Saturday, March 31, 2007

Lord of the Rings Online Open Beta

Well, the open beta has started, at least for those of us who have preordered. Everyone else gets to wait until April 6, 2007.

For those of you who aren't quite sure what's going on, Open Beta lasts until sometime around April 24, 2007 (probably April 20th or so), and characters are capped at level 15. For those who preorder, all characters will be ported over to the live servers at launch, and Turbine is looking at handing out nearly a million CD keys for open beta, starting with seven servers to play in.

I created an Elven Champion on Landroval to play with some friends, and because I haven't played an elf yet. The intro for the elves is really nice, and takes place hundreds of years before the actual game does, showcasing a younger Elrond as you see the destruction of Edhelion. Once you go through the intro, which shows off the snow troll as well, you flash forward to 'present time' in the ruins of Edhelion for the newbie area. Apparently, this is the newbie area for elves, dwarves and hobbits, as I saw a number of all of them. While everyone clusters around the opening monsters for a level or two, it's easy to spread out after that, and even in the starting few feet, there's trainers, shops and a number of quests to work with. There's even an instance not far away, which has a very nice visual of another troll turned to stone with a shaft of sunlight shining upon it.

Response on the beta forums have been solidly in favor of this game. Queues are mentioned (although I haven't seen any yet), but that's really a reality now thanks to World of Warcraft. From what I've seen (on a low end machine), the game runs rather well at medium settings, although there's some definite lag here and there, which I attribute to my system. Personally, once I get my new system set up (hopefully sometime in May or so, still need to buy parts), I'll really be able to see this thing for how pretty it really is. After all, I'm currently running a system which BARELY beats minimum requirements.

Got anything you want me to check out? Lemme know!

MxO's Second Anniversary

News from SOE brings word that The Matrix Online has turned two. MxO is one of those titles that I played during beta, and while I enjoyed it, I also saw that it was going to have problems, mainly due to the fact that it wasn't really immersive enough compared to the movie, and felt like a letdown...even after the second two movies. However, news filtered out through the past year or soa bout a number of the changes that've happened, which may have given MxO an Anarchy Online-like rejuvination. It's definitely a title I plan on revisiting sometime soon for GT, probably for a review.

Anyway, the anniversary lasts until April 10, 2007, and shows off the new 'luggable' object type, and features a mission to visit the Oracle. Here's some more details:
Update 50: Chapter 7.1 Content and A Whole New Look for You

With the beginning of Chapter 7 a new cinematic trailer is released, you will be able to participate in the new 7.1 critical missions and, through archival missions, relive all the missions from the previous chapters, including Chapter 6.

Also, for the first time ever, players have the opportunity to change the look of their characters’ Residual Self Images. Update 50 introduced “RSI Pills”, which can be used to change everything from hair color to tattoos! Head to your nearest Exile hideout to acquire some of these consumables today!

You have to give SOE credit, they definitely are committed to numerous patches and updates. 50 updates in 2 years? Nice. More details are available here.

Friday, March 2, 2007

First Vanguard Game Update Coming Tuesday

For those of you playing Vanguard right now, Sony Online has announced that the first game update will go live this Tuesday. More information here:

  • Dozens of new weapon models
  • Six brand new NPC races to battle: Djinn, Mnalus, Mudmen, Sand Giants, Ichtakhta and Xennu
  • Two new mid to high level adventuring areas: Deep Swamp and Gorgalog
  • Nine dungeons with revamped art and/or lighting such as: Kalendra’s Coven, Nusibe Necropolis and Vol Tuniel

For the full update notes visit www.vgplayers.com

Double Adventuring Kill Experience will be awarded to players from Saturday, March 3rd, 5:00am PST (Friday, March 2nd, 8:00pm PST for Europeans) until Monday, March 5th, 5:00am PST (Sunday, March 4th, 8:00pm PST for Europeans)

A Founder’s reward, in the form of an in-game title, will be granted to players who have purchased a copy of Vanguard: Saga of Heroes between launch (January 30, 2007) and March 31, 2007, and successfully registered an account. This title can be applied to each character created on a qualifying account now or in the future. In order to qualify a player will need to have consumed the account key that comes in the box (if purchased at retail), from a Web site (if purchased digitally) or successfully completed a purchase on the Station Store by the March 31st cut off date (11:59pm PST). The title is scheduled to be awarded in early April. More details regarding a full Veteran Rewards program will be announced in the coming months.

I tell you what, if the Vanguard team provides game updates as solidly and quickly as the EQ2 team has, Vanguard could get really good.