General Gaming Article

Analyst Estimates Amazon Rakes in over $130 per Kindle Fire
Ubisoft Loosens Anno DRM Restrictions To Allow GPU Upgrades
Arctic Planning To Sue AMD Over “Fusion” Branding

Analyst Estimates Amazon Rakes in over $130 per Kindle Fire

Posted: 22 Jan 2012 08:23 PM PST

When Amazon announced that the Kindle Fire would launch below $200, the audience literally erupted in applause. Getting that first number down to a one, even if only by a penny, has important psychological consequences on consumer behavior. Even more surprising were the analyst reports that circulated around the same time suggesting Amazon was paying around $210 to build each unit. Taking a $10 loss might not sound like much for a company with such deep pockets, but multiply that by millions of devices sold and its one heck of a risky move.

Amazon doesn't share much information publically about revenues from the Kindle division, however a new analyst report is suggesting not only is the $199 price point a smart move, the company is raking in massive revenues on content sales. According to RBC Capital analyst Ross Sandler, sales of books, videos, and apps have been strong, and have validated Amazon's approach to sell the devices on the cheap, but make it up in content sales. "Our assumption is that Amazon could sell 3-4 million Kindle Fire units in Q4, and that those units are accretive to company-average operating margin within the first six months of ownership. Our analysis assigns a cumulative lifetime operating income per unit of $136, with a cumulative operating margin of over 20 percent."

Sandler attributes most of the average $136 profit per device to e-book sales, citing statistics that show 80% of Fire buyers having purchased at least one book, and 58% buying more than three titles within the first two months of ownership. The overall average he claims works out to about five e-books, three apps, and several movie and music tracks purchased per user each quarter.

Only Amazon knows for sure, but if Sandler is right Jeff Bezos has proved once again he's not to be second guessed.

Ubisoft Loosens Anno DRM Restrictions To Allow GPU Upgrades

Posted: 22 Jan 2012 04:40 PM PST

We've almost completely given up discussing Ubisoft DRM here at Maximum PC, and with good reason. Just about every PC release seems to ship with some draconian and insanely punishing copy protection mechanism designed to drive paying customers insane. Anno 2070 was no different, releasing with an activation system that limited you to a total of 3 lifetime activations, ohh and upgrading your video card, as discovered by Guru3D, counts against this total.

After briefly toying with the idea of completely excluding all future Ubisoft titles from graphics card benchmarks, Guru3D did the right thing, and decided only by reporting on the issues would any action ever be taken to improve the situation. Thanks in no small part of their efforts, Ubisoft has lightened up a bit on its restrictions, now allowing users to upgrade graphics cards without triggering an additional activation.

Swapping out your motherboard, CPU, or of course formatting Windows still counts, and no, you still can't manually deactivate to reset your total. The only option is to call customer service and beg forgiveness, ohh or buy another copy that works too.

Arctic Planning To Sue AMD Over “Fusion” Branding

Posted: 22 Jan 2012 04:20 PM PST

fusion Coming up with new and hip brand names isn't an easy task, that is unless you take the easy road and just stuck "I" in front of everything. For those most part these days marketing departments are finding all the reasonably catchy buzz words have been snatched up, and much to the surprise of AMD, so was Fusion. According to Arctic (formerly Arctic Cooling), the brand name Fusion is already used to promote the companies power supplies, and the trademark was acquired long before AMD came along.

Normally this would be a pretty cut and dry case of trademark infringement, but at least in this case, there is a bit of an interesting twist. AMD doesn't use "Fusion" as a brand name on anything other than internal documents, and its main slogan "The future is fusion". Outside AMD, Fusion APU's are branded under the Vision processor family, giving AMD the opportunity to argue the use of "fusion" in its name is merely a descriptive verb.

AMD has even renamed its "fusion architecture" to "heterogeneous architecture", so Artic has a bit of an uphill battle on this one.

MMO News

MMOHut Weekly Recap #70 Jan 22 – Eden Eternal, Seven Souls, DDO, & More

Posted: 22 Jan 2012 12:36 PM PST

MMO Weekly News #70 – Mabinogi, Wakfu, & More

Weekly MMO News summary for the week ended January 22 (Jan 16 – Jan 22). A quick look and discussion for every major announcement and update during the week! This week we discussed updates from the following games: Eden Eternal, Seven Souls Online, Luvinia, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Lime Odyssey Online, Allods Online, Combat Arms, League of Legends, Silkroad-R (Silkroad Online R), and Star Trek Online. The biggest news this week is the open beta launch of the once pay to play MMORPG gone free to play Star Trek Online. Since Cryptic Studios was purchased by Perfect World Entertainment, they have been re-releasing all of their titles as F2P games. You can view all the individual news articles mention over at the MMOHut.com News section.

