Warhammer Online Newsletter #33 (July 2008)

Launch date announced this issue: September 18th
EA Mythic renamed Mythic Entertainment again

	Welcome to a very special edition of the Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning monthly newsletter. This is our 33rd issue and none before have been as jam-packed with exciting news and important information as this one. Believe us when we say that this is the newsletter you have been waiting for! Set aside any work you are doing and quit any games you may be playing. Let the dog walk himself and send the kids to bed early (so what if it’s only the middle of the afternoon, they are young and need their sleep!). You are definitely going to want to spend some uninterrupted quality time reading this newsletter from top to bottom! This Month’s Newsletter Headlines WAR’s Launch Date Announced – September 18th Declared a Day a Reckoning! Subscription Pricing Revealed Pack Art Unveiled Pre-Order Program Begins EA Mythic is Once Again Mythic Entertainment E3 Coverage – Best PC Game of the Show! Digging into Dungeons, and so much more! Today, Mythic Entertainment declared Thursday, September 18th, 2008 to be a Day of Reckoning! On September 18th, the North American, European and Oceanic servers will officially go live and the worldwide WAAAGH! will begin. Mark the date on your calendar and prepare to call in sick to work; there are Public Quests™ to complete, guilds to be formed, Tome of Knowledge entries to unlock, fortresses to siege and capital cities to sack. It is going to be one glorious day! Read the official press release. Breaking news - the subscription pricing for WAR was announced today. Players looking forward to journeying into a world of perpetual conflict for non-stop RvR action will have several subscription options to choose from: Monthly Subscription: $14.99 USD 3-Month Subscription: $41.97 ($13.99 per month) 6-Month Subscription: $77.94 ($12.99 per month) Pre-Paid Game Time™ Cards will be available at many game retailers. Stay tuned for more information about prepaid cards in the August newsletter. Read the official press release. We are thrilled to unveil the artwork for WAR’s North American packaging. For our box art, we wanted to capture the epic potential of RvR and we believe that fantasy artist Daren Bader (http://www.darenbader.com/) really nailed it. This illustration depicts a massive battle between the armies of Order and Destruction outside the gates of Altdorf. Although the packaging focuses on the confrontation between a Warrior Priest of the Empire and a Chosen of Chaos, many of the game’s other careers can be found in the surrounding melee as seen in the full painting. Our special thanks to Daren for creating an amazing work of art. Clearly inspired by 25 years of Warhammer imagery, this painting is a worthy addition to the Games Workshop gallery and a fantastic depiction of the Age of Reckoning. Now you can prepare for the coming war by pre-ordering Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning to receive some great added benefits. You’ll have the chance to gear up with special items and experience the glory of Realm vs. Realm™ combat before the rest of the raw recruits even set foot in the game world. Pick up the special pre-order box (or order online) and reserve your copy of WAR today! Read the official press release. Collector’s Edition pre-order update: All units of the Collector’s Edition have been pre-sold in North America. As expected, demand was strong and the Collector’s Edition moved quickly. However, you can still get into the game early and receive some great bonus items by pre-ordering the regular edition of WAR! This pre-order information is valid for North America only. Pre-order offer may vary by retailer. See your local game retailer for details. Visit www.warhammeronline.com/preorder for more information. WAR Pre-Order Benefits include: Open Beta Access Be one of the first players to experience the glory of battle and the thrill of WAR! The Open Beta will immerse you in a world of perpetual conflict and give you a taste of the epic Realm vs. Realm battles yet to come. Live Game Head Start Begin your adventures in the Age of Reckoning before the raw recruits arrive! As a pre-order customer, you’ll get access to the live servers before the game officially launches to help lead your Realm to victory. Universal Fighting System™ Battle Deck The Emperor Karl Franz and Tchar’zanek, dread Champion of Tzeentch, go head-to-head in this exclusive collectible card game deck from Fantasy Flight Games. (Universal Fighting System Battle Decks are available in a limited supply from select retailers.) Bonus In-Game Items Equip your characters for their journey to the frontlines with these helpful bonus items: Pre-order customers will receive: Rittenbach’s Portable Camp Rest your weary soul and heal your wounds between battles. Plus, order from Best Buy and also receive: Champion’s Sapphire Band Enhance your stats and cast “Touch of Frost,” increasing your chance of doing additional elemental damage with each hit. (Usable in PvE combat only.) Order from GameStop or EB Games and also receive: Sentinel’s Amber Band Enhance your stats and cast “Touch of Earth,” increasing your chance of doing additional corporeal damage with each hit. (Usable in PvE combat only.) Purchase the pre-release pack from Target* and also receive: Vindicator’s Ruby Band Enhance your stats and cast “Touch of Flame,” increasing your chance of doing additional elemental damage with each hit. (Usable in PvE combat only.) $5 OFF COUPON Save your hard earned gold with a $5 coupon good towards the purchase of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. Order from Amazon.com**, Circuit City, Direct2Drive**, EAStore.com**, EB Canada, Fry’s, FutureShop, GameCrazy, GoGamer.com, and WalMart.com*** and also receive: Guardian’s Iolite Band Enhance your stats and cast “Touch of Spirit,” increasing your chance of doing additional spiritual damage with each hit. (Usable in PvE combat only.) * Target pre-release boxes will be in stores in early August. Purchase