MMORPG Online

2007-11-11T03:25:00.001-08:00

Guitar Rock(the...
Added: 27 September 2007
By: zlamallama

Runescape News

2007-07-29T12:25:00.001-07:00

Lores and Histories - Barrows

This month, Reldo has been sent a tattered manuscript by some Strange Old Man who lives in Morytania. This manuscript sheds new light on the area known as the Barrows, and the legend that surrounds its existence.

Reldo has transcribed this tale, entitled The Fall of Six, into the Lores and Histories section of the website for you all to have a read.

Runescape News

2007-07-24T14:36:00.001-07:00

Reldo has transcribed this tale, entitled The Fall of Six, into the Lores and Histories section of the website for you all to have a read.

Runescape News

2007-07-24T14:35:00.000-07:00

We've just added a bunch of extra features to the game to make your lives a bit easier and much safer. These range from improving existing interfaces to changing the way magic logs look.

We've introduced a couple of changes that should make the trade system easier and safer to use. Firstly, the trade interface now shows you how many free inventory spaces your trade partner has. Secondly, the interface provides a visual warning when your partner removes an item from their offer. If you're worried about your trade partner suddenly changing their offer, this is certain to make it much more obvious.

Throughout various areas of the game we've added the ability to 'make-x' on some more items. This includes a lot of the areas of Cooking such as pie making, pizza making and potato making. It also includes making arrows, potion making, glassmaking, amulet stringing and a number of other areas. You might have noticed that 'make-x' for smithing is missing - do not fear! It is still being worked on and will be brought to you soon.

A new warning system has been unveiled, which will allow veteran players to mute those pesky warning messages that they see on a daily basis. Areas like the Shantay Pass and the Wilderness will no longer force you too see a long message explaining the dangers of the area, unless you want it to. Newer players, and those that have not been to the area enough times, will still see the messages and be safer for it, but those that are more familiar with the dangers will be able to toggle them on and off as they see fit, speeding up journeys through the desert and other dangerous areas. If you want to check out the new warning interface, head to Lumbridge and find the Doomsayer, who wanders around near the Lumbridge Guide.

We have added Town Criers to Varrock, Falador, Draynor, East Ardougne and Seers' Village. These knowledgeable men know all about the Rules of RuneScape as well as providing some handy information regarding Player Moderators and what they can and can't do. So, if you have a question regarding a Rule and don't want to look on the website, just talk to a Town Crier!

We've also updated the Duel Arena so that you'll get a warning if you try to take a double-handed weapon into a single-handed duel, kebabs can no longer reduce your Hitpoints and will affect a different skill instead, and magic logs now look properly magical and very different from other logs.

New Random Event

Just when you thought school was out...SURPRISE! It's an exam for you! Mr. Mordaut is going to put you on the spot and test your abilities at spotting patterns. Will you prove your worth or be sent to the back of the class?

Aside from the terrifying Mr. Mordaut, the class is full of delinquents and dunces: from the bored goblin and the zombies who want (to be) brains to the giant trying to better himself and the imp serving time in the corner. It's just like being back at school - well, it would be if your teacher was a dragon and you had a mummy for a classmate. To prove that you've learnt something in his class, Mr. Mordaut will grant you a tome of experience when you leave.

We like to keep a bit of variation in Random Events but without just adding new ones, so in order to keep the balance right, we've removed the Broken Axe event (the one that made your axehead fall off - not the ent, who damages your axe). We've also magically repaired any broken axes you have, and any handles missing a head have been whisked away to wherever it is that lonely axe handles go.

Click here to read about all the Random Events you might come across.

Runescape.com

Knight Online Fan Site Kit!

2007-06-07T15:01:00.000-07:00

The Knight Online fan site kit is here! Download and you'll have all the assets you need to get started!

Kit includes:

Exclusive screenshots
Official logos
Information on how to obtain Official Fan Site status
Character Renders

... and more!We hope that providing the fan site kit will encourage players to create sites of their own, so click to download the kit now.

Source: Knight Online

Offers and Money

2007-06-06T21:00:00.000-07:00

Hate paying for subscription fees to large MMORPG's? Want to make a little extra cash? Try this link to CashCrate, which will make money for you instantly. I've already made over 80 dollars!

Subscribe to my Blog!

2007-06-06T16:56:00.000-07:00

We will never use your email for anything else. Heck, I don't even know how to see your email address, so all you will get from here is my RSS feed!

Knight Online Pics

2007-06-06T15:07:00.000-07:00

Play Knight Online Today!

See more pics here.

Dungeon Maker: Hunting Ground Hands-On

2007-06-06T07:13:00.000-07:00

We assume the role of a monster-slaying architect in this unusual PSP role-playing game.

By Justin Calvert, GameSpot
Posted Jun 5, 2007 5:27 pm PT

If you're familiar with Bullfrog's classic Dungeon Keeper games, you'll know that designing monster-filled dungeons can be just as much fun as exploring them. Later this month, you'll never be forced to choose between the aforementioned pastimes again because Xseed Games' Dungeon Maker: Hunting Ground for the PlayStation Portable will be shipping to stores. We recently had an opportunity to spend several hours with a near-finished version of the unusual role-playing game and found its premise of attracting monsters to a dungeon to slay them quite compelling.

In Dungeon Maker: Hunting Ground, you assume the role of an architect who has recently moved to a small town and decided to endear himself to the neighbors by building a dungeon right outside the town walls. Actually, the town's inhabitants are a friendly bunch and don't really seem to find the idea of attracting monsters to the area objectionable. This is perhaps because the dungeon and your exploits therein are good for the local economy. There are a number of stores in the town waiting for your hard-earned currency, including an armorer, a magic shop, a building supplies store, and a food market. You'll be spending plenty of money at all of these stores as you progress through the game--money that you'll earn by selling items dropped by the monsters that you successfully lure into and kill in your dungeon.

Your time in Dungeon Maker: Hunting Ground is divided up into days, and throughout the course of a single day, you're only permitted to visit your dungeon once. It's up to you to decide what you want to achieve while you're in your dungeon. For example, you might want to raise some cash by slaying any monsters that have moved in, you might want to complete a quest by retrieving an item for one of the townsfolk, or you might simply look to do some labyrinth improvements by dropping in additional corridors and rooms. You'll have only a handful of building blocks to choose from when you start creating your dungeon, but as you progress, you'll unlock lots more, as well as different "wallpapers" that you can apply to them.

You'll learn early on that monsters are a picky bunch when it comes to looking for a dungeon to call home; they like complicated layouts with plenty of twists, turns, forks, and rooms in which to hide. Furthermore, many monsters aren't partial to cold, stone walls and bare rooms. For example, we were told by one of the shopkeepers that goblins like a "comfortable, well-built" dungeon, which basically meant that we had to invest in some wooden floors and walls. Other monsters we've encountered to date wouldn't grace our dungeon with their presence until we'd hooked up drinking water, rooms suitable for storing treasure, and less obvious requirements that we happened to fulfill by chance. Our first boss battle against a griffon occurred a few days after we installed an especially large room designed to attract it. Although one of our rewards was an opportunity to expand our dungeon down to a second floor, we were encouraged to keep working on the first floor as much as possible.

Upgrading and adding to your dungeon could hardly be easier. Pressing the square button inside any room or corridor pulls up a menu of the customization options available for it, while hitting the triangle button at any dead end gives you an opportunity to use any of the building blocks in your inventory there. Remodeling your existing dungeon is also a painless process because with the push of a button you can return corridors and rooms to your inventory. Because these dungeon components are expensive to buy, you'll have no choice but to start out small. It's only after attracting some monsters that drop decent loot that you'll be able to stop pouring all of your money into dungeon expansion to invest in some gear and abilities for yourself.

You'll occasionally be able to upgrade your weapons and armor simply by equipping items dropped by monsters. But more often than not, you'll want to sell that stuff in town and put the proceeds toward the best gear available. To date, the scope for customizing our character has been very limited given that early on, most armor items are clearly superior or inferior to each other. Weapons offer more variety with their different attack speeds, strengths, and ranges. Although the arsenal available to us is still very small at this point, we have access to two-handed spears, swords, clubs, shields, and bows that have all served us well in different situations. We've also invested in a small number of magic attacks, giving us the ability to attack enemies with rocks, fireballs, ice columns, summoned allies, and the like.

At the end of each day, you'll return to your house where, before going to sleep to advance time, you'll have the opportunity to enjoy a home-cooked meal. Most of the ingredients used for preparing food in Dungeon Maker: Hunting Ground are monster parts that'll drop from enemies, and as you discover new ingredients, the townsfolk will be happy to share their recipes with you. Sleeping through the night is enough to replenish your health and magic points before the next day's adventuring and construction. But it's only by eating food that you can actually increase the size of your health and magic reserves. If you die while exploring your monster-filled creation, you'll be revived at the town's apothecary, where you can stock up on potions and other items that will help ensure it doesn't happen again. Other buildings worth visiting from time to time include the castle, where you'll receive magical rings as rewards for your monster-killing exploits. There's also the museum, which has information on all of the monsters, weapons, armor, and accessories that you've discovered to date. As you progress through the game, you'll also notice that some ruins appear outside of town. These ruins serve as the entrance to dungeons that have been designed by friends and shared with you using the PSP's ad hoc wireless functionality.

Dungeon Maker: Hunting Ground is currently scheduled for release in North America on June 19. No European release for the game has been confirmed at this time, but we look forward to bringing you more information as soon as it becomes available.

Source: Gamespot http://www.gamespot.com

Runescape News

2007-06-06T07:06:00.000-07:00

Hair of the dog

Grrr....Growl....Woof! The Makeover Mage has been hard at work giving man's best (and sometimes not so best) friend a new look. The Makeover Mage paid a visit to Canifis and gave the werewolves a haircut and pedicure. Then off he/she went to the cold mountain ranges of RuneScape to smarten up the wolves. The Makeover Mage didn't stop there, he/she sent all the dogs of RuneScape to the dog groomer. Keep your eyes peeled for the new look for man's best friend.

In other news...

An issue with the Lunar Spellbook has been fixed for one specific spell. Players should now be able to temporarily swap spellbooks, cast a spell from a different book and then change back to the Lunar Spellbook once more.

Two songs from our wonderful collection have been renamed to better suit their uses. 'Gnome' has been renamed to 'Goblin Village' which certainly doesn't contain any gnomes! The other was 'Gnome Theme' which has been changed to 'Dwarf Theme' and reflects the nearby creatures that inhabit the area.

We've added a bracelet mould to the Crafting Guild. Players should now have everything at hand for all their Crafting needs.

Players should no longer get confused when talking to King Roald. He was acting a bit strange and sometimes greeted players twice. It would've been rude to mention, but he is a king after all!

We have also slightly adjusted the text colour on stacked items, making it easier to distinguish between a large and small number of objects.

Runescape News

2007-06-06T07:04:00.000-07:00

Development Diaries

Today sees the release of a new feature on the RuneScape website: Development Diaries! This new series of articles will take you behind the scenes here at Jagex HQ, so you can all get a better understanding of the work that goes into our regular updates, rather than just seeing the end result.

The first diary takes you through the entire development of the upcoming Impetuous Impulses minigame, but not just a boring step-by-step account: there are some juicy hints about upcoming content, concept artwork to ogle and amusing quotes from our mods, so there should be something in there to interest everyone.

The Development Diaries can be found in the Stories and Letters section of the website, along with Postbag from the Hedge, Players' Gallery and Lores and Histories. We hope you enjoy the diaries!

Source: Runescape http://runescape.com

Shadowrun User Review

2007-06-03T12:05:00.000-07:00

By Sytzepunk
Posted Jun 2, 2007 6:11 am PT
Recommended by 3 users.

Above average cyberpunk shooter with RPG elements, to bad there was no singleplayer.
Shadowrun, got the game over a import company to play it as fast as possibly because I love games like these, what I played was what I expected, but it didn't work out the way I wanted.

Shadowrun (has nothing to do with the pen-and-paper RPG from like a century ago) is a highly anticipated shooter that feels like it was made in a rush, its multiplayer only component isn't fun, and I would've loved to see a co-op single player, that'd be awesome, but we are out of luck in this game.

Gameplay:Fun, you are able to check out four different classes, each one with different abilities, and after you enter a game, you'll see a CS like shop where you can purchase weapons and magic and enhancement to make attacks better, if you play the game after a while, you'll find out some effective weapon combinations.

This game is you're typical Rock-paper-scissor FPS if you can look at it, but with some twists to make it harder to guess where to be on the look out for classes with certain skills.

Graphics:Level designs are pretty good, some would fit great in Singleplayer if there was any, the character designs are rather dissapointing tho, I was expecting more from a highly anticipated game like this, the huge NPC's liike mighty fine though.

Sometimes, characters will freeze in a stand and float around like that, its frustating if it happens and lets the game feel bugged and unfinished, I'm really hoping that FASA is putting up downloadable patches to fix problems like these.

Since this a multiplayer only game, it doesn't have much to talk about it, gameplay is satisfying, but with ''Will-do'' graphics and unfinished look makes the game a dissapointment, I'm still playing the game tho it wasn't what I hoped it to be, I'm really hoping FASA is doing alot of patches for this game.

Is it a good FPS:Good, not the best, not stunning atleast, there are some innovatation here and there, but thats all it.

Source: Gamespot User Reviews: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/shadowrun/player_review.html?id=459144

Shadowrun Review

2007-06-03T12:01:00.000-07:00

This multiplayer-only shooter does absolutely nothing with the Shadowrun name, and its unique strengths are offset by a lack of variety.

The Good: Unique ability system sets the game apart from other shooters; lets vista and 360 users play on the same servers; good-looking effects.
The Bad: Bad and missing animation makes the game look unfinished; not enough maps to stay interesting for long; does absolutely nothing with the shadowrun license.

You wouldn't automatically expect a multiplayer first-person shooter like Counter-Strike to serve as the main inspiration for a game based on a 1989 pen-and-paper RPG, but that's exactly what you get in Microsoft's Shadowrun, which takes all of the cyberpunk-plus-magic stuff from the RPG and boils it down to magic spells and technological character upgrades. The action is kind of neat, but a lack of variety and its multiplayer-only offering make for a pretty shallow experience that feels about $30 too expensive.

Aside from six brief-but-necessary training sequences and the ability to play against bots of questionable intelligence, Shadowrun is played online. Up to 16 players can get into one eight-on-eight game, pitting the rebellious Lineage forces against the new-world-order-like RNA Global, who are apparently fighting each other in an attempt to control magic, which has recently returned to an already-high-tech world. But that's about as much story as you're going to get here, as the rest of the game is all about buying skills and controlling artifacts.

Shadowrun is a round-based multiplayer first-person shooter that works a lot like Counter-Strike. At the front of each round, you're given a safe period where you can access a buy menu and purchase weapons, tech upgrades, and magic spells. So in addition to buying a submachine gun, you might pick up some aim enhancement in the form of the SmartLink tech upgrade, and the ability to teleport through walls, floors, and ceilings. These skills set the game a bit apart from the average team-based shooter as it lets you specialize. Spells like tree of life and resurrect let you heal and revive other players. Or you might get smoke, which lets you transform into a smoke form that can't be damaged by conventional weapons. Or perhaps you'll buy gust, which blows players around and, not so coincidentally, makes for a powerful counter against players using smoke. There's a pretty good collection of abilities to play around with, but the catch is that you can have only three of them equipped at any given time.

You'll make another meaningful choice by choosing your race. Humans are better at using tech upgrades. Elves move faster and can't take as much damage as the other races, but they regenerate health. Trolls are big and tough, but they're also very slow and don't have as much essence, which is the meter that drains when you cast spells. Dwarves are little and hardy, though they don't regenerate essence very well on their own. But this is offset by the dwarves' ability to absorb essence from nearby players or other magical items. For what it's worth, it seems like most players pick elves most of the time, though the different races seem to balance out just fine.

Once you've spent a little money on some guns and spells, it's off to do battle. There are three team-based gametypes, though there isn't a huge difference between them. Two of them focus on an artifact, which is Shadowrun's version of a flag. In one mode, each team wants to capture the artifact by grabbing it and delivering it to a team-specific capture point. Another gametype puts one team on full-time defense, and they must prevent the attacking team from capturing the artifact. The attrition gametype is the only one that doesn't center on the artifact, and instead you just need to wipe out the other team, but since you can win that way in any of the other gametypes, it doesn't feel especially different.

Every map can handle an attrition game, but only the larger maps can run raid or extraction games. The three smaller, attrition-only maps are for eight-player games, and they're actually smaller versions of some of the existing maps, which feels like a rip-off, considering there are only nine original maps to choose from. Between the lack of maps and the similarity between the gametypes, you'll feel like you've seen just about everything that Shadowrun has to offer within the first few hours--provided you can get into a game.

Shadowrun attempts to use a variation on Halo 2's party system, meaning you can get some people on your friends list together and ship off to find other players to play against. But even when you're alone, Shadowrun's automatic game finder seems to have trouble finding games quickly. It'll also drop you into games that are just ending, which is annoying. PC members who pay for the privilege of gold access can also get into PC-only dedicated server games using a more standard server browser, which is substantially faster, though not as populated.

Shadowrun is the first game to allow Xbox 360 and PC users to play on the same servers. The game seems to work just fine on both platforms, and there's almost no indication that a player is using a PC or a 360 to play. Rather than limit auto-aim to just the 360 or to controller users, as the Vista version of Halo 2 did, Shadowrun gives a little bit of it to everyone, which is, of course, pumped up with the addition of the SmartLink ability. This might frustrate PC mouse-and-keyboard users, as it feels like your aim is being taken out of your hands a bit; and if you've been playing PC shooters with any regularity, you probably don't need the help. But regardless of how weird it can feel, it does at least feel balanced.

