All Posts by Szark

The folks at Everquest have posted a salute to EQ Guides, who have been in the original game since it was in beta 10 years ago.

10 years ago, while EverQuest was in beta, a group of volunteers came together. These volunteers selflessly gave their time to helping players in EQ with customer service issues and spent time participating in impromptu quests to bring more enjoyment to the game. The volunteers were known then, as well as now, as Guides. Guides started out making appearances in EverQuest and grew into EverQuest II.

Over the years the program has evolved from guides helping with customer service issues full time and impromptu questing to questing full time and helping with very minor customer service things on a part time basis.

Read more here.

The folks at WWII Online: Battleground Europe have re-launched their official website with a makeover and a new format.

We're happy to present our new official homepage for WWII Online: Battleground Europe. It's been more than three years since the last redesign when we were supporting the European retail release of the game. This time around, we turned our focus towards providing a more comprehensive news and information site which brings all the terrific content that is generated by the staff of Cornered Rat Software and the various community programs to the front- ensuring visitors understand that the game and the community are active and robust.

Read more here.

The official site for EverQuest II has been updated with instructions on how to participate in the EQII Tournament at SOE Fan Faire later this week.

Signups for Saturday's EQII Tournament will take place at Fan Faire on Thursday, during registration/badge pick-up.

If you are interested in playing in the tournament, and you would like to use your own character, please type /testcopy while you're logged into the game on the character you wish to compete with, sometime before Thursday.

There will be pre-buffed characters available for use for those competitors who do not /testcopy their character over before Fan Faire begins.

Read more here.

SOE updates us on what's been going on in the Vanguard offices during the summer convention season, including whispers of Game Update 6 which is set to fix over a thousand bugs.

Of course, conventions and demo's aren't all we've been up to – Game Update 6 should be headed to the Test server soon, and with it players can expect to get a glimpse of the new character models and have a nearly bug-free experience in Telon! GU6 will contain the largest bug fix that Vanguard has ever experienced. The development team has logged well over a thousand bug fixes for this update, and the number is still growing!

The art team has had the pleasure of employing two summer interns, who are very talented artists hoping to work in the industry. Hopefully we'll have an interview with them soon, and show off some of the great concept art they've drafted – but in the meantime, you can see that they're working on some new "monk-like" armor that will eventually make its way into the game (and utilize the new character models!)

Read more here.

The folks at EverQuest have announced that they have streamlined and improved the process of signing up for the beta test for future EQ expansions.

Introducing the new and improved EverQuest Expansion Beta sign-up page!

The Beta sign-up process has been made easier for you… and for us! The new system places you in a pool of potential beta testers. When the open stages occur, beta testers will automatically be selected from that pool. We will, however, still be limiting the number of participants during different Beta stages the difference is that now you don't have to wait for a window of opportunity. The Beta sign-up page will remain open. Once you sign up, you do not need to sign up again.

Please remember that when you sign up to participate in any beta you agree to the Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA) terms which in summary means you agree not to disclose information about the expansion. You must read and accept the full NDA before you get placed in the pool.

Read more here.

IGG has published a preview of several of the leveling quests in their upcoming MMORPG, 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. Today the Myth War team is going to give players a sneak preview of leveling quests.

Event One: Patrol

Recently, some powerful monsters have sneaked into Woodlingor and Blython , intent on creating havoc!. They kidnapped some innocent merchants and by using their cunning magic have taken the form of the merchants.  They are attacking any and all citizens that they come across.  It is now down to you dear player to help us vanquish this evil once and for all.

Event Two: Drowcrusher

Drowcrusher has lost some of his equipment, but he is so angry that he will lash out indiscriminately, even if you are trying to return his things.  The only way to restore his reason is first to defeat him.  By doing this you will also gain lots of experience points.

Read more here.

IGG has released a preview of “The Lost Atlantis” the latest edition of Angels Online.

The Angels Online team is very happy to announce that the latest edition “The Lost Atlantis” is in process and will be available for players soon. Today, the AO team has been kind enough to give us a brief introduction to the new edition.

In the coming new edition, the highest character level will be level 100. Meanwhile, a series of systems, quests and maps will be available for players as well.

New System: Cards Collection
1. Players can exchange their cards for rewards from officials. Meanwhile, they can enjoy the final game designs.
2. There are various cards including monster cards, special monster cards, character cards, scene cards, equipment cards, item cards and so on.
3. After they collect a volume of cards, players can exchange the volume for rewards.

New Instance:
Huge cracked ships and heaps of raw and bloody bones are scattered everywhere creating a ghastly underwater graveyard. In addition, the dead voyagers’ souls haunt the area in misery.

