Are you a fan of action based games? Well TERA might be what you’re looking for. I’ve been following this game from Bluehole Studios, a gaming studio that has many people from the Lineage teams. Right now the game is being published by En Masse Studios here in the US. They had the first English presentation of their game at GDC this week.

If you follow the link to ZAM you will find a video of the presentation they made at GDC and watch a bit of gameplay.

Nuggets of Information I picked up on:

I have no idea how far this game is from release, but it looks like they have a pretty decent foundation. You can find a ton of gameplay videos from Korea on Youtube (I’ve even posted some of them here for you). It looks like they are working on localization and converting the story telling elements over for a Western Audience. How long will that take? Who knows, it took Aion almost a year to do it.

It’s a pretty game, and looks fun, but lets hope En Masse doesn’t fuck it up and keep it a Korean Grinder.

Ok, FFXIVblog.com say it’s a “Cornucopia” of fresh content, but I like to say it’s a “shit ton”.

From a ZAM interview of FFXIV’s developers you learn about classes and their role in combat and a little bit on how combat works.

From FFXIVblog.com,

“Battle wise according to the development team, the first big difference between XIV and XI is pacing. Rather than fighting a single prolonged battle and then resting, characters can expect to be facing off against multiple foes in a short period. Since apperently MP doesn’t heal up through regular rest (this is handled through Aetheryte), conserving your resources will play an important part in battle. Personally, it’ll be interesting to see how exactly this will work in-game.”

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I won’t go into everything the article said because those guys did all the work already but if you’re starving for some new information on FFXIV then click the links and soak up the info.

In a forum post by NetDevil’s “Scorch” the team tells the community what they’ve been working on lately.

OK, in the spirit of some form of information here is at least a few of the things we are working on/thinking about now. All subject to change, insert standard disclaimer here.

-”Battlespace” returning to more of its simulator roots from Classic, really a place to practice not advance. I know this will make some of you happy in that advancing will only happen in “real” space not instant action type playing. I still hope to have some achievements/leader board materials form here but not likely to have any equipment or pilot advancing type effects.

-Lots of work on missions. With the new design team map layouts, mission stories, the types of things you do in missions, etc is all MUCH more interesting and varied than ever before. The kinds of things we can now do is very advanced.

-Better faction definition. The stories in the game really tell all about your faction and why you are at war with the others. The story is also darker than before with many of the missions you fly feeling more gray than the typical black and white always doing the good thing type story.

-PvP. Lots and lots of work on systems for PvP, new maps, new game play, new forms of advancement, player built battle stations, capturing sectors, etc. The scope and feel of the massive space battles you will be taking part in against other players will be, IMHO, what really sets us apart.

-AI functionality. Tons of work on making the AI both the right difficulty (it was way to easy before) and also varied in behavior.

Once we have more solid information we’ll share it.

So basically, “We feel guilty about stringing this game a long for ever and we’re giving you a post saying nothing to keep you guys satisfied.” My reaction when I read this post was, “No shit. Really?”

I’m looking forward to Jumpgate because I think it’s going to be a really fun game. I got to play it over a year ago at New York Comic Con, but I have no fucking idea what’s taking them so long.

Aika’s community manager set us over a link to their official game trailer. If you didn’t get a chance to play in the closed beta, then you’ll get a chance next week as Aika will move to open beta on March 16th.

Catch the trailer after the break.

Update:
Here are some newly released screenshots.

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Since I love Battlestar Galactic stuff I thought I’d share this with you guys.

LA Times Reports:

“Battlestar Galactica” is finding new life on the Web.

A year after the cult and critics’ favorite science-fiction show left the air, a multi-player online game is being developed that further explores the “Battlestar” universe, which is also continuing in Syfy’s “Caprica” television show. The game, which will be introduced at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco this week, is set to be released worldwide in August or September.

Unlike World of Warcraft “that ship on discs and cost $50 to buy plus $15 per month, Battlestar Galactica is part of a new wave of games playable entirely in a Web browser for free.” The game will be published by Bigpoint of which SyFy is a co-owner of.

