All Posts by Szark

EverQuest II players can now do many things more conveniently and quickly in-game with the edition of the new in-game web browser. In that spirit, the EQ2 official site offers up instructions on how to file a petition without leaving the game.

How to Check or Update an Active Petition

With the introduction of an in-game web browser to EQII, filing '/petitions' from within the game client not only became possible, it became convenient. Accessing the petition system no longer required a person to go outside of the game to take care of their petitions.

While the petition system will email updates about the state of a petition to the submitter, sometimes a person would like to check the status of their petition without waiting for the email. Fortunately, there is a way within the game client to not only check the status of your active petition, but also to update it and review prior petitions.

Just as the in-game web browser removed some of the tedious work related to filing petitions; the in-game browser provides a solution to checking on the status of your petitions - without having to leave the game!

Read the full article here.

The folks over at Flying Lab Software and Pirates of the Burning Sea have announced that they have an official IRC channel that allows fans to talk to each other.

As some of you know, we have an official IRC (chat) channel for Pirates of the Burning Sea. For those of you that don't, I'm here to tell you about it!

The IRC channel has been around since 2005, and has been steadily growing since then. It was originally fan created, however that fan (me!) became a lot more involved with the game, and so we made it official.

For those of you who are IRC savvy, the details are:

Server: irc.coldfront.net port 6667 (7778 for SSL)

Channel: #burningsea

For those who arent familiar with it, Cyxult (one of our newer channel regulars) has written a very good guide on how to set yourself up to enjoy this chatting phenomenon, which I include below.

See you there!

Read the instructions here.

The people over at Snail Games have sent out a press release for the most recent beta version of their game, Age of Armor. In the press release, they list three reasons for the beta, including asking players to help out with any poor translations they may find.

The current version of AoA is not the final version for commercialization. You can download the game now on our official web: http://www.aoaus.com/downloads/downloads.html. We have the following three purposes to release the current version:

• Firstly, we want to introduce our product--AoA to the entire world, hoping of letting the players get the idea of AoA and of experiencing what AoA provides.
• Secondly, we hope to receive the suggestions about AoA from players who have experienced the current beta. We want to know what the players expect for the game, and we also want to find out what the players' taste and interest are. That will give us a huge help in both bettering our product and keeping a right direction of further development.
• Thirdly, as Snail Game is a Chinese online game developer, we may have some problems in the translation. We hope all the players can give us a hand by providing the poor translations you will find out to GM.

We are looking forward to your reactions and we sincerely appreciate your patience and help.

As for the account, you can join our forum at bbs.aoaus.com to register for your account.

For more info on Age of Armor click here.

On June 15th, we reported the Revelations II, the most recent expansion for EVE Online would release on June 19th. True to their word, yesterday saw the expansion make its way smoothly onto the live server.

Though the premise for Revelations II is described as "the calm before the storm that unleashes the wrath of empires," there's definitely nothing serene about this latest free expansion for EVE Online. In addition to the great list of changes and fixes noted in the patch notes, there's also a breathtaking new video and a slick new Features page, complete with video clips of dev team members explaining some of the most exciting new additions to the game such as Anti-Fleet Warfare and Heat. The deployment went smoothly and more quickly than anticipated, allowing players to log in long before the estimated downtime had expired. With the enhanced New Player Experience, there's never been a better time to explore the world of EVE.

Read more on EVE Online here.

The folks over at Blizzard's hugely popular MMORPG, World of Warcraft, have announced that they have launched Patch 2.1.2.

The patch you've been waiting for, containing all new arena and honor rewards, is now live! Some other notable features of this patch include:

• The commencement of Arena Season 2
• New art for many raid-level items
• Various bug fixes and balance changes

As always, you can view the latest patch notes for the complete list of changes and additions.

Read more about WoW here.

AsianMedia announced today in a press release that they have launched a new Philippine server for Lineage II.

AsianMedia serves up great online gaming with Lineage II's Philippine servers

ASIAN MEDIA Development Group (AsianMedia®) jumps headlong into the big leagues with the much anticipated Triple-A online game, Lineage II™ on its new Philippine server.

AsianMedia® acquired distribution rights in South-East Asia for the medieval fantasy MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) from Korean gaming giant NCsoft®. With Lineage II™, regional gamers are finally getting what they have long been seeking - a challenging and immersive online game that delivers premium content.

