The second expansion pack for World of Warcraft is due out in the second half of 2008, according to Vivendi. In financial details released today, Vivendi stated not once, but twice that Wrath of the Lich King will arrive during the second half of 2008.

Still no exact “yes or no” coming from the Blizzard camp on this though, so just sit tight until we get an exact release date.

Two other things were also revealed today, one was that as of March 31, 2008, the WoW subscriber base had grown to 10.7 million since January’s report of just a paltry 10 million.

The other thing that was announced, according to this, was that a Blizzard staffer hinted around that the Wrath of the Lich King expansion will include polar bear mounts. Nice.

Via: Shacknews; Image: Worldofwar.net

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If you were planning to pre-order Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures and get early access to the game, well, sorry to tell you this, but you missed out already. Funcom has announced that all early access keys, allowing three days of play before the actual release date, have sold out. Before announcing the program, the developers had to set a limit on how many people could be involved in order to allow the best performance for everyone; they just didn’t anticipate hitting that limit so quickly. Of course, those who missed out really have less than a week to wait for the official release date. At this point, I’m just hoping everything is fired up and ready to go by then.

Via Age of Conan Forums

Most excellent readers, today we present for you a report on the the most non-heinous Age of Conan Beta. While traveling through the lush underbrush of the most interesting of unreleased online games, Ron and Shawn contemplate the differences and extol the virtues of this soon to release dark fantasy world. Remember that the impressions recounted in the podcast are based upon impressions of a BETA and not final game code and as always may change prior to release of the final game.

We ran long so unfortunately there is no  Rant-n-Rave section this week for fans of that segment.

This weeks show is available by direct download here.

As always, you can get past episodes from our podcast page at http://podcast.filefront.com, and you can send your comments, questions, suggestions, or snarky comments to podcast@filefront.com.

File-N-Forget is also available on the iTunes Music Store.

Cryptic Studios, the developers behind Champions Online, have released some new concept art that shows the origins of some of the game’s main characters. In keeping with the whole comic book theme, the origin stories are even presented as paneled pages. The four pieces of concept art reveal the stories behind Defender, Doctor Destroyer, Menton, and Ironclad; and they actually look like they would make up a pretty good story. The one that really caught my eye though is the last part of Ironclad’s origin above, mostly because it looks like he just beat the crap out of the Incredible Hulk. I suppose one could argue that’s some other green, muscle-bound guy in ripped shorts, but it’s still a pretty funny image. You can check out the other origin stories here.

If you have been wanting to get in on the Requiem: Bloodymare beta but did not get your chance with the closed beta, now you can be a happy little camper. Today, registration for the Requiem: Bloodymare beta begins and once you have filled out all the correct forms so to speak, you can begin playing it May 15 - which is tomorrow for my date-challenged friends.To download the beta, click on the badge below.

I am a participant in the closed beta for Bloodymare, and while I can’t really talk to much about it, I can say that it is indeed a dark, bloody-horror of a place full of seeping evil. If this is your sort of thing, you will really enjoy it, but if you like a lot of sunshine, bunnies, rainbows and unicorns hopping around your screen, steer clear of it because if those creatures existed in Bloodymare, their heads would be on a spike,the sun would be blown to bits, and any rainbow that surfaced would be quickly corrupted by the sheer amount of grotesque evil that abounds in that place.

If you’ve been in the beta for Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures and have been flying through the levels, you may be wondering how long it might take to reach the higher levels of the game. According to the developers, it’s not going to be as fast as it seems. At the game’s launch in Oslo, director Gaute Godager explained that the game was designed for players to reach a new level every 2-3 hours up until level 60. After that though, gaining a new level will take significantly longer; so much so that he claims “levelling curve provides on average 250 hours of gameplay.” And with that news, I’m sure the race has already begun for who can reach the top level the fastest.

Via VideoGamer

Funcom and Eidos have announced some impressive figures powering the Age of Conan launch, and the two companies are happy to reveal that the Age of Conan Beta has passed 1 million sign-ups.

In addition to these incredible beta numbers, Funcom confirms that almost 800,000 gamers have signed up for the ‘Clan of Conan’ newsletter, and last week Funcom registered over 115,000 posts on the official forums, across four languages. This comes in addition to Age of Conan discussions on external forums and in other languages.

In 2008, Funcom has also seen a tremendous growth in the amount of people who visit the official Age of Conan websites. Since January 2008, Funcom has registered more than 5 million unique visitors, from more than 200 countries. Last week alone, over 725,000 unique visitors came to the Age of Conan sites.

To celebrate the amazing community figures surrounding Age of Conan, Funcom and Eidos unveiled a brand new trailer this morning aptly called ‘Femme Fatale’ which you can view here.

Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures launches on May 20th in North America and May 23rd in Europe.

Via: Press Release

TalentRaspel, current keeper of the Torque MMORPG engine has released the latest version as an open-source MMO engine kit. Torque was originally published by Prairie Games and GarageGames last year. The German developer TalentRaspel has completely revised Torque and has recently released version 1.1 SP3 of the engine.

The Torque engine kit gives small teams the ability to develop cross-platform massively-multiplayer online games. The engine was used in the indie Minions of Mirth MMO which supports 70,000 users. The price is reasonable and the patches are free although the latest service pack came for a small fee.

via Develop

According to a recent GamesIndustry interview with Josh Drescher, EA Mythic’s senior designer, Warhammer Online has been built to contain five years of content.In the interview, which will be published in full next week, Dresher discussed the challenges the development team faced when creating Warhammer Online and also discussed the MMORPG’s longevity:

“All the under-the-hood numbers all actually scale through the next five years. What you don’t want is when you launch the game you’ve got 40 levels - and it takes however long it takes to get to level 40. You then launch an expansion and it now takes two weeks to get to level 40 because now we need everyone to spend six months to get from level 40 to 50. So you need to spec the game out in such a way that you actually have those progressions in mind for later - so you don’t wind up trampling all over the earlier experiences every time you expand the game. We have actually five years’ worth of numerology out in front of us in terms of all that.”

Sounds like loads of content can be expected when Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning launches sometime this Fall. No wonder it has taken so long.

Via: GamesIndustry.biz

Turbine and Codemasters Online have announced the launch of “Swig and Toss”, the second mini-game for the Unlock the Mines of Moria website. Registered participants can challenge themselves and their friends to earn special deeds that unlock unique rewards including exclusive videos, images, and in-game items that will aid them on their journey when The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria launches this fall.Swig and Toss is an axe throwing competition with a bit of drinking and wagering to make things more interesting! In this 10-round game, players try to keep a steady aim while attempting to hit a target with their axe. Hit the mark and win, miss and hear the Dwarves around you scoff at your lack of skill. The more you drink, the more you can wager, but be warned - the more you drink, the blurrier things get and it is harder to see the target.

It is loads of fun, but I am afraid that I am not too good at drinking games so I will one of the few who do not get to unlock any special items when the expansion is released. Hopefully, these items will not be “bind on acquire” and I can purchase them at my Kin’s auction house.

Via: Press Release

Hey buddy, want some WoWcrack? You know you do. Its cheap too, and when I say cheap, I mean free. Follow me into this dark alley and I will give you the goods - make sure no one sees you and that you are not followed or else the deal is off. You aren’t packing heat or wearing a wire are you? Ok cool, let’s do this then.

All of my stuff is premo and pure and it is a new strain of WoWcrack sure to please even the most discerning of tastes. It is called Wrath of the Lich King and I have nine different types.

• The first one is an interview with designer J. Kaplan & Producer J. Allen Brack about what World of Warcraft’s upcoming expansion has to offer.
• Next we have the first footage of air-to-air battles featuring vehicle combat.
• I also have an extended look at new zones (Northrend) and more vehicle combat
• Here I have the Howling Fjord which is one of Lich King’s two starter zones, including the Utgarde Keep instance and the new Tuskar race.
• Then I have this sweet bit of stuff that contains footage of the Borean Tundra which is the Lich King’s other starting zone, along with Howling Fjord. This clip shows both the Alliance and Horde towns, and the Nexus level 71-73 instance.
• Dragonblight is some really good stuff too where you can catch a glimpse of Wyrmrest Temple, the Nerubians, and Naxxramas.
• Like trolls? Then you will love Zul’Drak - the former troll empire has fallen on tough times. It’s not just for ice trolls any more.
• Sholazar Basin is the sister zone to Ungoro Crater. That crashed ship? Hemet Nessingwary’s. Good times to be had with this one
• Last but not least I have the Grizzly Hills where the Venture Co. has set up shop in Northrend, and so have the Furbogs (they live in the fallen, mini-world tree).

So what will it be then? You will take all of them? You are hardcore indeed my friend! Make sure you tell your friends about me, and as long as they are not narcs - I will do my best to supply them with more WoWcrack when it becomes available. In the meantime, if they need more information on my wares, they can check out previous posts on Wrath of the Lich King here. You can also get more of the goods after the break.

Enjoy my friend, but just be careful you don’t OD on all this WoW.

Read the full article

FireSky’s senior VP of strategic operations Joe Ybarra, sees a similarity between television production and game development. FireSky, as you are well aware, is the company who is currently developing the new MMO based upon Stargate Worlds.

