Gifts of Steel Group Event
Groups must help an overworked apprentice find the perfect gift for his demanding mentor. Karl Kranigan has mentored many gnome wizards in his long career as a builder of great war machines. Now these apprentices wish to honor him with a gift. Seek out the one that is closest to your own skill level and help them find the ingredients to make their gift.

There will also be a USTREAM event on the 17th. For more information about the festivities that will be going on for the next 11 days, visit the official EverQuest 11th Anniversary website.

In this week’s show we’re joined by Sean Stalzer, sometimes better known by his nickname “Dragons,” to touch on the finer points of what it’s taken to keep The Syndicate, one of the largest and longest-running guilds in MMO history, up and running for over 14 years, and the relationships it has built with developers over that time.

Topics

• Special Guest: Sean Stalzer
• What we’ve been playing
• Lord of the Rings Online Volume III: Book 1: Oath of the Rangers
• EverQuest 2: Sentinel’s Fate Released
• Heatwave Interactive Picks up Gods & Heroes IP and Game Engines
• Dungeons & Dragons Online Hits 1 Million Users
• Alganon Goes Subscription-Free
• Bigpoint to Publish Battlestar Galactica Online, Browser Based MMOG

Hosts

• Jeffrey Philipp
• Steven Crews
• Siam Choudhury

As always we appreciate your feedback! You can also send us your questions or topics you would like us to discuss by dropping a comment here or sending an email to podcast@mmogamer.com.

Remember to subscribe!

The same report puts British spending to £195 million, well ahead of France and Germany, each with £145 million and £165 million respective.

“Free to play” versus “Pay to play”

The majority of the British MMO players do not ‘pay to play’ but still a significant share of 38% does. It shows that MMO games are being accepted as a type of game worth paying for. Of the hundreds of MMO games in the market, only a few require payment up-front, mainly by selling software to be installed on the PC. Brits spent approximately £25M on this, split up into boxed products and online downloads. £95M is spent on monthly or annual subscriptions. Many free-to-play MMOs rely on selling in-game virtual items using direct micro-transactions or a virtual currency approach, grossing another £75M in revenues.

New and returning Aika fans will be able to access a regular lineup of the exciting PvP events introduced during CB. Invading nations continuously attempt to steal valuable relics from their rivals in 1000 vs. 1000 battles, while weekly Castle Sieges pit guild against guild in a bloody struggle for political dominance. A diverse range of class-specific riding mounts will be accessible to players starting from level 40, from the Warrior’s war hamster to the Dual Gunner’s hoverbike. Players will also be able to benefit from an expanded Arcan economy by buying and selling rare items across all five nations through the auction house.

Click here to visit the Aika Online website.

Players will be able to choose to play as cylons or humans in a constant struggle to control the universe or just survive its perils. A blend of tactical space combat, exploration, and mission-based gameplay will provide a diverse experience. The dramatic missions will define the game’s overall storyline, enabling the player to delve into mysteries of the Battlestar universe. Battlestar Galactica Online will create a new standard for web games, with beautiful 3d graphics and innovative game mechanics bringing a new level of game play to browser based MMOG. Assets from the television production will be integrated into the game to deliver an even more authentic experience.

You can visit the new Battlestar Online website here for more information.

QOL engaged Alganon as a Soft Launch in December for the purposes of refining the product and getting in-tune with the industry and player needs. There were two key things to do; refine the game, and review Alganon’s position in the market. QOL held back all marketing during the new year because many AAA titles taking the spotlight and determined the best course of action for Alganon’s success in 2010 was to convert to Subscription Free and build a new Tribute Market System for the players. QOL is moving out of the Soft Launch phase of Alganon into full Official Release on April 8th and introducing the Tribute Market System.

For more information about this change and about Alganon, visit the official website.

“The launch of DDO Unlimited has been a huge success and has really taken the game to a new level,” said Fernando Paiz, Executive Producer of DDO Unlimited. “As we celebrate our 4th birthday, the game has never been better and we’re just getting started with more adventure packs, more store items, and other innovative features coming in the major updates we have planned throughout 2010.”

Visit the Dungeons & Dragons Online website for more information on the game and the free client to play the game.

Introducing Volume III: Allies of the King – The epic story continues with Volume III which will introduce players to new lands, new threats, and new adventures, as the tide of destiny pushes them ever onwards into danger. Book 1: Oath of the Rangers begins in Rivendell, where Elrond and his sons try to decipher the meaning of Galadriel’s mysterious message. One thing is clear: if Aragorn has need of the Dúnedain, they will have to be found throughout the wilderness of Eriador and summoned forth with as much haste as can be managed. Players who have experience with the wide lands west of the Misty Mountains are called upon to bring word to the Rangers of the mission that awaits them.

