Tuesday - March 05, 2002
Czech gaming site BonusWeb has conducted an interview (English) with Sergey Buravtsov (Project Leader) from Russian developer Burut on his company's upcoming isometric fantasy RPG Golden Land.
Here's an appetizer:
Could you tell us the basic story of the game?
Only 300 years passed since that time when evil hordes under command of dark god Drah-Shoo were defeated, and scorched earth of Golden Valley has found quietness. Country of Golden Mountains becomes more beautiful, than ever before and people have begun to forget a terror of evil times. Great Heroes, those who defeated terrestrial entailment of Drah-Shoo were canonized and Cult of Heroes has possessed souls of people. Inhabitants of Golden Land turn their glances out of their celestial protectors, Gods of Light, hoping only on themselves. And it seems to be, that nothing could destroy peace in Golden Land anymore. Cloudless years, passed since the moment of falling of Drah-Shoo, forced people to think that similar life will last always. So nobody was warned, when monsters begun to creep out from their borrows, filling the valley with the smell of evil, hunger, diseases and wars taken to reap their ample harvest. Only one man - the highest priest of the Cult knows, that three hundred years back exactly these signs have heralded to world about Drah-Shoo...
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There is a pretty huge special for Lucas'/BioWare's Star Wars RPG 'Knights of the Old Republic' over at GameSpot. Since KotOR is going to be released on X-Box first, all of the coverage is located on GameSpot's video games pages (rather than its PC games pages) right now but most of the info should apply to the PC version as well. Well, what we got?
First of all a preview/interview hybrid. Mike Gallo (Producer) from Lucas Arts answers GameSpot's questions in the latter of the two. And then there are 21 all new screenshots for your viewing pleasure. OK, most of them are artworks actually but that shouldn't keep you from having fun when viewing them ;) |
| RPGvault features the latest entry in a series of Black Moon Chronicles developer diaries. This one is part no. 8 and it has been written by Phillipe Bergeron, a game designer at Vircom. It's either that Phil isn't exactly the talkative type or there wasn't much to say about "Single-Player in an Online World". Anyway, the diary is pretty short but nonetheless an interesting read as Phil discovers that MMORPGs are lacking the depth of single player RPGs. Go dig it. |
Horizons Vault has an interview with with two of the designers, Steve Snow and Shawn CarnesWhen do you think realistically Horizons will be ready to be shown to the public?
Shawn Carnes:We're going to go to E3, and it's not just for the parties. ;) As far as a complete public unveiling, we want to make sure that the first unveiling will showcase our strengths and amazing features in the best possible way. When we get all our ducks in a row, we'll definitely show the public what we have in store for them when they play Horizons... and that time is a lot closer than a lot of people think.
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| Frank André Thies from German MM-World.com has put up a nice overview of the town types and units in 3DO's/NWC's Heroes of Might & Magic IV. |
1) Absor (Sony Station Admin) has slapped up an extremely detailed FAQ for the mage class in Sony's/Verant's highly popular MMORPG. The Q&A was compiled from an E-Mail list of questions from the people at the 'Mage Compendium'.
2) Downtime: All servers will be brought down for a scheduled patch on Thursday, March, 07 at 3PM PST. Projected duration: 6 hours.
| | Source: PlanetEQ |
1) The latest Star Wars: Galaxies team comment comes from Devin Lafontaine, an artist who talks a little bit about himself, how he got interested in games, the games biz, Star Wars, and stuff like that.
2) Raph "Holocron" Koster (Creative Director) explains the process of coming up with a decent system for character attribute customization in this forum post. Very interesting stuff indeed as it's definitely one of the most important game design issues that needs to be resolved in any RPG. |
Kilmor Farghal has written up another beta journal based on his experiences in the ongoing Shadowbane beta test.
It is available in German, English, and French.
Here's a snip:
You probably read about my first steps, today I will travel further in Aerynth and I want to tell you about the miracles, possibilities and experiences.
Specialising - Where to Go?
We encountered many ways to test our strength against Orcs, Undead and Lizardman on our raid and with every victory we grew stronger and more experienced. Finally the time has come, a last ball of arcane energy is forming in my hands and strikes the unholy undead, who seeked to transform me into an undead as well. Victory is mine and I raise my hands in joy next to the corpse of my enemy. It is done, I finally completed the first step of becoming a veteran and reached rank 1. On top of the joyful congratulations from my comrades a message arrived. It is time to define my future role in the struggle for power in this world. I have to choose a profession now and I am thinking about the possibilities I have as a mage. Finally I decide to walk the path of the elements and I visit the appropriate trainer to become a Channeler.
