BattleCry!

Currently at 96%, the BattleCry Mosaic Tile is moving along steadily towards the 100% goal, and with that comes never before heard music and never before seen art from World of Warcraft. I have to say this week’s music and art are amazing, be sure to check them out, you won’t regret it!

Read the rest of this entry »

This week the comic corner is back…in full force!!  I have managed to find several great comics…some new some old for your enjoyment!

First up is one from newcomer Sparkly Doom.  I love this one because it’s just putting out there what I know we all thought when we started doing our Sons of Hodir dailies!  Haha!

Next I found a few from Daily Quests that tickled my funny bone.  The first, called Goblin Ingenuity, shows the possible result of improperly installed rocket packs!  The next one called All’s Fair in Love and Warcraft is just plain funny…boys can be so gullible! The last one from DQ teaches us a valuable lesson…to Always Listen to Your Elders.  Love it!

The next couple for this week are from another newcomer, K’s Grab Bag. The first one from this artist shows a triumphant pair looting their kill, it’s amazing what forest animals carry on them sometimes! Next from this artist we have Insults to Injury which teaches a valuable lesson…do NOT pick on your healer before a major fight!!  HAHA

Next up is one from Complex Actions that is a great showing of just what desperate players might resort to when farming mats. Neckrokleptomania is simply hilarious…oh and I love the word!!

Read the rest of this entry »

Warhammer News

The big game that couldn’t… can Warhammer Online pull up ‘er britches and keep on truckin’? We take a look at this MMO’s status today.

Read the rest of this entry »

Update 1.05.0 Released

Good news for this game which has been one of my favorites despite it’s problems on launch. A new major update has been released adding quite a bit of changes and new content.

• Tarantia Commons Released
• RPG System Revamp
• New Gem crafting system
• New City-life Features

Read more here

The new expansion set to release soon sure looks interesting as well. Check out Rise of the Godslayer.

SW:TOR will not make the 2011 fiscal year

You may have heard recently that SW:TOR was delayed until 2011, well just today news was released that it will be delayed even further into 2011. Looks like we won’t be seeing SW:TOR until summer at the earliest next year.

While this is a disappointment to all of us desperate and hungry MMO fanatics, I have a little bit of insider information that agrees with this decision.

Releasing around WOW: Cataclysm might have been a bad move anyways, but my insider connection to the beta agrees this game needed quite a bit more polishing to appease today’s fastidious MMO fans.

EA’s confirmed that BioWare’s Star Wars MMO, the Old Republic, won’t make the publisher’s next financial year, casting a previous “spring 2011″ release date into serious doubt. Speaking in EA’s Q3 earnings call last night, CFO Eric Brown said the game won’t ship in the 12 months ending March 31, 2011. “We are not assuming that we bring a major new MMO to market in fiscal ‘11. We will continue to increase significant development cost as we prepare this title for launch,” he said

Discussion on this can be found here

Star Trek Online: The Good, The Bad, The Ferengi

ST:O is a fresh ‘n shiny brand new MMO for the nerd in all of us from Cryptic.

I didn’t have very high hopes for this game starting off. I pretty much figured it was going to be just like Champions Online but in space.

So far it has had mixed reviews from the MMO fanatic crowd. Personally I am a big ole fashioned Star Trek nerd so, no matter what, I had to play and enjoy this game. Perhaps it is because I did not expect much from this game that I actually ended up having a blast playing, it is pretty fast paced and fun to play.

There has been a bit of controversy surrounding whether or not this game is in fact even an MMO. In this author’s opinion it is not a true MMO as you can only have 5 people in any area at any time, be it random space battles or quests.

This makes for a more single player experience. I played the game mostly 2-person grouping with someone which worked out great.

If you are solo though it is not hard to gain 5 people to play with you at any given time… as there is an auto invite system so anyone doing the same quest as you will automatically join your group (you can turn this off if you prefer).

What really hung me up on this game was the ship system, always having to get to the next tier of ship, and deck it out with better gear. I enjoyed the fact that there are many skills to pick from as well. We’ve mocked up an overview guide to Star Trek Online so have a look below…

Read the rest of this entry »

So whats new with Aion?

Aion: Paid Account Services… About time!

Tired of looking at your characters weird face? Always wanted to be a female? I know I did! As most of you may remember, earlier this year NCSoft discussed the addition of paid account services, such as server transfer, gender change, name change and “plastic surgery”, while we didn’t get the Server Transfer yet, they have finally released the options to change your name, legion name, gender change and best of all character body and face customization. While the majority of players were eagerly awaiting server transfer, this is still good news and will most likely hold people over until they decide to release server transfers. Check out the store.

Prices:

Character Customization – $9.99

Character Name Change – $9.99

Gender Change – $14.99

Legion name Change – $19.99

Also, they’ve added Valentine ’s Day items as well. First off there’s the True Love Valentines Pack, which includes 5 True Red Dyes, 10 Love Potions, 1 Sunflower Headband and 1 Heart emote. Also, the Chocolate Valentines Pack, which includes 5 Hot Pink Dyes, 10 Dark Chocolates, 1 Tulip Headband and 1 Flower emote. Both of these Valentines Packs are only available until February 28th.

