SwagVault MMO Blog

The Aion Community’s Server Choices

Posted by: Lee | Posted in AION Miscellaneous, Aion: The Tower of Eternity | No Comments » |

Patch 3.2 PTR patch notes

Posted by: DreadMage | Posted in Wrath of the Lich King, Wrath of the Lich King Miscellaneous | 1 Comment » |

Darkfall’s newest expansion to release next week

Darkfall is among the most specialized niche titles available now, but like many niche titles it fills a void that just can’t be simulated anywhere else. That void might be confined to a certain frequently-reviled but very vocal sort of player, but it’s still there. And if the promise of bonuses for recruiting new meat for the grinder wasn’t enticing enough, fans of the game have even more to be happy about now — the game’s next free expansion is slated to release late next week according to an official developer post.

Conquer the Seas was originally slated to be released a bit sooner, but as developer Tasos explains, the expansion contains a larger number of bug fixes and minor updates than they had originally intended. It’s a good sign that Aventurine is willing to take the extra time for development to produce something better in the end, and Darkfall players certainly should enjoy the new update. If you don’t play the game… well, did we mention that any friends you have that do play can get some extra cash if you sign up? Just try not to read too much into the look of glee on their face at the time.

Posted by: ferdinand | Posted in MMORPG News | No Comments » |

Siege of Mirkwood developer diary: character panel updates

The Lord of the Rings Online expansion Siege of Mirkwood is expected to bring about some big changes to go with all of the screenshots and video that we’ve been seeing, and the latest developer diary entries have been giving us lots of details to read over while we wait for launch. One of the more recent ones discussed some significant combat changes, and the latest entry covers a bit more in that vein, as well as some updates to your character panel.

It’s not just a cosmetic makeover, either — gameplay has gotten a lot of work from the Mirkwood team. Three new Critical Defence statistics are added, Vulnerability has been revamped, and the differences between incoming and outgoing healing got some work too. Healing Rank and Tactical rank statistics are new as well, allowing players to increase their effectiveness by spending points.

The new character panels will reflect all of these changes and you can take a look at the diary entry for a full description as well as some screenshots detailing how it works.

Posted by: honriyallo | Posted in Lord Of The Rings Online, Lord Of The Rings Online Miscellaneous | No Comments » |

OGPlanet announces the launch of Lunia Chronicles

OGPlanet is known for its free-to-play games, and as of this week, there’s another one on the table.

OGPlanet announced the launch of Lunia Chronicles on Tuesday. Lunia Chronicles is the story of the different races on the continent of Rodesia and their conflicts. Players can download the game and explore several different characters including Lime the Fighting Slime, friend and companion to Eir the Healing Princess. The official site carries a nice overview of the game’s story and character histories, as well as tutorials on combat strategy and keyboard controls.

To get people playing and help celebrate the launch of their newest game, OGPlanet is offering up a nice incentive for those who check the game out. They’re holding a 30-day launch event to celebrate. Players need to download the game and play to level 50 by December 16th (Yes, THIS December 16th), and they’ll be entered in a drawing for a Dell XPS gaming laptop.

Posted by: kamiria | Posted in MMORPG News | No Comments » |

Code of Everand browser MMO teaches kids about traffic safety

The United Kingdom’s Department for Transport has launched a free browser MMO, Code of Everand, that teaches traffic safety to children. It does so through a fantasy theme with direct parallels to real world dangers — streets are Spirit Channels, glowing energy streams populated with many dangerous beasts. The Spirit Channels crisscross the map of Everand and make travel perilous. That’s where the players come in as Pathfinders, explorers trained in the techniques that allow for safe passage across the Spirit Channels. Pathfinders learn important safety lessons along the way in their journey to discover the secrets of Everand.

Code of Everand was developed for the UK Department for Transport by NYC-based firm Area/Code over the course of two years, reports Game Set Watch. Area/Code has a long track record of creating cross-media games for advertising and media firms, television networks, and even major consumer brands. According to Area/Code’s site, they’ve taken innovative approaches to games in the past — “online games that respond to broadcast TV in real time, simulated characters and virtual worlds that occupy real-world geography” and “game events driven by real-world data”. Interesting concepts. If you like the idea of games used as an effective educational tool, you can see the animated trailer for Code of Everand after the jump.

Posted by: gmaxwell | Posted in Wrath of the Lich King, Wrath of the Lich King Miscellaneous | No Comments » |

Justifying the tiered badge system

Wrath is almost all wrapped up, and while we didn’t know much about it before the expansion, we’ve all certainly experienced the token system that Blizzard implemented as they went along, where early instances drop one kind of badge/token, and then the newer instances offer up new tokens, which can then be exchanged back for the older ones and their rewards. Now that we see the big picture at the end of the expansion, it’s pretty ingenious, actually, and it even allows Blizzard to beef up other parts of the game, as they did with the rewards in the new Dungeon system.

Not that he needs to, but Bornakk steps up on the forums to justify exactly this kind of tiered system. Players complain that Ulduar is “useless” now that you can obtain its badges from lots of different places, but Bornakk says this system is definitely preferable to what Blizzard did in vanilla and BC, which was requiring new raiders to run through all of the old content before seeing the new and shiny stuff. They don’t want the old content to sit useless (and it’s not — lots of guilds are still running Ulduar and even Naxx for the hard modes and achievements), but after the high-end raiders have their fun, it’s important to get everyone else up to speed as well.

Bornakk admits it’s “a tough line to walk,” divining which of the two systems (straight raiding vs. badge earning) works better in which places. But Blizzard will never make everyone completely happy, and I think they’ve done a much better job this expansion in terms of balancing the need to show off all of their content against the need to get players working in their own ways towards gear rewards. In Cataclysm, it certainly seems like endgame won’t be as big a focus — in the beginning, anyway, we’ll all be looking at the old world and what’s changed back then. It’ll be interesting to see if they incorporate the tiered badge system in the rest of the game as well.

Posted by: polo | Posted in Wrath of the Lich King, Wrath of the Lich King Miscellaneous | No Comments » |