AC March Event: Ophelea from AC.Warcry tell's us that the new March event for Asheron's Call rolled out last week with a huge bang, including over 900+ changes in monsters. AC's March Event, Perfect Paradox, was propped without a bug to mention and with some SWEEPING changes not seen since the Dark Majesty Expansion pack. The Build Notes didn't come CLOSE to explaining the over 900 changes to monsters, 30+ changes to weapons and armor, icon changes, MOB changes..its a whole new game. The Build Notes along with all Preludes (Five Developer's Diaries, Rebalancing FAQ and Teaser) can be found in our Patch Tree which we are diligently working to fill out with the 1000+ changes. It's an amzing month. Check out their patch tree to see all the changes. I kind of like that they had no major bugs on release. Did you know, that more players are in AC than AC2? Posted March 31 2003 by Div Devlin

Ballerium's New Units: Ballerium has posted up screenshot's featuring the new air and cannon units. The new units are the first two in a line of units that will be added to the seven original races of Ballerium. These units can be purchased at cities across Ballerium, in the local Smitium of each such city. Like everything else in Ballerium, the prices of the new units will be determined according to the players' demand of those units, imposing a perfect balance in the game. This game is really looking good. Picture a MMOG WarCraft version of StarCraft. Posted March 31 2003 by Div Devlin

DAoC Rumor Mill: Das Boot? Rumor has it that a senior level member of Dark Age of Camelot has left the building. Escorted out as in terminated, booted, forcibly layed off, fired even. Website writers are scrambling all over to discover just who it was. No official word has been posted. No one is (willing to) discussing it. That cat's out of the bag now Mythic so spill! Tweety must have someone's tounge? Where is UnknownPlayer at when there is a story in need of "Journalistic Integrity!" Posted March 31 2003 by Div Devlin

Dragon Empires Dev Chats: Dragon Empires will be having two developer chats tonight hosted by Stratics. The first will be at at 8pm GMT (that's 9pm British Summer Time, across the pond they put their clocks forward one hour yesterday) while the second one will be at 8pm PST (5am British Time!) I feel for Peter Tyson the Community Relations Manager who is not going to be getting much sleep tonight. Or was that yesterday? To hit these chats use mIRC and go to: #de-devchat on irc.stratics.com The DE Lore Writer (Sounds all Official) has written a dev diary on the lore where he talks about his role and the lore in general. Posted March 31 2003 by Div Devlin

Shadowbane... Eh! That did not take long at all! With the speed at which people are leveling up in Shadowbane to reach the high-end game of Guild vs. Guild, Nation vs Nation conflict the first high level Ebay sale has gone up of which is sure to be followed by many more. For the starting price of $150.00 ($850.00 if you "Buy it Now") you can show how much of a "moronic idiot" you are by purchasing this Level 46 Wizard on the Dread Server. Are you that stoohpid? (Thanks konrador) Woody Hearn creater of GU Comics has something to say about Shadowbane and the woes which have plauged it since launch of last week. All in all, he likes it? Also, where is Vosx? Ubiq has been posting a storm on the boards. Posted March 31 2003 by Div Devlin

Anarchy Online Shadowlands: In anticpation of the work being done on Anarchy Online's Shadowlands new screenshots are making their way out into the world showcasing the "Special Effects" feature which adds to the eye candy for what is being coined as "'setting a new standard in what an expansion should be when it comes to online worlds!'" Expect to see alot more about the expansion soon, starting today with a large interview between Gaute Godager and RPGvault where they discuss amongst other items, an indepth look at professions and perks! This will be the first time they have revealed this info. Also find time to while on RPG Vault to check out yesterday's Online Worlds Discussion where Gaute Godager, Game Director on Anarchy Online, voices some of his opinions on the topic of ingame story telling, while Ragnar Tørnquist for the first time is announced as Game Director on FunCom's Next Big Thing. I advise everyone interested in Funcom, and online games, to take a look at this since the wise reader will be able to find out a thing or two between the lines. Posted March 28 2003 by Div Devlin

Dragon Empires Beta: Codemasters is sending out notifications that if you are in the beta databse for Dragon Empires you need to ensure that your information is correct. Beta testing of Dragon Empires is still scheduled to start in May. The first phase of testing will only involve a small number of testers so don’t expect to be in right away. If you are invited, you will be informed by email at the time. Over the months as they approach launch they will add more and more testers until eventually they hope to welcome everyone to the world of Fortitude. If you want to update your profile again in the future you can access it on the Dragon Empires website using your Code M username and password. So go update your information. You don't want to miss out. Posted March 28 2003 by Div Devlin

GameRifts Advert's: We'd like to welcome our new round of advertisers who are using GameRifts to help spread the word out about their products, check the buttons down on the lower left and be sure to visit them. LaSalle Banks is one of the largest banks in the Midwest, so if you are not using them you should. Not only do I bank with them, I work for them. Savage Arena is a browser based game in which you are the Gladiator dueling with other would be fighters to become the champion of the Arena. If you are stuck behind a firewall at work and need something to play during lunch it's an addictive game. Buy.com is a great place to get games, gear, movies and toys to fill your desk as well as other needs for the gamer in you. We've partnered with their affilate program to bring great items to you. If you pruchase anything from them, do it through us as it helps support this site. We get like a penny on all the dollars you spend. If you or someone you know has a product they would like to get out be sure to check us out for advertising for a flat monthly fee. None of that CPM or CPC rates which cost's more in the long run. We are curently updating some of the products we have running as well. If you would like to see a specific product advertised here, drop us a line. Posted March 28 2003 by Div Devlin

Shadowbane Woes: Zyzebo from Wolfpack speaks out to the paying player base in regards to the server lag spikes, crashes and rollbacks. His post goes a long way to mollify the player base as they discovered what they "believe" to be causing the spikes. Player's are still unhappy. Some guilds that were ready to plant lost up to 3 million gold and we hear that they and a full hundred members are ready to leave Shadowbane. Arcadian DelSol speaks out on Shadowbane saying Vosx should be removed from his job as he called customers on the SB Vault Boards "moronic" for bringing to light issues they "report" to be having when creating accounts. The morons though do not provide hard evidence about billing issues they may have. A screencap is not that hard to do. J from Shadowbane Warcry has left the building. No official reasons givin citing his departure since he helped found that network and bring it into the limelight after the collapse of the CrossRoads Network. J has started his own Damned Vulpine site. SB WarCry is now under the direct care of Kylian one of the Warcry Network Managers, while looking for bodies. J will help with the transition. Congratulations to Covenant of Swords who by all reports were/are the first guild to power game to uberness and have planted a Tree. In twelve hours the sapling of thier nation shall grow and a city will be formed! Posted March 28 2003 by Div Devlin

Blizzard Insider Interview: This is kind of cheesy, but the Blizzard Insider sat down and talked with with Producer Shane Dabiri and the World of Warcraft design team to get an inside look at how Blizzard's ambitious massively multiplayer game is coming along. BI: In what ways is World of Warcraft different from the other MMORPGs out there? SD: First and foremost, World of Warcraft will immerse players at ground level in the unique fantasy setting and rich history of the Warcraft universe. Many of the things that players have come to love about the previous Warcraft games have gone into making up this living, breathing world. Furthermore, we're putting a lot of work into making World of Warcraft accessible to an extremely wide audience of players. Many of the MMORPGs ("Massively-Multiplayer-Online-RPGs") currently on the market target hardcore game players and are characterized by complicated game mechanics and somewhat monotonous "level grinding." Our goal from the start has been to create a streamlined interface that allows players to delve into the world quickly, and we're also working hard to give players a multitude of things to do within that world. I guess if no one is interviewing you, have your own interview. They also updated "The Bestiary" not only with a major update but they have added sounds so you can hear what the mobs sound like. Posted March 28 2003 by Div Devlin

Div Surrenders: Even in times of war when men and women are fighting for their country, as well as the safety of others, people need to find humor to make light a situation, agreement or not. If you are one of those people who are easily offended you may not want to look at the following link. For those of you who like to find humor in bad situations, Vash from the Shadow Alliance has discovered that I have surrendered. Thanks Vash! Posted March 27 2003 by Div Devlin

