Jim Moreno shares his list of the five most crucial tools for any MMORPG to support roleplaying.
AC2_ACCMTY
AC2 News From ACCMTY
Asheron's Call players and developers are happily celebrating ten great years! Turbine has released several new screenshots and a celebratory note! Read on!
Jim Moreno finishes his look at how to RP using magic with some handy links from around the web.
Turbine's October event, which marks their 10th anniversary, goes live on Tuesday, October 27th. The event, titled "Gears of Change" comes with some serious updates to the game. A newly added skill, Gearcrafting, has even had a guide published by Turbine. They've also been publishing new artwork in the form of wallpapers for this event. Finally, the 'create a video' contest is still going. You can find the details here.
A dear friend of mine and a staple of life in the Asheron's Call community, especially on the Harvestgain server has taken ill of which the outcome is bleak.
Bleys Icefalcon has posted the following information over on Vault forums about an in-game event to salute and honor Same T'ing in a style that Turbine promises all will remember him by.
What I am about to share, is with Same T'ing's permission.
Many of you know Same T'ing. He's been a staple of life in Dereth, on Harvestgain since the game's early days. A steady quester, a helping hand, quick to share advice or a joke, or the shirt off his back - more recently he's been a solid and reliable Buff Bot, open to all to use, in Yaraq.
Approximately two weeks ago, we learned some terrible news. Without going into too much detail, Same is gravely ill. So much so, that his prognosis is very bleak - and he may not be with us much longer. But - he is a fighter, and as such, if he's going down, it'll be swinging and cursing the whole way - this said he's having a tough time of it now.
Go Go Kali, myself and a few others have been in contact with Turbine, and they are doing something special for Same - they are keeping mum about it, even to those of us that have been working closely with them - all I can say, is it will be a big surprise (as that's all they've shared with us).
This mystery Live Event is scheduled to happen at 4:00 PM Eastern, on the 27th of this month. We will be assembling inside the Meeting Hall in Yaraq at 3:30 PM.
All are welcome to attend.
For more information head over to the IGN Vault Forums
In this week's RoleCraft, Jim Moreno looks at the actual act of casting the spell itself.
In this week's RoleCraft, we'll look at how a spellcaster puts their magic to good use in the world of roleplay.
Turbine's been releasing little tidbits here and there about some things coming in the update that will mark the game's 10th anniversary. So far, we have:
- Two Handed Weapons
- New Augmentations
- Trinkets
- New Gearcrafting Skill
- Temples of Forgetfulness and Enlightenment resets
You can find details behind these after the click!
This week in RoleCraft, we look at how players can work the mystical arts of magic into their RP.
Asheron's Call players will have the opportunity to participate in the "Cogs In the Machine" event on September 22, 2009. Check out our exclusive image after the jump.
Jim Moreno looks at how roleplayers can create a character who is in the military.
Felicia Day's MMOG-focused comedy series is great at getting laughs, but can it also teach us things about roleplaying in online worlds?
Turbine announced that the next update for Asheron's Call, titled "Reclamation", is scheduled to go live August 20th. In addition, they sent over a very interesting teaser image. Click the thumbnail to check it out!
A collection of the finest RP links from around the Internet.
Morale is a very real aspect of warfare. Historical battles are as often won through moral superiority as physical strength. Rules that account for morale loss (and less frequently, morale gain) are very common in military computer, miniature, and board games yet have been largely neglected for games where a player controls a single avatar.
Turbine announced the name of the next monthly update for Asheron's Call: Picking up the Pieces. The event is scheduled to go live July 23. Along with the news, they sent over a very interesting screenshot for WarCry viewers. You can check it out here!
As long as player action sequences are the driving force behind special maneuvers, MMOs will be nothing but a numbers game. The key to break this cycle is to focus on responses to the enemy's actions.
Turbine announced the downtime for Asheron's Call June event, as well as published the release notes. You can find the release notes here. It'll give you something to read during the downtime:
On Tuesday June 30th all worlds will be down from 7am - 12pm Eastern for the June Event, Old Ghosts.
