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September 11th, 2006, 17:04 Posted By: wraggster
One small blow for the RTS world, one major leap for the rumour mill
Halogen, an in-development RTS (C&C:Generals) mod based on Halo, has been stomped on by Microsoft.
According to a post from the Halogen team on the project's official website, Microsoft requested that development ceased after deciding that the mod infringed on Bungie Studios' intellectual property.
Halogen was apparently in development for three years and, although it appears the cease and desist order from Microsoft wasn't entirely unexpected, the team behind the mod must surely be utterly gutted.
Meanwhile, in semi related news, recent rumours wafting around the internet have suggested that Bungie is currently working on two other games outside of Halo 3 and the Halo universe, one involving the developer's Jason Jones and Chris Butcher while the other is being focussed on by a second internal dev team.
The rumours, however, have been brought into question by at least one videogames website, IGN claiming that sources close to Bungie have described them as inaccurate and old. Interestingly though, IGN has stated that its sources "are confident" that there is another Halo title in the development - the heavily rumoured Halo MMO, but it's being worked on by an independent studio in collaboration with Bungie as opposed to internally.
What, if any, of this is true will no doubt be discovered in the fullness of time, or perhaps at X06 later this month.
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September 11th, 2006, 17:01 Posted By: wraggster
A new slice of gameplay footage from WH40K: Dawn of War expansion Dark Crusade has been marched out, this time showcasing the Harlequins - highly nimble, masked dudes with a penchant for leaping through the air and twirling with blades while engaging multiple enemies. The movie runs for just under a minute and, as per usual, can be viewed via our media player to the right.
Dark Crusade is the second expansion for Dawn of War and features two new races, a new single-player campaign and ramps up the RTS's multiplayer component. It should be with us at the end of next month.
Trailer Here
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September 9th, 2006, 21:39 Posted By: wraggster
Fan-made Halo real-time strategy mod Halogen was just kicked to death by Microsoft lawyers.
Last night Slip Stream Productions posted an open letter to readers on their forums saying that after three years of production with nary a word from Microsoft, the company has decided to sick their lawyers on the project and tell the development team to stop working on Halogen because they are infringing on the intellectual property of Bungie Studios.
The forums, site and Moddb profile will be shut down within a week.
Dear Friends,
For the last three years, we've worked incessantly to bring you the best Halo mod that we could. There have been a lot of ups and downs, but somehow Halogen has always managed to come out kicking. The problem with using copyrighted intellectual property as a base for a fan project is that you're very susceptible to legal action. We always figured that since Halogen was such a different take on the Halo franchise, we might manage to make it without incident. That changed today.
Hours ago, we finally recieved the words we've been dreading since the mod started to get noticed. Microsoft has decided that we are infringing on the intellectual property of Bungie Studios and has asked us to stop development on Halogen.
I was going to write a big sappy letter here, but what's the point. So..that's it then, I guess. The forums, site, and Moddb profile will all be shut down within the week. I can't say it hasn't been fun. It's a shame it has to end like this, but I suppose that's how it goes. Thanks, guys, for all the time you've spent supporting us. It's been a pleasure. We hate this as much as you do.
- The Halogen Team
Yes, I realize that Microsoft owns the rights to the IP, but waiting three years to tell a group of fans to can their work seems particularly low to me.
More info
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September 8th, 2006, 23:03 Posted By: wraggster
We have 3 fantastic screenshots of the new Command and Conquer game coming to the PC soon,
Check the comments for all the screens
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September 8th, 2006, 20:50 Posted By: wraggster
Terminator and Titanic writer/director James Cameron is getting immersed in the virtual world of MMO games and may be taking his first active role in a videogame adaptation of one of his new movies.
According to Hollywood producer and long-term Cameron collaborator Jon Landau, the director has signed up with him to be on the advisory board for MMO game network, Multiverse – which provides budding developers with the tools to create online games and worlds. This was announced at the Austin Game Conference this week and reported on GameSpot.
There have already been rumours surfacing of Cameron and Landau working together on an interactive version of upcoming movie Avatar (a love story set against the backdrop of an interplanetary war – or Star Wars, Cameron-style), and the director is well known as a tech-head who has pushed the envelope of special effects in the past with Terminator 2, The Abyss and Titanic. In recent years, he has been heavily involved in working with the latest 3D technology to enhance the cinema experience. Are MMO games the next logical step for the maverick director and his peers?