True Love Valentines Pack – $9.99

Chocolate Valentines Pack – $9.99

If you’ve purchased an account service, all you have to do is log into your NCsoft Master Account, go to your Aion Game Account Details page, and use Apply In-Game Items on your selected character. Log into Aion with the selected character, and the appropriate account service ticket will be waiting in your in-game express mail.

Aion Version 2.0 is getting closer

Tamat’s recent statement in the 2.0 Speculation thread on www.AionSource.com, along with a few other speculations, it seems that Aion Version 2.0 is getting bigger, better and closer. According to NCSoft’s quarterly conference call, it seems that the Korean Aion is scheduled to get two large updates in the first half of 2010, while the first is speculated to be Aion Version 2.0, the second still remains a mystery.

While the information regarding the content inside Aion Version 2.0 has yet to be revealed, a few things have been semi confirmed. Some of the major things include a level cap increase to 55, a new talent system, a new instance: Alatr in the Water and a 24 man raid. Rumors have it that this may only be the tip of the Aion Version 2.0 iceberg, and definitely is going to give Aion a second wind.

We will be releasing an Aion expansion for our Aion Online Leveling Guide which can currently be viewed here. Get it now before prices go up!

Love is in the Air in Aion, and also double exp!

Is there a trend going on around here? Oh yea, Valentine’s Day… humph. Have no fear if you’re dateless this Valentine’s Day, Aion is here to keep you company with the new Valentine’s Day Double Exp weekend which is going to run until Febuary 15th, at 7am GMT, so get out there and grind to your “valentines” heart’s content!

Mosaic Tiles

In honor of the World of Warcraft and Battlecry 5-15 year anniversary, you can submit a picture of yourself holding either a Horde or Alliance emblem to contribute to a gigantic mosaic picture. An interesting way to become a part of WOW history! See more information at the dedicated mini-site for this event here.

Love is in the Air

Of course the yearly Valentine’s Day event is on now in world of warcraft… so even if your love life is lacking you can get plenty of lovin’ till your heart’s content in this year’s event! A great free guide to the love is in the air event can be found here and a guide to the daily quests here.

No more tiered content before Cataclysm?

Zarhym has confirmed that there are not going to be any more tiered dungeons within the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, seems like they might have learned from past mistakes.

While not everyone is happy with this, it is a fact that World of Warcraft has more than one type of population. This may be a blow to some top end raiding guilds; more casual people see this as an opportunity to finish content before more is thrown at them. Some raids only take top end guilds a week or two at the most to have on farm, while more casual guilds never get to complete a certain dungeon before it becomes obsolete, so this is definitely a step in the right direction!

Q and A from forums:

Zarhym: As we stated before releasing Wrath of the Lich King, we still intend for Icecrown Citadel to be the final raid of the expansion in terms of tiered progression.

Zarhym: We’ve said numerous times we didn’t like spending so much development time on Naxxramas or Sunwell so a few thousand players could kill the final bosses. If a handful of players, who make up the top guilds in the world, or even top on a single server, are occupied in Icecrown Citadel for at least another two months, you can infer that an incredibly larger percentage of players will find challenges here for months to come.

While some of the answers may seem a bit vague, there seems to be hints that there may be content still on the way, just as mentioned before, it won’t be tiered content. What do you think? Let us know in our comments, facebook or twitter. The full post can be viewed here.

The future of Spugnort’s Blog

Greetings and happy Valentine’s Day!

You may notice a few changes in the blog and newsletter, hopefully only to make it better!

In the next few weeks we are working on adding new and interesting content to the blog (along with your old favorites) including free guides, game reviews, and up to date news from all your favorite MMO games and gaming sites.

Keep an eye on us in the next while, for some great new information!

Is there anything you would like to see? Feel free to leave suggestions.

Now, I know that the holidays are rapidly coming to a close here, but I did find some holiday-related machinima this week that I thought truly worthy of sharing with everyone, so here goes!

• First we have one from NinthBatter, which is part of his ever popular “Nobody Like You” series.  This one is all about Hanukkah…and I have to say, I had NO idea Arthas was Jewish!! 
• Next up is a pretty cool one from Oxhorn that is part of his Christmas for Geeks album that we featured here last week.  It’s called It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like This Raid Isn’t Going to Happen (longest title ever) and I had to include it this week as I know it’s one we can all relate to on some level!
• Lastly we have one for  you from Firebolt Productions called Northrend Wonderland.  This one is hilarious as it shows a loyal servant of the Lich King trying to cheer him up…the way he does it is pretty great!  And anytime I get to hear the Lich King sing is WIN! in my book!

Ok, well that’s what we have for you this week in our belated holiday version of Movie of the Week.  See you next year!