Winners Announced! In the contest that took forever and a day to judge, and has to be longest contest with the smallest entries ever to be in limbo for judges to decide. We finally have arrived at the list of winners to our progressive story contest for some Shadowbane fans! By far, this has to be one of the hardest contests’s ever judged, due to the sheer volume of creative talents who went to work writing some excellent story arcs. We wish everyone could be a winner, and by rights they are. Each entry was an enjoyable read by everyone’s accounts. Unfortunately we cannot issue prizes to everyone, which sucks for us, or we would of and we sure would of liked too. With that said, it’s time finally to announce our judges picks! For third place: Osmethne, will be getting one of the ultra rare hard to get Shadowbane T-Shirts for his unique twist and continuation to the ongoing storyline as well as some excellent poetry! For second place: Greenman will be getting one of the ultra rare, hard to get Shadowbane T-shirts as well as his character sketched from Art by Pete! For his entry, which included not one, but several unique plot elements into his tale. For first place: Renelve will be getting one of the ultra rare, hard to get Shadowbane T-shirts as well as his character sketched from Art by Pete! And what everyone has been pounding the site for, an account to aid in the testing of the upcoming game Shadowbane awarded by Ubi Soft! Congrats to all, as everyone did an outstanding job, and congrat’s to those who were awarded prizes! Thank you to everyone who entered! Discuss: Congratulate everyone here! (Winners please contact me as soon as possible!) Posted September 27 2002 by Div Devlin

What's going on: Last weekend a bunch of us went out, got really wasted and had a great time. I met this hottie. She rocked. We got a long with each other well, a lot of common intrest's. Not one item did we get into a heated debate over. I asked her for her phone number. She gave it to me. You never, ever call a gal you just met the next day. Makes you look desperate. Or something. I waited about three days. I gave her a call. 773-509-5096 Da bitch. Rejection sucks. Took me a week to recover. Winners for our Shadowbane Contest will be announced tonight. I would of announced them now, but the email's are on my home computer. I feel stupid. Your wait is at an end. Hopefully, those who entered have forgotten so they will be suprised! I think we need a few other site writers so when I get depressed and lonely, someone else will post news, expect another update late tonight or tommorrow as I clear out my email box. Ton's of stuff happened this week that you already read about on other sites by now, but missed on my unique spin of cut and pasting it here. We welcome back Paradox who has been gone for a few as he returned this week, watch for some of his flaming rants about games coming soon. I do not believe in using spell check today, sue me. Dysatro decided to Fuck over everyone who had anything to do with Aerynth.com after several weeks of talking, where he was supposed to transfer the site back into my name so we could keep it going. The worm that he is though has not done this and has slunk back to Battle Vortex (a great site, Fear rocks!) that spawned him. When asked since he had no love for Shadowbane, if he was going to surrender his beta account, replied "Hell no." or something. Don't ya love assholes who take advantage of ones freindship. Not like he does anything for the community anyway's so no love lost there. Discuss: Stuph. Posted September 27 2002 by Div Devlin

As the Market Turns v2: This is probably going to affect (or is it effect!) many of us and the games we play, as Sun is one of the most used servers games run on. Sun Microsystems is rumored to be cutting 6,000 employees according to F'Company.com in mid October. Player Auctions.com (a Ebay-esque) site for selling and transferring game related stuph (characters, houses, items) between players has announced a new partnership to aovid like, fraud. Player Auctions does not normally endorse any outside sites, however due to the amount of fraud and the system put in place by Yantis Brokering we highly recommend users who buy accounts or high priced items to use this service. This brokering service is backed by attorneys and has a 100% guarantee or your full money back. We are highly sensitive to fraud and committed to putting an end to it. There is an official release on the Yantis Brokering site. Player2Player.net returns from their server woes (also restoring Arcadian DelSol's site), after being down for 8 days. Angel says an update will appear shortly. I wanted to let you all know that there is a post forthcoming on all that has happened in the last week. We are getting the staff in order and determining how to move forward. Somethings are probably left unsaid though, especially after Grimwell quit the site. Want your guild advertised where thousands of reader's will ignore the 480x60 banner on a daily basis? Because you know everyone has learned to tune them out. WarCry Network is now offering Guild Banner services (which is a great idea done before by many sites) where you can pay to have your guilds banner run of WarCry specific site forums. So far it's on Asheron's Call 2 WarCry subite and Shadowbane Warcy at $2.00 bucks a pop. That end's the annoying multiple pop-up banners that were overdone, at least for now? You could always advertise with us, and get run of site though and not just our boards. UnknownPlayer.com screwed the pooch on their contest. This warrants, FALSE ADVERTISING FROM JOURNALIST 'S THE WHOLE CONTEST WAS A F'ING SCAM! THE PULLED A BAIT AND SWICTCH< THE WORLD SHOULD SUE THEM! EVERY SITE SHOULD BLAST THEM ON THE INTERNET! THIS IS A SCANDAL! and other stuph. They explain what happened. This should probably have it's own article, eh? Discuss: When the market crumbles. Posted September 27 2002 by Div Devlin