As AsianMedia Chief Operating Officer, Ronald Allan Aquino comments, "Our extensive market research into local gaming behavior confirms that Pinoy gamers are ready, willing, and eager to experience a higher caliber of gaming content."

AsianMedia President, Felizardo de la Merced stated that "AsianMedia is committed to raising the bar for online games within the region by providing top-rate content with the IT infrastructure to back it up."

Building the foundation for great online gaming

AsianMedia has made substantial investments to house top-of-the-line gaming infrastructure for Lineage II in the Philippines, which will serve as the hub for the hundreds of thousands of gamers expected within the Southeast Asian region.

AsianMedia recently chose HP as its technology provider to ensure the highest satisfaction for Lineage II gamers in the Philippines, Singapore and Malaysia. HP will provide AsianMedia with an online gaming infrastructure solution consisting of ProLiant and BladeSystem servers, StorageWorks data and network storage solutions, networking products, and services.

Information and Communications Technology Head, Apol Salud points out that Lineage II will be the first MMORPG to use HP’s Blade Server in the Philippines. “HP blade servers will allow AsianMedia to provide virtually unlimited expansion for Lineage II in terms of capacity of gamers and game content, while minimizing the amount of downtime for maintenance and upgrades,” he says.

“The Lineage II servers are also tightly integrated with Telco grade network equipments from Cisco Systems to increase its efficiency in handling large amounts of data traffic,” continues Apol.

“This allows ‘direct peering’ with our partner telecommunication companies such as PLDT DSL, Globe DSL, Telekom Malaysia, and SingTel so, in effect, our servers’ capacity for high volume traffic matches that used by the telcos themselves,” he adds.

 “We have a true ‘world server’ capable of maintaining the highest quality of service and performance, whether it is accommodating a single user or 100,000 concurrent users,” Mr. Salud states.

To complement its gaming infrastructure, AsianMedia has also set up a 24/7 customer service center using Dell servers to address regional and local gamers’ concerns.

Delivering the goods to gamers

 AsianMedia Chief Operating Officer, Ronald Allan Aquino is confident that Lineage II will quickly win the hearts and minds of gamers throughout the South East Asian region. “We have a great product in Lineage II and we’ve done everything we can to ensure that we provide the best gaming experience possible to those who log in to our servers to play,” says Aquino.“This is the kind of game where you simply cannot afford to be lagged if you expect to get anywhere in PvP (Player versus Player) or PvE (Player versus Environment) scenarios. We are indeed fortunate to be working with only the best IT solution providers so our gamers can have the same great experience whether they’re in Malaysia, Singapore, or the Philippines,” he adds.

Lineage II has drawn millions of loyal fans worldwide with its combination of fantasy combat and the unique social/ political/economic power struggles developed through the community and by the in-game actions of individual gamers.

Gamers may play alone or as part of a group to fight monsters and complete quests for new skills, experience points, and items. Lineage II also features siege warfare; but to make sure PvP stays under control, the design includes a Karma system that provides negative consequences for killing other players when they do not fight back.

 Lineage II features greatly improved third-person 3D graphics thanks to the Unreal Engine developed by Epic Games.

Read more about Lineage II here.

Rapid Reality has announced the release of Phylon, their sci-fi themed action MMO.

RAPID REALITY'S NEW SCI-FI GAME, PHYLON, RELEASED

Following the successful Beta testing phase, Rapid Reality Studios announces the commercial release of their first MMO, Phylon. The game is now available for purchase on the newly redesigned website, http://phylon-online.com.

Tracy Spaight, Rapid Reality's COO stated, "We are excited to release Phylon as it represents a lot of work from our team and from gamers who provided tremendous feedback during the beta testing phase. We hope that players will enjoy the game, in particular, the battle arenas." He also stated, "Through focused surveys and general feedback in our forums, we will continue to tap into the creativity of the gaming community to help shape the game and its future expansions."

Phylon combines the fast-paced action of a traditional shooter with the persistence and depth of an MMO. Join players from around the world as part of the Bloblic Imperium, the Amphibian resistance, or the Terran colonists in their struggle for control of the planet Anura. Crush your enemies in instanced battle arenas, including Deathmatch and Domination. Advance in skill and unlock access to hundreds of unique items, including jet packs, energy shields, power-ups, and weapons.