of the pre-release box does not reserve a copy of the game at launch but does provide access to the pre-order bonuses. Offer does not include the UFS Battle Deck. ** Amazon.com, EAStore.com, Direct2Drive and GameStop.com pre-order customers will receive codes via email. Offer does not include the UFS Battle Deck. *** Walmart.com pre-order customers will receive their in-game bonus items with the final product at launch. Pre-order offer does not include access to the Open Beta, Head Start, or the UFS Battle Deck. Earlier this month, studio GM, Mark Jacobs, announced that EA Mythic was changing its name and is once again known as Mythic Entertainment. Here is an excerpt from his interview with MMORPG.com: “We are going back to Mythic Entertainment,” said Mark Jacobs, the VP and General Manager of EA Mythic. “I’ve always been a believer of separate branding,” he continued, going on to cite a number of successful companies like Disney and GE that operate subsidiary companies under separate and distinct brands. “I think that this is a wonderful example of how things at EA are changing,” he continued, “both John (Riccitiello, CEO of EA) and Frank (Gibeau, EA) have spoken multiple times about city states, more freedom, that sort of thing and I think this is an obvious example.” While we are still an EA studio with the resources of the entire company at our disposal, we are reclaiming our identity as the studio that created Dark Age of Camelot™ and pioneered the Realm vs. Realm experience. Three weeks ago, WAR returned to LA for E3 after skipping last year, and what a show we had! Mark, Jeff, Paul, Josh, Destin, Adam, and Bruce worked their tails off demoing the game and giving interviews. In the end, it all paid off as WAR walked away with numerous Best of Show Awards and some amazing coverage. Below is just a sampling of the stories from the show: Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning Wins - IGN Best of E3 2008 – Best MMO Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning voted - GameSpy's Annual E3 Awards – Top 10 PC Games Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning Wins - VoodooExtreme – E3 2008 Awards - Best MMO Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning Nominated for - Game Critics Awards - Best PC Game X-Play G4 GamersInfo.net GameSpot GameSpy IGN IGN Vault Massively MMORPG.com Ten Ton Hammer Voted Best PC Game of E3 Video Interview Preview Preview Video Video Interview Video Video Preview Preview Preview Interview Demo Highlights Coverage UI Coverage Open Party Coverage New Screens Preview Josh’s E3 Blog Join your friends in discovering whether or not the peasants’ outlandish claims of monstrous rats scurrying about the Altdorf Sewers are true, fight alongside your Realm’s bravest in facing murder incarnate at the Bastion Stair, or aid in the effort to rescue the Everqueen in the Lost Vale. These are just a few of the several dungeons in Warhammer Online for mid-to-high level players to enjoy. Dungeons come in three varieties: Realm-instanced, group-instanced and warband-instanced. Survive the challenges and epic boss fights found inside to earn the most coveted of weapons, armors and loot. Introducing Gunbad Lurking in the far northwest of the Badlands, the fetid depths of Gunbad lie in wait for inquisitive adventurers such as you. Those brave (or foolish?) enough to enter its dank depths will discover a land quite unlike the surface worlds. Once a Morkain place of power, for a thousand years Gunbad has been home to a strange breed of greenskin. The mushroom-crazed forces of the Night Goblins- furtive maniacs clad in black and flecked with spit- gibber and scurry in the darkness. Alone in the gloom, their unhinged minds have fashioned all manner of madness, from teetering Goblin cities to pulsating squigs of nightmarish proportions. Now change has come to the timeless depths. The Age of Reckoning has forced the armies of Order and Destruction to plunge headlong into the reeking dark. The greenskins seek to break the unruly Night Goblins to their brutish will, beating their brains out until they see sense and join the Waaagh! The Dwarfs meanwhile have a more desperate mission. Gunbad is the sole source of brightstone- a key component of the mighty Doomstriker Weapons. They must claim this precious ore and destroy a potential ally to the WAAAGH. Still, the prospect of spattering goblin brains whilst underground has cheered more than one Oathbearer, despite the grim tales of the Night Goblin’s insane strength. Gunbad Mechanics Gunbad is an open world instanced dungeon. This means all Order players have access to one version of the dungeon, while all Destruction players have access to another. Gunbad contains three themed wings, each with three PQs and an instanced wing boss. You’ll need to gain enough influence from the PQs to access the wing boss. You’ll also need to be in a group. As all the monsters in Gunbad are at least champion level, don’t expect to solo this Dungeon! Gunbad is best suited to players between levels 22 and 30. Each wing has a different ideal level range so you can progress through the content in a natural manner. The West Wing is level 22-23, the East Wing is level 24-25 and the South Wing is for levels 26-29. Once you’ve completed all the wings and taken down each of the wing bosses, you can face the final challenge of Gunbad: the mighty Squig Boss, Ard Ta Feed. Mutated by years of exposure to Morkain power (and the tainted flesh of mushroom gobbling Goblins) Ard Ta Feed is a two-headed nightmare of teeth, claws and vomit. Multiple Quests will take you into Gunbad, as will the desire for some of the delicious items that can be gained from the PQs and bosses. There are also several unique titles to be unlocked and some hidden puzzles for explorers to collect. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard the rumblings that the long-awaited Guild Beta has begun! Over 10,000 guilds applied, and those selected are now experiencing the game’s most expansive beta phase yet. Selected guilds have joined thousands of new testers as we enter this phase of beta. Guild members had the chance to test WAR’s recently added Guild and Heraldry features, as well as Public Quests, new dungeons, Scenarios, user interface updates and more including: - All three pairings open through Tier 2 - Race-specific player mounts (yes, we said mounts!) - A total of twenty careers including: - The highly anticipated High Elf White Lion! - The triumphant return of the Chaos Magus— with a slew of new abilities! Select testers were invited to join us for a special event: An all-out assault of the two Capital Cities! For the first time ever players engaged in the forsaken streets of The Inevitable City and the epic scenario of The Undercroft. The tides shifted and the forces of Order found themselves defending the last light of the empire as Destruction sat poised to bring the city down in ruin as they razed the last bulwark of Altdorf to the ground. Focusing on various areas of the game, our testers have been invaluable to us as we near launch. This phase of beta has been our most successful yet, and it’s only getting better as we move forward! Beta Quotes from the players: “I've been playing some classes that I haven’t played yet... guys, every class I play is GREAT FUN. I'm going to have a helluva time figuring out what will be my "main" when the game goes live.” - Level 4 Archmage “The High Elf architecture is amazing. The armor for my Swordmaster looks just like the tabletop version, which greatly helped with immersion.” - Level 21 Swordmaster “I LOVE SCENARIOS! The fact that you can get exp. from doing them is huge. PVP in any MMO is what I and a lot of my friends play for!” - Level 8 Sorcerer “My first public quest. I had no idea what I ran into beyond what I've read about public quests. I was able to join in immediately, got an idea of what I was supposed to be doing, and followed it along. Was amazingly fun.” - Level 3 Swordmaster “I absolutely love the terrain in this scenario. The use of strategic knockbacks can be very deadly with the terrain.” - Level 21 Chosen Check out the latest News from the Front: Aegis of the Oathbearers! Episode 7: Howling Gorge and Gromril Crossing by Brian Wheeler, Lead RvR Design In this episode of Scenarios 101 we continue with Greenskin vs. Dwarf Scenarios that can be found in Tier 4. Howling Gorge features a bomb run, or WAR football as tagged by the beta testers. Gromril Crossing features a tug-of-war mechanic between capture locations on the map. Read more from Scenarios 101 >> Rune Priest Dwarf runes bind and hold magic, solidifying and stabilizing the power through the knowledge and craftsmanship practiced by Rune Priests through the centuries. A skilled Rune Priest can tap into this rune-etched power to call forth all manner of spectacular effects, from restoring life to his allies to calling down wrath and doom upon his foes. Dwarf runes are repositories of raw power, harnessed to a specific purpose by generations of skilled and focused runecarvers. A Rune Priest is adept at not only invoking these runic powers, but also at engraving runes on his allies' equipment, granting them abilities far beyond their normal grasp. A true master Rune Priest can even call forth the power of mighty Master Runes, carving them into the very earth itself as an anchor for their tremendous energies. Rune Priest Career Masteries Path Of Grungni A master of this path focuses on powerful and direct effects, learning to both restore his allies and smite his enemies with equal skill. The path of Grungni is for those who prefer to focus on a single target at a time, be they friend or foe, and unleash powerful effects upon them. Path Of Valaya An arguably more subtle mastery, the path of Valaya is focused on effects which continue to linger after they've been invoked. A master of this path prefers to stick to tested, tried, and true slow-and-steady abilities, whether he's building up his allies' strength until they become unstoppable, or whether he's grinding his enemies down with inevitable and unescapable doom. Path Of Grimnir This path is concerned with runes which affect large, sweeping areas as they unleash their innate power. A specialist in this path is an expert at changing the ebb and tide of combat by either bolstering his allies' entire front line, or by sending vast swaths of crushing power across the enemy masses. Squig Herder Goblins aren't exactly known for their fortitude or strength, so the clever Squig Herder uses a pack of squigs to do the hard work for him while he stands safely away and unleashes a rain of deadly arrows. Through a combination of poking, prodding, yelling, and throwing raw meat, a Squig Herder has managed to...well...not exactly "tame" a pack of squigs, but certainly get them to at least run when he stabs them. The Squig Herder has the means to deal with any combat situation through the wide array of squigs at his disposal - and sometimes, they are quite literally at his disposal, as his pets have an unsettling habit of being eaten or exploding. Squig Herder Career Masteries Path of Big Shootin' A specialist in this path is more than happy to stand far, far back from the fight and let his squig pets distract the enemies while he peppers them with arrows from a safe distance. Those who dismiss Goblins for their small stature quickly learn not to underestimate the Squig Herder's powerful bow and keen aim, and many an enemy's final dying thought has been that perhaps they should've paid more attention to the Goblin than the squig. Path of Quick Shootin' A clever master of this path uses the Goblins' inherent tendancies towards twitching and running in his favor, and has learned to quickly snap off bow shots while moving.around. While he pays for this mobility at the cost of range, as he can't shoot as far without taking the time to stop and brace his bow, the speed and flexibility that he gains ensures that he can always stay out of harm's reach. Path of Stabbin' Some goblins are simply more bloodthirsty than others, and a master of this path prefers to use his bow simply as a means to weaken and hinder his enemy, allowing him to move