The key thing to remember is that Cataclysm is in Beta and it’s still early so everything can – and probably will – change before the game is unleashed upon the waiting world. There’s definitely no mistaking the anticipation though, particularly when it comes to the new races. Both Worgen and Goblins can be played, and both are very different experiences but both build upon the enthralling experience that was the Death Knight starting quest chain featured in Wrath. Roll a Worgen and you find yourself in Gilneas, a valiant hero trying to prevent the savage Worgen from over-running the city, as well as stopping the Forsaken’s attempt at invasion. In the course of doing your thing, your hero is bitten and turns. The next few levels see you stuck in Worgen form as the world phases around you and you move across Gilneas. Eventually a great quake – the arrival of Deathwing – irrevocably changes the very landscape of Gilneas, sending villages you were just visiting into the ocean, gone forever. Eventually you meet the Druids of the Alliance who teach you to change forms once more – though your Worgen form is a heck of a lot more appealing than your human one.

Likewise the Goblin experience has been carefully constructed, as you begin in Kezan and then find yourself on the lush and tropical Lost Isles. However, the Goblin quest chain doesn’t feel quite as well constructed as that of the Worgen, hopefully though this will change before the game actually ships.

Big changes are afoot, and the biggest is a shakeup of the over-complex talent trees. Have no idea how to spend your in-game points or which tree to spec? Well Cataclysm will introduce a simplified 31-point talent tree. At level 10 you will be asked which spec you want to pick, in a similar way to the choice made in certain professions. Each spec has its own perks and unique bonuses. The trees themselves feel less daunting and cluttered but are still very much a work in progress.

Likewise, the in-game menus are getting an overhaul, along with the actual level up itself. Levelling up is now more obvious than just that tell-tale ding with an announcement appearing mid-screen, so you will never miss that important moment ever again. Any spells you can learn are displayed in the chatbox and a note is added to your spellbook, identifying the spells you can learn and telling you to find a trainer ASAP.

Flying in Azeroth is possibly the biggest draw of the new expansion. You can literally take wing anywhere and explore. Doubtless anyone who is level 80 is just going to want to take to the air, and it’s well worth it. As of this preview, over half the zones have been redone or have new features but this is most noticeable in cities like Stormwind, Undercity, Darnassus and Orgrimmar.

Stormwind has changed the most, with a cemetery and lake at its heart. Undercity looks the same but fly over the ruins of Lordaeron’s Capital City and it looks like a city. Finally, Night Elves will be pleased how Teldrassil has turned out. The city itself hasn’t changed too much but the Rut’theran Village has. It’s totally different and features ships which come and go to Stormwind, the new Auberdine (a Night Elf settlement called Lor’danel) and Azuremyst. But the big change is you don’t have to take the portal any more. If you have the time and inclination just fly up, and after five minutes of climbing the massive tree known as Teldrassil, you can fly into Darnassus. It’s well worth the trip.

Other zones are still being done, and half the fun of the Beta is visiting older locales and trying out new quests. Lore fiends will be pleased to see the reappearance of ancient enemies like Ragnaros and the inclusion of famous faces who have never appeared in-game but are engrained in the lore, including Malfurion, Deathwing and Queen Azshara. Azeroth is entering into a new age of chaos and insecurity and the sooner it happens the better!

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World of Warcraft Cataclysm – Preview

For starters, the level cap has been increased from 50 to 55, which should keep higher level players busy for a while, and along with that comes new zones, weapons, instances and skills. This means that players will have both updated versions of existing skills to compliment the level increase, and there’s also a new range of 43 Stigma skills, too.

If you think that you’ve explored all the lands that Aion has to offer, then you’ll be delighted to hear that the expansion will include new areas and instances. Ingisson and Gelkmaros are the new areas, and can be explored by members of both races – although Ingrisson is an Elyos area, while Gelkmaros belongs to the Asmodians.

There are a total of eight new instances too, which should please a lot of people, as they’re massively popular in the game. There are two solo ones (at levels 18 and 37) that lock out players above a certain level, plus six further ones that have been designed for the higher-level characters (50-plus).

Players can also look forward to now having a companion to keep them company on their adventures, as – like World of Warcraft before it – Aion is to introduce pets in the update. If you want the pet to just run around and look cute then you can do that, but they have more uses than that. You can store up to 100 pets, although you’re only actually able to summon one at a time. The special skill of your pet is purely dependant on the one you choose, as some have the ability to alert you to any danger nearby, while others can provide you with items or increase your storage facilities. Assault on Balaurea comes with a single pet that adds a very useful 12 item slots, but there are also bonus pets available if you buy the retail version of the game – which goes on sale on the 10th of September.

Another neat new feature comes in the shape of windstreams, which help with flying. These are basically exactly what they sound like: streams of wind that can carry you vast instances but without losing any of your precious flight timers. The streams come in various shapes and sizes, and while some will let you hop out at any point, others insist that you stay with them until the end of the ride.

