Waygate Publishing Confirms First Major In-Game Event for Legend: Legacy of the Dragons

Waygate Publishing Limited, publisher of the popular, free-to-play, browser-based Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game, Legend: Legacy of the Dragons, today confirmed plans to host its first major in-game event, which includes a mass PvP battle for up to 500 gamers. The company says it is delighted with the current progress of the game and is very excited about the event, which it intends to hold monthly in conjunction with the Full Moon.

Waygate Publishing also confirmed that the localisation and translation of new content is on schedule and expected to be released from the end of February. It includes a number of exciting features and upgrades about which it will release further details soon.

The Battle of the Dragons
For the last week, hundreds of players have been collecting the items required for access to the Battle of the Dragons which will occur on Wednesday, February 20th. The battle will pit the best warriors of each race (Magmar and Human) against each other, led by their dragons, Striagorn and Erifarius. It is a battle not only for pride and glory but for a real advantage as the winning race will lead the war against the eternal enemy of Faeo, Chaos…

The Invasion of Chaos
Chaos is planning an invasion on Thursday, February 21st and the victors of the Battle of the Dragons will be temporarily boosted in the fight against Chaos with a gift from their dragon. Participation in repelling the invasion offers players an excellent opportunity to boost their character’s attributes for the coming month of quests and battles.

New content and features
In addition, Waygate Publishing announced that it has almost completed the translation and localisation of new content, including 27 new quests, and intends to begin releasing them from the end of February. The new content will include the introduction of magic into the game for the first time. There will also be a significant software update, adding a new ‘Navigator’ feature to aid player’s orientation and travels in the ever-growing world of Faeo. More details will follow shortly.

For more information, visit www.warofdragons.com.

Free MMORPG Rappelz released in French and German

After the great success of Fly for Fun, Gala Networks Europe Ltd. Announces the release of its second free MMORPG: Rappelz in French and German versions. After a short period of a very satisfying beta test which attracted several thousands of players, the game has now been released in its final version on the gPotato Europe portal: www.gpotato.eu.

Rappelz is a free MMORPG taking place in a dark and violent universe where three different factions struggle to survive under the permanent threat of hordes of monsters. Using an optimized in-house graphic engine, the game proposes 24 different character classes spread among three factions, an impressive creature control system avaible to any character, and a lot of skills for dynamic and tactical combats.

With a very huge content spread among 140 levels of play, and a PvP system based on wars between guilds to control the dungeons, Rappelz has what it takes to seduce all kinds of players, and it’s fast growing community clearly proves it.

Already avaible in Japan, China or in the US, Rappelz can count on a very strong and active community in both French and German versions to build its European success.

The Golden Horde – JoWooD Productions Announces New Strategy Game

The Golden Horde takes you back to a place in time where the heirs of Dschingis Khan were ready to fight for their honor and glory. Choose your battles wisely; you will be up against fast and flexible Mongolians, heavily armed Crusaders and seemingly unconquerable Russians.

About The Golden Horde

The Scenario is based on events taking place in Europe, central Asia and Russia at the beginning of the XIII century. The game will offer recreated versions of famous battles and political crisis in an epic campaign where the outcome is yours to determine.

With sophisticated RPG elements, individual Heroes, stunning graphics and easy controls, The Golden Horde offers the perfect exotic setting for a real-time strategy game in the early middle ages of Europe and Asia.

Three different factions
Crusaders, Mongolians and Russians: each faction will have unique types of military forces, buildings and combat and heroes with individual abilities.

Takeover of enemy Units / Weapons
Take control of neutral horses or their slain riders’ weapon.

Equipment “on the fly”
Provide your warriors with new weapons or switch them directly on the battlefield.

Weather is a key element
Wind affects the flight qualities of arrows; Rain greatly affects visibility; Snow slows down units, which may cause the units to break through the Ice of frozen lakes.

Developer: World Forge
Genre: Strategy
Expected Age Rating: 12+
UK Release: March 28th 2008

www.jowood.com

Lighthouse Interactive releases update 1.08 for SUNAGE

Leading publisher Lighthouse Interactive and Austrian developer Vertex 4 today released update 1.08 for SunAge, their sci-fi real-time strategy game for PC. The new update adds several new enhancements, an auto-updater, bug fixes and above all, new multiplayer features.

Roman Pneudl, CEO of Vertex4 said, “We are extremely pleased with this new update since it makes the gameplay experience even more enjoyable. Update 1.08 also includes an auto-updater, which enables the game to automatically check for future updates upon start-up. This will ensure that the user always plays the latest version of the game. We also managed to reduce network traffic by switching to the UDP protocol, which means lag free gaming regardless of router or firewall settings. No more fiddling with port forwarding! In addition, we added a multiplayer lobby feature, allowing SunAge players from all over the world to chat, setup or join servers from within the game.”

