Top 1 gaming blog

Free to get Dragon’s Call 2nd CBT keys

Nov 30, 2009 Articles Recommend|821views

Dragon’s Call, a brand new browser MMORPG has stunning graphics and a large variety of ways to play. Your character will be equipped with an variety of weapons, skills and magical abilities to help you in your journey through quests across the mysterious lands.

You will not only encounter wild animals but also PVP with real players. Your role is to defend the lands with justice. Choose your side and build alliances.

Last time we publish the the first CBT key,now we will send the 2nd CBT keys to players

send mail to proposal@top1gaming.com to get free 2nd CBT key

Specific instructions on how to sign up for the giveaway

1. Register a new account on register page
http://passport.gamedp.com/Account/Register

2. Login the game via login page, when the activation textbox pop up , just copy and pasted the activation key we sent to you into the textbox and you could enter the game directly.
http://s1.dc.gamedp.com/

3. View more game info in this thread and post up bug report in the Bug report contest thread
http://forum.gamedp.com/viewthread.php?tid=16&extra=page%3D1

-The beginning and end dates for the event Starts from Nov. 30th,2009 Ended on Dec.31st,2009 (It may last longer when required)

And you can see how to use the activation key follow below link:

http://forum.gamedp.com/viewthread.php?tid=160&extra=page%3D1

Tags: Dragon's Call

Ubisoft Turns Back Time With Prince Of Persia

Nov 30, 2009 Articles Recommend|343views

Ubisoft uses the Dagger of Time to roll back the Prince of Persia franchise with Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, a new game in the Sands of Time storyline to coincide with the release of Disney’s feature film.

With the major motion picture purely focused on the Sands of Time storyline, Ubisoft puts it’s cel-shaded franchise reboot on hold in order to deliver a new tale that will be more familiar to fans of the Jake Gyllenhaal version of the prince. The announcement backs up claims made by GameDaily back in June of last year regarding a movie tie-in game. It also answers a question raised by the Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands trademark that popped up in September.

We’re not sure if The Forgotten Sands will be a direct movie tie-in featuring the likenesses of actors playing the parts in the film, or simply a side-story in the Sands of Time universe. All we know so far is that the game will feature “fan-favorite elements from the original series,” along with some new innovations.

Speaking during Ubisoft’s second half 2009 financial results, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot says the game will target both the hardcore and the more casual gamer.

“The goal is to reach both audiences, the core and casual gamers. It will be a game that will have lots of combat, with the possibility for gamers that are not as good - a level for beginners. In that sense we are trying to cover both groups.”

Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands is due out in May for consoles and handhelds.

Tags: Disney, Prince Of Persia, The Forgotten Sands, Ubisoft

Command & Conquer plans for the future direction

Nov 29, 2009 Articles Recommend|306views

Jon Van Caneghem, EA’s new head of all things Command & Conquer, has grand plans for the future direction of the series. Plans die-hard fans of C&C may be interested/horrified to hear.

See, Van Caneghem is a big supporter of things like “games as service”, and online delivery. Which makes him a good fit for EA, since that’s exactly what EA are moving towards, with games like Battlefield Heroes and their acquisition of online gaming company Playfish.

So what does this mean for the future of Command & Conquer? Well, we knew he was going to “transform” the series, but didn’t think it’d be this drastic. Chew over these quotes from an interview with Van Caneghem over on Gamasutra. The first regarding strategy games taking a leaf out of Battlefield Heroes’ book.

“Look what online has done for RPGs over the last 10 years. All the other categories are following suit… we’re looking forward to building something to be a leader in that space.”

On where he sees C&C fitting in with this shift, he says “”It allows you to do everything you would have expected from a boxed game, but it adds a lot more to it… being connected and connected with players, and persistence, the social elements of playing against each other with other friends.”

And, perhaps most distressingly, this:

“What you’re seeing with all the social gamers on Facebook… they are actually already playing strategy games whether they know it or not. Taking a franchise like Command and Conquer and expanding it to a wider audience is part of the strategy.”

Tiberiumville, coming to Facebook, 2010.

Interview: Van Caneghem Talks EALA’s Vision, Command & Conquer [Gamasutra]

Tags: Command & Conquer

Dragon’s Call-The second CBT launch on Dec 1st!

Nov 27, 2009 Articles Recommend|1,505views

Get cracking now! The second CBT of Dragon’s Call will launch at EST 8:00 PM, Dec. 1st, 2009.

Remember those days and nights when you hung out with your mates in the internet cafe, slew all kinds of dragons and furious giant monsters, experienced bloody battles as well as pure friendship…? Those days have gone. You’re now sitting comfortable at home or in the office, enjoying the leisure life style you create for yourself, maybe with a cup of coffee in front of your computer. But do you still dream of those shiny weapons and glories you used to have with your buddies?

Now, you have a chance to return to the past without long time download and complex game guides. All you need is a simple click on the official site of the epic fantastic browser based game - Dragon’s Call. The gate will be opening at EST 8:00 PM, Dec. 1st, 2009. Call up your old troops! We’re waiting for you in the game!

Dragon’s Call, a brand new browser MMORPG, has stunning graphics and a wide variety of ways to play. Your character will be equipped with a variety of weapons, skills and magical abilities to help you on your journey of quests across the mysterious lands.

You will not only encounter wild animals but also be challenged by real players. Your role is to defend the lands with justice. Choose your side and build alliances!

