MMO News Wrap-Up

05 Feb 2010 at 12:12:46 by Bill Vaughan

It's time for another round-up of this week's MMO news. Here are the top stories from the last seven days including updates on Mortal Online, Global Agenda, The Secret World, World of Warcraft, Aion and Star Trek Online.

We kicked off the week with the news that Star Vault has launched the open beta of Mortal Online. No doubt you've heard things about this game, such as the sandbox design, the fact that there are no instances, no experience points, no third person view – oh, and no underwear. Mortal Online's playable characters don't have a stitch of clothing on under their armor which got people all riled up when it was discovered. You can hardly avoid that fact when you play the game either, because on the character creation screen you're presented with an completely naked man or woman to design. If you're wondering how far the customisation goes though, it focusses purely on facial features, their height and a character's age which determines their stats.

Aside from nudey people, Mortal Online is set to shake MMOs up a little. It takes the sandbox theory and runs with it, featuring player housing which can be build wherever players fancy creating their home, full looting of fallen opponents and a crafting system that allows characters to make any item in the game.

We'll be covering Mortal Online in some depth over the next couple of weeks, so be sure to check back for our thoughts. If you've yet to see what all the fuss is about, take a look at the in-game trailer that was also released this week.

A couple of high profile MMOs launched this week; One of them is Global Agenda, the spy-fy group-based shooter by Hi-Rez Studios. Global Agenda really has that techie sci-fi feel to it, and the co-op gameplay is a blast. Even if you're defeated again and again (as we were), you're likely to find yourself laughing about it. In fact, you can see some footage of our antics in our gameplay video which should be going up later today. If you missed the walkthrough video of the game's tutorial, you can see it on IGTV.

'Griefing' takes place in most MMOs, and this week's MMO Weekly focusses on some of the more famous and humorous cases from recent years. There are stories and video clips of some pretty mean/funny pranks gamers have played on one another. I won't spoil it for you, have a look for yourself, but my personal favourite has to be the horse rider in Age of Conan.

The first in-game footage of Funcom's upcoming modern-day MMO The Secret World was released this week, in the form of a trailer for Kingsmouth, an area in the game that's been infested with the walking dead. It's a chilling look at the town as seen from its CCTV cameras, especially when you can see what it was like before the fog came and changed everyone.

According to the trailer, there's a band of survivors in Kingsmouth who need help. We're guessing it's going to be your job as a loyal Templar, Dragon or member of the Illuminati to go and aid these people for whatever reason your organisation has. But regardless of plot speculation, the in-game graphics look amazing and suitable creepy. Nice job so far Funcom, keep up the good work.

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