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zu pk

Jan 23, 2009 Articles Recommend|270views

Today, we bring a good news for you that latest video for Zu Online can be available now. PK is short for Player Kill，which is usually used to name the fight between players. PK in all areas except the safe areas (such as all main cities, and all transfer points of scenes). No matter what their level, if there is a discrepancy of more than 90 between 2 players’ levels they may not attack each other. All wonderful PK scene will be shown in this new trailer.

2029 Online: An Insider’s Look into the Game

Jan 23, 2009 Articles Recommend|291views

2029 Online (http://forum.2029.igg.com) is a massive online sci-fi based multiplayer experience set in a world ravaged by hatred throughout the Helen Continent, and never-ending conflicts between races and rebel forces. Players from across the globe come together online, and combat to uphold their faith and glory. As the game heats up, they will soon break away from killing mobs to level them and play the game with a PvP element.
 
What can expect from 2029
Players’ exploits in the Helen Continent will give them access to a huge variety of class-specific skills. This game brings visualized flamboyance back to MMO fans’ game experience, featuring stunning 3D graphics and variable game modes. Sometimes, the game will go full screen, blending intense game play and fantasy appeal together into one work of art. It allows players to create their own rooms on the purpose of forging lasting bonds of friendship with heroes who share a dream and fight to turn sword and sorcery tales into a reality. The moment-to-moment interaction with the game and players will help increase the role playing fun during periods of increased tension. Its quest system offers assorted quests with a story element. Some of them are branched out and composed of many addictive branching quests. The interaction between NPCs and players has been intensified. The game based on a solid idea for its design guarantees a smooth control while players are slashing enemies.
 
Background Music
Its background music is adaptive, which means it changes between different scenes or parts of game play. People will combat against evil with their hearts set afire by its vivid inspirational sound effects. Not all tracks in the game are fast paced. There are also some soul soothing melodies. Listening to them will lift spirits and give minds a relaxed sensation.
 
Multiple Cultures
2029 Online puts players right in the middle of a clash of civilizations. The planet Earth was destroyed by nuclear weapons and homeless human beings piloted a huge spaceship through space in search for a new planet to thrive and survive. They settled on Helen Continent and found a world shattered and plagued by fights between the races living here. These alien races were intelligent and had highly developed forms of culture. But their hatred toward each other was such that they wanted nothing but to hack each other into pieces and see their enemies’ blood spill everywhere. The planet was under the constant threat of war. Humans quickly grabbed a keen advantage in the struggles, striving to become the dominant species and forging new alliances of cultures. After many years passed, only a few outstanding and resilient species have remained: Humans, Dryads, Electronic Elves, Ice Energy and Mechanicals. Since then, Helen Continent has gradually built a world of peace and co existence.
 
For more details please check out its official forum (http://forum.2029.igg.com) and subscribe to its newsletter to keep up to date with all the new developments.
 

Myth War III: A New Combat-oriented MMO in Development

Jan 20, 2009 Articles Recommend|286views

The Myth War series will eventually consist of three main games, each of them self-contained. People who have participated in the development of Myth War and Myth War II may already have a good insight into this brand new episode, Myth War III. If all goes well, we aim to release the new episode during Christmas 2009.
 
Continuing the themes of the previous Myth War episodes, Myth War III develops the storyline as players are forced to battle against powerful eternals. In this new episode, you will be led by the five soul stones to the Rarus Continent in 1900BC, a time of great turmoil where myths become reality. You will fight against Gods, evil Mages and corrupted Witches, all powered by a real time 3D graphics engine to generate amazing visual effects in the game.
 
In the new episode, you will be able to preview your characters before they are geared up or riding on pets, to help you choose more easily. The game features 3D lighting techniques where every object becomes more lifelike, even changing as the time passes from day to night. We are also excited to let players know about the new Homeland Construction and Collection and Production features, as well as newly developed dungeon areas.

