It’s March and that can only mean one thing, the beginning of convention season! The annual Game Developer’s Conference may usher in the video game convention period. But Penny Arcade Expo East is where the realm truly shines, inviting consumer and creators alike to rub shoulders. Recently, Blizzard joined the official attendance roster of PAX East and now Perfect World Entertainment and Neverwinter will make another appearance.
Cryptic Studios will be displaying its action-oriented Dungeons & Dragons MMORPG on 18 stations during the show. This’ll allow hundreds of aspiring adventurers to experiences the most recent closed beta content. In conjunction, convention and beta testers alike will get their first crack at the Great Weapon Fighter, the title’s latest class. Convention goers can once again earn physical rewards for participating and even permanent in-game items.
Too excited? Cyrptic didn’t just drop this news and walk away. The company just unveiled its latest trailer focusing on exactly how the heroes of Neverwinter will travel the lands. Some methods of transportation come with their own risks as the screenshots and trailer after the cut will showcase.
Blizzard announced yesterday that their mobile app for guild chat and auction house went free to all active subscribers. This change is coming a week ahead of the pre-Mists of Pandaria 5.0.1 patch (which is on Tuesday, August 28th).
The service before (for the last 2-4 years) cost $3.00 a month on top of your WoW subscription(s), but now is totally free with any 1 subscription. The full quote is below:
It’s now easier than ever to stay in touch with your guildmates and access the World of Warcraft® auction house… wherever you go.
Starting today, all of the features that were previously part of the optional World of Warcraft Remote subscription service are now available for free to all World of Warcraft subscribers. These features include:
Remote Guild Chat – Stay in touch with your guildmates on the go using your mobile phone.
Remote Auction House – Bid on items, create auctions, and collect gold via your mobile device or through the official World of Warcraft website.
We hope this change will make it easier for players to stay connected to each other and to the game, and we encourage everyone to try out these powerful tools for themselves.
Click more to see all the features included in the WoW Remote app, with links to downloads. Continue Reading
Perfect World Entertainment really wants a large collection of beta testers for its upcoming monster hunting MMORPG, RaiderZ. The MAIET Entertainment developed title is scheduled to move into its Closed Beta testing phase on August 8. The title caught iTZKooPA’s eye at PAX East 2012, but even if demolishing unique boss mobs for their tasty loot is of cursory interest to you, winning an expenses paid vacation to PAX 2012 should get you signing up.
Any gamers already signed up or willing to sign up for a shot at Closed Beta access by 11:59 on August 6 will earn a shot at the PAX 2012 package. And what a package it is. The winning party will “go behind closed doors for an exclusive preview of RaiderZ and enjoy a vacation package complete with three-day show passes, paid-for hotel accommodations and round-trip flights for you and a friend”.
Not too shabby. Hit the jump for the latest media on RaiderZ, including a new trailer and batch of action-happy screenshots. Continue Reading
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!
Warhammer Online: Wrath of Heroes entered open beta, and Mike has a limited code to use for Easter goodies for those who sign up.
I reported a deck builder for The Secret World, created by a poster on the Secret World official forums. I’ve already had hours of fun playing with this.
PAX Interview with Todd Harris of Hi-Rez Studios about the future of Tribes: Ascend. Learn about future content and spreadsheets. Yay, spreadsheets!
Independent studios can make games as impressive as the big boys. Sometimes it’s the combined passion, sometimes a fantastic idea clicks or a technological innovation blows away gamers across the globe. Whatever may spark the powder keg, we gamers have seen a few unexpected hits in recent years. iTZKooPA hadn’t heard of The Game Bakers or Squids, the hardcore casual game the company is about to deliver, but we gave the small studio a chance.
Considering how addicting and replayable Squids turned out to be, we’re glad we did. The innocent product has a good chance to become one of the success stories from left field when it’s released next week (iPhone) and later this month (iPad, PC, Mac).
Check out the video to find out what makes Squids a hardcore game, the plans for its future, including content and updates, how to access the bonus map and why you should care. Yeah, a casual game with story!
Rolling around the prefabricated wall to the other half of Turbine’s booth, Executive Producer Aaron Campbell schools iTZKooPA on Rise of Isengard, the upcoming expansion for Lord of the Rings Online. He learns where the epic storyline is progressing, details on the new social hub, the removal of stat caps, aspects of the largest raid in the game’s history and so much more.
Fernando Paiz takes iTZKooPA down the windy path of the home turf for House Cannith, the technological epicenter in Dungeon & Dragon Online. The city nestled into a mountain side is not as humble as it appears. Something lurks beneath the incredible inventions of the house. Something sinister. A force that is threatening the technology hub. The force now yields untold powers. It must be dealt with. The house has been incapable of eradicating the Lord of Blades itself and has begun searching for outside help.
Executive Producer James MacCauley takes iTZKooPA on a whizzbang tour of FireFall. The dynamic duo preview the just-revealed Engineer class, detail the free-to-play title’s cash shop, jump into a dynamic event and discuss the all important library of loot.
It’s March and that can only mean one thing, the beginning of convention season! The annual Game Developer’s Conference may usher in the video game convention period. But Penny Arcade Expo East is where the realm truly shines, inviting consumer and creators alike to rub shoulders. Recently, Blizzard joined the official attendance roster of PAX East and now Perfect World Entertainment and Neverwinter will make another appearance.