PS: a piece of leaked info of Instance System

Mercenary Market
Before you enter an instance, you must form a team in Mercenary Market (Click “Mercenary” button on the screen to enter Mercenary Market). You can either enter an instance alone or together with mercenaries hired in the Mercenary Market. You can also act as a mercenary to be hired by other players for exploring instances. Whatever it is, each team can consist of 3 members at most.

About Ever Dream Studio
Ever Dream Studio was founded in 2008 as a small independent studio which expanded into a much bigger one in 2009. We are a global team consisted of 30-plus staff and we specialize in Massively Multiplayer Online Game development.

Tags: Dragon's Call, Ever Dream Studio

Global Agenda Developers Blog-The Utopian

Nov 26, 2009 Articles Recommend|371views

This is the first in a fictional series providing a closer look into Commonwealth Prime, Earth’s greatest city of the 22nd century, and the lore of the world of Global Agenda.

The Utopian

Steven made a conscious effort to awaken several minutes before his alarm sounded every morning, creeping out of bed as quietly as he could to peer out the window at the street a few stories below. The immaculately cleaned road had never suffered an automobile on its surface, as most of the traffic in Commonwealth Prime was airborne, clogging the skies above the incredible city in a perpetual jam of personal vehicles, public transportation, and security patrols. Ground level was reserved for pedestrians, with narrow walkways punctuated by neatly trimmed gardens and every imaginable shape of abstract sculpture. Thick nationalist banners hung from so high up on each towering skyscraper that the morning haze would obstruct their origins, making it appear that they hung from the clouds themselves, unfurling to broadcast their message of loyalty and pride. Steven wasn’t interested in any of that, not the cleanliness and beauty of the metropolis, or the eerie complacency and ruthless efficiency of each passersby. All he cared to see was the single hovering garbage collection drone that would visit the intersection just below his window every morning, a few minutes before his assigned duties began.

Crouching next to the window, the seventeen-year-old gently touched its interior surface, which caused the opaque shade to slowly give way to a transparent view of the street below. There were very few people out that early in the morning, mainly those assigned to an exercise route or maintenance androids. Always wary that someone might look up to his level and see him watching, Steven wondered if anyone would know or care that he was up before his assigned time. On one hand, most citizens of the Commonwealth were entirely self-absorbed, caring only for their prescribed duties, but on the other hand, the draconian guidelines that kept the city functioning required the immediate reporting of anything out of order. Not about to take any chances for his singular guilty pleasure, Steven exposed only enough of his face so that he could clearly see the street corner.
Right on cue, as though it needed him to be watching in order to occur, the hovering trash collection vehicle rumbled into view a few stories above, coming around the corner between buildings suspended on four massive fans that labored to keep it afloat. It was one of the older model vehicles still active in the city, not really vital to transportation or defense, and therefore low on a perpetually growing list of assets to be updated or replaced. The cranky old barge got the job done, and as long as that’s what the paperwork supporting it said back at a main office somewhere in the city, the entranced official that shuffled those papers around would remain content. One would have to look very closely anywhere else in Commonwealth Prime to see rust streaks, loose panels, and rattling motors, but Steven delighted in watching something continue to function with all of those afflictions on a daily basis. He pressed his nose to the glass so as not to miss a second of the performance.

The truck wobbled over the street about five meters high, then turned slowly as it neared the intersection, overcompensating for a clanking rotor and finally reaching an angle that would allow it to land without crushing any of the identical trees. Settling onto the concrete as gently as it could, Steven could feel the dull thumping of the landing gear through the window, which brought a smile to his face for a reason he couldn’t quite explain. The joggers and laboring robots moving about in the pre-dawn light simply altered their paths to go around the vehicle as though it had always been there, or perhaps as though they had already determined where they needed to go just in case anything happened to land right there. When its weight had settled, the engines powered down and, for a brief moment, serenity returned to the intersection.

Leaning forward onto the balls of his feet, Steven pushed up the sleeves of his grey sleep suit, eagerly anticipating what he knew would happen next: The side door of the blocky craft opened slowly on creaking hinges, allowing a crude humanoid robot to step out awkwardly. It was a much older model than the ones a citizen could see every day staffing a food station or supply depot, made from opaque and weathered components instead of the slightly translucent and illuminated materials used in the androids that were designed to be more appealing to the eye. Its joints weren’t at all concealed like the newer models, but its face was an emotionless mask of rigid plates and eerily glowing yellow eyes that in no way responded to prompts from nearby humans or other automatons.

No sooner had its feet hit the ground than the robot moved quickly around the garbage truck towards the intersection’s single disposal bin, which hadn’t once been completely filled in all of the years that Steven had lived in the youth crèche on the third floor there. Perhaps it was the close proximity to one of the industrial sectors of the city or more the result of the lack of any real garbage to fill the receptacle, but it always surprised him that such a superfluous task had been religiously completed every single day for as long as anyone he knew could remember. However, that wasn’t why Steven watched every day. It wasn’t the execution, the process, or the result of garbage collection that fascinated him. It was a specific moment during the ordeal, right when the robot approached the refuse bin to pick it up, when it had to make a short ascent over the curb, which stood at a height of no more than ten or fifteen centimeters.

The robot neared the curb and raised a foot to step up over it, but caught itself by the toe and stumbled. It prevented itself from falling by reaching out and grabbing the side of the hover truck, looking down to reevaluate what it needed to do to circumvent the obstacle. Panning slowly to ether side of the step, it locked onto a shallow ramp that provided easier access for rolling conveyances just a few meters to the right. Turning and moving in that direction, the robot went about twenty seconds out of its way to use the ramp instead of simply raising its foot a few centimeters higher to overcome the curb. Steven smiled so widely from his window that he honestly thought someone might catch the glare off of his teeth and report him for being out of bed before his designated hour. It was worth it every morning, though, for it always happened the exact same way. The obsolete garbage truck and the idiot robot always made him feel better somehow, gave him the strength and patience to face each day in the monotonous and unchanging city of Commonwealth Prime.