Latest Gaming and MMORPG Updates

Diablo III Changes Mean More Waiting, But the Delay Should Pay off
Nexon acquires global rights for Shaiya
PC Is The Future
Civilization V: Game of the Year Edition Includes a Lot, But Leaves Out Some Recent DLC
How Diablo Saved the Computer RPG
F.E.A.R.: Origin Online
Star Trek Online

Diablo III Changes Mean More Waiting, But the Delay Should Pay off

Posted: 22 Jan 2012 05:35 AM PST

For me, Mass Effect 3 happens to be a sort of déjà vu moment from nearly a decade ago. Specifically, this is the second time that BioWare has taken a consistent player character across three games. Back in 1998, I rolled a little half-elf ranger for Baldur’s Gate; by that game’s conclusion, I took special care to transfer the character save over to a 3.5-inch floppy. Holding onto said floppy proved handy for Baldur’s Gate II’s release in 2000, where I turned that scrappy half-elf into a ranger worthy of Strider/Aragon — able to lead a band of warriors, wizards, and animals into a victorious battle against a wizard who could bend time itself. And I rounded out this ranger’s tale with Baldur’s Gate II: Throne of Bhaal in 2001 — where he became a sort of god-king that could call in elementals and beasts when he’s not slinking in the shadows like some sort of forest ninja. So the idea of taking a character that I have slavishly developed over three games to a grand conclusion again is what excites me about Mass Effect 3 the most.

But what sort of Shepard am I playing for the conclusion to this crazy grand sci-fi saga? That ranger eventually retired to a quiet life in his cabin surrounded by wolves, rabbits, and other fauna. That was the last time I followed the “good” path in an RPG. Since then, I’ve generally played evil — I was the Devil in Fallout 3; and I grew horns and featured sickly skin in Fable 2. I reserved Jennifer Hale’s excellent acting for a proper heroic Paragon female Shepard, and in line with my “I play asshole fellows” mentality, I created a male Shepard. The result: while Jeremy played Yukiko Shepard with a healthy amount of meticulous thinking, Hobo Shepard (I also don’t take character names seriously) played fast and loose. For nearly every red dialog choice or Renegade interrupt, I promptly chose that option — with exceptions being in rare times where I personally didn’t want the result (more on that in a bit). Since Jeremy and I both played as Infiltrators, our general styles showed two sides of the sniper Shepard space coin.

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Nexon acquires global rights for Shaiya

Posted: 22 Jan 2012 05:35 AM PST

In what I see as a really bizarre business move, Nexon Korea just purchased the global IP rights for Shaiya, which is developed by ChoiRock Games (formerly Sonov). With this deal, the 30-odd team members behind Shaiya will now move and work under the Nexon brand. Note that ChoiRock Games is not being bought over, but just the Shaiya team and the game rights.

In service since 2006, Shaiya is currently in service around 16 countries, with the North American server currently under Aeria Games (link). Perhaps the extensive global outreach and the game’s success is what Nexon banked on. It is unknown if Shaiya 2, currently under development, is included in the deal.

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PC Is The Future

Posted: 22 Jan 2012 05:35 AM PST

Paradox Interactive has pitched in with his own prediction of the end of console, and the future of PC gaming. "The next generation of console hardware will probably be the last," said Paradox CEO Frederik Wester to journalists at the Paradox annual showcase, "I'd be surprised if we see another generation after that."

The Stockholm-based company publishes PC titles like Mount Blade, Cities In Motion and the Majesty series, and launched major digital distributor GamersGate in 2006. Since its founding in 1998, Paradox has gone from strength to strength to become a major player in the PC market.

This could explain, in part, the PC bias of Wester's statements, though he went on to explain his belief that digital would replace boxed retail and mobile platforms would be big part of the games industry's future. Which in the current climate, isn't such a mind-blowing statement.

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Civilization V: Game of the Year Edition Includes a Lot, But Leaves Out Some Recent DLC

Posted: 22 Jan 2012 01:28 AM PST

Almost exactly a year after it first came out, 2K Games will be releasing a Game of the Year Edition of Civilization V on September 27.

The game on its own could last you quite a long time, and much — but not all — of the available downloadable content is included. For $49.99, you get the game, a digital soundtrack, and the following DLC: Civilization and Scenario Pack: The Mongols; Civilization Pack: Babylon; Cradle of Civilization Map Packs: Mesopotamia, Americas, Asia and Mediterranean; Double Civilization and Scenario Pack: Spain and Inca; Civilization and Scenario Pack: Polynesia; Civilization and Scenario Pack: Denmark – The Vikings; and Explorer’s Map Pack. The DLC alone would run you about $40 on Steam, in addition to the game itself for $29.99 — although it was on sale for just $12.50 a few days ago.

What you don’t get in this GotY Edition is a pair of DLC releases from August: the Wonders of the Ancient World Scenario Pack and the Civilization and Scenario Pack: Korea. Those cost $4.99 each on Steam, though they’re hardly required to play the game.

