Tagged News: exclusive

In his latest column, Jonathan Steinhauer continues his look at what he calls "The Killing Experience". He began two weeks ago in part one and today looks at more recent examples of this trend. It's all about RPGs and how they use killing as the primary form of advancement, or experience.

A second, much more recent, example is with Bethesda's Elder Scrolls series, particularly Oblivion. In this game which follows the standard RPG model, there is no experience gain from killing. In fact, there is no experience at all. Instead, character growth is built on an array of skills specific to a particular class. As those skills are used over an over again, proficiency grows. Once there are ten threshold increases in the class skills, a new level is gained. At that point health, stamina, magicka, and prime stats also improve.

Read more after the click.

Recently, WarCry took the chance to interview the people behind the Dragonlance animated movie, which comes to DVD on January 15th. The interview gave us the chance to hear from Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, the famed authors and creators of the Dragonlance series. We also heard from the film's Co-Executive Producer John Frank Rosenblum and Paramount Pictures Product Manager Chris Dreyer.

In addition, we also have an exclusive clip from the film that features Sturm Brightblade.

WarCry: You two did not directly write the script, but as the authors of the original works can you talk a bit about how it turned out and why you believe it is a good representation of your work?

Tracy Hickman: Adaptation of a novel into a screenplay is a tough act especially when you're dealing with fans of a well-know work. It isn't a question of simply portraying scenes from the novel - as I think most people assume - but rather of capturing the emotional core of the original work and being able to portray that in a new medium. Both Margaret and I were granted an unprecedented level of input on the script but in the end it was hardly needed: George Strayton's magnificent screenplay captured the essence of our vision beautifully realized in a new medium.

Read it all and check out a short trailer after the jump.

Recently, WarCry had the chance to talk to Acclaim CEO Howard Marks. We received an update on his company's quest to bring the Eastern MMO business model to Western shores and got a peek at how 2Moons, 9Dragons, BOTS!! and Dance! Online have fared on the open market.

9Dragons

What "free-to-play" really means is that all Acclaim's games are free to download and can be played without the player ever laying down a dime. In 2Moons, for example, the company makes money through in-game advertising that appears in the user interface. In 9Dragons, players can play for free, but also can buy upgrades and customization items securely through Acclaim.

Marks emphasized through that the company is committed to actual free-to-play. One common consumer complaint with the model is that while some games advertise their games as such, many build in an artificial gameplay wall where a player basically is forced to buy items or coin to progress in the game. He says that none of Acclaim's games do this, nor will there ever be any artificial walls.

Read more after the leap.

In the final developer journal of the year, Tasos Flambouras chimes in with answers to a bevy of community questions. Topics include arrow physics, solo-ability, trophies and much more.

We also get three exclusive screenshots of the game that show off an Ork female, Human male and Alfar female respectively all in monster armor. There is an image on each of the three pages of this extensive article.

Ork Female (Exclusive)

In another post the uniqueness of Darkfall's characters was put into question by one of the posters. We've talked about this many times in the past, and I think that in testing where most of our screenshots are taken from we don't pay so much attention to modifying or dressing up our characters so you end up seeing a lot of the same stuff all the time. We won't implement character creation morphing because we're shooting for performance during massive battles, rather than spending time drawing everyone's uniquely disfigured character. Still...we've done everything possible to give your character variation and uniqueness and your character will definitely stand out in a crowd if you want him/her to. Henning took some quick screenshots with some new facial / hairstyle / equipment variations of characters exclusively wearing armor they looted off of monsters. The female ork is wearing face paint and angra skeleton shoulder pads, beastman bracers, and a servants of Malaut girdle, and revenant greaves. The Alfar female is wearing face paint, zombie shoulder pads, hobgoblin bracers, and Ciel Fey boots. The human male is wearing face paint, black knight shoulder pads, gloves, girdle and boots, and a hobgoblin helmet. That's a tar lake behind the alfar by the way.

Read more after the jump.

