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Do you play a lot of RPG-games? Then you might have a bright future in the world of internet poker as well. Learn poker rules and use your ability of getting into character when you bluff your opponents.
Purgatorio Demo released Game news - posted by VentilatorOfDoom
on Tue 09 March 2010, 19:40:16 Rogue Dao Studios - you probably won't believe it - decides to offer a demo of their anticipated NWN2 mod Purgatorio, which is part of a planned Planescape Trilogy.
The news came from there and you can download the demo here.
thanks ghostdog! There are 13 comments on this article.
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Everyone is aware that to be successful in RPG games, you need a strategy and execute it to perfection. The same thing applies for online poker games, especially in texas hold'em. There are also some reckless players in RPG games that just ruin the fun for everyone. I would believe they can do well in an online casino by trying out their luck.
Big Huge RPG Updates Game news - posted by Jason
on Tue 09 March 2010, 17:43:12 The Ken Rolston led RPG project from Big Huge Games gets a new lease on life thanks to 38 Studios, EA, and questionable taste.
Code-named "Project Mercury," the single-player RPG is being developed by Rise of Nations studio Big Huge Games. (After then-owner THQ threatened to close the studio in 2009, 38 Studios stepped in and bought the Maryland-based developer.) It will be an all-new intellectual property co-created fantasy by comic-book artist Todd McFarlane (Spawn) and author R.A. Salvatore (The DemonWars Saga). Both men helped Schilling found 38 Studios--then called Green Monster Games--in 2006, and respectively serve as art director and "executive creator of worlds" at the Maynard, Massachusetts studio. The game will not be based on any of Salvatore's or MacFarlane's previous work.
Though 38 Studios is a relatively new operation, Project Mercury has some seasoned development talent behind it. Its project lead is Ken Rolston, who was lead designer on Bethesda Softworks' acclaimed high-fantasy RPGs The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Several other Bethesda alumni are working on the project, as well as a senior designer from Lucasarts' the Force Unleashed. Veterans of Civilization and Civilization II are also on board.
According to EA Partners general manager David DeMartini, Rolston and his team will also be able to tap the minds of EA's own RPG powerhouse. "The guys at BioWare were actually involved in the early discussions with the folks at Big Huge," he told GameSpot. "They've had an opportunity to have some preliminary discussions and preliminary talks….So, I certainly think that you could expect strong collaboration that would include the BioWare team."
Spotted at: RPG WatchThere are 17 comments on this article.
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Dragon Age Info Service Game news - posted by VentilatorOfDoom
on Tue 09 March 2010, 12:04:47 More info on Dragon Age - More info on BioWare Dragon Age gets patched.
There's also another preview of DA: Awakening. There are 13 comments on this article.
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DoubleBear Design Update N/A - posted by VentilatorOfDoom
on Tue 09 March 2010, 12:01:00 More info on DoubleBear Productions IronBear Studios are revealing a few more juicy Zombie tidbits.
Since I'm not all that interesting, let's talk about characters for ZRPG. Since the team is rather small, we can't do a lot of characters. It's so small, in fact, that we're only going to do two, a male and a female version (personally, I like to call them Zombob and Zombette). That means, for example, that all male characters will share the same face [About the faces, we are going to have a couple of variations. Perhaps a scarred one, and definitely an old guy one, just like AoD – Oscar]. We're hoping that you won't notice with the camera zoomed out as much as it will be. Luckily, we can still make variations, through clothing, accessories and haircuts [Note: and facial hair and skin tones]. I'd have loved to be able to show you that, but we don't actually have any assets that can be swapped here yet. Expect an update specifically about all that when we've got a fancy and varied assortment of moustaches.
What's also worth noting is the difference between one version of Zombob here being alive and the other being undead. We've got alternative textures for every piece of clothing, so that zombies look more ragged than the humans, and are more easily distinguished from them.
How does that look?
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Mass Effect 2 keeps your eye shadow in place all day Development info - posted by Jason
on Tue 09 March 2010, 09:27:04 More info on Mass Effect 2 No doubt this is inappropriate as a newspost, but I do not have the willpower to pass up something this awesome.
Searching for a new everday look? Here is a must try for one striving for a simple and sexy go between. Charisma+2 model, Leigh-Ann, going to show you how to pull off a makeup look inspired by Miranda from Mass Effect 2.
The fact that she has a speech impediment increases the awesomeness exponentially. Enjoy more of Leigh-Ann here. There are 19 comments on this article.
