Champions Online – Free Weekend Play

Starting on Thursday, November 27th at 10 AM (Pacific) – Cryptic Studios will be ‘hosting’ a Free Weekend period of play time. During this time anyone can sign up and play the game for free until November 30th at 10 AM (Pacific). So if you want to try an adventure out in Millenium City, but don’t want to have any strings attached, dive right into the free play. I see this as a sign that maybe the game isn’t quite where Cryptic had hoped it would be, this is the second free play period in the space of about 2 months.

Head on over to the Champions Online website to learn how to get going with this free period.

Technorati Tags: mmo,cryptic studios,Champions Online,free weekend,gaming,blurbs,updates

New Dragon Age: Origins DLC – Return to Ostagar

Today BioWare announced a new Downloadable Content Pack (DLC) for Dragon Age: Origins. “Return to Ostagar” allows the player to go back to where it all begins, the ruins of Ostagar – now infested with Darkspawn. Here the player will be able to recover the Kings armor, defeat a bunch of nasties, and maybe get some revenge for those who fell.

ARPG Fans Rejoice… a saviour is night…

Ok.. maybe not a saviour, but probably one of the best looking ARPG’s to date is due to release tomorrow. What am I talking about? Torchlight – created by a bunch of folks who were behind the ill-departed Mythos, as well as a few talented folks who worked on that obscure title.. Diablo.

There are many videos on YouTube right now from press-release copies, the reviews have all been outstanding and I, for one, am agreeing by just what I have seen. There are also some live streaming videos from people with reveiw copies, on Livestream.com, uStream.com, and Justin.tv.

So get ready folks, a brain blasting addicting ARPG is on its way… if you haven’t pre-ordered it yet do so now! Theres a link on the left hand navigation to the pre-order page on GamersGate, but its also on Steam, Direct2Drive, PerfectWorld and will be on TorchlightGame.com and WildTangent soon. Its only $20.00… you cannot go wrong there.

PS – I guess I forgot to mention one of the best parts of this game… it will have a full featured Toolset provided free of cost with the game. The toolset is the exact same toolset that the developers designed the game levels with, and will be able to modify just about every single portion of the game.

GoG.com Mod Spotlight – Duke Nukeum 3D

GoG.com posted a special Mod Spotlight on one of the FPS genre defining titles: Duke Nukeum 3D. The spotlight goes over mods that bring this great old classic into the modern age of computing and include a High Resolution Texture mod, Weapon Mods, and much much more.  Considering that Duke 3D was one of the games I grew up playing, I just had to post about this.

Mod spotlight: Duke Nukem 3D

The original Duke Nukem 3D is a game that never gets bored. Even you’ve finished it 3, 30 or 300 times you’ll never get enough of the good ol’ Duke – you know it and we know it. But if you’d like to something a little bit different, the Duke Nukem community has prepared couple great modifications – some bring you more of the Duke-gameplay and some make it even better (yeah, right). Below you’ll find the spotlight on couple cool Duke Nukem 3D mods!

Read the rest of the Editorial Here

GoG.com keeps coming up with awesome content for their site, and continue bringing classic gaming goodness to the light of the modern day computer.

Keep it up GoG!

What is GoG.com?

GoG.com is a site that brings the classic gaming back to the masses at really good price points. Thats not all though, each game GoG releases has also been gone over to ensure compatibility with modern machines; All GoG games are supported on Windows XP and Vista – even if they were released before the OS in question!

Another huge vantage to GoG is that all GoG games are 100% DRM free. You buy the game and its yours. No activation limits, no disk checks, no authentication required; which means you can install the game(s) on any computer you own. You can also re-download your games as many time as you like.