SunAge is the modern day answer for RTS fans who want the best possible overview of their troops, while trying to outsmart opponents in frantic battles where strategy and tactics are more important than ever. If you have been into real-time strategy games for a while, this will bring back the good old days!

Key features in update 1.08 include:

• Re-balancing of several in-game units, an added enhancement given community feedback
• Multiplayer game lobby with chat functionalities
• Master server and improved online functionalities
• Improved firewall support and “punch through”
• Auto-updater functionality (future patches or fixes will be downloaded automatically upon startup of the game).
• Heavily reduced network traffic; rework of the network protocol, now UDP
The complete list of new features included in upgrade 1.08, are available at the Lighthouse forums, as well as on www.sunage-the-game.com.

To download the update 1.08 (file size: 5 MB) visit: www.lighthouse-interactive.com.

GAME SUMMARY

Earth is a desolate wasteland destroyed by the radiation and heat of the sun. Humankind, known as the Dome Confederacy, have been forced to retreat into shielded cities enduring constant attacks by the Raak-zun cult; a sect of religious outcasts who live outside the dome. An age long war has ensued as both races battle for the limited resources of the dying planet. Amidst the havoc, the gateway to a bold new planet is unlocked. Hope is on the horizon, but this Mecca is teeming with lethal Sentinel drones who will not hesitate to annihilate any life form that gets in their way.

FEATURES

• 3 Distinct Races - Human, Raak-zun and Sentinel - each with their own units, buildings, technological advantages and disadvantages.
• Unique Upgrades - Alternate modes can be researched for all units, unlocking dual functionality for greater tactical depth.
• Graphics - Stunning sci-fi environments from vast industrial cities and devastated wastelands, to a lush alien planet. While displaying rich graphical environments and visual effects, SunAge is very playable on lower spec PC’s and laptops.
• Tactical Landscape - All units and their alternate modes are crucial to the overall strategy. Exploit weaknesses in the enemy’s network while strengthening your own connection lines.
• Formations - Squad concept combined with long distance camera views allows a large number of units to be fighting onscreen with a clear overview of the battleground.
• Singleplayer - 25 campaign maps with compelling plots for each race.
• Multiplayer - LAN and Online – Classic multiplayer with focus on gathering4 different kinds of resources and outsmarting the opponent in battle. 10 maps created uniquely for multiplayer mode.
• Command Queuing - Command your units to prone, build or attack where you want them and when you want them to do so.
• Indirect Intelligent Targeting (IIT) - Order your units to focus on pre-selected targets.

To find out more about SunAge and to keep up with the latest news on the game, visit www.lighthouse-interactive.com and www.sunage-the-game.com.

Viva Piñata Fact sheet as game goes classic on XBox 360

"Viva Piñata"

Fact Sheet

Title: “Viva Piñata”

Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios

Developer: Climax Group

Format: DVD for the Microsoft® Windows® XP and Microsoft Windows Vista® operating systems

ESRB Rating: “E” for Everyone

Product Overview: “Viva Piñata,” originally developed and released to critical acclaim for Xbox 360™, will now be available for the Windows XP and Windows Vista platforms. Developed by Climax Group, “Viva Piñata” invites gamers to create an immersive world where living piñatas inhabit an ever-changing environment. Beginning with a few basic tools, players build and take control of this environment, using their creativity and imagination to attract, protect and manage over 60 piñata species that can visit their world and make it their home.

Bringing a vibrant and engaging gaming experience to the Windows platform, “Viva Piñata” appeals to kids, adults, casual gamers and enthusiasts alike. This uniquely customizable and social game rewards and challenges all players regardless of their skill level and presents a customizable, social and spontaneous experience in which gamers play an absolutely crucial role. The “Viva Piñata” world is an evolving paradise teeming with fantastic living piñata creatures and vibrant plant life, all determined by the player’s choices and actions.

“Viva Piñata” offers easy installation, reliability standards and support for key features of Windows Vista, including the Games Explorer and Parental Controls.

Features:
Features of “Viva Piñata” include the following:

• Bring your imagination to life. “Viva Piñata” allows players’ creativity to run wild by providing them with expansive freedom and choice:
– Your world. Your choice of contents will determine which of the piñata species are attracted to your world because they all have individual requirements. Sowing grass, digging ponds, planting flowers and growing trees all affect which of the unique piñatas you will see. It’s not just about plants, either; there is a whole range of ornaments and structures that could be decisive. Your reward for creating an appealing paradise is to watch the piñatas visit and eventually reside there, which is where the fun really starts.
– Your piñatas. Once you have resident piñatas, you can begin to personalize your loyal community. Piñatas can be individually named and given their own personally designed tag to put on display as a declaration of their home turf, and the customization doesn’t end there. You can make the colorful critters more distinctive by customizing them with all kinds of costumes and accessories.

