WarCry:With Book 11 coming can you tell us what if any graphical enhancements we will see with Book 11?

Turbine: We are proud to say that with Book 11,Lord of The Rings Online will become the first MMO to support DX10! Wehave been working very hard on this, and can't wait to see the players'reaction to it. It is really quite amazing, the effects lookincredible. For example, if you are standing under a tree right now,you see a standard shadow cast over you. With DX10 you will see theshadow of each leaf as it crosses over you. It is very impressive.

WarCry:With Book 11 you are adding a lot ofcontent that most games would release as a paid expansion, and yet youare giving it out for free. Are there any plans for a paid expansion?

Turbine: The short answer is yes, we will have apaid expansion. It's something that we are not quite ready to talkabout yet, but some time after Book 11 we will let you know about it.Basically we wanted to complete the first story arc before we looked ata paid expansion. With Book 11, I think we have done that. We areadding player housing, new monsters, a new character from the books, anew 12 man raid, and over 100 new missions to the game. All of that isjust in

From Space Adventure's Press Release:

First private spaceflight open to commercial involvement in mission activities.
September 28 2007


Space Adventures, Ltd., the world’s leading space experiencescompany, announced today that famed game developer Richard Garriott,son of former NASA astronaut Owen Garriott, has begun preparations fora “commercially active” mission to the International Space Station(ISS).


Mr. Garriott’s spaceflight, currently planned for October 2008,will be the first in a series of missions that will accommodatecommercial activity aboard the ISS. Involvement from the private sectorcan include scientific and environmental research and educationaloutreach programming.


“It has always been Space Adventures’ goal to open the spacefrontier. Now, with Richard’s flight, we have designed a series ofmissions devoted to increase commercial involvement in manned spacemissions,” said Eric Anderson, president and CEO of Space Adventures.“It is a very rare occasion when so many commercial opportunities areavailable in one space mission. We encourage interested parties tocontact us.”


Space Adventures made history in 2001 by organizing the mission ofthe first private space explorer. Now

Developer Auran has decided to jumpinto the MMO genre with a game that blends fast-paced action with RPGelements and chucks the mix into a pure-PVP environment. Welcome toFury.

Auran founder and CEO Tony Hillman describes Fury as the ultimate player versus player experience.

"We have set out to become the number one PvP game where people come totest their skills as an RPG player", he's whispered in our ear.

And he's got plenty more to say on the game and indeed the MMO genre ingeneral, as we found out when we caught up with him for a chat.

Read on to find out what he has to say, and be sure to eye-up anexclusive Fury trailer which is viewable via our video player...
Expectations the gaming marketplace now has for MMO games are extremely high. How are you meeting that challenge with Fury?

Tony Hillman:WoW has certainly raised the bar when it comes to traditional MMOs. Welooked at their budget and success and decided we didn't want tocompete head on, so we said "What can we be best at?" That is when wedecided to focus on being the number one PvP game in the market.

So would you describe Fury as an MMO evolution or revolution? Why?

Hillman:Our goal is to start a PvP revolution. However, I

From a Press Release:

Friday 28th September/...Finding and spending in-game currency isan integral and hugely enjoyable part of any Massively MultiplayerOnline RPG and MapleStory is no different in that it allows players tocollect and spend the spoils of their toil (in MapleStory they’re knownas Mesos) on a huge range of collectable items at any one of the game’sstores. But where many games are happy to leave it at that, MapleStorytakes things one step further by using a unique means of charging realmoney at the Cash Shop, which is then converted into another type ofcurrency called NEXON Cash. Here myriad unique items and gizmos aremade available to customize your character in a totally unique manner.

Mesos

There are three ways to harvest Mesos in MapleStory: Drops from themonsters you kill, taking on one of the many in-game quests (either onyour own or as part of a party of friends), and buying/trading items.The dropping rate in MapleStory is fairly random and there’s no way ofgetting around this - other than relying on your luck setting.Obviously if you’re really lucky you’ll be rewarded with more drops andopposite is true if your luck rating is low. It’s worth noting that bytaking

Gamedesign Journal: Quest Chains & Side Stories

Last week’s activities
The gamedesign activities are rolling on as usual, nothing reallyexciting to note last week, however, I can say that the new high housestructures look particularly breath taking, even though they’re notfinished yet.
Additionally, I will reveal the bodyslot items of the Furyhammer.As you’ll all have read in my Bodyslot journal two weeks ago, thevision modes took too much time and resources to fit in our currentplanning, fear not the concept might be introduced in another form atone point. Dare I say, for more classes to enjoy?

The Furyhammer, master of weapons and fighting techniques is intouch with the soul, the very essence of weapons and fightingequipment. At any point in combat he can call upon these weaponessences to characterize his current attacks or strengthen hisposition. The Weapon Essences focus on all types of attacks as well asdefence. The first one is an essence of the sword.
Double Edge: Each melee attack causes bleeding on target when hit and bleeding on skill user when missed.

