Wednesday - February 20, 2002
| Thanks to Erik Johansen from ToTheGame who's mail just dropped in the very moment I was typing the Morrowind screenshots newsbit (below) a few minutes ago, we've learnt that Prophecy also holds 30 new Dungeon Siege screenshots. Just like the Morrowind shots, they're not exactly HQ screenies either. Jeez, makes you wonder if they take their shots with an ATI Xpert 98 gfx card ;) | | Source: ToTheGame |
Prophecy.co.za has scored 20 new screenshots of Bethesda's third Elder Scrolls installment. Unfortunately, the screens all have a very washed-out look to them or to quote Erik Johansen from ToTheGame who just added this comment to our MMIX screenshot newsbit today:
It's always possible to take crap screenshots from a brilliant game.
Couldn't agree more, really :) | | Source: VoodooExtreme |
| And RPGvault's second feature for tonight introduces Vircom's André Roy, Director of Operations for the company's upcoming MMORPG Black Moon Chronicles. |
| RPGvault's first feature for tonight is a Freedom Force Tutorial Gallery, showing some live action from the single player portion of the superhero RPG that's actually an MMORPG. However, to introduce players to the special abilities of some superheroes there will be a tutorial that can be played solo to get into the controls and stuff like that. |
Vircom's MMORPG Black Moon Chronicles which is currently in beta testing, has undergone major maintenance today as the server was taken down to apply a 250MB patch. Now, the part I didn't get and couldn't find any info on is: does that mean the client update weighs in at 250MB or just the server side file ? Have fun downloading in case they were talking about the client *eg*
Be aware that all characters had to be deleted due to the fundamental changes. The long patch note can be found right here.
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| MGON has posted issue no. 4 in a series of UO: LBR developer diaries. This latest entry was written by Kai 'Helios' Steinmann, designer and world builder. |
 System Shock: New Remake announced - SS2K
(PC: Single-Player RPG) | Posted by Moriendor @ 16:01 - Top 
| Game Info | Homepage |
Snakecharmer Software is currently working on a remake of alltime classic System Shock, a futuristic single player RPG from highly acclaimed Looking Glass Studios who were unfortunately forced to go out of business a while back.
Snakecharm intend to support DirectX 8.0 technology but to stay as close as possible to the original System Shock "as the engine allows". Here are some early screenshots.
Once done, SS2K will be distributed as freeware. A release date has not been set yet.
Here's a snip from the FAQ:
What graphic engine will SS2K use?
SS2K will use Pie In The Sky’s GCS3D engine. You, in the back, shut up. Look at it this way: System Shock used a kludgey tile-and-sprite-based 3D DOS engine. GCS3D is a kludgey tile-and-sprite-based 3D DX8 engine. (In all fairness, GCS3D can support true 3D objects.) GCS3D also has a workable inventory system, vital for any decent remake of System Shock. A couple of notes: I’ve built System Shock’s Medical level in both UnrealEd and Worldcraft... but the simple sector-editor of GCS3D is far easier and more effective than either, at least in building System Shock geometry. Besides, I’ve been playing with GCS for years…so I know how to get the most out of the engine. Trust me on this one – I won’t be able to recreate everything in System Shock, but I’ll come close.
| | Source: Through the Looking Glass |
| The Pendragon test realms now run on version 1.46C. Read the patch release note at The Camelot Herald. |
What a sad, sad story. Some immature #*!$% has/have hacked Neocron Online, a fansite dedicated to Reakktor's/CDV's upcoming MMORPG. The result of the hack can be seen here.
Needless to say that the N/O guys are in desperate need for some support and reasons to continue their great service. If you want to drop them a line head on over to this thread at their message boards. Heads up, N/O. Don't let yourself be discouraged by some h4ck3r d00dz!
I really hope there's IP logs and that someone will take legal action against those bastards.
Here's the webmaster's announcement:
Welcome to Neocron/Online. Incase you didn't know, we got hacked and pretty well fucked over.
