Previews

Age of Conan is the third game and second MMO on the way from Funcom. Published by Eidos, Age of Conan hopes to leverage the resurgent IP and publishing power of Eidos to take a swipe out of the MMO market later this year. We saw this dual-platform MMO (Xbox 360 version coming in '08) at GDC and file this preview.

For players, there are a number of ways to tackle a camp and few of them involving pulling away lone mindless automatons with a bow to fight them out of agro range. For example, a player could choose to try and sneak into the camp and distract the bulk of the forces, while his friends pick off stragglers. Like a puzzle, there are built in distractions for players to find and activate. Yet, this is only one way to peel the potato. Players can also try and find, catch and quickly neutralize the patrol before it sees them and reports back to the main force. Each camp can also scale itself to the size of its attackers. If a player is solo, it's not very likely that a flood of extra bandits will come running out of the tents. If eight people are raiding, don't expect them not to. Funcom was clear though that the number is partly random, just to keep players on their toes. One day, a group might take a camp in a walk and the next find it much stiffer competition.

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Mmm, so pretty. Being without a Valentine, I've been forced to resort to the desperate measure of eye candy and in-game music. While there may not be any Barry White, what better place to forget my lonely existence some than Middle-Earth?

Ooh, shiny

If there was nothing else to mention, one thing would consistently stand out about Lords of the Rings Online: it is a very beautiful game. The art style does an excellent job of capturing the feel of the novels, as well as the movies. Moving through any given zone, you might be impressed by the reflection of your surroundings in a stream or lake, or merely by gazing off in the distance towards an almost watercolor-like horizon. It is easy to get lost in the visuals, especially as the signature pollen wafts by, or you stumble across a field of wildflowers surrounding an ancient ruin.

If you haven't figured out where the rest of the article is hidden by now, we're going to have to get you a helmet. But, to give you the benefit of the doubt, click Read More to see it all. Thanks for sticking with me all the way!

Point, click, press a few buttons... sure, it sounds simple, but there's really much more to the user interface. From finding groups to controlling your pet, we'll take a look at it today.

But how do you work this thing?

The user interface is often a deciding factor in the user's enjoyment of a title and Turbine hasn't been asleep at the wheel in this department. The basic layout should be familiar to most players by now, as it appears to have been heavily influenced by World of Warcraft. Your typical portrait and status bars reside in the upper left, mini-map at the upper right, chat interface on the lower left, and various and assorted icons at the bottom. One nice improvement is the reactive hotbars. Instead of displaying row upon row of icons (though this is an option), additional rows are only shown when pressing the corresponding hotkey. For example, if you had an attack bound to Ctrl+1, the Ctrl hotbar only appears when the key is depressed.

Be sure to click on Read More for the rest of the article. Bonus points awarded to Ze Frank fans.

Yesterday we took a look at character creation and some of the options therein. Today, we dive straight into the game world and take a look around. Oh, and Elrond doesn't look like Hugo Weaving.

Part the Second, in which Elrond makes his presence known

Instead of just plunking you down in the world and letting you have at it, new characters are safely deposited in an instanced introduction. In this introduction, epic events begin to unfold and the world of Middle-Earth starts to come to life for the player. As an Elf, I began in the Refuge of Edhelion, which was currently under assault and in a rather panicked state. In fact, the very first sight a fresh Elf is greeted with is fire blossoming in a distinctly elven city. Thrust into service after picking up a nearby weapon, it is now your task to help with the defense of Edhelion.

The Read More link below will take you to the full text. Enjoy!

Today we kick off the first of four parts in a series of articles taking a look at the upcoming Lords of the Rings Online. Join me in examining my first impressions of entering Middle-Earth in it's first massively-multiplayer incarnation.

Entering Middle-Earth

Beta. A word just about every gamer loves to hear. For some, it means a chance to make the games they love a little better before the gold announcement; for others, a chance to test-drive the latest titles without having to pay for them. For me? Well, it was my first chance to enter the latest world sculpted by Turbine and, hopefully, squash some bugs along the way. Feeling a bit blasé with the genre, I wasn't expecting too much. I was in for a surprise. Before going any further, it should be noted that the game is in a beta state, which means everything is subject to change and anything discussed here may not appear in the final release version.

