Latest Gaming and MMORPG Updates

Latest Gaming and MMORPG Updates

Employees of 38 Studios hit with housing debt

Posted: 26 May 2012 04:54 AM PDT


[Source] I guess most of you would have read about 39 Studios closing, and that Project Copernicus (screenshots) will probably never see the light again despite a scheduled June 2013 release date (unless someone buy over the IP) of course. If the company closing down, along with subsidiary Big Huge Games is not enough, 379 employees were left jobless and some with mortgage debts.


You see, when 38 Studios was offered by the Rhode Island committee to move to the area with a USD 75 million loan assured back in 2010, many then-existing employees have to relocate to the area. 39 Studios offered a service to sell off their old homes for them. It seem this wasn't done for some employees, and now they have 2 houses to pay mortgage for.Talk about rubbing salt on the wound.


I am not really sure how this works, but blame can be put on both 38 Studios' management team and the Rhode Island council. There has always got to be Plan B to be placed in the locker, seeing that the company is basically using state and taxpayer money. Did Curt Schilling, the head honcho, weighed in the risks of such a business plan? He might be a good guy and boss in the staffs' eyes, but that doesn't mean he is competent in running a business, especially in such a volatile gaming industry.


This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

NYCC: What the Heck is Pokemon Rumble Blast, Anyway?

Posted: 26 May 2012 04:01 AM PDT

Once upon a time, getting about in a Zelda game was such a clear-cut process. You had your dungeons (anywhere from four to 12, depending) and you had the overworld that linked them all together. Aside from the occasional spin-off (Four Swords Adventures was broken into levels, and Majora’s Mask centered around the hub of Clock Town), that’s how it always worked. You’d wander around, maybe poke into a cave for a Heart Piece, clear away some scrub, fight some bad guys, and eventually work your way to the next subterranean puzzle labyrinth.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is mixing things up, and — for the first eight hours of the game, at least — the results are pretty great. Skyward Sword’s design makes the distinction between overworld and underworld much muddier than in past games. Perhaps that’s appropriate, since this adventure divides its world into three layers rather than the usual two. Above the dungeons, you have the overworld; meanwhile, above it all is the realm of Skyloft, best described as an aerial take on Wind Waker’s sea. At the heart of Skyloft is a large city held aloft by (one assumes) ancient magic or technology or something, but the skies are littered with floating islands, and Link travels between them on the back of a huge red bird.

Red Blood Online (KR)

Posted: 26 May 2012 04:01 AM PDT


Later today, the latest 3D action MMO to hit Korea, Red Blood Online, will be entering its very first Closed Beta phase. With multi-target action combat as its main feature, along with a “Stage Automation” system where dungeon routes are not the same everytime players enter one (link). Below is a brief skill demo for the current 3 classes revealed, Warrior, Knight and Elementalist. Each class will have 3 different types of skill trees available,

According to early media reports from Korea and Taiwan, Red Blood Online will not be having a true open persistent world, but rather similar to Dragon Nest and Guild Wars where only party members can see each other once stepping out of town. Only 3 maps will be available at the start, including the beginner town of Ironshore.


More features are planned for the undated Closed Beta 2, including the Family system and pets. The Family system will be one of the core features as well, as it will determine the learning of high level skills, character growth, new quests and Family-exclusive dungeons.

Grand Expedition Yak, Mount Previews, Blue Posts, Arena Tournament Finals, Fan Art

Posted: 26 May 2012 01:07 AM PDT

Diablo 3 - Witch Doctor Video and Build Diversity, Arena Area Previews, Account Security, Blue Posts

Grand Expedition Yak Mount Preview
The Reins of the Grand Expedition Yak are sold for 60,000 gold before any discounts in a small village called The Grummle Bazaar, just outside of One Keg in Kun-Lai Summit. The mount is similar to the Reins of the Traveler's Tundra Mammoth in that it can hold up to three people, but has two vendors when you summon it.

The Traveling Trader vendor will repair your gear and sell you food, water, a 14 slot bag, and campfire materials. The other vendor is an Arcane Reforger, which allows you to reforge your gear wherever you can mount! The animations aren't done yet, as there is no mountspecial or jumping animation, but you can get a general idea of how it moves in the video below.





Dragon Turtle Mount Preview
Beta has had several different types of mounts added since we last previewed the models, so tonight we will start with the Dragon Turtle mounts. These are the Pandaren mounts and will be sold by the vendors at the Pandaren camps in Stormwind and Orgrimmar.




Water Strider Mount Preview
Moving on, we take a look at the Water Strider color variations. Currently, only the Reins of the Azure Water Strider is sold in game by the Anglers faction. It requires Exalted reputation and costs 5,000 gold before discounts.




Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Arthas Fighting Guards in Orgrimmar?
Thanks for the report! We're aware of this issue and are in the process of applying a hotflix so that Arthas and company remain back where they belong. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Compromised Battle.net Accounts and the RMAH
Take note of this if you ever plan to use the Diablo III Real Money Auction House!
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker)
Real Money Auction House
After the first compromise occurs on a Battle.net account, that account's access to the Diablo III Real Money Auction House will be restricted until an authenticator is attached. If the account is compromised a second time, access to the Diablo III Real Money Auction House will be permanently revoked.

