“Episode 3: Spirits Awakening adds 30% new game content to the existing game including three extensive new zones and over 80 new skills and abilities. <-180×150 Small Rectangle - right->

Available now, Episode 3 is available either through an automatic patch for existing players when logging into the game or included within the full free game download on the game’s official website for new players at: www.archlordgame.com”

Regarding the automatic update, you should know it takes a while, so if you have the game installed already, and didn’t update it yet, you’d better start the update and go out have a pizza and a few beers. That’s not what I did, but I think the beer and pizza sound better than firing up the program and going to sleep while it downloads the patch and updates the game files…

According to Ed Relf, Director of Marketing at Codemasters Online, “This is an exciting time in the ongoing development of ArchLord. ArchLord has never been more popular with almost 750,000 players now playing with this number increasing almost 20,000 new players each week! ArchLord is going from strength to strength and we are assessing the need right now to open new servers just to cope with the increased levels of demand for this great, free MMORPG.”

I know Archlord didn’t get high scores in the reviews published so far, but I also think there are a lot of extremely bad and boring MMORPGs, and this one doesn’t go that low. After all, Archlord is my perfect MMORPG - you log in, play 10-20 minutes, finish one quest or two, then get out, since it becomes boring.

First, we have the character customization interface. This is the screen you’re presented with when creating a new character from scratch. You can select a number of individual facial features and skin tones for customization, however, you can’t adjust your height or body weight. In game, these facial features are barely noticable unless you zoom in really close. I find that I PvE zoomed in because it’s usually less dangerous and RvR zoomed out so I can spot enemies from a distance. I have pressed RANDOM a few times to give you an idea of some of the various combinations you can make for each career!

Warhammer Online Character Customization from The Greenskin on Vimeo.

This second video shows each career in some tier 4 gear. Each of these characters is using a rank 40 template. Bear in mind, there are MANY different suits of armour you can get throughout this game, especially at rank 40. I don’t think everyone will look even remotely the same, given the various sets and the fact that you can dye them in hundreds of different combinations. Notice the exceptional level of detail in this armour. I really like how each individual piece seems to feel layered and textured to such a high degree. It looks as though your character is actually wearing the gear, not just a textured skin like you’ll see in games like WoW. That’s not a diss at WoW. I love WoW for it’s cartoon-like designs and low poly count that drastically improves system performance. They are in different leagues, imho.

Tier Four Armour Sets from The Greenskin on Vimeo.

Apologies up front for the custom music in the first video! The original music is the same as what you would hear in the second video, so it should alleviate the redundancy!

The game puts the player into the shoes of a person armed with lots of power packed weapons, basically going around shooting and mutilating zombies, in order to stay alive.

The game is set for release in 2009, and we look forward to more from this title. Check out the screen shots: Screen #1, Screen #2, Screen #3.

Here is the trailer.

Image

via: British Gaming Blog

It’s time to dive right into it! I’m going to begin by giving my general first impressions of the game then I will take certain features, mechanics, systems, and parts of the game one by one and give my quick thoughts. As the day unfolds and perhaps even into tomorrow and throughout this week I’ll continue expanding upon my thoughts, share videos, and provide you all with any information I can.

NOTE: I will be taking questions and answering them in a Q/A blog post today if necessary. Feel free to ask questions.

First Impressions

Warhammr Online: Age of Reckoning is exactly what I hoped it would be when I learned that Mythic was creating another MMORPG. The design direction and scope are true to what was promised. This is a game all about RvR and it illustrates that point almost every minute of gameplay. Many developers set out with the goal of creating a game with PvP and PvE but few succeed; most will have one or the other or have one be nothing more than an afterthought. WAR is designed to include both PvE and PvP from the beginning and does so in a way that the player can contribute to the realm war, and thus be considered as RvRing, by doing both. That’s one thing I find so great about WAR, no matter what you do it contributes to the realm war.

More specifically now, the game has a lot of polish. I feel like I have been playing a finished product. Aside from some problems, which I’ll go into later, there have been very few times that I say to myself “This game needs more time in beta”.

Look and Feel of the world - is it a real world? Does it look cool?

High Elf Lands - Beautiful

The artwork and the scope of details put into this game are amazing. I’m constantly stopping and admiring the landscapes and the architecture. From beautiful vistas to desolate battlefield wastelands to something as simple as a bell tower, this game has details layered upon details. It has the perfect ‘Warhammer’ feel that fans of the tabletop and pen/paper games will pick up on and be familiar with from the first minute.

The world is a true world, unlike recent games like AoC which instance and redundantly instance themselves. If you’ve been following the game you’ll know that there are tiers for each racial pairing (Example: Greenskins vs. Dwarves) and these tiers (1-4) are enormous zones/regions. They are not redundantly instances and you will spend 10+ levels in them without zoning even once. The ONLY time you zone is when you cross over into another tier whether it be running to it or taking a flight master and of course entering a Scenario. Open-world RvR areas are seamlessly connected and not only feel like, but ARE, a part of the actual world. HUGE kudos to the Mythic teams that put this together.