Speaking to GamesIndustry, Ybarra stated:

“I think the best way to look at it is that the IP for Stargate Worlds was originally a television series, and what’s really interesting about working on a TV-based property - especially with Stargate - is the fact that it’s an ongoing production and the mentality that they take towards creating the show is very similar to that which we take when building a game.”

FireSky, like other MMOS developers, plan on releasing incremental content on a regular basis which from a developmental standpoint, Ybarra feels is almost the same thing as creating regular content for a television series.

“I think what’s also interesting is that the audiences that consume these products, both from TV with respect to science-fiction programming and gaming, is the same. As we refine our processes, as we start to look into the future of how we can make that relationship between television and gaming even closer than we’ve accomplished already, that’s a really exciting aspect of our business.”

According to GamesIndustry.biz, FireSky will not rely upon a licensed IP but will focus instead on an original IP along with a platform called “Social Networks At Play”, which the company hopes will bring gaming and social networking together.

“…The one thing we have to produce is a great game - and it really doesn’t matter what the property or subject matter is, we have to deliver to the customer a great game,” Ybarra said.

For the complete interview with Joe Ybarra and Rod Nakamoto hit the link below.

Via: GamesIndustry.biz

You might not picture Valve as a developer of much outside the first-person shooter scene, but there’s a strong desire to develop something for the Wii, as well as a game for kids, according to Valve’s Doug Lombardi. Speaking with CVG, he did make it clear that he’s not announcing anything, but did explain that the interest is there.

“There’s a lot of people at Valve who are parents and would love to make a game for kids,” he said.

The staff at Valve play a lot on Wii, but they wouldn’t want to simply port one of their games to the system. “We all play the Wii a lot and we think that the proper way for Valve to approach the Wii would be to make something cool designed specifically for it.”

“I mean, I’m not making any announcements”, he continued, “but there’s a lot of desire internally to do something for kids, do something on the Wii.”

Lombardi also mentioned that Valve’s co-founder, Gabe Newell, loves MMORPGs and has always wanted to make one. But with the major risks associated with developing one, you shouldn’t bother holding your breath for a Half-Life MMO.

“I think at some point you’ll see us move a little further out of our comfort zone than Portal was, but it’s not going to be this year or next.”

via 1UP

The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar is officially one year old and while this news is indeed wonderful, my only regret is that I did not started playing the game sooner.

To celebrate, Turbine has announced an anniversary pricing promotion that is sure to make any Champion, Hunter, or Minstrel happy as a dragon sitting on his horde of gold. Here is the list of amazing subscription deals culled from the website - these special pricing deals are only good until June 1st so if you want in on them, act now:

The Lord of the Rings Online anniversary promotion lets new and existing subscribers play for only $9.99 a month when they sign up for three months or more of service!

* 3 Month plans are $29.97 (Save 33%)
* 6 Month plans are $57.99 (Save 35%)
* 12 Month plans are $112.99 (Save 37%)

And for the first time since launch, we’re re-opening access to our LOTRO Lifetime Membership for only $199! Single-month subscriptions remain at $14.99. Promotional offers subject to certain terms and conditions.

In other LotRO news, Book 13: Doom of the Last-king is now live - so next time you log in you should get the full update. The new content includes a new, cold, and icy region in Forochel, a new class in Monster Play-The Orc Defiler, new Hobbies - like fishing, and a new faction in the Lossoth. New creatures have also been added to impede your progress through the new region - and thankfully I have not seen any screenshots of boar, but ya never know.

You can find out more about the new pricing program when you click through the links above. As always, for more information on LotRO or Book 13: Doom of the Last-king, check out our previous posts.

Happy Birthday LotRO!

MORE NEW SCREENS

Its a shame to see a promising game begin to falter. Last week’s announcement regarding server consolidation for the recently launched Pirates of the Burning Sea MMORPG might not be the best sign that the game is doing well. Regardless it sparked a discussion between Ron and I about why MMORPGs fail today and thus this week’s Podcast was born. Then the topic moves to my recent trip to Chicago to meet with Wizards of the Coast about the future of Dungeons & Dragons. If you’re interested in more info on D&D 4E be sure to check out The Analog Gamer.

The rant and rave section of the podcast features a rant at a very special audience and Ron implores Sony to fix the horrible problems with the Playstation Store and its downloads.

This weeks show is available by direct download here.

As always, you can get past episodes from our podcast page at http://podcast.filefront.com, and you can send your comments, questions, suggestions, or snarky comments to podcast@filefront.com.

File-N-Forget is also available on the iTunes Music Store.

