Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Almost forgot there was another Bioware game in the offing (two, in fact – Mass Effect 2 also looms) amidst all this cheery chatter about Dragon Age. The Old Republic remains The New Hope of both Star Wars games and mainstream MMOs, and while we’re all lacking a clear picture of quite how it’s going to play, Bioware are at least providing a steady drip-feed of new info. This time, some of their thinking behind the Jedi class, and the revelation of what another class will be – boo-hiss-baddies, these ones…

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Well, up to the first 10 levels anyway. It’s quite the move; replacing the traditional 10-day trial, you’re now able to play Warhammer Online as much as you like. You can’t go past the first ten levels, but that still allows you to try all the character classes to see if any fixes. Also, rather than the enormo-client download, the game’s been re-jigged to work on a Guild-Wars-esque streaming basis. So you can just go and get it here and start playing. If I get a chance, I plan to actually go back and have a nose – I’ve heard some interesting word on stuff they’ve been doing on the quiet, and I want to see if it’s true or not. How’s RPS’ Warhammer-playing readers finding it?

Just a hyper-quick post on this, as it had somehow slipped my mind. The recently-released Superhero MMO Champions Online is free to play this weekend. All the details are here, including their Blood Moon Halloween event. And if you want a taste of what it’s like, here’s our What I Think. Who’s still playing Champions? How’s it changed since then?

I admit, I haven’t looked closely at RTS-MMO World of Battles yet, but a release of a new Beta caught my attention today. Partially, because last night’s GMAs have destroyed 50% of RPS so any images you put in front of us provoke staring, but partially because a big old Free MMO RTS… well, that could be cool, right? You can download the just shy of 800Mb client from their site if you want to try, but since the site’s currently doing maintenance, you won’t be able to make an account and play until later. And here’s a fan video to show what it looks like…
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Darkwind is an indie-MMO thing I’ve been meaning to look at which I’m just going to post (Jim tried, but the login system was failing then – seems to be okay now). Hail Shaun, who’s been pretty insistent in shouting about it. It’s basically a turn-based vehicular game. Think Car Wars or – if you’re terminally games-workshoppy – Dark Future. Or, if you’re Shaun: “Think of the tabletop game Car Wars having sex with EVE Online, then doing a threesome with Autoduel and Auto Assault, and finally making out with Football Manager”. Crikey, Shaun. Why don’t you just make out with it with tongues and everything? I’ll investigate when my schedule opens up a little, but until then, here’s some footage…
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I was thinking about blogging about this weekend in City of Heroes being one of those double-XP-and-reactivate-all-old-accounts weekends that MMOs like to throw… but the news breaking on another interesting initiative pushed possible into definite. You’re aware that the Cities games have a level designer function, allowing players to design their own arcs? Well, since this is flexible and accessible enough, Paragon have started a Guest Writer program where they bring published authors to do a mission. The first four – from Bill Willingham (FABLES), Rooster Teeth (RED vs. BLUE) and Scott Kurtz (PvP) – debut on Tuesday, and you’ll find the details below…
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Eskil Steenberg sends word that he’s opening up the alpha of his game to the public. Because it requires servers to be run to test it, he’s asking money for access at this eatly stage. You will be helping test a game, but the fee is relatively small. You can get it for 3 Euros, which is about £2.80. HOWEVER, it is not a finished product and/or service, and it is the work of a one man team. If you don’t like the idea of paying for an explicitly unfinished game, then this is not for you. If you want access to a weird and beautiful indie MMO, and to help make it work in the long run, then get your wallet out. To be sure it runs on your PC please download the client and get the alpha access details via the game itself. That way, says Eskil, you can be sure the game will function on your machine, as the world displays in the menu screen. You can follow Eskil’s ongoing updates on Twitter. And very brief first impressions follow…
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How do you besiege a mirky wood? Expect to find out shortly, when Turbine release its Digital Download pack for Lord of the Rings online. It’s a digital download pack rather than something you can buy in the shop, and features… oh, lots of stuff. Raised level cap. Jump-in Skirmish Feature (Which sounds a little like what Warhammer does). Kicking over Dol Guldur, which is a place which has always deserved a good kicking. Lots of stuff, but there’s some interesting bonuses for this. For example, any returning (or current) player who upgrades their sub for multiple months before October 31st will get it for free. Which strikes me as smart. I’m particularly affectionate towards Mirkwood today, as my girlfriend has given me a amusingly photoshopped picture of Beorn in bear form with a Kenickie badge on his ursine lapel. See more of its features here, catch a glance at the first grabs here and watch some footage taken with a camera at Pax below…
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Here’s a bit of sad news. The free MMO Dungeon Runners is to close down this New Year. Here’s a bit of personal guilty news. I haven’t played it for so long. Which is a shame, because amongst the seventy three trillion free MMOs currently available online, Dungeons Runners was the one taking the piss. The producer and lead programmer of the NC Soft project, Stephen Nichols, wrote a post on the game’s site explaining that due to not making enough money the game will cease to be. But it’s going to go out having fun.

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Today on “Games We’ve Barely Posted About And We Don’t Know Why”, Vogster’s Unreal 3-powered guns’n'gangs MMO Crimecraft. It’s like Warcraft, but with Crime instead of War. Teasing its name aside, it’s a fun idea – GTA’s on-foot element as persistent online world, in theory. In practice, well, we dunno. There’s a hint of sorts in that it doesn’t like to call itself an MMO, instead opting for “Persistent World Next-gen Shooter.” Seeing as it was released today, I’m rather hoping someone reading this has a pretty good sense of what it’s really like and if it’s any cop. (Cop! Ha! Sigh.) Care to share? Meantime, let’s have a look at some videos of the thing and have a nose at its odd subscription model.
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