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Record of Lodoss War Online revealed
Record of Lodoss War, the long-running D&D-inspired franchise, will now get its own MMO, 2P.com reports. Record of Lodoss War Online is a Japanese MMO based on the anime, manga, and computer game series that spans back to the mid-'80s. The main storyline is based on the novel Record of Lodoss War: Grey Witch. The MMO was shown to have at least three classes so far: Esquire, Oracle, and Magic User. Combat will incorporate a reaction system that allows users to set skills in advance that will be triggered by different thresholds. Players will be able to build relationships with NPCs through questing, although the nature and depth of these relationships remains to be seen. Developer GameOn said that the MMO will go into alpha testing this summer. You can check out a trailer for Record of Lodoss War Online after the break. [Thanks to Naomi for the tip!]
Neverwinter spoofs game-within-a-game
Neverwinter has jumped the gun on April Fools' Day with its "preview" of Respen's Marvelous Game. The idea is that Neverwinter will add a game-within-a-game, allowing characters in the MMO to sit down and engage in some good ol' fashion tabletop D&D: "Respen's Marvelous Game takes place atop a table, with your character being transformed into a miniature statuette. This new event will challenge you on a whole new level. Now you will know what it is like to be on the other side of a tabletop game!" Of course, this is just a joke. Or is it? Cryptic teased the possibility of earning a green slime companion and said that it will be revealing more details tomorrow.
Free for All: Five ways to create immersion in MMOs
Immersion. I've used the word so much over the past several years that it has almost lost all meaning. I've played around with my Immersion Project, a set of rules designed to force me to play in a way that creates an almost physical connection with my characters. I've written about immersion and why it is important. I've even played the other side and fell in love with MMOs that are seemingly designed to be anything but immersive. It's one of those flashy terms that sounds more complicated than it is. The fact is that it's important only to those who value it. And those who value it do not value it all the time. Immersion is simply a feeling of being lost in an MMO. It's the same feeling we get when reading a good book or when completely entrenched in a good movie. It's a feeling that designers must pay attention to, but if you pay too much attention to it, the game you design can miss the mark. So what defines immersion for me? Well, it's easier to list off some specific game elements that help me feel immersed.
The Perfect Ten: MMO tributes to real-life people
When a beloved friend, family member, hero, or role model dies, we feel the pain of that loss and grieve in many different ways. Part of that grieving and healing process is often entails those left behind constructing some sort of tribute to the dearly departed. Sometimes this comes in the form of a shrine of flowers, sometimes it's the establishment of a charity, and sometimes it's creating an in-game memorial that thousands if not millions of people will see over the course of years. So while death and illness are depressing topics to dwell upon, I find the many MMO tributes that studios and even gamers have erected to be inspiring and a celebration of individual players' lives. With the help of my fellow Massively staffers, I researched 10 wonderful in-game tributes that serve to honor the lives of fellow gamers.
Neverwinter tempts your lust for glory with its first teaser trailer
Like any good Dungeons & Dragons session, Neverwinter's maiden trailer begins in a fantasy tavern, where locals and adventurers are mingling and swapping stories. Everyone is curious about a pitched battle that happened the night before on a bridge, but only one mysterious figure is able to tell them the truth. Hint: Die rolls out the wazoo. While brief, this teaser trailer is our first glimpse into Cryptic's latest MMO offering, and while it doesn't go into game mechanics, it does show off the engine, the fighting effects, and even tantalizes with a bit of voice-over. But it's your opinion that truly matters, so hit the jump to see the full reel and let us know in the comments what you think!
