Tagged News: hands-on

WarCry's Suzie "Kalia" Ford talks about her experience with KingIsle's free-to-play "tween" MMOG, Wizard101.

WarCry's John "Can't Fake the" Funk gets shown around the upcoming Book 14 for The Lord of the Rings Online. Read what's in store for players below the cut as Turbine talks about session play, fishing trophies, and Moria.

JR Sutich has one final report from his recent trip, we affectionately call "angry man goes to Washington". This time, it is a more general preview of Warhammer Online, largely based on what they showed and his own hands on experiences with the game. Topics include Capital Cities, crafting Realm vs. Realm and more.

Realm vs. realm conflict is an integral parts of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. During my visit, I was able to experience the ultimate goal of RvR and capture an opposing capital city. Defeating journalists from other websites in PvP combat was just a bonus.

The battle for the Order capital of Altdorf started in a military district of the city with players from both sides fighting over six control points. I played as a geared-up, leveled-up Chaos Chosen with a two-hand sword to maximize damage. When the battle started, I noticed an enemy player with a name that had been used the day before during our play session, so I knew someone in the room was playing. My suspicions were confirmed when I hit them for about a third of their health in one shot and the person to my immediate left exclaimed, "Oh my god!" Good times. While the rest of my team captured the control points, I managed to kill my hapless victim four more times.

Read it all after the leap.

JR "Razor" Sutich recently attended Codemasters Connect 08 in England and on site he got the first chance to play Jumpgate Evolution. A veteran of the original game, Sutich offers a unique perspective on how the remake has come.

He also sat down with Producer Hermann Peterscheck for some old fashion Q&A.;

The controls felt good and I had heard that there were some concerns that joysticks might not be able to take full benefit of the lateral thruster mechanics, but using the left hat switch on the X52's throttle seemed to work great. For those that want to have a flight model similar to the original, you can turn off the "dampeners" that determine the amount of effect the flight physics have on your movement. Just for the record, real pilots don't need any stinking dampeners.

Read more after the jump.

Mounted combat. Guild cities. City siege. New defensive combat options. We saw some new wrinkles in Age of Conan at GDC and today we tell you all about them.

Mounted combat is the big bauble of GDC for Age of Conan. The game offers three mounts: horses, rhinos and elephants. Two of them - rhinos and mammoths - are available through pre-order deals, though. If someone pre-orders from BestBuy they will have a fancy new rhino waiting for them. GameStop pre-orders unlock the mammoth, while horses are purchased in the world. At this time, there is no plan to make the elephant or rhino mounts available through the game itself. Regardless of pre-order status though, players cannot ride mounts until they've hit the 40th level.

Read on.

I had the opportunity to give dungeon raiding and CTF PvP a go while over in the Funcom offices last week, and today I present my my hands-on report of my experience:

"If the 'Age of Conan' dungeon designers were going for a dark, hellish, dank, and misty look for the Sanctum of Burning Souls, then they well and truly pulled it off."

Whether your game's dungeon raiding or PvP, 'Age of Conan' will be a game to sate your gameplay desires.

I had the opportunity to give dungeon raiding and CTF PvP a go while over in the Funcom offices last week, and today I present my my hands-on report of my experience:

"If the 'Age of Conan' dungeon designers were going for a dark, hellish, dank, and misty look for the Sanctum of Burning Souls, then they well and truly pulled it off."

Whether your game's dungeon raiding or PvP, 'Age of Conan' will be a game to sate your gameplay desires.

Dan O'Halloran of Massively.com spent some time with Age of Conan at CES in Las Vegas, Nevada and came away with some amateur video of the Barbarian class in action as well as a bit of a write-up on what to expect from the class.

Barbarians have two specialty Feats trees: Berserker and Reaver. One of the cool abilities I saw in the Berserker tree was No Escape: Throw your weapon to impale the enemy, causing massive damage and stunning him. Disarms you. I wasn't able to train Feats in the demo, but if I could, that would be the one I'd like to try.

Another ability I saw was in the Reaver tree. Armageddon Falls: For the next 12 seconds you have a 100% chance to proc a debuff on your opponent that will do additional damage. How much damage? I don't know, but it was fairly deep in the tree, so I'm guessing it's the "who wants to see a blood bath" key.

Grab the full preview here.

A recent press event took place in California and MMORPG.com has posted their take on their experience with the game. The preview sounds overall positive and I'm looking forward to getting some face time with the game myself!

When playing MMOs, I have a tendency to get too wrapped up in combat, and push too far ahead, where I subsequently get overwhelmed and die. Age of Conan encourages this kind of play (at least from me) with combat momentum, where you swing your sword to the right, and your whole body follows through to the right. The motion captures for this were well done and it adds to the feeling of immersion, and helped make the combat more intuitive by appearing more natural. It also encourages you to pay more attention along with the directional attacks and combos. One problem I often have with MMOs, especially at lower levels, is the lack of a "coolness factor" for my character. But with the style of Age of Conan, and the satisfying combat, you feel cool right from the start, swinging a crude wooden club and dodging rivals in a loincloth.

The full preview is available here.

JR "razor" Sutich traveled down to Atlanta to attend the ribbon-cutting for CCP North America. This is the former Whitewolf office where the company now has customer support, the early creative elements of World of Darkness and of course all the RPG stuff.

World of Darkness Online is indeed being worked on, and I got to see some early concept art and it looks great. It's dark enough with just the right amount of grit and neon and it captures exactly what I think of when I picture running around a city at night. The werewolf looked awesome. Mike explained that the bulk of the content for WoD Online was being created at the new office, while the majority of the technical infrastructure was being worked on in Iceland.

For more, check out the full item on Razorwire (link below).