A new location in The Secret World was unveiled in the wee hours of the morning: The Blue Mountains. I say ‘sort of’ because it’s another location within Solomon Island, the New England locale that has had a lot of information already provided to us. The Blue Mountain is located just west of Kingsmouth, and centers around a terrible evil that happened a long time ago. Players can explore what happened here by aiding the Wabanaki tribe, and eventually participating in rituals that will allow us to walk in the dreams of past ancestors. Somewhere in there are Mayans and Vikings, and all sorts of supernatural baddies like Wendigo, Draug, golems, and akab.

I think that sounds pretty cool myself, just think of how much content the devs can add in in future expansions when they aren’t limiting themselves to modern locations! Even with modern locations, there’s a wealth of possibilities, but dreams and memories of the past open even more. Perhaps that’s just my bias though; I studied ancient history in college so anything related to history has my complete attention. :)

I’ll keep you updated as more is revealed today. I’ve found this article, although it’s in French. The Secret World facebook hasn’t provided anything for us English speakers yet, other than a promise of more to come.

And of course, the moment I post, they update their page. Read the official announcement here.

*Update* Aaaand, as promised, here’s a link to the new video for Blue Mountain.

As you may know, Global Agenda has recently received a content update and also became fully free-to-play. This sort of transition from one business model to another can be a challenging process for most games. However, the guys at HiRez already have shown that they are not afraid to take risks and modify their game to match a new direction they have chosen. Plus, the structure of Global Agenda itself, with its lobby-type system and instance-based gameplay has somewhat eased this process.

It was slightly disappointing to see that, despite the injection of fresh blood from new players rushing in to check out the free-to-play update, the queue waiting times still remained relatively long. You would think with more people queuing for matches, the system would allocate teams faster. But, sadly, that is not the case. This seems to be an issue from the developer’s side, and I hope they address this problem in the near future.

The update brought a couple of new maps, a new dome defense raid, as well as class tree changes. Going by the official patch notes and my own merc experiences, the developers’ aim was to balance out certain deadlock scenarios that occurred during matches and put a bump in the otherwise fairly stream-lined gameplay. An example of this would be the changes done to the Medic’s Paingun. Originally, with the -50% speed debuff from the weapon, a good assault and medic combo could pretty much tear up any target they laid their hungry eyes upon. With the new patch, the speed debuff is only 30%, but the target also receives -20% less healing. This gives your victim an actual chance to escape and, at the same time, grants the Paingun additional utility. Yes, I say that having a Medic as my main. Still, it is way too early to tell how the revised specializations will affect gameplay in the long-term, so let’s just wait and see how things pan out.

The new Dome Defense Raid, or DDR as some like to call it (not to be confused with Dance Dance Revolution), is probably the most exciting addition to the game. Not only does it give us cool targets to pew-pew at, but it also adds a layer of immersion to the setting of Global Agenda. With the introduction of the new raid, Dome City no longer seems to be just a glorified lobby. When you see it being invaded, you can’t help but feel that it is an actual place of habitat, set in the middle of a desert and surrounded by enemies.

As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. Then a video must be worth a few thousand at least, and that’s why I’m including a video of a Dome Defense Raid I did with a random group of fellow agents. Watch us badly screw-up, get blown to pieces, and my robo trying to get a better look at the action, instead of minding his nest.

Click through to watch.

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UPDATE: We’ve extended the contest til Saturday, April 2nd. We’ve also reduced the number of questions, and every question you answer gains you more entries!. Get on it folks!

Cryptozoic was kind enough to provide us with some prizes to giveaway to promote the WoW TCG. Here is all the stuff we are getting away:

1. Worldbreaker Epic Collection, which contains:
   Guaranteed loot card: Landro’s Lil’ XT
   5 random foil hero cards from Worldbreaker
   6 Worldbreaker Booster Packs
   Worldbreaker visual pocket guide
   Worldbreaker Playmat
   Reusable storage box with card dividers
2. Alliance Rogue Starter Deck
3. Horde Priest Starter Deck

The starter decks are complete decks that contains a full 60 card deck, ready to play.

If you are interested in winning one of these, copy/paste the following scavenger hunt quiz into an email to admin_AT_LoreHound_DOT_com. We’ll randomly select three winners from the best responses, who will have the choice of which reward they want of the remaining prizes. Every question you answer gains you another entry, so you don’t need to answer all the questions or get them all right to win! US and Canada only. Entries are due by Saturday, April 2nd, at midnight EST.

