All Posts by Szark

Joymax has announced the addition of new Arabian-themed clothing and gear for avatars in Silkroad Online.

Joymax has announced that new Arabian-themed avatar items are now available to players of Silkroad Online. The outfits drape your adventuresome avatar in the finest imported silks while the accompanying headdress keep the sand and sun out of your eyes as you roam the parched dunes. Adorned with a princely sum of precious stones, this exotic dress will keep you cool and stylish as you traverse the dangerous Silk Road trade route, as well as provide an extra boost to your character stats. More information on this garb can be found in-game by visiting the item mall.

The Arabian costume is a limited edition item and will only be available for a short period of time.

Silkroad Online is a massively multiplayer online RPG that puts the player deep into ancient Chinese, Islamic, and European civilizations. Traveling the historic Silk Road between Asia and Europe, players can make their fortunes as merchants, prey on the rich as thieves, or be protection-for-hire as hunters. Silkroad Online is free-to-play, and offers the unique chance to play a character free of restrictions or fixed paths.

Read more here.

MMORPG.com's Carolyn Koh is in attendance at this year's E3 where she had the opportunity to be introduced for the first time to SOE's upcoming MMORPG based on the characters of DC comics, DC Universe Online.

Jim Lee, the Executive Creative Director of SoE's recently announced MMORPG DC Universe Online started his presentation at the historic Shrine Theater in Los Angeles by repeating the Jack Palance feat of doing one-handed push-ups on stage to the laughter and applause of a full house of media representatives and analysts.   The renowned comic book artist is no stranger to the world of MMORPGs.  He informed the packed Shrine Theater in Los Angeles today, July 15th, 2008 that he is an avid gamer and played EverQuest from the day it launched and made the level cap of 50 that summer.

By way of presenting his MMORPG gamer creds, Lee boasted, “I was the first.  Not the second, not the third, but the first Paladin on my server to get Fiery Avenger after a miserable 20 hour camp in the plane of Sky.”

Jim waxed eloquent over the beauty of the Gotham skyline and the ability to walk the same streets Batman walked.  To be a super hero standing besides the likes of Green Lantern or Wonder Woman, or a villain helping to orchestrate a mass breakout of the inmates of Arkham Asylum, “that would have made my twelve year old brain explode,” he said as he spoke nostalgically about his longtime love of games and comic books.

Read more here.

Mythic Entertainment has posted the first installment in a new series of articles on the WAR Herald which examines the Living Guilds of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.

Over the next few weeks and leading up to launch, we plan on bringing you a new feature: Guild Highlights! To coincide with the beginning of Guild Beta, we’ll plunge you into an in-depth description of our Living Guilds system and everything that promises to make the guild experience stand far above any you’ve had so far. This week we start at the beginning with Living Guild introduction and Guild Creation.

Guilds in WAR provide an easy way for players to socialize as well as to organize themselves together to engage in large scale battles and activities.  They also provide another vehicle for player and group advancement and pride.

• A Living Guild progresses in rank though the activities and exploits of its members.
• WAR provides above-and-beyond standard features like guild vaults, cloaks, and guild merchants to fulfill much more than just your run-of-the-mill communication and grouping needs.
  • Guilds gain experience and ranks just like players do. At each guild rank, guilds gain rewards that benefit the individual guild members as well as the guild as a whole.
  • Guilds unlock Standards, Vaults, abilities, etc. for their members as they gain ranks.
  • 10 unique titles (most of which can be customized to meet the needs of the guild) to offer ease in guild management.
  • Integrated guild interface where you can set up guild meetings or activities, perform guild management tasks, customize guild Standards, and choose guild rewards.

Read more here.

The folks at Dungeon Runners have announced that they will be holding a Bling Gnome parade on Friday July 18th.

Dungeon Runners hosting Bling Gnome parade on Friday

• Date: Friday July 18th, 2008
• Time: 7:30 PM Central Time
• Location: Townston. Multiple instances, multiple worlds.

To celebrate the arrival of the Dungeon Runners Bling Gnome, the Dungeon Runners development team is hosting a Bling Gnome parade through Townston, the game’s main gathering point, where players with Bling Gnomes will march and participate in gnomish party activities. The Bling Gnome parade will take place across all of the game’s servers.

The Dungeon Runners Bling Gnome is a bejeweled gangster helper that will save players the tedious chore of picking up loot and taking it to a game merchant for storage or sale. The Gnome follows your Dungeon Runner avatar around, picking up loot and instantly converting it to gold via a mystical bowel movement.

The Dungeon Runners Bling Gnome, which can only be accessed by purchasing the retail game pack which is available for $19.99 and provides six months of premium membership level play. Currently, membership level costs $4.99 per month and includes higher levels of experience, greater rewards, advertisement-free play, an exclusive server, extensive potion stacking, larger bank storage and access to the most powerful items, weapons and armor.

