Archive - 2013

Arma 3 Main Campaign to be Released in 3 Episodes

2013/08/06

Prague, Czech Republic, Tuesday 6th August 2013 — Bohemia Interactive is planning to release Arma 3’s campaign in 3 free episodes after the game’s initial launch. Supplied as free DLC, the first episode, Survive, will be made available within one month, while the following episodes, Adapt and Win, are slated for release in the months thereafter. This means that, with the free campaign arriving later, the game will premiere with the large island terrains of Altis (270 km²) and Stratis (20 km²), 12 singleplayer showcase missions, 3 faction showcases, 9 multiplayer scenarios, a set of 10 firing drill challenges, over 20 vehicles, more than 40 weapons, 5 factions, the powerful scenario editor and modding support.

Following an eventful past year, and a splendid reception of the Arma 3 Alpha and Beta, the studio honestly admits to the difficulties it experienced with its parallel development. While the team was developing the full game, at the same time it was supporting the Alpha and Beta. However, since the game has made tremendous progress as a result, Bohemia Interactive felt confident to maintain its quality-over-quantity mind-set and take some additional time to perfect the campaign. By releasing the expansive platform and adding the free campaign in 3 separate DLC episodes shortly thereafter, players (as well as mod-makers) will be able to get their hands on the full game as soon as possible, and take on the complete military package in Arma 3’s massive sandbox.

Joris-Jan van ‘t Land, Project Lead on Arma 3, elaborates:
“This was not a decision we made lightly. As game creators, we love developing and playing through campaigns so, to those awaiting ours, we say: sorry for the delay. After talking a lot about a focus on quality over the last year, it simply did not feel right to compromise now. Rather than pushing back the entire game, we launch this year with an awesome package – a splendid kick off for the Arma 3 experience.”

To further explain the motivations behind the decision, Bohemia Interactive has published a new post in their developer’s blog.

War of the Vikings Announced

2013/08/06

Jerry Paxton

News, Trailers / Videos, Windows PC News

NEW YORK — August 6, 2013 — Paradox Interactive, a publisher of games and a cultivator of epic facial hair, today announced War of the Vikings, an all-new multiplayer game built upon the technology that drives Paradox’s medieval squad combat title War of the Roses. Developed by Fatshark, War of the Vikings is a new standalone entry into the War franchise that will pull players into the brutal and bloody Viking Age, challenging them to design a personalized warrior and sack England as a mighty Norseman – or defend it as a brave Saxon. Featuring intense close-quarters combat, authentically inspired settings and weaponry, rich customization options, and large-scale 64-player battles, War of the Vikings will add a new unforgettable experience to Paradox’s close combat arsenal.

Trailer

“War of the Roses was a fantastic experience for us to launch, and as it’s evolved over time, eventually growing into its current Kingmaker edition, we’ve been inspired many times over by the possibilities of the close-combat genre,” said Gordon Van Dyke, Executive Producer for the War of the Roses franchise. “It’s clear to us that that there are many more experiences we can share with our players, and War of the Vikings is our next step in establishing Paradox and Fatshark as leaders in the art of online war.”

The intensity is greater and the beards are longer in War of the Vikings, where players must band together on the battlefields of 9th and 10th Century England and fight to conquer or defend Britannia. Environments, weapons, and visuals drawn from Viking Age history will immerse players in a bloody new conflict between the Vikings and the Saxons, with each warrior hand-designed by its player from a wide variety of customization options. Built on skill-driven gameplay and a deep combat system, War of the Vikings will bring close combat closer than ever.

Players can apply to join the Alpha for War of the Vikings by heading to http://signup.warofthevikings.com/

The Bureau: XCOM Declassified HungoverX Mini-Game

2013/08/06

Jerry Paxton

News, Windows PC News

August 6, 2013 — 2K Games has released a new mini-game for The Bureau: XCOM Declassified, titled HungoverX. Follow hung over “agent” Bill Carter after a long night of video-gaming, energy drink guzzling, and testing his own homemade liquor as he tries to survive the work day the next morning. Give orders to your “squad mates”/co-workers to help get Bill caffeinated, fed, and out of the office early without anyone noticing. There are multiple ways to play, and you’ll have to use your finest XCOM tactics to outwit your colleagues and the big boss upstairs.

