The latest Fallen Earth Question(s) of the Week has been posted over at their official forums where the developers answer questions asked by fans on a weekly basis.
New details reveal that clans will require 10,000 chips (the currency used in Fallen Earth) and a minimum of 10 members to establish. Clan leaders will be able to create up to 10 custom ranks with customizable permissions for each rank. Permissions include the privilege to invite/kick and promote/demote members, access to the clan vault, the ability to accept or reject clan war challenges, etc.
Clans will be able to engage in “clan wars”, whereby clans challenge each other to a formal war in which they can mutually agree on the rules, location and the amount wagered for rewards.
More questions are answered in the thread. For a chance to have your questions answered in future weeks, post here.
Star Vault, an independent game company from Sweden, has announced the development of Mortal Online, a first-person massively multiplayer online game utilizing Unreal Engine 3 that’s scheduled for release in Summer of 2009. Mortal Online is one of the few upcoming sandbox/player-driven MMOGs that’s boldly deviating from the standard conventions of mainstream MMOGs by providing players the freedom of unrestricted environments and open-ended gameplay.
News broke out yesterday when the game client source code of EVE Online was leaked via torrent and first made available on The Pirate Bay. The torrent included a chat transcript between the leaker and a CCP representative. Apparently, the leaker was concerned about the rampant abuse of bots and scripts in EVE online and was attempting to coerce CCP into taking stricter action regarding the issue. CCP is obviously not happy about the incident and is censoring the forums of any mention of the situation. Here’s a partial excerpt of the transcript:
At this year’s ION Game Conference 2008 (formerly known as OGDC, Online Game Developers Conference), taking place in Seattle at the Marriott Waterfront Hotel from May 13th to May 15th, such figures in the online gaming industry as Craig Sherman, CEO of Gaia Online, Scott Jennings, Lead Designer at NCSoft and Hermann Peterscheck, Producer of Jumpgate Evolution at NetDevil are among the hundred or so business leaders scheduled to speak at the conference.
The ION Game Conference is an annual event where game developers and industry personnel come together to celebrate and discuss the evolution of online gaming, ranging from the overview of the latest business and product developments to in-depth analyses of player psychology and in-game economic systems.
If you’re not already aware, players are welcome to participate in the second phase of closed beta testing for Magic World Online, which began last week. Registrations are open to anyone and there will no longer be any server wipes, so your character will remain all throughout testing and into the official launch of the game.
Mungo Creations has recently opened up a preview of its social networking web service MMOSocial, a gaming community portal that allows members to connect with other MMO gamers, write blogs, post messages, upload content, make friends and manage guilds/clans, for instance, scheduling in-game events and raids. The site is still in beta testing stages.
“MMOSocial will build on more than the common communication layers that anchor many community sites today, such as forums and generically embodied social sites. We are bringing a modular extension to the Massively Multiplayer Online services industry that will grow to feature advanced custom components or add-ons, and in return boost the experience for gamers and guilds. In this way, gamers will remain engrossed as allies and enemies that are similarly found within each style of massively multiplayer games such as World of Warcraft World of Warcraft Friends, Lord of the Rings Online, and upcoming titles such as Age of Conan Age of Conan Friends and Warhammer Online Warhammer Online Friends.” - Thomas Gobuzas, Co-Founder of MMOSocial
Freaky Creatures is a hybrid between an action figure toy-line with collectible card game elements and a persistent online multiplayer game that’s being developed by Abandon Interactive Entertainment. Players wanting to get into the game will be required to purchase a starter pack that includes a USB device which contains the game installation, two unique Freaky Creatures figures and their virtual counterparts, 50 parts, 20 powers and 4 objects, all of which are randomly generated and used to customize your creatures and their lairs, as well as special in-game cards that provide various abilities and advantages.
A new Flash-based social MMO produced by FlowPlay, titled ourWorld, is the latest addition to the long list of current virtual worlds available on the web, as the game enters public beta for the first time. Unlike traditional virtual worlds, however, ourWorld provides a guided experience, level-based progression, emphasis on player-cooperation and fascinating virtual jobs, such as bartending, which earn you salaries paid in ourWorld’s in-game currency called “Flow”.
Many Disney fans and casual gamers are disappointed that the popular free online MMO, Virtual Magic Kingdom is getting its plug pulled after only 3 years of existence. Initially, the game was created to temporarily promote Disneyland’s 50th Anniversary, but due to its popularity, Disney decided to keep the game running, even after the events of the celebration had ended.