Read more here.

NCsoft has announced several changes to Lineage II with the upcoming Gracia update, which include the introduction of the Vitality System, and efforts to reduce 'the grind' and entry barriers to new players by allowing players to level faster.

One of our greatest assets is our fantastic group of players, who are a very dedicated, hardcore bunch that spend a lot of time and effort building up their characters and battling each other in big player vs. player (PvP) fights like castle sieges. However, the process of building and leveling characters can be a very long and frankly tedious process in Lineage II, which may serve as a barrier for letting a much larger group of potential customers to fully enjoy our game. While in the past the developers in Korea have continually built the game with this hardcore mentality firmly set, with the release of Gracia, they’ve completely changed the rules and made Lineage II even better and a lot more fun.

The big change is that leveling a Lineage II character is now extremely easier—and we say “extremely” in a fairly conservative manner. A normal new character that goes through the beginning quests can gain a few levels in just a few minutes, and players should find leveling now quite easily, all the way up to level 60 and beyond. Players that could spend several months of hardcore grinding to get up to a competitively high level will now be able to accomplish the same feat perhaps a month, if not less. They’ll also be able to get to their occupation changes a lot faster, so developing a selection of specialized characters is a much more realistic option. Building characters is now a lot fun and easy to do, rather than a long-term activity many players would rather do without. This drastic change in leveling is due to several factors.

Get all the details here.

Take a look at the Gracia Part 1 preview site here.

The folks over at CCP have started a series of stories chronicling the attitudes of faction citizens and the leaders of each of the four faction heads at the onset of factional warfare with the launch of the Empyrean Age expansion. The latest edition spotlights the Caldari and their leader, Tibus Heth.

"But no one’s gonna come down on me for this, right?"

"Don’t worry about a thing. The agency will cover your back legally, we’ll assign a pseudonym, you’ll be absolutely fine."

"Yeah. I just need to be sure there’s absolutely no…"

"Mr. Sitsui. Remember what we talked about."

"I know, I know." The young man tugged absently at the dark tin figure-eight woven through both nostrils. The sight of his skin stretching made her nauseous.

"Okay," she said, with more finality than she felt. She fixed her gaze on the table between them. "Whenever you’re ready, go ahead and start from the beginning. If you want to reword something, just stop and say ‘I’d like to reword, please.’ If you aren’t sure you’re remembering something correctly, it’s very important that you mention that, even though you’re going to give us the events as they transpired to the best of your recollection. All clear?"

Read more here.

Turbine has published an overview of the features that will be included in the 100th content update for Asheron's Call which will include a new Society System.

As we fast approach the 100th content update we felt it was a good time to start detailing some of the key features that will be included in this major event. Working towards and on this event has been a pleasure for all of us and we sincerely hope everyone will enjoy what we have in store. So without further delay, lets discuss out first new feature, Societies and the new Society system.

As many will remember, we made a brief visit to Factions during the Grael story arc, where we let players choose sides. For the most part these Society choices were cosmetic and did nor have a real impact on gameplay. With this new system, players will choose a Society and their choice will have an impact on their game, both directly and indirectly.

Read more here.

IGG has announced the release of new server branches for Angels Online.

Angels Online is a cute MMORPG brought to you by IGG. With the release of the new server Forcas, more and more players have joined the game and become protectors of Eden.

In order to offer players a better game environment and better gaming quality, the AO team has decided to release Sofiel 3 for players after the update this Thursday. Meanwhile, Forcas 2 and Forcas 3 will be available as well.

Read more here.

SOE has posted a guide to help new and returning players choose a character class in EverQuest II.

As a new or returning player to EverQuest II, some of the choices you face when creating your character can be a bit daunting. One of those choices is your class. Here's some information on the different classes available in EQII, and links to some guides that might help you make this tough decision.

EverQuest II has 24 classes available to players. Class is chosen during the character creation process, after race, gender, appearance, and starting city are selected.

Please note that not all classes are available to all races initially. Races are chosen by alignment (good, neutral, or evil) and appropriate classes are then available to choose from, depending on the race alignment. For example, you cannot choose to be a Dark Elf ranger or a Froglok defiler during the character creation process. There are some exceptions to this rule when a character betrays their home city, but not during the initial character creation.

Classes are based on four main archetypal roles: the fighter, the mage, the priest, and the scout.

Read more here.

The folks at IGG have sent over a overview of Death World, a hell like locale in Zu Online.

Zu Online, a 3D MMORPG from IGG, has been warmly welcomed by all manner of players due to its unique theme and traditional oriental features.

IGG is releasing an introduction to its Death World, including descriptions of Death World and the monsters who reside there.

