MMO News Wrap Up - Page 2

16 Oct 2009 at 12:14:01 by Bill Vaughan

Australia finally came up with a rating system for online games this week and, months after the news that MMOs such as WoW and WAR may have to be withdrawn from sale, the titles were officially legally on sale again. The Australian Classification Board had no way of rating a game that contained no offline content until now, so online games went on sale without having to go through the rating system thanks to the loophole. However, ministers branded unclassified games as illegal in February, saying that they should be withdrawn from sale. The withdrawal never took place; retailers continued to stock the games and authorities would only take action if someone complained.

Eight months later, the new ratings are now in place and World of Warcraft was awarded an M for Fantasy Violence.

On Thursday, Turbine announced EU players' special pre-order deals for LOTRO's upcoming expansion, Siege of Mirkwood. By purchasing various editions of the expansion, several in-game items can be obtained for free. For new players, a 'Platinum Edition' of the game is also now on sale, which includes the standard game and all expansion so far, as well as the upcoming one. At £34.99 GBP, the Platinum Special Edition contains all expansions, two in-game items and the Adventurer's Pack that opens up more character slots.

If all this has got you thinking about returning to the game, then now is the ideal time. There is currently an offer open to former players in the US that allows them to return to the game for free until 21 October. You can start where you left off on your old characters, and there's even a 25% bonus to XP earned during this 'Welcome Back Week'. If you decide to stay on, make sure to take advantage of the multi-month subscription offer, which will grant you the Siege of Mirkwood expansion for free.

Another MMO that is offering free game time again is Funcom's Age of Conan. After all the recent worrying news about the company's financial situation, it's perhaps no surprise to see that Funcom wants as many players to come back to AoC as possible, especially with some big new features in the works; the Veteran system, which rewards players with exclusive items the longer they have been subscribed, is something fans have been asking for since the game was released, and The Iron Tower is an upcoming new instance that is set to provide a new challenge for end game players. Stay tuned for much more information on both of these features in the coming days.

Aion players were given some good news this week; in-game GM support will shortly be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, according to a Twitter from the game's associate producer, Lani Blazier. Fans were frustrated to find that in-game issues sometimes took several hours to be resolved due to the office hours schedule of GMs, and argued that for an online game, round the clock help should be standard. Aion has only been on sale for three weeks, but NCsoft is clearly listening to its players, which bodes well for the game's future.

CCP sent out a call this week for testers of Dominion, EVE Online's next expansion. The tests will focus on fleets versus fleet open combat, then a starbase siege is on the cards. The test to Sovereignty, which was due to take place today, has been cancelled but the next scheduled test is on 29 October at 17:00. Be sure to bring along as many friends as possible, and you'll each need a Battleship, carrier, dread or support ship.

In other EVE related news, a rather cool trailer for the spin-off console game, DUST 514, was released this week. As opposed to EVE, DUST 514 will be an MMOFPS with hand to hand combat, set on the planets in the EVE universe. According to early reports, events in DUST will affect who owns certain planets in EVE Online, and CCP hopes that eventually the communities of both games will meld. Personally, unless DUST comes out on the PC, I can't see much chance of that happening, but the trailer looks impressive, it should draw many EVE fans, so we'll have to wait and see.

Finally, Champions Online has been in the news a fair bit over the last seven days. Firstly, Cryptic Studios announced the cool new comic-strip editor that allows players to make a comic that features their very own character. Using screenshots they have taken themselves or existing art that comes with the software, players can create stories and share them with friends. Cryptic also unveiled more powers in the Celestial powerset, which focusses on group support and healing, a role that players currently feel desperately needs filling. The abilities in the powerset enable players to heal others while damaging enemies, ensuring solo play is also viable. Don't forget that the in-game event, Blood Moon, is kicking off soon; find out more about that in our earlier article.

Speaking of Champions, we've got a review in the works which will take a look at the first 20 levels of the game. Look out for that in the next couple of weeks. But until next week's MMO News Wrap Up, happy gaming!

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