Yearly Archives: 2015

Winterfrost Legacy

Winterfrost Legacy is a browser-based MMORPG by R2Games. Fight alongside mighty mercenaries to avenge your ancestors in our brand new and unique fantasy title. Set in an immersive fantasy universe, players can experience engaging and versatile game modes, paired with thrilling and dramatic campaign adventures.

Features:

Merc system: Command several different mercenaries for combat.

Deep battle system: Enjoy strategic battles that challenge your skills, along with a compelling vengeance mechanic.

Mount system: Collect and train powerful mounts to accompany on your journey.

Game modes: Experience 8 different unique game modes tailored for PvE and PvP.

Brave Frontier Celebrates Its 2nd Year Anniversary

Brave Frontier Celebrates Its 2nd Year Anniversary news header

gumi Inc. is proud to announce that its flagship role-playing game title Brave Frontier is celebrating its second year anniversary for the entire month of November.

Players can look forward to a ton of exclusive content and in-game rewards available for this whole month. These include:

  • An Anniversary Login Bonus. Fans will get Lucia (winner from the Brave Frontier Fan Art Contest) and a free unit of their choice.
  • A new batch of hero units Brave Frontier fans have been waiting for.
  • An all-new Raid X3 Eneroth quest series exclusive for the global version, along with other global exclusives happening this anniversary.
  • A global exclusive feature called Challenge Arena. It’s a daily and weekly ranking player-vs-player where players can win exclusive loot.
  • Limited time offers such as discounted Summon Tickets, Level-Up Rush, Daily Honor Points giveaways, and more. Players can find out more upcoming information here: http://bit.ly/1Q0Rpsi

Sovereignty and today’s Parallax release for EVE Online

Sovereignty and today’s Parallax release for EVE Online news header

Today the Parallax release came to EVE Online, including several key changes to the sovereignty system that governs control and warfare, defense, and control in player-controlled lawless solar systems beyond the reach of EVE’s four major Empires. Some of gaming’s most compelling player stories have sprung out of the complex machinations of EVE Online’s nullsec sovereignty gameplay, including the devious Guiding Hand Social Club assassination, the staggering Bloodbath of B-R5RB, the near-instant fall of the implacable Band of Brothers Alliance at the hands of a traitor, and many more.

Inspired by dialogue with the EVE players, Parallax’s changes are led by the addition of passive structure regeneration. Partially contested structures will regenerate towards full owner control if no active entosis links are running on it, reducing the maintenance required to stave off uncommitted attackers during asymmetric engagements. Sovereignty structures now have self-destruct capabilities as well, so diplomatic exchanges of territory can happen more fluidly, supplementing an important aspect of the EVE metagame. In Parallax, infrastructure hubs have more manual control, allowing Alliances granular control over their territory by switching active strategic upgrades installed in their space.

“Jump fatigue” accumulated by ships rapidly using jump drives and portals to instantaneously move across lightyears of space has seen its cap reduced from 30 days down to 5 days, with expectations of more tweaks in the future to this mechanic that allows EVE’s most powerful warships to arrive on the field of battle quickly and with devastating effect. This should allow more frequent use of EVE’s mightiest ships while still maintaining a proper amount of strategy during deployment.

For an overview of the sovereignty system, check out this video.

Full patch notes and information on other improvements in Parallax can be found here.

Neverwinter: Strongholds Now Available on Xbox One

Neverwinter: Strongholds Now Available on Xbox One news header

Today, Perfect World Entertainment Inc., a leading publisher of free-to-play MMORPGs, and Cryptic Studios announced Neverwinter: Strongholds – the seventh expansion for the action MMORPG set in the Dungeons & Dragons’ Forgotten Realms universe from Wizards of the Coast – is now available for Xbox One. In the game’s latest expansion, players will join other guild members to reclaim a derelict keep from the wild and rebuild it into a fortified stronghold on Neverwinter’s largest map.

Reminiscent of the wargaming tradition from which early Dungeons & Dragons evolved, Neverwinter: Strongholds empowers guilds to battle the surrounding environment for resources to customize and optimize their newly acquired home against threats. Build defenses both in and around strongholds using structures like archer towers to fend off attackers, while building siege structures to increase their ability to wage war against enemy guilds in the all new Siege PVP game mode, also available at launch.

Strongholds Siege is fought on a battleground created by combining two strongholds maps, doubling the scale and making it the largest map ever built. This creates a three-lane battlefield to support large-scale 20-vs-20, MOBA-like combat. The objective of this mode is to siege and destroy the enemy’s guild hall. Once the keep has been secured, guilds will work to solidify their foothold along the ranges of the Sword Coast.

“With the holidays drawing near, we’re incredibly proud to continue our support for Neverwinter on Xbox One,” said Rob Overmeyer, executive producer for Neverwinter. “It isn’t a surprise that there will be a ton new Xbox One owners in the coming months. Neverwinter brings even more content for their holiday gifts with a full-fledged free-to-play MMORPG ready to download right when they open the box. Xbox One players can try all eight classes, reach the level 70 cap, experience the massive amount of content in-game and more – all for free.”

“I welcome the Xbox One community into the guild vs. guild warfare that Neverwinter: Strongholds has brought to the game,” said Nathan Stewart, Brand Director of Dungeons & Dragons. “Join me as we fight back the hordes of Clan Overmeyer!”