Visually, Shadowrun looks great in some areas and painfully unfinished in others. The environments and textures look good, and the spell effects and other particle-oriented elements look great. But then there are dumb omissions, like the way that they didn't bother to include any kind of climbing animation--so when characters go up ladders, they do so locked in their standing position with no movement whatsoever. Also, the different player models look pretty good, but there's absolutely no variety. All Lineage elves look identical, all RNA humans look the same, and so on. Some sort of differentiation would have been nice. These kinds of omissions make the game look sloppy in spots, which is a real shame.

Aside from the voice chat, which works just as well on the PC as it does on the 360 provided you have the proper hardware (like a 360 headset hooked up to your PC), the rest of the game's audio is good, but a bit sparse. Since it's all multiplayer, there's no in-game music. But there's an announcer who lets you know when rounds end, or when either team grabs or drops the artifact. If voice chat isn't your thing, you can push a button to give a quick, automated report about your surroundings, which is good for letting your team know when an area is clear, when there are enemies present, or when you need backup, since it'll put icons up on your teammates' screen, letting you know where the call is coming from. Gunfire, explosions, and things like that all sound pretty good, too.

Perhaps the most telling aspect of Shadowrun comes from WizKids, the maker of the other Shadowrun stuff. When the game was first unveiled last year, it alerted Shadowrun fans that this might not be for them by posting "fair warning, however: Microsoft rewrote the timeline and setting for this game, so it is not in continuity with the tabletop RPG. It may be more accurately described as a game loosely based on Shadowrun." If you're going in with no expectations on the lore and licensed side of things, you'll find a decent and somewhat unique multiplayer shooter. But you'll also have to pay full price for what feels like half a game, making it difficult to recommend.

By Jeff Gerstmann, GameSpot
Posted Jun 1, 2007 5:46 pm PT

Source: Gamespot, Retrieved 6/3/07

AdventureQuest News

2007-05-31T05:25:00.000-07:00

NEW: War for the Creation Orb!
Use the Event button in town to join your fellow Adventurers and Guardians in an epic battle to get the Creation Orb and unit the elemental forces of the world against the Devourer! New enemies and more!

Z-TOKENS: Get powered-up!
Z-Tokens are special coins you can use to buy the most powerful items! You earn some Z-Tokens from battles, and you can also buy Z-Tokens. UPDATE: The tough new Soul Banisher armor comes to Valencia's shop!

NEW: Greenguard Forest!
Go to Greenguard Forest on the Travel map to look for clues as to why the monsters there have been more active than usual in this new quest!

source: http://www.battleon.com/

Runescape News

2007-05-31T05:23:00.000-07:00

Guaranteed Content poll

The first Guaranteed Content poll is here, and it focuses on the new Achievement Diaries. In particular, its aim is to find out which area should have a Diary next: whether that be the troll mountains, the Gnome Stronghold or the many human towns of Asgarnia, Misthalin and Kandarin. The places mentioned in the poll will include their surrounding areas and countryside, to add greater variety to the final Diary. Seers' Village will stretch to Catherby and Hemenster, for example, while the Fremennik regions will include Lunar Isle, Miscellania, Etceteria, etc.

We feel that the seven areas we have chosen would benefit from an Achievement Diary, and we would like you to choose your favourite. The winner WILL be our next Diary, and the poll results will be published on the 11th of June.

Please do not think that, beyond this poll, our Achievement Diary schedule will be determined by the results. We have plans to introduce Achievement Diaries to regions that we are currently producing content for, while other areas may not yet contain enough to do.

Website Login Update

Today we're upgrading the way website logins work. Building on our improvements yesterday, we're finishing our new-look login page which includes a new type of login form which is more secure.

source: http://www.runescape.com/

Knight Online Beginer FAQ

2007-05-30T06:43:00.000-07:00

Q: I got "Login Server Failed! Please Retry Connecting" What now?

A: The server is currently full and you need to try again until you can access the server. Or you need to check your inbox mail via the KOL web site.

Q: I got warned for spam. What is spam?

A: Defined as; To indiscriminately send unsolicited, unwanted, irrelevant, or inappropriate messages, especially commercial advertising in mass quantities. The focus here would be on unwanted, irrelevant, or inappropriate messages posted in someone's thread.

To ensure that you do not get a warning or ban, simply ensure that you are on topic. Don't post +1, yeah, or other incoherent statements.

Q: I got warned for swearing but I didn't say the word?

A: Swearing is swearing, no matter if you replaced the letters with something else. This includes using any kind of acronym. It is against forum policy so please observe the rules.

Q: I posted on a subject or created a post and now it's gone. What happened?

A: Certain post that do not follow forum rules can and will be removed. Please ensure that you have read the forum rules before you comment or post anywhere in the forum.

Q: I forgot my password...Arrrg...And the link doesn't work on the main web page. What now?

A: I'm really sorry but this feature has currently been disabled. When and if this feature is returned more information will be posted in our Announcements & News forum section.

Q: No one has answered my post, what's going on?

A: Ensure that you have correctly marked your Title and Subject based on your issue or concern

Q: How do I use the scrolls that I purchased from the power up store or from the merchant?

A: Place the scroll in your skill bar. Once there you just need to click on it to activate it.

Q: "Non-premium users are not allowed to login this at this time. We are sorry for the inconvenience. Please try again later." ?

A: Knight Online is a Free 2 Play game on all servers. However, there is a limit to how many people can actually use the game. 80% is available for F2P and 20% has been set aside for premium customers. You just need to keep trying to login until a space opens. Best thing is to try when Europe is sleeping. Around 5PM - 9PM EST.

Q: How do I take a screen shot ( aka ss)?

A: If you are using some other photo editor you can simply just click on "print screen" for PC and then just paste it into the photo editor. Or, Press the minus key "-" on your keypad to take a ksc file. The file is saved in your KnightOnline folder. After you open the folder, select the file you want and choose the "save as" option. It will let you choose the type of file you want to save it as. Normally, I choose .jpg and it works fine. TY: Mysticfire

Q:What are the requirements to play?

A: Game Requirements, click here.

Q: The game doesn't seem to be loading. Could it be a video card issue?

A: Ensure that you have the latest updated Direct X. Also ensure that your video card is supported and that you have the latest update for that card.

Q: My game seems to be loading very slow. How can I fix it?

A: Ensure that you have any applications closed (or temporarily disabled while you are playing) that are running in the background. E.g. Norton Antivirus.

Q: What do you get if you buy a premium package?

A: Premium packages will allow you to connect 99.9% of the time. It will also increase the drop rate, give you more xp, give you more money when you sell something to the merchant. Silver and bronze will also include 1000 power up store dollars, Trinia piece for upgrading your items. I will post more detailed list shortly.

Q: Why can't I delete my character?

A: Sorry but this feature is currently disable. When and if this feature is returned more information will be posted in our Announcements & News forum section.

Q: Why can't I switch between characters?

A: Sorry but this feature is currently disable. When and if this feature is returned more information will be posted in our Announcements & News forum section.

Q: How do I get to the Abyss?

A:Locating the Abyss:

1. Make sure your on server 1
2. Go to Moradon
3. Then at the same gate choose Delos
4. Make sure you have 20K to travel
5. Go through the middle gate, as you are walking/running straight the main gate will be in front of you. As you enter go over to the left and up the stairs and over the bridge. At the end, right click on the wall and select the abyss.

Rules: You won't loose money, you won't loose xp by being killed from an Orc, you will loose xp if you are killed by a monster.

Q: I'm new to the game and wanted to know if there were some suggestions or links for newbies?

A: New Players Guide

Item/Clothing/Weapon Guide

Crafting Guide > Understanding Anvil Scrolls

Scroll Guide > Listing of All Scrolls

Bosses Guide

Game Vocabulary Guide > ++ >> 111 etc...

http://www.knightonlineworld.com/

Games To Watch For...

2007-05-30T05:59:00.001-07:00

This online role-playing game focuses primarily on combat between players and large-scale race wars.

By: Aventurine S.A., Razorwax
Genre: Fantasy Online Role-Playing

Release Date: TBA (tech info )

Most Popular Tags:

darkfall darkfall online fantasy innovative game massive world mmorpg multiplayer on-line online razorwax rpg silverfall uo www.darkfallonline.com

Darkfall looks to be one of the huge, sprawling MMORPG's that we've all seen in the past year. It looks to have a run-of-the-mill gameplay type, using the same, rehashed "large scale war between races". We'll wait and see how this game will present itself when it hits the shelves.

Runescape News

2007-05-30T05:56:00.000-07:00

Varrock's New Look

This week's bumper update brings a completely new look to the bustling city of Varrock and the surrounding lands, so take a moment out of your training to admire the freshly restored grandeur of the palace of King Roald and his - ahem - charming Queen Ellamaria. Outside the palace, the artisans and merchants of the city have had their shops refitted, from the glowing warmth of Horvik's smithy to the unkempt mess of the sword shop (apparently some people would rather play with weapons than tidy their rooms). Even the Dancing Donkey Inn, that disreputable domain of dodgy delinquents, got its due decorations.

In the southern districts of the city, where thieves and muggers from the Black Arm and Phoenix gangs roam the streets, the renovation of Varrock has shown up the grit and grime that years of neglect have brought to this ancient city. Tatty clotheslines span the alleyways, derelict and ruined buildings approach collapse and flea-ridden dogs are poised with tails a-wag, ready to harass you (and your cat).

The update doesn't stop at the walls of Varrock. Further afield, there's a new look for the Jolly Boar Inn (your last chance for a pint before the Wilderness, but watch out for the astonishingly unpleasant cook), the Lumber Yard, the Cooking Guild and the Mining spots south of the city.

The sawing, hammering and general hubbub of construction has been affecting the Varrock Museum over the past few months. Strange crates have been turning up and lots of people going in and out muttering about display 20 or how that skeleton was so hard to rig together.

Finally, as the dust settles and the new museum is unveiled, you will be allowed to explore the mysteries of RuneScape's history. Find out things that have never been revealed before, earn more rewards for old quests, clean Dig Site finds and contribute to the displays in the museum or answer quizzes to learn about the beasts of RuneScape. Whatever you do in the museum you'll find lots of information is available from the information booth just inside the door.

The timeline section of the Museum should be of special interest, as for the first time it will present RuneScape's history in one location (not to mention all the pretty exhibits to keep you entertained). This will be updated regularly to keep the Museum the definitive location for knowledge about RuneScape's history.

Although non-members will be able to have a look around the display cases on the ground floor of the Museum, only members can take full advantage of the opportunities available.

So what are you waiting for? Explore and learn while having fun and still getting those levels! Visit the Varrock Museum today!

Note: If you were in Varrock before the update, you might find yourself teleported to a safe spot. Don't worry, this is just a precaution to make sure you don't find yourself embedded in a new wall.

In other news...

Due to competition from nearby sellers, Davon in Brimhaven is now more generous and will offer better prices to the players who've completed at least one set of tasks in the Karamja Achievement Diary.

A bug has been fixed in players' houses to stop the rune display case from appearing in the wrong place when a staircase was added. Also shades in Mort'ton can no longer attack players from a great distance.

The Ardougne Zoo fence has been repaired and some holes have been fixed to stop any animals escaping.

There has been a fix for players who've completed the Dream Mentor quest. The Dream spell in the Lunar Spellbook will now break when you auto-retaliate against a monster or another player. Previously, if you were having a quick nap and a foe attacked you, you would fight back but still be in a dreamy state.

Cows and calves nearby to the Crafting Guild are now closer to the ground and can happily munch on grass again instead of hovering around. In addition Captain Donnie's Eye has been relocated back in his head and an evergreen tree that previously defied gravity on Miscellania has now been firmly rooted.

The ring of life will no longer teleport you out of the TzHaar Fight Cave. As it's a safe minigame, there's no particular reason you should need to be saved by the ring of life.

Finally, we've updated the look of the secure login form to better fit in with the rest of the website.

http://www.runescape.com/

Runescape Reviews

2007-05-29T05:25:00.000-07:00

"First thing, Runescape is best played if your doing something else at the same time. I watch tv, put on some tunes, play other game whatever. The reason for this is because you spend most of the time clicking and then watching the comp do everything for you. You will get bored really easy doing training that takes months to get to the max lv. What it is, is a medieval type of world where you make your character and then trade, kill monsters and other players for goods,do tons of quests to keep you busy etc. I know alot of people say that the game is for 12 year olds but you should to be 13 to play. I do know some people under 13 that play but the people I see are over 13 i hardly ever see 12 year olds. And so what it doesnt change the game. There are over 1m member s and over 2m players so alot of people to talk to. I think its a good way to chat with people online and play a simple game at the same time. The reason why i think this game is put down alot is because of WOW being the cool game to play and that what the older people play. Hate to say it but its a false statement. theres a difference between the game. RS is a online java game where WOW is a game you can buy at the store. Thats like comparing Halo to RS cant do it! Try the game out, its free after all."

"its good for a wile the you get bored of it for a few months the you like it again i spend about £50 on subscipesion for it untill i found wow fro a south aprk epasode but what i don get haw can you own this game when its free un less your a member witch i was i got good at it lvl 60 i think im 50something on the crafting trankd look for olie440 thats ,e yes i do use the same user name for evrything back to he game it got rubish grathics and a simple ui any computer with internet inculeding dialup will work fatly with it the yypes of people who play this game are 12-13 year olds like i was when i played it the best skill i think is the hunting skill that pritty fun you start off in a island called tutal island which tells you every thing aboyut the game you wana kjnow if you ca get passed that then you sart off as a noob lvl 3 and have to beg for every thintg or learn to mine basicly you do this get armer then your upgrade your armer till you on rune you have to do a imposable quest to get this game over then but i colnd do the quest so i was a member i got grante pla8 and maul instead"

"this game is fun, especialy the members only, it is an easy way to meet people, and it is free. the graphix and sound r choppy, but ok. it is a pain in the butt trying to get good weapons, but is sooo worth it. the controls could be better, and it could be more iteractive. a lot of m onsters r easy to kill but get harder the more u get in. the worlds look neat and there is alot of things to do. it is free, it's fun, and it addicting. it will keep u occupied till u reach lvl 126."

" RuneScape is a very under-rated game. It has loads of quests, items, skills, and events to keep you busy.

The good: RuneScape is great to play with friends. The no download gameplay makes it playable from any computer with Java (which is basically any computer), and free play makes it open to anyone, at any age. There is more than enough to do on a free to play account, but at five dollars per month (which isn't very steep compared to WoW's fifteen dollars monthly) you can access much, much more content. If you need to kill time, RuneScape is your best friend.

The bad: RuneScape takes a lot of time to be successful in the game. Especially to keep up with the people who are... Socially challenged, and spend a more-than-recommended time on the game. If you want to go into the Wilderness, you have to be an exceptional character. Another bad part are the over abundance of bots. Bots are almost a given in RuneScape, and they take away from leveling skills up (for example, the wood-cutting bots take away logs from trees that actual players are trying to cut for money or experience).

Overall, the game isn't bad, as long as you're willing to stay dedicated to it. Otherwise, play something else."

"Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided" Beginner Player Guide

2007-05-29T05:21:00.000-07:00

1. Basic Game Information
2. Professions
3. Quest/Content Information
4. Common Questions

1.
Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided was released July 9, 2003 according to Gamefaqs. When it came out it was according to veteren players "Very much alive and fun". The game has faced a total of 2 major changes. They are commonly referred to as "CU (Combat Upgrade) and NGE (New Game Enhancements). These changes have caused much division among players and uproar among many. The NGE is the state that the game is currently in. The changes the NGE caused were: 1) 9 Professions instead of over 30 2) Jedi is starting profession 3) Point-Click Combat 4) No Decay. These are only a few of the major changes, but these are perhaps the most important of the changes. The changes were suposedly made due to popular demand and the lack of a "Star Warsy" feel. The game has been reported as "deserted" by many, but from my personal experience, it's just as alive as it ever was, except many of the Veterens are gone and the lands are roaming with new players.

2.
The professions after the NGE are:

Jedi
Bounty Hunter
Medic
Spy
Officer
Smuggler
Trader
Entertainer
Commando

*Note* Smugglers cannot actually smuggle. Bounty Hunters no longer have player bounties.

3.
The game originally took place right after A New Hope. It has since gone in many different paths. The game has an abundance of Jedi who are in a time period where Jedi should not be. The planets the game takes you to are planets that were not involved in Episdoes IV-VI but were instead involved in Episodes I-III.

Some of the quests that can be done are: Jabbas Palace, An Imperial or Rebellion Themepark, Space Missions, Work for Obi-Wan Kenobi in ghost-form, and work for other characters not very well-known such as Nym or the Clone, Mort. There are many, many other quests...

4
Common Questions and Answers.

Q: What is the monthly fee?
A: $14.99, however, 60 day game cards are available for $29.99

Q: If Im a Jedi, do I start off with a lightsaber?
A: Not currently, it's my understanding that you receive a lightsaber shortly after level 20?

Q: What is the level cap?
A: The level cap is currently Level 90.

Q: What kind of armor is there?
A: There are many types of armors. They range from Stormtrooper to Rebellion Armors to Bone Armor to the actual armor Boba Fett himself wore. There are over 10 different types of armor easily.

Q: Can I customize my ship?
A: Yes you can.

Q: What is the largest server?
A: Bria and Ahazi were the largest servers the last time I checked.

Q: Do I get to fight Darth Vader!?
A: No, sorry, not at this point in time.

