Tag Archives: beta

The Lord of the Rings Online Approacheth

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Lord of the Rings Online (Shadows of Angmar) arrives soon to a game-weary world. The official “probably won’t be pushed back again at this point” launch date is April 25, 2007, with a World Tour, aka cleverly named Open Beta, to begin April 6th — over a million tour invites will be given out. But there’s more!

Those pre-ordering the game will be called Founders, and besides the title, Founders can play NOW and roll their de-noobified beta characters (level 15 cap) into live when they will enjoy founders subscription prices: $9.99 a month or $199 for a lifetime subscription. I like $9.99 a month ALOT; the $199, not so much. It’s not an unreasonable price, but I don’t have that kind of faith in anyone.

Box prices: $49.99 for the ordinary box, which includes two in-game items, or $59.99 for the collector’s edition, which includes a total of three in-game items plus nerd bait.

I played the LOTRO beta and thought it was a nice little game. The lore can’t be beat and unlike the Warcraft series, I actually know a thing or two about the backstory. There’s some problem with a ring and a would-be god, right?

Principally, it’s appeal is: NOT WORLD OF WARCRAFT.

(Hell, I would have played Vanguard if the hardware requirements weren’t so ridiculous. Still might, but I don’t feel like replacing my video card just yet. Vanguard is a game that needs to age in the barrel for a while, I think.)

I have noticed a very curious thing in Le World of Warcraft lately: enemies on my Friends List haven’t been logging on much in the last few weeks. (Unlike most players, the people on my Friends List are players I like to keep my eye on, lest I fall victim to a public chat channel ambush. It’s a long story.)

I’d like to hope they’ve given up on gaming, or are working on a blood elf character … on another server. Worst case scenario, they’ve moved on to LOTRO.

Which brings me to today’s online gaming lesson: In a new online game, when confronted with “aren’t you Soandso from WoW and/or EQ (etc)?”, deny, deny, deny. I like to throw in a little roleplaying to further confuse, because then they think: 1. the real Foton never roleplayed, I must be mistaken and 2. it’s a goddamn roleplayer, I have to get away from here.

You have to use the tools available to you, and if crazy is your only tool, work it.

Blizzard MEDIA ALERT

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Issued under cloak of the night, early this morning, an important MEDIA ALERT from Castle Blizzard:

IRVINE, Calif. — Blizzard Entertainment® today announced that the release date for World of Warcraft®: The Burning Crusadeâ„¢, the highly anticipated expansion for World of Warcraft, will be in January 2007. By adding a few extra weeks to the development cycle beyond its original target date, Blizzard will be able to extend the closed beta test and further refine the new content that will ship with the game.

“We appreciate the enthusiasm surrounding World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, and we’re excited about putting the finishing touches on all of the new content,” said Mike Morhaime, president and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “We feel confident that the extra time spent polishing the game will result in the high-quality experience that our players expect and deserve.”

Blizzard began the closed-beta phase of testing on World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade earlier this month. The January 2007 release window will allow extra time for current beta testers to participate in the final stages of development and continue providing valuable feedback.

Further information on specific worldwide release dates, pricing, and other details will be announced in the near future.

They need time to nerf a bunch of stuff. (Oh, I’m kidding!)

I’ve only run around in the beta a few days, but I haven’t noticed much of anything that’s buggy, broken or largely incomplete. Sure, there’s stuff to fix, didn’t seem like two additional months’ worth of work to me.

This expansion is really quite nice. That’s me being understated. I really mean, it’s incredible and worth skipping guild raids to play (not to mention skipping work, but that would be very irresponsible of you).

Archive of Media Alert