“It turns out films and MMOs are not that different,” explained Cameron’s pal Landau. “That shouldn’t be too surprising though. After all, what we do as filmmakers is create virtual worlds. Both our industries build experiences that have the same goals.”
But what about the traditional dirge of movie tie-ins gamers are relentlessly subjected to? Could the more hands-on involvement of a director like Cameron take us in more imaginative directions, like those already paved by Peter Jackson with his Michel Ancel-designed take on King Kong?
“We’re way beyond the notion of game-as-brand-extending-afterthought,” added Landau. “Let the virtual world – the vibrant, living world that people inhabit – let that influence the movie. Let it feedback into the process and provide unparalleled riches and depth to what we’re doing.”
So that’s a maybe then…
Avatar the movie is due out in 2008.
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September 8th, 2006, 20:46 Posted By: wraggster
Codemasters has today announced that Turbine's The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar has entered into beta testing Stateside and pre-beta stages in Europe.
Jeffrey Anderson, president and CEO of Turbine, states that "the response to the LOTRO Alpha was overwhelming. Player enthusiasm continues to exceed our expectations at every milestone. The Alpha was oversubscribed and the Beta programme is on a record-setting pace with nearly 200,000 players already registered. LOTRO is building toward one of the largest beta communities in the industry."
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September 8th, 2006, 16:52 Posted By: wraggster
Take-Two has confirmed to Eurogamer that a new box set containing all the Civilization games, plus a bundle of extras, is coming to Europe.
Titled Sid Meier's Civilization Chronicles, the box set will include Civ games I-IV plus all the expansion packs. You'll also get the Civ card game, a 96 page book detailing the history of Civilization (featuring interviews with Meier himself and other designers), and a DVD about the creation of Civ IV.
Not to mention tech tree posters, wallpaper images, podcasts "and more", don't you know.
According to our friendly neighbourhood Take-Two spokesperson, Sid Meier's Civilization Chronicles "will be making shelves everywhere bow under the sheer weight of it in October sometime, and knocking out at a bargain SRP of £39.99." Hurrah!
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September 8th, 2006, 16:35 Posted By: wraggster
Classic Xbox RPG battler Jade Empire has been signed up for PC by 2K Games, with a brand new Special Edition of the BioWare classic destined to hit European shores in January 2007.
The PC version of Jade will apparently come with a raft of special enhancements and improvements, with scaled up graphics, new fighting styles and visual effects, revamped monsters and enhanced AI. As a special bonus for PC fans, an all-new art book will complete the package, bringing BioWare's ancient world of hacky socky mayhem to life.
BioWare boss Greg Zeschuk said, "BioWare has a large and loyal fan base of PC RPG gamers and we have heard their many requests for a PC version of Jade Empire. We are happy to work with 2K on our latest product."
We've scattered fresh screenshots around this page for you and PC fans should indeed be licking their lips at a chance to sample the Xbox battler's many delights. If you need to know more about why we rated the original game so highly, simply click here to get the full goods on Jade Empire Xbox.
Screens Here
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September 7th, 2006, 19:21 Posted By: wraggster
While many of the panels, presentations, and discussions taking place during the first day of the Austin Game Conference were dry, serious, straight-faced affairs, the afternoon "MMOG Rant" session was anything but.
With an array of outspoken developers representing many of the biggest companies in the industry, the panel was an opportunity to air out serious grievances with the massively multiplayer online gaming scene in a somewhat relaxed atmosphere. The meeting room where the rant session was held filled up early, with a standing-room crowd packed in and expecting fireworks to fly.
Obliging the attendees were NCsoft designer Scott Jennings, BioWare Austin costudio director Richard Vogel, Sony Online Entertainment studio technical director Lorin Jameson, and a pair of consultants with lengthy histories developing MMOG games: former Turbine Entertainment executive producer and creative director Jessica Mulligan and Ultra Mega Games founder Matt Firor, formerly of Mythic Entertainment. Firor was a last-minute replacement for EA Mythic general manger Mark Jacobs, who missed the conference with an illness. Each panelist was given five minutes to rant, with an audience question-and-answer session filling up the rest of the hour.
If there were any doubts about the willingness of the panelists to cut loose with their true feelings, Jennings put them to rest with the opening rant, discussing the topic of service after the sale. He noted that most developers treat continued service as an afterthought, odd for an industry built on subscriptions.
