Today marks the first Closed Beta event for Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns. Taking place over several two-hour periods, our own Bill Murphy will be livestreaming the last beta event beginning at 730pm PT, 1030pm ET. Come watch!
Shroud of the Avatar: Release 18 – Return to Immersion
Shroud of the Avatar takes a hard turn towards immersion in their 18th release, and Red Thomas heads to Austin in order to get details from the team. Take a look at what got him so excited.
Star Citizen: Data Leak Reveals the Bengal
One of Star Citizen’s most valuable ships is the carrier class Bengal. Intrepid fans uncovered a partial URL left by one of the staff that led to a huge data pile of images and footage of the Bengal. Once released into the wild via torrents, fans cobbled everything together to give a first hand look at an impressive ship. Check it out and let us know what you think.
ArcheAge: Character Transfers & Possible ‘Non-Traditional’ Mergers
The Trion team spent the last couple of weeks visiting XLGames in Korea to discuss the way that player characters are transferred from one server to another. At the moment, it is a manual process but the team is working to release an automated option in the near future.
General: Bringing the MOBA Back to its RTS Roots
The MOBA genre’s roots lie in the now struggling RTS genre, but Petroglyph and PlayGrid hope to bring those roots back to the forefront with a new MOBA called Victory Command. Currently in Early Access on Steam, Victory Command is a 5v5 military themed MOBA where players fight it out using a small to moderate sized squad of units organized under 12+ distinct companies.
Elder Scrolls Online: The Banned Accounts Highlight Industry Issues
As we get closer to the console release of The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited, it has been predictably slow on the significant changes to the game front on PC, but there have been a few recent moves that bring certain digital goods matters to the forefront. Zenimax alerted some players that their keys weren’t legitimate and decided to end their access to the game as of this week.
General: What About a Native American MMO?
Native American culture is often imitated in MMORPGs. I can name several MMOs that feature races or cultures that are obviously inspired by Native cultures. Unfortunately, this often means that players are met only with tepees, totem poles and other classic Hollywood imagery inside these games, and never does any MMO get down to the realities of native life.
Firefall: The Future of Red 5 with Chris Whiteside
Chris Whiteside is best known in the gaming industry as the former Lead Producer of ArenaNet on Guild Wars, then the Design Director for Guild Wars 2. After roughly five years, Chris decided to part with the Bellevue, Washington developer. He went into consultancy, but that only lasted a little bit as one of the companies he consulted for was Red 5 Studios, makers of hardpressed but excellent MMO Firefall.
Forsaken World Mobile: Playable Characters Classes Revealed
Along with its gameplay reveal trailer, Fedeen Games released info regarding playable classes in its upcoming mobile MMO, Forsaken World.
General: Blood Brothers 2 Adds Guilds and Special Events
Dark fantasy RPG Blood Brothers 2 this week announced the addition of its new guild system which features a new chat feature as well as various player-requested guild perks.