in and dispatch them quickly with his crude yet brutal spear. Fighting side-by-side with his squig pets, the Squig Herder who selects this path is always gleeful to find himself in the middle of a messy fight. Named NPCs Dwarf - Garagrim Ironfist Greenskin - Grudgemaker High Elf - Caradryan Ryman Dark Elf - Executioner Tullaris Nurgle NPCs Chaos Nurgle Apothecary Chaos Nurgle Maurader Chaos Nurgle Zealot 1 Chaos Nurgle Zealot 2 Trainers, Bankers, Merchants and more Dark Elf Armor Merchant Dark Elf Banker Dark Elf Bar Server Dark Elf Bartender Dark Elf Beastmaster Dark Elf Merchant High Elf Banker Dark Elf Items Merchant High Elf Items Merchant High Elf Merchant High Elf Waiter High Elf Merchant Dark Elf Trainer High Elf Trainer High Elf Bartender Warhammer Online Podcasts are now available on iTunes! Subscribe today! Click Image to Watch Podcast Mark Jacobs’ recent announcement regarding capital cities has spawned quite a few questions, so we sat down with our RvR Team Lead, Jeff Skalski, to get more details. Jeff explains in detail how the RvR campaign now works, with the addition of six massive fortresses that serve as gateways to the capital cities of Order and Destruction. This is more involved than you may have thought, so listen closely. Bonus Concept Art - RvR Fortresses Chaos Fortress Dark Elf Fortress Dwarf Fortress Empire Fortress Greenskin Fortress High Elf Fortress Join Creative Director, Paul Barnett, and his trusty video phone for a truly unique look at the making of WAR. This month, Paul travels to LA to visit our local studio and drops by G4 to tape a segment of XPlay. During the few days he was actually in the office, he sat in on a lengthy design discussion and captured it on film for your viewing pleasure. View the Video Blog >> The team is hard at work preparing for Open Beta! Don’t waste any time, sign up now to take part in one of the largest beta tests ever for an MMORPG. More than 700,000 players have registered so far, but we are always looking for new recruits. Sharpen your sword, unleash your inner mutation, and prepare to meet your destiny on the battlefields of Warhammer Online. Sign up for the WAR Beta at: betacenter.eamythic.com WAR is coming! Are you ready? There are a million stories in the Age of Reckoning just waiting to be told. What is your tale? This month, a Lieutenant Commander of the Shining Guard in Saphery shares with us the challenges he faces getting his troops to "play nice" with the Dwarfs. Can the two supposed allies work together to stop the intruding forces of the Dark Elves? Read This Month's Beta Journal Entry >> WAR is coming! Are you properly dressed? Do you feel like your WARdrobe is lacking? Well, not any more!** Visit the EA Mythic Store! ** Offer valid for U.S. residents only Feeling creative? We know we have some talented fans out there and now is the time for you to demonstrate your skills. Send us your WAR-inspired art and we’ll showcase the best submissions in upcoming newsletters. Dark Elf Sorceress by G. Panella Night of the Inquisition by E. Bilgen Greenskin Relations by J. Lally Karl Franz by P. Ramos Combustion by C. Coates Dungheap Philosophy by H. Brimage Zerstörung by F. Teuscher Saqueo Orco by Yuster Cultiste by Elhebore Visit the Fan Art Gallery >> Submit your artwork >> Welcome to the WAR Grab Bag, where our friendly neighborhood community team answers the most pressing, the most popular, and the most interesting questions from fans. Keep those questions coming, as we’re eager to hear what you have to say! Check out this month’s Grab Bag >> "My hope for the game is that we create something that is a lot of fun to play, that brings people together, which provides a world to escape to from our own hectic lives from time to time." Developer Profile >> "My ultimate hope is that when folks sit down and play the Elf pairing, either as a Dark Elf or as a High Elf, that the island of Ulthuan comes to life for them, and that the cultures of the two opposing factions, locked in a civil war that has lasted thousands of years, are as real as any in our own world." Developer Profile >> As we announce our last group of beta entry winners, we’d like to thank everyone that registered to participate in the WAR Closed Beta. Those of you lucky enough to get in provided some outstanding constructive feedback that truly helped shape the game. If you didn’t get into the Closed Beta, we hope to see you in the Open Beta and live game. July Winners: C. Clark/North America A. Ramsden/Europe D. Tinker/North America G. Peters/Europe J. Maughan/North America P. Gerold/Europe J. O'Desky/North America N. Range/Europe K. Walker/North America J. Morgan/Europe D. Cooper/North America C. Besson/Europe M. Crain/North America A. Munoz/Europe S. Benz/North America J. Moreno/Europe T. Schiller/North America L. Thorn/Australia D. Taylor/Australia I. Vujcich/New Zealand This month, decorate your desktop with more images of WAR. Regular Wide Screen June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 Each month we’ll be shining the spotlight on WAR fan sites that exemplify what we consider to be the best in WAR community spirit. WAR Down Under Aus-WAR is a website for the Australian/Oceanic Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning Community to talk about Guilds, groups, grudges and all things WAR! It’s a place for players of the same time zone to recruit and join together, as well as discuss the latest server news on the Oceanic side of things! As the game launches, the site will adapt to feature individual forums for each server, and will provide a home for the Australian/Oceanic WAR Community! Check them out at http://aus-war.com Squig Creature Creator Contest Winners: Favorite: Chaos Chicken Squig Runners up: Horned Squig Spiny Squig Buzzer Squig Unique Snowflake Award: Hello Squiggy It was very difficult to pick from the many creative submissions we received, but they certainly provided for a good laugh! Thank you to everyone who participated. If you were a winner you will be contacted by email. Is your fan site doing something cool, informative, or fun? Let us know