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BioWare Wednesday 19:41 | Ascarel Oops again! I apologize for the late postings in the past few weeks...
Neverwinter Profile: Bastions of War Bastions of War is a team-based, player versus player, arena module where NWN fans can flex their powergaming muscles, work out their daily stress, and beat the crap out of gnomes, bards, elves, and other deserving folk. :P We spoke with Alec Usticke, BoW's chief admin and scripter, to find out more about this entertaining mod.
Prima DVD Enhanced Official Game Guide for Jade Empire Watch the video trailer for the Prima DVD Enhanced Official Jade Empire Game Guide that not only gives you an idea of what's inside the Guide, but it also showcases BioWare's soon-to-be-released action-RPG with nearly two minutes of new gameplay footage. The Official Jade Empire Game Guide appears in stores April 14th and is also coming soon to the BioWare Online store.
New Jade Fighting Styles: Storm Dragon & Ice Shard/White Demon Combo Two new smacktastic fighting styles are up at the Jade Empire website. The first features Storm Dragon, a style that enables a master to call upon the power of lightning to damage an opponent. The second video reveals a harmonic combo of Ice Shard and White Demon styles in action.
New Jade Screenshots View half a dozen new screenshots of Wu the Lotus Blossom and Scholar Ling wielding Storm Dragon, White Demon, and Ice Shard fighting styles.
Friday, April 1, 2005
BioWare Wednesday 11:45 | Ascarel Neverwinter Community Tileset Pack
A group of special and slightly crazy people have been tirelessly working on a project to bring Neverwinter fans new and previously released tilesets in a convenient package accessible to the whole community. We spoke with project leader Banshe to learn how the project is going and to find out what exactly will be in the Neverwinter Community Tileset Pack.
New Jade Fighting Styles: Spirit Thief and Hidden Fist View two more great fighting style videos now available at the Jade Empire website. Hidden Fist style is a collection of techniques that render your foes disoriented and unable to fight back, and Spirit Thief style enables you to tap an enemy�s vital energies and refill your own reserves.
New Jade Screens Featuring Stone Immortal A quartet of new Jade Empire screenshots are up at the website featuring Radiant Jen Zi wielding the powerful and earthy Stone Immortal fighting style.
Friday, March 25, 2005
BioWare Wednesday 08:17 | Ascarel NWN Profiles: Eye of the Beholder Project & David Gaider Interview The original Eye of the Beholder grabbed gamers by their keyboards and wouldn't let them go. Now, 14 years later, a team of community members have made a gigantoid mod of the original adventure for Neverwinter Nights; plus, they've added a bevy of new NWN content. We spoke with team members Rock and Mika about the project. In other NWN related news, be sure to also read an interview with BioWare Designer David Gaider recently posted at the Ladies of Neverwinter site.
Hot New Jade Preview Videos & Radiant Jen Zi Wallpaper View hot new video previews of Jade Empire at the Jade website. Watch never-seen-before exciting gameplay footage that reveals Jade's immersive story, fast-paced combat, and spectacular effects. While you're there, download a new desktop featuring the beautiful Radiant Jen Zi. Radiant Jen Zi is a fast and deadly warrior and one of the characters you can choose to play in the game.
Super-Powered Tools for ModForce! The foundation of any community is based on the enthusiasm and talent of its members and the tools that are available to create new content. In our first article on the new partnership between BioWare and Irrational Games, General Manager and Creative Director Ken Levine hinted at what was coming down the pipe for Modder fans of Freedom Force. In this week's scoop, Ken gives the Mod community some tips on the fabulous new tools.
Thursday, March 17, 2005
BioWare Wednesday 12:43 | Ascarel News From The DM Friendly Initiative Being a Dungeon Master is hard work. You need to be organized, dedicated, play a 1000 parts to tell your players a story, and somewhere along the way, have some fun yourself. The DM Friendly Initiative (DMFI) focuses on creating tools to help the beleaguered DM run adventures with the fewest hiccups and stalls as possible. This week, we speak with Carlo, the DMFI project coordinator.
White Demon & Double Axes Jade Fighting Styles
View another fantastic pair of fighting style videos at the Jade Empire website. See Tiger Shen wielding the destructive and far-reaching Double Axes style, and then watch him plow through his opponents like an ogre in a teahouse with White Demon style.
Thursday, March 10, 2005
BioWare Wednesday 10:07 | Ascarel New NWN Epic Builds: Holy Paragon and Eldritch Archer A new pair of special epic builds is available for study and download. The Holy Paragon and null make use of the Player's Resource Consortium pak and they feature brand new prestige classes! Also, we caught up with Lord Deimos from the PRC to get details of what's on the horizon for the hard-working group.
Two New Jade Empire Fighting Style Videos Two new fighting style videos are ready for your viewing pleasure at the Jade Empire web site. Watch a Thousand Cuts - an aptly named martial style that relies on numerous light strikes in quick succession instead of singular punishing blows or thunderous kicks, and Dire Flame - a magical style of fire bolts, fireballs, and tongues of flame.
