MMORPG News

MMORPG News

General: MMOFTW - Pandas on Parade

Posted: 01 Oct 2012 07:46 AM PDT

MMOFTW - Pandas on Parade

In this week's episode, we talk Mists of Pandaria Launch, The War Z is previewed, and Firefall goes Dynamic. Plus we discuss what SWTOR's unsung feature was, and when the next Rift soul will be revealed. Take a look!

Torchlight 2: Kudos on a Job Well Done

Posted: 30 Sep 2012 02:30 PM PDT

Kudos on a Job Well Done

Runic Games' Torchlight II is the second big action RPG to be released in 2012. We've been putting TL2 through its paces and trying -not- to make comparisons to that other ARPG that released in May. See what we think of Torchlight 2 before adding your ideas to the comments.

EVE Online: New $10,000 Tournament Announced

Posted: 28 Sep 2012 07:07 PM PDT

New $10,000 Tournament Announced

CCP Games and own3D.tv have announced a cooperative eSports tournament for EVE Online. Winners of the tournament will split a $10,000 purse. Tournament brackets will start in November with the conclusion in December.

Age of Conan: Unchained: September Monthly Update Published

Posted: 28 Sep 2012 07:02 PM PDT

September Monthly Update Published

The Age of Conan Monthly Update has been published for September. In it, the team talks a lot about the forthcoming Secrets of the Dragon's Spine content update. The blog lays out the plan to release portions of SotDS in episodic fashion from now through an epic conclusion to the quest line in 2013. The blog also talks about other plans that are in the works as 2012 comes to a close.

Knight Age: Guild System Detailed

Posted: 28 Sep 2012 06:56 PM PDT

Guild System Detailed

The Knight Age team has published new information about how the just-added guild system works in the game. Guilds start small but grow in both experience and benefits as the group grows. The system includes 'guild warp' to get to fellow guildies, storage and much more.

City of Steam: The Art of Breaking Barrels

Posted: 28 Sep 2012 06:51 PM PDT

The Art of Breaking Barrels

A new developer journal has been posted on the City of Steam site that takes a look at the art of breaking barrels. There's more to breaking a barrel than simply smashing it to pieces with your character's weapon.

Posted by Shri Krishna

MMOGaming News

MMOGaming News

Slowing Down Can Change GW2 Completely

Posted:

Slowing Down Can Change GW2 Completely


When I started playing Gw2 and started seeing comments such as Dynamic Events have no back story I was really hoping this would be a passing phase. I thought people just had to discover that dynamic events chain and enjoy the stories these bring to the game.
Posted by Shri Krishna


General Gaming Article

General Gaming Article

Maingear's 17-inch Nomad 17 Gaming Notebook Comes with Free Custom Paint Job

Posted: 30 Sep 2012 07:12 PM PDT

If your idea of mobile gaming has nothing to do with phones, tablets or handhelds, and everything to do with laptops, then the Maingear Nomad 17 is aimed right at you. Described as a "wickedly fast" gaming laptop by boutique system builder Maingear, the Nomad 17 is a 17-incher featuring the latest 3rd generation Intel Core i mobile processors.

Starting at $1,599, the Nomad 17 is said to be the "only gaming laptop in the industry to have hand-painted premium automotive paint jobs"; in all, there are six different color options to choose from. As for the innards, this 17-incher from Maingear supports up to an Intel i7-3840QM (8MB Cache, up to 3.8GHz w/ Turbo Boost 2.0). The complete specs are as follows:

  • Processor: Up to 3rd generation Intel® i7-3840QM
  • Video Card: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 675M or 680M
  • Display: 17.3" Full HD 1920 x 1080 - (1080p) (16:9 Aspect Ratio) Anti-glare LED Backlit Matte Finish
  • Memory: Up to 32GB Dual Channel DDR5 - 1600Mhz
  • Optical Drive: Up to 2X Blu-ray reader/8x Multi Combo (BD-R, DVD+-RW, CD-RW)
  • Hard Drive: Up to dual 512GB Solid State Drive or dual 750GB 7200RPM SATA 2.5
  • Network Adapter: Integrated 802.11n b/g/n wireless
  • Audio: THX TruStudio Pro Integrated High-Definition Audio HD Audio with speakers by DynAudio
  • Media Card Reader: Built in 4-in-1 Media Card Reader
  • Operating System: Genuine Windows® 7 Home, Professional or Ultimate 64-Bit
  • Battery: Removable Li-Polymer Lithium-Ion
  • I/O Ports: 1 HDMI out, 1 DVI-I out, 2 USB 2.0, 3 USB 3.0, 1 IEEE-1394 Fire Wire,
  • 1 S/PDIF out, 1 RJ-45 LAN, 1 RJ-11
  • Dimensions: (W)16.85" x (H)2.17" x (D)11.34"