Recent Headlines for Warhammer Online : Age of Reckoning : WAR in Russia

Jan 15, 2009 Warhammer Online|272views

Moscow, Russia - Jan 13, 2009 - Warhammer® Online: Age of Reckoning® continues its worldwide march as Mythic Entertainment™, an Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) studio, today announced that the fully localized Russian version of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (WAR) will go live on February 5, 2009. The Russian version of WAR will feature a fully localized gameplay experience as well as regionally-based servers and customer support.

First launched in North America, Europe and Oceania in September of 2008, WAR continues to receive praise from media for innovative features such as Realm vs. Realmâ„¢ gameplay and Public Questsâ„¢, picking up numerous year-end critics awards including GameSpy’s MMO Game of the Year Award and IGN’s Best of 2008.

Recent Headlines for Warhammer Online : Age of Reckoning : A Short Guide to Roleplaying

Jan 15, 2009 Warhammer Online|256views

If the title of this article has drawn you in, then you might be a perfect candidate to give roleplaying a try! Perhaps you are a skilled roleplayer, with years of experience at your back and hordes of characters. Maybe you simply love the Warhammer world and story, and you thought that this game would be a good opportunity to develop one character that could be living, evolving and growing in this exciting setting … or perhaps you don’t have much experience with it at all, but the concept of ‘roleplay’ intrigues you, and you are reading this searching for some insight on the matter. Whatever the case, there is something you must know about this guide; this is not a general roleplay guide. It is focused and directed to a specific kind of roleplay style, which is, of course, online roleplaying within an MMORPG.

Read on to learn about how you can delve into the exciting world of roleplaying!

We first need to point out that there are several differences between online roleplaying and classic roleplaying around a table. In the usual roleplaying sessions, the players can see each other. You have the aid of your voice, your gestures, your physical movement and your interpretative skills to enhance and represent the details of the character that you represent. All this disappears when you roleplay online; this is perceived often as an inconvenience, but it can also be used to your advantage, let me explain:

Sometimes when a character is created, players find some restrictions that can be very hard to surpass for them. Perhaps you have trouble portraying a character of the opposite gender; perhaps you are simply shy and the idea of classic, social roleplay seems like a mighty task for you. All of this does not matter when you are online; your physical representation is a 3D model that we call an ‘avatar’. Avatars have no restrictions except those of the game that you are playing in. Hence, you can be whatever character you want, and others won’t be distracted by your real appearance. For the same reason, you lose all the benefits that the real, physical presence could provide you when it is time to become your in-game persona. So without further ado, here are some quick steps to get started with online roleplaying, and not get lost in the process.

RF Online Update Interview from mmorpg

Jan 15, 2009 RF online|661views

MMORPG.com:	It is quite unusual that an MMO begins with one publisher, is then shut down and re-opened with a new publisher. Can you tell us how this came to happen with RF Online?
CCR:	  They told us that they were apologised for having to take their service offline between when the Codemasters service ended and now and that while it may be much more commonplace for an MMO to go from start to finish with one single publisher, that this isn’t the only way that things can be done. They wanted to be clear that the closure wasn’t something that they were pleased with either, but that they hope that when the game is re-launched, their game will be better than ever. “We, CCR,” they said, “will do our best fr RF Online Global Service, and we guarantee no more service suspension will be generated later”. Â
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MMORPG.com:	Is there any fear that, given its previous closure, players will perceive this as a failed game and stay away?
CCR:	They told us that: For an Asian market game, RF Online had a good and positive reputation in the Western MMORPG market while Codemasters served as publisher. They think that coming to the conclusion that RF Online is a failed game simply because of the service interruption would be a broad interpretation of the facts. They went on to say that The reactions of the games players can be read in magazines, blogs and their official website and while people have certainly had a lot of questions since their announcement at the end of last year, they feel that their answers have shown that those who might see the game as a failed game are incorrect.
MMORPG.com:	Can you tell us the differences between your RF Online and the Codemasters version?
CCR:	They told us that if they were to lay out all of the differences between their version and the Codemasters version, it would result in players who have been waiting for the game to launch to be unhappy. For now, they wanted to just simply say that the new RF Online under CCR will be the newest version available and will be different from the Codemasters version. “Please wait shortly”, they said. “You won’t regret joining our game.”
MMORPG.com:	Will players of the previous incarnation of the game have to “start over” when the new version launches?
CCR:	No, they don’t need to start over again. To resolve this issue, they held a character restoration event for former Codemasters users during their closed beta test. They plan to do something similar again when the game re-launches but with a different format.
MMORPG.com:	What will the business model be when RF Online re-opens?
CCR:	RF Online’s business model will be based on items sales. When players first start the game, there will be no cost to them signing in, but those who want to “more fun” can purchase the items that they need from in-game. They told us that they feel that this kind of business model is good both for MMO gamers who don’t want to pay monthly fees and the company that “wants to give more chance to play game to users.”
MMORPG.com:	Will there be an Open Beta after the Closed Beta, or will the game simply launch at that point?
CCR:	Commerical launch (or in this case re-launch) is an issue that they take very seriously and while they do currently have a schedule for it, they want to be careful about making any announcements because certain issues could come up that would force them to change it. They did, however, want to pass along a tip for MMORPG.com readers and that is that they will be “concretizing” their schedule based on the success of their closed beta test. For now, they told us, their number one priority is to “prepare the game perfectly”.