The game’s website can be found here.

You’ve probably heard this already. 38 Studios and EA have signed a deal for EA to publish it’s first game code named “Project Mercury”.

Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) today announced an agreement with 38 Studios, LLC to publish the company’s first video game, an epic single-player role-playing game codenamed ‘Project Mercury’. 38 Studios is the creative enterprise of World Series MVP and avid gamer Curt Schilling. ‘Project Mercury’ is being developed at Big Huge Games, a wholly-owned subsidiary of 38 Studios, under the leadership of Ken Rolston, former lead designer of the critically acclaimed hits, Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. The game marks the first entry into the company’s vast universe created by New York Times best-selling fantasy author R. A. Salvatore, with artistic direction by Todd McFarlane, renowned artist and creator of Spawn.

Now if you want to take a look at past Big Huge Games project one might find their self taking a peak at Crucible, a game that was headed by Ken Rolston at Big Huge Games. Some videos of it have been leaked on the interwebs. You can find the leaked video over on Kotaku. For more background you can read about it here.

Also please note, this press release did not mention Project Copernicus, but will deal with the same IP and the world RA Salvatore and Todd McFarlane have helped create.

Just a kind word for everyone out there that might of signed up for Black Prophecy’s beta: Since finding a publisher in gamigo they have re-done their beta application process. In order to sign up you will need to create a gamigo account and sign up again. Your previous beta application will not be processed at this time. However they are working on making it easier.

Keep an eye out for a new in-depth look at what’s been going on at Raekktor Studios and some updates on Black Prophecy.

Just some rumors floating around that might interest you! They describe what they might reveal at this year’s E3.

Details after the break.

The following is not from me but from another website (link provided above).

*DISCLAIMER*

I got this from /tg/ just now. Anonymous might not be the most reliable source for news but they’re still a source none the less.
I guess it’s just up to you to believe all of this or not.

As for me, I can handle waiting in anticipation for E3 and actually hear it from the horse’s mouth.
Maybe some of this might be true, we’ll never know until E3 i guess.

…then again, all of this might just be complete troll-foolery.

This is channel /tg/ news helicopter high above the THQ headquarters giving you live feed about the upcoming Warhammer 40k MMO. This is newsreporter anonymous maximus, reporting.
“From THQ private company conference of 20th january concerning E3 presentation plan:
Playable factions:
- Imperium
- Eldar
- Orks
- Chaos
Features:
- Focus both on Meele and Long range Combat
- covering system
- 29 Zones (21 claimable, 8 invadeable)
- Open-World
- PvP around resource gathering and taking strategic points
- center zone features a conquerable stronghold
- No playable Tanks or other Warmachines at release but implemented possibility for expansion
- Tyranids as full fighting PvE-Faction
Lore (being discussed concerning certain faction-plots at the moment but here are the things we determined with Games Workshop so far):
- Game takes place in the southern border-sectors of Segmentum Tempestus
- Factions fight over a destroyed imperial forge world called Tarelis and its hive-city Cerberus X (newly added to the lore!)
- The story of the game will NOT take place in a parallel universe! Just like the Planet Kronus (made by our colleagues at relic) Tarelis will be part of the lore!
- Tyranids will be main-antagonists
- Unfortunately Vigil-games was not allowed to use Relics Gorgutz ‘Ead ‘Unter as Ork Warlord as he will make a final appearance in the second DoW2 expansion
Costs:
- 49.99$
Monthly fee:
- being discussed but most likely around 13$
Rating:
- targeted Teen/PEGI 16
Fully revealed at E3 2010.”

At this years Square Enix Vanafest, some new information was announced that has FFXI loyalists as well as XIV hopefuls excited. Square Enix revealed that invites for the closed beta test will begin going out as of March 1st, and that players should begin checking their emails to see if they made the cut. While no solid date has been released as to when the beta will actually begin, it has been released that the beta community site will go live on March 11th.

Anyone still wishing to apply for the beta can do so Here.