Dragon Empires Q&A: RPG Vault has published Q&A 21 on Dragon Empires where they hit the team up about some of the preperation under way to showcase the game at this year's E3Expo coming up in just a few short weeks. Check it out. Posted March 27 2003 by Div Devlin

Shadowbane's D-Day: For most players yesterday marked the real launch of Shadowbane hosted by Ubi Soft in N.America and well it was far from a perfect release. For those who were able to track the game down and get it before everyone else they got into game and had an almost a perfect ride in the mad land rush to level and farm for their City/Nation/Empire what-have-you. For the rest of the folks, well there were website issues as Shadowbane crushed the Ubi Soft site, Invalid CD Keys, and Credit Card problems with the billing system. Wolfpack did a good job bringing the game to a stable release (so far, as only 500 or so people were on the same server as I during peak), now it's up to Ubi Soft to show some support as the publisher. Special shout out's to Ashane, Krystal and Rion on the Deception Server, Ya'll rock! Posted March 27 2003 by Div Devlin

Shattered Galaxy 1.54: Shattered Galaxy has updated it's game to version 1.54 with the 1.03 gameplay you loved with the sleek 1.5 look! The team has listened to suggestions made by the players, and 1.54 marks the return of specialized unit chassis and abilities. SG 1.54 also brings forth two totally new organic units available to heroes for the first time! To top it off, SG 1.54 introduces a new air flame chassis capable of roasting those War Pigeons out from the sky. Participate in the newest promotion for access to the gigantic Quarg unit, ready to give the Abomination a run for the money. So what are you waiting for? Get back into the action only at www.sgalaxy.com! Why yes, it does look like a commercial! Posted March 27 2003 by Div Devlin

UO Fixes, Breaks, Does Redo: Ultima Online is still chugging along and has patched in a ton of fixes according to the FYI site. Fixes include: We will be publishing several fixes to the Great Lakes shard this evening, to be active after its normal morning maintenance tomorrow. This publish will include the following changes: * Fixed a problem that was causing too much data to be sent to the user. This fix will greatly reduce lag for players on dial-up connections! * The Harrower will now perform its drain attack. * We’ve added a fix that should prevent players from experiencing the "blackholing" issue. * Pre-AoS items that add to stats will no longer add those stats permanently to characters, but will lose their bonuses after the charges run out. * Characters who die while in monster form will no longer be lootable. * The Doom boss gauntlet should now re-set itself correctly. * Houses that have been re-possessed by an in-game support rep (in the case of a player being taken to jail, for instance) will now be able to be transferred back to the player. * Fixed another issue causing some teleporters and doors to become static and unusable (note that this fix is separate from another door fix published last month!) * Locking down an overweight container will no longer cause "locked down!" barks to appear. * The House Placement Tool no longer thinks it’s a spyglass. * Fixed a crashing issue Barring any unforeseen circumstances, we hope to publish these fixes to all remaining AoS-enabled shards beginning with the North American shards Wednesday night, to be active Thursday morning, CST In true fashion they did a revert backing those changes out as problems on Great Lakes were discovered. The patch to fix the patch will be out next week. Posted March 27 2003 by Div Devlin

AC Chess Tournament: Warcry's Crossroads of Dereth is running their first ever AC Chess Tournament! Never played chess in AC? Take a Look!. Its time to get your drudges out of the box and get them into shape! Run them around Shoushi a few times and have them sharpen their swords. WCoD will be hosting a Chess Tournament to be run on the Leafcull server. Yes, I know, you would all prefer that we did it on the Dark Tide Server to increase the challenge of the game. But we have decided that it would improve the survivability of our Arbitors if the Participants can't kill them when they make a decision you don't like :D Read More... Full Story Posted March 26 2003 by Div Devlin

AC2 Insider Updates: Tons of updates on the AC2 Insider: Don't Try This At Home 3/25: Microsoft KB article 815411 details a problem with some WinXP+SP1 installations where programs may take a long time to start. We noticed some of you discussing this on message boards recently--you should know that Turbine has studied the issue, and they concluded that the bug discussed does not impact AC2. There is no need for you to install the beta patch mentioned in the KB article. Game on! Weekly Dev Digest 3/25: Lila Yee has summarized the dev posts from 3/17 to 3/25 in a developer digest on our message boards. April Preview Update 3/25: On our message boards, Keth has revealed more information about changes "in development" for the next episode of AC2. Dev Proposal on Mesmerize Skills 3/25: Keth has proposed some changes to the Hypnosis, Daze, and Mesmerize skills. "Here There Be Dragons" 3/25: One of our Wandering Scribes has returned from a trial by fire... in the Tyrant's Loft Dungeon. Scavenger Hunt This Saturday 3/25: On 3/29, the Allegiances lead by Dadd, Laroux, and Nerissa will be holding the first annual scavenger hunt on Leafcull. The Scavenger Hunt website has the official tournament rules. Posted March 26 2003 by Div Devlin

Eve Online Audio Chat: Unknown Player is hosting the first of a two-part, two-continent chat with the people from Eve Online. The first part is with two of the CCP folks over in Iceland ready for your listening. The next part will return to N.Amercia and talk to Pann from Simon & Schuster about Customer Service and Volunteers. Posted March 26 2003 by Div Devlin

Planetside Trailer: The Planetside website has a new trailer up and running for the game. Tagged as, "One planet. Three Empires. One goal," the trailer is titled "Total Domination." It runs in Windows Media Player for 1:25 and shows combat, movement, aerial movement and vehicles. Lot's of eye candy, and sound. They have a discussion thread. They also released Journal 5 from within the Beta Test yesterday. Posted March 26 2003 by Div Devlin

Shadowbane Release and Patches: Shadowbane officially released yesterday, so sayeth the Press Release. It must of been a pretty smooth launch as no one was able to get a copy of the game. They should be in stores today. Some folks won't actually get them until tommorrow. Then the real launch at Prime Time begins. To go with the release, they already have a new patch out. To get the patch incase of server conjestion it's being hosted on alternate sites. The patch is a self-extracting 8mb file which can be found on SBVault or Fileplanet. To go hand in hand with the lowbies that will be all over the newbie lands, lost and looking for groups, SB Warcry has linkage to a player made map that looks damn good. It has the newbie spawns. Head there to get the full jist. Posted March 26 2003 by Div Devlin

Ballerium Updates: Beta for Ballerium the MMOG by Majorem is starting soon, for those interested in this decent looking game, you need to update your beta registration form. They posted up a new screenshot for the game, and are going to be part of a developer chat hosted by Stratics on Thursday, April 3rd. The topic of the chat will be about the Beta, the game's current development status as well as the upcoming E3 showup so make sure to join that evening! Posted March 25 2003 by Div Devlin

Cryptic Studios Hiring: Cryptic Studios, the makers behind City of Heroes is a hiring. If you are looking to get into the MMOG industry they currently have three openings available for: - MMP Associate Game Designer - QA Manager - 3D Game Artist Good luck to anyone that applies. Posted March 25 2003 by Div Devlin

Mythic gets $32 Million Investment! Mythic Entertainment the folks behind Dark Age of Camelot, as if you did not know who they were, recieved $32 Million from the Leading equity and buyout firm (our emphasis on buyout), TA Associates proving there is a huge future in MMOG's! TA Associates ("TA"), one of the leading private equity and buyout firms in the United States, announced today that it has completed a $32 million investment in Mythic Entertainment, Inc. ("Mythic"), a leading independent developer of online gaming. Founded in 1995, Mythic has experienced rapid growth, with revenues more than quadrupling in 2002 over the prior year. The Vice President of TA Associates, Jonathan W. Meeks will join the board of Mythic Directors. Is Mythic selling out? Whatever comes of this, it's a positive move. Real competition to EA and Sony who dominate the market. Read the Press Release. Posted March 25 2003 by Div Devlin

