MMO News

Neverwinter Event: Summer Festival
Forge – First Look
MicroVolts Releases Omega Update
Razer and Grinding Gear Games Combine Their Might for Path of Exile
Digimon Masters Review
Shotgun News 8/29: Merc Elite, SOE Layoffs, Stronghold Crusader 2, and More
Dragon’s Prophet #SuperMetal Music Video
F.E.A.R. Online

Posted: 29 Aug 2013 02:28 PM PDT

The Neverwinter Team is extremely excited and overjoyed from seeing so many players explore Sharandar in Fury of the Feywild. The Forgotten Realms is bustling with activity as players continue to unveil new secrets of each adventure zone and delve into the darkest dungeons in Neverwinter. To provide you with some rest and respite, we’re introducing the in-game Summer Festival Event which will run for nearly three weeks. Log in, relax, and you could earn some amazing rewards!

Event Begins: Thursday, August 29, 2013 at 10 A.M. PDT (Pacific)

Event Ends: Wednesday, September 18, 2013 at 10 A.M. PDT (Pacific)

Catch a glimpse of the Summer Festival in action in our newest trailer!

Summer Festival Event Details

Who do I talk to and how do I get started? Players should talk to Sergeant Knox in Protector’s Enclave who will send them to the Summer Festival adventure zone. You can travel to the festival grounds at any time through the in-game map.

What types of activities and events are available on the festival grounds? Every day, Yina Morradi will grant you repeatable quests and rewards for helping out with these activities:

- “Hungry Trolls” – Kill Trolls when the event begins and earn prizes by protecting the festival grounds.

- “Collecting Flowers” – Find Fireblossom Flowers from bushes on the festival grounds or reclaim them from mischievous kobolds you defeat. Trade them into the Florist for rewards.

- “Summer Feast” – If you think dungeon delves are tough, try herding animals on the festival grounds! Herd chickens, pigs, and gather precious corn for valuable points for the event. Also, keep an eye out for elusive creatures around the fields that will earn you extra points!

What rewards could I earn? Players could earn rare Sunite weapons, companions, mounts, fashion items, fireworks, or one of our favorite, Bottomless Waterskins – and more! Log in every day, participate, and enjoy the festivities. Also, logging in every day and completing dailies could earn you a Tribute to Sune; redeem them at the Tribute Store to retrieve special event rewards.

Earn an Armored Boar mount, Pig companion, and fashion items from the Summer Festival.

Special Event Profession: Summer Provisioning Profession

Players are able to craft special feast items and beautiful fashion garments available only while the event is running. Don’t miss out on some great rewards!

Forge – First Look

Posted: 29 Aug 2013 02:27 PM PDT

Forge – First Look

Forge First Look 2 620x348

Forge is a PvP based MMORPG, pitting champions of the gods against each other. Choose from one of five classes, and battle against other players in intense, skill-based combat. Each class has their own companion pet to summon, giving unique abilities and buffs to the character. With its variety of skills to employ, different map strategies to utilize, and knowing your enemies strengths and weaknesses, Forge delivers a PvP experience not often found.

Forge lets you choose one of seven different classes currently: Assassin, Pathfinder, Pyromancer, Shaman, Warden, Ravager, and Tinker. Each of these classes plays completely different, giving a unique life to the game.

Features:

Like Nothing Else: An amazing blend of MMO PvP and TPS gameplay. MMO style abilities, fluid combat, instanced PvP. No groups required.

Zero Grind: Every player is on a level playing field from their first game forward, no matter how many games their enemies have played.

Multiplayer Fun: Multiplayer, class based combat. Easy to play, difficult to master.

Fluid Gameplay: Unlike other titles, every technical and artistic aspect of the game has been built around fluid combat mechanics specifically designed for multiplayer combat.

For more information check out the detailed profile here: http://mmohuts.com/review/forge

MicroVolts Releases Omega Update

Posted: 29 Aug 2013 02:23 PM PDT

Rock Hippo Productions Ltd. announced today the launch of its latest update – Omega – for their popular free-to-play cartoon-style third-person shooter, MicroVolts. In the darkest corner of the Micro World, heroes arise and band together to hunt down the wretched monsters that threaten innocent toys.

Hunt down the unholy horde in style with Demon Slayer Naomi, Demon Hunter Naomi, Rogue Slayer Pandora, and Rogue Hunter Pandora. Show off your tough guy attitude with Herc Knox, and Titan Knox. You'll never be ill-equipped for combat with Multi-Tool C.H.I.P.

Build your zombie slaying arsenal with some hard hitting weapons! Knock your opponents out of the map with Baseball Bat Melees, Grand Slam Shotguns, CurveBall Grenades, and SluggerGun Gatling.