Civilization V GOTY

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How Diablo Saved the Computer RPG

Posted: 21 Jan 2012 05:33 PM PST

It’s safe to say that by 1995, the computer role-playing game was dying. RPGs were losing traction to the wave of games modeled after two recently innovative titles: 1992′s Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty and 1993′s Doom. After the success of those two titles, the computer game industry as a whole shifted to producing more real-time strategy games and first-person shooters. The dwindling audience that enjoyed turn-based role-playing games full of mechanics, simulations, and obscure details were then being swayed by turn-based strategy games like Civilization II.

By this time, traditional first or third-person RPGs were still being released, but pretty much no one except Europeans bought them. One of the bigger successes in the genre came from a small studio in Maryland: The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall from Bethesda Softworks. Yet that was more of an anomaly — Bethesda saw better traction from shooters like Terminator: Future Shock and its sequel SkyNET. Even the stalwart Ultima series — Lord British’s saga of isometric RPGs in a fully fleshed-out fantasy universe — abandoned its core principles in pursuit of the action-driven market. Ultima fans generally felt betrayed when Ultima VII Part Two: Serpent Isle — a party-based RPG with a vast world — was followed up with Ultima VIII: Pagan — which featured a lone hero in a much smaller setting that bizarrely featured platforming elements (most likely in pursuit of luring action and even console gamers to the Ultima series).

Ultima VIII

Though, a happy side note for Ultima is that Origin, Ultima’s publisher, saw some success with its first-person Ultima Underworld spin-offs. Said spin-offs were produced by Blue Sky Productions — a company that would transform into the critically acclaimed Looking Glass Studios. A subject for another article, Looking Glass would eventually close down, but in its wake, begat companies such as Ion Storm Austin, Harmonix Music Systems, and Irrational Games.

As the market abandoned RPGs in favor of faster and more action-oriented titles, one small studio almost produced another RPG victim. This studio, Condor Games, was started by two brothers (Max and Erich Schaefer) and their friend (David Brevik). After porting some sports and platforming games, the developers at Condor started drafting up a new project codenamed “Diablo”: a claymation-style turn-based single-player RPG inspired by Moria (a title that was itself a clone off of seminal RPG Rogue, a dungeon crawler that, along with Angband, is often considered the primary influence behind Diablo). But who would publish this new original RPG?

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F.E.A.R.: Origin Online

Posted: 21 Jan 2012 01:27 PM PST

Back in September 2010 (link), I first posted about the F.E.A.R. series of console and PC games going the online gaming direction. The popular horror franchise has since been in stealth mode, silently being developed by the guys over at Korean studio, Inplay Interactive. After 2 years, the game’s debut trailer is finally here! It is more of a teaser, with an actual gameplay trailer coming “soon”.

F.E.A.R.: Origin Online promises to have several PvE and PvP modes, with a few new ones not found in any other FPS titles. Teased in the trailer above will be the 4 players co-op mission mode. The mobs’ high level AI is also one of the features touted as well. The co-op’s storyline is about having an internal revolt within the Armacham Technology Corporation, the company responsible for all the ongoing experiments.

F.E.A.R.: Origin Online’s main storyline is based on F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin which was developed in 2009 by American developer Monolith. An enhanced Jupiter FX engine was used to create this online version as well. Before I forget, expect tons of blood and gore. More information to be posted when available! If you are curious about the F.E.A.R. series of games, read up the wiki here (link).

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Star Trek Online

Posted: 21 Jan 2012 11:32 AM PST

(Register now) As you would have read, Star Trek Online just gone Free to Play a couple of days ago under the stewardship of the developer (Cryptic Studios)’s new owner, Perfect World Entertainment. Though I have had no qualms paying a month to try the game out back then, the game apparently did not have the final “pull” factor for me to do so. Hearing the game going Free to Play (F2P), I almost immediately gave it a try.

I got to confess, I am pretty impressed with the first hour or so of trying this game. Star Trek Online is nowhere near the colossus which is The Old Republic, but getting to try out space flight and combat early in the game (almost immediately) is something which pleased me. Yes, it may lack the many features which The Old Republic has, but the development budget is no where near, hence it is an unfair comparison.

Like most maneuvering of vehicles in online games, such as rowing the boat, I am pretty bad at this. The combat, both space and ground, in Star Trek Online might not be anything ground-breaking, but I actually enjoyed it, even if I stayed at a spot while firing at enemy ships without the need to move about dodging them.

There are 4 sections of your ship, in layman terms the front, back, left and right, which can be damaged. The strategic thing to do is to position yourself properly after a side takes too much damage from a source.

I am actually glad to give this game a go before I go overseas in a couple of hours to visit my relatives. This is certainly a game I will be playing more of over the next few days of my holidays once I return. Free to Play is really good move for Star Trek Online, and I will recommend those who are looking for some (free) space adventures to try it out.

