Warhammer Online Reduced To A CTF Match

Castrum - Sad to see such a great IP brought so low by mediocre developers (Mythic) and the tyranny of WoW:

I played WAR a few years back, and the game had absolutely beautiful graphics and main cities, as well as several features Blizzard blatantly ripped-off and passed-off as their own in WoW (Tome of Knowledge/Archaeology comes to mind). I just wish it hadn't come to this.

http://kotaku.com/5831286/warhammer-online-wrath-of-heroes-is-a-new-6v6v6-game-free-to-pc-this-fall/gallery/1

Age Of Empires Returns To Form

Castrum - Kotaku's done a great preview of Age Of Empires Online, the new Free-To-Play AoE game: 

While the basic mechanics of Age of Empires Online is fairly reminiscent of previous versions of the game, the overall approach to the game has a component of persistence that changes everything. 

The game's new core is built around a persistent city that is home to both the game's many quest givers and the decorative spoils of war, but also things that allow you to permanently shape and augment your armies. 

... 

The capital is built up by unlocking blueprints for new buildings. These buildings allow you to do things that provide permanent bonuses to your armies, and even new units. It's also where, as you level up through quests, that you will build out your tech tree using earned points. The tech tree does things like giving a bonus to your walls, or making your spearmen a bit more dangerous. Once activated, these all come into play every time you do a quest. There are also advisers that you can assign to your civilization that offer massive bonuses. One, for instance, gives all of my soldiers the ability to slowly heal over time without a priestess.

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The gameplay, what Age of Empires players will know and love, is all built around competitive matches and quests. I've spent an enormous amount of time playing through the quests. Each is assigned by different folks in your town and they range from traditional, beat-the-bad-guys matches to survival, to having to find missing units and save them. When you drop into a quest it's like dropping into a level in an old Age of Empires game, but with a significant difference. Your overall level, the one tied to your capital, impacts what you have access to. Early on it means very limited troop selection. By level nine I was able to make camel riders, slingers, axe and spear men, as well as a priestess for healing and a defensive tower, walls and gates.

I got in on the Beta for this, but never bothered to try it out. I may just have to give it a spin sometime soon.

http://kotaku.com/5830262/why-you-need-to-play-age-of-empires-online-and-believe-my-lies

Free-To-Play = The Future

Castrum - Now that the Age of WoW has come and gone, it seems Western developers are waking up to the reality of lucrative microtransactions and removing barriers to entry in their MMOs (and other assorted genres):

Wondering why going "free to play" is so trendy right now? Consider MMO Age of Conan. In May, it launched a F2P version. It's since doubled its revenues and increased subscriber numbers.

While this can lead to serious two-tier systems of gameplay, personally I welcome F2P. I'm so sick of paying $50+ for an MMO just to see it suck, lose subscribers en masse, and/or shut down a few months (or years) after launch.

If anyone's looking for a decent action-oriented MMO that's F2P, City of Heroes is going F2P later this year. I've put in about 6 years of time and money into the game already, and I still find it vastly different compared to other MMOs out there: http://na.cityofheroes.com/en/news/freedom/freedom_overview.php

http://kotaku.com/5829868/this-is-why-games-are-going-free-to-play