All Posts by Szark

Blizzard has announced that The Hunt for Illidan, the sixth set for the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game, is now available.

Are you ready to embark on the final battle for the fate of Outland? The World of Warcraft Trading Card Game’s sixth full set, The Hunt for Illidan, caps off the game’s second year with exciting new game mechanics and new Loot cards. The Hunt for Illidan introduces six new demon heroes who grant players brave enough to use them powerful new deckbuilding possibilities. Exciting new Loot cards let players walk in the Path of Illidan, throw a party with their own D.I.S.C.O. Machine, and engage the services of an Ethereal Soul Trader who gives access to ten unique cosmetic items in exchange for harvested souls. The Hunt for Illidan is in stores now, so hit up your local games retailer or head over to WoWTCG.com for more information.

Read more here.

Following their recent site revamp for Jumpgate Evolution, Net Devil has announced a new community spotlight feature where they will present contests, fan sites, and important community information.

We’ve got a whole host of new features we’re going to be slowly rolling out to you over the next few months in regards to the Jumpgate community website. You may have noticed that compared to the previous website, we’ve added a few new features which you may not yet fully understand!

The first of these new features is the "Community Spotlight" which can be found on the homepage. This feature is here so the community team can keep you all updated on what’s new within the community as a whole. We will be using the Community Spotlight section to showcase fan sites, contests, important community information and any honourable fan made content which we feel deserves to be seen.

If you’ve got something you feel deserves to be showcased then please send an e-mail to jumpgate@codemasters.com and we’ll see what we can do!

Read more here.

NCsoft has announced new 51 Month and 54 month veteran awards for players of City of Heroes and Villains.

The City of Heroes Veteran Reward Program continues to roll out new rewards! Every three months an account is subscribed, it earns new rewards. We’ve recently updated the Veteran Reward Web Page to include the rewards for 51 Month and 54 Month veterans.

For more information about the Veteran Reward Program, please follow the above links or visit the Veteran Reward FAQ.

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IGG has revealed information about a secretive brigand group in Zu Online who carry large amounts of treasure and are just asking to be taken down by loot seeking players.

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

IGG is revealing the details of a secretive group of enemies in Zu Online--Brigands, to help Zu Online players to get rich in game.

Many people in Zu Online are working hard to slay all the Brigands. Because Brigands have stolen tons of treasure, if you encounter a Brigand you will find tons of treasure.

Read more here.

Ingle Games has announced that they will be holding a nationwide GM wedding event to promote the wedding system in Magic World Online.

Magic World Online, the New Concept F2P MMORPG has opened its OB for three weeks. Notable new elements such as official position and Evil Zodiac have been included in OB. Among all of those new elements, the MWO marriage system is the most romantic. It has fulfilled the love wishes of many newlyweds in the past three weeks. In order to amplify the wedding bliss, Ingle Games has announced today they’ll hold a nationwide GM wedding which is open to public attendance in Server Genesis. The exact time and place is at 7:30 pm, Tuesday, the 15th of July (PST), at Sun City, Empire.

At this special occasion, GM Jane and John will demonstrate MWO wedding affairs in detail to let players know how to cope with the marriage system. Can’t say for sure if they’ll be willing to video communicate with a few lucky players! Since this is a nationwide wedding party, even if you only want to be an average wedding attendant, you’ll not only be able to experience the unique marriage romance, but also meet and make many new friends at this special occasion!

Read more here.

Version 2.6: The Requiem is coming to Granado Espada, bring new areas, NPCs, adventures, foes, and more.

Granado Espada is getting dangerous. Montoro is still on the loose, Cortz is still racking up trouble, and the colony war rages on. But don’t worry, because another merchant has decided to join the fray and vanquish everything… with his lute. Vicente Rio, the enhancementor, will be available to recruit next week with the first opening of ‘The Requiem’ content!

Read more here.

The folks at Chaos Online have announced that they will begin Alpa Testing in the first weeks of August.

Chaos Online is a free to play massively multiplayer online role-playing game with the latest 2.5D engine: SancoX - which is specialized in magnificent effects and expansibility. The game is designed by a group of insane game makers, implementing all the impossibilities into the game – For example, you can cast your powerful spell when ridding on a modern motorcycle!

Besides the standard features of a MMORPG, its Growth system is a sparkle of the game – You can upgrade each item both in terms of level and quality; including weapons, armor, eudemons, gems and even mounts! Race war is extremely breathtaking since there are three races – nobody knows who will win the war in the chaos of allying and betraying.

The game is operated by a very experienced team of programmers who are dedicated to providing the best services to all gamers. If you want to experience a different free MMORPG, Chaos Online is definitely your choice!

Chaos Online will start its dark journey in the first week of August. Warriors, are you ready to join us and grow within the Chaos?

Read more here.

Blizzard has announced that they have launched a new forum for players in the Oceanic region.

