MMOGaming News

MMOGaming News


Why Are We Playing MMOs?

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Why Are We Playing MMOs?


Though at present most people believe they enjoy the gameplay fun during the process of puzzle solving or grinding, and they don' feel bored until they are quite familiar with the game or relevant contents are rather boring...

Continue reading Why Are We Playing MMOs?.

ZO Event Preview: May

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ZO Event Preview: May


ZO has prepared a string of new features and fun events for the loyal players, it's the perfect time to join us in the Zero world! Now, let's take a look at what we can expect for Zero, this month!

Continue reading ZO Event Preview: May.

C9 - Assassin Comprehensive Guide by Heartless

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C9 - Assassin Comprehensive Guide by Heartless


Hi, while waiting for cbt I might as well share some of my experience. This is a guide based on my experience and opinion; please don't let me mislead you in anyway.

League of Legends - Varus Patch Preview

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League of Legends - Varus Patch Preview


A look at the next patch for Riot Games' Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, League of Legends.

C9 WitchBlade First Look

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C9 WitchBlade First Look


Because of Witchblade's own constitution, they unknowingly absorb mystical power that scattered everywhere in the world.

Continue reading C9 WitchBlade First Look.



General Gaming Article

General Gaming Article


Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak Gushes Over Windows Phone 7

Posted: 29 Apr 2012 01:19 PM PDT

Nokia LumiaIt remains to be seen if Windows Phone 7 can bring Nokia back from the dead, though if you ask Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak, Microsoft may have somehow managed to bring back Steve Jobs instead. We are assuming he's joking, but those are still pretty strong praise of a once former rival. Based on the context, it sounds of it he was referring to how well Microsoft nailed the UI experience, which most people credit as the platforms strongest selling point. In a recent interview with The Verge, Woz declared that Windows Phone is like being "with a friend, not a tool". 

When asked about his opinion of Android when compared to Windows Phone 7 he was quite clear. He claims there is "no contest" when it comes to the UI experience. Words such as "awkward" and "ugly" were tossed around. As an early engineer of Apple hardware Wozniak has far more in common with today's geek than your average Apple enthusiast, though its still surprising to hear him side with Microsoft. 

He later followed up with A New Domain site to put his strong praise in context.

"iPhone is my favorite phone. I did give my opinion that the Windows 7P phone had superior visual appearance and operation cues that were also more attractive. In my opinion, it sets the mark for user interface," he said. "I would recommend it (WP) over my Android phones.... I surmise that Microsoft hired someone from Apple and put money into having a role in the UI and appearance of some key apps." "I also surmised that Steve Jobs might have been reincarnated at MS due to a lot of what I see and feel with this phone making me think of a lot of great Apple things."

First Consumer 802.11ac Wi-Fi Router Will Ship From Netgear Starting Next Month

Posted: 29 Apr 2012 12:54 PM PDT

R6300802.11n spent years tied up in draft status with the IEEE, and as a result it feels like it's been around forever. By comparison it feels like 802.11ac, the standard being released to replace it, is moving at an amazing pace. In fact, Netgear is preparing to claim bragging rights on being the first 802.11ac compatible commercial router available for sale. Announced on Thursday, the R6300 will start shipping in May, and is capable of speeds up to 1.3Gbps on the 5 GHz band, assuming of course you have a compatible 802.11ac device on the receiving end.

Based on the theoretical max speeds listed above, that could mean speeds up to twice as fast as 802.11n under similar conditions. It will be interesting to see if 802.11ac is able to maintain the same type of range as 2.4GHz 802.11N networks. 2.4GHz is much better at penetrating walls and travelling over large distances, but given its popularity is also prone to excessive interference. 

The other drawback to the R6300 will be in how it deals with legacy hardware. To use 802.11ac, all your devices must be using that standard, or it will drop back down to the lowest common denominator for everything using that wireless network. We are hoping the default behavior of the dual band feature is to limit the 5GHz band to 802.11ac, and banish everything else to 2.4GHz. Hopefully its possible to add 802.11n to the 5GHz band as well using the firmware, however a fairly large percentage of 802.11n devices are stuck at 2.4GHz. The Kindle Fire comes to mind.

The R6300 will be sold for around $200 through Netgear retailers such as Amazon, Best Buy, and Fry's. If we didn't scare you off based on the limitations listed above, you won't have to wait too much longer to future proof your wireless network.

