press-releases
Latest
Guild Launch sponsoring DragonCon 2011 MMO track
DragonCon isn't far over the horizon, and both genre fans and companies are making plans to descend on Atlanta for the annual Labor Day weekend nerd-a-thon in September. One such outfit is Guild Launch, and the hosting company has just announced via press release that it will be sponsoring the MMO track at this year's convention. Guild Launch, founded in 2006 and renowned for its ability to ease the HTML-ignorant into the creation and maintenance of their own guilld-related websites, will be participating in various MMORPG panels as well as exhibiting its services throughout the convention. "After attending DragonCon for the last few years we decided we wanted to promote the DragonCon MMO track more directly. We've found DragonCon to be an awesome place to meet the members of our service and we look forward to meeting more of them in 2011," says company founder Stephen Johnston.
Marvel MMO announcing its writer this Thursday
Wakey wakey, Marvel MMO fans: Your favorite company has a big announcement lined up for later this week. It's so big, apparently, that today the legendary comic book publisher released an announcement about its upcoming announcement. On Thursday, April 28th, Marvel will be unveiling... drumroll please... the writer of its upcoming comic book-flavored MMORPG. Who could it possibly be? Is Marvel going to talk about the actual game at some point? Inquiring minds want to know the answers to these and other burning questions, and a blurb on the company's website promises some dialogue after the big info drop. "We'll be taking your questions via Twitter, Facebook and the liveblog below once the action has begun," says the site. There's also a brief preview video featuring Marvel.com's editorial director, which will be replaced by a live video stream of Thursday's event. Check in with Massively later this week as our own Bree Royce reports from the Marvel shindig in San Francisco.
Alganon steals press release from BioWare
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/gaming_news/Alganon_plagiarizes_press_release_from_BioWare_s_SWTOR'; The comedy train that is Alganon just keeps on rolling. Ethic over at Kill Ten Rats alerts us to a press release for the newly relaunched fantasy MMORPG that copies, nearly word for word, the verbiage used by Bioware to promote Star Wars: The Old Republic almost two years ago. "'Traditionally, massively multiplier online games have been about three basic gameplay pillars – combat, exploration and character progression,' Derek Smart continued. 'In Alganon, in addition to these we've added the fourth pillar to the equation; a story. We delivered a fun, immersive adventure that gamers expect in a top quality massively multiplayer online game. To top it all off, we're not done yet. A whole new adventure with new updates will follow soon, starting with a consignment house, new classes, PvP and much more,'" proclaims the offending release. Sound familiar? That's probably because it was posted a while back on The Old Republic's official site: "Traditionally, massively multiplayer online games have been about three basic gameplay pillars – combat, exploration and character progression," said Dr. Ray Muzyka, Co-Founder and General Manager/CEO of BioWare and General Manager/Vice President of Electronic Arts Inc., "In Star Wars: The Old Republic, we're fusing BioWare's heritage of critically-acclaimed storytelling with the amazing pedigree of Lucasfilm and LucasArts, and adding a brand-new fourth pillar to the equation – story. At the same time, we will still deliver all the fun features and activities that fans have come to expect in a AAA massively multiplayer online game. To top it all off, Star Wars: The Old Republic is set in a very exciting, dynamic period in the Star Wars universe," reads a BioWare release dated in October 2008. Check out Ethic's post over at Kill Ten Rats. Additionally, Massively has contacted Quest Online for comment and will update the story as information becomes available. [Update: Quest CEO Derek Smart has responded with this post over on Alganon's official boards.]
DC Unlimited Premium Series 2 features Thrall and a Gnome Warlock
I would hazard a guess that the DC Unlimited series of action figures from the WoW universe is probably the least-heralded licensed product -- whenever Upper Deck releases a new set of the TCG, we get multiple press releases and it gets posted on their main site, but whenever a new set of figures comes out, we always have to find it hidden in among all the other comic news and then make sure it hasn't been released before. But these are new, or at least new to us: DC is planning to release two new Premium Series 2 action figures, including everyone's favorite tortured Horde leader, Thrall, and a Gnome Warlock with a Voidwalker pal.Technically, news of these guys leaked out to distributors in May, but apparently we didn't miss the boat by too much anyway, as they're not set to be on store shelves until next January (or February, even, depending on where you look). Does it really take that long to get these things ready and out? At any rate, there they are, and we wouldn't be surprised to see both figures on display at BlizzCon later this year. We've had a few of you in the comments mention that you'd like to see a Thrall figure before, and so here you go. Personally, I have a completely different Orc I'd like to see immortalized in action figure form.%Gallery-45214%Thanks, KND and Eric W.!