To play the game, visit http://hungoverx.com.

Deus Ex: The Fall Review (iOS)

2013/08/06

Ripper71

Mobile Review, News, Reviews

The Deus Ex series will always stand out to me for the infamous “hostage mission”. I, like so many other players, messed around in that office, collecting stuff only to get to the first mission location to find out the hostages were dead and all the cops gave me the stink eye. Heck, more than the stink eye – they didn’t spare a choice word for my getting those poor people killed. I started over and tore it up, becoming a hero to my AI peers and setting a whole different tone for the game. Timed missions and dialogue decisions that heavily impacted the game were hallmarks of the series, so when the possibility to continue that experience on the go came along with Deus Ex: The Fall, I was more than happy to go “Aug” or go home.

Description:

Deus Ex: The Fall is set in 2027– a golden era for science, technology and human augmentation, but also a time of great social divide and global conspiracy. Powerful corporations have seized control from governments and command the drug supply needed by augmented humans to survive.

In this chaos Ben Saxon, a former British SAS Mercenary who underwent physical augmentation, is desperate for the truth behind the drug conspiracy. Betrayed by his private military employers, the Tyrants, not only is his own life at risk but for all augmented humans, time is running out…

Deus Ex: The Fall is a story driven action-RPG and the first Deus Ex in the series to be released on mobile and tablet devices. The game includes never before seen characters from the novel Deus Ex: The Icarus Effect, picking up directly where the book finishes.

Features:

Every action has a consequence
Unravel and survive a global conspiracy
Hours of gameplay with multiple ways to play
Search for the truth spanning for mafia hideouts in Moscow to the slums of Panama
High impact action and combat
Intuitive touch screen controls
Fully explorable, stunning environments
Visually stunning graphics, sound and music
Immersive storyline
Original story set in the Deus Ex universe
Play as you want: full on action or stealth
Social and hacking skills
Unique visual design

Hands On:

After reading all of the above before getting my hands on the game, you can see why I was psyched. Unfortunately, the game has quite a few shortcomings – albeit, shortcomings that aren’t really the fault of the developer!

Thankfully, the storyline and player choices are just as good as the previous games. I love a good, story-driven game that keeps me wondering what is going to happen next and this game delivers. It had its hooks in me before the credits kicked in with a lengthy and story-filled opening. It reminded me of a James Bond film where before the scantily clad silhouettes start dancing across your screen. I literally said out loud, “Wow! That was just the opening!” then had to explain myself to the others in the room. The story refused to let up or slow down either, keeping a very even pace. That being said, you had better not start snooping in all the trashcans or people will probably die. Also, with the regular changes in location, attitudes, and dress styles of your enemies, you don’t get bored with the stunning graphics and scenery.

Going through the tutorial it was clear that the developers had listened to the complaints about other shooters/fighters on the iOS platform and had put in an auto-targeting system that allowed for minor adjustments to try for accuracy. Brilliant, I thought, just what is needed on this platform so you can concentrate on moving and pulling the trigger which, on a handheld game system, pretty much takes up all the hands you have. Also the melee system was set up so that if you got within melee distance of a target two giant buttons popped up on the screen giving the choice of lethal or non-lethal takedowns (and remember, these kind of actions make a difference in a Deus Ex game) so that, after you choose, you see a short animation of the takedown then your back in game to see any immediate repercussions.

