The developers behind the sandbox MMORPG Dominus are putting the so called Bounty Hunters in SWTOR on notice by introducing an actual bounty hunter system to their game.

The system will allow players to place a bounty on anyone’s head for any amount of money, however will limit bounty offers to four per person. So if you pissed off a lot of people, you won’t have more than four active bounties on you at one time. Other players can then accept up to four bounties, hunt them down and collect the payments once they kill them.

The penalty for death in Dominus is minor at the current time. Like most MMORPGs today, players will respawn at a given location mainly losing time having to travel back to where they were. However Dominus also allows resource looting, so if you were carrying any materials on you, those can be looted off your corpse by other players.

The system however has flaws, other then getting revenge on someone, why bother spending your money to kill someone if you receive no reward, leaving yourself in the negative. No one is going to bother spending their time hunting another player unless the payment is decent, so I’d imagine it will be costly to put up a bounty.  Since it will be expensive, most likely there won’t be many people listing bounties if they get no reward in return.

The system is also easily gameable and will give huge incentives for everyone to be assholes to each other. Think of it this way, if your a big enough ass to everyone you’ll get bounties on yourself, then have a second account or friend collect the bounty on you and split the earnings.

The concept is great, but it just needs to be fleshed out more.  The person putting up the bounty needs to be rewarded once the contract has been filled, otherwise players will be just throwing their money away. At the same time, you don’t want people gaming the system the other way by placing bullshit bounties on extra accounts just to collect the bounty rewards given. It’s a difficult predicament, but hopefully the developers will figure out a way.

Last Friday Tribes: Ascend launched into closed beta testing and dropped their NDA, so today we have a video preview of the game. For those of you who don’t know what Tribes: Ascend is, it’s basically an online FPS with some leveling features similar to how Modern Warfare works.

So why are we previewing a non-MMO title? Well because we got into the closed beta and I figured some of you guys would be playing it anyway, so why not. Tribes: Ascent will be a free-to-play title powered by an in-game item store and will be released sometime in early 2012.

Let me preface the video by saying I never played the original Tribes and I tend to stick to more realistic FPSs like Counter Strike, Call of Duty and Medal of Honor, so I was a little out of my element with this. The movement is so fast and chaotic I really didn’t play well, so be kind to a Tribes noob with your comments

Check out the Tribes: Ascend video preview below.

Issue 21: Convergence will be City of Heroes first content update since making the switch to free-to-play and today we have new details as to what will be included.

Up first is the new zone called the First Ward, which was already announced over the summer. The First Ward holds Emperor Coles biggest secret and players will need to venture into this devastated city to explore its wastelands to find out what it is.

Within the First Ward, players will come face to face with the Seed of Hamidon, a new giant monster that roams the skies above the city. Players will face off against it during massive zone events to earn rare rewards.

At level 50, players can partake in a new Incarnate Trial called The Underground. Underneath the city lies the hidden lair of the Devouring Earth and Emperor Coles dark secret. Team up with the Rogue Desdemona, battle against the Devouring Earth and face off against the Avatar of Hamidon in the final battle.

Issue 21 also adds a new power set, Time manipulations for Defenders and a secondary set for Controllers, Corrupters and Masterminds. The new set will be available for free for all VIP players.

Two new costume sets will also be included, IDF and Defense.  The IDF set gives players access to the power armor worn by the IDF troopers, while the Defense set offers a sleeker, skintight option to emphasize aerodynamics.

A new co-op tutorial has also been added to help introduce new players to City of Heroes and to test their moral choices that will determine whether they become a hero or villain.

All players will gain access to the new First Ward zone, however only VIP members will be able to play the missions.

Below was have some new screenshot of City of Heroes Issue 21: Convergence, showing off the new zone, costumes, power set, new monster and the new starting tutorial location.

◄ Back

Next ►

Picture 1 of 11

With Patch 1.5 only a few days or weeks away, TrionWorlds today released a preview of what players can expect in the latest update. While most of this information has been previously released, we thought we’d run though it and give a little preview of what is to come in Rift patch 1.5.