Neverwinter was 'almost ready to ship' before F2P MMO retooling
Last month, we reported that Cryptic Studios and Perfect World Entertainment were changing gears to render the upcoming D&D Neverwinter game more of an MMO than originally planned, complete with action combat and a cash shop to dispense vanity items and perks. Today, MMORPG.com published an interview with Neverwinter Lead Producer Andy Velasquez, in which he notes that the original title was "almost ready to ship," but the revision is nevertheless for the best: The change from CORPG to a full action RPG F2P MMO is a change that just made sense for us. Perfect World wanted to go big. Expand everything. Do more. Do better. Take your time. Really blow it out. Pushing into 2012 allows us to make these changes. Transitioning into a full-featured action RPG, free-to-play MMO allows us to reach a whole new audience of people. Never underestimate barriers to entry. With a free client, anyone can play. Try it. Where's the harm? It's better for the game, better for us, better for D&D and infinitely better for fans and gamers. With Neverwinter, we're going to prove that F2P does not describe a type of gameplay -- it only describes the fundamentals of a business model. Velasquez also discusses user-generated content and the challenges of working with a famous IP. "A ton of effort is also being made to make sure that we produce an authentic D&D experience," he says. Head over to MMORPG.com for the full interview.
Cryptic's Neverwinter to be a 'full-fledged MMO'
Covering Neverwinter has always been a dicey proposition for Massively. We've always considered the upcoming D&D game by Cryptic Studios "multiplayer" rather than "massively multiplayer," yet because the game was being developed by Cryptic, the urge to cover it persisted. Now we'll be entirely justified. An article on IGN today delivers the news that Cryptic and new publisher Perfect World Entertainment are reorienting the game's design to make it a true MMO in the style of Vindictus or Rusty Hearts: Neverwinter is shifting from the co-operative multiplayer game that was announced last year and into full-fledged, free-to-play MMO territory. In fact, it's shifting towards the action end of the MMO spectrum. How free is free-to-play? Not all content will be free, though. The developer will be charging money for consumables, [...] vanity pets and cosmetic items. [...] Cryptic plans to avoid making any content premium-only in Neverwinter. The restructuring of the game will push back its release date to 2012.
Never say Neverwinter: Cryptic forced to delay D&D RPG
Fans -- and general looky-loos -- anticipating Cryptic's next game will have to wait a little while longer. Neverwinter has been officially delayed following a bout of legal mumbo jumbo involving Atari and Hasbro struggling over the Dungeons & Dragons license. While the two companies have finally settled this long-running dispute, Atari's sale of Cryptic to Perfect World Entertainment has come with a catch regarding its Neverwinter project. Due to the new ownership, Perfect World is demanding Cryptic work on "a more immersive experience" for Neverwinter and is thus pushing the cooperative RPG's release from the formerly announced 2011 launch window to late 2012. The settlement means that Hasbro will regain the digital licensing rights to D&D, but Atari can still sell and develop some titles under that umbrella. Cryptic Studios was acquired by Perfect World earlier this month for a whopping $49.8 million.
The Game Archaeologist plays with MUDs: The history
You know that sinking feeling when you get into something that's way, waaaay over your head and you have no choice but to swim furiously or drown? That's exactly how I felt when I started to do research for this month's series on MUDs -- Multi-User Dungeons -- and their descendants. At first I was thrilled, because I knew that along with Dungeons & Dragons and Bulletin Board Systems, the MUD was one of the key predecessors to the MMORPG as we know it today. It was, and still is, vital gaming history that helped to shape the genre. The only problem was that for various reasons -- mostly a lack of good internet access in college and general ignorance -- I'd missed out on MUDs back in the day. But it's not like that stopped me from covering any of the other games in this series that I never experienced first-hand way back when; after all, there are few among us who can honestly say they did everything. So the problem wasn't the lack of first-hand knowledge but the sheer, overwhelming scope of this subject. One game alone is a manageable subject -- MUDs are an entire genre unto themselves. It's intimidating, to say the least. It doesn't still my excitement, however, nor will it stop us from diving into this topic no matter how deep the waters get. This week we'll take a look at the brief history of the MUD/MUSH/MOO/et al. and then get into specific games later this month. So hold your breath and jump on in with me!