The new Phylon website features a sleek new look, new video trailers, top player leader boards, in-game and game art showcases, forums and much more.

Read more about Phylonhere.

IGG has announced that they will be holding a special pet promotion in Voyage Century Online to celebrate Mid-Summer Day.

Voyage Century Pets Promotion

The Mid-Summer Day of North Europe is coming around the corner. In order to celebrate this stirring holiday, Voyage Century decides to hold a promotion in Item Mall to give 70% discount off various pet-catching props. While using these props, it is very easy to get favorite pets in hand. With carefulness the pets would be soul bounded. For more details about this promotion please visit the link below: http://vc.igg.com/shop/item.php?item_type=4

This Item Mall Promotion will last for one month from June, 15th to July, 15th. Hope this supply satisfies your demand. Happy shopping!

VCO pet system has attracted much attention from massive VCO fans by its unique charm. There are worms, felidi, birds, canine, rabbits, bears, pigs, bats, 8 kinds in total. When players explore the vastness at sea or on land, the pet is your best companion and assistant without doubt. It could follow the player when summoned, and constantly increase player's experience and level-up. Also It is a big help when player combats with enemies. Want to know more about VCO pet system please visit the link below: http://vc.igg.com/index_getting.php?page_type=318

"Free game First-class service"

Please check the official site:<http://vc.igg.com> for more details

The first 3D nautical online game brings a new age into MMORPG!

Read more about the pet system here.

Lords of the Dead, one of the pre-beta testing guilds for Fury, offers up an in-depth look at their experiences thus far in these early stages of the game.

LotD is one of the closed testing guilds for Fury, and I must say that it is positioning itself to be an action packed PVP game. Fury won't have any PVE, and players will be competitive from the time they log into the game. Anyway, click on the link below to read the rest of the article.

Game Development Cycle

Just so everyone is clear, Fury is currently inbetween an alpha client state and a beta client state. That is why the live testing weekends and fileplanet contests label the events "Pre-Beta" Weekends. June 1st was the first large event that Fury had outside of a previous tests conducted by a small group of closed testers. People who get in for these events should expect to see rapid change from week to week, but also they should temper their expecations by not expecting the game to be in retail state just yet.

Character Creation

The character creation is pretty much standard as we've come to expect. While I'm sure the options will probably expand throughout the pre-beta and beta, I was pleasantly surprised at the wide variety of avatar selection choices this early in the closed test. I ended up creating a bald guy with pale skin, and a dark colored outfit that befits my status as a Lord of the Dead. After that, I started the game and went into the tutorial.

Game Tutorial

The game tutorial was one of the better ones I've seen. There is someone narrating the storyline about the game, and telling you what your purpose in life is while running you through a series of exercises intended to orient you to the game environment. The first thing you figure it is that combat isn't like your standard Massive Multiplay Online Roleplaying Game (MMORPG)combat, but neither is it like a First Person Shooter (FPS) type game. Its sort of a mixture of both, and seems to take the best parts of combat from each type of game. I'll talk more on that later.

The rest of the tutorial is designed to give you an overview of the game controls, help you select a starting class, and eventually let you graduate into the real gaming world.

Read more here.

The latest devlog on the Pirates of the Burning Sea official site gives some insight into the creation of NPCs and also shows off some NPC images.

Artco's last Devlog explained how our avatars had taken a giant leap from their old state to our new one. As the ArtCo team iterates on the new approach, the avatars continue to evolve and improve and we're pretty excited about the way it's going. And so I thought now would be a good time to share the new NPC work with you.

Ideally we'd like to create NPC characters that are completely unique and modeled specifically for that character, but that approach is too cost prohibitive for us in terms of time and manpower. The Pirates of the Burning Sea look and feel demands that we populate our world with tons of colorful characters who also don't tax your video card too much, so we needed to come up with an approach that would allow variety and quantity without being too constraining (in other words, NPC characters who are not too generic). Working with the devs we devised a technique that enables rapid NPC character creation with variety, while keeping memory usage economical.

Our system leverages a lot of the existing avatar pieces, plus a fair number of new and unique pieces. So, like our players do when customizing their characters, we toggle through a number of parts to assemble our NPCs. The only real difference for us is the number of categories available; in avatar customization the player has roughly 17 categories to toggle through to build their characters, things like heads, hats, coats, etc.