Today we have a brand new pair of screenshots as we resumes the bi-weekly Age of Conan screenshot series. This time we have an image of a character and a demon, as well as a shot from character creation that shows just how broken a nose can be.

Tabula Rasa is the sci-fi MMO developed by Destination Games and published by NCsoft. It launched close to two months ago on November 2nd and I've been playing it daily since the Pre-Order Head Start in October. That's part of the reason why it's taken me a bit to write this review.

Sound

The sound in this game is amazing. I actually left the music on, and for me that is a rarity. Audio in Tabula Rasa is used effectively to make it necessary to listen in order to maintain situational awareness. Several times while I was running around the battlefield I actually had chills when I heard a Bane Dropship coming in behind me. The screech of a Lightbender or the hissing speech of the Thrax will haunt you even when you aren't playing. Tabula Rasa does have in-game voice chat and the quality is quite good. While not absolutely necessary, voice chat does make Control Point battles and instances go much smoother.

Click Read More to see the entire review of Tabula Rasa.

The chat's officially over. Were you there? If not, you missed a great one! Fortunately for you, however, we have the log. Here's a sample:

WarCry: AnnraThannar: When will trial island be ready and is trial island also dedicated for old buddy key owners. I hope so, because it may help reducing spam.
Phathom: Trial Island is a name that has a poor association with it at the moment. The Trial Island was started with the intention of having a stand alone client that new players can try out. Our current intention for the Trial Island is to use it as the new starting location for most of the races and new players.
Phathom: The Isle of Dawn is the actual name now "Spoiler Alert"
Phathom: We plan on restarting work on the Isle next month and expect to have it out to you near and around April
Phathom: Spam -- We are looking at issues at the moment with this but we want you to be able to get your friends back in the game to experience a much better starting experience
Phathom: and allow you to be there to share the new experience without having the content too low for you to play. We're still working out the details

You'll just have to click on "Read More" to devour the rest. A huge thank you for everyone, especially the developers, for taking the time to join us tonight. We look forward to doing it again!

Fury launched in October and hoped to capture an audience through fast-action, PvP combat in a free-to-play/subscription hybrid model MMO. It has not gone quite to plan and last week the company was forced to layoff many of its developers. We caught up with Auran CEO Tony Hilliam and Lead Designer Adam Carpenter to find out how they got to this point and how they hope to turn it around.

WarCry: Layoffs cannot be spun as good news and shake player confidence. Why should someone who sees Fury in a store feel confident that the game they purchase will still exist in a few months?

Auran: The primary reason is that the smaller core team staff allocated to Fury means the project is now operating at the break even point in terms of salaries and overheads. The Director's decision to cut back on staff ensures that even without significant increases in player populations, the game can be maintained and improved.

Read more after the jump.

Jumpgate Evolution is a new MMORPG based off the classic Jumpgate MMO from NetDevil. The original game shows its age, but confident in the design, NetDevil has decided to rebuild and expand it into a modern MMO. Today we have three screenshots of a Solrain Fighter.

In today's Warhammer Online interview, we talk to Associate Producer Josh Drescher and Senior Designer Justin Webb who team up to give us a set of answers. This edition includes questions about the launch delay, longterm appeal, individuality and why they believe they will succeed where other MMOs have failed in recent years.

WarCry: Your big headline recently was the decision to push back launch. This is not the first time WAR has been delayed. Why do you believe this release date is one players can expect you to meet?

EA Mythic: MMORPG fans have come to expect top tier titles to launch smoothly with finished, highly polished content across the board. This second adjustment of the launch date is intended to give us the time we need to make sure we deliver a product that meets those expectations. We're all but finished with feature and system integration right now, but Mark Jacobs (Lead Designer and GM of our studio) wanted to give us months, rather than weeks, to polish, balance and tighten things up prior to launch. As a result, between the December relaunch of the WAR Beta and the second quarter launch of the game, we're going to be able to focus the entire team on making sure everything feels perfect, looks perfect and plays in a way that will blow gamers away.

Click below to read it all.