Yearly Archives: 2012

Marvel Avengers Alliance

Marvel Avengers Alliance is an MMORPG that lets you recruit several popular Marvel superheroes. You join the ranks of S.H.I.E.L.D. and put together a team of heroes to help defend Manhattan against evil. You can develop your teams abilities, and take their stats in whichever direction you choose. In addition to fighting against a wide variety of villains, you can also fight other teams in PvP combat, to test and prove your skills.

 

 

Features

 

Variety of heroes: From Spider-Man to Wolverine, Thor to Hawkeye, there is a vast amount of heroes in Marvel Avengers Alliance. Recruit your team and fight for justice!

 

Character development: Train your heroes to unlock a variety of unique abilities, and develop their stats using ISO-8 to create a team of powerhouses.

 

Turn-based combat: Each battle offers strategic elements, as well as stunning animations and a wide variety of effects. Master them all for success!

 

Recognizable villains: Fight against legends such as Magneto, Green Goblin, and Sabertooth, defending the city against their devastation!

 

OnRPG Shotgun News 9/10: RF Online, TSW, Gunbound, and Rakion

OnRPG Shotgun News 9/10: RF Online, TSW, Gunbound, and Rakion

By Shannon Doyle (Leliah), OnRPG Journalist

 

 

 

RF Online Launches on GamesCampus

GamesCampus has officially announced that they have taken over service of RF Online and relaunched it. To celebrate the occasion RF Online is hosting a Race to Level event. Winners will receive all sorts of prizes during the event.

 

 

The Secret World Delays Issue 2

Funcom has announced that Issue 2, Digging Deeper would be delayed for one day. This is to insure that the paint has had time to dry and that everything is tested one last time before launch. Expect to see Digging Deeper on Wednesday September 12th now.

 

 

Gunbound Marks 10th Anniversary

Gunbound is celebrating it’s 10th anniversary with a third season. With over 300,000 players it is one of the longest lived casual MMOs. A new server called “Team Battle” is also due to be opened.

 

 

Rakion Update Coming This Month

Throughout September Rakion will be updating. Along with the new armor, cells and rings there is a new, free costume available on Twitter and Facebook. And if you don’t have a Basilisk now is your chance to try for one with a Unique Creature Bag in the shop. There will also be big changes to the UI which will be announced on the website.

Stronghold Kingdoms Still 2nd Most Popular Free-to-Play Game on Steam

Stronghold Kingdoms Still 2nd Most Popular Free-to-Play Game on Steam

 

Stronghold Kingdoms

 

Firefly Studios today announced that Stronghold Kingdoms has remained the second most popular free-to-play game on Steam for over six months.

 

 

Stronghold Kingdoms has made a name for itself on the Steam platform since its launch on the service six months ago. Claiming the number two spot in Steam’s free-to-play section ahead of titles like APB Reloaded and Age of Empires Online, Kingdoms has remained the second most popular free-to-play game for more than six months now.

 

 

Instantly popular with Steam users and showing few signs of slowing down, Kingdoms has managed to hold off against newcomers to the free-to-play space. Well-received games like Tribes: Ascend and Blacklight: Retribution have since entered the charts, but have done little to dethrone Kingdoms from its spot at number two. The game has even managed to break into the overall top ten played games on Steam, a chart that includes popular Steam choices like Dota 2, Counter-Strike and ARMA II, required to play the popular Day-Z game modification.

 

 

To mark the occasion Firefly has released the first in a series of tutorial videos for Kingdoms, designed to help new players. Recent additions to the game include a new Quests system and several new worlds, with the intention to bring Kingdoms to new platforms and territories. The game currently has over one million registered users.

5,000 Heroes Unite to Save City of Heroes, Sending Capes and Masks

5,000 Heroes Unite to Save City of Heroes, Sending Capes and Masks

The players behind City of Heroes turned out en masse this weekend to express appreciation to the game’s creators, demonstrate resolve, and announce a new project.

 


 

On September 8th, over 5,000 players attended the first Unity Rally, a peaceful show of solidarity for the online game City of Heroes.  The Unity Rally was in response to the sudden announcement by the game’s publisher NCsoft that the eight-year-old MMO would shut down in November.  As players in City of Heroes are known for, the event was marked by camaraderie and humor.  The two-hour event concluded with a “Paragon Appreciation” costume contest where hundreds of players dressed up as their favorite staff member of Paragon Studios, the developer of City of Heroes.

