New Dragon Age Gameplay Videos

            BioWare released some new videos of their highly anticipated single-player RPG, Dragon Age: Origins at PAX this year.  Dragon Age, billed as a spiritual successor to Baldur?s Gate, is a return to BioWare?s origins.  However, the subtitle is not derived from this sentiment.  Each character will be able to develop his or her own [...]



RPG Trailers


Best of Leipzig Games Convention 2008

The winners of the Leipzig “Best of” categories have been announced, most notably taking the best on-line game is our baby Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (WAR).  Read below for the entire list:
 
For the sixth time, the Leipziger Messe has awarded the title of “Best of GC” to the most innovative new products at the [...]

Too Human

Too Human will be hitting store shelves sometime late next month, but as most of you know there is now a demo available on Xbox Live. How is it you may ask? Well it depends on what you expect from a game like this. Too Human is definitely different from a traditional RPG, it has [...]

Mythos - Hands On Exclusive Look

A week ago I got that special email from the makers of Mythos inviting me to join their closed beta playground. Initially I had to create an account with the usual stuff; user ID, password, email, and etc. No problems on that end registration was simple and didn’t require any credit card information. Next came [...]

They Set Us Up the Bomb

With the atom bomb that Mythic Entertainment dropped yesterday about the massive cuts for Warhammer Online it’s leaving many WAR fans in an emotional fog and just as many WAR haters saying, “I told you so”. It is a lot to take in for sure, I still can’t quite wrap my mind around whether or [...]

Star Trek Online MMORPG

With CrypticStudio’s having their ever so cryptic hint at a possible upcoming Star Trek MMORPG, questions are beginning to circulate about what it would be like.  After reading an interesting question from the folks over at Massively, it got me thinking of possibilities.  To sum it up, Kyle Horner at Massively was asking folks if [...]

Fallout 3

It’s a little ironic maybe that the original Fallout was considered an unofficial sequel to Electronic Arts earlier title Wastelands but couldn’t use the name due to rights issues as Fallout 3 hasn’t been without problems of its own.
 
Fallout 3 began under the auspices of the infamous Black Isle Studios, only to be shelved as [...]

Happy Independence Day!

Happy 4th of July! I’m taking the day off of blogging to spend the day with my wife and daughter and go watch some good old celebration fireworks. If you are a hardcore gamer - I know a lot of MMORPG’s out there have their own versions of holidays, Star Wars Galaxies had a lot [...]

Warhammer Online: The Bastion Stair

 
 
The first of dungeon to be announced by the Warhammer Online team is The Bastion Stair.  Both the Order and Destruction are drawn to this source of Chaos power.  The Order will be venturing into the twisted and torn landscape of the Chaos wastes to attempt to recover Myrmidia’s Spear - the only remaining artifact from [...]

Runescape Goes High Detail

Today Jagex announced that the anticipated high detail version of Runescape is now available to subscribers in a beta release.  Also with this update, for the first time Runescape will be playable in full screen mode within your internet browser window.  The update utilizes new graphics technologies to enhance the games look and bring it up to [...]

Diablo 3: Character Customization

Even though Diablo 3 is not going to be an MMO it is taking on some of the better traits of one.  One of the noteable changes to this version compared to the others is the character customization.  Gamers will be able to create both male and female versions of every class which has never been [...]

World of StarCraft

It’s of course all just speculation and educated, or uneducated as the case may be, guessing.  But there are a few things we do know about the Blizzard trailer - most important of which is that this is a teaser for the announcement of an upcoming new game title from Blizzard.  That means what it [...]

World of Warcraft: Apprentice Mounts at Level 30

In the next big patch (I beleive scheduled for next week?) is going to introduce apprentice mounts for players now at level 30.  To train for the ability to ride the new mounts will be 35 gold giving the lower level players a cheap boost to speed.  Every 10 levels or so usually has a [...]

MMORPG: Dynamic Content

In my ever growing quest to see some changes take place in our fast-becoming stale MMORPG template I’m going to publish more and more ideas. Out of the box thinking is what it will take to spice up upcoming titles and give them something different from the World of Warcraft mold so many games seem to be [...]

Indie Designers Pumping New Life into Consoles

Major console systems like the Nintendo Wii, the Sony Playstation platform and Microsoft’s X-Box 360 all seemed to be suffering from the same affliction that has hit our beloved MMORPG genre of PC games - no or low risk game design.  Games like the Grand Theft Auto series are to the console as games like [...]