Ivy Bridge Parts Start Showing Up For Sale

Posted: 29 Apr 2012 12:09 PM PDT

Core i7

Ivy Bridge officially launched on Monday, though if you were holding off to build a system you might have noticed "launched" didn't actually mean you could buy it. We were starting to wonder what the hold up was, than lo and behold we finally got word stock has started pouring into the retail channels. 

A quick look over at Newegg.com shows seven models up for sale. Here is a brief list of what we found, along with the US prices.

Core i7-3770K (3.50 GHz, Overclockable) for $349.99

Core i7-3770S (3.10 GHz) for $319.99

Core i7-3770 (3.40 GHz, locked) for $319.99

Core i5-3570K (3.40 GHz, Unlocked) for $249.99

Core i5-3550 (3.40 GHz) for $219.99

Core i5-3450 (3.10 GHz) for $199.99

Core i5-3450S (2.80 GHz) for $199.99.

Nvidia Announces Dual GPU GTX 690 Set For Release May 3rd

Posted: 29 Apr 2012 06:39 AM PDT

GTX 690

Nvidia warned us it was coming, but until very late last night we had no idea what they were talking about, or if we should even be excited. Would they announce lower end Kepler parts to fill out the midrange? Would they announce you could finally "buy" a GTX 680? Expectations were high when Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun took the stage for his keynote in Shanghai China, and my friends, meet the all new dual-GPU $999 GTX 690.

The GTX  690 has yet to hit the benchmarks, but considering that under that fancy plated aluminum heat sync is a pair of GTX 680's, we are going to go ahead and say what you're looking at here is probably the fastest card money can buy. In total, the GTX 690 has 3,072 CUDA cores, running at a 915MHz base clock, with a 1019MHz boost clock. Both of those numbers are slightly lower than those found on a standard GTX 680, but not by much, and its certainly understandable considering how much heat your generating in such a small area. The memory clock sits at 6Ghz, and each GPU has access to a dedicated 2GB block of GDDR5 RAM totaling 4GB of frame buffer.

The design of the card itself is also pretty amazing. Aside from the plated aluminum on the outside, it is also fitted with polycarbonate windows on the front to give it a very unique look. The card runs on a 10-phase power supply, and each GTX 680 core will have its own water-vapor chamber as you can see from the shots below.

Nvidia promises limited availability of the GTX 690 by May 3rd, with add-in board partners joining the party on May 7th. If you have $999 burning a hole in your wallet, and you need bleeding edge performance, its safe to say the GTX 690 will be the card to beat for the foreseeable future. 

Latest Gaming and MMORPG Updates

Latest Gaming and MMORPG Updates


Ueda Still Working on The Last Guardian, No Word on Departure

Posted: 29 Apr 2012 07:11 AM PDT

The Last Guardian

It was reported last week that Fumito Ueda, the man best known for his work on Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, and the upcoming The Last Guardian, was leaving Sony. He has yet to address those rumors and Sony itself hasn’t provided any comment more specific than its standard response to everything it chalks up to “rumor and speculation.” In a tweet sent out earlier today, Ueda stated he is still at work on The Last Guardian but didn’t acknowledge anything regarding his possible departure from Sony and Team Ico.

Ueda had gone silent on Twitter in recent days, fueling speculation that his tenure with Sony was coming to an end. He’s begun talking once again today, including one message that reassured fans he is still working on The Last Guardian. Another message pointed out that the 10-year anniversary of Ico’s release in Japan is December 6. None made any mention of his employment status.

Last week’s Eurogamer report suggested Ueda would be leaving Sony to work on personal projects, but not before completing his work on The Last Guardian “in a freelance capacity.” His leaving was partially blamed for the game’s long development cycle, although Ueda himself has pointed to his attention to detail as the reason for that.

1UP’s latest cover story went into detail on Ueda’s career; you can read it here or in 1UP Presents #3: The Sketch Issue.

Find similar article at: http://www.1up.com/news/ueda-still-working-the-last-guardian-no-word-departure

Kirby’s 20th Anniversary Could Potentially Begin Nintendo’s Criterion Collection

Posted: 28 Apr 2012 10:39 PM PDT

Remember the Halo Reach sniper rifle shot heard (and bounced) around
the world? The one that ricocheted in such a crazy way that it
actually went through the head of the very fellow who fired it in the
first place
? Bizarre as that situation may sound, it can serve as one of many crazy
ways to assassinate someone in Dishonored. During the tail end of
a recent hands-off demonstration, co-creative directors Harvey Smith and Raf
Colantonio briefly went quiet as a Bethesda staffer playing showed off a
particularly slick method of taking out multiple targets: Having the
player character, Corvo, slow down time before laying down a spring razor
trap and using his Blink ability to teleport a short distance
away just in time to see the trap detonate when time resumes
flowing at a normal rate. To get back to Reach’s unintentional
suicide, Smith explained, “Sometimes, when you activate Bend Time,
you can actually see the bullet in the air; you can actually then
Possess the guy who shot it and walk him around to the front. When
time resumes, the bullet kills him and he has this very shocked
expression on his face.”