"The NOMAD 17 is a thing of beauty," said Wallace Santos, CEO and founder of MAINGEAR. "With a custom automotive paint job and performance parts, this roadster of a machine is quite a work of art, technologically and aesthetically. Quite simply, it is the finest gaming laptop we have ever offered."

Image Credit:Maingear

Is Intel Killing The Motherboard Market?

Posted: 30 Sep 2012 05:17 PM PDT

Intel Haswell CPUAre you one of the countless power users wondering why Intel is putting so much effort into integrated graphics over the last few years? Especially after decades of complacency? The answer is actually much more complicated than it appears. Intel doesn't just want to kill off AMD and Nvidia. They want to be the one and only vendor PC makers ever need to purchase components from while building your next machine.

DigiTimes points out what now seems almost completely obvious to industry observers; Intel wants to integrate everything motherboard vendors were once doing short of physical connectors onto the CPU. The push to consolidate North and South Bridge chips directly onto the CPU die are forging ahead with next year's release of Haswell, and will only accelerate as we go forward.

This trend has left DigiTimes to speculate on the shaky future of some smaller motherboard manufacturers going forward. Asus, Gigabyte, and ASRock make up the top three, and will likely all find a niche for the next few generations, but then what? If the desktop continues to lose traction to mobile devices going forward, we could well see even the established players begin to struggle. If motherboards become little more than a socket with a few extra USB and thunderbolt chips it could become increasingly difficult to sell premium products, even to power users.

Could Intel conceivably kill off the motherboard market within the next 3-5 years? It's starting to look at least somewhat possible.

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Razer Blade Gaming Laptop Hands-On (Video)

Posted: 30 Sep 2012 05:08 PM PDT

Is the $2,500 Razer Blade gaming laptop worth it?

The saying, "You get what you pay for" gets tossed around a lot, but sometimes this proverb doesn't always ring true. At $2,500, the new 17.3" Razer Blade gaming laptop certainly is expensive, but is it worth it? 

416x234 with html5 and api support

 

Specs

The Razer Blade features Intel's newly revealed Intel Core i7 3632QM Quad Core CPU, which features a base block of 2.2GHz and overclocks up to 3.2Ghz with turbo boost. In terms of discrete graphics, the gaming laptop features Nvidia's GeForce GTX 660m GPU with 2GB of GDDR5 video memory. Tying the CPU and GPU together is Optimus Technology, which allows the laptop to switch between NVIDIA's discrete graphics and Intel's integrated graphics on the fly. For memory, the Razer Blade features 8GB of 1,600 MHz DDR3 RAM. 

Razer Blade

Storage side, the laptop comes with a 64GB SSD along with a 500GB 7,200 RPM mechanical hard drive. This combination gave us impressive boot times, allowing the Blade to boot to Windows within 25 seconds. 

In terms of laptop features, the Blade supports up to three 3.0 USB ports, an HDMI port, and comes with a built-in HD webcam. 

Design

Aesthetically, the Razer Blade looks a lot like a large, black MacBook. Adding some edge to the layout are green-back lit LED keys which complement the simple and elegant design well.  

Razer Blade design

The chassis features a matte aluminum body that looks sleek. One problem we did encounter, however, was that the surface was a sucker for finger prints. This is a shame considering we really like placing our hands on the quiet and responsive keyboard. 

For the screen, the Blade features an LED-backlit 1080p monitor. Though the monitor looks great head-on, there is a bit of that TN-monitor shimmer when you view it at off angles

Because the 17.3 inch monitor is so massive, the laptop can be cumbersome to use in areas where table space is limited, but at only .88 inches, the Razer Blade is impressively thin. Weighing in around 6lbs 11oz, the laptop is by no means light, but it is lighter than similar competitors. 