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MMO Updates

Rise and Shiny recap: Thirst of Night
Previously on MV TV: Week of January 16th, 2012
The Daily Grind: How do you define MMO?
EVE Online reveals full Crucible 1.1 patch feature list
Diablo III senior producer leaves Blizzard
The Mog Log: Final Fantasy XI classes, round four
Captain's Log: Cryptic's Lead Designer responds to questions
The Tattered Notebook: Plat, loot, and the morality of cash

Rise and Shiny recap: Thirst of Night

Posted: 22 Jan 2012 09:00 AM PST

Filed under: Sci-fi, Video, Business models, Previews, PvP, Opinion, War, Free-to-play, Browser, Hands-on, Casual, MMORTS, Post-Apocalyptic, Rise and Shiny, Livestream

I love my MMORTS games, for sure. I've had to work on my ability to look at them with the freshest eyes that I can possibly muster, mainly because I see so many of them. It really is a genre of details. The gameplay in different titles is often almost exactly the same, but little details will set them apart. Thirst of Night, a new MMORTS by Kabam, tries hard to set itself apart from the pack, but does it do enough?

I also have to consider that, for many players, these experiences I go through every week are brand-new experiences. For a good number of people, the games I cover are their first or second ones. While it is hard for me to fathom, I have to keep that in mind. So while I saw a game this week that was lacking and tired in some areas, I know that those same areas would be pretty exciting to a new gamer.

Like I said, I'm working on it.

Continue reading Rise and Shiny recap: Thirst of Night

Rise and Shiny recap: Thirst of Night originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 22 Jan 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Previously on MV TV: Week of January 16th, 2012

Posted: 22 Jan 2012 07:00 AM PST

Filed under: Massively Meta, Livestream, Miscellaneous, Previously on MV TV

Welcome to Previously on MV TV! Our livestreaming schedule has picked up a lot over the past few weeks, and our readers have busy lives, so we know it's impossible to watch every single streaming event live. Fortunately for you, we save all of our streams all for posterity on Massively's Twitch TV channel so that you can view them at your leisure. Even better, we've got a roundup of a few of last week's MV TV highlights from the livestream team. Follow along after the jump for the best of the best!

Continue reading Previously on MV TV: Week of January 16th, 2012

Previously on MV TV: Week of January 16th, 2012 originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 22 Jan 2012 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Daily Grind: How do you define MMO?

Posted: 22 Jan 2012 05:00 AM PST

Filed under: Culture, Game mechanics, Opinion, The Daily Grind, Miscellaneous

My taxonomy is completely incomprehensible!

Defining "MMORPG" isn't difficult: it means "massively multiplayer online roleplaying game." It's an acronym. But drawing the line between what is and is not an MMO is significantly more difficult. Guild Wars has persistence and shared areas, for instance, but as soon as you leave a town, you're in an instance unique to you and your party. There are elements of persistence in games like League of Legends. Heck, there was a time when people wondered if you could call World of Warcraft an MMO with its instanced dungeons and lack of housing.

As with a lot of subjective categories, there's really no right or wrong place to draw the line, but pretty much everyone seems to think that there's a line to draw. More often than not, it's not even a matter of quality so much as a set of consistent characteristics. So what about you? Where do you draw the line between an MMO and something else? How do you define a game as being an MMO instead of a similar sort of game?

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!

The Daily Grind: How do you define MMO? originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 22 Jan 2012 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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EVE Online reveals full Crucible 1.1 patch feature list

Posted: 21 Jan 2012 06:00 PM PST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Game mechanics, Patches, News items, Sandbox

The feature page for EVE Online's next major patch Crucible 1.1 has gone live, with a comprehensive list of the features we can expect when it's released on Tuesday January 24th. As the patch has probably now entered feature lockdown, the feature page is now a complete listing of the updates we can expect. The patch finalises the changeover of player owned starbases to the convenient new fuel block system, and the six changes revealed in Team BFF's last devblog will also be going into effect.

The neocom will receive its big update with the patch, but the two biggest changes are issues that players have begged CCP to address since 2008. Tech 2 assault frigates are finally being rebalanced to bring them in line with other ships, and alliances will now be able to sign up for faction warfare. Other big changes include a boost to all sizes of Null blaster ammo and the release of new deadspace invulnerability fields for shield users. Head over to the official Crucible 1.1 feature page for a full list of changes.

[Thanks to Knoodlepot for the tip!]

EVE Online reveals full Crucible 1.1 patch feature list originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 21 Jan 2012 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: Crucible 1.1 feature page

Diablo III senior producer leaves Blizzard

Posted: 21 Jan 2012 05:00 PM PST

Filed under: Fantasy, MMO industry, New titles, News items, Miscellaneous

Diablo III - now with 100% less Steve Parker

Blizzard's Steve Parker dropped a bit of a bomb via Twitter this weekend. The Diablo III senior producer is leaving the project and the company for reasons unknown. "I'm no longer working at Blizzard or on D3," Parker wrote. "I've had a great five years there and those guys are going to kill it with Diablo."