It’s clear that NCsoft have high hopes for Assault on Balaurea and, therefore, the future of Aion, too. As it’s a free update, its popularity is assured, and early signs seem very positive, pointing to an expansion that should keep fans of the game hooked for months to come – and even possibly drag back a few that moved onto newer titles.

Cop killer

Despite clearly being a massively multiplayer online game, Realtime Worlds are deliberately avoiding the term MMO, primarily because APB is not an RPG. It’s a skill-based action game, without recourse to arbitrary levels, statistics or abilities. So if you’re a Criminal you could find yourself preying on the city of San Paro by mugging pedestrians, robbing shops, flogging stolen cars and generally causing chaos, as well as embarking on more directed missions given by NPCs known as contacts – essentially quest-givers. Working for a contact gives you access to better equipment and they’ll give you missions involving things like bombing or burning down buildings.

On the Enforcer side of things, the open-world gameplay revolves more around policing the city, so you’ll be patrolling the streets, finding the criminals and catching them in the act. Enforcers also have contacts who will give them missions that involve stopping criminals, researching them, and generally protecting the populous.

However, the objective-based missions are less important than in more traditional MMOs, and are often simply a way of bringing players together in what is at its core a PvP game. A lot of the time the action happens organically, with a complex matchmaking system that will throw together four baddies against four goodies of roughly equal stature in what becomes a rolling series of pseudo-Deathmatch games, generally with one side attempting to achieve an objective and the other side trying to stop them.

For instance, some criminals could be holed up in a building with the Enforcers attempting to storm their way in and smoke them out. If it’s across town then you’ll need some wheels to get there, and in time-honored fashion, you can haul a bewildered motorist onto the tarmac and appropriate their vehicle, whichever side you’re fighting for. The key thing to consider is that the Enforcers are not really the police; they’re more a of a vigilante outfit intent on cleaning up the city using methods not necessarily any less morally dubious than those of the Criminals. The action is rarely less than frantic and VOIP is activated by default, so to get the full experience it may be worth investing in a headset.

That’s not to say there isn’t any downtime, and this takes place in the city’s social district, where peace has broken out. It’s here that the game’s extraordinary customization features become apparent. Spat into the world in jeans and T-shirt, there are literally hundreds of layers of detail. In the social area, characters wander around, chatting and dancing in what initially comes across as a less lascivious version of Second Life. Most are to be found swarming around terminals, each tweaking numerous aspects of their appearance. A bewildering array of options is available, although the results are striking, with the Beta currently littered with some worryingly attractive women – presumably the work of 15-year-old boys. Elsewhere you can customize your vehicle and even create your own death sound, effectively a jingle that plays whenever you slay someone. As you’d expect, a swathe of in-game music is available, and you can also import your own tunes.

APB has been described as a new breed of online game, and it’s not hard to see why. A hugely ambitious affair, effectively the tools are in place for the players to determine how the experience ultimately pans out, with potential for a genuine long-running battle for control of the city streets. And while an extensive playtest of the Beta reveals a control system that could arguably be more robust, it’s to be hoped that the overall experience eventually matches the ambition of the concept. Either way, APB: All Points Bulletin is a bold attempt to do something different, providing an invigorating urban playground that’s mercifully free of Elves, Goblins and Pixies…

Custom Made

APB’s customization options are quite possibly the most advanced seen to date, with millions of variations possible. Tweakable aspects go far beyond your character, and you can design individual logos, your entire wardrobe and the livery of your car. If you’ve got the creativity and the patience then you might even be able to sell in-game items, thus feasibly paying for your subscription.

LEGO Universe is populated by ‘minifigs’, the standard LEGO toy characters, which are both the player-characters and the NPCs who will guide them on their way. They’re beset by corrupted evil minifigs too, the ones who are force. The quest the players have on their hands is to return the source of imagination – stolen by a malevolent spider – to the hands of responsible folks, and make the world harmonious once again.

The game is being developed by Colorado-based studio NetDevil, who have something of a patchy history. The first game, Jumpgate, is aminor classic of multiplayer space combat, which is currently being remade for Codemasters as Jumpgate Evolution. Previous to that, and LEGO Universe, they worked on Auto Assault, a vehicular-combat MMO that was, quite simply, terrible. NetDevil claim to have learned their lesson from this disaster – which was closed down just a few months after launch – and to have benefited from the not-inconsiderable vreative talent at LEGO. Nevertheless it seems that LEGO Universe will be sticking close to familiar models of fetch quests and mob-bashing.

Vive la difference

The big difference for LEGO Universe is that it’s going to include puzzle-solving. Not exactly building in a Second Life of Minecraft sort of way, although there is some scope for importing LEGO models, but puzzle-solving in a manner similar to LEGO Star Wars. There are going to be smashed LEGO puzzles to fix strewn across the lasndscape too, and players will often have to fix them up if they want to progress. On particularly tough quests, players will need to band together to fix these things, and go about the LEGO world collecting the parts that they need.

