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Global Agenda: Release Date, Preorder, Beta

trolr — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 19:14:35 +0000

In the most recent Global Agenda newsletter details have been released about the release date, pre-order bonuses and the start of beta.

About Global Agenda
Release Date
Pre-order Bonuses
System Requirements
Gameplay Videos
Screenshots

About Global Agenda

Story:

2155. From the ashes of the devastating Third Great War rose the Commonwealth, an oppressive world government determined to control the entire planet. The few remaining independent factions retaliate the only way they can, with elite teams of special operatives trained in advanced warfare tactics and equipped with high-tech weaponry. The future of humanity is their battleground, where knowledge is power, technology is a race, and everyone has a Global Agenda.

Features:

Create your agent – Create, customize, and develop multiple agent characters, complementing your FPS skills with accessible RPG-style progression. Unlock weaponry and cutting edge devices including jetpacks, grenade launchers, mines, deployable turrets, stealth suits, holographic decoys, robotic droids and HUNDREDS of others.
Co-Op with friends online – Four players share the same online mission experience – working as a team, communicating via built-in text and voice chat, infiltrating facilities, defeating end bosses, and earning technology upgrades.
Compete in fast-paced, multiplayer matches – Teamwork and tactics are paramount within objective-based game types designed from the ground up to support intense and balanced player vs. player combat.

Release Date

First, the most important news: Global Agenda will be released on February 1, 2010. I certainly hope Hi-Rez Studios knows what they’re doing: if you’re been paying attention you should notice Star Trek Online is scheduled for release only a day after. While these two games don’t have much in common, it’s not always a wise idea to release two MMORPG’s in such a short timespan. Warhammer Online for example was released just a couple of months before Wrath of the Lich King, and it definitely hurt their subscriber numbers. I might be wrong and this may not have a huge impact on these two upcoming games, but if I have to choose (and I do), I definitely choose Star Trek.

Pre-Order Bonuses

You can pre-purchase Global Agenda from Steam (digital download) or from Amazon (special limited edition box). Customers who pre-purchase the game will receive the following benefits:

Access to GA Beta – it will be available in January, but the exact dates are yet to be revealed
Exclusive in-game head flair – special in-game helmet captured from the Commonwealth and exclusive Elf head flair
Reserve Your Player Name and Agency Name – prior to the release you will be able to log in and make sure nobody uses your favorite character and Agency name
Pre-download of the game
Free 1 month Conquest subscription – all players who prepurchase will receive a one month worth of Conquest subscription (normal price $13)

If you ask me the benefits are hardly worth it unless you’re absolutely sure you will love this game. Not that you get much more by pre-ordering other games, but still you don’t get anything spectacular. Still, if you want to pre-order here’s the link again.

The game requires a one-time purchase but if you want to experience the full … experience, you probably will want to subscribe. It’s called a Conquest subscription and gives you access to Alliance vs. Alliance (AvA) world domination gameplay, mail system, crafting and new areas. Basically, you need to dish out $12,99 / €10,99 each month, otherwise you’ll be missing out on quite a few gameplay elements.

System Requirements

Minimum System Requirements:

OS: Windows XP SP2, Windows Vista SP1 or Windows 7 (32 or 64 bit)
Processor: 2.4+ GHZ Single Core
RAM: 2 GB (XP), 3GB (Vista, Windows 7)
Video Card: 256mb video ram or better with Shader Model 3.0+ (GeForce 8 series or higher/Radeon HD3000 series or higher)
Hard Drive: 15 GB free space
High bandwidth internet connection (DSL, Cable)

Recommended System Requirements:

OS: Windows XP SP2, Windows Vista SP1 or Windows 7 (32 or 64 bit)
Processor: 2.4+ GHZ Dual Core
RAM: 3 GB (XP), 4GB (Vista, Windows 7)
Video Card: 512mb video ram or better with Shader Model 3.0+
Hard Drive: 20 GB free space
High bandwidth internet connection (DSL, Cable)

Gameplay Videos

Fan-made gameplay vid:

Official Gameplay Trailer:

