Recently I got a chance to get into the beta for Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, the next big MMORPG on the horizon, currently in development at Mythic Entertainment.
For those not familiar with the game it is based in the Warhammer world which is full of the usual fantasy staples of orcs, elves, dwarves, humans and assorted other beasties both sentient and not.
Warhammer Online has been designed around an ongoing struggle between the forces of Order and Destruction, known as “Realm vs Realm” or RvR within the confines of the game. While you will often find yourself fighting the forces of your opposite faction in the general questlines against the AI, there is as much or more fighting against opposition players.
Yes, the “RvR” term is for the most part interchangeable with “PvP”. However it’s not on the same scale you may be familiar with from other games such as World of Warcraft.
For more about the game’s RvR and other details, continue reading after the break…
I’ll address the second bit first. I finally got my act together long enough to get my Spore themed website, Spore Daily, up and running the other day.
Spore Daily will primarily be used to post my own creations, along with details of the creation process, any backstory, etc. I will also be posting important news about the game, links to tutorial videos or other video content and also some community challenges, for people to try and create Spore content with certain specifications.
The first couple of news-y posts are already up, though you may want to go to the Introduction post first. Up to you.
mythor.net has also been updated to the latest version of Wordpress and the theme has also received a sprucing up.
Gone is the “Now Reading” library. I still love the idea of the thing, but I just wasn’t using it. It may return at a later date.
Gone, also, are the old comments. Well, they’re technically still there, you just can’t see them anymore. I decided to also migrate the mythor.net comments system over to the “Disqus” commenting system, after implementing it on Spore Daily. I’ll probably write a complete entry on the system later, but for now you can signup for the system here (it’s free to join) or you can just continue posting here on my blog without it.
Why would you want to register? Firstly because you can use that registration across any site that uses the Disqus commenting system - it’s more than just this site and Spore Daily!
Secondly, because it allows you to rate people’s contributions to communities.
Third, and probably most usefully, it will send any replies to comments you make direct to your email, if you want, and you can even reply via email, and it will show up in the appropriate place.
I will probably continue tinkering with mythor.net over the next couple of days, so don’t freak out if anything weird shows up. I probably just broke something!
Yes, Threadless are having another of their extremely popular $10 T-Shirt sales. Get in now before they’re all sold out like the MacGyver shirt I wanted!
Good news for Australian gamers today with the announcement that the Federal and State Attorneys-General will discuss whether to allow the Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification to give games a rating of R18+. The current highest rating a game may have and still be sold in Australia is MA15+.
[...] a spokeswoman for the Minister for Home Affairs, Bob Debus, confirmed the issue of “whether or not to allow an R18+ classification” for games would be discussed by censorship ministers at the next Standing Committee of attorneys-general (SCAG) meeting on March 28. It will be the first time the issue is discussed since November 2005.
Why would this be good? Because various games have been banned over the years due to being unsuitable for the MA15+ rating. Eighteen, since 2001. Eight of those were retooled to remove some elements of the game, the rest were simply not released here.
In other words, they were banned due to them being deemed unsuitable for children.
And an unknown number have been retooled before even being submitted for classification, to make them suitable for children under 18 years of age.
Yet the average age of gamers in Australia is 28, with more than 50% being over the age of 18.
And movies do not get treated in the same way. Hundreds or maybe thousands of R18+ movies have gone past the OFLC since 2001 with no problems, including movies made in Australia like Wolf Creek. Yet a game that may actually contain less controversial content than some movies is not allowed into the country, because it doesn’t quite fit into the MA15+ classification.
The reality of the modern world is that with this restriction in place, people are more and more turning to importing their games and gaming hardware to avoid the ban. Or, worse, turning to piracy of games, as uncensored versions are generally available on the internet, often before any version, censored or otherwise, would be available in Australian stores.
This is bad for the game developers and publishers, as they lose valuable sales through piracy. This is bad for Australian retailers, as they lose sales to overseas retailers who stock the games they’re not allowed to.
And it’s bad for gamers, who miss out on a lot more games than they need to.
