New Test Server Patches 6/14

General

• You should no longer do the loot animation while swiming.
• The flame on the Torch of Eiglophian will now die after a while.
• Now all spells can be casted with dagger and staff without problems.
• When you train Basic or Advanced Riding, you will no longer be teleported
• Fixed an alignment issue with quest indicators over quest NPC’s heads.
• Transition Quest Goal Markers have been updated to fit where the NPC’s now stand.
• Locking to raid instances have been fixed. All players participating in a raid will now be locked.
• Fixed problem that would cause the resource manager to hang indefinitely if the client consistantly fails to download a resource.
• Bonus spell damage now increases both minimum and maximum damage, instead of just maximum (average damage will remain unchanged).
• Stat bonuses from items (strength, wisdom, dexterity and constitution) will now properly affect your character (Note that strength now directly affects your DPS, not your attack rating).

GUI

• All Assassin abilities which stack multiple times now have a stack count in the buff GUI.
• All Bear Shaman, Priest of Mitra, and Tempest of Set abilities which stack multiple times now have a stack count in the buff GUI.

Items

• Hood of Jagged Barbs has been revamped.
• Polearms should now be the intended size.
• Added new purple rare drops to world loot.
• Conqueror Spear should now look the right size.
• Cimmeria hide light wrist should no longer clip with arms
• Changed reference to Steelsilk to Gossamer Silk in the Full Trade Response.
• Average, Fair, Fine and Superior Meat will no longer end up in the quest inventory.
• Crafting Item: Renamed item “Bloodsilver-studded Boots” to “Bloodsilver-mail Boots”
• The purchase price of vendor-bought alchemy reagents are now one third of what they were.
• Hek’lar’s Accursed Dagger will now appear with the correct icon in the player’s inventory.
• Fixed an issue with ‘Darfari Armbands’, they should be visible on female characters and have stats now.
• Crafting Item: Skymetal-studded Wristbands and Bluesteel-studded Wristbands (rare) And should be different from each other.

NPC

• Vistrix’ Profanity debuff has been tweaked.
• Ice Cave: Ice worms should now attack correctly.
• Field of the dead: Dusk wolf should reset properly.
• The Acheronian Warlord will drop bossloot armor again.
• The trader in Lacheish Plains has been removed as intended.
• Toirdealbach should now be a more fun and playable encounter.
• The Catacombes: Necromancer Undead should now attack correctly.
• The Champion of the Honorguard now uses its correct abilities again.
• Ethi woke up with his height a bit smaller than what it was yesturday.
• Villa Lentulus: Gurges the Nimble should react normally to players.
• Yakhmar’s Cave: Yakhmar should no longer get stuck if it cannot reach its target.
• Kyllikki’s Crypt: Kyllikki should reset properly when noone is in her hate list.
• Khopshef Province: Freed Rogue Slave should now use his weapons correctly.

Mounts

• Revamped translation so the blood is displayed relative to horse as well.
• The targetting arrow should now be positioned correctly when targetting a horse, gorilla and Mtilator
• You will half your chance of beeing knocked off the horse from the sides. You cannot be knocked off the horse if the attacker is standing in front of you
• Monsters lower level than you will have a much lower chance of knocking you off the horse. Monsters higher level than you will have a much higher chance of knocking you off the horse.
• Fixed a problem where advanced mount abilities were being given out by the basic training. Mammoth and Rhino owners - Please use /claim again. This will train the attack abilities associated with these two mount types.

Playfields

• Purple Lotus Swamp: Ladders should now work correctly.
• Tarantia Noble: Players should now be able to teleport into the arena by clicking on the door.
• Tarantia Noble: The Arena in Armsman Tavern has been redone. If you are looking for challenging arena fights, you can do so either alone or as part of a group.

Player Cities

• Player Cities will now have the Trader NPC now.
• The stack-size of building materials has been raised to 1000.

Player Characters

Archetype

• New buff counters were added to a number of mage and soldier effects.
• All gathering feats should now have the correct proficiency suffix in their name.
• The Goad ability can be trained and used on a NPC that does not have aggro on you. You must be in combat to use this ability.
• The buffs from rogue general feats Concealment, Distraction and Mountaineer will now be removed from characters when they untrain feats.
• You can no longer enter spellweaving when climbing or swimming. If you are hiding or crouching and enter spellweaving, you will leave that state immediately.

Assassin

• Flesh Rot now applies a separate debuff for each player Lotus Weapons now now applies a separate debuff for each player.

Bear Shaman

• Wreck Armor I+II+III combos now have improved visuals and sound.