Dragon Empires Chat: Perma Death. This has been an issue many a veteran gamer who really enjoy's PvP has wanted to see in games, one form or another. Mondes persistants have posted a log of a roundtable that was conducted with Peter Tyson of Dragon Empires and developers from other games on that very topic. Make sure to give it a read. Posted March 25 2003 by Div Devlin

Shadowbane, Where Art Thou! Today marks the launch of Shadowbane in N. America hosted by Ubi.com, but my pre-order from EBGames is nowhere to be found. Turns out that GameSpot, EBGames and a few other vendors were not due to have them in until tommorrow! No idea how launch is going, I'm going to lunch. Bye. Posted March 25 2003 by Div Devlin

AC1 and AC2 Storylines Merge? Ophelea from CrossRoads of Dereth sent us word that it looks as if they're starting to tie the games together and things are getting exciting, based on the March Teaser: The March Teaser for Asheron's Call, A Perfect Paradox, has been posted and it looks as if the Time of Troubles that preceeds the Time of Peace before the Great Devastation in AC2 has begun. An alliance is forming... Queen Elysa Strathelar listened to the latest reports of guards reporting from the western Direlands. Celdiseth scowled and Ciandra sat quietly as the report dragged on. Lord Kresovus knelt at Asheron's right and Aun Hareltah at his left. Antius, the latest addition to this council, sat beside Elysa. Nuhmudira seemed thoughtful, her attention focused on the newcomer. Perhaps, she pondered, his inclusion was more for personal reasons. When the guards had finished... Check it on CoD (Thanks Ophelea!) Posted March 24 2003 by Div Devlin

oNwN/FW Player Gathering: Got word that if you were one of the original NeverWinter Nights (linkage: BladeKeep Archives) players, the folks from Forgotten Worlds are putting together a "Bash," the first week of August of this year in the Washington D.C. area. Some old names are on the list of definite attendees with even some folks who are a maybe. Be sure to hook up if you are in the area! Thanks to Mav for the word! Posted March 24 2003 by Div Devlin

Dragon Empires Newsletter: Dragon Empires released the latest newsletter letting everyone know they are ready to rock the E3Expo: Believe it or not the build up to E3 is already well under way. The stand has been designed and contracted out, staff appointed and already bookings are coming in for meetings and demonstrations of the game. This year the stand will be bigger than last time with a huge screen to show off various bits and pieces of game footage from all the Codemasters range. At E3 we will also be releasing an exciting FMV movie, lore and more game info. May will be a good month for Dragon Empires fans! Meanwhile, here is some more info to keep March interesting. On top of that, they are also pleased to introduce Gadsolme, a well known historian and traveller of Fortitude who will bring us regular updates of his travels through the lands and tell us of stories and tales he has found and collected. Check out his first letter! Posted March 24 2003 by Div Devlin

Glympse to use ButterFly Net too! Sojourn Development announced they will also employ technology from Butterfly.net™ and NDL to power their massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) Glympse, slated to launch Q4 2004. Glympse will be able to support hundreds of thousands of users inhabiting the same virtual planet. While they can not become an Ultra Massively Multiplayer Online Game, they will have a huge capacity to support an Immensely Larger Massively Multiplayer Online Game player base. Posted March 24 2003 by Div Devlin

Shadowbane Beta Ends, Goes Live: Over the weekend Ubi had the huge in game blow-out for Shadowbane's beta, with screenshots and the promise of more to come. A new Shadowbane Tales comic from W. lesama was released showing the real might of the Irekei from an Elven viewpoint. Has to be one of the best to date. They get better with each episode. Check out Episode Eight. If ya don't know the Author of this book, you really need to pay attention more! She is a goddess! ubi.com and Brady Games announced the release of the Shadowbane Strategy Guide by Brady Games containing over 350 pages of Shadowbane goodness, which will be current to the commerical release. List prices is 19.99 due for publish on the 27th. That authors name, Danielle Vanderlip! I knew her before she became a published author! Buy the book! With the game being released to some people as early as today, questions arise on when the game will actually hit stores, and when will people actually be able to log in and play. Vosx clarifies to the posts asking: Yes ubi.com pre-orders will be shipping this evening and Monday, so users who pre-ordered from us can expect to receive their Shadowbane boxes as soon as Monday but no later than Wednesday depending on where they live. Canadian customers receive free ground shipping so their boxes could come as early as Wednesday but depending on customs - could take several days longer than that, it also depends on which province and city you live in as well. Keep in mind, that if some of you receive your box on Monday, the game servers will not be available until Tuesday morning EST, probably around 8AM EST, maybe earlier, maybe later - we will have updated information on that Monday. There will also be no CCR or Support on Monday for Shadowbane, that will not officially begin until Tuesday as well. See most of ya in game Tuesday if my name is not ganked. For most of this week, we here at GR will be keeping up to date on event's within game, be it good, bad, or really ugly regarding the launch of this most anticipated title! Posted March 24 2003 by Div Devlin

Dransik Goes Live: Asylum Soft has announced that their entry into the 2003 MOG arena Dransik has officially gone gold and can be downloaded for free from their website. They are also offering a 10 day free trial to get gamers addicted to their pixel crack! They are still working on adding the other features in. Posted March 19 2003 by Div Devlin

GamersPulse 10 MMOG's To Watch: This is something we have been lazily working on time permitting, Gamers Pulse has published their editorial guide for the "10 RPG Titles To Watch For" for this year. They give you informative snippets about each game as well as some quick screenies. Well written article that we here agree with title wise (for the most part). Be sure to give it a read. Posted March 19 2003 by Div Devlin

JumpGate Episode 2: NetDevil lives on still, and with the "Space Race" in full swing, they have added a second episode to JumpGate expanding upon the universe with additions that puts them back into the competition of what other titles have. Player-Owned Space Stations: Players will now have the opportunity to purchase and operate a space station, including a storage depot for ship parts, trading capabilities for commerce with allies and teams, and a spacecraft hangar allowing players to store up to 20 ships; A mysterious new Alien Galaxy: Players will be able to explore and invade the home sectors of the sinister Conflux; A deadly array of new opponents: The Conflux are more dangerous than ever, with faster, tougher ships and improved AI swarm systems; Pirating and counter-pirating equipment: Pirates can capture cargo in interstellar raids, while freighter pilots can defend themselves with cargo bombs; A new Sector Control System: Squads can seize control of sectors in space, setting off battles for domination with their rivals; and Several new Ship Types: Powerful new Heavy Fighters and gigantic Freighters are among the new additions to the choices for TRI pilots. It would be interesting to see what actually happens here, but NetDevil and I have had no contact since 3DO left them oh so many moons ago. Posted March 19 2003 by Div Devlin

Shadowbane Server Names: The official release for the server names of Shadowbane have been announced, as well as the opening of boards for each of the servers consisting of three categories. The server names are: Chaos, Carnage, Deception, Death, Dread, Fear, Mourning, Scorn, Treachery, and War. Guilds are already staking their territory on which server they will call home. As of this Friday the servers are going to be shutdown at Midnight Eastern Time with a huge end of beta blowout. After that, the boards will be closed and accounts deactivated. Posted March 19 2003 by Div Devlin

SWG: Premium Package! Star Wars: Galaxies Haden Blackman announced on the boards the contents of the limited Premium Package that will be packaged in a pretty solid black box with the Star Wars Galaxies logo embossed on the cover and sides for the game everyone keeps awaiting, delays and missing features aside. Within the box you will get: - The full version of the game. - Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided Concept Art Book. - Collectible pewter figurine featuring a Zabrak female with a blaster rifle. - Sew-on patch featuring the logo for Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided. - Lapel pin featuring both Imperial and Rebel insignias as well as Star Wars Galaxies logo. - Spiral-bound manual, with a cover autographed by all the Leads on the Galaxies team, and a special surprise. They have not yet determined what the price will be for this "Premium Package" but wanted to get the contents out for everyone. Posted March 19 2003 by Div Devlin