I know a lot of you were looking forward to the vision modes,including myself, but I’m sure these Weapon Essences will more the

This week Tentonhammer staff engaged in an informative interview withdevelopers from Turbine about Lord of the Rings Online. This lastsegment marks the conclussion of that series. While this segmentdoesn’t contain talk of Balrog’s and player housing, it does contain alot of useful information, that any LOTRO community member will be gladto know.

A Tale of Scammers and Spammers

One problem plaguing the LOTROcommunity as of late has been one of scammers trying to con personalinformation from members of the LOTRO community by posing as Turbine.This issue was addressed a while back on the official LOTRO forums byMeghan "Patience" Rodberg - Online Community Manager - Turbine, Inc. Turbine takes thesecurity of your personal information seriously. Recently, we'vereceived some reports of suspicious emails from turbinegames.net andaccmanagement@turbinegames.net. These emails request the verificationof your account information including username and password. Theseemails are not from Turbine, Inc. Please do not reply to them if youfind one in your inbox.Turbine will never ask for youraccount name and password via email. Please forward any such requeststo us at fraud@turbine.com for investiga

One of the key ex members of the nowdefunct Blizzard North is as eager as the rest of the PC role-playinggame fraternity to clap eyes on a Diablo sequel.

Max Schaefer,co-founder of Blizzard North which was responsible for the Diablogames, has told CVG he "can't wait to see!" what Blizzard does withDiablo 3.

"You know as much as I do about their plans, but whatI'd like to see is Diablo in a true 3D environment, taking advantage ofthe latest graphics bells and whistles, and of course, the Blizzardproduction values that makes their games special", Schaefer added.

He's now at Flagship Studios after leaving Blizzard North in 2003,where's he's executive producer on the company's forthcomingfree-to-play MMORPG Mythos - which has been influenced significantly byDiablo.
"The pacing, the philosophy of the interface and the action are verysimilar to Diablo. Mythos is a brighter, slightly more cartoon-y world,and will extend into areas Diablo never ventured, but fans of Diablowill feel right at home in Mythos", Schaefer said.

by Cody "Micajah" Bye

In J.R.R. Tolkien's TheLord of the Rings, one of the most awe-inspiring momentsin the saga was the Fellowship's flight through Moria, only to betrapped at the least moment by a flame-wreathed creature made of shadowand sporting equally menacing weapons of a sword and a whip. It wasthis creature, the Balrog, that forced Gandalf the Grey to give up hislife to save the remaining members of the Fellowship. When he returnedto the world of the living, he was Gandalf the White. The Balrogencounter in the bowels of Moria truly was a huge turning point in The Lord of the Rings saga,as it also inevitably broke up the Fellowship and caused Aragorn totake up the mantle of leadership after Gandalf fell. If anyone didn'tbelieve it was a pivotal encounter, they'd be kidding themselves.

For a bit of short background info on the Balrog, these powerfulcreatures were originally Maiar, angel-like beings thatbelonged to the same order as Gandalf and Sauraman, but through thetemptations of a Valar (similar to archangels), the Maiar werecorrupted and became the Balrogs. However, many LOTRO lore afficionadoshave contended that having an encounter with a Balrog - aside from theBalrog in

We play Two Worlds...

The best way to describe Two Worlds is in theinevitable comparisons it’s fetching with Oblivion. While not reachingthe lofty heights of last year’s RPG extravaganza, Two Worlds (on thePC) is a decent addition to the entry class RPG genre, but thoselooking for next level innovation will spend a long time searching thewilds for ultimate disappointment.

There’snot a great deal of difference between many of the characters in TwoWorlds, but at least you can get straight into the action		Beingan assassin, you can sneak around the place on tippy toes. Don’t killthis guy, though – he might be one of the few characters in Two Worldswith something useful to say

Sometimes it’s no bad thing toget a game with few surprises and no haughty attempts at redefining agenre. This is one of those times.

Two Worlds is in no wayoriginal, but judging by the inclusion of such standard fare RPGelements, characters and game mechanics, I doubt that was ever itsintention. Instead, focus has been kept strictly on providing a typical(which is not the criticism it sounds like) fantasy RPG; orcs, wizards,warriors, a world done asunder and a free roaming countryside crawlingwith predatory wildlife.

WarCry interviewed CCP CEO Hilmar Petursson atAGDC where he spoke about his company's merger with White Wolf,upcoming EVE Online updates and the company's response to a highlypublicized case of employee misconduct within the game world.

It's been 10 months since CCP and White Wolf announced their mergerduring Fanfest in Reykjavik, and Petursson said the integration of thetwo radically different companies has gone better than he anticipated.A big positive for CCP has been their newfound presence in NorthAmerica, with White Wolf's base of operations in Atlanta, GA becomingCCP North America. This has given them a complete world-wide network ofcustomer support: Reykjavik, Atlanta and their new studio in Shanghai,CCP Asia.

It has also, as hoped, improved their ability to tell good stories.Traditionally, CCP has excelled in making games and worlds, and whileEVE has a story, most of what goes on is created by the players. WhiteWolf specialized in crafting worlds and stories, and now, lends thatexpertise to CCP.

Petursson - who one must remember is the CEO of CCP worldwide, notjust CCP Europe - also believes the move has been a great thing fortheir gothic friends in Atlanta. They are currentl