Previews

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.

Yes, Part 2. There was just too much incredible power contained in this final entry for one post to handle.

To continue reading "The Mage They Call Jayne(z), Part 18: All Good Things...", just click on the button below!

It's been a good run, from the lowbie days of setting evil creatures on fire right outside the Dark Portal to setting evil creatures on fire in the heart of Illidan Stormrage's stomping grounds. A fun run, a difficult run at times, and yes, an AWESOME run. The Mage They Call Jayne(z) finishes up his story with a bang, exploring the depths and recesses of the highest-level Burning Crusade zone: Shadowmoon Valley. And this time, he's not alone!

In "Death's Door," there's one of these portals... except it's open. It's active and glowing all blue, and there's a big-ass Eredar Highlord beside it. This does not bode well for the safety of the world (of Warcraft), now does it! But there are way too many demons infesting the place for me to land and see how hard the Highlord hits, so I take off for greener pastures.

I mean that quite literally, too. To Terokkar! And then, from Terokkar to the recently-opened Shadowmoon Valley!

While flying into Shadowmoon, I pass high into the mountains separating the two zones, and find a large city of the arakkoa birdmen, called Skettis. Hm. Interesting, and as near as I can tell, completely inaccessible if you lack a flying mount. I'd like to spend some more time in Skettis and see what's what, but there's no time! I'm running out of time! And I highly doubt that Blizzard will implement "Caverns of Time: The Impending Deadline" anytime soon.

...that's actually a really cool idea. How about it, Blue?

[I]GW: I think that's called 'Mt. Hyjal'. Anyone want to take a bet on how long it'll take to get the first person attuned?[I]

You know the drill, folks. Click on that little blue b utton below to read the final episode: "The Mage They Call Jayne(z), Part 18: All Good Things..."

At last, the end of a journey! Today we bring the last adventures of Alyxandria, who takes her rightful place at last among the Horde and sheds the newbie title like a very worn out set of armor. (Or just hits level 20 and stops. It can go either way!)

In this second-to-last-but-really-last installment, the Mage They Call Jayne(z) faces the apocalypse. No, really, the apocalypse... it's the End of Beta, and the GMs are having a blast. So is he, come to think of it. Carnage and destruction abound, and it's totally nifty.

Yes, I'm aware that this is chronologically my last journal entry, as the events happen at the end of the beta. However, I feel that as awesome as this is, I've got another one written (that I'm just waiting on a certain something for) that's a much better send-off. So, just this once, we're gonna do this all mix-up-like. You with me? Sweet.

There was a forum post by everyone's favorite Ancient of Something-or-other, Tyren, warning us beta-testers about an impending "event," or somesuch. Anybody who'd heard about the last End of Beta event from the original WoW Beta knew what this meant... the end of the world! (Of Warcraft) As your faithful journalist, I decided to brave this apocalypse in order to bring news and pictures and stuff to you... one last time.

Only, it wasn't the last time, because there's still one more journal entry after this, but it really WAS the last time, because that was written before this one, but really it wasn't...

Okay, I'm done there.

Click that little button below and read "The Mage They Call Jayne(z), Part 17: It's the End of the World As We Know It"!

This morning on Rogue Ramblings, we have the second half of yesterday's extensive report, coming home to Tranquillen, and reaching level 18.

Curious about the rest of the adventures? Try these:
Part 1 - Sunstrider Isle
Part 2 - Fairbreeze, Silvermoon, and Eastern Plaguelands
Part 3 - Ghostlands, mostly Tranquillen
Part 4 - Ghostlands, Eversong Forest
Part 5 - Ghostlands, reaching level 16
Part 6a - All over the map, and then some (the Sylvanas Quest Chain)

Where are we going today? Well, let's take a look into the question pile and see what we've got, first.

First up, pigziggy wants to know "when you ask the guy what the forsaken are doing here what does he say". Also, one of my friends wanted me to post a bit about the rep rewards you get from Tranquillen and where I'm at, rep wise. Here's the answer to those questions behind the link.

Now a proud, uber, level 70... The Mage They Call Jayne(z) puts his flying mount to the test! And then goes and kills lots of Blood Elves in various dungeons, while completely un-mounted. He did need his flying mount to get there, though...

I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. Though I was level 70 and certainly had enough coin in my pocket to take to the skies... at the time, the beta build didn't include Shadowmoon Valley. Anyone who entered the Valley (crossing the bridge from Terrokar, or using Flight Form if they were a Drood) was immediately ported out. So, while there was flying mount content available to test, the mount vendors were in Shadowmoon-so no one could get one! The devs patched this by adding temporary vendors to Thrallmar and Honor Hold, although they would despawn after a server crash and had to be manually respawned by a GM.

I opened a ticket asking for them to be spawned, and a GM answered saying he would do so while I was in the middle of a Black Morass run. The GM in question then closed with the standard Blizzard response-except this one was punctuated by dancing Kirbies.

Best GM ever? You decide.

Click the button to read this (and more) in "The Mage They Call Jayne(z), Part 16: Rock the Arcatrazbah"!

JR "Razor" Sutich has been playing Vanguard and delivers us his unique perspective on what he thought of SOE and Sigil's foray into the traditional high-budget MMORPG. Vanguard is made by the same folks who originally put forth EverQuest and entered Open Beta today.

Check out his article here.