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning Review

Jan 15, 2009 Warhammer Online|309views

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (brought to us by Mythic, the developers of Dark Age of Camelot) is the latest addition to the already crowded MMO market. It is set in Games Workshop’s Warhammer Fantasy universe where the allies of Order (Empire, Dwarves, and High Elves) are engaged in constant battle with the agents of Destruction (Chaos, Greenskins, and Dark Elves). As the slogan says, ‘war is everywhere”, and Age of Reckoning’s setting is an appropriately ravaged landscape of burning villages, crumbling ruins, and besieged strongholds.

The player takes on the role of a soldier in the service of the armies of Order or Destruction and wages war across the three zones: High Elves vs. Dark Elves, Greenskins vs. Dwarves, and Chaos vs. Empire. Each zone is divided into four tiers, roughly translating to ten levels worth of content in each tier. The tiers are then divided into PvE (Player vs. Enemy) and RvR (Realm vs. Realm) areas. Early tiers are predominantly PvE with small RvR lakes within them, but as the player progress into tiers three and four, the PvE zones take a backseat to much larger RvR lakes. Both PvE and RvR areas are packed full of content, providing the player plenty of leveling options.

One of the first and best features introduced is the Tome of Knowledge, a repository of all game information. Every monster, location, event, and quest the player experiences is logged in this encyclopedic, easily-referenced record. As one progresses through the game, the Tome provides relevant snippets of lore and tracks all achievements revealing the path to unlock unique trophies, titles, and tactics. The Tome is an excellent tool to keep track of accomplishments and motivate the player.

Mythic’s questing system is also impressive. Though they did not break from the standard MMO quest conventions, they did streamline the system. The frustrating process of aimlessly roaming the landscape in search of quest goals has been eliminated. Upon accepting a quest, the target location is highlighted in red on both the map and mini-map. Placing the cursor over the highlighted area displays a tooltip that contains the quest name and objective. Clicking on the highlighted area opens the Tome of Knowledge to the appropriate section of the quest log. For those with limited gaming time, this system allows for maximum efficiency. For those who would rather find their own way, the map indicator can be disabled so the player can explore the world as they wish.

Warhammer lore is seamlessly infused into each quest. From the text to the set pieces, the essence of each zone shines through. While the Elves might have the player sneaking about using cunning and finesse, the Orcs will load him (or her) into a “lobber” (catapult) and hurl you over the enemy defenses for some “stunty smashin”. Even though the quests in each tier are fundamentally the same, the changes in theme help to keep the gameplay fresh. The Greenskin zone is particularly enjoyable, and its quest text laugh-out-loud funny.

For the most part, quests follow the standard ‘kill/gather 10 of X’ formula which has become a staple in the MMO genre. Occasionally the player encounters a chain quest that leads up to a battle with a unique monster, but disappointedly these quest chains rarely escalate in difficulty and become tedious. In general, questing never requires a group and this can lead to a sense of isolation. The lack of group focus in PvE means fewer bonds are formed and, in general, less social interaction takes place. This is a shame because Warhammer Online has a fantastic, user-friendly group system.

