Sick of elves, orcs and high fantasy?  Aliens, spaceships and warp drives got you down?  Normal people doing weird things bore you?  Would some good old-fashioned tank-based destruction liven this party up?  WarGaming.net certainly hopes so, because the company announced an all new F2P MMOG based on that very premise.

World of Tanks will band 30 players together and task them with achieving victory on the fields of PvP battle.  The game is to feature over 150 armored vehicles, ranging from slow, infantry supporting pre-WW2 tanks to the blitzkrieg machines of WW2 and the versatile war machines made up to and including the Korean War.  The vehicles come from the top three tank creators, the United States, Germany and Soviet Russia.

Fear not, you will not have to stick with just one mechanic means of destruction.  Players can house an “endless number” of vehicles in their garage, and all of them can be upgraded.  Turrets, chassis, guns, engines, radios, ammo types and even crew members can be upgraded.

Unlike WarGaming.net’s tactical Massive Assault Network, World of Tanks is set to offer fast-paced battles.  Modes include mini-campaigns steeped in history, tournaments, and massive Clan Wars (the end game) that span “hundreds of provinces.”

“A wise gentleman once observed that men had the same relationship to tanks, as women to SPA treatments: an all-eclipsing love, hardwired into the genes,” says Victor Kislyi, CEO of Wargaming.net, “That’s why we are coming up with Panzer MMO.”

World of Tanks is expected to release in fall 2010.

Seems like some PR person realized how successful Global Agenda‘s marketing strategy was.

I’ve had my beef with many a company, from Comcast to Cryptic Studios, and there’s nothing I enjoy more than seeing these companies prove me wrong.  I don’t want the hassle of finding a new games, a cable provider or what have you.  I want the service provider in question to win me back.  Naturally, the best way to prevent me from getting upset with a company is to treat me, and the rest of the customers, right.  Offer us incentives to stay on board, give us information on upcoming products and keep us informed – even if it’s PR fluff.

That’s exactly what the maker of the recently launched Global Agenda did yesterday.  Even though the game has had a relatively smooth launch, Hi-Rez Studios is extending the free 30 days through March.  That’s your incentive.  Todd Harris followed that announcement up by explaining what’s in store for the Commonwealth’s immediate future.  Based upon early community feedback the company will be adding the following features by the end of February: a Friends/Ignore list, the ability to chosePvP queues, Repair Kits (gear is currently unrepairable), and new AvA zones timed for other time zones.

There’s many more issues that Hi-Rez has to deal with in the game – window mode optimization, being removed from missions on disconnects/crashes, thus losing XP, etc – but the communication so far has been superb.  Further ahead Hi-Rez promises additional content of all types (PvP, PvE, AvA), tweaks and overhauls to crafting, loot and prestige.

I mentioned in my “Champions Online" href="../2010/02/06/why-i-quit-champions-online/">Why I Quit Champions Online” post that I believe MMOG companies and players live in a symbiotic relationship.  By giving the companies money to fund the entertainment we want we are providing services to each other.  It’s still early, but Hi-Rez has my trust, and thus my money, for now.

Frogster Interactive has announced Chapter III: The Elder Kingdoms, the next content pack for their hit free-to-play MMORPG, Runes of Magic. The Elder Kingdoms will hit live servers in May, and will introduce new locations, skills, items, quests and dungeons, as well as raise the level cap to 60.

Chapter III – The Elder Kingdoms will take players to the newly rediscovered continent. Here, the old kingdom of Dalanis lies in chaos and turmoil with plotters scheming behind the throne of the child-king Callaway. Little remains of the old glory of the ruling dynasty from the time of the legendary King Kalume. In total desperation, the people long for the return of their ancient heroes. So now it is up to all brave adventurers to support the young regent and bring order to the chaos.

Adventurers will be able to take their first steps into a kingdom full of intrigue and uprisings when they enter the Thunderhoof Hills, the first territory in the The Elder Kingdoms. A new zone concept has also been created for the new chapter of Runes of Magic. The new continent has moved away from closed territories and has evolved into versatile and varied landscapes. When gamers journey to the Thunderhoof Hills they will first enter the forest, pass by waterfalls and then enter one of the three new cities to trade and meet other players, or explore a mystery shrouded graveyard of long dead kings while staying within the same zone. One of the new instances, the Dungeon of Dalanis, leads adventurers into the world of shadows beneath the Thunderhoof Hills. Here dreadful terrors lurk that can only be overcome by mobilizing everyone in your group.