Dragon Empires Interview: GameZone is the newest folks to talk with the folks at Dragon Empires, in this interview one of the topics covered were: It's hard to imagine how the battles will turn out in a game until you actually play it. Could you fill our heads with a clearer image [of the battles] by giving us a detailed description of the gameplay? Battles will be exciting to watch with banners waving, horns blowing and some really great magical effects! This is on top of fantastic weapons and great looking armor and items. Combat will involve a lot of energy management and careful ability selection. Pull out the big sword, but be careful which abilities you use or you will exhaust yourself, perhaps switch to two hand axes when your energy is low and then back to the sword when you've recovered a bit. Choosing weapons and abilities will be important in combat, as will how you use your secondary abilities. We want to make sure players feel they really are in control and that skill really matters in a fight. We don't want a boring click-'n'-wait style of combat. While the screenshots we are told are a bit out of date, overall some informative info. Posted March 18 2003 by Div Devlin

Children of Dune: So, for the past two days I tuned into the SciFi Channel with thousands of other viewers who are fans of Frank Herbert's Dune series watching the "Children of Dune." While many people say this is the best addition to the film series, I have to sit here and shake my head saying, I just don't get it. It probably has something to do with me being a "Mental Midget" but in my not so humble opinion, this series sucked. I just wasted two nights that I could of spent looking at pr0n. What a waste. I'm really dreading what they are going to do to Battlestar Galactica this December. Posted March 18 2003 by Div Devlin

Shadowbane Updates: Ton of updates on the Shadowbane official Chronicle of Strife. First up, The Lore of the Aracoix is now available! This completes Meridian's race lore for Shadowbane. The Aracoix are one of the restricted races, and most desired to play becuase they can fly. The servers are going to be down today for maintenance, by the time you read this update it should be after 11am EST so they are back up. Meanhile "Doomsday Cometh" is the title for announcing the big-end-of-beta-blowout as Morloch descends upon the land. Choose your side and see who will be the victor. If you have no plans this Friday night, some fans are getting together to toss a pre-release party. Eh! Posted March 18 2003 by Div Devlin

Wish the new MOG: Mutable Realms, Inc. announced the development of a new massively-multiplayer online gaming making it's debut this upcoming E3 that will raise gaming to a new level of Ultra. "Wish" will provide unprecedented opportunities for people to meet online in a shared fantasy experience. The game, which has been under development for over a year, is one of the most ambitious projects that the gaming industry has ever seen. Unlike other Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG) that confine the player to a server with only several hundred other players, Wish raises the bar by defining Ultra Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (UMMORPG). Wish employs a server cluster architecture that scales to tens of thousands of players in a shared and seamless 3D fantasy world. My emphasis on the bolded part. I wonder where we have heard that before? The site has some screenshots, some concept art, and a faq which says they will include varied races including standard fare humanoids as well as Orcs, and Cyclops as player races. They will plan on having housing, and quests "Big Time." PvP will be restricted to areas and Arenas. Expect to learn more after this years E3Expo. Posted March 18 2003 by Div Devlin

UO tells Community, "Go Away!" Ultima Online is the latest game to tell it's community to go away, as they announced the closing of the official message boards, which will be shutdown tomorrow. Citing the time constraints and needs of moderating the boards, it was nolonger time feasible to interact with the community in an offical capacity or some such. As written: The Online Community Relations (OCR) team here at Origin feels strongly that communication is crucial when running an online game. When we first opened the MyUO forums in the year 2000, our goal was to provide players with a central place to gather and exchange feedback with each other and with developers. Over the last three years, though, we’ve learned that it takes a lot more time to moderate boards than to simply post on them! In an effort to spend less time as "the police" (locking and deleting threads, sending warnings, finding lost passwords, etc.) and more time on effective communication, we’re going to allow one of our oldest and most dedicated fansites, UO Stratics, to handle message board moderation and administration for the Ultima Online forum community on the currently established forums at uo.stratics.com. You just need to know how to read between the lines. The community has been asked to make Stratics their new home. For the veteran gamer though, you really want to migrate over to UOPowerGamers. Nieves is love. Posted March 18 2003 by Div Devlin

Shadowbane Nerfs Feature: Feature creep is one thing that always happens, and when rushing a game out at the last minute, ready or not items get killed. This stealth change to one of the most anticpated features of Shadowbane was not announced, and I know many a people were looking forward to it. Hyped for years about how each world would be different so that no two servers or world clusters were a like, has been killed. The new updated faq reads as follows: Will each "world" be a mirror image of each other? Some worlds in Shadowbane will be completely unique. When the Turning occurred, Aerynth was literally torn asunder, broken into an array of fragments great and small. Each "world" or "server-cluster" in Shadowbane is one of these fragments, a portion of the original world. Some worlds will consist of many interlinked "world fragments" scattered throughout a universe, each with their own unique feel and flavor. Characters will be able to travel between world fragments through magical gates and portals. At one time also ten's of thousands of players were going to be able to interact with each other on a world cluster, but now were down to 2000 players max per server. Still no word if players are going to be able to travel between worlds either, but I doubt it. Another feature many were looking forward to when Ultima Online said they would to it with the black moongates we never saw. (Thanks Lorri for the linkage) Discuss: How many other features will be nerfed? Posted March 17 2003 by Div Devlin

DAoC Adds Stuph, Becomes Cool: The Dark Age of Camelot just added a new feature to the Herald that many a people have been asking for. The Town Square has reopened after being closed during launch due to the time constraint's needed in moderation. The new Event Calendar allows users to post events for each realm and server as well as many other toys. As posted: Now, people planning an event select from various drop down menus and options to put together their announcement. The system doesn't need a person to monitor the entries, doesn't require a spellchecker, and instantly posts your in-game events and activities. It is truly by the players, for the players. Some things to remember - you need to have an active account with us to post announcements, and you'll need to log in to the Herald with your account name and password. Your account can only have five events pending at once. A character name will not be available as an event host if it doesn't appear on the Herald. You have the power to edit and delete your own events, set the parameters of who is invited, and more. It's pretty cool, so use it. They also have an update on housing: As it stands right now, we've gone through an initial stage of internal testing where we've created houses, decorated them, etc. and the system is working well. What we still need to do is to ensure that all the items you'll be getting to decorate your house work as advertised, so we're going over everything with a fine-tooth comb and taking care of any bugs and inconsistencies (especially across Realms) that we find. We've already completely overhauled several houses altogether, and are currently working down a list of issues with decorative objects. Check out the screenies! Posted March 17 2003 by Div Devlin

Planetside Delay True? Last month we had heard rumors based on this article which stated it was, "on track for release early this summer" that Planetside may be delayed. Confirmation may very well be true as we learned that the Sony Store has a new 'projected' release date of May 19, 2003 for anyone who want's to purchase the game. Posted March 17 2003 by Div Devlin

Star Wars Galaxies Delayed too! The original fat rumor circulated by FatBabies has turned out to be true as Star Wars Galaxies announced that the game has been delayed to an unannounced date. "Star Wars Galaxies is now entering the final phase of development, and everyone at LucasArts and Sony Online Entertainment is pleased with the game's progress since the beta test program was initiated. We've received a good deal of constructive feedback and many positive suggestions that, if executed, will genuinely enhance gameplay for the hundreds of thousands of players who comprise the community. To deliver the best possible massively multiplayer experience and ensure stability and breadth of content, LucasArts and Sony Online Entertainment will delay the game's April 15 launch. This will enable us to invest more time into the beta program, and to solicit additional feedback from the tremendous fan base Star Wars Galaxies has already developed. Hey, the only thing to make to perfect now, is if Shadowbane were to announce it is going to delay it's release next week! Posted March 17 2003 by Div Devlin