The big feature Razer is touting with the Blade is the multi-touch LCD pad with 10 programmable keys. This will allow you to bind custom gaming commands and to open up programs with a single keystroke. In addition, Razer says it will allow owners to download pre-made settings whenever new, popular games come out. While most laptop touchpads are situated below the keyboard, Razer has opted to place it on the right to act as a gaming mouse replacement. Even though gaming with the touchpad worked better than we expected (about on par with an Xbox 360 controller for shooters), most gamers will want to plug in a USB mouse which would neglect Razer's efforts here. Furthermore, considering we have been conditioned to using touchpads below the keyboard for so long, forcing ourselves to keep our hands to the right felt extremely counterintuitive and downright frustrating at points. 

Performance

Gameplay performance for the Blade was very solid. Playing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive with all settings maxed out, FRAPs recorded average framerates around the 60 frames per second mark.

Razer Blade gaming laptop

On the audio front, the Blade was plenty loud at full volume with no unwanted distortion. While the sound quality was adequate, audiophiles aren't going to be blown away by these fairly run-of-the-mill laptop speakers. 

In terms of battery life, The Razer Blade features a 60-watt hour battery. What this translates to is about 2 hours and 45 minutes of non-stop video footage. While this should get you through the majority of movies, it's nothing spectacular. Luckily, Razer has created a small and light battery charger that easily allows you to use the device as a portable gaming desktop.  

While the laptop can get warm under load, we haven't encountered any temps that would melt the denim off our jeans. 

Conclusion

We are impressed with the look, performance, and build quality of the Razer Blade, but its expensive price point makes it difficult to fully recommend. For the money, gamers can build a much stronger desktop PC AND purchase a decent gaming laptop. 

Razer Blade back

For the final verdict along with more performance, benchmark comparisons, stay tuned for the full-written review. 

Google Takeout Lets You Download Original Copies of All Your YouTube Videos

Posted: 30 Sep 2012 11:54 AM PDT

YouTube LogoWhile most web service companies work day and night to lock you in, Google has always maintained funding to its Data Liberation Front to help you do the exact opposite. One of the principles that have always made us admire Google is their commitment to making it as easy to leave a web service as it was to join, and today they are adding an important new expansion. As of now, YouTube users can download the original (non-transcoded) version of any clip they have uploaded to the service in the past, or in the future.

This officially makes YouTube one of the most affordable ways to archive large video clips, with absolutely no danger of lock in. Wondering how it works? Well, according to the Data Liberation Blog: "With Google Takeout, you can download all of the original videos that you have uploaded in a few simple clicks.  No transcoding or transformation -- you'll get exactly the same videos that you first uploaded.  Your videos in.  Your videos out."

Just visit the YouTube site as usual, click your name / "Video Manager", then click "Download MP4" using the drop down arrow next to the edit button for each video. If you have hundreds of uploads this might take some time, however it's still an amazingly selfless service for the company to offer considering they have nothing to gain. 

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AMD Partners With BlueStacks to Bring Android Apps To Windows 7 & 8

Posted: 30 Sep 2012 10:36 AM PDT

Android Apps on AMDIt's been awhile since AMD held the performance crown over Intel in the CPU wars, but then again, performance isn't the only way to win customers. The Sunnyvale California based chip maker has a few more tricks up their sleeve, and have partnered up with a company called BlueStacks to offer up an Android emulator capable of running over 500,000 pre-existing Android apps. The emulator will be optimized for AMD CPU's going forward, however both AMD and Intel users can download a free version of the software right now.

Desktop users might not find much use for the feature, but where this would really make sense is on Windows 8 tablets. The new Microsoft Windows 8 store currently only offers around 2,000 apps, and it has some pretty glaring omissions when compared to iOS and Android. The emulator would distinguish AMD powered tablets in the market place, and give them an interesting advantage over Intel. 

According to BlueStacks: "We've worked closely together to optimize the performance of the apps for AMD's unique 'graphics and computing on one chip' setup. The result is awesome - mobile apps run beautifully on their machines." This doesn't mean the emulator will never make its way to Intel chipsets, but my magic eight ball says the outlook is not so good as long as the payments from AMD keep rolling in.

