Author: Admin

Everquest: Not Going Anywhere


“So you can see there’s a lot to wrestle with as we begin laying the foundation for EverQuest ‘Next.’ As I write this, we have concept artists and game designers working hard in our studio-taking the lessons of the past, the best parts of the present and the most promising ideas for the future-to bring the world of Norrath to a new generation of players, as well as the dedicated legions of fans who made the EverQuest franchise timeless. I hope we’ll see you there.“

Everquest once again proves itself to be the Granddaddy who not only refuses to stop dancing, but continues to go hiking, bungee jumping, and is always ready to throw down in the wrestling ring. Fresh off of its 10th year anniversary, Everquest continues to remind us that the franchise will not be going anywhere, with the announcement of Everquest Next. The announcement is from the Everquest 10th anniversary book.

Considering the massive changes between Everquest and Everquest 2, the third go at the series can bring nothing less than innovation, a strong player base, an excellent development team, and fifty expansion packs. So cheers to Everquest Next.

Via Zam

Chronicles Of Spellborn: Frozen In Time


Earlier this year, Spellborn developer Spellborn NV, went bankrupt. There wasn’t much information as to what would happen with the game, but a month later it was announced that Acclam will be taking over the reigns. Next year, 2010, Spellborn will be reborn under a new system of free to play with microtransactions.

Until then, Spellborn is offered completely free of charge. There are no longer any upgrades or patches, but the game is being redeveloped for a full re-release next year. Acclaim promises to have player events in the meantime, and support player run events.

Check out the newly free Chronicles of Spellborn at http://spellborn.acclaim.com/

Note: This game is massive. According to the website, it requires 12 Gig of hard disk space.

CrimeCraft Open Beta: First Look


Crimecraft isn’t an MMO in the sense that Tabula Rasa was an open world, but more along the lines of Guild Wars: Public lobbies, while the action takes place in instanced matches. Crimecraft is a third person shooter, one of the first MMO’s to be built off of the Unreal 3 engine, next to TERA Online, Huxley, Global Agenda, Mortal Online, and more. You have a choice of PvP and PvE.

Please remember: Crimecraft is in open beta. It is not a finished product.

Continue reading “CrimeCraft Open Beta: First Look”

CrimeCraft Open Beta: First Look


Crimecraft isn’t an MMO in the sense that Tabula Rasa was an open world, but more along the lines of Guild Wars: Public lobbies, while the action takes place in instanced matches. Crimecraft is a third person shooter, one of the first MMO’s to be built off of the Unreal 3 engine, next to TERA Online, Huxley, Global Agenda, Mortal Online, and more. You have a choice of PvP and PvE.

Please remember: Crimecraft is in open beta. It is not a finished product.

Continue reading “CrimeCraft Open Beta: First Look”

World of Warcraft: Expansion Leaked


Being my usual late self, this will no doubt be information to none but the three of you who don’t already read WoW news feeds religiously. World of Warcraft’s upcoming expansion has been leaked, along with several details of the title. Titled Cataclysm, very little is known about the upcoming expansion, although much is being speculated. Going off of the title’s name, all of the speculation reaches one point: There is going to be massive change to the world of Azeroth, possibly having to do with the previous expansion; Wrath of the Lich King.

The expansion will also open up two new races to players. Joining the horde are the Goblins, while the Alliance will be receiving the Wolf-like Worgen species.

I don’t think I need to reiterate just how successful WoW has been in terms of sales of not only the game, but the expansion. Since its release last year, Wrath of the Lich King hasn’t as much as shuddered from the top of the PC sales charts, and the announcement of another expansion will only boost sales more and reinvigorate interest in players who had long since left. At this point, an expansion to WoW is like a billionare deciding to buy yet another country whose GDP barely stands up to his monthly profits.

SOE 2009 Address


Sony Online Entertainment did their Fan Faire Press release this year, and seeing as how they have the largest collection of MMO’s in the list, I just had to have a look at what is on the horizon for their titles, and for the company itself.

I’d like to note on Sony themselves. Despite what I may think about the rest of Sony, I give SOE a lot of credit for the dedication they have to their games. Unlike NCSoft that more closely resembles the guy sitting on his porch with a shotgun waiting for someone to slip up, SOE has a strong dedication to their products, and does everything in their power to make sure that the remaining population, as small as they may be, continue to enjoy what they enjoy, and supports their products long after any other company might consider them to be “dead”.

So I have a lot of respect for Sony Online Entertainment, even though at the same time I have a lot of contempt for the boneheaded mistakes they’ve made in the past, namely the NGE updates for Star Wars Galaxies, and implementing legal real world trading in the Everquest titles. They didn’t talk about many of their existing games at this conference, mainly Everquests and Free Realms, with some Star Wars Galaxies thrown in. So without further ado, here is Sony.

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Champions Online Vs City of Heroes


When Champions Online launches this September, it will be the first in a line of superhero MMO’s looking to dethrone the current, and only, contender for the genre; City of Heroes/City of Villains. As there is no timeline for the Marvel MMO, and DC Universe Online isn’t giving us anything more specific than late 2009, early 2010, Champions Online will no doubt enjoy the leg up on the competition…As it tries to get a leg up on the current competition.

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On the Brink: Planetside


Planetside, touted as the first true MMOFPS, takes yet another turn towards its ultimate demise, with the announcement that the game’s two servers will finally merge into one, to deal with lacking population. The original five servers have gradually closed and merged, and currently the game houses two servers; One North American and one European.

As far as MMO’s go, server closure is one of the first lines of defense in keeping a game alive. When empty servers spread players thinly, forcing them into a smaller space will give an illusion of player count, and may inspire ex-players to jump back into the renewed action, creating a snowball effect that brings more and more players to the game.

Sadly, if history has taught us anything, it is that this mantra will more than likely fail for Planetside, a game that has been on a downward slope for years now. Planetside’s status as pioneer in MMOFPS action, massive scale battles, and focus on skills above levels, will not help it in its fall from grace.

The merge will go ahead on August 25th. Once Planetside is consolidated on to one server, it is anyone’s guess as to how long it has to live afterwards.

Tabula Rasa: What Happened


Tabula Rasa was an MMORPG that blended role playing with 3rd person shooter tactics, in an open ended and dynamic war waged between the human and bane forces. The game focused on Logos, artifacts that players collect to enable certain powers. While the game focused on PvE play, the introduction of PvP content introduced war games, allowing various game modes to be played between warring clans.

Unlike most other MMO’s that feature a targeting system and auto-attacks with the addition of hotbar attacks, Tabula Rasa features a targeting system for only some weapons, combined with a third person shooter system, and rpg hit/miss and damage calculations. Tabula Rasa focused on the war aspect of the game, and both sides of the war would launch attacks on each other’s bases. It was completely possible to lose a base to the Bane forces, meaning that access to the NPC’s, vendors, spawn points, teleport locations, and anything else located in the base would become inaccessible until the area was retaken.

So where did Tabula Rasa fail? The easiest way to answer that is unfulfilled promises. The game launched with very little, if any, end-game content, and the developers took so long to introduce any inkling of end-game content that many of the players who had reached the level cap had quit long beforehand. Certain promises of player-driven mechs, pvp wargames, and more, weren’t fulfilled until literally a month before the game shut down. Richard Garriot also left the company a few weeks before the announcement of shutdown.

Inevitably, player count went down sharply, resulting in the game getting the axe for subpar subscriber numbers.

OR WAS IT?

Continue reading “Tabula Rasa: What Happened”