Triple Triad forum dupes - please ignore

Take to the skies with three brand-new prototype Hawkwing jets, available both in goodie-packed chance boxes and a la carte. Get your vehicle today!

There are three designs for the Hawkwing. The Hawkwing Interceptor is the fastest and dishes out the most DPS, while the Hawkwing Heavy Fighter is built to soldier through even the heaviest leadstorms. The Hawkwing Command Ship packs various powers to support its allies.

You can get them either individually, or you can win them as part of the Nighthawk Belt Grab Bag chance box. The Belt has a chance of winning one of the three Hawkwing jets (chosen randomly), Drifter Salvage, plus Nighthawk-themed devices and costume pieces. The Nighthawk Belt Grab Bag is available as a daily reward for completing the Nighthawk mission.

These jets are much more than just a way to travel – they pack a ton of punch in their vehicle-specific powers. These are the first prototypes of our vehicle system, and as fun as they are, the final vehicle system for Champions Online will be even better.

(Blaring “Ride of the Valkyries†is optional, but highly encouraged.)

Watch the Nighthawk trailer now!

[video=Nighthawk Revealed and Vehicle Combat]4679[/video]

Original Article

 

Durham, USA - September 3rd, 2012 – Funcom is excited to announce a series of upcoming updates called ‘Secrets of Dragon’s Spine’ for its massively multiplayer online role-playing game ‘Age of Conan: Unchained’. The updates will be released over time, with the first one to hit in the next few months, and will introduce a remote desert region known as The Dragon’s Spine filled with new dungeons, quests, monsters and rewards for players to experience.

The ‘Secrets of Dragon’s Spine’ update series will provide players with all new Hyborian experiences as they venture to the desert region located south and west of the ancient city of Pteion. Rippling desert dunes stretches for miles in every direction from the spine, lifeless, except for a small oasis in the mountain’s shadow, and treacherous caves and tunnels weave in and out of the mountain rock. The only building made by man is the Palace of Cetriss, which can be found in the center of the area, at the foot of the mountain ... but men are not the only beings to have forged a thriving civilization in the desolate desert, many secrets lay buried beneath the sands.

Download the Dragon Spine reveal artworks and other assets from Funcom’s FTP.

“Our version of Hyboria has grown into a vast online world since we launched back in 2008,†says Craig Morrison, Creative Director at Funcom. “With the ‘Secrets of Dragon’s Spine’ update we are moving into an incredibly exciting part of Robert E. Howard’s work, and I think both ‘Age of Conan’ players and fans of Howard’s work alike will find a lot to enjoy once they get to explore this new content.â€

Within the new content, which is aimed at level eighty players, there will be several new dungeons, a new raid area, a massive outdoor region (roughly the same size as the coast of Ardashir), and a new PvP area, as well as a host of new rewards, armor sets, weapons and other cultural items. There will also be a new mount type that will be revealed later on, which is closely linked to the story in the new area. The new dungeons are called The Coils of Ubah Kan, The Sepulchral of the Wyrm and The Slithering Chaos, and will offer the same kind of selection of experiences as in ‘The Savage Coast of Turan’ update.

 

Fall is fast approaching, and it’s been four months since TERA launched. I always think things will slow down post launch, but I’m always wrong—we’ve been working nonstop since launch day. Continuous improvements, game updates every two weeks, battlegrounds, new instances, in-game events, and a lot of behind-the-scenes work have kept the TERA team on their toes. A few quick stats to whet the appetite of you data-hungry people:

• You’ve created more than 2.5 million characters since OBT.
• Most popular class: warrior (18.1 percent of total characters created)
• Next closest: sorcerer (14.9 percent)
• Most popular race: castanic (22.7 percent)
• Next closest: human (22.5 percent)
• You’ve formed more than 14,000 guilds.
• More than 1,000 vanarch candidates to date.
• The Island of Dawn has claimed 363,111 player deaths. (Rest in peace, newbies.)
• A kumas demon has claimed the top player-killing title, slaughtering more than a quarter-million souls and only dying 63,141 times. What a jerk.

Fall is a season of changes, and the world of TERA is going to be busy for the next few months. First on the list of change is our server status. We’ve got several metrics to measure server activity—and many of ours are below the mark. We’ve also been listening to the issues our players have been having in the game: lack of resources, lack of groups, extended wait times for dungeons, and so on. We feel that the best way to address these problems is to increase the number of simultaneous players on our servers. To that end, we will be merging servers on September 18, 2012.

Where some might look on this as a negative, I feel differently. By combining our servers, we facilitate a more unified community and give players a more full, alive world where finding groups, locating rare items (for lower prices!), and getting into dungeons quickly are the norm. Most importantly, combined servers will allow us to run more regular, player-focused events where we get to interact with our players. You can find a link to our detailed FAQ regarding this process at the bottom of this letter. It will be updated further as we get more information.

