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Sign Up to Submit News and Earn Credibility! |
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A new reign begins on the GW Amp site today. A new herald of the Site Manager title has been chosen and his name is Wyat_Hawke.
For those unaware, outstanding staffer/member Kanna recently stepped down as Site Manager for the site. In his departure, a new SM was sought to fill in the void. Kanna will be missed as staffer but I am pretty sure he isn't completely leaving the site. I would like to be one of the first to thank him for his time and effort he placed into the site on a daily basis. Also please give congratulations to Wyat in his new position for the site.
With Wyat taking over as SM, we are considering opening up to take on new staffers. Stay tuned for news on seeking out site assistance. If anyone has any questions feel free to contact Wyat or myself.
Stay tuned to Gameamp.com for more news on Guild Wars.
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To quote Billy Idol, “In the midnight hour, she cried more, more, more!”
Now, either Billy Idol has the clairvoyance that rivals Miss Cleo or Positron happened to be listening to Rebel Yell when thinking of a name for the 12th free issue of CoX to hit the live servers: Midnight Hour. This issue is shaping up to be the biggest and best in the four year history of the game and without question it is going to be bringing the most and best improvements to the quality of life for those who matter most, the gamers.
Since the formation of NCSoft Norcal and NCSoft’s acquisition of the CoX franchise, the development team, led by Positron, BaB and Castle, has grown and been able to greatly increase the content and game mechanics. The recently staffed pohsyb has been working on the QoL features requested by the players. Since the test server was unlocked for open beta testing, the NDA was also lifted and pohsyb posted all of the new QoL features that will be implemented once i12 goes live.
There are too many new features for me to list here, but I will give you a link to all of them plus list some of the ones I find most impressive.
Local Settings: Most user options can now be saved to file and loaded from file. If a default setting file is saved, all newly created characters will use the default file to set initial options. The options window now has buttons added to save and load default files. Non-default files can be saved and loaded via slash commands.
Player Notes: You may now rate players and write notes about them. The notes are stored by global name. The note list is stored locally on your computer and will bring up the same notes for any character you play with.
Global Chat Changes: Increased Max Global Channels to 10. Breaking the invisible wall between global and local identities, added commands: /get_local_name and /get_global_name . /hide and /ghide will now bring up an option dialog where you can separately choose to hide from Global Chat Channels, Global Friends, Server Friends, Supergroup, Tells, Invites and Searches.
Email Changes: Added "Spam" Button to email window. It will ignore the sender as a spammer and delete the email.
Inspiration Improvements: You can now combine 3 inspirations of the same type and strength into a different inspiration of the same strength, this is accessible via the context menu for qualified inspirations.
Server Character Changes: Character slots in the character selection screen can now be reorganized by dragging and dropping. The sort order is stored in a file on the client, but only if "Remember Account Name" is checked.
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A number of high-profile video game publishers will not be in attendance during this year's E3 Media and Business Summit (formerly the Electronic Entertainment Expo or E3). Among the skippers will be Activision, North America's largest game publisher, and Vivendi, both of whom will be dropping out of the Entertainment Software Association altogether. Other non-attendees include City of Heroes publisher NCSoft, Her Interactive and id Software, though those companies will remain with the ESA.
Some of the reasons speculated as to why companies are dropping out are - dissatisfaction with current ESA president Mike Gallagher, whom some have felt has not been active enough in defending or learning about the industry.
- the July date, which is very inconvenient for a number of big publishers. Some companies have a fiscal quarter end in June, after which they must observe a "quiet period" and not interact with investors.
- the feeling that the scaled down E3, to which only members and media are invited, does not serve the needs of the publishers, nor does spending a lot of money for promotion at an event like E3.
There is also concern that the scaled down E3 will make less money for the ESA, meaning that the association will have less money to lobby Congress or for things like the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB).
NCSoft has cited a timing issue related to their internal development schedule as their reason for not attending this year, but PR manager Mike Crouch has stated that the publisher still believes that E3 and the ESA are useful and NCSoft has nothing negative to say about either.
