land posts

Who wants to buy a virtual spacestation?

by Seraphina Brennan Dec 8th 2009 at 3:00PM

Filed under: Sci-fi, Entropia Universe, Culture, Economy, Events, in-game, News items

You sir! Can I interest you in this pristine virtual space station? No? Ma'am! Over here ma'am! How would you like to live amongst the stars in a brand new virtual space station?

If you think this post is a silly post, then think again. Planet Calypso (formerly Entropia Universe) really is auctioning off one of their virtual space stations to their players, making this the third time that a major piece of Calypso property has been auctioned off to a private party. This time it's the Crystal Palace Space Station that's up for auction, one of Calypso's long time prime off-world hunting grounds.

What makes this auction so newsworthy is the fact that it will be conducted through Planet Calypso's auction systems using PED (Project Entropia Dollar), which basically makes the virtual space station worth real money, as the PED needs to be purchased by the player with real world currency.

Tags: auction, crystal-palace-space-station, entropia-universe, event, hunting, land, ownership, PED, planet-calypso, project-entropia, real-world-currency, retail, spacestation

Star Trek Online wallpapers are 75% generic, 25% gorgeous

by Samuel Axon Oct 8th 2008 at 11:00AM

Filed under: Sci-fi, Screenshots, New titles, Wallpapers, Star Trek Online

There's been a dearth of Star Trek Online news or information these past few weeks. We've been upset about it. Cryptic just broke radio science at long last, though: four Star Trek Online wallpapers have been posted at the game site. We've got all of 'em here for you to see, but head over to the official gallery for the full breadth of resolution choices.

One of them is a rare in-game glimpse at a planet surface. It looks gorgeous, although we're suddenly worried about the minimum system requirements. Hopefully those nice lighting and shadow effects will scale back for low-end desktops and notebooks.

Gallery: Star Trek Online Wallpaper Gallery

Tags: cryptic-studios, desktop, images, jungle, land, planet-surface, sci-fi, screenshots, star-trek, star-trek-online, sto, wallpaper, wallpapers

Asheron's Call's 100th update is live and kicking

by Samuel Axon Aug 27th 2008 at 4:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Asheron's Call, Events, in-game, Expansions, Patches, PvP, News items

The much-heralded 100th Asheron's Call update has finally arrived! In addition to new areas and monsters, it notably adds in the highly anticipated faction system, with three distinct societies that players can join. There are also two new towns which may be captured in PvP. The society that controls a town will have access to the Black Market, which sells special items unavailable anywhere else.

A new tier of loot has been added -- mostly for levels 150 and up -- which includes armor sets for players above level 180 and items used in crafting new spells. Yep, there are new spells -- a whole level of them in fact! Level 8 spells may either be researched in the traditional way, or learned via combination of certain item drops from the new tier.

The complete release notes, including details on how to acquire items in the new loot tier, are available at Turbine's AC website. This is a huge update (accompanied, of course, by the August event), and it's a great time to feel proud that you're among the special few playing Asheron's Call today.

Tags: 100, 100th-update, ac, asherons-call, breaking, faction-systems, factions, items, land, level-8, level-8-spells, patch, pvp, research, societies, spells, turbine, update

Former STO designer: Star Trek might be "hardest MMO IP ever"

by Samuel Axon Dec 17th 2007 at 7:00PM

Filed under: Sci-fi, New titles, News items, Star Trek Online

Star Trek Online is one of the most anticipated MMOs on the horizon, but it's no secret that Perpetual Entertainment has had a rough couple of months. There's an ever-present air of uncertainty around STO's future.

Most of that uncertainty stems from Perpetual's legal and financial troubles, but one former STO team member has written up a blog post suggesting that making a Star Trek MMO might be a Kobyashi Maru scenario to begin with. "At first glance, Star Trek seems like the perfect setting for an MMO," said former systems designer Eric Heimburg, "but appearances can be deceiving. It's actually a huge landmine of problems."

Heimburg wrote that it's an expensive and difficult task to produce both a space game and a land game, that making space interesting is challenging, and that it's impossible to please all Star Trek fans because everyone has a different opinion about what makes the franchise great. All good points; we'll see if Perpetual has what it takes to make it all come together ... if it can even survive its financial and legal woes.

[Via TTH]

Tags: blog, elder-game, eric-heimburg, financial, franchise, kobyashi-maru, land, legal, perpetual-entertainment, space, star-trek, star-trek-online, sto