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TERA Arachnaea fly-through video released
If you've got a spider, insect, or creepy-crawly complex of any kind, you might want to skip the latest TERA fly-through video from En Masse Entertainment. The clip is straight out of an arachnophobe's worst nightmare, as it takes place deep inside a huge stone cavern filled with egg sacs and giant hairy-legged spiders. The cavern is a newly revealed zone called Arachnaea, and its denizens are apparently being conjured by evil priests aligned with the goddess Arachne in order to gather sacrificial offerings from a nearby town. The clip clocks in at a tad over one minute in length, which is plenty of time to be creeped out by the spiders and their sinister surroundings. Check out all the gory details after the cut or at PC Gamer.
Lord of the Rings Online invaded by mysterious relics, takes home "MMO of the year"
Hobbit Bungo Grubb is upset, and he has a good right to be -- after all, a stout black rock appeared in his pipe-weed fields and spoiled his crops something fierce. In a strongly worded letter reposted on Lord of the Rings Online's website, Grubb complains about the source of this menace: "Right in the middle of my field, someone had placed a tall stone block bearing unpleasant symbols... Furthermore, this stone artifact, or relic, or what-have-you, is a public nuisance! Anyone who gets too near it begins to feel most unhealthy, and cannot bear to look at the thing for too long." While the reason and consequence of this relic is unclear, the fact is that many like it are popping up all over Middle-earth. Players can track down five of these mysterious relics to earn the ominous-sounding "Calm Before the Storm" title. Is this the prologue to the Rise of Isengard later this year or something different entirely? In other LotRO news, PC Gamer awarded the game "MMO of the Year" for 2010, saying that "when it came to keeping us entertained all year long with small updates, plus throwing us the occasional party with huge loads of free content, LotRO treated its fans the best." Congrats to Turbine for this award!
WAR40K throws down the gauntlet
Other MMOs are predictable, lazy and lack the real "feel" of combat -- or so says Vigil Games' founder Dave Adams. In a recent PC Gamer article, Adams and Creative Director Mike Maza share their vision for Warhammer 40,000: Dark Millennium Online -- and it's all about bucking the industry standard. Adams had a few strong words for Vigil's competition: "A lot of developers see that as an opportunity to cut that corner because there's so much to do on an MMO. They think people care about X, Y and Z. They don't really care about the feeling of the combat... Our goal is when some guy's walking past DMO they won't instantly know it's an MMO. That depends on a minimal interface: it's not a full FPS but it looks more 'actiony'." The devs confirmed that there would be a wide range of combat features in this action-based title, including fierce melee brawls, intense ranged firefights -- and no action bar icons of which to speak. The team is working hard to recreate the tabletop's iconic world into a virtual one, designing guns (stubber and bolter firearms) and player-controlled vehicles (Titan mechs and Predator tanks) to look deadly, used and WAR40Kish. The game will kick players into the fight almost immediately. "There's scenarios that introduce you to your character class. We'll throw you into your very first instance, to get a feel for a very player directed experience. Then you'll go to your trainers and merchants, then drop down onto the over-world from orbit," Maza said. You can read the full article at PC Gamer.
ArenaNet community manager debunks Guild Wars 2 rumor
Guild Wars 2 fans have been enjoying a series of articles at PC Gamer this week, but unfortunately the series came with a bit of misinformation. If you read through the articles, you may have noticed some news regarding dungeons as downloadable content in Guild Wars 2. The community was buzzing about that possibility until Community Manager Regina Buenaobra stepped in to clarify things: "We have not made a decision on whether to sell dungeon content as DLC, contrary to what the article states. The author of the article jumped to this (incorrect) conclusion based upon his interpretation of Eric's statements." Eric Flannum released a clarification that stated in part "...our core philosophy--of not requiring you to spend additional money to play the game and not making the game difficult or painful to play in order to encourage you to buy things from the store--still stands." Eric's full statement can be seen within Regina's forum post.