Both Intel & AMD users can download the beta version of the BlueStacks App Player from their website, however it will no doubt be locked to AMD hardware in the near future. 

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Posted by Shri Krishna

MMO and SEO News from Gameforumer.com

MMO and SEO News from Gameforumer.com

New Halo 4 Screenshots Surface

Posted: 30 Sep 2012 07:47 AM PDT

Whether you're most excited about Master Chief's campaign, competitive war games, or cooperative Spartan Ops, 343 Industries has a wealth of new screens to share. The new screens – viewable on the official Halo site – run the gamut of the game's many modes. New campaign screens highlight the Dawn and Infinity missions from the [...]

Is Wii U’s Launch Lineup That Much Different Than Wii’s?

Posted: 30 Sep 2012 07:45 AM PDT

Nintendo released a list of 23 games expected to ship on day one with Wii U. Initially, this software selection appears to be one of the biggest and best to accompany a system launch. When comparing it to Nintendo's last launch for Wii, the biggest difference is the presence of core blockbuster franchises like Assassin's Creed [...]

Kritika – Closed Beta 2 confirmed for October

Posted: 30 Sep 2012 07:41 AM PDT

Korea is currently looking at a couple of nice action online games, and Kritika is one of those. Developed by All-M, which recently announced the closure of LuniaZ Korea, it is being published by Hangame. Closed Beta 2 will last from 18th to 24th October, with new maps, skills and more. Players bond together to [...]

Age of Wushu – Official release delayed for over 6 months

Posted: 30 Sep 2012 07:35 AM PDT

Originally scheduled to be released later next month, Snail Games USA has now announced that Age of Wushu will launch next year, 3rd May 2013 instead. The Closed Beta phase is also delayed, with it now being separated into 2 dates. Below is the new schedule: 1. November 2012 – Closed Beta 1 2. December [...]

Snail Games USA explains sudden delay for Age of Wushu

Posted: 30 Sep 2012 07:29 AM PDT

As you may have read, Snail Games USA has chosen to delay the launch of Age of Wushu by over 6 months, with the game now set to launch on 3rd May 2013 instead. Of course, the community does deserve an answer since most were preparing for the game to open later next month, and [...]
Posted by Shri Krishna

Latest Gaming and MMORPG Updates

Latest Gaming and MMORPG Updates

New Halo 4 Screenshots Surface

Posted: 30 Sep 2012 07:47 AM PDT

Whether you're most excited about Master Chief's campaign, competitive war games, or cooperative Spartan Ops, 343 Industries has a wealth of new screens to share. The new screens – viewable on the official Halo site – run the gamut of the game's many modes. New campaign screens highlight the Dawn and Infinity missions from the [...]

Is Wii U’s Launch Lineup That Much Different Than Wii’s?

Posted: 30 Sep 2012 07:45 AM PDT

Nintendo released a list of 23 games expected to ship on day one with Wii U. Initially, this software selection appears to be one of the biggest and best to accompany a system launch. When comparing it to Nintendo's last launch for Wii, the biggest difference is the presence of core blockbuster franchises like Assassin's Creed [...]

Kritika – Closed Beta 2 confirmed for October

Posted: 30 Sep 2012 07:41 AM PDT

Korea is currently looking at a couple of nice action online games, and Kritika is one of those. Developed by All-M, which recently announced the closure of LuniaZ Korea, it is being published by Hangame. Closed Beta 2 will last from 18th to 24th October, with new maps, skills and more. Players bond together to [...]

Age of Wushu – Official release delayed for over 6 months

Posted: 30 Sep 2012 07:35 AM PDT

Originally scheduled to be released later next month, Snail Games USA has now announced that Age of Wushu will launch next year, 3rd May 2013 instead. The Closed Beta phase is also delayed, with it now being separated into 2 dates. Below is the new schedule: 1. November 2012 – Closed Beta 1 2. December [...]

Snail Games USA explains sudden delay for Age of Wushu

Posted: 30 Sep 2012 07:29 AM PDT

As you may have read, Snail Games USA has chosen to delay the launch of Age of Wushu by over 6 months, with the game now set to launch on 3rd May 2013 instead. Of course, the community does deserve an answer since most were preparing for the game to open later next month, and [...]
Posted by Shri Krishna
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