G4 has a two part preview of the upcoming new region/dungeon that is part of the  Call to Arms expansion.  I’m don’t know much about the lore of Warhammer, so I don’t exactly know how the egyptian undead monsters fit in, but The Land of the Dead sorta reminds me of the Mummy movies.  I keep thinking Brendan Fraser is going to show up in one of these previews.

The Land of the Dead is set to be released sometime in June as part of the Call to Arms live expansion which has been releasing pieces since March.  More information can be found on Mytics site.

Aside from Tabula Rasa, the last 5 or 6 MMO’s I’ve played have all been fantasy based and after Darkfall I’m now officially burnt out on fantasy games.   I’m now moving on to Sci-Fi or any other genre that doesn’t have swords, horses, medieval armor or bows.   Luckily for me Jumpgate: Evolution and Champions Online are right around the corner.  Jumpgate is set to release next month June 16th and Champions Online later in July.

I’ve made my opinion on Champions Online quite clear, I don’t really like it, but Jumpgate looks awesome and is definitely the game I’ll be picking up first.  On the off chance that Jumpgate is horrible, I might try out Champions depending on what other people are saying about it.  Then there’s also CrimeCraft and Global Agenda, two other non fantasy based MMORPGs set to release later this year.   So I guess I timed it just right cause there’s a slew of non fantasy games coming out.  Hopefully I’ll find a home somewhere, I crossing my fingers for Jumpgate.

On a side note, I’m just realized I’m awesome at graphics, I mean just look at how professional that image is.

Huxley is now taking signups for their closed beta test.  They also updated their site, http://huxley.ijji.com with some trailers of the game.   No actual in-game footage, but the trailers are pretty kick ass.  Can’t wait for this one, it’s looking good.

Hacker Buster

As I sit here and take my pen to parchment, I want to discuss account security. Recently a few people I know in game have had their accounts hacked. One of these fine people has no idea about secure passwords or virus scanners or anything related to computer security. He was probably a victim of a key logger. The other person was extremely security concerned person, didn’t even run in admin mode on his gaming rig, yet he was still hacked. These issues affect all demography of people, regardless of knowledge or background. They do have one thing in common, a love for gaming.

They both submitted tickets to Blizzard and are in the process of getting their stuff back. It takes time. Blizzard has to investigate the issue to make sure you were hacked and conclude their investigation before they get back to you or return your hard earned gold and equipment.

I really have a strong dislike of these scumbags who hack accounts. Their sole purpose is to ruin someone else’s game. They sit there with their grubby little paws sweating over a keyboard in their mom’s basement or some factory in china creating key loggers, and rain destruction on their unsuspecting victims. It’s hard to believe that gold farming and account hacking has become so profitable. Well don’t be a victim. There is something you can do.

Some time ago I decided to order a Blizzard Authenticator. For the most part I no longer worry about account security. It costs $6.50 from the blizzard store. Once you receive it, log in to the account management page add the authenticator to your account. Every time you log into your account you will still need to type in your password, then type in the code that appears on your authenticator after pressing the button. Yes it’s that simple, that easy.

I love the peace of mind that $6.50 brings. Why are you still reading this? Go get one. Still there? Fine go here  Blizzard Authenticator Chop Chop!! and get one.

About a month ago I wrote my first impressions of Darkfall after about 2 hour of playing.  Well it seems that Eurogamer.net wrote their review of the game with about the same amount of time as me, then gave the game a 2/10.   Obviously Aventurine, the developers behind Darkfall, didn’t apperciate the review and after contacting Eurogamer privately and getting no where, they decided to take matters into their own hands.  One of the developers posted a response to Eurogamer’s review stating that the reviewer didn’t even play the game.

We checked the logs for the 2 accounts we gave Eurogamer and we found that one of them had around 3 minutes playtime, and the other had less than 2 hours spread out in 13 sessions. Most of these 2 hours were spent in the character creator since during almost every one of the logins the reviewer spent the time creating a new character. The rest of the time was apparently spent taking the low-res screenshots that accompanied the article. At no point did this reviewer spend more than a few minutes online at a time.

Ouch.  If this is true this is not good news for Eurogamer and even worse for the reviewer.  Eurogamer at the time of this post has offered to re-review the game, but not to remove the first review.   They also stated that the reviewer is a “contributing writer” not a “staff writer” as if though that makes them less liable.

As for me, I played Darkfall for about another 5-6 hrs after the original two then quit since I really didn’t like it and didn’t want to force myself to play it.  And no, I won’t be writing a review.

How many of you like getting game updates? I sure do, they make my gaming experience more enjoyable and worth my time. Well, let me ask you this then, how many of you like getting new areas and quests? I sure love getting new areas and quests more than events! You know why, because exploring them is what makes it worth while. 

Runes of Magic is hinting that an update will be released soon. The update will contain a new area and a new group instance. The fire giant Thynos hast taken the dwarve’s most precious treasure, the “Font of Power”. Maybe that’s why its called Ice Dwarf Kingdom. Grab your best group combo and try that new instance out.  As far as I have heard, this instance is only for levels 35 – 40. So you people within those ranges will surely get a kick out of this instance. Better take all the instances you can before you out level them. Cherish the moments and you will be glad you did.