Q: How much RAM do I need?
A: 512 MB is required; however 1 Gig is the best way to go for as little lag as possible.

Q: Can I be a Sith Lord
A: No, sorry.

Q: I want to try the game, but what if I don't like it, is there a trial?
A: Yes, there is! It is a 10 day trial on Starwarsgalaxies.com

Q: What are all of the expansions?
A: The expansions are: Jump to Lightspeed (which is free now), Rage of the Wookiees, and Trials of Obi-Wan.

Q: Is there a lot of PVP?
A: You betcha'!

Q: I played a while back and Im thinking about returning, should I?
A: That is entirely up to you, but chances are, if you loved the game before the changes, that you will not like them. The best thing to do would be to try to 10 day trial and see for yourself.

Q: What are the different variations of how to buy this game?
A: Well, if you can find The Total Experience, it is probably the best way to go. It includes An Empire Divided, Jump to Lightspeed, and Rage of the Wookiees, as well as an exclusive Barc Speeder. The Starter Kit is also available and it only includes An Empire Divided, Jump to Lightspeed, and a "Pocket Shuttleport" for in-game use. You can also download it off the internet and start paying for your month from there.

Q: Is Pre-CU ever going to return?
A: This is currently only a rumor.

Q: I played a while back, are my characters still around?
A: YES! SOE has never had a "character swipe" so you are in luck.

Q: Did Sony Online Entertainment not renew their license?
A: Once again, this is only a rumor.

Q. What does this term mean?
A. There's a lot of terms that get thrown around the board, here's a basic outline of most of them that are specific to Galaxies
-SWG: Star Wars Galaxies. The game itself.
-SOE: Sony Online Entertainment, the company that runs Star Wars Galaxies.
-LA: LucasArts, the company that supervises SWG.
-CU: Stands for "Combat Upgrade," an upgrade to the game that was conceived back in December 2003, but was not implemented until late April 2005. It was supposed to be a sort of "golden fix," eliminating all the major problems in the game. It effectively split the player community as to who liked it and who didn't. There was a lot of rioting, protesting and such on the forums and in the game. In the end, SOE did nothing and lost a bunch of customers over it.
-Pre-CU: Refers to the game as it was from launch (June 2003) to the time of the CU (April 2005). It is what many (but not all) crochety old vets like me believe was SWG's golden years. However, others are of the mind it was boring and uneventful. The general online view, especially on the main forums, is that Pre-CU was the best time of the game, but since nowhere near everyone from the game posts on the forums it is not possible to say which system of gameplay is now preferred.
-NGE: The New Game Experience, a sort of "Combat Upgrade 2" released on November 15th. It had similar effects as the CU, changing the gameplay radically, eliminating a whole bunch of classes and pissing off a chunk of the player base. There was also some shady business performed by SOE at that time (like launching an expansion pack a day before announcing the changes) which tended to peeve people even more. Once again, the community is split as to which was preferred, Pre-NGE or Post-NGE.
-JtL: Jump to Lightspeed. The game's first expansion pack which introduced space into the game. Now free with your purchase of Galaxies.
-RotW: Rage of the Wookiees. The game's second expansion pack. Introduced the planet Kashyyyk and approximately 100 new quests.
-ToOW: Trials of Obi-Wan. The game's third expansion pack. Introduced the planet Mustafar and more new quests.
-BH: Bounty Hunter, one of the professions.
-BE: Bio-Engineer, an extinct profession from before the time of the NGE
-CH: Creature Handler, another extinct profession.
-CL: Combat level, what level you or your opponent is.
-IGN: In-game name. The name of your character in Galaxies.

Q: HELP! I'm completely lost.
A: This board moves slowly, so here isn't really the best place to look for questions. You could try the main forums, but at the moment they aren't really all that helpful either. Look for a player with the word "HELPER" floating above their name and talk to them. In most cases they will be more than happy to help you.

Q: I tried! They're ignoring me!
A: While Helpers will help you, they aren't free 100% of the time, so you may have just found one that's busy. Assuming you haven't, there are a few things to improve your odds of getting help
-Send them a tell. This is similar to a whisper in other games. It's a message only they will be able to hear. If you receive a tell it will be yellow text on your screen and it will be accompanied by a short beeping sound. Tells will let them know you're talking to them and not someone else. You can send a tell by typing "/tell (insert player name here) (insert message here)" Minus the quotes. Example: If I wanted to my character, Desceron, you would type: /tell Desceron Hi, can you help me?
-Be polite and type reasonably well. "Excuse me, can you help me? I'm new and I can't figure out how to use a new weapon I just got." will get more answers than "oMG! hEPLS me!!1! i got a pwzn wepin, bt i cnat YooSE ti!!"
-Be patient. Helpers are volunteers, and it can be quite a chore helping new people in this game. Eventually you will find your answers.

Q. I just saw an "Elder Rifleman!" I thought you said there were only nine classes and rifleman wasn't there! Is it some super-secret 10th class or something?
A. Nope, there still are only 9 classes. Remember that NGE I was talking about earlier? That reduced the game from 30-some professions down to 9. In recognition, people who had mastered professions before the NGE were "Elder" titles to commemorate their acheivment.

Q. Can I get an Elder title?
A. Not anymore, sadly.

Q. Wow! Can you help me in game? What server are you on and what's your IGN?
A. Me specifically? I just troll around these boards for fun. After 2.5 years, I left SWG because I was fed up with SOE and displeased with the direction the game went after the CU. Anyone else? You'll have to ask them, but I'd estimate half the people on this board no longer play...

Q. Is there anything that I won't be able to get as a new player? Did I miss anything by not joining earlier?
A. Yes. Several loots and quests have been retired. Nothing too severe, but if you're a completest and want everything, you will be hard pressed to get it anymore...

Q. What's this I hear about a liscensing renewal/SWG shutting down?
A. As Farkus said, it's just a rumour at this point. Basically, SWG's liscensing agreement for the Star Wars liscence expires this February. If LA believes their liscence is better used elsewhere, they can choose not to renew and SWG would be shut down at that point.

Q. So SWG is shutting down?
A. Possibly, but once again, IT'S JUST A RUMOUR! No one will know for sure until February.

Q. Do you recommend this game?
A. Me? No. Anyone else? Ask them.

Q. Why? And if you hate it so much, why do you stick around?
A. Answering that thoroughly would take quite a while. Let's just leave it at this game was one of my favourite up until the CU. It then went in a completely different direction and I no longer was having fun in the game. I still hold out hope that SWG will someday return to the way it was, but that's likely never to happen now...

"Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided" Review Part III

2007-05-29T05:18:00.000-07:00

Galaxies does a fairly good job of pointing you in the right direction. There's an optional step-by-step tutorial that walks you through the game's complex interface and explains your character's key abilities using clear voice-over and pop-up help screens. The game comes with a nearly-200-page manual that also makes for pretty good reference material. The interface itself, though it takes a few hours to get used to (especially when trying to figure out skills like surveying and crafting), is very powerful. You can easily locate and set waypoints to any area of interest near your character. Looking for the cantina in Mos Espa? Need to find the nearest city on Naboo? The interface puts all this information just a few keystrokes away. So, if you're a veteran of other online RPGs, you'll be pleased to know that the days of wandering through towns looking for shops and shouting for healers are gone with Star Wars Galaxies.

Speaking of shops, part of the reason you won't be looking for shops in Galaxies is because there basically aren't any, other than a few junk dealers, who mostly refuse to buy any of your stuff anyway. Instead, the game has a player-driven economy that's accessible through bazaar terminals, which let you bid on items put up for auction by other players, instantly buy items put up for sale, or post your own sales or auctions, or through player-made vendors, which perform similar transactions. There's currently a rather limited variety of goods available, as brawlers and marksmen are relegated to just a few basic types of weapons and armor, while other categories have no items posted for sale at all.

It's possible that players just haven't advanced far enough to get to some of the better items and equipment yet, but it's more likely that Star Wars Galaxies just doesn't have a ton of real content in it at this point. So as you kill the thousandth womp rat or dance the rhythm dance for the thousandth time, you may find yourself wondering what the eventual goal of all your efforts will be. After all, the world of the game is very vast, but feels quite empty. One option is to side with either the rebel alliance or the empire, and you can take on missions for either side, though currently, there isn't a clear rebel vs. empire conflict at work. LucasArts promises that story events will unfold over the life of the game, however.

In any event, the big question with Galaxies and with all online RPGs is: Are these games supposed to be fun, entertaining, and rewarding in and of themselves, or are you yourself supposed to provide the fun by role-playing a unique character and really getting into the whole experience? The answer is the former, because it's much harder to really get into a game when it isn't fun, entertaining, and rewarding by itself. Galaxies isn't all these things to all its players, at least not yet, even if it gives a good first impression, thanks to its impressive visuals, authentic Star Wars music and sound effects, and seeming depth of play. As mentioned, core features such as player-run cities and player-owned mounts and vehicles still aren't in the game. Players have yet to discover any way to harness the power of the Force in the game, leading many to believe that it's yet another feature still in the works. What is Galaxies today? A better-looking version of EverQuest with a better interface but far, far less content. The game also has plenty of noticeable bugs, though thankfully most of these are superficial or just mildly annoying. The thing that EverQuest still has on most other online RPGs is its very rich variety of content and its deep high-level combat system. Other games, like Dark Age of Camelot, also offer complex player vs. player gameplay at high levels, though player vs. player combat in Galaxies is relegated only to consensual duels and some rebel vs. empire skirmishes for the moment.

Galaxies does look great, though it demands powerful hardware. Its towns are already highly populated, and in them, system performance, even on top-of-the-line machines, can slow to a crawl. Other than that, the game does look like Star Wars, and the numerous starting locations look convincingly like their theatrical counterparts, or at least like part of the same universe. The player characters are detailed and look good, and you'll see plenty of other recognizable Star Wars creatures as you walk about town and explore the gameworld, as shuttles and imperial fighters and such go flying across the sky. The audio in Galaxies is also quite good, featuring a dynamic musical score based on John Williams' orchestral themes for the films, as well as plenty of Star Wars-style sound effects. The sounds themselves aren't all that great, since as with other online RPGs, most creatures and enemies just emit the same grunt over and over. But Galaxies certainly does offer some impressive production values overall.

A short while after the game's release, there's a lot of breadth to Star Wars Galaxies, but there isn't a lot of depth. The novelty of the online RPG genre has worn off for many people, who are no longer content to merely get online and chat with other players (especially to the tune of $14.99 a month, in Galaxies' case--a higher monthly cost than any other online RPG to date). In terms of actual gameplay, Galaxies doesn't offer much that veterans of the genre haven't seen before, and these players will pick up on the game's relative lack of content faster than others will. Meanwhile, those hoping that Galaxies will be the game to get them into online RPGs will probably be disappointed to find that the gameplay is generally slow and uneventful, and that once the novelty of the Star Wars setting wears off--and it probably will--there isn't much of interest to be found in the game at this point. Star Wars Galaxies isn't necessarily a disappointment, depending on what you expected of it. It's a solid starting point for a game that will hopefully mature and improve quickly, but until it does, it's mostly recommendable only to those for whom the Star Wars setting alone is a sufficient draw.

7.5 out of 10

By Greg Kasavin, GameSpot

"Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided" Review Part II

2007-05-29T05:17:00.000-07:00

It's certainly possible that someone could really get into role-playing as an entertainer, and maybe try to start a band with other like-minded players. Star Wars Galaxies tries hard to bring you face-to-face with other players, and it includes a system that helps you find players with similar interests. But the gameplay itself--not just for entertainers but for most of the professions--is repetitive, time-consuming, and often simply unexciting. That's partly because, even though a character can theoretically have skills from other professions, improving your character in just one set of skills is so time-consuming that you'll likely feel confined to focusing your character's development on one area at a time.

In most online RPGs, characters have hit points that represent how much damage they can soak up before they die, magic points that represent how many spells they can cast before they have to recharge their batteries, and maybe stamina points that represent how long they can sprint or use other special physical abilities. Galaxies complicates the formula by expanding each of these conventional metrics into three separate meters, for a grand total of nine different meters you need to worry about.

The three sets of meters do roughly correspond to your health, your mental ability, and your stamina--only, for each category, you have a statistic for how quickly you regenerate your energy in that category and a statistic for how rapidly you drain points from that category when you use certain special abilities. Galaxies ultimately ties all this into your physical condition by including a location-based damage system, whereby strikes to your head affect your mental pool, strikes to your legs affect your stamina (or "action," as it's called here), and strikes to your arms or body affect your health. If any of the pools is depleted, you'll be knocked unconscious and will be vulnerable to being killed (though not permanently). Experienced fighters may therefore attack their enemies' most vulnerable parts to bring them down as quickly as possible.

The catch is that using special abilities also drains these pools. So, if a marksman wants to use a special shot of some sort, it will drain his or her action pool, in much the same way as a womp rat bite to the leg would. Therefore, each time you use your character's special abilities in Star Wars Galaxies, you get closer to death's door. Furthermore, you can sometimes sustain semi-permanent wounds to one of your nine attributes, slightly reducing your maximum point total for that category. Over time, such wounds can noticeably impact your character's abilities, so you'll often need to find a medic to heal your wounds, much like how you'd look for an entertainer to cure your battle fatigue. When you die in Galaxies, you sustain heavy wounds to all your attributes, which basically forces you to sit tight in an infirmary for a while while medics heal you back up. You aren't punished with an experience loss, but you end up losing a bunch of valuable time, and will probably need to trudge back to your corpse unless you paid to have your belongings insured. All this stuff about the nine attributes, which the manual calls the HAM system (health, action, mind), is convoluted and doesn't really improve on the conventions of the genre, and instead simply forces fighting characters--and medics--to worry about three different types of hit point meters instead of just one.

It's easy to get into the combat in Star Wars Galaxies. Fighting characters need only venture a few meters out of any of the numerous starting locations on the various starting planets before they'll come across all sorts of critters that can be killed for experience points. Transitions from towns into wilderness are handled seamlessly--loading times occur only between major areas, such as if you take a shuttle to another planet. The combat looks more action-packed than the combat of most other online RPGs, which is great. Melee characters dance about in fighting stances and perform a few different types of attacks, rather than just one attack animation over and over. Marksmen let loose with a flurry of Star Wars energy bolts each time they attack, and they can keep firing away while an opponent is giving chase. Marksmen can also fire while crouching or prone, which improves their accuracy, though terrain features such as shooting from behind cover or from a raised position unfortunately have no effect.

As in Dark Age of Camelot, Galaxies' fighting characters have access to various special abilities that deal more damage or hinder their enemies' abilities in some way, and they gain new abilities as they improve their skills. Individual characters or groups can take on randomized, cookie-cutter missions that involve either delivering an item or destroying a monster-generating object of some sort. These missions, repetitive as they are, are the best way to earn money, and can make for some relatively entertaining hack-and-slash adventures. But ultimately, the game's combat isn't really any better than what's been seen in numerous other games of this nature. So the gameplay of the fighting professions can be just as repetitive and uneventful as that of the non-fighting professions, though there's inherently more excitement to be found in slugging it out with Jabba the Hutt's goons, for example, than in dancing at the cantina or making your hundredth survival knife. Then again, in Galaxies, skilled artisans can make objects of superior quality and then name their creations, so this type of work is more appealing in Galaxies--and more complex, since you need to survey for and dig up the resources that you need--than in many other online RPGs.

"Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided" Review Part I

2007-05-29T05:15:00.000-07:00

Though massively multiplayer online role-playing games have been around for years, none to date have been as highly anticipated as Star Wars Galaxies. The excitement over the game was for fairly obvious reasons: The Star Wars universe seemed like it would be the perfect setting for such a game, and Star Wars Galaxies promised to be more than just EverQuest in space--it wouldn't be yet another online RPG where the gameplay revolved almost exclusively around killing monsters and gaining levels, but would instead offer numerous interesting non-combat-oriented player professions. At any rate, Galaxies is finally here, and it's not the life-changing event that some prospective players convinced themselves it would be. It actually fits squarely into the mold of numerous other games of this type, only it looks better, features authentic Star Wars creatures and characters, and has a number of interface enhancements not found in previous online RPGs. In the wake of the game's release, a number of key features are still in development (namely, player-driven cities, mounts, and vehicles), and the existing game content isn't all that much different or better than what's available in other, similar games. Then again, Star Wars Galaxies does have Star Wars going for it.

Star Wars Galaxies lets you create a character by choosing from male or female versions of eight different Star Wars races, including humans and wookiees, as well as the fish-faced mon calamari, the bug-eyed rodians, and more. Typically, your choice of race affects your character's proficiencies--for example, wookiees are very strong, while mon calamari are smarter than average--but in practice, your choice of race is mostly superficial. When creating your character, you have a lot of control over the shape of his or her face, and you can also adjust his or her body type, so you can make a rather distinctive-looking character--and that's a big part of Star Wars Galaxies' appeal. The game prevents you from naming your character after anyone from the Star Wars canon, though you should still expect to see many in-game wookiees with names played off Chewbacca and in-game rodians with names played off Greedo, and so forth.

The most important part of the character creation process is choosing your starting profession, which is basically your character class. The selection includes the artisan, the brawler, the entertainer, the marksman, the medic, and the scout. The brawler and the marksman are traditional combat-oriented classes, focusing on melee and ranged combat, respectively. The medic and the entertainer are functionally equivalent to healers. The artisan's job revolves around crafting various objects, from weapons to furniture, and the scout is a sort of adventurer/explorer capable of building traps, setting up camp, and extracting resources from slain creatures.

