Thursday, October 26, 2006

World of Warcraft machinima contest winners

9:43 PM (18 minutes ago)
World of Warcraft machinima contest winners
from Joystiq by Christopher Grant
Filed under: , , , The Blizzard/Xfire-sponsored World of Warcraft machinima contest is happening now on the lovely Stanford campus in Palo Alto, CA. The event kicked off with a screening of the 1st and 2nd place winners for all four categories: Music Video/Dance, Comedy, Short Feature, and Drama/Action. The winners earned some pretty sweet prizes, like an Athlon FX processor, an XFX GeForce 7900 GT video card, and more. The Best Overall winner, Jason Choi's operatic Edge of Remorse (embedded above), wins a "top end enthusiast PC" worth $5,000, courtesy of that other processing giant, AMD. Congrats, Jason!We've embedded all eight winning videos after the break, along with links to the runners-up in each of the four categories.Short Feature1st Place -- Short Feature2nd Place -- Short FeatureRunners-up -- Short Feature
Dr. Evil
Temptation
Mr. Shout TellsMusic Video/Dance1st Place -- Music Video/Dance2nd Place -- Music Video/DanceRunners-up -- Music Video/Dance
That's The World of Warcraft That You Play
WoW Logic
LingerDrama/Action1st Place and Best Overall Film -- Drama/Action2nd Place -- Drama/ActionRunners-up -- Drama/Action
Horde Crime Investigators
Emerald Reflection
The Island: Episode 1
Edge of RemorseComedy1st Place -- Comedy 2nd Place -- ComedyRunners-up -- Comedy
Corpuscule-O-Endorser
Inventing Swear Words 2
Chronicles of Jojin - The Caverns of Time

