The developers at Ndoors, the creators of Atlantica Online, have once again provided the ZAM staff with a fairly in-depth dev journal on one of their game’s playable mercenaries, the Prophet. Besides being quite striking, this Elven lass packs quite the punch with her bow as well. She’s a perfect complement to any melee-based front line, so if you’re a fan of Atlantica Online, or just want to get a glimpse of the gameplay in the MMO, make sure you keep on reading!

And if you’ve missed any of our Atlantica dev journals, you can read the entire assortment by clicking here!

Mythic Entertainment has announced an upcoming in-game event, Night of Murder, for its MMO Warhammer Online.

During this period, which runs from 10 to 17 February, players can gain event influence by completing quests and daily tome tasks. The ‘Marked For Death’ quests are given out by Witch Hunters and Witch Elves, who are located through the game in scenarios, warcamps and capital cities. Killing enemy players and NPCs will gain players the rewards of the Night of Murder event which include:

* Basic – Blessing (+10% xp/renown/damage/incoming healing) and lasts for 3 in-game days
* Advanced – Well-Mounted Skull (Places a pike next to the body of a fallen foe, topped with their head.)
* Elite – Khaine’s Caress (event-slot item with career specific stats)
* World Drop – Lobbin’ Noggin & Burning Blood Potion (e.g. Khaine’s Regard, the ring, no longer drops)

The great philosopher Plato once spoke about the marvel of a sunken island in his dialogues, Timaeus and Critias. He wrote of a majestic civilization that sank below the waves, taking with it many marvels of the ancient world. Well, that mystical city may be lost forever, but at Altis Gates (http://ag.igg.com), you will be reliving the glory of Atlantis once more.

Legend has it that the Atlantian palace was built upon pillars of gold and protected by walls made of lustrous platinum. What is left of these sparkles of the past now is a mere faded map in black and white.

This ancient spectacle will rise from the waves once more, in the land of Altis. Using tons of game gold, monstrous manpower, and requiring the grandiose ambition of Altis Gates’ GMs, this civilization will shine once more! With a thriving community already wandering the lands of Altis, and many more days left in the Closed Beta, it won’t be long before warriors once again set foot on the gilded streets of history’s greatest mystery!

Join us now and relive the glory of Atlantis, only in Altis Gates!

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantis

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Beginning tomorrow, Feb. 5, former Pirates of the Burning Sea players will get a month of free play time to return to the game and try out the new features that have been implemented since they left. The offer ends on March 5 and only applies to users who stopped playing between Jan. 22, 2008, and Jan. 15, 2010.

This offer comes after this week’s launch of build 1.22 and Flying Lab’s consolidation of players onto two servers. The other three realms will be shut down in five weeks to give players ample time to transfer their characters to the Antigua and Roberts servers.

It seems that February is “return for free month” for MMO players. As we reported, Sony Online Entertainment is inviting former Star Wars Galaxies players to return to the game for free this month to try out the Galactic Civil War update.

EVE Online developers have posted a new blog related to recent complaints of fleet lag since the last update. First off, devs want players to know, “We hear you!”. Find out more below:

Following the release of the Dominion expansion we started to get reports from players about an increase in “fleet lag.” Before we go any further, I would like to assure everyone that a taskforce of developers has been working on this continuously, but tracking down the source has proven a very difficult task.

 

So, what is the problem?

“Lag” is an ambiguous term and can refer to many things. The graphics in the client might be slowing it down, the network might be congested or a host of other issues may be coming into play. We have spent a long time trying to reproduce the issue on the test servers as well as monitoring fights as they have been unfolding on Tranquility, where we have received help from the players in the form of testing and bug reports. You might see names like “CCP Atlas”, “CCP GingerDude” and “CCP Warlock” poking about in Local. Don’t be alarmed, we are simply monitoring the node, looking for glitches. There are senior software engineers spending their evenings and weekends on Tranquility monitoring and measuring since we have not been able to see issues when testing because the sheer number of people required to trigger the problems and the specific ‘usage pattern’ of the game systems in question are outside what can currently be tested in the lab (although this is something that is being worked on).

What we are looking at now specifically is the fact that the performance of the sol nodes (the computers in the clusters handling the solar systems) appears to be worse than before. Even though CPU across the cluster has not increased with the Dominion expansion, each reinforced node is no longer able to handle the same number of people fighting as gracefully as it did before.

