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RuneScape Coming To Tablets This Year

RuneScape has some pretty massive updates coming this year, from two skills to an overhauled interface, the move to HTML5 as well as Jagex’s continued pledge to weekly content additions. In the past, Jagex has talked about the trouble of bringing RuneScape to consoles, particularly that Sony and Microsoft refuse to allow players to be on the same servers with their cross-console counterparts. Since then, Jagex has shifted focus mainly toward getting RuneScape on mobile platforms, and in a statement from Mark Gerhard, we will be seeing that sooner than we thought:

“We’re working insanely hard to make sure it’s ready for Q4 this year on tablets,” says Gerhard. “I think that’s a risk in that there’s a lot of unknowns, there’s a lot of R&D going on, and there’s still some tech questions, but right now the team is laser-focused on RuneScape 3.”

You can read the rest of Gerhard’s comments at the link below.

(Source: Gamasutra)

Camelot Unchained Successfully Funded

Camelot Unchained is the newest MMO from Mark Jacobs, who fans will be familiar with from his work at Mythic Entertainment and on MMO Fallout’s quote board. Camelot Unchained will feature three factions going at it in the massive realm vs realm battles introduced way back with Dark Age of Camelot. Players will be able to take part in battles with hundreds of other players, create dynamic buildings, and even choose a life of nonviolence crafting weapons for your fellow allies to use in battle.

With just over an hour to go, Kickstarter is well past its goal of $2 million, bringing in $2.2 million and counting.

(Source: Kickstarter)

MMOrning Shots: Someone Hold My Place In Line

On the other hand, I have plenty of time to play and review this copy of Lego Harry Potter on the Vita.

MMOrning Shots is a (somewhat) daily line of screenshots from various MMOs. Most are taken in-house or come to us in press releases, but if you would like your screenshot featured, send it over to contact[at]mmofallout[dot]com with the subject “MMorning Shots.”

Neverwinter Localizing To More Territories

Perfect World Entertainment has announced that Neverwinter will be making its way around the world with new language and regional translations. In a press release put out by Perfect World Europe BV, the publisher has announced that Cryptic’s upcoming MMO Neverwinter will be localized in Turkey, Poland, and Italy. Players from those regions will be delighted to hear that the game isn’t just getting localized servers, but that the entire game will be translated into local languages.

“We are more than happy to announce Neverwinter‘s fully localized planned expansion into Turkey, Poland and Italy based on the incredible demand from those territories ” said Ömer Karakayal?, Territory Manager, Perfect World Europe B.V. “We are dedicated to connecting gamers with the best possible online D&D gaming experience in all-new territories.

Unfortunately the translations will not be accompanying Neverwinter’s launch this week, however gamers can look forward to Polish, Italian, and Turkish Neverwinter in Summer 2013. If you’d like to keep track of the game, you can head over to the Neverwinter Poland, Turkey, or Italian pages.

Age of Conan Still Veering Toward New Server Tech

What’s that? A Crom joke? You aren’t the boss of me, mom! As we mentioned way back in the long ago days of July 2012, Age of Conan is still on track for a server merger that will mimic that of The Secret World’s single-server technology. That said, it’s been a while and not a whole lot of information has been released about how exactly Funcom plans on merging the services down to just one hub. In this month’s Game Director Letter, those secrets have been spilled all over our nice new carpeting, so let’s dive and and see what Funcom has stored in its coal hole.

The server transition for Age of Conan will take place in three phases. Phase one will see the movement of the physical servers to one physical location, setting the stage for phase two. Secondly, servers that share the same ruleset will be merged, including US and EU servers being merged together. After phase two, players will be left with one mega server for both PvE and PvP. Finally in phase three, cross server network layers will be implemented, allowing players on the PvE and PvP rulesets, although segregated, to queue for the same instances.

You can read the entire letter, including notes about upcoming changes to the tradeskill system and more. The team hopes to get the server mergers underway during May.

(Source: Age of Conan)

RuneScape Introduces Instanced Boss Battles

RuneScape’s economy runs partially on the idea that high level item drops from bosses don’t just require a good amount of time in order to obtain, but that the bosses are almost entirely open world, requiring players to compete with each other for the kill, and thus the loot. While most MMOs have moved over to a system where bosses are instanced and can be fought by players without the fear of being interrupted by others, developers like Jagex have held off from making the transition, generally citing either in-game economy or a desire for competition.

In an update released today, RuneScape will see the inclusion of instanced boss battles at the God Wars Dungeon. Players will have the option when entering a boss creature’s room to choose between the non-instanced, publicly accessible monster, or to enter their own instanced version complete with the ability to invite friends or clan members. That said, freedom isn’t free, and neither is your own private boss dungeon. If you want to kill a demon general without worrying about a clan crashing your game, you’re going to have to pony up some gold coins. Costs vary between bosses, and are paid on a per hour basis.

It will be interesting to see how the cost of using the instanced dungeons will balance the likelihood that more God Wars equipment will likely be entering market circulation. Instanced vs open world bosses is a big discussion in the MMO genre, with both sides fiercely defending their preferences.

MMOrning Shot: Bunny With A Hat

Today’s MMOrning Shot is a photograph of an adorable bunny wearing an equally adorable hat, because sometimes I hate people and rabbits are nice because they don’t constantly try to hack into my personal accounts.

The Old Republic Introduces Cathar Race

Star Wars: The Old Republic continues chugging along with new content updates. With update 2.1, players will be able to customize their looks at the new Appearance Designer Kiosk. Players will be able to change the look of their eye color, body type, hair style, and are even able to recolor their armor. What’s more, gamers will even be able to go the extra mile and change their species completely. And what better way to introduce this feature than with the release of the Cathar species? The Cathar catlike race possess powerful melee abilities in the world of Star Wars, including the ability of rapid healing. How much of that translates into the game will be seen.

MMOfternoon Shots: Remote Loot

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Why can’t other games have remote looting? If you haven’t played Lord of the Rings Online in a while, the Riders of Rohan expansion brought with it a remote loot system. What this means is that you no longer click on mobs to loot them, rather the loot is added to a pending window with a one hour timer to retrieve or delete the items. What this means is that you never have to worry about running out of space and leaving loot behind, since you always have time to go to a vendor and get your bags in check, then loot whatever was in your pending list.

Can I have this in other games?

Saturday Night Cap: Evil Deficient

I am evil deficient. If you look into my achievements for any game that offers a good or evil path, you would find only the good path achievements unlocked. My vault dweller in Fallout 3 never had any inclination to destroy Megaton, Revan in Knights of the Old Republic did not turn back to the ways of the Sith upon recovering her memories, and I never saw a point in going in guns blazing when there would be too much collateral damage.

So I want to ask for today’s night cap: Do you avoid taking the evil path, even though it is obviously just a video game? If so, why?

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