Weekend Report - Slow Gaming

As the title of the post makes obvious, this was a very slow gaming weekend.  I messed around a bit in Call of Duty 4, working toward getting my gold AK-47 (I have no idea why I want one) and spent an hour or so in World of Warcraft leveling up my mage to level [...]

MMORPG: Should PVP be based on Skill or Gear?

Oh the great debates we could have!  I hear people complaining in World of Warcraft battlegrounds all the time when a twink kills them.  They complain because he is uber powerful with all that extra gear!  Being that I’m usually playing a twink myself the complaints go in one ear and out the other without [...]

MMORPG End Game: To Raid or Not to Raid

I was just reading an article by Kevin Murnane over at Massively about greed.  Kevin’s right in that there is a lot of greed in MMO’s - friends stabbing friends in the back for epic loot and the like.  With that in mind I started reflecting on end game content and how in most MMORPG’s the end [...]

WAR on the Grind

Warhammer Online is definitely garnering more and more of my attention lately with the let down of Age of Conan and the repetition of World of Warcraft making me look for new horizons.  Yesterday afternoon I was reading some Ten Ton Hammer interviews with WAR developer Mark Jacobs about the way crafting will work in [...]

Age of Conan Subscription Cancelled

Well, that feels like a waste of $90.  I have this fancy box, this cool leather map and a game account I’m no longer going to play - at least not in the near future.  Age of Conan for me was a fun break away from the normal MMORPG in it’s unique style of combat [...]

Battlefield Online MMO

Dice and Electronic Arts are sitting on a virtual gold mine with the battlefield series as a possible candidate for the next big MMO.  Overall the vast majority of gamer’s fall into one of three main categories: MMORPG, FPS and Strategy.  With a title like the Battlefield series that originated in the FPS and already [...]

MMORPG Persistent Worlds Aren’t Persistent

I remember the thoughts that ran through my head when I first started reading pre-release info about Star Wars Galaxies, my first step into the MMORPG world.  Before this I was an FPS ’stat’ whore and competition shooter.  I only played first person shooters, mostly in the Delta Force series from Novalogic back in those [...]

MMORPG Feature Innovation

Getting back to the MMORPG Cookie Cutter topic, to keep MMORPG’s from getting stale and give developers a fresh perspective on things gamers want, I started thinking about some interesting ways to bone up on features in new and even some current MMORPG titles.  Now, these aren’t necessarily a major overhaul on the whole MMORPG [...]

MMORPG Cookie Cutters

I recently read a few posts at various other sites talking about how all the MMORPG’s coming out as of late have been pretty well cookie cutter games.  In other words, the same game repackaged with a few ’stand out’ features.  Like AoC for example, a lot of people are comparing that to WoW in [...]

Rohan Online: Blood Feud

Open beta for Rohan Blood Feud has begun and is already jam packed with testers, so much so that YNK Games has more than doubled their number of servers in the first few days of testing to accomodate the huge influx of fans and they promise to continue to increase capacity as demand also increases.  [...]

RuneScape getting a face lift

One of the longest running MMORPG’s is getting a much needed upgrade. Runescape, which is the successor to DeviousMUD, is a popular persistant online world that has been running since 2001 and has retained a respectable player base, due in large part to it’s free to play option.  For the past 7 years, the game [...]

Knights of the Old Republic MMO

There are rumors floating around that Bioware is working on two things right now, first they seem to be working on a new MMO project.  Kotaku has an article about some of the MMO rumors and is speculating that the new MMO is not going to be based on KOTOR.  However, if you look at the team [...]

Star Wars Galaxies 2: Immersion

 
The ultimate goal of any MMORPG is to totally immerse you in the game world.  That’s what keeps you coming back, in the game world you can be whoever you want to be.  You are a jedi knight constantly at odds with the Empire or a rich and powerful merchant.  The original SWG didn’t pull [...]

Star Wars Galaxies

Most of my game experience has been first person shooters.  My first venture into MMORPG’s was Star Wars Galaxies.  Needless to say this game was very anticipated from early development.  The feature list, screenshots and game play videos released by the dev team were mouth watering.  But the game opening was less than stellar.  Many [...]