We've just launched a new forum to provide a friendly and focused environment for Oceanic players to discuss all aspects of World of Warcraft with one another.

Read more here.

Tabula Rasa game designer Brian Hudson recently completed work on a new instance named Velon Hollow, where the minds of once intelligent beings have been overrun by an unknown toxin, turning them into ravenous zombies.  In this dev journal, Brian shares his influences and inspirations in making this new replayable instance.

Velon Hollow Dev Diary

Hi, I’m Brian Hudson and I am a designer on Tabula Rasa. I wanted to talk about a new instance, Velon Hollow, slated for release in Deployment 10. This Deployment will be going live in the next couple weeks, and I’m extremely excited to share my insights.

First, a little background:

Imagine that an evil alien race has developed a serum capable of suppressing your personality and trapping you in your own mind. The chemicals make you stronger and more aggressive, and the sight of human flesh makes you hungry. As the last of your sanity slips away, you are only slightly aware that your friends and family have become your latest meal!

To the inhabitants of Velon Hollow, this nightmare has become a frightening reality. For centuries, the Order of Velon prided itself on its purity of thought and deed; now they have been reduced to mindless thralls, unable to stop the inevitable decay caused by an unknown toxin. In the heart of the mountain, in one of the spiritual centers of the Foreans, death has come.

Read more here.

Vivendi and Activision have announced that the merger of the two companies that would see the creation of a new company called Activision Blizzard, has been approved by their shareholders, with a vote 92% in favor of the merger.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Activision Inc (ATVI.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) shareholders approved a deal on Tuesday to merge with French telecommunications and media group Vivendi SA's (VIV.PA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) games unit, creating a public company called Activision Blizzard.

Activision said 92 percent of shares voted were in favor of the merger, which is expected to close on July 9 .

The deal gives Vivendi, creator of "World of Warcraft," a 52 percent ownership stake in the new company that would have annual revenue of $3.8 billion and more heft to take on Electronic Arts Inc (ERTS.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), the world's biggest independent game publisher.

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SOE has announced Julia Brasil of San Francisco as the first winner of the G.I.R.L. Game Design Competition.  Julia was awarded a $10k scholarship and a paid internship with SOE by this competition which was designed to resolve the gender imbalance in the gaming industry.

SAN DIEGO, Calif. - July 8, 2008 – Sony Online Entertainment LLC today announced that Julia Brasil of San Francisco has won the 2008 G.I.R.L. Game Design Competition. The competition was the first of its kind and was promoted in conjunction with The Art Institutes system of schools, to encourage students toward career paths in the creative and applied arts, ultimately resulting in the development of games that are more interesting for women to play.

Brasil, a student in the Game Art & Design program, was awarded a $10,000 tuition scholarship toward her education at The Art Institute of California – San Francisco and a paid internship of up to 10 weeks at the Sony Online Entertainment studios of her choice in Austin, Denver, San Diego or Seattle.

“I am shocked and overjoyed to be the first G.I.R.L. Scholarship recipient,” said Brasil. “I’m really looking forward to my internship with SOE, and getting some hands-on experience at such a well-known company. It’s such a great opportunity.”

Read more here.

IGG has announced that several new Items have been added to the Wonderland Online Item Mall.

IGG will be releasing some cool new items in the Wonderland Online Item Mall.
All new items can be traded 20% off from July 8th to July 11th.

Monster Net x10: Enlarges pet capture range by 5 after equipping. Good for 10 successful captures..

Liquid Gas x6: A substitute fuel for the Hot-air Balloon. Double click to use it while using the Hot-air Balloon.

Great Gasoline x4: A substitute fuel for the Cabriolet and Yacht. Double click to use it while using the Cabriolet or Yacht.

Magnet Stone x3: A substitute fuel for the UFO. Double click to use it while using UFO.

Diesel Oil x7: A substitute fuel for the Spacecraft, Jalor and Robot. Double click to use it while using the Spacecraft, Jalor or Robot.

Coal Block x5: A substitute fuel for the Steamship. Double click to use it while using the Steamship.

Read more here.

IGG has prepared a preview of Chaos skills for the Priest class in Angels Online.

Angels Online is a cute MMORPG brought to you by IGG. The new edition Eden was released a short time ago. Most Angels Online players have reached a high level after hard training. Meanwhile, they can continue to learn more unique skills from NPCs. The game offers all players a chance to learn skills from different professions at the same time.

Today, the AO team has been kind enough to briefly introduce the popular Chaos skills of the Priest class to players. Priests with Chaos skills have been popular with most players since the closed beta was released. Priests have powerful DPS. Meanwhile, Priests can restore HP while dealing damage to enemies, if Priests learn life skills with Chaos at the same time. Priests can be invaluable if a team wants to attack monsters in an instance.

Freeze Trap: Players can learn Freeze Trap 5 and freeze the target for a longer time while PKing or killing monsters.

Ice Storm: The attack ability of Ice Storm has been enhanced. Other players will be terrified by the sight of it.

