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Archived News:
The
Lord of the Rings Stress Test Page on GameSpot is where to sign up if you
are interested in participating in a weekend long stress test that kicks off
this Friday for Turbine's upcoming MMORPG. Word is "This Stress Test is
restricted to USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand residents only."
Yesterday's news that Morrowind and Oblivion lead designer
Ken Rolston has
moved from Bethesda to Big Huge Games ( story) specifically
mentioned the plan for him to design a new console RPG, but a follow-up by
FiringSquad with BHG's Tim Train indicates this will be a PC project as
well, though this will indeed be a console-first endeavor: He did say that
contrary to the Big Huge Games press release about Rolston's hiring (which
implied that the game would be console only) the RPG game would also be released
for the PC, although the console version would be the main platform for the
title.
NCsoft announces the coming conclusion of Lineage II: The Chaotic Chronicle and
subsequent launch of the following installment in the PvP MMORPG, called Lineage
II: The Chaotic Throne. Here's word: Wednesday 21st February/...NCsoft®
Corporation is pleased to announce the impending conclusion to Lineage® II: The
Chaotic Chronicle™, one of the world’s largest and most popular massively
multiplayer online role-play games (MMORPG) already enjoyed by 14 million gamers
worldwide. The ending of The Chaotic Chronicle marks the beginning of an
exciting new chapter in the expanding Lineage II saga, with the launch of The
Chaotic Throne™. The first chapter; Lineage II: The Chaotic Throne – Interlude
is expected on European and US servers from April 2007.
Interlude is the bridging link between Lineage II: The Chaotic Chronicle, and
the beginning of a new chapter, The Chaotic Throne. Over the past three years
since the launch of Lineage II: The Chaotic Chronicle, the game has seen vast
changes to its strong visual style and game play, in the form of free updates
for its subscribing players. Interlude will build on this tradition, starting
players on an epic new adventure with new lands to explore, new adversaries to
defeat and new challenges to overcome.
SUMMARY:
New Zone – Primeval Isle – Pterodactyls dominate the skies and vicious
dinosaurs prowl the earth in a hunting ground for top-level players.
New Items - 15,000 different items to be discovered
More weapon augmentations for incredible bonuses - With the help of a
Blacksmith, players can receive even more spectacular bonuses to abilities,
battle values and skills
Shadow Weapons - Weapons can be expensive – limiting their acquisition to
advanced players with enough money. Shadow Weapons look and behave like ‘the
real thing’ but are cheap enough for new players to afford them. However, as
shadows of real weapons, they will eventually wear out and disappear.
New Duelling system –PvP almost anywhere with no penalties. No need to go
to an arena and for the first time – see your opponent’s hit points!
Multiple New Quests – enter the mighty Siren’s lair or capture a
Tyrannosaurus to bring fame and fortune to your clan. Just one of the many new
quests that will test the mettle of the most hardened players
Multiple New Skills – over 60 new high level skills added to the game let
players expand and develop even further and bring new dynamics to PvP and PvE
combat. Players will have no shortage of ingenious ways of dealing with their
adversaries
The Show Website offers a
playable demo (direct
link) for the German edition of The Show, Sixteen Tons Entertainment's
action-oriented real-time strategy game. In addition to the German demo, there
is a new
patch (direct link) to update the German edition of the game to version 1.1.
- Lord British
Dialogue:
Richard "Lord British" Garriott on The Hollywood Reporter talks with the
game designer also known as Richard Garriott about Tabula Rasa, his upcoming
MMORPG: "You know, solo computer games are really very anti-social
activities. A gamer will sit by himself in a darkened room and never see the
light of day, much less socialize with other people. The great thing about
MMOs is that it is truly a shared experience among real people. That's the
attraction for gamers. The attraction for publishers is the business model.
Typically, when you release a solo-player game, it sells for about three
months and then there's no further revenue until you release the next game.
If you take too long to create the game, suddenly you start running out of
money and there's pressure to ship it before it's finished. Which means that
it probably won't sell very well. It's very much a publish-or-perish
business."
- Frontlines: Fuel of War
The
Frontlines: Fuel of War Q&A on Games Radar is a series of screenshots
interspersed with a conversation with Joe Halper about their upcoming
military shooter: "I did military training. I used to work with Lockheed
Martin, making training programs for the military. I also worked on a
coastguard training project and the military saw the benefits of that. But
you start to think about how to make these things interesting for soldiers
who like to play videogames, so I’m used to thinking about it in that way.
Then I got into games as a hobby, and then I got kind of addicted."
- Silent Hunter 4: Wolves Of The Pacific
The
Silent
Hunter 4: Wolves Of The Pacific Q&A on FiringSquad talks with Florin
Sanda to look beneath the surface of the upcoming sub combat sequel: "The
control level is similar to Silent Hunter 3 as we feel that was about the
right mix of depth and accessibility. What we chose to do is enhance the
usefulness of the interface, the ease of control. It is now more intuitive
and player oriented, while in the same time allowing for a more cinematic
look. On top of that the interface is very easy to customize, so each player
can change the look or the way HUD works to suit his preferences."
- Depths of Peril
The
Depths of Peril Q&A on RPG Watch talks with Steven 'Potato' Peeler about
Soldak Entertainment's upcoming action/RPG: "Even within a class the player
has many choices to make that should make characters pretty diverse. With
how our skill system works, you can choose to be generalist and have lots of
different skills, or be a specialist and have only a few skills. If you
specialize you can choose many different paths. For example, you can make
your priest have great healing so that you can last for a long time in
battles, or specialize in buffs and be strong in defense, or specialize in
attacking magic and kill everything quickly, or even choose to focus on
melee and play more like a paladin. So the gameplay can change a lot
depending on the skill choices of your character."