WoW mods

WoW! Today's serving of WoW mods
from MMORPG by Myra M.
Heads up, guys! We got another helping of WoW mods. For today, we got MainAssist 2.0, HIC v1.3, SSPVP 2.1.13, and Nightfall logger. Let's take a look at them one at a time, shall we?First off, we have MainAssist 2.0 by Nargiddley. According to the dev, it's an addon to monitor your raid targets. So basically, it lets you know who's targetting whom.Features:
Automatically syncs to the CTRA tank list
Add any unit as a custom tank, if the name is found in your raid/party, raid/party's pets, or raid/party's targets it will be shown. This allows you to add bosses to the list and always see who they are targeting.
Optional Target of Target display for the tanks
2 Color modes
Unique targets will be given unique colours, your current target will be coloured green.
Unique targets(only one tank on the list targeting them) will be coloured green, targets with more than one person targeting them will be given other coloursHIC v1.3, is short for Hide in Combat. This service plugin (that enables other plugins to register their interfaces) is made by deffling, and here's what he has to say about it:
When you're struck in combat, any registered interfaces that are open are closed automatically by HIC so you can concentrate on mashing up your target without any hindrance. The closed interfaces are then re-opened when your foe is dead. However, if the interfaces opens during combat, HIC will not close them for you as you may have a genuine reason for having them open.Below are the features and commands for this cool mod:Features:
MyAddOns support
Titan Panel Plugin
FuBar2 Plugin
Dynamic Event Registration
Per User SavedVariablesSlash Commands:
/hic ( on off ): Toggles HIC on and off.
/hic rac ( on off ):Toggles whether HIC restores closed interfaces post combat.
/hic reset:Retores default HIC registered interfaces and abandons any Add-On registrations.
/hic help:Prints a help message to DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME.Next we have SSPVP 2.1.13 by Shadowd, which features auto joining/leaving during PvP. But of course, that's not the only thing that it does. Take a look at its list of features below:Features:
Auto Join after X seconds
Auto join after X seconds while AFK
Auto Leave after X seconds
Auto release after dying
Auto release only when you don't have a soul stone active
Auto accept ressurection when a soul stone is available
Auto accept ressurection when near corpse
Skip battlemaster gossip
Auto solo queue when outside of a group
Auto group queue when inside a group and leader
Display the battlefield mini map automatically while inside a battleground
Improved mark turn ins, will only show the quests you can do a turn in for and how many marks for that quest you have
Don't auto join if the confirmation window is hidden
Don't auto join while AFK
Don't auto join while inside an instance
Don't auto join while inside an active battlegroundAuto group admin:
Automatically give leader when whispered 'leader'
Allows people to move others around by whispering 'swap person1 for person2'Warsong Gulch:
Can target the enemy flag carrier using /etarflag
Can target the friendly flag carrier using /ftarflag
Flag carriers name is shown next to the Warsong Gulch scores, can also click the name to target the player
Flag carrier name short cuts, efc for enemy flag carrier and ffc for friendly flag carrier
Display carrier class name ( or color )
Display friendly carrier's health next to nameArathi Basin:
Intervals in between alerts for when a resource will be captured
Only show alerts for Horde assaults
Only show alerts for Alliance assaultsAlterac Valley Timer:
Herald yells will be displayed using the Alliance Zone messages and the Horde Zone message colors just like inside Arathi Basin and Warsong Gulch
Intervals in between alerts for when a resource will be captured or destroyed
Only show alerts for Horde assaults
Only show alerts for Alliance assaults Overlays:
All timers can be customized to show a different format, the available ones are 'Min X, Sec X', 'Min X', 'mm:ss'
Display battlefield instance ID on overlay
Display faction balanced on overlayAlterac Valley:
Messages are colored depending on what faction caused the message, uses Alliance and Horde zone colors
Display how many minutes and seconds are left before a resource is destroyed or captured Arathi Basin:
Messages are colored depending on what faction caused the message, uses Alliance and Horde zone colors
Display how many minutes and seconds are left before a resource is captured
Match information
Bases to win
Time left
Final Horde/Alliance scoresQueue
List of battlefields that you are currently queued for
Count down before you auto join a battlegroundThe last one's Nightfall Logger, made by Nightspawn. The dev says it's a simple mod that registers each nightfall proc and all drain life/corruption ticks. Now, even though it's simple, we bet it's pretty useful, too. Here are the other features:
On nightfall the mod plays a sound.
To view the statistics type /nightfall in chat.
To view stats on each nightfall proc too, just type /nightfall spam in your console once (will be saved).
To view other options type /nightfall help.
At the moment there is only /nightfall reset, which resets all stats.That's it for today, folks! For more helpings of WoW mods, just stay tuned here at QJ.Download: [MainAssist v2.0]Download: [HIC v1.3]Download: [SSPVP v2.1.13]Download: [Nightfall logger]

DDO Website overhaul

Makeovers sure are fun. Of course, you can't help but get all excited to see yourself with a new look, plus the whole transformation process is fun in itself: you get to experiment with a new style (of course, the results may vary from "hot" to "not", but that's for another article), tweak your features a bit, dab some additions here and there, and voila! You got a whole new you! Well, we heard that the Dungeons & Dragons Online site just had a makeover, and we definitely loved it! Its jam-packed with more updates and additions such as the PvP Leaderboard. We bet the programmers didn't have a wild time making it (thinking about all those coding's making my head spin), but we're sure grateful that they put a lot of effort in their work. After all, it did pay off, right?And as makeovers go, other people can't wait to see it as well. And it goes both ways: if the results are good, we bet you can't wait to show off your new look, either. So I'm gonna end my blabbering and start with the "showcasing part" instead. Take a look at the new DDO website by clicking on the "Read" link below this article. We hope you guys will enjoy it as much as we did.

LOTR Online: exploring Brandy Hall

LOTR Online: exploring Brandy Hall
from MMORPG by Jex H.
For today's Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar update, we explore the stumps and corners of Brandy Hall, home of the many generations of Brandybucks.Brandy Hall serves as the ancestral home of the Brandybuck family and consists of tunnels and rooms which occupy the whole Buck Hill which is found on the east of Brandywine. This hall is one of the biggest mansions in the Shire, with three entrance doors and over a hundred windows. Brandy Hall also served as the home of Frodo Baggins, way before the fellowship was formed and before he went to live with Bilbo at Bag End.Aside from being a home to the countless generations of Brandybucks, Brandy Hall can also be considered as a librry of sorts, because in it is a huge collection of books that trace and record the history of the Shire. And although the majority of Brandy Hall was built underground, a significant portion of the structure remains visible in and around Buck Hill when viewed from a distance.We will be keeping you guys updated on Shadows of Angmar before it even gets an American release so keep checking back with us more LOTR updates and info.