Later that day, otherwise just as unremarkable as every other day Steven had experienced growing up in the city, something different happened. Sitting there in the educational pod, it wasn’t altogether uncommon for the instructor to pass by behind a student and pause for a moment to observe what he or she was doing on the secondary monitor. Steven was one of the brighter students in his echelon, so he rarely suffered the personal attention of the professor, but that day it seemed like CED 14 Brighton was paying an inordinate amount of attention to all of the students, not just the ones struggling with the lesson.

As he traced out geometric patterns with an acute stylus, according to the computer’s requests for mimicry of displayed shapes, Steven glanced over his shoulder a few times to see not only Brighton but an assistant he had never seen before moving anxiously behind each pod, exchanging glances every now and then. The assistant was a shorter man with a well-kept Commonwealth Educational Division jumpsuit, somewhat different from the broken in old outfit that the professor wore. The data pad tucked under his arm was receiving dictation from the head-mounted microphone perched just before his mouth, recording his every word, which apparently had something to do with the female student they were both observing.

Steven knew her as Citizen 3 Valmont, a redheaded girl probably six months younger than he. She had been in a few of his classes, but he hadn’t taken much notice of her; sexual education wasn’t scheduled for his age group for another five semesters. The two instructors hovering over her pod seemed to be much more interested, whispering to each other as they intently watched her toil at the same lesson he had nearly completed. Frowning as he turned back to put the finishing touches on his pattern, Steven felt a tinge of jealousy; why would they be so impressed by her work if he was already done? He double-checked his project to ensure that he had exactly copied the image, growing even more frustrated when he found no errors.

“CED Fourteen Brighton,” he blurted, turning halfway in his chair and raising his hand. When both instructor and assistant had looked over in his direction, he continued, “I’ve completed the lesson.” The two older men exchanged glances briefly, then walked over to Steven’s pod together, standing on opposite sides of him.

Brighton spoke first in a hushed voice, “Citizen Four Lesuvo, you were told to complete the exercise and then wait for the rest of the class quietly.” When Steven looked over at the assistant, he added, “This is CED Twelve Markov. He is observing our class today.” Markov nodded after his introduction, then brought his data pad out and began tapping on it.
“Apologies, CED Fourteen Brighton,” Steven whispered, “but I seem to finish all of my lessons before everyone else.”

Markov stopped tapping and peered over the top edge of his pad at Brighton, who stiffened noticeably before responding. “It is highly irregular, Citizen.” He scratched the back of his neck and repeated, “highly irregular.”

Sensing his colleague’s uneasiness, Markov interjected, “Steven, do you enjoy your lessons here at the youth crèche?”

“I understand their relevance to my education,” he replied before the realization set in that the assistant had used his first name to address him. Swiveling in his chair to face Markov, he added, “but I abhor the repetition, sir.”

Taking the signal, Brighton nodded to Markov and went about surveying the other students, none of whom were watching the exchange. Reaching out and touching the student on the shoulder, Markov leaned in and smiled, whispering, “Come with me. I have something very important to discuss with you.”

* * *

The instructor’s office was a bland cube of white walls, a single door, and a desk so uncluttered that it appeared no one had ever before used the room for anything but brief, uncomfortable interviews. Markov walked around the desk and seated himself, motioning for Steven to do likewise. When the door whistled closed behind them, the older man inhaled to speak but the student cut him off. “I didn’t mean to disrupt the classroom or begrudge my lesson, CED Twelve Markov.”

Waving a hand dismissively, Markov also interrupted, “Stop.” Steven sat back in his chair and waited for what he surely thought would be a reprimand and stern chastising on the importance of a good Commonwealth education. The older man removed his head-mounted microphone and set it down out of the way. “My name is GCED Thirty-Two Markov, but I’d like for you to call me Markov in private like this, Steven, when other citizens aren’t listening.”

Hitting him like a thunderbolt, he finally started piecing together what had been going on all day. Markov was a high-ranking member of the Global Counter Espionage Department, an elite branch of Commonwealth law enforcement that regulated covert activity around the world. Most citizens didn’t even know it existed. “What do you…”

“Want with a student?” Markov smiled and stood up and sat casually on the corner of the desk. “You’ve noticed that you’re somewhat different from the other students, from everyone else your age, right Steven?”

“You keep calling me that, I-“

“It is your name, is it not?”

His throat was dry, making his voice waver uneasily, “Only the matron back at the dorm calls us by our first names.”

Frowning, Markov rolled his head back to look up at the ceiling lights, “We’ll have to make a note of that, thank you.” Reasserting himself to the young man, he continued, “Steven, have you noticed that you’re different from other citizens?”

Not knowing how to respond, he ventured, “Yes, somewhat different. I mean, not entirely. I obey the doctrine, I sanitize regularly, and I love the Commonwealth.” Unsure as to whether or not he had provided the right answer, he waited through a few excruciating moments of silence.

Markov suddenly belted out a hearty laugh, a rolling display of mirth that made Steven jump upright in his chair with surprise. He continued for what seemed like forever before drying his eyes and clapping the student on the shoulder, “Quoted right from the plaque near the door of this very building, excellent!” He chuckled for another few seconds before sitting back down in his chair and tossing his data pad onto the table. “I want you to look at this, Steven.”