Smith has previously described Dishonored as an action-stealth title in
terms of its overall genre, but he cites titles like Far Cry 2, Ultima Underworld, System Shock, Thief, and Deus Ex as examples of what he,
Colantonio, and the rest of the developers at Arkane are going for with their new creation: An
open-ended game driven more by systemic interaction than by
scripted spectacle. In other words, they want to simply provide a
suite of tools, and objective, and then let players go at it. Corvo has
a number of tools — including gear such guns, daggers, traps, grenades
and weird steampunk treasure detecting devices as well as more supernatural
abilities such as Bend Time, Possession, and Windblast — and his task is simply to find his targets and neutralize them. This can be as simple as
stabbing someone in the face; as odd as possessing fish and mice to
navigate through the sewers below until you find said target before
possessing him to make him jump out a window; or as elaborate and
non-lethal as arranging to have his identity stolen in order to condemn him to work in the very same salt mine that he owns.

Find similar article at: http://www.1up.com/previews?cId=3187049

Four Gameplay Mechanics That Should Have Caught On

Posted: 28 Apr 2012 07:10 PM PDT

All creative endeavors are informed by those that came before. Experiences of all kinds are absorbed, filed away in memory, and considered — sometimes subconsciously — in terms of how their building blocks might be expanded, altered, or fit into an entirely different framework.

In game design, the result of this process is often a slight tweak on an existing mechanic. Given the number of interconnected systems that make up even the smallest title, this is something of a necessity. Reinventing the wheel sounds noble, but try doing it a thousand times while balancing on the wobbly, ever-growing column of wheels. Which is on fire. I’m not sure why, but there it is. This was your idea.

Sometimes, however, a truly unique concept emerges and, with a lot of hard work, surpasses the “don’t break everything” barrier to take a starring role in a game. If such an idea proves popular it is often co-opted rather quickly by the rest of the industry, becoming a new foundation for others to improve upon.

In a few rare cases, these great ideas don’t catch on. Perhaps they piggyback on games with low profiles, or are so specific to their niche that they have a difficult time getting a foothold. Whatever the reason may be, the result is the same: An audience left wanting more of a promising gameplay mechanic.

These are a few of the most glaring examples of the those ideas, terrific concepts that deserve to be featured and improved upon in more games. This is not by any means a comprehensive list, so if there are any personal favorites that you would have included, please share them in the comments.

Tactical Mission Planner

Rainbox Six (PC, 1998)

The first three Rainbow Six games have more in common with simulations than shooters. Players are called upon to fully control several squads at any given time. Each squad is assembled by the player, chosen from a stable of characters with strengths and weaknesses. Every squad member must be fitted with an assortment of gear with genuine strategic impact. Aiming and shooting aren’t as important as cautious timing and situational awareness.

When violence occurs, it is fast and messy. If a single gunshot doesn’t result in death, it certainly deals enough damage to cripple someone for the remainder of a mission. Fifteen minutes of careful progress can be wiped away in as little time as it takes to improperly clear a doorway.

This would make for an impregnable experience full of frustration if not for the mission planner, a map that allows the player to create a timeline of detailed waypoints for AI squadmates. This tool is so powerful that an entire mission can be automated through the careful use of planning alone.

You can, for instance, tell one squad to breach a doorway while another squad throws a flashbang through the opposite window and a third slowly creeps along a nearby rooftop to watch for patrolling enemies. This coordinated effort represents perhaps one fiftieth of a mission full of rooms to clear, bombs to diffuse, heartbeats to sense through walls, and hostages to rescue.

This makes for a unique mixture of deep tactical planning with the payoff of tense action, resulting in either the breathless relief of success or a failure which you feel compelled to immediately address in the mission planner.

Unfortunately, the mission planner was scrapped as the series took a turn towards pure action with the Xbox release of Rainbow Six 3. The idea remained dormant for years, a terrific idea abandoned by its creators. Part of the problem might have stemmed from the fact that deep strategy and action were no longer looking for a bridge.

