Mythic Entertainment | Warhammer Online

The countdown has officially begun. Mark your calendars! September 18th is the Day of Reckoning.

All I can say is “w00t”!

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here. Not for a lack of want, but more of time.  You see, a lot has happened since the release of Age of Conan.  Our guild has moved forward on many fronts, especially as it comes to planning an expansion into the world of Hyboria and that of Warhammer.

Now the time for WAR is fast approaching, as well as the expansions for WoW and LOTRO.  Let the good times roll! Now THIS is time well wasted.

Gamespot.com hosted an Age of Conan : Hyborian Adventures PvP weekend, where 20,000 lucky Gamespot.com members were given a weekend key to access the PvP beta of the long awaited and highly anticipated MMO from the folks at Funcom (Anarchy Online). The event featured small PvE part (5 levels) to familiarize yourself with the game and its interface and then an instant boost to level 20, where PvP mini-games were available for all to enjoy and test. As you can all attest, I am not breaking any NDA here. Read more

Seems like I’ve been out of the loop and that Star Trek Online might have a new home at (rumored) Cryptic Studios.  The once dead home page of Star Trek Online now has the words “COMING SOON” at the bottom of the page.  Sounds like there is still hope for trekkies world-wide.

Cryptic Studios is best known for their work on City of Heroes/Villains, which is now wholly owned by NCSoft.  They are currently working on a new similar title, Champions Online.

Well, it seems like the folks @ Mythic have decided to delay their upcoming MMO Warhammer Online to make sure the game is more polished for release. I, for one, am happy with the decision that Mythic has made and appreciate the fact that it is a tough decision to make.

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Looks like the code monkeys at Turbine are hard at work:

BIRMINGHAM, UK - March 14, 2008 - Turbine, Inc. and Codemasters Online today unveiled Volume II of The Lord of the Rings Online^TM, the first retail expansion for the award-winning massively multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG). Announced in Birmingham, the childhood home of J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings Online^TM: Mines of Moria^TM will expand the online world of Middle-earth to let players explore the ancient underground cities of the dwarves, battle epic characters in the depths, face off with the Watcher, be a part of the fateful release of Durin’s Bane and more! The Lord of the Rings Online expects to open Volume II of its epic story in the fall of 2008 with an increased level cap, two new classes and the introduction of a unique item advancement system. Read the official announcement here.

Well, the new year has been quite busy and time consuming for me. The latest addition to our family arrived on the 4th; Erika-Marie was born with no complications and was quite the site to see out of our blood-shot eyes. With fatigue, of course, came a compromised immune system and the flu. So the past 2 and a half weeks have been dedicated to lack of sleep, baby feedings, diapers changes and the containment of infected bodily fluids.

This month is a slow month for me. But I have had a few ides pop into my head in my drugged stupor. I hope they will see the light of day.

Here’s what’s new:

• I’m still waiting for some beta invites
• Age of Conan realease date gets pushed back 8 weeks
• Barbershops and boutiques are on their way to Middle-Earth
• Star Trek Online’s front page is devoid of access to the rest of the site, after P2 Entertainment is laid off of development duties for the title.
• The Burning Crusade celebrates its first birthday
• Pirates of the Burning Sea released on January 22, 2008
• Star Gate Worlds Online gets a new front page and is interviewed by IGN

That’s about it for now. As I come accross more interesting things, I’ll make sure to post them. Until then, I will be thoroughly enjoying my flu.

Firedorn

When you get your new online game, you really just want to install it and play. Some, actually look at the instructions and notice you are asked to open a slew of ports. Others just try to connect and find that it fails. Each may lead to the step of searching how you open these ports or why you need to.

The newer type of online games want to provide rich features to the user base. They like to push automatic updates to you, provide news through a game management client, in-game advertisement, monitor your PC while playing and report this information back, etc… Still, all of these should be outbound connections and shouldn’t require you to open a single port inbound (unless you are hosting a game or running a server).

I believe the following are possible problems when a game asks you to open up several inbound ports:

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Some of you may have heard of the book, Exploiting Online Games by Greg Hogluhd and Gary McGraw, which is a modern day look at the security of MMO’s.

If you haven’t been paying attention, you may not have noticed that the virtual items in online games are producing real currency. For some who realize this, they have taken an aggressive and efficient approach to obtaining the virtual items needed to make cash through the use of bots or other tools. Others use phishing attacks, malware, trojans, keyloggers, and more to obtain access to your account and then steal all of your items which you have worked so hard for.

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Anyone interested in trying out this really fun game can go now to MMORPG.com and with your free account, have access to a 3 day free trial of the game. I suggest you do, since you don’t have much to lose.

Check it out here.

It seems like the gnomes at Blizzard have once again packed together a bunch of features and disguised it as yet another patch. These are probably exciting times for many of Azeroth’s denizens, but alas, I have had my fill, once again, of World of Warcraft. The tedium which is end game has started to wear out my patience. I know for a fact that if I did have more time to give to it, I probably would. But the fact remains that with the amount of time I do have to give to this game, I will get nowhere…and fast.

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