Steal Fighter, the latest arena-style MMO which is developed by L.Time Games has revealed more details. According to MMOculture, Steal Fighter currently has 4 character classes and the debut trailer focuses mainly on combat and the PvE mode bosses. Let's take a look and see what's new in Steal Fighter.
The first time I ever saw a challenge mode was in Phantasy Star Online many years ago. You start off with low levels and equipment and you have to complete certain stages with only what you can find. If you complete challenge mode, you can get a custom S-rank weapon that allows you to give it a name, add a special status effect, and upgrade it to very high levels if you can find enough items for it.
Imagine that you're playing the hot new zombie MMO, and you decide to splurge a few bucks on that shiny weapon you've been eying. You get your grubby mitts on it and go to town on a few living undead, only to find yourself over your head and quickly killed. When you wake up, your gun -- and the rest of your stuff -- is gone. Forever.
The League of Legends North American regional tournament concluded this week with Team Solo Mid, Team Dignitas, and Counter Logic Gaming securing spots in October's World Championship games.
Monster Hunter may be the next Capcom property to get the Hollywood treatment, and Resident Evil Retribution producer Paul W.S. Anderson may be involved.
Last week BioWare gave you a sneak preview of SWTOR's 1.4 update via a lengthy dev blog. This week you get to try out the patch proper on the game's public test server.
The third Anniversary comes to Fallen Earth, and the game prepares the gift that players want most, patch 2.5 adds three powerful new weapons for players to use across the wastelands as well as three new bosses that carry required components for those weapons. It's not really the traditional gift for a three-year anniversary, but some traditions are going to go out the window when the entire world is a ravaged wasteland dominated by crazed survivalists.
Novus Aeterno was the winner for Most Innovative Game at PAX Prime 2012 for good reason that it embodys both the massive multiplayer online experience with the real-time strategy genre.
A little over a week ago, ArenaNet brought a temporary halt to first-party digital sales of Guild Wars 2. While there's no official statement from ArenaNet yet, the digital purchase page for Guild Wars 2 appears to be up and running once again. On the same page, players are being prompted to include BradyGames' official Guild Wars 2 digital strategy guide ($14.99) and advised to "make the most of [their] time in Tyria with this comprehensive guide packed with tips and tactics, crucial info, and detailed analysis."
Path of Exile will be free to play with store currency that can be purchased like any other f2p game. Grinding Gear Games has been hard at work, and continues adding in an impressive amount of additional content.
If you missed the live-stream for the press conference of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn a couple of days ago, you can watch the nearly an hour of press footage below.
The latest major updated known as "Bloody Shark Harbor" has finally arrived at Blade and Soul (KR), it's the 2nd major content update since official launch. "Bloody Shark Harbor" features new bosses, new costumes and new skills, players can have different experience from the previous dungeons. Firstly, enjoy the trailer show.
Nevrax has just announced that it's planning to merge existing servers and wipe existing characters. That means if you have built characters over these last several years, they will no longer be as they were.
War of Angels has undergone a bit of a change this week with its latest update. Starting today, players will experience the game's massive rebirth and step into a completely new game world featuring overhauled graphics, optimized quest lines, hundreds of powerful weapons and items and a massive player-versus-payer (PvP) game mode that pits entire realms against each other. The update also adds Bog Temple, the latest end-game dungeon teeming with rare loot, and a quest helper system to assist beginner players. Adventurers can explore all of this content for free by downloading the game client from the official War of Angels website.
Welcome to Part 2 of my look into the Guardian profession as a support/sustain character type. If you missed Part 1 you can visit the article here. In the first part I took a look at the Guardian's virtues and weapon skills. In this second part I will explore the utility skills and then cover trait choices in the third article. For the sake of continuity I will review each skill and trait in the order they appear on the Guild Wars 2 wiki.
As we know, Knight Age launched its official service last tuesday, so to celebrate this incredible launch we are going to give our gamers a closer look at this game and show them what to expect from this new game.