These initial professions determine the core skills you'll have at your disposal (though you may opt to learn other professions' novice skills as well, if you wish). You then grow your character not by gaining generic experience points like in other games, but primarily by gaining experience in whichever skills are most important to your character by using those specific skills repeatedly. For example, if a brawler fights unarmed, he or she will gain experience in unarmed combat. The starting professions actually branch off into more than 20 different advanced professions, which become available after you master any of the skill paths of the starting profession. So, when that brawler gains four ranks in unarmed combat, he or she may then qualify to become a Teräs Käsi artist--the Star Wars equivalent of a martial artist. Theoretically, then, there are multiple viable paths for every starting profession. However, while the early going is relatively brisk for all the professions, as you gain skill ranks, your advancement will slow to a crawl. You can expect to spend many dozens of hours repeating the same types of actions over and over before you can reach the advanced classes, especially the advanced hybrid classes, which require mastery of several professions' core skills.

Star Wars Galaxies was designed to make all the starting professions essential to the game, basically because brawlers, marksmen, and scouts--the obvious starting choices for many players--need medics, entertainers, and artisans to heal them and make them better weapons and armor. None of the professions is entirely self-sufficient, so this forces players to interact. The system of gaining experience in the specific skill you're using also makes a lot of sense--in other games, a character who wishes to become a master craftsman might still need to go out of his or her way to kill a bunch of monsters, whereas here, artisans, entertainers, and medics can ply their trades and improve their skills far from danger.

The problem is these non-combat-oriented classes can be really quite boring to play, particularly the entertainer and the medic. For example, an entertainer's purpose in Star Wars Galaxies is to cure fighting classes of their battle fatigue and their mental weariness, which are essentially gameplay contrivances that force characters to head back to town after they've been out fighting for a while. Entertainers do this literally by breaking into song or dance at a cantina or a theater. The character begins dancing or playing a musical instrument, and the player may perform various flourishes that cost stamina but give you a bit more experience. The entertainer gains experience faster if more people are actively watching or listening to him or her.

Grand Theft Auto IV First Look

2007-05-29T04:10:00.000-07:00

By Ricardo Torres, GameSpot

You'd be hard-pressed to find a more anticipated, or scrutinized, game than Rockstar's upcoming Grand Theft Auto IV. The release of the game's trailer in March saw the 50-odd seconds of teaser footage poured over like evidence in a CSI episode, with fans (ourselves included) rabidly dissecting it frame by frame. To further stoke the fires of anticipation, Rockstar Games recently hit town and did the previously unthinkable: They gave us a look at a work-in-progress version of the Xbox 360 game. Whereas years past have seen us getting access to GTA games when they were much further along in development, Rockstar, confident in how development is going, raised the drape and let us get a look at GTAIV months before it hits. Our guided demo showed off a tiny bit of the city and gave us a taste of what Rockstar is cooking up for what is arguably the most anticipated game of 2007.

The demo opened up with the game's Russian hero, Niko Bellic, standing in a building--the offices of the taxi service, to be exact. As our demoer guided him around the interior, we were given a rundown of his story. The Eastern European immigrant will come to Liberty City at the request of his cousin, Roman. The trip seems like a smart move for Niko, who's had a rather rough life so far. The picture of life in Liberty City painted by his cousin is that of opulence and easy money. Upon arriving, Niko gets a reality check. Roman is living around the poverty line and drives a cab. Once that recognition hits, Niko realizes he's got to find a way to eke out a living, which is where the story begins. Given what was shown and implied in the trailer, we expect Niko's career search to take some interesting, and probably violent, turns. Rockstar reps noted that Niko's path through the game isn't going to tell a stereotypical "rags to riches" story; instead, it will offer a grittier tale that's about survival, "rags to slightly better rags" to be exact.

Once we got the rundown of the story, our demoer took Niko out for a stroll in the city. As the tour started, we got another quick primer on the city. The Liberty City in GTAIV is a modern-day metropolis that's a bit different than the one we know. The city is based on New York, though there's no version of Staten Island in the game. For fans at home already working on their maps, the borough of Broker is based on Brooklyn, Dukes is based on Queens, Bohan is based on the Bronx, Algonquin is based on Manhattan, and Alderney is based on New Jersey. Our tour took us on a run-through of some of the neighborhoods in Broker, underneath the Algonquin bridge overpass, and eventually out to the docks to look out on the city proper. The environment had a lived-in look that featured pedestrians, homeless, trash, steaming manholes, traffic, and an impressive array of little touches used to set the scene. But, while we expected all that, the demo showed off a new wrinkle to the densely packed environments: height. Though "verticality" has turned into one of the catchiest buzz words for new games, it's still an interesting feature to see. From the sound of it, GTAIV is going to let you go up or down buildings in the game as needed. Our demo showed Niko climbing a power pole and taking a look around at the environment--highlighting the impressive draw distance. But we also noticed that the dense city environment, which is roughly the same size as San Andreas, will be a layered locale with things to see and do at different heights. If it works the way we're hoping, it might offer some additional options when avoiding the police.

But avoiding police, like much of GTAIV's gameplay, is something that Rockstar wasn't going into too much detail on. There was no talk of the upcoming downloadable content or exclusive material for the PlayStation or Xbox 360. What was shared was that the role-playing elements are being dialed back, so Niko won't be morphing into a superman by the end of the game. Carjacking is being tweaked, so you can now break windows to jack parked cars. You'll be able to call people via cell phone and help move the story along, offering you more control over how the story will progress. Though you won't be able to fly planes, you should be able to fly helicopters. One of our big questions, what kind of online multiplayer the game will offer, was met with a coy assertion that the team wants the multiplayer to rival the single-player experience. Reps did note that it will not be a massively-multiplayer-online-game-style persistent city. Other details, such as the game's heads-up display, are still being ironed out. We did see a menu system that had all the expected options; we're just curious as to how it will be implemented. The driving force behind the game is its story, according to the team. So, to that end, the gameplay experience must be seamless. We're pleased to see the lengths they're going to for this to happen already. Moving in and out of buildings is seamless, and you'll have ample places to go in and out of, though not every building in the game is able to be explored.

The visuals in the game come courtesy of Rockstar's proprietary RAGE engine and offer a comfortable complement to the game's new look. The city area we were shown had all the real-world elements that are key to a GTA game's atmosphere: pedestrians, traffic, and a lived-in look. The key difference, as you can see in the trailer, is the level of detail and the art style. The expected bump in graphics seems to be agreeing with the team's ambitious tendencies, resulting in a dense city with rich lighting and populated by a diverse group of people. The little touches that were wrung out of the last generation of hardware are now fully realized, with proper lighting, particle effects, and shadowing being used to highlight the distressed city streets, old buildings, dusty windows, and vast panoramic views of Liberty City.

As for the residents, our tour of the city gave us a look at a sampling of some work-in-progress models that are set to be used for the non-player characters you'll meet. The models sported a higher level of detail and looked good, albeit nondescript, like any good NPC. Niko is the star of the game, with a character model that reflects his mental baggage. The detailed model has a decidedly gritty look that makes it pretty clear he's been around the block a few times--maybe even hit by some cars. Animation was early but seemed to be coming along fine. His gait when walking was deliberate and was on its way to adding to his world-weary vibe. Our demo also focused on showcasing a number of subtle touches being worked into GTAIV. The standouts were Niko leaning in a direction as he runs and, most awesomely, his breaking windows on parked cars so he could jack them. Though we just saw a small slice of what to expect from the game's visuals, we have to say we're impressed by the restraint we're seeing. In a time when so many games on the PS3 and Xbox 360 are going all out with the special effects and a glossy look, GTAIV seems to be drawing on the effects and tech it needs to establish a convincingly rundown look. While it may not bowl you over with blinding use of light blooming and other stereotypical "next-gen" effects, we've seen most of them used in subtle ways. But the game is focused on its realistic look, and we're pleased by what we're seeing.

The game's audio was far from finished, as Rockstar reps were quick to point out what we heard in the demo was very placeholder, with a fraction of the audio that will be in the final game peppered through it. It seems as though the plan is to expand on the concepts used in the previous games, so you'll hear tons of ambient chatter and city sounds designed to sell you on the game's virtual world. Finer elements such as voice acting and the ever-popular radio stations are still being ironed out. The team is mulling over the direction of where to go with the radio stations, given the tone of the game. There will be plenty of variety in music, but what those types are remains to be seen. The voice acting in the game is in a similar state of reevaluation. The team is thinking on what would best serve the story in terms of the talent used and the direction. As with the previous entries in the series, Rockstar is competing with the standards set by GTAIV's predecessors, which all featured great voice acting. As it stood, what we heard of the audio was coming along fine, and finished or not, we liked where it was headed.

Ultimately, our demo of the game was a pretty controlled experience and was more about showing off the world and the possibilities of what could be done inside it than showing off specific gameplay features. That said, even this modest look at a fraction of the city shows a whole lot of potential. The nuanced story; greater interactivity with the world; densely packed, vertical environment; ambitious scope; and increased freedom all seem like the right ingredients to have in play for such an anticipated sequel. Factor in the mysterious online multiplayer and downloadable content, and you have about as fully loaded a sequel as you could ask for. Grand Theft Auto IV is currently slated to ship this October for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Look for more on the game in the coming months.

-GameSpot

Naruto: Rise of a Ninja for XBOX 360

2007-05-28T05:23:00.000-07:00

Posted by supadupagama in News, Videos (Friday May 25, 2007 at 5:07 am)

Naruto: Rise of a Ninja is exclusively developed for the Xbox 360 from the ground up and for the first time ever, gamers will experience Naruto starting from the series’ beginning. Re-live the hit anime and manga and experience Naruto’s transformation from noisy ninja-academy dropout to respected ninja.

The cel-shaded fighting/RPG game is set for release in America on October 16th 2007 and will be released sometime 2007 in Europe as well. It will include both an action-adventure single-player mode and versus multiplayer. The multiplayer is hinted at to include online play via Xbox Live.

Key features are:
* Experience Growing Up As Naruto: The only game that allows you to step into Naruto’s shoes from the series’ beginning. Complete authentic missions and relive the Naruto anime and manga experience.
* Immerse Yourself In Naruto’s Universe: Roam freely and discover authentic environments. Explore genuine Konoha Village and its surroundings. Interact with Sasuke, Sakura, Kakashi and members from the Naruto cast.
* Unparalleled Depth and Variety of Gameplay: The first Naruto game to combine action adventure gameplay, classic platforming battles, head-to-head fighting and in-depth character development.
* Build Up Your Fighting Techniques to Defeat Deadly Enemies in Fast-Paced Combat: Define your own way of the ninja as you learn to better control your chakra, improve your techniques, master new taijutsus and ninjutus, and command more powerful ninja weapons.
* Play With Friends: Select your favorite Naruto character and challenge a friend. Customize your character and pick your own battle field.

Keywords: Naruto, XBOX 360

The Reasons Why 10 out of 10 Won't Do Fury Justice

2007-05-28T05:17:00.000-07:00

By thecynicalgamer - Mon May 28, 2007 4:31pm

Many gamers are unaware that there are 40 odd game developers in Australia. The fact is that most of them are working on developing titles for other studios overseas. They are contracted to perform development work for other people and don't often get the opportunity to develop their own products. Our home-grown industry also feels as though it is beginning a fight for its very own survival with the growth of developers in China and Asia who have been able to provide cut price development directly in competition with the Australian studios. This is why Auran is excited about their new title Fury and, after having seen it first hand on Thursday last week, so they should be. However, the problem with this game is not based around the concept or implementation of the design it will be with the process of review that the game has to undergo upon release. Fury is, for all intents and purposes, a game which is more like a sport than a game which is clearly defined by genre. When looking at playing a sport do you read a review of the sport which rates different aspects of the sport in scores out of 10 in order to decide whether you want to play it or not? You might play the sport or see other people playing it first and then make your decision based on a number of factors. It certainly does seem that scoring Fury with categories ranking graphics, sound, playability, etc. will highlight the extreme limitations of the review process. It just goes to show how far we haven't come in the last twenty five odd years of gaming journalism.

The notion of creating games which are like massive online sporting events is not new. One of the best original sporting concepts in gaming was the original Speedball. While Speedball was an excellent sport title it lacked from being invented in a time where there was widespread domestic internet, which may be why we see it being remade now. Where Unreal Tournament was clearly a game built around the notion of being a futuristic competitive sport it easily fitted in to the FPS category. Bet On Soldier also attempted to fit in to this category without much sales success, however, this game also slotted in to the FPS category. There still haven't been enough game releases of this type to clearly define a new genre. Most of those games already released have been placed squarely in the FPS mould of gameplay. Fury will not do that. While there are elements of RPG, elements of a persistent online world, elements of the MMO, elements of third person action games, and Fury has an extremely fast and competitive pace with either single player competition or team based competition as its focus, this cross mix of types does not help to define exactly what the game is. How do you then fit the game in to a genre and say that it is an RPG game where there is no single player story driven narrative. The character development system pioneers a class base system in which all characters are human. So, there are no differences between race. What players can then do is basically create their characters with as many different variations using the incarnation system. You can try out different types of character combinations without ever locking in your character to one set type. Incarnation allows you to play around with one type and then, in essence, redial in another one, save it, and try again. This is an excellent solution which will give players virtually unlimited amount of design permutations on their characters. I am sure this will keep players coming back for more.

The players will be able to trade, gossip, organise groups and just hang out at sanctuaries. Although, when I asked whether Auran would crack down on guilds devoted to dancing naked they said that they hadn't given it much thought. This is also where you will be allocated specific tasks called trials. Players will then have to use perform these trials in PvP games in order to unlock abilities and help to progress in rank. There will be four multiplayer types in the first release of the game. The multiplayer matches are: Fortress, Vortex, Elimination and Bloodbath. Bloodbath is your standard all-in kill-one-kill-all free for all deathmatch type game. Vortex is a 32 player (16 x 16) capture the flag type game. Fortress is an interesting massive team based battle where players attempt to capture and hold specific supply points in order to win the map. An adaption of the advance and secure type of gameplay which is common in FPS multiplayer now. I got to see the Elimination mode being played. It was an extremely fast team based game where one team basically has to kill (or eliminate) the other. As with all team games the team which plays best as a team has the greatest chance of survival. This will be highlighted in Fury as not all characters can tank and deal massive amounts of damage. Healers and other types are required to cast buffs for the group to enhance their ability to fight and survive.

Rather than advance their character by levels Fury implements a rank system. All up there will be 10 ranks for players to advance. Players will also be able to create an unlimited number of different incarnations for their characters. This means that one incarnation of your character could be a healer and the other could be a tank. Essentially you can virtually go in to battle as a different type of character every time you play. Further to this it will be possible for characters to fight outside their rank. As in, a higher level ranked character will not necessarily own a lower rank just because of their higher level. Players will be able to compete against players of higher rank and still have a chance of winning based on how they play.

Auran have gone to great lengths to customize and optimize the multiplayer matchmaking in the game. Players will actually be ranked and matched based on past performances of how they have competed. This will provide a totally dynamic matchmaking system. All of these factors help to define Fury as a relatively unique form of an online competitive action sport rather than your stereotypical "game". There will be no story based single player for this game. It will predominantly consist of team based multiplayer combat. What other games in the marketplace provide a direct point of comparison to Fury? Guild Wars, while allowing for multiplayer team based combat, also was a story based single player level grind as well. World Of Warcraft also incorporates both types of gameplay.

Therefore, how is a graphical score out of 10 going to suffice as a means for gamers to determine if the game is going to suit them? The graphics in the game are excellent. They are reminiscent of Guild Wars, however, with a new sheen from the Unreal 3 engine. Auran have done an excellent job to capture the highly detailed environments and maintain a constant frame rate. The spell effects are nicely done too. Players will be able to quickly identify different cast spells and buffs by their effects. It would have been good to have seen the engine running on one of the larger maps, say with the fortress mode of gameplay which involves up to 64 players, but unfortunately time was limited. Further to the notion of graphical aptitude What real implication does quality of sound have on a gamer who is considering purchasing Fury when they will probably be running Team Speak or Roger Wilco while playing this game at the same time. It has to be said that in general the quality of all ingame sounds now are generally excellent. We have moved beyond the days of the Commodore 64 when beeps were composed to make soundtracks for games. How will a score out of ten really provide any valuable information to a gamer deciding on whether they purchase Fury or not? Surely, we have moved to the point where it could be considered that ingame sound has reached a pretty good all-round level now. Doesn't this then make such a category in a review score irrelevant?

The other thing to consider when taking a new concept is how does rating the game work when there is no real precedent set for comparison? Where does the reviewer draw from in order to score the gameplay? Surely, considering a rating system which utilizes a 10 out of 10 system must consider a score of 10 to be a perfect game. If perfection is actually possible shouldn't we then see far more scores as 5 out of 10 rather than the 7 and 8s which are more commonly prescribed. Wouldn't a score of 5 mark the average for a game with scores below 5 being below average and a score above to mean that it is, of course, above average. However, this basic prescription is not employed in scoring games making the more common 7 and 8s we see as practically irrelevant. That would make a score of 10 an anomaly or unattainable because perfection itself is unattainable. Games are never complete or perfect. They have problems. More often than not software is released with some bugs in it. Not to mention that rating something out of 10 anyway makes the process of reviewing appear to be quantified by some form of scientific process. As though there is a process to the allocation of a score. Whereas, it is completely subjective. It is an arbitrary allocation of a number based on no process at all really. This is part of the reason why scoring should be removed from the reviewing process. Scoring of games is what has created the perceived problems with gaming journalism. Where those responsible for marketing games are seen as favouring those reviewers or journalists who will best portray the product they are marketing. If we removed the notion of scoring games these perceived problems wouldn't exist to start with. Then, to get back to my point earlier, that we don't rate sports before we look at playing them. So, why should we do so with games?