Combat - RvR and PvE

Combat in WAR is what I consider to be ‘traditional’ pacing. Generally speaking, it’s not much different from EQ, WoW, LOTRO, DAOC, etc. It feels like the time spent in combat however is a little more sometimes. Killing level 1 NPC’s on my Shaman can take several spell casts and melee hits whereas in a game like WoW most level 1 things are dead with a few attacks. Mythic has spent a lot of time increasing the time RvR fights take. They don’t want anyone to be 1 shot, 2 shot, or for combat to be so quick that players lose the tactical opportunities to think about what move they should use next (although really this time is not more than a few seconds, it came seem like a long time for someone who is a veteran mmo gamer).

I don’t want people to misunderstand what I’m saying and start spreading the word that “omg WAR combat is so slow and boring!” because it’s anything but boring and ’slow’. Let me clarify further by saying combat is fast pace but the fights are drawn out longer.

Leveling up in general - is it fast or slow? Quests centric or what? what’s the REAL deal?

Leveling up in WAR is awesome. You have SO MANY choices. You can exclusively quest ala WoW or mix in some RvR ala DAOC or exclusively RvR. You can mix in Scenarios, Open-world RvR, PQ’s, dungeons, grinding, normal quests, and level well. The leveling in WAR feels standard to me. There are 40 levels in the game so I tend to think of each level as 1.5 the size of an oldschool WoW level. If it took you 30 minutes to get from level 3 to 4 in WoW it’ll take you 45 in WAR. Basically it feels 1.5x slower - hopefully that makes sense?

Leveling up renown ranks goes pretty quickly as well. If you mix in a healthy number of scenarios and participate in sieging objectives and keeps then you will gain ranks VERY quickly early on - so fast that you cap your renown rank for your level. It slows down a lot later on but never to the point where you feel like you’re not accomplishing something.

Public Quests

Altdorf Docks

What a fantastic addition to mmorpgs. The way these public quests are implemented will absolutely be copied by developers for future mmorpgs; of that I have no doubt. Allowing players to come together in a location and work towards a PQ (they’re like mini-events) to earn experience, influence, items, tome unlocks, and more without it feeling like a grind is nothing short of innovative and dare I say revolutionary. Although the idea of a “quest that everyone works on together” isn’t necessarily ‘new’, the way Mythic has implemented these is unlike anything I’ve played before. When I first experienced a PQ I sat back and thought, “Now why didn’t anyone think of that before?”.

These Public Quests are EVERYWHERE. Seriously. There is one in every race’s chapter 1, then they start increasing in numbers to something like 3 PQ’s in chapter 2 and it only gets more involved from there. Every keep is a PQ to kill the Keep Lord. Dungeons are full of PQ’s. City Sieges are PQ’s. Mythic has taken this simple idea and applied it everywhere applicable - just short of overkill in my opinion.

One major thing that I like about these quests is how easy it is to just jump in and participate, earn loot, and leave without any of the usual hassle. There’s no LFG or worrying about loot drama. You have zero commitment to stick around or feel like you’re going to miss something because you have to leave.

There is one slight negative that I have experienced in the system and it has to do with how loot is distributed for contribution. In almost every PQ that I participate in I will rank in the top 5 - that’s not bad when there are 30-40 people there in some of these. But that doesn’t mean I get loot. That means I get a bonus to my dice roll that the game automatically generates. This dice roll creates an almost true sense of randomness in who receives loot. I could have earned a +300 to my dice roll but only roll a 100. The guy who came in 20th could roll a 999 and win loot. That would mean the guy who contributed almost the least was able to take loot from someone who contributes the most. Of course this system IS truly fair, and I have been both helped and hurt by the random nature of the dice, but it bothers me to see my consistent top contribution perhaps not valued enough.

Scenarios

Many people will know Scenarios as ‘Battlegrounds’. These are instanced PvP(RvR) encounters that you queue up for (from anywhere in the world with the click of the a button) and play in with even and balanced teams. Where these depart from the usual BG is their diversity. There aren’t just zone control and capture the flag maps here. There are sieges, blood bowl, a Team Fortress 2 style tug of WAR, king of the hill, and more. There are LOTS of these Scenarios (At least one per racial pairing tier) and they are all different. That’s key right there for me because I have always hated running the same 2 or 3 battlegrounds over and over and over ad nauseum. In WAR I can queue up for whichever one I feel like playing then go off and do whatever I want, when the queue pops up I can take it and play, then when the match is over be sent back to my EXACT place in the world.