MicroVolters can now earn daily rewards for getting in game and playing with the new Monthly Rewards system! Join the Rock Hippo Productions team in game on August 30th for the Hippos vs Players event! Start off the school year right by bringing your game to the next level with 30% off everything in the capsule machine with the Back-To-School sale.

Razer and Grinding Gear Games Combine Their Might for Path of Exile

Posted: 29 Aug 2013 02:18 PM PDT

Razer, the worldwide leader in high-performance gaming hardware, software and systems today announced a partnership with Grinding Gear Games, independent game development company and creator of Path of Exile, an action RPG game launching in October. This partnership further underscores the company's dedication to independent game development.

Currently in Open Beta with over 3 million registered users, Path of Exile is a PC-based online action role-playing game set in a dark fantasy world. Featuring ethical micro-transactions, the game is free-to-play, but not pay-to-win. Playing as one of six character classes, players find themselves banished for their past misdeeds to the dark fantasy world of Wraeclast. There, they will encounter hundreds of species of opponents laden with loot and mysterious artifacts as they explore the abandoned continent.

50461 640x480 path of exile passive skills

One example of the partnership includes in-game footprints, made available exclusively for Razer fans, with the iconic Razer triple-headed snake logo in Path of Exile. More exclusive partnership benefits will be released in the coming months. Among the technology made available to Grinding Gear Games are SDKs for Razer's latest software like Razer Comms and Razer Surround.

"At Razer we are really excited at the opportunity to work directly with game developers like Grinding Gear Games. Path of Exile is extremely addictive and brings a new side to hack and slay games not seen before," says Min-Liang Tan, Razer co-founder, CEO and creative director. "Partnerships such as this see game developers making use of both our hardware and software technology. This is the key to our goal of enhancing the game experience and performance while supporting the creative visionaries that are the lifeblood of our business."

Razer will provide support to the developers at Grinding Gear Games, partnering on development as well as on marketing, working with Chris Wilson, Grinding Gear Games lead developer and founder and Jeremy Taylor, Grinding Gear Games marketing director.

"We're thrilled to be working with one of the biggest names in gaming hardware and software," says Chris Wilson, Path of Exile lead developer and founder of Grinding Gear Games. "We feel that Razer's enhancements will further players' immersion into the world of Path of Exile."

Digimon Masters Review

Posted: 29 Aug 2013 12:08 PM PDT

By Jerrico Tan (JetSet)

Digimon Masters is a free-to-play MMORPG by Aeria Games and Joymax based on the hit franchise Digimon. Loosely based on the fifth anime's storyline (Digital Data Squad), this game lets players experience the life of being a Digimon Tamer. With a vast list of Digimons to hatch and evolve as their main selling point, we'll take a closer look as to whether this game from its long running franchise would still be able to hit both avid fans and newcomers alike.

Gameplay: Game Mechanics and Combat

The game starts off by giving players a choice to pick an avatar based on the four protagonists from the fifth anime, together with one of the four starter Digimons. As an avid fan of the first generation anime, I was initially eyeing on picking the famous spiky haired kid with goggles (Taichi), until I later found out that the first gen tamer avatars were only playable if you purchased them in the cash shop. And Taichi was worth $10! That was a total bummer for my part but at least the all-time favorite Agumon can become one of your first digi-buddies for free!

After the character creation sequence, a set of tutorial quests are setup as soon as the town hall loads up for the first time. Like always, the tutorial quests are there to get players a chance to familiarize the game's mechanics. The learning process is easy and young gamers wouldn't have a hard time adapting to its environment. As for the controls, character movements are only maneuverable by mouse and WASD movements are not applicable (commanding your Digimon is just one smooth mouse click or hotkey away). The map and NPC search features are also there just in case you get lost in the Digiworld. Enabling the Search features pops up an arrow that'll guide you to your destination but unfortunately, the map system doesn't have an auto-find feature so you'd still have to walk it out manually. So generally speaking, playing Digimon Masters feels very similar to a lot of well-crafted titles around the market in terms of interface.

The combat system in this game is somewhat altered if you'll compare it to usual MMORPGs. Digimon Masters focuses on your Digimon's development instead of the tamer so it may also look like the tamer is just a mere pack mule picking up scraps dropped by each defeated wild Digimon. As for leveling up, the only way to progress in this game is through grinding and questing. These quests also let players learn more about the storyline and farming is plain easy for there are LOTS of digital monsters roaming around the world just waiting to spar against your partner.

Digimon Development and Digi-egg Hatching

Getting your Digimons to reach a certain level would also let them learn how to Digi-volve to their next forms. The skillsets change on each evolution and its lethal potency becomes stronger in each evolution stage. The DATS center could help enchant your Digimon with more attributes as long as you have the needed materials for the enchanting procedure and additionally, there exists a Digimental system, which is basically a system to unlock ten elemental crests that will determine your Digimon's elemental attribute.