The digital readout displayed what appeared to be a security camera feed replaying a loop of about five seconds worth of footage. It panned quickly from left to right across a street corner scene somewhere in Commonwealth Prime, a busy district with at least fifty citizens and robots visible. Shadows passed quickly overhead as hover vehicles raced above the pedestrian traffic, security forces marched in unison, and the bland uniforms of the citizenry made them blend together to form one flowing mass of people, like an enormous blanket with numerous individual legs.

Steven studied the video for three loops of the feed, then looked up at Markov expectantly, “What am I looking for?”

Markov leaned back and clasped his hands behind his head, “You tell me.”

The younger man tilted his head slightly in confusion, then answered without looking back down at the data pad, his eyes locked onto Markov’s the entire time, “There is a flicker in the northwest street lamp, two citizens are wearing the wrong day’s uniform, and the robot cleaning the windows of the dark gray building is missing a brush on its lower right appendage.”

Raising his eyebrows in applause, Markov leaned forward and admitted, “Nicely done, Steven, nicely done.” Something about his posture or choice of words betrayed his disappointment, though; Steven noticed it immediately and told him what he knew he wanted to hear.

“At time index 14:32:52, the man standing on the northeast street corner facing south with the dark hair and blue uniform is not a citizen.”

Markov grinned from ear to ear and snatched the data pad, inspecting it for himself and pressing his finger into the screen to pause the display at that exact moment. “How did you come to that conclusion?”

Answering flatly, Steven explained, “He stops at the street corner and looks in both directions, when any citizen would be familiar enough with the flow of ground traffic to know that every block alternates right-of-way. There is no need to stop when heading in that direction from that corner.” Markov looked up with doubt in his eyes, but Steven wasn’t finished yet, “His uniform has only one replaced button, but regulations clearly state that all buttons are to be replaced if one malfunctions. Also, his eyebrows have not been trimmed according to sanitation standards in at least a few weeks.” Stopping for a moment to make sure he didn’t overstep his bounds, he concluded, “The man is obviously not a citizen.”

Markov nodded and cleared the image before setting the tablet back down on the table. He launched into a startling dissertation, “Before you were born, Steven, your biological parents were selected to be part of a very exclusive group of loyal citizens, those with a unique combination of hereditary traits and life experiences that would make them ideal for producing… special children. For your entire life, your nutritional supplement pills have not included some of the basic… mood stabilizers that make our great civilization possible, which you have probably already noticed by now.”

“How would I-“

Continuing without hearing out the interruption, Markov went on, “For example, I know you detest the lessons you receive here at the crèche, you look for excuses to alter your routine even temporarily,” he smiled, “and you have an uncanny knack for pinpointing disorder, don’t you?”

Steven wasn’t sure if he was supposed to be excited or frightened, but something about Markov’s demeanor hinted at the former. “Yes.”

Taking a deep breath before pushing himself back from the desk, Markov stood and motioned for Steven to do the same, “You are to begin reporting to sector nine, building sixteen, floor five, room six hundred twelve from now on at eight hundred hours, do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Finish the rest of today’s lesson here, but tell no one of this conversation or where you are being transferred.”

“I understand, Markov.” Steven left the room and closed the door behind him, his mind overflowing with a sense of revelation, like the heavy curtain of the government had been pulled back just enough for him to see light on the other side. His entire life was about to change and he could sense it.

As soon as the door closed, Markov pulled out his personal communicator and brought it to life with the push of a button and a single high pitched beep. A voice drifted in over the connection, demanding, “Status?”

Pulling the data pad over next to him on the table, Markov activated the screen again and inspected the image. “Secondary objective completed, GCED 1 Lesuvo was successfully activated.”
“Understood and noted for promotion. The primary objective?”

Markov pushed the screen with two fingers and stretched them apart, causing the image to zoom in on the face that Steven had identified as a non-citizen. “Fugitive identity confirmed, it’s Vanik.”

Tags: fictional series, Global Agenda, The Utopian

LOTRO developer diary revisits the Lone-lands

Nov 26, 2009 Lord of the Rings Online|369views

The latest developer diary entry is from Lord of the Rings Online Senior Designer Allan “Orion” Maki, and takes us back to a very familiar area: The Lone-lands. While the region seems like a low-level walk in the park to the majority of players these days, Maki had always felt that there was a bit of a “disconnect” and that players were being sent to an area far above their level. The Lone-lands have been given what he describes as a “massive overhaul”, bringing them more in line with low and mid level players abilities.

Players will find changes such as a solo version of Weather Top, a new horse travel mount to make the initial trip to the Forsaken Inn less dangerous, and some new faction and quest systems. Those, however, are just the beginning. With Siege of Mirkwood only days away, players eager to explore the expansion will find their path in the earlier areas considerably smoother.

The full entry is worth looking at, as it contains four pages of great information on the overhaul — it’s a valuable resource for anyone still hanging out around Ost Guruth.

Tags: Lone-lands, Lord of the Rings Online, LOTRO, Siege of Mirkwood

Dragon Oath: Catch a Turkey Pet for Thanksgiving!

Nov 25, 2009 Articles Recommend|723views

Dragon Oath will celebrate Thanksgiving by giving players a chance to catch their own turkey pet. Starting today, and running through December 3rd, players can travel to Pet Island to collect “turkey tickets” by killing rabbits, turtles, and swallows. They can also collect turkey tickets by killing bosses in the “Thief Raid” and “Intruders” events. These turkey tickets are extremely rare and will take a lot of dedication and killing to collect.

Once players have acquired a minimum of 10 tickets, they can trade the tickets in for a turkey meal.Right-click on your turkey meal, it will magically transform into your personal turkey pet!