Conqueror

• You may now use Incite the Ranks if Fire Weave is running.
• Throat Slash can now only be used with a melee weapon and not a ranged weapon.

Dark Templar

• Soul Barrier’s cast time has been reduced from 3 seconds to 1 second.
• Changed the Cooldown of Unhallowed Blight III to 20s.
• Changed the Unholy Debuff to be 5% on all combos. - Changed the duration of the debuff to last for 25s.
• Reduced the Mana cost of the following spells by 50%:
  • Aura of Dread Fury (Ranks 1 - 4)
  • Aura of Infusion (Ranks 1 - 5)
  • Covenant of Pestilence (Ranks 1 - 4)
  • Covenant of War (Ranks 1 - 3)
  • Covenant of Death
  • Covenant of Invulnerability (Ranks 1 - 3)
  • Covenant of Vengeance
  • Drain Life (Ranks 1 - 5)

Demonologist

• Waves of Flame now inflicts more damage each tick.
• The animation for the Demonologist-spell Unholy Hate has been slowed down by 25%.
• Resolved an minor issue with Demonologist spellweaving not affecting stamina potion effects.

Herald of Xotli

• Resolved a issue with “Blood Pit” so it will always spawn if you successfully kill a minion with the “I Eat Your Heat” combo.

Necromancer

• You no longer lose the Cannibalism spell when investing the second feat.
• Vile Insight now gives the intended Unholy Specialization as reflected in the description.
• Plauged Heart Curse will now correctly increase in damage with more feats trained.
• Parasitic Soul Swarm now inflicts more damage each tick.
• Pestilential Blast now has an additional skull visual.

Priest of Mitra

• Revoled a problem with the priest of mitra spellweaving ability.
• Repulse has had its base damage lowered slightly and contribution from bonus magic damage increased.
• Cleansing Fire now has a slightly lower manacost and now scales correctly across all levels.
• The damage bonus applied to Repulse, Cleansing Fire, and Lance of Mitra from Force of Will has been lowered to the correct amount.
• The damage bonus from Improved Repulse has been significantly increased

Ranger

• The buffs from ranger stances Shattering Stance, Piercing Stance, Fire Stance and Sniper Stance will now be removed from characters when they untrain feats.

Tempest of Set

• Brutal Lightning Strike should no correctly increase the critical strike chance of Lightning Strike.

Tradeskills

• Obsidian has been renamed to Feldspar.
• Orichalcum has been renamed to Duskmetal.
• Tigereye Gems will now end up in the resource inventory.
• Skinning Trainer will now tell you were to get skins.
• Your harvesting will no longer get interrupted by someone outside of the resource and building playfields.
• Resource nodes can now always be harvested while their health is at 10%.
• The Weaponsmith Trainer now gives the cooldown warning when the cooldown is in effect.
• The dialogues of the Resource Gatherer Trainers and Crafter Trainers now check if the player has the appropriate feats set on them, in addition to quests. If the player has the quest to gather resources or craft, but has lost the feat that enables him to do so, the feat is now retrained (to the correct tier).

Quests

• Dealing with Dila: Dila should now attack.
• Hunting the Spider: Quest can now be completed.
• The Lost Scouts: Waypoint to Dairmad was fixed.
• Oasis of Zaara: Waypoints for quest were fixed.
• In Defense of Beauty: Quest can be completed now.
• Flowers of the Snow: The flowers way markers were adjusted.
• Paetus and the Nemedian Crown: Waypoint for Armsman’s Tavern was fixed.
• Wanted posters should now give proper feedback if the player already has the quest or does not meet the requirements.
• Rahim & Lord Camillus: had it’s journal text modified, as he doesn’t stand near the Armsman’s Tavern.
• Death to the Undead: Indicators for minimap were displaying to small. This has been resolved.
• The Mark of Acheron: Players will now be able to experience the destiny event in the Field of Chiefs.
• The Mark of Acheron: The Mark of Acheron is permanently removed when performing the Medallion Ritual now.
• Soul Chamber: If you die in the soul chamber you now lose the tablet in your quest inventory.
• Destiny Quest: The quest rewards ‘King Conan’s Tribute’ & ‘King Conan’s Esteem’ are no longer tradeable.
• The Lost Bottles: Wine bottles will now have a blue flame indicating you can interact with them.
• Tradeskill Quests: You can now delete all tradeskill quests but tradeskill progression quests.
• Tradeskill Quests: Resolved various level requirement issues with the quests.