The most significant questing innovation Mythic has made is the implementation of Public Quests (PQs). These quests are repeatable world events that are broken up into stages, which upon successful completion lead to a mini boss fight. After completing the Public Quest all of the participants get a random roll on a treasure dropped by the boss, though the extent of the player’s participation determines the roll bonus. Players that don’t win anything have increased chances of winning should they stay and participate in the Public Quest again. Any player may take part in a Public Quest regardless of which stage they start in or whether or not they are in a group. This is great for those who prefer solo leveling. However, it hurts the communal nature of an MMO. There is little communication and with fights designed for public play, they are not overly complex and tend to turn into zergfests. Overall, this is a great system that enables players to experience content similar to endgame raid fights. Mythic did not intend Warhammer to be a PvE game; the central focus is on group-oriented RvR, encouraging teamwork over individual achievement. You are only as strong as the group you play with.

The RvR experience in Warhammer is broken into two formats: scenarios and Open Realm vs Realm (ORvR). Scenarios are small, objective-based maps where each team of 10-15 players has fifteen minutes to try to earn 500 points. Players gain points by defeating enemies and completing scenario goals, which are typically Capture the Flag and Domination style objectives. The scenario themes vary by tier and zone, providing more than fifteen different scenarios over the four tiers. Players have the luxury of teleporting to a scenario from anywhere in the world then returning to their original location afterward. This flexibility makes the flow of PvE to RvR scenarios seamless and allows players to vary their gaming experiences. At the same time, the ease of scenario play takes focus away from open world RvR.

RvR occurs within the “lakes” nested inside each tier. Within each are several battlefield objectives which can be captured by each realm and grant a buff to all players of the controlling realm while they are in that tier. Starting in tier two, players are introduced to controllable keeps. Once captured, the realms may battle for control, each side building various siege weapons to attack or defend the keep. A successful siege culminates with the defeat of the Keep Lord who, like PQ bosses, drops a chest full of goodies for all siege participants to roll on.

The three biggest issues with this current incarnation of RvR are lack of incentive, population imbalances, and lag. There is little reason for players to siege or defend a keep. Defenders gain little (a minor amount of experience and renown) for successfully breaking a siege and attackers don’t want to siege a defended keep because it is next to impossible to overcome the defenders due to bottlenecking, and the rewards are no better than those found in an empty keep.

Population imbalance is another thorn in the side of Warhammer’s RvR system. Scenarios pop less frequently for the side with more players, which is almost always Destruction. This can slow leveling to a crawl as the experience gained from winning a scenario can often double that gained from simple questing. Population imbalance always causes ORvR to collapse as there are rarely any players in the RvR lakes to fight and the few players that attempt it are zerged back to their spawn until they decide to just go quest.

Lastly, there’s the lag that occurs whenever there are groups doing battle with each other. The lag can occur with as few as ten people fighting, depending on the class. The more caster classes in the vicinity, the worse performance becomes due to excessive particle effects. During the defense of a battle keep in tier four, over a hundred players from both realms gathered in one location to experience the greatest slideshow of all time. The performance was so poor that the draw distance for players seemed to reduce to 0 meters as there were numerous times where large groups of players would suddenly appear out of thin air. It was a shame, as the essence of this battle was very exciting and had it not devolved to an unplayable level, it might have been an unforgettable MMO experience.

Ultimately, all of the PvE and RvR content builds to a head: the enemy city. Once a realm has control of the entire tier four zone they unlock the ability to siege the city, kill the king, and plunder the riches. The city siege is an instanced-timed battle that ends with the invaders being pushed out of the city and the tier four zone control returning to neutral. Once a city has been ransacked the players of that realm must rebuild its defense while attempting to push the enemy back to their own city. It sounds like an exciting battle, but if the performance drain that has occurred in keep sieges persists into the city battles, the fight may already be over.