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The Principles of High-Level Writing Editorial - posted by VentilatorOfDoom
on Mon 08 March 2010, 21:54:55 More info on Obsidian Entertainment Sometimes I get the impression that writing about gamedesign is way more popular than actually doing gamedesign. Of course I could be wrong. Anyway, Josh Sawyer, working at Codex' favorite developer Obsidian Entertainment, shares some insights with us.
At work, we have a lot of rules for how to write. These range from punctuation (single-spacing after terminal punctuation) to spelling ("all right" vs. "alright") to structural (where a "goodbye" response should be relative to a "start combat" response and where that should be relative to a "friendly" response). Every project has a document (or documents) on the specific guidelines for that project. In spite of all the details, there are certain high-level principles that tend to be common. Okay, maybe it's just in my mind, but here are principles that I believe are important for writing player-driven dialogue in choice-heavy RPGs.
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RPGWatch previews Din's Curse Preview - posted by VentilatorOfDoom
on Mon 08 March 2010, 21:48:11 More info on Din's Curse Another preview of Soldak Entertainments soon to be released Action RPG surfaces, this time at RPGWatch.
Although the game is still in beta, I found it completely stable and didn't experience a single crash. I have some minor complaints – it's easy to miss some of the notifications, the text font could be sharper and the graphics look better zoomed all the way in – but I can't imagine anyone playing that way. Finally, I miss the companions from Depths of Peril, although the multiplayer co-op makes up for this. I tried a quick multiplayer game over our home LAN and it all worked perfectly.
I had a ton of fun and plan to keep playing a Conjurer hybrid after this article is posted. Din's Curse is a more traditional game than Depths of Peril but the combination of solid hack'n'slash gameplay and interactive game worlds is incredibly addictive and deserves to be played.
Spotted at: RPGWatchThere are 0 comments on this article.
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Gamebanshee previews Mount & Blade Warband Preview - posted by VentilatorOfDoom
on Mon 08 March 2010, 20:37:47 More info on Mount & Blade Brother None shares some early impressions.
That means out with the sandbox action-RPG gameplay, and in with battle simulations. I can't help but feel Mount & Blade does both these things at a very high level, but what hooked me in – personally – was that it combined both well, and pushing for that next level or next castle taken was as big a hook as the excellent combat in general. That, specifically, does not carry over in to multiplayer, but that's no reason to get discouraged. Multiplayer is still fun in its own right even if it'll be less appealing to people who – like me – found that the sandbox gameplay is what tipped Mount & Blade from "fun" into "incredibly addictive". But even for us there's material to look foreward to, as the additions promised already look good from the glance given in multiplayer, let alone in its expansions for single player campaigns.
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VD previews Din's Curse Preview - posted by VentilatorOfDoom
on Mon 08 March 2010, 10:58:01 More info on Din's Curse Vault Dweller has been blessed with a preview copy of Soldak Entertainments upcoming Action RPG. He kindly decided to share some impressions.
Basically, the dungeons are no longer static. Things are brewing and shit is piling up, getting awfully close to the fan. If you're told that some guy needs to be rescued, it means that he's fighting mobs of monsters as we speak. He may last awhile or he may not (depends on the difficulty level). If you're told that some monsters are planning a raid, it doesn’t mean that they will be waiting forever and ever for you to show up. It actually does mean that they are planning a raid and unless you drop everything and go knock some sense into them, there will be some raiding and pillaging tonight. Once the current town is saved, you get your reward and can either continue playing at a slower, more traditional pace, or move to the next town with increasingly bigger problems and deeper dungeons.
But is this game fully voiced?
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CD Projekt RED loses Artur Ganszyniec Company news - posted by Jason
on Sun 07 March 2010, 22:17:46 More info on Witcher, The - More info on CD Projekt GameBanshee bears word that Artur Ganszyniec, lead story designer on boob inspector sim The Witcher, is no longer a part of CD Projekt RED. From LinkedIn:
Principal Designer
CD Projekt RED
(Privately Held; Computer Games industry)
January 2008 — February 2010 (2 years 2 months)
- story design (form the overall concept to particular quests and scenes)
- working on the game vision
- project management
- managing the design & implementation team
- designing tools used in by the implementation team
- writing dialogues
Thanks to Andhaira for the tipThere are 37 comments on this article.
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Fallout New Vegas Screenshots Game news - posted by VentilatorOfDoom
on Sun 07 March 2010, 17:41:08 DAC received some hi-res screenshots of FO: New Vegas.