First up is the introduction of Travel Stones which were used to instantly teleport people around the world, however were eventually swallowed by the sea.  After the defeat of the mad god who caused the stones to be swallowed, the Travel Stone have now risen out of the sea and are part of the new World Event in patch 1.5. Players will use the Travel Stones to travel to a distant kingdom where they will have to fight against two powerful cults who are trying to unleash doom upon Telara.

Next up is Planar Attunement which will allow players at the level cap to earn additional upgrades in the form of an elemental upgrade system. PA points can be obtained by completely quests and slaying planespawn minions.

Chronicle Dungeons are a new type of story-driven dungeon that are meant for solo players or groups of two and can be found at Greenscale’s Blight, Hammerknell, and more.

Patch 1.5 also introduces a new PvP warfront called Library of the Runesmasters. The new warfront is located in Hammerknell’s Libary where players race the enemy faction to control Dwarven secrets.

A new Veteran Rewards program will be introduced that awards players in-game items for being a loyal RIFT customer starting at one month up to 18 months.

A new dungeon mode called “Master Dungeon” will be available to challenge even the most elite players and guilds. The first of these new master dungeons will be in the Darkening Deeps, but eventually all raids and high level dungeons will have a Master Dungeon mode. Players who complete them will be rewarded with epic items.

From more information about the upcoming RIFT patch 1.5, head over to the official Rift site.

Yesterday Blizzard released Part One of their Patch 4.3 Dungeon Preview, which revealed details about the upcoming patch and the three new Heroic dungeons, specifically about the End Time dungeon. Parts two and three have now been released as well and we have a preview of the other dungeons coming in World of Warcraft patch 4.3.

The second dungeon players will encounter is called the “Well of Eternity”, which takes place ten thousand years in the past in the night elven capital city of Zin-Azshari. While providing aid to a much younger Tyrande and Illidan against the Highborne and Burning Legion, players must steal the Dragon Soul floating above the Well, but in order to do so players will have to defeat some lethal enemies including Peroth’arn, Azshara, and Mannoroth and Varo’then.

Dungeon three, called “Hour of Twilight”, takes players back to the present where having shattered the infinite dragonlight and obtained the Dragon Soul, they head to Wyrmrest Temple where they rendezvous with the blue, green, red and bronze dragonflights. However in order to reach the temple players will have to battle through the armies of the Twilight Hammer. Once there players will face-off against bosses such as Arcurion, Asira Dawnslayer and Archbishop Benedictus.

Below we have pics for both patch 4.3 dungeons.

◄ Back

Next ►

Picture 1 of 12

The next World of Warcraft patch is heading this way and this time the heroes of Azeroth are planning on bringing down Deathwing himself, but in order to do so they must first acquire the Dragon Soul.

In patch 4.3, players will gain access to three new Heroic five-man dungeons to aid the Aspects and other heroes as they continue to fight against Deathwing, the Twilight’s Hammer, the armies of the Burning Legions and Highborne, even time itself.

The dungeons will be setup in sequential order so players will have to unlock access to new areas by completing the prerequisite areas. New epic loot, including new dungeon sets, will be available in these new Heroic dungeons and will be dropped by defeating the bosses in each dungeon. The new sets are not broken down by class and contain no set bonuses, they’re purely for cosmetic purposes.

The three new dungeons will take players to the past, present, and future as they try to obtain the Dragon Soul. In part one of this 4.3 preview, we are introduced to the “End Time” dungeon which takes place in the future where Deathwing rules over the lands and the heroes of Azeroth have failed.

Players will travel to a future Dragonblight where they will have to confront four familiar leaders who are now warped and corrupted by time, Sylvanas, Tyrande, Jaina and Baine. Each time a group enters the dungeon, two of the four leaders will be chosen at random and once they have been defeated, the maniacal figure blocking Nozdormu’s vision will be revealed at the Bronze Dragonshrine.

None of the Dragon Aspects could have predicted what entity would have such power to interrupt the sight of the Timeless One… the ability to create a new and infinite dragonflight. Only by destroying a mysterious dragon known as Murozond will you give Azeroth’s protectors the opportunity to avoid the potential outcome to which your eyes bear witness.

