Okay everybody. I just saw the infamous movie. It still needs some final polishing, but it's pretty much done.

I am sure that you will agree that it has been worth the wait. ...At least, I've never seen an MMORPG like this

The bad news is: The first version we release (most likely this weekend) will be a 40 MB download. Another movie will be released (~2 minutes = 10 MB) a week after the release of the first one. It will be a shorter edit of the first movie.

Stay tuned...

I remember logging on to the City Works BBS (Bulletin Board System) in Toronto, under the handle "Guido the Killer Pimp." Hey, give me a break--I was like 14 or something. BBSes in those days were considered amazingly high-tech if you could have two users on simultaneously. There were simple message boards, which I'd browse using a 300 baud modem (I later upgraded to a whopping 2400 baud). Whenever I went online, I'd tie up the phone lines for literally hours downloading 32 KB files. And believe it or not, I would play online games on these BBSes.

One of those games was Trade Wars.

The world of Temuair has remained within its current borders for a while now. It is time to expand those regions and allow access to new areas as well as some old. To this end, the following are scheduled for release in March:

New Town - Many Aislings are interested in moving to a new town. So, King Bruce is looking at which new town his subjects would like to see opened to citizenship. A new metropolis of Loures could be made available, or perhaps a smaller town of Undine or Piet or even the unknown town of Tagor. To vote, send an email to aisling@nexon.net with the word "Town" in the subject line along with the name of the town you would like opened. The votes will be tabulated on Thrusday, 3/1/01 and the one with the most votes will be opened in March.

Pits of Chaos - There have been rumors with the introduction of Necromancy that the borders between the Aisling reality and that of other worlds have begun to thin. Now, a small pocket of Chaos is erupting, with hideous demonic creatures within. The area will be only for those of the highest Insight, with a special seven area region for Masters.

Druid Circle - With the coming of Evil and Chaos, there is bound to be an influx of Good and Order. A Druidic Circle is being erected and from there, missions of peace and security will be found.

Fairs - The Mundanes are crafting the Mileth Fair so that Aislings can run their own Fairs without the intervention of the Mundanes. Hopefully, this will help to increase the economy and stimulate growth both financially and socially.

Contests - The long awaited contests are currently under judgement and all except the last three contests in February will be judged and prizes awarded by March 1st, 2001.

The Development team is making the last adjustments to the beta. Phase 1 will commence very soon!

Tidal Influence by Krazhe Ebonsoul
Tale of Two by Arillyn
Growing Wind by Tavviferret

It was taking a bit of time to reload into Newland and my hard drive stopped responding (damn thing) so I dropped out of the game manually. The next day I found my character in the middle of nowhere. I proceeded to run yet I had no idea where I should be heading so I went to the nearest road (using the map feature). I then fell off a bridge and got pecked to death by a vulture. This time I ended up back in Newland and somehow ran into another dungeon (I really do not know how I did that) and was then mobbed by an obscene amount of roller rats. I died again.

This, and other thrilling exploits, can be found here

UbiSoft (which distributes EverQuest in Europe and Asia) will soon release a deluxe edition of EverQuest. The new version will include the original EverQuest, The Ruins of Kunark expansion, The Scars of Velious expansion, a poster, a world map of Norrath, an Iksar miniature, and a strategy guide. This guide was written by our team and its purpose is to help the newbie through the first ten levels. EverQuest DeLuxe will be available in Europe on March 1st, and a similar version will ship in North America later on this year.

Verant recently stopped eBay from selling characters from EQ on their service, but gave no public explanation as to why. Was it because they felt the practice impinged on their intellectual property? Because they were worried their players were being defrauded? Because they wanted to sell characters themselves? No. It was because players complained bitterly that it gave an unfair advantage to a select few. Your level-40 character doesn’t seem quite so impressive if anyone with dollars to spare can buy a level-50 one off the shelf. In a game with PD it wouldn’t do the buyer any good, because without the skill to run the character they’d lose it the first time they put it at risk. If all that happens is you drop a bit of kit and maybe lose a few points, who cares?

Unfortunately, the players don’t see it that way until it’s too late. Their attitude to PD is akin to the general public’s attitude to public transport: if only everyone else did it, my life would be so much better. There’s not a lot you can do in the face of that!

Here's the rest of the article. Props to my man JC for the link.

 

Images courtesy of Gamespot.

Is it possible to be a pirate in Horizons? Will there be supply shipments that go by boat that we can rob?

Ships and their interaction with the world are going to evolve as the game progresses - there is a very good chance for what you have mentioned taking place in the game.

Is it possible to lose faction for using certain items? Like using a Dragon Tooth spear to kill a dragon? Or poison on a dagger?

While the base faction system has been finalized, there are some references to faction modifiers that have yet to be visited, but in short, I would say yes - with certain items carrying a karma or alignment reference to them, an angel picking up an evil sword...

In your console-demeaning way, you might be thinking, "Well, yeah I've heard about it, but c'mon…it can't be better than the MMORPG PC games that are already out there, can it?" This is where your world starts to change, because the answer to that question is, "Yes in many ways, it's at least as good, if not better." However, some things have remained the same: boss fights tend to be repetitive, there are lots of find the pattern battles, character dialog sometimes suffers due to the fact that it was translated from Japanese, and NPC interaction is limited. Remind you of any other MMORPGs? If you're honest, you'd have to say that at least two of those things are true of Asheron's Call and EverQuest, as well as the online versions of Diablo and Diablo 2.

You can find the rest of the article here.