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LotRO lotteries return with better odds
Everyone likes free stuff, which is why the Lord of the Rings Online lottery system has an ardent following. While the system's been offline for a while now, Turbine just announced that it is bringing the lottos back starting tomorrow. It won't just be the same lotteries your dad used to scratch, either. The team's made a few upgrades to the system, mostly in response to the expansion and increase of the level cap. There are two new regular lotteries as well as smaller brackets, which means that the odds of winning a prize will go up across the board for all players. Players can enter the lottery through the website. Turbine's also updated the official lottery FAQ with all of the new information.
Luck be a lady tonight! LotRO lotteries returning
You feelin' lucky, punk? You... You are? Oh, OK then. Well, that may just be for the best because from the looks of things, Lord of the Rings Online's lotteries will be making a return very soon. Over the next few days, Turbine will be running some "small, short, unannounced lotteries" to stress-test the feature, and if all goes as planned, players should expect the lottery to make a triumphant return by this weekend. So if you want to try your luck for some fabulous prizes, just head on over to my.lotro.com, click the lottery button, and cross your fingers. Good luck, ladies and gents!
EVE Evolved: Emergence in the sandbox
We often hear about the amazing things players get up to in EVE Online, from full-scale political wars and massive heists to collaborative business ventures and high-profile kills. While we can all enjoy these tales of high-powered exploits from afar, they can be difficult to relate to the actual game experience. Most of us will never be the puppet master pulling the strings of alliance warfare or the mastermind of some great theft, but we don't have to be. Smaller examples of emergent and opportunistic gameplay exist all over EVE in the daily play of thousands of individuals. I've always thought of EVE less as a game and more as a giant social sandbox with spaceships -- a story about what people do when left alone in each other's company. Players naturally take on roles for which they have a strong aptitude, crafting completely new gameplay styles for themselves in the process. The entrepreneurs among us spy opportunities never imagined by the game's developers, tech-savvy individuals sell web-services, and artists craft propaganda for recruitment or a war on their enemy's morale. Countless players carve their own game out of the EVE universe, and there's no reason you can't be one of them. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at some of the unique gameplay experiences players have engineered for themselves over the years and the community that makes EVE what it is.
The Road to Mordor: A year in Middle-earth
What a difference a year makes, eh? One year ago, and you didn't have to put up with me yammering at you every Friday like a hyperactive badger with a personality disorder. One year ago, and we weren't free-to-play-anything, Turbine was its own company, the festivals were nowhere near as cool as they are today, and shrews freely roamed the land without fear of reprisal. So in my last Road to Mordor (of the year, stop rejoicing over there!), I thought it'd be great to look back at the wild rollercoaster that was 2010 in Lord of the Rings Online. I also thought I'd get an easy column out of all this, but that was before I had to read through 1,337 posts and my eyeballs began to lose pressure. January Stuff happened. Let's move on.
Turbine announces DDO lotteries
Turbine has just one question to ask you: do you feel lucky? Well, do ya, role-player? Oh, you do? Swell! Then you're going to want to break out your four-leaf clovers and purple horseshoes for the new my.DDO.com lotteries. For a while now, Turbine players on the DDO side of the fence have looked with envy at LotRO's awesome (and frequent) lottos -- but no more! These lotteries are a quick -- and free -- way to earn extra items in-game, which you can do just by entering as often as they pop up on the website. Some of the lottos are based around in-game events, and some are just for fun (like the first one, a "Tasty Lotto" that nets winners free ham). It's really just a nice bonus on the side, and one that never fails to give you a thrill when your winnings pop up in your game mailbox. In the forum announcement, Tolero explains that while the lottery system is still in beta, it's certainly active for North American players (sorry Europe!). North American DDO players can enter by logging into their my.DDO.com page, then clicking on the lotto button on the left-hand side. The cool thing is that lotteries are by character, meaning that you can enter all your characters in the same lotto with a better chance of winning! Head over to the DDO forums for the full details.
EVE player run lottery offers some of game's rarest ships
One of the things we really like about EVE Online is how the sandbox encourages all manner of player-run services and ventures. Sure, some of them can be risky, but others have been quite successful. A few of these projects are starting to become a mainstay of the game and some players have really made a name for themselves by establishing such ventures. A good example of this is EVE Online player T'Amber who is known for running lotteries. Big lotteries. The current (and fourth) "Ships of EVE" lottery that T'Amber is running is no exception and has tons of prizes, including some very rare ships in the game. Ticket prices are reasonable at 10 million ISK each, particularly in light of what can be won. 1st place is a whopping 228 ship collector's fleet, featuring one of virtually every Tech I, Tech II, and Tech III ship across the game's four races, along with their faction variants (including the pirate faction ships). The collective value of this prize fleet is many billions of ISK. Just as appealing to some players as winning first prize in this lottery is coming in second -- and getting a "Mimir". Blueprints for these rare cruisers were only given to members of Pandemic Legion for winning EVE Alliance Tournament VII this past September. Indeed, the "VII" is emblazoned on the ship's hull, commemorating the tournament victory. There are very few Mimirs in the game and Ships of EVE 4 might be the only chance most players will have of obtaining one.