Shadowbane Stuph: Much to the complaints of many a peep's, Shadowbane wiped the servers Friday in anticpation of Gold v1.0 to begin testing the patch that would be in release. It was broken, much was the whine to Ubi and Wolfpack in which Warden responded: On the wipe. I've gotten a lot of questions about the character wipe, and while it pains us to interrupt your playing experience (I know, I know - one more day and you would have been ready to siege) please keep in mind that our chief concern right now has to be server performance and stability. To that end, wiping the world clean is the best way for us to do a 'dry run' that mirrors the environmental conditions we'll see at launch - namely, a landrush on the servers with extremely high player loads. I'm glad that so many of you are itching to continue playing, but in the long run, I really think this sanity check was in order. The problems were fixed, and Saturday everyone was a happy camper. The crew working 20 hours a day, must of thought it was Tuesday! Posted March 17 2003 by Div Devlin

Dragon Empires Developer Diary: Dragon Empires has released another volume of thier Developer Diary. This issue is ont he topic of the fascinating world of operations written by Phil White, which should answer the many questions people have once and for all. From the Diary: I have engaged a number of ISPs across the US, Europe and Asia regarding hosting and bandwidth, hardware providers for the servers, payment providers, worked on the budget projections for the next 3 years, put in place customer support system requirements, proceedures and processes and well as employ the initial team of Operations people to get the tools up and running. Give it a read. Posted March 14 2003 by Div Devlin

Neocron .plan, Free Trial: Neocron has sent word that they have updated their plan file and are working on an offer for a free 10 day trial for those who have yet to experience this sci-fi cyberpunk MOG by Reakktor. Installing the 10-day-free-trial and setting up a trial account is as easy as saying Poochoomzongo (uhmm... maybe even simplier *cough*): Simply download the game from our download page (or copy it from a friend), install it and set up your account. You will be required to give your credit card details, but no money will be charged from the card during the first 10 days. In fact, if you quit during the first 10 days, no money will be charged at all. If you continue to play Neocron, 29,95 USD will be charged from your credit card (NOT 39,95 USD, like it was said before) and you will get another 18 days of free playtime (sums up to a total of 28 days = 4 weeks). After the 4 weeks are over, your credit card will be charged according to your chosen payment plan (monthly, 3-monthly or 6-monthly). I still have this game sitting in my car in an unopened box. Posted March 14 2003 by Div Devlin

Priest Rumor False: Yesterday we reported on a rumor about the western-horror game Priest possibly being killed in N. America as JC Entertainment shut down their U.S. offices. We fired a mail off to them regarding the rumor, and we did in fact, get a reply that tells us the rumor is false. I received an email telling me that you had heard that Priest was not going to be launched in the U.S. The information is incorrect. We are definitely going to launch in North America. We're anticipating that launch to be sometime in early July of this year. We will be closing our subsidiary, World Net Games, Inc. But we will service the game in the U.S. through a different company. I'm looking forward to seeing this game. Different is good! Thanks to David at JC Entertainment for the clarifications! Posted March 14 2003 by Div Devlin

Purge Online Golden: Purge Online the online FPS/RPG hybrid by Freeform Interactive has gone gold after 6 months of closed beta testing and 2 months of open beta testing, and is expected to hit the shelves by March 31st. If you have not seen this game yet, a Purge demo will be released with all 8 classes and a different map than in the beta. Posted March 14 2003 by Div Devlin

Wolfpack Hiring FC's, New Journal: Ashen Temper announced on the Ubi Soft boards yesterday that Wolfpack Studios is hiring from the community to help support the feature character program within Shadowbane. Would be applicants are to submit their resumes, and be required to "commute" to the office (in other words, you need to be a local). This was originally announced during GDC but died, once more the event journal "The Sin Within" is up and running for fanbois and fangrlz to drool over, as Sachant knows how to weave a tail. If you were looking to play a Scout in Shadowbane, there is a newbie primer for the class running also. Last up, Vosx clarifies that neither Wolfpack or Ubi will sell a persons email address. Those who have recently been getting spammed was not due tot hem, they will investigate their providers, and ask you do the same. Good luck to anyone who applies for the FC jobs! It's an entry level position but with tons of room for advancement. You would be an idiot to not add this to your resume after working for a year or more. Posted March 14 2003 by Div Devlin

Miracles Do Happen: If you are not a parent, then this fear has never affected you and you have no idea the meaning behind it. God smiled down upon the Smart Family with the return of their missing daughter who vanished over nine months ago from her home in Salt Lake City, Utah. I hope they burn the bastard who abducted her. Slowly. I hope she can recover from the trauma and lead a full life. It was a miracle that she is home, and reunited with her family. Welcome home, and God Bless you and your family, as we all share in this reunion. Posted March 13 2003 by Div Devlin

Anarchy Online Timeline: Anarchy Online sends word that the Rubi-Ka Timeline has recently been updated to include all the major events - as a kind of 'news in short' - of the year 29476. This is a great place for everyone unfamiliar with the stories pushing the planet of Rubi-Ka further, the subtle games being played through politics, and the actions of the players that have had a permanent impact on Rubi-Ka. Check out the entire timeline. Posted March 13 2003 by Div Devlin

Priest Ex-communicated in N.America? Priest the horror themed Western MMOG that was in development by JC Entertainment may be no more. We hear rumored reports that they have closed down their N.America offices and have left. We've sent an email off to learn more and await a response. Ofcourse if they did leave, we probably won't get a reply so we've written this game off to vaporware that will never see a debut. Updated: This rumor turned out to be false. See news update on March 14, 2003. Discuss: It was a great idea and looked good. Posted March 13 2003 by Div Devlin

Battlestar Galactica: Ok, so I bit my tounge when they ditched Robert Hatch and all the work he had been doing to get Battlestar Galactica remade for today. It sucked and we knew that he could be the man with the vision. While his novels were not the best, they added to the story. The comics were much better that came out 3 years ago for an updated theme. But now, Sci-Fi has stated for their version of Battlestar Galactica that Starbuck has been reimagined as a female character, WTF! Every guy who grew up with Battlestar Galactica wanted to be Starbuck, he juggled three women at a time. Is the re-imagined Starbuck lass going to be a slut. Will she be Apollo's lover, and when he see's her in the Viper bay with another guy is he going to "steam her." The whole reimagining concept today sucks major ass. Discuss: Another favorite blown to hell. Posted March 13 2003 by Div Devlin

Shadowbane Boards Killed: Vosx the Master from Ubi Soft made this announcment on the boards that they are now closing in anticpation of the N. American launch of Shadowbane: In preparation for the final release of Shadowbane, the public access forums will be closing today. Access to the Beta forums will remain open for testers for another week. Once Shadowbane is released, the forums will be accessible to all Shadowbane subscribers.The forums will be divided up into server worlds, with each world having a General Discussion, Political Discussion, and a Marshalling Grounds forum for Guild Recruitment. Other forums like the Golden Lion and Meridian's Lore Forum will also be available for all Shadowbane users, regardless of world origin. More forums are in the planning stages so more details will be released as they come available.We want to extend a final thank you to all our forum users for making Shadowbane one of the largest and most successful online gaming communities ever! We can hardly wait to see all of you as Shadowbane-Live players on March 25, a little less than two weeks away! He followed up by saying, "Non-subscribers will still be able to read all the Shadowbane forums, but they will not be allowed to reply, post, or send private messages." Ubi Soft has also released the patch notes for the live release version of the game. Posted March 13 2003 by Div Devlin

Gordon "Tyrant" Walton leaves EA! Just a week after GDC and giving the "Top Ten Reasons Why Not to Start a MMOG," Gordon "Tyrant" Walton has left Electronic Arts. A Man, A Legend, A Tyrant. This is a sad, sad day for EA. Tyrant most noted for Ultima Online fame who has been most recently attached to Maxis for The Sims Online has left the building. In an announcement on Arcadian Del Sol's site within a leaked email Tyrant sent out to some friends he stated the reason for his departure as, "a desire to return to Austin with his family and take some time away from the industry." Does this mean there is no sooper seekrit project going on in EA to bring UO2 back to life? Did he leave because he agrees EA, the sinking ship that it is has run out of life boats? Are we going to see him soon with either Destination Games, Sigil Games, or Wolfpack Studios? All three are based in Austin, as well as many others. Time will tell, and during the interim, he is going to be missed as he takes some time to recuperate. Best wishes Tyrant, the MOG Community will miss you. Posted March 12 2003 by Div Devlin

