Treaty of Coruscant

In his first entry, Master Gnost-Dural recounts the events immediately prior to the signing of the Treaty of Coruscant – the turning point in the Republic’s recent history.

Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ is set during a unique time period in the galaxy’s history. Decades of war concluded with the Sith Empire sacking the Republic’s capital planet, Coruscant, and forcing Republic Senators and the Jedi Council to agree to a painful peace treaty.

In the years following the treaty, the Jedi Council tasked Master Gnost-Dural, Keeper of the Jedi Archives, with re-examining the galaxy’s history in light of recent events. In his insightful reports, Master Gnost-Dural established a new galactic timeline that became an educational reference for years to come… the very same years in which Star Wars: The Old Republic takes place.

In his first entry, Master Gnost-Dural recounts the events immediately prior to the signing of the Treaty of Coruscant – the turning point in the Republic’s recent history.

Star Wars: The Old Republic (documentary 2)

Bioware and LucasArts have put out another video documentary on Star Wars: The Old Republic, teasing the storyline and characters of the MMO, set in a “relatively unexplored timeframe of the Star Wars canon.”

The writers and the producers discuss the TOR universe, which they hope will create a “personal Star Wars saga,” for everyone who plays it.

Star Wars the Old Republic – Video

More in game footage as well as some interesting insights into the new canon.

SOE Games coming to Steam

Sony Online Entertainment is bringing its massively multiplayer online catalogue to Steam as of today. Now you can MMO without ever having to leave the house to pick up one of those antiquated “boxes.”

Joining the Steam library as of right now are EverQuest, EverQuest II, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes and Pirates of the Burning Sea, as well as the latest expansions for EQ and EQ II.

Naturally, Valve and SOE are offering deals on the newest inductees to Steam, selling much of this stuff for as low as $14.99. Make with the questing!

From KOTAKU

Smedley on MMO’s and the PS3, SOE’s new direction

Sony Online Entertainment president John Smedley is in love with the idea of massively multiplayer games on the PlayStation 3, suggesting that one day the console will account for nearly half of the company’s business.

Smedley made the statement during an interview with GameDaily regarding the evolving MMO space, explaining that the PlayStation Network’s 15 million player plus players are a ripe audience for more involved gameplay experiences.

“I think a lot of the people who play PS3 games right now aren’t the same people playing MMOs right now. I think [MMOs on PS3 is] going to bring in a lot of new players. There are certainly people who have consoles and PCs in their house. The difference is what they actively play. PS3 gamers are used to playing Resistance 2 instead of a shooter on the PC. I think we can bring this kind of gaming to this audience and I think it’s going to be huge.”

Something Lost, Something Found

One of the oddities that pops up when working on a game that’s been around for as long as EverQuest has is the fact that events from several years ago will suddenly make themselves known at the strangest times. Sometimes it’s an old bug resurfacing with a seemingly unrelated change, sometimes it’s a typo suddenly causing strange events to fire off, and sometimes it’s just kind of funny.

Somewhere in the mists of time, back in Shadows of Luclin’s development cycle, an artist or artists unknown made a sheet of 90 icons for use in the expansion. They included many of the new weapons, several tradeskill items, a few different cloaks, and even unique icons for most of the existing epic weapons.

For some reason, these icons weren’t ever introduced into the game, and no one noticed that they weren’t around. They were placed in a folder with other art assets from the expansion and remained there, forgotten.

So… guess what we found last week? Have a look and see what you can recognize!

Worlds.com Files Suit Against NCsoft for Patent Infringement

On Christmas Eve, Worlds.com filed a complaint against NCsoft for infringing on its virtual world and MMO patent. Worlds.com, which was one of the early virtual world developers from the ’90s, made waves earlier this month when it announced that it had selected an intellectual property firm to defend its two patents related to scaling virtual spaces and enabling users to interact and chat in 3D environments.

Specifically, the suit claims that NCsoft has infringed on patent 7,181,690, “System and Method for Enabling Users to Interact in a Virtual Space” through its games, including City of Heroes, City of Villains, Dungeon Runners, Exteel, Guild Wars, Lineage, Lineage II, and Tablula Rasa.

The complaint seeks to recover damages for the infringement and asks that NCsoft be prevented from infringing on patent 690, which covers scaling.   Based on NCsoft’s headquarters in Austin as a source of the infringement, the complaint was filed in the Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division.

Worlds.com Inc. v. NCsoft Corp is Civil Action No. 6:08-cv-508. You can download the PDF of the complaint here.

Paizo wishes some holiday cheer

Paizo Wishing a happy holiday with discount coupons…

Zatozia’s Frostfell Review

Happy Frostfell Everyone!

It’s that time of year again when everyone spends extra time with family and friends; when gifts are bought, given, and returned; when elves suddenly start wearing red, green, white and gold combinations; when a certain ogre makes all other ogres say, “He’s doing what?”; when a torturing dark elf spreads good tidings? To help keep you from missing anything this season, here’s an overview of what’s going on in-game and out-of-game for EverQuest over the holidays.

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How cool is this… Bioware

Happy Holidays from Bioware…