by sending an email to war-community@mythic.ea.com and you could be featured in the next community spotlight. Download the WAR Fan Site kit. The views expressed in the linked sites are the views of the respective owners of each site, and do not necessarily express the views of Electronic Arts, its wholly-owned subsidiaries or Licensors. Electronic Arts does not endorse and is not responsible for content on third party sites, including fan sites. Apply for our recruiting Open Houses happening in July and August. CUSTOMER SUPPORT REPRESENTATIVE 40 hours a week - Starting salary $12.07 / hr with quick career growth Candidates must be local to (or willing to relocate near) our Fairfax, VA Studio, and available to start in August, 2008. *Customer Support is a 24/7 operation, so a flexible schedule with openness to night, weekend & holiday shift schedules is a must. *To apply: Visit http://jobs.ea.com/ - Select ‘View/Apply for Jobs’ - Filter by ‘Customer Support’ & ‘USA’ – Look for Req #13720. You will be contacted by one of our recruiters for additional information. You truly are in an "Age of Reckoning," with your Realm on the brink of annihilation, when you enter into the online world of Warhammer Online. It's a massive confrontation of Order vs. Destruction and it could take decades to decipher every keep and castle, trainer and traitor…if you didn't have a clever game guide--or two--to reveal the infinite Warhammer Online secrets! That's right: Prima has two books to deliver everything you need for the much-anticipated Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning launch. First, the Game Guide spans more than 250 pages, filled with class guides for all 20 careers. From maximizing healing and damage with a High Elf Archmage to deploying the perfect pet as a Goblin Squig Herder, you can master the strategies of your chosen career in record time. Plus, we've jammed the Game Guide full of detailed maps for every zone, RvR tips for besting the most ruthless scenarios and battlefields, insight into the mysteries of Crafting, Guild rewards, and more! The second book, the official Warhammer Online Atlas, expands upon the Game Guide with close to 200 pages of highly detailed maps, quest points, and tactics for hardcore gamers. Whether you want to find the hotspots in your current zone or need to zoom in on the terrain for an upcoming skirmish, the Atlas maps give you instant access to enough info to make the Emperor's royal cartographer proud. Don't leave for the dungeons without it! Both the Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning Official Game Guide and Warhammer Online Atlas as well as all bundles and downloadable eGuides will be on sale the same date as the game. Check out Primagames.com for more info and check back soon for our upcoming “Which Warhammer Race are you?” quiz! BONUS: Receive an exclusive in-game item when you purchase the Warhammer Online Strategy Guide from Prima! For more information, please visit www.Primagames.com. WAR Zboard: WAR Fragmat: Ideazon is pleased to announce the Warhammer Online Keyset for Zboard! Dive into WAR and experience this epic story with the most powerful weapon available for your PC! The Warhammer Online Keyset delivers: An Intuitive layout for lightning fast reflexes in battle 16 dedicated keys for commonly used chat, group and social commands 12 popular single-press emote keys including Shout, Brandish, Mad and Laugh Jaw dropping official game graphics BONUS: Receive an exclusive in-game item with the purchase of the WAR Zboard! Available at time of game launch. For more information visit ideazon What is going on in this picture? Send us your best caption and we’ll send the winner into the Closed Beta! Please keep your captions clean if you want them to be printed! Enter your Submission! Last Month’s Contest Winner Winner: "Trust me, this will be funny. Put your hand in there and wait for the human to get back." Runners-Up: "Packmaster Humor: The Rat Ogre recieves his annual bonus." "Surprisingly the moustrap worked like a charm." "Curse those Goblins! It looked so much bigger in the catalog, I swear!" Get your hands on the latest build of WAR at one of the following events: Gen Con Indy August 14-17, 2008 Games Convention Leipzig, Germany 21. - 24. August 2008 LA Games Day August 23, 2008 Penny Arcade Expo August 29-31, 2008 Stay tuned for more information about our upcoming 2008 show schedule! Issue #34 will be packed full of RvR goodness, including: The world debut of the new WAR cinematic trailer... Prepaid Game Time™ card information... The information you need to prepare for Open Beta... New art, screens, and game videos... And more news ad exclusive information from the frontlines of WAR! *In order to participate in the Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning Beta you must agree to a Beta Test Agreement, in which you will represent and warrant that, among other things, you (a) are eighteen (18) years of age or older, (b) are not a principal, employee, agent, independent contractor, officer or director of a developer or publisher of video or computer games (other than EA), and (c) are not a principal, employee, supplier, independent contractor, officer or director or of any entity that participates either directly or indirectly in the sale of in-game items, including but not limited to, in-game currency, armor, weapons, etc., whether these sales are to the general public or to a third-party. Please know that at EA Mythic, we don't want to send you information you don't want to receive. If you no longer want us to contact you, please click here or email marketing@eamythic.com to be removed from our mailing list or to change your preferences. You can also write to: Privacy Policy Administrator, Electronic Arts, 209 Redwood Shores Parkway, Redwood City, CA 94065. 'Warhammer' ©/™ and/or ® GW Ltd. Newsletter © 2008 Electronic Arts Inc. All Rights Reserved. EA and the EA logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries.All other trademarks are properties of their respective owners. Legal Notices Privacy Policy Terms of Service