More Skirmishes! – The critically acclaimed Skirmish system introduced with Siege of Mirkwood™ has been a huge hit for LOTRO players. With over ten million Skirmishes completed, Book 1 will introduce a brand new Skirmish that will take players back to the Rift of Angmar as well as several new additions to the system. Until today, players could only experience Skirmishes in Solo, 3-player and Small Fellowship modes, Book 1 introduces the new Duo Mode which will now let 2 players and their soldiers team up for epic battles throughout Middle-earth. Additionally, players will now be able to experience four new 12-player Skirmishes.

Celebrate the Spring Festival! – The Spring Festival returns to Middle-earth from March 22nd through April 19th. The world will come together in celebration as the free people of Middle-earth enjoy the season with special decorations, festive costumes and special quests including the return of the Hedge Maze and the introduction of the new arena in Duillond.

For more information about the game and the downloadable free trial, visit the Lord of the Rings Online website.

In this week’s show we’re joined by Gordon Farrell of Reverie World Studios to discuss Dawn of Fantasy, the company’s inaugural MMORTS.

Gordon is Lead Writer on the project, and as story quality (or lack thereof) in the genre is a favorite topic of discussion here at The MMO Gamer, you can bet that we had a lively conversation.

For those wondering about his credentials to pontificate on such topics, when he’s not working on Dawn of Fantasy, Gordon teaches screen and playwriting at NYU, as well as courses in Narrative Theory for Electronic Games, which he literally wrote the book on.

Having said that, it was Technical Difficulties Week here at Working As Intended, and as a result the audio quality of this podcast is not quite up to par with some of our other productions.

But, if you can bear with the occasional hiccup (and our usual epic-length interviewing style) you will be rewarded.

Topics

• Special Guest: Gordon Farrell. Topics of discussion include building a story-centric RTS, “serious writing” in the gaming industry, and of course, the age-old debate whether or not games can ever rise to the level of art.
• Age of Conan Introduces Update 6 – Return of Thoth-Amon
• Allods Online Enters Open Beta
• EVE Online Announces Tyrannis, Expansion Allowing Planet Interaction

Hosts

• Jeffrey Philipp
• Steven Crews
• Siam Choudhury

As always we appreciate your feedback! You can also send us your questions or topics you would like us to discuss by dropping a comment here or sending an email to podcast@mmogamer.com.

Remember to subscribe!

Finally, current EverQuest II subscribers with characters level 80-90 can now participate in the ultimate PVP with the complimentary addition of Battlegrounds. Battlegrounds allows players to engage in the most exciting and intense PvP battle against their friends or foes, regardless of server, and provide thrilling group-based, competitive matches in three all-new zones.

Retail price for the game is $39.99 and you can find out more about the expansion at Sentinel’s Fate’s offical website.

Click here to get a beta key!

1. Go to gpotato.com

2. Login using your gPotato username and password, or create a new account. (if you don’t log in to your gPotato account first, clicking on “Redeem” on the Aika page won’t work. It’ll just refresh the page.)

3. Go to http://aika.gpotato.com

4. Click on “Redeem Beta Key.”

5. Enter your closed beta key. Your gPotato account is now activated for Closed Beta 2. There will be a link available for downloading the client.

To find out more about the game, visit the official website.

Monsters of Maine, a blog run by one of the characters featured in The Secret World, is a part of the latest ARG campaign launched by Funcom. The community spent yesterday picking up clues and following leads, eventually uncovering the blog. The ARG is a follow-up to last month’s ARG that had the community hunt for clues to uncover the first location revealed, Kingsmouth.

For more information about The Secret World, visit the official website.

“Heatwave’s philosophy is to identify and develop world class IP, and we believe the project is just that,” said Anthony Castoro, co-founder and CEO, Heatwave Interactive. “With this acquisition Heatwave greatly expands its core development capabilities as well as adding a well-known, award-winning title to its expanding intellectual property portfolio. This game hits the Heatwave ‘HIP’ mark in terms of its social gaming features and the intrinsic entertainment value found in its mythological storyline, high action adventure and beautiful art style. ”

Heatwave Interactive, best known for having industry veteran Anthony Castoro as its co-founder, has also acquired the game engines that Perpetual Entertainment developed for Gods & Heroes and Star Trek Online. These engines will become the foundation for future MMOs from Heatwave. You can find out more about Heatwave Interactive here and also visit the new Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising website.

That‘s right, you will finally be able to survey for juicy deposits of minerals and other goodies, build infrastructure to harvest them, store them, process them and launch them into space. Build complex networks of facilities and fine tune them for optimal production. All in a very massive single shard sandboxy way as only EVE can provide. And it‘s not just the terran planets. It‘s ALL OF THEM. The gas giants, the lava planets, the ice worlds, the water worlds and even the elusive plasma planets. Each type with their unique properties. Maintaining facilities on gruesomely hostile planets will be tougher and more demanding, but the rewards may be so much more “onturning”.

Although no official release date has been announced, a cryptic message suggests that the expansion will be out before June. Read the announcement here.