• Connect with friends around the world. The “Viva Piñata” community is a rewarding place to be, whether you remain within the boundaries of your own world or venture out into the real world or your friend’s piñata world via Games for Windows — LIVE:
– Interact with the piñatas. Getting to know and understand the personalities and requirements of your piñatas is essential if you want them to stay happy and thrive. Make your world their ideal paradise, and they’ll want to raise a family and expand your community.
– Interact with the characters. Players decide how much help they want from the local guides, shopkeepers and work force. Go it alone or get them involved — you choose.
– Interact with other players online. Via the Games for Windows — LIVE online community, players can contact other gamers to lend a hand or trade items.

• Never experience a dull moment. “Viva Piñata” is a constantly changing world where anything can and does happen:
– It’s happening outside. It’s not just new piñata species that are drawn to your world; untamed sour piñatas with bad attitudes and troublemaking ruffians do their worst to spoil your creation and must be dealt with.

Developer Information: Since its founding in 1988, Climax has rapidly grown into one of the world’s leading independent developers of interactive software. Constantly at the epicentre of technological development, Climax is built on a determination to create cutting-edge games that boast the most advanced technology and superior gameplay. This simple work ethic has inspired the creation of critically acclaimed games for major consoles, wireless devices and interactive television. Using its own proprietary technology, Climax has developed a string of both critically acclaimed and commercially successful hits for many of the major interactive software publishers. Among the company’s high-profile and high-scoring games are “MotoGP: Ultimate Racing Technology 1,” “MotoGP: Ultimate Racing Technology 2” and “MotoGP: Ultimate Racing Technology 3” for Xbox®, Xbox LIVE® and PC, and “Sudeki™” for Xbox.

Babo:Invasion Combines Ultra Fast Team-Based Action with Competitive In-Game Map Making

Babo:Invasion Combines Ultra Fast Team-Based Action with Competitive In-Game Map Making

HeadGames (www.playheadgames.com), a game development outsourcing company, previewed a new multiplayer shooter game, called Babo:Invasion, at the Game Developers Conference today in San Francisco. Babo:Invasion is based on the original IP of the popular freeware multiplayer combat game Babo Violent 2 (www.rndlabs.ca), considered by tens of thousands of players worldwide as one of the most fun, fastest-paced games in the multiplayer top-down shooter category. It has as been called "carnage on a stick" by Maximum PC Magazine and "a great game, originality, blisteringly quick firefights, and very fun gameplay" by GameHippo.

The new Babo:Invasion is a fast-paced multiplayer game where armed ball-like "Babos" navigate maze-like worlds in a free-for-all firefight or team-based combat. Its unique format is easy-to-learn, allows new players to jump into existing firefights for a quick hit any time, and provides fun, mayhem-filled action. The game offers an arcade-style single-player mode and the optional depth of multiplayer team and class-based gameplay. The new version also features top-down and chase cam views, new weapons, and lush 3-D environments. Multi-player Competitive Mapping, a first-of-its-kind game feature, supports the “Invasion” game mode, adding a major strategic and competitive element to gameplay.

Babo Violent 2 proved very popular because of its unique combination of easy-to-learn mechanics; fun, multiplayer mayhem; and the depth of team-based play options," states Scott Simpson, HeadGames Studio Director. "Players love the ability to jump into the action whenever they have a few minutes to get a quick hit of fun and adrenaline. Babo: Invasion takes those strengths to a new level."

The new Babo:Invasion will be released for PCs and consoles in 2008 through Playbrains and can be previewed at www.playbrains.com.

Will Sony let Microsoft use Blu-ray in the XBox 360?

What now for High definition DVDs in the XBox 360?

With Toshiba pulling out of the race all these questions remain un-answered.

With Sony now the only player, with it's Blu-ray format, high definition DVD will Microsoft be allowed to use this format in it's new drives?

Will Sony refuse? Can Sony refuse to licence Blu-ray to Microsoft? Will they charge a fortune?

Microsoft and Sony are not exactly friends... Will this tip the balance in favour of Sony's PlayStation 3 with it's built in Blu-ray drive.

The battle between Microsofts XBox 360 with it's better games line up and Sony's PlayStation 3 with it's Blu-ray drive can only heat up over the next few months.

We can only sit back and watch.

