Continue reading »]]>

Terraria is an action-adventure/RPG indie game released by independent game studio Re-Logic. The game features exploration, crafting, building structures and combat with a variety of creatures.

Released on May 16, 2011, the game is estimated to have sold about 50,000 copies during its first day of release, with over 17,000 players online at the same time during the first day’s peak. Over the course of a week, 200,000 copies of the game were sold, making it the top selling game on Steam for the week, “ahead of games like The Witcher 2 and Portal 2.” It remained number one on Steam for the first six days of its release before it eventually dropped to the number two slot.

Other Information

• Developer : Re-Logic
• Producer : Jeremy “Blue” Guerrette
• Programmer : Andrew “Redigit” Spinks
• Version : 1.0.2
• Platforms :
  • Windows XP
  • Windows Vista
  • Windows 7
• Genre : Indie side scroller action-adventure/RPG
• Modes : Single-player, multiplayer (co-op or PvP)

Incoming search terms:

• terraria logo
• terraria logo relogic
• terraria title screen

Continue reading »]]> Burda:ic, a publisher of online games worldwide, today released a major update for the free-to-play, maritime MMORPG Florensia. The update includes a number of smaller changes, from land quest balancing to slight modifications to the user interface, but the biggest addition comes in the form of elemental resistances and attributes. These additions permeate the structure of the entire game so players both new and old will find the fantasy world of Florensia an exciting and dangerous place to adventure.

Each skill in the game has been assigned an elemental aspect like Fire, Ice, or Holy. In addition, monsters and characters now carry resistances to the various elements. Thus, players in Florensia should be wary in choosing their foes, as they might find they just aren’t doing as much damage as expected. Parties no longer simply mean strength in numbers; they mean a wider range of damage across the elemental spectrum.

Of course, these new skills aren’t limited to the players. Four of Florensia’s major bosses have discovered elemental abilities of their own, making them all the more dangerous for those who would challenge them. Be especially cautious if your travels bring you face-to-face with Lanoir, Draug Brenin, Vampire Lord Robinson, or Serbetus, as their newfound powers may spell your doom.

About Florensia

• Florensia is a free-to-play, maritime MMORPG that blends vibrant, colorful graphics with classically accessible gameplay. Choosing one of four starting classes, from the sword-wielding Mercenary to the spell casting Noble, players will do battle with a huge variety of weapons and magical abilities as they explore expansive, underground dungeons and sail uncharted seas. Thousands of players have already signed up and headed out in search of adventure, and there has never a better time to join them in the wild and wonderful world of Florensia.

About Burda:ic

• Burda:ic GmbH is an online games publisher that markets and distributes massively multiplayer online games (MMOG) such as Ragnarok Online, Florensia, and Hello Kitty Online. Furthermore, Burda:ic has established interactive gamer communities like alaplaya.eu or sanriotown.com. More information about Burda:ic is available at www.burda-ic.com.

Incoming search terms:

• Published News Upcoming News Submit a New Story Groups elements of music
• Published News Upcoming News Submit a New Story Groups mercenaries 2 weapons
• florensia
• Published News Upcoming News Submit a New Story Groups elements of art
• Published News Upcoming News Submit a New Story Groups spectra physics
• Published News Upcoming News Submit a New Story Groups world adventure travel

Continue reading »]]> Last August, Las Vegas-based developer Petroglyph unintentionally made headlines. The shop, which traditionally specialized in such real-time strategy games as Star Wars: Empire at War and Universe at War: Earth Assault, posted a job listing for a massively multiplayer online role-playing game designer.

The position’s duties were described in detail, with the hire being “responsible for understanding, refining, maintaining, and disseminating the game design vision, game design, mission building, gameplay balancing, and game proposal development of a massive multiplayer online game.”

With such unambiguity, the question wasn’t if Petroglyph would announce an MMOG, but when: Today, as it turns out. This afternoon, the company unveiled Mytheon, a new project that will focus on the same Greek mythology that inspired God of War. According to the developer the game “uniquely combines the best elements of action, strategy and RPG gameplay with a heavy emphasis on collectability and combat.”

“Emphasis” indeed: Mytheon will be free to play, getting its income solely from microtransactions. Gameplay will center on a variety of “power stones” that can be used to cast spells or summon minions. In real-time combat, the game’s three character classes will each specialize in a different type of stone, which presumably must be purchased a la cards in Magic: The Gathering. Mytheon will also feature more traditional MMORPG elements such as player versus player, group raiding, and social networking services in addition to solo play.

Published by Orange County-based start-up True Games, which is controlled by Indian multimedia company UTV Software Communications, Mytheon will go online in fall 2009. Though no specific territories were mentioned in the announcement, the teaser site for the game has region-specific editions for the United States, Spain, Turkey, Germany, and France. It should be noted that the site also references Norse mythology, with allusions to the Egyptian pantheon appearing Mytheon’s press materials.