Also in the wake of the beta announcement, Square Enix has unveiled a massive list of changes to the world of Vana’diel. Over the next 9 months, 4 staggered updates called ‘Abyssea’ will bring to the world plenty of new content. Level cap increases from 75-99, new NMs and HNMs, as well as balance tweaks for many jobs. The level cap increase will come over updates 2, 3 and 4, as to not overwhelm players in the reputably grind ridden game.

Along with in game content additions, Square Enix will be performing server merges, effectively halfing their server list. This is done in most cases as an attempt at providing a larger server playerbase to help increase the sense of community, through resolving any possible population issues. Eight years into the games life, Square is clearly not ready to give up their flagship, even in favor of her next gen bigger brother.

While the changes to FFXI may not draw new players, or even many returning ones, I am sure of one thing. Millions of Final fantasy and MMORPG fans are checking their email accounts hourly, waiting for that beta.

More information available at Playonline’s official coverage of Vanafest: here.

Have you heard about Global Agenda? If you’ve been reading this site then I’ve mentioned it a few times. Well I’m coming clean today; I fucking love this game. I’ve been playing it for a steady two weeks now and I haven’t slowed down which says a lot since my attention spam for most games is less than two weeks.

Now what is Global Agenda really? Is it an MMOG? Some people may say, “maybe”. People that say Guild Wars is an MMOG will say, “definitely”, and people who play EVE will probably say, “Not really”. The game is a combination of Halo and Team Fortress Two with a bunch of Guild Wars thrown in.

Here’s the game in a nutshell. You pick one of four classes (more on that later) and after a tutorial you get dumped into the game’s central hub called the Dome. In the dome you have your trainer, auction house, post office, armor/helmet shops and a few other vendors. This is where you run around with other players up until a certain population number where the game then spawns a different Dome instance. So you can be in Dome 5 and your buddy is in Dome 10.

From the Dome you can join either a PVP or a PVE mission. You queue for each and once the queue pops you get deposited in a certain map and play your game. Once you win or lose you get dumped back into the Dome. Doesn’t sound like an MMOG yet, does it? Well there is one other portion of the game that is persistent and sounds pretty damn sweet. This portion is called AvA or Agency vs. Agency.

The game is made up of a bunch of maps that correlate to different time zones. They bring up a hexagonal grid where your Agency (or Guild, Clan or whatever other name you have for it) can take over and hold as your own territory. Your Agency too small? Join an Alliance and do the same thing. In this territory you can have factories and other offensive and defensive things that you can build. This is where the war is fought. If you want an EVE analogy, PVP and PVE queues are Empire space and AvA is 0.0 space.

That’s the game in a nutshell and it’s where I get the TF2 and Halo combination. You have three aspects right now; PVP maps of an assortment of games (we’ll get to that soon), PVE maps to earn materials and other things, and AvA. Sometime in the coming months, High-Rez Studios (GA’s development company) will add small persistent map outside the Dome for people to do stuff in so that world will seem a bit larger. Details have yet to be released about this outside portion of the game.

Let’s go back to the beginning and go over some details. Global Agenda has four different classes; Recons, Robotics, Assaults and Medics. Each class is flexible in what they can do and so far High-Rez has done a fantastic job of balancing out each of the classes.

1. Recons are your stealth class that use sniper rifles and explosives.
2. Assaults are your brute force class that can play a tank or a heavy damage dealer.
3. Robotics are masters of mechanics that set up turrets that heal, buff, and shoot bullets and rockets. They also can deploy an arsenal of drones that are AI controlled.
4. Medics, as you can guess, heal you. They have an ugly side however with poison that can be very disastrous.

There are 50 levels in the game. Experience is gained from each PVP and PVE match. It’s given to you at the end whether you win or lose. You gain points for what your team accomplished during the match, a bonus if you win, and you gain a bonus also for your accomplishments. How much your personal bonus is determined by many things like kills, damage, buffs, heals, objective points etc. You gain the most by being a good team mate rather than going off on your own for headshots.