Stardock CEO apologizes for lashing out over Elemental pre-launch criticisms
Stardock CEO Brad Wardell has apologized for statements he made on the Quarter to Three forums, which PC Gamer subsequently referenced as evidence that folks should wait to purchase Elemental: War of Magic. In the statement to Joystiq, Wardell expressed that after a "lengthy and heated debate" over issues in the pre-launch version of the game, he spoke hastily and says, "As a result, I want to apologize to our fans for speaking so harshly. It should be said that some of the issues in question from the PC Gamer UK article, in fact, did not appear in any of our beta testing. We were surprised by these issues and, after working days on end with little sleep, I was very frustrated. I should not have engaged in an online debate about these issues, as my haste to defend what we feel is a great product only served to hurt the fans who have supported us and the team who has been so dedicated to this project." The PC Gamer piece urges its readers not to purchase Stardock's latest release. "We've held off from finishing our review because of the launch problems, but felt this warranted an early warning," PC Gamer's Tom Francis says, claiming the launch version of Elemental "on two very different machines with the latest drivers for everything ... crashed or hit a game-breaking bug every ten minutes." It should be noted that while our staff experienced similar issues in the game's beta version, we never encountered those bugs in the retail copy. A large patch issued last night is said to have fixed the frequent crashes, though it allegedly made tactical battles unplayable. Additionally, multiplayer servers are said to be running, but the mode won't be turned on until sometime next week due to "team exhaustion," a rep on the game's forums said. "The early release meant a lot of people who were expecting this weekend off to rest from the grueling last few weeks had to come in. So we're going to let them get a couple of days off later this week and open up the MP next week." With that in mind, it may be a few days before another patch arrives for Elemental. We've placed Wardell's full statement to Joystiq after the break, along with a poll asking for players to let us know if they've run into these bugs.
The Old Republic's space combat detailed in PC Gamer
Ever since we heard that Star Wars: The Old Republic was going to include space combat as one of its features, we've felt a bit like Red Squadron in A New Hope -- "standing by." It almost seemed too good to be true, especially since the rumor came out that the space portion of the game would be an on-rails shooter. It's with great glee, then, that we have received more news on TOR's space combat in the upcoming October issue of PC Gamer. The seven-page spread confirms that the space combat won't be a free-form flight simulator like X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, but instead will be a "tunnel shooter" designed to create highly cinematic battle sequences for players to experience. Space combat hotspots will be unlocked as players progress through the game, and while they'll initially be solo instances only, eventually BioWare hopes to implement PvP and team combat in the future. In a tunnel shooter, players will be able to move ships up, down, left and right, although their overall course is locked in by the scenario in question. Ship collision, rotating quest objectives, customizable ship cosmetics, achievements, various difficulty levels and incentives to repeat missions also seem to be a go for this portion of the game. While a lot of the details are still hidden from our prying eyes, we're sure that BioWare will have a lot more to say on this in the near future.
Space combat has been confirmed for SWTOR! [Updated]
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/Space_combat_has_been_comfirmed_for_SWTOR'; While at Comic-Con, the fan site Mos Eisley Radio tweeted a rumor that there will be space combat in SWTOR. Space combat has been strongly suspected since the announcement of player ships at E3, but there was nothing to confirm our suspicions. According to the folks at Mos Eisley Radio, James Ohlen said that each ship will be customizable, and, of course, that the player will be able to use this ship in space combat. Not moments later, this rumor was completely confirmed by SWTOR's community manager, Sean Dahlberg, on the official forum. He confesses in his announcement, "While we didn't quite make the numbers [of Facebook and Twitter followers], we definitely saw how excited the community is about this and how everyone came together. After all of that, there's no way we could hold back with our special reveal at Comic-Con!" So it seems the devs did not punish the fans for not reaching the social media goal after all. He reveals that further details will be available in the October edition of PC Gamer. [Thank you, Mos Eisley Radio, for keeping your ears open!] [Editor's Note: Brooks from Mos Eisley Radio just mailed us to say that all of his information is coming from Darth Hater's liveblog, so props to Darth Hater, and thanks for letting us know, Brooks! ~Sera]
UK's PC Zone magazine shutting down after 17 years
The UK's first PC gaming magazine, PC Zone, will end its 17-year, 225-issue run in September. Future Publishing is closing the magazine following a "strategic review," which probably had something to do with the magazine's sales of 11,000 copies a month. Both the BBC and Guardian have full articles on the magazine's demise and legacy. In a statement, Future Publishing stated it will focus its efforts on "market leader" PC Gamer going forward, which has twice the circulation of PC Zone.