Jade Empire Art Corner: Tiger Shen
Tiger Shen is one of the six selectable player characters in Jade Empire, and he represents a roleplaying style that is about diving right in and powering through your opponents with a touch less concern for finesse. In this art corner, we look at Tiger Shen from early concepts to final model.
Thursday, March 3, 2005
BioWare Wednesday 12:52 | Ascarel Neverending Nights - A Machinima Project It took little time for fans to break the boundaries of the Aurora Toolset in pursuit of telling their personal stories when Neverwinter Nights was released, and now a pair of creative souls have teamed up to create an NWN Machinima project. Read how and why Adam Freese and Tawmis have produced a series of video shorts that bring out the humorous side of being a hero.
Two New Jade Empire Fighting Style Videos Two new fighting style videos, Tempest and Golden Star, are now available for viewing at the Jade Empire web site. Warriors who fight with Golden Star wield a powerful weapon originally crafted as a gift for the Water Spirit of the Silkworm River. And martial artists who are proficient in Tempest have the very winds at their beck and call!
New Jade Wallpaper: Lu the Prodigy Download the latest beautiful desktop from the Jade Empire web site. This one depicts a grim scene of the playable character, Lu the Prodigy, powering up Storm Dragon style while being surrounded by hungry cannibals as lightning lights up the night sky overhead.
BioWare Online Store Q&A; With Ray & Greg We recently caught up with BioWare joint-CEOs, Ray and Greg, to find out what exciting things are in the works for the BioWare Online Store. In this interview, plans are revealed for the sale of physical products and more story-based games!
Wednesday, March 2, 2005
Battledale 2 20:40 | Elithrar Just posted up on the Battledale website by Palmer Eldritch:
Pets, transport, trading and crafting - the team behind the Battledale 2 persistent world has released details of some of the features to be found on their new server, which is expected to begin beta testing soon.
The world has been built from scratch by the creators of the existing Battledale server, using the benefits of around two and a half years experience and the opportunities provided by the CEP.
New features include:
A range of environments from forests and plains to ice, desert and mountain areas, all accessible to players.
A number of different settlements with distinct histories and personalities, linked by an innovative transport system.
A custom spawning system throwing up unexpected challenges at players as the content of areas and dungeons changes over time. Many monsters will tend to spawn in parties, with different classes working together to fight the players.
A detailed crafting system, allowing players to customise their characters by learning enchantment techniques to create weapons, armour, jewellery, clothing and food. The crafting system is based on exploration and adventure to seek out and gather ingredients, which can also be traded with other players, and not on repeating actions to gain skill points.
A basic economics system, allowing players to create merchant characters transporting goods between settlements at a profit. These goods are part of the crafting system, so fellow players will appreciate you bringing a shipment in.
New special abilities for certain classes, including bardic lore, ranger tracking from one area to another, golem crafting and a powerful paladin's symbol.
Respawning trapped and locked chests in dungeons. Bring a rogue, or just smash the chest open � but you may destroy some of the loot as well.
Some small fun features including PC pets. Buy a cat or dog, give it a name and watch it respond when you call it.
And not forgetting the inevitable bugs and other serious problems as we go live with the new module. With an experienced DM team which has run a complex module for more than two years, we know we'll be able to fix them � but we also know what to expect at the launch.
Like the first module, Battledale II will focus on keeping it simple and fun. The aim is to create an interesting world for players to explore and DMs to run quests in.
DMs will be working hard to ensure roleplaying is encouraged and the message gets across loud and clear to every player that roleplaying is what the server is about.
The server is set in the Forgotten Realms and uses fiction created by our DMs over the past two years.
Jade Empire Q&A; With Ray and Greg Jade Empire is nearly here, and Ray and Greg, Co-Executive Producers of Jade Empire and Joint-CEOs of BioWare, took some time recently to answer a number of questions about how the development of Jade is going and the thinking behind the release of a pre-sale Limited Edition.
New Limited Edition Bonus Character Screens
BioWare's epic action-RPG for Xbox hits store shelves April 14. However, available for pre-order today is a Limited Edition of Jade Empire that features special foil wrap, a bonus fighting style - Spade Staff, a behind-the-scenes "Making Of" video feature on DVD produced by G4 Tech TV, and today's screenshot feature: a playable bonus character - Monk Zeng.
10 Years of BioWare, Part 2 BioWare has been making critically acclaimed games for ten years. Each new game we develop is a culmination of all the experience and talent that have been brought together to work under one roof with one goal in mind - to make great games. We continue our talks with some of the early BioWare employees who got their start as professionals in the games industry ten years ago working on Shattered Steel to see what a decade in the business has taught them.
Thursday, February 17, 2005
BioWare Wednesday 12:24 | Ascarel Chaos Harbinger and Primeval Champion - New NWN Epics A brand new pair of epic character builds, complete with downloadable character files so you can tweak and fiddle with them yourself, are up at the Neverwinter Nights web site. This week, we offer you the Chaos Harbinger and the Primeval Champion built by Imna Lias.