Graphically, Warhammer Online has done nothing that we haven’t already seen. The lighting in some areas is so dim that you don’t get to fully enjoy all the hard work the artists put into making the world, notably in the Inevitable City. The gritty look feels appropriate, but a little variety would have been nice, perhaps a few more light sources. Similarly, the skill animations for each character are intricate and look good, but often get stuck mid-animation leaving your character contorted and unable to animate properly until you re-log.

The audio is well done, especially the voices for each of the races. I highly recommend clicking on every character and NPC you see to hear all the great dialogue. The lack of music, although more thematically correct, can make some areas feel lifeless.

Overall, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning is a well balanced and fun MMO, that has had one of the smoothest launches to date. With only two months under its belt, Mythic has already announced plans to address most of the issues I’ve mentioned with their 1.1 patch that is slated to hit in December (which also includes the addition of two classes that had been cut previous to launch). If Mythic continues to be this responsive to the needs of their subscribers, this game has a lot of potential. The MMO market is not a friendly one, and whether a more casual friendly, RvR focused MMO will have the longevity of other successful MMOs is hard to judge.

NovelQuest Emperor: Insane 40k Dollars Gaming Chair!

Jan 15, 2009 Articles Recommend|293views

Virtual Worlds Are Soft Targets?

Jan 15, 2009 Articles Recommend|283views

In an 80 page report released by ENISA (European Network and Information Security Agency) security risks surrounding Virtual Worlds and MMO’s were highlighted, including the claim that, “Virtual worlds are a soft target for thieves because they fall outside many of the measures taken to protect other online assets.”

ENISA, according to their website, is an Agency created to give EU states advice and recommendations, data analysis, help with awareness raising and cooperation, while attempting to follow the development of standards, promote risk assessment activities by the Member States and interoperable risk management routines and produce studies on these issues.

The list of contributors that make up this international panel include university professors and researchers, technology and online corporate representatives, recognizable names such as writer and MUD creator Richard Bartle, CCP (EvE Online) economist Eyj��lfur Guðmundsson, NCSoft’s Adam Martin, and a host of individuals from across the industry.  The group explains, “This paper provides an overview of the key risks to users of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games and Virtual Worlds (MMO/VWs) and makes recommendations for actions and best-practices to address them. It is also aimed at raising awareness among political and corporate decision-makers of the legal and social implications of security issues in MMO/VWs.”

The report opens with statistics regarding a vast increase in virtual world related crime stating, “2007 was the year of online gaming fraud–with malicious programs that specifically target online games and virtual worlds increasing by 145% and the emergence of over 30,000 new programs aimed at stealing online game passwords. Such malware is invariably aimed at the theft of virtual property accumulated in a user’s account and its sale for real money.” Further, it goes on to profess the importance of recognizing the real value of virtual world economies saying, “With nearly 1 billion registered users of MMO/VWs (Massively Multiplayer Online Games and Virtual Worlds) and real-money sales of virtual objects estimated at nearly USD 2 billion worldwide at the end of 2007, this is a serious issue. The failure to recognise the importance of protecting the real-money value locked up in this grey-zone of the economy is leading to an exponential increase in attacks targeting online MMO/VWs.”

This introduction to the paper which they label the Executive Summary also describes, “Another important area of risk is the disclosure of private data. MMO/VWs are commonly perceived as being completely separate from the real lives of their users and therefore immune to privacy risks. In reality, representing yourself as an avatar is little different from using any other form of online persona. The inclusion of IRC and VOIP channels, along with the false sense of security created by MMO/VWs, leads to significantly increased disclosures of private data such as location and personal characteristics.”

Following this abstract ENISA lays out quite a laundry list of specific risks.  14 areas including such issues as; Avatar identity theft and identity fraud, MMO/VW privacy risks, Cheating, Harassment, Trading and financial attacks, Risks to intellectual property, Information security related risks for minors, MMO/VW spam, Attacks on user’s machine through game client, and Access and authorization problems in MMO/VWs.

Along with the detailed analysis of these security issues the group gave recommendations for the European Commission and National Governments, MMO/VW providers and towards Awareness raising and research. These risks along with the recommendations entail what the group felt are issues that deserve industry wide attention and discussion.

If you are interested in reading about the specific risks and recommendations the paper cites, here is the full PDF.