Dragon Empires Q&A 20: RPG Vault posted Q&A 20 on weapons design with Peter Tyson from Dragon Empires, within it: Jonric: It's pretty easy to make highly detailed concept drawings of weapons. To what extent has the art team been able to meet the challenge of retaining such details when creating the in-game versions? Peter Tyson: They've done a great job of this so far. The main challenge is probably polygon count. They have strict limits to work to and getting the detail in but meeting those limitations is a challenge. I think the end result is very pleasing and look forward to showing you them being used in-game! Worth a looksie. They even mention about making wep's personal to a degree. Posted March 12 2003 by Div Devlin

Eve Online Fans Broadcasting: Fans for the soon to be released Eve Online have banded together and formed an internet radio sation dubbed "Galactic News Network (GNN)" where they play music, group discussions on the world that is Eve, and deliver the latest news about Eve Online through interviews with developers, CEO's and the folks all involved in the Eve Community. From a press release sent out by Simon and Schuster: The first EVE ONLINE radio station, GNN has grown explosively in popularity. Started on February 28, 2003 it began with 14 listeners and has now grown to more than 600 listeners tuning in at any given time. Fans can tune in and get schedules and download old radio shows at . GNN is online 24 hours a day with news updates, music, and at 5 p.m. and 10 p.m. ET GNN airs a group discussion about the latest EVE news, editorial and interviews with those in the EVE universe including developers, corporation CEOs, and others. GNN is affiliated with Evegate.net, a news gathering site who also reports on the latest EVE news. Check it. Thanks Eve Gate! Posted March 12 2003 by Div Devlin

Horizons Skin and Beta Signup: Horizons has updated their site where you can now change the appearance of the site by choosing one of the creature themes. Human and Dwarf themes are to follow. You can now also signup for beta expected to start this summer. Posted March 12 2003 by Div Devlin

Shadowbane Luvin: Shadowbane gets some luvin from Games Domain in this hands on preview from within the beta test, while Apple does a Shadowbane Spotlight for all the Mac users out there. Posted March 12 2003 by Div Devlin

AC2 Wants You! Asheron's Call 2 wants you, and they are coming to get you. Over the course of the next couple of months they are going to be inviting players from other MOG's to come give AC2 a try, according to this post on the insider. Since they are going to be stealing players from other games, they are going to be in need of "Guides" to help these other games get over the "culture shock" of moving to AC2. To do this, they are offering a contest. So you think you know Asheron's Call 2? Here's your chance to prove it! Over the next few months, we'll be inviting players from other MMORPGs to give AC2 a try. We want to provide some game guides to help them get over the "culture shock" of moving over. No one's better qualified to provide these hints and tips than YOU, our players. Here's your chance to show of your AC2 prowess by sending us your best game tips. For the winners of these "guides" they are going to be awarded a free one year subscription to AC2. My question is, how are they getting the players from these other games? Posted March 11 2003 by Div Devlin

News from around the block: XGR has posted up Dre's preview of of the upcoming Digitalo release Devastation. To go along with the preview they have some EXCLUSIVE screenies! THis is one game I know alot of people have been looking forward too! MassiveMultiplayer.org is no more. Citing various reasons, Meatball and Mystery have tossed in the towel. After driving the site for years, with little to no recognition by the community, and doing it for free, they were faced with paying for hosting. No more they say, and can now be found on their newest incarntion all bright and orange colored, titled "Mystery Meatball." They rant now. Congrats to Funcom after all they have been through as they celebrate ten years of being in the industry. In their announcment for their birthday they tell us they still have everything going on internally as they have announced over the past month or so: Four additional projects are in the works internally; Shadowlands, which is the first expansion pack to the Award winning Anarchy Online, a sequel to The Longest Journey, a new Persistent Online World game, and another booster pack for AO entitled Towns of Rubi-Ka. Happy Birthday Funcom. Posted March 11 2003 by Div Devlin

Earth and Beyond Goodbyes: Earth and Beyond with the move to Redwood is saying some goodbyes as the office was shut down and consolidated into EA. We were wondering why it's been rather quiet since they announced they were moving. Cerdith posted on the message boards that some of the team from Earth and Beyond have chosen to not make the journey. From March 3rd: Hello all, I wanted to introduce a new face who will be posting to the message boards and providing you with information about the game, very soon. David "Shadowdave" Yee has taken on the role of Online Producer for Earth & Beyond. He'll be running the show from Redwood Shores. David has been the lead systems designer on Earth & Beyond for the past year and is stepping into a new, improved role. We've been dragging him out to chats from time to time so he gets a chance to meet you all and hear your thoughts. Once we get settled, we'll setup a series of chats with David. Eric "Radrac" Wang, is moving on to other projects and placing the E&B mantle on David's shoulders. Eric spent over 5 years working on Earth & Beyond and we'll all miss him greatly. Rade "MobiusX" Stojsavljevic likewise will be working on other projects with our EA Los Angeles office. We wish him the best of luck in all of his endeavors. Craig "Arcturus" Elliott has also decided to pursue other opportunities and won't be joining us in Redwood Shores. We wish him the very best and will miss him greatly. - Cerdith All of them fine folks are going to be missed. Nothing but best wishes to each of them, as well as a congrats and good luck to Shadowdave in his new role, even though the circumstances were not what anyone wished for. Posted March 11 2003 by Div Devlin

Planetside Beta 3 Journal: The newest journal for Planetside is up and running. In this journal they show you the virtual training rooms, and recap the New Conglomerate's foiled assault on the Pele Amp Station. There are two new screenies included. Posted March 11 2003 by Div Devlin

Small News from Anarchy Online... Anarchy Online sends small news update which contains big info! 9 New Screenshots that first appeared on GameSPy this morning, titled March something. The first ingame picture of Jobe. You can check all those images out in our gallery. Shadowlands interview with Gaute Godager on Gamespy where he goes in-depth on many of the features in Shadowlands, as well as outlining the exciting back-story. Check it. Posted March 10 2003 by Div Devlin

Tons of DE Info: Dragon Empires released another packed newsletter last week, this one containing some goodies. Check out the new shot of what a wintery dawn looks like in Dragon Empires. They completed the box art survey they were running last month and number three won (archived copy). They also tell us that this box concept is currently being worked on more by the marketing team (town is to be redone, as is the lettering, faces and other bits and pieces) so as to be ready for production. When they have a final box they will make sure to show it to you all. Can't wait! Finally, if you remember last week, as I sure don't. Calista asked what was a "Kittah?" Go check out that photoshop contest, there have been some monsterous entries. Last up be sure to check out the interview that Homelan did with the DE crew. Posted March 10 2003 by Div Devlin

NwN Game Awards, Again! This is over a week late, so you may of already read about it, but NeverWinter Nights wins again! This time at the AIAS awards. BioWare Corp. is pleased to announce that Neverwinter Nights was named the Computer Role-Playing Game of the Year by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS) on February 28 at the Sixth Annual Interactive Achievement Awards in Las Vegas. The AIAS achievement award event recognizes outstanding achievement in interactive content and in the interactive community. This is the fourth time in the past five years that BioWare’s products have received honors at the AIAS awards: three times for PC Role-Playing Game of the Year (Baldur’s Gate, Baldur’s Gate II: Throne of Bhaal, Neverwinter Nights), and once for Character or Story Development (Baldur’s Gate II). Congrats yet again, this is one of the more addicting games out there to play due to the player created content. It goes on and on and on and... Yes, I really like it as my kid can play it. Posted March 10 2003 by Div Devlin

Shadowbane Server Names: SB WarCry and that damned Vulpine J hit it again, when they posted up the server names that Shadowbane will have by Ubi Soft and En-Tranz. For N. America the possible server names are: Chaos, Carnage, Deception, War, Death, Fear, Mourning, Scorn, Dread, Vengeance, Grief, Hate, Malice, Terror, Corruption and Aernyth While En-Tranz speaks that the names they have are only placeholders at this time according to an update from Kegien. Posted March 10 2003 by Div Devlin

