Happy New Year to You All!

We wish you all a Happy New Year and that it may bring lots of joy!

...and ofcourse alot of new online games and expansions to play!

RuneScape: A Christmas Warble

As expected the RuneScape Christmas event is here. Like for other holiday events in RS, you get a Christmas-themed quest called A Christmas Warble.

You'll return to the Land of Snow to see that Ebenezer Scourge has ruined the feast for everyone by stealing the presents and food, and by kidnapping Santa. Of course you can't let him get away with that, and with the help of the snow imps (from last year's event) you manage to save Christmas.

The reward for all this is pretty cool this year: the Christmas ghost robes, a candy cane and the new 'dramatic point' emote. Especially the robes look quite nice, but see so for yourself on the screenshots.

Guild Wars: New Costumes

http://www.guildwars.com/

With this Wintersday, Anet has introduced a new feature to Guild Wars, namely costumes of Grenth and Dwayne. These costumes are just like fashion in Perfect World and are worn over your normal armor. They have no armor value or anything, just to look a bit different. These costumes can be worn at all times and you won't have to put them away in your bags when you don't want to show it anymore thanks to 2 new slots in your equipment window. One for hats, and one for the rest of the body. The one for your head also serves for your season, festival hats which no longer have to be worn as an armor. Like armor these costumes can be dyed in any color you like. Grenth and Dwayna costumes are available for purchase from the In-Game Store and the NCsoft Store.

RuneScape: Blood Runs Deep Quest

There's a new quest-release on RuneScape: Blood Runs Deep. This quest continues the Fremennik storyline and will take you around most areas of the Fremennik Province. It starts out with a stranger washed up on the shore of Lunar Isle; and it's up to you to figure out who this person is. Eventually the storyline gets more complex and leads you to battle a new type of dagannoths.

The quest is rated 'master' so the requirements are kind of high for most players: 75 attack and strength, 65 slayer and full completion of the Fremennik achievement diary.
Of course you get something in return for helping out; 3 times 150k xp in a combat skill of choice (unfortunately, excluding summoning) and a new axe called 'Balmung'.

Blood Runs Deep seems to be a fun quest to do. The reward is nice as well; the Balmung is quite strong and grants a damage bonus against dagannoths, the new dagannoths might be useful for slayer tasks and the free xp is always nice. So I'd say it's definately worth doing if you meet the requirements. Happy questing!

EVE Online: New planet tour video

http://www.eve-online.com/

"A time will come when men will stretch out their eyes. They should see planets like our Earth." -Sir Christopher Wren on EVE Online: Dominion's gorgeous and reimagined heavenly bodies.

After launching the Dominion trailer, their video team took a bit of time to put together this beautiful, Sagan-esque tour of the new planets. Enjoy!



by CCP Manifest

APB: Podcast Episode 15

http://www.apb.com/

It looks like the guys at APB are now releasing a new podcast every 2 weeks. So, in this week’s podcast we hear from Lead Designer EJ Moreland and Lead Gameplay Designer Jesse Knapp who answer some of your questions in a Q&A session.



If you have any other questions, send them in to podcast@apb.com. You can also still subscribe to the newsletter and to the Beta-test of APB.

EVE Online

http://www.eve-online.com/

Due to EVE Online being one big sandbox, you can really accomplish whatever you set your mind to. Want to become a rich trader? That’s cool. A miner looking for that precious ore? Alright. A pirate armed to the teeth? Kickass! Whatever you want, you can be. But you’ll have to put some time and research into your first character when you’re going to create it. Of course trial and error works fine as well. But if you really want some help with it, you can best just make a character, find an outpost where you can apply to join EVE University. They help and educate new players in the world of EVE, and you will need it!

