MMO News Wrap Up - Page 2

08 Sep 2009 at 14:04:52 by Bill Vaughan

Fans of the upcoming Star Wars MMO, The Old Republic, were excited to see information about the Sith Warrior class, which was revealed last week. These characters use a mix of deadly lightsaber fighting techniques and their strong control of the force to crush opponents. Their armour can be heavy and intimidating, and often uses experimental components to boost the wearer's prowess. Sith Warriors also have no fear of biological upgrades, just take a look at Darth Vader for an example, so expect to see lots of implants and nasty-looking 'improvements'.

Some pretty hefty patch notes for the next Darkfall update were released recently, showing the latest round of changes to the controversial game. If you hadn't heard about Darkfall before now, here's a quick refresher; the PvP oriented sandbox game first caused a stir when digital sales of the game went on sale in batches to cope with demand. The website struggled to manage with the increased traffic when the shop went online, and servers apparently couldn't hold the numbers of people that wanted to try the game, so sales were limited to short periods of time, once per day. This continued until the reportedly huge demand dropped off, weeks later.

Since then, there have been reports of poor gameplay mechanics and mass exploitation issues, but developers have been quick to address many problems. This latest patch focusses on naval combat, graphic upgrades, new items and, most importantly, huge changes to the benefits of fighting computer controlled monsters over other players. The patch is due next month.

FunCom, the makers of Age of Conan, are hard at work on a new MMO known as The Secret World. This week, they released several new images and a new video trailer for the game, along with news of the three 'secret societies', the three factions in the world. Players can opt to be in with the righteous London-based Templars who seek to cleanse the world of evil by exterminating every hint of it, the ruthless Illuminati, based in New York, who prize wealth, power and ambition above all else, or finally the more subtle but equally deadly organisation, The Dragon. This ancient organisation favours working behind the scenes, using influence to turn their enemies against each other, and the odd assassination, to get their way.

The long-awaited closed beta for the upcoming Star Trek Online was announced during the week, and anyone interested (I'm guessing there might be just a few) can now sign up to take part. Champions Online players who bought one of the lifetime or six monthly subscriptions that I mentioned earlier will automatically be included in the STO closed beta, and will also have a couple of cool in-game items to play with too.

Those of you that have been following our Aion coverage will be interested to see the news that the 1.5 patch notes have been released. This includes some massive changes to the game version we all played on the closed beta over the last couple of months. New zones, better localisation, more quests, new instances, and added character customisation options are just some of the features of this patch. Be sure to read our Aion previews to see what awaits you in this highly anticipated game. Patch 1.5 will be the version that hits live servers when the game is released later this month.

A new Lord of the Rings Online expansion was announced just before the weekend, which will add a number of cool features to the popular MMO. Siege of Mirkwood will increase the level cap, add a new region, add legendary items and improve the game's combat system. A new feature called 'Skirmishes' is also being introduced, which is a repeatable randomised instance where players can make and train NPC henchmen to take into battle with them.

The conclusion to Volume II: Mines of Moria, will also be played out. Players must team up with Celeborn and Galadriel to fight through masses of Orcs with the help of the Elves of Lórien. This leads to Dol Guldur, the fortress of the Ringwraiths. The expansion is booked for the end of the year, so there's not too long to wait.

Finally, CCP proudly announced Dominion, the next expansion for its blockbuster MMO, EVE. Not much is known about this update yet, except that it will focus on EVE's endgame, alliance warfare. CPP has taken note of player feedback and completely overhauled the sovereignty mechanics, which is set to benefit alliances. Other additions include the new social networking platform, COSMOS, new epic arcs for pirate factions and some improved art. Dominion is also due at the end of this year, so it will be a busy and exciting time for many you MMO fans.

That's it for this week's MMO news wrap-up, check back next time for the hottest stories in the week to come!

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