In NPC assembly we get three categories: heads, torsos, and lower bodies. Even so, the parts in these categories are much more complex than in player avatar customization, because our options are made up of a combination of lots of other pieces. For instance, when we toggle through our head options, we see a variety of faces to choose from, but each has a different hat and a different hair style already built in - and possibly jewelry or eye patches, etc. We also have the ability to colorize each of these categories in two areas (like red hair and a black hat for heads). The same goes for torsos and lower bodies. In the end, this process allows us to assemble a large number of NPCs that look great without sabotaging performance, because they share some of the same parts.

Read the full article here.

A slide show showing images of MMO gamers from various games and their avatars is being featured on the New York Times. The pictures are from the book Alter Ego, which was recently reviewed by MMORPG.com.

• NAME Jason Rowe
• BORN 1974
• OCCUPATION None
• LOCATION Crosby, Tex.
• AVATAR NAME Rurouni Kenshin
• AVATAR CREATED 2003
• GAME PLAYED Star Wars Galaxies
• HOURS PER WEEK IN-GAME 80
• CHARACTER TYPE Human marksman, rifleman
• SPECIAL ABILITIES Ranged weapon specialization

Watch the New York Times slide show here.

Read about Alter Ego on MMORPG.com.

Gildor Inglorion, the elf who aided Frodo and company on their way out of the shire is the most recent character of Middle Earth profiled in this ongoing series of articles on the Lord of the Rings online official site.

The noble and respected Gildor Inglorion of the House of Finrod is one of the eldest of the Elves yet remaining in Middle-earth, though his strong, youthful appearance may be deceiving. He now makes his home in the House of Elrond in Rivendell, but he can often be found in the wilds of Middle-earth with a small band of elves under his command. Gildor keeps a watchful eye over the hobbits of the Shire and the other peaceful communities, his keen eyes watching the movements of those that dwell in the darkness and shadows. Gildor is an Elf of much wisdom and immeasurable skill with blade and bow. He has elected to stay in Middle-earth with Elrond and the others, though many of their kin have long since departed across the sea from the Grey Havens.

Though Gildor has a rich history dating back over the centuries of Middle-earth's past, he is perhaps best known as the leader of the band of Elves which frightened away one of the dreaded Black Riders from Frodo and company in the pages of The Fellowship of the Ring. In so doing, Gildor saved the hobbits, welcoming them into the Elf-camp near Woodhall and allowing the companions some much-needed rest.

Read more about Gildor Inglorion here.

The Dreamlords official site has been updated with several teaser screens depicting the latest developments in the game.

Sure you haven't missed that the community's own test team, the CTT, has been hard at work testing and giving us devs feedback on upcoming features. The collaboration has worked out great and we have changed several things based on the reports from the team.

So we felt it was time to give you some in-game screenshots from the latest dev version. Note the totally new combat gui, with brand new features, and the new PvP-system that allows you to upgrade tactical points.

Read more here.

The New York Times has published a detailed article looking at the lives of goldsellers living in Nanjing, China.

It was an hour before midnight, three hours into the night shift with nine more to go. At his workstation in a small, fluorescent-lighted office space in Nanjing, China, Li Qiwen sat shirtless and chain-smoking, gazing purposefully at the online computer game in front of him. The screen showed a lightly wooded mountain terrain, studded with castle ruins and grazing deer, in which warrior monks milled about. Li, or rather his staff-wielding wizard character, had been slaying the enemy monks since 8 p.m., mouse-clicking on one corpse after another, each time gathering a few dozen virtual coins -- and maybe a magic weapon or two -- into an increasingly laden backpack.

Twelve hours a night, seven nights a week, with only two or three nights off per month, this is what Li does -- for a living. On this summer night in 2006, the game on his screen was, as always, World of Warcraft, an online fantasy title in which players, in the guise of self-created avatars -- night-elf wizards, warrior orcs and other Tolkienesque characters -- battle their way through the mythical realm of Azeroth, earning points for every monster slain and rising, over many months, from the game's lowest level of death-dealing power (1) to the highest (70). More than eight million people around the world play World of Warcraft -- approximately one in every thousand on the planet -- and whenever Li is logged on, thousands of other players are, too. They share the game's vast, virtual world with him, converging in its towns to trade their loot or turning up from time to time in Li's own wooded corner of it, looking for enemies to kill and coins to gather. Every World of Warcraft player needs those coins, and mostly for one reason: to pay for the virtual gear to fight the monsters to earn the points to reach the next level. And there are only two ways players can get as much of this virtual money as the game requires: they can spend hours collecting it or they can pay someone real money to do it for them.