Continue reading »]]> Its about the shift from teamwork to individuals’ goals and the third-person camera.

Battlefield Heroes: Better than Team Fortress 2?

Work continues on Battlefield Heroes despite the recent closure of the game’s beta, and producer Aleksander Grondal recently talked it up with Gamasutra. Grondal isn’t a Battlefield developer veteran, instead having previously worked on Anarchy Online and Dreamfall at Funcom. As such, he brings a different mentality to the team working on Heroes, which he claims is a mixture of half newcomers to the series and half previous Battlefield developers.

The different mentality is largely an MMO mentality – which is most immediately apparent in the game’s new third-person camera which has been one of the main attention-getters ever since Heroes was first shown. Grondal said of the new view:

• The main thing about the third person: It’s about seeing your character. I don’t think many people are interested in investing in their physical, visual appearance of the characters when they never can see them.
• Seeing your character, and seeing that the new item that you have is actually on your character, adds a feeling of attachment to him, from a visual standpoint.
• The other thing is, we tried to make this more accessible, and I think that seeing your character in the world next to a barrel makes him more connected to the world.
• For new players, it might be more accessible, seeing your character – if I run up to something, and suddenly it stops in first-person, it’s, “Oh! I need to look down; there’s something there!” But when you’re in third-person, you actually see a bit more of the world, and your character’s relation to the world.
• Initially there, were some concerns, with Heroes, that third-person was wrong for a Battlefield game, but I think that once you actually try to play around with it, it feels pretty much the same. Once you actually get the hang of it, it won’t be such an issue anymore.

Another of the major changes to the game’s formula is the focus on individual goals rather than previous Battlefield’s focus on working as a team towards a singular goal. While the one current game mode in Heroes does involve capping points as a team and eliminating enemies, that’s pushed towards the wayside by the mission system, which is ever so faintly reminiscent of Quake Wars. You now select goals before you start playing and then set out to accomplish them by the end of that game. Goals range from getting a certain number of kills on a particular class or running over a certain number of enemies. Grondal explained, “It’s like, ‘Why is this guy always trying to drive over people?’ So I think that creates cool moments that aren’t just getting the best kill-to-death ratio; I think it’s about cool experiences.”

Following the delay that was announced in November, Heroes is now expected to have a proper release in 2009. We’ll see then if Electronic Arts’ gamble will have been worth it.

Continue reading »]]> The update you’ve all been waiting for, 1.0.6, is almost here! We wanted to thank everyone who tested and provided feedback on this update’s content.

On Tuesday, 12/2/08 all servers will be brought offline to begin the update. North American servers will be brought down at 6:30AM EST with Oceanic servers to follow at 9:00AM EST.

This is our biggest update yet! It’s chock-full of exciting career changes and heralds the debut of the highly anticipated Black Guard and Knight of the Blazing Sun careers.

If you’ve finished the Heavy Metal event and have opened your Heavy Metal Chest, then you will be able to play a Black Guard and Knight of the Blazing Sun when this patch goes live (before anyone else!). For those of you who did not complete the Heavy Metal event, don’t fret! You, too, will be able to play these two new careers starting next week.

This update is so massive that we needed to split the notes into two sections.

Highlights

• New Careers Released! – With this version we are happy to announce the release of the Empire’s Knight of the Blazing Sun, and the Dark Elf’s Black Guard! These new careers are available early for players who have successfully completed the Heavy Metal Event!
• Mastery Point Refunds – Due to a number of significant changes to many of our careers, we are providing a full Mastery Point refund to certain careers. Players who belong to one of the careers below will need to speak with a Trainer to retrain their Career Mastery:
  • Bright Wizard
  • Chosen
  • Engineer
  • Ironbreaker
  • Magus
  • Shadow Warrior
  • Sorcerer
  • Squig Herder
  • Swordmaster

• Morale Responsiveness – Morale abilities will now be much more responsive. These abilities will now fire immediately when activated by the player on the first attempt, and will display their cooldowns correctly at all times.
• Root Responsiveness – We have made a number of adjustments to root spells to ensure that they break properly and feel more responsive to players. Changes include a chance to break on ANY damage including DoT damage, as well as a 5 second immunity to being rooted again after the current root effect breaks.
• Auto-Attack Animations – Improvements have been made to auto-attack animations. Players will now see smoother, more consistent weapon swaps when players change from ranged to melee auto-attacks, and vice versa.
• Ability Activation Responsiveness - The responsiveness of ability activations has been improved. Players will now see less of a delay between the activation of an ability and the corresponding animation.
• Guild Promotion/Demotion – Fixes have been made to issues which were causing guild promotion and demotion to not work properly.

