accolades
Latest
Neverwinter trailer boasts two million players
Claiming that over two million players have tread upon its virtual soil, Neverwinter and its fans have good cause to celebrate. In that spirit, Cryptic Studios has released an accolades trailer to highlight the game's success and critical acclaim. You know the drill: epic music, floating quotes, and lots of dragon fire. Neverwinter has been expanding since launch, most recently with its Fury of the Feywild content update and the addition of two new companions. You can check out the accolade trailer after the jump.
RIFT releases more patch 1.5 details, new features hit the PTS
RIFT's patch 1.5 is set to hit the live servers later this month, and boy is it a doozy. RIFT's Community Manager Elrar hit the forums today to drop an information bomb on the players. This bomb exploded into a number of bullet points outlining the latest features that players can expect from patch 1.5 on the public test server. For starters, we've got the Planar Attunement system. This system is being introduced to allow progression for level 50 players, and it awards attunement experience for any activity that would normally grant you experience points. With each level of attunement experience accrued, players are awarded attunement points that can be spent in attunement trees (each associated with one of the six planes) to grant further bonuses for their characters. Also coming to the game are the Chronicles of Telara instances, which are one- to two-player instances designed for players just getting started on progression after reaching level 50. For players looking for a bigger challenge, the team is introducing Master mode dungeons, which are much more difficult than the current tier 2 Expert dungeons. Of course, with the greater challenge comes greater rewards, such as Marks of Ascension, which allow players to purchase tier 1 raid gear. For the PvP-minded, Accolades have been introduced into the game's Warfronts. These Accolades reward exceptional gameplay, such as getting the first kill of a match, killing a number of enemies without dying, or wiping out the entire opposing team. The full details can be found on the official forum posts, and all of this is up and available for testing on the public test server. So what are you waiting for? Go do your duty to Telara, Ascended! Thanks to ren54 for the tip!
STO's Season One: Update Two soft lands today
Star Trek Online players are in for a treat today as Cryptic's next content patch hits the servers. Titled in such a way that we think they're going to count to 10 eventually, Season One: Update Two (Mark Three, Variant Four, Version Five) comes bundled with a number of new features and quality of life improvements for all to enjoy. The premiere features of this patch are the new Accolade and Squad Support systems. Accolades are your basic MMO achievements with a Star Trek veneer, although if you collect enough of them, you can earn real benefits for your character (such as passive resistances) in addition to titles. All we can say is that if there isn't an accolade for the number of "Picard Maneuvers" you've done, then Cryptic needs to get on that and make it so. Squad Support is a new version of Cryptic's famous Sidekick system from City of Heroes. It paves the way for friends of varying levels to group together for missions and fleet actions by temporarily raising or lowering the rank of the group to match the squad leader's. Season One: Update Two contains several other additions, so head over to STO's site and check them out!
Tim Schafer's Brutal Legend box art accolade
Whilst staring longingly at Tuesday's finally released cover art for Brütal Legend, something struck us as a little ... out of the ordinary. There they were, right above the game's logo: the words "A Tim Schafer Game." (With a seriously metal "S" in Schafer, we must say.) You see, unlike the wonderful world of film, it's a rarity that video games' creators get credit in promotional materials, let alone on their games' covers. Sure, there are exceptions, like Sid Meier, Hideo Kojima, Tom Clancy and John Madden. Oh, that's right. Those last two don't even make "their" games; they just get all the credit. For shame!But Tim Schafer? He makes the game (in more ways than one). Although his lone "solo" work to date -- Psychonauts -- was a critical success, it unfortunately didn't set cash registers ablaze, literally or figuratively. So, why the box-front accolade then? Two likely answers. The first is the fact that EA, in its early years, was fairly unique among computer game publishers in that it prominently displayed the names of its designers on their games' boxes -- so there's precedent. The other, perhaps stronger possibility: EA knows it's got something good, and is banking on Schafer and his Double Fine crew to keep on making EA-published games with his name on them, hopefully for many years to come.
Want to write for TUAW?
