Hearty October greetings to you and yours and welcome to another scintillating collection of massively multiplayer news & views. Let’s reach deep down into our weekly Bag-of-Holding and pull out some especially sharp bits!
“Liberate your wallet”NCsoft’s seven-year-old superhero MMOCity ofHeroesis now free-to-play. The re-brandedCity of Heroes Freedomallows players to create two heroes from eight character archetypes, adventure up to level 50, access 45 zones, and run over 1,000 missions — all without cost.
Along with the change to F2P, developer Paragon has propped the “Issue 21: Convergence” update which brings a new First Ward zone, a giant monster to face off against, a Time Manipulation power set, and fancy new costumes.
While you can playFreedom“forever” without incurring costs, if you want to actually run missions in First Ward or create more than two characters, you’ll need to provide some cash. There’s always a price to pay for liberty isn’t there, friends?
“End Run”Trion World’s MMORTSEnd of Nationshas been delayedinto 2012. Free-to-playEoNfeatures futuristic tank and Mech battles which unfold across a persistent global map. While any release date slippage is sad news for fans, somehow 2012 seems ironically perfect for a game promising the “End.”
‘The Saruman Plan”Turbine’s large and lovely “Rise of Isengard” add-on is now available for purchase for players ofThe Lord of the Rings Online. RoI provides three new regions; Dunland, the Gap of Rohan, and Isengard; a level cap rise to 75; a new 24-player ‘Draigoch” Raid; and oodles more. Fresh quests, skills and deeds await those ready to hop to the Misty Mountains. Grab your cloaks, folks.
“A Mighty Wind”The second chapter inGuild Wars’ three-part “Winds of Change” update has gone live. This chunk o’ Change (or “multi-stage storyline”) brings Ministry vs. Brotherhood violence, 11 new quests, five new respawn zones, and intriguing “hidden scenes.” All this goodness is intended as a bridge toGuild Wars 2which should arrive … someday.
“Without a hitch”Developer Tiny Speck has launched fresh and funny Flash-based MMO,Glitch. WithinGlitch, players are figments of a giant’s imagination (how’s that for an unusual class?) and can “grow and shape the world … collaborating or competing with everyone else in one enormous, ever-changing, persistent world.” It all sounds rather bizarre andworth exploring.
A new MMO makes its debut. A long-awaited MMO is delayed. Another MMO goes free-to-play. Whatever’s coming up next week? Yep, you guessed it — more of the same! Until then, have a frosty mana potion on my tab and keep it logged in.
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David Moore co-runstorwars.com, a site focused on all things Star Wars: The Old Republic, and has run the sitegamebunny.comfor the past ten years.