Women Are More Bisexual Than Men In MMO Games?

Jan 12, 2009 Articles Recommend|251views

 A study with over 2,400 EverQuest II gamers shows that the most hard-core players are female, that gamers are healthier than average, and that game playing is an increasingly social activity. It must be a big different with the typical impression of MMO players, reported by BBC News.

The details are as below:

Picture a typical player of a massively multiplayer game such as World of Warcraft and most people will imagine an overweight, solitary male.

But this stereotype has been challenged by a study investigating gender differences among gamers.

It found that the most hard-core players are female, that gamers are healthier than average, and that game playing is an increasingly social activity.

Despite gaming being seen as a male activity, female players now make up about 40% of the gaming population.

The study looked at gender differences in more than 2,400 gamers playing EverQuest II.  

The participants, who were recruited directly out of the game, completed a web-based questionnaire about their gaming habits and lifestyles. They received an in-game item as a reward for taking part - a condition which has led to some questioning of the results.

In addition Sony Online Entertainment, Everquest’s creator, gave the US researchers access to information about the players’ in-game behaviours.

Gender bias

The results showed that, although more of the players were male, it was the female players who were the most dedicated players, spending more time each day playing the game than their male counterparts.

Lead researcher Scott Caplan of the University of Delaware said the result demonstrated how out-of-date stereotypes can be.

More details on next page.

WoW In China: Sapphiron has gone?

Jan 12, 2009 world of warcraft|3,231views

Someone says game is just a game. That makes a sense. But should we must hold the spirit and the faith of the role we are playing in the game? Let’s look at this story first, thank Hyuk.  Not long ago on the server Lothar in World of Warcraft China while facing the overwhelming attack of the Horde corps, a human paladin named Plapla set herself an good example, telling all her enemies attendant the very final answer: YES.

Magni Bronzebeard, the King of Ironforge was the target in the attack, Horde didn’t meet any effectual defense of the Alliance because of the imbalance in Realms, just within a few minutes, Ironforge became a complete ghost town, then the last NPC guard was down very soon.

Plapla didn’t simply “quit” as “it is just a game”, obviously a “She can’t win” game, instead she chose to stay beside Magni Bronzebeard just in the name of her profession, Paladin. A bit far from the point, but you know, seriously this situation reminds me of a classical dialogue in Black Hawk Down: “We are all afraid, but what you do now can make a difference”

Then Plapla shouted out: YOU SHALL NOT BE PASSED, which remind me of Lord of thr Rings, when Gandalf faced the Balrog in the Mines of Moria. Actually there was an obvious nonstandard grammatical construction, but hey it completely matters nothing! When reading here I was touched so much that I almost felt I was weeping, She was role-playing her character and she knew the meaning of the King to her Kingdom, her realm. It was no longer the matter of alive or dead, it was just the call of duty, it was about honor and faith.

In the end, Horde failed to kill The king, a thread in a fansite forum in China reported the whole raid including Plapla’s story, almost everyone was touched by her, even some players in the opposite realm. She is named “King’s Defender” now because of the weapon she held to fight against the raid is just exact the level 115 epic one-handed sword “King’s Defender” comes from Karazhan.

On Plapla there is something pure and something valueable which has been lost in game for such a long time, so when we discover it someday, it is just so fantastic and makes us feel a way of which we have to recall to become original, because that’s who we are, that’s why we call it RPG, and that’s why we are gaming for.

Let’s change the topic. Sapphiron has gone?
 

If you click this original paladin screenshot you may be amazed at the overground tombs. In the original screenshot, Muradin Bronzebeard’s room were clustered with tombs instead of skeletons. It might sound ridiculous, but yes, around the world only Chinese WoWers will not get any skeletons but a tomb after their characters died. Comical for a bit.. sure..but which make them more sadder is — their Sapphiron has gone.

The Chinese wowers knew all along that their new expansion will be changed befor coming into China. When they  are guessing that what kind Sapphiron would be like in WoTLK, The 9 (the WoW operator in China) tell them that your Sapphiron has gone by the ‘Echoes of Doom’ patch. The complaining Chinese WoWers made some pics to express their discontent.