It all sounds great right? Well it doesn’t take long to tell where it isn’t so right and that really comes down to the same issue every shooter faces on the iOS. I download and devour shooters on the iPad and iPhone – constantly downloading and deleting them. I am determined to find one that I can point to as the “perfect” iOS shooter experience. Some have come close, real close, and Deus Ex is up there with them because it was designed to get past the issued that plagues the platform. The auto-targeting was a great idea and, at first, works pretty well. At lower levels where the AI isn’t very sharp, they come charging down in a row at you and you can take them out. Then they learn they will live longer if they take cover and things get dicey. They also know how to work as a team with flank and covering fire. So an enemy pops behind cover and leans out to take shots, the autotarget is aiming center mass so it is just shooting boxes. You can slide out from your cover and then aim the gun for their heads but the action of moving from cover, turning your cam view and aiming your gun requires about three hands. I found myself doing weird balance and juggling of the console to try and complete the task. At some locations it is possible to take pre-assigned cover which allows you to aim the gun then lean out and fire it, a very nice solution to the issue except sometimes the cover doesn’t want to take or worse doesn’t want to let you go afterwards so that as you finish off one enemy the other that was flanking you has you trapped. Making weapons and armor improvements help with this but I still found saving after almost every kill the biggest savior.

The other issue would be in the melee attacks. If you can’t get behind an enemy or charge them before they can shoot you you can find yourself toast on higher levels. I would wait for an enemy to come down a corridor while I was in a room against a wall and my plan is to do a takedown, only to have them know I was there before rounding the side of the wall and shooting me right through the wall. In theory you are supposed to be able to do a takedown the same way, through the wall, there is even an achievement but they see you before your buttons pop up.

Last Call:

This game suffers from many of the same issues that this platform holds for all shooters, you need an extra hand. Deus Ex: The Fall is a fun, immersive game with outstanding graphics and a story which hooks you quick and keeps you enthralled. I just wish it was on a more enjoyable platform for shooters, then it would be a tour-de-force.

[easyreview title=”Deus Ex: The Fall Review Score” cat1title=”Overall Score (out of 5)” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”4″ ]

LA Haunted Hayride Presale Tickets this Wednesday

2013/08/05

Jerry Paxton

Geek News, Halloween, News

The folks at the LA Haunted Hayride have announced that tickets to this year’s event will go on pre-sale this Wednesday, August 7, 2013. Tickets will be available at multiple price points for the event, which runs 17 nights this October.

Checkout their official website for more information.

Rise of the Triad Review (PC/Steam)

2013/08/05

Ripper71

News, Reviews, Windows PC News, Windows PC Review

Many of our readers either aren’t old enough to remember the original Wolfenstein 3D (many weren’t even born yet), but it was huge. It made he biggest splash any game made at the time. It is still considered the godfather of the modern first person shooter and it wasn’t long before the code was hacked and dozens of re-skinned versions with every imaginable subject matter flooded the market. Apogee realized it should capitalize on its own success with a sequel and started working on Rise of the Triad: Wolfenstein 3D II. This project eventually got cancelled, rumored to make room in the market for DOOM. The game did get released without the Wolfenstein name and the end product which was a solid game with Indiana Jones style traps. Now, Apogee has brought it back for a whole new generation to appreciate. Enter, Rise of the Triad.

Description:
Apogee Software and Interceptor Entertainment proudly present the rebirth of the cult-classic first-person shooter, “Rise of the Triad” Bigger, better and more ludicrous than ever before. Powered by the industry-leading Unreal Engine 3 from Epic Games, “Rise of the Triad” includes a full single-player campaign, a fully featured multiplayer experience and so much more.

Features:
– Step into the shoes of the H.U.N.T. (High-Risk United Nations Taskforce) with five unique characters, each with different play styles.
– Blast through over 20 of levels of explosive single-player action.
– Unique multiplayer maps bring back all the fun and excitement of classic ROTT.
– The full arsenal of over-the top weapons is back, including the Flamewall, Firebomb, Split Missile, Drunk Missile and, of course, the Excalibat!
– The maniacal modes return, too, with God mode, Elasto mode, Mercury mode, Shrooms mode and everyone’s favorite, Dog mode!
– Build your own levels, mods and share them soon with Valve’s Steam Workshop
– Offline single-player and multiplayer allows for instant action.
– Find tons of secrets, collectables, special events and hidden areas to explore.
– Get more than 100 achievements to add to your score, which is tracked on our worldwide leaderboard and stat-tracking system.
– ROTT is bloodier and more ludicrous than ever, with full character and enemy dismemberment.
– The iconic original soundtrack has been completely re-forged in the fires of heavy metal!
– Nostalgia abounds with the option to play with all the original sounds and music.
– Built on fully-licensed Unreal Engine 3 technology, ROTT will run on low-end PCs and push high-end PCs to their limits