Lords Online (http://lo.igg.com) is IGG’s latest free to play strategy browser game. It encompasses the traditional RPG and SLG elements which allows players to control their heroes to explore and earn experience. This cultivation of heroes enables players to enjoy a fresh RPG experience never before found on other strategy games.

Players can randomly switch from the City Map to the World Map. Once on the World Map, players can independently control their heroes and explore their unique RPG features.

Monsters and Treasure Chests, Wild Collection Spots and players’ cities are all distributed randomly on the World Map. Monsters are respawned randomly and their level and quantity will be shown as stars, such as the 1-star Wolf and the 10-star Goblin King. The huge Goblin King is the most cruel monster in the entire land of Mu, but if defeated he gives up rich rewards. The Wild Collection Spot and the Treasure Chest are also both protected by strong monsters. Within the chest are piles of excellent equipment which, when used correctly, can make players more powerful. The Collection Spot is a special building in the wild. It requires players to send heroes with a collection tool to complete the quest. After the quest has been completed, players heroes will return to their city automatically. Players will receive some extra resources from the Wild Collection Spot, and abundant resource means powerful troops! Only people who have powerful heroes and troops can build powerful kingdoms and attack others or defend themselves from attack.

When heroes meet enemies on the world map they will enter the combat interface.  As a pioneer in visible combat, we’ve design the heroes in LO to be able to select  Thunder, Fire, Water and Earth Magic to attack their enemies. Heroes in LO are the most crucial part of an army, as they are the standard bearer on the font lines providing leadership and guidance to troops. If heroes master certain kinds of magic, it adds more power to the army and strengthens all the soldiers fighting abilities.

Although browser based games have taken knocks for being cheap, pale imitations of true online games, Lords Online strives to be the next generation in browser based gaming. By offering both the high quality graphics and the wide variety of features gamers have come to expect from online games, as well as the convenience of playing in your browser, Lords Online stands alone.

Lord Online will also be releasing a special Team-up Instance soon, so please stay tuned! There’s always something interesting to discover in Lord Online (http://lo.igg.com).

Battle Filed

Hero Adventure

Redwood City, Calif. – February 3, 2010 – Uforia, Inc., an online game publisher specializing in massively multiplayer online games, today announced that they will publish Camon Hero, a unique Trading Card MMORPG this spring.  Camon Hero offers card summoning and card creation systems, crafting, item dismantling, never-ending quests, unique PVP battles and much more. The game’s website can be found at: http://camonhero.uforia.com.

“We are excited about Camon Hero because it is such a unique addition to the Uforia portfolio,” said JK Kim, CEO of Uforia. “While there are many choices in the MMORPG category today, it is rare to find a game that can offer players a chance to experience a trading card game and MMORPG all in one.”

About Camon Hero

Camon Hero will provide players with a gameplay experience like no other MMORPG available today. In Camon Hero, players will journey through the land of Aria in order to save its citizens from the forces of darkness.  During the adventure players will come across mystical cards that grant them the ability to summon creatures and people to assist them in battle so they will not be alone on their dangerous quest.

Camon Hero is based on the ever-popular Trading Card Game genre and players familiar with that style of gameplay will find terminology and gameplay similarities in Camon Hero.  But this time the monsters are real and the action is in real-time!

Camon Hero has no fixed classes so gamers can customize their character’s stats so they can wield both magic and melee weapons or be a purist and focus solely on magic.  Like a good trading card game, Camon Hero gives the player the option to customize and create their own gameplay style!  The knowledge and power to perform skills is also bound to cards so that the possibilities in combat become endless.  Deciding what cards to include in their summon hand and managing their Stack Cooldown Times will help them maintain control of the field.

Camon Hero features both PvE field combat and instanced mission based combat!  Giant Bosses will test the skills of players, their friends and their decks! And what would a TGC MMORPG be without numerous PvP modes so players can test their deck against other Camon Heroes!

For more information about Camon Hero, including registering an account and learning more about the game visit:  http://camonhero.uforia.com/.

About Uforia, Inc.

Uforia, Inc. is an online game publisher specializing in massively multiplayer online games and integrated marketing solutions to provide English speaking gamers worldwide with the best online experience possible. Headquartered in the heart of Silicon Valley, Uforia also has members based in Seoul, Korea who work directly with leading game development studios. In order to provide excellent 24-hour customer service, Uforia utilizes industry experienced Customer Service agents based in the Silicon Valley.  For more information about Uforia, please visit www.uforia.com

With the recent release of Wonderland Online’s (http://wl.igg.com) new version 5.0, a brand new map was added for players to explore. This new map – Rome, allows players to explore the amazing architecture and culture of Ancient Rome. Within this new map are many secrets waiting to be discovered, including one of the most interesting quests Wonderland has offered to date – Golden Treasure.