"Many of my examples will use World of Warcraft, because honestly, it's the game most of you are playing, and I have to marshal my limited energy for reminding clueless mass media reporters that other games actually exist."
While Jennings admitted that Blizzard had done a good job with providing enough in-game customer service representatives to serve World of Warcraft's massive player base, he was less then enthused with the company's patching policies. Seeing that World of Warcraft lead designer Rob Pardo was in the audience for the session, Jennings warned that he might want to flee the room before he got going. Pardo laughed and nodded, bravely holding his ground.
"WOW just had a patch a few weeks ago," Jennings noted. "As usual, their patch distribution completely failed. That may be because their patch distribution system is best described as 'Let's make something so frustrating people will just host the damn patches for us.' [laughter, hollers from the audience] It's unacceptable. It amazes me that WOW's peer-to-peer distribution has become accepted practice. Why are you people putting up with it? Part of our core business as an MMO provider is providing the damn MMO."
Jennings also emphasized the necessity of keeping servers up and running and respecting the customers. That means having community relations people set the proper tone when putting out fires on message boards, customer service reps that aren't just regurgitating form letter responses to player problems, and management that won't juice the customer base for every last dollar.
As an example of that last bit, Jennings brought up a new project by Dave Perry and Acclaim that will include in-game classified ads on the screen. They can be turned off, but players won't level up as quickly if they choose to play without them, a point that drew a chorus of boos from the assembled audience. He also suggested facetiously embracing a "wonderland of consumerism," with Coca-Cola-sponsored magic swords, Kobalds corpses that hold Skittles, and a Jet Blue dragon to fly players around.
"When you totally disrespect your consumers like that, I can assure you of one thing: Your project will fail," Jennings said. "And deservedly so."
Jennings ended his rant to a hearty round of applause, leaving Vogel with the task of following his act. Vogel's comments were noticeably less pointed, but no less passionate. His target: World of Warcraft, or more specifically, its many imitators.
"Why are so many companies risk averse," Vogel asked. "Why does everyone want to look at what WOW's doing, say 'Let's just slap on a user interface like WOW and make it look and run just like WOW'?"
Vogel reminisced about the Electronic Entertainment Expo, but not for the reasons one might expect.
"When I went on the E3 floor, I looked at all the new games and said, 'I know how to play that. I know how to play that, I know how to play that. It's just like WOW'...Looking out at E3 this year, there is nothing innovative coming out in the next three years, and that's pretty sad."
What Vogel said he'll miss about E3 are the out-of-the-way corners of Kentia Hall, where no-name foreign developers often showcased their off-the-wall creations.
"There are many, many good ideas out there. Look at Asia for an example. And it's a shame that we can't follow them."
Like Jennings before him, Vogel acknowledged Pardo, referring to one of the main points of the day's keynote address.
"I saw Rob Pardo's speech, and I looked at how many times I said that in five years," Vogel said. "There are so many pressures to releasing, but it's so true: Don't release the game before it's ready. Quality, quality, quality."
Vogel then yielded the floor to Jameson, who also weighed in on the abundance of World of Warcraft-esque games heading to the market.
"I feel like in many ways, people are copying WOW, but they're learning the wrong lessons," Jameson said. "The problem is, from a feature-set perspective, WOW is not an innovative game. It didn't do anything particularly new. The major innovation they did was they executed in a high-quality fashion and released with a depth of quality content that was not broken."
Jameson said there was no other company that would have conceived of spending as much money making the game (he estimated it cost more than $50 million to produce), spending as much time in beta, or making the sort of substantial changes to the game Blizzard made during that extended testing.
"But that is the feature you need to copy," Jameson said. "I don't care about innovation. I would like us to execute well on our noninnovative games. We can copy games and many people are. But if we're going to copy games, we should copy them really well and make sure the product is of a really high quality."
This prompted a roll of laughter from the crowd, followed by Mulligan's comment that "We're not only thieves; we're bad thieves."
For her rant, Mulligan made a single request: "[Venture capitalists] and angel investors, stop funding really crappy games."
While Mulligan admits she spent much of her 20-year career "laboring in poverty and obscurity just wishing somebody would devote significant money" to her projects, she said there are too many people throwing funds after doomed games. She compared it to a quick boom-and-bust cycle in the mid-'90s that saw millions in funding wasted on scores of games that never made it to market.
"We're seeing the same thing happening today," Mulligan said, adding, "Rob Pardo, stand up. Thank you Blizzard for making it possible for really s***** game designs to get some money!"