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| The Camelot Herald sends along word of version 1.47 hitting the retail game servers (non-Pendragon) today. A complete list of the fixes is right here. |
| Some new monster profiles can be found at the official site fo Lord Blackthorn's Revenge, the latest addon for Ultima Online. On their frontpage, you can enter a sweepstake and win UO related stuff, handsigned. |
The latest Exult site update was posted the day before yesterday, and thanks to Voodooextreme, we didn't miss it :-). Here's what they have to say:
Jeff has created an 'ipack' program to help with creating and modifying art files.
You can now adjust the combat difficulty in the exult.cfg file
Several improvements to how map-editing mode works.
Bug fixes (including some spells, traps and serpent venom)
Exult lets you run Ultima 7 on today's computers... |
There is a very positive review of Throne of Darkness over at Game Industry Network. Their rating: 4.5 out of 5 gems. Here's how they conclude theri review:
In the end, I only found the three or four things I mentioned above to be problems and I feel that in weighing the pluses and minuses, the negative aspects of the game only merit a 1/2 GiN Gem loss and I am happy to give 4 and 1/2 GiN gems to a game that I consider to be one of the best games I have played all year. | | Source: Vaultnetwork |
| The new homepage for KnightShift, an RTS/RPG with a twist, has opened its doors to the public. KnightShift is an RTS/RPG mix about very funny, gallant knights and even funnier, stupid cows in a middle aged fantasy world of flying witches, dark priests, giants and also a lonely dragon. Each of the characters has its own personality and interacts with other characters and inhabitants of this spell binding game thus not releasing the player from it`s own spells too quickly. |
This info comes from Pete Hines from Bethesda Softworks:
Tonight at 9pm (EST) on CNN, Lynda Carter will be the featured guest on Larry King Live. During one part of the interview she'll talk about her work on Morrowind and talk about the game. I don't know at what point that'll be during the show, so you'll just have to watch. The show is replayed at midnight tonight as well.
I'm sure they'll show some artwork or gameplay footage during that segment. No idea what or how much they'll end up using. Thought some of you might be interested. |
 RPGDot Feature: Customize RPGDot
Posted by Rendelius @ 11:59 - Top 
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We are happy to present you the latest addition to our site: you can now customize RPGDot for your personal needs. Above the headlines, you will find a bar that allows you to create and edit an account with the site. You can choose which games should be displayed (for example, you can exclude console games or MMORPGs, if you are not interested), you can choose which type of news should be displayed (if you don't want to be informed about forum tidbits, for example), and you can specify up to 5 games for which these settings will be ignored, so you will be able to read every newsbit about them. Finally, you can set if you want new things since your last visit to be marked.
You will have to register for this service, but it will be free, of course. And no question about it: your mail address will stay with us and not be used for anything else but site purposes.
Hope you enjoy our new feature - we will continue to improve this site for you :-) |
Gamers Hell isnot quite in heaven - when they look at Wizardry 8. Their review is friendly, but not enthusiastic with a rating of 7/10. Here's their conclusion:
To be honest I must say that I was a bit disappointed by this game. Even though I have learned about the more advanced topics of role playing games the story didn’t catch me the for instance Anachronox and Gothic did, and the monster crushing wasn’t as adrenaline pumping as my virgin trip through Diablo 2 + LOD.
There is however a lot avid role players can enjoy about Wizardry 8; a long game with exotic locations, fun spells (of many uses) and massive weapons of many kinds to reduce the enemies’ hit points to zero.
