turbine posts

One Shots: A strange summoning

by Krystalle Voecks Nov 6th 2009 at 2:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Screenshots, Dungeons and Dragons Online, One Shots

As we visited the lands of Lord of the Rings Online yesterday for a bit of spooky fun, today we thought we'd take a peek in at Dungeons and Dragons Online. While this isn't specifically a Halloween shot, we thought the spooky summons was a nice counterpoint. This image comes to us from Tanek, who writes in to explain: [this] shot was taken during a show in the beta this past summer. I think the show was in the Marketplace, but I'm not sure. I'm also not sure I want to know exactly what is being summoned. Whatever it is, it does not seem happy.

If you're playing a game we only see on occasion -- or have never seen -- we want to hear from you! Show us your favorite areas, tell us a bit about the lore, or maybe just tell us why you like it. Email them to oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name and the name of the game. We'll post them up and give them a chance to shine.

Gallery: One Shots

Tags: ddo, dungeons-and-dragons-online, one-shots, screenshot, screenshots, tanek, turbine

Lord of the Rings Online dev diary tells of creating Mirkwood

by Rubi Bayer Nov 6th 2009 at 11:00AM

Filed under: Fantasy, Lord of the Rings Online, Expansions, News items

We've been enjoying the gorgeous screenshots and trailers from Turbine in the weeks leading up to the release of Lord of the Rings Online: Siege of Mirkwood, and the latest LotRO developer diary gives a behind the scenes look at creating the regions in Mirkwood.

Jesse "Vastin" Kings writes about the fun the team had getting to play with new areas, monsters, and quests, and the challenge of balancing those plans with the available resources. Working with the original Lord of the Rings story line posed another challenge sometimes when it came to filling in the game and still remaining true to Tolkien.

Of course, not everything was on the showy, fun, creative side: "...it might interest you to know that the single largest share of all the time I've spent working on Mirkwood was in trying to figure out and implement ways to keep our servers from being reduced to piles of smoking slag within hours of Siege of Mirkwood going live and all of you hurling yourselves at it at once."

The full entry can be read here.

Tags: developer-diary, expansion, jesse-kings, lord-of-the-rings-online, lotro, siege-of-mirkwood, turbine

The Daily Grind: Are you still playing a September MMO?

by Brooke Pilley Nov 6th 2009 at 8:00AM

Filed under: Aion, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Fallen Earth, New titles, The Daily Grind, Champions Online

September 2009 saw the release of Champions Online, Dungeons & Dragons: Eberron Unlimited (an older MMO going F2P), Fallen Earth, and Aion. This was easily the busiest month for MMOs in recent memory and we're sure many of you at least picked up one of them to try out. We're curious to know if you're still playing a September MMO just over a month later. If so or if not, why?

No MMO in the history of MMOs has experienced a perfectly smooth launch and these September titles were no exception. Did the action-packed combat of CO pull you in or did the lack of content push you away? Were you awed by DDO-EU's polished suite of tools or annoyed by the limitations put on free accounts? Was Fallen Earth's post-apocalyptic setting a breath of fresh air or did you choke on a mouthful of radioactive bugs? Did the beauty and smoothness of Aion make your heart beat faster or did its grind and bot infestation crush your soul? Just how impressed were you with September's crop of new MMOs?

Tags: aion, champions-online, cryptic, ddo, ddo-ebberon-unlimited, fallen-earth, icarus-studios, ncsoft, new-titles, the-daily-grind, turbine

New screenshots for Lord of the Rings Online: Siege of Mirkwood

by Rubi Bayer Nov 5th 2009 at 7:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Screenshots, Lord of the Rings Online, Expansions

The Lord of the Rings Online expansion Siege of Mirkwood is set for release at the beginning of December, and Turbine takes us farther into the forest of Mirkwood today with brand new screenshots of the Ashenslades region. It's a bit farther in -- you can see Dol Guldur looming in the background -- and looks more dark and foreboding than our look at the somewhat-sunnier Scuttledells region.

The Ashenslades name fits what the screenshots show -- take a look at the forest in flames in one picture, and what appear to be burned and blackened trees in the background of another one.