Video provided by video.mmosite.com

Do you still complain bitterly that Blizzard have not give your enough DPS, or you should have more control skills? Maybe you envy those guys who can raid in Naxxramas day to night with full of epic equipments, and what you can do, is poorly doing the endless daily quests. Seriously in fact, you don’t have to think this way, because there is still one huge WoW community on the other side of the earth now is looking at you with endless jealousy in their eyes for just one fair reason: They don’t have WoTLK.

And like it or not, they are Chinese WoWers. Pity for them that they still have to get stuck in The Buring Crusade, raiding those nerfed bosses or killing time in Arenas. Yes, China is the only country who has bought the ticket to Northrend but is too unlucky to get on the boat. You ask me why? This is because of their game review mechanism. Just like some of our scholars believe that WoW is too much violent, their Culture Department think it necessary to change some content of the game that adapt it to their culture and thought. The changed content include bone Undead, bowels-gush-out abominations, the overground skeleton after death….uh… Sapphiron, the innocent bone dragon, of course. Now, Chinese WoWers are still waitting for review result. Before, they had waited TBC for half a year after Blizzard announced it. This time how long will they have to wait? Who knows. In fact, many roily chinese players had been transferred to the TaiWan server to enjoy the scenery of Northrend. Now let’s have a look at the WOW with Chinese characteristics.

Original

China Version Abomination, underwent surgical stitching…

Undead? Zombie?

Bone or flesh, that is a question.

Skeleton

Which is your tombstone?

Uhh…

Runes of Magic Got Over 300,000 Players

Jan 12, 2009 Runes of Magic|929views

 

Interview By G4TV: Starcraft II Beta Soon

Jan 7, 2009 Articles Recommend|245views

G4TV.com has posted a great interview with Chris Sigaty and Dustin Browder where they talk about the current status of Starcraft 2 and the closeness of a public beta. Both developers talk about Starcraft 2’s plans. And the exciting thing to highlight in this video is how many times they mention the word: BETA. It’s like if they were teasing it to be very SOON. It’s strongly hinted we will have this game on our hands within 2009. They also bring up that at every event ProGamers are invited to play the game and give them feedback, the professional scene remains one of the top focuses of the dev team.

Chris Sigaty: We’re really excited in 2009 to get StarCraft II in front of you the gamer and put battle.net in front of you and put this brand new multiplayer experience that harkens to the original game in front of you and hear feedback, so, I can’t wait.

YouTube Banning PvP Videos With Copyrighted Music?

Jan 6, 2009 Articles Recommend|255views

Runes of Magic Apprentice Crafting Guide

Jan 5, 2009 Articles Recommend|2,512views

Creating items in-game is an exciting thing to accomplish in an MMO. Oftentimes, the finished product yields a hefty amount of experience and sometimes a profit can be made. This is true of Frogster’s new free-to-play MMO, Runes of Magic. In RoM there are three harvesting skills and six production skills. All skills can be taken beginning at level one, but as you progress through these skills you must choose which ones you’d like to improve.

Currently there are 80 levels for harvesting and crafting. During levels 1-20 you are an apprentice, during 21-40 you are a craftsman, during 41-60 you are an adept (also called a specialist) and during 61-80 you become a master of that profession. All professions can be leveled to 20, but only 6 can enter levels 21-40. Beyond that only three professions can progress through levels 41-60 and only one can become a master skill.

You can access your crafting sheet by pressing “Y.” Here you can see all of your current progress through the levels of harvesting and production.

Harvesting

RoM’s harvesting and production system will be familiar to most gamers. When you first log in, you’re only a few yards away from Pioneer’s Colony. All three harvesting trainers are either in or very close to this town. Alice the herbalism trainer and Wood (wait for it) the woodcutting trainer, are in the town proper. Hansen, the mining trainer, is a few yards away directly west of the Colony. After speaking with these three different trainers, you are ready to harvest.