Below we have some  screenshots of WoW patch 4.3 and the End Time dungeon.

◄ Back

Next ►

Picture 1 of 6

RiotGames released a new video preview for the upcoming 1.0.0.125 patch showcasing some of the balance changes heading towards League of Legends. Balance changes to champions Shako, Mordekaiser, Shen, Orianna, and Taric were previewed in the video and some changes coming to the LoL store are listed below.

New Skins in the Store

• Redeemed Riven
• Crimson Elite Riven

PVP.net Store

• You can now search for runes based on rune attributes, descriptions, and effects
• Search no longer looks through unnecessary data when bringing up results
• Redesigned the store navigation (now featured on the left side)
• Redesigned the Runes and Skins tab
• Added a standalone “unlock” button to store items

PVP.net v1.43

• Ticker messaging has been improved to now more accurately relay the state of the platform
• Improved the startup times for PVP.net

You can watch the League of Legends patch preview video below.

Today Turbine released a new video developer diary previewing more content coming from the next Lord of the Rings Online expansion Rise of Isengard.  The diary focuses on The Gap of Rohan and how it will introduce epic scale instances where thousands of NPCs roam and fight against each other as the player journeys through the area.

While The Gap of Rohan is the first of these epic instances, the diary states that as the player marches towards Mordor, Turbine be able to do more and more of these large scale types of instances.

Also two new characters from the books are introduces,  Thadric and Grimble (not sure if that’s spelled right).  Thadric being the prince of Rohan and Grimble is a captain in the Rohan army. Check out The Gap of Rohan dev diary after the jump.

Today Gamigo released the patch notes to Black Prophecy Episode 2: Species War that feature some big new additions and changes to the current game.  The two big new additions are the introduction of the Warzone system, which it desperately needed and the new Honor System.

Black Prophecy Warzones

Each Warzone is made up of 5 sectors, 3 outposts, 1 support sector and 1 Command Center and are controlled by one of the two factions. In order to conquer a zone, the attacking faction must first hold control of all three outposts, then the path to the Command Center will open up.  That must then be conquer to gain control of the entire warzone.

The support sector is meant for high level players that want to provide support in a low level warzone.

Higher level players can still help in a lower level Warzone by entering the Support Zone, where each enemy kill helps to reduce the time needed to claim each Capture Point in the Outpost and Command Sectors within. Any player above the Warzone’s maximum level can enter its support zone.

The faction that controls a Warzone will gain rewards such as better mission rewards, reduced cooldown timers on special items, etc.

Honor System

Honor points are earned for killing players in the Warzone sectors and PvP missions.  PvP kills in free sectors do not award honor points. Players can then visit an honor vendor in a warzone to purchase high quality blueprints.

Balancing Changes

The biggest change is that shield density has now been removed making shields actually useful. If you have 100% shields, 100% of the damage is absorbed, but your shield strength does down.  As it starts to fade, more and more damage will go through dealing hull damage.

Pretty exciting changes.  Currently Episode 2 is on the public test server for players to try out and if you’re interested in the full patch notes head over to Prophecy Nation.

Blizzard released a preivew of World of Warcraft patch 4.3 today, showing off the all new Darkmoon Faire where players can spend their time gazing an the faire wonders or participating in events and mini-games.

Catch a show at the marvelous main stage or witness a dazzling fireworks display. But don’t stare too long or you might miss the stunning spectacles that surround you. Gaze in awe of our magical menagerie, get your fortune told by the amazing Sayge, go on a pony ride, experience the healthful effects of carnival food, and more!

Darkmoon Cards remain part of the faire and patch 4.3 will bring in all new achievements and titles for players to obtain. It also introduces Darkmoon Artifacts. The Darkmoon Field Guide helps you discover artifacts while exploring dungeons, slaying monsters, and fighting in Battlegrounds. Once a player has found an artifact it can be returned to the faire where you’ll earn valuable experience, earn a better reputation, and possibly earn precious Darkmoon Faire Prize Tickets.

Of course there more to the Darkmoon Faire then games and artifacts.  For the full preview, head over to the World of Warcraft site.