Side Quest Coming Back This Month


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Side Quest is one of MMO Fallout’s favorite indie MMOs, and you can check out our quick look of the early alpha build from last year if you want more information on how the game plays. While we love the game, Fractal Entertainment several months ago decided to take the alpha build down in order to work on updates that would result in the client being mostly broken for a while. Since then, the team has been hard at work, managing to find the time to release dev diaries related to the main quest, dungeons, and itemization. The bad news is that the game is still not up and running.

The good news is that the Fractal team has announced that the alpha is finally returning!

We plan on releasing an alpha version of the game by the end of this month. The alpha will include all the features, but only the first chapter of content. We will release the rest of the content within a month or so of releasing the alpha!

Check out the Side Quest website for more information.

Mighty Quest Chicken Killing Chart


Last week, Ubisoft revealed that the beta for Mighty Quest For Epic Loot would be open for everyone beginning July 30th and heading through August 6th. To celebrate the open house event, the developer issued a challenge for its players: Kill ten million chickens and the fowl poultry will become available to use in the defense of one’s castle. With the event ending today (August 6th), Ubisoft has unveiled that players have killed a combined total of over twenty four million chickens, more than double what was needed.

You can head to this link to view the top chicken killers for each day.

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World of Warcraft’s Connected Realms Does Mergers Right


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World of Warcraft has had low population servers for years, all the way back to the first expansion. This is hardly unexpected, as the game boasts 241 realms in North America and 263 in Europe. Instead of dealing with the technological and logistical nightmare of merging servers, Blizzard introduced cross-server technology to allow players to interact across realms. With the release of update 5.4, World of Warcraft will see multiple realms stitched together permanently with players questing, grouping, raiding, and selling items on the auction house.

Our goal with Connected Realms is to give players on lower-population realms more opportunities to group up, compete, and connect with other players to take on Azeroth’s bigger challenges. That sort of interaction is a big part of what makes World of Warcraft fun, and this feature will help us deliver that experience to even more players.

The list of connected realms hasn’t been decided yet. Read more about the plans at the link below.

(Source: World of Warcraft)

World of Warcraft's Connected Realms Does Mergers Right


NJKJW53FJA3G1372445749288

World of Warcraft has had low population servers for years, all the way back to the first expansion. This is hardly unexpected, as the game boasts 241 realms in North America and 263 in Europe. Instead of dealing with the technological and logistical nightmare of merging servers, Blizzard introduced cross-server technology to allow players to interact across realms. With the release of update 5.4, World of Warcraft will see multiple realms stitched together permanently with players questing, grouping, raiding, and selling items on the auction house.

Our goal with Connected Realms is to give players on lower-population realms more opportunities to group up, compete, and connect with other players to take on Azeroth’s bigger challenges. That sort of interaction is a big part of what makes World of Warcraft fun, and this feature will help us deliver that experience to even more players.

The list of connected realms hasn’t been decided yet. Read more about the plans at the link below.

(Source: World of Warcraft)

Planetside 2: Cross Platform And Character Transfers


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PC and PlayStation 4 will not be taking each other head on in Planetside 2, however if you own both platforms you may be able to transfer your character between them. In an interview with Eurogamer, Matt Higby explained that due to the extra steps required in getting a patch approved and launched in the PlayStation Network, it is impossible to keep the two versions of Planetside 2 in sync.

“They might be a week behind in terms of patching, or a day behind or whatever it ends up being, and we can’t really have that.”

While cross-platform play seems impossible at least for the time being, Higby notes that the technology for transferring characters between platforms is entirely possible.

“But we’re also talking about having character portability, so a PC character, you could transfer it to PlayStation 4, and then back. The character format’s the same on both, it’s just purely a matter of the server updates.”

Check out the entire article below, where Higby goes on to talk about optimization, the PS4, and further updates to the game.

(Source: Eurogamer)

MMOrning Shots: My Nose Itches!


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Today’s MMOrning Shot comes to us from Sony Online Entertainment with Everquest Next. With the voxel engine making everything destructible, naturally that Kerran should be able to chop those flowers down, throw them in a nice ceramic vase, and then throw the vase over the side of that cliff and watch it smash against the ground. Right? I consider myself to be a rather sensible gamer, but if Everquest Next doesn’t contain the flower pot cliff smashing, you can count me out as a buyer.

Oh, it’s free to play? That’s preposterous, I still won’t pay it.

Meet Glorious Mission Online, China’s Ode To The PLA


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Glorious Mission Online may sound like a really cheesy parody video game or something that might authentically come out of North Korea, but the game does in fact exist and can actually be downloaded at this very minute. The game was developed by Giant Interactive Group, whom you may not recognize if you live outside of China (ie: 100% of the viewers on this website), in collaboration with the People’s Liberation Army for use in training simulations. Glorious Mission Online takes place in a war between China and Japan over the hotly contested islands in the East China Sea, with players taking up arms as PLA soldiers to tell the Japanese “you will not violate our sovereignty!” I’d like to take credit for that statement but that is what is written on the game’s website.

Otherwise the game is essentially your Call of Duty or Battlefield title, backed by the PLA not unlike how America’s Army was backed by America’s Army. You can download the two gigabyte game at the link below, but expect a lot of national pride.

(Source: Glorious Mission Online)

Meet Glorious Mission Online, China's Ode To The PLA


1_201301141804004Zxx2

Glorious Mission Online may sound like a really cheesy parody video game or something that might authentically come out of North Korea, but the game does in fact exist and can actually be downloaded at this very minute. The game was developed by Giant Interactive Group, whom you may not recognize if you live outside of China (ie: 100% of the viewers on this website), in collaboration with the People’s Liberation Army for use in training simulations. Glorious Mission Online takes place in a war between China and Japan over the hotly contested islands in the East China Sea, with players taking up arms as PLA soldiers to tell the Japanese “you will not violate our sovereignty!” I’d like to take credit for that statement but that is what is written on the game’s website.

Otherwise the game is essentially your Call of Duty or Battlefield title, backed by the PLA not unlike how America’s Army was backed by America’s Army. You can download the two gigabyte game at the link below, but expect a lot of national pride.

(Source: Glorious Mission Online)

Activision Blizzard Sued By Shareholders Over Buyout


bobby kotick the devil

I couldn’t resist using that picture, I am sorry. As you may recall, not too long ago Bobby Kotick’s investment group announced that they would be buying most of Activision Blizzard’s stock back from Vivendi to the tune of eight billion dollars. One shareholder, Todd Miller, has filed a lawsuit against the company and parties associated with the deal. Miller is claiming insider trading, noting that the stocks were sold at a 10% discount, saving more than half a billion in sales.

Miller is suing to have the deal overturned in court, and wants Activision to have controls put into place to ensure that further backroom deals do not take place. You can read all about it at Courthouse News at the link below.

(Source: Courthouse News)

ESRB Changing Rating Labels


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Polygon.com is reporting that the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) is in the process of making some small changes to how ratings will appear on games. The changes are nothing drastic, with a simple change in color scheme from white on black to black on white (pictured above). You can also see that the “content rated by” message has been removed and that the rating letters have been made larger.

The goal is to make the logo more visible in digital environments, particularly on the smaller screens of tablets and mobile phones. The ESRB doesn’t expect the transition on game boxes or store advertising to be a fast one, and are simply asking publishers to use the new symbols from this point onward.

(Source: Polygon)