World of Warcraft Server Problems

With six million subscribers, keeping World of Warcraft (WoW) private servers up and running is probably the biggest challenge facing Blizzard. WoW has been plagued by server problems that cause the game to crash without warning. Complaints from angry players have been pouring in about long lag times. Blizzard acknowledged that there is a problem and they've been religiously informing customers about system problems, but players contend that Blizzard has been slow to react to their complaints.

The wow private servers problems have been severe after Blizzard implemented its last major patch to WoW in late March. In an interview with CNET News.com, Evgeney Krevets, a WoW player said, Being a system administrator myself, I have some understanding of what goes on in a corporate data center. I don't know Blizzard's system setup. What I do know is that if I kept performing 'urgent maintenance' and taking the service down without warning for eight-hour periods, I would be out of a job.

To diffuse the ire of millions of subscribers, Blizzard blames its network provider AT&T for some of the problems. Blizzard also argues that massive online games like Wow are simply prone to network issues. Blizzard's official stand: "Due to the complex nature of massively multiplayer games like 'World of Warcraft,' technical issues such as the ones some of our players have experienced recently may occur on occasion. Our commitment to our players is to provide effective solutions as quickly and carefully as possible whenever any such situation occurs.

With no real solution in sight, some players have come to accept that private server problems won't go away and they will just keep playing. While some players wait for Blizzard to resolve the server problem, some try to solve it on their own by choosing other private servers . It seemed to work for them.

But what boggles the mind is even with a slew of multiplayer online games, such as Everquest, City of Heroes, Ultima Online and others, WoW players refuse to walk away from WoW. Blizzard is probably banking on the idea that there is no real alternative to WoW. But with the number of unhappy subscribers increasing every time a server goes down, Blizzard should start to take the problems more seriously.

Source : wow.qj.net

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EVE Online meets Half-Life 2 in machinima masterpiece

Clear Skies is a groundbreaking machinima produced by Ian Chisholm, which takes place entirely within the galactic setting of EVE Online, known as New Eden. Any attempt to lump Clear Skies in with your run-of-the-mill machinima would be a disservice to the scope of the work; the film clocks in at just under 40 minutes and was a labor of love for two years in the lives of its creators.

Clear Skies follows a trio of down-and-out misfits who've seen no end of bad luck. John Rourke is the obstinate captain of the Clear Skies, a Tempest class battleship manufactured by the downtrodden Minmatar race of New Eden. Rourke's attitude toward his hazardous chosen lifestyle is cavalier, although this does not sit well with his friends among the crew. Solomon Burke is the pessimistic ship's engineer, while Charlie Fodder -- a gunner with an ironic name -- does his best to keep the crew alive. Typical of life in New Eden, Fodder is doomed to remain a rather busy man.

These likeable dropouts from the entrenched corporate lifestyle of New Eden eke out a meager living on trade runs and the odd courier job here and there. Still, they manage to find humor in their grim lot as they narrowly avoid being blown out of the stars by pirates, hired thugs, or whatever threat awaits them on the other side of the next jump gate. This is life aboard the Clear Skies. It's not a comfortable lifestyle by any means, but the crew is free to live and die by their own terms. Of course, their exploits do make for some good stories.

Just back from their last job gone awry, Rourke and crew are faced with a gargantuan repair bill for what's left of the Clear Skies when they dock in the nearest space station they can reach. They have to choose between parting with the Clear Skies or going broke to fix her. They opt to spend all of their isk to resurrect their ship and home, going back to square one in the process, with no choice but to make more shady deals just to continue getting by. The latest of their exploits is to transport 'an idiot in a shiny suit' a few jumps to the Hek solar system. Their passenger, however, wishes to remain anonymous, is paying too much money, and insists upon being ferried in a battleship. These are all omens of a deathtrap, but the crew has little choice but to accept. And so begins the story -- epic by machinima standards -- that exposes the viewer to the seedier aspects of life on New Eden's fringe.

The execution of the film is brilliant; Clear Skies is a hybrid between Half-Life 2's character design and EVE Online's backstory. The ship that is the film's namesake serves as the primary setting for the story; and in some respects acts as another character in the film -- with its quirky malfunctioning systems, familiar EVE-style interfaces, and its Minmatar heritage of looking like 'an explosion in a girder factory'.

