20 July 2012 | |
Pherephassa
This week is slow as I wake up… due to various happenings, my schedule is almost reversed this week and I’m finding myself eating breakfast at 2 in the afternoon. I’ve never minded being a night owl, but it is sad that I’ve been missing my gaming buddies all week and having to play it solo.
It’s another week that heralds both a death and a birth. It seems as though there’s been quite a few server shutdowns lately, I wonder is it an over-saturated market or just bad games? Either way, it still makes me sad. Every game, no matter how bad it is, has someone, usually someones, who worked hard to try and bring it into the world, and I’ve never seen a game that didn’t have at least one person who enjoyed it. I’ll kill a few zombies in TSW in honor of this week’s dying game.
Click the button for this week’s summary!
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5 July 2012 | |
iTZKooPA
Slaves? Check. Slave masters? House of Broken Chains, an upcoming dungeon from Dungeons & Dragons Online has ‘em. The first dungeon to be showcased by Turbine for Menace of the Underdark will usher in a new mechanic allowing players to turn the peons of the dungeon. Unshackle the slaves and you can unleash a horde of angry workers on their unsuspecting masters.
Hit the jump for the full screenshot dump straight outta the “House of Broken Chains”. Continue Reading
6 June 2012 | |
iTZKooPA
Turbine Entertainment continues to blow the lid of Menace of the Underdark giving gamers a peak behind the development curtain in the latest trailer released at E3 2012. The third part of the series opens with Fernando Paiz admitting that the addition of Forgotten Realms was one of the most common requests from the community.
Jeff De Puy discusses how much Underdark – a huge network of caves – was an immense undertaking in level design and technological improvements. After all, after playing corridor shooters for the past 15 years who wants to run through tight, barren corridors hour upon hour upon countless hour? Bioluminescent fungi, numerous lichen, massive two mile tall caves and other features will keep players from getting fatigued by the same textures. Barely shown, but talked about was the disconnected city of the drow in the Underdark envisioned by Turbine with support from Wizards of the Coast.
Check out the four minute behind-the-scenes video and the latest screen dump after the cut. Purple worms, drow, druids, water ladies and driders all make an appearance. Oh, and get this, a dragon will be encountered!
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13 April 2012 | |
Pherephassa
It’s been an exciting week here at LoreHound! PAX East happened last weekend, and I wish I could have gone with iTZKooPA. But he was busy stalking game developers while there, and brought back a bunch of interviews which are in the process of being smoothed out and put online for everyone to see. I’m obviously biased, but I think they’re some of the best video interviews I’ve seen and and I’ve really been enjoying watching them. I can’t wait for the rest of them to be finished up! Thanks everyone for bringing these interviews to all of us who were unable to attend!
Now that I have gotten my PAX excitement out of the way, welcome to my very first weekly recap! Every Friday, barring strange and unexpected circumstances – which will hopefully be few and far between – I’ll be summing up the week and providing links to the week’s events. So if it’s been particularly busy and things have been pushed off the front page too quickly, you can catch up here. I’ll do my best to keep my commentary short and to the point, although I’m not entirely certain how well I’ll succeed as I can be rather loquacious and pithy when left alone. But, on to the show!
11 April 2012 | |
Mike
We’re back with a second interview with Dungeons & Dragons Online Executive Producer, Fernando Paiz, from Pax East 2012, this time talking to him about the new Druid class.
DDO’s first expansion, Menance of the Underdark, is launching on June 25th and with it comes the new Druid class, which we got to see in action during our interview and learned a little more about it.
The Druid class has the Wild-Shape ability which allows for the character to take three basic forms, wolf (melee/DPS), bear (tank) and elemental form (fire or water), with each form having different versions of itself. For example as you level, you can open up “Winter Wolf” or “Dire Bear”, which provide different abilities or spells to the player. Each alternate version also has its own skill tree-line, with 6 lines all together to start, but possibly more versions down the road.
We also find out a little more about the new Epic Levels and Epic Destinies which allows players to level from 20 – 25, as well as complete multiple Epic Destinies, not just their class Destiny. Check out the full DDO Druid class interview below.
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8 April 2012 | |
LHStaff
The first Dungeons & Dragons Online expansion, Menance of the Underdark, is getting ready for its June 25th release and we were able to talk with Executive Producer, Fernando Paiz, at Pax East 2012 about it.
Menance of the Underdark is the games largest content update thus far and will send players into the Forgotten Realms where they’ll have to face the Queen of the Spiders, Lolth. It also introduces the new Druid class and will increase the level cap to 25 by introducing Epic Levels and Epic Destinies.
With this expansion, DDO will be stepping away from instances and steering more towards creating an open world, “We stopped short of making the world a full open world, but what we did was build it in a way you can see off in the distance the places that you’re going to and walk from place to place“, Mr. Paiz stated.
Players will also be able to get their hands on the expansion next month when the game launches into closed beta testing.
Check our the full DDO: Menance of the Underdark Pax East interview below.
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20 March 2012 | |
iTZKooPA
Turbine Entertainment revealed more details, including the first screenshot, of Dungeon & Dragons Online’s upcoming Druid class today. The new class will be available as part of the first expansion for the long-running MMORPG, Menace of the Underdark.
Combining themselves with nature, druid players shed heavy armor in exchange for resistances to the harsh aspects of the natural elements, from poisons to entanglement. The shape-shifting foes can morph between powerful creatures, such as a Winter Wolf (pictured) or Dire Bear, or remain in humanoid form to wield the powers of the elements. All of this while brandishing a variety of standard weaponry.
It remains to be seen if the DDO incarnation of the druid archetype will be the typical “jack of all trades, master of none” or a more robust character.
Sticking with free-to-play norms, the unique class will be free to VIP players or purchasable as a premium class. In the past, Turbine has often allowed players to earn premium content through other means.
You can learn more about Menace of the Underdark at the reveal coverage or the official site. Menace of the Underdark will be available June 25.
29 February 2012 | |
Randy Denosha
Fans of Dungeons and Dragons Online will be very happy to hear that Turbine has announced the release date for the game’s first expansion, Menace of the Underdark, as June 25th. The announcement came hand-in-hand with their next content update: Web of Chaos, but that’s not all. Turbine also announced the details for pre-orders which unlock in-game items and account bonuses, some which players will receive now and others when the expansion arrives. We also have some screenshots of some of the items that are available with the pre-order and a screenshot of the new class, Druid (to the right).
Now let me get into a little bit more detail about the pre-orders that unlock items and bonuses. There are three different forms of pre-purchasing, each with their own benefits, the more expensive you go the more benefits you get. Pretty logical right? Well I have seen the items/specials you get and I am pretty happy with them, however many of the items are already available in the game and the specials are definitely available in the DDO store for purchase. There is but just one (two actually) items that I am not so sure about, which are the masks you get. At first glance I thought the masks provide only a different helmet appearance, but it turns out they also give a stat bonus to character skills and better resistance to poison. Now I don’t like that fact that players who pre-order the game will receive stated items, however if they’ll also be available via the DDO store then I’m fine with it since everyone can access it. Besides that point the pre-order items are good.
Continue below to read the full press release for the Menace of the Underdark expansion. Continue Reading
