 18th.

Gen Con Indy is getting closer so now's the time to win a place in the Legends of Norrath Championships this August! Participants can compete in this two-day event for $5,000 USD in prizes, a paid trip to Gen Con to compete against the best Legends of Norrath players, and for the winner's likeness to be portrayed on an upcoming Legends of Norrath card! Visit the Legends of Norrath at Gen Con page for details!

Day One of the May Legends of Norrath Championship Qualifier consists of one or more heats (scheduled to start at 10:00am PDT) that will be Match Play (2 of 3) Swiss tournaments. The top 16 participating players from Day One will advance to Day Two for a shot at the monthly title. Day Two will be a single tournament that features the top 16 participating players from Day One in a Match Play (2 of 3) Swiss tournament. At the end of four rounds of play, the top two participating players will face off in a single, winner-take-all Match Play (2 of 3) game to determine the qualifier champion!

Read more here.

The folks at Dark Age of Camelot have prepared a guide to help players see the new content of the Ghost Keep.

Since the debut of the new Event on Monday, we’ve seen a flurry of activity as the realms battle over control of the Ghost Keep. Each cluster has seen the ghost keep actively summoned six times or more since the premiere. To help out those who haven’t gotten to check out the new content, we’ve decided to go ahead and put out a quick primer on how the event works and how you can aid your realm in securing the Ghost Keep!

The premise is simple. The realms race to complete ‘Supply’ quests that will allow the ‘Ancient’ NPCs enough power to begin a summoning process that will bring forth the spectral essence of a former Keep Lord for each realm (Lord Berkstead the First for Albion, Jarl Nottmoor for Midgard, and Chieftess Crimthainn for Hibernia.) Unless noted otherwise, the quests described below are available for levels 45-50.

Read more here.

CCP has announced that they will be testing Empyrean Age, the next expansion for EVE Online, on Singularity on Saturday May 24th.

Empyrean Age testing on Singularity next Saturday, 24 May, at 19.00 GMT

Come one, come all, and all that junk. Next Saturday, 24 May, at 19.00 GMT we're going to be convening on our test server, Singularity, for a bit of playtesting, and you - yes, YOU, lucky and valued reader - are invited to come along.

The plan is to have the bulk of the features for our summer expansion, Empyrean Age, up and running on Singularity this week, and the playtesting will be focusing on all the mechanisms involved in Factional Warfare, which is the main feature of the expansion.

We're hoping to get a good number of people online so that we can give everything a good thrashing and see how it all fits together in practice.

Read more here.

The folks at SOE have published a new piece of fiction which delves into the lore of EverQuest II.

Kruzz dumped the bucket of viscera into the bubbling cauldron, watching as the long coil of an intestine floated to the surface and was tossed around by the bubbling of the stew. He snickered to himself slightly, and then turned, colliding with Ttzork, the head cook of Grobb. He rebounded off the mound of her belly and landed back against the cast iron of the pot, wincing as it singed his skin. His hand immediately went to the item at his neck – a dried monkey tail, harvested when the animal ran in front of him and was crushed by a falling boulder. He'd always regarded it as the luckiest moment of his life, and had refused to part with the charm since.

"Why don't you watch where yer goin, worm," she said to him, sneering. The other cooks all paused to peer over their cook pots or carving knives and snicker at the confrontation.

Kruzz wrung his hands and turned away, muttering, "Be a bit easier if you didn't take up quite so much space."

There was a moment of silence as all the cooks exchanged anticipatory glances, and then Kruzz felt a vicious hook knock him straight up into the air. His rise up was followed by a quick plummet into the very bubbling pot of water he had dumped the viscera in only moments before. He screamed in pain and scrambled toward the nearest rim of the pot, where Ttzork was waiting. "Are you saying it was my fault?" she roared. "Trying to pass it off on me, eh?" She shoved him down deep into the water, and the heat of it made his skin rise and pop in bubbles. He flailed in the water, struggling against letting the pain overwhelm him as he attempted to beat at her hands. Finally, she pulled him out and threw him to the ground. Every inch of him stung as dirt and grass stuck to the skin of his burns, and he wheezed in and out as she stalked up to him.

Read more here.

SOE has announced that episode #35 of the official SOE Podcast is now live.

Official SOE Podcast #35 is live!!! Hear from Linda "Brasse" Carlson from thebrasse.com, we also would like to re-release our interview with Laralyn McWilliams from the Free Realms team. We chat about our ION Conference trip and EQII's Update 45. Jason Ryan's news gives us all of the info from many of the SOE titles unfortunately this Podcast some of the info is a tad out dated…! Ashlanne loses her gamer card, so stick to the forums to find out how you can help her get it back.

Be sure to tune in! You can get your Podcast goodness two different ways head over to the Podcast's official site, and click on your preferred bandwidth or if you have iTunes installed select iTunes store, type SOE into the search box and click Subscribe! Your feedback is always welcome either on the Station forums or via email to Brenlo@soe.sony.com!

Read more here.

Cryptic Studios has posted an internal interview with Michael Henry, Champions Online's Audio Manager.

Two weeks of guys named Michael – learn more about Michael Henry, audio manager for Champions Online!

Q: What do you do on Champions Online?
A: I am the audio lead on the project. My audio partner-in-crime Joe Lyford and I are responsible for all of the sounds in the game.

Q: How long have you been in the gaming industry, and what did you do before working on Champions Online?
A: I've been working with games for 12 years. (Has it really been that long?) Prior to that, I spent about 10 years working for a company in Chicago that was involved in commercial music production for TV, radio and film.