While Blizzard is currently listing Diablo III as an early 2012 release, the company continues to make major changes to the hotly anticipated action title.

Diablo III senior producer leaves Blizzard originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 21 Jan 2012 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: Parker's Tweet
Via: IGN

The Mog Log: Final Fantasy XI classes, round four

Posted: 21 Jan 2012 03:00 PM PST

Filed under: Fantasy, Final Fantasy XI, Classes, Game mechanics, Opinion, Consoles, The Mog Log

The Mog Log header image by A. Fienemann

One of the funny things about writing a regular column is that sometimes, when you start out writing a series of connected columns on a topic, you have a point you want to make. Other times, you find a point making itself as you go, and you realize that it's a pretty good point. After our first three columns covering the various classes in Final Fantasy XI, that effect is on my mind, especially as I move into the fourth installment.

As before, the standard caveats apply. Nothing below is meant to debate relative power levels or overall worth; instead, I'll judge the class solely on its own merits -- how much does it offer other jobs, does it have a unique mechanical identity or not, and how cool is the darn thing. With that in mind, let's round out the advanced jobs from the core game with Beastmaster, Summoner, and Bard!

Continue reading The Mog Log: Final Fantasy XI classes, round four

The Mog Log: Final Fantasy XI classes, round four originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 21 Jan 2012 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Captain's Log: Cryptic's Lead Designer responds to questions

Posted: 21 Jan 2012 01:00 PM PST

Filed under: Sci-fi, Business models, Interviews, Opinion, Star Trek Online, Free-to-play, Captain's Log

The weekend before Star Trek Online launched its free-to-play format, Cryptic Studios' Lead Designer, Al Rivera, responded to a lengthy list of player concerns, rants and questions via the STO community podcast PodcastUGC.

PodcastUGC usually focuses its broadcasts on issues revolving around the game's user generated content tool, The Foundry, but as of late the co-hosts of the show (including me!) have been desperate for specific Foundry issues to discuss due to the lack of changes since last year.

In the previous week's episode, I let my opinions fly along with my frustrations about what I felt was a severe lack of story-based content. I asked aloud, "What the hell have they been doing the past year?"

To our surprise, we were contacted by Al Rivera, who set aside his day off to talk with us about just that.

Continue reading Captain's Log: Cryptic's Lead Designer responds to questions

Captain's Log: Cryptic's Lead Designer responds to questions originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 21 Jan 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Tattered Notebook: Plat, loot, and the morality of cash

Posted: 21 Jan 2012 11:00 AM PST

Filed under: Fantasy, EverQuest II, Economy, Opinion, Free-to-play, The Tattered Notebook

There's a dirty little secret going on in EverQuest II, and every now and then it bubbles up to the surface in forum complaints from players. With the arrival of Station Cash, the Marketplace, and Legends of Norrath cards, players have worked out a way to buy in-game coin with real money, without fear of getting banned. And with the transition to free-to-play, it seems like that practice has grown even more.

The problem is that there are several things that factor into the plat-for-cash scenario, so it's impossible to find a quick fix. Are we at a point that SOE should just put plat on the marketplace and be done with it? Let's look at a few reasons for and against it.

Continue reading The Tattered Notebook: Plat, loot, and the morality of cash

The Tattered Notebook: Plat, loot, and the morality of cash originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 21 Jan 2012 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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General gaming

How Diablo Saved the Computer RPG

Posted: 21 Jan 2012 05:04 PM PST

Feature

How Diablo Saved the Computer RPG

We look at how twelve people created a click-heavy game that revitalized a dying genre.

By: Thierry Nguyen January 21, 2012

It's safe to say that by 1995, the computer role-playing game was dying. RPGs were losing traction to the wave of games modeled after two recently innovative titles: 1992's Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty and 1993's Doom. After the success of those two titles, the computer game industry as a whole shifted to producing more real-time strategy games and first-person shooters. The dwindling audience that enjoyed turn-based role-playing games full of mechanics, simulations, and obscure details were then being swayed by turn-based strategy games like Civilization II.

By this time, traditional first or third-person RPGs were still being released, but pretty much no one except Europeans bought them. One of the bigger successes in the genre came from a small studio in Maryland: The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall from Bethesda Softworks. Yet that was more of an anomaly -- Bethesda saw better traction from shooters like Terminator: Future Shock and its sequel SkyNET. Even the stalwart Ultima series -- Lord British's saga of isometric RPGs in a fully fleshed-out fantasy universe -- abandoned its core principles in pursuit of the action-driven market. Ultima fans generally felt betrayed when Ultima VII Part Two: Serpent Isle -- a party-based RPG with a vast world -- was followed up with Ultima VIII: Pagan -- which featured a lone hero in a much smaller setting that bizarrely featured platforming elements (most likely in pursuit of luring action and even console gamers to the Ultima series).