This is the fourth region that Turbine has shown us in our tour of Mirkwood, giving us glimpses of Dol Guldur, Gathburz, and the Scuttledells regions in previous weeks. Monday's release of a trailer gave us a bit more of a look into Dol Guldur as well. We have just over three weeks until the release of Siege of Mirkwood, and hopefully Turbine will continue their previews to make the wait go by a little faster.

Gallery: Lord of the Rings Online: Siege of Mirkwood Ashenslades region

Tags: ashenslades, lord-of-the-rings-online, lotro, screenshots, siege-of-mirkwood, turbine

Lord of the Rings Online explains skirmish rewards

by Eliot Lefebvre Nov 5th 2009 at 3:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Lord of the Rings Online, Expansions, Game mechanics

"Let's be honest, people play new content for the rewards." Perhaps not the most uplifting or metaphorical way to start off a developer diary, but if nothing else you need to give Lord of the Rings Online credit for being so direct about it. But with the most recent developer diary regarding the Skirmish system coming in the Siege of Mirkwood expansion, they really deserve still more credit than that. One of the larger new features of the upcoming expansion, the Skirmish system has had a number of diaries devoted to it, but this one is focused on exactly what the opening would suggest: the meaty rewards from taking part.

Some of the specifics might seem a bit arcane to people unfamiliar with Lord of the Rings Online, but the short version is that the various bosses and so forth will be devoid of any loot except for what's referred to as skirmish marks. Accumulating them as well as special tokens depending on group size and skirmish difficulty will allow purchases from a wide variety of powerful items. However, the system is balanced so that even consistently solo players can still work toward the highest tier of rewards, although the road will be quite a bit longer. There's only so much we can get across in a quick overview -- it's better to take a look at the actual diary and get ready for one of the more dynamic systems coming with Siege of Mirkwood.

Tags: developer-diaries, developer-diary, expansions, game-mechanics, gear, lord-of-the-rings-online, lotro, rewards, siege-of-mirkwood, skirmish, turbine

One Shots: Who ya gonna call?

by Krystalle Voecks Nov 5th 2009 at 2:01PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Screenshots, Lord of the Rings Online, One Shots

While we didn't get in a bunch of Halloween shots, we did get a handful in, which I'll be sharing with you as we move into another great weekend full of gaming fun. Today's not-so-spooky image comes to us from the Lord of the Rings Online Landroval server, which seems to be a great place to be if you're into getting lots of RP out of your MMORPG! Harper Hendee sent back this annotated postcard from their events and explains it for us.

I know you don't usually take annotated screenshots but this is from a huge RP/storytelling/PvMP/musical event on Landroval called The Oathbreaker Captains. It culminates on October 31st with an army of Captains and their Oathbreaker pets fighting an army of spiders in the PvMP area of the Ettenmoors. This shot was snapped as they were geting a sendoff from the locals in Bree. They were happy to have the departed spirits fighting for them and to have those spirits... out of Bree. Lonely Mountain Band provided sendoff music as the spirits manifested in the Haunted Alley and made their way to the Prancing Pony.

We love to hear about role-playing events in MMOs! If you and your group are doing something fun, grab a great screenshot of it and send it our way. Pop it into an email to oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the name of the game, and a description of what's going on. We'll feature it here, and who knows - you might draw some more RPers to your next event who saw it here!

Gallery: One Shots

Tags: harper-hendee, lord-of-the-rings-online, lotro, one-shots, screenshot, screenshots, turbine

Choose my Adventure: The Marketplace

by Shawn Schuster Nov 4th 2009 at 5:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Culture, Free-to-play, Hands-on, Roleplaying, Choose my Adventure

Join me as I brave my way through lands unknown in an adventure dictated entirely by you, the Massively readers! Vote for everything from game played to character creation to ultimate goal and watch it unfold in a series of journals and galleries here on the site. Then, as the ultimate goal is reached, we'll do it all over again in a new game!

This week, we've made our way through the rest of the Waterworks quests in Dungeons and Dragons Online and into the Marketplace and the Cerulean Hills. Despite our limited time together, the Critical Mass bunch are really making headway through these quests.