New Maps:
15 new scenes including coast scenes, shallow waters scenes and deepwater scenes are available for players.

Read more here.

The folks at Chaos Online have announced the start of the Chaos Online Alpha Test, along with a number of alpha events.

Celebration on Alpha Test

During your training from Lv.1 to Lv. 40, you will get alpha test prize during each stage. You will have your prize when you reach to Lv. 10, 20, 25, 30, 35 and 40!

First 10 Warriors

If you are one of the first 10 warriors reach to Lv. 40, you will get your prize as well. We encourage you to explore more and find out more bugs during the training. You can see these warriors by clicking here.

Top 10 Bug finders

As you may know, all new games have problems or bugs that need to be worked out. We have decided to hold a contest to help locate the bugs within the game - "Top 10 Bug Finders"! We will reward the top 10 players who submit the most uniquely reported bugs. Prizes include but are not limited to: gold, super potions, and gems. Good Luck and Happy Hunting!

Read more here.

The Feedback Friday feature returns on the Tabula Rasa Community site, bringing information on rules changes, deployment 12, patch note previews and more.

Greetings Soldiers, and welcome to this week's Feedback Friday. The Development Team is ending its final week of adding content to the Deployment 12 build. This next week, we will be focusing on bug fixing and polishing, and then we'll eventually put it on PTS for your viewing (after QA puts it through the ringer, of course).

Adrenaline Changes - We hear ya!

In Deployment 11, we made some changes to the way adrenaline is generated (see patch notes). After reviewing your feedback on these changes through the forums and Feedback Form we've decided not to put these changes live with Deployment 11.
This doesn't necessarily mean that the way adrenaline works on live is not going to change. We will continue to evaluate other options to balance adrenaline for PvP and PvE. Thank you for sending in your great feedback and keep it coming!

Read more here.

The folks at EverQuest have announced that they will be publishing a hard cover collector's book to celebrate 10 years of the EverQuest franchise.  EverQuest:  The 10th Anniversary Collector’s Edition is scheduled to go on sale early next year.

In celebration of the upcoming 10th anniversary of the ground breaking EverQuest® online game franchise, Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) proudly announces that EverQuest:  The 10th Anniversary Collector’s Edition is in development and scheduled to be released early next year. The retrospective celebrating the first decade of the EverQuest phenomenon will be available online and at select retailers in North America.

This hardcover collector's book celebrates the world of Norrath by taking a look at the past, present and future of the EverQuest brand. The book will be filled with essays and photographs of the events, products, personalities and art that has graced Norrath over the years. Rich in vivid detail, each page will help tell the story of the evolution of Norrath and its place in our culture.

Read more here.

IGG has posted a guide to several of Voyage Century Online's in-game automated features.

Automation may not be good for the economy, or all those factory jobs lost to robots, but it sure can make life simpler in game. As you probably know, the auto-track function in Colony Age has brought players some much needed convenience. However it’s just the tip of the iceberg. Today the Voyage Century team is going to talk to you about 2 more practical functions, auto-loot and auto-recovery.

With the auto-loot and auto-recovery functions, you will save a lot of time and energy, because you actually don’t need to click on everything and worry about the status of your character. Just enjoy questing, sailing or PvP.

Read more here.

IGG has provided an introduction to the aerial aspects of Zu Online and their flight system.

IGG has posted an introduction to the unconfined flight and air fighting features of their Chinese martial arts MMORPG, Zu Online.

Zu Online frees the players from the confines of being stuck on the ground, allowing them to take flight at will. The game world of Zu Online is a vast three-dimensional space where the players can view the surroundings from every angle. We believe our players are sure to be captivated by the blue sky and clouds flowing quickly underneath as they fly freely.

In Zu Online, players can not only fly anywhere but also have battles in the sky, which makes the combats so incredible to watch. However, it is also possible to fight on land, at sea as well as in the air, in the never-before-seen three-dimensional combat system in Zu Online.

A mythical world with flying immortals, intense combats on land, at sea and in the air, all of these exciting things can be seen in Zu Online. How your Zu world turns out is all down to you!

But don’t forget that all of the above is just a small part of Zu Online’s highlights. What’s more, if you join Zu Online now, you will be given a bonus that is worth 777 dollars. So don’t delay create your own world and live by your own rules in Zu online today!.

Read more here.

Cryptic Studios will be treating Star Trek fans to the first gameplay footage of Star Trek Online, and they'll be showing a live webcast of the event with special guest Leonard Nimoy.