It’s time Australia joined the modern world and had a completely standardised rating across all forms of entertainment. Gamers should be treated the same as movie buffs, not as second class citizens and adolescents.
To be honest, I haven’t gotten far enough into the game to really understand the purpose of this yet. But it’s kind of cute and looks like it might be a way to waste 5 minutes a day.
Next, click the “Build my city” button on the right, after you’re done admiring the fine hamlet I have created through no real effort of my own.
Select a country in which to build your town, name it, then click Create!
At this point you should move on to your own minicity page. And your city will probably have just a single house. Awww!
Feel free to post the URL to your own cities in the comments section for other folks to visit. (Please, no linkspam for other games.)
Your city will start to expand as other people drop by your town’s page, so it’s important you get other people to go there. But remember, spamming links on random forums is not a way to win yourself friends. ;-)
Let us know if you discover anything cool you can do with your minicity too!
Via a new product listing on the DealsDirect website comes unofficial confirmation that Microsoft’s Zune music player will be coming to Australia some time in December.
Only the white Zune is available at present on DealsDirect, for $299. Hopefully some of the other colours will also make their way to the store.
At the bottom of the technical details is the following information:
The product is a brand new closeout line that we have sourced direct from Microsoft USA. The Zune 1 is now discontinued in the USA but will be released in Australia in December by Microsoft Australia. In order to be able to sell this closeout stock in Australia we have agreed for Microsoft USA to Stamp each box - Refurbished - but the product is guaranteed to be brand new, sealed in the box with full 1 year warranty.
The only cause for concern is the statement that the Zune 1 has been discontinued in the US. This is not actually true as the 30GB Zune 1 will continue to be sold alongside the newer models.
Microsoft is supposed to be coming out with some big announcements soon, including the XBOX Live Video Marketplace being rumoured to be coming to regions outside the US. Could the Zune finally be making it’s way outside America? Fingers crossed.
[Update]
The Zune is popping up elsewhere on Australian bargain sites, most notably Daily Deals, where it’s going for the low-low price of $238.70
Still only available in white, but if the $299 price point was too much for you, there’s at least one cheaper option out there! Keep an eye out elsewhere as it may be appearing on other sites soon too, though I suspect $238.70 is likely the cheapest you’ll see it.
(Thanks Matthew!)
[Update #2]
For those who have just tuned in, obviously this turned out to be a false rumour, sadly. Maybe it will be out by December 2008?
After a couple of frustrating rounds on a HQ (Headquarters mode) server tonight I thought it might be useful to do a short article, giving tips and instructions on how to play the HQ mode. There seemed to only be 6-10 of us who actually had a clue on the server before and that makes for a less fun experience, as half the server is often running in the opposite direction to the location of the HQ… to the point where I once watched someone run right past the doorway leading to the HQ room and off down the street till they disappeared off my radar.
The idea of HQ is to capture the HQ location before your enemy can do so. If your enemy does get there first then the idea is to destroy it.
Capturing/destroying is very easy - just stand within a few metres of the HQ box and you will automatically begin capturing/destroying it.
How do you find the HQ? Look around! It will be clearly marked on screen with a large triangle and one of the following words as a label: Capture, Defend, Destroy.
Head towards it as you see best, but remember the other team is doing the same, so be ready to shoot them!
If your team manages to capture the HQ a 60 second timer starts. During that time you cannot respawn if you die, while the attackers can continue to spawn normally. If your team still holds the HQ after 60 seconds from the time it was captured, you will automatically respawn. Should the HQ continue to be held it will despawn after around 90 seconds from the time of capture and a new HQ location will be assigned.
If the other team manages to capture the HQ location, you need to get close to the HQ box to destroy it. The other team will probably try to stop you. However, if you are close enough to the box and none of the enemy team is close enough, you can capture it, even whilst enemies are alive and even if they’re shooting at you!
Why would you want to capture the HQ? If you are part of the group that captures the HQ you will get an instant bonus of 20 points/xp. Then every 10-15 seconds your entire team will gain an additional 5 points/xp for as long as you hold the attackers off. Your team score also increases by that amount.