Mulligan than broke out a two-minute pitch session for a fictitious game that fits that mold, "DarkAge of the WarcraftStrike," touting incredible innovation in features and high-concept ideas that will yield a game exactly like existing successful MMO games. Key to the pitch was an unqualified team of unknowns with little or no experience, a daily milestone schedule, a six-month development span (plus or minus four years).
Firor was up next and quickly apologized for being unprepared, saying he only found out two minutes before the session began that he would be participating instead of watching from the audience. Unlike his fellow panelists, he came not to bury the MMOG industry, but to praise it.
"I was telling my wife that I was flying out to this conference, and I actually talked about this panel...It's basically a panel where six people sit around and tell everyone how stupid they are for being in this industry. And she said 'Wait a minute. Isn't there a game out there making hundreds of millions of dollars a year and other games that are making 10s of millions of dollars a year? Why is that stupid?"
Firor acknowledged that many of the popular MMO games may use the same concepts over and over again, but chalked it up to the medium's relative infancy.
"We've had three or so generations of games right now," Firor said. "Every iteration, they get a little better. There are design features that aren't in the other ones, no matter what they say. The game gets more refined, more fun, less like work. You can see a slow, steady progress."
He compared it to the works of William Shakespeare, which reused themes, settings, and conflicts but also offered a new story each time, a new experience for the audience.
"Everyone talks about how we're making the same game over and over again, yet people are having fun doing this," Firor said. "Players out there actually like this. They actually like going out and getting a +2 sword, knowing if they adventure for two-point-five hours more they'll get another sword and a fancy hat. That's cool to them."
Firor stressed that it's the experience that counts, not a game's similarity to World of Warcraft or its use of a fantasy license. "The important thing here is that the fact that people play the games, have fun playing the games, and spend a hell of a lot of money playing the games--that's something to be proud of, not ashamed of."
After a round of applause for Firor's rant, Mulligan merely muttered "traitor," and quickly moved on to the question-and-answer session amid more laughter. The relaxed atmosphere of the panel discussion followed through to the audience questions, with the developers being asked questions by both their peers and their players, with no feelings spared (one audience member asked Jameson when Sony Online was going to start releasing the "quality products" he talked about).
The question-and-answer session returned to issues surrounding the funding and shipping of MMO games multiple times, with Vogel saying that rushed games are an industry-wide problem, with an emphasis on quality needing to come from the top levels of company management and go all the way down. Firor also touched on the topic, saying that Mythic's decision to ship Dark Age of Camelot was made because the company had run out of money.
"It was an easy decision to make," Firor said. "We weren't thinking about some grand overarching scheme hoping we were sitting around a game-development conference in five years and people love us. It was more like, 'We've got wives and kids to [feed], so we're going to ship the game and make some money."
The question-and-answer session also hosted some brief rants from the audience, including one from BioWare Austin's Gordon Walton.
"That's an extremely common scenario," Walton said of Firor's story. "The fact of the matter is almost everyone's in the exact same place: 'Oh s***, we don't have any more money.' But you're all a bunch of whiny little b******. [laughter] 'We're all victims of the guys with the money!' No. Guess who signs up to make the game. Guess who along the way decides to change things...Somewhere along the way we caved and promised something we couldn't deliver. So you can't say it's the other guy, it's some other motherf*****. Everybody in this thing is responsible for what happens. Every single person on the team had a chance to do better. And I'd like to see more people think about how they're going to make it happen rather than sit up and rant and b**** about it."
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September 7th, 2006, 18:52 Posted By: wraggster
Company of Heroes is almost ready to storm onto the beaches, being released on the 29th of this very month, and to celebrate this imminent debut, THQ has just unleashed a brand new movie trailer from the game.
Small but pretty perfectly formed, this new trailer harks back to the glory days of the British Pathe newsreel, to tell the story of our brave boys' struggle to free the world from the Nazi menace.
Very nicely done it is, too, with some splendid vignettes from CoH's gameplay, some nice cut-scenes and a whole raft of WWII excitement. If you've encountered Company of Heroes before, it's certainly one of our hot tips on the PC RTS battlefront and, of course, we'll be bringing you a full review when the game hits the shelves later this month.