Why is Death World considered as hellish? First, it is as desolate and dried up as a desert. There are no verdant hills or calm rivers, nothing but an endless gray morass that stretches as far as the eye can see, broken only by the occasional stone covered in strange writing. Even though you may occasionally see a few persistent plants carving out a miserable life, there is no doubt as to what their fate will soon be. In fact the only thing that seems certain in this place is the inevitability of death at every turn and behind every rock. Second, this harsh environment has bred harsh, tough monsters that seem to enjoy exterminating anything they find with a breath of life still in it.

The Blood Demon’s forces guard Death World.

The Blood Demon’s forces have long dominated Death World. The monsters there, including Fighters, Dancing Lions, Soul Eaters, Evil Spearman, Chifaro, Lantern Goblins, and the terrible Widow Yee all pose great threats to players and make Death World a very dangerous place to wander around. However, more threats and challenges mean more benefits can be gained from them. By defeating these tough monsters, players will gain a lot of experience and lots of items, which makes the constant threat of death so much more bearable.

Read more here.

The folks at Wurm Online have announced the addition of ocean going vessels both large and small to their fantasy sandbox MMORPG.

Travelling down south on the Jenn Kellon home yesterday, somewhere just out the bottom of the Great Eastern Ocean, I came across a small rowing boat being paddled furiously by a chap called Lureman. This completely unsuitable vessel for the open seas could mean but one thing - boats have arrived!

Of course, they have actually been coming in to the game in bits, with many players working on planks and pegs and masts and sails and all the things needed for everything from rowing boats, to small sailing vessels, right through to the majestic caravel.

Boats are going to be a lot of fun, and probably change some of the game dynamics in the process. Since they are lockable, have storage and you can manage who has access, this allows the larger vessels to be effectively floating homes.

Read more here.

IGG has published a preview of the Protector System in Myth War II.

Myth War II, the new sequel to the classic MMORPG from IGG, continues the tradition of excellent play and an exciting community of players.

Recently many players have been inquiring about the new Protector System in Myth War II, so the Myth War team has come through and offered some detailed information about the 3 steps used to create a statue, the Patron saint bonus and the Changing Spirit Lords.

1. Statue creation

First step: The Guild Leader goes to the Guild HQ and chooses a Spirit Lord to worship through “Sacrifice”. There are six Spirit Lords. They are the Justice God, Wisdom God, Strength God, Flame God, Darkness God and Hades. The higher the guilds level, the more Spirit Lords they can worship.

Second step: Guild Leaders must lead the guild members to challenge five Watchmonsters and the Spirit Lord. Combat should be initiated successively one by one until the Spirit Lord is defeated. There is no break for restoration. If the Guild Leader is killed during the period, the challenge fails.

Read more here.

The folks at Rose Online have announced that on July 29th, Rose Online convert to a free to play business model.

Rose Online has been a part of the Gravity family suite of game titles for several years now. We are going to update ROSE's subscription model to attract more users than ever before.

On July 29 we will be turning the servers over to Free to Play where all accounts in good standing may log in.

On July 22 we will be removing the subscription page from the Website. That one week from the 22-> 29 no one will be able to make a subscription; if you have a subscription that will expire during that week and you want to make sure you do not have any gap in game accessibility please make a subscription prior to the 22nd.

Re-occurring subscriptions will automatically be cancelled (to not re-occur), on the 22nd.

Any left over Subscription time will be creditted 40 Mileage points per day (1200/month) that is left of the current subscription starting at 12:01am July 28th.

If you have friends that want to play ROSE but were concerned with the subscription cost now is a great time to invite them to join you on your adventure!

We hope that this is a new greater beginning for ROSE online!

Read more here.

Age of Conan Game Director Gaute Godager has written a Letter from the Game Director where he details Funcom's current efforts to improve Age of Conan, specifically focusing on bugs, stability, and performance.

Greetings fellow players.

While it has been some time since I last gave you an update, I wanted to touch base and let you know what we are working on at the moment and where we are going in the times to come. I want this update to focus on what is actually happening to the game now, what we have done, and also some of the reasoning behind our choices going forward.

As you all know we have been live for some seven weeks by now, and what a period it has been! While Conan has sold more and performed better than even we could have hoped for, we also know that there have been things we had to work on. I will not try to hide from this fact, but I hope you have seen our steady stream of improvements and additions, in fact, even more than I would have thought possible! I am definitively proud of the team and what they have done after launch, and I think everyone agrees that we are making Conan better, all the time. We are also keeping almost the entire development team ON the Age of Conan live team for the foreseeable future, meaning we can make exciting new content updates on an ongoing basis. Still, let me underline that our main – main – focus at the moment are bugs, stability and performance! I might not talk very much about the details here, but the frequency of the patches and their contents speak for itself.

Read more here.