One day I was contacted by a headhunter looking to fill a composer/sound designer position at Viacom New Media, and I thought: "Why not? This would be a great way to marry my interests in audio, music and technology." So I made the leap, and I've never regretted it.

Read more here.

Funcom has announced that more than one million people have signed up for the Age of Conan beta and that there have been over five million visitors to the Age of Conan official site.

And more than 5 million unique visitors to the official Age of Conan website in 2008.

Funcom and Eidos are proud to confirm some of the impressive figures powering the Age of Conan launch, and the two companies are happy to reveal that the Age of Conan Beta has passed 1 million sign-ups! As one of the most anticipated MMO’s ever, the 1 million mark confirms the amazing interest in the game.

“Funcom has not been able to find any higher beta numbers for MMOs in the western world,” said Morten Larssen, VP of Funcom Sales and Marketing. “We believe it represents the largest ever beta sign-up figure in the history of the genre.”

In addition to the incredible beta numbers, Funcom confirms that almost 800.000 gamers have signed up for the Clan of Conan newsletter. The hundreds of thousands following the development of the game have moreover resulted in a rapidly growing forum community. Last week Funcom registered over 115.000 posts on the official forums, across four languages. This comes in addition to Age of Conan discussions on external forums and in other languages.

Read more here.

The Lord of the Rings Online Lorebook has been updated with .a look at Flosi, a helpful Dwarf who offers a few quests in Thorin's Gate.

When Thráin, father of the great Thorin Oakenshield, led his people out of exile in Dunland to the Blue Mountains upon the western shores of Middle-earth, he hoped to find some part of the great wealth lost beneath the ruined stone of the dwarves’ ancient kingdoms. Instead, he found iron . . . lots of iron. Durin’s Folk maintained a form of wealth in Thorin’s Hall, but it did not begin to rival that which they lost to Smaug the Golden in the Lonely Mountain.

Some few dwarves believed that precious metals might still be found in the Blue Mountains, though none had been uncovered in the years since the settling of Thorin’s Hall. Among these was Flosi. The old prospector spent many of his long years seeking gold and silver in the mountains of his home, but to no avail. As soon as he found ore that he thought might lead to a vein of gold, though, he lost his tools in the mines of the Winterheight.

Read more here.

SOE has posted a preview of Game Update 45 for EverQuest II, which sees a pestilence spreading across the land.

There's something going on at the Temple of Life in Qeynos and there's a blight that's spreading through some of the major cities! If you're of good alignment, seek to help those afflicted folks and travel to the Temple of Life to see if you can unravel this mystery!

If you're of an evil alignment, there's a fellow in Gorowyn that follows the Plaguebringer that may be able to explain what's going on. Take note too, with game Update 45, the present event ingame (the Shard of Hate event) shall come to a conclusion. If you're taking part in curing the hate or spreading the hate, please be sure to wrap up those quests while you have time!

Read more here.

Blizzard has announced details of BlizzCon 2008, which will be held at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California on October 10th and 11th.

IRVINE, Calif. – May 12, 2008 – – Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today announced plans for its third BlizzCon™ gaming convention, to be held at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California on October 10 and 11. BlizzCon is a celebration of the global player communities surrounding Blizzard Entertainment^®'s Warcraft^®, StarCraft^®, and Diablo^® franchises. In response to the demand to accommodate more attendees, this year's event has expanded from two convention halls to three.

"Whenever we've been able to meet and interact with Blizzard gamers from around the world, it's been a great experience for us," stated Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. "We're looking forward to seeing even more of our players at this year's BlizzCon and delivering another entertaining and informative event for them."

BlizzCon will offer a wide variety of activities to help all attendees get the most out of the two-day event. In addition to serving as a gathering place for the different Blizzard Entertainment gaming communities, attendees will be able to enjoy:

• Hands-on play time with upcoming Blizzard Entertainment releases
• Discussion panels with Blizzard Entertainment developers
• Competitive and casual tournaments for players to showcase their talents
• Areas and activities devoted to licensed products such as the World of Warcraft® Trading Card Game
• Costume, machinima, and character sound-alike contests with great prizes
• Commemorative merchandise based on the Blizzard Entertainment franchises
• A silent auction
• More exciting activities to be announced

Read more here.

On Friday, NCsoft posted their regular Feedback Friday feature with an update on the Sniper and a look at Level Command on the public test server.

Sniper Update with Designer Lee Ridout

I wanted to take a moment and talk about Snipers. Some players have found an effective way to play a sniper, by using a chaingun and Shredder Ammo instead of a Torque Shell Rifle (TSR). Shredder Ammo has disproportionately benefited chainguns as it affects every round fired and CGs fire more than 2 times a second. This is the way it has been since before launch. It wasn’t the original intention for snipers to be arguably the best chaingunners in the game, but we are fans of emergent gameplay and don’t want to take this play-style away from those that have grown to love it. Our goal for snipers is that they should be powerful single target killers whether using chainguns, TSRs, or whatever else they find effective. The choice belongs to the player. We wanted to add value to this choice though, and under the current system the value just isn’t there. Currently you can spend a single point in Shredder and gain the benefit of a skill that far exceeds what logic should dictate its power should be. We are correcting this without removing the fun that can be had from combining Shredder Ammo and Chainguns. And for all the TSR users, we also wanted to keep value in this skill for you, but potentially make it more accessible.

In the last patch, Shredder Ammo’s affects were increased greatly in a global buff to abi