Greetings and salutations, MMO fans! A glance at the sundial tells me it’s time for a look back at the week in persistent gaming. So, without further ado — let’s see what’s new.
“Mythic Modernizes” My goodness, look at the time! Has it been a decade already? BioWare Mythic’s Dark Age of Camelot is celebrating 10 years online this week and has been dusting off and revamping gameplay over the past few months in preparation. A “New User Journey” is being crafted which will “create hubs which will teach players important lessons about … gameplay while getting them ready for RvR warfare.” Character progression and quests are receiving a make-over and according to developer Kai Schober, “In these classic areas, and many others throughout the realm, you will find a more modern approach to ancient life. New adventures in a familiar setting are waiting for your swords, your staves and your bows.”
An injection of BioWare-style role-playing with varied and “difficult moral choices” is also promised. Is the Renaissance movement finally creeping into the Dark Ages? It may be worth investigating.
“Winter Wonderland” Now that Cryptic has been bought out by free-to-play MMO publishing house Perfect World Entertainment, the company’s Neverwinter RPG is being re-designed as a F2P MMO and has been delayed to late 2012. The game will use 4th Edition D&D rules and feature action-based gameplay ala Nexon’s Vindictus. Cheetos and polyhedral dice not included.
“’I’m Sorry’ state of affairs” Hilmar Veigar Pétursson, CEO of CCP (say that three times fast) has apologized to the EVE Online player community for the company’s recent missteps, lackluster updates and pricing shenanigans. Pétursson says “The estrangement from CCP that many of you have been feeling of late is my fault, and for that I am truly sorry” and promised, “Good things are coming. They always do when you learn from your mistakes.” Meanwhile, Senior Producer Arnar Hrafn Gylfason outlined a new Winter Expansion with ‘More programmers, more testers, more designers and more artists than ever working on bringing you meaningful and engaging improvements and additions to EVE.” Crow has been eaten. Will players forgive?
“Twist of Fate” DC Universe Online’s fifth update, “Fate of the Fortress,” has landed on SOE’s MegaServers. The free add-on allows a group of eight players to venture into Brainiac’s stronghold with the aid of best buds Superman and Lex Luthor. 30 new weapons are also available as well as a Batcave PvP arena and player Dueling. DCUO goes F2P later this month. That’s a price-point I can get behind.
“Bird droppings” Final Fantasy XIV’s giant 1.19 patch has gone live and aims to right the listing airship with an injection of fresh tutorials, new quests and enemies, party size changes for instanced raids, new dungeons and, uh, rentable chocobos and chocobo escort missions. Wark!
“Big hack attack” What the hack is going on with EverQuest? It seems SOE’s venerable fantasy MMO is suffering from a slew of unscrupulous hackers and the tiny development team is too busy working on expansion content to do much about it. Once EQ’s 17th add-on, “House of Thule,” ships on October 12th them dastardly haxorz better run for the hills!
“People Mover” Here’s one to put on the ol’ radar. Upcoming sandbox MMO, The Repopulation is set in a sci-fi universe on the planet Rhyldan and finds mankind on the brink of extinction. It’s up to the clone colonists (read: players) to survive in the midst of a three-faction civil war. Stand-out features include an extensive City Building System and vehicle-to-vehicle combat. Just don’t mention Tabula Rasa or Auto Assault. That’d be downright bitchy.
Alright, my little bandits and bugbears it’s time for me to scoot on out of here. Have a lovely Cloumbus Day weekend and keep it logged in.
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David Moore co-runs torwars.com, a site focused on all things Star Wars: The Old Republic, and has run the site gamebunny.com for the past ten years.