Arena Junkies Invitational Tournament Finals
Arena Junkies, together with help from Curse and Alienware, is running the first ever Arena Junkies Invitational Tournament, featuring eight of the best 3v3 teams. These players will battle it out for glory and a chance at $5,000!

The eight teams were broken into two groups of four and will play in a Round Robin format. The top two teams from each group have advanced to face each other and vie for the spot in the Finals. The Finals will take place on Saturday May 26th at 3 PM EST.



Fan Art Update
The World of Warcraft Fan Art Section has been updated with three new pieces of fan artwork.

The Elder Scrolls Online – Combat explained

Posted: 25 May 2012 10:22 PM PDT


[Source] Most of us should have known that The Elder Scrolls Online is coming, taking place much earlier before the events of Skyrim. The news of this long-running franchise going into the MMO realm faced much backlash from the fans and gamers alike, and I can feel their pain. This brought me back memories of how Warhammer: Age of Reckoning was screwed by EA.



Nixing various features which made games such as Marrowind and Skyrim unique, the combat system will not be the same as, from the developer's mouth, latency is an issue. What sort of excuse is this? Not that I am promoting TERA or Dragon Nest, action combat is around since 2 years ago. In this new interview with PC Gamer, the combat is further explained, which is a bucket of crap for me personally.


Your first two slots are derived from your weapon. If I pick up a bow they're bow attacks and if I pick up a sword then they're sword attacks. If I continue to use that weapon over a period of time, I will get better with it, which will give me a wider variety of things that I can potentially do with my weapon attacks. So I can gain mastery of it by virtue of having it equipped, but I can still pick up any weapon in the game and be good with it. And that's true of anyone.

On top of that, if I continue to use that weapon over a period of time I will get better with it which will give me a wider variety of things that I can potentially do with my weapon attacks. So I can gain mastery of it by virtue of having it equipped, but I can still pick up any weapon in the game and be good with it and that's true of anyone. I think that's an essential part of it

Your next three slots are derived from your class. You will have over the course of your progression many abilities and spells that you will get, more than three. But you want to pick the three that you think will support your weapon loadout in an interesting way. 

So if I picked bow as my sort of principle weapon attack I might pick three abilities that are sort of snares. And that sort of creates a character that you might understand, like: 'Okay, cool, I want to slow up a guy and pick him off and continue to kite him, cause I feel like that's the gameplay I want to do.

And your sixth ability is your ultimate. It's also a class ability and I will have more than one available to me through my overall progression but I can only ever put one on my bar because it's really powerful. And you're going to want to pick the one that supports that overall.

So I might just pick Summon Frost Atronach. And a Frost Atronach's going to fall out of the sky and smash anyone he lands on, and then hang around and start beating on people. Yeah, that totally supports by rangery bow metaphor from earlier. That's the character I wanted to play. 

PvP designer Brian Wheeler interjects. "People also scream 'Oh my god that is awesome' when a Frost Atronach comes down." (seriously? Who are they trying to impress?)

The key is that those abilities, like the weapon, I can start with and use effectively initially, but in order to master I must play with over a long period of time. Which is very much like the Elder Scrolls games, and is our own way of interpreting that. (this is no way similar to the TES games)

And then I think the sort of depth of the system in a lot of ways comes from the fact that you are allowed to swap out those abilities in whatever way you want, as long as you're not currently in a fight. 

So if I'm finding that this build just isn't working and I'm getting countered over and over by sneaky rogues or fireballs, I can take the ability that I feel is going to help me in this scenario, and build a new character and try it out, and have this sort of deck building game… I'll have varying levels of expertise with them, but by trying out various builds and various decks I'm going to become a master of all of them eventually.


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What If EA Didn’t Have Exclusive Rights to the NFL?

Posted: 25 May 2012 05:42 PM PDT

Feature

1UP COVER STORY

Header

1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF MAY 21 | WHAT IF?

What If EA Didn’t Have Exclusive Rights to the NFL?

Cover Story: Football runs rampant in a very different video gaming space.

F

ootball persists because its goals are simple even though the rules are complex. One team has four tries to move an egg-shaped ball to the end of a field and if they don’t move it at least a certain distance within those tries, they have to give it to the team trying to stop them.

The actual rules of the NFL are dense though. NFL football makes baccarat look like rock-paper-scissor in terms of complexity, and the literal hundreds of NFL video games that have popped up in the past decade certainly aren’t helpful for anyone who wants to learn about the intricacies of the sport. All Zynga’s NFLVille teaches you about the game is that Peyton Manning looks horrifying as a big-eyed cartoon character and that convincing Facebook friends to help you gain yards is surprisingly easy and addictive.

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Video Game Rumors from Another World

Posted: 25 May 2012 05:25 PM PDT

Feature

1UP COVER STORY

Header

1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF MAY 21 | WHAT IF?

Video Game Rumors from Another Reality

Cover Story: Not only are these game rumors not true, they’re not even real rumors… at least, not in our world.