The new area, Ice Dwarf Kingdom, is what I’m sure the rest of the level population will be looking forward to. The fun with new areas or cities is the new NPCs and quest. The new area is a good change also, but who doesn’t love change? Try to keep in mind that Frogster didn’t release this area yet, it is hinted to be released within a couple of weeks, but they did give away a few details about it to get your mouth wet enough to be ready for it. They sure do know how to get a person all hyped up for an update.

Over this past weekend I had the chance to try out Champions Online during a press preview weekend.  This was not closed beta, but instead a small slice of the game that had about 2 hrs worth of gameplay for us to try out.  Having been called a DC Universe fanboi in my last post where I compared the two games, I was really hoping the preview would show me something exciting so I could please the CO fanbois.  While there were a few things that surprised me and I enjoyed, I didn’t really see anything in the game that won me over.  Sorry, I can’t post screenshots, it’s not allowed.

First lets start with character creations, of all the MMOs I’ve played up to this point Champions Online has by far the most options to create a unique character.  I spent about 20 mins creating mine, but I could have easily spent an hour or 2.    Once I got into the game, I was thrown off by the movement mechanics.  Every MMO has slightly different controls, Champions is no different.  I didn’t really like the default options, but they offered Action and FPS controls which was nice and I ended up using Action which was more up my alley.  Although it still didn’t feel 100% right, but I got over it pretty quick.

The preview takes place in Millennium City which is under attack by aliens (I think).  A huge mother ship is hovering over the city and has placed a force field around it so nothing can come in or out, so it’s your job to rescue the city.  You start out with some basic intro tutorials to help you learn the game, then you move on to more gathering and killing missions.  They’re basically the run of your mill MMO quests, nothing really worth writing about.

Aside from the character creation, I really liked the look of the game.   It’s sort of a mix between cell shading and normal textures, it definitely made you feel like you were in a comic book, so Champions gets a big plus for that.

On the other end of that, one thing that bugged me was the size of the interface.  The mouse pointer and action buttons were too small for me since my res is pretty high and I would lose my pointer from time to time or I’d miss clicking on the action buttons when I was quickly trying to switch moves.  I didn’t see anything in the options to increase the size of it, but hopefully that will be something that will be added by release time.

Once you play through a few quests you get to a public quest which sorta works the same way as Warhammer Online public quests.   You enter the area and everyone works towards the same goal.  Once you complete this you’re taken to a instanced boss fight where a NPC hero joins you.  The fight was pretty easy and by the time your done, you reach lev 5 where you can now upgrade your heros powers and select a traveling power.

Not sure if traveling powers will be available at lev 5 in the official release or they just did it for the preview, but since I hate walking I hope it’s lev 5.  There are about 10 or so traveling powers to pick from, flying, teleporting, super jump, super speed, ice slide and a bunch of others.   I decided on flying and since I had completed all the quests, I just flew around the city for a little while taking in the views.   Flying took a little bit to figure out, but once I did I loved it.  Again, hopefully players will get their traveling powers early since there’s nothing worse than being a superhero and having to walk everywhere.

I didn’t have a chance to try out PvP.  I did notice there was a PvP system similar to Warhammer Onlines scenarios so I put myself in the queue, but it never launched since there were only 3 other people playing at the time I was on.   I really would liked to have tried it as I’ve never played a MMO where I could fly around, so I’m not sure how that would translate in PvP.  I’d imagine the guys that could fly and have ranged attackes would dominate in PvP.

So while my opinion of Champions Online has gone up, it still has not won me over.

Ok, Listen up, go grab a kid, in this case an orphan, doesn’t matter which one and take them for a trip. It’s time to take these little guys for a tour of Azeroth. Its children’s week in WOW! This is one of my favorite in game holiday events. For the Horde take your character to Ogrimar and visit the orphanage. Speak to the Matron to get yourself a little orphan. This orphan wants to see a few sites in Azeroth. These were the places last year, they might change this time around. If for some reason you play alliance then the orphans want to go here;

• The bank in Darnassus

• The lighthouse in Westfall

• Jaina Proudmoore in Theramore

• If you are super cool and play the Horde, your orphan wants to see;

• Mor’shan Rampart

• Lordaeron Throne Room

• Cairne Bloodhoof in Thunder Bluff

It is a bit of running around, unless you have a mage friend to port you around. It is worth it, if you like non combat pets. Upon completing the quests you can choose from these three pets.  Piglet, the Rat, or Speedy .

If you’re over level 60 you can take part in the orphan quests in Shattrath also. Visit the Matron at the Shattrath orphanage, last year you had to take your outland’s orphan to these places;

• The Dark Portal

• The Exodar (Alliance)

• Silvermoon City (Horde)

• Caverns of Time

Caverns of time is probably the most time consuming place to go. Here is a tip, if you’re Hearthstone is set to Dalaran take the portal in Dalaran right to the caverns of time. This is a big time saver. The others are an easy portal skip from Shattrath. I love the pet choices from the outlands quests, here are your choices;  Eggbert, Baby Elekk, Sleepy Willy.

It’s a fun holiday that anyone can complete; the reward is a fun new companion that will remain loyally by your side. Just watch out for Willy, he drools.