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Age of Conan : One Million Copies Shipped

Funcom is proud to announce that Age of Conan will pass the astounding "One Million Copies Shipped" milestone, in less than three weeks after the launch of the game. Due to overwhelming demand Funcom's retail partner is now re-supplying retail boxes rapidly while also including new markets to the mix. As a result of the tremendous interest from gamers, Age of Conan has for the past few weeks been claiming number one spots on the sales charts across the western world – including the US, Germany, France and the UK – while receiving glowing review scores from gaming media.

"Sales data shows that Age of Conan is the biggest MMORPG launch since World of Warcraft," says Funcom Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Morten Larssen. "The numbers are very promising, and we are very proud to be one of the fastest selling PC games ever in a launch month and the biggest simultaneous Europe/US MMO launch in history."

In the US, Age of Conan has a strong # 1 chart position and is now moving past the 500.000 shipped mark. Meanwhile the attention for the game is growing across the globe, with over 8 million unique visitors from over 200 countries to the Age of Conan websites so far in 2008. The community surrounding the game is also growing fast, with over 800,000 signing up as members of the Clan of Conan fan club.

Age of Conan was launched May 20th in the US and May 23rd in Europe, receiving critical acclaim from media across the globe. "Age of Conan has raised the bar," wrote US gaming website Gamezone, giving the game a score of 94 out of 100. Gamespot, one of the world's leading gaming websites, rewarded Age of Conan a 8,5 score calling it "one of the finest online RPGs available". The game is also receiving acclaim in Europe, where a broad range of early reviews gave an average score of over 90 percent. Funcom is committed to continue to expand and improve on the game by adding more content, features and fixes in order to make Hyboria a favorite place for gamers across the globe, and players can expect some exciting news in the weeks and months ahead.

More information about the game can be found on www.ageofconan.com

About Funcom - Funcom is an independent developer and publisher of online games for PC, consoles and mobile platforms. Funcom has provided outstanding entertainment since 1993 and continues to expand its track-record of more than twenty released games. Recent titles include 'The Longest Journey', 'Anarchy Online' and 'Dreamfall: The Longest Journey'. For corporate information please visit www.funcom.com. For information about Funcom games visit www.anarchy-online.com, www.dreamfall.com, www.darkdaysarecoming.com or www.ageofconan.com. Funcom is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange under the ticker FUNCOM.

Source : mmorpg-x

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DreamWorld Latest

In a not entirely surprising move, Swedish online game developer Lockpick Entertainment today announced that their anticipated Free-2-Play MMORTS game Dreamlords The Reawakening will launch on Wednesday June 18 (this year that is).
A long, hot and intense summer lies ahead…

The waiting is coming to an end and after the physical move of the servers earlier this week the team is ready to release their love child together with the community.

"We're really happy to release The Reawakening now and I know that it is highly anticipated from the Dreamlords community. Drawing on experience from the development of our previous game Dreamlords but also through feedback and suggestions from our much devoted community, I'm convinced we've created the game we initially set out to produce last fall", said David Rosén CEO and Executive Producer. "The Reawakening is in every perspective a game by gamers – for gamers and now I can only hope the players will have as much fun playing it as we've had developing it."

Marcus Legler
June 11 2008
One final restart before Launch
Thursday June 12th a day you do not want to miss!
On Thursday June 12th we will make a final era restart before launch, and this will include numerous updates and fixes, in fact all fixes we intend to do before launch. The reset will be total. Which means all your beta testing traitpoints, tribute and accumulated levels etc will be reset.
So what do you get for your testing?
All of you, our beloved testers will from that day enjoy one month full premium access and a fixed number of tribute which you will be able to spend as if we had launched as we intend to give you a head start in the first era. This is to ensure that you are rewarded properly for your testing and feedback and to make sure that we have a solid base of convergences allready up and running to welcome new players into when the game is officially launched.

Our support is back online
During the testing we have had our support more or less closed due to us focusing on getting the game ready for launch. On thursday we will open it once again and be ready to help you with any issues you might have. Please visit http://support.dreamlords.com to check the knowledgebase or to send us a ticket.

Source : mmorpg-x

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Blizzard Battles WoW Server Problems

With six million subscribers, keeping World of Warcraft (WoW) private servers up and running is probably the biggest challenge facing Blizzard. WoW has been plagued by server problems that cause the game to crash without warning. Complaints from angry players have been pouring in about long lag times. Blizzard acknowledged that there is a problem and they've been religiously informing customers about system problems, but players contend that Blizzard has been slow to react to their complaints.