The history of the old kingdoms of Runes of Magic will be told in Chapter III through many new quests. Level 55 and above adventurers will become familiar with a new skill system where they can select from a pool of special abilities which will be available to them in combat. There will also be plenty of opportunities to try out these new abilities in the new chapter, including in conflicts with other guilds. The Elder Kingdoms also expands on the existing opportunities which guilds have to equip their castles with new buildings. Rival guilds will also be able to lay their hands on siege weapons. Quests for whole player communities, Player vs. Player rankings and reward systems, as well as a new battlefield – the Tyrefen Mountains – bring additional depth to the PvP game. Three additional mini-games have also been built into the game.

More information on the expansion is available here.

Gala-net has announced that Allods Online open beta will begin for North America on Feb 16th.  Back in Nov 09 when we had our Allods Online closed beta key giveaway, we received an overwhelming response for keys, in fact we still receive requests for keys, so I’m sure this is welcomed news for many of you.  To signup for the Allods open beta just head over to the official site and signup.

Below is the full press release.

February 9th, 2010 Gala-Net, Inc., a leading free-to-play online game publisher, has announced today their Open Beta Test (OBT) for Allods Online in the North American market.  The Open Beta Test will go live on February 16^th and will allow players access to the entire game.  All players are welcome to join the world of Allods, and there will be no restrictions to join!

My Precious

Tribble breeding is somewhat of a mini-game in Star Trek Online. The quickly multiplying furry little creatures first appeared in The Original Series episode The Trouble with Tribbles. Tribble act as a buff which can be activated while on the ground, and the buff does apply to space combat as well. A tribble will eat food in your main inventory or bank, and replace that food with a new tribble. When a particular tribble eats a particular food, a particular tribble will be created. So in other words; X tribble + Y food = Z Tribble. Right clicking on the tribble and clicking info will tell you the tribble type and the buffs. Here are some general tribble tips:

1) It takes one hour for a tribble to eat a food item.
2) Tribble can multiply in your main inventory and in your bank.
3) Adding a food item to your inventory will not reset the one hour timer.
4) The one hour timer only accumulates while you are online. The timer resumes where it left off when you re-enter the game.
5) The more powerful foods appear to make better tribble (i.e. – the 64% and 72% regen foods).

Tribble Type (Yellow) and Tribble Buff (Red)

Example Steps to Make a Ricossa Tribble

1) Loot, buy or breed a McCarry tribble.
2) McCarry tribble + Klingon grapok sauce = Howe tribble
3) Howe tribble + Klingon octopus = Ricossa tribble
4) Now you have a Ricossa tribble that has a DPS and a damage resistance buff which lasts one hour.


For more tribble recipes and information check out STO Intel.

Icarus Studios’ little experiment known as Fallen Earth, LLC, and its MMORPG Fallen Earth have been bumped up to version 1.3 today.  The developer continues to surprise the MMOG sector with Fallen Earth by putting out additional content quickly.  The new patch’s highlights include raising the level cap (only by one level), a new Sector Three base camp and a (much needed) revamp of the Sector One starter town area.

“Our goal for this project was to make gameplay more enticing and challenging for new Sector One players as well as our veterans in Sector Three who have reached level 45,” said Project Manager, Colin Dwan.

Dwan reveals that some of the content in the new patch acts as a setup for v1.4. “The purpose of Deadfall Point is to encourage players to assist in pushing back the radiation boundaries, acquiring access to the Deadfall territory, which mysteries will unravel later this year with patch v1.4,” said Dwan.

Patch v1.3, “the first of several developments planned for 2010,“ also includes some lesser additions, “more than a dozen new encounter areas and several creatures typically found in higher-level territories of Sectors Two and Three.”

Now is as good a time as any to sign-up for Fallen Earth’s 10-day free trial.

Gala-Net today announced that the new expansion to their free to play MMORPG, Rappelz, will launch on February 24th.  The expansion titled, Rappelz Epic VI: Resurrection, will be available to all players for free and will revive the main storyline of the evil Witch and introduce new pets to Rappelz.

In Epic VI: Resurrection, the most sinister villain in Rappelz makes her triumphant return: the Witch.  Players are introduced to the humble beginnings of the Witch’s saga with rumors of a girl with mysterious powers.  Those rumors will bring players into an epic continent-spanning journey to discover the truth of the Witch.

Resurrection also introduces 3 new pets to tame: the Unicorn, the Nightmare, and the Ifrit.  The Unicorn is a calm, pure, and holy steed that provides a variety of buffs to its owner.  The Nightmare is a wild beast that is difficult to tame, and its formidable armor makes it a fearsome companion in battle as it will often absorb blows targeted at its master.  The Ifrit is a powerful magical creature that can heal its allies and unleash destruction on its enemies.