Scenarios are also a great content ‘filler’. Graev and I would be questing out in the world and have our queue up. We would be getting a little tired of our particular quest or maybe even PQ when the scenario window would come up and let us know it’s time to play. We would hop in and be able to take a break from whatever else we were doing just long enough that we can go back fresh. Scenarios, since they give exp, are also a great way to level and round out a tier.

Open-World RvR

T2 Empire Keep Siege

This is where the RvR truly shines. Starting in Tier 2+ (Tier 1 only has objectives) there are Keeps that you can siege out in the RvR areas (I call them Frontiers still - DAOC habit) and other objectives to take. Each of these RvR areas (a big area in each tier that gets bigger as the tiers go up) has a Warcamp that will offer RvR related quests. These quests + the objectives + the keeps + fighting players = amazing RvR fun. There is just so much action going on all the time! Last night we were on our level 14 Goblin Shaman/Squig Herder duo playing in the Dark Elf Tier 2 lands and Destruction had 2 Warbands (roughly equaling 35 people between them) defending one of our keeps that was under siege by Order. They had broken down the doors with rams and Hellblasters and for a few minutes I thought we were done for until we were able to somehow break their front line and get them on the run. Once they were running our army pushed into their territory and seized four of the batlefield objectives. We then made our way to their keep and began our siege.

It’s experiences like the one I shared above that keep me going in a game like this. It’s all about the open-world RvR and the real sense of territorial conflict going on. It gives me something else to play for besides leveling up or getting gear. I know that my goals are the same as everyone else on my realm because that’s the point of the game - dominate. I can’t wait to get off these Core servers and on to an open-rvr server where I don’t have to wait for my enemy to voluntarily flag or step into a RvR area - that will be REAL RvR.

Class Balance

Inevitable City

Okay, this deserves its own section because this is my biggest gripe about Warhammer Online. There are still some serious balance issues in the game that need to be worked out before launch. Some classes are overpowered and some classes are underpowered. There are even some cases where classes severely under perform for half of the game and then magically get fixed as they level up. I find none of the above acceptable in a RvR game. I’m not usually one to cry foul or start whining about balance but these are some serious issues. I could write a novel on all the imbalances I’ve encountered in-game but for now I’m going to bullet point these things to present them clearly. Here are a few I can think of off the top of my head:

• Runepriests heal too well early on (and possibly later) compared to other healers. Don’t misunderstand me, they’re primarily a healer and SHOULD heal the best, but they heal so well that they can have a full group beating on them for over a minute and survive (around level 14). I have experienced situations where Runepriests run in circles while they have 6-10 people hitting them and they don’t drop below half HP.
• Shaman and Archmage are too squishy for most of the game. I die in a few hits on my Shaman to TANKS. I see Archmages dying just as quickly. This archetype does not deal enough damage nor heal well enough to justify the lack of survivability.
• Warrior Priests are just plain overpowered. Simply put, they just don’t die. WP’s can get near 70% mitigation, 6000 hit points, approach 30% disrupt, 300 toughness, with very strong heals at level 31.. Their survivability is heinously lopsided.
• Squig Herders need help. Their melee mastery tree is nearly worthless. Shadow Warriors I’m sure are in a similar situation. I don’t play either of these classes and I think they need an increase in damage and their masteries looked at again.
• Sword Masters do too much damage for being a tank. Three shotting a Shaman and killing a Squig Herder in 9 seconds should not be acceptable.

The balance issues are many and if they’re not fixed they will be a problem at launch. Mythic knows this path is a slippery one and screwing up here can be the beginning of disaster. In the interview I had with Mark Jacobs at E3 he told me they have a much better way of detecting these imbalances than they did with DAOC. Let’s hope so.

How does the game run? Are there CTDs, crashes, lag etc?

The game runs like a dream right now. I’m not sure if the beta debug code is still in or not but I have no complaints. I get fantastic framerates with little stalling or hiccuping. I notice a tiny slowdown in capital cities for a few seconds but it’s almost not worth mentioning. In major RvR battles I will notice a stutter here and there but for the most part it’s smooth.
I get the occasional CTD - about once a day - but know people who got them constantly before yesterday’s mini-patch. A lot (I mean a ton) of people started experiencing CTDs after patch 3.3 so the problem DOES exist even if I’m not one of the unlucky ones. System ‘crashes’ and other nasty errors have been nonexistent for me (thank the good lord for that) and overall server stability have been good.

One of my biggest technical problems has been over the past week when a lot of people are in an area I begin experiencing server-side latency issues. Casting a spell and having it complete but not go off for a few seconds or swinging my weapon and not seeing numbers or damage appear is frustrating. It eventually all catches up but it throws off the flow of combat. This could be because the servers have been stress tested more than usual lately so I’m not worried. I know I’m not alone in this because general chat suddenly erupts with “Anyone else getting lag?”.

If I had to assign a number I would say that the game is running at 96% right now for me.