The wow private servers problems have been severe after Blizzard implemented its last major patch to WoW in late March. In an interview with CNET News.com, Evgeney Krevets, a WoW player said, Being a system administrator myself, I have some understanding of what goes on in a corporate data center. I don't know Blizzard's system setup. What I do know is that if I kept performing 'urgent maintenance' and taking the service down without warning for eight-hour periods, I would be out of a job.

To diffuse the ire of millions of subscribers, Blizzard blames its network provider AT&T for some of the problems. Blizzard also argues that massive online games like Wow are simply prone to network issues. Blizzard's official stand: "Due to the complex nature of massively multiplayer games like 'World of Warcraft,' technical issues such as the ones some of our players have experienced recently may occur on occasion. Our commitment to our players is to provide effective solutions as quickly and carefully as possible whenever any such situation occurs.

With no real solution in sight, some players have come to accept that private server problems won't go away and they will just keep playing. While some players wait for Blizzard to resolve the server problem, some try to solve it on their own by choosing other private servers . It seemed to work for them.

But what boggles the mind is even with a slew of multiplayer online games, such as Everquest, City of Heroes, Ultima Online and others, WoW players refuse to walk away from WoW. Blizzard is probably banking on the idea that there is no real alternative to WoW. But with the number of unhappy subscribers increasing every time a server goes down, Blizzard should start to take the problems more seriously.

Source : wow.qj.net

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EVE Online meets Half-Life 2 in machinima masterpiece

Clear Skies is a groundbreaking machinima produced by Ian Chisholm, which takes place entirely within the galactic setting of EVE Online, known as New Eden. Any attempt to lump Clear Skies in with your run-of-the-mill machinima would be a disservice to the scope of the work; the film clocks in at just under 40 minutes and was a labor of love for two years in the lives of its creators.

Clear Skies follows a trio of down-and-out misfits who've seen no end of bad luck. John Rourke is the obstinate captain of the Clear Skies, a Tempest class battleship manufactured by the downtrodden Minmatar race of New Eden. Rourke's attitude toward his hazardous chosen lifestyle is cavalier, although this does not sit well with his friends among the crew. Solomon Burke is the pessimistic ship's engineer, while Charlie Fodder -- a gunner with an ironic name -- does his best to keep the crew alive. Typical of life in New Eden, Fodder is doomed to remain a rather busy man.

These likeable dropouts from the entrenched corporate lifestyle of New Eden eke out a meager living on trade runs and the odd courier job here and there. Still, they manage to find humor in their grim lot as they narrowly avoid being blown out of the stars by pirates, hired thugs, or whatever threat awaits them on the other side of the next jump gate. This is life aboard the Clear Skies. It's not a comfortable lifestyle by any means, but the crew is free to live and die by their own terms. Of course, their exploits do make for some good stories.

Just back from their last job gone awry, Rourke and crew are faced with a gargantuan repair bill for what's left of the Clear Skies when they dock in the nearest space station they can reach. They have to choose between parting with the Clear Skies or going broke to fix her. They opt to spend all of their isk to resurrect their ship and home, going back to square one in the process, with no choice but to make more shady deals just to continue getting by. The latest of their exploits is to transport 'an idiot in a shiny suit' a few jumps to the Hek solar system. Their passenger, however, wishes to remain anonymous, is paying too much money, and insists upon being ferried in a battleship. These are all omens of a deathtrap, but the crew has little choice but to accept. And so begins the story -- epic by machinima standards -- that exposes the viewer to the seedier aspects of life on New Eden's fringe.

The execution of the film is brilliant; Clear Skies is a hybrid between Half-Life 2's character design and EVE Online's backstory. The ship that is the film's namesake serves as the primary setting for the story; and in some respects acts as another character in the film -- with its quirky malfunctioning systems, familiar EVE-style interfaces, and its Minmatar heritage of looking like 'an explosion in a girder factory'.

That's a running gag throughout Clear Skies. Many of the Minmatar race's ships resemble scrapheaps somehow imbued with great speed, but they look as if they could shake apart at any moment. The adage familiar to so many EVE players, that duct tape is standard issue on any Minmatar ship, is alive and well in Clear Skies.

The film is punctuated with humor from start to finish, much of which borders on inside jokes for fans of EVE Online -- little rewards for knowing and being part of the system that is the machinima's backdrop.

Clear Skies stands as a significant work in a number of ways. Looking beyond the intense time commitment involved with producing something of this caliber, the film has found nearly universal acceptance among EVE Online's often divisive community. If fact, there's been little but echoes of praise for Clear Skies on the game's forums by Chisholm's newfound fanbase.