On June 6th change is coming. No matter how much the stalwart heroes of countless worlds fight it there is a shift ahead. After 30 years and 3.5 editions, the most popular role-playing system in the world is preparing to shed its most recent set of scales and embrace modern tools and services. Dungeons & Dragons is exiting the cave of ideas with a shiny new coat of rules and a few creative directions altered from the previous edition.

Over the last 20+ years that I’ve been a player of RPGs both analog and digital, I’ve noticed that there is one trend that you can count on whenever change strikes the gaming fandom: people immediately either defend and champion the change or they fire up the torches and erect a cross to burn the new concepts in effigy. Its almost like a religious debate and people often act as though you’ve threatened to force them to slaughter their personal golden calf.

I’m not someone who has a zealot’s perspective on any game. I love games. All sorts of games, all sorts of rules. I’ve changed through every version of D&D and AD&D over the years and have generally found that while none of them was delivered perfectly from the mouth and hands of some deity unto mankind without the need for change, that overall each version has done something better than the last.

1st Edition was the stone tablet brought down to the RPG masses and lead them from the temptation of empty miniature wargaming. 2nd added options and expanded the rules and choices with kits, weapon and non-weapon proficiencies along with the almighty THAC0 and served us well during our days of wandering in the desert. The arrival of 3rd Edition introduced the concept of community content, embraced the morphic nature of gaming and added yet more options and features and allowed players to “take back” control. With 4th Edition I suspect that Wizards of the Coast is continuing the trend of streamlining the game, making it more accessible and looking to make the message simple enough that it spreads easily and attracts new followers.

Read the full article

A video featuring footage from the Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning closed beta was unleashed this morning. If you were interested in playing WAR before, you will be gagging for it after watching this - well, at least I felt that way.

Based upon Games Workshop’s tabletop fantasy war game, EA Mythic’s Warhammer Online: AoR will hit the PC sometime this Fall. For more information and tons of assets you can look back over our previous posts here.

EA Mythic has released a new series of assets from its upcoming MMORPG, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.

Included in the assets are screenshots of the noble High Elves and the Inevitable City, the dark and anarchic capital city for the forces of Chaos. A new zone overview, complete with new art, provides details about the Elven land of Caledor, home of the Dragon Princes. Newly revealed concept art shows off the wicked weapons of WAR, and introduces fans to the leaders of the forces of Destruction: the sinister Witch King Malekith of the Dark Elves, Grumlok and Gazbag of the Greenskins, and Tchar’zanek, dread Champion of Chaos.

For more information on Warhammer Online: AoR check out our previous posts.

MORE SCREENS

Turbine has just released a batch of screenshots for Book 13: Doom of the Last-King, the next free content update for The Lord of the Rings Online.The screenshots illustrate “Forochel”, a new region which lies in the far, frozen north of Eriador, to be added to the game with Book 13. Forochel lets players see the ocean for the first time and introduces several new temperature based landscape effects.

Forochel will also introduce six new monster types which include moose, winter-worms, and Gauredain war-mammoths and from the looks of the screens yeti-type creatures and big, white saber-toothed cats. Great, more kitty cats to kill. I am sure there will be more wargs to slaughter too, well, I hope so anyway, I loathe those annoying things.

Check back for more information on Book 13: Doom of the Last-King as it get closers to launch.

The folks over at Turbine are not only the creators of a fun, high-quality MMO, but they are also just a fun bunch of people. Today they announced that the updated version of the first mini-game “King Under the Mountain”, for the new LotRO expansion Mines of Moria.

The Dwarves have finished their work and the Unlock the Mines of Moria site is now complete!

An updated version of the first mini-game, King Under the Mountain, has been added to the site. There are three Deeds for you to earn by playing this game. We won’t say what they are, but you’ll find them if you are persistent enough.

Earn all three Deeds and you’ll gain access to a sneak peek at material related to the Mines of Moria expansion to The Lord of the Rings Online.

In all, there will be 13 Deeds that allow you to unlock 5 Stars on the Moria gate. Not all Deeds will be available right away, so check back often to discover the latest Deeds! Once you have earned all of the remaining Deeds and all 5 Stars are lit, you’ll receive a special in-game item for The Lord of the Rings Online.

Here’s hoping that the game specific item will be something to torture wargs, goblins, and trolls with - man I hate those things.

In the new mini-game, there is a map with different colored areas. You pick a color, choose an opposing color next to you and roll an 8-sided dice. Whichever area rolls the highest number gets to take over that territory. Areas show one to three dice (eight being the limit) so when choosing an area to conquer, make sure you have more or the same amount of dice as they do, because each dice equals one roll and they all add up. Right now, I am playing against the computer and it is kicking my ass, so the likelihood of me unlocking anything, let alone the Mines of Moria will be a miracle.

Thanks: MMORPG