Why would you want to destroy the HQ? Because the other team will be reaping those 5 points/xp instead of your team and if you’re part of the group that destroys the HQ, you’ll get a bonus 15 points/xp.
The location for the HQ is randomly selected, though it’s often somewhat predictable when you’ve played it a while. However you will be helping your team more by moving to capture/destroy the existing HQ than setting up camp at a place where the HQ might appear next.
I know all that might sound a little too complex for the poor little kids who only ever play free-for-all deathmatch, but it really isn’t that hard, honest!
Oh and one little tip: If Friendly Fire is On on the server you play on, don’t throw grenades, launch grenades or rocket propel grenades into the HQ room unless you are absolutely sure no friendlies are in there and won’t be by the time your grenade arrives. If you do not make sure, TKs will follow and your team may not capture/destroy the point. Check your radars!
Anyone have anything to add? Does anyone who reads my blog even play Call of Duty 4? :-)
I’m not going to write a huge long post about the game, but since I’ve finally got the retail release of the game in my hands, I thought people might be interested in a few little factoids and an initial opinion on the game.
Some quick notes:
- Disc is not required for Singleplayer, once you’ve installed the game and entered the serial you can remove it and it will load just fine. Big thumbs up.
- Seven presses of the escape key are required to get through to the main menu once you load the game. Seven. Big thumbs down. (One is for the intro cinematic, the rest are logos and other rubbish.)
- The DX10 client is unplayable. Those of you who were in the beta and experienced how bad that client was, be prepared for a whole new world of suck.
- The DX9 client is playable but still pretty pathetic performance.
- Stash is the “regular” size, you don’t get the extra subscriber-only space.
- You can’t get Patch 0 because the multiplayer servers are down, so if you can’t play when you install it, you don’t even have the ability to get the patch. Big thumbs down.
It’s still fun but the retail release makes it painfully apparent that Hellgate is a good 3 months away from release quality. Quite frankly Flagship ought to be ashamed of themselves allowing this version of the game out the door. The performance issues in DirectX 9 alone ought to have delayed the release, much less the complete uselessness of the DX10 client.
The issues with the game are by no means insurmountable - the patch that ought to be available on the official release day ought to clear up the DX10 issue to some degree - and I expect Flagship will be well motivated to fix things, but it is simply unacceptable to ship a game that has such poor performance on a high-end machine. If it was anyone but the creators of Diablo 2 releasing this, they would be torn to absolute shreds by the gaming press.
Should you buy it? It’s hard to recommend doing so right now. The game is fun if you’re prepared to turn the graphic settings significantly down from what you would expect (and forget about DX10 mode) but with all the issues in the game it would be wiser to wait for further patches. There are better games coming very soon you would have more fun with.
Ask for a copy for Christmas. By then the major issues ought to be ironed out and you’ll have a lot more fun playing through the game.
For those not au fait with technical gamer terminology, “gone gold” refers to the point at which a game is deemed to be “finished” and ready for replication and shipping out to stores. Gold is a reference to the gold master disc that is used to make all the thousands of other copies of the game that will eventually make their way into gamers’ hands.
There’s a little confusion surrounding the actual demo date, with the official EA press release saying the demo will be available via AOL’s GameDaily website on Thursday and on every other site on the intarweb on Friday, whilst the official Hellgate website says merely Friday for the demo date.
Regardless of which one is right it is clear that, either way, the wait is almost over!
The single player demo represents just a small taste of the Hellgate: London experience. Gamers can choose from two of the game’s six character classes: the Blademaster, a master of swordplay and action-packed melee combat, or the Marksman, a cool, calculating, long-range specialist. In the demo, these heroes are able to battle through a small handful of storyline and side quests as they adventure through the streets and tunnels around London’s Holborn Station.
There’s no further details on the demo, like how big the darn file is going to be, but expect a flurry of information as players finally start getting their hands on the game!
[Friday Morning Update: The demo is now available from GameDaily and a whole bunch of other places. Stay tuned for my first impressions some time later today!]
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