For each class there are three specs you can work with. Each looks similar to a Warcraft talent tree. Each class shares the same Balance tree two unique ones. For example a Medic has a Poison tree and a Healing tree. Most of the talents add percentages of damage/healing or range of a gun or duration of an ability. The additions aren’t very large until you add them all up. Using the balance tree and the poison tree a Medic can reduce offhand cooldowns by 45% or so. You are also limited to skill points. You only get 13 of them. For every even level started at level 6 you get on skill point and you will have all those available by level 30.

The good thing with skill points is that you can reset them for free anytime at the Dome and try out as many different spec builds as you can think of without worrying about losing anything.

Now on every even level you get a new toy to play with. These new toys are different ranged weapons, specialty guns and offhands. Like Guild Wars you are limited to what abilities you can bring to each match. Each character brings one melee weapon, one ranged weapon, one specialty and three offhand tools. Each character, so far, is stuck with one melee weapon so there isn’t much of a choice. However each class can choose from three different ranged weapons, and a myriad of offhand tools. My medic had a bunch of things to choose from like healing grenades, poison grenades, AOE heal waves, protection buffs for your team etc. Each class is unique. The strategy here is deciding what to bring to the fight. You can switch out your gear spec anytime in the Dome or anytime during a match if you are sitting at the original spawn point.

There are fifty levels in the game as well but your character has access to everything by level 30. Leveling speed is pretty quick at first and slows down later (depending on your win/loss ratio). You can max out a character at level 30 in one to two weeks time with a decent win rate. Levels 31 through 50 are basically prestige levels right now. There are different armor sets that you can buy as you level up that might have a higher “cool” factor but do nothing towards your power level. This will certainly change as the game matures I’m sure.

Now that we’ve described how characters are built lets get on to talking about PVP and PVE. I’m going to leave out AvA since I havn’t gotten involved with that portion of the game.

PVE is pretty simple. You and three other people have fifteen minutes to get to the end of a pretty linear map and defeat a boss. There are bonus points awarded if there are less than a certain number of deaths. You get better experience in PVP but in PVE you have a chance to collect crafting materials and blueprints. These are used to make AvA apparatus and upgrades. Upgrades are armor enhancements to give you a few extra percentage points in protection, hps or damage of some sort.

The real fun is in the PVP of course. It’s pretty standard fare though as far as the different types of matches. Games that have to do with point capture and king of the hill and stuff like that. I don’t want to get into much detail about each game type but what I do want to stress is how this game plays. I’m not the best FPS player out there; I get creamed regularly in CoD because I don’t have pinpoint accuracy with my mouse and 1-2 BOOM headshots kill me constantly. In Global Agenda each character is pretty beefy and can withstand a decent amount of punishment before you die. You can always escape however with your jetpack.

Oh what’s that, I have mentioned you have a fucking jetpack? Well fucking hell yeah you do. There’s nothing better than flying above a fucking bad guy and dropping a flying drone above his head and rain death upon him.

*Ahem*

Anyway, with a few skill points you can easily survive a one on one without getting two shotted from someone. I like that. Also a lower level player isn’t dwarfed by the power of a higher level player in most instances. If you’re good, you can easily come away with a kill.

I want to reiterate: This game is not super-twitchy.

Also there is one cool thing about this game that took me a while to notice. Every time you play on the same map it’s different each time. Crates, large and small, are changed with each map so cover is different each time. It’s a cool little detail.

I love this fucking game. It runs well on my computer, the graphics are fine. The maps are fun and the only game I hate is when you one guy turns into a mech and you have escort him into the enemy base three times. Fuck that shit.

The only thing I have to give Global Agenda the thumbs down is the price-point. This game, off of Steam, is $50.00. If this game cost you $25.00 I would recommend it to everyone including my mom. There is also a subscription involved. The subscription gives you access to the AvA and crafting stuff but you can play the PVP and PVE stuff without it.

So to sum of everything. Global Agenda takes from Guild Wars it’s character setups and takes from Team Fortress Two it’s quick and easy get-in-get-out game play.