Monthly Archives: May 2014

WildStar’s Open Beta Now Live: 24/7 Access for 10 Days

Wildstar OBT

NCSOFT® and Carbine Studios™ today announced that their upcoming action-adventure sci-fi MMO, WildStar® has entered Open Beta and will be available to fans 24/7 for the next 10 days, from Tuesday, May 8 at 7 a.m. PDT to Sunday, May 18 at 11:59 p.m. PDT. NCSOFT and Carbine Studios welcome all players to explore WildStar, whether they are already familiar with the legendary planet Nexus or not, prior to the worldwide launch on Tuesday, June 3.

 

Celebrating the announcement of Open Beta, Carbine Studios has released a new trailer highlighting the background story of the game -s omething you will not want to miss. In addition to the video and 10 days of access, Carbine lifted the level cap to 30, allowing players to dig even deeper into the world of WildStar.

 

To access a WildStar Open Beta, visit www.wildstar-online.com/en/openbeta for instructions and access. Players that have already participated in previous WildStar beta event can log on with their current accounts.

To kick off the Open Beta, Carbine Studios is hosting a 30 minute Livestream on its Twitch Channel today at 11:00 a.m. PDT (www.twitch.tv/wildstar) where the developers will give a state of the game update and share their thoughts on exactly why WildStar is going to kick ass and disrupt the MMO category. The team will be back on Friday, May 9 with a six-hour developer Livestream featuring a slew of content starting at 11:00 a.m. PDT, including play-by-play of some exciting raids and Warplots activity, Open Beta content and a sneak peek into the first post launch content drop. As part of the stream, Carbine is turning it into a massive social ‘Ask Me Anything’, opening up every social platform to take questions – Facebook, Reddit, Tumblr, Twitter, Forums, Twitch and Vine to name a few.

 

Schedule of events:

 

  • Open Beta: Thursday, May 8 at 7 a.m. PDT to Sunday, May 18 at 11:59 p.m. PDT (24/7)
  • Developer Livestream #1: Thursday, May 8 at 11:00 a.m. PDT
  • Developer Livestream #2: Friday, May 9 at 11 11:00 a.m. PDT

 

WildStar officially launches worldwide on Tuesday, June 3, 2014 and will be available in two versions. The Standard Edition includes the game, 30 days of play time and an Eldan-themed Housing Décor item. For an additional $15, the Digital Deluxe version of WildStar includes all elements of the Standard Edition as well as an even larger package of exclusive content: an Eldan Hoverboard, a unique costume, a unique Eldan player title and a limited-edition Eldan dye set. Preorder information can be found at: www.wildstar-online.com/en/preorder.

Archlord II: Character Archetypes, Skills and Combat System Revealed

Archlord Lion Mount

WEBZEN reveals new details about character archetypes, skills and combat in Archlord 2.

To provide an engaging and a largely unrestricted environment, Archlord 2 introduces an effectively classless character system that will allow players to adopt any role in combat, depending on the type of weapon a player uses.

There are four different types of weapons in Archlord 2, reflecting the number of character archetypes or combat roles available to players. Equipping a weapon of a specific type will give players access to a set of skills that corresponds with a specific archetype. Using weapons of a certain type will build proficiency with that weapon type and allow players to access additional passive and active skills.

Archlord Attacks

In addition to this classless system, Archlord 2 offers an engaging combat system featuring so called chained skills.

Chained skills can only be used in conjunction with each other and only in a fixed order. In combat, they are used as combo attacks. Players will be able to start a combo attack by using the first skill in the chain, and a successful attack will enable next skill to be available for a certain time. With perfect timing and right order of attacks, chained skills will allow players to inflict great damage to the unaware monsters, but most importantly, to other players.

To provide as much information as possible before the Close Beta Test commences, the Archlord 2 Community Management team is working on an official game wikia page. To find out more about combat system, available archetypes and the lore of Archlord 2, visit the wiki.

Additionally, WEBZEN confirms that the game will be available in English, German and French language versions. In order to deliver the highest quality, the WEBZEN Dublin localisation team will translate almost 2 million words to support these languages.

Single-player options coming to Quantum Rush (?)

Single player

The developer team of online racer Quantum Rush, which is currently in the open beta phase and has fans all across the world, considers a single player version of the game. Now the community has to decide – the team is asking for feedback on this idea.

The reason for these thoughts are the current lag problems. Although the next patches will bring optimizations and improvements, the main reason will remain: All the game servers are located in Germany. This leads to lags in the online multiplayer races, especially if the players are from different continents.

The developers considered multiple solutions: It would be possible to build servers in different countries and continents, to improve the racing experience for players from far away countries. It also possible to develop a stand-alone single player version and transfer the game concept into an offline version.

