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Archived News:
The EverQuest Players Website announces EverQuest is going free-to-play in early March after years of operation as a subscription MMORPG (thanks Acleacius). Get your sticks ready, as they plan on offering more payment options than you can shake a stick at: We're excited to be expanding the EverQuest experience by making the game more accessible to every type of player so that you can choose to play the game in a way that suits you best. Anyone who wishes to start, return or continue to play one of the "Best Games of All-Time" can simply download and play EverQuest on their terms – think of it as Free to Play, Your Way. Recurring subscriptions, non-recurring subscriptions, Silver or Free memberships, item unlockers, and more. The game will now be setup to be flexible so that *you* can decide how much to pay, based on how much fun you're having.
An interview on Gamasutra talks with Super Meat Boy co-creator Edmund McMillen about Binding Of Isaac, revealing plans for The Wrath Of The Lamb, an upcoming expansion for the "roguelike-like" game. Here's word on the add-on, which is due when it is done: My goal is to try to trick myself, once again. I wasn't entirely happy with the game until I was able to trick myself with the random elements and happenings, so I wanted to add so much more. There obviously is going to be more of the same, I think I added 50 items, 20 trinkets (which are a whole new set up), and then as much rare and random happenings as possible.
There's basically two paths, there's an alternate chapter per chapter. What I've shown is the cellar, which is an alternate to the basement. So you could start your game, and it might be cellar 1, which has different enemies, different rare rooms, different bosses, different random happenings that are going to be new to the mix. Then the next level you might be in basement 2, or maybe the next level you'll be in cellar 2. It'll just choose randomly from those.
The Battlelog forums have a follow-up on recent indications that Battlefield 3 players were being unfairly banned from playing by PunkBuster. Word is: "Together with the 3rd party service providers we have taken steps to remove the faulty bans, and improve the protection against future fake bans. We have determined that the root cause resulting in the server bans is not directly related to Battlefield 3, but rather related to select 3rd party services which server owners can use in conjunction with PunkBuster to protect their servers" (thanks BF3 Blog). Further, Eurogamer notes that DICE is now looking to hire an "Anti-Cheat Administrator" to further their efforts at maintaining a fair playing field.
GfK Chart-Track has this week's list of the top 20 bestselling full-price PC Entertainment titles in the U.K. for the week ending January 28. Things are pretty stable, with the top five spots exactly the same as last week, with Football Manager 2012 retaining the number one position. The all platforms chart is a bit less stagnant, with Resident Evil: Revelations debuting at number six, though FIFA 12 remains atop the chart.
The Renegade X Website now offers the release of Renegade X: Black Dawn, a free standalone first-person shooter based on the Command and Conquer universe, developed independently by Totem Arts. They note this comes on the fifth anniversary of the Renegade X project that's had previous releases as a modification. This trailer offers a look at the game, and here's a bit of the description: "Renegade X is a tactical First Person Shooter with RTS elements, featuring two unique factions, each with distinctive weapons and vehicles. With stunning visuals and remarkable gameplay, Renegade X aims to push the Unreal Engine 3 to its climax." Thanks Joao.
Cryptstone Games now offers a playable demo for Star Prospector, their recently released real-time strategy game. Word is: "The demo allows you full access to all of the features of Star Prospector and opens up all of the missions available in the first star system. The missions are randomly generated providing lots of replayability."
MuchDifferent announces the outcome of the Game World record attempt they held over the weekend in Man vs. Machine, their browser-based shooter. Though they failed to reach the 1000-player threshold for which they were striving, they claim they indeed set a record with 999 concurrent players: At 16.04.29 CET, Man was winning the battle against Machine as 999 people were part of a new world record. About a second later our server choked on the enormous number of people trying to get in to the game. We were receiving a far higher number of requests than we were expecting.
But the server was restarted and during the next hour and a half we were averaging somewhere around 980 players at any given moment. Proving that PikkoServer can take the strain and deliver an entirely new multiplayer experience never seen before.
PikkoServer, the server and network technology used to make all of this possible, we believe can be applied to just about any game engine used today. Our goal now is to make this technology available to developers worldwide.
The world record number has been confirmed by an independent expert who was observing the game as it was taking place. Confirmation from the Guinness World Records Gamer Edition will take a few more days but we are supremely confident that our world record will be included in their next edition.
Hi-Rez Studios announces they are celebrating the second anniversary of the launch of Global Agenda, their free-to-play MMO shooter. They promise their loyal players a few rewards to commemorate the occasion, including a free limited edition pet, a free reward for PvP tournament participants, and the return of some back catalog "flair" (presumably a minimum of 37 pieces). They also offer some statistics from the game's first two years, saying it has seen over 1,000,000 registered players, over 12,000,000 PvE missions, and over 1,400,000 PvP missions.
In grand tradition, I did not watch the Pro Bowl yesterday, as my passion for tackle football does not extend to sun-soaked all star competitions between players who do not care about the outcome. It's a good break for MrsBlue, who is incredibly accommodating about my football watching when the games matter, and doesn't need her patience tested for no good reason... especially after a week of incredible Super Bowl hype that is actually the subdued half of the two week run up to the big game.
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