If you cannot be in Las Vegas on Sunday to see the first reveal of gameplay footage and information about Star Trek Online (and Leonard Nimoy!), please join us here for a LIVE webcast of the event at 1:30 p.m. PDT.

Read more here.

Blizzard has launched the official BlizzCon 2008 website, with information on panels and events, a goody bag preview, and more.

We just released the official BlizzCon 2008 website. You can now find new information about this year's panels, contests, and tournaments, and you can also learn more about DIRECTV's special BlizzCon promotion. Make sure to check back regularly as the site will be updated with new event information such as event schedules, floor plans, store info, and much, much more.

Read more here.

Flying Lab Software has posted a new dev journal explaining how they are planning on dealing with the problem of off peak port battles.

Let’s talk about the way that port battles are scheduled. The current system is that when a port reaches the required amount of unrest, the battle for control of that port is scheduled for 24 hours later. The intent of this system is that the battle takes place during the play hours of the people who force the port into contention. When it was designed, the idea was that ports would enter the contention phase ‘organically’, as a result of nearby PvP activity.

That isn’t, however, the way ports enter contention in the live game; they are intentionally forced by motivated attackers. This leads to the unfortunate side effect of allowing sufficiently motivated players to cause battles to be scheduled in off-peak hours, when few defenders will be able to respond to the threat. This is borderline griefing; it’s not really against the rules, but it’s certainly not a positive game experience for the targets.

Let’s clarify before we continue, though: there are two separate problems here, and we’re only going to try to address one of them. The first problem is, as I’ve described above, that attackers willing to stay up late can cause a port battle to happen during a server’s low-population time of day. The second problem is that our servers have an international player population, and what’s primetime for our North American players is the middle of the night for our European players. We’re not going to try to solve the latter problem, although we will attempt to alleviate it somewhat.

Read more here.

The folks at The Chronicles of Spellborn have announced that they will be attending the Leipzig Game Convention in a few weeks, and while there they'll be showing off more than just the game, they'll be looking for new team members as well.

As announced previously this week, The Chronicles of Spellborn is attending the Games Convention in Germany. Since we’re still looking for skilled people to join our team of developers, what better opportunity is there to drop your portfolio right at our booth?
There will always be a couple of developers around to accept it and take it back to the TCoS HQ so we can have a good look at it and see if you have what it takes to join our ranks.
So go grab your material, burn it on a CD, DVD or print it! Put all of that into a nice folder together with your CV and give the whole package to us at the GC and maybe we will send you an Art test or invite you for an interview.

Read more here.

A new trailer for runes of magic was released today, featuring in-game footage of the game's combat system in action.

Runes of Magic Action Trailer Check out this new trailer for Runes of Magic, featuring in-game footage of the game's combat system in action!

Read more here.

The folks at Fallen Earth have prepared a brief preview of the recently revamped tutorial and new player experience in Fallen Earth.

In recent months we’ve completely revamped the new player experience in Fallen Earth, rebuilding the tutorial from the ground up and restructuring many of the starter towns. These screenshots show some of the work that has been done in the tutorial, which now takes placing during the Fall of Hoover Dam and introduces the player to some of the more advanced parts of the game, such as vehicle operation and rocket launchers. The player will face everything from White Crow commandos to genetically engineered super-soldiers in the tutorial, and will interact with the six main factions. After the tutorial, players will be able to select what town they wish to start in, each of which has a different focus (crafting, combat, support, PvP).

Check out more images here.

NCsoft has published the patch notes from the latest update for City of Heroes/Villains.

On Tuesday, August 5th we updated City of Heroes to a new game version that includes a number of improvements and revisions. To read all the details of this update, please visit the Patch Notes web page.

Additionally, the Training Room Test Server was updated on August 5th to a new version for public testing. This is our next candidate to promote to the Live servers and we invite anyone interested to check it out. Visit the Training Room patch notes and log in to the Training Room to experience this new version firsthand.

Read more here.

NCsoft has updated their Aion FAQ to include information on the Aion beta test.  Instead of a traditional beta, they will be providing fans with several opportunities to try the game at a number of preview events.

The Aion FAQ has been updated with new information concerning beta testing. The entry is now as follows:

"When will beta testing begin?

In lieu of beta testing, Aion fans will be given opportunities to participate in a small number of Preview events before the game's release. In addition to soliciting player feedback, the Preview events will help prepare for Aion's release, as well as provide a great gaming experience on launch day and beyond.

As with Aion's release date, the schedule of these Preview events will be announced in coming months."

Read more here.