Read more here.

Following the announcement of The New Dynasty expansion for Conquer Online, comes the announcement that the Ninja will be added as a new class.

The first large expansion project for Conquer online 2.0, titled The New Dynasty, was revealed last week. We would like to proudly introduce the new character class for this expansion, the Ninja!

The art of assassination was developed to its zenith in feudal Japan and now the warriors of shadow are emerging in the world of Conquer. The ninja will be a master of stealth, subterfuge, deception, and of course, ninjutsu. Don't expect the ninja to be a front line battle-tank, these shadow warriors are skirmishing tactical characters, specialized in delivering the final blow, not engaging entire armies.

Read more here.

The folks at Conquer Online have announced that they will be opening two more European servers.  Players on the new servers will be rewarded with a buff for an entire month.

The first European Conquer Server was well received by European players, solving the typical problems of lag and time difference. To provide more European players a better gaming environment, we have decided to open two new European Conquer servers this week!

Read more here.

Cryptic's Jack Emmert has posted a new entry in the Cryptic dev blog detailing their new processes for ensuring a quality game experience, including shutting down development on Champions Online for two weeks to take an intensive look at a single zone.

Cryptic was founded way back in July 2000 and has developed and released two MMORPG products and we are currently working on three projects right now. Champions Online is the closest to release and has the largest team by far. But what's changed over the years? What have we learned from developing and maintaining City of Heroes?

I was inspired to write this short entry because we just got done with something internally that we'd never, never done before. We finished a zone and were just about to head into working on something new. But we felt that the zone needed some attention. Sure, QA had identified some bugs in it, but the zone did "work." But the one thing we weren't entirely sure about was whether the zone was fun.

So we shut down the Champions team for two weeks. And everyone played the game. Each person was required to play for at least an hour each day, and a goal for the whole team was set for at-home play hours. As a reward, if the team played for 600 total hours for the month of June, the company directors would hold a BBQ for them. As people played, we expected them to use an in-game tool to log bugs, comments, suggestions and criticisms.

Read more here.

Funcom has announced a new update for the Age of Conan Armory, which includes changes to how the Feat Calculator works.

The Age of Conan Armory Update includes new Feat Calculator tweaks. The tweaks are the following:

• The feat calculator now features a landing page, designed to provide a more intuitive access point to the tool.
• Feats can now be maxed out, by simply Shift-clicking them. They can also be untrained to 0 by Shift-right-clicking them.

The new Age of Conan Armory Update includes new Map Filterers. Many of the maps on the Armory are densely populated with new markers from the community. This is great, but it can make finding specific markers more difficult. To make the maps more useful, the Armory has added an intuitive map filtering UI! The Armory has also added a simple news section to help keep you up-to-date on all the current Conan and Armory happenings.

Read more here.

Dane Caruthers, the new Assistant Producer on Tabula Rasa, has posted an itroducory letter to the TR community.

Hi folks! My name is Dane Caruthers, and I’m the new Assistant Producer on Tabula Rasa. You should be seeing me up on the boards shortly, posting as Entropic. I’ve been working on TR since the beginning of 2007 as the QA Lead, and I’m very excited about moving into a new role.

A bit of background on me – After spending the previous decade in supervisory roles in retail and with the regional MHMR children’s program, I jumped at the chance in 2000 to work for a video game company. I had always been passionate about gaming, and this was a welcome opportunity.

I started with Ion Storm Austin in 2000 working as a temp on Deus Ex. I became a lead within about 6 months, and stuck with Ion through Thief 3 and a number of other Eidos games until the studio shut down. I then spent a year doing QA on educational software and corporate training stuff, which is exactly as boring as it sounds. I landed at NCsoft in 2006 and worked on City of Heroes/Villains and on the PlayNC and QA teams until the Lead position opened up on TR.

Read more here.

GameTribe has announced that their tournament system for Kicks Online is now in the beta phase.

Great news for football fans!

Run, pass, dribble and score a Goal: the Tournament System is here! Thanks to this new feature you will now be able to challenge international matches vs other Clubs to see who’s the best!

The new feature is currently available in beta phase.

In this first phase only GameTribe Team will create tournaments to which all Clubs will be able to apply.

Main features and rules are:

• In order to join a tournament you must be a member of a Club (only the captain can apply the club for the tournament).
• Each tournament will host 16 teams maximum
• Tournaments can be played in 3vs3, 4vs4 and 5vs5
• All the teams who play a tournament will get extra Experience and points. The winning team will receive a special winning prize

Read more here.

IGG has announced that rewards for their promotion system will be tripled during their Summer Carnival Events in Myth War.

IGG Myth War Team today announced some good news to its promoters.

It's going to be a summer of Carnival. During the carnival, all rewards related to the game promotion system will be tripled, and IGG promoters will have a chance to win high level equipment for free, including a Sony Laptop Computer!

Read more here.