Hands On:
Rise of the Triad, or R.O.T.T. as it became more commonly known, had its own special way of punishing the run and gun player. Getting enemies to come to you is generally a better plan in this game, where you might round a corner and see a dozen enemy gunning you down. Also, the game is loaded with traps! Some of these traps are fairly obvious – triggered by stepping on a discolored stone or section of ground. Ceilings come down and crush you, pungi sticks stab you when you fall in hidden pits, and spikes stab down from the ceiling. At the time, they were really creative concepts. Today, however, players desensitized by trap/horror games or even the Indiana Jones movies might not be so easily impressed. Personally, I found it just as much fun and challenging as back in the day – some triggers open hidden chambers filled with coins or weapons while others trigger death.

On the subject of hidden weapons, this game rewards the explorers early with some very cool and over the top weapons. You have the straight forward leftovers from the Wolfenstein 3D roots such as the Walther, MP40 and rocket launcher but then it adds its own such as heat-seeking missiles, fire wave grenade launchers, multiple missile launchers and more that I won’t spoil by mentioning here. There are even shape shifting and mood altering drugs to really make things crazy.

Gore mode can be implemented in the game too, which makes it even more over the top as bodies blow into pieces and if you shoot a soldier in the leg enough their leg gets shot off and they bleed out. Same with heads and arms, a well placed explosive will have you finding pieces of the same body all over a room. Violence, gore, and language would be three reasons I wouldn’t recommend this for younger players though the gore can be turned off.

Since I was playing hard difficulty I noticed what might not be so noticeable on easy or medium settings, you can go a long ways between checkpoints. As a result when you die you have to cover a lot of the same ground again and again because there is no way to know whether a trigger will help or hurt you until you hit it, so you could be just outside the exit of the level, hit a trigger, die and have to complete as much as half of the level again. There were a few cases where I just wanted to finally finish the level and just stopped hitting triggers.

Last Call:
There will be naysayers who will point out that games and movies have desensitized players and so this game may not have the impact as it did back in the day. It is still a solid play that holds up well over time and with the beautiful remastering is an absolute pleasure to dive back into. I kept telling myself I would just play a little more and before I knew it the night was done and I was sore from sitting in one spot too long. R.O.T.T. is a nostalgic trip for those old enough to remember playing it at release and is a solid example of what they missed when first person shooters were defined.
[easyreview title=”Rise Of The Triad Review Score” cat1title=”Overall Score (out of 5)” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”4″ ]

MSI Unveils GS70 Gaming Laptop

2013/08/05

Jerry Paxton

News, Tech News

City of Industry, Calif. – August 5, 2013 – MSI Computer Corp, leading manufacturer of computer hardware products and solutions, unveils the GS70, the world’s thinnest and lightest 17-inch portable gaming powerhouse designed to fuse the power needed to tackle the most demanding games with the portability required to take battles on the road.

The answer to portable gaming players, the GS70 features a lethal arsenal of cutting-edge components, including the latest 4^th generation Intel® Core™ i7 processor, NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 765M, Killer™ DoubleShot and a SteelSeries full color backlit keyboard with Anti-Ghosting keys. In addition, it showcases MSI’s latest ultra-thin and light brush aluminum chassis, measuring less than 1-inch thick and weighing only 5.7 lbs.

The GS70 comes equipped as a mobile battle station with a 17” Full HD anti-reflective display at a 1920×1080 resolution and a 2.1 speaker system with integrated sub-woofer featuring Sound Blaster Cinema capable of delivering the quality of 5.1 surround sound. However, it takes full advantage of NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 765M capabilities with the Matrix Display that simultaneously supports up to 3 external displays via the HDMI and mDP ports, transforming it into the ultimate multimedia and multi-tasking desktop replacement. It also has the ability to output HDTV resolutions, up to 4k, for viewing your games or movies in true HD.