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Zero Punctuation Reviews - Ninja Gaiden 2

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I Don't Like Raids.

Attended my first guild raid in AOC yesterday night. To cut a long story short, I never liked any sort of "endgame PVE raid" content. To me it's stupid. Devs may give a mob 10x damage and 50 times HP and say they're "forcing players to use strategy," but they're not. Any content that requires 24 people to do the same thing that 6 or 2 or even 1 person do in different content, so that maybe 2 or 3 people on that raid can get a single piece of awesome gear, is an infuriating waste of time.

The problem is, MY favorite endgame is the PvP... and you know that the bastards who went through the rigamarole of getting their raid-level gear are going to be the ones easymoding their way to victory because the gear is just that awesome. So if I want to be able to compete, I have to go on these PVE raids 50 times and wait my turn to loot... because no amount of real strategy or "skill" overcomes a guy fully decked out in raid gear.

Ugh.

I miss DAOC's system, where the best gear hands down was player-crafted. Then everybody had access. I miss the system, but I can't go back. That era is passed.

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Call of Duty 6 in 2009

Might even be Infinity Ward doing the dev work on it, from what rumor has.
http://kotaku.com/5032207/next-call-of-duty-penciled-in-for-2009

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Off Topic Friday #25 - Bukkake Brand Milk

Feline... disrespect... from... behind!!!

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Soul Calibur IV - Fun with the Character Creator

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Zero Punctuation Reviews - E3 Trailer Park

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An Interesting Chat About Pathfinding

S'over here.

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Ghostbusters Gets the Axe

Apparently as a casualty in the Activision-Vivendi merger.

Titles absent from its schedule include Ghostbusters: The Video Game, Brutal Legend, 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, World in Conflict and Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena.

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Zero Punctuation Reviews - Age of Conan

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Wireless Wii Keyboard from Logitech

As the Wii passes the XB360 in ownership, a new peripheral comes to draw even more gamers away from PCs and into console exclusivity...

source



Imagine the possibilities once the software starts to take advantage of the versatility of the keyboard with the organic control nature of the wiimote. Heck, can a wireless mouse be too far off?

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Dawn of War 2 Cinematic Trailer

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Zero Punctuation Reviews - Alone in the Dark

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Don't Hire Your Family to Voice Over Your Video Game

Source (via BluesNews)



Oh good golly. This voice acting is the worst I've heard since Knights of Xentar, and at least that had an excuse because it was a basic RPG wrapped around a hentai slideshow.

But this..

A quick read of the game’s manual shows that the voice acting is credited to Quest Jelinek and Tyler Jelinek, with special thanks to Kay Jelinek and Lee Jelinek. Interesting to say the least.

Even though O~3 isn’t a powerhouse of a publisher they still could have hired some professionals, or even semi-professional at scale. I know I sure was available for the gig. But Mr. Jelinek either decided to hire his voice talent based solely off the criterion that they have the same last name as himself, or he just raided his own living room and got his family to do it.

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Review: Age of Conan

It's hard to really "review" and "rate" an MMORPG, because such a game is constantly evolving and changing. What may be good one week may be patched to bad the next, and vice versa. So it is that I shall avoid assigning a "letter grade" at the end of the review, and simply just be wordy as hell as I describe the state of the game "Age of Conan" as it stands in mid-July, 2008.

Graphics
I can say without reservation that Age of Conan is by far the most graphically impressive MMO I've ever played to date. AoC makes excellent use of Shader Model 3 features. I particularly like the parallax texture mapping which gives simple flat polygons a textured, three-dimensional feel by subtly skewing the textures upon them to almost holographically portray the extra dimension on things like cracks between floor tiles or the round protrusions of rocks in a wall. It also makes the ground textures in most areas look more lifelike. Also adding to the organic nature of the zone design is the "grass" system which not only places grass but also shrubs, tall reeds and the like. Even though the plant sprites are 2 dimensional (and always face the camera dead on, so standing in the middle of the larger ferns and pivoting in place is kind of creepy in a "they're WATCHING me!" kind of way), they do a lot to push the game's settings from merely representative of realism to downright sureally believable. It's also staggering how far away you can see things. Of course, you're going to need a pretty badass rig to handle all the graphical options cranked to max (at least an 8 series if you're on nVidia hardware), and if your computer isn't quite up to the challenge you can pull AoC back down to earth by keeping the video settings low and using Shader Model 2.0... but really, once you've gone full bore, you don't want to go back. Everything less just looks dead, or fake. There are a couple glitches here and there... there's some issue with skin showing through hair polygons and the like, and water looks and behaves a little gelatinously, but overall, it's darn impressive. It isn't quite Crysis, but it's as close as a game with 20 gigs of texture data is likely to come. (As usual, any of the screenshots and other pictures on this page can be clicked to see them at full resolution)

Sound
The sound effects do their job, plenty of bestial grunts, metal clanking and the splut of somebody getting the crap kicked out of him and the like. There's music that fits the atmosphere, which varies from the nondescript to the noteworthy, though nothing amazingly inspiring. However, also nothing awful or corny. Sometimes some of the ambient noises, such as roaring rivers or buzzing mosquitoes are either too loud (river) or too realistic (swat). There's a great deal of voice acting in all of Tortage's quests, but after you leave the noob zones and go out into the world, the voiceovers pretty much vanish except for infrequent spurts during your "destiny quest," adding to the unfinished feeling of the game.

Community
Currently the "community" is kind of one of the weak spots of the game. Up until the epic instances, for which you pretty much need a full group, it's rare to see any sorts of groups at all, even where one would be beneficial. For instance, it is much more common to see 4 individual people standing in the same place waiting for a quest mob to spawn so they can each race to be the first to kill it, rather than they group up and all get credit for killing it the once. This could be because the game's source and progression doesn't really lend itself to trusting others, particularly on PvP servers where your fellow players are as likely to shove a sword through your guts as say hello. Additionally, each player will get a line of "destiny" quests which HAVE to be done solo in their own instance, further implanting the normality of being alone in an MMO in AoC players. True, there are players who band together to make guilds and make a point of adventuring in numbers, but for at least the first half to 2/3rds of the game, one might be left with the impression it's normal to be alone your entire time in AoC.

