Massive Multiplayer Online Games - Press Releases

GuildMates.com - Social Network Site for MMO Players

Hoza — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 00:54:09 -0500

I'm a little slow on this (most?) news, Blake Peterson dropped a note about a month back announcing his site's launch at GuildMates.com . It's really an interesting idea and I'm curious how well it works over time. They've built a free service where you create a profile of info about yourself and which guilds/games you've had characters in over the years. With a system of email, forums and instant messenging, their goal is to help people reconnect with old guild... well, mates (sorry, I couldn't be bothered to formulate different wording there.)

I've browsed through the site a bit and it's really quite nice. I can imagine a social network tool like this would appeal greatly to folks who've built interesting friendships in the past but don't have accounts with all their old games anymore. I know I'm fairly curious what some folks I used to play Asheron's Call with are playing these days, for instance!

Of course, this kind of site will be most useful if it's existence is widely known about... so I guess I'm playing a part to spread the word for Blake. Maybe long-lost friendships can be rekindled by the use of such a tool, eh? Pretty neat idea, I think.

Knight Online Expanding

Hoza — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 13:31:15 -0500

News about an open beta and development for the increasingly-popular Knight Online:

The popular and free medieval fantasy MMO, KNIGHT ONLINE, has expanded. Players new and experienced can join an epic war of mass proportion, hunt many new monsters and compete in exciting Player vs. Player battles. The KNIGHT ONLINE: REIGN OF THE FIRE DRAKE expansion open beta is now available. In the KNIGHT ONLINE expansion, venture into the rumored Land of 7 Sins. Millions of other players worldwide will clash to ultimately slay the dragon.

Exciting additions include:

-Level cap has been raised from 70 to 80 with extra never-before-seen abilities
-Additional hunting territories with intriguing new monsters and bosses
-PvP updates with new fighting zones and tactical objectives
-A completely revamped user interface
-And more...

Drop by their site for more info and a bunch of screenshots (since my gallery isn't quite up yet.)

HERO Online Open Beta Starts Today

Hoza — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 15:02:40 -0500

Hero Online is opening up for a public beta starting today. I don't want to stand in your way as you clamor for info about an open beta, so here's the beef:

1. Schedule:
- Duration: June 30 ~ July 29, 2006
- Launch Time: 4:00PM (US Pacific Standard Time, GMT -8:00)
- Hours: 24 hours

2. How to participate (For ALL players):
- Step One: Create an account.

- Step Two: Download the client.
** Closed Beta Client will not work for Open Beta. All players will be required to download new Open Beta Client.

- Step Three: Play!

**If players have participated in Hero Online Closed Beta or The Legend of Ares, you may use the same accounts.

3. Did you know?
- We are not going to wipe characters after Open Beta!
- There will be special rewards for those who have shown efforts in Hero Online Closed Beta!

- There will be many events throughout Open Beta!

- If players use internet browsers other than Internet Explorer, they may experience difficulties in the registration process.

Microsoft's New "Live Anywhere" Service Announced

Hoza — Wed, 10 May 2006 01:22:04 -0500

Microsoft announced at E3 what had been hinted about for a long time... the Live Anywhere online gaming service will allow players on PC's (explicitly, Windows Vista boxes), Xbox 360's and mobile phones to all interact through the familiar Live platform. Well, it's not familiar to me since I own no Xbox-labeled machinery, but most of you know about it.

I figure this is big news for us since this may go a long way towards the type of cross platform connectivity that Final Fantasy XI pulled off with Playstation2 and PC. This could have some interesting side effects in the MMO space, as game communities become much more connected. Well.. I'm not sure what else to say about this. I have written and deleted a few paragraphs of thoughts on the subject, but I'm just going to stop now. :P

ArchLord Beta Signup Now Live

Hoza — Fri, 05 May 2006 14:50:04 -0500

News from Codemasters announces the opening of the beta sign up for the upcoming MMOG, ArchLord. I know you want it... you folks devour anything that says "beta". ...Well, I do too so I don't blame you. I'll be logging in right beside you, I'm sure. :)

It is with great pleasure that I can know announce the ArchLord Beta Sign-up has gone live! That's right, Beta Sign-up is now live! So head on over to http://www.archlordgame.com and register your interest in the Beta Sign-up! Whilst you are their be sure to check out the ArchLord Forums at and have a look around, ask some questions.

We are also running an ArchLord Beta Sign-up VIP program, so for all those that create fansites, are already members of guilds or are active community members will receive preferential access to the Beta program! So be sure to check out those forums, investigate the game and get creative!!!

Also, if you sign up by Monday morning, you'll have a chance to win a sketch of an ArchLord character made by the folks at MMOART. Here's the blurb on that from Tim "Mr. Ktat" Hodges, the community relations bloke for ArchLord:

I am happy to announce that courtesy of MMOART. <http://www.mmoart.com/>We are offering one lucky person who signs up for the Beta between today and Monday 9 am a personalised, unique sketch of a character of their choice from ArchLord!!

This is a really great prize and the guys at MMOART do some great work, check out their site for some awesome examples! So I'm sure you are all going to be hanging on to the edge of your seats for this. So good luck!!

Tabula Rasa E3 2006 gameplay trailer released

Hoza — Mon, 01 May 2006 14:42:25 -0500

Mmmmm, nummy!... go snag the "sneak peek" (on 1up.com) of what the folks at NCsoft will be showing off at E3 to showcase the upcoming Tabula Rasa. I really think it's best to reset your expectations of this game if you've been trying to follow its long development cycle before now. The game is really different from what it used to be... understatement of the week, I suppose. This trailer is impressive to me and helps me get into a different frame of mind about what the game will be like. Since Richard Garriott's talk at GDC '06, as I've mentioned briefly before, I've taken a completely new view of this game and it's now one I'm looking forward to... maybe because I didn't know enough about where the old versions of the game were heading to "get onboard" with it?