Screenshots

Star Trek Online Preorder Bonuses

trolr — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 09:29:24 +0000

I already reported about the Borg bridge officer you get when you preorder from Amazon. There’s also a lot of other extra goodies for those who preorder so check out the list below:

Pre-Order Bonuses (Retailer-Dependant)

GameStop customers receive the ability to command the exclusive and always classic USS Enterprise from Star Trek The Original Series.
Best Buy is offering their customers a fun in-game pet. As a Federation Captain, players own a famed Tribble of Star Trek lore that will accompany them on their travels into the final frontier. As a Klingon commander, players control the boar-like Targ, a beast found on the Klingon home world of Qo’noS.
Amazon is offering an exclusive “Liberated Borg” Bridge Officer. This bridge officer, who comes with unique nanotechnology augmentations, assists in missions and gains experience as the player does.
Wal-Mart Bonus Skill Points package gets you additional skill points that enable players to improve their characters quickly.
Target customers who pre-order Star Trek Online receive a unique ground weapon – a TR-116. This rare projectile weapon is used in dampening fields and other challenging environments; it is also modified with a micro-transporter which beams the fired projectiles to targets at close range so that a user can fire without a direct line of site.
Direct2Drive customers receive an exclusive Multi-Spatial Personal Shield. This advanced personal shield system is based on Borg technology, which constantly regenerates itself and the health of its wearer.
STEAM is offering customers Chromodynamic Armor. This armor is based on technology brought back from the Delta Quadrant by U.S.S. Voyager improves the damage and critical hits of energy weapons.

Star Trek Online Open Beta Dates

trolr — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:52:46 +0000

Star Trek Online, an eagerly awaited MMO game is being talked about a lot lately. The official website has undergone some design changes but the most important bit of news are the more frequent updates.

The release date was recently announced and scheduled for February 2 next year, along with the very forgiving system requirements for the game. The latest news is about the Open Beta, which will begin January 12 and last till January 26. The keys will be given out on a “first come, first served” basis on the official website, so stay tuned to find out when it happens.

Although the recent reports from players participating in the closed beta are a bit disappointing, I’m hoping I’ll have the chance to try out the game myself and see if it’s really as unimpressive as they say. With any luck, Cryptic won’t screw up such a great title.

Star Trek Online: Ship Battles 101

trolr — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:47:58 +0000

I talked about ships in STO before so you might be interested to watch a video showing a few starship battles.

There’s a lot more to this game than ship battles but I think this will be the most exciting part so check out how it looks in the beta.

Don’t forget, the release of Star Trek Online is scheduled for February and you can get a really cool Borg bridge officer if you preorder it.

Star Trek Online: Ships, Crew & Bridge Officers

trolr — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 22:14:43 +0000

More and more details are revealed about one of the most exciting MMO games due sometime next year (hopefully), Star Trek Online. Beta applications have started some time ago however the NDA is still up so there’s not too much information yet available, so I’ll tease you with this short overview of ships, their crew and roles of bridge officers.

Ship Categories

Escort ships

Escort ships are heavily armed and very maneuverable and fast. They pack more firepower than most other ships and can load cannons. Their cons are their lack of science, medical or engineering skills. If you’re a decent Star Trek fan, you’ll probably remember the Defiant from DS9: who wouldn’t want to ride one?

Science ships

Science ships have more advanced deflectors, targeting systems, sensors and better auxiliary power. Science ships also have the ability to detect cloaked ships. Their primary role is support with their buffs and debuffs, and battle control. Clearly they don’t have as much firepower as ships in the other two categories but are more than capable of completing missions on their own.

Cruiser ships

Cruisers are the biggest vessels, with most crew and a big badass warp core which provides a lot more energy than other ships and in turn makes a lot of other systems more effective, such as engineering or the ship’s repair rate. Cruisers also boast massive cargo holds which enable them to quickly resupply space stations or planets. Additionally, they have more weapon slots than escort or science ships. Their biggest disadvantage is lower maneuverability, however they have more than enough pros to combat that.