There are only two ways to acquire additional Digimon mercenaries in game. The hard way is to tediously farm up monsters until you get a Digi-egg of a certain basic Digimon after which you'd want to say a prayer to the gods that your egg could successfully complete at least three of five DATA injection phases. The other method (and easier one) is to pay up real money and buy a special Digi-egg with a 100% rate of hatching. For gamers aiming to play this game without coughing out a single cent, hatching Digi-eggs is the cruelest part in the game. I guess this is the only portion where spending cash matters and where normal players would really feel a huge gap between them and cash-spending players.

Social Features

Training Digimons with more players is the best way to enjoy the game. If you're seeking help to achieve your Digimon's training, there is a party and guild system that'll add more spice during monster farming and when taking quests. There's also a PvP arena where players could duke it out and see which one's got a better partner. Furthermore, fellow players run the game's economy and everyone can put up a shop that'll stay up and running even when they're away from their keyboards. These key social features offer gamers a chance to interact with each other. Unfortunately though, the game seems to focus more heavily on collecting Digimons, and as a result the developers appear to have not given much attention to the game's competitive aspect.

Graphics

Despite being a game already released for almost half a decade from its original country, the cel-shaded aesthetic presentation of the game never made it look old and out of date. At the same time, if you'll compare this to its former online game called Digimon Battles Online, the art style used in Digimon Masters sticks to its original presentation, which in my opinion is how a Digimon game should really look like.

And as I've said earlier, the game has been around for almost 5 years so if your PC was made in 2010 then you shouldn't worry about getting a single framerate drop at max settings.

Conlusion: Good

The game isn't that perfect and the drag of breaking Digi-eggs could be a major turnoff but Digimon Masters is surely able to serve players with a good dose of fun. Just the mere idea of seeing your first Digimon partner evolve to its radical form could excite you enough to keep you at it for countless more hours of training. If you're looking for competitive or objective-based combat, I guess this game wouldn't serve as your cup of tea, but if you're more into collecting and raising your very own little pets then click on this Digi-link to play Digimon Masters today for free!

Shotgun News 8/29: Merc Elite, SOE Layoffs, Stronghold Crusader 2, and More

Posted: 29 Aug 2013 11:29 AM PDT

By Shannon (Leliah) Doyle, European News Editor

Wargaming Unified Premium Accounts Goes Live

Starting today there is a new option for Wargaming accounts to be unified under one premium account. It is now live for World of Tanks and Warplanes with plans to include all future Wargaming titles as well. The new account will allow players to pay once to receive premium status in Wargaming's games.

Merc Elite Reveals Details on Recon

The first of five playable classes has been revealed for Bigpoint's upcoming browser based MOBA Merc Elite. Recon comes equipped with ninja swords, and light weight automatic weapons which go along with his speedy and hit-and-run attacks. Recon relies on stealth to get the element of surprise to get the job done. Find out more by watching the trailer below.

Layoffs at SOE Confirmed

John Smedley has taken to twitter and reddit to discuss layoffs which have taken place at SOE. Throughout both he assures that production won't be affected any any of SOE's current or future projects. The layoffs are part of cost cutting efforts.

Stronghold Crusader 2 Crowd Funding Launched

Firefly Studios has introduced a new crowd funding project for the sequel to Stronghold Crusader. The studio is hoping to raise €100,000 in the next 30 days for the new RTS. Reward tiers for the project on Gambitious include everything from a digital copy of the game to access to the multiplayer beta as well as art books, soundtracks and much more. It is expected to release on PC in March of 2014.

Rhode Island Suit Against Curt Schilling Can Proceed

A judge has ruled that Rhode Island can sue Curt Schilling and other former 38 Studios executives for the studio going under, leaving the state with $75 Million in loan guarantees. The charges will include fraud, negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, racketeering, conspiracy, as well as others.

Dragon’s Prophet #SuperMetal Music Video

Posted: 29 Aug 2013 10:11 AM PDT

Prepare to live the SuperMetal Dragon Life this September with the introduction of the open world PvP sandbox frontier system in Dragon’s Prophet!

F.E.A.R. Online

Posted: 28 Aug 2013 09:52 PM PDT

Enter the story of Alma Wade in a new, online installment of the F.E.A.R series. Play through cooperative story mode or face off against other players in a horrifying, disturbing landscape.

Publisher: Aeria Games
Playerbase: ??
Graphics: Medium
Type: Horror MMOFPS
EXP Rate: ??
PvP: Yes
Filesize: ??

Pros: +Part of the F.E.A.R game series. +Co-op PvE mode.

Cons: -Limited information available.

Overview

F.E.A.R. Online Overview

F.E.A.R. Online is a free-to-play, horror-themed online first-person shooter (FPS) set in the same storyline as the F.E.A.R. game franchise. Featuring both a cooperative story mode and multiple PvP modes, F.E.A.R. is set to deliver spine-shocking action against both nightmarish creatures and cutthroat players.