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City of Heroes/City of Villains lead writer Joe "Hero 1" Morrissey has come out with more details about the storyline of Issue 12: Midnight Hour.
The story centers around the Midnight Squad, whom Morrissey describes as having "some of the coolest history, yet hardly any of it has been opened up to the players". The Midnighters were devastated when the Rikti attacked. The Rikti knew that they were vulnerable to magic, so they tried their best to take the Squad out of the picture early when they invaded. Now the Midnighters will strike back, bringing all their research and knowledge for one singular purpose, against one single enemy: the Rikti.
Heroes will have the "Lost and Found" story arc, in which Montague Castanella has them facing off against the Rikti and assisting the new leader of the Dawn Patrol, the Vanguard and the Traditionalists and crafting an item that could dramatically change things in the game world. Villains will meet Darrin Wade, a former Midnight Squad member who now sells his wares in the Rogue Isles. He will lead players to fight against the encroaching Midnighters and reveal a darker side to the Rikti through an arc with numerous twists and turns.
Issue 12 will also introduce some new technology to the "City of..." missions: contextual dialogue. Contacts will be able to know specific things about the player and the state of the mission they're on, and tailor their dialogue accordingly. This will be used in almost every new mission, and especially come into play with the "Orgins of Power" story arcs, where the contact that matches your origin will give you more detailed information. There are more plans to use contextual dialogue, but as always some of the developers' plans will have to stay under wraps for now.
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Can you believe that this game has really lasted that long? It was four years ago today, April 28, 2004, when City of Heroes first launched. And the game has grown and changed so much since it first launched, as Matt "Positron" Miller points out in his 4th anniversary message. And the game continues to grow, with Issue 12: Midnight Hour coming soon and even more new features coming our way.
One little tidbit Miller has shared seems to have fandom excited: player-created missions and story arcs. Some time in the future players will be able to choose a map, villain group and objective and write their own dialogue and clues. They will then be able to upload the missions to be played and rated by other players across all servers, with fame coming to those players whose content is rated among the best.
The fine folks at NCSoft have also released a 12-month (May 2008-April 2009) calendar available as either a downloadable PDF or as desktop wallpapers. The calendar features dates important to the lore of Paragon City as well as the dates of upcoming events players may be interested in, such as
- May 6, 2008: Issue 12: Midnight Hour goes to open beta.
- July 18, 2008: Double XP weekend begins.
- October 20, 2008: Halloween Event begins.
- December 15, 2008: Winter Event begins.
- January 23, 2009: Double XP weekend begins.
The calendar is available on its own webpage here.
And finally, some fun facts about the game, as shared by Positron:
- Since the game's launch, 32 million characters have been created.
- Players have spent a combined 292 centuries playing City of Heroes and City of Villains.
- The most popular origins are Mutant (25%), Magic (24%) and Natural (21%).
- The most popular archetypes are blasters for heroes and masterminds for villains.
- The most popular travel pool powers are fly (34%) and super jump (30%).
- The archetypes that tend to be the wealthiest are scrappers on the hero side and brutes on the villain side.
- Since its launch with Issue 9 in 2007, the consignment house has seen more than 100 million items traded through it.
- The most traded item in the consignment house is Base Salvage: Alien Tech Salvage.
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We all know that in-game Gold is sold for Real Money in a process called RMT. We know it because we get tells in-game from seller accounts and because we sometimes (think we can) see the farming accounts at work in our beloved game.
That there is a market for in-game gold can not be doubted once one looks at Google's WOW Guide WOW GOLD trend analysis. Some go as far as to compare the phenomenon to prostitution, claiming it's the unsavory elements around it that are the problem, not the "service" itself.
Game Security blogger Play no Evil got some statistics straight from the monster's mouth. IGE has been busy tearing itself to shreds so was unavailable for comparable figures.
The article is an interesting read, showing some interesting tidbits like WOW-EU gold being persistently cheaper than WOW-US Gold. Could it be that Blizzard patrols the EU servers less fanatically or is it to do with time-zones, the proverbial Chinese Farmer doesn't have to wait nearly a day for the US market to wake up before offloading the hot goods. Some of the comments are even better. Truly showing how complex and diverse this issue really is.