Days Numbered for The Sims Online? Have we seen a prelude to the end for The Sims Online? The following email was sent to users by EA to go to Ultima Online and make their dream houses there! Hi there, Building houses for your Sims is one thing, but building medieval houses in Ultima OnlineTM: Age of ShadowsTM is another. Make your home a castle in UO! Have fun -- Your friends at The Sims Online The SimsTM Players, a new Land Beckons! As a fan of The SimsTM series you'll want to use your house building skills to stake your claim in Ultima Online's new world of Malas. Using the custom building tool you can build the house of your dreams. Join the Internet's most exciting RPG game world and start building your home today. Buy Now! Activate your account by March 12th for an in-game bonus!* Open your Age of Shadows account or upgrade to Age of Shadows by March 12th and you get an in-game mini-house collectable sculpture and a Bless Deed. Get More Info ---------------------------------------------------------------------- *Offer expires March 12, 2003. See linked-to page for complete details Is this the end or just cross-marketing? Hey, if you even open a UO account you get a special prize too! Woot. Posted March 10 2003 by Div Devlin

Vivendi posts historic loss: From the Sun-Times Business Briefs French media giant Vivendi Universal posted a net loss of 23.3 billion euros ($25.6 billion) in 2002, the largest in French corporate history. Vivendi's board met Thursday to discuss the possible sale of the company's vast entertainment empire. The disposal is seen as vital to help Vivendi pay off its multibillion-dollar debt. Posted March 7 2003 by Div Devlin

Game Awards on the T.V. Everyone is jumping into the gaming business, now there will be televised game awards, as Entertainment Tonight announced in this article "U.S. Cable Games Network Announces New Awards Show": As the video game business sidles up closer to Hollywood, it was only a matter of time before the industry picked up another Tinseltown tradition: a proliferation of awards shows. G4, a cable channel devoted to video games, on Monday said it would launch the network's first annual "Glow Awards" in July for the best games and characters of the year. The July 30 show, to be held in Hollywood, will also feature musical acts, celebrity interviews and interactive game stations, the network said. Heh. Posted March 7 2003 by Div Devlin

GDC Coverage for the MOG'ers: With today the last day of GDC in San Jose (Obviously I'm not there) some articles are begining to filter out from those who are there. Here are some of the relevant pre-post coverage. GameSpy has a couple of note so far. - Ten Reasons You Don't Want to Run a Massively Multiplayer Online Game Industry veteran Gordon Walton, who helped to build Ultima Online, spoke about what's it's like to wear those shoes. - Why is Korea the King of Multiplayer Gaming? Publishers and developers scrutinize the most gaming-oriented culture on the planet. - The Future is Bright for Massively Multiplayer: More! Better! Cheaper! GameSpy speaks with Zona CEO and spokesman Monte Singman In the U.S. alone, 2002 saw over $600 million in revenue from massively multiplayer titles; almost entirely fantasy/RPG games. By 2006 some analysts predict sales as high as 1.5 billion -- and that's just for the U.S. market! The number jumps to $3.6 billion if you factor in the lucrative Asian markets. Clearly there's a lot of cash involved. Speaking of Zona, Gamespot has coverage of Zona's Ghouls and Ghosts Online with first looks up, and a movie from it. Homelan has some coverage going now as well. - photo gallery up and running if you wanted to see what it is exactly you have been missing, taken as GDC is in full swing. - Update On Matrix Online-Discovery Engine We chatted briefly with Touchdown CEO Jeff Hutt who assured us that both the Discovery engine and The Matrix Online game were still in production but that the company has decided not to promote or licence the sale of the engine to any other third parties for the time being. Posted March 7 2003 by Div Devlin

NCSoft Announces Exarch MMOG: NCSoft announced the development name change of a new game to their stable, titled Exarch Online (pronounced ex'-ark) which was formely known as Trade Wars: Dark Millenium by Realm Interactive it's a fast-paced action RPG where players can explore, battle and quest in multiple environments including mystical forests and foreboding alien catacombs. It will also feature classic style melee weapons and armor, as well as futuritisc armaments like power armor and plasma guns. An enourmous virtual world full of terrible monsters such as mutants, undead, robots, and Dragons. Sounds like the venerable paper game, 'Gamma World' long discontinued. 1st Edition rocked. Posted March 7 2003 by Div Devlin

Imperator Concept Art: Mythic has tossed up some concept art for the new roman-space game coming from them Imperator Online. The shots (4) consist of Praetorian Guards, The New Senate and Military and civilian uniforms of the Republic. Posted March 7 2003 by Div Devlin

Things Look Bad for EA: EA has no idea how to run a profitable online service according to this article written by Chris Morris appearing on CNN Money. These days, EA.com, the company's online division, is stumbling, beset by disappointing sales, cancelled products and multimillion-dollar losses. Tuesday morning, the company announced plans to consolidate the assets and operations of EA.com into its core operations, meaning it will no longer break out the division's profit or loss in its quarterly earnings report. Within the article he cites the failing numbers of Earth and Beyond as well as The Sims Online which are the newest additions to EA. Over in Ultima land, Cynthe responded to a related article regarding the consolidation and reorg as well as the status of UO by saying: By the way, in case anyone's wondering... UO is fine. This restructuring is happening way higher than we are, so we're still doing our thing - we're just part of the core EA unit now, as opposed to EA.com. But are the days numbered? Posted March 5 2003 by Div Devlin

New Camelot Scams! There is a new e-mail scam running around where alleged scammers are once more portraying themselves as Mythic employee's attempting to get your secret password for Dark Age of Camelot. At the end of the email they state that they are working from home, the reason the email is not from a valid Mythic address: You may be suspicious of this email, thinking that it is a scam, but i assure you it is not. I am currently at my house while sending this message. Reason for not sending it while i was at the other computer with the DAoCAccountProblems email address is, i was about to send it when i got distracted from my work by someone asking me a question, and this was right before i was going home from work, and now, while at home, i relized i forgot to send this email. So, i simply used my home email address. As Sanya reports on the Herald, no such thing would ever happen. She suggests in addition to deleting the mail that you, "see how creatively you can tell the author off." That is funny! Posted March 5 2003 by Div Devlin

Eve Online Date Changed: CCP Games sends word out to everyone that the ship date for Eve: The Second Genesis has officially changed. Originally expected in stores on March 25th (coinciding with the release date of Shadowbane by Ubi Soft) has been rescheduled to a release date of April 6th. From the Press Release: Reynir Hardarson, art director and co-founder of CCP explains the reasons for this short delay. "We have always stood firm on the commitment to release Eve only when felt it was time. Although the game is nearly finished, we felt it would be best to hold off an additional six weeks. This will allow us to fully optimize the performance of our new server cluster, implement features we have promised, and continue testing to assure the elimination of bugs that would interfere with the players' ability to enjoy the Eve experience to its fullest potential." While upsetting news to most, overall delay is a good thing! Posted March 5 2003 by Div Devlin

Shadowbane Goes Gold! Ubi Soft officially released thier press release announcing that Shadowbane by Wolfpack Studios has gone gold, and can be expected in stores on March 25th. The Age of Strife Begins March 25 San Francisco - March 5, 2003 - Ubi Soft Entertainment, one of the top ten video game publishers in the world, announced today that Shadowbane, the ground breaking massively-multiplayer online (MMO) game for both PC and Macintosh, has gone gold. Shadowbane has been designed and developed by Wolfpack Studios, based in Austin, Texas, and will be hosted and operated by ubi.com. Shadowbane makes its triumphant journey to retail shelves on March 25. Place your bets on how large of a download for patches users will have on opening day! Meanwhile, the official release trailer for the game has been sent out to select sites, you can download the file from either 3D Gamers, Gamers Hell, or Worth Playing. Shadowbane Fan Sites get dissed again. Posted March 5 2003 by Div Devlin