Earth and Beyond Ships: Now you can explore the galaxy in Earth and Beyond as EA announce's the their mmo space game has shipped to stores: LAS VEGAS, NV (Sep. 24, 2002) - Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:ERTS) today announced that the massively multiplayer online role-playing galaxy, Earth & Beyond(tm), shipped to stores in North America. The game is being developed by Westwood Studios(tm) and will be published under the EA GAMES(tm) brand. In Earth & Beyond, players become captains of their own starships and live futuristic galactic adventures as they explore, trade and fight with thousands of others. In addition, players will face new challenges over time as the developers add sectors, planets, missions, monsters, characters, features, evolving plot lines and more. Are you ready? I preordered the game, I was in beta. I got the call my pre-order was in, I went to pick it up. It's been out now for two days. The shelf it was on was fully stocked. I asked how many of the pre-orders were picked up, the counter gal said that none wer epicked up. A lot of folks canceled thier pre-orders. The games is not in beta now, it's fair game. Expect a review soon. Discuss: Earth and Beyond the next best thing? Posted September 27 2002 by Div Devlin

Vivendi announces MEO Again: While it has not been a secret that Black Label Games (a division of Vivendi) is going to be making Middle Earth Online, Vivendi officially announced they are doing a lot of Tolkien titles as well as MEO. Here is the MEO part: The Lord of the Rings: Middle-earth Online will focus on both the heroic adventures and well-known community of Tolkien's Middle-earth. Additionally, the OLMMP will enable gamers and Tolkien fans to experience the fantasy of the vast "The Lord of the Rings" world in a growing and dynamic environment. Check the full release if you want to learn more. Still no word if players will go insane like the original Sierra offering. Posted September 27 2002 by Div Devlin

Shadowbane Stuph: Sachant from SB Vault is also in the Herald Program and makes her writing debut in an excellent look at the political aspect's forming in Shadowbane with her beta journal titled "A Foreshadowing" telling a little about who the upcoming powers will be and what guilds are involved. With linkage. It's a great read with big words that escaped many readers who do not own a dictionary. Diggin the new look they have also at SBV. En-Tranz one of those other Shadowbane Publishers has some screenshots out from the new build, that have been reportedly doctored to look good. En-Tranz also has a War Journal up titled, "The Wolves of War" worth reading. It's one thing to blast a game while being an ass about it, for all the wrong reasons, it's another to a commit a crime about it. Jaym Z is reporting in our boards that certain people have been commenting about making DOS attacks over the whole thing. It's really just not worth it. Kids today. Discuss: Keep on talking, mod sticks enforced. Posted September 27 2002 by Div Devlin

Horizon's Beta 2003? Note: This update is just for Connor! Horizons (everyone remembers this game that closed out the community so they could work on the game) says that Beta will be starting soon! The time is approaching when Horizons will begin its beta testing phase! Over the next few weeks, you will experience new and exciting information, media, and developer chats. This will be followed by the beta test sign-up. We will describe the process in detail also within the next few weeks. You can go check all the info on the beta page. Posted September 27 2002 by Div Devlin

As the Market turns... - Microprose shut's down. - Vivendi Games unit safe, Signs ten year deal with Marvel for MMO. I guess Sony lost out on that fight. - Brian Fargo (Interplay) joins Turbine (AC1 and AC2). - New book on gaming titled "Get in the Game: Careers in the Game Industry." - Funcom's Midgard Canceled. (Yeah I'm late!) - Player2Player.net and Arcadian still down, The Chosen rebuilding? Posted September 20 2002 by Div Devlin

Dragon Empires Around Town: Dragon Empires is having a contest! It's a Limerick Competition! In honour of the several Irish people who have recently joined our team we are having a limerick competition! Your task, should you chose to accept it, is to write a witty limerick on the theme of Dragon Empires (or the team) and then to send it in to us at dec@codemasters.com. The competition runs from the 20th of September to the 16th of October and everyone is eligible to enter and you may enter as many times as you wish. The winner of the competition will have his or her limerick plastered all over the web and will receive a first-phase beta account, a Dragon Empires T-Shirt and a signed concept art render. Please check the terms and conditions for the competition! That's something rather cool no one else has done, check out the rules and good luck! Peter "Calista" Tyson recently celebrated his four month anniversary as part of the Dragon Empires team, and on behalf of GameRifts.com all of us would like to congratulate him on a job well done, and thanks for taking time out to communicate with everyone. Not many game companies do this. We were wondering, what would you like to see him cover more of in the future? Discuss: What would you like to see him do more of for Dragon Empires? Posted September 20 2002 by Div Devlin

Earth and Beyond Around Town: Earth and Beyond has some plans for this weekend if you wanted to get out of the house but still play! Westwood and iGame Centers around town will be holding a Galactic Rally tommorrow across America. The Galactic Rally is a race through the Earth & Beyond galaxy in the style of a classic car race. Ten iGames centers around the country will compete for a chance to win an Earth & Beyond launch party at their iGames location. Contestants will be given clues and must travel to checkpoints in different sectors in the game, bringing and retrieving in-game items to the checkpoint attendants. You can find out more on the iGames official site with locations. There is also a new "Glimpse Inside" article up titled "The Angry Bot." This week's article is a little different, as it's written from the point of view of one of the testing bots. It is teh funnei! Posted September 20 2002 by Div Devlin