Players will have until December 10th to exchange the turkey tickets for this seasonal pet.

As an extra Thanksgiving bonus, Dragon Oath also added a special “Roasted Corn” buff! World monsters and event bosses may drop delicious roasted corn when killed, which will give players assorted buffs that may increase attributes, physical attack, or spirit attack.

Plan wisely and divide your time between the two events – they are both fun and rewarding!

Happy hunting and Happy Thanksgiving!

Tags: Dragon Oath, Thanksgiving, Turkey, Turkey Pet

Dragon’s Call-quest, equipment and auto-fighting system

Nov 24, 2009 Articles Recommend|462views

To evolve, we always have to create a past then break it through. That’s what happens in Dragon’s Call. You didn’t even have time to see the old skin being torn off and the new skin being burnt on, the underground process has already flashed us many incredible systems in the future. They are either under construction or being tested in our intranet. But I’m not going to leak anything about the interactive instance or divining system now. I’m only here to show you the first step on how to enter the game. Enjoy the last detailed game info before no wiped CBT launches.

Quest Guide:

Through doing quests, players will get familiar with the backstory and storyline of the game as well as the world they are interacting with, and in addition, get different quest rewards. Beginners will pick up the game easily and quickly through doing tutorial quests.

Character Equipment:

Each character can equip 10 pieces of gear, including a main weapon, an off-hand weapon, a suit, leg guards, arm guards, a helmet, a pair of boots, a necklace and two rings, as shown below:

Auto-Fighting System Intro:

The auto-fighting system aims to provide you with a more casual and enjoyable gaming experience. When you are busy, you can leave the job of grinding monsters, a physically demanding toil, to the automation of auto-fight, your faithful intelligent gaming assistant, exactly like the calculator you use in a mathematical exam. The auto-fighting system is particularly helpful when you are tasked with killing a large number of monsters. Moreover, all the items and experience points you gain from auto-fight will automatically go to your personal mailbox.

Meanwhile, you will see the following buildings in the town - Stores, Arena, Training Field, Auction House, Market and Tavern

Click in to find out what they are about or check on the official site for more details…

Tags: auto-fighting system, Dragon's Call, equipment, quest

SWTOR Final Two Classes-Jedi Consular and Sith Inquisitor

Nov 23, 2009 Articles Recommend|874views

Fans of BioWare’s much-anticipated MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic received some good news today with a reveal of the game’s final two classes: the Jedi Consular and the Sith Inquisitor. The Jedi Consular is a support class specialized in healing, but with ranged offensive capabilities as well. The Sith Inquisitor, not surprisingly, is primarily a damage dealer. It seems the first word of the Jedi Consular and Sith Inquisitor classes came from a fan translation at Star Wars MMO.net of the German magazine “PC Games”.

The classes were confirmed earlier today by SWTOR Community Manager Sean Dahlberg who wrote: “Fans of Star Wars: The Old Republic will be in for a treat this week! Several magazines in North America and Europe will have articles that not only talk about The Old Republic but also reveal our final two classes: the Jedi Consular and the Sith Inquisitor!”

SWTOR fans are discussing the Jedi Consular and Sith Inquisitor classes on the official forums, and Dahlberg stated the HoloNet will be updated with more info on the newly revealed classes in December.

Tags: Jedi Consular, Sith Inquisitor, Star Wars The Old Republic, SWTOR

A Day in the Life-Jade Dynasty

Nov 22, 2009 Articles Recommend|344views

Jade Dynasty still has the ability to surprise me, and I love it for that. I’ve said before that Jade is a lot like Final Fantasy XI, in that everything possible is not always obvious. In Jade, the easiest and perhaps the quickest way to make money is to sell the provisions you get as drops. Every fifteen levels you get a new set of four provisions, and they sell for decent money especially the higher level grade provisions. But you can also turn in provisions and get honor. Honor or reputation works rather similarly to World of Warcraft in that the more reputation you have, the more it opens up to more loot. I started playing Ettarre again and got a new esper. Because each esper can be upgraded by getting an Esper Tome and an Esper Accessory to make it even more powerful during invigorate. Searching through the forums it became apparent to me that the best way to get both of these was through quests I could get if my honor reputation was high enough. But for as long as I’ve known about it I couldn’t seem to turn in the provisions for rep, I’d get a log full notice and that would be that. Finally I read a post that says I can only have eight quests as a maximum. Jade lets you have twenty or so in your log so I’ve always had fifteen to twenty or so in quest log, so that explained why I kept getting an error.

So right before I hit seventy-five on my character Lionhand I stopped playing him. Seventy five is pretty momentous as plateaus go. New equipment, new tier skills, etc. I can’t even really tell you why but I did it but I’m having so much fun playing Ettarre. I went to Cave of Fangs, the first dungeon. It was alright, kind of anticlimactic actually. Finished off a few of the red explorer quests but the exp from them was so little as to be frankly worthless. I get more experience off the curse events each day. Speaking of, around 83 or 84 I hit a wall leveling. For the most part I was doing the Sleepless event quests in conjunction with my grinding. So I’d put an eight hour session together and then turn in the quest and I could tack on 3 to 5 million experience, which is a fairly nice lump. But every three or four levels the mob that you need to kill to get credit changes and this time it moved on as normal but the mob swarms you. So I did a cost benefit analysis on how many health pots I would have to use versus the experience I’d get and it just wasn’t worth it. If I could get a party together I’m sure it would be a much better experience rate, but I run alone.