Ubisoft announced at the end of 2007 that Heroes of Might and Magic Kingdoms, a web-based massively multiplayer online strategy game, was set to launch in Spring this year. The launch is quickly approaching, but there’s still some time left to sign up for a chance to get into the action early.
“Thousands of players will be able to rule their virtual kingdoms, lead gigantic armies against each other, master the trades or create legendary heroes. The game requires no download or installation, only an Internet connection. In addition, players can play at their own pace; from 10 minutes to multiple-hour sessions.” - Ubisoft
It’s been announced that the Undead will be the sixth and latest faction to be joining the Brotherhood forces in the MMORTS, SAGA. The Brotherhood currently consists of the Dark Elves and Orcs. Their opposition, the forces of Order, is made up of Dwarves, Elves and Giants. The new faction will add over 20 unique unit types.
The sequel to TrackMania Nations, a free online racing game with gravity defying tracks and stunts, TrackMania Nations Forever, will be available as a free download starting on April 16th, 2008.
TrackMania Nations launched two years ago and instantly became an online phenomenon. It has been downloaded and installed on 30 million computers with 4 million accounts created.
Manga Fighter is a free-to-play massively multiplayer online third-person shooter with cel-shaded graphics and anime-inspired visuals that’s currently celebrating its grand opening with special events and contests.
The game offers a unique take on online shooters with stylized cartoon characters, non-lethal weapons and an action-oriented experience without the blood and violence, perfect for younger generations.
“We are huge fans of other MMO shooter games,” said YJ Jin, Producer of Manga Fighter. “But we’re tired of gory, violent and gruesome games. With Manga Fighter, we’ve created something fun– yet non-violent– so that gamers of all ages can jump in and have a great time.”
Go have yourself a look at the latest trailer to be released, showcasing the game mechanics of Tennis, one of the many sports that players can engage in while taking part in the first multisports MMO, Empire of Sports. The game is now already just a few weeks into its private launch which began late in March. For instructions on how to sign-up and become a VIP tester, click here.
Aeria Games has recently acquired the license for Stone Age 2, a casual 2D MMORPG developed by a Japanese company called DigiPark Inc., to make the prehistoric-themed game available for western audiences. This is Aeria Games’ seventh title in their free online games lineup.
Fallen Earth has 5 new screenshots up and the latest weekly questions thread posted on their forum. It’s sad to hear that the infamous digger gun has been scrapped. A lot of people were looking forward to being able to manipulate the environment by digging man holes for cover, booby traps and various other purposes with the high-tech digger gun, which can be seen in the following video.
Cryptic Studios answers some additional fan questions for Champions Online this week with their latest edition of Ask Cryptic. Some of the positive news includes less emphasis on instanced missions than what were found in CoX (City of Heroes/Villains). Instanced areas, instead, will be reserved for villain bosses and the like. The majority of missions in CoX took place in semi-randomly generated instanced areas that were generally lacking in variety. However, that may change in Champions Online by making them fewer and farther in between, rather than the standard template. Standard missions will take place in persistent environments, akin to WoW.
Man, the guys behind Earthrise never seem to decline any interview requests from the media. Every week, they’re being featured in an exclusive interview, podcast or dev chat. It’s not exactly a bad thing, it’s actually admirable how they’re able to juggle between media relations and game development when the game has a release date of sometime in 2009 and it was just announced a few months ago. Stratics put together a recent interview with the CEO of the game’s development company and lead designer of Earthrise, and will be hosting the second House of Commons chat with Masthead Studios on Thursday April 17 at 4pm EST, 9pm GMT, 10pm CET. It’ll taking place in #StraticsHoC of irc.stratics.com port 6668. Simply connect using an IRC client to participate. Here’s the transcript of the last Earthrise HoC chat. The latest QOTW (Question of the Week) was also posted over at their forums discussing storyline missions and faction standings.
To summarize, Associate Producer Tasos explains that Darkfall is feature complete and that professional testers are already beta testing the game. Their general belief on beta testing is that it should be a process to aid the developers in making their product as stable as possible, not to promote some other artificial agenda, like marketing the game. MMO betas these days are like red carpet premiers and sneak peaks, rather than legitimate stages in development. When it comes time for public play testing, that’s when they’ll be looking for players, not testers, to simulate and optimize the experience of the retail version.
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