Retronauts Lunch Break: The Week in Review

Posted: 21 Jan 2012 11:07 AM PST

Every weekday, the Retronauts Lunch Break brings you a dose of classic gaming action, but there's no need to worry if you can't watch our livestream; every Friday, we'll feature a roundup of all the videos produced over the past five days. But if your lunch hour is free, make sure to come back (at 1:00pm PST) starting Monday the 23rd as we devote a new week of Lunch Breaks to LucasArts adventure games -- along with our regular Friday playthrough of A Link to the Past. And hey, why not subscribe to our Twitch.tv feed while you're at it?

1/17/12 - Ghost House and Transbot

MMORPG News

Diablo 3: Senior Producer Exits Blizzard

Posted: 21 Jan 2012 08:41 AM PST

Diablo III Senior Producer Steve Parker has announced that he is leaving Blizzard after five years with the company.

MMORPG Videos

Rise of Immortals: Ukkonen Revealed

Posted: 21 Jan 2012 05:42 AM PST

MMORPG.com, Petroglyph Games and Trion Worlds have teamed up to give our readers a first look at Ukkonen, a new hero set to take the RoI game by storm. Check it out! http://www.mmorpg.com http://www.riseofimmortals.com

Latest Gaming and MMORPG Updates

Watch our Modern Warfare 3 DLC Livestream Tuesday
Star Trek Online (F2P)
TGS: Sony Press Conference Roundup: Lots of Vita
With SOPA and PIPA Reeling, the ESA Looks Forward
League of Legends
[PAX 2011] Firefall

Watch our Modern Warfare 3 DLC Livestream Tuesday

Posted: 21 Jan 2012 05:32 AM PST

When: Tuesday, January 24th, 2pm PT
Location: Watch the embedded video player here in this story!

Questions: Ask your question(s) in the comments below.

In our first-ever IGN/1UP livestream collaboration, watch as we play the new downloadable content for Modern Warfare 3. Join @teanah, @bobbya1984, @peykemans, and @Steven_Hopper as we test our FPS skills on Piazza and Liberation. For more information on the latest content for Call of Duty Elite Premium members, click here.

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Star Trek Online (F2P)

Posted: 21 Jan 2012 05:32 AM PST

When it was released in 2009 Star Trek Online was met with a collective 'meh' from the majority of the MMO playing community. While its Nimoy-voiced intro, turbo lift doors, communicators and beamings up certainly make for a fair distraction from the realities of not actually being a starship captain in the 24th century, it certainly didn't have the muster to provide true fans with the experience they deserved.

If there's one thing die-hard Star Trek fans are rarely accused of, it's being stupid. Sadly, Star Trek Online was, and still is, a bit stupid. It's tale of woe doesn't quite unfold quite like that of fellow Free To Play convert APB, since Star Trek Online never went away – it's been pootling around its own corner of the internet non-stop since release. This, then, is less a re-boot than a fresh start.

Though the original release was a shambles of confusing stats, broken ground missions, non-existent crafting and offered a complete lack of end-game content, to be fair Cryptic have released a consistent amount of new additions and improvements over the years.

Five 'seasons' of content have arrived in all, adding a multitude of much-needed fixes. Better PvP, high-level raids, playable ground combat (which, it should be said, is still a gaudy aside to the 'functional' space combat at Star Trek Online's core), not to mention the ability for players to create and share their own missions among a multitude of other things.

There's little doubt Star Trek Online is a better game today than it was in 2009. Season 5, the content update designed to prepare Star Trek Online for its F2P re-launch goes even further to patch, fix and manhandle the game into a half-way appealing F2P experience.

The skills have been revamped to be more accessible and understandable (but in MMO tradition they're still largely incomprehensible at first glace), the card-game-esque Duty Officer system offers excellent risk and reward incentive, epic gear sets have been introduced – in short, there's plenty here to tempt a lapsed player.

Sadly this check-list of improvements doesn't tell the whole story. The developers have broken promises, failed to deliver in key areas and have shirked their responsibility to maintain regular community communication (the number one unspoken rule of any MMO).

We're also sad to report that the reception of F2P players by long-standing players (read: 'bitter vets') leaves a lot to be desired, perhaps a product of a highly frustrated core community. This is galaxies apart from the transition for Lord Of The Rings Online, for example.

Star Trek Online is still a far cry from the kind of experience Gene Roddenberry would knowingly embrace were he with us today. Socio-political overtones aside, at its heart Star Trek is about exploration, discovery and diving headlong into the great unknown.