There are three types of building in total… Quick building, in which you solve a puzzle by simply throwing together a set that you find in front of you. Then there’s choice building, in which you move some bits around to figure out the build, and then custom building, in which you actually build stuff from pieces of LEGO. It’s been confirmed by LEGO that player’s own creations will be able to be featured in the game world as items, and it seems that this will feature as part of the end game. How that works has not yet been fully revealed by NetDevil and LEGO, so it’s tough to say how that is going to shape up. What we do know is that LEGO Universe is only going to use pieces that exist within the actual LEGO play materials. If it’s something that exists in LEGO Universe, then you can build it in the real world, with actual LEGO. You’re also going to be able to use web-based tools to make stuff on the LEGO site, and then import that across your LEGO identity into the game world. Ultimately, as we understand it, you’ll be able to mail order the things you design as packets of plastic direct from LEGO – it’s a game/reality crossover like nothing we’ve ever seen before.

Nevertheless, it seems something of a shame that LEGO Universe hasn’t tried to fall a little further away from the traditional MMO tree, and perhaps lure in a new audience. As it stands, it seems that the game wants to cash in on the perception that World of Warcraft created a wider audience for MMOs. Is that really true? Or did World of Warcraft simply create a wider audience for World of Warcraft? It certainly seems that games which are operating on the same model are struggling to make a dent in the millions of subscribers that big bosses want to see. Perhaps if LEGO Universe had focused on the purity of LEGO, or on the building, it might have been a welcome change.

It’s you who’ll decide, of course, and the launch shouldn’t be too far off. The game is in closed Beta at the time of writing, and we can expect more waves of Beta – if not an entirely open test – before the game finally arrives with us at the end of the year.

Despite the fact that AoC sold hundreds of thousands of copies, many of the players who bought the game couldn’t even run it. Others who managed to meet minimum requirements could at least log in, but with slideshow-like frame-rates, it was unplayable. To make matters worse, the game had a severe memory leak that caused constant crashing for players who could play.

Funcom also misjudged the way that the ‘WoW generation’ played games. Developers estimated that it would take 250 hours to reach level 80, yet players were doing it in 48. Gamers had been trained to race to end-game, but Conan had none. The first 30 levels were fun and well designed, but high-level quest content was lacking, end-game content was sparse, and players were bored. Shortly after launch, there was a mass exodus of players and the game was labeled a failure.

Nearly two years have passed now, and the game is maturing nicely. Developers have been focusing on improving the original game, solving existing issues and beefing up content. According to the game’s Director, Craig Morrison, the first year was spent solely on addressing existing issues, and an expansion wasn’t even considered until those issues were resolved.

Now that they have their house in order, the first expansion, Rise of the Godslayer, has been announced. Funcom is known for thinking outside of the box, and this expansion is a solid example of their atypical perspective. Unlike normal expansions which add more levels and leave old content in the dust, Funcom is thinking laterally. The new content is intended to flesh out the existing game and give players more to do with the characters they have.

Players complained that the instanced content ruined immersion. Funcom addressed this issue in its new landmass, Khitai. The Asian-themed continent contains zones that are interconnected. Travel NPCs have been removed and players cannot only see the surroundings zones from their current location but they can also move through the border lines from place to place.

They also recognize that the mature, time-limited audience they’re aiming for doesn’t want to spend hours waiting for other people so that they can play. Most of the new content is intended to be solo-friendly. While the focus is on increasing content for high-level players, there is also added content for lower levels as well. The new race, Khitan, will level 1-20 in Tortage, but from there they move to Khitai to pursue their own destiny quests in content developed for leveling up the characters.

As further encouragements for solo players, new factions are being introduced, each with their own ranks and rewards. These include some amazing armor sets and very interesting mounts. The mounts are obtained through special quest chains and must be caught, tamed, raised and trained by the player before they can be ridden. Instead of giving the typical speed increase, the mounts have special abilities such as enabling the player to stealth while riding. The already remarkable combat system is also being enhanced with some fantastic new fighting moves with martial arts flair.

They’ve also declined to add new classes and instead have introduced an ‘Alternate Advancement System’. This system uses experience that players gain from normal activities (questing, raiding, or hunting) and opens up new feat trees, giving players access to a lot of new spells, abilities and combos for their existing characters.

Age of Conan has always displayed the potential to be something different from other fantasy MMOGs. Funcom seems to have spent a great deal of effort attempting to make that potential a reality. With their new project – The Secret Life – receiving so much hype, much will ride on the success of the Rise of the Godslayer expansion. With the ill-fated Hyborian Adventures launch, more of the trouble was due to unrealistic expectations than the poor design. Developers simply underestimated their players leveling methods and simply overestimated their computer systems.

As it sits, the game is good, but Rise of the Godslayer has the potential to make Age of Conan one of the best MMO games on the market. The expansion will directly target the mature gamer who has a solid gaming system and who is tired of entry-level MMOGs. People who don’t want to stray too far off of the beaten path, but who are looking for new twists on old ideas will likely enjoy it.