There is a mob that shows up when you’re camping; maybe because my character is female he read a poem to me as I was killing him. So I will leave you with a poem from the one and only Frog Prince:

With tears in your eyes you’re telling me
That in the fairy tales they are all lying
I can never be your prince.

Maybe you’d never see
That after you said that you loved me
That in the sky
The stars still shimmer

I will be the angel in your favorite fairy tale
And enfold you in my wings
Let us pretend that things will be like a fairy tale one day
There we’d rest in eternal bliss.

Morte

Tags: Jade Dynasty

Login Everyday! Number of Login Day Campaign

Nov 21, 2009 Articles Recommend, Uncategorized|377views

1.Stamp Rally Event

From after the update of November 19th, “Login Everyday! Number of Login Day Campaign” will start within the period, November 19th (After the update) through December 19th 11:59 PM (PST).

Management team will start counting the number of days the player have logged in during the period, and according to the result, every player will have a chance to win new accessories and new items.

Detailed list of the prizes can be viewed from our Official Site; though below will be some of the prizes
players can obtain from this event.

Management team hopes that this event would put more joy into the game play for every player.

2.Update Information

New Accessory Available By Value Set

Value set containing the accessory above and “Happy Hamburger” which was released prior, would be sold for 699 B, which will save 300 B to buy both accessories.

GM Draw Update

GM Draw, which could be drawn just by Game Money which is able to gain by playing the game, will have new prizes included. Below will be some of the accessories that players will have chance to win.

Tags: SplashFighters

Dragon Oath: Cool Event-Kung Fu Soccer Battle

Nov 19, 2009 Articles Recommend|900views

Dragon Oath has added yet another exciting new event to its recently launched Open Beta – the Kung Fu World Soccer Challenge. This is a monthly event, scheduled for the first Sunday of each month.

Bring only your strongest team of three or more to the arena for a soccer match like no other. More like a soccer nightmare, you’ll have to fight your way past a seemingly endless onslaught of ferocious soccer balls before you earn the right to battle their captain to claim the ultimate prize in this game for soccer supremacy.

Players that participate in this event will gain MASSIVE amounts of experience, rare item drops, and the Chance to take down the Soccer queen! Careful, she bites.

This bunch of screenshots showcases the event’s unparallel tension and excitement. Take a look!

Tags: Dragon Oath, Kung Fu Soccer

The wait is over,Dragon’s Call CBT launch and You Can Get Free Key

Nov 19, 2009 Articles Recommend|1,123views

One of the most interesting independent browser based games is about to enter a new phase. Dragon’s Call official site has posted up a News, announcing that their closed beta test will officially begin at EST 7:00 AM on Nov. 18th. In fact a selected number of alpha testers actually played the game for a few days before its beta test launch.

Seems the secret launch of alpha test and unveiled game events should expose to the sunlight today. But the data will still be wiped after the first closed beta, as the marketing officer, Torrez, said “We’re still focusing on bugs fix in this stage. But you may enjoy your crazy leveling in the second closed beta test which should come on next month.” About 600 players will be invited at first to beta test the game but it’s likely more will be invited in the coming weeks. Some exclusive screenshots has also been posted up in the official Dragon’s Call forum announcement as the Dragon’s Call gets ready for the long awaited beta to begin.

Send a mail to proposal@top1gaming.com to get free Dragon’s Call CBT key

Guide on how to use the key :

1. Register a new account on register page http://passport.gamedp.com/Account/Register

2. Login the game via login page , when the activation box pop up , just copy and pasted the activation key we sent to you  into the box and you’ll be in. http://s1.dc.gamedp.com/

3. View more game info in this thread and post up bug repost in the Bug report contest thread
http://forum.gamedp.com/viewthread.php?tid=16&extra=page%3D1

ALPHA TEST SCREENSHOT

About Ever Dream Studio

Ever Dream Studio was founded in 2008 as a small independent studio which expanded into a much bigger one in 2009. We are a global team consisted of 30-plus staff and we specialize in Massively Multiplayer Online Game development.

Tags: closed beta test, Dragon's Call, Ever Dream Studio

Final Fantasy XIII Impressions-Looking For XII

Nov 18, 2009 Articles Recommend|241views

Despite the enthusiasm among gamers for Final Fantasy XIII, I have, from afar, assumed and feared that the game represented a creative backslide. On Friday, during a demonstration of the game, I was able to test my opinion.

A pair of Square-Enix representatives was in New York to show the company’s holiday lineup and tease some of 2010’s. That tease included a playthrough by them — no touching, journalist — of the E3 build of Final Fantasy XIII. That’s the build our Luke Plunkett would have seen more of had a PlayStation 3 firmware upgrade not ruined things.

Perhaps I could glean no new facts from a June build of a game that will be released in Japan next month. But I could at least form a more informed judgment.

Allow me to provide my Final Fantasy main-game playing resume for context: Never played I-III, started and liked IV on the Game Boy Advance, didn’t play V-IX, played all but the final boss of X, none of XI and about a third of XII. You wouldn’t call me a super-fan.

But I liked XII a lot. I enjoyed the switch from turn-based battles to real-time combat. Even more than that I liked the Gambit System in XII which allowed me to assign tasks to party members, so they would automatically heal or fight in certain ways at certain moments. That system, I felt, surmounted some of the tedium in turn-based role-playing games.

XIII is turn-based, using a battle system similar to IV in that attacks are made available during combat as a meter fills to enable them (translation: you can’t spam attack buttons, but also don’t have to wait to take a turn). But the new game has no Gambit system. Hence my concern that this game wouldn’t be for me. I was concerned that some classic RPG tedium would be back.

