When City of Heroes launched, it taught us one thing: That if you give the ability to create any superhero your heart desires, to flesh out your own living alter ego in his own design, down to the color of your leather shoes; You’ll wind up with about five thousand Goku, Vegeta, Superman, Hulk, etc running around causing headaches and stirring up the pot for a lawsuit from Marvel and DC comics..
So I’ve been watching the landscape for people who have paid homage to the lesser used heroes. Seen above: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. There I was thinking it was illegal for a defense attorney to act as a prosecutor.
Star Wars: The Old Republic, is by no means a small feat. Bioware promises to blend the storytelling of the previous Knights of the Old Republic games in with the gameplay and persistence of an MMORPG, and wants to immerse the character into the world of the Jedi, the Sith, smugglers, bounty hunters, troopers, and yet to be unveiled classes. Players have the ability to permanently affect the world around them through the choices they make in-game, 300 years after the events of the Knights of the Old Republic games.
One of The Old Republic’s features is 100% full voice acting of players and non player characters. In order to increase the player-base, Bioware announced today that the 40 novels worth of in-game dialogue will be acted out in English, and now French and German. Now that is a lot of voice acting.
Bioware is going all out with The Old Republic, and the game is getting a lot of hype because of it, even though I don’t approve of the “wow killer” title people are attaching. More on TOR as it appears.
An expansion pack tells us a lot about an MMO and its developers. Foremost, it says that the developers continue to put a lot of vested interest in keeping the title alive, as they are willing to set aside a group of developers to work on their own project that does not immediately net in money (Instead being a longer project that has more of a gradual effect). Expansion packs regularly involve a vast new area to explore, possibly bringing along with it new classes or races, and with it balances and tweaks to the existing gameplay.
Users will be happy to find out that Champions Online and Aion, two upcoming MMORPGs have gone gold and will be shipping on-time as expected. Champions Online, just recently hitting open beta, will launch as expected on September 1st, with Aion hitting shelves in North America and Europe come late September.
Eve Online developer CCP has finally unveiled DUST, an upcoming MMOFPS set in the world of Eve Online. DUST takes place on the planets in the EVE universe, and is a blend of FPS and RTS action. The game will allow players to interact with EVE Online and is part of CCP’s Ambulation Project update, giving Eve Online players avatars to scour the surfaces with. DUST is expect to launch on the 360 and Playstation 3.
Finally, news on Guild Wars 2 is expected this week. What exactly that news is is yet to be seen, but expect an update when it comes forward.
Update: I had previously said that DUST will launch on the PC. That was inaccurate, it will only be launching on the 360 and PS3. I apologize for the issue.
Users will be happy to find out that Champions Online and Aion, two upcoming MMORPGs have gone gold and will be shipping on-time as expected. Champions Online, just recently hitting open beta, will launch as expected on September 1st, with Aion hitting shelves in North America and Europe come late September.
Eve Online developer CCP has finally unveiled DUST, an upcoming MMOFPS set in the world of Eve Online. DUST takes place on the planets in the EVE universe, and is a blend of FPS and RTS action. The game will allow players to interact with EVE Online and is part of CCP’s Ambulation Project update, giving Eve Online players avatars to scour the surfaces with. DUST is expect to launch on the 360 and Playstation 3.
Finally, news on Guild Wars 2 is expected this week. What exactly that news is is yet to be seen, but expect an update when it comes forward.
Update: I had previously said that DUST will launch on the PC. That was inaccurate, it will only be launching on the 360 and PS3. I apologize for the issue.
CCP’s contempt for Real Money Traders may seem slightly overblown in this title, but in his latest dev blog, GM Grimmi wants us completely sure that the Eve Online developer feels exactly that sentiment when the subject comes to RMT and players who buy and sell illegal isk (ingame currency). Eve Online has taken a two tier strategy to fighting Real Money Traders in the past, one of those being the ability to sell membership for isk, and the other being the support staff that are on hand to remove farmers as they pop up.
Eve Online has been trying to find the perfect formula for fighting gold farmers for years, and we’ve seen many mass bans on their part. Operation Unholy Rage, which went live on June 22nd, resulted in the banning of over six thousand paying accounts. Gm Grimmi is nice enough to provide us with a few charts, one of which I’ll refer to here.
Makes you wonder what the ratio of players to bots is.
Thanks to Operation Unholy Rage, the servers are back to their spacious…space, and resources are no longer being tied by up botters and macros. GM Grimmi also noted the instant impact on items, namely memory augmentation implants, noting that the immediate effect was a sharp increase in price and a pitfall in quantity supplied.
With all of these changes, however, the market has reportedly been overall unaffected by the string of mass bans. Players of games such as Runescape are well in tune with the effect massive amounts of real world trading and botting once had on the economy, and it’s fresh to see that the macroing didn’t manage to break the kneecaps of the economy on its way out.
If you’re an Eve Online player; Keep fighting the good fight. A large market of real world trading is conducted through hacked accounts, so keeping your password secure and difficult to guess is an absolute must. I normally don’t do your regular MMO news, but issues such as Real World Trading have a big effect on a game’s population. People who see the developers as not stopping real world trading will leave an MMO in droves. What CCP has shown for over four years straight is their dedication to keeping their game clean and enjoyable without hurting the legit players, and that is something to be truly commended.
“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.
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.
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.
MMO Fallout 