To start off with, I would like to say that I think that I'm a reasonable person. Just as food, popular trends and bizarre fashion statements have a shelf life, so do video games. From MOBA's to MMORPG's, games have a shelf life where they eventually are considered outdated, out of touch and even unprofitable.
The Ubisoft's Digital Day, which was held in Paris last week, was an opportunity for our team to learn more about the different free to play games of the French publisher. Here is an exclusive video presentation and some screenshots of Might and Magic Heroes Online. Might & Magic® Heroes Online (MMHO) is a free-to-play [...]
The Ubisoft's Digital Day, which was held in Paris last week, was an opportunity for our team to learn more about the different free to play games of the French publisher. Here is an exclusive video presentation and some screenshots of Might and Magic Raiders. Set in the Might and Magic universe, just before the [...]
The Ubisoft's Digital Day, which was held in Paris last week, was an opportunity for our team to learn more about the different free to play games of the French publisher. Here is an exclusive video presentation and some screenshots of Ghost Recon Online, the online version of the Ghost Recon franchise.
The Ubisoft's Digital Day, which was held in Paris last week, was an opportunity for our team to learn more about the different free to play games of the French publisher. Here is an exclusive video presentation of the new Anno Online, the online version of the Anno franchise. Anno Online is a free-to-play strategy [...]
Rock Hippo has released the back to school update for his cartoon-style third-person shooter, MicroVolts. Titled 'Varsity Volts', it introduces new equipment and an arsenal of new weapons. Discover it all in the trailer below!
GamesCampus has launched today the PVP centric sci-fi MMORPG, RF Online. In celebration a lot of cool events will take place in the game. Players can now transfer their accounts from the former host to the GamesCampus network, or sign up for a GamesCampus account on the game's official website. Beginning today through November 6th, [...]
Episode 189 of the No BS Podcast ushers in a new era for Maximum PC. It is Nathan Edward's farewell podcast (He's moving to Texas, y'all), but with every ending there comes a new beginning. New Online Managing Editor Jimmy Thang makes his podcast debut alongside Editor Josh Norem and Maximum PC Editor-in-Chief Katherine Stevenson. Our special guest star this week is Gordon Mah Ung's soundboard! (WARNING: ridiculous times ahead)
For those looking to put an SSD into their laptop or desktop, today's Top Deal from LogicBuy is an OCZ Vertex 3 120GB SATA 6Gb/s SSD (VTX3-25SAT3-120G) for $84.00 with free shipping (normally $104.00). The SSD has a SandForce 2281 controller and is rated for 550 MB/s and 500 MB/s Sequential read and write speeds. We liked its bigger 240GB cousin that came out last year. You can check out our review of that SSD here.
Laptops:
15.6" Apple MacBook Pro MD318LL/A Core i7 2.2 Ghz Laptop with 4GB of DRR3 RAM, 500GB hard drive, Thunderbolt port, and Radeon HD 6750M for $1,469.00 (normally $1,669).
Alienware m14x R2 14" Core i7 2.3 Ghz Gaming Laptop with 6GB of DDR3 RAM, 1GB Nvidia GeForce GT 650M graphics, for $1,099.00 with free shipping (normally $1,199.00).
Desktops:
Dell Vostro 260 Core i3 3.3Ghz Slim Tower with 21.5" Dell 1080p LCD Monitor, 500GB hard drive and Windows 7 Professional with a bundled $100 Gift Card for $549.00 with free shipping (normally $893.00 - use coupon code W9D06J14FX10WM ).
Computing Hardware & Peripherals:
21.5" Dell U2212HM UltraSharp1080p IPS-panel LCD Monitor with DisplayPort for $188.10 + Free shipping (normally $259.00 - use coupon codes: XNL07K1W36RMW5 and H164M9QC3SDVTL ).
MSI Radeon HD 7770 1GB of GDDR5 Video Card for $114.99 with free shipping (normally $139.99).