“The GS70 has the capability to crush the most demanding games and the featherlike portability for on-the-go multi-tasking or gaming,” stated Andy Tung, vice president of sales for MSI US. “We understand the needs of our audience and are committed to delivering solutions that exceed even the highest expectations.”

“The MSI GS70 sets a new mark for gaming rigs,” said Brian Choi, Senior Product Manager at NVIDIA. “With the super-fast and super-efficient GeForce GTX 765M GPU on board, MSI is able to offer the thinnest chassis ever seen in the gaming segment.”

The GS70 is the first dual fan laptop with a unique thermal solution design that pulls heat from the top side of the laptop and dissipates heat at a 45 degree upward angle, guaranteeing superior performance and a cool gaming experience even under the most intense battle sessions. Available in two configurations starting at $1,799.99 MSRP, both models come with 16GB of DDR3L memory, 4 USB 3.0 ports, 3 audio jacks and a 720p HD webcam.

For more information about the GS70 or the entire line of G series gaming notebooks, please visit http://www.msimobile.com or www.usgaming.msi.com.

Black Sabbath: 13 3D Maze Coming to Halloween Horror Nights

2013/08/05

Jerry Paxton

Geek News, Halloween, News

Universal Studios Hollywood has announced that the next maze in their Halloween Horror Nights lineup will be called “Black Sabbath: 13 3D”.

Maze Synopsis

This year, guests will be engulfed in a nightmarish landscape of doom as they enter the maze “Black Sabbath: 13 3D” and cross through horrifying graveyards, disturbing madhouses and bone-chilling battlefields. The new maze will also be the only attraction to incorporate a 3D video, which will show scenes inspired by their recent #1 Billboard album, “13”. The legendary multi-platinum rock band pioneered the Heavy Metal genre with their doom-laden sounds so Tony Iommi’s dark, iconic riffs, Ozzy Osbourne’s haunting vocals and Geezer Butler’s sinister lyrics provide endless inspiration for a blood-curdling maze.

Video

The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief Review (PC)

2013/08/05

Judgeman

News, Reviews, Windows PC News, Windows PC Review

Nordic Games has just released their newest point and click adventure game in The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief. Part one of a three part story, The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief takes much of its inspiration from novels by Agatha Christie – even beginning the story aboard the Orient Express. Using the tried and true methods of the point and click adventure game genre, The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief tries to tell a story of burglary and intrigue, but ultimately fails to be an immersive experience and ends up being mediocre at best.

Story

The story of The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief is by far the game’s strongest point. Set during the 1960’s, the game begins aboard the Orient Express as three law officers are transporting a gem towards its final destination in Cairo. The law officers are laying a trap for a burglar who just recently had stolen the gems counterpart from the London Museum. This burglar is the heir apparent to the legendary master thief, the Raven, who was shot and killed a few years back. You play as Constable Zellner of the Swiss Police, assisting Inspector Legrand from Paris and Constable Oliver from London in their baiting of this trap aboard the train. Having been told by Legrand that your help is not wanted in baiting this trap, Zellner spends the rest of his time on the Orient Express making his own investigations into the problems of the other passengers, while keeping a sharp eye out for the Raven.

Like many of Nordic Games releases, The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief has a ton of very interesting characters to meet along your journey to Cairo. The biggest issue is, that the main character Constable Zellner, isn’t one of them. Zellner is an aging Constable who continues time and time again to try to impress Inspector Legrand with his skills in deduction, despite Legrand’s insistence that Zellner’s help is neither wanted nor needed. Instead of just heading back to Switzerland, Zellner continues to get involved in the case and blunders his way on through to Venice, then to Cairo.

The overall story is intriguing enough and has a very exotic feel to it, similar to the stories that The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief tries to emulate. I love the locales that the designers chose to tell the story through. Beginning on the Orient Express was a fantastic way to begin the game, and continuing that story on a slow boat to Cairo was the right decision. The biggest issue with the game is not with the story line, its with how the game play mechanics allows the player to interact with the story.

