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newsletter 2

RPGDot Weekly Roundup #2

Greetings,

Thank you for all the positive feedback on our first newsletter. I think we found a nice mixture between articles about internals and happenings elsewhere. Last week wasn't as busy regarding RPGs as was the week before, but nevertheless there are some noteworthy developments we would like to sum up in this issue.
Last weekend, the demo for Arx Fatalis was published on the net - and looking at the discussions following the release, one can say that it was well received. Reason enough to dedicate our Game Highlight to this upcoming first person dungeon crawl. We did a demo review at RPGDot, and without going into details here, i can say I was quite impressed by the game, although it still has some flaws. You can find the demo review at our site or following the link in our game highlight.
On Friday, shortly after we released the newsletter, Bethesda Softworks announced press copies of Morrowind to a couple of newssites, RPGDot being amongst them - and as I write these lines (Wednesday), they are prepared for shipping. However, we face a problem there: as our headquarters are based in Europe, press preview copies are handled by their european distributor UbiSoft. And they don't have them yet - so we will have to wait a little longer to be able to bring you a hands-on preview of the game. Nevertheless, we managed to arrange a visit to Ubisoft to play the game in their offices - our report about that will go onlne in about 2 weeks.
Some changes have been made to our site this week, and I will introduce them to you in our "behind the scenes" feature. I hope you will enjoy this article as much as the others. Once again, we are happy about feedback from our readers, so don't hesitate to drop us a line.
BTW - if you know a friend who would be interested in our newsletter as well: tell him about it. Send him the link to our signup page. We already have a large number of subscribers - but there's room for more :-)

Regards,
Rendelius
Editor-In-Chief
RPGDot.com

Content:

Additional Info on Morrowind

Two german game magazines (Gamestar and PC action) had a closer look at Morrowind in their latest editions. Apart from some nice screenshots, they had some info not currently found elsewhere, and I thought I'd share it with you. First of all, they were extremely impressed by the graphics. Some of the stuff is optimized for GeForce 3 and 4 (like the water), and they were told the game looks pretty nice on a P3 with a GeForce 2 as well. Howver, one magazine stated that the game tends to stall for several seconds when something is loaded in the background, and this is even true with a high end machine.
They say the game world is huge. 30 towns, 300 dungeons. Walking from the first to the second town takes an hour real time, and this s only if you stick to the road. You can go faster if you ride a bug, but this isn't for free. The main quest should keep you busy for about 100 hours, but you can do whatever you like. You can even own a house in Morrowind and decorate it as you like.
There will be random monster encounters, but those monsters will fit yur level, so you don't have to fight random rats when you are high level, and no dragon in the beginning. Weather effects are said to be simply amazing, and they were absoluetly surprised by the look of the game.
However, the most important message from the articles will be this one: they encountered no bugs in the few hours they played. Their only concern so far is that with all the freedom, the story might be too weak, but of course this is hard to tell from a few hours of gameplay.
RPGDot will have the opportunity to playtest Morrowind later this month, and we are looking forward to bring you our impressions then...

A collection of other noteworthy newsbits:

Behind the scenes – The RPG Database at RPGDot

RPGDot isn't just a news site. When we moved to a new server last July, we decided to completely rebuild the site using a database for every little bit of info we wanted to present. The core of this database is our list of CRPGs (more than 500 now). Each and every newsbit, each and every article, screenshot and other media is related to this list.

As I write these lines, we have published 6900 newsbits and 272 in house articles relating to computer roleplaying games. Since we try to offer complete coverage (you can only try, you'll always miss the one or another), our database is the most complete source of information you can find on the net.

Just to let you know how complete the collection of info is: for a game, we have the following things in our database: a short description, a boxshot (if available), name and link of the developer, name and link of the publisher, link to the homepage, link to amazon.com, amazon.de, amazon.co.uk (if the game is available there), the release date, the type of the game (single player, multiplayer, both, MMORPG), the system it was released on or will be released on, link to our gallery of screenshots, videos and music collections, and all the links to local and external articles, on hints and tips, they themselves being categorized in more than 20 ways. In addition, we store your comments on newsbits and the games.

An impressive collection of data, isn't it? We combine it to allow you various kinds of query. There is a release list, you can search the database, you will find game overview pages, you can read reader comments and much more. We, on the other hand, can see which games are popular with you, what type of articles you like - and we can add more content keeping these things in mind.

Our news system (custom made like everyting at RPGDot (with the exception of our boards) allows us to set up game specific sites fairly quickly, them being able to pool our database for their own needs and having site specific features as well. At the moment, we are running two of them: The Locus Inn (dealing with Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Planescape Torment and Divine Divinity) and GothicDot (dealing with Gothic and Gothic 2). They share our layout and database, but they are completely independent apart from that.

With our latest site update, we carried this thing a little bit further: now you can customize the way news are displayed and choose to suppress things you aren't really interested in. If MMORPG's aren't your thing, for example, you can choose to not display news abozt them. It is even possible to not display MMORPG news but for the games you are interested in, like DAoC or World of Warcraft.