We've finally brought back the polls for this week, as you'll have a chance to not only vote on where we go from here, but also enjoy a revisit to the use of Turbine Points earned so far. Follow along after the jump for Fahryn's in-character journal, my impressions and the return of the polls!

Tags: choose-my-adventure, ddo, dungeons-and-dragons-online, f2p, featured, free-to-play, turbine

DDO: Unlimited Shan-to-Kor adventure pack trailer

by Kyle Horner Nov 4th 2009 at 3:00PM

Filed under: Video, Dungeons and Dragons Online, News items

Turbine has released a video for the Shan-to-Kor adventure pack, which is aimed at level four and above players. The dungeon -- which lies deep beneath the marketplace -- is nothing too grandiose or epic, certainly not on the level of Dol Guldur, but these videos serve as a nice way for interested DDO: Unlimited players to get a preview of content before they commit to buying it in-game through the DDO Store.

We wonder if there's a way for Turbine to incorporate these videos into the actual game itself, or at the very least to offer an external link for easy viewing. That may be asking too much, although since they keep making these it seems pretty logical to us.

Check out the video after the break.

Tags: adventure-pack, ddo, ddo-unlimited, shan-to-kor, turbine, video

Dungeons and Dragons Online opening new server

by Rubi Bayer Nov 4th 2009 at 10:00AM

Filed under: Fantasy, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Game mechanics, News items, Free-to-play

We told you recently about the massive population growth that Dungeons and Dragons Online has experienced since going free-to-play last summer, and Turbine is keeping pace with that growth nicely. Players enjoy a solid, extensive game at the free level, as well as a seemingly endless supply of additional content at either a microtransaction or subscription level -- including the first major content update since the free-to-play model launched in June.

Today they're adding something less on the gameplay side and more on the foundation side: a new server to keep up with the increased player base. Turbine announced the addition of new server world Orien (after the Dragonmarked noble house in Eberron) yesterday. It's only open to new characters -- character transfers are unfortunately not available at the time -- but it will certainly help to spread the server load out a bit as more players head in to see what all the fuss is about.

The new server world opens today.

Tags: ddo, dungeons-and-dragons-online, free-to-play, orien, server, turbine

LotRO's spellbinding 'Lieutenant of Dol Guldur' trailer

by Kyle Horner Nov 3rd 2009 at 4:00PM

Filed under: Trailers, Lord of the Rings Online, Expansions, News items

Turbine is stepping it up with their newest Lord of the Rings Online: Siege of Mirkwood trailer, Lieutenant of Dol Guldur. The voice acting, editing, music, creatures and setting are all enthralling to a degree that goes beyond our standard expectations. We've no doubt this one will get people's blood pumping, and in a good way. Seriously, this is the kind of stuff you expect when a company adopts an important IP -- especially where the voice acting is concerned.

We can't wait to see what the future holds for Turbine trailers, especially considering the locales of Middle-earth the game has yet to expand into its world. Rohan? Helm's Deep? Minas Tirith? Osgiliath? Thinking of trailers for all these places makes us tingle with anticipation.

Check out the trailer after the cut.

Tags: dol-guldur, expansion, helms-deep, lord-of-the-rings, lord-of-the-rings-online, lotro, minas-tirith, osgiliath, rohan, siege-of-mirkwood, trailer, turbine, video

Lord of the Rings Online extends special pricing offers to November 18th

by Rubi Bayer Nov 3rd 2009 at 12:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Lord of the Rings Online, Expansions, News items

With the Siege of Mirkwood expansion less than a month away from launch, Turbine is keeping an eye on it's current Lord of the Rings Online players with their special pricing deals. Each deal includes the phrase "and get Mirkwood for free!" and they've included something for every pricing plan. Turbine first made these offers way back when they announced the release date for Siege of Mirkwood, and they must be going over pretty well, because they've extended the offer through November 18th.

Current subscribers have three offers to pick from. If you're a monthly subscriber and upgrade to multi-month by November 18th, you'll get the expansion free of charge. The deal applies for 3, 6, or 12 month sub plans. Players who are already on a multi-month plan seem to have the easiest deal, because Mirkwood is free to them for simply maintaining their subscription. Those on a lifetime subscription will receive Siege of Mirkwood free when they pre-order the Adventurer's Pack.