WWII Online, Financial Woes... Or Pay your damn bills! From the World War II Online boards venerable site Tech Pubs(Site is Dead) co-founder Beaz has stated the site has closed due to financial reasons associated with Strategy First not issuing payment's for work done on releasing the game to stores and ensuring product distribution upon shelves. SF owe TechPubs a sizeable chunk of money for the work that we did on the first 50,000 copies of WWIIOL that hit the shelves. We have not received one cent for our efforts. That was over a year and a half ago. It seems that contracts arn't worth the paper they are written on these days. Not to be confused with Cornered Rat or Playnet Strategy First has been contacted by intermediaries from Playnet to help resolve the issue, but as a third party as Rafter the Marketing Rep from Playnet replied,"There is only so much we can do as an outside party." This is not the first time that Gaming Companies have taken advantage of work and services performed by Fansites for games they have supported over the years. Doubtful this will be the last either. Posted March 5 2003 by Div Devlin

GDC Kicks Off: The Game Developers Conference kicks off this week, where industry folks all gather together for a week of seminars, round table discussions, workshops and demonstrations of games by the guys and gals who make the games we play. Expect a slow down in news this week as most announcements come out of GDC. We are going to try and make a last minute appearance down there, but with today being Tuesday, it does not look very promising. While waiting for content out of GDC, go check out this article that GameSpy has up from the D.I.C.E. convention which was in Las Vegas last week. "Lessons of Going Online" is a roundtable discussion feating Koster, McQuaid, Vogel and Wright. Posted March 4 2003 by Div Devlin

AC2 Hits 100 Days: Asheron's Call 2 is celebrating it's first one hundred days of release, and with it's anniversay comes a ton of updates. First up is a reminder for "Kens' Korner" where Ken Karl and Ken Troop answer the many questions of AC2 players. Then a new forum titled the "Developers Corner" has opened announcing why it exists and an introduction by the newest hire to join the team at Turbine as the "Executive Producer" for the AC2 Live Team, none other then... Jessica Mulligan. Congrats to AC2 and Jessica Mulligan! Heh! Posted March 4 2003 by Div Devlin

Earth and Beyond Team Moving Out: With the announcment last month of Westwood Studios' being shut down, we learn today that the folks behind Earth and Beyond have packed up shop and are now on the road, leaving Vegas behind as they head out to EA's Mega-Corp in Redwood. For those wondering how this will interrupt game service, they even left a note behind: While we're moving, we'll have intermittent access to the website and to email and the like. Of course, the galaxy servers are not being moved or anything so there will be no interruption in Earth & Beyond directly. Rainre, Silori and Jaxir will be posting on the message boards and also conducting chats in game (see the Events schedule). Please be kind to them as they hold down the fort for us! I'll try to look in too while moving... I have sooooo much to do to get everything packed and ready for the movers though. Farewell Westwood, we shall miss you. Hope your trip is a safe. As they mention, unpacking is going to suck. Posted March 4 2003 by Div Devlin

Neocron Stories Moved: Neocron announced yesterday that they have moved the game storyline events to the new weekly issues of the Neochronicle. So if you want to keep up with the storyline events, it's suggested to check out the Neochronicle. Heh? (I needed filler, K!) Posted March 4 2003 by Div Devlin

SWG: Developer Letter... Star Wars Galxies has a new Team Comments posted, this one from World Builder Michael Farone as he strolls down memory lane from childhood and leads into what he is doing now. Working on Star Wars Galaxies. Which kind of leads into what I’m doing now. As a designer and world builder, I get to help breathe life into the many planets that make up Star Wars Galaxies. Before that happens, though, many others do their part. Worth the read. Posted March 4 2003 by Div Devlin

Anarchy Online Want's You Back! If you used to have an Anarchy Online account but closed it, FunCom want's you to come back and take a new look at their 'booster pack' "The Notum Wars" in which it expands upon the original release of the game. They are even unlocking closed accounts for those of you who hit level 50 and decided enough was enough. Read On: Funcom has today unlocked cancelled Anarchy Online accounts for a 30 day free trial of the The Notum Wars. The motivation behind the initiative is to allow people to try out the award-winning booster pack with their old characters. [...] The trial will give former Anarchy Online subscribers a chance to see for themselves why the game received the coveted "Editor's Choice" award from IGN in December 2002, and why Computer Gaming World characterised the game as "Enhanced, Updated, and all-around fantastic" in their March 2003 issue. Additionally it will be a good opportunity for the players to scope out all the new content that's been added to Anarchy Online over the last year. I don't think Watts' will give it a go, but you can. Posted March 3 2003 by Div Devlin

Dragon Empires Dev Diary: If you have been following Dragon Empires this month, no doubt you have seen all the great concept art for the weapons they have been releasing. Well there is a story to go along with it, as the latest Developer Diary has been posted from the Art Team. As well as the new concepts they hope you find the diary interesting. I did. Check it. Posted March 3 2003 by Div Devlin

Merdian 59's New Look: Near Death Studios' snuck this update passed us, and did not even tell us! Venerable classic Merdian 59: Resurrection is getting all new and shiney looking as they enhanced the graphics within game. As they tell us: We at Near Death Studios have been working on an exciting new enhancement to Meridian 59. Although we’re not quite ready to release, the results so far have been so impressive that we wanted to share with you all now. We have been working on a completely new client for Meridian 59! The new client is being created with the help of our newest team member, MisterY. MisterY is very excited about joining the Meridian 59 project and will be available to discuss the game changes in forums and online in game. Our first step in building a better client is the creation of a completely new world-rendering engine. Over time we hope to continue to work other areas of the client to make it more user friendly and powerful for players, with more features and easier access to existing features. The hope is that these changes will not only make the game more enjoyable for our long time fans, (you all), but that the new client changes will also attract more players to the game and help keep new players past the first few minutes where currently they suffer from pixel-shock. You can check out a before and after picture too! It looks good. Check out the full update and welcome to MisterY who joined the team! Posted March 3 2003 by Div Devlin

Shadowbane Community News: Sachant from SBV has a new event journal up and running, this one named "The Sin Within" depicting event's which took place within the beta and with feature character's driving the story. "Herald Sachant reports about a fascinating tale of a powerful Confessor named Mandemus. This Temple leader attempts to unite the various Temple of the Cleansing Flame guilds from all across Tyrranth, his mission is to seek out and destroy a powerful ex-Confessor who has turned to the Shadow and become a Vampyre." Give it a read. Valkyrie of Aerynth Sanctum got her name up in light's on the Shadowbane site with her first pre-Herald (Congrats!) write up in a guide to playing Furies within game. It's a great class guide. If this is the quality that's getting delivered for the players, there is no doubt the strategy guide is going to rock too! A Real man would actually own up when getting called to task. You are not going to find that though over on PKer.org when they got owned by legal departments. No matter how you spin it, they were on borrowed time and the clock stopped. We believe ya, sure we do. Posted March 3 2003 by Div Devlin

SWG: To Buy, or Not to Buy? Rumor has it around town that Sony has actually crossed the line and is now a offical pixel-dealer. In the best marketing scam manuever ebar (sp: Ever)! employee's of EBGames were delighted to learn with a company e-mail that they will be getting into the next round of beta for Star Wars Galaxies in an effort to help maximize sales to customer's when asked how the game is. On the boards for SWG someplace, rumors are even running around that employee's will get five beta accounts and not just one. Ofcourse this could all just be hype. Nah. Didn't think so either. I'm waiting to read it posted on Internal Memo's. Waterthread has some awesome "intelligent" discussion going on about why or why not to buy Star Wars Galaxies on it's release with both camps weighing in equally about the pro's and con's of the game. Some examples: From the Why Crowd: * Graphics. My God, the graphics. * Non-fighting advancement. I pray that you really can open up a shop and advance your character through means other than whack-a-mole. * Raph's name. I believe in Raph's vision and have faith in his abilty to break the mold. * Player housing. * A rich backstory. I really need to start reading some SW books. * Graphics. From the Why Not Crowd: * One character per server * Anemic PvP system * No space travel/combat * No vehicles * I am not sure I like the Jedi System Head on over and give it a read. Posted March 3 2003 by Div Devlin