I

n another world — a more interesting world than our own — the rumors below rule Internet forums, spread like the plague through the school yard, and merit regular debunking by Snopes’ video game urban legends section (which doesn’t even exist in our reality; that’s how lame real life is). Please enjoy this glimpse into the playground lies of another universe’s video game fandom.

Spot Art

Parappa the Rapper‘s Brown Note

From the Chiptuned blog: “Parappa the Rapper’s next-to-last stage features the hero rapping through a medley against his instructors for the right to jump to the front of the line of a gas station restroom before disaster strikes, messily. Rumor has it that this rap battle contains a brown note in order to increase the realism of the sequence. Gamers with audio setups capable of rendering a wide range of sound frequencies play this sequence at their own risk.”

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

The Popularity of Atari’s E.T. Shows No Signs of Slowing Down

Posted: 25 May 2012 05:06 PM PDT

Feature

1UP COVER STORY

Header

1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF MAY 21 | WHAT IF?

The Popularity of Atari’s E.T. Shows No Signs of Slowing Down

Cover Story: But is it too little too late?

A

lamogordo, New Mexico — The dusty town of Alamogordo seems more like a relic of the highway culture of the 1950s and ’60s than it does a future player in the world of video gaming. Currently known by few outside of the town and airmen who passed through a term at nearby Holloman Air Force Base, most of what would be considered “downtown” is nothing more than gas stations, hotels, and fast food. It’s as though the town accepted its fate as a pass-through rather than a destination and grew-up accordingly. Even in the gilded age, when railroads ruled the vast expanses of America’s west, steam engines passed right by Alamogordo (the local water is very hard, and reacted corrosively with the tanks on the great bellowing machines). In spite of the rugged beauty of the surrounding southwestern wilderness, including White Sands National Monument, Alamogordo would probably be largely ignored and its place in time and relevance set in stone. But a certain consumer electronics company has decided to give Alamogordo its own footnote in the history of video games (should such a book ever be written). The Atari corporation, makers of the hugely successful video game adaptation of Stephen Spielberg’s film “E.T., The Extra-Terrestrial,” have decided that the sleepy town an hour north of El Paso will be home to a grand new distribution and shipping center for their games and consoles.

In July of last year, when Howard Scott Warshaw was asked by his superiors to develop an E.T. game before Christmas, he told them flat-out “no way.”

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Because We May Sale Makes Indie Games Cheap(er) for a Week

Posted: 25 May 2012 04:03 PM PDT

Because We May

Independent game developers have at their disposal a wide variety of methods for trying to boost sales. Some of these include banding together with other indie titles to generate publicity, as seen time after time with the Humble Indie Bundle and its many imitators. The latest such scheme doesn’t actually package unrelated games together or sell them at any price the buyer decides (as is the case with the HIB), but it is eye-catching in that there are a ton of indie games available right this very moment at heavily discounted prices.

The promotion, Because We May, runs for the last week of May (May 24 through June 1) and features games from Steam, iOS, Google Play, the Mac App Store, and the official websites of computer game developers. There is a wide array of titles available with more still being added, and none of this accounts for games that are on sale right now outside of the promotion (like Infinity Blade II, Grand Theft Auto III, and many of EA’s titles).

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

NYCC: Getting a Sense of Gaming’s Relative Place in the World

Posted: 25 May 2012 04:01 PM PDT

The oldest video game I’ve found at this year’s New York Comic-Con is from 1977. That’s the same years that Star Wars — whose merchandise dominates the show — made its theatrical debut. In contrast, I’ve seen comics and artwork dating back to the ’40s, maybe even earlier. There are movie goods based on The Wizard of Oz, which memory tells me dates from the ’30s.

Video games are newcomers on the stage of nerd culture, and shows like this are stark reminders of that fact. Games have a respectable showing here to be sure, but compared to the breadth and depth of comic- and film-related material, you can’t help but realize the curators of game history need to step it up.

Nowhere is this more obvious than in pricing. The most expensive game-related thing I’ve seen do far are those R2-D2 Xbox 360s with integrated projectors ($1200), and those are hand-made custom jobs. On the other hand, I saw an issue of the Gold Key Star Trek comics that I remember reading at my grandparents’ house 30 years ago and dismissing because it wasn’t Star Trek. Its asking price? $800 (you better believe I’m kicking myself for not hanging on to it).

And that’s only one of thousands of comics on sale here for three, four, even five figures. The original art for the cover of Wolverine #41 (which is only about 20 years old) is selling for $15,000. The really pricey stuff — graded comics from the Golden Age and associated art boards — isn’t even listed with a price. Like high fashion, if you have to ask, you couldn’t afford it anyway.

Not that there’s anything wrong with being a brash young medium. The game-related booths are by far the most energetic and interesting at the show. Not to mention the most popular. Still, perspective is interesting. Wouldn’t it be interesting if dealers were selling original Mario design sketches at trade shows 50 years from now?

Just kidding; Nintendo would never let that material out of its sight.

Also, that Penguin artwork above isn’t a scene from Arkham City. But don’t you wish it were?
Posted by Shri Krishna

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