Crew

The role of your ship’s crew is to repair damaged subsystems or hull damage, fight against boarding parties, joining boarding parties (which, if successful, damage an opponent’s subsystems), and so on. They can be injured and killed in battle, and later on replaced at starbases. You can have anywhere from fifty to a thousand crew members, depending on the size and type of your ship. I should note they are NPC characters and can not be directly controlled with, you simply assign tasks which they perform.

Bridge Officers

Players can assign bridge officers to their stations who perform various duties. You can assign them to Science, Tactical or Engineering stations, and depending on your ship you can have more or less of those stations. The stations are ranked much as bridge officers: Ensign, Lieutenant, Lieutenant Commander and Commander. A certain Bridge Officer can only access skills that correspond to the rank of the station at which he’s positioned. For example if an Engineering Officer is a Commander but stationed at a Lieutenant Commander’s station on a ship, he’d only have access to his Ensign, Lieutenant and Lieutenant Commander skills.

Bridge officers furthermore enable you to customize your ship and they have a huge impact on the gameplay.

WoW Behind the Scenes

trolr — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 12:09:23 +0000

This bit of news which Blizzard always kept to themselves is certainly worth writing about. I’ve always wondered what kind of power (both manpower and machines) is required for nearly twelwe million players to enjoy this MMO, and now some of it is revealed.

During the GDC Austin, two developers talked about a lot of stuff like how the game came to be and all that, but here’s the interesting part:

Manpower:

Customer support: 2,056 game masters, 340 billing managers, and a host of other background staffers
12,000,000 Battle.net accounts
900,000 web files (armory, online stores, …)
players have unlocked some 4,449,680,399 rewards
66 “blue” posters on the forums
Licensing group within the company (handles novel publishing, comics, strategy guides, the upcoming WoW magazine, apparel, plushies, action figures, games) helped to release 400 products with Blizzard properties.
7,650 quests, 70,000 spells, 40,000 NPCs
5.5 million lines of code

Hardware:

20,000 computer systems
13,250 server blades
75,000 cpu cores
112.5 terabytes of blade RAM
1.3 petabytes of storage (1,300,000 GBs)

Now if that didn’t impress you then check your pulse. As one of the devs said, Operating an online game is about more than just game development.

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WoW Behind the Scenes is a post from Trolr.com

WoW Cataclysm Beta Signup

trolr — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 22:25:46 +0000

Since people always seem to fall for these scams, let’s check out one of them. Hopefully, at least one sucker will listen to me and not sign up.

I noticed a video today on Youtube which shows some scenes from various WotLK/Cataclysm trailers and such. According to the guy who uploaded it this is supposed to be the proof that Blizzard started sending beta invites. Obviously, there’s a link provided: http://worldofwarcraft.betasignup.co.cc. If you’re dumb enough to visit this and think it’s actually the official website then you can just go ahead and give them your account details. In case you have second thoughts, there might be hope for you yet.

Whether you believe or not the beta has started is not relevant: despite the fact it’s early, it will start one day and even then you might fall for it if you don’t know about the types of scams just waiting to get you.

If you’re paranoid and don’t even want to visit the website, you can click the image below for a screenshot.

Clearly the website is styled the same way as the official Blizzard’s WoW site. If it’s not obvious yet, anyone can copy the design. The number one thing which gives away fake websites is your browsers address bar: if it doesn’t show http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/, it’s fake! Here’s a couple of examples of what spammers usually use for URL’s:

worldofwarcraft.something.com
worldofwarcraft.com.something.com
beta.worldofwarcraft.com.something.com

You get the picture. These are all fake url’s and can belong to anyone, but one thing is sure: they don’t belong to Blizzard.

It’s been said countless times, Blizzard employees will never ask for your account password (obviously, they already have it), and interestingly enough this website won’t ask you for one. All it asks for is your email and account name.

After submitting your email and account name, you’re asked to provide a 60-day gamecard code:

After that, you’re “successfully” signed up for the Cataclysm beta and redirected to the official Cataclysm website.

What did this site just accomplish? Let’s see:

They stole your gamecard code.
They got your account name and associated email.