Disney say no to THQ Toy Story 3 Game offer

Say you're in movies, your growth model's frittered away to
break-even, and an industry pretty much symbolized by a butt-stomping
plumber is effectively cleaning your clock -- what's a corporate
dinosaur to do?

Easy: If you can't (sufficiently) milk 'em, depose 'em.

The Wall Street Journal reports that's essentially what Disney did
when longtime Pixar partner THQ came pitching license rights to a Toy
Story 3 game tie-in. Thanks but no thanks, said Disney and Pixar,
opting instead to handle creation of the game (due in 2010) in-house.

You've heard plenty recently about how game sales were up 43 percent
in 2007. Weigh that against box office revenues -- up a paltry 4
percent over the same period, and even then by way of ticket price
inflation, not viewer growth. Home video sales -- still bigger bucks
than gaming, but not by much -- were actually down 3.2 percent.

So when the authors of the WSJ piece suggest that "it isn't clear yet
whether the media companies have the stamina to become serious
competitors to heavyweight game publishers," I'd probably swap
"stamina" for "inclination." Companies like Disney have oceans of
stamina for substantial year-over-year revenue growth, and nothing
suggests gaming won't be nailing that metric for years if not decades
to come.

Source: PCWorld

SEGA say iPod is flawless for video game distribution...

hat most people often forget is that the device can also act as a video game device.

Last December, Sega unleashed their fiery blue mascot, Sonic the Hedgehog, on the iPod family tree. Sega remarked that the device is a "flawless" device for developers to sell their video games in.

This comment wasn't directed at the device as a platform, though, but rather at its payment system and its ability to provide media to consumers at large with just a couple of clicks. Hopefully this means we'll be able to see more video games arrive for the device in the future.

Here's what Simon Jeffrey, head honcho of Sega of America, said about developing Sonic the Hedgehog for the iPod:

The iPod is arguably the most pervasive cross-demographic piece of consumer electronics today. There are no age or fashion barriers to iPod adoption, and making Sonic available to tens of millions of iPod owners really is a fantastic opportunity for us

.

iTunes and Apple's whole banking/payment system is flawless. They have to be one of the smartest companies in the world. Being able to buy a game and have it on your iPod with a couple of clicks is just brilliant.

From: MVC

Future of video game industry taking shape at Games Developers Conference

If ever there was a time for a famous futurist to be giving a keynote address at the Game Developers Conference, this is it.

When Ray Kurzweil, the author of The Singularity is Near and one of the most noted futurists around, takes the stage at GDC 2008 in San Francisco on Thursday to talk about "the next 20 years of gaming," he'll be weighing in at a moment in the industry's existence when the lines between games and Hollywood and advertising are blurring, when the term "gamer" encompasses 75-year-old grandmothers and when the barrier to entry to being a developer has never been smaller.

"I think the Kurzweil keynote should be very interesting," said Ron Meiners, community manager for the virtual world platform developer, Multiverse Network. "He's a very original thinker, and I'm curious as to his take on the gaming industry, how games fit into people's lives, (and) how games are changing people's lives."

One thing that strikes me about how video games are intersecting with people's lives in 2008, and it was made abundantly clear over the Christmas holidays, when it was simply impossible to find a Nintendo Wii for sale anywhere, is that finally, the medium is truly mainstream.

And while there will always be a significant segment of the industry that caters to and is serviced by hard-core gamers, what's becoming evident is that there's almost no one who is left out of what video gaming is today. And for those who are left out, that may not be true as the years progress. I suspect that that is something Kurzweil will touch on, at least briefly.

More from: CNet

"It's a very exciting time in the game industry, in that we have this growing recognition of the important of casual and family-oriented content," said Jamil Moledina, the director of GDC. "You're seeing it in the $60 packaged (games) and in the $10 downloads. It's a perfect storm of factors poised to really expand the game industry."

One example of that, Moledina suggested, is the explosion of gamer-created content and social networking in online gamer communities like Microsoft's Xbox Live.

That rationale may well be why GDC's first keynote speaker, on Wednesday, will be Microsoft corporate vice president John Schappert, who will give a talk titled, "A future wide open: Unleashing the creative community."

For Moledina, organizing what is almost certain to be the biggest GDC ever--last year's event drew 16,000 people, he said, and it is expected to grow this year--is a huge job. There are hundreds of panel discussions scheduled, a huge trade show and, as always, GDC will actually be made up of several different events that are linked together throughout the week.

On Monday and Tuesday, the events will include several "summits," such as those on casual games, independent games, game outsourcing, and virtual worlds. As well, there's GDC Mobile, which focuses on games for mobile devices.