More information about the Rappelz expansion can be found on Gpotato’s website.

Ever wonder what it would be like to walk from a dinosaur-based zone to a moon colony without switching video games?  Well, that’s exactly the kind of crazy shenanigans that Lego Universe will allows players to participate in when it goes live.  If it’s in the Lego universe, then it will most likely make it to the MMORPG (licensed products not withstanding).

A Lego ID is required to sign-up for the Lego Universe beta, but the IDs are free, and even allow access to other Lego-based sites.  Head over to the beta sign-up page for further information on being one of the first to play with the multicolored blocks.  As with most beta sign-ups, your place in the game is far from guaranteed.

Lego Universe is being developed by NetDevil, makers of Jumpgate, Auto Assault and the upcoming Jumpgate Evolution, and is planned for release in Q2 2010.

[Update]

The site seems to have been hammered by all the excited gamers.  It keeps going up and down, much like the Myst Online sign-up page.

Reports of the demise of Cyan Worlds and Myst Online totally jumped the gun.  After laying off nearly all of its employees in 2005, and seeing Myst Online: Uru Live be taken offline in 2008, the company has returned with ownership of Myst Online.  Cyan Worlds has relaunched the title as Myst Online: ULagain (not a typo), and best of all is the price, free.

All of the Ages and most of Myst Online are now available on a server provided by Cyan Worlds.

The (incredibly difficult) puzzle and story driven game featuring robust atmospheres and an intricate story is available now for download.  Cyan hopes that it will be able to continue to produce further content through PayPal donations, although it does not require a cent to play.  Cyan Worlds has also released all of its tools under the open source model, asking players to play developer themselves.  There are no microtransactions currently planned.

Since the announcement the site has been bogged down by users creating new accounts, so the account creation system is currently down.  The developer is already working on the problem, and expect to have it fixed soon.  In the meantime, you can grab the client here.

I’ll definitely be jumping back in to Myst Online, if not to play, then at least to take a tour.

League of Legends (LoL), is a Defense of the Ancients (DotA) game made by Riot Games. I have logged in countless numbers of hours into LoL during the past few weeks but not once did I think of it as an MMORPG until I saw this news feature on the League of Legends website. LoL was nominated for: Best MMORTS 2009 and Best New MMO 2009. After seeing this I wondered why people would consider LoL an MMO. Riot Games says that League of Legends is not technically an MMORPG but it does have a lot of similarities that these type of games offer.

So how exactly is a DotA game like League of Legends an MMORPG?

Your character in LoL is a summoner that can summon a champion of your choice onto the battlefields of Valoran. At the start of every match you can choose two utility spells out of a list of thirteen to use during the game. The spells vary from heals, extra movement speed, teleport, etc. At the end of every match you gain experience based on whether your team won/lost and your personal performance during the match. The max summoner level is 30 and for each level you gain you get a mastery point. Mastery points are spent on the three mastery trees which are: Offense, Defense and Utility. This allows you to customize your summoner to your play style. Adding in talent trees makes LoL very unique for a DotA game since everyone will have different mastery builds.

You also get influence points at the end of every match (which can be viewed as currency). Influence points can be used to buy champions you don’t currently own and also to buy runes.

Runes are items that enhance your champions traits and abilities. Summoners have a rune book where you can place certain runes in their respective slots. As you level up you get access to more rune slots in the book and higher tiers of runes. There are three tiers of runes that can be purchased with influence points and four different types of runes. The different types of runes are: Marks, Seals, Glyphs and Quintessences. The runes do various things like increasing attack speed, additional mana, bonus health regeneration, etc.

So is League of Legends an MMORPG? I don’t really think there’s a right or wrong answer. People will have their own ideas and views of what an MMORPG. If you search for “League of Legends MMO” you will find a lot of sites that view LoL as an MMO. Even sites like SK-Gaming (a well known team of professional E-Sports players that compete in games like: World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, etc) refer to League of Legends as an MMO and points out that the game has many similarities which are found in MMOs. LoL is just one of those games that could be an MMO while at the same time it isn’t. What I can say is that it does have a lot of things that you would find and expect in an MMORPG like choosing spells, leveling up character, customizing mastery trees and buying items (runes) that increase a character’s stats/abilities.

For the record I personally don’t consider League of Legends to be an MMO/MMORPG. It does have some of the main traits that an MMORPG has but I just don’t consider interacting with nine other people (five vs five games) as a “massive” multiplayer game.