For nine months now I have spent my time on Elune forging the matra: "For the Alliance". I have spent many hours in Warsong Gultch, Wintergrasp and the Barrens killing my most hated enemy, the Horde. But lately I've been wondering, "What would it be like to join in on one of Thrall's dance parties?"


So I decided that now is the time to try out my hand at the horde. It is also an excellent chance to try a new class. My first major decision was to find a suitable home for my horde character as Elune is way to one sided. A friend of mine suggested Anvilmar as a great place to start my new character. With that decision out of the way, I chose a priest, because, let's face it, no one has a harder job than a healer, and I needed to know what that was like. Linking in my depth of knowledge of the Star Wars universe, I chose my character's name to be Plagueiss, after Darth Plagueis, who trained Dart Sidious. I figured as a master of manipulating metachlorians he'd make an excellent dark priest :-)

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  • Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor (Page 1 of 2)
  • Atlus' latest installation in its prestigious role-playing series takes the franchise's tried and true demon-summoning roots and introduces them to the Nintendo DS in this flawed, but fun-filled SRPG.

 

In the latest attempt to save development studios from their own failed projects, the Warhammer Online team today announced that Mythic will be merging into RPG powerhouse Bioware to create an EA mega-studio focusing on RPGs and MMOs.  Strange news considering that the philosophy at EA of late has been "let the studios keep their identities," but not so strange when you consider Mythic has just lost its leader with the loss of co-founder Mark Jacobs.  With Jacobs moving on to greener and less PvP-invested pastures, Mythic is still a studio living in the glory of DAoC.  Sure, there's WAR, but anyone can see that WAR is little more than a DAoC update at its core.  

Ultimately I take this as a sign that EA is attempting to give the weaker Mythic team some strong leadership.  Bioware has already proved they can create huge market share with a challenging genre.  Now it's time they teach Mythic a thing or two.  I'm hoping this merge will mean good things for future projects.  Now we just need to figure out what to call this new Voltron-esque studio.  I vote for Biothic.

 

 

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While it might sound like armies of spiders in street wear are flooding the cities in Age of Conan, in reality the game's fifth update entitled "Gangs of Tarantia" in more focused on player interaction and PvP content than anything arachnidian.  Released today, Update 5 introduces players to a new area, Tarantia Commons, with new end-game quests and content for those who have already gorged themselves on the PvE content provided.  Guild cities have been envigorated with social NPCs and the like, which is a good thing because an empty city isn't much of a reward at all.  

And in the most enigmatic of the changes in this update, the RPG system has undergone a complete revamp.  They say that your stats now mean more to your character, but shouldn't stat dependency have been in the game since launch?  After all, it's an MMORPG, and customizing your characters abilities to play the way you want is the hallmark of every game in the genre.  Well, regardless of the confusion, at least they are fixing it now.  

Interestingly enough, "Gangs of Tarantia" adds another borrowed item from World of Warcraft -- social pets.  Snatching up strong gaming elements from other games in the genre might sound a bit leechy, but I think this is a good thing.  If a game can learn from its competitors, it means that the development team is adapting to what the players want, and that's never a bad thing.  

Age of Conan Update 5 (6 images)

Images from the latest update to Funcom's gritty MMO.

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Happy Midsummer Fire Festival all! Ironically, I say that despite feeling the exact opposite way about it. There are few things in World of Warcraft that SlashNoob doesn’t like. However, there are a few, and probably one of the biggest is holidays. Now before you get all righteous on me, let me explain.

First off, I will concede that the idea of holidays is brilliant. Providing different gaming opportunities only once a year reminds me that my life is truly dedicated to WoW as missing any great length of time can cause you to miss a lot. The festivals themselves are wonderful, mostly merrymaking and fun ensue as players get to dress up in outrageous outfits, throw stuff at each other and do things they can’t normally do the rest of the time.

But that’s where it stops for me, and I’ll tell you why. There are two reasons, #1. Achievements for holiday quests are exclusive to the end game player only, and #2 with that exclusivity comes wonderful bounty that only few can enjoy. I’m not a hater, at least I don’t want to be, but I feel this time like WoW is giving me no choice. Alright, maybe I am a hater.

Mounts and Pets of WoW Patch 3.1 (39 images)

WoW's Patch 3.1 will add a whole mess of new mounts and pets to the game so that all the achievement whores can snap them up. Images via MMO Champion.

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 Last night was a great night for raiding ten man with the l8raid team.  We managed to get several hard mode notches in our belt, and I watched before my eyes as my Glory of the Ulduar Raider achievement filled in.  I was feeling great, on cloud nine as it were, until I logged in this morning to this: Bornakk explaining that the end is nigh for getting your achievements in if you want your Proto-Drake rewards.  Yes, they will give us a month's notice, but once they do, the clock is ticking to get all your poop in a proverbial group raiding wise.

