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We're listening to: 'Acquisitions Inc.' and 'The Adventure Zone'
This week's IRL is about podcasts. Or games. Or both? Kris Naudus loves role-playing games -- the ones with dice rather than pixels -- and she also loves podcasts. Combining the two should be a dream, but Kris has struggled to get into some of the most popular shows. Until now.
D&D Reader app brings paper reference books to your tablet
Dungeon Masters can rest a bit easier now that the library of Dungeons and Dragons core rulebooks will soon be available in an easy-to-lug digital edition. Instead of a stack of heavy paper-bound volumes, you'll be able to take your iPad or Android tablet to your next gaming session loaded up with the upcoming D&D Reader app, which should be available this fall.
D&D's revamped RPG companion site is live
Back in March, Wizards of the Coast announced a new digital toolset for Dungeons & Dragons that would eliminate the agony of paperwork in the pen-and-paper game. Players can still gather around a table and roll their own dice, but the web-based D&D Beyond will handle all their characters' stats, skills and modifiers to streamline play. Today, the toolset is available for everyone with both free and paid tiers. Time to assemble a party, adventurers.
New 'Dungeons & Dragons' site manages the rules so you can just play
Dungeons & Dragons, the quintessential pen-and-paper game, is more popular than ever, thanks to Twitch channels like Geek and Sundry and podcasts like The Adventure Zone. But it's one thing to listen or watch a presentation crafted by seasoned gamers and another to actually run your own adventure. Players may get frustrated by the hundreds of pages of rules and quit before they've even had their first goblin encounter. Wizards of the Coast and social gaming firm Curse aim to fix this with the launch of D&D Beyond, a website and app intended to take care of all the fine print and number crunching, leaving dungeon masters and players free to focus on crafting a good story.
'Planescape: Torment' remaster arrives on April 11th
For many veteran gamers, Planescape: Torment was a definitive role-playing title -- it combined an unusual setting with a deep story, memorable dialogue and gameplay mechanics that still hold up. If you're one of those fans, you won't have long to wait to relieve that experience on modern hardware. Beamdog, Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast have revealed that they're launching Planescape: Torment Enhanced Edition on April 11th. As with most better remastering efforts, this involves more than a little spit and polish to make the game run on newer hardware.
'D&D Beyond' takes the pen and paper out of tabletop RPGs
Despite all the newfangled ways one can play Dungeons and Dragons, there's something special about playing it the old fashioned way -- in person with a bunch of friends and a geometrical mess of dice. Still, if you want to modernize your tabletop adventure just a little, you'll have the option soon. Wizards of the Coast just announced that it's working with Curse to create an official digital toolset designed to replace the pen and paper character sheets of yore.
Official 'Dungeons and Dragons' content now available on Roll20
Roll20's online tabletop gaming system has been a haven for veterans of pen-and-paper RPGs for awhile now, but for fans of the original role-playing adventure game, it just got a lot better. Wizards of the Coast is now selling officially licensed Dungeons and Dragons modules on Roll20 -- starting with the fifth edition starter set adventure, 'The Lost Mine of Phandelver'.
Step back in time with a mysterious, unreleased Neo Geo game
The Neo Geo served as a launchpad for a handful of influential fighting game franchises like The King of Fighters, but there may be one more masterpiece buried in the 26-year-old hardware. About a year ago, Neo Geo fan Brian Hargrove bought an unlabeled ROM board at a Japanese auction for about $600 in the hopes that it would contain leftover data he could play with, USgamer reports. After a few failed attempts to extract its secrets, he got it working and stumbled across an unknown, unfinished fighting game prototype that might tie into Dungeons & Dragons lore. Happily, he's shared videos and images of the mystery title in action.
'Harry Potter' meets 'Zelda' in a fantasy action game
Mages of Mystralia is a fantastical romp through a mystical world, starring a young woman named Zia who discovers she has powerful magical abilities -- though this isn't necessarily a welcome development. Zia accidentally burns down her house and is forced to flee her homeland, and as she journeys across the countryside she meets other exiled mages who help cultivate her powers. Eventually, it's up to Zia to save Mystralia from certain doom. Mages of Mystralia combines elements from some of the most popular fantasy franchises in recent memory: There's a special, magical child like in Harry Potter, whimsical yet creepy woodland creatures as seen in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and a determined, red-headed young warrior like the star of the Disney-Pixar movie Brave. All of this is bundled into a cohesive narrative by a star of Dungeons & Dragons lore, the creator of the Forgotten Realms world, Ed Greenwood.