Immersion survey suggests Sony better get ready to rumble
Press releases are boring. We go through literally hundreds of them a day, and for the most part, they're self-serving documents full of half-truths and inflated claims about products and services. So imagine our delight when we stumbled upon this little doozy of a release from marketing firm Ipsos Insight, which details a study done on behalf of the Immersion Corporation concerning gamers' preferences and purchasing plans with regards to the trio of next-generation consoles. You probably remember Immersion as the company that successfully sued Sony over the use of computer-controlled vibration technology in its PlayStation and PS2 Dual Shock controllers, and since Sony has apparently neither paid Immersion the $90 million it owes nor licensed the rumble tech for its SIXAXIS PS3 gamepads, the release comes across as a thinly-veiled reminder that gamers really, really like playing with input devices that shake and buzz in their sweaty hands. Not only does the (completely unbiased) poll report that 72% of the 1,075 respondents agree vibration feedback enhances their game experience, it goes on to note that 59% of those surveyed would prefer rumble on the PS3 controller, while only 8% care about motion / tilt sensing (sorry, Nintendo). As if these numbers didn't paint a clear enough picture of the message Immersion is trying to convey, two further questions spell it out even more explicitly: when asked if the lack of rumble capabilities would affect their buying decisions (apparently 74% of those polled weren't even aware of the "no rumble" policy -- clearly no Engadget readers amongst that bunch), 5% said that it would definitely cause them not to buy a PS3 and 32% claimed that they were less likely to pick one up for this reason and this reason alone. Now obviously Immersion knew exactly the results that it wanted before it conducted this "study," and probably phrased the questions in order to get the most desirable data set, but even non-statistics majors like ourselves could have figured out that gamers accustomed to the fun of Dual Shock would be in for a letdown the first time they picked up a rumble-free SIXAXIS controller. Okay, Sony, the cards are on the table, and even if these numbers are skewed, you know full well that you can't be the only player in the game without a little vibration action going on. So what's it gonna be: are you going to keep hoping that some appeals court finally overturns the numerous prior decisions against you, or are you going to shell out some dough just like Microsoft and Nintendo did, and finally give the majority of your target audience what it wants? To us, it doesn't really seem like much of a choice at all.
PS3 pad loses DualShock name and vibration but picks up Wii-esque motion detection and wireless connectivity
In a shocking turn of events, the PS3 controller has gone from banamerang to wireless DualShock 3, except without the DualShock name and vibration.If you take a good look at the back of the new control pad (see the close-up above), you'll notice that the DualShock 2 brand name imprinted on the old controller has now been supplanted by a row of LED lights to show which input has been set, either wirelessly or via the wired USB recharge port. Sony's now the only name in-line for PS3 controllers either on the pad or in the press releases (see "the new PS3 controller").
Gaming startup aims to eliminate lag with $4m
Bigfoot Networks is a startup that's recently obtained $4 million in venture capital funding. Founded by MBA students, the company has a grand ambition--to eliminate lag in online gaming by a vague-sounding "Network Gaming Accelerator" card.The card will be on show at E3, where curious journos can fire piercing questions such as "So what does it actually do?", but until then we'll have to speculate. According to FORTUNE Small Business, the card "communicates with servers, downloading some of the processes that they perform online and allowing them to run faster". However, according to Bigfoot Networks' own white paper on lag, the majority of the bottlenecks involved in lag are client-side and server-side CPU limitations--not network latency.The paper's references to latency spikes and packet loss imply that Bigfoot Network's magic solution to lag might involve creating a dedicated network processor (offloading network-related load from the client CPU), allowing the TCP/IP stack to be specifically tuned for low, consistent latency. However, as Greg Costikyan points out, games are designed to allow for network transmission delays--it might only be a product that appeals to gamers for whom every millisecond counts.[Thanks, Probot]