This is still a work in progress. We have many ideas on how to improve the site. So you can be sure that RPGDot will get better and better. We want to become the best RPG news site out there, and even when we are, we will keep improving :-).

RPGDot latest features:

We have put up some interesting features at our site lately. These are exclusives and can't be found anywhere else

Below 10, A Developer Profile of Thomas Lenzen

-	Arx Fatalis Demo Review
-	Lost Continents Escape Music
-	Below 10, A Developer Profile of Jan Jolly
-	Wizardry 8 Review
-	Lost Continents Interview

Weekly Game Highlight: All about Arx Fatalis

In every newsletter, we want to present you the collected info about a game from our database. As you may know, all our newsbits and articles go into a searchable database. Over the years, we have collected info about 500+ CRPG's (categorization of newsbits started in Summer 2001). This time, you'll find everything we can offer you about Arx Fatalis:

Arx Fatalis Game Info

Description:	Arx Fatalis is a first-person RPG, which plunges the player into an amazingly complex fantasy world. Arx Fatalis combines intelligent storyline with impressive medieval surroundings. The user-friendly interface allows the highest interactivity possible. Arx Fatalis creates a state of intense immersion that allows the player to feel that all his actions have a direct consequence in the Arx game world. The goal of the game is to destroy the secret cult of Akbaa: the god of devastation and chaos, and thereby prevent his return to the physical world. Should the player fail, the demon is bound to impose his reign of terror upon Arx. The player, assuming the role of the potential hero, fights inside an underground fortress using wooden clubs, swords and magical items to defend himself against creatures including goblins, trolls, ratmen and other vicious opponents. But, brute force is not always the best way to succeed and the player has at his disposal the innovative new "onscreen gesture based magic system" to assist him in his progress through the game. Using the mouse, burning runes can be drawn in mid-air. A series of these gestures combine to create powerful magic spells that will protect the player or empower him to defeat his enemies and pursue his quest. In addition to the struggles against demons and monsters there are numerous opportunities for interaction with the creatures and objects inside the fortress helping the player to rediscover his memory, solve puzzles and fulfill quests. Collecting experience points enables the player to appropriately craft his hero's skills and abilities and to develop his overall persona. Dare to enter the world of Arx Fatalis. Explore underground cities, secret temples, lost civilizations, dwarf mines and discover the magic of Arx Fatalis...


Comments:	(2) Add/View Comments

Release date:	Apr 2002

Homepage:	http://www.arxfatalis-online.com

Publisher:	Fishtank Games

Developer:	Arkane Studios

Screenshots:	Arx Fatalis Gallery

Support Area:

Inhouse:	Previews: - Arx Fatalis Hands-On Preview (07.01.01) Reviews: - Arx Fatalis Demo Review (03.02.02) Screenshots: - New Arx Fatalis Screenshots (11.16.01) - Arx Fatalis ECTS 2002 Press Kit Gallery (09.04.01) - Arx Fatalis Exclusive Screenshots (07.03.01) Special reports: - Arx Fatalis Element Of The Week: The Undead (02.18.02) - Arx Fatalis Element of the Week: Potions (01.18.02) - Arx Fatalis Element Of The Week: The Interface (01.04.02) - Arx Fatalis Element of the Week: The Tomb (12.30.01) - Arx Fatalis Element of the Week: The Goblin Prison (12.14.01) - Arx Fatalis Element of the Week: The Palace (12.07.01) - Arx Fatalis Element of the Week: The Dwarf Mines (11.30.01) - Arx Fatalis Element of the Week: The Goblin Caves (11.23.01) - Arx Fatalis Element of the Week: The Crypt (11.16.01) - Arx Fatalis Element of the Week: The Guard Post (11.09.01) - Arx Fatalis Element of the Week: The Human City of Arx (11.02.01) - Arx Fatalis Element of the Week: The Sisters of Edurneum Outpost (10.26.01) - Arx Fatalis Element of the Week: The Tavern (10.19.01) - Arx Fatalis Element of the Week: The Harm Spell (10.12.01) - Arx Fatalis Element of the Week: The Fireball Spell (10.05.01) - Arx Fatalis Element of the Week: The Freeze Spell (09.28.01) - Arx Fatalis Element of the Week: The Flying Eye Spell (09.21.01) - Arx Fatalis Element of the Week: The Magic Missile Spell (09.13.01) - Arx Fatalis Element of the Week: The Priests of Akbaa (09.06.01) - Arx Fatalis Element of the Week: The Ratmen (08.30.01) - Arx Fatalis Element of the Week: The Sisters of the Edurneum (08.23.01) - Arx Fatalis Element of the Week: The Human Citizen (08.16.01) - Arx Fatalis Element of the Week: The Goblin (08.10.01) - Arx Fatalis Progress Report (03.20.01)