Stone Immortal - A Jade Empire Featured Fighting Style Fighters who study the Stone Immortal style gain mastery over the ponderous element of earth, putting the mighty power of stone and crystal at their command. Masters of Stone Immortal have the ability to attack enemies with crystalline missiles, encase foes in stone, or even open the ground beneath an opponent's feet. Watch this exciting style in action right now.
Jade Empire Character Feature Finding your soul mate is tough business. However, there's hope yet as we profile some of the bachelors and bachelorettes of the Jade Empire. Perhaps love will strike? Then again, maybe flying fists and feet will strike instead!
New Fighting Styles On The Jade Empire Site View exclusive new gameplay footage that's still smoking hot from our video capture equipment for two Jade Empirefighting styles. First, watch as Tiger Shen battles a ghost using Leaping Tiger style, with follower Chai Ka assisting. Then root for Lu the Prodigy using Ice Shard style as he clashes with a powerful and dangerous ogre.
BioWare Development Through the Ages BioWare In the second part of our BioWare's 10th Year celebration, we look back at our past games and compare technology and projects. Can you guess how many average polygons were used in Shattered Steel and Jade Empire? Read on to find out the answers.
Friday, February 4, 2005
Neverwinter Nights: Kingmaker RPG of the Year! 09:34 | Ascarel Some news over at the Bioware site about the nomination announced some time ago:
BioWare Wednesday 09:30 | Ascarel Jade Empire Pre-Order Bonus! Jade Empire Limited Edition is now available for pre-order at no extra cost. The Limited Edition contains exclusive bonus content, such as the devastating new fighting style Spade Staff, "The Making of Jade Empire" video documentary on DVD, and this week's BioWare Wednesday feature: the new and completely playable character Monk Zeng. Be sure to also download the cool Monk Zeng desktop today as well.
NWN Epic Builds Are Back! The epic PC builds are back, baby! Check out these elite PCs with complete character advancement history from 1st to 40th level. Plus, you can download 20th and 40th level snapshots of each build to tinker and game with on your own. This week, we feature a pair who wouldn't be caught dead wearing pink and fuzzy bunny slippers: the Death Hunter and the Wrathful Berserker.
BioWare Celebrates 10 Years of Game Development Ten years is a vast gulf of time when it comes to the world of computer games. Advances in computing have dramatically changed the medium of computer games, and by extension, have forced changes to the business of making games. BioWare has transformed just as dramatically over the years. This month, we look back at the last decade starting with a timeline of games we have created. Here's to another ten years!
Edmonton Casting Call This is your chance to be the envy of all your friends by appearing in a world-class video game from award-winning game developer BioWare! We are searching Edmonton for all types of people aged 18-99 to become the faces of characters in upcoming games. The event takes place February 4th at West Edmonton Mall. For more details, view the casting call web page.
Friday, January 28, 2005
D&D; Web ComicComment! 14:43 | Thaladar If you haven't already heard of it, there is a new webcomic called Chronicles of Garas. It is based on a Dungeons and Dragons game, and is quite interesting so far. The comic is written by Mark Iradian, and drawn by Elshad Kasumov. It is updated once a week on Fridays and rated mature.
Chapter 1 is complete and the cover to Chapter 2 is up today. Check it out if you haven't already.
Jade Empire Creature Feature: the Dangerous Ogre Although most people in Jade Empire believe these beings are "lesser demons," ogres are actually a race of creatures too dim-witted to understand the advanced technology and spirituality of the civilized lands. Years of being exploited by smarter folk have tainted the beasts, however, and you're more likely to meet an ogre holding a sword than one holding a plowshare!!
NWCON3: Con of the Dead Has Begun NWCON 3: Con of the Dead has begun and there is a treasure chest full of games, events, and seminars for you to discover and enjoy. Check out the fantastic week of activities ahead, including DM and player seminars, roundtable discussions, ghost stories, and of course, games!
Thursday, January 20, 2005
BioWare Wednesday 12:12 | Ascarel Official Neverwinter Nights 2 Forums Launched
We are pleased to announce the launch of the official discussion forums for the upcoming Neverwinter Nights 2 game that is being developed by Obsidian Entertainment using the BioWare Aurora Engine� technology. Swing by the new forums to join the community, or use your existing account, and read and discuss all things NWN2 with Obsidian developers and Neverwinter Nights fans!
Neverwinter Nights 2 Developer Interview Obsidian Entertainment is hard at work developing Neverwinter Nights 2. Lead Designer Ferret Baudoin graciously gave us some of his time to chat about NWN2, the toolset, and the D&D; rules set that will be used in the game.
New Jade Empire Gameplay Screenshots View five beautiful new screenshots for Jade Empire, including the Golden Way, Wu unleashing Heavenly Wave fighting style, and Wu the Lotus Blossom wielding Dire Flame style.
AIAS Kingmaker Nomination Interview Neverwinter Nights: Kingmaker was recently nominated by the prestigious Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences for the RPG of the Year award. We waded through the paparazzi and blinding flashes to get developer reactions from Dan and Cori.
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