When graphics ingame reach that photorealistic level then what happens to the scoring process? Much as sound has done now. In game sounds are all pretty much the same. Most games now sample as much of their sounds as is possible. Probably the genre of gaming where sound is critical to the implementation of the game would be racing games. The quality of ingame sound has come a long way from the blips and bops which were present in the days of the Commodore 64 and Atari 2600. Surely, we should consider a better rating system before these things become commonplace in games. When photorealism reaches our screens then how are we going to quantify the notion of graphics ingame?

While many magazines and websites maintain the need to enforce their own scoring methods on the game review process a few others are starting to utilize a more pros-and-cons type approach to their methodology. This, to me, seems like a more logical approach than a score. Firstly, the pros-and-cons can stand out from the review itself and allow for gamers to gain a quick appraisal at a glance. Gamers can then, hopefully with the release of a demo of the game, be able to sample the said product and get an understanding for what the reviewer was attempting to portray with regards to the review process.

I think there is no doubt that Fury will have a large market in Korea and Asia. The game is perfectly suited to their massive competitive online gaming community. These markets alone will probably be enough to propel Fury to the number one slot for an Australian made gaming product. However, the game would also suit Australia's very competitive sporting mindset. Professional gaming is already massive over in Korea I don't see why it shouldn't be that way here soon either. I am sure that Fury will be quickly taken up on the professional gaming circuit. Fury is also perfectly made for television broadcasts. The smaller maps will provide fast paced action suited to television. It would be good to see some of these things also finding some popularity in the Australian and American competitive markets as well.

It would be worthwhile noting that there will be an announcement in the next four weeks as to the business model which will drive this game. And it seems, from the quiet word I have had with the guys at Auran, that the model proposed should please a lot of gamers and will offer an alternative from the monthly subscription which is currently the business model behind World Of Warcraft.

Fury is an excellent Australian product and a sure sign that our gaming industry really is only in its infancy. Hopefully, such projects will provide more capital flowing in to the Australian gaming development community and show that Australian developers can compete on a world stage. I will never forget the days of my youth when we used to look for the Melbourne House logo on a game. Fury will suit a lot of different gamers and gaming styles for different reasons. While, Auran don't want to particularly focus on capturing the twitch shooter market with the pace of their game they will definitely attract these gamers. Also, those hardcore RPG gamers will see a lot in Fury and hopefully will be prepared to check it out. Fury should see a good mix of different gamers with differing gaming styles picking it up and playing. It would be nice that while we see relatively new mixes of genres surface from developers who are willing to take some creative risks with their products that the journalists of gaming also look at changing the way they review games to better suit today's environment.

Keywords: Fury, Auran, World Of Warcraft.

Final Fantasy XIII: Square Enix earnings mixed, no game until 2008?

2007-05-28T05:16:00.000-07:00

Final Fantasy maker rakes in record sales, but profit falls; unconfirmed reports say PS3 RPG won’t be out until next spring–at the earliest.

Two weeks after its massive Gamers’ Day outside Tokyo, Square Enix has reported its earnings for its 2006 fiscal year, which ended March 31, 2007. The prior 12 months saw the company’s revenue soar 31.3 percent year-on-year to 163.4 billion yen ($1.3 billion), its best-ever annual haul.

Operating profit for the fiscal year was 25.9 billion yen ($213.1 million), up from 15.47 billion yen ($127.21 million). However, due to the vagaries of finance, the company’s net profit of 11.62 billion yen ($95.54 million) was actually down 32 percent. That’s because during the past fiscal year, the company only had 3.0 billion yen ($24.6 million) in tax write-offs, versus 9.0 billion yen ($74.1 million) the prior year.

In total, Square Enix shipped 16.9 million units of software to retailers during its last fiscal year. As a result its packaged games operating income of 16.3 billion yen ($134.1 million) on 51.3 billion yen ($422.1 million) in net revenue, up from 9.6 billion yen ($78.9 million) on 45.9 billion yen ($377.4 million) the year before. Online games saw 6.8 billion yen ($55.9 million) in operating income on 13.7 billion yen ($112.7 million) in net revenue, up from 5.9 billion yen ($48.5 million) on 15.7 billion yen ($129.1 million) the previous annum.

The AFX news service quoted Square Enix chief financial officer Yosuke Matsuda as saying, “Packaged game sales did well, in particular in North America and Europe, led by such titles as Final Fantasy XII.”

Of more interest to gamers is what Square Enix has planned for its next fiscal year–or, more accurately, what it doesn’t have planned. According to several online reports–most stemming from an IGN translation–Square Enix president Yoichi Wada told a press conference that Final Fantasy XIII would not ship during Square Enix’s current financial year.

“It will take a bit more time,” Wada reportedly said about FFXIII. “At the very least, this fiscal year is definitely out of the question.” When contacted by GameSpot, Square Enix USA reps claimed they were unaware of Wada’s comments and were waiting on official word. “We’ll get a translation to you as soon we receive one,” was all a rep would say.

Originally from GameSpot

GTA IV Screens

2007-05-28T05:02:00.000-07:00

Rockstar released four new screens of GTA IV and they are looking really good. Each screenshot speaks volumes in their own way. The one above for example blew me away by the detail put into Liberty City. Just look at the multiple power lines that are run across the city (which by the way, I recall you can climb up those poles). Click on a picture to enlarge it.

Keywords: gta, gta iv, rockstar, screens and screenshots

Lego Star Wars to come back with all six movies in one game

2007-05-28T04:46:00.000-07:00

Lego Star Wars to come back with all six movies in one game

By Ben Kuchera | Published: May 24, 2007 - 02:05PM CT

It's hard to find anything more fun than the Lego Star Wars titles. We liked the second one when we reviewed it, and it caused our own Dr. Gitlin to have fond memories when he discovered the title. It seems to be one of those games that has legs; I'm always getting e-mails from people who stumble upon it, buy it sight unseen, and fall in love. The game is easy to get into, funny to watch, has awesome multiplayer, and of course it's Star Wars. Sadly the stories are often improved by the lack of voice acting. If you still haven't taken the plunge, a better package is coming. Traveller's Tales is bringing both games home on one disc, with new content. From GameSpot:

"Traveller's Tales is promising new characters, features, and levels for the game, including a recreation of Episode II's flying car chase sequence with Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn in pursuit of bounty hunter Zam Wessell. Levels from the original Lego Star Wars game will also be altered to include features from the sequel, and the DS version in particular will be all-new, "developed brick by brick from the ground up."

Traveller's Tales is also tailoring the game to take advantage of each system's features. The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions will have online gameplay with drop-in and drop-out capabilities, while the Wii and DS editions will make use of those systems' unique control interfaces."

This is the kind of double dip I don't mind: the game seems to do well every time people talk about it, and the new content may be enough to get some of us to repurchase it. I'm not sure what they plan on doing with the Wii version, but I'm hoping for a lightsaber minigame. Or anything, really. Just let me use the Wiimote to swing a lightsaber and I'll be happy.

We should see this game drop in the fall, and hopefully we'll have some thoughts for you then.

Comments on this article:

Semi On

If the tailoring to the Wii process involves the addition of light saber battles with the Wiimote, this may be the first thing to cause me to look for a unit.

May 24, 2007 @ 02:10PM

docfreez

Wiimote lightsaber? SOLD!

That'll be a great reason for me to buy a Wii! Of course, I'm also really aching for a PS3 now that it gets HD up-conversion and streaming done right.

Hmmm... $600 + $250...

Any tips on convincing the Wife?

May 24, 2007 @ 02:14PM

DaveSimmons

Yes, lightsaber battles would cause many people to wii themselves.

May 24, 2007 @ 02:15PM

Landthief1972

Not to sound like a complete Star Wars nerd police, but...

Qui-Gon Jinn wasn't pursuing anybody via flying car in Episode II. He died in Episode I. I think the reviewer meant Anakin Skywalker.

May 24, 2007 @ 02:18PM

TheAce-MGT

I actually kind of hope they wait on doing wiimote lightsaber fighting. Because it'd probally take over a year just to get it right, and I'd like the first star wars game that has it to do it right

May 24, 2007 @ 02:20PM

cf18

Ouch... No more PC version?

May 24, 2007 @ 02:20PM

clichekiller

I've been looking to pick this up for my 360, I don't like watching it all squished under emulation. I'll just wait a little while and use the credit from the xbox versions to offset, (by very little I'm sure), the purchase price.

I just hope they don't jack it all the way up to $59.99 for what's essentially a retread with a little extra tacked on.

May 24, 2007 @ 02:26PM

LJ

quote:
Of course, I'm also really aching for a PS3 now that it gets HD up-conversion and streaming done right.

You could also do those things on the 360.

May 24, 2007 @ 02:39PM

ThE OrC TaMeR

I've always wanted to check these games out... Sold!

quote:
Originally posted by docfreez:
That'll be a great reason for me to buy a Wii! Of course, I'm also really aching for a PS3 now that it gets HD up-conversion and streaming done right.

Hmmm... $600 + $250...

Any tips on convincing the Wife?

Sure... agree with everything she says from now until... say... June 24th. No matter how bad you want to disagree... DON'T.

She'll be so impressed, she will barely notice when you drop $850 buckaroo's on 2 gaming devices.

quote:
Originally posted by Clichekiller:
I just hope they don't jack it all the way up to $59.99 for what's essentially a retread with a little extra tacked on.

Fat chance... prepare to part with another $59.99!

quote:
Originally posted by LJ:
quote:
Of course, I'm also really aching for a PS3 now that it gets HD up-conversion and streaming done right.

You could also do those things on the 360.

LJ... stop it...

May 24, 2007 @ 02:45PM

davis

quote:
quote:
Of course, I'm also really aching for a PS3 now that it gets HD up-conversion and streaming done right.

quote:
You could also do those things on the 360.

So what? You trolling or something?

May 24, 2007 @ 02:46PM

kperrier

quote:
Traveller's Tales is promising new characters, features, and levels for the game, including a recreation of Episode II's flying car chase sequence with Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn in pursuit of bounty hunter Zam Wessell.

When did this happen? Qui-Gon was dead in Episode II when Zam Wessel was introduced.

May 24, 2007 @ 02:49PM

mcloki

"Any help convincing the wife."

With the PS3 we can watch the rerelease Star Wars on Bluray.
Though wiimote lightsabers is tempting.

May 24, 2007 @ 02:52PM

JebusJones

quote:
Landthief1972
Not to sound like a complete Star Wars nerd police, but...

Qui-Gon Jinn wasn't pursuing anybody via flying car in Episode II. He died in Episode I. I think the reviewer meant Anakin Skywalker.

I went straight to the comments when I read that to see if I would be the first. Don't feel bad.

May 24, 2007 @ 02:54PM

Shadowed Wombat

Count me in as another nerd who immediately scrolled to the comments section to correct the glaring flaw in the reviewer's quote. Qui Gonn was pretty cool, but he didn't get to play around with bounty hunters on Coruscant in flying car chases in Episode II.

May 24, 2007 @ 03:49PM

Geoffrey42

Ditto JebusJones and Shadowed Wombat. You are DEFINITELY not alone.

May 24, 2007 @ 03:52PM

Kanuck

Think they'll actually support their product this time? I love my Lego Star Wars II for the 360, but the fact they never fixed the problem that crashes the 360 at the end of Episode 3, Chapter 6—a problem that's been widely documented, bitched about, and submitted to their support department countless times—makes me weary about spending any more money on this series.

Doesn't matter how much I love your game, doesn't matter if it's only got one real bug; if it's a critical bug like this that prevents you from finishing the game, literally right at the very end, and you never fix it, that's basically flipping off your customers.

May 24, 2007 @ 04:13PM

Anonymous Freak

Yup, if they do some real Wii specific stuff, I'll be happy to buy it. Right now, I have LEGO SW1 for Mac, and LEGO SW2 for GameCube, so having the whole series on one machine would be nice.

May 24, 2007 @ 04:36PM

robotic_tourist

I got the demo of episodes 4-6 for the Mac (took ages on my 1Mb/s connection). I thought it was good fun, but it took me a while to realise that you could control two characters at once (no-one to co-op with, which was annoying as it seemed you _had_ to control two characters sometimes) and it slowed down a few times on my MacBook at 800x600 (although I think I also had about 10 other apps going including about 50 Opera tabs and 4 desktop manager screens). The worst bit was not having a game controller, as the keyboard sucks for most gaming.

May 24, 2007 @ 05:10PM

Chris FOM

Another geek who immediately noticed the Qui-Gon goof.

Also on topic, I'm really glad I haven't gotten around to playing the first or picking up the second game for the GameCube. I think I'll sell my copy of the first and play the entire thing straight through on the Wii. Is any content being LOST in the translation?

May 24, 2007 @ 05:52PM

.milFox

Wii version ... SOLD!

May 24, 2007 @ 08:33PM

Galeran

A Wii SW LEGO collection would be great. I actually have the GameCube version and a GC controller sitting in my "Save for later" Amazon cart... just haven't been able to justify spending that much on one game. (Wii only plays GameCube cames with a GameCube controller, or so I've read.)

May 24, 2007 @ 10:03PM

robotic_tourist

Update to my previous message. I must have pressed F2 to bring in co-op play accidentally. Anyway, I'm going to delete the Lego SWII demo from my MacBook for 2 reasons. i) I've finished it, ii) it kept me up til 2am

May 25, 2007 @ 03:21AM

Mawich

Galeran: that's correct. I think it's because the Wii plays Gamecube games by basically rebooting into the Gamecube's OS, slightly tweaked, so while in that mode it doesn't understand the Wii controllers at all.

May 25, 2007 @ 03:31AM

max4677

Mawich: well whatever OS tweak they made is great, because I haven't had my Wavebirds drop out on me when using them on the Wii. THey still are a little finicky on the Cube even after moving it up two floors.

I have the PC version of 1 and GC of 2. Lots of fun. Not so sure I can bring myself to buy it again though.

May 25, 2007 @ 07:38AM

zonk3r

I hope this time the DS game isn't a buggy mess like the second one was. Too bad because it was an otherwise decent enough game but the bugs ruined it...

Nintendo, Once Down, Devises Its Comeback

2007-05-28T04:43:00.000-07:00

By SETH SCHIESEL
Published: May 26, 2007 in the New York Times

SEATTLE, May 23 — Reggie Fils-Aime, president and chief operating officer of Nintendo of America, is certainly the game industry’s man of the moment, at least in the United States. Mr. Fils-Aime and his crew staged a day of media events here this week amid one of the most remarkable turnabouts in fortune gamers have seen since Atari went belly up two decades ago.

After placing a distant third in the last generation’s console wars, behind the PlayStation 2 and Microsoft’s original Xbox, Nintendo has roared back to a position approaching dominance on the strength of its two innovative machines: the hand-held Nintendo DS and the much- lauded Wii. Last month, Nintendo sold more than four times as many Wii units (360,000) as Sony sold PlayStation 3’s (82,000), and many people still can’t find the Wii on store shelves.

“We have about 25 people call or stop in asking about the Wii every day,” the clerk at an EB Games retail store here said on Tuesday night. “When we get a few units they just disappear. It’s almost like people are camped out waiting.”

Meanwhile, the DS portable continues to outsell Sony’s PlayStation Portable (though a recent price cut on the PSP may tighten that race) and, somewhat under the mainstream radar, the Pokémon franchise continues to rule national sales charts. The latest versions of Pokémon, called Diamond and Pearl, sold more than 1.7 million units for the DS in a week after their introduction last month.

Given how close Nintendo appeared to perpetual marginalization just a year ago, one can forgive Mr. Fils-Aime the spring in his step.

“Only twice has one company simultaneously had the No. 1 new hardware console, the No. 1 portable console, the No. 1-selling game and been the No. 1 overall software publisher,” he said in an interview here. “The first time was Nintendo in the ’80s. The second time is Nintendo now.” His ebullience was a far cry from the subdued tone at Sony’s comparable media event last week in San Diego. There, Sony fought gamely, if uphill, against the widespread perception that its new PlayStation 3 has generally been a disappointment.

Nintendo is riding so high that it did not even feel the need to demonstrate its “Big Three” games expected for the Wii later this year — Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and a new version of Super Smash Brothers. Instead, the company focused largely on new versions of mind-exercise franchises like Brain Age and Big Brain Academy and on diversions for children like Take-Two’s forthcoming Carnival Games collection.

That choice was an almost perfect reflection of what has made Nintendo so successful recently.

For sure, the new Mario, Metroid and Smash Brothers games will all become best sellers. But they will do so largely by appealing to what is generally considered the “traditional” video game demographic — hard-core male players between the ages of 16 and 40. Nintendo would never neglect that audience.

But the key to Nintendo’s recent revival has been not in going back to the same well of players the industry has been drawing on for decades, but in expanding the market and appealing to everyone else. And it turns out there are a lot more of everyone else than there are of the stereotypical young male player.

Games like Nintendogs for the DS have pulled in girls and women, while the Wii’s easy-to-use style (you just wave the controller around) has made it a must-have in households that would never consider buying an Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3. The Wii’s graphics and the little Mii characters that users create with it are not the world’s snazziest, and they are certainly not rendered in high definition, but Mr. Fils-Aime may have a point when he contends that the latest pixel-shader technology, for example, just isn’t that important to most everyday players.

“Both of our competitors have focused on an old paradigm,” he said. “They focused on more technological horsepower as the path to success. They fell into a trap of just listening to their core user base rather than focusing on attracting new customers.”

So have Sony and Microsoft overshot the mark with their focus on creating high-definition gaming and making their machines into futuristic digital media hubs?