 

 

The Unity Rally was organized by Tony Vazquez, administrator of the Titan Network, an alliance of fan sites (http://paragonwiki.com).  “I knew that City of Heroes players would show up in force for the Unity Rally, but I was blown away by the turnout by our loyal community.  I asked for hundreds of players and we had thousands show up.  I hope that this is an important message to NCsoft, showing how important this game is to us,” Vazquez said.  One of the players produced a video showing over 3,000 attendees.

 

 

The efforts of the City of Heroes players have been spreading throughout the Internet.  Celebrities such as actor Sean Astin, actress Tara Platt, authors Neil Gaiman, Mercedes Lackey, John C. Wright, Laurell K. Hamilton, and web comic artist and illustrator John Kovalic have publicly offered their support in social media outlets.  Long-time player and best-selling author Mercedes Lackey has even offered to NCsoft CEO Taek-Jin Kim free promotion of NCsoft’s titles if City of Heroes is allowed to continue.

 

 

During the Unity Rally, the organizers announced the next step in their efforts with a mail-in campaign.  Players will be sending capes and masks to the American and Korean NCsoft headquarters this week (http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?p=4387962).  There are also custom banners (http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,4898.0.html), avatars, and even “Twibbons” (http://twibbon.com/cause/Save-City-of-Heroes) designed by organizers and players to spread the word of their cause and show solidarity.

 

 

“We want NCsoft to understand our community by sending something meaningful to us,” said Vazquez.  “We are taking our support for City of Heroes to the next level.”

 

 

Since the sudden announcement by NCsoft last week, City of Heroes players have worked together feverishly to keep the game running.  In less than one week, over 16,000 individuals have signed a petition to NCsoft (http://change.org/petitions/ncsoft-keep-ncsoft-from-shutting-down-city-of-heroes).  There have also been over 100 news articles and blog posts covering the players’ efforts.  Even as these accomplishments are celebrated, organizers continue to plan future events and projects to increase the momentum of their efforts.

MEAD: RIFT 1.10 – Calm Before the Storm

MEAD: RIFT 1.10 – Calm Before the Storm

By Shannon Doyle (Leliah), OnRPG Journalist

 

 

It’s been a while since Rift had its last major update. You can blame convention season for that. Oh and this little thing you might have heard of called Storm Legion. If you haven’t its ok, it’s really sort of underground right now. Anyway! I have been super excited about today’s topic since Gamescom and I am so glad I finally get to talk about it! 1.10, or as I like to call it 1 10. 1.10 just sounds funny when you say it out loud. It is just around the corner and just in time for the autumnal season change. And for those of you who want something to call it besides 1.10 how does Calm Before The Storm sound? Sounds pretty epic if you ask me.

 

 

Thanks to a tweet last week we know that the patch notes for Storm Legion are 60 pages long, just for the class changes. But what will Calm Before the Storm have? Well I can tell you that calm does not in any way mean small. As always Trion has gone to amazing lengths with 1.10.

 

 

So, you might have heard, Guardians and Defiants…they’re kinda buddy/buddy now. After all we did that whole defeating the dragons thing. Why not work on world peace? What am I saying? Just that we’re going to have cross faction playing now. You know, no big deal. Oh wait! It kinda is. Guardians can play with Defiants, Defiants can play with Guardians. Telara as we know it is changing! But! This only applies if you’re on a PvE server. Why? Well it wouldn’t be very nice to keep killing your teammates. If you like open world PvP, you can keep on killin’. If you’re on a PvE server and you decide to flag yourself then you cannot team with the opposite faction. And if you get flagged while already on a cross faction team you get booted from the group. What can you do cross faction?

 

 

Open World/Public Groups

Guilds

Looking for Dungeon Tool

Dungeons/Raids

Instant Adventures

Chronicles

Group Conquest/Warfronts

Weddings

Chat Channels and Tells

Quest sharing

Mail

Trade

Friends List

 

 

That instant adventure thing, its kinda catching on. First only the higher levels could do it. Then they gave it to the lower level zones. Now it’s Scarwood Reach’s turn. I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with this zone. But I’m glad to see that the instant adventures are continuing on. I really enjoy playing them. But I wouldn’t do them much during normal levelling. I had a hard enough time not outleveling things without them. But my 50 is going to play them a ton, at least until the level cap is bumped and I’ll be earning regular xp again.

 

 

How about that event? Every release has an event. They may not always start right away but it always comes. There isn’t a whole lot of information about 1.10’s event yet. But we do know that there are going to be new mounts and it will have an autumn theme. Let’s just hope we don’t get another video like we did for Halloween last year. (Actually do hope for that. It was awesome.)