Just about any and all will I had to continue on with N/O has been basically raped from me. With all the shit that has happened before and now this, I am to the point where I am ready to quit and just say fuck it. The attack was a server attack (not specific to N/O) and they proceeded to destroy N/O, my portfolio site and my Quake Clan site.
Is there any good reason that we should rebuild N/O again? I'd love to hear it.
Frustrated and Totally Pissed Off,
Tony 'Preacher' Sulita
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ShadeRaven from Neverwinter Vault is at it again. This time he zooms in on the druid class and offers some suggestions for character development, skill point assignment etc.
All still based on preliminary info, of course, as we're not expecting BioWare's potential mega seller to be out before summer. |
GamesDomain has whipped out a preview of SSG's/UbiSoft's Warlords Battlecry II.
Here's a snip from the intro:
When the Warlords series first appeared, it was a fairly formal turn-based strategy game with the usual band of Lord of the Rings style races and monsters vying for military and territorial supremacy. Then the Australia-based developers at SSG decided it was time to introduce a real-time angle in the form of Warlords Battlecry. The latest in the hybrid series has many RPG elements included to make it a game of considerable complexity as well as increasing the replayability factor.
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| PC.IGN reports that Funcom is offering two months of free online play for those players who manage to persuade a new player to sign up for the company's MMORPG Anarchy Online. More info can be found on the official recruitment page. |
There's fansites for just about everything on the net, even for Dungeon Siege's packmule which will be carrying your loot in GPG's/Microsoft's upcoming RPG/RTS hybrid. Packmule.org is the fan project for our smart little helper and it seems like they have also received a press preview copy of Dungeon Siege.
Their original plan, to write a diary from the packmule's perspective failed due to the absence or inability of buying one in the early game. So they were forced to settle for a farmboy's perspective.
This is a nice change from the more or less generic previews we've been seeing during this last week and highly entertaining, too. Go dig it. |
Boy, I loved that game, Outcast. And I am really excited about tzhe upcoming Outcast 2, even if it is only for PS2. Now Gamers.nl has done an interview with Franck Sauer, art director at Appeal, about the upcoming sequel. Here's something:
Gamers.nl: You have chosen to develop a new polygon based engine called Himalaya. What were the biggest advantages above a voxel based engine and were there any drawbacks?
Franck Sauer: There were obviously a few advantages in using the voxel engine, and that's why we did it in outcast. Like the visibility culling, or the usage of mip maps to draw vast landscapes. But the disadvantages were numerous. Artistic constraints like we could only draw convex things, edges problems, fixed resolution... But the main disadvantage was the fact that it did not match at all the new hardware architectures based on polygon that meant that we had to relly on a software renderer.
Now with Himalaya, we have a consistent engine were everything is made of polygon objects, and it is very effective because it is very close to the hardware architectures, especially on consoles. Now we have the game running at 60 fps on a Playstation 2, compared to the 17 fps average we had on outcast when it came out. That means more detailed animation and camera movements, and a feeling of really being there in the world. |
CGO brings us a Age of Wonders 2 - The Wizard's Throne. Four pages full of info, and nice to read, too. Here's a bit:
Speaking of building, you'll be doing more of it in Age of Wonders II. "We aim to have fewer cities in the game, but they can be expanded more," Sas explains. Some improvements (such as the Builder's Hall or the Barracks) allow you to build new units or siege engines; others (such as the wood or stone walls and the magical force field) make your cities more defensible. Some upgrades give you entirely new abilities. You can build teleportation portals in your Wizard's Towers, for instance, which allow you to quickly move troops around the map. "They really help in the endgame, by reducing the amount of time it takes to travel your empire," says Sas. |
| ToTheGame has posted some screenshots from EA's Lord of the Rings games, the systems they are from are not specified. |
| Thanks to Nemisis Dragon from German PlanetDivinity for letting us know via Larian Studios' development forums that Swiss Gamesweb has previewed Larian's soon to be released isometric fantasy RPG Divine Divinity. On a 1st impression scale at the end of the article, Divinity manages to score 'good' which is the 2nd best rating they have. Gamesweb's only concerns were the controls which do not work perfectly yet and a few minor pathfinding issues. However, we know that Larian are currently working 24/7 on ironing out the last bugs. So there's hope for a literally Divine gaming experience some time in Q2/2002 when the game is supposed to hit shelves :) |
Freelancer was able to do an interview with Black Isle's Dave Maldonado and of course they talked about Icewind Dale II, tha latest and probably final Infinity Engine game:[Yurg] Do you plan on having open ending? And, how tough will the Ultimate Big Bad Guy be compared to his colleagues from IWD and HoW?