The demo that I was shown had the male lead character, Snow, running through part of a city, encountering a few guards and culminating with a boss battle against a phoenix-type creature. I was learning a lot along the way, as the Square-Enix rep played: That I can only control one character in battles, based on whichever one the designers deems best for that moment; that the story is long and intricate, involving a band of lead characters who have branded with the task of destroying their hometown.

I watched a few of the game’s turn-based battles and was impressed with their swiftness. A return to turn-based combat apparently does not mean a return to a slower pace of play. Not only are enemies visible on-screen as you run through the world, but transitions into battle sequences are snap-of-fingers quick.

The Gambit System may not be back, but I was introduced to the Paradigm System, which seems like it could be shorthand for it. The system allows the player to set basic behavior preferences for their party members. You can set one to medic, for example, though it wasn’t clear to me whether that would be as useful as setting a XII character to automatically heal themselves any time their health drops below 30% of maximum. I’m optimistic about this but need to see more.

I’d read about XIII’s Gestalt mode, though I had misunderstood it to believe it was a purely real-time combat system. XIII allows players to summon epic characters, as is Final Fantasy series tradition. The Gestalt mode lets the player transform the summoned character into a vehicle. Button prompts appear, letting the player manually select from vehicle-based attacks. From what the Square-Enix rep playing the game told me, you’re not freely doing these completely free-form. You’re executing one at a time, somewhat strategically.

Overall, the battle system didn’t seem like the regression I thought it would be and presents an interesting cocktail of concepts. I’m less worried about it.

I was curious about other aspects of XIII that have frustrated me in other role-playing games I’ve played, but little more information was available. Take saving, for example. I was shown a save point, which looked like the standard location-based saving system. No word on whether this game will allow for on-the-fly saving. I couldn’t learn anything more about the game’s inventory system either. In the past I’ve found them a bit messy and overwhelming, but it seems that we’ll have to wait until the XIII’s release in Japan in December.

I didn’t see a whole lot of Final Fantasy XIII, but I did see enough to think better of the game than I had before watching it played. My disappointment that it is so different from XII has all but dissipated. I’m ready to accept it on its merits, if only we can learn more about it.

There are major aspects of the game system that remain a mystery. We”ll find out more next month. The game will be out in North America and Europe on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on March 9, 2010.

Tags: Final Fantasy XIII, Impressions, PlayStation 3, Square Enix, Xbox 360

Vision and Focus-Wizard 101

Nov 17, 2009 Articles Recommend|340views

As the Senior Director of Software Engineering at KingsIsle Entertainment, the independent developer behind Wizard101, I have a lot to say about MMO technology (and game technology in general). Before I dive into those details, I wanted to focus on a few higher level lessons - the ones I consider most important to the success of a project. In this installment, I’ll cover the lessons we learned the hard way and the scars to show for it. I’ve divided them into three major areas: Vision and Focus, Quality and Polish, and Pushing Beyond Expectations.

Vision and Focus

Every game starts with a Vision.

No, wait. Let’s be more specific. Every successful game starts with a Vision. Having a strong Vision is not a guarantee of success - not by a long shot - but NOT having one is a pretty clear indicator that you’re headed for disaster.

Case in point: Wizard101 and Shadowbane. Both had very clear, definable visions. Both games started with two things: an idea that could be easily explained, and a core team that was passionate about playing that Vision. Many times, on both projects but especially on Wizard, I heard people saying that the project “knows what it wants to be”. This is beyond critical. Does that mean that every detail of the game is known before hand? Absolutely not. Does that mean you won’t discover a more compelling emergent type of game play as you are working towards your goal? Again, no. But if you don’t have a clear Vision to start with, then you can quickly find yourself wandering aimlessly and losing the next most important factor: Focus (aka Scope).

Let’s take each game in turn.

Shadowbane. Vision? Check! Focus/Scope? Not so much. Honestly, we were all over the map. It’s not that we didn’t pick a few key areas in which to innovate, it’s that we weren’t willing to make the hard choices that followed. Here are a few of the areas that were innovative (or at least challenging):

• Dynamic World (build your own city, practically ANYWHERE in the 3D world. Pick a spot and flatten the terrain. Then layout your city walls, shops, houses, buildings, guard towers, patrol paths for your AI defenders, etc)
• Political map that updates in real time, as player cities are created and destroyed
• Flexible hierarchy system for guild management and oaths of fealty
• Non-humanoid player characters, flying characters
• Real-time multi-fractal terrain generation, so that an entire world could be generated with a few seed values. (UGH.)
• Massively, multi-threaded server architecture (ONE server for each realm)
• Seamless world, NO zoning, ever, etc.

In and of themselves, these ideas were innovative, compelling, interesting and… risky. Very, very risky. Because this is on top of the normal “heavy lifting” that is expected of an MMO: classes, races, leveling, inventory, spells, skills, attributes, death & respawning, trading, patching, etc., ad infinitum. Combine this with an inexperienced and underfunded team and you’ve got trouble brewing. Many experienced MMO teams aren’t able to capture the magic even on their second try. First time out of the gate? Don’t try and change the world (which, ironically, was Shadowbane’s tagline).