“I definitely think they have,” he said. “Look, it seems like every household has that one techie who can figure out how to connect the DVD player to the TV and the PC to all the other devices in the home and so on. But everyone else in the home just wants to turn the thing on and have it work. And I think the consumer electronics industry needs to recognize that. That’s what Apple got so right with the iPod. There were plenty of MP3 players out there, but Apple came along with a product you could just pick up and play. And that’s what we think we got right with the Wii.”

So now Nintendo is aiming higher and bigger. Mr. Fils-Aime and his boss, Satoru Iwata, Nintendo’s chief executive, want to continue to position gaming as a competitor for mainstream entertainment dollars and eyeballs.

“We don’t consider just Sony and Microsoft our main competitors,” Mr. Fils-Aime said. “If people decide to stay home on a Saturday night playing Wii bowling instead of going to the movies, we win. If people spend 22 minutes making their perfect Mii instead of watching a sitcom, we win.”

The Evolution of RPGs

2007-05-27T04:57:00.000-07:00

The Evolution of RPGs

Role Playing Games or RPGs have been around since before computer desktops were readily available to homes. Remember board games? These table top RPGs were very popular until dice and paper were replaced by mouse and monitor. Modern RPGs, in fact, stemmed from table top war games. The most popular war game ever was Dungeons & Dragons. This game was created by Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax, who were both fans of JRR Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings series. DND was a war game involving small groups of mid-evil soldiers.

Video RPGs or electronic RPGs were introduced in 1972. Many people believe that the first computer RPG is ADVENTURE, a game created by William Crowther. The first ADVENTURE appeared on Ataris in 1980, wherein a player could control a group of warriors to try and slay a dragon. Wizardry 1 and Ultima 1 appeared on the Apple 2 in 1981. These games launched the RPG genre as players could navigate towns and crawl through dungeons to fight monsters. Video RPGs came out in 1986 when Enix’s Dragon Quest came out in Nintendo. The combat system of Dragon Quest set a standard that is still being used by VRPGs today. Another popular VRPG was Legend of Zelda created by Shigeru Miyamoto. But the most popular VRPG ever created was Final Fantasy which was released by Squaresoft in 1987. With more than 13 stories and games out in the market, Final Fantasy’s popularity is yet to be beaten.

1988 was the year computer RPGs made its debut into households. It was the same year that Dungeons and Dragons made its move into the digital world. DND was the first CRPG to offer optional quests for characters and the ability of players to strategically control character movement during combat. The players made a party of 6 characters based on DND rules. However, it was Dungeon Masters, that allowed mouse control giving the players ability to select objects and click on enemies for combat.

When discussing RPGs, one just has to mention Blizzard’s Diablo which was released in 1996. It proved to be one of the most popular CRPGs of all times. Because of the random dungeons and different character classes available to players, it encouraged players to play the game over and over again.

Multi User Dungeons or MUDs are actually text based games which provided character creation, optional quests and a storyline. MUDs are also called MUSH’s, MOO’s or TIKI’s and is the precursor to MMORPGs. These games were most of the time done by people who loved games and had enough knowledge about programming. MUDs soon lost its popularity to console and computer games with graphics.

It is believed that Meridian 59, which came out in 1996, was the first ever MMORPG released. But it was Ultima Online that popularized this genre in 1997. MMORPGs host a large number of players, who log in to the same world to play the game. The players need a client that allows them to log into the world, which continues to exist and change even when there are no players logged in. Everquest dominated the MMORPG genre for five years until World of Warcraft came into play. Because RPGs continue to flux, companies are continually working on to improve the game, by creating new zones, quests and character classes to keep the players interested.

Keywords: Role Play Games, Mmorpg, Online Gaming

MMORPG and Real Life

2007-05-27T04:55:00.000-07:00

Every form of art tries to capture life and its flavor. Along with the evolution of technology, computer games are now state of the art masterpieces. Behind a successful complex game, there is a team of graphical artists, programmers, scenario writers and so on. Because of their great resemblance with reality, games we play today reveal to us a world of fantasy, sensations and experiences far beyond everyday life.

MMORPG's are at high stake these days. These games became a billion dollar industry these days thanks to the great number of players out there. What makes these games so popular is the simple fact that the player can be whatever he wants in that game. He can gain power far beyond his ordinary powers, he can have money or possessions, or he can rule that virtual fantasy world.

We must admit that these games can possess the player's mind. At first, the game is a pleasure but in many cases, the players become obsessed with it especially if it is a great game. The impact of a masterpiece virtual world is very high and losing contact with reality is only one-step away.

The larger the world is, the greater the opportunities for the players are. What makes these games wanted is the pure will of dominion. Feeling this virtual power, the player is absorbed completely into the game. Coming back from work with a bad mood, arguing with a grumpy boss, pulled over by the police, having a quarrel with his wife about her mom coming to dinner are just some of the problems one is facing daily. The idea of leaving it all behind and jumping into the action of your favorite MMORPG is great.

Game developers are trying to make things as real as possible. For example, Entropia Universe is a huge MMORPG with great graphics. The more realistic aspect of the game is that you can exchange real money for money in the game and vice versa (10PED=$1). With the money you exchange in the game's currency you can buy whatever you need inside the game in order to develop your character.

This game is just an example but there are tons of games like that out there. For every personality, there is a character and a game that will fit your idea of life. How good you want to get at it depends on you. Game developers are testing and experimenting to create more and more wonderful games. Who knows what evolution will bring in terms of virtual reality. Only the future will tell.

Source: Submit Articles at ArticlesBase.com

About the Author:
Keith Londrie II is the Webmaster of http://www.mmorpg-info.info/ A website that specializes in providing information on MMORP Games that you can research on the internet.

Keywords: Anime MMORPG, Free Graphical MMORPG, Free MMORPG Downloads, MMORPG Downloads, MMORPG Games, MMORPG

World of Warcraft Help

2007-05-27T04:46:00.000-07:00

World of Warcraft is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Play game, or MMORPG. It was developed by Blizzard Entertainment, and boasts over a million players in total. People around the globe, from just about every country imaginable, have become addicted to the game

In World of Warcraft, a user creates a character and explores the vast world of Azeroth. Players can choose between two sides to be on: the Horde or the Alliance. The Horde is comprised of more evil characters, such as the undead or trolls. The Alliance is considered the good guys, and resembles classic knight mottos and values. Through these two teams, users can choose several races and classes to join that expand the possibilities of unique characters.

Races are bound to the two teams. For instance, you can only play as a Human if you join Alliance. If you wish to join the Undead, then you must play as the Horde. Races will have different bonuses for joining them or in some cases, negative effects. Some Horde races such as the Tauren or Orcs will suffer a reputation deficit in the beginning which is essentially how non-playable characters deal with you. For the most part, the races are balanced to a fair extent on both sides, although the Horde depend more on strength overall rather than intelligence or mobility.

Classes determine what your character will do throughout the game. You might want to be a warrior, priest, or rogue up to 9 possibilities in total. From morphing into beasts, to wielding long range weapons, the class will ultimately determine how you play World of Warcraft. Some classes are very specific such as the Priest who relies on healing powers to advance in the game. Then there is the Shaman who has a myriad of magical spells, all while being able to do a fair amount of melee damage.

World of Warcraft presents the user with many options in character creation and that is only the start. From here on out, the player is immersed in a incredibly large world with literally thousands of things to do. The interactions, guilds, fights, duels, exploration, and overall intense game play make World of Warcraft extremely addicting and it shows. With over one million players worldwide, the game is the most popular of its kind. To get started, a credit card or pre-paid game card is needed. Despite the monthly fee that is imposed, players gladly shell out money in exchange for the great opportunity to play such a famous MMORPG.

Source: Submit Articles at ArticlesBase.com

About the Author:
Beth Campbell holds a Masters degree in Counseling and writes about a variety of subjects. Beth gives more information on World of Warcraft at World of Warcraft Guides . She also gives great tips on World of Warcraft Help and World of Warcraft Leveling Guide.

Keywords: world of warcraft help, world of warcraft guides,world of warcraft leveling guides

New Business: Real-life Dollars Buy in-game Currency?

2007-05-26T19:05:00.000-07:00

New Business: Real-life Dollars Buy in-game Currency?

Will the people pay real dollars for virtual money to help their virtual characters buy in-game goods?

One gamer, who goes by the screen name Haylo, said he spent $10 to $20 real dollars a month on in-game platinum(all nonexistent, of course) to buy weapons and other goods in Dark Age of Camelot (DAOC), but would spend more if he could afford it.

Most video games have some form of currency. In many ways, the in-game economy is similar to a real world economy - goods and services are traded to mutual advantage and are mediated in currency (platinum, gold, credit,etc.).

“With all the things you can buy in game,” a gamer said, “it’s hard not to want them, just like real-life stuff.”

The average Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game(MMORPG) player is 27-year-old — a demographic drooled over by marketers. Plus, nearly half of all players have jobs, which often means they have more money than time and are the perfect consumers of virtual assets. On the Internet, many gamers now buy virtual money that only exist as data files stored in a server run by a game company with real-world dollars, and the buying and selling of virtual currencies may be off most people’s radar, but it is truly big business.

An online broker, who goes by the screen name Rolala, was not a fan of online games until his 15-year-old son became interested in Final Fantasy XI. He then noticed that a large number of gils which are the currencies used in FFXI were for sale on eBay. “I started hearing about players leaving the game who were selling their assets at cheap prices,” he said, “so I figured, buy low, sell high.”

But Rolala found his moneymaking options in FFXI “very limited”. He switched to World of Warcraft. There, he has leveraged his real-life experience into an online business. He converts his game profits into real money on sites like http://www.ebay.com and http://www.bankofwow.com (an exchange site for wow gold) ,etc. Earnings can be considerable. He said he was on track to earn about $120,000 in real money in his first year in this business.

Rolala’s business is just one example of how increasingly popular online role-playing games have created a shadow economy in which the lines between the real world and the virtual world are getting blurred.

“World of Warcraft”, the world’s largest MMORPG, boasts more than 1 million paying users in North America.There are many sites like http://www.wowgoldwowgold.net and http://www.worldofwarcraft-gold.net ,etc., teaching gamers how to earn wow gold in game for free, however many players are still willing to buy gold and weapons to help their virtual characters get a higher virtual status more rapidly. Some virtual goods in World of Warcraft have been sold for thousands of dollars. It obviously creates a large real world market.

Edward Castronova, an economics professor at Indiana University who has written a book on the subject, calculated that if you took the real dollars spent within “EverQuest “as an index, its game world, called Norrath, would be the 77th richest nation on the planet, while annual player earnings surpass those of citizens of Bulgaria, India or China.

Go to http://www.gameusd.com , an exchange-rate calculator for the virtual worlds, and do a search for the latest rates of virtual currencies against the U.S. dollar, and let your jaw drop open. The rates of some virtual world currencies are even better than that of the Iraqi Dinar! For instance, here is the recent exchange rate of several popular virtual currencies: Everquest Plat ($0.54/1K), EQ2 Gold ($0.17/gold), WOW Gold ($0.098/gold), SWG Credit ($4.40/1M), Lineage 2 adena ($2.80/1M), Guild Wars Gold ($0.12/1K), FFXI Gil ($17.89/1M), etc.

Right now, this business is one of the most hotly debated issues on the internet. Many game companies such as Blizzard who run World of Warcraft discourage profit from in-game properties, though none have found a way to stop it.

Sony Online Entertainment, on the other hand, encourages the practice (albeit within the confines of their own “Station Exchange”, their own forum for the sale of in-game properties). It recently announced the first month’s figures from “Station Exchange”. According to SOE, over 45,000 characters from “EverQuest 2″ have been active on the exchange and have spent over $180,000 USD in one month, half of which have been spent on in-game gold and platinum.

Despite of different attitudes towards virtual currency trade, the number of people who are getting into such business is rising, and the size of market has been expanding very rapidly. The market also creates a competitive environment. We could refer to sites like http://www.gameshoplist.com , a world of warcraft gold price comparison site, to see the fierce price competition between different exchange sites.

For some ordinary gamers, however, such a capitalist approach spoils the experience. Nick Yee, a psychology researcher from Stanford University, believes many players dislike virtual currency traders because, by using real wealth to buy virtual power, “they’re breaking the fantasy-reality bubble, getting an advantage in a way that other players can’t”.

But such attitudes are called into question by size estimates for the virtual asset trading market, which is seen having a value of $200 million to nearly $900 million in 2005.

This is a totally new market. Are you prepared for it?

Steven Golden has conducted research into Virtual Game Economy for several years.You can read his recent articles at:
http://groups.msn.com/virtualeconomy

Runescape News

2007-05-26T09:22:00.002-07:00

Google News Game Cheats for PS2 Fanstastic New Resorce for PS2 Gamers Emediawire (press release), WA - May 19, 2007 Theres a new guy in town when it comes to finding game cheats and codes for the Playstation 2 platform....

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Runescape News

2007-05-26T09:22:00.001-07:00

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Game Cheats May 24, 2007 2:23 am
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Runescape Posts

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PC Game Hints Cheats May 25, 2007 4:19 am
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PC Game Hints Cheats May 25, 2007 3:13 am
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PC Game Hints Cheats May 25, 2007 2:28 am
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MMORPG Posts

2007-05-26T09:19:00.001-07:00

Silkroad Online (also known as “SRO” or “Silk”) is a free massively-multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) created by the South Korean company Joymax. The setting for the game is that of the historical Silk Road, one of the world’s...

From WALLPAPER - 171 words - Published 11 hours, 24 minutes ago

Virtual online gaming - Turn Your Online Gaming Skills into Cash Money
online soccer - Spong - Tournament.com has to date announced an exclusive agreement with game publisher Valve, and is currently in discussions with every other major publisher of online games to set up other, similar exclusive deals, according to the...

From Virtual Online Gaming - 503 words - Published 12 hours, 5 minutes ago

Guild Launch Offers Free Clan Hosting
Guild Launch has created a free full featured guild hosting application. While designed for use by the MMORPG gaming community for games such as World of Warcraft, the service is also suitable for creating FPS gaming communities, clans and PvP team...

From CDN Central - 102 words - Published 12 hours, 17 minutes ago

Movie Madness: May 25th
Hello all, welcome to another installment of Movie Madness. This one will be a good weekend reader for you. Here we go. Happy Birthday to Star Wars, which turned 30 years old today. These films have left such a lasting impact on all of us over the...

From Indie Vision Music - 871 words - Published 12 hours, 32 minutes ago

MMORPG and Real Life
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From Animation moving cartoon - 33 words - Published 12 hours, 45 minutes ago

Trouble With Titles
Guild Wars was started as a game without grinding. Eliminating tedious gameplay was right up there with no-monthly-fees. Those were ArenaNet's design mandates. Over time, I had trouble with that decision. Guild Wars is a game that dares to be...

From Photics.com - 1369 words - Published 12 hours, 52 minutes ago

Game / On - May 19th
This week on MMORPG.com's Game/On, Jon Wood and Keith Cross return to discuss strange politics in Second Life, various avenues into the gaming industry, the recent trouble atSigil, Blizzard's big announcement, and more....

From Mother of all podcast feeds - 45 words - Published 13 hours, 10 minutes ago

Runescape May 25, 2007 10:51 pm
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From Runescape - 1577 words - Published 13 hours, 27 minutes ago

BlizzCon website now up - MMORPG blog
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From Computer pets - 111 words - Published 14 hours, 17 minutes ago

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MMORPG Posts

2007-05-26T09:18:00.001-07:00

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CyberSports and Monumental Games announce Football SuperStars - MMORPG blog
CyberSports and Monumental Games announce Football SuperStars MMORPG blog - 19 minutes ago CyberSports announced today its goal of publishing "world-class global, massively multi-player online sports games using leading-edge technology". …...

From Gaming news - 148 words - Published 15 hours, 30 minutes ago

Dungeon Runners Beta
It seems like a giant pile of games in Beta lately, which is always a good thing with games to look forward to. Dungeon Runners is sort of a WoW-lite, or as it's often compared to: a Diablo style game. I wouldn't quite classify it as an MMORPG, just...

From MMOROG - 275 words - Published 16 hours, 20 minutes ago

World Of Warcraft May 25, 2007 7:30 pm
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From World Of Warcraft - 1888 words - Published 16 hours, 48 minutes ago

Warning: A Starcraft 2 scam on World of Warcraft - MMORPG blog (”World of Warcraft”)
Warning: A Starcraft 2 scam on World of Warcraft MMORPG blog - 6 hours ago A poster named Goolz on the European World of Warcraft forums gave out some news on a scam that attempts to take advantage of people's anticipation of … WoW: Clarifications...

From World of Warcraft - 419 words - Published 17 hours, 18 minutes ago

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From Funny video - 655 words - Published 17 hours, 18 minutes ago

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Gamasutra - CMP Announces Mobile Games Seminar CMP Game Group, organizers of the Game Developers Conference and GDC Mobile, as well as ... J2ME, BREW, Flash Lite, Windows Mobile and N-Gage; - The complexities of production pipelines, porting, testing...

From Flv format - 504 words - Published 17 hours, 18 minutes ago

Why are all the MMORPGs the same?
If you are an MMORPG player, or even if you aren’t but have friends who are, or have a keen interest in virtual worlds and societies, you already know that most of the MMORPGs are pretty similar, and they are based on the same abstract game...

From PDA - 2590 words - Published 17 hours, 44 minutes ago

FAITH IN FOOTBALL - Electric New Paper
Electric New Paper, Singapore - 24 minutes ago THERE was a lot of faith in football as race, language and age barriers were by the sidelines at the Serangoon Stadium last weekend. … …Sportzia More DINAMIX is a company which offer a new and...