Trailer Here
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September 6th, 2006, 19:09 Posted By: wraggster
The late Steve Irwin looks set to receive a memorial tribute in the uber-popular MMO
Plans are afoot to mark the unfortunate passing of Aussie crocodile hunter Steve Irwin with a memorial service in World of Warcraft.
WoW participant BubbRubb is currently trying to drum up support for the venture: "I propose a memorial service at the serene ocean front setting of the Zoram Strand. I would like to spell out CRIKEY with players as a tribute to his wondrous catch phrase, and then we can dance and swim in the ocean to celebrate his life instead of mourning his death."
A noble and fitting gesture indeed, even if the mood of the forum thread is slightly spoilt by a rather amusing spoof Combat Log purporting to register the great man's demise. As BubbRubb points out, it offers the perfect opportunity for Horde and Alliance alike to pay their respects to a much-loved (well in Australia) personality.
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September 6th, 2006, 19:01 Posted By: wraggster
A couple of WWII RTS demo offerings have charged onto the internet - a Company of Heroes demo and a Faces of War multiplayer demo.
Dealing with the former demo first, it weighs in at a whopping 1.8Gb and features two single-player missions and four tutorial missions along with a map for skirmish mode. Company of Heroes is a Relic-developed RTS and has particularly impressed with its immersion, destructible environments and AI.
Meanwhile, the Faces of War demo features two maps that allow you to get a taste of multiplayer showdowns in Best Way's real-time strategy game. This, and the Company of Heroes demo, can be grabbed from the usual download suspects.
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September 6th, 2006, 02:48 Posted By: Kaiser
Paradox Interactive, a leading publisher and developer of critically acclaimed strategy titles, announced today that they have added their first MMO RTS title to the 2006 portfolio. Developed by Typhoon Games, “Infinity Empire” is an online e-only massive multiplayer strategy game played in real-time and set in a world beset by a planetary-wide catastrophe, with thousands of islands to claim and over millions of square kilometers of the northern continent known as Nespanona. The game is available NOW worldwide through subscription via download on the Infinity Empire website.
With numerous campaigns erupting in vast theatres of war, “Infinity Empire” is the only game that heads in a different direction, choosing to steer away from the hordes of sword-and-sorcery games. Each player commands their own empire and vies for control of the continent by exploring and claiming islands, and then mining them for the resources they hold. These resources are then used to construct buildings and fuel vehicles, or they can be exchanged for exotic hardware at the Eighth House, a powerful trading empire.
”We are continuing our quest to bring great strategy games to a worldwide strategy gaming community that is constantly searching for new and exciting gameplay challenges”, said Fredrik Wester, Director of Sales & Acquisitions for Paradox Interactive. “This MMO RTS really caught our attention and we are so excited to be able to add it to our 2006 portfolio”.
Game Features:
* A fully rendered and detailed 3D game environment with advanced multiple-view system for intuitive surveying of the vast space.
* Compete against hundreds of players around the world for control of the universe. Exercise aggressive tactics and diplomacy among allies and enemies online.
* A large number of Anime-style robots, warships and spacecraft are at your disposal.
* A variety of buildings and units can be constructed.
* All units are rendered in glorious 3D and are in proper scale.
* Streamlined Graphical User Interface (GUI) that’s simple yet functional.
* A massive and persistent real-time universe with vast amounts of units and objects operating simultaneously.
* An engaging economic model will enable you to amass wealth, carry out research, buy new upgrades and bribe your way out of trouble.
* In-game interactive tutorial gets you ready for the heavy action in no time.
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September 5th, 2006, 19:37 Posted By: wraggster
The New York Times reports on the global appeal of World of Warcraft. An unmitigated success world-wide, the article examines why the title's U.S. roots haven't stopped it from succeeding abroad. From the article:
"Perhaps more than pop music or Hollywood blockbusters, even the top video games traditionally have been limited in their appeal to the specific regional culture that produced them. For example the well-known series Grand Theft Auto, with its scenes of glamorized urban American violence, has been tremendously popular in the United States but has largely failed to resonate in Asia and in many parts of Europe. Meanwhile many Japanese games, with their distinctively cutesy anime visual style, often fall flat in North America. One of the main reasons Western software companies of all kinds have had difficulty in Asia is that piracy is still rampant across the region. Games like World of Warcraft circumvent that problem by giving the software away free and then charging for the game service, either hourly or monthly."
Keep in mind that distribution and access rates are different in Asia than they are here in the states. The majority of WoW players pay an hourly fee, and didn't have to buy the box.