Getting out of the garage and into VR with 'Dungeons and Dragons'
When I was a kid, my best friend's garage was a magical place. My friends and I would gather around a dirty table on cold winter nights, huddled between unused sports equipment and the family's spare TV, to kill monsters with dice. It was where we played Dungeons & Dragons. Then I grew up; my friends grew up. We all got jobs and moved away. Now all the old building does is hold cars. Over the years, our group has tried to recreate our adventures over the phone, through online chat programs and even over Skype, but nothing ever felt right. Tabletop gaming is a social activity that demands a sense of presence, which makes playing Dungeons & Dragons across state lines really hard. Recently, a company called AltspaceVR invited me to try an option I hadn't considered before: Playing D&D in virtual reality. Believe it or not, it might actually work.
Cult film 'Hawk the Slayer' gets a sequel with help from Rebellion
When Hawk the Slayer came out in 1980, Jason Kingsley became an instant fan. The film features magic swords, elven mindstones, giants, dwarves, sorcerers and a massive battle between pure evil and noble good. Think Dungeons & Dragons in real life, on the big screen. For weeks after Hawk the Slayer's release, Kingsley would borrow his dad's wind-up 8mm cine camera and attempt to recreate the movie in the woods of his hometown. Now, as CEO of UK video game company Rebellion, Kingsley has the opportunity to produce Hawk the Hunter, the official sequel to Slayer. If the movie's Kickstarter succeeds, Kingsley will be working with original director Terry Marcel and actor Ray Charleson (above). It's a fantasy come true.
'Dungeons & Dragons: Arena of War' coming to iOS
MacRumors alerts us that Hasbro and mobile developer DeNA/Mobage are bringing Dungeons & Dragons to iOS. The app is called Dungeons & Dragons: Arena of War and will be released sometime in late August. The app's website indicates that users who pre-register now will be able to "...[upgrade their] character and receive the free Ultra Rare Power, CAUSE FEAR," when the game is released. The app description reads: Arena of War, the first free-to-play Dungeons & Dragons game on mobile, is a thrilling 3D battle role-playing game that takes place in the famous Forgotten Realms. A trailer for the app can be seen below:
Breakfast topic: How do you learn tactics?
I was never one for these tabletop strategy games or D&D but thanks to WoW I have become quite a tactician. Tactics are so integrated in the game that they come into play figuring out how to down Hogger without aggroing too many of his numerous minions, to sneaking through hostile territory and avoiding NPCs who want to kill you all the way to confronting KT in Naxx or Ignis in Ulduar. The latter is especially true, Ignis is a nightmare where a knowledge of tactics is life or death. When your raid leader asks if everyone knows the tactics and you all nod heads and mutter yes, it's not actually courtesy, he or she is trying to figure out how many people will survive long enough to down the giant er ... giant. Once upon a time all you had to do to learn the tactics was play. Wiping on bosses and the depression of death, failure and repair bills can be a great motivator. At the same time, there are few unique boss fights in WoW. They all follow some kind of pattern and sometimes phases are even borrowed from other mobs. Others, such as Shade of Aran's Flame Wreath go down in lore and legend, even getting their own ever-so-catchy (nay beautiful) theme tune. I challenge anyone to move after having heard that (I even have that in iTunes and would play it just in case my raid forgot. No one ever did.).So I wonder, constant readers, how do you learn tactics? I can read WoWwiki, for example, until I'm blue in the face but because of the weird way my brain is wired (don't ask), the only was I can truly learn tactics is in the fight itself. Yes, there's YouTube, there's the pre-boss-fight sit down where the raid leader does a run though the fight because no one bothered to take ten minutes to do some reading up. What methods do you use?