Travis Baldree talks Torchlight MMO
Runic Games and Torchlight designer Travis Baldree open up about their Torchlight MMORPG in the new issue of PC Gamer that hits newsstands this week. The hit single-player game will serve as inspiration for a solo-able massively multiplayer title. "Our vision is to have an MMO that plays as close to single player as we can get it. It will have the same focus on relatively fast action: carving your way through hordes of monsters with a large number of hugely devastating skills. The game has to be solo-able, but players will have to have skills that make them useful in a party and make them work together," Baldree says. The title will also feature a microtransaction payment model, which, ironically enough, its creator despises. "I will never, ever buy a microtransaction item," Baldtree states. "I'm that kind of player. And the game has to be enjoyable for me, too. We don't want our monetisation stuff to offer ways to skip the game because the game is boring." Check out the teaser announcement on PC Gamer's website.
PC Gamer's reader poll honors EVE as the #3 PC game of all time
Reader polls always tend to be an exercise in popularity, bucking conventional wisdom and surprise upsets -- and perhaps never so much as a recent annual PC Gamer poll that asked readers to rank the top 100 PC games of all time. EVE Online scored a surprising #3 spot on the list (falling from last year's #2 position), behind only Fallout 3 and Half-Life 2. This certainly is a testament to EVE's devoted and outspoken fans. Several other MMOs appeared in the top 100, including World of Warcraft (#10), WURM Online (#20), World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (#25), Lord of the Rings Online: The Mines of Moria (#31), Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar (#36), RuneScape (#45), Guild Wars (#72), World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade (#97) and EverQuest (#100). Of course, reader polls should always be taken with a grain of salt (mmm... salty goodness), as large organizational efforts and promotion from one studio or group of fans is often enough to create a skewed result. Still, it's a decent list, and terrific to see so many MMOs given the top honors.
All but one Future publication saw circulation dip in 2009
[Image credit: benben] Can you guess which of Future Publishing's nine magazines didn't lose readership in 2009? If your money was with Edge, you've got our permission to give yourself a nice big pat on the back. Go ahead, we'll wait. Done? Good. Like we were saying, the UK game mag publisher saw shrinking circulation numbers in 2009 -- the same year that saw the closure of PlayStation World by Future and the shuttering of long-running US gaming mag EGM by Ziff-Davis. While Edge circulation numbers rose by (a somewhat meager) 109 readers, Games Master dropped by 6,636 (to 34,313), PC Zone by 7,666 (to 11,357), and Xbox World 360 by 5,156 (to 25,874). While those numbers might seem a bit on the low side, that has more to do with the smaller size/population of the UK than anything else (though, of course, dropping readership numbers don't mean good things for any publication house). According to the GamesIndustry.biz report, Future blames the circulation drops on "slowing sales and ad spend [advertisers spending on print advertising]." We've dropped the entire list of circulation numbers after the break (care of the UK Audit Bureau of Circulations), should you be so inclined to peruse all the stats.