NwN Nominated for awards: Word sent to us is that Neverwinter Nights is currently nominated in 3 categories for the prestigious Golden Joystick awards, a British based electronic entertainment awards program. You can view the categories, other nominees, and vote for Neverwinter Nights here: http://www.goldenjoystick.co.uk/ They also have a contest for UK residents only, but voting is open to all. So, go vote! Posted September 20 2002 by Div Devlin

Shadowbane Around Town: In "Piss on Ubi Soft Thursday" as it's becoming known now, fans of Shadowbane revolted after Chris "Vosx" Mancil of Ubi Soft visited the long established guild "The Syndicate" after a weekend conference he was invited to on his way to Wolfpack Studio's. The Syndicate was given 150 Beta Accounts to help test the game with dedicated members who could contribute to the game. It's no secret that LLTS is not a PvP Emporium, nor have they ever claimed to be so. They do bring very valuable assets to a game in need of testing. Large Member Base Guild Mechanics Organization Strong Nation Leader Building Skills There is a lot to list, but many got overexcited in their fandemonium. Sachant over at SBV prevails with cool logic that shuts down any arguments. I hate when that happens, I had this rant all worked out. My soul for Sachant! Meanwhile, Vosx safe and secure in the Wolfpack bunker begins interviewing the developers with his first two parts being with Sam "Meridian" Johnson, which can be found on Shadowbane Vault (Part One and Part Two). Valkrie and I teamed up for an interview with Jason "Tangent" Durall of Wolfpack, which was started at GenCon. It's currently running on Shadowbane Sanctum so be sure to give it a read. I spewed soda all over my keyboard at the end. [Edit: There seem's to be some confusion that this is a two part interview. It was only one part that we (GameRifts.com and SB Sanctum) worked on together. Sanctum is currently running the same interview that will be reprinted here at a later date.] Discuss: Notice how every Thursday something just seems to pop up? Posted September 20 2002 by Div Devlin

Anniversary, Selling out, Hero Returns! Ultima Online is celebrating its fifth year anniversary, you are getting a new shard and someday you may even see new vet rewards! Launched in 1997, Ultima Online stands as the longest-running, most successful online subscription-based game in the history of the interactive entertainment industry - and we’re still growing! Today, as we approach the 5th birthday of UO, Origin is proud to announce the opening of Lake Austin, our newest North American shard. The Lake Austin shard opens today, Wednesday, September 18th (CDT). It is the 12th North American Ultima Online shard, and is our 25th shard worldwide. In honor of UO’s 5th birthday, the new shard is being named after the twenty-two mile long body of water in Central Texas that runs right past the place where UO was born in 1997. The home office of Origin Systems, the central location for the creative vision of Ultima Online, overlooks the waters of beautiful Lake Austin from the high cliffs along its banks. In what is being trumpeted as the coming of our lord and savior, Anthony "SunSword" Castoro returns to UO as the new Live Producer. Yes, it’s true - our esteemed Bryan "Tajima" Walker will be transitioning into the role of Director of Studio Operations here at Origin, and Anthony "SunSword" Castoro, former Lead Designer for Ultima Online and Lead Systems Designer for Star Wars Galaxies, has decided to return as our new Live Producer. Tajima will be continuing to work closely with SunSword and the UO Live team for the next several weeks in order to see that the transition is smooth, both for our team and for the players. I'd like to give you a welcome back to UO and just wanted to inform you if you were not aware. We, the veteran players of Ultima are a disenchanted lot with the state of the game today. Hopefully, you will be able to give us a new hope, especially in the fact that there are a lot of new games coming out in the future that we will probably leave for. Someone from either EA or OSI is a huge fan of Shadowbane, as it was just little over two weeks ago Tegatana from Swing! made the comment (since removed) that "Wonder where the business is leading up to in a couple of years [sarcasm on] preorder my game and you recieve a house and a magic armor in game!" and now Ultima is doing it. Yes, now you can buy a ready made character for $29 bucks from one of four templates. Ultima Online players can now purchase advanced characters through our new Advanced Character Service. This is a great way to move quickly ahead in specific areas of the game without needing to go through the building-up process for each character you play. Advanced characters can be purchased on your existing or new accounts. Get your advanced character NOW for $29.95! It is not a joke. Discuss: Sunsword is going to have his hands full here. Posted September 20 2002 by Div Devlin

Unknown Player Interview and Chat: Last weekend Verviticus of UnknownPlayer.com got the opportunity to interview Travis Cannell, the Manager of Business Development over at Gnostic Labs about their upcoming game Eschaton. Eschaton is a sci-fi MMOG crossed with a conventional RTS. That’s not all of it however, not nearly. Check out that interview! UP also hosted another Developer Chat this time with the subject being "Griefers." Joining them were Brian Crowder from Sony Online Entertainment, Larry Dunlap from Intelligent Life Games, Sanya from Mythic, Dwight Spaulding a.k.a. Melantus from NCsoft in the Community department, and John Erskine, the Manager of Customer Support for NCInteractive. The chat log is now up for everyone to read. Posted September 20 2002 by Div Devlin

Astonia 3 Patch Released: Astonia unleashed a new patch giving all kinds of goodness. The patch adds a new feature to the world of Astonia: The Labyrinth Quest. Labyrinths are independent mini areas which the players have to solve on their way to becoming an Archmage, Archwarrior or a Seyan’Du. Each Labyrinth is a world of its own with new enemies, NPCs and thrilling and unique quests. Ishtar, Astonia’s mighty God, created these quests to prepare the warriors and mages of Astonia for the fateful fight against the Gate Keeper. The new patch consists of the first two of a total of 20 Labyrinth levels. Posted September 16 2002 by Div Devlin

Ballerium Chat Announced: Check out my cut and paste skills, I'm getting better at it. I rock. Majorem Ltd. (www.majorem.com) and The Stratics Massively Multiplayer Gaming Network (www.stratics.com) are pleased to announce a dev-chat with the developers of Ballerium, the massive multiplayer strategy game. The Chat will be held on September 17th at 7PM GMT in #BalleriumHoC on the Stratics IRC servers. Our topic this evening will be "General Discussion". We will also be discussing the games current development status as well as the upcoming Beta test so make sure to join us that evening! Posted September 16 2002 by Div Devlin

As the market turns... Even though Napster is not there anymore, someone want's Napster to live on, perhaps with the name of P0rnster? Meanwhile, virtual franchising will be invading the Sim's Online, as McDonalds and other companies signed a multi-million dollar deal to allow usage of thier company names in game. The fast-food restaurant paid an undisclosed seven-figure amount to allow the avatars who populate the Sims Online to open virtual franchises and earn "Simoleans" the game's currency, by selling burgers and fries to other players. Likewise, players can purchase Intel-branded computers within the game and use them to operate virtual businesses or communicate with other players. You can read the full article on Bayarena. (Thanks to Evil Avatar for that!) Posted September 16 2002 by Div Devlin

Dragon Empires Dev Diary... Dragon Empires released it's news Developer Diary, this time from the man himself Peter "Calistos" Tyson which is up on the DE website. Give it a read. Posted September 16 2002 by Div Devlin

Earth and Beyond goes gold: Ole', Ole'! The countdown to launch has begun! EA announced that the massively multiplayer online role-playing galaxy, Earth & Beyond has gone gold and will ship to stores in North America Sept. 24. As of Saturday all accounts were wiped and people tried to become the first members of the Founders Federation. By mid-afternoon servers were up and running, but once it got overcrowded you would get kicked and be unable to log back in. It's a live Beta Test. Of course with any new mmog you should always expect the nerf stick to hit. Earth and Beyond is no different, as they nerfed level progression. They don't want you to get to level 150 in two weeks. Most people are getting bored from the past beta's within two week. If you are one of the few, the proud, the willing to go past your thirty day free trial of the game after launch, fret not for there are several payment options available other then the new market price of 12.95 per month to play. We spent some time in the game, and will have a preview of it up soon. Discuss: What are your thought's on EnB? Posted September 16 2002 by Div Devlin

EQ raises level cap! In the continuing battle to remain top dawg and keep players in EverQuest, Planet EverQuest breaks the story on the Planes of Power website being updated with new level infornmation after blowing the lid on rumors and speculation. The level cap will increase to 65. Those levels will have inherent benefits much like previous levels. However, they will not be exactly the same. The rate of advancement in character levels is designed to feel more natural and not take the punishing time commitment required between 51 and 60. We understand the frustration that painfully long levels can cause, and hope not to repeat that experience for players. This, combined with the new bonuses for fighting higher level opponents, should make leveling seem less like something that you have to do and more like something that just happens as you play. A lot of people still play. 300k and going strong now? Posted September 16 2002 by Div Devlin

Mystery Interviews Campion Mystery over at massivemultiplayer has an interview with Mike "Campion" Wallace producer for the upcoming sci-fi space game Eve Online. It's a great read, and not containing any misquotes of which we will never be forgiven. Give it a read. Posted September 16 2002 by Div Devlin

Milking it. It seems some folks were upset about the Unknown Player Reloaded article we posted last week. So upset that five people all from different email addies sent me the SirCam virus. Even though McAfee sucks and it got into my system, it's only a 20 minute fix. I also have an Andy on my side, so thanks. Much Love! Some folks think that the contest we ran for a Shadowbane Beta is a scam. We do in fact have one beta account to give to the first place winner. Some issues arose of a personal nature with two of our judges. We got dragged into a board fight over it on the Shadowbane boards. Judging is going on, and winners will be announced soon. Discuss: Handy thread to milk it more. Posted September 16 2002 by Div Devlin

The Chosen Gone? [No the Icon does not fit, but it's another great site gone -Div] Venerable website ranters Jinx and Watt's faded from the limelight a few months (?) ago with nary an update to the site. Now, the site decided to up and go follow after them. Hopefully they are well, and will return soon. Someday. Maybe? Discuss: Dedicated to The Chosen Posted September 16 2002 by Div Devlin

UO Still as issues, ignored. Nothing new on the Ultima front. Friday problems consisted of players on Pacific being pretty much hosed as they were given murder counts on mules who do not PK. UO support was clueless, and threads regarding it on the general boards were removed. Publish 16 was then removed from Pacific. UO PowerGamers has a brief recap of one Aussie's trial (scroll down) regarding it. It's ok though as now in game they are advertising the name change program that you can take part in for a whole $12.99! (Thanks to UOPG and GuL for the info above). But, wait there is more! Stratics recently had an interview with Tajima, so everything is ok now, as they discussed nothing related to anything really. As we said at the start of this recap, nothing new in UO. Posted September 16 2002 by Div Devlin

UnknownPlayer Reloaded! “... And the pantheon of gaming gods looked down from the heavens, and spoketh thus "let one be delivered who shall speaketh to the gamers, so they can blindly follow his words, and bring them to their salvation!” And so it was, the rebirth of Dr.TwisTer (we love to recycle icons) has been reborn in the form of UnKnownPlayer. Yes, the five-year gaming cycle is true! With a wildly entertaining tale of Ubi Soft Marketing to Crush, UnKnown Player has released yet another "Journalistic Masterpiece" riddled with holes and devoid of facts in which he let's you, "the faithful reader judge for yourself!" in another diatribe. Well, I'm never one to blindly follow what is being presented to me, so I decided to look into this little article presented to us, and did I find some stuff out. [Full Story] Posted September 12 2002 by Div Devlin

EnB Glimpse Inside: Earth & Beyond team over at Westwood Studios has posted the new weekly Glimpse Inside article. This week's article is a look at voice acting in Earth & Beyond, and some of the popular actors they are using. Kinda makes the actors sound cheap, no? Those featured in this week's article are Claudia Christian (from Babylon 5!), Susan Silo, and Dorie Barton. Claudia used to be Hot. Dunno on the others. Check out the read. Posted September 12 2002 by Div Devlin

UO Patch, Patch Canceled: We caught word Tuesday that UO tossed in Monday a new patch. They then followed that up on Wednesday saying that the lastest scenario was canceled. Due to an unforeseen issue, the Scenario 5, week 1 Publish that was intended to be live on one shard this morning will be delayed. We are currently working diligently to resolve this issue, and will post additional updates as the situation develops. We apologize for the delay, and thank you for your patience in this matter. Meanwhile it turns out people are STILL PLAYING Ultima. We used to do this back in the old days, and it was fun to see it still going on. Viva Felipe! (Thanks to UOPG for the Felipe's) Posted September 12 2002 by Div Devlin

BioWare Hiring and DSO reborn! BioWare is hiring. Dust off your resumes and spread the word, BioWare is looking for a Marketing Director. Find all the details at: [here -Div] Good luck to those who apply! Beating the NeverWinterConsortium to the first revival of those games from before you were born, Dies Irae has released a persistant online reincarnation of Dark Sun Online. Get your psionicist mages ready and check it out. Discuss: Use this thread already in progress! Posted September 12 2002 by Div Devlin

AO Booster Pack Details: Anarchy Online sent this info out, in what should clear up some questions that are Behind the Scenes and talks about stuff, I have no idea about. You can explain it to me, so read more. Full Story Posted September 12 2002 by Div Devlin

Starlock Beta Signup: Prowler Productions is pleased to announce that beta tester signup for their upcoming Sci-Fi MMORPG StarLock will begin October 1st. Beta testing itself is slated to start November 1st with the final public release of StarLock planned for January 1st. Please stay tuned for more information on StarLock and on how to register for the beta test as the October 1st signup draws closer. In the meantime, those looking to learn more about StarLock can visit the official website at http://www.prowler-pro.com/starlock Posted September 12 2002 by Div Devlin

Shadowbane Delayed Pt.2: It's been confirmed that Shadowbane has been pushed back until sometime next year. While no date has been officially set, vendor's are saying Feburary. An official word was posted on the main Shadowbane News Page. Former TCE member Morthiki (was not this the person who for three years spamming every guild message board that they would crush us in game) has a "parody page" up called ShadowBlame which we are pretty sure breaks the NDA. Not to mention it breaks the law for use of copyrighted images. Update: The page has been removed. Lawyers hurt. Kudo's to SB Sanctum for taking note that Aerynth.com just might not be dead yet. It's still under discussion. Posted September 12 2002 by Div Devlin

Middle Earth Online: Thanks to Mystery at MMOG for the heads up on this. Last week Chris Taylor (not this Chris Taylor) Associate Producer, from Black Label Games/Universal Interactive stopped by IGN's boards to give everyone a heads up on what is going on with the Tolkien titles they have based on the books. As Chris writes: Just wanted to drop a quick note letting you know that we are working on a LOTR based MMORPG. The final title of the game hasn't been decided (I saw some confusion in another thread and I wanted to clear that up.) I refer to it as MEO (Middle-earth Online), but it's also been called LOTRO (Lord of the Rings Online). Over the next couple of months, we'll settle on the real name. We're still very far off from release, and lots of things are changing under the hood (so to speak), so we can't say a lot about the game at this point. However, I'll try to answer your questions as best as possible to the limit of my ability and what I'm allowed to talk about. He then went on for three pages talking with the community and answering a majority of questions. We have an edited summary of the items he answered. It's looking pretty good. Read on. Full Story Posted September 9 2002 by Div Devlin

Red Beta Server Down Posted on the Asheron's Call 2 Beta Community site: The Red world will be shut down today while we work on a fix for the lag issues. The Red world will come back possibly on Wednesday, more likely on Thursday. We will post here more accurate ETAs for Red's return as we can make better estimates. The Green test world will soon be updated so that we can get more data about the lag. Please read the notices that describe the difference between the Green test world and the Red world. We apologize for the downtime as we urgently work on this fix. Thank you. Posted September 9 2002 by Aracnakat

Shadowbane Release Date: Rumor: In the neverending cycle of beta, Shadowbane has once more been pushed back on it's release date from Novemeber 5th to Feburary 2, 2003 both according to EB Games and GameSpot. At this time this is only a rumor and we await confirmation on if this is true or false. As I pluck the grapes off my vine, I'm hearing 02/12/03. At this time, I'm going to go with it as a false rumor as at Gen Con speaking w/Vosx of Ubi Soft during this interview Novemeber 5th was the stated release date. Everyone knows not to trust the suits though, right? [ed. When regarding the suits, it was in reference to the sales suits at the retailers and not in reference to Chris "Vosx" Mancil, sorry to those who read it wrong.] We are awaiting word from Chris "Vosx" Mancil for comments regarding this. Discuss: Place your bets! Posted September 9 2002 by Div Devlin

WarCraft III Bans 20k: Blizzard following up with their promise last week to agressively remove those using the Map Hack, Blizzard banned twenty thousand players from Bnet for (only!) two weeks also reseting the ladder and removing their points. Oh, they also issued a patch. Posted September 9 2002 by Div Devlin

Dragon Empires Around Town: Dargon Empires has released their September newsletter in which the tell us: This month we are introducing a new form of developer diary, the Art Development Diary. I'm sure you'll all find it very interesting and you can read about it below. This newsletter also contains information on events in the Dragon Empires world for the next month and a new feature on Dragon Empires fan sites. It also includes a calendar of events going on with DE over the month as well as exclusive concept art for a Monkey Empire Shop. If you are not on the newsletter for these exclusive sneak peeks, you should sign up, it also adds your name to the beta test list. Last week we also were sent some new concept art upcoming in the game. The first shows a large meeting house of complex from the monkey empire, the second a monkey empire house. The monkey empire is the most primitive of all the empires, but its people are noble, intelligent and fierce in battle. Their love of nature and the embodiment of their empire, the monkey dragon, is reflected in the materials they use and their philosophy towards life.  Get your dirty paws off me you damned stinking ape? Posted September 9 2002 by Div Devlin

Earth and Beyond Download: Still not playing Earth and Beyond. Keep running out of places to get the software from? Earth and Beyond has that fixed. The Earth & Beyond beta software download is also now available on Gigex! Westwood sends the following: Earth & Beyond Available on Gigex! Get your copy of the Earth & Beyond beta software from Gigex. Already in the test? Here's your chance to get your friends and family involved too. Can't download a big file? Still using a 56k modem? No problem! You can visit Gigex and request a CD be mailed to you immediately, no hassle and no fuss. See you in Earth & Beyond soon! Eh! Posted September 9 2002 by Div Devlin

Shadowbane Around Town: Interested in learning how good the Shadowbane servers are? Fatbabies.com has linkage to some type of program that can tell how often the servers are up called the Shadowbane Server Checker. It's probaby similar to UO Monitor, but I can't access it at work. GameSpy has a preview up of Shadowbane in which they have some new screen shots while speaking with Ashen Temper. J over at SB WarCry has a review up regarding the SB Promo disc's trailer that folks paid $10.00 bucks for, that you can download for free from the Ubi Soft site. He makes no mention in his review regarding the rendered art included. For those asking on the status of Aerynth.com and the future in store for it, hopefully today it will be resolved and the site will live on. Our SB Contest, we said winners would be announced no later then Friday. Well, technically we did not say what Friday! Not to give any of the entries a hard time, some emergency situations arose then no one expected, nor was it expected to affect everyone involved. We are still narrowing the final entries down. We would publish a list of the finalist's, but all of them were really good which complicates it even more. We are working on it and expect to announce winners soon. Discuss: What is the Shadowbane Server Checker? Posted September 9 2002 by Div Devlin

Ready for an Onslaught™ Wizards of the Coast has announced the date that Onslaught™ will be released for Magic® The Gathering Online. This new set will go live on November 1st for casual play and will be ready to rotate into Standard on November 14th. According to WotC's press release, Onslaught™ will bring back and strengthen many old and loved creature types like elves and goblins .. read the article written by Randy Buehler found on the official WotC page to find out a little more on how the release of Onslaught™ will affect your game play. Posted September 6 2002 by Aracnakat

SB on IGN; AA Shutting Down? IGN PC(Hint to IGN, When you have a fansite, toss them into the information loop like SB Vault, they are part of IGN no?) flew out to Wolfpack Studio's and takes a hard look at Shadowbane while talking to the team and Todd "Warden" Coleman about how the game is progressing. A look inside the beta: That's when things got interesting. With no one to challenge their power, it seemed the reigning guild could maintain their dominance forever. But a rift eventually developed within the guild and one group of players split off and started their own town. A third group took advantage of the situation to make their own bid for power and with these three major players now focused on each other, smaller cities were able to gain ground and reach a point where they started to pose a threat to the previously dominant guild. Another correcting mechanism is that players who dominate the game may have less interest in it as the challenge decreases and will spend less time playing it. Once other guilds have had a chance to build up some competition in their absence, the absent players are enticed back in to the fray. The long-term rhythms of this aren't yet apparent but the real excitement is that this is all currently happening with just hundreds of players. Once the servers go live, we can expect to see thousands of people, in guilds of a hundred or more members (not coincidentally the size of most MUD communities), participating in exactly these sorts of conflicts. Head on over and take a look. Tell's what is going on now, the state of the game and other juicy tidbits. As many of you know I had originally founded Aerynth.com and back in January transferred (it's down around the 17th) the Administration over to Dyastro of BattleVortex who had been running the DAoC fansite for BV. Today he announced suddenly he is shutting the site down. I've only begun discussing this with him and the matter is still being looked into. Discuss: When fansites lose interest! Posted September 5 2002 by Div Devlin

Camelot Address: Mark Jacobs tossed up a "State of the Game Adress" to the DAoC players, in which he knocks out two of SoulDemon's points from this mini-rant posted yesterday in which Camelot tells us that: 5)Housing is still being developed and we are committed to adding this to the game as part of subscriber content - so it will not require the expansion pack. Like Spellcrafting we are taking our time with housing to make sure that it is done right the first time. 9)Improvements to the RvR areas. We are looking into ways to give you more reasons to take and hold keeps. We will present them to you over the next few months. With the next generation of games coming out, they need to do something. Discuss: To little to late? Posted September 5 2002 by Div Devlin

Earth and Beyond Glimpse Inside: EnB has posted the newest weekly Glimpse Inside article. This week's article features another winner from the recent fan fiction contest. In addition, they have also posted an article to help players understand the benefits and importance of grouping in Earth & Beyond. Be sure to check it. Discuss: I guess this means no room for the solo casual player? Posted September 5 2002 by Div Devlin

AC2 Still down, hope for tommorrow? AC 2 is still down. The updated message is now showing they hope to return on The 6th by 5pm. That is all. Posted September 5 2002 by Div Devlin

Link of the Day: Link of the day! Check it out on Napster.com Posted September 5 2002 by Div Devlin

EverQuest Downtime Everquest will be going down for an update early tomorrow morning: On Thursday, September 5th, at 3AM PDT, (10AM GMT), all EverQuest servers will be brought down for a scheduled update. The estimated downtime is 2 hours. Thanks for the intro Div! Posted September 4 2002 by Aracnakat

GameRifts A'happenin's: I dropped my headphones. I went to pick them up. I stepped on them. They broke. Yesterday you may have noted an update by Aracnakat and were wondering why that name is so familiar. Yes, that is she. We'd like to welcome her to GameRifts.com as the newest member of our team. A very long time friend of mine and a long time online gamer you may know her from the EverQuest fansite Cazic Thule Corner or from Shadowbane Crypt both sites she created, built and ran for years. Welcome to the team! Everyone say Hi! Our Shadowbane contest came to a close Sunday Night, and I wanted to thank everyone who entered. Judges have been going over each entry and then when they narrow it down they start all over again. All the entries are great, and they are having a hard time narrowing it down to three. We wish we could award everyone a prize. While some people are rushing for an announcement of a winner (in other words quit spamming the boards or emailing me on it), we can understand your anxiety in this. Hopefully you will have some fingernails and hair left by the time we select the final winners. Each entry is being judged fairly and without bias. While those who would hope we would rush an announcement, we are taking our time. We want to be fair after all. Winners will be announced Friday at the latest. Good Luck to everyone. Posted September 4 2002 by Div Devlin

SB Sah-wing babeee! Over in the old country (Can I say that being a second generation Lithuaninan of American descent?) Tegatana tossed up a post on the Swing boards in reference to Ubi Soft's marketing of the restricted races: We think unlocking restricted races by preordering is a HUGE step backward and destroys the whole point of those races. Wonder where the business is leading up to in a couple of years [sarcasm on] preorder my game and you recieve a house and a magic armor in game!, no, preorder my game and you recieve a house, a magic armor and a a magic weapon in game!, nooo, preorder my game and you recieve a house, a a magic armor, a magic weapon and the first 30 levels....[sarcasm off] I'm starting to like this Tegatana guy, he must be 0ld sk00l. Discuss: That Tegatana, he'd be a 'cheeky fellow?' Posted September 4 2002 by Div Devlin

AC2 Down, Still Down, Read Pr0n: After experiencing problems with the Beta last Friday the AC2 team decided to halt the beta until problems could be resolved. Planned return was for yesterday at noon Pacific Time. Things don't always go as planned especially during Beta, so the game was Halted until further notice. Hoping to return today at 5PM Pacific Time while they finish the transition to the Beta 2 phase. If you are truly bored and need something to do, you can hit the General Discussion boards that are not moderated and look for the hidden Pr0n links. Readers have screamed for the removal of the pr0n links, and bans to the person posting them. As a parent I need to agree with this thread and feel for the parent who had to deal with the question, "What is that daddy/mommy!" (Thanks to everyone who mailed me on this!) Discuss: Fallen Kings, or Failing Beta? Posted September 4 2002 by Div Devlin

UO Patched, UO Broken: Ultima Online released it's latest patch yesterday bringing the game client to version 3.8.0 with changes, fixes and tweaks. They later clarified that the new stat lock interfaces will only be active on shards that have received the first Event 5 publish, which will not happen until at least next week. Continuing with the UO information we learn that Mr.Tact a member of the UO Live Team has comments up in the "Comments from the Team section" where we read that he has been promoted to Lead Programmer! The game is still broken though for West Coast user's who began experiencing connectivity issues last week. In an effort to fix it they have taken the log in servers down for testing. By the time you read this, the servers should be back up, doubtful the problem has been resolved though. Sounds like MrTact will have a lot on his plate. Congrats on the promotion! Go read all of the above in the FYI section of UO. Posted September 4 2002 by Div Devlin

Earth and Beyond Expands: Westwood Studios(tm) announced that they have launched multiple servers for the Earth & Beyond(tm) public test, and will be accepting tens of thousands of additional testers in the coming weeks. Previously limited to only one server, the public test for Earth & Beyond has grown to include tens of thousands of registered players over the past few months, and is opening multiple servers to accommodate the large volume of testers. Also if you have not been in the beta, GameSpy.com will be offering the public test software as a free download at www.fileplanet.com. Posted September 4 2002 by Div Devlin

MTGO Patch Magic The Gathering Online received an update today. There were many good additions to the game as well as some much needed bug fixes. However, there was some nasty prize nerfing. Some of the highlights are listed below: New prompts to protect users from accidental mana burns Support added for new limited formats New game options in both casual and multiplayer arenas Changes to league prizes (I'm sorry to report that the prizes have been dramatically nerfed) The "joining a game" bug has been fixed There were many other changes as well. The next patch is scheduled for October 1st from 8:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. PST. Posted September 3 2002 by Aracnakat

E3 Raffle: We have this press release that came in late last week and have been unable to follow up on it. Twisted Monkey Development is hosting a raffle to acquire the funds for an E3 booth, and we want to take one lucky fan with us. Well, we found some time to follow up on it. Full Story Posted September 2 2002 by Div Devlin

Ballerium Beta Test: Press Release: Majorem Ltd., a developer of massively multiplayer games and technology, is pleased to officially announce that they are now taking initial registration forms from individuals interested in beta testing their upcoming massively multiplayer real-time strategy game 'Ballerium'. Interested parties can register by visiting the official Ballerium website at www.ballerium.com and clicking the beta and newsletter registration link located on the news page. Ballerium is scheduled to enter beta testing in Q1 2003, with final release set to occur mid-2003. In developing the game, Majorem is using its revolutionary OPIUM technology to create a fully persistent world that is able to handle an infinite number of players. Ballerium looks to be an innovative new entry to the massively multiplayer gaming market, providing players with never before experienced levels of persistence and control. It's another game to try, you may like it! Posted September 2 2002 by Div Devlin

Shadowbane Interview: Sean "Ashen Temper" Dahlberg of Wolfpack Studios, one of the guys behind Shadowbane was spotted doing an introduction to the world of Shadowbane in an interview with the guys over at Electric Playground. Nothing new is revealed in the interview for those wondering when open beta will start. Posted September 2 2002 by Div Devlin

WarCraft 3 Bannings: Blizzard issued a press release last week announcing they banned players account keys that were found to use map hacks and would continue to randomly continue to monitor hosted games on BattleNet to ensure that no hackers continued to misuse their service and to keep an aggressive stance on banning those they do find cheating. It's WarCraft, why cheat? Posted September 2 2002 by Div Devlin

Spit or Swallow? In the case of Unknown Player, Chief Editor, Owner, Operator, Writer, and JOURNALIST of UnknownPlayer.com he definitely swallowed as he gulped down a healthy protein dose of Pride in his latest apology to you, the writers, the readers, the guy down the street, the bum on the corner, the developers, the president, and everyone else in this update where he learns that the "Buck Does Stop with Him" when regarding the site, his staffers, and content posted as news on said site. Now everything is all hunky dory and there is much love and kisses for everyone. Isn't that special! Read it. Discuss: A Thread already in progress on UP. Posted September 2 2002 by Div Devlin