 I'm not surprised really, I called it after all.  As soon as Ulduar released, I did the math, counted down and realized that people in Naxxramas only had four months within which to get all their raiding achievements done, and we could expect nothing more with Ulduar.  My issue is two-fold; real life encroaches in on raiding time.  It's summer and everyone is going on their vacations, taking off to go fishing, or camping, or anything that's not sitting at a computer the entire evening pounding keys and yelling into Vent.  Real life will cut my raiding time short as well, so don't think I'm slamming my raid members.  We're all guilty of this. Again, not a surprise, after all summer comes every year. 

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Today the Fallout 3team dished on the philosophy and design behind their latest DLC pack, Point Lookout.  Personally I was a bit curious as to why a little known spot in Maryland would capture Bethesda's attention, until I read the dev diary they posted today.  The development on this particular DLC seems have formed organically around some disparate concepts, including "swamps", "mansion siege", and "cultists".  Intrigued?  I know I am.  

Point Lookout, MD is a rural location filled with all sorts of history. From colonial America's foundations to the Civil War, this little ithsmus has held an important part in the forming of the state, and its rich history was a great inspiration as they tried to marry "organ thieves" with "steamboats."

The result is Point Lookout, a DLC pack that not only expands the Fallout 3 world, it deepens the story within it.  Look for Point Lookout on Microsoft XBLA June 23rd.

Fallout 3 Point Lookout (6 images)

omgRPG has the latest images from the upcoming Fallout 3 DLC

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I saw this article a few days ago and could not stop thinking about it. Do gamers really care whether JRPG can be played in Japanese or English? Considering that we RPG gamers usually spend at least 40 hours on a game, would we rather hear it in our native language or in the language it was written in? It’s a tough question especially since the tone and sound of a character helps determine his/her likeability, which in turn affects the gamer’s perception of the plot.

 

To me, the best example of a bad voice dubbing is Final Fantasy X. Yuna and Tidus are the most annoying characters I had ever heard. Wakka, on the other hand, sounds glorious. In the end, regardless of how bad or how good the voice subbing is, I still love the game and the entire motley crew. To me, it all rests on the characters really.

 

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Coming out of closed beta this week is the latest game from Perfect World Entertainment entitled Jade Dynasty. It's another free to play MMO from the same company that brought us Ether Sage. At E3 we got to get a hands on look at the game, and we walked away perplexed by what we saw. The game is not the usual run of the mill MMO, but that could be a good thing!

In speaking with Craig Beers, one of the product managers at Perfect World, we find there to be a lot of enthusiasm when discussing this game. For them, it could be a new road in the well traveled path of free to play mmo's, one whose payout could be significant.

The back story on Jade Dynasty is the search for everlasting life (also known as my Saturday nights, but that's another story). The story line and characters share a look and feel with the Dynasty Warriors franchise made by KOEI with an added effect of color. The color in this game stands out greatly and helps to enhance the gameplay as the SlashNoob is always a sucker for great artwork.

Ar Tonelico 2 did not appeal to me. After playing it for an hour and nearly falling asleep in front of the TV, I passed it over to my husband thinking that he will enjoy it more than I did, being an anime freak and all. True enough, he got hooked. As the days goes by, I kept hearing him laugh at the witty dialogues as the music wormed its way into my brain. It’s not a bad thing since the game does have beautiful music.

There were a couple of reasons why I cannot connect to the game. First of all, I’m a graphic snob. I just don’t like anime and 2D style games unless it’s for the DS. If it’s on the PS2 or next-gen console, I want my 3D figures! Second, as Mandifesto warned me, this game could be too sexy for my taste. Well, she was right. I sometimes wondered if this game was made by guys for guys. That would explain why my husband enjoys it so much. About 40 hours into the game, I got my husband to give me a few thoughts on Ar Tonelico 2 and what he thinks about it so far.

They say imitation is the greatest form of flattery and with the massive success of the Grand Theft Auto and Saints Row franchises, it was inevitable for an MMO version right? Well, if you refer to All Points Bulletin as such, you'll likely end up six feet under. Yes, there are some similarities, but no, it's not an MMO clone, and that's a good thing.

At E3, we got an opportunity to meet with Realtime Worlds and get the latest and greatest on All Points Bulletin. The game is in your face, and walking into their E3 booth you certainly got that. Greeted by booth babes with more ink than the Declaration of Independence I certainly knew that in your face style was in store for APB. Some might find APB a little intense to start out and that's not necessarily a bad thing, but like Niko, if you give it some time and it will certainly grow on you.

The great thing about APB is their emphasis on you being the celebrity, which appealed to me especially (given that I am the noob). What exactly does that mean? It means that you the player determine your story, not a story determining how you play. That allows the user to do what they want, when they want and most importantly, HOW they want in the rough city of San Paro. If you want to rob a bank, go for it, if you'd like to jack a car, by all means. What you want to do, will directly affect what happens to you next.

APB (8 images)

Sexy screenshots from the upcoming MMO Sandbox game.

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