Exploring Eberron: All aboard the Hogwarts express
So you want to be a wizard, eh? Whoa, whoa, not so fast there young whippersnapper! Just because you've lived under the stairs your whole life and can talk to snakes doesn't mean that you're the "chosen" anything around here. Wizardry is a dangerous profession, to be sure, and if a Beholder doesn't eat you alive, you'll most likely melt your own face off with a misplaced acid spray. Maybe you'd be better off going with a... simpler class, like a barbarian or janitor. No? Spells and glory is where it's at, you say? Fine. I'll teach you a few tricks, but don't go crying to mommy when the dark arts claim your soul just because you forgot to bring your eye of newt to the fight. Might as well come in, then, and I'll show you a thing or two about starting your own wizard before you jump into your first dungeon to fight your first dragon. Maybe you'll even clear the wax out of your ears enough so that you'll survive past the initial day, eh? I can always dream, I suppose. So let's get started!
Rumor: Atari close to announcing a Neverwinter Nights MMO
If you're getting a strong sense of deja vu at the title up above, we can't blame you -- after all, we've been covering this supposed MMO announcement for a couple years now. However, a pair of recent developments have led us to believe that Atari is on the verge of announcing the long-anticipated Neverwinter Nights MMO. The first piece of concrete news is a brief statement from the recent GenCon Indy, where Critical-Hits.com went to a D&D products seminar and heard the representatives state that Atari has an upcoming D&D video game. Unfortunately, they were unable to obtain any further information about it at the convention. Following up on this statement, Superannuation did a bit of digging and discovered that Atari recently purchased a slew of domain names, including visitneverwinter.com, playneverwinter.com and neverwintergame.com. Add these facts together with the promised announcement of Cryptic's new MMO this summer, and we could be hearing official confirmation of a Neverwinter Nights MMO any day now. Stay tuned!
D&D rolls with the changes, ported to Microsoft Surface
By the time your average Dungeons and Dragons player has failed his third death save and gone off to that great dungeon in the sky, he or she's spent nearly $800,000 on miniatures and various-sided dice. (Trust us, it adds up.) Keeping that number in mind, we'd like to turn your attention to an alternative to tangible tabletop gaming: Surfacescapes, an in-development application for the Microsoft Surface, which attempts to recreate the D&D experience on an outrageously large touch screen. As the Surface currently costs $12,500, the lifetime savings would be abundant. Sure, there's a few kinks to work out -- the dice roll a little slow for our tastes, though this would make saving throws infinitely more dramatic. There's also the small matter of how introducing this technology into the game might diminish the whole "role-playing" element. If used just for combat encounters, it could be a powerful streamlining tool. For everything else, it would need to be fitted with an Imagination Manifestation Drive™, and those don't exist yet. Check out a demo of Surfacescape's proof of concept in the video after the jump. [Via Engadget]
The Daily Quest: It's always sunny in Dalaran
We here at WoW.com are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere. European folks can win a trip to BlizzCon in Blizzard-EU's costume contest. OutDPS takes a look at the Freya encounter. While not strictly WoW related, many of you will like to know that D&D Online is going free to play. Lodur over at WoM looks and Friends and Raiders: Raider Accountability. Holyform writes the Complete Idiot's Guide to Discipline Priest Spells. Our friend Medros of All Things Azeroth has a new podcast out called Group Quest. Check it out! Click here to submit a link to TDQ
D&D creator Gary Gygax passes away at 69
The man known as the "founding father of the modern role playing game," Gary Gygax passed away this morning , March 4, at 69 years-old. Gygax, known for creating the massively popular pen-and-paper series Dungeon & Dragons, was a staple in the miniature war game scene in the late '60s and helped propel fantasy writing and creativity into what it has become today.Although Gygax had been in poor health, suffering multiple strokes and a near-fatal heart attack, he was a mainstay on fantasy forums and gaming sites before his passing at his studio home at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin ."I would like the world to remember me as the guy who really enjoyed playing games and sharing his knowledge and his fun pastimes with everybody else.," Gygax once described himself during a 2004 interview with GameSpy.Ernest Gary Gygax is survived by his wife, six children and seven grandchildren.