Every game has a learning curve. No matter how long you’ve been playing MMORPG’s, the first time login in a new world, you’re starting from square one, you’re a total noob. Some games, like World of Warcraft, have a much gentler learning curve, which allows players to learn in small steps. Also if you’ve played a particular style of game in the past, and the new game you’ve decided to play begins the same way, you’re already several steps ahead of the learning curve. But if you’re totally new to the whole experience, even the simplest game’s learning curve may be a struggle to understand. Now, EVE Online has a very distinct learning curve (see picture). And sadly enough that’s a reason why so many people don’t stick to it.

For exemple, PVP in EVE is not just strapping on some random guns to your ship and shoot at some other people’s ships. For those of you that are unfamiliar with the style of combat in EVE: you’re playing a game of strategic resource management. Your ship has a set CPU output and power grid that it can generate which allows for a variety of weapons, warp disruptors and more to be outfitted onto your ship. However, each of these weapons and other upgrades use a part of that CPU and power grid, which forces you to really think about what kind of equipment you’ll outfit your ship with.

Once the weapons and upgrades are fitted, you then need to fly out into the vast universe to find your next target. If you wish to be a pirate you just go into low security sectors. Though if you don’t want your security status to drop, you’re better of joining faction warfare, or go into 0.0. When I started I was in 0.0 in only a month time, I joined YouWhat. Sadly enough they lost all their space 1-2 months later to Triumvirate when they lost the war. Later on I joined IRON (Imperial Republic Of the North), and even had to pleasure of fighting in the MAX campaign-War against BoB (Band Of Brothers).

Anyway, so once you fly out the station, you find a system with potential targets. As you intercept your target, you need to first lock on to the target. Since EVE plays out in space with distances reaching kilometers apart, you don’t simply click on a target to lock on. You have to get close within range first before you can actually start to lock your target; the range will depend of the ship you’re flying. The weapons in EVE also have a range limit, and so a player’s best bet is to orbit a ship at range then unload on them with your guns. Though again you have to watch out, some weapons do better when you’re orbiting your target at their optimal range, while others are better used on their falloff range.

While that sounds simple, it is anything but. If you have more than one ship that you’re attacking, you may end up in a boat load of trouble in a hurry. Most ships only have a limited number of targets they can lock on to at the same time. Also, as your ship continue to get bigger, more badass and nastier, you’ll have a whole mess of weapons and boosters that you’ll need to keep track of. But I suggest you do that in advance as you will need to know pretty much what everything works, from how certain ship types are generally fitted to how you have to deal with them with the ship you got. Well, you don’t need to, but it’s pretty useful to know what you’re fighting, or what you can or can’t.

After 2 weeks of hiding in high sec and running normal missions, I thought I had everything well in hand to venture for the first time into low security; my rifter was loaded to the teeth, ready to fight. Damn was I in for a surprise. So, I sat there waiting for a target in a belt. Then all of a sudden an Omen (Amarr Cruiser) dropped out of hyperspace and boosted into my direction. So my first attempt of being a pirate out in the wild harsh space, turned out really bad… I was dropped to half armor, barely warped out of the area with my ship intact. I still wonder how I got out there alive because later on I flew quite often with the pilot of that Omen (Kane Rizzel was his name and one hell of a pilot).

If you enjoy role-playing and don’t think it’s possible in EVE Online, then think again by the way. I suggest you check his blog out! http://novakaneinc.blogspot.com/

Of course PVP is just one aspect of the game, but I didn’t find it interesting to talk about mining. And if I were to talk about manufacturing and stuff, it would take me too long. Anyway, for those of you who want to see some PVP or other things, you can just search a bit on YouTube, enough video’s and 101’s to find there.

Oh yes, this I forgot to say. EVE has this great Alliance Tournament on EVE TV. Even though I am not playing EVE anymore, I still watch the AT. So, big shout out to all there! :D And then I give you a video of last AT7: Semi Final - Pandemic Legion Vs. Manifest Destiny, to show you how fast things can go, and how tactics play a big role in PVP in EVE Online. If you don't want to watch it all, you can just go to minute 6:00 to 6:10 where you’ll get a nice quick reply of the match (rofl). Have fun watching!

That all said, good luck if you decide to try this game out. It’s really worth it!