Even though you don’t immediately receive any emails, a few months from now you’ll forget all about this fake site and when the beta does actually start you’ll probably receive an official-looking email saying you’re accepted and all that crap. After that you’ll probably be politely asked to give them your account password (not email or account name, just password), and more than likely many will fall for it.

Thanks to Guerillamail, I won’t be receiving spam in my mailbox. Clearly another downside of entering your email on such scammy and spammy websites.

If you do happen to get an email saying you’re selected to participate in Cataclysm beta, double — no triple check the links and don’t do anything unless you’re 100% certain it’s the official World of Warcraft website. Just because the links says www.worldofwarcraft.com, does not mean it leads there: check the HTML source of the received email and see where the link leads you (usually right-click and select View Source).

Don’t fall for these scams. There will be countless more in the days to come so stay alert and don’t click any links which don’t look authentic.

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WoW Cataclysm Beta Signup is a post from Trolr.com

Diablo III Overview

trolr — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 19:54:17 +0000

A recent article popped up on mmolecule about Diablo 3 which I decided to fully share with you. It has several videos, screenshots and a nice FAQ for those unfamiliar with this Blizzard’s hot title.

Players will create a hero from one of five distinct classes, such as barbarian, witch doctor, wizard, or monk, each equipped with an array of spells and abilities. As these heroes adventure through rich and varied settings, unraveling an epic storyline and engaging in combat with hordes of monsters and challenging bosses, they’ll grow in experience and ability and acquire items of incredible power.

The game takes place on Sanctuary, a world of dark fantasy. Unbeknownst to most of its inhabitants, Sanctuary was saved some twenty years ago from the demonic forces of the underworld by a few brave and powerful heroes. Most of those warriors who directly faced the armies of the Burning Hells — and were fortunate enough to survive — went mad from their experiences. And most of the others have buried their haunted memories and pushed the horrors from their thoughts. In Diablo III, players will return to Sanctuary to confront evil in its many forms once again.

Diablo III will be a fitting sequel to Diablo II, with the easy interface, fast-paced action, and visceral gameplay that Diablo players have come to expect and enjoy. It will also include many new features that will take the Diablo action-RPG experience to the next level.

Features:

Five powerful character classes to choose from, including the barbarian, witch doctor, wizard, and monk
Brand-new 3D graphics engine enhanced with spectacular visual effects and Havok physics
Numerous indoor and outdoor areas detailing new regions in the world of Sanctuary
Interactive environments with dangerous traps and obstacles, and destructible elements
Randomly generated worlds bolstered by scripted events for endless and dynamic gameplay
Vast assortment of fiendish monsters, with unique attack patterns and behaviors
New quest system and character-customization options for the ultimate action RPG experience
Multiplayer functionality over Battle.net with support for cooperative and competitive play

Diablo III FAQs

Q: What is Diablo III?

A: We’re developing Diablo III to be the definitive action role-playing game, and a true continuation of the Diablo series. Players will adventure through rich and varied settings, unraveling an epic storyline, engaging in combat with hordes of monsters and challenging bosses, growing in experience and ability, and acquiring items of incredible power. Diablo III will be a fitting sequel to Diablo II, with the easy interface, fast-paced action, and visceral gameplay that Diablo players have come to expect and enjoy. It will also include many new features that will take the Diablo action-RPG experience to the next level.

Q: Which characters will be in Diablo III?

A: Players will create a male or female hero from one of five distinct classes, such as barbarian, witch doctor, wizard, or monk, each equipped with an array of spells and abilities. New customization options will provide for an even greater level of character specialization than the previous Diablo games, allowing the player to create unique characters brimming with power.

Q: What can you say about the announced classes?

A: Returning from Diablo II, the dual-wielding barbarian is one of the stoic guardians of Mount Arreat. Retooled with powerful new abilities and moves, this plate-wearing savage wields ferocious weapons to annihilate the demonic forces threatening the world of Sanctuary.