From football - 2303 words - Published 17 hours, 49 minutes ago

Hiring - Concept Artist!
[Eddy] To answer Fabrizio’s question earlier, yes, we’re still very much working on DC’s MMORPG. As a matter of fact, we’re even looking to add to our ranks here in beautiful La Jolla, California: “DC Comics seeks a Concept Artist for the...

MMORPG Posts

2007-05-26T09:17:00.000-07:00

This week on MMORPG.com's Game/On, Jon Wood and Keith Cross return to discuss strange politics in Second Life, various avenues into the gaming industry, the recent trouble atSigil, Blizzard's big announcement, and more....

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From 7.MoreSarah.Com - 3925 words - Published 14 hours, 17 minutes ago

Online Press Release
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From Closet Organizer Pros - 303 words - Published 14 hours, 56 minutes ago

Another reason to love NCsoft
I'm a big fan of how NCsoft does things, especially their support software. If you've played a few MMORPGs, you know the frustration that sometimes regardless of how well the game is designed, the software for patch downloads, logins, etc. is often...

From MMOROG - 416 words - Published 15 hours, 2 minutes ago

MMORPG Posts

2007-05-26T09:16:00.000-07:00

The World Within Or Online Multiplayer Games in Depth
For most of the 20th century, life used to be rather simple for most people. There was school, college, work, retirement. Along with that you had hobbies like cars, bowling, or gardening. This was basically the same as a thousand years ago. Now, in...

From Technology News for your Daily Use - 2446 words - Published 10 hours, 30 minutes ago

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Silkroad Online (also known as “SRO” or “Silk”) is a free massively-multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) created by the South Korean company Joymax. The setting for the game is that of the historical Silk Road, one of the world’s...

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StarCraft 2: Power Overwhelming?

2007-05-26T09:03:00.000-07:00

Prepare for serious geekage. You’ve been warned.
I’m not the only one totally stoked about the upcoming StarCraft sequel. The original StarCraft took many a boring summer day (or painfully studious college day…ahem) and turned them into an amazingly addictive competitive futuristic space war. My brother and I played each other all the time. My cousin would play us. My friends would play us. Random people on the internet would play us. It was heavenly. Well, until my brother declared himself “unfairly good” with the Zerg. He wasn’t lying, either. The boy had a gift. Needless to say, I am beyond excited about the sequel. Lots of people are doing the highly professional bellyaching about how it’s not a MMORPG. Whatever. I fell for it as an RTS, and I’ll likely fall for it again as an RTS. It’s a pattern that just works. Works so well, it got its own television channel in South Korea. Seriously. I watched it during my visit to Seoul. StarCraft ~~had~~ has a rabid fan base. It was an amazing game. Hopefully the sequel, StarCraft II, will match up.

I spent some time looking over the movies that have been released so far, and I have come up with the following questions. If you’re interested, feel free to chime in on any of them or add your own.

-What are the laser beams that appear to be cutting the crystal? Are they dangerous? Are the resources capable of taking damage? I could foresee cutting off an enemy by sending a targeted attack to their resources instead of to their collection building. It’s far more permanent that way. It’s how I used to kill off computer players in “comp stomps” with my brother.

- Do the environmental features have purposes (starports / light poles / adverts)? The guy comments on them, but never says if they do…anything. Just wondering. I think it would be neat to have to deal with the environment as well as with the enemy combatants.

- Is the HUD toggle ready in the actual game, or just for demo purposes? I’d love to be able to kill it when I didn’t want it on screen. There are plenty of keyboard shortcuts that make it useless once you establish a base and get things rolling. (In an all out attack, dropping the HUD off screen would let you do your work with group controls and attack shortcuts, for instance. Awesomeness.)

- Similarly, what is the bullet-time effect for angle change with the sound warp effect at the end? Is it event triggered? Is it player triggered? Is it for screenshots? Just curious.

- Has “StarCraft retardation”** been fixed? Ok, this is a big deal. In my opinion, they should really have solved this by now. In the demo, they only used what I consider to be a small number of units, so direction management wasn’t an issue. However, in the old game, directing large groups of units to a single location (especially via the minimap) was problematic. You would frequently find one or two guys lost and unable to discover the ramp 2 inches to his left. It was really aggravating. Sometimes they would meander in the exact opposite direction, ostensibly searching for a walk-around path. I dunno, but I really hope that they fixed this problem. **Not my term. Coined by others.

- Are Ghosts / burrowed Zerglings not detected by ANY of the vehicles used in the “epic battle?” Let me rephrase…how is the mothership not a detector? How are none of those vehicles detectors? Geeeze. I see a huge glaring weakness in the Protoss if they cannot detect cloaked units with any of their heavy hitters.

- The resources are said to be handled in a new way. In the old game, you could only fit so many harvesters on a single resource node. (Unless you were playing custom maps…aww yeah.) Are there limits on simultaneous harvesting units?

- Are there still neutral units roaming the open areas? I didn’t see any in the demo. I quite liked them. Especially when you click them repeatedly to make them explode…

- Are there new types of terrain? I remember lava, snow, ice, dirt, rock, grass, and metal as navigable terrain. I noted that one of the developer guys mentioned the “deep sky” image. Does this mean that all worlds will be “hovering?” Or does this mean that there is the possibility of space combat without ground units? There was a reference to the lack of “naval” warfare on a website recently. That could be navigable space or water. Water? Ships? That would be pretty cool.

- One of the fellows at IGN brought up a good point in his take on things. Why is Blizzard sticking to the ramps and flat terrain modeling? Why not hills and 3d stuff? Is it that important to game mechanics? That makes little sense to me. Thought I’d pass along his thought.

- CARRIERS?? ARCHONS??? I was an admitted “carrier whore”** and awfully fond of archons as well. Neither made an appearance in the demo. Please, please, please tell me that they have not been phased out in favor of a new unit (like the dragoons were for the new stalkers and immortals). I loved nothing more than getting 12 carriers at full capacity to sweep in and annihilate an enemy with a small number of archons as ground support… Whatever shall I do without them?

- How are pylons and phase prisms related to unit capacity? In the original, if some enemy stormed my base and killed off pylons, it would be like me eradicating supply depots in a Terran base - both drop the maximum number of units I can build. If the cap is linked to the power grid, could I theoretically activate a few phase prisms and get a temporary surge in sustainable units? For a rush, for instance? Hmmm.

- The units in the demo were almost instantaneously built. I know that they said they want an average game to last no longer than 20 minutes (which is a joke compared to some of the epic battles we’ve had on the original), but sheesh - units’ build time was a factor to consider.

- Related to the above point, can you use the warp in ability to summon ships as well as ground units? How many can you warp in simultaneously? If I wanted a huge army in the old SC I would just get 12 stargates going at the same time, and I’d have units ready in batches, just like the Zerg spawn them. If you must use the warp in, does it bottleneck the number of units you can queue for preparation? Does it limit the number you can have ready in a given timeframe? Cause…that would be lame…

- Can we use stuff found on the maps? I saw some barrels in one of the doodad areas. Could I somehow blow them up to make a ramp or destroy one? What about a fast acting guy after the missiles stopped by the time bomb were to shoot them? Could he send an explosion up to weaken the mothership? That would be cool.

- Lastly, are the physics passive or active? For instance, are they just there to let the pieces of an exploded ship slide down the terrain for effect, or could I theoretically trip a colossus for a tactical advantage? Fun thoughts.

Like I said, feel free to reply or to add your own quandaries. Ok, geekage off.

Keeping Games Players Entertained

2007-05-26T09:02:00.002-07:00

Different games use any of a variety of mechanisms, including increasing in game monetary rewards, increasing level of difficulty, more powerful gear, raising the level cap, shifting content toward PvP and decreasing the availability of high end content through time limits or low drop rates. We’ll take each of these in order, spending a bit more time with the more interesting concepts. Along the way, I’ll probably climb up on the soapbox about various mmorpg topics, but I’ll try not to stay up there too long at any one time.

Money, often expressed as drops whose only real value is monetary (gems, items for quests with monetary reward, etc) is almost a non reward. At best, money is a limbic state on the way to more tangible rewards. One of the contradictions of money in this sort of game is that while it is the route to attaining many things of value it does not, itself have value.

There are also a number of economic problems with having a system of arbitrarily increasing wealth. Yes, economic. Dispel from your mind any notion that markets within games do not move under general economic principles. One of the most common expressions of this error you will see is people saying “Why do they charge so much for XX item.” The answer, every time, is because someone will pay that much. Item availability in player driven markets is governed by the law of supply and demand just like any other market. If more people want an item, the price necessarily goes up until the number of people who want it drops to approximately the number of people that have that same item to sell. Conversely, flooded markets (often a result of trade skills, but that’s another matter) result in price deflation as there are far more sellers than buyers.

The problem with increasing the money supply as players level is that you increase not only each player’s access to money but the total amount of money floating around in the system per player. This has the effect of driving up the price of all items. The biggest negative impact is on the prices of items intended for lower level players. Indirectly, through market operation and directly through players with both high and low level characters, some low level characters will end up with wildly disproportionate amounts of money, effectively driving up the price of most “good” low level gear beyond the ability of your average player to afford.

The practice of twinking (or tweaking, depending on where you get your slang) lower level characters with money and gear from higher levels is sometimes met with derision by the rank and file mmorpg player. The average player’s frustration arises out of seeing similar level characters with incredibly superior gear that they, in some sense, didn’t work for. While this is not entirely unreasonable, it is misdirected.

If the economic system can be kept in balance, then these effects can be minimized. Keeping a tight reign on the increase of money as players level is one tool to this end, money sinks are another. A money sink is basically any game element designed to reduce the total money supply. They generally take the form of some other form of reward that requires a (seemingly) incredible amount of money to attain. Keys to high end dungeon content are common money sinks, as are non combat rewards (mounts in World of Warcraft, Traveler’s boots in Everquest.) By keeping control of the total money supply, designers can hold the game economy stable while still allowing those players whose joy comes from commerce to thrive.

About the Author

Steve is a member of the GrandMatrix team. Read more games articles, download and play the latest PC games for free plus enjoy thousands of user submitted puzzles, quizzes and word games at GM Free Game Downloads

Huge queues for war game expansion

2007-05-26T09:02:00.001-07:00

Huge queues for war game expansion

Posted in PDA by on the May 26th, 2007

Hello good morning and welcome to Cybersurf ? a quick update on Internet news. I am your Cybershost Steven Lang.

Last night thousands of people packed shops across Europe and North America waiting their turn for a burning crusade. Some of those queuing up were wearing bizarre costumes in imitation of their heroes.

No, it was not some charismatic church calling on the faithful to join in the good fight. Those who stayed up all night were eagerly anticipating their copies of the expansion of World of Warcraft ? one of the world?s most popular online games.

The expansion is called ? the Burning Crusade ? and it will change forever, the way gamers inter act in the Fantasy World of Azeroth.

The Burning Crusade creates a new continent, two new races and new foes to be defeated.

Now if you think this is an irrelevant kid?s game ? think again.

Massively Multi-player online role playing games or MMORPGs are big business in all parts of the world where the local telco doesn?t strangle bandwidth. To avoid spelling out this peculiar acronym, some users refer to it as a More Peg.

A More Peg is a role playing game that is played online ? as its name would suggest. The fantasy worlds depend on which game you are playing ? and they go by names such as ? Everquest, Ultima and Lineage Two.

To find out more about MMORPGs you can just go along to MMORPG dot com where you will find out everything you could ever want to know about these games that involve hundreds, or thousands of people all playing online at the same time. The site itself claims to have more than half a million members.

A few years ago, the BBC online published an article quoting a report that said that the value of online gaming was worth more than the GDP of Namibia. I have my doubts about that, but it is true that some people actually earn their living from online gaming. This is not gambling.

Believe it or not, there are professional gamers that accumulate virtual assets in the course of the games and then sell the virtual assets for real dollars on e-Bay. It is not a scam. It is perfectly legitimate and the US government even taxes such gains.

Let?s change the music now ?.

As from the beginning of this year in the UK, songs that have never been put on CD - or vinyl for that matter ? now count for the charts.

This week ? history was made when a song that you can only by online ? by a rock band called KOOPA made it onto the charts in 31^st position.

The song, by the way is called ? Blag, Steal and Borrow. If you would like to buy this track or find out more about the group then pop along to the KOOPA web site that is K.O.O.P.A which you will find at http://koopatheband.com/

And with that we wrap up today?s edition of Cybersurf ? if you would like to look at the script, please go to the Cybersurf blog which you can find at Cybersurf.blogspot.Com ? one more time

Thanks for listening and please join me again next week, same time same place.

Kingdom of Loathing

2007-05-26T09:01:00.001-07:00

Pe Khai introduced me to a new MMORPG yesterday… Kingdom of Loathing!

If World of Warcraft left an ugly aftertaste for my appetite for MMO, Kingdom of Loathing re-ignited a gamer lying deep down inside me!

WoW represents what a MMORPG should be like: beautifully rendered environment, sophisicated storyline, complex game mechanism etc. Or does it?

Kingdom of Loathing features stickman-style graphic level, a graphic style so silly that it almost seems rude to seasoned gamers. But then who says that a great game has to look good? Didn’t we spend hours playing Pac-man, Burgerman and Indiana Jones with 4 colours monitor before?

Don’t let the simplicity of Kingdom of Loathing deceive you. The game has depth. It features internal mail system, social community, monsters, new areas, character development etc, it is a full-on MMORPG.

The charm of KoL, i guess, is that the game does not take things entirely seriously. The game has silly little bits and pieces which pop up here and there when I least expect it. The KoL community (yes, there are many people who play this silly game) gives me the impression of being friendly and… a bit wacky as well. This “silliness” is a much welcomed departure from class segregation and competition displayed by majority of WoW community.

Afterall, the reason for us to play a game is to have fun! You dont have to wear epics to feel lewt!

Check it out:

http://jayisgames.com/archives/2005/09/kingdom_of_loat.php

~ by chiangning on May 26, 2007.

Why are all the MMORPGs the same?

2007-05-26T08:54:00.000-07:00

Why are all the MMORPGs the same?

Posted in PDA by on the May 26th, 2007

If you are an MMORPG player, or even if you aren’t but have friends who are, or have a keen interest in virtual worlds and societies, you already know that most of the MMORPGs are pretty similar, and they are based on the same abstract game mechanics.
There are, of course, many differences between the game settings, artwork, time period, theme, items, spells, power ups, level ladder, etc.

But they still have a few things in common:
1. A lot of repetition.
2. Superficial quests (not a lot of a storyline, many times randomly generated).
3. Unstable economies.
4. Lack of a “world changing” ability, where one player or group of players can forever alter the history and the direction of the game.

Now, let’s analyze each point, and see why all the MMOs, from those created by small, indie teams, to those backed by big corporations, which require millions of dollars to produce, and see why is that none of them tried to solve those abovementioned issues.

The repetition, AKA “Level Grinding”
There are two distinct kind of online games: those where there is no persistency, and implicitly ingame-experience and ingame-skills, and those with a persistent world, experience, and skills, which are saved when you log out, and restored when you log in.
Games such as Counter Strike, Quake, Doom, DotA and so on rely only on the experience and skill of the human playing them.
The average MMORPG is part of the first category, where the ingame status is preserved between sessions.

Each type of game has it’s fans. For example, Counter Strike is an extremely popular game, played by many millions each and every day, for many years.
WoW has millions of fans as well.
Some people play both kind of games; they are not mutually exclusive.

Every once in a while, someone on some forum, chatroom or article will come up with this very original idea of combining both worlds. For example, they envision a virtual world where you don’t really have ingame-experience, and you would play the game the FPS style, only that instead of having 16-32 players on a server, you’d have maybe 1-2K players.

Unfortunately, this is not possible. Why? Well, the first thing is technical reasons. A FPS game requires a very low latency, preferably under 100 MS. FPS games are also very bandwidth hungry, because they have to send a lot of data, such as the position of every entity, speed, direction, bullets and so on. Unlike a MMO, the FPS has to send this data many times each second, because it is critical that “what you see is what you get”. The MMO can get away with that, since it is less critical for all the players to be perfectly synchronized. The result of a spell or missile collision is often calculated by the server based on some formulas having to do with the distance, weapon accuracy, player skills, and usually a random number as well. Therefore, rather then attacking in the direction where a player is, hoping to hit, most of the MMOs will let you directly select which player you want to hit.

The second reason why a massive FPS is not possible has to do with the “fun” part. It would quickly becomes boring to play a FPS in a world with 1000 players online.
Now, I am not saying it wouldn’t be fun to play some sort of FPS castle siege sort of game every once in a while, but playing it every day, for hours? The fun of FPSs is the teamwork, and teamwork is impossible in very large numbers. You can’t coordinate people very effectively, you wouldn’t remember their name, skill, etc.

On the other hand, a castle siege type of event in a MMORPG would be fun EXACTLY because of the repetitive nature of the game.
Think about it: In real life, where do you make most of the friends? For most of the people, the answer is: At school and at work.
Now, most of the people would agree that school and work are both boring and repetitive places, where you spend a lot of time doing things that are not so fun, but vital in the works of the society.
In a similar manner, the MMO players usually make friends in boring places. Do you want to increase your mining level? Well, my friend, you have to spend many days in the mines, mining for ore. This is quite boring, and for this reason many miners start chatting about various things. Eventually, you will realize that you have things in common, and become friends. Or, the opposite, you realize you hate this guy and become enemies.
Same thing with the other skills; you will need to interact, more or less directly with a lot of people. Some games require player cooperation, while other games make it optional. Either way, the player interaction in a MMORPG is frequent.
Now, after a while you will want to start a guild/group or join one. Obviously, you will want to have as many friends in that guild, which is why you will recruit your friends.
In games that allow guilds to build/buy territory, that can be attacked/conquered by others, it is normal for all the owners of that territory to come together and defend it against the attackers. So we have a castle siege, but this time the two teams (those who attack and those who defend) have a very strong motivation to defend/attack the territory. And unlike in a FPS, the defenders have invested a lot of time and pride in that castle, so they organize better, and put more passion and effort into defending it at any cost. Would they have such a strong motivation to defend it if they knew the game will be restarted once they win or lose the battle, and they will have to fight again, and again and again, to no end?

