On January 1st 2015 the first expansion for Lands of Hope Redemption was released. In Legions of the Lost players search to unravel the mystery of the lost legion and how they vanished 100 years ago!

The Lost Lands feature at least 10 new maps containing new monsters, quests and loot to uncover!

New features include:

• 10 new Maps
• New Mythical, Demon and Undead monster sub-factions
• Taming of Bosses and World Bosses to create Meatshield pets.
• Items themed around the new Demon / Undead / Mythical Killer skills and Scarlet Legion items and loot
• New Mythical beast races such as Unicorns, Pegasus etc …
• New “mounted” player sprite. Players gain the ability to ride!
• New passive Skinning skill to increase hide gains from monster kills.
• New skill Exploration, allowing you to discover things in areas of the map you never saw before!

You can play Lands of Hope Redemption directly from the website at http://www.lohalpha.com via Facebook at https://apps.facebook.com/lohredemption/?fb_source=bookmark&ref=bookmarks&count=2&fb_bmpos=_2 and via Kongregate at http://kongregate.com/games/Forlorngames/lands-of-hope-redemption

Independent game developer ArtCraft Entertainment, Inc. revealed today high level details about “Crowfall,” a next-generation Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMORPG) with a focus on political alliances and feudal conquest.

“A few weeks ago, we put up a sign-up page for Crowfall at play2crush.com,” explained J. Todd Coleman, CEO and game director. “Play2Crush was a statement of purpose – more manifesto than teaser. Without providing a single screenshot or even naming the game, the site has already collected 10,000 registrations. We are blown away by the response. We clearly struck a nerve.”

The play2crush.com site has now been replaced with an official landing page for the game, which can be found at www.crowfall.com. Players are invited to visit www.crowfall.com to join the community, find information about the game, read and post to the development forums, and to sign up for future beta tests.
Gordon Walton, ArtCraft president and executive producer said, “Crowfall isn’t a game for everyone. It’s for players who are looking for a more immersive, more visceral experience.  The early response was fantastic, but we still expect to build this community one player at a time.”

Coleman adds, “Between now and late February – when all of the details of the game will be revealed – we’re going to be playing a game called rampant speculation. We’ll be dropping hints, screenshots, images, videos, storylines… painting a picture in broad strokes. We’ll see how long it takes our fans to figure out what it means, and how it works.”

Founded by two of the most experienced executives in the history of online gaming, ArtCraft Entertainment is the combined effort of J. Todd Coleman (director, Shadowbane, Wizard101, Pirate101) and Gordon Walton (executive producer, Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies, Star Wars: the Old Republic). The stated goal of ArtCraft Entertainment is to “push the design of Massively Multiplayer Online games in bold new directions.“

Grimoire: Manastorm —a PC multiplayer shooter featuring fast-paced, MOBA-style tactical combat and spectacular magic attacks—is entering Open Alpha. Sign-up’s for alpha access are available through a simple forum registration process and Alpha Opt-In.

Developed with the Unreal SDK by 4-man Indie outfit OmniConnection, Grimoire borrows from DotA 2 and League of Legends to deliver a unique spin on classic multiplayer shooter action. Introducing everything from devastating “ultimate” attacks to atypical shooter abilities like teleportation and invulnerability. Grimoire’s spells include everything from gravity-affected boulders to fireballs that increase in size the longer you charge them- even calling down massive meteor showers.

After an overwhelmingly positive Greenlight reception and the nod from Valve, Grimoire is now playable through Steam! Reinvigorated by this success the team has been working hard to add polish and features to every area of the game in preparation for an early 2015 launch, but they need help! The servers must be filled, bugs must be crushed, and Omniconnection wants feedback on everything from balance to design. There is no better way to get in on the action than by joining the month long Alpha extending from January 6th to February 1st.

Testers can expect weekly updates, regularly scheduled playtimes with the devs, responses to feedback- and all of the community interactions that make Indie development truly great. If you were looking for a game to make your holiday magical; Grimoire might just be it.

According to a Kotaku report, Bioware’s upcoming 4v1 MMO Shadow Realms may be undergoing a makeover.

While some were worried the game had been cancelled completely, especially due to some recent radio silence and a delayed closed alpha, there’s also word that the game has been overhauled and will now feature a full campaign and may release in 2017. The online servers for the game were shut down this week, but what exactly that means is uncertain until EA or Bioware confirms the rumors.

BioWare recently decided to integrate EA’s Origin service, possibly to avoid budget limitations from the parent company. Kotaku’s sources indicate that the recent failure of Dawngate was, at least in part, due to limited funds because the game did not use EA’s internal systems.

Though Kotaku’s sources remain private, we caution anyone to take this latest news with a grain of salt until either company offers an official statement on the situation.

If you haven’t taken the MOBA gaming scene seriously yet, you might want to pay attention to this: Riot Games is building a direct network for League of Legends traffic in North America.

A recent update from the Riot Team included revised roadmap expectations and a Q&A with staff. So why is Riot taking the leap into building its own traffic lane?

“Currently, ISPs focus primarily on moving large volumes of data in seconds or minutes, which is good for buffered applications like YouTube or Netflix but not so good for real-time games, which need to move very small amounts of data in milliseconds. On top of that, your internet connection might bounce all over the country instead of running directly to where it needs to go, which can impact your network quality and ping whether the game server is across the country or right down the street.”

Players may expect to see less ping time, packet loss, and disconnects as the network rolls out and more ISPs in the US and Canada get connected. The full network should be finished by the end of March 2015, though some negotiations may still be in place with ISPs by the time it is complete.