[Dave] The End Battle, eh? Well... we all think it's going to be a pretty tough fight, possibly the toughest yet. However, there are a number of methods for players to alleviate some of the battle's difficulty through prior actions... the really cunning players ought to find an easier time of it. |
| Russian site Gamenavigator.ru lets us know that they have published 5 screenshots from Might & Magic 9 they took during playtesting the beta. Have a look and judge yourself... |
As you may have noticed, we worked on the site again. The result is that you can get the news from the past two days simply by clicking on the date below the headlines (you also could do that via our search function), in the unlikey event, that you have have missed a day (What??? You don't visit here daily?) :)
And if you see something, that's wrong or not working or you see strange numbers, don't worry - we are always here to fix things up and improve the site!
And we are not done yet - stay tuned and SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE DURING CONSTRUCTION!
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Ouch - that hurts. Gamespot gave a score of 3.6 out of 10 in a review of Mimesis Online on their pages. The biggest problem they see is that there's nothing to do in this game but running around and killing things. Here's their conclusion:
Mimesis Online may be a good game someday. It looks good, and the alien architecture and monsters are both unique and well designed. But there's not much to do, and it takes a long time to do it. There are very few players, which is not surprising considering that the game would seem barren for a beta, let alone a game that is supposedly ready for the public. Even though downloading it is free and the monthly charge is relatively low, Mimesis Online has a long way to go before it is worth your bandwidth, your time, or your money. |
Monkey Review has written a review of Disciples 2 - Dark Prophecy. Their rating is 3.67 out of 5, and here's their conclusion:
Disciples 2: Dark Prophecy is great TBS game which I highly recommend if you are a fan. The game delivers exciting and frustrating game play as you play through the levels. The graphics are very well done with great detail, while the sound hasn’t left quite the same impression; it is still very well done. If you have a lot of spare time on your hands I highly recommend that you purchase the game and sit down with a few friends. Together, try the multiplayer option or put your heads together to make awesome combos of characters and develop a strategy to win the battles with the least amount of losses. The sound, although well done, needs a little more polishing and a good in-game tutorial would be helpful to the newer player to the serious, the old veterans shouldn’t have too much trouble getting used to the controls. |
| Firing Squad ahs posted a preview of the Undeads in Warcraft 3. The Undeads are one of four playable races in the game, and their abilities are highlighted in this article. |
Even though Josh Sawyer said goodbye for a week, he still had time to reply to some topics:The Landsknecht kit has been modified a bit
* Removed 3rd level AC bonus.
* Added "Long Reach" at 3rd level, which increases the effective reach of melee weapons by 1. To be honest, I don't even know if this could be done, but man, it would be cool.
* Switched around critical attack and knockdown. Reduced knockdown's duration to one round and limited it to living creatures.
* Added a 1 point movement penalty.
And on the effect of a longer reach
Have you ever been jammed behind a bunch of characters, or blocked from reaching some big bad guy behind a row of fodder yahoos? Having a longer reach allows you to attack from a greater distance. Characters with spears in IWD can already attack from behind another character. Increasing it by another rank would allow them to attack past two standard characters. Currently, there's a magical spear in the game with a reach of 3. It is quite useful.
About loosing all penalties when you reach 10th level and multiclassing
Well, it certainly wouldn't be ten total levels, but perhaps we could make an allowance so multi-classed characters dropped the penalty one level earlier for each of their additional classes. That way, a deep gnome fighter/thief (for instance) would lose the XP penalty at 9/9. A dark elf f/m/t would lose the penalty at 8/8/8. That should keep them roughly even... I think.