To do the license real justice Star Trek Online should be a living, breathing economy-led sandbox game where the players themselves have the scope to become captains of legend and, by extension, an intrinsic part of game lore. Factions and alliances should rise and fall and great battles should be fought to the dying breath.

Instead we have what essentially amounts to MMO-lite – quick access to meaningless PVP and PVE events, unwanted ground combat (beyond the odd phaser fight, Star Trek has never been about ground combat) and underwhelming and unfulfilling space-battles. Sure, you can tweak your starship to within an inch of a warp core breach, but its appeal to the Star Trek faithful is shallow at best. 6/10

Posted by: admin in Gaming News
Find related article at: http://www.totalpcgaming.com/reviews/star-trek-online-f2p/

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TGS: Sony Press Conference Roundup: Lots of Vita

Posted: 21 Jan 2012 01:26 AM PST

Vita release

Unlike Nintendo’s pre-Tokyo Game Show event last night, Sony’s ran in excess of an hour and very, very little in the way of gameplay footage from any games was shown. Despite being heavily focused on Vita, with a number of new titles being announced and previously-known ones being discussed, it was largely logos and box art that were displayed on-screen. The big news was that Vita will be out on December 17 in Japan. In terms of software, we now know Vita is getting Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 at launch and HD remakes of Final Fantasy X (also coming to PS3), Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3, and Zone of the Enders 1 and 2.

Beyond what we’ve already covered, there wasn’t a whole lot of newsworthy information shared. Sony employees talked up Vita and a number of noteworthy Japanese developers (like Hideo Kojima and Yoshinori Ono) came to the stage to talk about various projects, mainly those tackled in the stories linked to above. We did get a demonstration of some Vita features, including a far-too-long look at how the initial system setup works. (Scrolling through a list of years with the touchscreen, whee!) New red and blue colors for the PlayStation 3 were announced, along with a new PSP that’s colored both red and black. This was a Japanese-focused event, so don’t consider on any of that as being guaranteed for release abroad.

The Vita portion of the event started with a number of casual games being shown along with Gravity Daze, Monster Hunter, and Hot Shots Golf. The system’s interface was shown off, including the music and video players, plus the browser and photo viewer. With the ability to multitask, you can listen to music in the background while doing something else, like looking at pictures; you can also tweet or post messages to Facebook while playing games.

Sony demonstrated the Welcome Park, a tutorial application that teaches users how to use the Vita. It has minigames that demonstrate its various features like a sliding tile puzzle game or one where you tap on a series of numbers in sequential order.

There are more than 100 games in development for Vita, with 26 being prepared for launch. That’s in addition to the many hundreds of digital PSP games that will be playable on the system through the PlayStation Store (remember, Vita lacks a UMD drive). A limited number of early units sold in Japan will contain a free 100-hour prepaid 3G data plan (more on 3G here) when it goes on sale in December.

Expect to hear a lot more about Vita and its games as TGS really gets underway.

Posted by: admin in Gaming News
Find related article at: http://www.1up.com/news/tgs-sony-press-conference-roundup-vita

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With SOPA and PIPA Reeling, the ESA Looks Forward

Posted: 20 Jan 2012 05:31 PM PST

SOPA

The Stop Online Piracy Act and PROTECT IP Act are deeply flawed pieces of legislation which threatened to censor the Internet. While many in the games industry — including Mojang, Runic Games, Riot Games, and Epic Games — spoke out against them, the industry’s trade association, the Entertainment Software Association, was openly in favor of it. Contrary to what has been suggested, it hasn’t come out and condemned the bills, but it is now looking towards the future.

Following an Internet protest (in many cases, in the form of a blackout) by the likes of Google, Wikipedia, Reddit, and numerous other prominent members of the web on Wednesday, both bills began to lose supporters.

This was followed by news earlier today that PIPA was being shelved for the time being. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid tweeted, “In light of recent events, I have decided to postpone Tuesday’s vote on the PROTECT IP Act.”

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith then did the same with SOPA. “I have heard from the critics and I take seriously their concerns regarding proposed legislation to address the problem of online piracy,” Smith said. “It is clear that we need to revisit the approach on how best to address the problem of foreign thieves that steal and sell American inventions and products.”

Not everyone in Congress is suddenly opposed to the two bills; the sponsor of PIPA, Senator Patrick Leahy, said in a statement, “The Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously reported the PROTECT IP Act in May. Since then, I have worked with both Senators and stakeholders to identify concerns and find meaningful ways to address them. Only when the Senate considers this legislation can we do so. In the meantime, more time will pass with jobs lost and economies hurt by foreign criminals who are stealing American intellectual property, and selling it back to American consumers. I remain committed to addressing this problem; I hope other members of Congress won’t simply stand on hollow promises to find a way to eliminate online theft by foreign rogue websites, and will instead work with me to send a bill to the President’s desk this year.”