Rumor: Turbine to bring Dungeons & Dragons Online to consoles...maybe
It's time to fire up the speculation engine boys and girls, as a pair of developments at Lord of the Rings Online developer Turbine indicate that MMO studio may have aspirations to bring Dungeons & Dragons Online to the living room. The Westwood-based company has posted a job opening for a senior console engineer with a MMO background as well as experience developing on both the Xbox 360 and PS3. Additionally, Turbine made public on its DDO community forum that the game's developers are "working full-tilt on several things that are still under tight wraps," and that "DDO will be getting more and more focus from Turbine's marketing and PR teams over the coming months." While far from conclusive, together this information makes a convincing argument for Turbine prepping its pen-and-paper inspired MMO for the console market. It makes sense, particularly given the company's recent financial investments, part of which Turbine CEO Jim Crowley admitted will go towards expanding the dev's supported platforms. For now, however, we continue to wait for any official word while making saving throws vs. patience and taking all of this with 1D6 grains of salt.
WoW Moviewatch: Unidentified
This short machinima is excellent comedy of the absurd. The reference to identifying things comes from a feature in Diablo, where new magical items would have to be identified by a character called Deckard Cain before you could use them. "Unidentified" starts out with a scenario showing how it might be if WoW was like that too, but then it just gets random and strange and very very silly.
A cautionary tale for D&D geeks
Four hours into a Reno 911 marathon, we stumbled across a short, cautionary tale that highlights the dangers that await those who would dabble in the dark arts of D&D. It's no Dark Dungeons (Gor Bless you, Jack Chick), but we hope this clip proves just as educational. Forward to timestamp 17:41 to jump straight to the relevant moment.
New D&D: Tactics details unearthed [Update 1]
Those lucky cats at IGN got their hands on an alpha build of Dungeons & Dragons: Tactics. While we know the game, which is developed by Kuji Kuju Entertainment and is published by Atari, will include the 3.5 rule set and will feature more than 200 unique spells and 650 items, IGN has uncovered even more details: You can have up to six members in your party; All the core races and classes are present; Two new psionic classes - pychic warrior and psion; Primary character's alignment effects storyline and game's missions; 41 different quests in the game; The game should last between 30-40 hours; Chess Mode allows players to fight through the game without watching battle animations, making the game move along quickly; All planned downloadable content was finished early and is now included on the UMD; and The game supports six-player co-op and four-player versus modes via ad-hoc. The inclusion of the Chess Mode is a great idea and should make the game even more portable friendly. And I appreciate Kuji Kuju including co-op and versus modes in the game, but am I the only one who wants to see some infrastructure action? I mean who even has six friends these days?[Update 1: GameSpot has the trailer available for download. And it's Kuju, not Kuji, Chris.]
The pen is mightier than the sword; Ian Livingstone on games
Pen-and-paper legend Ian Livingstone OBE sat down with MMORPGDot to talk about his move into PC gaming. It's an interesting sideways shift; the interview examines the differences between pen and paper media and computer games.Ian concludes with the titillating information that he wants to produce the "definitive" fantasy game, and that "multiplayer on console is definitely the way to go"; with over ten years' worth of notes, if anyone can pull it off, it's Ian.
Fear of Girls
This short film by Ryan Wood, Fear of Girls, is a delightful portrait of two elite tabletop D&D players and their attitudes to the outside world. MMO players as well as D&D gamers may find echoes of themselves in the protagonists.Interestingly, the discussion about this film on Slashdot instantly takes a sharp turn towards MMOs, and World of Warcraft in particular. The stereotype that all female avatars are instantly showered with gifts and propositions is still perpetuated, despite many players with female characters anecdotally refuting it. It seems to happen on occasion, but not to the extent that hearsay would have you believe.
Dungeons & Dragons Online comes to Europe
Atari and Codemasters have launched a dedicated European website for Dungeons and Dragons Online: Stormreach (aka DDO), the massively-multiplayer incarnation of D&D. However, as usual European gamers seem to be losing out--the "online portal" currently consists of a link to their forums and a link to the beta test signup. Smashing. Fortunately, the forums do contain a few nuggets of European-specific information about the game, which is heavily anticipated amongst MMO players and D&D purists: European and American servers will be separate Language-preferred servers are likely to be offered Transferring characters from realm to realm won't be offered There are no publicised dates for the start of European beta, or the game's launch--but all should happen in Q1 2006 A simultaneous European and American launch is planned There are no plans for Mac or Linux versions of DDO Simultaneous launch? Not quite what GameSpot said--but here's hoping.