In this week's Feedback Friday feature on the Tabula Rasa community site, they look at progress on Deployments 10 and 11, new foes, progressive weapons, and more.

Progressive Weapons Update

Hello everyone!

I thought I’d give everyone a glimpse of what sort of cool stuff we’ve been working on in the weapons department. It’s gonna be art-centric mind you…but it oughta be fun none the less. We started off a couple of sprints ago with the high level objective of giving players more opportunity to distinguish themselves, especially at higher levels after a lot of investment in their characters. One opportunity we immediately identified was new high level weaponry. ‘Kick ass weapons for high level players!’ was the battle cry. We successfully got the Series 2 and Series 3 Shotgun released in one sprint! That was really exciting for the team to be able to do a release that fast and the feedback so far seems very positive. Plus, who doesn’t love a Bad-Ass Triple-Barrel Transforming Incendiary Shotgun!?

We want to repeat that initial success of course, to feed new and cooler weapons to the players, but with an increased focus on the classes over all. Tom and I want to avoid the ‘tail wagging the dog’ in terms of art being released for art’s sake (although as art director I have to admit that it’s a very attractive idea to just make cool weapons and hand ‘em out!).

Seriously though, I’ve been working closely with Tom and a small group of our key systems designers to develop a design-driven framework that we can then use to guide us in developing future ‘bad-ass’ equipment. Obviously that’s a complex challenge, but everyone is really excited by it getting it right.

Read more here.

The folks at The Chronicles of Spellborn have posted the first installment in a series of features which looks at the timeline of TCoS.

The world of The Chronicles of Spellborn, as you will be able to experience it yourself in-game, is the result of a long chain of cataclysmic events and almost forgotten stories. In this new feature we will reveal some of these key moments of old along with all the protagonists involved in this troubled past.

Each week, you’ll be introduced to a new period of the timeline, accompanied by concept arts and details on the main items of said period.

So grab yourself a cup of your favorite beverage, and hit the “Read More” button below for the first installment of this Spellborn Timeline, named "The Great Collapse".

Read more here.

SOE has published a list of features that will be included with the Station Launcher which is currently in Beta.

One place for all your Station games...fast, simple, and ready to go any time!

Station Launcher is a simple, one-click application that securely delivers all of your Station games, friends and community news right to your desktop. Manage your Station gaming library like never before; it's fast, easy and secure.

Access all of your Station games in one convenient location. No more need for multiple desktop shortcuts and launch pads for all your Station games. Station Launcher offers one easy to use and secure application that delivers all your favorite Station games and services right to your computer.

Purchase games, updates, services and more. It doesn't matter if you're looking for the newest Station game, the latest expansions, card packs, news updates or Dev chats - Station Launcher has all your Station games and information on file so everything is just a click away!

Read more here.

On Friday, MMORPG.com revealed that several classes would be dropped from the Warhammer Online launch roster, and that Mythic Entertainment had partnered with Punkbuster to fight cheating in the game.  Now Mythic has posted an FAQ which hopes to answer lingering questions about these revelations.

With Friday's announcement we know there have been many questions floating around. We've been spending the weekend reading your feedback and questions on these changes and have compiled an FAQ to address many of them.

We will also be posting an FAQ on the changes to Cities as well that will give you more insight in the the mechanics behind the new Campaign system and how we made our decisions.

Read more here.

Cryptic Studios has posted another edition of Ask Cryptic, which answers fan questions about costumes, raw numbers, knockback and more.

Ask Cryptic is back with answers on levels, hard numbers, mez powers, knockback and costumes. Thanks very much to Arkayne, Heretic and Absinthe for their answers!

Just how "level-ly" are CO levels going to be? Is my progression from level 1 to level 50 going to look like a progression from an 8-year old Robin (as sidekick to Bats) to any of the incarnations of Superman? Or will I still be able to recognizable at level 50 as still the same basic character as he was at level 1? (Captain-Spith)

Arkayne (lead designer): There will be a definite progression from low- to high-powered hero. Characters start off with a few starting powers and gain more powers and more customization options throughout the course of the game. This differs a bit from the Champions tabletop game where players start off with moderate to high-power and have marginal increases over time. We felt our constant power advancement model in Champions Online would be more appealing to players since they can always look forward to expanding and personalizing their suite of super-powers.

Read more here.

Mythic Entertainment has announced that the Guild Beta for Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning has officially started.

FAIRFAX, Virginia - July 11, 2008 - Mythic Entertainment, an Electronic Arts studio (NASDAQ: ERTS), today announced that the Guild Beta for Warhammer® Online: Age of Reckoning™ (WAR) has begun. Over 10,000 guilds applied and those selected will have the chance to experience the game's most expansive beta phase yet.

An historic 750,000 applicants have signed up for the opportunity to enter WAR's closed beta, and the selected guilds will join tens of thousands of new participants as