The MMORPG Weekend Warrior: upcoming video game sneak peeks, new MMORPG laws, more
Welcome to yet another issue of the QJ.NET MMORPG Weekend Warriors. Whether you want to get more news about upcoming games such as Star Trek Online, DC Universe Online (PC, PlayStation 3), and Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning or are more interested in industry news such as Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures’ impact on World of Warcraft and new laws governing our video games, we’ve got it all here. Hit the “read more” link to find out more.
Welcome to another issue of the QJ.NET MMORPG Weekend Warrior. This week we hear more about Star Trek Online, DC Universe Online, and Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. In addition, we’ve got Blizzard‘s CEO talking about Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures a new law being passed in Illinois which makes it easier to cancel MMORPG subscriptions.
So what are you waiting for, a written invitation? (oh wait, doh!) Let’s just head on over to the news this week.
First up, lets tackle a new law that was passed in Illinois that has been making waves in the MMORPG community. State Rep., Raymond Poe, passed a bill which essentially forces MMORPG developers to provide a secure method of canceling their subscription to an online game. Read more about this by following the link below.
Link: New law in Illinois to make it easier to cancel MMO subscriptions
We have more news about Star Trek Online. Apparently, after Perpetual Entertainment scrapped the game, Cryptic Entertainment snapped up the developer duties. Now they’ve decided to reveal some screenshots and will be giving out more details and some gameplay footage at the upcoming Star Trek Convention this August 10 in Las Vegas.
Link: Star Trek Online: gameplay footage to be shown at August Las Vegas Event
Link: Star Trek Online announced, nine screenshots included
Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning has finally been dated, well at least GameStop now has a date on its website as well as a pre-order promo. Speaking of release dates, Warhammer Online creative director Paul Barnett also gave out more details regarding the game’s scheduling woes as well as avoiding WoW‘s influence. Finally, we’ve got Mark Jacobs, the CEO of Mythic Entertainment speaking about how they plan on releasing the cut content.
Link: Warhammer Online Creative Director: on scheduling woes and avoiding WoW’s influence
Link: Warhammer Online’s Mark Jacobs: on the release of the cut content
Link: Gamestop dates Warhammer Online pre-orders, offers bonus items, open beta access
Ready to begin your adventure in DC Universe Online? Well, no launch date has been revealed yet, but from all indications it will be worth the wait. The game was featured at the San Diego Comic Con 2008 where a developer gave a walkthrough of the game and showed off not only the combat system but a few of the heroes and villains you can expect to fight with and against. Oh, and Bizarro FTW!
Link: DC Universe Online: San Diego Comic-Con 08 developer walkthrough videos
Blizzard’s CEO, Mike Morhaime, spoke about the impact Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures on World of Warcraft. He admitted that they did see a migration of some players which was expected. However, he pointed out that “40% of those players have returned to World of Warcraft.” He cited that WoW still has an advantage over the market with its four years of live testing and development.
Link: Blizzard CEO- some WoW players did move to AoC
Linden Lab and IBM have finally broken the barrier and has created a system which allows interconnectivity between Second Life and the Opensim system. This feature, while still in its Beta phase, is looking pretty stable and was created to “establish a base level of interoperability”. To cap things off, they also revealed that they were working on Pyogp: an open source client library and test harness code base which fully supports authenticating on the agent domain hosted on the Preview Grid. Can you say open source worlds?
Link: Second Life: Open Grid Public Beta launches
This week we also have Editor-in-Chief Chris C. tacking one of the more sensitive subjects in the MMORPG world: gold selling. Now what exactly makes this a sensitive topic? Well, some people think its cheating while others believe its fair game. So where does this leave us? Well, to a lot of people, it is a question of legality. Will the developers allow it and does the game support it? Until the people in the industry sit down and reassess the current situation on in-game items, there isn’t really much we can do.
Oh well, we’ve gone on long enough, be sure to check in next week for more MMORPG goodness here on QJ.NET.
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