Siege of Mirkwood is scheduled for release on December 1st.

Tags: expansion, lifetime-subscription, lord-of-the-rings-online, lotro, siege-of-mirkwood, turbine

Asheron's Call celebrates its 10th anniversary

by Kyle Horner Nov 2nd 2009 at 5:30PM

Filed under: Asheron's Call, Events, in-game, News items

Whenever an MMO hits the big ten-zero, we tend to get a little misty in the ocular slots on our heads. Asheron's Call holds a special place in many a person's heart -- because everyone has a first -- and so this post is for all of you players both past and present who cherish and adore your little personal slice of gaming love.

Turbine has plans to run live events throughout the day as part of their celebration, which includes bringing back some of the most loved (and feared) characters and villains. We hope the event is fun for all, and if any players happen to attend why not take some awesome screens and send them into our One Shots feature? You can do so by emailing oneshots AT massively DOT com.

Tags: ac, anniversary, asherons-call, in-game-event, one-shots, screen, screens, screenshot, screenshots, turbine

One Shots: Darkness lies ahead

by Krystalle Voecks Oct 30th 2009 at 2:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Screenshots, Lord of the Rings Online, One Shots

For the day before Halloween we thought we'd bring you something pretty scary. But then we thought to ourselves that it's Friday, and that's pretty awesome. So we opted for a compromise showing both scary and awesome at the same time! Today's great Lord of the Rings Online One Shots comes to us from Leitchy, who captured this mix of beauty and danger just ahead. Leitchy writes in: I know you've had lots of pics from Lord of the Rings Online, but I think this one is the best of all. Looking from a point beyond Far Chetwood, we can see the ruins of Amon Sul in the distance. A couple of half-orcs in the middle distance are the only blot on the landscape.

With so many different Halloween events going on this weekend, we know there are going to be some great screenshot moments. So grab some of those and send them in to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the name of the game, and a quick description. If we get enough, maybe we'll do a special spooky version of One Shots to show off all the holiday adventures!

Gallery: One Shots

Tags: leitchy, lord-of-the-rings-online, lotro, one-shots, screenshot, screenshots, turbine

New screenshots for Siege of Mirkwood: Scuttledells

by Rubi Bayer Oct 29th 2009 at 6:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Galleries, Screenshots, Lord of the Rings Online, Expansions

With the release of the Lord of the Rings Online expansion Siege of Mirkwood barely over a month away, Turbine continues to keep interest and anticipation high by releasing screenshots, trailers, and even treating us to a developer tour.

The latest batch of screenshots, released by Turbine today, takes us onward into the forests of Mirkwood, into the Scuttledells region. The Scuttledells are a beautiful area and a bit less gloomy than much of what we've seen before, but seem to offer up just as many monsters (giant spider!) and adventures for players to explore.

This is the third region that Turbine has given us a look at while we wait for Siege of Mirkwood. Their tour of Mirkwood has included the fortress/dungeon Dol Guldur and the Gathburz region, as well as a trailer offering some backstory and a challenge from Galadriel to answer the call of war. Given what we've seen so far, we're anxious for December to arrive so we can take her up on her offer.

Gallery: Lord of the Rings Online: Siege of Mirkwood - Scuttledells

Tags: expansion, gallery, lord-of-the-rings-online, lotro, screenshots, siege-of-mirkwood, turbine

Massively's DDO developer tour for Update 1

by Rubi Bayer Oct 28th 2009 at 3:30PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Patches, News items, Free-to-play

Dungeons and Dragons Online has been enjoying a huge surge in popularity since their free-to-play model launched last June. Today marks the introduction of their first major content update since the launch, something everyone has been looking forward to for quite a while. We told you Sunday about the letter to the players from Executive Producer Fernando Paiz, and Monday we had the opportunity to get together with some of the guys from Turbine for a look at what's coming today. Between the gorgeous world Turbine has created and the numerous adventure packs for additional play, new DDO players have no shortage of content to explore and enjoy. Now long time players are getting some love with Update 1.

Follow along after the jump for a look at what to expect from today's content patch.

Tags: adventure-pack, dungeons-and-dragons-online, epic-difficulty, turbine, update-1