Star Trek Online is attaining a growing cast of voice actors from the various series shows, so it shouldn’t be too surprising that the folks at Perfect World Entertainment have managed to snag LeVar Burton, voice of Geordi La Forge from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Burton joins the cast of actors voicing online versions of their television personas, in two special episodes coming to PC and console later this year. The first episode, coming in September, releases alongside the 30th anniversary of The Next Generation. The second episode will kick off Season 14 in October.
Players will join La Forge and his crew as they investigate a distress call from a Galaxy-class ship whose crew is being mind-controlled by a mysterious energy source. The episode marks the release of a fully realized Galaxy-class interior available for purchase and includes server-wide giveaways to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Players will be able to claim the highly requested skant uniform from Season One, as well as the Type 7 shuttle that was also featured in Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Skant designs from The Next Generation can be found here.
(Source: Perfect World Entertainment press release)
Star Trek Online is launching its mid-season update to season 13. Live today and coming soon to PS4 and Xbox, Escalation reunites players with General Rodek (voiced by Tony Todd) who joins our heroes as they enact a search and rescue mission for none other than the Klingon General Martok (voiced by J.G. Hertzler who played Martok on Deep Space Nine). The Federation is once again going to have to team up with the Klingon if they want to fend off the Tzenkethi who have been drawn to the general.
The mid-season update to Season 13 – Escalation sends players on a rescue mission for the captured Klingon General Martok, played by J.G. Hertzler from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Season 13.5 also introduces a new Ferengi Trade Alliance Admiralty and the Endeavor System, which provides challenges players can complete throughout the week for bonus rewards.
New Featured Episode – Players will team up with the Klingons to free legendary General Martok from a secret prison in the episode, “Brushfire.”
The Endeavor System – Level 60 captains can earn rewards throughout each week by completing challenges with the new Endeavor System.
Ferengi Trade Alliance Admiralty – The game’s Admiralty System has been updated to include a new campaign helping captains acquire trades and goods with the aid of the Ferengi Trade Alliance. This new feature is available to all captains Level 52 and above.
Menaphos was meant to be the first RuneScape expansion, big content packages dropped on players every three months introducing new mechanics, new areas, and new quest lines. By estimations, the second expansion should be on its way for a September release, however recent news has revealed that Jagex is scrapping the development style after one go. While there will be larger content packs released in the future, there won’t be a release structure similar to the planned 3 month release window.
In a post on the official RuneScape website, Jagex revealed that while the idea was sound, the development of expansions had taken an unexpectedly high amount of focus away from other aspects of the game, which suffered as a result.
For the foreseeable future, content plans include bringing back polling to gauge player feedback for updates. Additionally, the content teams will be working on updates that have been in the works for quite some time, such as the bank rework, mining and smithing updates, and invention batch 2. The team is also taking a look at other community issues such as reducing the “dailyscape” daily task grind.
Finally, the big RuneScape 2018 poll is available for players. Jagex polls the community every year and uses that information to plan the next year’s content. Check it out at the link below.
This may come as little surprise to gamers, but Funcom today is celebrating the initial success for Secret World Legends, boasting that the game is at the highest player activity in years.
“We are very encouraged by the initial success of Secret World Legends; it has been years since we last saw a surge in player activity like this in the Secret World universe and it is a very good start leading up to Steam launch on July 31st,” says Funcom CEO Rui Casais
For players more interested in seeing what content Funcom has in store, you’re in luck. Along with the news of the population surge, Funcom released its roadmap for the months to come. This week marks the launch of elite dungeons with scaling difficulty.
Later this month will see the release of the Transylvania story missions with the special event to unlock Tokyo either in July or August and related world content. You can check out the roadmap at the link below, which goes through to next year.
Menaphos is the first expansion to RuneScape, a series of massive updates that are set to release every three months. While the content drops on the live servers today, MMO Fallout was invited to preview some of the changes last week, and the new content looks pretty exciting. As I have mentioned in previous update teasers, it’s been a while since Menaphos was first revealed to the public: Twelve years in fact, it’s like Boyhood but with a lot less growing up and a lot more angry desert deities. The city of Menaphos was first added to the map on April 26, 2005.
But players couldn’t get in. While its sister city Sophanem became available, Menaphos immediately closed its doors to outsiders amid rumors of corrupt leadership and stayed that way, for twelve years. In that time, players have come in contact with numerous desert deities, learned new magics, and assisted in god-tier sibling rivalries. Now, the cruel Pharaoh has reopened the doors and adventurers are flooding in to see what secrets the city holds.