Look at them here.
thanks King of Creation!
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Are you willing to suffer Development info - posted by VentilatorOfDoom
on Sat 06 March 2010, 19:52:48 More info on Eschalon: Book II ... for the greater good?
If yes, you might want to apply as a beta-tester for the upcoming Eschalon Book II.
What do you get for beta testing? Well, if you can complete the minimal requirements of beta testing, you will get your name listed in the game and a registration code that can be used on all future versions of the game.
thanks Marquess Cornwallis!
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Dragon Age: Awakening Preview Preview - posted by VentilatorOfDoom
on Sat 06 March 2010, 16:33:00 More info on Dragon Age - More info on BioWare The Awakening of Dragon Age is almost complete.
Meanwhile read some first impressions.
If you have a high level character from Origins but don't particularly like the choices you made as they advanced, you can buy a Manual of Focus from a familiar vendor in Vigil's Keep for a mere handful of sovereigns. This book allows you to refunds all the points you spent on attributes, skills and abilities so you can build up your characters the way you'd like them to have developed if you had known just how pointless Chain Lightning really was.
...
Warriors can shift towards mages by selecting the Spirit Warrior specialization, which allows them to use certain Fade abilities during combat. The warrior trained as a Guardian will excel at protecting allies with group buffs.
...
The Warrior's Second Wind regenerates almost all stamina at once, which can definitely turn the tide of battle very quickly. The warrior also has new abilities that can automatically kill normal level enemies and significantly wound elites and bosses. All of the weapon styles have new lines as well. I particularly like the dual-wield line, which is good because it was my least favorite of all the styles in Origins. The last line not only offers improved critical hits and bleeds but also has an ability that rapidly and constantly attacks an enemy until he is dead. Archery has new critical and AOE effects and two-handed combat has plenty of new knockdown effects and charges. My favorite of all is the first power in the new shield line, which basically has the power to knock down any enemy you touch.
Seems as if Bio improved playing as a Warrior type even further.
Spotted at: RPGWatchThere are 17 comments on this article.
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The Drama continues Company news - posted by VentilatorOfDoom
on Fri 05 March 2010, 18:13:32 This time Interplay, seemingly having the upper hand, wants Bethsoft to pay for their attorney fees.
Here's an excerpt:
Duck and Cover has obtained Interplay's latest filing in the ongoing legal struggle between Interplay and Bethesda. The filing is confusingly called "Interplay Entertainments Corp.'s Memorandum of Points and Authorities in Reply to the Opposition of Bethesda Softworks, LLC to its Motion for Attorney's Fees and Costs; Declaration of Rochelle A. Herzog." For those who have no idea what that means, this filing is basically a document detailing why Interplay says it deserves its court fees from Bethesda, as well as how they say Bethesda is basically the evil Empire.
...
The document itself is 23 pages long, and I've gone through and highlighted the most relevant and interesting points. From what Interplay says, it seems that Bethesda opposed Interplay's first motion for court fee reimbursement, arguing basically the same things which the court struck down in the Preliminary Injunction hearing. For example, Bethesda said that Interplay did not deserve the fees because "Interplay had not secured any kind of financing for the [Fallout] MMOG...within the required two year period and its license automatically terminated." Interplay argues that not only had they already presented evidence of a financing arrangement that was made within the timeframe, but that the entire argument is without merit in this motion for attorneys' fees:
"In any event, Interplay's Motion is unrelated to Interplay's financing for the MMOG or Interplay's financial circumstances. The Motion is based solely on Interplay's successful defense of Bethesda's PI [Preliminary Injunction] Motion."
Read the rest over yonder at DAC.
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FO: New Vegas tidbits Game news - posted by VentilatorOfDoom
on Fri 05 March 2010, 18:04:00 More info on Fallout: New Vegas - More info on Obsidian Entertainment Ausir unearthed some more info on Obsidian Entertainments upcoming Elder Scrolls Mod.
Here's an excerpt:
We've already seen the (pretty bad) preview of Fallout: New Vegas from OXM UK. Fortunately, its US counterpart is much better written. Most of the info is old, but here's some new stuff:
* Character creation is virtually identical to Fallout 3, with cosmetic changes like the Gene Projector being replaced by ReflectionTM, "You're SPECIAL!" by Vit-o-Matic machine and GOAT by a psychological test
* The local super mutants are pretty tough and will keep you from wandering aimlessly in the early portions of the game - they tend to be tougher even than deathclaws
* Sunny Smiles' dog is named Cheyenne. They'll assist you with the Powder Gangers in the Ghost Town Firefight quest if you help her kill some geckos.