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JR Sutich has spent the last few weeks in the Lord of the Rings Online beta and emerges today with our exclusive preview of the game. Doing his due-diligence, Sutich tried a variety of the game's core systems and reports back on some of the finer details many prospective players are craving.

Crafting is fun. And for me to say that means something, since I usually loathe crafting in MMOs. I think it has something to do with grinding 9,887 rifle barrels, or getting killed by a Forge in some other games. The crafting system is interesting and not too complicated. After choosing a set of professions, you are able to start making things that you can actually sell! There is a level of interdependency between Crafters which will also help a player driven economy. One of the great features is that once you master a level of crafting, you can then get critical successes which will result in improved products, some of which are better than epic loot of the same level range. This also applies to the tools that are used to make these products as well. I think that having the better gear possible to be made by players will add a level of commerce that hasn't been seen for quite some time.

Resource gathering is also refreshing in LOTRO. There are plenty of resource nodes to be found and they do not have static spawn points, but rather random within an area. This means that you won't be able to set a bot program to go to specific coordinates, in theory. Anything that hinders farming of this nature is a good thing.

You can read more by clicking below.

Steven-Elliot Altman, 9Dragons' Lead Writer, and Howard Marks, the CEO of Acclaim, took the time to answer some questions we had on the game that went into Open Beta today. This martial-arts MMORPG will be the first major title released by the resurrected Acclaim.

WarCry: Are you worried that the far more famous Shaolin or Wu-Tang Clans will attract far more people than the others and hurt the game's balance?

Steven-Elliot Altman: Actually, it's Wu-Tang Clan (the noble clan of peerless swords) and Heavenly Demon Clan (the sinister clan of demonic sabers), who passionately hate one another, that seem to draw the most disciples in-game. As a balance to that, those two clans are actually much more difficult to join, requiring a far greater degree of training and skill. Female players playing female characters dominate Sacred Flower clan, as expected, and Shaolin has an equal number of male players playing Shaolin Monks. The League of Beggars has that great drunken monkey style Kung Fu appeal, and The Brotherhood of Thieves has that Sopranos mentality and some of the coolest wardrobe items. We could let you check our server stats yourself... it's surprisingly well balanced among the six starter clans.

You can read more below.

This week, we traveled to San Francisco to see Pirates of the Caribbean Online, a new MMORPG from Disney and VR Studios. This teen-aimed game provided a surprisingly deep and action-packed experience. Check out the preview.

"Where Toontown ends this begins," Jason Everett, a Producer for Disney Online told me. The target market for this game is truly everyone, but in terms of focus, it is aimed at a slightly older audience than VR Studio's flagship title Toontown Online. Where in Toontown players throw pies into the faces of their enemies, in Pirates of the Caribbean they skewer them with a sword. Players can even gamble (against NPCs or PCs) on games of poker or blackjack!

The more grown up feel extends beyond themes. Like most mainstream MMOs, the game is full of numbers, a nuance I don't foresee the average nine year old getting too caught up in. When I moused-over different skills I'd earned, I saw the percentage increase to damage or whatever else they happened to do.

Click below to read it all. You can also check out the video.

Ultima Online has gotten a new life from EA's purchase of Mythic Entertainment. Now reporting up to an MMO company instead of the mega-publisher, the game is undergoing some big changes. In this preview, from an event held last week at EA Mythic's Fairfax, VA office, we learn about the free addition of Kingdom Reborn (a complete client overhaul) and the upcoming Stygian Abyss expansion pack.

Kingdom Reborn is a tile-by-tile update of Ultima Online's graphics. They're moving to fully take advantage of 3D graphic cards, but without changing the dynamic people love. UO is a top down game and they see no reason to change that. By moving to 3D, they can do all sorts of effects, break up the monotony of the textures and provide players with a more visually appealing game space. It also enables neat features like a zoom in and out, better looking monsters and more visually identifiable player characters.

"Everything you're seeing today is basically saying thanks to our community," Cohen proclaimed.