That's a running gag throughout Clear Skies. Many of the Minmatar race's ships resemble scrapheaps somehow imbued with great speed, but they look as if they could shake apart at any moment. The adage familiar to so many EVE players, that duct tape is standard issue on any Minmatar ship, is alive and well in Clear Skies.

The film is punctuated with humor from start to finish, much of which borders on inside jokes for fans of EVE Online -- little rewards for knowing and being part of the system that is the machinima's backdrop.

Clear Skies stands as a significant work in a number of ways. Looking beyond the intense time commitment involved with producing something of this caliber, the film has found nearly universal acceptance among EVE Online's often divisive community. If fact, there's been little but echoes of praise for Clear Skies on the game's forums by Chisholm's newfound fanbase.

This is surprising, since Clear Skies breaks from the established background in EVE by removing the concept of a capsuleer who controls the essential systems onboard the ship, instead turning the reigns over to the crew itself. Chisholm takes the more accessible angle of having the pilots man the bridge, engine room and gunnery station, but this is an altered perspective for anyone accustomed to EVE Online's gameplay. The battleship in Clear Skies is no longer an extension of one's self, which is a core idea in EVE Online. While this would threaten to be sacrilege to some of EVE Online's more dedicated fans of the backstory, the positive reception to Chisholm's project shows that he made the right choices. Even the developers at CCP Games have congratulated Chisholm and his friends on the achievement.

And those friends certainly deserve some mention as well. The character of Solomon Burke is voiced by Richie Powles, while Charlie Fodder's voice is provided by John Guthrie. What's interesting here is that they've now taken roleplay in EVE to new heights; the characters that Chisholm, Powles, and Guthrie portray are also their own characters in-game. The trio of characters are all members of Pure Alliance, and can be found in their respective corporations of The Wild Hunt (Rourke) and Dawn of a New Empire (Powles and Guthrie).

Ian Chisholm has stated that a sequel to Clear Skies is being planned, largely due to the fan response to his effort, which he found simply overwhelming. He never expected interest in his machinima to hit the levels it has so far, thus a website for Clear Skies wasn't in place for the film's release. But this hasn't prevented the film from being seen by thousands of viewers willing to track it down. In lieu of a dedicated website for the project, which Chisholm assures is already in the works, the film is being distributed through a loose network of fansites. The most comprehensive collection of links to date related to Clear Skies was put together by a fan on the EVE forums. The most popular place to download Clear Skies is at the fan-run site EVE Files, which is hosting the film's trailer as well as the full version. An embedded version of the film is currently offered at LivePvP.

Despite the fact that Clear Skies is set in the EVE Online universe, the film is accessible to virtually any fan of machinima or the sci-fi genre as a whole. Check out what all the hype is about; Clear Skies won't disappoint.

Source : massively.com

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The end of the age of the amateur game designer?

NCSoft's first quarter report came out, and they don't want to talk about their space marine-fps-mmo, Tabula Rasa, except to say they are fairly disappointed bu its performance.

I should refer to it by its full name, Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa.

Richard Garriott, if you don't know of him, is "the legendary video game programmer and designer, noted as one of the PC Gamer's "Game Gods". I found this little tidbit on a vanity web site called "Richard in Space", where you can meet Richard Garriott as he prepares for his space tourist flight to the International Space Station aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket.

Last year, Game God Brad McQuaid was likewise absent for the disappointment that was Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. I'm sure he was as well paid as Richard Garriott, AKA the sixth Earth human to go to the space station as a tourist. We could be next, gushes the "Richard in Space" site. Maybe if we can get someone to shovel money at us because our Game God status demands it.

I feel sad for the people who did their best to finish these games while the Gods got all the press and the limelight. All the real developers got were schedules, pressure, disappointment and exciting trips to the unemployment office.

Now Brad is in hiding, and Richard Garriott is going up to space (still unknown: did he leave a clone behind in case he wanted to respec? Or in case the Soyuz castle lands just a little *too* hard this time?).

Past success is no indicator of future success in this world. Maybe it makes a difference if you put as much as yourself into the next game as you did in the one that made you a Game God. I think you really have to step back and reassess your life if you find yourself being promoted as a Game God. Hey, you could say, don't call me that. I'm no better than anyone else. I had a hit game but all I have to show for it is that I have to work twice as hard on the next one.

John Romero, American McGee, Brad McQuaid, Richard Garriott and many, many more; Game Gods all.