However, if the story followed you more as you advance throughout the game and the graphics were improved then I’m sure they could cater more for the adventurous ones who aren’t as hardcore as others, yet. |
The Armchair Empire lets us know that they have posted a preview of Dragon Empires, Codemasters's upcoming MMORPG with a fantasy setting. Here's a bit from the preview:
As mentioned earlier, cities play an important role in the game. They are the prized gems players are trying to control after all. Once you seize control of a city, you won’t just sit there and wait for a clan to come over and pick a fight. There will be plenty of politics to be dealt with. The ruling body of the town must now determine taxes for the shops, levies to put on teleporter and boat transportation, and a number of other administrative duties. There are also members of other clans that are not at war with you that will be roaming the city, chatting with others, using the shops and such. Just because you seize a town it doesn’t mean it will wither and die, it will remain a bustling city that has to be taken care of. How you do so will likely determine whether or not your clan is challenged for control of the town. Discontent players within the city may decide they’re mad as hell and aren’t going to take it anymore, and will attack the powers that be in an attempt to take over. |
A rather short review of Baldur's gate: Dark Alliance went online at Gaming Voice. They rate the game 4 out of 5 points, and their summary is very positive, too:
In summary, this game is a nice diversion. I was thoroughly expecting an extension of the PC game, but was pleasantly surprised to see it was virtually a different genre, with the PC version acting as a ghostly guide for players. I enjoyed the experience from start to finish. Parents should be warned that there is a great deal of 'hack-and-slash', blood and use of alcohol, and thus deserving of its ESRB T (Teen 13+) rating. If you are prepared for this, then the rest should be a treat or you. It is definitely worth a rental and is a likely candidate for purchase. |
| The german website for Morrowind went online a couple of days ago, and yesterday they anounced the possibility for german fans to ask questions to the development team at their forums. The answers will be published tomorrow. The site isn't really complete by now, some sections are missing, but you can already have a look at the FAQ, look at screenshots, download wallpapers and watch movies... |
The latest Glimpse Inside at the official Earth & Beyond site talks about The Red Dragons, pirates in the universe of Earth & Beyond. Snippet serverd here:
The Red Dragons have existed as a criminal organization since the time of Earth's Boxer Rebellion, but have recently become increasingly dangerous. They are still based in the Hong Kong district of Pacific Rim City, but their influence is felt throughout the galaxy. It is believed that the mysterious figure known as "Shou Tzu," who seized control of the Red Dragons after a recent insurrection, is responsible for the organization's recent expansion.
Red Dragons congregate in smaller clans, or "tongs," and are fiercely loyal to each other and their membership. Individual tongs occupy their own areas, and while they won't attack other tongs, you will rarely see a Red Dragon infringing on another tong's area. The organization is believed to be made up of three great tongs. These are the Heung Leung, based in Sol System; the Liu Leung, based in Beta Hydri, and the Bai Leung, in Tau Ceti. |
PC Paradox has written a preview of Eve Online, the upcoming futuristic MMORPG by CCP. Here's a bit:
What is making this game so awe inspiring? Well to be blunt, the developers have a fantastically ambitious idea for the whole game world. Although not revolutionary, EVE is evolving so many parts of the genre that it is bordering on revolutionary. Persistent game data has been the most important feature of MMORPGs in the past, but CCP is taking this above and beyond "the next level". CCP has modeled so many in game systems and woven them together into a tightly connected game world that it is simply impressive that such a small company could do it. There are many systems within the game which have been modeled, such as the economy, combat, power, allegiance, and so forth. Data created within the game for each character interacts with not only other characters but NPCs as well, who all have their own stats and in game data that changes dynamically according to players' actions. Now imagine all the complexity of this and then place it in a system which will be holding 10s of 1000s of players, who will be traveling around in a universe which will hold over 5000 systems, and be flying in well over 50 possible ships from each of the 4 main races: Amarr, Gallente, Minmatar, and Caldari. One can only hope that CCP can pull off such an ambitious system, for it should be quite an amazing game if they do. |
| Naturally, this day can't go without some new Warcraft 3 screenshots, either, and Worthplaying is kind enough to bring them to you... |
Warcraft 3 preview anyone? Head over to Loadedinc and find one there. Here's a bit for you:
A plus point is the ability for the player to make a come-back into a game after taking a pounding. There are two opinions on this. Either a game can drag on and on as peons are run round a map pumping up bases to keep alive, or it gives the less skilled player the chance to fight back with their new base going hopefully unnoticed. In two recent games I have won by simply boring my opponent into submission by pumping up bases before the base he is attacking has been destroyed. This can work against players that don’t expand early and find their funds running low. The question is though, does this make it a fun game. I guess that’s down to if you are winning or losing.
Unit control is becoming easier the more I play, at first it was a bit of a struggle clicking icons, trying to select my Heroes and generally keeping on top of things in battle. Warcraft III has hotkeys for just about everything but I’m still to get my head round what key works with which unit. The unit control is not the simplest and it’s not helped at the moment by unresponsive grouping and unit selecting. Once things are ironed out in this department and you’ve put the hours in things should be a lot easier.
a More detailed look at the multiplayer part of Warcraft 3 for the Mac can be found at InsideMacGames. |
| Computer & Video games severs you more than two dozen screenshots from Grandia 2. |
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