Playing Free is the Way to Be

Part of my move towards value-based gaming includes keeping a keen eye on the Open Beta market. Open Betas are often a chance to play a full-featured game for free, and sometimes they can last quite a while.

The Chronicles of Spellborn, an MMO long in production, has finally hit Open Beta.

To gain access to the Open Beta simply download the game here and login with your Acclaim User ID and password. If you don't have an Acclaim User ID you can register for free by clicking here.

Enjoy!

018108

That is my house number in Runes of Magic. I am playing on the Grimdal PvP server as Column the Rogue, which I'm planning to Dual Class with Knight. Level 8 and mooooving!

Update: 8 June, 2009 - I am no longer playing on Grimdal. I am debating which PvE server to play on. Runes of Magic PvP servers suck and require massive cash investment to compete.

WAR, What Is It Good 4?

Absolutely nothing.

My WAR account will go inactive after this weekend. It was fun while it lasted, but there are too many fundamental game designs that I will never agree with and refuse to pay for.

Runes of Magic: Linux, Launch, and U

In keeping my ear to the ground listening for great values in the gaming market, I keep coming accross Runes of Magic, a free to play, but supported by micro-transactions MMO. I normally disdain micro-transactions, but I can live with them when the game is being given away for free.

Anyways, I figured I'd take the time to throw up some info I've come across while researching RoM. First, it is launching on March 19th.

So here's the plan: Tomorrow on Wednesday, 18 March 2009, at 2am PST / 11:00h CET we will take down almost everything.
The Runes of Magic game servers, the official website and the official forums.

Only the patch-server stays online. We want everyone to be able to keep their clients updated so that when we go live on Thursday not everyone tries to download the patch at the same time. Be aware: if everything goes to plan, it might take a while to get through. Good news: there is no need to download a new version of the client!

While the servers are down - as a little incentive for new and old players - you can top-up your Diamond account.
We offer a 30% discount on Diamonds during the game's downtime.

During the downtime we go through the forums, tiding up a bit - doing our equivalent of spring cleaning - and uncluttering that unwieldy forum structure.

So that's what we have to dom but what about you? You don't really think we'll just let you go on playing like this, do you?

Well, actually we don't let you. You have to wait.

And when the servers come back up on Thursday, 19 March 2009 at exactly 1am PST / 10:00h CET you do have to redistribute all you TP again, because there's a big TP reset for everyone.

Secondly, for the Linux gamers out there, it looks like RoM runs smoothly through WINE.

Bounty Hunters, Concerns

Bioware has released another video documentary for Star Wars: The Old Republic and in it, they announce the Bounty Hunter as a player class. My Boba Fett action figures are jumping for joy.

However, I have to voice my concern for the underlying gameplay that Bioware chooses to show in these videos. The concept art is great, the developer commentary is spot on, but the actual gameplay looks dated and depressing. The animations and combat looked average at best.

Every new video from Bioware seems to feature fewer seconds of actual gameplay and more "how great this game will be" propaganda. It makes me wonder what Bioware is hiding.

Hopefully this is all overblown huffing and puffing on my part over some alpha (or earlier) footage of the game, but there is this little jaded gamer inside of me that doesn't buy that excuse.