Game Play

Game play for The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief is as basic of a point and click adventure game mechanic can get. You progress through the story by interacting with objects and people around the scenery, and discovering what items or clues you need before moving the story along. The game has an inventory screen in which to interact with objects you have collected, a hint system that allows you to spend points that you have earned to see items you can interact with by pressing the space bar, and conversation choices that allows you to talk to people about different topics. All of these mechanics are solid and does the job they are designed to do, however, it’s not enough to make this game great.

With the story being about detective work and criminal intrigue, I would have hoped for more game mechanics that allows the player to do actual detective work. Instead of just using scissors to get graphite powder, then using the powder to discover some finger prints on a window, I would have rather seen and actual mechanic to allow us to dust for finger prints and being able to analyze the prints to find the match. Throughout the entire game, I just wanted more immersion into the world of The Raven. A standard point and click game mechanic just didn’t do it for me, and ultimately left the game feeling boring and mediocre, even though the story was well written and paced just right.

Aesthetics

I found the aesthetics for The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief to fit the story line very well. The visuals tend to be a little more realistic then some of the other releases from Nordic Games, but still have a very animated feel to them. The lighting effects were wonderful and really help to set the tone during some of the scenes. The environments were also well designed to be exotic in feel, to bring that Agatha Christie feel to the entire game.

Voice acting was also well done, and utilizes accents from around the world. English, German, French, Swiss, Italian, and American characters are all represented and voiced well in The Raven. The score is also creates the mood for the story, by being suitable dark and mysterious when the need arises. The audio and the visuals do a fantastic job in bringing the world of The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief alive to the player and makes the world feel interesting and real.

Final Thoughts

The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief is a decent point and click adventure game that could have been a great game if the designers had utilized different mechanics to draw the player deeper into the world of The Raven. Using standard point and click mechanics, The Raven never gets too hard or too easy with its puzzles, but these mechanics don’t generate any intrigue or excitement that the story line keeps trying to present. The story is well written and designed, but the central character, Constable Zellner, falls a little flat for my tastes and isn’t as interesting to play as I want him to be. The game is a great looking and sounding game, with a very international feel to all of the characters. Ultimately, The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief just ends up being decent because the game play mechanics do not do enough to bring the story to life. The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief is available now through Steam.

[easyreview title=”The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief Review Score” cat1title=”Overall Score (out of 5)” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”3″ ]
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SOE Reveals EverQuest Next

2013/08/02

Jerry Paxton

News, Windows PC News

LAS VEGAS – August 2, 2013 – Fourteen years ago, Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) changed the way people play games together online with the introduction of the original EverQuest™. Today, SOE offers a new vision for the future of online games with the worldwide debut of EverQuest Next (EQN).

“With EverQuest Next, we’re going back to our roots — a space we defined with the EverQuestlegacy — and ushering in a new era of MMOs: The Emergent Era,” said John Smedley, President, Sony Online Entertainment. “Today, many MMOs fail because players consume content faster than developers can create it. With EverQuest Next, we’re creating a living world that players are part of and empowering them to produce new content alongside the development team. What does the future hold for EverQuest Next and Sony Online Entertainment? It’s in the players’ hands, and we like it that way.”

“EverQuest Next is not the continuation of a familiar story. It represents the fundamental reimagining of the characters, lore and environments of the EverQuest universe,” said Dave Georgeson, Director of Development for the EverQuest Franchise, Sony Online Entertainment. “Make no mistake; while great care has been taken to respect the extraordinary influence thatEverQuest has had in this industry and with our player community over the years, this is a boldly different game unlike anything that has come before.”

EverQuest Next has been in development since 2009. Nearly two years ago, SOE made the decision to rethink core creative and technical aspects of the design and start from the ground up to build a new kind of game. As a result, EQN is different from all of the MMOs that have been made before in very important ways, including:

Multi-Classing – EQN will offer players the ability to explore and interact with the world according to their individual style of play. There are no levels in EQN, but there will be more than 40 distinct classes (or professions) at launch, with multi-tiered abilities and specialized weapon skills to collect and master. Players will even mix and match abilities from each class, creating truly custom characters that feel distinct and powerful.