The mission planner finally resurfaced in this year’s Frozen Synapse, a sci-fi take on the formula which replaces the first person action with bite sized turns that play out within the planner itself. While many of the specifics are obviously different, the basics are all there and just as strong as ever.

Single Player Social Interaction

Demon’s Souls (PS3, 2009)

Don’t worry, this isn’t about terrible in-game social networks or automatic Twitter updates telling the world “I just earned an achievement for sneaking into the women’s bathroom in a video game!” The social aspect of Demon’s Souls is far more organic and interesting. That said, if you know how to delete that message from Twitter please let me know immediately.

While it’s possible to open your game up to assistance or invasion from other players, Demon’s Souls is primarily a single player experience. Your journey through the bizarre and unforgiving world is, however, communal in a way that makes as much sense as something in Demon’s Souls can be said to make sense.

As you make your way through the game, you come across pools of blood which indicate where other players have met their untimely ends. Interacting with one of these bloodstains reveals the final seconds of a fellow adventurer’s life, played out before you in a ghostly reenactment. If you’re inclined to laugh at misfortune it can be highly entertaining to watch someone defeat a tricky foe only to take a step back and fall off a ledge. Of more immediate use is the fact that bloodstains reveal important information about dangers ahead. You’re still likely to die a horrible death, but it’s nice to get a heads up so you can put your affairs in order.

Demon’s Souls also allows players to leave notes for one another. These are assembled by combining words and phrases from a list, which thankfully does not include “weed”, crying babies, or any of the slurs that comprise 90% of all video game voice chat interaction. Notes can communicate strategies, point out hidden areas, or even trick other players. Positive ratings can be given to useful notes, which in turn benefit the writer and encourage players to communicate throughout the game.

There’s really nothing quite like this system. Demon’s Souls is relatively new, so there hasn’t been a lot of time for the idea to catch on. There might also be a barrier presented by the fact that many games aim to provide cinematic experiences, which would be broken by the unpredictable nature of other players.

With any luck, Dark Souls will popularize the concept, increasing the likelihood that we’ll see some variation on meaningful social interaction in single player games as we move forward.

Find similar article at: http://www.1up.com/features/gameplay-mechanics-that-should-have-caught-on

MAZE: The Treasure Hunters (CN)

Posted: 28 Apr 2012 04:39 PM PDT



This game was actually revealed a couple of years ago to be in development over at G*Star (I think it was 2010), but since then nothing much was heard about it. This is MAZE: The Treasure Hunters, currently in development by Korean studio DreamExecution, the same folks who brought us War Rock (link). The artwork might be quite similar, but I can assure you that your opinion will be changed after watching the trailer below.

The trailer certainly reminded me of Tomb Raider (also The Mummy and Indian Jones), which of course is part of the marketing strategy now to promote this game. Players will be sent to different parts of the world to explore ancient crypts, tombs, underground mazes, labyrinths, pyramids and what not.



As seen in the trailer, there will be various adventure gadgets to use as well to get across platforms. MAZE is also touted as the mixture of 3 genres: AVD (Adventure Game) + RPG + FPS in an online environment.Team work is also very, very important due to some of the puzzles’ designs. This game is looking very unwelcoming for the newbs~!



ChangYou will be the publisher of the game in China, and MAZE is the company’s 3rd of 5 games revealed for 2012 and early 2013 in a campaign call “Game+”. You can view the other 2 games here (link), with God Slayer leaving a very positive impression as well. I am not sure what the screenshot below means, but it looks great… (^___^)v

Find similar article at: http://www.mmoculture.com/2012/04/maze-treasure-hunters-cn-debut-trailer.html

SimOcean: The New Sim Game From Maxis?

Posted: 28 Apr 2012 10:38 AM PDT

SimOcean: The New Sim Game From Maxis?

SimOcean has been registered as a new trademark by SimCity developer Maxis. While there's a chance that it's just a placeholder, a case of Maxis protecting any future expansion of the Sim franchise, it seems unlikely.

The Sims series is yet to branch out into sea and with Maxis coming to a close on XCOM: Enemy Unknown and the SimCity on the cards for 2013, it wouldn't surprise us if the studio has a sea-based Sim game is already in the pipeline.

YouTube Preview Image

Find similar article at: http://www.totalpcgaming.com/latest-pc-news/simocean-the-new-sim-game-from-maxis/

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