Source : westkarana.com

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Everything of Free Online Games

When Frooga.com was lunched 3 years ago it only had 50 free online games, as the years passed and free online gaming became more and more popular than ever, they kept adding new games to the site and now it currently has over 600 games. Since 2003 many gaming sites have came out and the only thing you need to do is type in the word "free online games" in Google or Yahoo and you'll find 100s of them. But the unique thing about Frooga.com is that they won't spam your brower with pop-ads or make you sign-up after playing couple of games on their site. No. When you play games at Frooga.com it's only games and nothing else, it's simple as that.

All their free online games are hand selected from different games developers and updated on Frooga.com. So you won't find any boring games there.

They have wide selection of different online games, online action games, online puzzle games, sports, dress them up, online shooting games and many others.

With Frooga.com you don't download any software to play the games you only need to have a good browser like Interent Explorer, FireFox, Safari and many other plus Flash Player 9 or above and you are set.

If you haven't played any online games before it's real easy and most of their online games come with insturction on how to play them. So check them out and leave a comment here for other people about what you think of their free online games.



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Fallen Earth: Complete Skills Update

Fallen Earth's lead designer, Lee Hammock, delivered this week an up-to-date skill sets list, covering the Active Skills, Tradeskills, Mutation Paths and the Faction Specialties. Hammock also noted that the team is finishing four major areas in addition to raids and vehicles in preparation for some polish work next week:

As promised last week, I'm going to go through some of the older information and note things that have changed, starting this week with skills. Things have shifted around a bit, mainly with some skills being removed or their purposes switched.

For those who are keeping up on the weekly goings on in the office, this week we're finishing up Boneclaw, Sunshine Corners, Terance, Kingman Prison, and South Burb, in addition to some work on raids, vehicles, etc. Next week is a polish week so we're working on making everything run a bit more smoothly as opposed to implementing more content.

Skills

Currently FE has three categories of skills: Active skills, Tradeskills, and Mutation Paths.

Active Skills

These are skills that are involved in normal, non-mutation based combat, using items, and interacting with the environment. All players have some rating in all the active skills. Active skills start out equal to .75 of one attribute and .25 of a second attribute. For example, a character's base Melee is equal to .75 of their Strength and .25 of their Coordination. Active skills are raised at a cost of 1 AP per point up to double the base value of the skill.

- Animal Training: Allows for the training of horses currently, but other functionality will be added later. Animal Training is based on .75 Charisma and .25 Perception.

- Armor Use: Allows the character to learn defensive special abilities, use a wider selection of armor, and is factored into determining how effective a character's armor is when the character is damaged. Armor Use is based on .75 Strength and .25 Endurance.

- Athletics: Allows the character to learn a variety of self-buff effects, such as increasing movement rates or hit point recovery. Athletics is based on .75 Endurance and .25 Coordination.

- Dodge: When a character is attacked in ranged combat, the target's Dodge skill is compared to the attacker's Rifle or Pistol to determine critical hit chance, damage bonuses, etc. Dodge is determined by .75 Coordination and .25 Perception.

- First Aid: Allows the character to use a number of healing items and special abilities, such as recovering Health over time, restoring Stamina, or removing poison and disease effects. First Aid is based on .75 Intelligence and .25 Perception.

- Group Tactics: Allows the character to use a number of group buffs. Group Tactics is based on .75 Charisma and .25 Perception.

- Melee: Determines effectiveness of melee combat, including chance of critical hits, weapon selection, and special attacks. Melee is based on .75 Strength and .25 Coordination. Melee has a subskill called Melee Defense which is equal to a character's Melee, but may be modified separately by effects, items, etc. When a character is attacked, the character's Melee Defense is compared to the attacker's Melee to determine the chance of critical hit, any damage bonus, etc.

- Pistol: Determines effectiveness of pistols in combat, including chance of critical hits, weapon selection, and special attacks. Pistol is based on .75 Dexterity and .25 Perception. Pistols don't have the range of rifles, but can be used in close combat without penalty.

- Rifle: Determines effectiveness of rifles in combat, including chance of critical hits, weapon selection, and special attacks. Rifle is based on .75 Dexerity and .25 Perception. Rifles have the longest range but characters suffer a penalty to Melee Defense while wielding a rifle.

- Stealth: Determines character's ability to avoid detection via noise and learn a number of effects and special attacks, including the ability to alter your faction ratings (and reveal those alterations in others). Stealth is based on .75 Coordination and .25 Perception.