Thanatos Grand Opening Today

Thanatos Grand Opening Today news header

Inixsoft and JM Studio have announces the official grand opening of Thanatos: The Dragon Chaser on their gaming portal, gameagit.com. Various events will be held during this early period of the game’s launch, including a level-up event and a friend invite event.

Thanatos is designed to work well on computers with limited system specifications while keeping an active and engaging combat system. Players can choose their side between supporting the Royal power or Divine right, each with their own ranking system and benefits. Challenge the seven dragons and prepare for many other events to come.

SWTOR: KOTFE Impressions – Holy Acronyms Batman!

By Jason Parker (Ragachak)

 

SWTOR KOTFE

I played TOR during the Beta and first month after launch before I lost interest and went on to something else. I didn’t really think TOR was bad, but I was not willing to pay to play it. Then, the inevitable happened: Free to Play. Did it have some caveats to it? Of course, few things are really “free.” But if you are a subscriber to The Old Republic, you get to play Knights of the Fallen Empire. Yes, that is the only way. There is no workaround. However, if you sub for one month and then stop subbing, you keep all access to story content that came with being a subscriber. You keep access to all of the other expansions that came packaged with KOTFE (Rise of the Hutt Cartel, Shadows of Revan); you don’t lose your character progress or anything, which was something that admittedly worried me. My next fear was “I don’t have a level 60! What am I going to do?” Luckily you can make a level 60 and jump straight into the Knights of the Fallen Empire. It also gives you crafting stuff and the companions from previous content! My next fear was also allayed. The new expansion comes with a tutorial if you make a fresh 60, which gives you your powers in small chunks so you can take time to learn what everything does. That was terrific for me, because I have not played in quite a while, except for occasional chunks of time when it shifted to f2p.

SWTOR KOTFE

There’s one very important, humongous change to TOR that I have to thank Bioware for. Bioware makes terrific single player games for the most part (I have my reservations about some of them, but that’s irrelevant), and typically write fantastic single-player narratives. So one of my big problems with TOR was everyone is a special snowflake. Everyone is the one man affecting change throughout the Universe. That bothers me a great deal. From a narrative standpoint, I hated it. So when I started Knights of the Fallen Empire, I came to an important realization: This is more like KOTOR! Yes. It is more of a single player narrative, with a gripping story that is told in episodes (we have the first 9 chapters right now, I’m just coming to the end of that as I write this), and though there is still multiplayer content to delve into after you are done with that first bit of the story I imagine, this feels much better to me. I wasn’t really enchanted by the earlier stories told in the game, and frankly, I would run out of interesting narrative fairly fast. But KOTFE has had a terrific story that I will try not to spoil in this article or my images I took from my gameplay.

SWTOR KOTFE

Subscription will be required to get the next chapters which will start dropping in 2016, which is kind of a bummer, but I’m willing to bet this will recoup their numbers. The story is fantastic, and people who come for just the intro will no doubt want to see where it goes next. I’ve found myself playing more than I ever did in the past two years. I’ve also found myself leveling a character again, as it is considerably easier to do! Leveling is much more casual friendly as stats have been simplified: Mastery is the stat that deals with your class abilities (which replaces Strength, Willpower, Cunning and Aim). Surge is gone, pushed into Crit. I have to say, the stat system really bothered me with how ridiculous it was, and I think pushing towards a simplistic system will work out here. Flashpoints and Operations were also changed; quite a few of them got reworked, giving people more of a reason to go back and revisit the game to see what all changed. I also really like the idea of Solo Flashpoints, even though at its heart this is a multiplayer game.

SWTOR KOTFE

As you progress, you form an Alliance, kind of like your own cartel, cabal, or guild. Post Chapter 9, you can keep recruiting people to grow your base of power, and of course there are new companions to go along with a new story! Speaking of companions, you don’t have to spend all your damn time adjusting and juggling gear for your companions; that’s gone! Yay! I hated having to deal with so many gear sets all the time. I also love that you can change your companion’s spec (Heal/Tank/Damage) at a whim, so no matter what I am playing, I have a buddy to complement my weaknesses as I progress through the game. The companions are incredibly powerful now even on a fresh default level 60. But if you’re built up your influence with them, they will save your ass from some truly tight spots. Tons of class changes happened too, and I won’t go into that. Those interested should grab a large coffee and settle in for quite the lengthy set of patch notes. Though its worth noting that the feel of the classes has been preserved, with dps balance being pushed closer together from the lowest to the highest than just about any other MMORPG I can recall. The notion of Legacy-wide Datacrons is terrific too, which boost stats and things of that nature.

 

SWTOR KOTFE

Trust In The Force: Great

Do I think this is going to net Bioware/EA a ton of money and get all those subscribers back? Probably not. Do I think it is a step in the right direction? Absolutely. It caught my attention again, and when more content comes out I may find myself subscribing again so I can resume my love of Star Wars lore. This is the year of Star Wars, with Battlefield, and The Force Awakens revitalizing interest in even the less interested. If this expansion were botched, it is my firm opinion that the game would have died. The last couple of expansions were pretty bland, even if the ideas behind them were interesting. Shadows of Revan showed some promise of life in the game, but just wasn’t on the level of KOTFE. This expansion being as good as it is was critical. And giving all the other content with it was a good idea so players new and old can experience things they didn’t, or couldn’t (or weren’t willing to pay for). Is it worth the price of admission? Yes, 100%. Subscribe again, look at the new story, immerse yourself in The Old Republic. The game now is what it was promised to have been back when hype ran incredibly high and budgets higher. Give SWTOR some love; it finally deserves it.