Let's face it, Steve Jobs was wrong when he downplayed the market for a 7-inch tablet. Amazon proved it (Kindle Fire), Google reaffirmed it (Nexus 7), Barnes & Noble bought into it (Nook Tablet), and now Toys R Us is jumping on the bandwagon, albeit it's headed towards a different destination. Toys R Us is targeting tots with its specially design 7-inch "tabeo" (lowercase 't') tablet for kids. It's relatively affordable at $150 MSRP, and it comes pre-loaded with 50 kid friendly apps.
"Over the past year, we've spent considerable time talking to parents and children to determine what features and functions they really want in a kids' tablet, resulting in tabeo," said Troy Peterson, Vice President, Divisional Merchandise Manager, Toys R Us, U.S. "We are proud that tabeo offers robust and flexible parental controls that can help protect children as they surf the Internet, and we are pleased to offer the tabeo App Store, which features only kid-safe content carefully curated by the Toys R Us team."
Let's start with the hardware. The tabeo is a 7-inch device with an 800x480 screen resolution, ARM Cortex A8 1GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, 4GB of internal storage, a micro SDHC card slot, HDMI output, front-facing camera, built-in Wi-Fi, USB 2.0 interface, and of course it all comes wrapped in Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (which we assume most toddlers prefer over Jelly Bean, at least in name alone).
It's not just about the hardware, however. Toys R Us has built an ecosystem around its kid-friendly tablet. Among the 50 pre-loaded apps are nearly 20 games, including titles like Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, Cut the Rope, Temple Run, and more. There are educational apps tossed into the mix, and a full suite of parental controls to keep little Billy from venturing over to seedier sides of the Web or from spending too much time online. In all, Toys R Us says it has available over 7,000 free games, books, and educational programs at its tabeo App Store.
"As an added bonus, if users bypass tabeo's built-in Internet browser, parents will receive an email alert to notify them that their children may be browsing in an unfiltered environment," Toys R Us explains.
It's called "big picture mode," and it's how Valve intends to declare war on consoles. Launching in beta form today, big picture mode is a special interface for Steam that's more appropriate for viewing on a living room television set than the current one you see on your PC. It's Valve's answer to the walled garden approach console makers have taken with their platforms, and could be the first step towards the oft-rumored Steam Box that's talked about every so often.
Don't worry if you're a big fan of Steam just the way it is, the new viewing mode is completely optional and intended for gamers who want take their pastime into the living room, PC in tow. For those that do, big picture mode boasts full controller support, without shunning the keyboard and mouse.
"Steam's big-picture mode doesn't require any additional development from you. Just ensure your game works well with a controller, and we'll take care of the rest," Valve explains on its Big Picture portal. "And don't worry, keyboard and mouse aren't going anywhere—users will be able to switch between input devices at any time."
Valve co-founder Gabe Newell has been very outspoken in his disdain for wall garden ecosystems, such as the one he fears Microsoft is building around Windows 8. With projects like big picture mode and recent hirings for hardware developers making the news, it seems increasingly likely Valve is headed towards a Steam Box, which is essentially a PC-console hybrid.
If you want to catch a glimpse of what big picture mode will look like, Kotaku posted a bunch of screenshots of the new interface. Note the larger fonts and icons that are easier to view on a TV, along with an overall look that's somewhat similar to the Xbox 360's dashboard.
Hewlett-Packard, still the world's largest pre-built PC player, introduced four new all-in-one desktop PCs today, including the SpectreONE, which is the first AIO to join the Spectre family. The other three include the HP Envy 23, Envy 20 TouchSmart, and Pavilion 20, the latter of which is the only one of the bunch that's a non-touch system. HP's SpectreONE doesn't sport a touchscreen either, but it does ship with a wireless trackpad that will allow users to scroll, swipe, and tap around Windows 8 when it ships in October.