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Return to Krondor at GoG Game news - posted by VentilatorOfDoom
on Fri 05 March 2010, 11:06:21 This other Krondor game - what's its name - was allegedly pretty good, so this must be awesome too. You should buy it on GoG thus demonstrating your appreciation for proper oldschool RPGs. This game's not bad by the way.
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Alpha Protocol Footage Game news - posted by VentilatorOfDoom
on Fri 05 March 2010, 09:51:40 More info on Alpha Protocol - More info on Obsidian Entertainment Watch this Developer Diary Video of the soon to be released Alpha Protocol over yonder at Gambanshees.
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Divinity II Addon announced Game news - posted by VentilatorOfDoom
on Thu 04 March 2010, 14:46:48 More info on Divinity 2 - More info on Larian Studios Divinity II: Flames of Vengeance Addon has been officially announced.
I copy the pressrelease from RPGWatch, a site civil enough to receive press releases.
Hamburg/Germany, March 04th, 2010 – Aleroth, once a war-torn city, now holds the next challenges for computer role playing gamers. Rivellon, the world of Divinity II: Ego Draconis, is still not safe. In Divinity II: Flames of Vengeance, the game’s official add on, players must face the evil once more.
Soon they’ll recognize that many of the characters they met in the main game aren’t who they pretended to be. Divinity II: Flames of Vengeance continues where Divinity II: Ego Draconis left off. "In Flames of Vengeance, the player picks up the story of the Dragon knight and guides him to his ultimate destiny. Along the way several accounts are settled, and the answers to many questions in the Divinity universe revealed. We've also taken the opportunity to give the engine a solid overhaul, improving performance and graphics quality along the way", Swen Vincke, Creative Director and CEO of the development team Larian Studios, explains.
Divinity II: Flames of Vengeance, the official add on to Divinity II: Draconis, offers more than 30 quests and about 15 hours of gameplay.
dtp entertainment and Larian Studios will publish Divinity II: Flames of Vengeance for PC and on Xbox LIVE® Marketplace for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft in August 2010.
“Divinity II genuinely surprised me”, “1up.com” stated on Divinity II: Ego Draconis. “I had an absolute blast playing through Divinity 2: Ego Draconis”, said the reviewer of “Zeitgeist Game Reviews”. German magazine “GameStar” stated the game was “the RPG surprise of 2009 so far” and honored it with an award for special “quest quality”.
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BioDocs reveal how it's done right Interview - posted by VentilatorOfDoom
on Thu 04 March 2010, 14:40:10 Do you have any idea what it really takes to bring a huge game title to completion? What about two projects within a six month period? What about two incredibly deep, critically-acclaimed RPGs? What types of minds would be able to thrive in a high-pressure environment such as this?
If you don't know the answers, watch this and learn from the best.
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Should CRPGs try to emulate PnP Editorial - posted by VentilatorOfDoom
on Thu 04 March 2010, 10:30:22 ... asks Rampant Coyote.
So is it finally time for computer RPGs to bid their ancestral home goodbye, to quit trying to be a copy-of-a-poor-copy, let the niche hobby tabletop RPGs do what they do best, and evolve into something greater and different and more *cough*mainstream*cough*? A lot of noted game designers believe so. I probably shouldn't blame them if they do.
Clark Peterson, co-founder of Necromancer Games, once shared a story from GenCon when he and a bunch of friends from the industry were playing D&D. Some obvious fans of the World of Darkness series (by White Wolf) walked by his table, and began making loud, disparaging comments about the kinds of unenlightened, unsophisticated gamers would actually derive entertainment from such a poor, hack-and-slash game like D&D.
Little did these folks realize that the people at Clark's table were some of the very designers of the game system they held as superior. They just chuckled to themselves, kept right on playing, and had a blast.
I think that story may be analogous to how computer RPGs may be "evolving" away from their tabletop roots. Sure, hiding the stats, focusing on the immersiveness (back in the 90's it was referred to by the overly-grandiose term "virtual reality") and action may be a great way to go for many games, and may take good advantage of the strengths of the platform, as well as the experience and preferences of the development team. But is there really nothing left of the tabletop experience worthy of emulating in a computer RPG? Is there nothing else the dice-and-paper RPGs and cRPGs have to teach each other?
I don't think so.
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