This is surprising, since Clear Skies breaks from the established background in EVE by removing the concept of a capsuleer who controls the essential systems onboard the ship, instead turning the reigns over to the crew itself. Chisholm takes the more accessible angle of having the pilots man the bridge, engine room and gunnery station, but this is an altered perspective for anyone accustomed to EVE Online's gameplay. The battleship in Clear Skies is no longer an extension of one's self, which is a core idea in EVE Online. While this would threaten to be sacrilege to some of EVE Online's more dedicated fans of the backstory, the positive reception to Chisholm's project shows that he made the right choices. Even the developers at CCP Games have congratulated Chisholm and his friends on the achievement.

And those friends certainly deserve some mention as well. The character of Solomon Burke is voiced by Richie Powles, while Charlie Fodder's voice is provided by John Guthrie. What's interesting here is that they've now taken roleplay in EVE to new heights; the characters that Chisholm, Powles, and Guthrie portray are also their own characters in-game. The trio of characters are all members of Pure Alliance, and can be found in their respective corporations of The Wild Hunt (Rourke) and Dawn of a New Empire (Powles and Guthrie).

Ian Chisholm has stated that a sequel to Clear Skies is being planned, largely due to the fan response to his effort, which he found simply overwhelming. He never expected interest in his machinima to hit the levels it has so far, thus a website for Clear Skies wasn't in place for the film's release. But this hasn't prevented the film from being seen by thousands of viewers willing to track it down. In lieu of a dedicated website for the project, which Chisholm assures is already in the works, the film is being distributed through a loose network of fansites. The most comprehensive collection of links to date related to Clear Skies was put together by a fan on the EVE forums. The most popular place to download Clear Skies is at the fan-run site EVE Files, which is hosting the film's trailer as well as the full version. An embedded version of the film is currently offered at LivePvP.

Despite the fact that Clear Skies is set in the EVE Online universe, the film is accessible to virtually any fan of machinima or the sci-fi genre as a whole. Check out what all the hype is about; Clear Skies won't disappoint.

Source : massively.com

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The end of the age of the amateur game designer?

NCSoft's first quarter report came out, and they don't want to talk about their space marine-fps-mmo, Tabula Rasa, except to say they are fairly disappointed bu its performance.

I should refer to it by its full name, Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa.

Richard Garriott, if you don't know of him, is "the legendary video game programmer and designer, noted as one of the PC Gamer's "Game Gods". I found this little tidbit on a vanity web site called "Richard in Space", where you can meet Richard Garriott as he prepares for his space tourist flight to the International Space Station aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket.

Last year, Game God Brad McQuaid was likewise absent for the disappointment that was Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. I'm sure he was as well paid as Richard Garriott, AKA the sixth Earth human to go to the space station as a tourist. We could be next, gushes the "Richard in Space" site. Maybe if we can get someone to shovel money at us because our Game God status demands it.

I feel sad for the people who did their best to finish these games while the Gods got all the press and the limelight. All the real developers got were schedules, pressure, disappointment and exciting trips to the unemployment office.

Now Brad is in hiding, and Richard Garriott is going up to space (still unknown: did he leave a clone behind in case he wanted to respec? Or in case the Soyuz castle lands just a little *too* hard this time?).

Past success is no indicator of future success in this world. Maybe it makes a difference if you put as much as yourself into the next game as you did in the one that made you a Game God. I think you really have to step back and reassess your life if you find yourself being promoted as a Game God. Hey, you could say, don't call me that. I'm no better than anyone else. I had a hit game but all I have to show for it is that I have to work twice as hard on the next one.

John Romero, American McGee, Brad McQuaid, Richard Garriott and many, many more; Game Gods all.

Source : westkarana.com

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Everything of Free Online Games

When Frooga.com was lunched 3 years ago it only had 50 free online games, as the years passed and free online gaming became more and more popular than ever, they kept adding new games to the site and now it currently has over 600 games. Since 2003 many gaming sites have came out and the only thing you need to do is type in the word "free online games" in Google or Yahoo and you'll find 100s of them. But the unique thing about Frooga.com is that they won't spam your brower with pop-ads or make you sign-up after playing couple of games on their site. No. When you play games at Frooga.com it's only games and nothing else, it's simple as that.

All their free online games are hand selected from different games developers and updated on Frooga.com. So you won't find any boring games there.

They have wide selection of different online games, online action games, online puzzle games, sports, dress them up, online shooting games and many others.

With Frooga.com you don't download any software to play the games you only need to have a good browser like Interent Explorer, FireFox, Safari and many other plus Flash Player 9 or above and you are set.

If you haven't played any online games before it's real easy and most of their online games come with insturction on how to play them. So check them out and leave a comment here for other people about what you think of their free online games.



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