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September 4th, 2006, 17:00 Posted By: wraggster
WH40K: Dawn of Wars fans eager to run riot in RTS title's latest expansion Dark Crusade will be pleased to hear a demo of the add-on has hit the interweb.
Just tipping over a whopping 300Mb in size, the Dark Crusade demo features two missions from the expansion's new single-player campaign and can be grabbed from the usual download suspects.
Along with the new single-player campaign, Dark Crusade introduces new factions/races the Necrons and the Tau Empire and features an expanded multiplayer component too. It should be with us at the end of October.
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September 4th, 2006, 16:51 Posted By: wraggster
Way, way back in time, we were partial to a bit of the old Warhammer tabletop action, so suffice to say we're keen to see how developer Black Hole's RTS take - i.e. Warhammer: Mark of Chaos - on Games Workshop's game turns out. Not too long to wait now before the title debuts, but in the meantime we're being treated to new Mark of Chaos screenshots and footage.
The media sheds light on the RTS's Chaos faction, and along with the visual goodies we've additionally been sent descriptions of some of the units shown in the screens. Read on for words on the Aspiring Champion Of Nurgle, Bloodletters, Warhounds Of Chaos, Hell Cannon and the Undivided Sorcerer...
Aspiring Champion Of Nurgle
A veteran warrior of Chaos, this champion is dedicated to the Lord of Decay, Nurgle. Nurgle's Champions, ravaged by disease, are themselves protected from such plagues, for they have become inured to the pain and discomfort, and while their bodies may corrupt, the spirit of Nurgle sustains them when lesser mortals would die. Thus, the Aspiring Champion of Nurgle can endure wounds and afflictions that would cripple others, and yet fight on in his name. They are horrific to look upon, more so even than other Champions of Chaos, for their peeling flesh, their stomachs bloated with corpse-gasses and their charnel stench is a reminder of the fate that awaits all living creatures.
Bloodletters
Bloodletters are Lesser Daemons, known variously as the Footsoldiers of Khorne, the Warriors of Blood, the Teeth of Death, or the Horned Ones. Carrying blades quenched in the blood of a generation of fallen warriors, they march behind twisted banners that flutter in no earthly breeze, accompanied by the chanting of the names of those slain in battle. They are bestial creatures, with snarling, fanged mouths, whose skin drips constantly with blood, their matted manes shaped into spines with dried gore. Like the raging god from which they are born, Bloodletters have no desire but to shed blood on the field of battle. They are clad in fragments of armour, which is sometimes melded to their skin, and wield massive swords.
Warhounds Of Chaos
Many Northmen tribes breed and train massive hounds for a variety of purposes, such as hunting and sport. Some Kurgan tribes delight in the spectacle of trained pit hounds fighting against bears, trolls and other creatures. Generations of selective breeding has created the most vicious and powerful hounds, which are more wolf than dog. These natural killers are made all the more horrifying by the warping effect of Chaos, causing them to sprout horns, tusks, and spines.
Aspiring Champion Of Nurgle
Hell Cannon
Part daemon, part War Machine, the Hell Cannon of Chaos is a massive construct of iron and brass that growls and shakes with diabolic sentience. In battle, these arcane engines heave great blasts of daemonic energy that arc through the air toward their targets, incandescent explosions liquefying anything they touch and sending the survivors screaming in all directions.
Undivided Sorcerer
Those who use the raw winds of magic to cast spells are known as Sorcerers, powerful spellcasters, able to unleash black bolts of energy from their fingertips, transport themselves from shadow to shadow, or flay their foes with burning fires. Sorcerers are seen amongst the Northmen as the oracles of the gods, and often act as advisors and counsellors to the northern tribes. They interpret the will of the Great Powers, diving with sacrifices and daemon summoning.
Screens Here
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August 31st, 2006, 02:48 Posted By: wraggster
Turn-based strategy fans can get ready for another helping of Heroes of Might and Magic V, as Ubisoft today announced that it will publish an add-on for the game later this year.
Subtitled "Hammers of Fate," the expansion will feature a new faction in the Dwarves. The stout warriors and practitioners of rune magic will reside in the world of Ashan's most hostile regions.
In addition to the Dwarves (who bring the game's playable factions up to seven), Hammers of Fate will also feature new spells, abilities, buildings, artifacts, single- and multiplayer maps, and a campaign with 15 new missions. And if the premade content ever gets dull, developer Nival Interactive is also including a random map generator.