Mmmmm... 1280x720 trailer!! Nice. :)

Sneak Peek: Tabula Rasa E3 2006 gameplay trailer
Richard Garriott and the Tabula Rasa team would like to share a sneak preview with you of the incredible gameplay trailer they’ve put together for E3 this year. It’s available here: http://www.1up.com/do/download?cId=2014235.

On the last title screen there's a sweet example of the pictographic language that Richard talked about at GDC... very cool. I can read about half of it so far based on his talk. Pretty neat. Richard is well known by now for including such things in his games, but typically he has used more historical pictographic languages as a source. This time he made the whole language himself. I really need to talk to him more about this and formulate an article about it... it really was impressive to me. Such depth in a game design is refreshing. :)

A Tale in the Desert 3 Beta Underway

Hoza — Sun, 30 Apr 2006 00:38:43 -0500

Just a quick note to point out the open beta for A Tale in the Desert 3 has started up. I'm a bit delayed on this announcement due to technical email doohickiness but here ya go. ATitD has been one of the more interesting games to come along and the list of additions for the latest installment looks to give players some happy days ahead. Go snag the Windows, Mac or Linux clients and give this non-combat game a try... don't forget to report any problems you find, eh? It is a beta afterall and they would really appreciate if you help them iron out any bugs you find... bugs besides the scarabs you find wandering around in the sand. Those bugs are supposed to be there. It is the desert, ya know?

SketchUp Google Earth Plugin released

Hoza — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 16:32:40 -0500

You know how I was talking about the whole "Google Earth as a virtual space" thing?... Well, this announcement might hammer that home just a tad bit. There's now a Google Earth plugin for SketchUp that allows you to create 3D models and stick them right into Google Earth! Nice.

If you're not following what I'm talking about, or just don't care, I'll leave this issue alone for now. I know it doesn't directly affect massively multiplayer game news right now so maybe it's somewhat off-topic. However, it really "feels" like the tip of the proverbial iceberg here. I'm not sure what other tech is out there to do some similar tasks, but this whole SketchUp/Google thing has me very interested in where all this stuff might lead.

So, if you'd like more information, or if you want to see examples of what this is all about, go do your own research from here. I'll leave the topic alone for now, until I can find more connections to online gaming worlds and such... can't wait to see that start to pop up! Shockwave 3D (or Virtools, etc.) plugins to use Google Earth data, anyone??? Please??)

Guild Wars Factions Shipping This Week

Hoza — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 11:51:03 -0500

The next installment of the Guild Wars online game, Factions, has been shipped to retailers and will be going live on April 28. I figured you'd all like to know about this in case you're interested in getting in on the Head Start Event available to those who pre-ordered the game. A blurb:

Those who pre-ordered the game will be able to participate in the exclusive Guild Wars Factions Head Start Event beginning at 12:01 AM PDT/7:01 AM GMT on April 27, 2006. These lucky gamers will have access to the game for a total of 48 hours, including a full 24 hours before the game’s global release. During the first 24 hours of the Head Start Event, ArenaNet has planned an exclusive in-game event titled "Day of the Tengu," in which players will join one-day-only "Day of the Tengu" quests, and earn exclusive in-game rewards.

The new features include goodies like guild scrimmages, alliance battles, ranked character titles and other stuff that I also don't know anything about. Read the full press release after the jump...

Metaverse Roadmap Project Website Launched

Hoza — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 00:17:00 -0500

This announcement doesn't have too do much with massively multiplayer games (of today) specifically, but I thought you folks might find the Metaverse Roadmap Project interesting. I attended one of the three roundtables at GDC '06 put on by these folks and it was very intriguing... borderline science fiction, but interesting. This project seeks to bring together research and forward thinkers to assemble a constantly-updated roadmap of progress towards an eventual "metaverse" of some sort. Basically, mapping what we know now and following it to what it might mean for the future.

To get you in the mood, their new site starts out like this:

What happens when video games meet Web 2.0? When virtual worlds meet maps of the planet? When simulations get real and life and business go virtual? When your avatar becomes your blog, your desktop, and your email address?

What happens is the metaverse. ...

It was fairly difficult to grasp my head around the concept as I sat in on the GDC shindig, but not so much because it's all technologically insane (even though it's smart-people craziness to me) but more because I hadn't really taken the time to think through the issue before. I've read a few books about "cyberspace" and all that -- embarrasingly the definitive one, Snow Crash is not one of them, but it sits right over there *points to my copy on the shelf* and I swear I'll get to it eventually -- and it's not always easy for me to make the jump to imagining how real it all might end up being in the future. Now I'm not talking about Lawnmower Man becoming real, but the idea of such levels of connectedness online that the line between avatar and operator become very blurry.

I'm struggling to even discuss this issue here, since I just don't quite "get it" yet.

I had a great dinner chat with one of the folks from said project and lots of very fun concepts came spewing from his brain. One of them focusses on Google's purchase of the company that makes SketchUp. Now, if you don't know what SketchUp is, go look at it for a minute and consider this... what if Google takes their Google Earth product and combines it with the technology of SketchUp to generate (I said "generate", not "create") what would ultimately be a 3D virtual space from their data from Earth! Add to that some simple avatar options and couldn't we have an online "copy" of the real world built from actual satellite imagery and real locations?

Uh... whoa. (You can imagine that said in Keanu-ese if ya want.)

I can think of all sorts of amazing implications of a navigable 3D Google Earth... not sure what value they all have, but it sure sounds neat from that core level!

Anyway... proceed down this path if any of that stuff interests you. I'm considering opening up a MRP discussion forum here, but I'm not sure what use it would serve. If you find that interesting, send me a note.