So while the bills could very well return in a different form, the immediate danger is over. The bills’ opponents — those who blacked out their website, sent letters to members of Congress, and raised awareness for the issue — helped to accomplish a remarkable thing.

The ESA was not among those opponents, as noted above. Its name was among those those on an official list of SOPA supporters (PDF), and as recently reported, it spent up to $190,000 last spring and summer lobbying for PIPA and other issues.

“As an industry of innovators and creators, we understand the importance of both technological innovation and content protection, and do not believe the two are mutually exclusive,” the ESA said in a statement regarding its support of SOPA earlier this month. “Rogue websites — those singularly devoted to profiting from their blatant illegal piracy — restrict demand for legitimate video game products and services, thereby costing jobs. Our industry needs effective remedies to address this specific problem, and we support the House and Senate proposals to achieve this objective. We are mindful of concerns raised about a negative impact on innovation. We look forward to working with the House and Senate, and all interested parties, to find the right balance and define useful remedies to combat willful wrongdoers that do not impede lawful product and business model innovation.”

Compare that with what it now has to say:

“From the beginning, ESA has been committed to the passage of balanced legislation to address the illegal theft of intellectual property found on foreign rogue sites,” reads today’s statement. “Although the need to address this pervasive threat to our industry’s creative investment remains, concerns have been expressed about unintended consequences stemming from the current legislative proposals. Accordingly, we call upon Congress, the Obama Administration, and stakeholders to refocus their energies on producing a solution that effectively balances both creative and technology interests. As an industry of innovators and creators, we understand the importance of both technological innovation and content protection and are committed to working with all parties to encourage a balanced solution.”

The statement has been construed by some as meaning the ESA is now anti-SOPA/PIPA. That doesn’t actually appear to be the case, and the ESA instead seems to be interested in lawmakers working towards a new anti-piracy bill that will actually be able to pass. (Some might quip that it doesn’t seem like the government even needs SOPA or PIPA to shut down foreign websites, as evidenced by Megaupload’s surprising closure yesterday.)

Even if the ESA had decided to begin railing against the bills today, it would have been a largely meaningless gesture given the state SOPA and PIPA are now in. It would have been like, in response to the ESA asking for their help, gamers waiting until the Supreme Court made its decision in last year’s Brown v. EMA/ESA case before doing anything.

It remains unclear exactly how the ESA arrived at its decision to support the bills. It would not address the matter when I asked them earlier this month, and we know at least one (but more likely far more) members of the ESA were not consulted. As far as we know, no member of the ESA — including the ones that spoke out against SOPA/PIPA — threatened to pull out of the group. With SOPA and PIPA out of the way, the issue of the ESA’s support should go away for the time being. That could, however, change if Congress decides to rush a similar, vaguely-worded bill to a vote. Whether or not that happens, if and when there is a next time, it sure would be nice if the ESA looked at the whole picture as opposed to supporting legislation that alleges it will stop piracy no matter the effect it will have in reality.

Full disclosure: 1UP parent company News Corporation has voiced its support of SOPA. See here for IGN and 1UP’s stance on the matter.

Posted by: admin in Gaming News
Find related article at: http://www.1up.com/news/sopa-pipa-reeling-esa

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League of Legends

Posted: 20 Jan 2012 05:31 PM PST

So, as part of Tom Cadwell’s holidays and travelling, he was in town yesterday to give a small seminar about game designing, share his experiences and of course, having a QA session with the staff of some local development companies. If you do not know him, he is currently the Director of Design in Riot Games, overseeing League of Legends and also worked on World of Warcraft as well. League of Legends is immensely popular on a global scale and was most recently recognized as Taiwan’s number 1 title.

If you have seen Tom Cadwell’s picture from 2 years back (link), it is really obvious he has grown much more… Well, in the Chinese saying over here, it is “wealthy”. Anyway, Tom hates Volibear with a vengeance apparently, one which could not be explained by words when I asked him. I started playing the game just 2 months ago, and am still enjoying the daily AI matches. Being a carebear, the PvP section is not for the weak-hearted, like me.

Posted by: admin in Gaming News
Find related article at: http://www.mmoculture.com/2012/01/league-of-legends-tom-cadwell-in-house.html

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[PAX 2011] Firefall

Posted: 20 Jan 2012 01:28 PM PST

(Register for Beta) There should only be 2 posts on PAX 2011, since there is really nothing much and you can see some of the MMO trailers over at my YouTube channel (link). Red 5 Studios’ maiden MMO title, Firefall, is apparently on track for a end of year release and a rather polished version was displayed and demos playable over at PAX 2011. The new trailer was also just released a few hours back, showing briefly what the game has to offer.

Before I forget, here are some pictures taken at the event as well. Merchandise… Me want… I am a sucker at collecting all these stuff, heck I wear World of Warcraft T-shirts to work almost everyday~ There are tons of Firefall @ PAX 2011 pictures here (link) !!!