Wesley Cwiklo wins gold at World Cyber Games

Wesley Cwiklo wins gold at World Cyber Games
from MMORPG by Max F.
Here's a bit of inspirational news for all of you gamers out there. Wesley "TTR Ch0mpr" Cwiklo, the youngest member of Team USA, took gold in Project Gotham Racing 3 on the Xbox 360.Team Korea (you know what a gaming-crazy nation Korea is) took home the Grand Champion title (their first since 2002; they won this year partly because of the gold and silver from Starcraft: Brood War). Team Russia got second in terms of medal count. Canada, China, Poland, and USA each took home one gold, so that makes Wesley Cwiklo the only gold medalist for Team USA.Cwiklo went undefeated round after round at Monza, Italy, where the event was held. The final race was against Christopher Hogfeldt of Sweden, a fellow TTR member (TTR is a team of PGR players).Next year's World Cyber Games will be in Seattle. Ralph Morton, Executive Director of Seattle Sports Commission, was there at this year's closing ceremonies to take the WCG flag in the symbolic turn-over.(One last thing about how the Koreans are a gaming country (or at least a nation where gaming is not frowned upon but seen as a positive thing). We were digging through our press photos from the event, and we kept finding Koreans; it seemed like they were really well-represented there. Eventually, we settled for that image of the event stage, because it's pretty neat.)About US 462,000 were given away in prizes. Gold medals went to China for WarCraft III: The Frozen Throne, the Polish for Half Life: Counter Strike, and Germany for FIFA 06. You know how parents say that gaming doesn't pay? Well it usually doesn't, unless you're really good like the 700 players who went to this year's WCG.If any of you guys know of any other competitions - or if you're joining a competition - why don't you let us know? We'll cheer you on. And if you're in the Seattle area, make sure you don't forget about next year's WCG!

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

WoW: The Burning Crusades post-poned

Gamers will instead have to wait until January to plumb the depths of Outland in ``The Burning Crusade,'' the ``World of Warcraft'' expansion pack that adds quests, locations and character levels to the persistent online role-playing game.``WoW,'' as it is often called, has become a global phenomenon since its November 2004 launch and now has an estimated 7 million subscribers, each paying about $15 per month to kill dragons like Onyxia or engage in player vs. player combat.Earlier this month, ``WoW'' maker Blizzard Entertainment, a unit of French media company Vivendi SA, began testing the expansion pack with select players to help work out bugs.

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Tabula Rasa 101

Tabula Rasa 101: Stuff you'd want to know
MMORPG blog - USA
For those who are unfamiliar with this title, Tabula Rasa is an up-and-coming third-person MMORPG from NCsoft where players will get to make up the force that ...

Saturday, October 21, 2006

Taxing MMO's..

Representative Saxton Says Taxing SL Would Be a Mistake
Top

Friday October 20, 2006 1:53 PM EDT

Filed under: News , Business We can all breathe a sigh of relief. Representative Jim Saxton, chairman of the Joint Economic Committee said, regarding the recent news that congress was looking into tax issues concerning virtual worlds, "The goal of the forthcoming JEC study is to help lawmakers understand the issues involved and head off any premature attempt to impose a tax on virtual economies." Boldly said. Apparently this is just a fact-finding mission, nothing to worry about. Further,...

Musical Instruments in Second Life

Musical Instruments in SL

Friday October 20, 2006 8:27 PM EDT
Here's a little piece about the range of musical instruments in SL, from a blog called Music Thing. I found the tone of the post to be slightly dismissive, as though the author was unable to reconcile his hopes for finding something awe-inspiring with the reality of what he found in-world. The piece completely skips over the feat of virtual engineering Robbie Dingo utilized simply to create what he has in the first place. Regardless, it's always nice to see different sources cover SL with a...

Friday, October 20, 2006

'The Bard' Coming soon...

Shakespeare goes digital
GameSpot - USA
MacArthur Foundation backs professor's foray into game building; the Bard is coming to an MMO near you soon. By Daniel Terdiman, News.com. ...

Auto Assault - Halloween Event

Game: Auto Assault
Article Title: Halloween Event
Link to Article: http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm?loadNews=6415

Thursday, October 19, 2006

one milLLLLLLlion dollars...errr.. residents!

We Have a Winner!

Wednesday October 18, 2006 9:23 PM EDT

Drum roll, please: the date and time of the registration of the millionth user was October 18th, 2006, at 08:05:45 AM, SL Time. The one millionth resident's name is Farley Atlantis, and I'll be contacting him/her soon for an interview (if he/she will have me!), but I know that you're all waiting for the name of the winning resident. Interestingly enough, only 3 people guessed the date correctly. With a prediction of 8:30 AM, the...

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Ben Folds to Play Second Life.

Ben Folds to Play SL

Top

Tuesday October 17, 2006 10:06 PM EDT

Filed under: Entertainment , News October 19th will see the grand opening of Starwood Hotel's Aloft Island, previously posted here . In conjunction with Starwood Hotels, Sony BMG Music Entertainment will be holding a launch party at Aloft Island from 4 - 6 PM, SL Time. As a special bonus, Ben Folds (formerly of the Ben Folds Five) will play new material from his upcoming release, supersunnyspeedgraphic, at 5:40. At 6 PM, Ben will greet residents at Sony's new space on The Electric Sheep...

[PogoWolf] You know when you’ve hit bottom when…

Taking 'Second Life' to the next level

Taking 'Second Life' to the next level
newsmaker Linden Lab CEO Philip Rosedale goes in-world to take on the challenges of the virtual world's explosive growth.
Wednesday October 18, 2006 04:00AM PDT

How to quit this cruel world (of Warcraft)

How to quit this cruel world (of Warcraft)
MMORPG blog - USA
Thing is, if you've got limited funds and you already have a problem regarding losing wallet money just to feed your MMO lust, it seems a bit self defeating to ...


Developers on designing the MMORPG

LOTRO: Developers on designing the MMORPG
MMORPG blog - USA
Getting an MMO to tell a story isn't easy. There are tons of MMOs out there that are supposed to provide their players rich fantasy ...

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

City of Heroes: Issue Eight On Test Server

Game: City of Heroes
Article Title: Issue Eight On Test Server
Link to Article: http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm?loadNews=6397

EverQuest II: New Smedley Blog

Game: EverQuest II
Article Title: New Smedley Blog

Link to Article: http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm?loadNews=6395

Interview with Marko Dieckmann

Game: Face of Mankind
Article Title: Interview with Marko Dieckmann

Link to Article: http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm?loadNews=6396

Behind the Online..

Article Title: Column: Behind the Online

Link to Article: http://www.mmorpg.com/newsRoom.cfm#6391

EVE Online - No Other Destiny Nominated for Mackie

Date/Time: 10/16/06 - 4:31PM

Game: EVE Online

Article Title: No Other Destiny Nominated for Mackie

 

Link to Article: http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm?loadNews=6388

Sify Turns In Profits in Q2!

Sify Turns In Profits Of $1.49 Million In Q2; Revenues Grew 17.9% ...
ContentSutra - Los Angeles,CA,USA.

The MMORPG game A3, launched by Sify, has over 65,000 users. Sify Broadband: It has crossed 200,000 subscribers during the quarter.

IRS looking for ways to tax MMOs

IRS looking for ways to tax MMOs
MMORPG blog - USA.

Taxing real money from MMOs sprouted from his head while he was passing the time away playing a particular MMORPG. He ...
===================================
[PogoWolf]
he ... is a dork for even thinking about this. There's NO REAL MONEY in MMO's.
if you want to tax, then tax the services. Not the games.

Monday, October 16, 2006

Guild Wars - State of the Game

An Article about the current state of Guild Wars.