 

 

And! Everyone’s favorite! A Return to Telara weekend! If you’ve had any friends who have left Rift, or if you’ve even stopped playing yourself mark down September 14-16th on your calendars. Because for that weekend you will have free access to all your characters. Make sure you get that install done early. You don’t want to waste precious time!

 

 

For those that are unaware here are the details on ordering the Storm Legion expansion:

 

 

Standard Edition

The standard edition costs €25/$40 for current players and €40/$50 for new players. With it players get Storm Legion, the exclusive air cape, and access to the first expansion’s dungeon weeks before anyone else. On top of that new players will receive the base game and 30 days of gameplay.

 

 

Infinity Edition

So if you get those awesome things with the regular edition, what do you get in the Infinity Edition? Well, it comes with everything from the Standard Edition plus; A Mini Regulos pet, a Cyclone mount, and a Brevanic Portal Generator. What does the Portal Generator do though? It gives you access to the porticulum network from anywhere. The Infinity Edition costs €35/$50 for current players and €50/$60 for new players.

 

 

Subscribe For A Year

The last option is to subscribe to Rift for a year. With that you get Storm Legion for free! You also get the exclusive Landslide mount and Stormbringer title. Oh and of course you get to play Rift for a year.

 

Aaah, if only those were the only options available! Just like when Rift first went on sale a variety of retail partners will also have Storm Legion. And if you order through them you get different items! If you order from Trion you get the Storm Warden’s cape, but if you order through any of the partners the cape is different. Amazon has the Time Lord’s Cape, Steam has Shade Lord, Hoard Warden’s Cape is available via Best Buy, the Flame Lord’s from GameStop and finally the Forest Warden’s is available when you order from Walmart.

 

 

I still haven’t done it yet. I’m agonizing over which cape I want. But get your pre orders in soon! There isn’t much time left until November and you wouldn’t want to miss out.

 

 

The rest of this year is going to be an insanely awesome and exciting time for Rift. September we have 1.10, October is Halloween and you know they won’t pass that up. Which leads us to November which is 1.11 and Storm Legion. And then before you know it we’re in December facing down Christmas and the end of the year. And you’ll find me running around like a mad woman trying to get my hands into everything. Because I want it all! Hopefully soon we will hear more about the new souls. And I’ll decide who I need to remove from Faeblight to make a new character. Or maybe if we ask Trion really nicely they’ll let us have more characters on a shard. *puppydogeyes* I’ll love you forever more than the forever I’ll already love you just because you’re awesome! Haha, anyway! Come back next week for some more exciting news from Telara and all things Rift.

Guardians of Middle-Earth

Guardians of Middle Earth is a Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) available for the XBox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. The game features legendary heroes and villains from the lands of Middle Earth, such as Gandalf, Sauron, Legolas, and The Witch-King. Engage in 5v5 battles against other players competitively, or battle the AI for practice. Items and buffs can be purchased between battles with the currency earned by fighting, to give you a boost. Several new heroes will be added, giving the game a constantly evolving roster.

 

 

Features

 

5v5 Arenas: Fight with your friends against the AI, or face off against other players in exciting arena combat. Communicate with your allies using in-game voice chat for a unique social experience.

 

Over 30 different heroes: Each champion has different strengths and weaknesses to master and overcome. More champions will be added periodically, giving plenty of new opportunities.

 

Items and buffs: Between matches, equip your champion with a variety of items, or boost their abilities. All items can be purchased using currency earned by playing in matches.

 

Significant stat tracking: Wins, losses, and performance are all calculated, giving you the ability to see at a glance how well you’re doing, and what you can do to improve.

 

Novus AEterno

Novus Aeterno is an RTS that takes place across a massive galaxy. With the collapse of the five great empires that once ruled the galaxy, it is up to the players to determine the outcome of the conflict between the factions. Competition can happen anywhere, between anyone, and the free-for-all nature of the game allows anyone to join in your skirmishes as either friend or foe. Choose your strategy wisely to overcome all obstacles.

 

 

Features

 

Crew and ships: Develop the right crew for your strategy, as well as building a proper fleet to achieve the same goal. Utilize capital ships that give substantial bonuses for even more power!

 

Alliance based: Join a group of like-minded people to protect yourself and lend your strength. The galaxy is a brutal place; keep your interests active through others.

 

Challenges: Compete against another person, or do team battles with your friends. This mode is great to test out new tactics, weapons, and combat.

 

Infiltrators: Sign up to gain access to the inner workings of the game, with your feedback being put right into the hands of the developers.