You may be asking at this point: How is RuneScape sixteen years old and is only releasing its first expansion now? For the better part of that time, Jagex has been releasing content updates on a weekly basis with various major updates every year to add in new skills, update the game engine, and more. Last year Jagex polled players on whether they would like to continue the current system of trickling updates out on a weekly basis or release major content packs every three months. Players chose the latter, and here we are.
Content in Menaphos is targeted towards mid to high level players, although most players will find something to do after completing the three pre-requisite quests. The city itself is divided into four areas, with access to everything from a Grand Exchange, new skilling areas, a merchant area to steal from, and more. Each of the four areas has its own reputation system, and while it is possible for the more dedicated gamer to maximize his rank in all four areas, Jagex told me during the preview that it will take some time and most players will just focus on one or two factions.
The centerpiece to Menaphos is the giant pyramid around which the city goes about its daily life. Inside that tomb you can find the Grand Library which will be comprised of stories submitted to Jagex by the player base. As massive as the library is, we were told that so many players had submitted quality stories that Jagex is having a hard time fitting them into the game!
Shifting Tombs is a randomized dungeon crawler with procedurally generated tombs and monsters. Players have a set amount of time to plunder the dungeon, gathering as much loot as possible while still making it to the end and escaping within the time limit. Personally, I’m looking forward to meeting Krondis, the alligator goddess of life and pleasure. Krondis, as with much of the rest of the city, has been corrupted and is currently hoarding the treasures for herself, but we’ll see if that can be changed.
The city is full of lush trees and vibrant colors, a rather stark contrast to the other desert areas. Every area has its own stylistic theme, from the extravagance of the imperial sector to the downtrodden workers district. A big piece of the Menaphos update is that the Slayer skill is having its level cap increased to 120 along with new content to fill in that level gap. You can check out the update details on the launch page here.
Players can also get in on a free weekend beginning on June 9th, allowing free players to enjoy all member content throughout the weekend until the 12th.
Star Trek Online has released Season 13, continuing the story related to the Tzenkethi that began earlier this year. The update continues the Tzenkethi storyline, introduces new class-specific gear, and makes improvements to the matchmaking system. Escalation also introduces War Games, where two teams of five players compete against each other for rewards.
The Alliance needs to continue to explore the space surrounding the Tzenkethi advance to try and determine a pattern to their attacks. With our new featured episode “Mirrors and Smoke,” captains will work with the Lukari as they explore a mysterious nebula and discover the secrets within. The mystery of the Tzenkethi continues in Season 13 while new mysteries of the Lukari are discovered!
The full details of the update can be found here. Patch notes are here. Completing the feature episode this week will reward players with some extra gear. Escalation hits Xbox and Playstation at a later date.
Call it what you want, luck is a big factor in MMORPG’s. You can pray to RNGesus all you want, but at the end of the day you’re still beholden to that invisible spinning wheel landing on the items you need to make the big bucks. It’s the difference between going home a billionaire and heading home in a digital body bag. With today’s update to RuneScape, Jagex is retooling how your character’s luck is determined.
Luck-enhancing items now fall on one of four tiers. Tiers 1-3 affect content specific to certain level ranges. Tier 4 affects content of all levels, along with some extra benefits of its own.
Your luck rises with one of four rings, as well as through various other items. To check out the entire list of changes, click on the link below for this week’s patch notes.
Today’s snapshot comes to us from RuneScape. Today’s update to the ever-expanding MMO finally healed the scar in Lumbridge, where players assisted in a battle between gods Saradomin and Zamorak going on four years ago. Since then the battle-scarred land has been used for everything from holiday events to summer beach parties. With today’s update, a bit of life returns to the region with all sorts of rabbits and imps walking around.
Also part of today’s update is a major overhaul to the game’s wardrobe system.
If you pay attention to the media, reboots are all the rage this season (this season itself being a reboot of a previous iteration of the universe). In their latest quarterly report, outside of congratulating Conan Exiles for hitting its 12 month sales target within a month, Funcom has a lot to say about its New World Order MMO, The Secret World. Funcom hopes to rekindle interest in the MMO by bringing in new players and ex-players alike, improving the combat system and new player experience.
The Secret World will be relaunched during the first half of 2017. The goal of the relaunch is to broaden the appeal of the game through:
Redesigned new player experience
Major improvements to gameplay including combat.
Introduction of new retention systems such as daily rewards.
Adjustments to the business model, including allowing access to the story content for free.
Relaunch activities for The Secret World are set to start in March with the relaunch to occur in the first half of the year. MMO Fallout will cover the details as they are revealed.
The latest trailer for Elder Scrolls Online is out, showing off new weapons, armor, locations, and monsters that players will encounter in the upcoming Morrowind expansion. Morrowind launches this June.
MMO Fallout 