Fallen Earth adds another distribution point with RealGames
When it comes to creating your own MMO, there are tons of things to think about: storyline, coding the project, what engine to use, writing out all the game's text, play-testing, bug testing, supporting a community and so much more. That's why we're really not surprised to see Icarus Studios & Fallen Earth, LLC embracing the heavy use of digital distribution as a method of getting Fallen Earth out to the public. Add to that their connection to partners like Steam, Direct2Drive and now RealGaming -- part of the RealNetworks group. It's not only cost-effective, but it additionally gets their game out in front of people who may not have seen their indie post-apocalyptic MMO otherwise. Along with their connection to RealNetworks comes a tie to 650 partner sites such as GameStop, PC Gamer, and GameRiot. While it's unlikely we'll ever see Fallen Earth trial CDs roaming counter-tops in the wild, it's nice to know that if they ever get the urge to do so, the partnership that could help make that happen is now there. There's always more room in the apocalypse for fresh new clones!
Cataclysm: For Gnomeregan!
Our very own Michael Sacco actually got his hands on a copy of that PC Gamer full of Cataclysm details, and there was apparently one that we missed: Gnomes may be coming back to Gnomeregan. The little tidbit above is frustratingly vague, but it appears that as long rumored (and long hoped by the shorter denizens of Azeroth), Deathwing's return may break the whole war for the Gnomish capital wide open, and they might finally reclaim their mechanical homeland.We say "might," because, according to this blurb, it could be anything at this point -- a questline that begins a takeover, a questline that represents a failed takeover, a new phased experience that leads to a takeover, or some kind of questline that brings Gnomeregan up to Heroic status (we know Shadowfang and Deadmines are already getting that treatment, so it wouldn't be too far off to expect other old instances to come around in future content patches).Then again, let's not kill hope: maybe the Gnomes are finally heading back to Gnomeregan to have a capital city of their own, in all of its Gnomish engineering glory. We can dream, right?
Star Trek Online featured on the cover of PC Gamer
We've got to hand it to Cryptic for putting fake censor strips on these images of the new PC Gamer Star Trek Online cover. They really had us fooled for a while.It wasn't until we finally saw an official image of the cover, sans censorship, that it became apparent we'd been duped. Of course, this particular image had something to do with our initial suspicion. Unless you're the type of person who claims to have an affinity for forward torpedo bays.If you're interested in getting a copy of the magazine, you'll be happy to know official forum goers have reported that it comes with both a double-sided poster along and -- we're assuming here -- some decent information concerning the game itself. We'll have to see about tracking down a copy and reporting any potentially new information. Although, we're not really sure who to gift our poster to, since we don't know any 14 year-old boys in dire need of wall art.
Borderlands decides on new 'pretty impressive, even shocking' art style [update]
As we recently reported, Gearbox's Borderlands has been running dark for a while and has now emerged with a whole new art style. The latest issue of PC Gamer apparently has images of the Mad Max simulator's new art direction, which appears to be an illustrative or cel-shaded style -- say goodbye to Borderlands' previous Fallout 3-esque motif.Gearbox states on its community boards that the change was made to make a more "visually interesting experience." Allegedly, the gameplay hasn't been affected by the new art style -- not that we'd know, considering we've never actually touched the game, which is supposed to come out later this year.[Via Big Download]Update: Gearbox Studio head Randy Pitchford has sent out a statement (posted after the break) that the game's art style is not "cel-shaded." We've also learned that web-ready images will hopefully be available for consumption by the internet on Monday, and the game should be on display -- possibly playable -- at E3.The PC Gamer cover [above; in full after break] features "an in-game screenshot with no post process," giving us an idea of the new art style and rendering tech.
Global Agenda influences include City of Heroes and Team Fortress 2
Global Agenda is an upcoming 'spy-fi' shooter MMO that's garnering a fair amount of attention as it gets closer to release. It's the brainchild of Erez Goren, an entrepreneur who channeled his successes in the IT industry (including Point of Sale systems with game-like interfaces) into his own dream project, becoming its founder, CEO, and lead designer. Global Agenda will be the first game to be released by Hi-Rez Studios.The title is a blend of sci-fi shooter and MMO where player actions can impact the game's world. Goren tells PC Gamer's Evan Lahti: "We were inspired by the fluid, action combat feel of [Tribes and TF2], but wanted even greater diversity of classes and devices and set our game within a persistent world of player-driven conflict where the results of combat matches really affects the world."