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August 30th, 2006, 21:20 Posted By: Kaiser
Some more news from Sandyman (Sandy Peterson) straight off the Age of Empires community forum. Its great their staff is so dedicated to answering questions from the fans.
5) will The Warchiefs and the Vannila be availbe to be bought as like one package
A – so far, MS has always released a “gold pack” of some sort with the game & its expansion contained together. If they do this for the WarChiefs, I doubt it will happen for a long time – probably a year. So you must decide if it’s worth the extra bucks to buy and play Warchiefs for a year before the gold pack is released (if it is).
16) Are all Native war canoes/ships the same?
A – the natives have two types of fighting ships: canoes & war canoes. Aztecs in addition get a special larger ship. They do look the same between civs.
Ask away on the age community forum
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August 30th, 2006, 17:23 Posted By: wraggster
In 2004, Southern California-based developer Cryptic Studios and publisher NCsoft released the massively multiplayer online role-playing game City of Heroes. The game took place in Paragon City, a comic-book-style metropolis of superheroes fighting crime, rather than in the kind of high-fantasy setting favored by most MMORPGs.
In 2005, the studio released City of Villains, which was both a sequel and a pseudosister product, since the company made both games available to subscribers for the same monthly cost as the original game.
Since then, the studio has continually worked on updating both game products with new content, including the upcoming content update "Issue 8." The new issue adds new mission types, competitive player-versus-player options, enhanced areas, and wings for player-character models. For more details, GameSpot sat down with Cryptic lead designer Matthew Miller.
GS: Give us an overview of the additions and enhancements that will be included in the upcoming Issue 8 update for City of Heroes and City of Villains.
Matthew Miller: Well, first off, we did a major overhaul to the City of Heroes zone Faultline. It includes new contacts and missions, as well as a better street-hunting experience. We also have brought the randomly generated missions that we had in City of Villains (which villain characters got from the newspapers and brokers) to hero characters. The City of Heroes version is called "police band missions," and these can lead players into safeguard missions where they must protect Paragon City from vandals and stop major crimes in progress.
Next, we have the "veteran rewards" program, which gives perks and thank-you gifts to players for their characters based on how long they've been playing the game. There is a new set of rewards every three months. Finally, we added arena kiosks to the Pocket D area, so heroes and villains can more easily challenge one another in the arenas.
GS: Is the general goal of the two games to eventually make hero and villain experiences more or less symmetrical, or at least, to make sure that one set of players isn't missing out on other players' content?
MM: Symmetrical yes, identical no. We added a lot of cool stuff with Villains that we just didn't have the technology for when we made Heroes, so we are happy to have a chance to add that sort of stuff to the "good" side of the game. Safeguard missions are not mayhem missions, and we never tried to make them that. Heroes don't go around destroying property, but rather, their job is to protect it and to stop crime. Villains are proactive, and Heroes are reactive. In the end, they both have something similar to do (accomplish an objective while on a very tight clock), but the games play differently, which we like.
GS: We understand that the issue will also include a new option for arena-based player-versus-player battles between heroes and villains. How healthy and popular is PVP in the two products these days, and in what direction is it going? Is the idea to encourage as many players as possible or to keep it focused on a smaller portion of elite, hardcore fans?
MM: PVP is a part of the game, and there are a good many players who take it very seriously. We want to encourage more people to try PVP, and we have found that many naysayers come around once they get their first taste of it. Adding the arena kiosks to Pocket D, our club/rave gathering area where heroes and villains can hang out together, was the next logical step in that direction.
GS: Tell us about the Faultline zone. What kind of new content will the zone add to the game beyond new areas to explore and new monsters to fight?
MM: We have a bunch of new missions for the zone, as well as a couple of surprises. For one, the construction in the zone has uncovered a lot of the old hero bases from before the Rikti War. These bases were home to the supergroups of old, and it's where they housed dangerous technology. After the Rikti war, these bases were simply forgotten about, but Lord Recluse has sent Arachnos troops into Paragon City to scavenge these bases for hidden treasures. The rebuilding of Faultline has kind of kicked over the anthill...there have been Arachnos forces in Paragon City for a while now, but only now can the Heroes do something about them.
GS: Tell us about the veteran-rewards program. How well do you expect this promotion, along with City of Heroes' and City of Villains' other unusual pricing initiatives--such as making both games playable with a single monthly subscription fee--to do in terms of retaining current subscribers or bringing back previous customers?
