Like many thousands of others, I cleared a large swath of hard drive
space and spent a few hours downloading the 14 gigabyte open beta
client for 10 fabulous days of Age of Conan (AOC). Through no fault of
FUNCOM I only managed to get into game on 6 of those 10 days, but
here's my first impression anyhow.
Today the creators of City of Heroes, Cryptic Studios, announced their next project: Champions Online. Champions Online is based on the Champions paper and pencil RPG originally published in 1981 by HERO Games.
According to the HERO Games (creators of Champions and the HERO System rules), Cryptic has purchased both Champions and Dark Champions IP.
Click 'Read the full story...' for the press release.
Way back in 1999, ATi released the Rage Fury MAXX. It used two Rage 128 Pro cores (each running at a whopping 125mhz) and 64mb of SDR SDRAM, and it was the first retail graphics card to incorporate two cores on one printed circuit board. Now, over 8 years later ATi has launched another dual GPU graphics card; The Radeon HD 3870 X2.
Below is a list of websites who have put the 3870 X2 through its paces to find out whether two cores are better than one:
On January 7th, Wizards of the Coast held a courtesy call with the 3rd
party publishers who had expressed close interest in gaining advance
access to the 4e rules.
With the current disappointment in how budget gaming cards such as the GeForce 8600GTS and Radeon HD 2600XT handle today's games, I've personally been waiting for two cards to arrive; the GeForce 8800GT and the Radeon HD 38x0.
Today nVidia's GeForce 8800GT comes to market and as the reviews show the 512mb version packs a major punch for its $249 msrp. Not only has the number of shader processors been increased over the 8800GTS, but it has increased texture addressing as well. Below is a collection of reviews around the web, and in one fell swoop nVidia has kicked its own GeForce 8800GTS out of the graces of budget gaming enthusiasts, replacing it with the GeForce 8800GT.
SEATTLE -- We all remember Mark Jacob's infamous quote: "All stealthers
are griefers." His words are a dagger that twists in the heart of any
rogue who has roleplayed one since they were old enough to pick up a
Dungeons and Dragons manual.
Jacobs, the GM/VP of EA Mythic, headed up Dark Age of Camelot, a
three-realm, player-verses-player game which included archer and assassin stealth classes. Now that EA Mythic has moved on to its next
project, rogues at The Safehouse wonder, will there be a place for us
in the Empire?
CCP has announced that Tranquility will undergo an extended downtime on Tuesday, August 28th between 1100 and 1430 GMT for game update "Revelations 2.2".
At Comic-Con International I got a few minutes for a photo op and questions with Bryan Konietzko, co-creator and executive producer of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Bryan
has also worked as a character designer for Family Guy,
as Assistant Director for Mission Hill and King
of the Hill; and was a Storyboard Artist and then Art Director for Invader Zim.
The Safehouse got a special invite to attend the Tomy Comic-Con party at the Rock Bottom Brewery to party and see a preview of their Wii game Dragon Blade: Wrath of Fire. I accepted (really the free food and drink after a hard day at the Convention Center had nothing to do with it!).
Comic-Con Is Big. How big? Really big. For the first time in
its existence, Comic-Con was completely sold out. Not just the 4 Day Passes,
but the individual day passes as well. Considering that the main exhibit hall
of the San Diego Convention
center is 1,500,000 square feet this is no small accomplishment.
Each year Comic-Con has been growing in attendance. Freaks and Geeks just keep coming in droves. This
geek went of course. I also enlisted the help of fellow Safehousers, Nymm and
More to help with Comic-Con coverage.
Hasium announced yesterday the details of the upcoming server merge.
Hey Everyone,
It’s long past time for an updated server merge post. We are still feverishly working on getting the backend work done. We have done several internal tests merging empty servers and are satisfied with the results now. Next up are the internal tests merging servers with characters on them. I realize this is taking longer than I had thought originally and the community was expecting. Do I dare give an ETA? I can say we have at least two weeks of work and testing to be done still. We are doing our best to get it done as soon as possible, but we only have one shot at so it needs to be right...
Today NCsoft made this announcement on the Auto Assault website:
NOTICE: Today NCsoft is announcing that it will be closing down service for Auto Assault at the end of the summer. The service will close at midnight on August 31, 2007. As of today, any player currently in the service with an active billed account will not be billed again. If players have previously purchased time via multi-month billing or time cards that extends their service past July 31, NCsoft will reconcile these accounts appropriately. There will be more announcements coming soon regarding the shut down of Auto Assault and its impact on current accounts. Please check back at www.autoassault.com for more information.
Over a month ago AMD launched the Radeon HD 2900XT, their first high end Dx10 graphics card. Today reviews of the low end Radeon HD 2400 and 2600 series have hit the internet.
AMD is pricing the cards quite low, with AnandTech's review stating up to $150usd for the Radeon HD 2600XT, and as low as $50 for the Radeon HD 2400 Pro, but they still have to offer some sort of value versus other cards (including the older Radeon X1k and GeForce 7 series) in their respective price ranges.
The long awaited Pirates of the Burning Sea being developed by Flying Lab Software is slated to be managed by Sony Online Entertainment via their Platform Publishing partnership (similar to the original arrangement with Sigil and Vanguard: Saga of Heroes).
Unless you have been living under a rock, you have recently learned that Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) has acquired Sigil Games Online (SGO) and its assets for Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. As a result, SOE is dissolving the established Vanguard Affiliate program and have opened official forums to centralize the community of active subscribers and developers. Their intent is to give credence to all fan sites making an effort to promote the game. As Alan Crosby (Brenlo), SOE Director of Community Relations, states in a recent post:
…We will put up a list of fan sites but it will not be "An official" list. We are not going to recognize any one fan site over another. This is how we treat our fan sites on all of our titles. Now we may not offer exclusives, dev posts, or even link to sites that are filled with frothing hate or anger but neither will enforce any standards beyond that. We realize that each community is different and each will have its own flavor and style…
Rumors confirmed. Announcement from SOE's John Smedley.
Hello Everyone,
Today I would like to
formally announce that SOE has acquired the assets of Sigil Games
Online, including Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. As a part of this
acquisition, we are bringing on approx 50 people from Sigil in order to
insure that Vanguard continues to grow.
Fricka reports on the inaugural E for All convention with show highlights and a look at the event overall. 
Comic-Con International 2007