Read the full article here.

Flying Labs has posted an addendum to their Pirates of the Burning Sea Forum Rules. As part of the game focuses on conflict between several real world nations, several forums have been opened to colorful comments about these nations for the purpose of role-playing.

With community members from all walks of life and a fan base that spans the globe, the Pirates of the Burning Sea community is the very definition of diverse. While we firmly believe that our diversity is one of our biggest strengths, it has also been a source of some of our community's greatest friction.

Of course, we've always expected our forum members to not only respect that diversity, but to help us maintain and support it by avoiding bigoted diatribes and unwarranted attacks on individuals based solely on their geographic location or ethnic origins.

These expectations get especially tricky when you consider that fact that a crucial aspect of Pirates of the Burning Sea revolves around the friction between real nations, namely the British, Spanish and French.

So to help clarify our expectations, I'm adding the following to our forum rules:

Players are encouraged to participate and contribute to the conflicts between nations as it occurs in the context of Pirates of the Burning Sea game play. That is to say, posts that are made to deride, cajole or taunt enemy nations can be acceptable, so long as it is made clear that the tirade in question is a role-play device, and (this is the important part) is posted in the appropriate forum location.

Here's a handy list of places on our forums where you are welcome to rattle your digital sabers: Societies and National Dialogue The Salty Sea Dog Inn

Read the rules change here.

The folks over at Vanguard have posted a report setting milestones and detailing their plans for future game updates and a more consistent patch schedule.

Hey Everybody,

It's time for an update as I promised last week. I had hoped to get this posted up earlier but the patch gremlins had other ideas. Integration is moving along very well. We are getting Vanguard hooked into the various areas like QA (Yeah!) and forums.

I have heard from more than a few people expressing concern as to whether or not SOE is really committed to seeing Vanguard be the successful game we all know it can be. The team has had multiple resources thrown at it in an effort to get us up and running as quickly as possible from QA to marketing and PR. So put simply, they are.

Ok, let's get to the meat of it.

Welcome to the new age of Vanguard! Otherwise known as "What is the Vanguard team working on because it sure doesn't seem to be tails!"

In our continuing effort to develop a better rapport with the community, we will be posting our milestone goals as well as our game update patches going forward. The awesome apart of that is you, the community, will be able to see what the team is working on and offer feedback via polls and discussion threads. This works out great for both of us, you are no longer left wondering what on earth the Vanguard team is working on and we get some great directed feedback on upcoming priorities, features, and content.

Read the full article here.

A recent update to EverQuest II saw the edition of a web browser to the game. To give some insight into the new feature, the folks over at EQ2 have posted a Q&A interview with Don 'Silverfrost' Neufeld.

EQII Web Browser Interview with Don 'Silverfrost' Neufeld

With the release of Game Update #32 at the end of February, EQII was enhanced with the inclusion of a web browser that worked within the confines of the game. This provided an immediate benefit for those who interacted with our Customer Service websites, but also opened up a whole new level of convenience for people who wanted to know more about the quest they were working on. The in-game browser also gave the EQII mod community a new toy to play with and add on to.

In light of the fact that it has been a little while since the browser was released, we thought it would be interesting to ask a few questions of Don 'Silverfrost' Neufeld about the browser, its implementation, and future.

What was the initial design imperative for the in-game web browser?

Our customer service tools were being converted from our own proprietary in house stuff to a third party application with a web based interface. Without the browser players had to switch away from the game to interact with the customer service website.

Why Mozilla?

Because we have the source code! We initially tried to integrate Internet Explorer and a major problem was that Internet Explorer's ActiveX control really doesn't play well with Direct3D in fullscreen exclusive mode. After a couple of months of effort we gave up and the engineer assigned to the project went to work for the Mozilla Foundation. In contrast I had a working prototype of the Mozilla embedding working after 2 days. Source code for teh win!

Read the interview here.