So you see, the repetitive nature is not something bad; it is something that, just like in the real life, motivates you to strive for more, and work more. It makes you put more value on your virtual possessions, and on your character. It leads you to make new friends, and have more goals. It gives you the reason to live in a virtual world. It is in the human nature to do the same thing every day, over and over again.

Superficial quests
The reason so many MMORPGs have little or no quests, most of them being: “go kill 10 rats”, is not necessarily because the developers lack the imagination to create a big storyline, revealed in quests.
Most of the time it is due to the players themselves. Let’s admit it. You (I am talking about the average MMO player) do not think the storyline is very important. You never bothered reading the stories on the website, or going to the game’s library and reading all the books about the history of the world.
If a quest is too demanding for you, you will go to Google and search for an walk through. Or perhaps just go to a site with ‘tips’ and read which is the fastest way to solve the quests, and what the prizes are.
Yes, I know, some of you would really, really like to have good quests, with a lot of story. You like to read everything about the game world, it’s history, and even go and read fan fiction stories. Unfortunately, you are a minority. The development teams have limited resources, and so many things on their “to do” list. A lot of their “to do” list is already taken by stuff such as find this bug, fix this bug, verify this bug report and see if it’s there and if it can be reproduced, adjust the drop chance of an item, adjust the stats of a monster, and so on.
The little remaining time has to be divided between adding new features (such as spells, weapons, monsters, locations, skills) and writing/implementing a new quest.
Given the fact that pretty much everyone likes a new location/monster/skill, only perhaps 20% of the players would truly appreciate a new quest. From this 20% percent, some will like the new quest, while some will criticize it, and complain about various issues, such as: the quest is too easy/hard, the story line takes a turn they don’t like, etc.
So, in conclusion, the MMORPG quests are lacking due to the fact that most of the players would rather have the development team focus on other issues.

Unstable economies
A lot of complaints are targeted at the fact that the MMOs have a very fluctuating economy. Some people consider this a bad thing, while a few of them see this as an opportunity for them to affect the economy of the game in their favor.
The reason why the virtual economies are so fluctuating is the fact that the number of players is usually constantly rising, while the number of resources is usually the same (infinite). I am talking about resources that can be exploited in a reliable way, for example the ore in a mine. The monster drops are not reliable, therefore I do not consider them a resource.
Why are the resources infinite, unlike in the real life? Well, the number one reason is that the real life and the MMORPG life are very different.
For example, in the real life you die once, and that’s it. No more respawns. When you die, you become, again, a resource, so all your minerals return to the environment. The quantity of everything is finite, which makes some resources very valuable (such as the gold). Because of this, many people are very poor, and a lot of them die of hunger every day. A lot of wars are started to control the resources, and in those wars a lot of people die, and even more have their lives turned into a living hell. There is a lot of misery in the real life.

In a MMO, on the other hand, you want to avoid this misery. People play games to feel entertained, not miserable. As such, the developers must implement different rules, and distribute the resources in an equitable way, so that everyone can have access to them.
Limiting the quantity of resources to an arbitrary number each day would make a lot of people unhappy. Limiting the quantity of resources a player can harvest each day would create an artificial barrier and wont help that much either, as one player could for example just go kill monsters after he can’t harvest anymore for that day. And by killing monsters you still get some drops, which contribute to the “infinite wealth” problem.
In many games, there are NPCs which will buy items from the players. Those items can come from loots, or, if the game permits it, from the manufacturing process, where the player creates his own items using resources. This will cause a limitless influx of money in the game, because if the resources are infinite, so is, in theory, the production.
Such a limitless influx of money will of course create inflation. And the inflation will create some discontent with the players, which is why they are often heard saying: “the economy of game X suckkx!!11″.

Are there ways to control the economy, so it won’t quickly degenerate to a point where it is irrevocably ruined? Sure, there are some ways to do that, and, indeed, many games implement some countermeasures. But given the fact that the players have this affinity for finding ways around those countermeasures, and the goal of the developers to make the game fun, the result will be, inevitably, a very fluctuating economy.

Lack of a “world changing” ability
I heard some complaints about the MMORPG developers not giving their players the ability to “change the world”.
Now, I am not going to get into the technical implementation of such a design, but I am going to answer with a question: “Do you want OTHERS to be able to change your world? Or do you perhaps want only YOU to be able to change the world?”
Let’s imagine a MMO so advanced that it replicates the real life.
How would you feel if, after working a few years with your friends to build this greatest city ever, The Griefers Guild decides to sneak in a 50 GigaTon nuke in your city and destroy everything? Would you like that?
Sure, it would be very cool if that would happen to someone’s else city, but not to yours.
How about if the development team spends a few weeks to create this brave new, world changing quest, where, of course, only one player can win? Obviously, nothing else will be implemented in the game during that period, because the development team was busy over their head working at that quest.
So with great anticipation you prepare for that great quest, and just before it starts, your Internet connection goes down? Or maybe you live on another continent, and the quest takes place at 4 AM, and the next day you have to finish a very important project at work, or have a decisive exam at school?
What if you are in a small vacation, on some tropical island, away from the computer?
Would you like to come back and find out you just missed the event of the year?

Wouldn’t it, maybe, be better for the developers to spend their time adding normal quests (the trivial, non world changing), or perhaps working on some bug fixes or balancing issues?

In conclusion, the MMORPGs are done the way they are because people like them as they are. Yes, many people complain, but when you put so much work into a product, you kind of want to please the people who appreciate it, not those who just spend their time criticizing it.
Those who want more quests, and “save the world” stories, they should perhaps play a single player RPG, such as Fallout 1&2, the Ultima series, or whatever else you like.
The MMORPGs are not for everyone, and you shouldn’t spend your time playing a genre that you hate in the first place.

I hope you enjoyed reading this article, and feel free to leave comments.

Radu Privantu

Oblivion Review

2007-05-26T08:52:00.000-07:00

Shivering Isles reviews Tue, 27 Mar 2007 23:36:35 +0000
	by Wester
IGN have flared up their review of the Xbox 360 rendition of Oblivion's new expansion, Shivering Isles, giving it a 8.3/10.0 as an overall. Here's a select portion from it: "You'll also get some fancy new armor sets and weaponry. From new enemy types and dungeons can be procured Amber and Madness Ore, which when brought to the proper smith in the main city of New Sheoth can be forged into some attractive pieces of equipment, with all the intricate detailing we've come to expect from Bethesda. Better still, these armors level with your character, so if you're still somewhat inexperienced, you can go back and forge a new set a few levels later and reap the benefits of augmented protection or increased weapon damage. Special Matrices allow magical versions of Amber and Madness items to be produced, but if you're a high level character you'll likely be applying your own enchants. A few unique weapons pop up as you follow the main story along with some new summons, and, depending on some of the choices you make during the main quest, the armor of the Golden Saints or Dark Seducers, who guard the Bliss and Dementia halves of New Sheoth, respectively." OXM as well, giving it 9/10 as a standalone: "The Shivering Isles – the Live Arcade expansion pack for Oblivion – is set in the realm of the God of Madness, Sheogorath. Moments after you’ve stepped through the new gate in the Niben bay and met Haskill, the mad god’s entirely-too-sane manservant, you’re dumped in The Fringe, a walled area that serves to test new entrants to the realm. You’ve got to escape from there and become Sheogorath’s new champion bitch against the rapidly approaching Greymarch, the 1000-yearly assault of the forces of order on the land of madness." Make certain to read both reviews.
Permalink.

New Final Fantasy XIII info - new trailers, delays

2007-05-26T08:49:00.002-07:00

Yep, news isn't so great right now for fans waiting for Final Fantasy 13...

Firstly, reporting on content at the Square Party, nothing hugely new was shown - a trailer was shown in the closed theatre (not released to the public still), which showed the blonde-haired male we've seen summon some kind of monster. A few new scenes of Lightning fighting were shown, Cocoon was given some more screen-time, yet nothing huge.

As for Nomura's Versus 13, nothing of particular interest happened, except the Jump Festa trailer was shown and extended. We still haven't seen the original version yet - which apparently features the title's protagonist teleporting around a battlefield using his swords, cutting down many enemy soldiers - so don't expect to see this any time soon.

Not content with annoying fans just a little, word has hit GameSpot that Final Fantasy 13 itself might not even be released this year. Reportedly, Yoichi Wada has told press that "It will take a bit more time," and to not expect it this fiscal year - so the earliest it can now be released is probably Summer 2008 for Japan.

We'll get back to you if any of this is changed, and if Square actually has something to tide us over with in this time.

Source: GameSpot.

Final Fantasy 13 Brief Impression

2007-05-26T08:49:00.001-07:00

Final Fantasy 13 is the kind of impressive game that is expected from Square Enix. After watching the trailer, I dare to say that this has the potential to be the greatest RPG in production. From the trailer, it can be seen that the main character of Final Fantasy 13 is a girl who wields a gun that can be transformed into a blade. The trailer also shows that unlike the previous Final Fantasy series, Final Fantasy 13 will be more action-oriented. Player will be able to move the heroine around the field during battle and the battle menu will be real-time, similar to the one in Final Fantasy 11 and 12. The graphics is top-notch too, showing the kind of standard that PlayStation 3 is able to deliver. I personally can't see the difference between pre-rendered and real-time scene anymore, their quality is too similar from what the trailer has shown.

Final Fantasy 13 Information

Game: Final Fantasy 13
Developer: Square Enix
Publisher: Square Enix
Genre: RPG
Medium: Blu-ray Disc
Platform: Playstation 3

Final Fantasy 13 Release Date

Japan: 2007?
USA: N/A
Europe: N/A

The Achievement Diary

2007-05-26T08:48:00.004-07:00

This week we bring you an entirely new kind of content: the Achievement Diary, which is sure to fire up your desire to head to Karamja. By completing sets of tasks you'll earn rewards to make Karamja an even more appealing place to visit and to train in.

The Achievement Diary entries will each relate to an area in the game (in this first case, Karamja), and each will have a set of easy, medium and hard tasks to complete. The easy tasks could be as simple as picking a few bananas, while the hard tasks include defeating a mighty Ket-Zek (level 360) in the TzHaar Fight Cave! There are rewards for completing each set, so if you can't beat all-comers in the Fight Pits yet, don't worry.

The rewards range from improved Agility experience in the Brimhaven Agility Arena to an entirely new mine that can only be used by people who have done all of the hard tasks. On top of that, you'll increase your knowledge of Karamja, and might even discover more interesting and enjoyable ways to do things.

There are plenty of reasons to start filling in your Achievement Diary, and we'll be adding more areas to the diary in the future.

In other news...

2007-05-26T08:48:00.003-07:00

In other news...

Players entering the Abyss become 'skulled' - marked as player-killers by the skull emblem above their heads. Anyone entering the Abyss while already skulled has their timer reset, so they have to wait at least another 10 minutes for the skull to disappear. The abyssal bracelet, released in last week's Crafting update, has now been upgraded to prevent the timer being reset in this way, so if you've been skulled and then put on the bracelet, the skull's duration won't be extended when you re-enter the Abyss. This doesn't use up any charges on the bracelet.

The jacket and cap from An Enlightened Journey may now be stored in your houses' costume rooms.

Players visiting the Fountain of Heroes or Legends' Guild to recharge their amulets, necklaces and bracelets will be glad to hear that the fountain now recharges all the amulets of glory in your inventory (including any that you're wearing) without the need for repeated clicking, and the totem pole in the Legends' Guild does the same for the bracelet of combat and necklace of skills.

Finally, you'll find that the minimap icon for general stores has been changed. It used to represent a pot of flour. It's been pointed out to us that general stores don't usually stock pots of flour, so the icon now resembles an empty pot. Please try to contain your excitement.

Small spiders, kalphites, scorpions and metal dragons

2007-05-26T08:48:00.001-07:00

They're creepy, they're crawly, and now they look even scarier! Our eight, six and four legged friends have been getting a visit from the Makeover Mage, and it wasn't a pleasant visit! Between trying to convince the Kalphite Queen that black really wasn't her colour and the fine detail work on the small spider, the mage is beginning to wonder if he/she is in the right line of work.

As a small surprise, the Mage also managed to hammer the metal dragons into shape, which is no easy feat. But all the hard work paid off as small spiders, kalphites, scorpions and metal dragons have shiny new looks and animations.

Bots and Real-World Trading Update

2007-05-26T08:47:00.003-07:00

In a follow up to last week's news post, we thought we'd let you know exactly what we've been doing in order to remove those who cheat from the game.

Firstly, we've been upgrading our detection software to ban the bots from the game. We've also been particularly focusing on cleaning up the members' version of the game. Bots on the members game are banned significantly more quickly. Of course, the free version has seen a fair share of bans, too.

The Investigations in the Community Unit (ICU) have worked hard, double checked all the facts to make sure we're only getting the cheats, and then have banned 19075 accounts for breaking Rule 7.

We've made significant progress over the last week, but there's still lots more for us to do yet.

Secondly, and equally importantly, as we warned last week we are now banning people who are BUYING RuneScape gold for real-world money - those people who are funding the whole problem in the first place. In the last week we have banned 2300 accounts for breaking Rule 12 by buying RuneScape gold.

Clearly a lot of people buying gold thought they would get away with it, so were quite surprised when they actually got permanently banned. This goes to show that we really do mean it when we say that buying gold for real-world money = permanent ban. We have reliable ways to trace this now. (These are NOT people lending items to their friends, we really are sure they were genuinely buying gold for real world money.)

Note: These weren't bots, these were players who built up their account, sometimes over years, but then threw it all away by cheating and buying gold for real-world money. This means that all the time and money they spent on their account was wasted – and all because they wanted to get ahead of others by using unfair means and tactics.

Have a look at the following examples of accounts banned for real-world trading activities in the past week and decide whether you think it would be worth risking your account. You won't get a warning - you'll just find your account banned, and that will be that.

These are just 2 examples out of the 2300 total.

Player X
Total Level: Over 1600
Total time in-game: 140 days, 8 hours
Status: Permanently banned for real-world trading

Player Y
Total Level: Over 1550
Total time in-game: 89 days, 14 hours
Status: Permanently banned for real-world trading

A pretty silly thing for them to go and do, I'm sure you'll agree. Don't make the same mistake.

In other news...

2007-05-26T08:47:00.001-07:00

In other news...

We've re-sorted the quest list to make it a bit easier to find the quests you're looking for. Previously, the quest list was sorted alphabetically, so all the quests with titles beginning with "A", "An" or "The" were being clumped together.

The problem was that people couldn't always remember the exact title of every quest. Is it "The Hand in the Sand" or "A Hand in the Sand"? Or is it just "Hand in the Sand"? From now on, you'll find "The Hand in the Sand" sorted under H, "A Soul's Bane" sorted under S, and so on. This is how they used to be arranged before the interface update earlier this year, and people seemed happy with it at the time.

Mod Ash accidentally deleted some of the level-up messages for Construction a few months ago. We've now finally noticed, so these have been put back. He says he's sorry.

The Runecrafting skill guide has been updated to display the levels at which you receive multiple runes from each essence. Also, players can now see the level requirements for using the various pouches which you get from the Abyss.

The Home Teleport Spell is now available in all spellbooks! You can now return to Lumbridge, Edgeville or Lunar Isle depending on which spell book you have open.

Finally, we've managed to fix a bug with player-owned houses. Players trying to build a garden above their dungeon stairs would sometimes lose building materials.

Dream Mentor

2007-05-26T08:46:00.000-07:00

Those familiar with the ways of the Moonclan will find this week's quest of most valuable interest. With massive and dangerous (not to mention bizarre) beasts to defeat and new spells to learn, there should be plenty to appeal to you.

Enter the Jaws of Oblivion

2007-05-25T08:08:00.000-07:00

'The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion' is a great game that should be enjoyed by all. It is extremely immersive, especially when using mods. This does not help me however, since my computer is crap and doesn't allow me to play Oblivion. So, I bought it for my XBOX 360. No problem though, because it is still a very fun game, with or without mods.

RPG's at large!

2007-05-25T08:04:00.000-07:00

RPG's are the new thing in online gaming. Being able to play with other people online in an rpg setting is very fun, and incorporates many different skills, such as communication and teamwork. RPG's are good for you, especially when they're online.

In this case, MMORPG's should be considered healthy, because the allow you to increase your social capability and the like. Games like runescape have you buying items with other players, which usually includes bartering, and that is a healthy form of communication which should be allowed by all parents.

Play MMORPG's! They are good for you. Find the best ones here at my site!

Runescape

2007-05-25T07:36:00.001-07:00

Does anyone actually play this game anymore? I mean, it gets old pretty fast. If you disagree, post a comment and explain why it is still fun for you.

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Runescape News

2007-05-19T08:16:00.000-07:00

Players' Gallery 15-May-2007

It's that time again! Postie Pete has put together another showcase of your artistic talents in the Players' Gallery. This month's is a particularly colourful selection, with a fantastic range of styles, from pens and paint to computers and clay.