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That’s the end of my Part 1 impressions. I will be posting A LOT more today and this week going into more detail on the specifics. Hopefully Part 1 has given you an overall sense of my thoughts on the game. I have movies, a Q/A (give me your questions!), screenshots (about 60), and of course more writeups on the way.

Topics I want to hit in more detail include but are not limited to: Questing, Capital Cities, RvR, Siege Weapons, Keep Sieges, and specific class writeups.

Update #1: Screenshots are up. For now you can visit the Photobucket page to see them. I’ll link to them here in Impressions Part 2. Movies and ChaosCast are uploading.

Electronic Art’s upcoming third-person action sequel The Godfather II, goes beyond the film’s story by setting players in the world of organized crime in 1960’s Florida, Cuba and New York.

According to the game’s storyline:

“After being promoted by Michael Corleone to Don of New York, players expand to new cities, as they build up their families through extorting businesses, monopolizing illegal crime rings and defeating new families in an effort to become the most powerful mob family in America.

To help players manage their empire, The Godfather II introduces “The Don’s View” which is a strategy meta-game that allows players to oversee the entire world as they grow the family business. Using the Don’s View, players will be able to build, defend and expand their crime rings, while keeping an eye on the movements and plans of the rival families. Players will also learn to master the business of organized crime by building a family of “Made Men”, hiring crew, handing out orders, and promoting their best men up the ranks.”

While the teaser trailer posted above is indeed just that, it makes me wonder if Electronic Arts might possibly make a future third installment of the game should The Godfather II do as well as the first title. The idea makes me a bit nervous to be honest with you, because “The Godfather III” was the ruination of a what could have been a wonderful film trilogy. Should EA decide to go this route, hopefully it will fair better than that fallacy starring Sophia Coppola.

The Godfather II is expected to be made available for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 in February 2009.

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Tall grass gently swaying in the wind, tranquil watering holes, groves of short trees: no, this isn’t the opening to some sort of tourism commercial, it’s a video showing various areas of the African wilderness that the Jackal might be hiding in. The Jackal is the mysterious BBEG (Big Bad Evil Guy) that you’re trying to hunt down throughout the storyline in Far Cry 2 -- lest he continue his arms peddling ways.

I’ve gotta say, Far Cry 2 is looking better every time I see it. The large, realistic environments really give the game a one man stranded in an unknown and hostile wilderness sort of feel. Plus, you can set almost everything on fire, and who doesn’t enjoy setting large swaths of vegetation ablaze? I know I'll definetely be picking up a copy when Far Cry 2 releases this fall on the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.

To get a better idea of all the features Far Cry 2 will contain, check out Hamza’s hands-on from back in May.

Tall grass gently swaying in the wind, tranquil watering holes, groves of short trees: no, this isn’t the opening to some sort of tourism commercial, it’s a video showing various areas of the African wilderness that the Jackal might be hiding in. The Jackal is the mysterious BBEG (Big Bad Evil Guy) that you’re trying to hunt down throughout the storyline in Far Cry 2 -- lest he continue his arms peddling ways.

I’ve gotta say, Far Cry 2 is looking better every time I see it. The large, realistic environments really give the game a one man stranded in an unknown and hostile wilderness sort of feel. Plus, you can set almost everything on fire, and who doesn’t enjoy setting large swaths of vegetation ablaze? I know I'll definetely be picking up a copy when Far Cry 2 releases this fall on the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.

To get a better idea of all the features Far Cry 2 will contain, check out Hamza’s hands-on from back in May.

Mr. Dyack is one of the few industry insiders that subscribes to the ‘one console future’ idea. Perhaps his next train of thought will be the ‘one publisher future’ path?!

Link

Now, I don’t know if those guys in the video game industry have any idea what did real pirates eat, and I am sure they don’t even care, but the truth is they are the ones eating pirates these days, since their latest victim, a 24 year old from Oakland, is going to eat in a cool place for the next 15 months…<-125×125 Button - right->
The story goes like this - on Friday, Kifah Maswadi was sentenced to 15 months in prison and fined no less than $415,000 for copyright infringement, because he sold Power Player handheld consoles with various pirated copies of a bunch of video games, many of them Nintendo titles. Since we were talking about technology earlier, it should be obvious he used the Internet for these transactions, and it seems his profit exceeded $390,000.

I am sure this guy doesn’t care about real pirates either, especially since he’ll have no less than three years of supervised release, and 50 hours of community service, with the funny part of the whole thing being the fact that he will educate people on copyright infringement, instead of wiping the sidewalk…

If real pirates would have been forced to preach about the straight path in life to others, I am sure they would have hanged themselves, but I guess Kifah will have to move on with his life, and take it all like a real pirate, that if he doesn’t have the bad luck of ending up face to face with some big guy eager to show him what did real pirates eat, after all…