- Is Lowenstein Right?
Question
Of The Week: Is Lowenstein Right? on Gamasutra.com asks a series of
industry professionals whether they agree with scathing remarks directed
their way by outgoing ESA president Doug Lowenstein over things like failure
to stand up for controversial content and lack of support for the
Video Game Voters Network.
Warhammer
Mark of Chaos Q&A on Computer and Video Games talks with Black Hole
Entertainment's Istvan Zsuffa and Gabor Illes about their Warhammer real-time
strategy game (thanks The Patches Scrolls). In addition to their reminiscences, they
matter-of-factly refer to their certainty that an expansion for the game is in
the offing, they just aren't sure they'll be the ones making it: Zsuffa:
We know there's an expansion pack planned, but we don't know yet if we'll be
working on it. Of course, we'd hope to be able to work on the pack. For example,
four armies is enough for a normal PC game, but the Warhammer universe has many
more. We'd definitely want to add two or three more armies, as a minimum.
Illes: We also wanted to make the game more bloody. We wanted to
implement decapitations and put real gore on the battlefield. We wanted a lot of
blood, with body parts falling away. However, because of the short development
time, we didn't have a chance to do this. Because it's a mature game, we'd be
able to do everything we wanted to do with more time.
AMD/ATI's Drivers & Software
Section now leads to new version 7.2 Catalyst reference drivers for Radeon
accelerators. There are new drivers for
Windows XP
Professional/Home Edition,
Windows XP
Professional x64 Edition,
Windows XP
Media Center Edition,
Windows
Vista (32 bit), and
Windows
Vista (64 bit). Word is: "OpenGL performance improves for all ATI Radeon
X1000 series products under Windows Vista. Gains of up to 25% in Doom 3, 48% in
Quake 4 and 21% in Prey can be seen on a variety of ATI Radeon X1000 cards."
There are also new version 7.2 (8.34.8) drivers for
Linux x86
and
Linux x86_64.
A new Battlefield 2142 patch is now available, updating DICE's futuristic
multiplayer shooter to version 1.20. The new incremental client patch is
available on
3D Downloads,
3D Gamers,
ActionTrip,
AusGamers,
FanGaming,
FileFront, and
Internode
Games Network, and
VGPRO, and the full patch for any prior version is available on
3D Downloads,
3D Gamers,
4players.de,
ActionTrip,
AusGamers, eXp Downloads,
FanGaming,
FileFront,
Gameguru Mania,
Gamer's Hell,
GameSpot (registration required),
Internode
Games Network, and
The Patches Scrolls. The unranked dedicated Windows server is available from
4players.de, eXp Downloads, and
The Patches Scrolls, while the unranked dedicated Linux server can be found
on
4players.de, eXp Downloads and
The Patches Scrolls.
Cowabunga! A playable demo for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is now available,
offering a time-limited sample of the upcoming movie tie-in game based on the heroes on the
half-shell. The 247 MB download debuts on
FilePlanet
(registration required), and a mirror is available on
3D Downloads,
3D Gamers,
4players.de,
ComputerGames.ro,
FanGaming,
FileFront, Gameguru Mania,
Gamer's Hell,
GameSpot (registration required),
Internode
Games Network,
Strategy
Informer, and
VGPRO. Word
is: "In the demo, players can control Donatello, Michelangelo, Leonardo and
Raphael in ninja-tag sequences. Players can perform acrobatic moves and
experience over-the-top ninja action across the rooftops of New York City.
Players will also engage in a battle with diverse enemies and see how the family
bond and brotherly co-op actions can enhance the game play experience and help
to combat evil. A tutorial screen provides instructions and information on how
to navigate and complete certain co-op moves in the game."
- The Elder Scrolls IV: Shivering Isles
The
Elder Scrolls IV: Shivering Isles Q&A on Pro-G talks with Pete Hines
about Bethesda's upcoming RPG add-on: "Nope, no mounts. By the time you make
the trek to Sheogorath's palace, you've uncovered one or two camps or
locations and all the quests will be in one of the surrounding quadrants so
you don't have that far to go. We designed it so that there are lots of
those waypoints, camps and dungeons. You have to do that first, hard slog.
The problem with horses is that they take anything that feels really big and
make it much smaller because you can get across it so fast. We were a little
concerned about losing that sense of scale."
- Reprobates
The
Reprobates Q&A on PC Pointer.de is an English-language Q&A on this
German site about Future Games' future adventure game: "Unfortunately I
cannot reveal a lot about the story. The twists and surprises of the
Reprobates story are a very important part of the game and we don’t want to
give away too much. I can only tell you this much: Reprobates’ protagonist
is a 23-year-old technician named Adam Raichl, who gets into a car crash
that should have killed him. Instead, he wakes up on a mysterious island
where he meets other people from different decades who have experienced a
similar fate. Now it’s up to him to find out what has lead him there…"
- Gamecock
Gamecock
Media Q&A on The Armchair Empire continues Mike Wilson's return as one
of the most interviewed men in gaming: "During my time with G.O.D. I
actually learned how to drink water and sing 'Row Row Row Your Boat' at the
same time in three octaves; I’m really hoping that talent carries over. I
also learned that big business isn’t the right way to go if you’re looking
for innovation. It’s no secret, but it really hits home when you experience
it first hand. We plan on keeping our end small and efficient allowing us to
put out games that are original and still profitable for everyone involved.
Other than that, creating a good relationship with the developers, allowing
them to keep their IP and giving them creative freedom are the basis of what
we believe in. "
To hit, hit, hit. Did Done!!!!
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