On the Net:	Announcements: - New URL for official Arx Fatalis boards (03.06.02) - Arx Fatalis release info (01.31.02) - Arx Fatalis Release date announced! (01.28.02) - Arx Fatalis Demo in Mid February (01.25.02) - Arx Fatalis Trilingual Website opens (01.15.02) - Where is the Arx Fatalis Element of the Week? (12.22.01) - Arx Fatalis Development Update (11.30.01) - More on Arx delay (08.27.01) - Arx Fatalis delayed (08.27.01) - Arx Fatalis: Release in November (06.22.01) Cheats & Walkthroughs: - Arx Fatalis Demo Guide @ Stygian Abyss (03.06.02) Contests: - Arx Fatalis: Vote for Box Cover (02.15.02) Demo News: - Arx Fatalis Demo Out Now! (03.01.02) - Arx Fatalis Demo Today! (03.01.02) - Arx Fatalis Demo soon! (02.23.02) Developer Diaries: - Arx Fatalis Development Report (01.12.02) - Arx Fatalis Development Report (12.05.01) - Arx Fatalis Development Report (08.09.01) Forum Tidbits: - Arx Fatalis Forum Tidbits (07.18.01) Game Elements: Interviews: - Arx Fatalis Interview at RPGPlayer (03.01.02) - Arx Fatalis Interview (02.15.02) - Arx Fatalis Interview at gaminggroove (01.29.02) - French Arx Fatalis Interview (01.28.02) - Arx Fatalis: Interview with Raphael Colantonio (01.26.02) - Fishtank Interview (12.05.01) - New Arx Fatalis Interview (09.18.01) Music: - Arx Fatalis: MP3 + Voiceover (10.19.01) Previews: - Arx Fatalis Beta Review Part 2 (02.11.02) - Arx Fatalis Preview at Eurogamer (02.09.02) - Arx Fatalis Preview at ToTheGame (01.28.02) - Arx Fatalis: Preview @ Worthplaying (01.22.02) - Arx Fatalis Preview at GamesDomain & ActionTrip (01.08.02) - Arx Fatalis Hands-on Preview at BlueMonday (12.27.01) - Arx Fatalis Preview (in German) (12.22.01) - Arx Fatalis: Hands-On Preview (12.20.01) - Arx Fatalis: Preview (12.19.01) - Arx Fatalis Preview (11.30.01) - Arx Fatalis Preview (10.01.01) - Arx Fatalis Intelligence Report (09.18.01) - Arx Fatalis Preview (09.15.01) - Arx Fatalis Preview (09.06.01) - Fishtank Visit Report from Austria (08.28.01) - Arx Fatalis Preview (08.22.01) - E3: Arx Fatalis report (05.31.01) Reviews: - Arx Fatalis Demo Review at SLCentral (03.03.02) Screenshots: - Arx Fatalis Screenshots (12.28.01) - 22 more Arx Fatalis Shots at BlueMonday (12.21.01) - Arx Fatalis Screenshots at BlueMonday (12.20.01) - ECTS: Arx Fatalis Presskit Gallery (09.04.01) Site Updates: - Arx Fatalis Site goes live (01.18.02) - Arx Fatalis site revamped (01.09.02) - Arx Fatalis: Character Poll (06.19.01) - New ARX FATALIS site (06.02.01)

What's up? - games to look forward to:

This is the release list for March to May - No changes since our last newsletter. However, Grandia 2 has gone gold, and for Might & Magic 9 and HoMM 4, we have release candidates. Morrowind, although still no release date announced, is looking pretty good, US release should be in April, european release date is set for June 20th. One thing that could change is that we will see a simultaneous release of HoMM 4 and Might & Magic 9.

BTW - anyone wondered why there are no previews of Might & Magic 9 out on the net? Lots of info about HoMM 4, but nothing really about Might & Magic 9. Normally, when you don't see anything until the release, it is considered a bad sign. Do they fear a preview would reveal low quality? I don't state it is that way, but I can't deny that these thoughts came to my mind...

Another War	Single-Player RPG	PC	Mar 2002
Defection	Single-Player RPG	PC	Mar 2002
Freedom Force	Single-Player RPG	PC	Mar 2002
Geneforge	Single-Player RPG	PC	Mar 2002
Heroes of Might & Magic 4	Single- & Multi-Player RPG	PC	Mar 2002
Warlords Battlecry 2	Single- & Multi-Player RPG	PC	Mar 2002

Arx Fatalis	Single- & Multi-Player RPG	PC	Apr 2002
Dungeon Siege	Single- & Multi-Player RPG	PC	Apr 2002
Endless Ages	MMORPG	PC	Apr 2002
Might & Magic 9	Single-Player RPG	PC	Apr 2002

Dragon Empires	MMORPG	PC	May 2002
Fatherdale - Guardians of Asgard	Single-Player RPG	PC	May 2002
Icewind Dale 2	Single- & Multi-Player RPG	PC	May 2002

Click on the games to learn more about them

So, we hope you enjoyed the second edition of our newsletter. For your daily RPG needs, you'll find a couple of updates per day at RPGDot.com, and we have planned some nice features for the coming days, so we are looking forward to your visits.

Happy gaming, see you at our site!
Rendelius
Editor In Chief RPGDot

newsletter 2