Monthly Archive for December, 2008

Mortal Combat

Mortal Online LogoI beg anyone who has played perhaps the greatest single player RPG game of all time, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, not to have wondered what it would be like if it were turned into an MMO. Well, with talk of a possible online future for Fallout 3, who knows what we might see on offer from Bethesda Studios.

But until that happens (if ever), there is already a possible contender for what could be considered an Oblivion-style MMO – Mortal Online. Developed by Swedish developers Star Vault, it claims to be the next generation of MMORPG, with a free-to-roam world that offers real-time, first person style combat with no dedicated PvP only areas. Information is limited at the moment, with only a few Alpha phase screenshots and a somewhat contrived ‘teaser’ trailer on the site. But it’s worth signing up to the newsletter as it provides periodic updates of how the game is shaping up.

Check it out now HERE.

//HoC

December 28, 2008
General MMO and MMO Gaming News
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Written by Hobbit of Consequence 2 Comments

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38 studios Salvatore inspired MMO inc!

A new MMO is in the pipeline and for it’s creators 38studios the MMO in question will be their first title. Moorgard of Everquest fame is one of the developers at 38 studios and was kind enough to respond to my email. In his own words: -

Bob Salvatore is one of the visionaries behind our upcoming MMO. He’s a great storyteller and a super nice guy to work with.

In fact R. A. Salvatore is the Executive Creator of Worlds at 38studios which can only bode well for the company. If like me, your a big fan of the Drizzt books and the rest of Salvatore’s work then I’m sure you’ll be interested to learn more about the upcoming MMO. 

In addition to Salvatore 38 studios has managed to bring together a great team of people with experience in all areas needed for MMO development, the right ingredients are there so now we’ll have to wait to see what they can come up with.

As of yet there is no news on the name of the MMO in question or much detail at all about it’s style or form. If your reading this Moorgard I might have to check in with you from time to time and badger you for some info, always worth a try. ;)

I’ll be watching the 38studios website closely over the coming months to see if any news emerges, even with no direct information as of yet about the nature of the title, Salvatore’s involvement has my interest already. Yes it’s “another MMO”, but myself I’ve yet to find one to top Everquest 2 which is my main game at the moment and I’m always interested to see what companies can come up with in their new titles.

December 24, 2008
MMO Gaming News
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Written by Yetian 0 Comments

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Fall From Grace

When it comes to lore, I am by no means a stickler for strict adherance. Let’s face it, if it wasn’t for a little rule bending and more than a dash of conjecture, we wouldn’t have LOTRO at all. Therefore I’m willing to go along with a little artistic licence for the sake of gaming enjoyment. In actual fact, I’d even go so far as to outrightly praise Turbine for their highly successful efforts in developing a wealth of content from what may have originally been a paragraph or sentance’s worth of source material.

So, in all that I’ve experienced of LOTRO so far, I don’t think I’ve once been disappointed with its realisation as an MMO – until now. There is actually a part of the recent Mines of Moria expansion that I’m not sure I’ll ever come to terms with – the Fall of Moria session play instance. In short, it has to be the most poorly interpreted and visually inaccurate player experience presented in the whole game. Why so?

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December 15, 2008
Lord Of The Rings
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Written by Hobbit of Consequence 0 Comments

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Warhammer Online – End of the line for me

I first played Warhammer Online in the late Beta stages and then continued on when the game went live, but I’m afraid my time in this game has come to an end. It’s a shame as I was looking forward to WAR before release having been an avid games workshop fan as a kid. When I first entered the Beta stage of Warhammer Online I was looking forward to exploring the world I was so familiar with and seeing if all would be as I imagined.

The world itself was good fun to wander around, the races and their game areas pretty much as I imagined them to be. The Dwarves were gritty and beer filled, the Elves elegant and the Empire fanatical in their ways. As you can tell my first choices were on the side of Order, though I did try out a Goblin on another server and loved the comical actions of the Greenskins.

The game itself as you will probably know is split between PvE (player vs environment) and RvR (Realm vs Realm) combat. The PvE side of the game has some interesting ideas such as public quests and some quests a bit different to the usual types. I paticularly enjoyed dropping a rock on a Snotling and quests such as shooting harpies out of the sky. Public quests are as the name suggests, quests which need help from other players to progress. They are constantly running and you can simply walk in and take part in the quest, the stage you enter at and how much you do determine your reward. These quests were ok at first as everyone was playing in the same areas, but later on as people out leveled me I found them to be empty and therefore impossible to complete.

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December 15, 2008
Warhammer Online
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Written by Yetian 2 Comments

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The Farce that is StationCash

There I was, logging onto EQ2, as you do, and then a popup appeared, with some nice shiny pictures to grab my attention. I clicked the link, and had a quick look at the website (Here) and dismissed it as something for the “ebayer” friendly station exchange servers.

Obviously this wasn’t the case, it happens to be on all the servers.

At this moment in time, the items range from the pointless (fluff pets) to the unfair (exp potions), so as it stands, not really affecting game balance all that much… but this is quite possibly the start of something else altogether.

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December 11, 2008
Everquest 2
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Written by Wodge 3 Comments

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What’s In A Name?

I thought I’d kick off my MMO blogging by not actually discussing Lord of the Rings Online, but rather by talking about my name – the two of course being inextricably linked.

The magic of Tolkien’s Middle-earth was opened up to me from a quite young age, my earliest experience being whispered references to the Black Riders around an autumn bonfire from a father intent on scaring me witless. But a fear of what might be abroad just beyond the circle of firelight quickly became a fascination when, during the early 80’s, I would lie in a darkened room week after week listening with rapt attention to the BBC Radio 4 adaption of Tolkien’s masterpiece work. And innumerable viewings of Ralph Bakshi’s 1978 animated film left vivid imagery imprinted on my mind and established John Hurt as the definitive voice of Aragorn.

What does this have to do with consequential hobbits? Everything.

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December 7, 2008
Lord Of The Rings
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Written by Hobbit of Consequence 1 Comment

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An SOE customer service gem!

With the release of guild halls in Everquest our guild had a lot to do. As a casual bunch we opted for the Tier 2 hall so we didn’t overstretch ourselves. South Qeynos was the location of choice and before long we were adding amenities and furniture to help make our hall a home. One amenity of choice was the option of adding uniform mannequins so we could kit out our npc’s with some nice outfits.

We purchased 2 mannequins at first and managed to setup the uniforms without any problems, well lack of fashion sense maybe, but that’s a whole other topic. ;)

After a while our urge for weird and wonderful outfits got the better of us and we purchased 2 more mannequins. Upon trying to use the 2 additional uniforms we’d created we came upon our first problem, 2 of the mannequins had the name “uniform 1″ and 2 “uniform 2″. This meant that the game could only see the first 2 and thefore we had 2 mannequins that we couldn’t do anything with.

A guildmate contact a GM who told us to sell the mannequins and re-purchase. We did this as asked and then sent a petition to regain the status lot from selling them back to the hall, this is where the problems began.

SOE decided that we had bought 2 mannequins and received 4, when in actual fact we had purchased 2 and received 2, then purchased 2 more and received 2 more. My efforts to make them see this can be seen below.

Continue reading ‘An SOE customer service gem!’

December 1, 2008
Everquest 2
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Written by Yetian 1 Comment

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