MM: Of course, I would love it if no one ever quit the game again and everyone who had quit reactivated their accounts, but that's not our main intention with the veteran-rewards program. The program is simply Cryptic and NCsoft's way of saying "thanks" to all the players who have stuck with us from the beginning and for long periods of time. A lot of the options in the program are things our most diehard players have been asking for since the beginning. So, we wanted to make sure that our most diehard players would get the good stuff first and that eventually anyone could have the good stuff simply by playing the game long enough.
GS: How crucial is it to bring in new customers to the games? Is it a viable business model to focus primarily on the existing core user base, or should online games of these sort constantly be performing outreach for new users?
MM: I think that new customers never hurt a game, and we are constantly doing free trials and the like to do just that. Converting a new customer to a loyal one is the real magic. I love it when players find a "home" in Paragon City or the Rogue Isles, make new friends, join a supergroup, and make a ton of alternate characters.
But our highest priority is retaining our existing players. These guys and girls are our bread and butter, so making them happy is critical. Our mantra going forward now is "give the players what they want," within reason of course. In-demand things like trenchcoats and wing costume pieces, readdressing old City of Heroes zones, newspaper-style missions for City of Heroes--all these came directly from the players asking for them.
GS: Give us your thoughts on the ins and outs of maintaining and updating a massively multiplayer game after launch. What has helped Cryptic's games continue to keep plugging away, even after the launches (and in some cases, the enduring success) of competing products?
MM: We have continued to create quality content for City of Heroes and City of Villains, and other than the City of Villains game itself, we have done it all for free for our players. I think that our players really appreciate that fact, given that other games charge $30 for the same type of content. Of course I am referring to the "Issue" updates like the upcoming Issue 8 release. Issue 7 had a ton of stuff and could have easily been a paid expansion to City of Villains, but we don't want to do that to our users. We even canceled next year's paid expansion in order to focus more on the free updates.
GS: Finally, is there anything else you'd like to add about City of Heroes or City of Villains, or about maintaining massively multiplayer online games in general?
MM: I love MMOs and I play a bunch of them, but the ones I keep migrating back to are City of Heroes and City of Villains. There is simply something magical about logging into a game, seeing your friends online, and cooperatively competing against the game to achieve better and better status and loot.
Back in my youth, when I played text-based MUDs, I always thought that the experience I was getting there could be amplified a thousand-fold if it had the right graphics. Kids today are lucky to be growing up in an era where such graphics are not only possible, they are status quo.
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August 30th, 2006, 16:39 Posted By: wraggster
Bethesda releasing new content for its RPG tomorrow. Mages rejoice by fluffing their beards
Oblivion is to receive a new update on Thursday called Spell Tomes, which adds, ah, spell tomes to the world's random treasure according to Bethesda.
Offering further explanatory word on the update, the developer says the tomes - or books - "grant you wondrous and powerful magic spells, just by reading them! Now Mages will also gain instant benefits by treasure hunting. Friend and foe alike will bow in awe before your power."
Spell Tomes' features include:
Hundreds of new spell-giving books
All the most useful basic spells covered
Low level and high level spells available
Many new powerful spells with multiple effects added
Extremely powerful new spells that are balanced with slightly detrimental effects to lower the cost in Magicka
Find Spell Tomes in dungeons all over Cyrodiil
Spend less time and money arming yourself with the spells you want and need
Plus, Bethesda has additionally provided examples on a handful of the new spells that are available courtesy of the update:
Blink: A low-level invisibility spell to get you out of trouble.
Baltham's Insight: a short duration but long range detect life spell.
Shield Wall: Fortify Heavy Armor and Shield effect.
Night Form: Powerful Invisibility and Fortify Sneak, and take Sun damage, which reduces Magicka cost to cast.
Pride of Hirstaang: Fortify Strength, Resist Frost, and Summon a Bear.
Orum's Aquatic Escape: Invisibility, Night-Eye, and Water-breathing.
Elemental Blast: A powerful offensive spell with: Fire damage, Frost damage, and Shock damage.
Magicka Vortex: Absorb Magicka, Weakness to Magic 25% and Stunted Magicka.
Spell Tomes will cost you a whopping $0.99 to download for Oblivion PC, and whatever the equivalent of that is in Microsoft Points if you grab it for the Xbox 360 version of the role-playing game.
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