Nodes spawn all across Taborea and are plentiful for the apprentice level. You can track all nodes on the minimap with a toggle function that is on by default. There are six different types of nodes for each harvesting skill for levels 1-20. They are acquired at level one, eight, eleven, fourteen and twenty. Those marked with an asterisk are rarer spawns and are used less frequently in vendor bought recipes. World drop recipes, uncommon recipes that not everyone will have, usually require one of these rare spawns.

Herbalism

• Mountain Poplar
• Rosemary*
• Wild Berry
• Bison Grass
• Bitterleaf
• Moxa

Woodcutting

• Balsa
• Chime*
• Williow
• Stone Rotan
• Maple
• Oak Mining
• Brass
• Flame Dust*
• Tin
• Cyanide
• Iron
• Copper

Since these are harvested resources you must refine them to use them in production recipes. Refinement takes place at different crafting tables. Herb refinement takes place at the alchemy table, woodcutting at the carpentry table and ore smelting at the blacksmithing table. There are usually two steps to refinement, although the rare type of wood has three steps. For example, you begin with two recipes to refine mountain poplar. After you harvest the resource you can take two mountain poplars and turn them into a mountain poplar bundle. If necessary, you can take six mountain poplar bundles and make them into mountain poplar sap. The sap is usually required for recipes with a higher grade (saps are often used to make green items instead of white).

The two refinements for ore are sand and nugget and the two refinements for wood are timber and lumber. However, the rare spawn of wood, chime, does have a third refinement option. Two chime pieces create one timber and six timber can make one lumber. With six lumber, chime can yield one chime plank. That’s a total of 72 harvested chime pieces to make one chime lumber.

Production

Until you arrive in Logar you can’t pick up any of the production skills, however, all skills are available in Logar. It is the second town you’ll come across in your adventures in RoM and you’ll probably be around level five when you arrive. Since you’re an apprentice you can pick up all the production skills. You might as well if you want to try them all out but be warned, each item you create costs gold. This price increases with the level of the recipe in which you are creating. A portion of this gold may be retrieved if you sell your products to a vendor while leveling a certain skill, but you will still be losing gold for each creation.

You cannot craft anywhere; you will need to be near the appropriate crafting table (sometimes called crafting tools). These tables are marked by a green circle above them with a picture of the production icon in the center.

Recipes for production will also feel familiar to most MMO players. Each recipe will take two refined materials from the different types of resources. For instance, a tailoring recipe called Magical Leggings needs three balsa timber and one mountain poplar bundle to be created. Tailoring recipes take from the wood resource and the herb resource. The world drop of Enhanced Magical Trousers, a green quality recipe, requires three balsa lumber, one mountain poplar sap, one chime timber and Magical Leggings. There we see the use of the rare resource and the second step of refinement. All of the production skills have different combinations of the resources they use. No production skill takes from more than two of the harvestable families.

Production Skill -> Harvestable Family

Alchemy -> ore and herbs
Armor crafting -> ore and herbs
Blacksmithing -> ore and wood
Carpentry -> ore and wood
Cooking -> wood and herbs
Tailoring -> wood and herbs

Alchemy and cooking are two exceptions. While they require materials from two of the harvesting families, they also need supplies from a vendor on all of their recipes. Alchemy uses vials and containers. Cooking uses additional types of food including fish and frog legs among other things. All of these are found at an alchemy or cooking vendor. These vendors are usually next to the crafting tables.

Levels 11-20

Things change slightly once you hit level 11 with any of the production skills. Your harvesting skills remain the same, but the six production skills will now require a production rune for all recipes level 11 and higher. You will begin looting these runes from the beginning so it’s a good idea to hold onto them until you hit 11 with your production skills.

Production Skill -> Production Rune

Alchemy -> Combine
Armor Crafting -> Purify
Blacksmithing -> Frost
Carpentry -> Link
Cooking -> Activate
Tailoring -> Disenchant

Once you’ve leveled something to 20 you will need to complete a quest to continue any further. Remember, you can only take six of these skills into the craftsman level so pick your skills carefully. All of the production skills need two types of the harvestable resources so it’s a good idea to choose at least two gathering skills at this point if not keeping them all. Of course, it’s up to you which ones you choose and since there is an auction house resources will surely be available from other players.

Article By: Pamela Blalock