Destructible Environments – No modern MMO has successfully implemented destructible environments that stretch across an entire seamless game world — this changes forever with EQN. Every piece of the world is fully destructible and players will have the ability to manipulate almost all of it. They will interact with and explore the world in amazing ways; venturing down into the deep bedrock beneath the surface and using powerful combat abilities to blow gaping holes into the ground. The EQN world will extend far into the heavens and deep into the procedurally-generated earth through 10,000 years of known lore and history.

Permanent Change – Players will also have the ability to cause the world to change around them, permanently, in dramatic ways. Through the concerted effort of the world’s inhabitants, including players, creatures, and non-player characters (NPCs), city walls will be built and destroyed, large-scale wars will be fought and won, and epic stories will unfold over months and years.

Emergent AI – In EQN, NPCs will have specific motivations and preferences that direct behavior in nuanced and unpredictable ways. Players will find themselves in a world where NPC decisions are based on core values, not dictated by static spawn points. For example, Orcs may attack opportunistically because they want an adventurer’s gold, not simply because a careless hero wanders into an attack radius.

A Life of Consequence – Finally, each character in EQN will have a unique story; they will not follow a predetermined path. Instead, they will seek out adventure, fame and fortune in a constantly changing sandbox world. The game will remember every choice and action that players make and will organically deliver increasing opportunities to do more of the things players like to do … from crafting armor and exploring the wilderness to purging goblins from the forests.

“We believe that the bold choices the team is making with EQN will result in a product that provides players with an absolutely new kind of game experience,” said Laura Naviaux, Senior Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing, Sony Online Entertainment. “However, there is something even more important to us. As an organization, we are dedicated to partnering with our community to give them a voice in the games we create. With EQN, we are taking this idea even further and offering our players the opportunity to actively build EQN with us.”

INTRODUCING EVERQUEST NEXT LANDMARK

This winter, SOE will introduce EverQuest Next Landmark™ (Landmark). Essentially,Landmark will combine the powerful and intuitive building tools SOE is using to create the fully destructible world of EQN with all of the social functionality expected from a modern MMO.

The game will feature huge persistent worlds that each support thousands of other players and varied terrain inspired by the environments of EQN. Most importantly, Landmark will provide anyone who wants to participate with the opportunity to actually build structures, and eventually create other types of content, to be considered for inclusion in EQN. Landmark will enable players to:

Create Amazing Things

Build highly detailed structures with powerful and intuitive tools.
Quickly design complex projects or collaborate with friends to undertake massive shared builds.
Lay claim to and control specific areas of huge persistent worlds.

Share Your Imagination with Friends

Landmark‘s persistent servers will enable players to interact with and experience the collective imagination of thousands of players in a unique shared world.
Players will have compelling reasons to explore and interact with others. They will congregate at crafting hubs, build design templates to share and trade, and journey across the world to collect the resources required to build and craft.

Build EQN with SOE — Using the Same Tools

Landmark players will gain increasing access to many of the same tools that SOE is using to construct the game world of EQN.
Not only will Landmark give players access to these world building tools, SOE will provide specific guidance on what we want help building.
Through this collaborative approach, EQN may eventually represent the largest overall collaborative development effort in the history of online games. For anyone who has ever thought about becoming a game developer, here is your chance. Together we will build extraordinary things

PRICING AND AVAILABILITY

Landmark will launch this winter as a “Free To Play. Your Way.®” offering and the first step in a multi-phase release strategy. It will serve as the gateway to EQN and as the collaborative building hub where SOE will guide the development of selected structures and environments for inclusion in EQN.

No formal date is set for the launch of EQN. Additional information, assets and answers to frequently asked questions can be found at www.everquestnext.com.

To view the livestream visit: http://www.twitch.tv/everquestnext.