In this week’s show, we largely focus on the declining difficulty of the modern MMO genre (or as many people call it, the ‘dumbing down’) in order to appeal to a wider audience than its original base.

Using STO as a jumping off point for the discussion (sorry, Cryptic, we’re going to stop ranting about your games eventually, we swear), the conversation weaves its way from the Sunwell in World of Warcraft, to Golden Axe back in the coin-op days of yore.

Guest Rantalyst Brian Gardner makes his first appearance on the show, to discuss his theory of “The Lost Horizon.”

Topics

• What we’ve been playing… which goes on for 40 minutes straight.
• Star Trek Online Introduces the Borg Content Update
• STO Fans set a new world record for the most people dressed as Star Wars characters at one time. Surprisingly, the record was not set at Comic Con.

Hosts

• Jeffrey Philipp
• Steven Crews

Guest Rantalyst

• Brian Gardner

As always we appreciate your feedback! You can also send us your questions or topics you would like us to discuss by dropping a comment here or sending an email to podcast@mmogamer.com.

Remember to subscribe!

Allods Online is a revolutionary sci-fi fantasy MMORPG developed by Astrum Nival, creators of Heroes of Might & Magic V, with a budget of $12 million and four years in development.  Astrum Nival is owned by Mail.Ru, the leading online gaming publisher in Russia.  Two warring factions, League and Empire, vie for control of allods—islands floating in Astral space.  The truly unique aspect of Allods Online is the Astral ship system.  Players can create their own ships, crewed by entire parties where each player has a distinct role, from navigator and helmsman to engineer and gunner.  From their astral ship, players can navigate the randomly generated astral space where they can explore uncharted allods, fight massive Astral demons, and engage in Astral piracy on unwary fellow travelers.  The game features an unprecedented amount of content for a free-to-play MMORPG: 2 factions, 6 races, 8 archetypes, 28 classes, and over 2,000 quests.  The production values are top-notch with full motion-capture animation, top award-wining artists, and a soundtrack by Mark Morgan, composer for the hit TV-series Dexter, Fallout & Fallout 2, and Planescape: Torment.

Get the beta over at Allods Online’s website.

Update 6: ‘Return of Thoth Amon’ introduces the much anticipated guild renown feature, where any guild on any server can acquire renown points that unlock exclusive rewards. Anything that the members of that guild do – fighting monsters, fighting other players, crafting items – will generate renown for the guild. Renown points will unlock guild levels, and will for instance allow the guild to decorate their guild city with new buildings, statues and banners, or allow the guild’s members to gain access to exclusive item rewards. Players can view a list of the top ranking guilds on all servers from inside the game as well as through the new guild rankings website available on the community portal.

Visit Age of Conan’s official website to learn more about the game.

Previously, the Borg were thought to be severely weakened by the actions the USS Voyager, as fans of the show will remember. But in 2409, the Borg have regained and surpassed much of their old strength, and Episodes in the Borg Update will add more substance to that portion of STO’s story. Players will eventually face off against the Borg Queen, the leader of the Collective, but the road to her lair is a very dangerous path.

The update includes episodes for high level players and aim to explain the Borg and what they have doing in the time between the movie Star Trek: Nemesis and 2409, the time were Star Trek Online takes place. Episodes include:

• The Cure – A planet has been completely taken over by the Borg. Fight them for control of the planet.
• Khitomer Accord – Travel back in time and uncover and participate in the events that led to the release of old Borg you encountered in the Tutorial Episode.
• Into the Hive – Track down a missing Starfleet captain and come face to face with the new Borg Queen.

Visit the official Star Trek Online website for more information.

In this week’s show we’re joined by Sara Kaplan of Sony Online Entertainment to discuss their Gamers in Real Life (G.I.R.L.) scholarship, currently entering its third year, which aims to get more women working in the gaming industry.

For additional information about the G.I.R.L. scholarship, including deadlines, rules, and application requirements, be sure to pay a visit to the official website: http://www.station.sony.com/girl

Topics

• Special Guest: Sara Kaplan, Manager of Corporate Communications at Sony Online Entertainment, fills our listeners in on the particulars of the G.I.R.L. scholarship program.
• Aika Online Beta Key Giveaway
• Free Realms Registers 8 Millionth Account
• Cryptic Studios Registers 1 Million Accounts Across Champions Online and Star Trek Online

Hosts

• Jeffrey Philipp
• Steven Crews
• Siam Choudhury

As always we appreciate your feedback! You can also send us your questions or topics you would like us to discuss by dropping a comment here or sending an email to podcast@mmogamer.com.

Remember to subscribe!

Welcome to our beta site.

Sign up now for your opportunity to become one of our chosen heroes that must answer the call. Your mission is to test LEGO Universe for bugs, so prepare yourself to strap on your suit of armor and help your friends battle the dark forces of the Maelstrom!

Click here to sign up for the LEGO Universe beta!