Read and discuss.
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Now for something all you alt-oholics have been waiting for: Additional Character Slots! Positron let the cat out of the bag this morning that players can earn and/or purchase additional character slots for any server that they wish once Issue 12: Midnight Hour goes live. This has been one of the major requests from players for a long time and the community will give a great sigh of relief now that it has been answered.
The CoX Universe has been built to encourage altism and this will truly let your creative juices flow. Each server will be able to hold up to 36 characters! And on top of that, you will now be able to rearrange how they are displayed on the character selection screens!
As I said before, players can earn AND purchase new slots for their accounts. Every active member will automatically receive 2, count 'em 2, new character slots upon the release of i12! They will also be made available thru the Veteran Reward system. And if this isn't enough, you can purchase them in bundles of 1, 2 or 5 slots for no more than $19.99.
If you'd like to see the full details and discussion thread, you can click here for another helping of awesome sauce!
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Strictly speaking this isn't news, since this item is about two decades into the past and one decade into the future.
The first is a Visual Histroy of MMORPGs (first part) hosted at Massively.com which shows a nice overview of the genre, starting with the first MUD, created by Richard Bartle and Roy Trubshaw back in 1978 (told you it was two decades) up to around the time Everquest hits the scene in 1999. Presumably, that will get a viewing in part2. But for a quick timeline of that classic, check here.
But this is all preface for Richard Bartle's (who is indeed the same Bartle as from the famous Bartle Test which many Developers still use to define players by) Keynote speech at IMGDC 2008, in which he sets out three brilliant though sometimes scary visions of how MMORPG's will evolve in the next ten years or so.
Best of all, he posted his Slides online!
I would invite you all to look at the pretty pictures by Massively and then read through Richard Bartle's Slides, if only to find out how he managed to link MMORPG's to two of the best things to come out of the seventies, namely the Muppets and Debbie Harry.
Once you're done, I'd like you to share your thoughts on the past and future of MMORPGs here.
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Once again our visual world in the City of community is taking another turn.
With the announcement of the new partnership with Double Fusion comes the idea for in-game ads for the COH/COV world. The idea of in-game advertising is not new to the MMO world, but is being concidered as an option in the near future for the COH/COV community. Although it has been met with mixed emotions in the past they feel this is good way to generate revenue and reinvest it into the development of more content and depth for the City of Heroes/Villains worlds. This feature can be managed by simply turning it off in the Option menu hence the word "optional". The only ads that will be introduced will be relevant to the context or branding of the game. With the City of Heroes/Villains having a "T for Teen" rating there will be no mature ads involving alcohol and/or tabacco products.
 
These ads are going to take the place of the already stratigically place billboards.
They are looking for this to go live this summer and will carefully study how it affects the community. If this looks to be a success they will look into other ways of implemnting the ads throughout the game.
They are wanting the community to get involved early as well. They want to see your artistic abilities and are inviting anyone that is interested to submit their own ads. These ads will be used in the Training Room for the Test Servers. Here is a link to more specific requirements for Fan Art Submissions. All this information and more can be found on the COH/COV Offical Site.
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Onomatopoeia: the use of a word to replace a sound.
Now the creators of CoX are catering to ever comic book geek out there. Instead of sounds for powers you now will have colorful words!!!!!!!!!! (for the non-geek they are the "POW" and "Ka-Boom" type words)
They researched and found that the people that have been building computers actually forget about speakers and headsets. They want to make sure that everyone gets a full gaming experience. You no longer have to listen to the game.
They made sure to make room on your hard drive by removing all sounds from in game. For those of you that wish not to have the Visual Sounds you will have the option to disable the effect.
A note from Positron himself on the new Visual Sounds
| QUOTE | | “I have always been an advocate of using the theater of the mind,” said Matt “Positron” Miller, Lead Designer on the titles. “When you read a book, you give the characters their own voices, and when you watch a movie based on that book you can’t help but be disappointed when what your mind came up with was better. That’s the way this system works. Whatever sounds we put into the game can’t compare to what you can imagine with your own mind, so why even try?” |
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