First look at Star Wars: The Old Republic in PC Gamer magazine
If ever there was a thing to go all googly-eyed over, it's the first look a Star Wars: The Old Republic. While it's a shame that such information isn't being released onto the web, at least we've got it earlier than most people were expecting. PC Gamer magazine has gotten an exclusive first look at BioWare's incubating MMO, including interviews with creative director James Ohlen, principal lead writer Daniel Erickson, and BioWare co-founders Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk.The issue also apparently has exclusive screenshots for anyone brave enough to look. We're sure that what we've seen so far are very early conceptual designs, but it still pains us to see log-sized lightsabers -- even if BioWare is willing to laugh at themselves over it.
PC Gamer Top 100 list: vote for your favorite MMO
Last week, PC Gamer launched their Top 100 website where readers can vote on their favorite PC games of all time. The PC Gamer staff already chose their own top picks, but now it's our turn to not only tell the world which games are our favorites, but we also have the chance to win a pretty sweet gaming computer in the processSo this is where we plead with you, the MMO players to make your voices heard. Let's let the world know that our genre is where it's at, and we are very passionate about what we play. We can't just sit back and let Half Life 2 or something from the GTA series win, we need to see some World of Warcraft, some Guild Wars, some Lord of the Rings Online and some EVE Online up there. Let our voice be heard! Viva la revolucion! Or something.
Rob Pardo's insight on WoW's development and why PC gaming isn't dead
What's one of the most powerful game design positions in the games industry today? Executive Vice President of Game Design at Blizzard Entertainment, and the monumental role is filled by Rob Pardo. In this sit-down interview with PC Gamer, Pardo addresses various topics including why PC Gaming is far from dead. An easy position to take considering World of Warcraft has 11 million active subscribers. But Pardo understands the pressures companies face when developing on the PC platform. His line of thinking is that PC gaming won't die, but that it's evolving. When it comes to decision making and managing 140 creative staff members that work on World of Warcraft, Pardo describes an organic and collaborative process. The team is cohesive and there is no dictatorship over creative control as anyone on the team has the power to veto. Pardo admits that this may sound like nothing is accomplished with so many differing perspectives, but the key to content competition is in the team's dynamics, communication and of course compromise. Blizzard also eschews the monolithic design document. Instead Blizzard's creative process is more iterative and chunks of content are scraped but it pushes the whole team to do better with the overall objective to deliver a better product. The interview covers various other topics including a disagreement in viewpoints with Raph Koster, and why anyone looking to break into game design should second-think their college education choice if majoring in the specialized field. [Via WoW Insider]
SOE runs first EverQuest magazine ad in years
Sony Online Entertainment reportedly bought a "three-page advertising spread" for EverQuest in this month's issue of PC Gamer magazine. The massive ad promotes the Living Legacy campaign -- an initiative that allows former EQ and EverQuest II subscribers to play for free until the end of July.In two interviews, reps from SOE told us that the Living Legacy initiative is intended to show lapsed and potential EQ and EQ2 players that both games have evolved over the years, and that they deserve a fresh look. A print ad is a bold statement, although new marketing pushes for old games are not unprecedented. Near Death Studios bought ad space for Meridian 59 on the Vault Network when the game relaunched in 2001 after a two year absence. Electronic Arts plastered the web with Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn ads in the wake its 3D graphics engine upgrade.But will it work? Should more old MMOs do it? Are advertizing blitzes and a couple of free months of play what MMOs of yore need, or does this industry move too fast for that to be sufficient? Commence pondering.