Turbine sent over a teaser image for the June event for Asheron's Call. The event is scheduled to kick off Tuesday, June 30th, and is titled "Old Ghosts". They haven't published the release notes just yet, but from various forum posts, there look to be several interesting changes this month!
How much of an MMO is button smashing and how much involves actual skill? This installment is an investigation of how armor choices and shield employment can yield more combat decisions.
Turbine made an interesting offer recently, regarding Asheron's Call:
So as most everyone here knows by now, Asheron's Call has had a private test server for quite some time now that we use to help us get a gauge on upcoming content that we will be releasing each month. For the entirety of its existence, the players who were/are part of this server were picked by the various teams that ran Asheron's Call. With the upcoming 10th Anniversary of our beloved game fast approaching, we want to make sure we release the best possible product to our customers.
You can read the entire announcement after the click!
I like stats as much as the next person (probably more), but when warfare is boiled down to raw probabilities, battlefield skill disappears. The building of the best stat base becomes much more important than any sort of tactical competency. Instead of seeking a skill based work-around, games come up with new statistical probabilities.
Turbine let us know that their games will be down for part of Monday:
On Monday 5/18/09 all worlds, Authentication and myaccount.turbine.com will be down from 7am -12pm EST for maintenance. We thank you for your patience.
Better scheduled maintenance, than unscheduled, eh?
Turbine's scheduled the next free content update for Asheron's Call subscribers for May 19th. The event is titled "Secrets of the Apostates", and as part, they've shared an exclusive teaser image for it. You can see it and read the release notes after the jump!
Turbine announced today the results of their investigation into players who were exploiting a game bug.
As a result of this new logging, we have a record of everyone who abused this exploit.
You can read the entire announcement, including who's getting banned and when, after the jump. If you dare, you can follow the feedback on the official site, here.
In this installment, Jonathan Steinhauer looks at the last MMO class archetypes, the Healer, and why this role at least is solidly developed.
Turbine posted a short video peek at some interesting things coming as part of the 10th Anniversary event.
So everyone has been wondering what is coming for the 10th Anniversary of Asheron's Call. After talking with the team I convinced them to let me give everyone a sneak peek at just one of the things we have in store for our special event.
Check out this video!
Turbine let us know that their games, forums, and support systems will be down for a time on Monday:
On Monday, May 4th all Turbine services will be down from 7AM - 12PM EST. During this time players will not be able to login or play our games, and forums/websites will have intermittent service.
Probably a good time to get some yard work done!
Turbine's published the release notes for the April event for Asheron's Call, which kicks off this coming Tuesday. You can read the entire list after the click.
Turbine's sent over a teaser screenshot for this month's even in Asheron's Call. The event, titled "What Once Was Lost" is scheduled to go live on April 28th. Click the icon to the left for a full screen image of the teaser!
The archetypal concept of the tank assumes that PvE opponents have the mental capacity of cattle. Instead of a monster intelligently attacking what would make his enemy most vulnerable (the Healer) or what is the greatest actual threat (the DPS), it attacks the one opponent that isthe smallest real threat and the hardest to kill: the Rodeo Clown... er Tank.
In this week's RoleCraft, Jim Moreno looks at the issue of player housing in MMOGs and how it can shape one's roleplay experience.
Turbine let us know that they're back to regularly scheduled maintenance with their games:
On Monday April 06, all Turbine services will be offline for maintenance from 7am EST - 12pm EST. During this time all game servers, myaccount.turbine.com, game websites and forums will be offline for maintenance.
Hopefully, this will be simple maintenance, and not cause more outages!
Dungeons & Dragons Online and Asheron's Call players will be compensated in big ways due to downtime incurred with the recent datacenter move. Subscriptions will be extended by a day as well as some nifty in-game bonuses. Find out what to expect by clicking below.
Starting a new series on the archetypal MMO classes, Jonathan Steinhauer begins by looking at DPS and the issue of hitting versus damaging.