Combats

• We’ve fixed an issue that was causing the buff icon on various marketing rewards to display incorrectly.
• We fixed an issue that was causing weapons and armor to not display their proc effects in the item display.
• Opponents may no longer right-click item effects to remove them from themselves, and the Boost, Blades, Barrier, and Barricade effects will now proc far more reliably.
• Tactics gained from Tome Unlocks have been renamed.
• Damage over Time abilities: The amount that stats contribute to the damage of these abilities has been made consistent across the board. This generally resulted in an increase in damage, but some abilities have also been brought down. Individual abilities are noted in the specific careers’ sections below.
• All Unstoppable tooltips will now mention Knockdown.
• Root effects, with the exception of Morale Roots, will now grant a 5 second Freedom effect to the victim when they break, and will no longer stack with other roots.
• Root effects will now properly have a chance to break on ANY damage event. This includes individual tics of Damage over Time spells.
• Fixed assorted issues where certain movement reductions/increases would stack, slowing or speeding targets more than intended. This also addresses cases where snared players would find themselves essentially rooted when in lava.
• All Tactics now give their bonus when the character that has them slotted is stealthed, mounted, or has a Standard out.

• Centuries of Training (Elves): The tooltip for this Tactic has been changed to be more clear.
• Sigmar’s Favor (Empire): This Tactic will now be triggered only by direct heals.
• Stoutness of Stone (Dwarfs): This Tactic will once again reduce the effectiveness of Stuns and Knockdowns.
• Tzeentch’s Warding (Chaos): This Tactic will now get the bonus when the character is mounted.

Archetype Abilities

• Alter Fate: This ability’s tooltip now displays the correct values.
• Champion’s Challenge: Neither the player nor the player’s enemy may be knocked back while this Morale is in effect.
• Divine Protection: This ability now lists the amount of damage absorbed in the tooltip.
• Force of Will: This ability will now display a visual effect when used.
• Frenzied Slaughter: This ability will now display a visual effect when used.
• Juggernaut: This ability will only fire when the player is rooted, snared, silenced, or disarmed.
• Misdirection: This ability will now display an effect on the caster while the ability is active, and place a brief effect on anyone damaged by the effect.
• Point Blank: This ability will now correctly ignore Knockback and Knockdown immunity, as well as not trigger it.
• Rampaging Siphon: This Morale ability will no longer be affected by points spent in Career Mastery. Additionally, this ability now heals the group for each target hit, instead of only once.
• Raze: This channeled ability will no longer be interrupted while on the move.
• Relentless Assault: This ability will now display n visual effect when used. Additionally, the ability will no longer remove snares and roots.
• Restorative Burst: This tactic’s tooltip now correctly states the number of Action Points gained from triggering it.

• Balance Essence: The damage for this ability has been increased.
• Balanced Mending: The HoT portion of Healing Energy will now benefit from this tactic. Additionally, this ability will now correctly provide a bonus to heals on other players, and a penalty to heals on the caster.
• Boon of Hysh: This ability has had its cast time reduced to 2.5 seconds, and the setback amount reduced to half a second.
• Dissipating Energies: The amount that stats contribute to the damage of this ability has been increased slightly to make it consistent with other Damage over Time abilities.
• Drain Magic: This ability will now increase in potency with High Magic. In addition, damage will now correctly increase based on Career Mastery Points spent in the Path of Asuryan instead of the Path of Vaul.
• Funnel Essence: This ability will now correctly behave like a channeled ability, will channel correctly, and will correctly heal the target.
• Healing Energy: The stat contribution for this ability has been fixed. This was previously receiving more stat benefits than intended.
• Hurried Restore: This tactic will now stun the player when the resurrect is cast, instead of when it is accepted.
• Increased Conductivity: This Tactic will now increase the damage for all abilities listed in the tooltip.
• Law of Conductivity: The amount that stats contribute to the damage of this ability has been slightly increased to make it consistent with other Damage over Time abilities.
• Mistress of the Marsh: This ability has had its cast time reduced.
• Prismatic Shield: This ability will no longer fail if the caster’s defensive target is not a group member.
• Radiant Gaze: The amount that stats contribute to the damage of this ability has been increased to make it consistent with other Damage over Time abilities. Also, this ability will now correctly reduce the target’s chance to critical hit and damage by the correct amount.
• Radiant Lance: This ability will now reliably consume High Magic.
• Rain Lord: The tooltip for this effect now lists all stats affected.
• Scatter the Winds: The amount that stats contribute to the damage of this ability has been increased slightly to make it consistent with other Damage over Time abilities.
• Storm of Cronos: This ability will now correctly reduce Spirit resistance for the correct amount.
• Transfer Force: This ability’s damage has increased. Additionally, the amount that stats contribute to the damage of this ability has been increased to make it consistent with other Damage over Time abilities.
• Wild Healing: This tactic will now correctly provide a 50% reduction to AP costs on direct healing abilities when triggered.