Now all fans and players of Quantum Rush can join the discussion and give their thoughts on the different ideas. For more info, visit http://forum.quantum-rush.net/wbb/index.php?page=Board&boardID=19

S.K.I.L.L – Special Forces 2: Euro Series Tournament Starting in June

Special Forces 2

The first Euro Series for the popular FPS S.K.I.L.L. – Special Force 2 will start in June. Awaiting the tournament’s victors will be prize money of more than £4,000. For the second placed team there is over £2,400 to be won, with third place receiving at least £1,600.

Already a hit in Korea, S.K.I.L.L. – Special Force 2 made a successful entry into the European eSports scene with its publication by Gameforge. In collaboration with the ESL (Electronic Sports League), the Go4S.K.I.L.L. Cup tournaments have been organised on a regular basis since February of this year, garnering massive popularity. The S.K.I.L.L. Euro Series is the next step towards making S.K.I.L.L. – Special Force 2 one of the major titles in European eSports.

The opener to the S.K.I.L.L. Euro Series will be the qualifying phase starting in June. The teams which manage to make it through qualification will take part in the group phase to be played out in July. Things will then heat up for the double elimination playoffs in August. The grand final will take place in September, S.K.I.L.L. – Special Force 2’s first birthday. Selected matches will be broadcast with commentary live on esl.tv, whilst participants themselves will have the ability to stream their own matches via twitch.tv.

For more info, visit http://www.esl.eu/eu/skill-sf2/news/241756/

The Banner Saga wins award at Gameindustry.Biz Innovation Awards

Banner Saga

Stoic, an independent game development company, today announced that at they won the Most Promising Start-up award at the Gamesindustry.biz Innovation Awards held at Game Horizon in Newcastle, United Kingdom on May 8th. Stoic is the developer behind The Banner Saga, one of the earlier funding successes on Kickstarter, which launched in partnership with independent publisher Versus Evil in January of this year for PC and Mac to global critical acclaim.

“We are so happy with how well our flagship title, The Banner Saga, has been received by the gaming community and feel very honored to be recognized as the Most Promising Start-Up at the Gamesindustry.biz Innovation Awards”, said Alex Thomas from Stoic. “We are working on the next chapter of The Banner Saga now and know that our fans will love the continuation that we have planned. Thank you to to the readers of Gamesindustry.biz and all of our fans for helping us achieve this award”.

For more info, visit http://stoicstudio.com/

ESL and Wargaming Partner To Run World of Tanks North American League

ESL Wargaming

ESL, the world’s largest independent eSports brand, and Wargaming.net today announced that they are extending their working relationship across the Atlantic. ESL is pleased to confirm that it is set to operate all upcoming Wargaming.net League North America seasons live from the brand new ESL TV Studios in Los Angeles, California.

The state-of-the-art ESL TV Studios in Los Angeles will play host to two World of Tanks Wargaming.net League shows each week, across the next three seasons of competition. ESL will continue to operate the Wargaming.net League in Europe from the ESL TV Studios in Cologne, Germany, home to previous seasons of the competition. The region’s best teams will battle it out for a chunk out of US$2,500,000 prize money – the total that will be distributed in this year’s competitions worldwide. The dates for shows in both American and European competitions will be announced later this month.

The new 7,000 square foot venue showcases top-of-the-line video and gaming equipment, doubles not only as a broadcast studio but also as an event location. Capable of hosting hundreds of live spectators, President at ESS Han Park assures eSports fans that the studio is the perfect fit for Wargaming.net League North America:  “We are looking forward to this partnership with Wargaming and are very excited to deliver the highest possible level of eSports experience, both through our broadcast and through local community events surrounding the upcoming North American League.”

“We are very excited to announce that our working relationship with ESL is being extended to cover the Wargaming.net League in North America. Past experience with the eSports team has brought us amazing events, such as the Wargaming.net League Grand Finals in Warsaw, Poland, and we’re confident that the future of the American League looks just as bright. – If not brighter!” – said Mohamed Fadl, eSports Director Europe & North America at Wargaming.net.

New customization options for Tanki Online

New customization

The correct choice of weapon is only the tip of the iceberg in Tanki Online, choosing the hull can make the difference between victory and certain destruction. As with the turrets, there are seven different hulls available, each upgradable through four different levels (M0 – M3). Players can also implement ‘microupgrades’ to quickly improve certain parameters of each equipped hull. Basic microupgrades (MU’s) are inexpensive and quick to implement, they are available at any rank and will instantly help a player to gain the edge over an enemy on the battlefield.

Today, AlternativaPlatform introduce ‘The Dictator’:

With its refined active defense system and usage of the newest composite materials, Dictator’s armor effectively absorbs the energy of an impact from almost any caliber gun. With Dictator, you can confidently fight on the front line of any battle and dictate its outcome!

The Dictator is also one of the fastest and best protected hulls in Tanki Online, its only downside being that it is quite large and can be an easy target in exposed maps.

For more info, visit http://tankionline.com