Tradeskills

These skills allow players to craft items by learning instructions (our new term replacing "recipes"), collecting the appropriate tool kits and components, and spending the required time to make the item. Characters can learn as many tradeskill as they want. All Tradeskills are based on .75 Intelligence and .25 Perception. Tradeskills are raised through use, up to double the base value of the skill.

- Armorcraft: Covers the making of armor and clothes.

- Ballistics: Covers the creation of rifles and pistols, from zip guns and crossbows to sub-machine guns and assault rifles.

- Cooking: Covers the preparation of food, which can provide a number of recovery-oriented buffs.

- Geology: Allows the player to harvest minerals from mining nodes and to refine metals into higher-grade components.

- Medicine: Covers the creation of all manner of medical equipment.

- Mutagenics (formerly Genetics): Covers the creation of mutation injectors and other devices that support the use of mutations, such as gamma restorers.

- Nature: Allows the character to harvest components from animals and plants in addition to producing some items and refine some components.

- Scavenging: Allows the character to harvest scavenging nodes, which can yield a wide variety of items.

- Science: Covers the creation of chemical boosters, special optics, and similarly advanced items. Also allows the refinement of some components.

- Weaponry: Covers the creation of melee weapons.

You may notice the Teaching skill is no longer included. The functionality still exists, but is contained within in each skill instead of a separate skill. So if you learn an advanced Armorcraft knowledge, you can make a book that can teach it to someone else.

Mutation Paths

Each mutation path covers a specific type of mutation and allows the player to learn special abilities within that mutation. Mutation paths are raised with APs, with each AP raising the mutation path 1 point, up to double the base value of the skill.

- Alpha Mutation: Fairly low-power mutations possessed by all characters as part of the cloning process. They provide some basic buffs, recovery abilities, and speed modifiers.

- Empathic: The character can alter the bodies of others, allowing a limited ability to heal or harm others. Empathic is primarily a healing and buffing mutation. Empathic is based on .75 Endurance and .25 Willpower.

- Enhancement: The character can nudge the molecular structure and properties of some common items, exaggerating the already present chemical properties of an item. Enhancement is primarily a crowd-control and damage mutation. Enhancement is based on .75 Intelligence and .25 Willpower.

- Nano-Manipulation: The character can control some of the nanites left on their bodies from the regeneration process, allowing them to increase their own abilities. Nano-Manipulation is primarily a self-buff mutation with a few attack abilities. Nano-Manipulation is based on .75 Intelligence and .25 Willpower.

- Patho-Transmission: The character is a walking plague carrier, and can use these infections to attack others. Patho-Transmission is primarily a debuff and damage-over-time mutation. Patho-Transmission is based on .75 Endurance and .25 Willpower.

- Primal: The character has developed genetic traits he can use to increase his strength, speed, etc. Primal is primarily a self-buff mutation path. Primal is based on .75 Strength and .25 Willpower.

- Sonic Manipulation: The character can control sound waves, reducing or increasing sound. Sonic Manipulation has many facets including buffs, crowd control, and damage abilities, but is not as focused as other mutation paths. Sonic Manipulation is based on .75 Perception and .25 Willpower.

- Suppression: Suppression allows a character to drain gamma energy from other mutations, remove mutation buffs, and increase his own resistance to mutations. Suppression is based on .75 Perception and .25 Willpower.

- Telekinesis: The character can move objects with his mind. Telekinesis is primarily a damage and crowd-control mutation. Telekinesis is based on .75 Intelligence and .25 Willpower.

- Telepathy: The character can affect the minds of others, such as distracting opponents or making himself seem more likable. Telepathy is primarily a crowd-control and self-buffing mutation. Telepathy is based on .75 Charisma and .25 Willpower.

- Thermal Manipulation: The player can control the movement of molecules, increasing or decreasing heat in an area. Thermal Manipulation is primarily a damage, damage-over-time, and self-buff mutation. Thermal Manipulation is based on .75 Perception and .25 Willpower. Faction Skill Specialties

Each faction has nine skills they excel at and ten skills they are average at. To learn skills besides these nineteen skills, faction members must seek out instructors from allied factions or neutral instructors. You'll notice Scavenging isn't on any of these lists; it has no instructions or special abilities associated with it. It only serves to meet requirements for scavenging nodes.

