Monthly Archives: April 2009

Ord Mantell – New playable planet revealed

Another portion of the Old Republic’s universe got revealed today, a planet burdened by civil war between the Republic military and Separatist guerrillas – Ord Mantell.
Positioned in the Mid Rim and still aligned with the Republic its a planet of saltwater seas and islands. Looks like a perfect place to go for a vacation, but the criminal elements are stirring up a mess despite the presence of a military base. Throw in some separatist guerrilla and you get fertile grounds for some great storytelling. To get a glimpse of the background story go to the official page here. You can also download high resolution screenshots and concept art or check out our gallery bellow :).

[PSGallery=nttd2ncim]

Dark days are coming?

The internetz was hit with an awesome looking game trailer for a MMORPG in development named “The Secret World”. If you have been under a rock like I have, you had no idea this was in the making and that it was so different from everything else currently on the market or in development. Apparently, The Secret World is placed in current day Earth but monsters, myths and legends of old and new are real. The dark fantasy title will start with New York, London and Seoul as first playable locations and is promising some unique features with accent being on story telling. To read more about the title I recommend you visit Massively.com and their GDC ’09 article about the game as well as their interview with the game’s creator. The game is being developed by Funcom (yes, the people that managed to screw up Age of Conan) and still has no release date.

Enjoy the awesome teaser trailer:

Developer’s blog – awesome or clone?

Daniel Erickson, Principal Lead Writer on SW:TOR posted another developer’s blog entry on the official site. He goes into depth on what and how certain design choices were made when creating the Bounty Hunter class. It is a very interesting read full of hints about what Bioware’s design philosophy is. Things feel a lot like KOTOR and Mass Effect, which is a good thing mind you. One thing is for sure, this game will not only try to copy Blizzard’s successful design choices. Bioware has enough integrity and faith in its game creation abilities to decide to take some “unorthodox” paths. For example:

There were a few decisions we made early on. First of all, there would be two distinct factions. This was Star Wars™, not Star Neutral Guy’s Adventure. When there is a war that spans an entire galaxy, nobody can stand on the sidelines … The war affects everyone, even if they’d rather it didn’t.

I like this non conditional approach. It is making you make choices, choices that will have distinct consequences and make your playing experience that much unique. I am just hoping they don’t go overboard and make it a directed experience instead of unique. A fine line they have to walk here.
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Lord of the Rings Online headed to Xbox 360?

There are a lot of rumors these days about Lotro. Previous post was about Riders of Rohan and now new rumor says that Lotro may have an Xbox 360 release in its future. Brad Nicholson from destructoid.com  wrote:

"The good news is we’re hearing that Microsoft is close to finalizing an MMO model for Xbox LIVE. This is a model that, hopefully, won’t exclude Silver members or force Gold subscribers to pay for two services simultaneously. We contacted Turbine today in order to obtain official confirmation of the console title. Turbine wouldn’t confirm any of the source’s information, yet none of it was denied."

Joystig has contacted Adam Mersky Turbine’s PR director and the answer was:

"We saw that rumor, too… We’re not talking about what we’re working on specifically, only that we’re making a console MMO and actively working with Microsoft and Sony."

This unnamed console project is in progress and more information we can expect on summer.

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