Gameplay
It's a sword'n'sorcery MMORPG. If you don't know what that means, you must have been under a rock for a while. The overall paradigm is what you'd expect... hit things with sharp metal, blast them with fire, haul the stuff you loot off the bodies into town to sell, upgrade your equipment, get some new quests, then head out to do it all over again.

One thing that starkly sets Conan apart from other MMOs I've played is it's turned the balance of melee vs caster on its ear. In every previous MMO I've played, I've always found casters to have an advantage over dedicated melee classes, but here it is exactly the opposite. Casters are fragile and die quickly, whereas "tank" types have roughly double the health and dish out nearly as much damage. It's very much a bladeswinger's world in Hyborea. It makes me chuckle, thinking back to my tank chars on EQ or DAOC who could do little but stand around waiting for a group so they could progress. I also remember how, for some reason, whoever did the balance for these games thought that someone with a lot of HP shouldn't be allowed to do a lot of damage... now, on my "Conqueror" class character, I have both high HP and do stupidly high amounts of damage.

Casters, with some justification, often complain they feel the unwanted stepchildren of AoC. Casters get the usual litany of spells, but the classic formula of target-nuke-kill-loot remains. The melee combat system is much more involved and robust than any other MMO I've played. There is no "autoattack," and targeting is largely optional. This is because, and I heartily applaud this, Conan is the first MMO to make melee attacks all intrinsically short range conical Area-effect. The closer to directly in front of you the enemy, the more damage they take, but it is such that I can keep the attention of 3 enemy mobs with ease simply by facing the middle one of them while I swing. There's an added layer of complexity to attacking, though. You start off with three different attack buttons which later grows to 5, and each button represents the direction of swing: overhead, overhand left, overhand right, underhand left, and underhand right. Any given opponent has the ability to "rearrange" their defenses so as to reduce damage taken in one given direction at the expense of taking additional damage from another. It's a little cumbersome for players to reorganize these on the fly, but mobs do it with ease and abundance. Thus, fighting requires constant attention to shift the direction of your swings to where you see your opponent's defenses are open. Further aiding the fighters are numerous "combos," which are like styles in DAOC or attack abilities from WoW, only instead of being merely one-push-one-effect buttons, a combo requires the player to hit the correct sequence of moves in succession to trigger the final effect. This final effect will either be a great deal of damage, a defensive buff, or some other boon to both the tank and anyone else in his party. This degree of depth to melee fighting often makes casters feel like they're yesterday's news.

The game sports an "M" rating for a reason. Trying to stay true to the roots of the Conan mythos, the world of Hyborea is harsh, gritty, bloodspattered, titillating and misogynistic. Heads and limbs are lopped off. Craniums are messily smashed in by hammers. Bare, voluptuous breasts are jiggled. Women of negotiable virtue wriggle and flirt in various stages of dress. Bodies are mangled, corpses rot in the sun, blood gushes in thick fountains and sometimes even splatters on the "camera lens" from time to time when you cause a particularly gruesome fatality. While not exactly psyche-warping for a child to play, it's intended for consumption by adults, who presumably already have a set sense of perspective about these things. It's about on the level of a rather graphic R-rated film.

There are 3 different races, each with their own respective area of the world. However, each new character first starts being washed ashore on the island pirate haven of Tortage, to learn the ropes and gain in strength for the first 20 or so levels. Once a player has gotten strong enough to finish the first leg of their "destiny quest" there (usually around level 20), they get carted off to either the frozen crags of barbaric Cimmeria (birthplace of Conan himself), the temperate and grassy rolling hills Aquilonia, or the scorching deserts and steamy swamps of exotic and perilous Stygia to begin experiencing the rest of the game.

It's about here things start to run out of steam. There are more quests in Tortage than you could possibly need to level to 20, but the ones around your home city will barely get you to 30 before they start turning grey, signifying their triviality (and Funcom recently changed the game to no longer award experience for completing a grey quest). After that, it's a fair bit of a struggle to find enough quests so that you continue to make progress without having to go out and kill things for no apparent purpose, which in the genre is known as "grinding," and is one of the things people hate to do.

Problems
It is also at this point that design flaws and plain old bugs start to become more and more apparent. Many zones just feel "unfinished," or have glitches in them which should have been caught in QC. Several quests are simply broken. Some doors never open, some doors fail to stop you from walking right through them and killing something you weren't supposed to be able to reach before you went through the rigamarole of a 3 step quest to find the key.

Look, I know it is an MMO, and no MMO has ever been perfect at launch. Even WoW had issues at launch (I remember 12 servers were almost always down, and who can forget the experience of people getting "stuck" while looting and scooting around in a kneeling position?). But the degree of brokenness and incompletion in AoC prompts one to wonder why the game is launched and not still in beta... did Funcom run out of money during development? Is it to beat Warhammer Online and the WoW expansion to market by 6 months? For some other unknown reason?

Probably the most unforgivable of bugs is the widespread "assertion failed/out of memory" memory leak that leads inexorably to a crash. I personally experience this, as well as about 120 pages worth of other people on the official forum. It apparently showed up in early June and has gotten worse with every successive patch. Funcom claims to be aware of it and "is working on it." Meanwhile, many of us with top-shelf premium quality computers are having AoC crash to desktop about once an hour claiming "out of memory" when the game is nowhere near using all our memory. The whole mess is very reminiscent of Funcom's previous title, Anarchy Online, which was plagued by bugs (and yes, memory leaks) for at least the first 9 months of its life post-retail release. All in all, the whole thing starts to leave you with a feeling that Funcom is in over their head and only has a tenative grasp on what they are doing here. Any given activity I choose to perform, be it trying to buy and sell items to other players, finish a quest or craft an item, has roughly a subjective 50% chance of being broken in some fashion.

