Weekly MMO news round-up: WAR's Night of Murder, Darkfall pre-orders, Spellborn's patch
Sure, the more important MMO stories gets their own pieces during the week, but what about all games that aren't World of Warcraft? Where does that leave them? Here in our MMO news round-up, obviously.
So much happens on a daily basis in the world of MMOs that we thought we'd put as much as we can in one lovely Saturday post. Saves snowing you with the smaller stuff all week that way.
Full thing after the break.
- This week Warhammer Online players have been immersed in the Night of Murder event that started on February 6, but if you've not logged into the game in a while you better hurry. Event ends tomorrow, so today is the last chance to get the Shadowbane Potion and the Murderous title that comes with it. A hot fix has also been applied to the game which addresses many different issues, one of which has monsters in the Empire starting area not fighting back.
- Funcom announced an Age of Conan Advocate Program this week, to improve player feedback communication on classes and game systems. Currently, the company's looking for volunteers who "communicate the specific class or game system concerns from the player base to the dev-team and who are active on the forums with discussing the ins and outs of their class or game system." Sound interesting to you? Get involved.
- The Pirates of the Burning Sea has a new dev diary posted, explaining an added Brawling system not present at launch. What's a pirate game without a bit of brawling? A non-pirate game, that's what.
- Darkfall will be hitting Europe February 25, but only a limited number of pre-order and launch copies will be available so as not to destroy the game's current infrastructure. Better to be late to the party than to have the servers crash when you log in, ya know? North Americans looking forward to this game will just have to continue to be patient.
- Gamers involved in the suddenly popular Chronicles of Spellborn got a second patch this week, named Scroll of the Second Path. Thanks to the update, players will now find wandering unique bosses, called Menaces, in each region of the Shards. Wanted Posters now give quests to players to hunt down these humanoid and animal menaces. Defeating a boss is rewarded with tons of fame points. Patch notes can be found through the link.
- MMOzone has a new Q&A up with Jumpgate Evolution's devs. As a note, you can still sign up for the beta.
- Another update released this week for Cronous in the form of Episode 4, a continuation of the Ice Queen story. In Episode 3, all hell broke loose when the Ice Queen lost her son, Prince Berkiel. In this update, General Seo Kan, a loyal servant of Ice Queen, sets out to find the lost prince. The update offers new five-floor dungeon, a new zone, new sets of monsters and a boss quest. Players will have to clear the series of quests from Episode 3 in order to arrive at new zones Arcadia and Mon Laboness dungeon.
- Still play Eudemons Online? Well, Happy Valentine's Day to you: the offline event EuDate is available now. A platform has been set up for you to communicate with other players and share your love story with other couples. Single? You may just get a date while you are at it. The event started on February 12 and runs through February 28. There is also a new patch available here.
- Seven year-old Anarchy Online saw a Legacy of Xan booster announced this week. According to an interview with game director Colin Cragg over on MMORPG, the content is for higher level players and "adds significant end game challenges to explore and defeat, both solo and in organized teams". The update will have three different payment options which can be viewed in the interview.
- Frogster is giving all loyal Runes of Magic players Diamonds. On every server, players that have at least one level 10 character will get a gem to spend on items available in the game's Item Shop. To make this more attractive, Frogster lowered the prices of several top-selling items for the weekend, saving their players up to 66 percent per item. For the duration of this special offer, a permanent horse is available for 150 Diamonds instead of the usual 299 Diamonds.
- KingsIsle Entertainment announced that over 1 million unique users have registered to play the 3D virtual world Wizard101, just five months after its launch in September 2008. The company is marking this milestone by rewarding the millionth registered player with a free one year subscription to the game, and a statue with an interactive commemorative plaque featuring the Wizard's name has been placed in the Wizard City Commons. As a special "thank you," all current and future players will receive 101 free Crowns automatically in their account. Crowns are used to purchase game areas and unique items. Several new items that cost less than 101 Crowns have been added to Wizard101 including a limited time commemorative Storm Beetle pet.
- And finally, Lizard Interactive’s popular free-to-play MMORPG Sho Online will be giving away cyber-chocolates this Valentine’s. This special treat will raise all skills by 5 percent, attack will be increased by 50 points, Defense by 5,000 points, Health by 10 percent, and Fire Resistance by 300 points. The chocolate has a cool time of 5 minutes and it is dropped randomly in all over he game until February 19, 2009. So eat as much as you can.
That's it for this week. Phew.