To find answers, check out our PAX coverage – both our videos and posts. For a couple of the questions, you may need to poke around some other sites.

A few weeks ago I stumbled across one of the most delightful MMO browser games. In fact, I was so enamored by it that I actual convinced three of my other friends to play it with me in a world populated by… well at least a few hundred other would-be kings. The main reason why I was so enamored by it, and I am assuming you’ll be able to make the distinction as well, is due to it’s inherent familiarity with long-time famed series: Civilization. Let’s take a closer look at Ikariam, a massively multiplayer online strategic browser game.

Despite its instant familiarities with Civilization, the gameplay is actually quite different, but don’t be too quick to give up hope. Where Ikariam is different than Civilization is also why Ikariam is such a fun game. Some key differences include:

• This game is time based, not turn based.
• You won’t ever get to different eras of technology. You’ll primarily be hanging out with Caesar and crew in this game.
• The entire world is divided up into hundreds of islands with a specific amount of space available on each for newcomers and colonies.

Now that I have dashed away the key differences let’s continue on to the actual review of the game which, like I have stated before, is still quite good.

You’ll start your new-found civilization on a random island, most likely already populated by other players. Depending on where you start off you could start on a relatively young island or an island already teaming with huge civilizations. For example, when I started I was placed on an island where the highest level city was only 5 (out of 24), where as, one of my friends started out on an island where the highest level was level 18. Needless to say, he was in a much heavier situation than I was. Naturally you’ll start your city with nothing but a town hall that is level one and from there you’ll build all your buildings in designated plots of land.

Now before I continue on, I think it’s important to explain briefly the mechanics that make Ikariam work. I mentioned above that the game is time based, not turn based. This means that every building you make (only one at a time per city) will take a certain amount of time and resources to make. So provided you have the amount of wood and ore required to upgrade, let’s say, your town hall it still means you’ll have to wait until it’s actually built. These times depend on the level you are upgrading your building too and range anywhere from 10 minutes to 12 hours and beyond. The same holds true for troops, trading, transporting, and warfare. Everything is time based and, while that may seem like a turn-off, the system works surprisingly well.

Continuing on now that we’ve explained the logistics of the game a bit more, you’ll find near everything in Ikariam that you’d expect from Civilization, only smaller and more suitable for a “play for 15 minutes” type style. Barracks allow you to build troops, academies allow you to invest in research towards one of four fields (seafaring, military, economy, science), hideouts allow you to train thieves, trading ports allow you to build cargo fleets, and shipyards allow you to build military fleets. All the same fun stuff you’d expect from a Civilization-esque game.

In order to recruit troops, research certain things, and build and upgrade buildings, however, you’ll need the resources to back them up and sometimes, those aren’t very easy to come by. In fact, this is probably one of the few annoying things about the game. When you start on your island you’ll have two resources available, wood and one of the other four resources. Each island has a different resource and depending on which you land on you could end up with marble, sulfur, crystal, or grapes. Each has their own uses and you’ll notice that each becomes extremely important in the later parts of the game, especially grapes. Early on, however, the most important resource you’ll need will be marble, and if you have no instant access to that material you had better start asking some of your neighboring islands that do to cut you a deal or else your expansion has ground to a halt. It’s a slow process and an even slower fix as it could take weeks to secure some marble. When all is said and done though, you should be back on your path to civilization greatness.

Of course, what would a good review be without a look at the battle system? Yes, worry not, those troops that you plan on amassing will be put to good use. Ikariam offers two direct ways to utilize your military; pillaging and occupation. They do exactly what they sound like. Should you decide to pillage your neighbor and succeed you’ll get an amount of their resources/gold (depending on how fast your troops can load up your ships). If you decide to actually occupy a city and succeed you’ll get full use of that city until such times as you decide to withdraw. The actual battles are a bit mundane and offer no graphics, but it’s still satisfying knowing that your troops are returning with a bounty of treasure.

So that’s basically it. There is a lot to do in Ikariam and if I really wanted to I could probably explain on and on about all the minute details that make Ikariam so much fun. However, as I am sure this block of text has already fulfilled your review quota for the day, I’ll just tell you to go out there and give the game a try! It’s 100% free and while they do offer a RMT system I haven’t noticed anything that they offer to give any players a noticeable advantage. For those who wish to look me up here is my information:

• Server: Iota
• Username: Dmitry
• Island location: 2, 32

Hope to see you there!

Ikariam.org