Let me just say it: we're looking for a few good geeks. Do you have a love for all things Apple, tempered with a healthy dose of skepticism for the power of the RDF? Are you eager to share your favorite tips and tricks with Mac users everywhere? Is your iPhone development mojo so strong that it deserves an iSoapbox? Are you, in short, TUAW material? If you think you're what we're looking for, why not apply to blog for TUAW? Write about what you love and get paid to do it... seems like a good idea. Here's what we need from you: A brief biography. Tell us about your history with Apple, how long you've been a Mac user, etc. 3 sample posts written in TUAW's style. One should be a review of something (Mac app or accessory, iPod gear, iPhone app, you get the picture), the second should be an opinion piece, and the third can be whatever strikes your fancy. NOTE: please do not give us links to previously published material in lieu of post samples. We're glad to know about other places your work has appeared, but we need three freshly written and unedited posts. Your current Mac and iPhone/iPod setup. Your contact info (email, phone, IM, anywhere else we can find you) Send this package of "how I am so awesome" to us at apps@tuaw.com as a plain text email; no attachments, please. You have to be at least 18 years old to write for TUAW (sorry, not our choice), but we welcome applicants from all parts of the world -- in fact, we would love to bring some contributors into the fold who are in timezones far away from EST. If you've got specialized Mac interests (scientific computing, video/audio, education), that's fantastic, but generalists welcome too. Our deadline for this round of applications is Friday, November 7 -- so get down to it!
The Daily Grind: Non-combat titles vs combat titles
I admit it; I'm a title hunter. Way back when I started up City of Heroes, the idea of gathering as many badges as I could seemed like a lot of fun to me. It gave me a plethora of various titles and accolades to choose from at any given time. Later, when the TaxiBots entered the scene, I joined up with their cause. One of the things we had the most success with in regards to player-run events was the Badge tours, whereby people who either didn't know where the badges were, or just didn't feel like hunting them could get teleported from place to place via Recall Friend. We took the badge flavor text and spun outrageous stories based on it, then sent them along to the next person in the route. After approximately 2 minutes, the "fare" (player) would have gained 5-7 new badges, and had a lot of fun listening to us spin tales of bravery and occasionally depravity. Fast forward to WoW and LotRO, and I find myself chasing titles once again, but most of these require combat to gain. It is quite different from the early CoH badges with many available just for walking over a certain area, or finding an easter egg. Is there a better way to do it? Perhaps. But this is what we'd like to ask you about today. Are you also a badge hunter, seeking the next new title? If so, do you prefer yours for combat and feats of prowess, would you rather have them for just finding some "historic" spot that advances the lore, or do you like the idea of a combination of both? Do you think the idea of a non-combat title is just silly? Or do you really just not care about the idea of titles at all?
Silent Hill: Origins features "Accolades"
Anyone check out the leaked Silent Hill: Origins demo? If so, you may have noticed an inaccessible option labeled "Accolades" in one of the menus. Radio GTN believes this is actually the beginning of a PSP version of 360's "Achievements" system. It's obvious if you think about what an accolade is -- an award, basically.However, the more likely scenario: Silent Hill: Origins will have special tasks to complete that give you these accolades, which would unlock in-game awards. (Maybe something as simple as wallpaper for your PSP?) However, imagine the possibilities of PSP/PS3 connectivity: perhaps an unlockable T-shirt for your Home avatar?[via Digg]
Entertainment Weekly honors Joystiq in top 25 list
While we're physically unable to pat ourselves on the back (freak DDR accident, y'know), we thought there might be some interest in seeing your favorite game blog (read: that's us, guys) in dead tree format. We've been selected by the good people at Entertainment Weekly as one of their "25 favorite online entertainment sites!" Part of the gig required us sending in a handful of our favorite online entertainment sites. We chose: the superlative Game Politics, the entertaining and promising GameVideos.com, and the more entertaining than it ought to be Wikipedia. Other notable sites we chose that didn't make the cut included The Escapist, Gamasutra, Gamerankings, and YTMND; some of our choices, namely Wonderland and Penny Arcade, were already chosen by other sites (thankfully); and still others, like Clive Thompson's excellent CollisionDetection.net, we mistakenly left off our list entirely. (Disclosure: Entertainment Weekly is published by Time which is owned by Time Warner who were purchased by AOL to create AOL Time Warner; of course, AOL owns Weblogs, Inc. who in turn own Joystiq, so if you really wanted to be cynical you could follow that corporate trail to a gray, lonely place we call Nepotism. Us, we're going to keep trying to be the best gaming blog on the internet regardless!)