Continue reading »]]> New Free to Play Online Hunting Game Merges Realistic Hunting Action With Social Network Functionality
Emote Games, an online games publisher, and Avalanche Studios, a game developer specializing in state of the art, real-life landscape technology, have formed a best of breed partnership to launch The Hunter, a free to play online hunting game that artfully combines the most realistic hunting action, with the community and functionality of a social networking site.

Entering its beta testing phase next month, The Hunter features an incredibly realistic and visually detailed hunting environment with true to life animal behaviors.  Uniquely, the game gives players the social network tools and web interface to build an online community of hunters, all of whom experience the thrill of the hunt within a connected environment.

Players can track and hunt a huge variety of animals from small varmints to big game and is packed full of challenges, tournaments and competitions, allowing the gamer to work closely with other players to complete objectives while striving for that perfect shot and that record buck.

By using the social interface to post journal entries and images of their latest trophies, players can show their in-game hunts to their friends and the wider online community.  Thanks to its online presence, The Hunter will continually evolve with regular updates and the release of new features, including new missions, hunting gear, animals and varied hunting terrains and habitats.  Most importantly, the development team behind The Hunter is committed to maintaining an ongoing dialogue with its online community to contribute ideas and suggestions for the game to make it the most realistic hunting experience available.

Christofer Sundberg, Avalanche Founder & Creative Director said: “The Hunter offers an amazing real-life hunting experience.  Using our next-generation landscape engine we are able to recreate the ‘out in the field’ hunting experience that includes a wide range of weather, animal behavior and terrain that can be shared within the gaming community as well as across other popular social networks to extend this phenomenally rich game experience.”

As the game continually develops, Emote Games anticipates The Hunter to become a top destination for gamers and fans of hunting games.  Emote is currently in talks with a range of potential partners to gain valuable insight into the world of hunting in order to offer a full and varied hunting experience as close to the real thing as possible.
Adds Morgan O’Rahilly, CEO, Emote Games:  “We are delighted to be working with Avalanche Studios.  Emote is passionate about making this game as true to life as possible, so when it came to choosing a development partner, we wanted to ensure we were working with the best.

We are currently in discussions with hunting communities across the US to develop long-term mutual partnerships with experts and suppliers to make The Hunter the world’s best hunting game.”

The Hunter will be available on PC and web with mobile and console versions to follow.  Visit www.thehunter.com  to register to participate in the open beta program and receive free updates.

Continue reading »]]> Metal Gear Online is a dedicated online title released with Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, an exclusive title for PS3, which took the market by storm on its release in June. Featuring characters, weaponry and levels taken from and inspired by Metal Gear Solid 4, Metal Gear Online allows up to 16 people to play simultaneously. The online game retains the famed stealth combat gameplay of the Metal Gear series, players are dropped in a series of war zones wherein different challenges await.

The Meme Expansion unveils two new special characters, which are playable for the first time. Liquid Ocelot enters the fray with the ability to manipulate the Sons of the Patriots’ lock system using his Guns of the Patriots skills, and can also deactivate the weaponry of a targeted for within Metal Gear Online’s multi-player modes. Similarly, Mei Ling comes into play with three unique attributes, including the Trench Mortar weapon, Soliton Sonar capabilities, and the means to transfix enemies.

Three new maps have also been created, with the rough, uneven industrial elements of Silo Sunset, the dense foliage of Forest Firefight and a snow-blown deserted factory called Winter Warehouse available for the first time. The download also implements a number of new rules, which are also now available without the Meme Expansion update. A new ‘No Headshot’ setting allows players to attribute the same level of damage when shot in the head to that of a regular body shot. ‘Stealth Death Match’ allows users to compete with the stealth elements switched on automatically; while the ‘Interval’ setting allows used to practice and chat with each other within the battlefield, without their ranking or records being adversely affected.

An official Tournament lobby has also been created to pit players in battle situations where points are up for grabs and can be spent on the customisation of a character or on new gear. Likewise, a series of familiar humorous elements can also be used within the customise field, including the Crocodile Cap made famous in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, the Ghillie Suite camo from the same game, and an afro hair style.

Metal Gear Online fans will be able to pre-purchase the Meme Expansion elements for 7,99 Euro from November 18th, with a bundle containing both the new elements and the previous Gene Expansion update also available at the same date for 12,99 Euro. Users can access the new additions of the Meme Expansion after the official start on November 25th.

WorthPlaying