About the (lacking) storyline in Icewind Dale
Visceris, I hate to point out what I believe should be public record, but a lot of people complained about BG2's storyline because it was so forceful in its presentation. Did you not complain? Very well -- you obviously enjoy and appreciate a storyline that is more tightly controlled and well-defined. Not all games need to be made in that manner.
In Icewind Dale 2, you create six characters who can be every color in nature, from shining paladins to cold-blooded assassins. If you were playing a party consisting of a dreadmaster of Bane, an assassin, a ravager, and a chaotic evil stalker, would you like to be told, "You are going to Targos to take care of your dear old mother and her pet cats" or "You are going to Targos to fight for truth, justice, and the Faerunian way"? Why? The characters you have made obviously don't fit into either of those approaches. The most practical way to handle the wide variety of characters that people can make is to start with the motivational premise pre-defined: you did come to Targos because of the conflict. Why? That's up for you to decide. Maybe you are a cold-blooded mercenary. Maybe you're a bloodthirsty ravager. Maybe you're a goblin-hunting ranger out for a little sport. If you don't like that approach to presenting the story, that's perfectly fine. This may not be the game for you.
On the subject of random traps
That's an excellent idea, but it would be hard to implement at this point in development.
This would actually involve placing multiple triggers and launch points for each trap. If a level had twelve traps, it would require thirty-six triggers and launch points, and a mechanism in code for linking a "set" of trap triggers, activating only one trigger per set, and then disabling the whole set once a trap had been deactivated.
EDIT: Overall point: it is a programming and design issue, not just a design issue. I actually thought about it about a year ago for another project. PERHAPS THAT MYSTERIOUS PROJECT WILL HAVE SOMETHING SIMILAR.
BTW, in case any of you are wondering how we have time to revise/replace kits, it's because two months ago, we allocated time for ripping out or restructuring subraces and kits that QA or fans might just not like. I know, I know, forethought is not something we are known for, but we might have actually scheduled something well for once. |
Today, we bring you a review of Wizardry 8, Sirtech's latest (and probably last) RPG in the Wizardry universe. Stiletto has taken a closer look at the game, and lists the good, the bad and the ugly. Here's a bit:
Side quests are far and few between, and usually pretty uninteresting. In most RPG's I finish as many quests as I can find, but with the huge battles in between area's, I found it took much too long, and just wanted to finish off the main story. Going from area to area in the earlier parts of the game can take hours depending on how lucky (or unlucky) you are, so I tended to accept quests but only finish them if I'm in the area.
Controls are very good and sophisticated and it becomes clear that Sir Tech has spent a lot of time finetuning it. Be it the inventory or the pop-ups, combat or dialogues, everything is intuitive, fast and easy to handle. |
Another Warcraft, but with less coverage nowadays: Gamespy has put up a preview of World of Warcraft, Blizzard's upcoming MMORPG in the Warcraft universe. Here's a bit:
"Unlike other similar games like this," explains Dabiri, "we wanted to steer away from the realism of it all. We wanted World of Warcraft to have a storybook look and feel to it. So while you're exploring Azeroth and its neighboring lands, you'll notice that it's more colorful and vibrant. You can even go as to say its more cartoon like. Our heroes have epic proportions -- they're overstated."
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Let's start the day with a coupe of Warcraft related newsbits: ToTheGame.com has a preview of Warcraft 3 - Reign of Chaos. A quality article, as we are used from them, with lots of detail and a bunch of nice screenshots. here's their conclusion:
No doubt that Blizzard has done it again, and that Warcraft III certainly will sell like hot potatoes on a cold winters night. And, for those of you that’s familiar with Blizzards outstanding quality when it comes to gaming, will probably join me and play this megahit for years to come.
And if you want to read a second preview, check out HomeLan Fed, they have also taken a closer look at this upcoming game... |
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