The fall also brings with it a host of other changes, all aimed at providing a kick-ass experience for our players. By the end of September, you’ll be able to participate in our player-focused events and interact with TERA team members. September leads to October—and our Halloween events. Other plans include a battlegrounds tournament in November and a holiday in-game event during the winter months to help us end 2012 with a bang. Along with this focus on player engagement and events, we’ll also be having several content updates throughout the fall.

We’ve got a lot of excitement in store for our players in the coming months, all with the goal to continuously improve the TERA game experience. Grow along with us!

—Chager

Server merges FAQ

Original Article

 

Hey all!

As you already know, telling a compelling story is very important to us here at Carbine. When you’re creating a whole new universe from scratch, the devil is often in the details—and this means that the narrative design team has been hard at work writing documents which serve as the foundation for almost everything that goes into our game. This week, we thought we’d give you a look into one of our lore documents, with a little added developer insight about the reasons we write the things we do.

And so! Without further ado…we present the character lore of Dorian Walker, the famous Exile explorer who discovered the planet Nexus

Overview

[The overview serves as an executive summary of the character—the equivalent of TL;DR for the internet savvy. It gives a condensed version of their history, personality and motivations.]

Dorian Walker is the famous explorer responsible for discovering planet Nexus, and is considered an almost legendary figure among the Exiles. Cantankerous, stubborn, and fearless, Dorian has an almost limitless sense of adventure—and despite his advanced age, can still often be found out in the field, exploring the many wonders of planet Nexus.

Stats

[Stats are the vital statistics for the character—species, gender, and age.]

Species: Exile human
Gender: Male
Age: 77 years old

Physical Description

[The physical description is meant to paint a mental picture of the character for those reading the document—as well as serving as a guideline for the artist who is responsible for drawing his concept.]

Dorian Walker is in great physical shape for a 77-year-old. Years in cheap spaceships without artificial gravity should have left him frail and killed him long ago, yet he remains hale and hearty—although he has a cybernetic arm and leg as a result of some of his most dangerous adventures. Many attribute his unnatural vigor to the exotic energies of the Eldan planet he discovered long ago.

History

[The history section tells the character’s story, laying out the events which shape their personalities, passions and motivations. For narrative designers, this is an extremely important section, as it lays the foundations for the stories that ultimately tell in the game. The example below is just the beginning of Dorian’s history section—we wouldn’t want to spoil anything for you. ]

During the Exiles’ long flight through the Fringe after the Cassian Civil War, Dorian Walker had become one of the their most reliable pathfinders—pilots who scouted the way light-years ahead of the fleet looking for threats or places to resupply. Having lost his wife to Spacer’s Plague not long after they were married, Dorian had been forced to raise their daughter Belle alone—and despite the hardships of life on the Fleet, the two became very close. But Dorian’s true obsession was planet Nexus, the legendary planet of the Eldan that had eluded discovery for more than two thousand years...

Personality Profile

[The personality profile is a description of the character’s unique personality—which determines things like their general attitude concerning events on Nexus, and how they speak to the player and other NPCs.]

A famously stubborn individual, Walker never compromises or backs down from a challenge. Never afraid to speak his mind, Dorian has always been sure of himself and his beliefs, clearly shown through his dedication to discovering the legendary Eldan homeworld despite the resistance and skepticism of his peers. This overconfidence often gets him in to trouble—especially in the dangerous, unexplored wilds of planet Nexus.

Style Guide

[The Style Guide is meant to serve as a guideline for how characters are written—including such things as speech patterns, common sayings and dialog examples. The section below is a shortened version of Dorian’s complete style guide.]

Dialogue
Dorian Walker's dialogue is that cocky explorer, but one with decades of experience and no small amount of belief in his own abilities. His speech does not carry as strong a dialect as other Exiles, as he has spent much time outside the fleet interacting with other cultures. He is often impatient and rude with those who require explanations, and doesn't like people trying to change his mind. Dorian tends to nickname people in a brusque style rather than use their full name.

"No time for questions, sport. There’s some ruins to be explored, and not a lot of time to do it."

"Say that again, slick? I’m too old to be out here? Maybe you ought to shut your mouth and do your best to just look stupid.â€

"Listen, champ. I got more books and charts than you can shake a stick at. But I tell you: the only real map is the one you carry in your head."


This is just one example of the hundreds of documents that narrative design has written for WildStar. We have similar documents for zones, world groups, factions, cities, dungeons, story philosophies, casting sheets…I’m sure you get the picture. But each and every one of them serve a specific purpose—defining a clear and consistent direction for the unique world that you will experience in WildStar.

See you soon!

Original Article - Contains a few Extras

 

Funcom bet the farm on The Secret World and now it might lose it. As much as I feel Funcom has brought this on themselves... buggy launches, not really that great of games... terrible F2P model, I don't want to see them close up shop. Hopefully they can turn this thing around.

 

In a job post listing on Valve's website confirmed it's aiming to move into hardware development. The job listing was posted under the Industrial Designer title. Here is the full post, keep words in bold: