BUG FIXES: Smart Moving is now less likely to turn you around on accident.  Crystal tools now have proper durability.  Ore crushers give the proper dust output.  Naga scale crafts properly and there is a new splash screen panorama.

LAUNCHER  > http://files.aegisgaming.org/Technic/aegis-launcher.jar  (or go to Aegis website to find the .exe version if you need that for Windows for some reason)

DOCS:

Twilight Forest > http://twilightforest.wikispaces.com/

Smart Moving > http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/361430-142smp-smart-moving/

Metallurgy 2 cheat sheet > https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ApPr023YHYR0dEQ1X2JNOHgteUFRRGtFMlo0ZUQxN2c#gid=0

Metallurgy 2 wiki > http://metallurgy2.wikia.com/wiki/Metallurgy2_Wiki

ForgottenNature blog > http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1519278-forgotten-nature-mc142v110major-addition-to-nature-in-mc/

MorePlants > http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1477908-142-forge-toomanyplants-15-new-plants-17-new-items/

Secret Rooms > http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/546192-132v422secretroomsmodsmpbukkit-hide-your-diamonds/

Elemental Creepers > http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/498342-132-elemental-creepers-v25-ported-to-forge-and-spawn-eggs/

Legendary Beasts > http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1445361-142forgesspsmpalpha-legendary-beasts-adding-new-bosses-to-minecraft-updated/

InvTweaks > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAs6p9wi9yI

Commands: /help, /lock, /unlock, /share, /warp and more

I’ve written two programs for the Alphasmart Dana portable word processor, that have been very helpful to me, especially during Nano or similar challenges, so I’ve done my best to pretty them up, write some useful manuals and basic freeware licences for them. If you have a Dana device and are interested in trying them out, please feel free to download, redistribute to other Dana people, (but please keep the packaged files together!) and let me know if you’re having problems or can think of more improvements.

Multicounter: This is my on-the-go word count tool for Dana. It works in conjunction with Alphaword or any other word processor program that will give you an overall word count for a file – most PalmOS programs running on a Dana device don’t support word count for selected text, because it’s hard to select long ranges of text anyway. So Multicounter lets you type in the starting and ending word count for a writing session and does the math to tell you how much you wrote – it’ll also total up multiple writing sessions on a single scratchpad, (along with the date, chapter, and comment for each session,) supports daily quota targets, (50,000 words in 30 days, anybody?), 8 different scratchpads, and export to .CSV format on SD cards. If you’re doing Nanowrimo with a Dana, I really believe that this is the tool you need to keep track of your word count progress. Click here to download Multicounter.

Alphafiles: This program might not fit everybody’s writing process on a Dana; I started writing it because I wanted to move my Alphaword files back and forth on SD flash cards, and found that neither the Alphaword ‘open from card/save to card’ or the various generic file managers were convenient for letting me do this quickly. Alphafiles uses a ‘back and forth listboxes’ interface to show the Alphaword files on your Dana and the .pdb files in a single SD card folder, to easily copy or move them around. You can switch to a different card or different folder, rename, copy, or delete your files. It works really great in conjunction with the WSCONV utility on your laptop or desktop computer, so that you can quickly transfer your writing from the Dana to Windows without needing to hotsync or send – or transfer a file the other way without hotsync. Click here to download Alphafiles.

On a sadder note, my own Alphasmart Dana is having battery problems. I haven’t used it in a while, and I think that I’ll probably have to be careful to plug it in every night if I want to be using it the next day for Nano, as opposed to letting it run for weeks between charges. Maybe I should look into replacing the rechargeable battery pack or switching it out for alkalines soon. But I don’t think I’m going to futz with that before November.

Trion Worlds opens  Storm Legion  servers to all during the three day event

An open beta event for the first RIFT® expansion, Storm Legion™, will take place November 2-5, Trion Worlds announced today. Launching November 13^th, the expansion triples the size of the existing world of Telara, adding two expansive continents, an increased level cap to 60, player Dimensions, new dungeon and raid content, and a new player soul for each class calling. All expansion content will be available during the open beta period to those who create a RIFT account and download the client from <gp_link type=”http” loc=”//www.stormlegion.com/beta”>www.stormlegion.com/beta.

“The first two closed beta stress tests were big successes, and we appreciate all the valuable feedback that we’ve used to improve and polishStorm Legion,” said Scott Hartsman, Executive Producer on RIFT and Trion CCO. “After months of hard work, we’re ready to show this incredible game to the world, and we encourage RIFT fans old and new to log in and try it out before the official launch on November 13^th.”

Participation in open beta couldn’t be easier. Interested players simply need to create an account and download the beta client from<gp_link type=”http” loc=”//www.stormlegion.com/beta”>www.stormlegion.com/beta. Once the beta begins at 10am PDT on November 2^nd, players can create new characters, or transfer their current RIFT characters to the beta server, log in, and play. The open beta event will end at 8am PST on November 5^th.

As of October 19^th, the NDA on Storm Legion is officially lifted.
For more information about Storm Legion, visit <gp_link type=”http” loc=”//www.stormlegion.com”>www.stormlegion.com.
***Download new screenshots here:  <gp_link type=”http” loc=”//trion.gamespress.com/pics.asp?i=1039″>http://trion.gamespress.com/pics.asp?i=1039
Storm Legion  features: 

A VAST NEW WORLD
• Adventure across two huge new continents that more than triple the size of the existing world
• Experience epic stories that reveal the true power in Telara … and the gateway to the planes
• Make your move to the island city of Tempest Bay, a new stronghold for both Guardians and Defiant

10 MORE LEVELS, 4 MORE SOULS
• A new Soul for each Calling expands the Ascended Class System – build the hero you want!
• Rise to new heights of power through 10 challenging levels, increasing the level cap to 60
• Play your way! Choose how you level with questing and Instant Adventure everywhere, onslaughts, rifts, events, and more

BRAVE THE STORM
• Achieve greatness with 7 new dungeons, 3 raids, a Chronicle, and more!
• Join the Hunt: New rift gameplay propels you into battling increasingly-challenging planar bosses
• Fight legions of fantastic creatures, including a Colossus that interacts with – and ravages – the world like you’ve never seen

MAKE TELARA YOUR OWN
• Dimensions: Customizable spaces allow players and guilds to own a sliver of Telara
• Take your professions to new heights with Grandmaster crafting
• Become the talk of the town and boost your stats with stylish new capes
• New puzzles, artifacts and collectibles, achievements, mounts, pets, titles, and much more

Ryan Hamlyn, Multiplayer Development Manager at Danger Close, took to Warfighter’s blog to layout exactly what players will get and with three maps – the jungle of the Philippines, the coast of Somalia and a stadium in Sarajevo – you’ll almost certainly find out if EA and Danger Close’s game is for you.

Check out the trailer and read Hamlyn’s beta breakdown below:

Fireteams

“Fireteams Kicking things off is our exciting new Fireteams feature that makes class selection and team play much more interesting. Our consulting Operators have told us that in the real world they split up in pairs and work together to a point where they feel connected to their combat buddies, even without having them in direct sight. We’ve integrated this connection into the game so that you’ll be able chose a Fireteam buddy and track him from any distance and through any situation.”

“This feature comes with many gameplay benefits including new buddy respawn options and resupply of ammo and health. And don’t forget there are also plenty of scoring rewards for working as a team, so be sure to keep close to your buddy and see what other bonuses you can achieve together.”

Authentic Action

“Authentic Action Medal of Honor has always been an authentic experience, and this quality gives us the tools to take our multiplayer to a place no other shooter can go – putting you in the shoes of the world’s most elite warriors. In the Open Beta, you’ll get to see how the German KSK, the Polish GROM, the British SAS, and the famed U.S. Navy SEALS, along with all 12 total Tier 1 units, operate in real world locations. So choose your warrior and take them to a battleground where the best of the best fight to claim the top spot, claiming true Tier 1 status.”

Battleog

“Battlelog Social Hub Not only can you step into the boots of 12 International Operators from around the world, but we’ve also made sure that every country in the United Nations is represented through our metagame, Warfighter Nations, powered by Battlelog. Battlelog also connects you incredibly deep into the stats of your online play, your friends, your platoon, and your best Fireteam buddies. Track your class ‘Tours’, explore every weapon in the game chasing weapon pins, customize your own platoon patch, and even fully customize your weapon in the “My Gun” tool.”

“And, we’ve extended the experience to your console so you’ll be able to pull up the Battlelog dashboard to see the latest on how your friends are progressing and what unlocks lie in store for you next.”

Classes

“Warfighter Classes Rebuilding Medal of Honor on the Frostbite 2 engine has allowed us to remake our class system. Each of the six Classes will offer you a different style of play, different abilities, and different support actions, which allows you to select your class based on what’s best for you! We encourage you to try them all out.”

“The full game has 12 International Operators, 35 map/mode combinations, and thousands of Fireteam pairs to choose from while battling it out in authentic real world locations. We hope you enjoy this small slice of Warfighter that we’re offering in the Open Beta, and we look forward to hearing your feedback!”

Cyber Monster is a browser-based MMORPG with a twist. An advanced 3D graphics rendering engine generates a world brimming with enjoyable adventure, while a focus on building communities and a deep mount system lends the game a broad appeal.

Besides a raft of adorable cartoon characters, monsters and pets, Cyber Monster has earned player plaudits for the games simple yet fascinating class system, which encourages dual-gender teams.

The 3D browser-based adventure MMORPG features four unique classes: Warrior (male), Priest (female), Mage (male) and Ranger (female). Each class has four different roles and strengths, which when joined together form a perfect team capable of cruising past challenging bosses and dungeons.

Male characters revolve around might and magic. The dragon knight Warrior carries a sharp sword and a tough shield, making them great fighters with high Defence and HP. Their destructive capabilities, unique dragon pet and shining armour make them an obvious choice for players wanting to play the role of the hero.

Mages are manipulators of mysterious magic. They can control the natural elements and set the pace of the battlefield for the rest of their team to follow. While adept at using their magic to defend, attacks such as the Gale, which strike all enemy targets with devastating force, make them formidable aggressors and the number one class for anybody wanting to do some damage.

Female classes, the Priest and the Ranger, are imperative to group safety. Priests hold the holy power of the gods in their hands, which they use to heal the injured. They are the only class with the ability to heal others, making them an essential part of a group’s defensive strategy. Though their hands feel as soft as water when healing, their powerful Staff can hit you like a tidal wave when it needs too.

The Rangers are superior hunters with a graceful fairy like figure, usually found fighting on their own at a distance using their superior shooting skills. They can pierce the chest of enemies with cold arrows from sniper positions, making Rangers the stuff of nightmares for any opponent unfortunate enough to stumble into their sights.

Though coming with pre-assigned genders, Cyber Monster’s balanced class system lets players choose their class freely based on personal preference.

NGames has the Cyber Monster closed beta on September 19th. Interested players can sign up for a chance to play now: http://monster.game321.com/lp/

Official Website: http://monster.game321.com/

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/CM.Game321

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Cyber__Monster

On the occasion of the release, there is one hot vote in Dragon’s Call II Forum thread, a single poll for Community Manager of the game. Community Manager, the top position of volunteer staff, which similarly equals to unofficial GM, will be put in the head of responsibilities for the game community and volunteer staff; will be the most dependable person to work with and to help every player become comfortable learning DCII, assisting with events and such. In addition, all volunteers will be paid by in game currency as monthly wage. This is one of biggest features of Gamedp games portal ( http://www.gamedp.com).

Let’s get back to the point. To celebrate the opening ceremony of open beta test, the official is to hold a series of wonderful events plus awesome rewards. Gamers could visit its Activity Page (http://dc2.gamedp.com/activity/120905/) to participate in the carnival. Also, there will be starter kit giveaway event.

For more information, gamers could visit:

Official Website: http://dc2.gamedp.com/index/

Official Forum: http://forum.gamedp.com/index.php?gid=248

Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/DragonsCall2

Twitter: http://twitter.com/GameDP

Battling a Wild …..

The 2 new Creatures are the Hopster (guess what it looks like) and the Beetlie.  They are both now available to be rezzed through Home Temples with the latest 2.1 update.  There has been a special weekend event to celebrate the Group milestone.  All crafts done with the Updated Craft Temples, will give the crafter, and the people aiding in the craft, double crafting experience during the weekend event.

The new Hopster, with wind element coat …..

Giant Wilds have also been introduced and they are massive.  A group effort is needed to take down one of these giant creatures with very high combat levels.

The Beetlie, this one is Earth element …..

As  well as the Krafties Daily Gift Chest which gives out energy and other prizes daily, there is also a Spinner on the path to the store which you can try your luck at once a day to win energy or a monthly membership for free.

There is a new Market for the Krafties, here you can find alot of accessories for the Rexie and Aviaa to wear and also crafted items, souls and unbonded creatures, everything really.  The ability to add wearables to them is lots of fun and makes them a little more unique.  So if you haven’t been to check out Krafties yet, it’s worth a look, and it’s free to start always a good thing.

The Kraft Market (Independent Market)

Website

Krafties Island

»»» Tweet It! http://bit.ly/Q9MJCA «««
Previous Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJxHQ54dTSc
Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/user/FallofMars/

What’s up everybody? Today I have some new Battlefield 4 information including leaks, information on the beta version, and overall game info. I am also going to talk about the likelihood of an open beta for Battlefield 4 like we saw with Battlefield 3. As well as the chances of seeing a Bad Company 3 in the future. This video is jam packed with loads of great information on Battlefield 4 and the future for the Battlefield franchise, so I hope you enjoy!

Partial Source: http://g4.tv/NdzTBs

»Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/tomgobich
»Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/checkyour6bro
Battlelog: http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/user/Fallofmars/
Platoon: http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/platoon/2832655391599806845/
_________________________________________

★ Custom Xbox 360 Theme: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMNY_ynCuRQ
★ BF3 SQDM Breakdown: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jYpkenJl3g
★ Minecraft Nuketown: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YV38YSa17XI
★ Escapecraft: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lhHYhZ3Kr0
_________________________________________

Music by: http://www.machinimasounds.com
Song: “Remember the Dreams”

Website: http://6bromedia.wordpress.com/
Contact Me: http://6bromedia.wordpress.com/contact-us/
Cafepress: http://www.cafepress.com/checkyour6bro

Xbox Live GT: CheckYour6Bro

Ghost Recon Online Open Beta is here. Now, you can download, install and play the game without using any codes. This tactical third-person-shooting game will let you choose from three classes of soldiers. Choose the class you like and start playing. Read more about Ghost Recon Online!

Action RPG Path of Exile will be open to everyone this weekend, July 27-29, so that we can stress-test our servers in preparation for entering Open Beta in a few months.

If you’ve been patiently waiting to try Path of Exile’s dark and customizable gameplay, now is your chance to check out the game – for one weekend only.

The game has been in Closed Beta since last August and we have been regularly adding new content, classes and skills.  The latest version adds a huge Act Two boss fight, the end-game Maps system and a new passive skill tree with over 1300 skills to customize your character with. The open weekend will include the first two acts of the game, Default and Hardcore leagues, six character classes, approximately 70 active skills, 40 support gems and hundreds of item types.

We will make the game servers public from 5pm on Friday 27 July Pacific Daylight Time until 11:59pm on Sunday.  Over 48,000 people played during our last Open Weekend in May. Any feedback you provide this weekend will help us get ready for our permanent Open Beta.

Check out the FAQ about the open weekend at www.pathofexile.com/publicweekend/.

Since there is not an international release yet (and one even happening is still up in the air), I’m playing on the Japanese client along much of the NA community on Ship 2, though there are some pockets of English speakers on 6 and 10 as well–I’ve even run into some people from EU, who were very nice but only spoke German. Having the client in all Japanese was a bit daunting at first, but with a few guides on the basics I was  surprised how quickly I adapted. Yeah, there are still a few things I have no idea what to do with–just forget dialog with any of the NPC cast–but for what I need to know to play I’ve pretty much got it going on. Which either says how well designed the interface is OR how well I can play these types of games. Maybe both.

Look and Feel

My HuNewearl, Kao

As usual, PSO’s aesthetic is space plus swords and sorcery and that works well–for me anyway. Although I miss the classic design sensibilities from PSO, and to an extent the designs I’m used to after hours of Phantasy Star Universe and its spinoffs, the new direction is refreshing, if a bit informed by Shibuya’s High Fashion and the current trends in space anime. Next to the character models, the monsters are all solid looking and I’ve not had any particularly outstanding issues with either collisions or clipping and some of the bosses are stunning to see in action.

The tiered weapon system of old returns as well, though a bit more truncated than in previous outings. Instead of there being six entry level weapon designs, there are three distinct looking types available at the first tier and I’ve seen a few tier two evolutions of them. From there, the advanced or four star weapons really start to look extraordinary and the rares, seven stars or more, are all fairly unique looking. It really is something to be standing in a lobby and looking around at the gear people are carrying. It gives me goals, things to look for, which ultimately is what drives PSO as an Action/Adventure MMO.

Controls and Combat

The game plays with the WASD keys controlling movement and the mouse  buttons are used to attack. There are a huge number of key bindings to do things like: lock on(Q), autopilot(V), and “over the shoulder shooter mode”(Z), but I have them mapped to my Naga’s thumb buttons, so it’s not much of a hassle for me and is actually pretty intuitive. As with previous installments, you are rewarded for doing combos precisely with extra damage and more fluid animations.

The monster AI is pretty strong, especially in packs, but the bosses are sometimes soul crushingly hard–especially what I’m calling the Dark Queen, this huge beetle-like monster, whose legs can be broken to bring her down for a good solid beating. The later mobs coordinate their attacks well and I’ve found myself beaten a few times by the Cave’s denizens.

The shining gem for the combat however is the new melee system, which uses three Photon Arts (mapped to RMB) to build combos with basic attacks. Which of your PAs will get used changes on where you are in your combo. For example, my go to Sword combo is Basic Attack > Rising Edge > Gravity Break, but I could easily just go Basic Attack > Basic Attack > Gravity Break if I don’t need to launch my target, or open with with my Stunning Strike instead of a basic attack to keep a mobile enemy in place. With Five PAs currently released, I wish there was a better way for the combos to work other than a 1:1 swing count, but it’s a start and certainly is an improvement over how Universe’s system was.

Cost

Sega is going with a Free to Play model for PSO2, at least on PC–I’m curious to see if the Vita version or the smartphone app will be free downloads. That said, Sega has made the majority of the content you could care about accessible to everyone an, as a player, that makes me happy. However aside from the usual vanity things the paid content usually entails, some of the staples of an MMO, such a player shop or additional characters, have been collected into premium content that you can pay a monthly fee for. Some I’m not that upset about. After all, I can always make another account if I want to play something else. A few however really stick in my craw. One of these is trading. Now, that wouldn’t bother me if I could still drop trade, however each player gets separate loot drops and items I drop aren’t visible to anyone else–if I can drop the items at all–and that makes gearing up your lower level friends a pain. There’s also something about it that my jaded gamer senses can’t stand.

(Pardon me while I digress)While I can understand the reasoning behind making trading a premium feature, a real money gate on trading isn’t going to stop the RMT (real money trading) that has plagued PSO in the past. All it’s doing is punishing players who want to play with friends who are either just starting or smurfing. Beyond the annoyance however, this move scares me. If other F2P MMO’s pick up on this structure then they stop being F2P really quick. To me, it becomes a racket. “Hey! Come play with your friends, but unless you pay you’re really just playing a single player game where you can see them.”

Final Thoughts

Ultimately, I’m loving this iteration of what may very well be Sega’s last great franchise. Despite the challenges present in playing as a stranger in a strange land, I’ll be happy if the game never releases in America. With the poor handling of Universe by Sega of America and the hours I’ve already spent on the Japanese server, I likely won’t move unless forced. Though with the release now announced, who knows?

So if you’re tired of Diablo3 or just want another Action RPG to slash through, you could do a lot worse than PSO2. Don’t let the language barrier put you off, the game is worth giving a try and every US IP address that connects to their server is one more vote for bringing the game stateside in a way that won’t suck. Feel free to add me, I’m just about done with the caves at this point. (Sega ID: d4rkrex)

Helpful Links

• Bumped.org’s PSUBlog – This has been invaluable in playing. Ricardo is the man
• PSO-World – The forums are full of wonderful people who love the heck out of this game and franchise

Electrifying Free-To-Play Hardcore Action RPG Arcade Brawler Delivers Fast & Crazy Hack n Slash Fun

Dark Blood, the thrilling new free-to-play hardcore action RPG arcade brawler published by Outspark for North America and Europe, had a midnight launch of their open beta today where fans, anxiously awaiting the reopening of the game, rushed in to secure their character names and were delighted to find brand new arcade controls.

“We listen to our fans! They wanted Joystick and gamepad support and we made it happen. We had such a blast with them during closed beta and all the amazing gameplay videos they created, we’re really looking forward to working with their talents,” said Philip Yun, CEO, Outspark. “Many thanks to developer JCR Soft and licensor GameHi for helping us bring this truly electrifying game to the West. Dark Blood, no doubt, will reign as the free-to-play fighting game for those seeking the ultimate adrenaline rush!”

The game went live with an exciting launch trailer showcasing rapid-fire combat, jaw-dropping customizations, and wild unlocks for playable bosses. You can chat with the Dark Blood team starting today at 12pm PT, when theDark Blood Streamathon kicks off. WATCH * PLAY * WIN exclusive power packs and valuable customization codes with celebrity hosts Pico Mause of Curse, RipperX of MMORPG, and Kyt Dotson of GameOgre. Dark Blood fans are invited to stream along for random rewards. Programming details are here:<gp_link type=”http” loc=”//www.facebook.com/events/323346147757007/”>http://www.facebook.com/events/323346147757007/.

Players can look forward to frequent content updates, and in just one week, on Thursday, July 26, Outspark will be releasing a sizable content drop for Dark Blood including a level cap raise, the grand opening of the store with premium items, and popular in-game events including Race To The Top and Fight Nights.

PLAY DARK BLOOD FOR FREE at <gp_link type=”http” loc=”//www.playdarkblood.com”>http://www.playdarkblood.com, watch the DARK BLOOD TRAILER at <gp_link type=”http” loc=”//youtu.be/YFS2NMbYHX8″>http://youtu.be/YFS2NMbYHX8, and check out the just-released DARK BLOOD SKILL GUIDES appearing on Facebook at<gp_link type=”http” loc=”//www.facebook.com/outsparkdarkblood”>http://www.facebook.com/outsparkdarkblood and Twitter at<gp_link type=”http” loc=”//www.twitter.com/darkbloodgame”>http://www.twitter.com/darkbloodgame.

-       Join the fun and play for free @ www.soulcaptoronline.com
-       2 new classes revealed!

After a fantastic start of Soul Captor’s CBT, Gamania Digital Entertainment is thrilled to announce that the game has gone into open beta, starting fromtoday. The highly anticipated free to play soul-collecting MMORPG will be available for download through Gamania’s self-developed beanfun! platform.

Niall Callaghan, Product Manager at Gamania Digital Entertainment said: “I’m extremely excited that we are into Open Beta, now players can really get their teeth into the game and we can forge ahead and grow our community. The closed beta was very succesful from both a technical as well as a community point of view. Many players jumped into the game and provided us with the neccesary statistics to put the game through its paces. We also received a lot of positive feedback on the game itself which we are delighted to hear. I would like to take this opportunity to thank our players for the overwhelming enthusiasm and their invaluable feedback they have given us during this first beta test. I am sure that everyone will be pleased to learn that after a short downtime we are now back live and players will have the opportunity to check out two brand new classes that have been added to the new build. Both theCelestial Master and Mystic Fighter classes will provide players with new ways of playing the game. They join the existing classes of Warrior, Shaman, Onmyoji and Priest. See you in the Open Beta!”

Mystic Fighter: 
With high dodging and fighting powers, Mystic Fighters are fearsome combat fighters. They have steady, fearless mindsets and can dodge enemy blows at high speed, making them agile adversaries in close combat. They are skilled in adapting their strategies to cope with a variety of attacks.

Celestial Master:
With high stamina and constitution, Celestial Masters are a great support to their allies as they can weaken enemies, strengthen team members and use necromancy spells to bring team members back to life. They can even reverse enemy attacks.

Community Events
As always Gamania’s dedicated team of community managers will do everything in their power to keep players entertained in-game and on Soul Captor’s social media pages. Expect fantastic fun, epic parties, great prizesand random give aways. So if players need a break from their soul collecting, they can check out the events page:http://uk.beanfun.com/soulcaptor/news/events, because in the world of Soul Captor there is always something to do.

Soul Captor is scheduled for release this summer on Gamania’s beanfun!platform. Players who want to learn more or want to participate in the open beta test can do so by visiting the Soul Captor websitewww.soulcaptoronline.com.

Like us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/soulcaptorenglish, follow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/SoulCaptorEN or +1 us on Google+http://gplus.to/soulcaptorenglish to join the community and receive the latest news and gossip!

A great infographic we’ve come across that should keep you pinterested (see what we did there) to give you lots of great facts on who uses and Pinterest, where in the world they’re based and if Pinterest users pin more or repin other people’s pins. The infographic made by Chicago based technology company Buzz Referrals details exactly that.

• The open beta is scheduled to be over on the 3rd of July, 11:00am JST.
• The release begins on the 4th of July, 2:00pm JST.

To summarise what’s coming up:

• New Field: Tundra - The snow-covered areas of Naberius will be added, along with new bosses and monsters, as well as variations of the planet’s natives (reskins).
• New Bosses: Snow Panther and Snow Banshee (possibly a duo boss), De Malmus and King Yede – King Yede may or may not actually be a boss, while he seems to be big enough to be one, in videos there is no event on screen that suggests he is in fact a boss or mini-boss.
  
• 3rd Stage Mag Evolutions. – You can find images of them here. Mags need to be lv100 to evolve to the third stage.
• Level Cap Raised to 40.
• Time Attack Quests.
• 3 New Chapters Of The Story – Venture to the snowy tundras of Naberius, investigate Lilipa’s small furry natives and actually try to talk to the dragon tribe you’ve been slaughtering the members of.
• Cash Shop Open – Details of how to actually buy Arks Cash should surface when it’s available. The cash shop itself will open for business on July 3rd, 3:00pm JST.

With the cash shop opening, new items will become available to players, including Lisa’s outfit, Xeno’s outfit and Echo’s outfits. As well as the wedding dress and suit displayed below. All costumes are available through Scratch and can’t be bought directly. Sucks, but if you want them you’re either gambling for them or buying them from player shops.

Sega also uploaded a video to YouTube, but most of it is footage you’ve seen before if you’ve watched other videos from them. The Time-Attack Quest footage is however new I believe.

Didn’t think they’d wait too long to roll this out, though I did expect a bit more notice than 2 days!

Towards the Future

Well that’s PSO2′s future set, at least on the Japanese side of things. On the western side of things there is still no word, unfortunately. The @phantasystar Twitter, Sega of America’s official Phantasy Star Twitter account, has gone eerily silent. They only had Phantasy Star Portable 2 left to go through before whatever it was they were gearing up to announce, so seems something might have gone awry there. Of course it feels pretty certain that they were going to be announcing PSO2 in some form, so I am eager to see what they were set to say. Hopefully that silence won’t be permanent.

It’s now been a week since PSO2′s Open Beta has begun. Today there is a 27 hour long maintenance which should end in roughly 10 hours from making this post. To remind you anyway:

• 29th: 6:00am UK time (BST)
• 29th: 0:00am CDT
• 28th 8:00pm HADT.

If you feel like you’re struggling to work the game out, don’t worry because most people are. Information on certain parts of the game and how things work is still fuzzy. Feels weird playing a game like this when there’s no wiki to refer to as well, but one is on its way…

Level Cap

I’ve been having a great time with the game so far, playing almost non-stop this week. I hit level 30 within 4 days, thanks to my experience from previous tests and thanks to this obscene amount of free time I have at the moment. Many hit 30 before I did and the first wave of level 30s is still growing. Hindsight tells me I did not pick the most EXP efficient route to 30,  but I’ll go into detail about that later.

Related to that, I hear people’s concerns about how it’s too quick to level. Yeah, you remember how long it took to go from 1-30 in PSO? Or how about 1-30 in PSU (about a day)? Ok it’s not the most fair of comparisons, as after all they weren’t the release caps of either game, but I can’t help but find myself wondering why people want this game to be a longer grind. Do you really want to be stuck in lowbie content for too long? Personally I felt it dragged a bit in places, particularly the lv20-25 range, but otherwise given that the final level cap could be as high as 200 I think it’s a reasonable rate so far.

It’s nice at 30 at the moment. There are 3 free-field quests that are available to level 30s on hard-mode that all contain monsters that are higher level. I don’t think this trend will continue, sadly, as I imagine the level range of future free fields will be staggered a bit. However, remember this isn’t like most MMOs where being a handful of levels above or below content means it’s not worth running. It’s going to feel that way now when the level cap is so low but later on the differences should become increasingly marginal if it works like PSO and PSU did. Monsters a fair few levels below you could still drop relevant gear for you. It should be noted however that fighting monsters that are too many levels above you will incur an EXP penalty.

Hard Mode

It’s not really all that hard, is it? Well it depends. First, if your units aren’t up to scratch then you will die very fast in missions where the enemies are above lv27 or so. Even with very good units you will find hard-mode Vol Dragon a tough fight for now if you’re soloing. Overall, it isn’t hard but neither was hard mode in PSO (or B-rank in PSU).

Honestly, given the history of Phantasy Star online games, I think you’re in the wrong place if you want something to be challenging. These games have historically only had 2 difficulty settings: easy and bullshit hard. There’s never really been an in-between. Not outside of an actual challenge-mode anyway, which may or may not be happening to PSO2.

PSO2 on the Internet

There’s been a link to this site on my blog for ages, but it’s only actually recently opened up to the public. PSO2 Project is an image uploader site which you can, funnily enough, upload your screenshots to. You do not need to register to do this. The site also supports tagging and can even generate images from character creator files sent to it. The website author, “kp”, is currently looking for feedback about the site.

Giant Bomb has also recorded an hour-long playthrough of PSO2 with commentary here.

Meanwhile @phantasystar, Sega of America’s official Phantasy Star twitter account, has continued to post images of games with the latest being of the Nintendo DS game Phantasy Star Zero. As they’ve posted a game a day and only PSP2 is left of the Phantasy Stars that got released stateside, there’s speculation that an announcement concerning PSO2 may happen this Friday. Which is er, tomorrow. Coincidentally the same day that the extended maintenance ends, but that really is just that: a coincidence.

See? I have the knack.

I hit 30 by grinding in the 3rd Desert mission, the one which ends in a Code: Collect where you have to activate drills. It’s great EXP due to the enemy levels and how tightly packed they are in their spawns. While it was great for levelling, there is a better mission for it. The first Desert mission is currently considered the best. Like the previously mentioned mission, it has good spawn density but it also has 3 guaranteed Code:Attack events as part of the mission itself that reward a sizey chunk of EXP each. It’s also a short and very easily repeatable mission. It’s also good for any machine enemy or Darker related dailies you may have.

Towards The Future

So looks like the preview text for the next issue of Famitsu states that PSO2′s official service start will be some time in July. I imagine it will be early July, as I can’t imagine them not being eager to open up the cash shop somehow.

Apparently, the issue itself also reveals that the Subterranean Tunnel, the 2nd area of the planet Lilipa, will also be released some time in July. I don’t know if that’s release content or not, however. The Subterranean Tunnel will include new robot enemies, a new miniboss named Tranmizer and a new boss named “Big Barda” (there is pretty much no information about this boss at the moment).

As far as areas are concerned that leaves us with:

• Naberius – Forest, Tundra
• Amduscia – Caves
• Lilipa – Desert, Subterranean Tunnels.
• Arks Ship – Urban

The next area that’s likely to be released would be set on the floating islands of Amduscia (internally known as DRAGONLAND), which would bring the planets to 2 areas each. There is no information yet on any future planets.

It also seems that Sakai will be appearing on TV for an interview about PSO2, on what I think is a Japanese TV show by the name of “Game Maniacs”. The interview will be broadcast on July 7th, 23:00 to 23:30 JST.

[Sources: Shougai]

Scheduled Maintenance:

• JST: 28th June 11:00am  – 29th June 2:00pm
• BST (UK): 28th June 3:00am  – 29th June 6:00am
• CDT 27th June 9:00pm – 29th June 0:00am

You’ll live.

Other information in that official blog post seems to include that the number of simultaneous connections is almost double the size of the pre-OBT. The pre-OBT had a peak of just over 41,000, just for perspective.

Meanwhile over at 4gamer are a selection of 3 videos, each essentially a demonstration of the classes.

Story Time

PSO2 has a story, at least I think it does. I guess it must do because a PSOW member named Kion has taken on the task of translating it here. Check it out if you want an idea of what’s going on in your character’s world at this point in time. Naturally, spoilers.

Adam Jensen’s Weapon Training

Credit goes to Mewn for this one. Adam Jensen, er sorry, Joseph gives you Client Orders that involve you carrying out a task with a specific weapon. So for example you will have

• Partisan Training I
• Partisan Training II
• Partisan Training III
• Etc, for each weapon type your current class can use.

You unlock further Client Orders in the chain by completing the previous ones.

I wont be telling you how to do them in detail in this post, but I will say to be aware of the 4th Client Order he gives for each weapon category. He wants you to use the basic weapon for the entirety of the hard-mode Nab-Rappy arrest mission (4th Forest quest). It states so in the yellow text which explains the mission’s conditions. It won’t count if you use any other weapon. Also be aware that switching a weapon during the run may cause it to fail.

See? I have the knack.

Seeing as the game is (pretty much) out now I think some useful tidbits regarding playing the game itself wouldn’t go amiss here. Towards the future then, I’ll be sharing whatever good advice I come across.

You can actually raise other classes without ever entering a mission as one. Simply complete Client Orders as your main class and then switch to a different class when you go to hand it in. The EXP reward will go to the currently active class. I probably wouldn’t go using up any one-time Client Orders for this trick, but you may as well with repeatable dailies, particularly if you’re capped.

Beware, however, that a Client Order’s reward is scaled to your current level. So that Client Order that gives 10,000 exp will only give 700 if you switch to lv1 Force.

Also, is it me or does the lag actually seem to get worse when Japan goes to sleep? It certainly seemed to be when the worst lag spikes hit for me, at least.

Hard Mode: Observations

Well now I’ve gotten to play around in hard mode a bit there’s a few observations about it and other general bits of the game that playing on a higher difficulty allows us to see.

You only need to unlock quests once.

Seems a given, but saying it just to remove any doubts you may have. When you unlock quests on normal, you’ve unlocked them on hard.

However, missions are not uniformly distributed by level requirement. Being lv20 doesn’t grant you access to all the quests. lv20 will grant you access to all the Forest quests and the first Caves quest. lv25 will grant you access to the rest, or up to the 3rd Desert quest anyway. To access the hard mode versions of the Free-Field quests you’ll need to be lv30, annoyingly.

Essentially it’s a blend of PSO and PSU difficulty. The PSO part is due to it being called “hard mode” and requiring you to do things to unlock it. The PSU part is the level requirements on a per-mission basis, making it functionally similar to “B-rank” versions of missions in PSU.

Items are tiered.

You may have noticed that the weapon with 4* rarity is actually weaker than the weapon with 2* rarity. In fact that awesome looking 7* weapon is statistically similar to a 2*. It appears that rarity is not directly related to item power this time and that the items themselves are arranged into tiers. It works something like:

• Tier 1
  • 3 1* weapons, with clear stat progression. We’ll call them 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3.
  • 1 4* weapon.
  • 1 7* weapon – Statistically as powerful as 2.1 weapons, but has a much lower requirement to equip it
• Tier 2
  • 3 2* weapons, with clear stat progression. We’ll call them 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3.
  • 1 5* weapon
  • 1 8* weapon – Statistically as powerful as 3.1 weapons, but has a much lower requirement to equip it?

This is the theory for each weapon type.

It’s possible it goes on like this, but this is only an early theory based on observation. The 7* and 8* weapons may not actually be included in this tiering system and behave by their own rules, at this point it’s not really certain as we’ve not seen enough examples yet. I can say though that you may want to re-consider splashing out on 7* weapons, as you’ll likely replace them quickly.

Update: Well after playing a bit more I see that there are in fact multiple 4* weapons for each type. See how quickly these early theories can unravel? There still appears to be some tiering involved, however.

Possible localised PSO2 announcement incoming?

Sega of America’s official Phantasy Star twitter feed, @phantasystar, seems to have moved on from PSO and is now posting PSU screenshots. This only leaves the portable Phantasy Stars before PSO2 (Phantasy Star: Portable and its sequel), which could indicate that an announcement concerning a localised version may be imminent. This is of course, just speculation.

Which is good design and we all know I love good design. (And Phantasy Star)

Also! If you haven’t already bought Gravity Rush. Go do so. Right now. It’s a great execution of a strong concept that works wonders in portable format. Sandboxes, along with Tactics games, are one of the best things you can have as a portable bite sized experience. Play for ten minutes on the bus, put it in suspend, pick up at lunch and do one of the story missions, and then run around a bit more on the way home. The platforming is solid, the camera controls are pretty tight, and the combat works really well once you get the hang of controlling gravity on the fly.

My biggest complaint was the load times. For some reason, it takes the game a huge amount of time to load into and out of challenges even though its plays off a memory card so maybe the download from the PSN store won’t suffer the same problem. Otherwise, the game is fluid. The main missions load behind a comic book style cut scene so bay time you’re done its ready to go and the big map is near seamless from the middle of the game on.

If you have a Vita, pick this up now. If you don’t have a Vita, but were thinking about getting one, now’s a good time. Anyway, catch ya’ll next week.

It appears that the player-base of the OBT may be far larger than Sega had anticipated. Not entirely unusual for an MMO launch, really. This is evidenced by the fact that, sadly for the importer community, Sega locked down character creation on Ship 02, only an hour or so after the test began. In fact, Ships 01-06 were also locked down, as were 08 and 10. Yes, that leaves only 2 ships out of 10 that were not in a state of lock down before the maintenance. This certainly does appear paint the picture that the servers were just simply overwhelmed by the influx of players. You only really needed to look at the block list while online to get an impression of how many people were on. Ship 02: Blocks 20, 21 and 22 were consistently full and I don’t think I saw a single block below 75% full. I don’t know how many players a block can host so I can’t really estimate any raw numbers from it.

Update: The character creation restriction has been lifted for now.

For those who were a little late to the party and wished to roll on Ship 02, hope is not lost. The lockdown is only temporary. However I understand that many people have decided to roll on other ships and I can’t say I wouldn’t be tempted in this situation. If you don’t intend to stay there,  know that there are no server transfer services announced yet. You can still just delete your character and start it again if you really want to be on Ship 02 later. It sucks that you’d have to lose that time, though. What also sucks about this is I imagine it’s fractured the importer community some what, which is a shame.

Unlocking Hard Mode

Not as horrible as I thought it would be. Given how the quest unlock orders that Kofi hands out tended to involve farming random drops or time attack (in missions which are random..) I fully expected unlocking an extra difficulty would be painful. As it turned out, it was just a straight forward kill quest. The quest is highlighted in the below image.

All you have to do is kill Rockbear, Caterderan and Gwanada 5 times each. The mini-bosses of Forest, Caves and Desert respectively. There is no time attack or ranking requirement and it counts if you encounter them in the wild or in their arenas. The best way to do this is in a full party if you can arrange it, as the minibosses will spawn in 3s (2 initially, 1 after one of them dies). That way you only need to do 2 runs of each mini-boss mission to unlock hard mode. NPCs do not count as a full party.

You’ll unlock this quest at lv17, but of course to complete it you’ll need to unlock Desert Free-Field. If you’re familiar with Kofi’s orders up to Free-Field Caves, you just need to kill Vol Dragon once. If not, I’ll try to have a more comprehensive guide later. This will unlock a Client Order from Kofi, which wants you to S-rank the Free-Field Caves in under 20 minutes. This will unlock the first desert mission.

Complete it and the next missions they unlock. The 2nd one ends with a triangular teleporter, you need to wander the area looking for crystals. Pick them up and deposit them in the teleporter. You should be familiar with the final one if you were in the pre-OBT, but if you weren’t just mash the E key or whichever button you use to interact with objects when the drills are glowing. Upon completing that, Kofi should give you another Client Order. You should know the format, complete the last 2 missions with S-rank within the time-limit and collect 2 things. When you complete that you’re now ready to work on unlocking hard mode.

Surprisingly there still isn’t a new patch out. If there is going to be one, they’re leaving it awful late. Update: There is now a patch, it’s quite a small one at that. Open your launcher and click the 3rd button to perform a file check. This will get the download started.

Skill Tree Simulator

A great new tool has been created by PSO-World member Gardios, also known as RyuHiroshi on his website. It’s a skill tree simulator, which allows you to plan out your builds. If you’ve used talent calculators for other MMOs you’ll know roughly what to expect. You can find it here, although be wary about adverts (closing them will open a popup). Skill descriptions do not work in Firefox.

Reminders

Reposting the schedule from the previous post:

The Open Beta is scheduled to start on the 21st of June, at 16:00 JST.

In other time-zones:

• 3:00 EST, 21st June
• 2:00 CST, 21st June
• 0:00 PST, 21st June
• 8:00 BST, 21st June (United Kingdom)
• 21:00 HADT, 20th June

There has been no stated duration of the test just yet.

Importer Ship

Reminder that the main importer ship will be:

• Ship 02:Ur. Block 20
  (overflow: Block 21)

However it’s more important that you make sure you know where the people who you intend to play with are headed. Remember characters are bound to a ship and you only get to make one character for free. You can change between blocks freely.

Eligability

If you signed up for any previous tests, you automatically qualify for entry into the Open Beta. If you haven’t registered yet, you can do so with this guide here. Despite being labelled for an older test, it will work just fine still.

Character Creation

Remember that characters created with the character creation tool will work with the upcoming test. You’re running out of time to make any free adjustments (well short of re-rolling I suppose). If you’re unaware this tool even existed, you can grab it here, as well as a translation patch for it here.

Some more reminders:

• The client will update to OBT through to release, so don’t uninstall anything!
• There is as of yet, no announced date for release.
• The player cap is 30 during the OBT, but will be raised to 40 on release.
• As character data won’t be wiped, the OBT is more like a soft release of the game.
• The cash-shop will NOT be available during the OBT.
• You will be able to access My Room and My Shop features for free during the open beta.
• Available areas will be:
  • Naberius – Forest
  • Amduscia – Volcano Cave
  • Lilipa – Desert
    • Possibility of new enemies?
  • Arks Ship – Urban (Emergency Quest)
• You can access Hard Mode versions of the above after reaching lv20 and completing a certain Client Order. Details when they’re known.
• The Naberius – Frozen Tundra area won’t be added until release.
• There is no need to do Matter Board quests to unlock Client Orders!
• You can acquire a Mag from lv5. You can find a guide here.
• Mags will reach their 2nd stage of evolution at lv30 instead of lv50.
• You can now select “Virtual Full-Screen” as a display mode.
• The planned video capture feature has been dropped.

To help understand various aspects of the game I’ve started putting together a selection of guides in the new manual section of the site. I will be expanding on it after launch and into the future as new things arrive.

Towards The Future

Basically a guessing game as to when PSO2 is going to be out. The test could be a week long, could be two weeks long, the actual release may be a while after the OBT ends, who the heck knows. It might well be announced on the day the test begins or a scrolling message in-game in a few days.

Unreleased Enemies

We know from the 2nd presentation at the 2nd Media Briefing (as well as through datamining) that there are more enemies to come. Shougai points a few out in this blog entry here. One of the unreleased enemies is the Tranmizer (pictured below), which is a miniboss that’s was revealed during the presentation. Also among the images are enemies that resemble Sinow Beats and Canadines (enemies from PSO). There is no information yet on an enemy only known as “Big Barda”.

Of course, they all seem to be in an as-of-yet unannounced area of Lilipa, which means we may not see any of these enemies. It’s not impossible, either, as after all the special desert mission in the pre-OBT may not have had every enemy you can encounter there.

@phantasystar’s Tweets

You may have noticed the @phantasystar twitter getting all cryptic lately, while posting screenshots from classic Phantasy Star, as well as more recently a screenshot of PSO. Some are speculating that they’re hyping up for a western PSO2 announcement but I would advise cautious optimism at best. Now before, I would have said that because they’ve only shown screenshots of the classic series that they might have been gearing up for some classic re-release instead (or re-re-release I suppose?), but this was before they posted the screenshot of PSO. Because of that, I think now there is a chance that maybe they’re going through the history of Phantasy Star to lead up to an eventual PSO2 announcement, maybe. If so, the next game they could post screenshots of could be PSO Episode 3, or they may count that as part of PSO and skip to PSU. That’s if the “going through the history” idea is accurate, if it isn’t then who knows. I will say that if there is going to be a localised version of the game, I think the best case scenario from a personal standpoint would be for it to share the same servers as the Japanese ( but obviously using a translated client).

Skill Trees

On a final ponder, the Force talent tree seems to be missing some talents. There are attunement-type talents for 3 elements; fire, ice and lightning, but there are no such talents for the remaining three. I would say it’s because Techs for these elements aren’t out yet, but we do have light-element techs. Perhaps they’re being saved for the first talent-tree expansion, which should coincide with new weapon types being released for Hunters (and their respective gear talents). Not sure what Ranger would be getting in said expansion however. In some ways I’m more surprised that the Force skill tree doesn’t have any support talents, yet both Hunter and Ranger do. This is strange given that Force is also the only class with any heals and dispels.Those are light-techs I guess, so I wonder if that will change if/when Forces get new elemental attunements. I also rather hope that if there are such Skill Tree changes on the way that free skill reset tickets are involved somewhere…

Also,Concept Art