Attempting to innovate in too many areas is probably more risky than not innovating at all. Wizard101 has its own share of innovation. In particular, the turn-based, collectible card, cinematic combat system (wow, that’s a mouthful) worked out beautifully. Highly risky? Yes. But it paid off. How? By focusing our efforts on a controlled scope and polishing a smaller number of systems to perfection we were able to achieve a much higher level of quality in less time. Our game design team, lead by James Nance, deserves some major kudos here. As we brought on many experienced game developers, they were frequently stunned by the willingness of the design team to say simply say “No” to feature creep, or to make a small design compromise if it would greatly reduce code complexity. This is another critical point. Stay focused on what is fun to the end user, and don’t get hung-up on details that in the end will have very little qualitative impact on the game experience. Risk where you have to. Don’t go the Shadowbane route, decide that nothing is good enough and try to reinvent everything. You don’t have time to redo everything… and if you try, you’ll likely come up short in every area.

Quality and Polish

Another tenet that must resonate throughout the team is: Quality, Quality, Quality. Yeah, it seems obvious - but let me tell you, it’s a lot easier to hold to ideals when you’re not trudging through a mud-filled trench with artillery shells going off all around you (and if you don’t know why that analogy fits, you probably haven’t shipped an MMO- don’t worry, you’ll understand). The quality of the product cannot be sacrificed under any circumstances. Every developer (producers, artists, designers, sound and software engineers) needs to demand this of themselves long before they even submit an item into the game for testing. Just to be clear, this isn’t a turn-around from my earlier statement about Scope. Far from it; I’m not suggesting you need to match every other MMO out there feature-for-feature, but rather that the things you DO include need to be iterated over, tested, broken, redesigned, and redone. Make them work. Make them great. And if it can’t be great, cut it.

Admittedly, the pressure of an extremely large budget can cause both the publisher and the developer to rush a game into Beta (and launch). I’ve been there, believe me. But if you think the price tag is painful when you’re 90% of the way there, imagine how painful it will be if you ship too early and fail to make that money back. This seems to be a trend that has improved in the last few years, which is good, because the stakes are too high to continue shipping things that simply aren’t ready.

Shadowbane definitely rushed every aspect of game development, and this is something that in the end not only hurt the quality of the game, but I believe ultimately slowed down its development. Shadowbane had visibility in the online community from the moment the company launched, and while feedback from the community is essential, not having a long “quiet period” of solid development can be very detrimental.

Wizard101 took a very different approach. The project was started and developed in complete secrecy. In fact, its existence was not announced until it was time to start Beta testing. Even the attitude about what constituted an Alpha (and a Beta) was very clear, and very strict. Alpha meant that the game was feature complete, meaning the big remaining push was content. Beta was really more of a marketing effort than anything else, a final chance to polish and refine. Of course, some things still had to be tweaked. Some features had to be redesigned, some content was pushed to post-launch… but by aiming high we were able to focus on actual polish of the game, not core functionality. This also allowed us to finish our Beta testing in less than three months. The combat system, the aforementioned “risky feature” was iterated on numerous times over many years. We made (and fixed) our mistakes long before anyone outside the company even knew the game was in development. To be more specific, the 3D cinematic combat system was at the heart of our development process from the very beginning. It began as a hand drawn card game, then after a couple of months was turned into a 2D prototype, and finally in December of 2006 was fleshed out as a 3D Combat Milestone. This, in turn, was polished for nearly two more years before launch in September of 2008.

Pushing (far) Beyond Expectations

I feel as though the concepts I’ve conveyed up to this point are things I went into the development of Wizard101 already knowing based on my experience with Shadowbane. Some of them didn’t really solidify for me until later, during the development of Wizard101. But the final point for this installment is one that I feel as though I learned solely from my experience developing Wizard. The title of this section might lead you to believe that I’m talking about working hard, or maybe even crunching to build an MMO, but what I’m actually referring to is the ability to constantly question limits as you know them. The best example I have of this is the way that Wizard101 streams content down to the player. Wizard is NOT a small game. The total footprint weighs in at around 1.7GB. The owner of KingsIsle (who is also our CEO), Elie Akilian, told us that he did not want players to have to wait to play the game… at all(!) At first I argued (in fact I think I argued for years), but the team and I listened and tried to look at it from his perspective, the same perspective as the player. The player doesn’t want to think about installs and lengthy registration and helping us collect demographic data. They just want to play the game. So we continued to find ways to compress the data, remove duplicate assets, stream assets only as required while the player is entertained with another part of the game. We streamlined registration, getting them past the boring questions and into the exciting part - character creation. Every time we found a way to speed up entry into the game, I was sure it was the last technical rabbit we would pull out of the hat, and every time we go back and devote effort to it again we seem to somehow find even more optimizations. This kind of pushing is not scope creep, it is the opposite. This is the ultimate lesson in focus and polish. It reminds you to forget what you think you know, think about the player experience, and find new ways to achieve even greater results.

In conclusion for this installment, I would like to pull all these elements back into one, by explaining a concept I like to call “Resonance.” Vision, Focus, Quality, Expectations…all of these combine to produce a culture for your project that is hard to put into words. If you’ve worked on a couple of teams, you probably know instinctively what I’m talking about. Some teams just get it, while other teams struggle to gain momentum. It’s not about the skills and smarts of the individual team members. It’s finding a way to balance these factors, walking the tight-rope of innovation and achievement vs. quality and polish, sticking to your guns and knowing when to hold true to your Vision and when to say, “That’s not core. We’ll come back to it later.” As I mentioned earlier, it’s a sense on the behalf of every person who works on (and later plays) your title that the game knows what it is, and (equally importantly) knows what it is not. It requires that the vision is crystal clear, the team is focused on quality, and yet willing to constantly push the envelope in ways that will make a difference to the players.

In the next installment I will begin discussing a topic that was a constant hurdle for Shadowbane, but a competitive advantage for Wizard101: Technology.

Tags: Focus, Polish, Quality, Vision, Wizard 101