MMO News Wrap-Up

23 Apr 2010 at 12:16:45 by Bill Vaughan

Welcome back to another wrap-up of all things MMO related from the past seven days. This time we talk about the exciting goings-on surrounding games including Age of Conan, World of Warcraft, Battle of the Immortals, TERA, Mytheon, Fallen Earth, Runes of Magic, EverQuest II and Guild Wars.

We kicked off the week with an interview with the product manager for Battle of the Immortals, an upcoming free to play MMO with a distinct Diablo feel to it. A couple of us here at IncGamers have been taking part in the closed beta, and it's quite an enjoyable little experience. I sunk an hour and a half into it before I noticed that any time had passed. Sound interesting? Drop by the interview to find out everything you might want to know before getting stuck in.

Guild Wars players got the chance to spend out on some purely cosmetic costumes this week, to mark the War in Kryta. The outfits allow players to disguise their characters as either officers of the White Mantle, or deck them out in the uniforms of the rebel Shinig Blade organisation. They can be worn over existing armor and make no change to stats, so characters can go about their normal tasks with a brand new look. Sexy!

Blizzard thought it was about time to answer some of the burning questions that have risen over all the proposed class changes in World of Warcraft's Cataclysm expansion that were announced recently. They held a Q&A over Twitter, and picked out the things they were happy to talk about such as individual class issues, but several other topics were touched upon. For example, it was revealed that flying riding speed will be upped to 310% and, once the character has trained up to that level, all their flying mounts will be able to travel at that speed. Very good news indeed; I shed blood, sweat and tears over my Nether Drake, I shall ride it til the end, no poncy Celestial Steed for me!

It's been all go for Runes of Magic this week; first of all Frogster announced a new 'training program' for its players, which is a series of events designed to help them level up quicker in time for all the new goodies that will arrive in Chapter III. It kicked off with a bonus XP weekend last week, more events are to be announced. Then, on a slightly negative note, all Diamond trading had to be suspended due to an alarming rise in RMT activities. For the time being, players are unable to sell Diamonds for gold over the auction house, and the ability to send gold through the mail, along with C.O.D. deliveries, has also been removed. We're assured that services will be restored once the issue is under control but there's been no indication of when that might be. Yet another reason to slate the RMT trade – the actions of a few spoil things for the rest of us, boo.

On the up side, Frogster gave us an exclusive look at the extensive background lore for Chapter III, just in time for the first phase of the expansion to be released to live servers yesterday. Players can now venture into the new continent of Zandorya and all the new missions and rewards that await them.

Fallen Earth was updated with patch 1.3.11 on Monday, which introduced the new duelling system, allowing players to challenge others outside of PvP areas. The town of New Gallows has also been opened up, so swing by there for the new missions and rewards before it's converted back to conflict town in patch 1.4. You can see the full patch notes for 1.3.11 here.

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