Key Features of GoG.com

• Critically acclaimed games
• DRM-free
• Unbelievably low prices
• XP & Vista compatible
• Classy community

Technorati Tags: classic gaming,Gaming,gog.com,websites,duke nukeum 3d,duke mods

LotRO News Update – Orion on Factions/Rep; Skirmish System Dev Diary Part 3

LotRO News Update – Sneaky Hobbits LotRO Blog – Orion on Factions/Reputation; Skirmish System Dev Diary Part 3

Sneaky Hobbits

Lord of the Rings Online Developer Orion posted on his My Lotro blog regarding the Faction/Reputation system. In his post he talks about the reputation system as it is and how he is looking to work on it to bring it up to ‘par’ for players who see it as lacking. He goes over how the system is working currently, and how he sees it to be working in the future – I have to say, the post is quite an interesting read:

Lots of interesting information posted by Turbine today – should keep the forumites busy I think.

Lord of the Rings Online Fall Festival Live!

LotRO Sneaky Hobbits Alert:

Fall Festival is Live… No, Really « Sneaky Hobbits

Well, the Lord of the Rings Online fall festival should be 100% live right now, Sapience made a post on the LotRO forums about it:

Read the entire post

From Sneaky Hobbits LotRO blog.

Fall Festival… False Start… Sorry Folks

Well, the fall festival for Lord of the Rings Online was scheduled for today, but it was ‘tentatively’ scheduled (something I probably should have pointed out huh?). All reports from In Game show the Festival has not gone Live yet, no word on the Turbine front but it looks like it is delayed.

I will be sure to update when I find out that the festival is indeed truly live.

~Branadoc

(Credit for alerting me to this goes to Goldenstar & Merric from A Casual Stroll to Mordor via Twitter)

Technorati Tags: Events,fall festival,gaming,Lord of the Rings Online,LotRO,mmo,News,october 2009

(Originally posted on my LotRO Blog: Sneaky Hobbits)

Lord of the Rings Online: Welcome Back Weekend

Lord of the Rings Online will be having a Welcome Back ‘weekend’ from October 15th through October 21st. During this time period previous players of LotRO can come back to their accounts and play for free, and everyone who plays will receive a 25% XP buff for the duration of the event.

Looks like it is a drive towards the release of the next expansion (Siege of Mirkwood) as the forum post regarding this points out that any returning customers who re-up with a multi-month subscription plan will receive Siege of Mirkwood for free.

Quoted Source:

Lord of the Rings Online: Forums

Posted by Sapience:
During The Lord of the Rings Online™ Welcome Back Week from October 15th through October 21st, you can play your old characters for free and get a +25% XP Bonus. Plus, if you come back now and renew your subscription to LOTRO with any 3-, 6-, or 12-month $9.99/month* subscription plan by October 31st, we’ll give you The Lord of the Rings Online™: Siege of Mirkwood™ digital expansion for free! (Click here) for full details!

Technorati Tags: lotro,welcome back weekend,siege of mirkwood,xp buff,Lord of the Rings Online,turbine,mmo,gaming,news

(Originally posted in my LotRO blog: Sneaky Hobbits)

Dragon Age Origins: Character Creator Release; Social Site Opening

Greetings folks, just a quick news tidbit – the Dragon Age Origins Character Creator has been officially released (on Fileplanet)! This program will allow you to play around with character creation options for the game, and even save the character for use in the game when it releases.

On another note, the BioWare Dragon Age Origins website is temporarily offline, I am thinking this means the imminent release of the Social Site which was also scheduled for ‘release’ today. Lots of good stuff form BioWare today! The only thing I am unsure of is the purported Flash based DA:O game that is supposed to coincide with the other 2 launches, more on that when I get some information.

Download the Character Creator on Fileplanet Now

Technorati Tags: dragon age origins,dao,character creator,fileplanet,download,gaming,EA Games,bioware

Lord of the Rings Online Event Notification: Fall Festival

Thats right folks! The weather is cooling, the leaves are starting to fall, and pumpkins are afraid for their lives! It is fall festival time in Middle Earth!

The festivals in Lord of the Rings Online are just one more reason that people enjoy the game so much, there are tons of events (From cooking to horse races to just general fun) to be done, and special deeds to be hammered out.

The Fall Festival is set to run from Tuesday, October 13th to Thursday, October 29th.

(Originally posted in my Sneaky Hobbits blog)