The fearsome witch doctor hails from the terrifying Tribe of the Five Hills of the legendary umbaru race. The witch doctor is equipped with spells and alchemical powers; can summon mongrels, locust swarms, and zombie armies; and hurls fiery concoctions to annihilate any demon foolish enough to trifle with the powers of the umbaru.

The wizard is a wielder of the elements and a master manipulator of time, who combats the hordes of the Burning Hells by launching environment-shattering lightning bolts, channeling explosive arcane energies, and creating pockets of space outside of the normal flow of time.

The monk is a skilled warrior of unparalleled dexterity. Armed with speed, holy fervor, and a quest for physical and spiritual perfection, the monk becomes a deadly apparition in the heat of battle, moving faster than the eye can follow to strike down enemies with a barrage of lightning-fast blows.

Q: How did the new monk character class come about?

We wanted to add another melee character that was still hard-hitting, but lightning fast, to complement the raw strength and brutality of the barbarian. When we set out to design the monk, we wanted him to feel elegant and fluid, like something out of a fighting game. What we came up with is a holy warrior and martial artist who uses a unique arsenal of weaponry, hand-to-hand combat techniques, and a distinctive combo-based attack system.

Q: What is the story of Diablo III?

A: The game takes place on Sanctuary, a world of dark fantasy. Unbeknownst to most of its inhabitants, Sanctuary was saved some twenty years ago from the demonic forces of the underworld by a few brave and powerful heroes. Most of those warriors who directly faced Hell’s armies — and were fortunate enough to survive — went mad from their experiences. And most of the others have buried their haunted memories and pushed the horrors from their thoughts. In Diablo III, players will return to Sanctuary to confront evil in its many forms once again.

Q: Will Diablo III be running on a new engine?

A: Diablo III is powered by a new graphics engine that can display characters and hordes of monsters in lush, fully 3D environments. Powerful special-effects systems and Havok-powered physics allow for realistic object dynamics and cloth simulation, and enable players to lay waste to the minions of the Burning Hells in spectacular ways.

Q: Will Diablo still have randomized events?

A: Diablo III builds on the random environments of the previous Diablo games by adding random scripted events and encounters throughout the game, creating a dense and exciting world alive with quests, NPCs, and dynamic encounters.

Q: What can you tell us about Battle.net?

A: Diablo III will benefit from Battle.net upgrades that will provide some exciting new features for players. Cooperative online play remains a primary focus, with multiple enhancements being planned to make connecting with your friends easier and cooperative play even more fun. We’ll have more details on all these aspects as well as other exciting new features at a later date.

Q: How will PvP be implemented in Diablo III?

A: With regard to the multiplayer component of Diablo III, the emphasis will be on cooperative play, but we will also include support for competitive play. What form that support will take is still being discussed, but we are being careful to avoid features that can easily lead to griefing, such as the ability to go hostile at will.

Q: When will Diablo III be released?

A: It’s too early to estimate Diablo III’s release date. As with all Blizzard Entertainment games, our goal is to create a game that is as fun, balanced, and polished as possible. We intend to take as much time developing Diablo III as is necessary to ensure the game meets our own high expectations and those of our players. We’re aiming to release Diablo III on both Mac and Windows simultaneously in as many regions as possible, and to localize the game in several languages. We’ll have more details to share about countries, languages, and specific dates as we get closer to release.

Q: What will Diablo III be rated?

A: The Diablo III rating will be determined by the ratings boards in each region. We still have a good amount of work to do content-wise, so we’re not quite ready to submit the game for ratings yet.

Q: Will players interact with any familiar faces or places in Diablo III?

A: Yes, definitely. Players will return to Tristram and certain other locations from the previous games and they’ll also be exploring new areas of Sanctuary. Players will also encounter several new characters as well as a number of characters from the previous games including Deckard Cain.

Q: What will questing be like in Diablo III? Will it be similar to Diablo II?

A: Our plans for the story and quest mechanics are still under wraps. We’ll go into detail on those elements of the game at a later date. We can say, however, that we expect to have class-based quests in addition to the main story-line quests.

Q: What are the system requirements for Diablo III?

A: We’ll announce specific system requirements at a later date.

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Diablo III Overview is a post from Trolr.com