"The clean look of an all-in-one PC and the ease of one-cord set-up are key reasons customers turn to HP," said James Mouton, senior vice president and general manager, Personal Computer Global Business Unit, HP. "The SpectreONE design is art as well as a powerful entertainment hub. Across our rich line of all-in-ones, we continue to drive value and differentiation that have earned us sales of more than 5 million all-in-ones."
In addition to a wireless trackpad, the SpectreONE is accompanied by a 23.6-inch flush-glass Full HD 1080p display, an unidentified Nvidia graphics card with 1GB of memory, third generation Intel Core processor options, optional SSD storage, NFC technology, USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports, HDMI input, Beats Audio, and various other odds and ends wrapped in a frame that's just 11.5mm thin.
The HP Envy 23 and Envy 20 are both touch-enabled AIOs with a similar feature-set as the SpectreONE, while the Pavilion 20 is for budget conscious buyers who aren't necessarily interested in the touch revolution sweeping the PC landscape.
HP says it will begin shipping the HP Envy 23 TouchSmart ($999), 20 TouchSmart ($799), and Pavilion 20 ($449) in October. The SpectreONE will be available in November starting at $1,299.
Fans looking forward to the already delayed issue #2 in The Secret World will have to wait an extra day. Funcom just tweeted that Digging Deeper will be deployed on live servers on Wednesday, September 12th instead of the 11th. The extra day is to ensure that everything is working as intended. According to the announcement, downtime is currently unknown, but will be announced via the usual channels when details are available.
With dozens of games and collections, Mega Man has had quite the prolific run as a console game, and NeoWiz has been working on turning Mega Man into a MMORPG called Rockman Online (after the Japanese name for Mega Man). However, although there is no official word it appears that the project may have been shelved after internal restructuring in the company. Environments artist Kang Dong Hwa blogged that his current project was dropped and he is looking for other work. He also posted various concept art pieces that he'd been working on for Rockman Online over the years, usually a no-no for games currently under development.
You know one of the great things about a weekly opinion piece? The ability to about-face and change topics when inspiration strikes... or you just can't bite your tongue any longer. And I am going to exercise that right right now: I'm diverging a bit from my intended thoughts about more of Aion's upcoming 3.5 goodies and addressing something that has been gnawing at me for the past few weeks.
Actually, address might be too gentle of a word because the more I think about it, the more it is turning into an outright rant. And you know that it takes quite a bit for me to get riled up enough to unleash; with onlythreerants in over two years, I definitely lag behind in the rant department!
What could be getting my goat enough to actually fire up the ol' rant-o-matic? It's not anything that's been done -- or not done -- by NCsoft. The company is in the clear this time. It's actually the players. More specifically, it is the unacceptable attitude of bigotry and intolerance that's being heaved about in Aion against other nationalities and other languages. A great big W. T. F. here folks. Now I am not accusing all players of this, not by a long shot. But the fact that it is cropping up with any frequency is a problem.
With Champions Online reaching its third anniversary this month, the team at Cryptic Studios is pulling out all the stops to make it one for the scrapbooks. Because superheroes totally scrapbook and don't let anyone tell you differently.
Starting next week, players can enjoy rewards such as legacy gear and vanity pets, as well as an upcoming concert starring Sapphire. Don't get too complacent with the festivities, however, as rampaging robots will be trying to crash the party. These machines are part of Dr. Destroyer's army from 1992, and are building up to a full-on invasion of Millennium City later this month.
Get a jump on the party with an exclusive listen to Sapphire's anniversary song and a sneak peek at a trio of new comic book-style loading screens that are coming soon to the title!
Every week, the Massively Stream Team logs in to play various MMOs live and in person, and we'd love for you to drop by the channel and visit. We have a combination of regular weekly games and new surprises each week, so you'll find a variety of titles to watch. During our streamed events, you can participate in the live chat, ask questions to learn about the game, or simply spend some time with Massively staff and readers. (Of course, streaming is subject to the whims of outside forces like server-side gremlins once in a while.)
