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ChangYou preparing Shadowbane reboot

April 14th, 2012 RPG Gaming

Yesterday at a big media conference where ChangYou revealed several new titles, the company’s Vice President revealed that the company secured the Shadowbane IP rights and is developing an online game mentioned as “World of Shadowbane”. Having been part of the original Shadowbane China operating team, he said that the game left him with some regrets. No other information was given. Update: “World of Shadowbane” at this point has been in development for 1 year already. This reminded me of NetDragon’s Dungeon Keeper Online (link).

At the media event, a total of 6 other MMOs were revealed, although most are in codenames such as Project X7 and Project M. Having got the rights for both CryEngine 3 and Unreal Engine 3, they will be used to develop several upcoming titles. These games were teased to be of several different genres, including 1 with a Diablo III feel, one which is an action combat game and an adventure MMO along the lines of Tomb Raider.

DaVinci Online was also part of the announcement, which was reported several months ago (link). Developed in Korea, ChangYou obtained global rights for the online shooter inspired by the Renaissance era, which means gamers can expect an English server in the near future. There will be an iPad version as well.



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LoreHound Crier: The Week in a Glance

April 14th, 2012 RPG Gaming

It’s been an exciting week here at LoreHound! PAX East happened last weekend, and I wish I could have gone with iTZKooPA. But he was busy stalking game developers while there, and brought back a bunch of interviews which are in the process of being smoothed out and put online for everyone to see. I’m obviously biased, but I think they’re some of the best video interviews I’ve seen and and I’ve really been enjoying watching them. I can’t wait for the rest of them to be finished up! Thanks everyone for bringing these interviews to all of us who were unable to attend!

Now that I have gotten my PAX excitement out of the way, welcome to my very first weekly recap! Every Friday, barring strange and unexpected circumstances – which will hopefully be few and far between – I’ll be summing up the week and providing links to the week’s events. So if it’s been particularly busy and things have been pushed off the front page too quickly, you can catch up here. I’ll do my best to keep my commentary short and to the point, although I’m not entirely certain how well I’ll succeed as I can be rather loquacious and pithy when left alone. But, on to the show!

  • Mike summed up TERA’s Closed Beta 5 with a preview of the Velika Invasion Event.
  • PAX Interview with Executive Producer, Fernando Paiz about DDO’s upcoming expansion Menace of the Underdark. Enter the Druid! And Epic levels! Watch the second part here.
  • Warhammer Online: Wrath of Heroes entered open beta, and Mike has a limited code to use for Easter goodies for those who sign up.
  • I reported a deck builder for The Secret World, created by a poster on the Secret World official forums. I’ve already had hours of fun playing with this.
  • PAX Interview with Todd Harris of Hi-Rez Studios about the future of Tribes: Ascend. Learn about future content and spreadsheets. Yay, spreadsheets!
  • Mike talks about pre-orders for Guild Wars 2.
  • TERA’s early start is now a lot earlier. Read what Mike has to say about it here.
  • Randy reviewed Tangleroot Gorge, an adventure pack in Dungeons and Dragons Online.
  • PAX Interview with Christina Sims in a brilliant Vanessa VanCleef cosplay. LoreHound exclusive!
  • SWTOR delayed Ranked Warzones, an expected feature of patch 1.2. Read about Mike’s disappointment and watch the trailer for Explosive Conflict, the new Operation. Also, free gametime!
  • PAX Interview with Lead Producer Andy Velasquez about Neverwinter, Cryptic’s upcoming D&D MMORPG. LoreHound Exclusive!
  • PAX Interview with Todd Harris about the future of MOBAs and Hi-Rez’s upcoming game SMITE.
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Eyedentity Games developing 3rd online game

April 13th, 2012 RPG Gaming

After announcing Dungeon Striker (link) just a couple of days ago, Korean media website Inven confirmed that the company is currently developing a “large scale” MMORPG as its 3rd game. While details are scarce including the name and genre, the 3 lead members for the team was revealed. They are all from Nexon, with experience in planning/ programming/ motion capture among many other skills for games including Mabinogi and Mabinogi Heroes. The first hint of the team’s formation was discovered when one of the members posted on Twitter Korea about his new role.


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SWTOR: Free Game-time for Everyone

April 13th, 2012 RPG Gaming

To help celebrate update 1.2, BioWare is giving all current and previous Star Wars: The Old Republic players some free game-time.

Current players, who have a level 50 character, get 30 free days added to to their accounts. The 30 free days begins as soon as their current subscriptions expires, but be careful, because it will automatically resubscribe you after the 30 free days are up if you don’t cancel before than.

I nice gesture, but a bit underhanded as well, as I’m sure quite a few people will forget to cancel it and start getting billed again. Of course everyone does it, not just EA or BioWare, but that doesn’t make it right. If you’re gonna give out 30 free days, just give out the 30 free days, don’t automatically start billing people again in-case they forget or quit long before then.

Past players, who no longer have active subscriptions, will receive 7 free days starting today and will last until April 21st, giving them a chance to check out update 1.2, without having to resubscribe.

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Bioware sees risk that people quit SWTOR at the level cap

April 13th, 2012 RPG Gaming
Well, they didn’t say that * explicitly*. But how do you explain this promotion, where players with a level capped character receive a free month of subscription, while those who played for exactly the same time and paid exactly the same money are declared being less valued customers because they didn’t reach the level cap? Handing out free subscriptions always smack a bit of desperation, but this targeting of players with level capped characters must mean that Bioware sees a high risk of these players abandoning ship otherwise. And while I only have anecdotal evidence, I think that this must be based on lots of people actually leaving after having “played through” SWTOR.

This wouldn’t be unexpected at all. The unique selling point of SWTOR is how it tells the story of your character while leveling up. That part of the game simply ceases to exist at the level cap, which makes the “endgame” of SWTOR even less attractive compared to the leveling game than in other MMORPGs. The whole Legacy system is basically Bioware saying “Don’t go yet! Play an alt instead!”. And even that solution has its limits. You can play SWTOR through only twice before starting to repeat quests, once on each side. With the planet sequence for each side being mostly linear, and most planet quests not being class-related, if you play either Empire or Republic twice, you are bound to do a lot of quests you already know.

If you sell a game on the strength of it’s stories, you mustn’t be surprised if people quit once the stories run out. But a promotion in which people who unsubscribe get 7 days subscription free, people who didn’t unsubscribe but are at risk of doing so because they reached the level cap get 30 days subscription free, and everybody else gets absolutely nothing is rather stupid. Bioware is basically punishing their *really* loyal subscribers, those who played lots of alts instead of rushing through the game. Bad move, Bioware!

Tobold’s Blog

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