Enforcers:

- Primary Skills: Armor Use, Armorcraft, Ballistics, Dodge, First Aid, Group Tactics, Pistols, Rifles, Suppression

- Secondary Skills: Animal Training, Athletics, Empathic, Geology, Medicine, Melee, Nano-Manipulation, Science, Stealth, Weaponry

Techs:

- Primary Skills: Armorcraft, Ballistics, Enhancement, Mutagenics, Geology, Nano-Manipulation, Pistol, Science, Thermal Manipulation

- Secondary Skills: Armor Use, Dodge, First Aid, Medicine, Rifles, Sonic Manipulation, Suppression, Telekinesis, Telepathy, Weaponry

Travelers:

- Primary Skills: Cooking, Athletics, Dodge, Melee, Pistol, Science, Sonic Manipulation, Stealth, Telepathy

- Secondary Skills: Armor use, Armorcraft, Ballistics, Enhancement, Geology, First Aid, Nano-Manipulation, Nature, Rifle, Weaponry

CHOTA:

- Primary Skills: Armor Use, Athletics, Dodge, Melee, Mutagenics, Patho-Transmission, Primal, Thermal Manipulation, Weaponry

- Secondary Skills: Animal Training, Armorcraft, Cooking, Empathic, Nature, Group Tactics, Pistol, Rifle, Stealth, Suppression

Vista:

- Primary Skills: Animal Training, Athletics, Cooking, Dodge, Nature, Primal, Rifle, Sonic Manipulation, Stealth

- Secondary Skills: Ballistics, Armorcraft, Weaponry, First Aid, Geology, Group Tactics, Medicine, Melee, Pistol, Science

Lightbearers:

- Primary Skills: Dodge, Empathic, First Aid, Mutagenics, Medicine, Melee, Stealth, Telekinesis, Telepathy

- Secondary Skills: Armorcraft, Athletics, Group Tactics, Nature, Primal, Science, Sonic Manipulation, Suppression, Thermal Manipulation, Weaponry

Source : WarCry Network

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WO's realm imbalance fears

When Warhammer Online releases later this year do you think there will be a skewed realm population? The GREENSkin blog seems to think so, but history would disagree with them. Whenever a game has been faction-based the "evil" races tend to be popular during the beta period. This fear of imbalance was a issue in Dark Age of Camelot and in World of Warcraft. During both of those instances beta testers expressed worry that the more evil of the realms would be entirely overpopulated post launch. However, the exact opposite happened to the complete befuddlement of beta testers everywhere.

Everyone was left wondering why this had happened but the truth is that there's no simple explanation. It's not simply a matter of players liking the good guys more than the bad ones, as many would guess. In the case of World of Warcraft, many players would also argue that Alliance 1-60 content was simply paced much better than the Horde side. Of course with WoW there was only one class specific to each side (Paladin and Shaman) until a patch much later. In Warhammer Online each side has a bevy of classes all to their own. While all of these classes share similarities mechanically, they do differ in terms of flavor. So you can see how even these two games have different factors affecting realm balance.

That's only scratching the surface as there are lots of worries to have with any MMO beyond even realm balance. There's even the possibility that players coming from WoW to WAR might decide to break tradition and flood the evil races over the good ones. All we know is that we'll be in the thick of it playing our Gobbos, Orcs, Chaos and Dark Elves.

Source : Massively.com

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AoC : Upcoming Demonologist and Necromancer Changes

Demonologists * The duration of Protection of Set will be substantially increased. * The maximum damage absorbed before Protection of Set fails will be increased to be more in line with damage dealt in leveling scenarios. Additional survivability increases are also being evaluated. * Players will gain a visible debuff to indicate when Protection of Set has run out of absorbable damage. * The base splash damage dealt by Fires of Gehenna, Hellfire Stream, Shockstrike, and Shock will be substantially increased. * The amount of damage dealt by most damage sources will be reevaluated. * The cooldown of Inferno of Ahmner and Shockblast will be reduced to 2.5 seconds to match the casting time of Fires of Gehenna and Shockstrike. * The Archmage feat will be moved to tier 2 instead of tier 3 in the Mage general tree to make it more easily accessible to varying builds. * All crowd control will have a significantly reduced chance to break from damage dealt by pets. * Fiery Torment (Rank 1) will be introduced at level 30 instead of level 45. * The casting time of certain long-duration buffs will be reduced. * The run speed of pets will be increased significantly. * Various bugfixes and alterations to existing feats and abilities; for example, decreasing the casting time of Detonation.

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