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'll bet that you, the Mitra's Method faithful, are dying to read on and find out what I have learned about 'Age of Conan' and its progress through the beta stage.
"...This was an opportunity to see the groundwork of this game; the developers hard at work making this game what it is set out to be on May 20, 2008."
Today, it's information about the game itself with a plethora of information to come over the next coming days also.
The Hollywood Reporter published today a financial report which showed Activision as the biggest winner this holiday season with a 34.1% stock rise and a guidance boost:
Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan Securities wrote that -- concerning the guidance boost -- it was "deja vu all over again" for Activision, and he also likes the hookup with Vivendi.
"The merger strengthens Activision's product offering and expands its geographic reach, while allowing Vivendi to further monetize its success with 'World of Warcraft,' " he said.
According to the report also, EA and THQ got a healthy increase of 4% & 15.3% to their stocks consecutively. Pachter's price target on EA is $72 and it is $35 on THQ.
You can read the rest at The Hollywood Reporter.
The ban stick hits again! In addition to the ban report you can read below, Square also put out a report from their special task force that monitors cheating in their game. Read that here.
We would like to report the termination today of multiple accounts held by players involved in the usage of third-party tools or cheats, or engaged in RMT (Real Money Trading) activities.
Based on the results of our investigation, around 6,750 PlayOnline accounts were terminated while around 1,150 accounts were temporarily suspended.
Additionally, we have increased the number of mass bannings against certain PlayOnline violations in order to prevent illegal acts.
Click the Read More link below to see all the numbers.
A study profiled on Yahoo! News explains that students whose roommates - you wouldn't want it to be your child's fault - buy a video game console study on average 40 minutes less per day and thus have a lower GPA. I am sure it's true, as the article points out, less studying generally causes lower marks. It's just fun to see the way they link it to video games when it could just as easily have been televisions, beer fridges or girlfriends.
In fact, that would be a great study. I would bet a lot of money that college guys with girlfriends (and visa versa) lose a lot more than 40 minutes study time a day.
First-year students whose roommates brought a video game player to college studied 40 minutes less each day on average, according to a new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research. Those 40 minutes of lost study time translated into first-semester grades that were 0.241 points lower on the 4.0 grade scale.
The study's authors, Todd Stinebrickner, an associate professor of economics at the University of Western Ontario, and his father, Ralph Stinebrickner, a professor of mathematics and computer science at Berea College in Kentucky, were not trying to prove anything about video games. The study sought to determine how much of an effect study efforts have on grades.
Read more here.
The weekly WAR Report is in, bringing you a hefty list of information on the developments of Warhammer Online.
Be sure to check out this week's WAR Report over at the WarHammer Herald.
A study out of Australia says that most kids are unaffected by violent video games, which may well put a damper in the sails of those on a crusade to save the children. The study does note though that those who are predisposed towards violence are influenced.
Video games will only make children more violent if they already have a tendency towards aggression, a new study has found.
A Swinburne University of Technology study of 120 children aged 11 to 15 revealed children prone to worrying, neurotic behaviour and predisposed to aggression were likely to be more aggressive after playing violent video games.
You can read more here.
Warcry´s own Lexion opens up a new opinion column over on Age of Conan on WarCry called "Inside Hyboria". In this first article, he introduces his column and where he stands.
"So if Age of Conan is the arena, the players are the gladiators and the community the crowd... where does it place the author of this article? Right here, writing down every drop of spilled blood and sweat for your starving eyes."
Read more at the link below
Carolyn Koh, our intrepid reporter on the ground in Las Vegas, met with the big cheese Brad McQuaid and Paul "GM Vladimir" Luna from Sigil to discuss the upcoming Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. This article takes a look at what's coming through conversations with the two men.
Vanguard is essentially a game of choices. It is designed as a social game much like EverQuest was and provides incentives to players to do things together, but also allows a player to solo if they choose to. Some adventure and quest content will require a group or groups of players to defeat, likewise players working together to gather resources, for example, open up opportunities with the combination of their skills to obtain better raw materials that they as a solo harvester may not be able to do.
The death mechanic also provides a player with choices.
"There's a misconception out there that Vanguard is a hardcore game, but you make it as hardcore as you want. Vanguard isn't about walking uphill in the snow, both ways. We recognize that we will have Casual, Core and Raid players," Paul took the death mechanic as an example; there are three ways to deal with it. One can choose to pay a little money, wait a little while or fight your way back.
You can read the full article at Vanguard WarCry.
