Warhammer Online developers will be running another “Weekend Warfront” event from March 5-8, 2010. This time, the event will take place in the High Pass Cemetery. Grab the details below:

 

 

WAAAAGH!!!

 The details for the EVE Online Alliance Tournament VIII have emerged on the official site. The blog post goes over some of the rules changes since Tournament VII. Read more below:

Along with this blog release comes the latest update to the Alliance Tournament section of the site. Cast your eyes a little bit to the left, and a little bit downwards; almost…almost…there we go! Both the rules and the format sections have been updated, so I’d like to explain some of the thought processes behind these updates.

 

Turbine has released the latest update to Lord of the Rings Online. Called “Oath of the Rangers”, the update adds more skirmishes and adds to the overarching plot with Allies of the King. Find out what else is new and check out several new screens

TURBINE RELEASES VOLUME III, BOOK 1: Oath of the Rangers

Next Major Update Goes Live for Subscribers of The Lord of the Rings Online

WESTWOOD, MA – March 1, 2010- Turbine, Inc. announced today the release the newest Volume in the epic story of The Lord of the Rings Online™ (LOTRO). Volume III: Allies of the King begins a new adventure for subscribers of LOTRO who can now experience Book 1: Oath of the Rangers, the latest of Turbine’s frequent and substantial updates to the award-winning MMORPG. Book 1 builds on the success of the critically acclaimed Skirmish system with the introduction of Duo Mode and four new 12-player Skirmishes, new high-level skills and recipes and the Spring Festival. Book 1: Oath of the Rangers is now available to subscribers of The Lord of the Rings Online.

“2009 was another outstanding year for LOTRO with Siege of Mirkwood earning us another game of the year award while driving solid growth in the population of Middle-earth,” said Aaron Campbell, Live Producer of The Lord of the Rings Online. “Today we continue our journey with the introduction of the third volume of our award-winning story and the addition of new epic battles as we expand our popular Skirmish system. There has never been a better time to play LOTRO!”

Turbine has released six new screenshots from the upcoming Lord of the Rings Online content addition, Oath of the Rangers. The screens come from a skirmish deep within the Mirkwood. Check ‘em out!

Turbine released a half dozen screenshots for the upcoming Volume III: Allies of the King, Book 1: Oath of the Rangers content update for The Lord of the Rings Online. In Book 1, the War continues to rage in the North and the story continues for players.

For more information about Book 1, head to the official Oath of the Rangers site.

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.

Guild Battles

Eased the restrictions for participating in Guild Battles:

* Ladder Play
o Requires 2 guild members.
o A guild member must be the party leader, and at least one guild officer must be in the party.
o Henchmen are restricted to a maximum of 4.

* Daily Automated Tournaments
o Requires 2 guild members who have been in your guild for at least 7 days.
o A guild member must be the party leader, and at least one guild officer must be in the party.
o Henchmen are restricted to a maximum of 4.
o All party members must be registered with Tolkano.

EVE Online players are spoiled by a dedicated development team. The bunch charged with making *cues Godlike voice* AWESOME planets is no exception. Find out how it’s done! 

 

The scrum team responsible for the updated planet graphics in Dominion was Team Oli Dan. Here we will explain how the planets came into existence; but the team also redid the star field background, created sovereignty structures, fighter bombers, and factional ships.

We have several types of planets in EVE: Gas giants, Temperate (Earthlike), Barren, Ocean, Storm, Ice and Lava. In addition we have moons, which from a programmer’s perspective are also planets. A new type was added in Dominion, the mysterious Plasma planets.

In order to make an omelet you have to break some eggs

Height maps

Almost all the shaders use a height map at its base and this texture determines much of the surface features. It is generated by blending two textures together to get variations. The textures are grayscale and square, but they are combined with different scale and position. Our artists created different types of height maps for the different worlds we were creating. For instance, the Ice planet textures are very cracked and craggy, while the Temperate planet textures are based on height maps of Earth.

Guild Wars players are now participating in the annual Wintersday Festival. The festival comes complete with snowball fights, special rewards, new quests and more. Keep reading!

 

Can you feel that crisp chill in the air? It’s that time of year when the cities of Tyria shine like beacons with festive decor, and the gods Dwayna and Grenth fight over who will control the weather during the coming months. Holiday vendors sell seasonal treats, and the air is full of snowballs and the sound of laughter. Wintersday is almost here!

The towns of Lion’s Arch, Droknar’s Forge, Ascalon City, Kamadan, and the Eye of the North will be decked out in Wintersday decorations. Visitors to Lion’s Arch, Kamadan, and the Eye of the North will be invited to participate in holiday quests, missions, and games, all with their own rewards.

 

And here’s what makes it unique: It has it’s own special probe launcher (for wormholes) and Sleeper NPC’s won’t shoot it in the same way that all NPCs won’t shoot pods. While flying the Zephyr is as easy as a shuttle, using the launcher will require some core probes and training of the skill Astrometrics to level 1. You can find both on the market or get the Astrometrics skill book by doing EVE Online: Dominion’s new exploration tutorial.

Beginning Dec 18th 2009, you will find the ability to redeem it on your account login screen. You can then assign it to a particular character and the Intaki Syndicate will deliver it to your hangar bay. You will be able to redeem the holiday ship once per active (not trial) account and will no longer be available after Jan 6th 2010, so make sure you log in to receive yours.

Read more about the Zephyr at the link above.