The full article is below.

By popular (and, er, editorial) demand... the Mage They Call Jayne rides again!

Now in Outland for realz, time to see what's changed and what's, well... unchanged. Click the button below to read "The Mage They Call Jayne Mini: Back to Where It All Began..."

As we all level up, I know some people have to be curious as to what the new instances look like on the live servers. So, I'll be taking videos of them as I run through with my guild and putting them up as soon as we do a complete run.

I don't expect to edit them too heavily, outside of maybe speeding up the slow parts, but you can always fast forward. :) You might even get to see me "accidentally" let Jayne die a few times!

So, here you go, our run of Hellfire Ramparts (Yes I know I messed up the title and put in Hellfire Citadel, shush!)

Our writer on the ground at the Consumer Electronics Show, Carolyn Koh, filed this report on Turbine's Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar. It is based on an interview with PR man Adam Mersky.

I asked about the state of the game and was told that they were at a pre-launch "squashing bugs and polishing" stage. Adam also spoke about the challenges the Dev team encounters developing Tolkien's world.

"There's the Dwarven women issue where players want to be able to play female dwarves. If there are any questions, we always go back to the books. Gimli says that outsiders wouldn't be able to discern any differences and that the females are also bearded," said Adam. Currently, the characters are called "Dwarves - Male" but a visitor had given Adam a work around if Turbine chooses to use it. "She told us to just name them Dwarves and not use a gender significator."

The full article is here.

Our writer on the ground at the Consumer Electronics Show, Carolyn Koh, filed this report on Turbine's Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar. It is based on an interview with PR man Adam Mersky.

I asked about the state of the game and was told that they were at a pre-launch "squashing bugs and polishing" stage. Adam also spoke about the challenges the Dev team encounters developing Tolkien's world.

"There's the Dwarven women issue where players want to be able to play female dwarves. If there are any questions, we always go back to the books. Gimli says that outsiders wouldn't be able to discern any differences and that the females are also bearded," said Adam. Currently, the characters are called "Dwarves - Male" but a visitor had given Adam a work around if Turbine chooses to use it. "She told us to just name them Dwarves and not use a gender significator."

The full article is here.

John Funk has taken the time to experience Blizzard's upcoming expansion to World of WarCraft, The Burning Crusade. In his journeys, he's provided a wealth of content for our WoW WarCry and today is no different as he gives us an extensive preview of the expansion that launches tomorrow.

People picking up TBC will find that life beyond the Dark Portal on the broken world of Outland is not much different from life on Azeroth. You've got ten more levels to gain, a slew of new talent points and abilities, and shiny new worlds to explore, but at the core, it's more of the same. Most of the quests and tasks you'll be asked to accomplish revolve around the "kill a certain thing or enough types of a certain thing or get a certain item from the bodies of dead certain things" paradigm, which will undoubtedly be familiar to MMO-players in general. TBC does offer more quests with objectives that don't involve mass indiscriminate slaughter, though often you'll find yourself having to kill in order to complete the task anyway. It's to be expected and not wholly unwelcome, though I would have honestly liked to see even more variety in terms of quest objectives.

You can read more here.

John Funk has taken the time to experience Blizzard's upcoming expansion to World of WarCraft, The Burning Crusade. In his journeys, he's provided a wealth of content for our WoW WarCry and today is no different as he gives us an extensive preview of the expansion that launches tomorrow.

People picking up TBC will find that life beyond the Dark Portal on the broken world of Outland is not much different from life on Azeroth. You've got ten more levels to gain, a slew of new talent points and abilities, and shiny new worlds to explore, but at the core, it's more of the same. Most of the quests and tasks you'll be asked to accomplish revolve around the "kill a certain thing or enough types of a certain thing or get a certain item from the bodies of dead certain things" paradigm, which will undoubtedly be familiar to MMO-players in general. TBC does offer more quests with objectives that don't involve mass indiscriminate slaughter, though often you'll find yourself having to kill in order to complete the task anyway. It's to be expected and not wholly unwelcome, though I would have honestly liked to see even more variety in terms of quest objectives.

You can read more here.