No doubt the name alone would be reason enough to give this quest a try, but it’s the unpredictability that keeps bringing players back for more. Once players walk through the cave entrance, they will be placed at the beginning of a randomly generated maze that will be different every time you walk through the front door. Once inside, there is no other choice but to attempt to navigate your way through, as even the entrance will be removed. Solve the puzzle and players will be rewarded with some amazing treasure – if they don’t go mad in the twisting tunnels!

When looking for inspiration, the Wonderland design team said they had studied a popular game from the Renaissance game The Wonderland Online team said that this quest was inspired by an interesting game from the Renaissance. Can you guess?

Tips for Passing Golden Treasure Quest
Theoretically, with the proper strategy, challengers have a good chance of completing the quest. Challenging the twists and turns will always prove difficult, but the WLO team came up with this strategy: when you come to a crossing, turn to the left first and then go up (turn right), at the next crossing turn left 3 times, and then up again. They say that this strategy has had the best success in finding the Golden Treasure – but they do admit that a few of their testers are still wandering around out there somewhere, so it’s not guaranteed. What they know for sure is that, whether you find the treasure or not, you’re definitely going to have some fun!
For more information, please visit the official site http://wl.igg.com/main.php

Whirring rotor blades, firefights and bonafide helicopter action – welcome to the world of Hellblades (http://www.bigpoint.com/games/hellblades), the first Flash-based massively-multiplayer helicopter action game. In Bigpoint GmbH’s latest browser game, the player pilots one of ten lifelike helicopters. Whether by land, sea or air, the game provides exciting duels with real opponents and an intelligent enemy AI. Only the top fighter aces will be fit enough to win all these aircraft.

In battle, the player will need to have strategic finesse to beat his opponents with skillful playing techniques. A comprehensive tutorial provides for an easy game start before the player is sent on one of the 30 exciting and diverse missions. The whole game can be played against the computer in PvE mode or against thousands of real-life players in PvP mode.

Action-packed combat helicopter battles
At the start of the game, the player is confronted in six worlds with a total of 24 different computer-controlled opponents. Thanks to continuous content updates, Hellblades is always good for a surprise with new opponents, new aircraft, new objects, new missions and even new worlds.

Hellblades is designed to stay exciting over the long run: With every level-up, the player is given access to new worlds. Each world awaits the player with a detailed environment, new missions and completely new opponents. Hellblades also offers a wide variety of sophisticated weather phenomena which directly influence the course of the game. In this way, there are always new game situations to master.

Improve, modify, individualize
There are multiple upgrade possibilities available which are also visible on the helicopter right in the game. That way, each player can create his/her own individual combat helicopter. Hellblades offers a total of eleven weapons which develop dynamically along with the player’s success in the game.

Additional online links:

- http://www.bigpoint.net
- http://www.bigpoint.com
- http://www.bigpoint.com/games/hellblades

About Bigpoint
Bigpoint is a publisher of online games, a content provider for large media concerns and a developer of browser-based games. Their portfolio of games has achieved the high level of quality which is usually associated with CDs or consoles. More than 300 employees from over 35 different nations work together at the international headquarters in Hamburg-Eppendorf, Germany. The games developed here are available in 20+ languages and provide more than 100 million gamers from Europe to America and beyond with first-class entertainment for free, without the hassle of having to download or install any additional software.

Bigpoint has pocketed such prestigious honors as the Eco Award “Best Content Provider” 2009, the international Business Award Stevie 2009, the Ruban d’Honneur at the European Business Awards 2009, the Red Herring 100 Europe, the OnlineStar for the most popular website in Germany, and the MTV Skyscraper Award for extraordinary achievement in game development. Such impressive recognition confirms Bigpoint’s sensational success just as convincingly as its dramatic growth rate of well over 4,094.06% within the last four years of its existence. Thanks to this extraordinary performance, the Hamburg-based company secured third place for the coveted Deloitte Technology Fast 50 award. In addition, company founder and CEO Heiko Hubertz was honored as the Internet Entrepreneur of the Year 2007. For further information about Bigpoint and its games, please stop by at http://www.bigpoint.net.