There are also a number of things that are not technically "bugs" but just bad design decisions. There is no way to quickly and automatically travel from one place in the world to another. You have to run (or ride, if you have a mount) the long way every time, save for the ability to return to your chosen "home spot" on a half hour cooldown. Too often content has been made more difficult and time consuming simply by virtue of quintupling mob HP and calling it "epic" (too reminiscent of WoW's "elite" mobs), a practice that makes the developers look very lazy. Blizzard learned the lesson of creaing one PvP battlefield pool across all servers, why hasn't Funcom? Last week's patch showed that apparently Funcom thought we were traversing the lands of Hyborea too easily, and so they injected scads of new "invisible walls" to keep us zigzagging through the content at 3x the travel time like we're supposed to. In fact, every patch that comes along, there's an accompanying thread on the official forums called the "undocumented changes" thread where the game's european players (who get the patch and get back into the game a great deal earlier than the american contingent) fill us in on all the stealth nerfs, new bugs and other undocumented changes that aren't listed in the official patch notes. Did Funcom just cut stamina and mana regeneration in half and not say a single word about it? Why, yes they did. Not a good way to build trust and loyalty in your customers.

PVP
I can't say much about the PvP experience in Conan, because truthfully I have yet to experience it even at level 50. Oh sure, if I wanted the stock-standard "kill everyone I see until I die" blitzfest of meaningless player combat that permeates every "free-for-all" PvP server since EQ's Rallos Zek, I could play on a PvP server and see it, but I played on Rallos Zek for 3 years and I don't feel the need to have a sword shoved up my ass every time I lean down to pick up loot anymore. I always try to put myself in the "queue" for playing in the PvP events ("capture the skull" and "annihilate enemy team"), but I have yet to actually ever get into a match. So, I'm pinning all my hopes on the endgame "battlekeep" PvP, an admittedly dangerous thing to do. It'll probably be a while before I find out either way, however.

Crafting
Unlike other mainstream titles, Crafting doesn't actually enter into AoC until the upper levels of the game. You have to be level 30 to even start gathering resources, and you have to be 40 to choose a "profession" that allows you to create products suitable for use. But that's just the first tier stuff, too.. to harvest second tier resources requires you to be level 50, and 3rd tier requires level 70. Advancement in crafting/gathering skill is obtained by doing quests (which is how they enforce the level requirement), and the quests usually involve gathering or creating something you already are able to learn how to make or gather the next thing. Sometimes this gets irritating. For instance, some resources are only found "occasionally" at sources of more mundane resources. Once in a blue moon you'll find quartz in a sandstone vein, for example. I'm level 50, and despite killing literally hundreds of leather-bearing creatures I have yet to have one provide the rare "brindled" leather which occasionally is found on beasts that provide the lowest tier "rough" leather. And then, of course, when I finally do get it, I won't get any experience for completing the brindled leather quest because it turned grey a dozen levels ago. For me as a tank, it's kind of neat and fun that sometimes when I'm mining silver or whatnot, I'll be spontaneously ambushed by up to 3 level-adjusted enemies that I'll have to fight off before I can continue mining, but some others (say, a priest) may find it inconvenient (to put it lightly) because frankly he isn't cut out to fight 3 enemies his own level all by himself. And naturally, at the time of this writing, at least one of the quest turn-ins (Basalt rock) is bugged and unable to be completed. There have been reports of attempting Alchemy causing crashes to desktop, and often a server patch will cause gems socketed into weapons and armor to simply vanish.

Conclusion
This has been my experience playing Age of Conan for the 30 days that came with the price of purchase. If someone were to ask me, "Hey, should I buy Age of Conan?" I would tell them to hold off for 6 months or so and maybe buy it then, if it still exists. That will give the developers time to hopefully fix and finish the game, or let it sink into deserved obscurity under the weight of the unstoppable behemoth that will undoubtably prove to be the "Wrath of the Lich King" expansion for WoW. As it stands now, my willingness to continue paying 15 bucks a month to keep playing is severely shaky. But it has the potential (in a very "still in Beta" way) to be an excellent game... if Funcom will just get on the stick and "git'r'done."

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Major Features Cut from Warhammer Online

Man, I just keep getting a worse and worse sinking feeling from this stuff.

The world of Warhammer just got a bit smaller. In an interview with with MMORPG.com, Mythic Entertainment VP and General Manager Mark Jacobs (not to be confused with fashion designer Marc Jacobs) has revealed some big cuts for the Warhammer Online's launch. Namely, the capital cities for the Dark Elf, High Elf, Orc, and Dwarf factions are gone. That leaves two capital cities, Altdorf and the Chaos Inevitable City.

Additionally, four classes have been cut: Choppa (Greenskin), Hammerer (Dwarf), Blackguard (Dark Elf) and Knight of the Blazing Sun (Empire). Jacobs explained the cuts were made for quality reasons and expressed dismay over having to nix the classes. Also, to seemingly curtail any conspiracy theories, he said, "This has nothing to do with EA ... they had zero input in this ... They don't even know about it. It's not a discussion we would have with them."

The MMO-obsessed at Massively have provided explanations for the ramifications of these cuts. No indication on if any of these features will return in an update or expansion pack.

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