Follow along after the jump to see what's on this week's schedule, and let us know if there's a specific game you'd like to see streamed next week!
In their struggle to save their game from sunset in November, City of Heroes fans are faced with a dilemma: What if their heroic measures work but only halfway? What if they manage to save the game but not the team and the game stays on life support? Or what if they save the game and the team but not the servers and everything on them -- would people still play?
That exact situation has already hit Ryzom players, whose servers are set to be wiped and consolidated in an effort to keep the game online. So suppose your favorite game lost all of its data for some reason. Your characters are gone, with no hope of retrieval. No levels. No currency. No twinking gear. No achievements. No vet rewards. No guilds. No resources. All of it, gone.
Would you start over? If not, would you take it as a sign to play another game? And if so, what would you do differently the second time around?
Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
At the end of every week, we round up the best and most popular news stories, exclusive features, and insightful columns published on Massively and then present them all in one convenient place. If you missed a big MMO or WoW Insider story last week, you've come to the right post.
This week, SOE dazzled the MMO world by announcing a pair of new expansions for 1999's EverQuest and 2004's EverQuest II in addition to PlanetSide 2's beta bonuses and a new system for monetizable player-generated content called Player Studio.
When I was first introduced to EVE Online in 2004, it was an empty shell of a game. There were only three classes of ship, no alliances or starbases, and neither exploration complexes nor level 4 missions existed yet. EVE consisted of 5,000 systems of almost completely empty space populated by less than 50,000 players. The user interface was an order of magnitude worse than it is today (if you can imagine that), and the tutorial just dropped you in the middle of space with the ship equivalent of a pea shooter and a less-than-enthusiastic "good luck!"
Though much of the game was empty, it sat before players like a blank galactic canvas. Not only could players paint their own stories into the game world, but EVE's highly active development team was updating the game at lightning speed. Players instinctively filled the voids in the game with their hopes and dreams, projecting all the things that EVE could be into the gaps. People shared ideas on the forum directly with the developers, and practically anything was possible. Things aren't quite the same today, as new ideas have to be compatible with over nine years' worth of updates, and developer CCP Games really can't afford to rock the boat and potentially lose subscriptions.
In this week's EVE Evolved, I consider whether the past nine years of development has boxed EVE in, forcing the gameplay down an ever-narrowing branch of choices.
Runes of Magic was a F2P game before the cool kids joined the F2P party, but it's been a little neglected by MMO players. Massively reader Andrew wants us to know that it's got some spark left in it:
While Runes of Magic may be three years old, the graphics are still looking great. There's some awesome vistas in RoM that appear when you take the time to control+z your interface and look around. This shot is from Southern Janost Forest.
In fact, Andrew sent us two pics, and they're both behind the break along with a few more of your One Shots!
![[PAX Prime 2012] Novus Aeterno Awarded Most Innovative Game](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vjKJ3Ix6NCOgmVsWBBMtX2Ce6AsyOcHqUYVtZIwBTLcxRjaHhI8BAb2xeBVNNKM_rFNFFwz5MZKetmaMR5t_MtnBFGSuElm6F2Dpyi6uJJfNN8eynbfPJU-YyEHmr3GiOoKTVvcw=s0-d)
![[Exclusive] Knight Age Interview](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vRpuPj1Dc7pM-HKDDt-FfBJ488thshF6KiA_zIIoc5x-bOvbUyYCO62_emHVZ8Gv5Udi2teP3mH2rPVFukhsdb6BTxQ_oveDJhsnrv3dIdp0mCcDwfPR3-k1iQt3oP78zslJzhu6pD4LxTgHY=s0-d)
Let's face it, Steve Jobs was wrong when he downplayed the market for a 7-inch tablet. Amazon proved it (Kindle Fire), Google reaffirmed it (Nexus 7), Barnes & Noble bought into it (Nook Tablet), and now 
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Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's 
