Warhammer Online: Open Beta Key Giveaway
Full Disclosure: I’m an MMO junkie. My first MMO experience was Beta Testing Merdian 59, way back before anyone had attempted to utter MMORPG. I’ve dabbled with Everquest, played a good amount of DAoC, dipped my toes in Lineage 2, battled a vicious World of Warcraft addiction, played a character to the level cap in Age of Conan and, most recently, have been swept up in the Warhammer Online, or WAR, Open Beta.
Warhammer Online is based on the venerable Warhammer Fantasy setting, well known to minatures gamers, but should feel pretty familiar to anyone who’s played a game with a fantasy setting, particularly Warcraft, which was influenced heavily by Warhammer. In turn, Warhammer Online will feel similar to World of Warcraft to many players. The UI looks almost exactly like WoW and that is probably a good thing. The Realm vs. Realm PvP system pitting the Alliance of Dwarves, Elves and Men against Dark Elves, Orcs, Goblins and Corrupted Humans should also feel very familiar.
Warhammer does have some tricks up it’s sleeve however. PvP appears to be a viable path for leveling as loot, cash, and XP all drop off PvP kills. Quests are well designed and developed, adding a rich flavor to the world. Rather than Warcraft’s cartoonish and kid friendly approach, Warhammer presents a grim, dark world on the edge of destruction and your quests and experience reflect this.
Public quests and RvR scenarios are the early standouts in gameplay. Public quests are constant open scripted sequences that help move the world’s story forward and add to the epic scale of the game. I simply stumbled into the first one and quickly came up to speed aiding my faction by killing a swarm of elite enemies along with the others in the area working on the quest. After gathering the souls of the fallen, a caster NPC summoned a demonic hell-hound which went berzerk and we then killed. After this, the quest ended, loot was assigned by a weighted roll based on contribution automatically (brilliant!!!) and a few minutes later the quest restarted again. I found these public quests both fun and rewarding, and the mechanics showed great polish.
The RvR scenarios provide quick PvP action in a battleground like setting, with XP rewards as well as PvP leveling. The scenario I played a few times was similar to an Arathi Basin, with 2 teams vying for control of 3 way points. The PvP combat was fast-paced and extremely enjoyable, and certainly seems to be a more emphasized factor of the game. I’m told that at the early levels content is roughly 20% PvP and 80% PvE, but at later levels that is flipped to 80% PvP and 20% PvE. I look forward to exploring more of the PvP options in further gameplay.
But don’t take it from me, hit the link below and grab a Beta Key. Hop on, start slaughterin’ and enjoy!
WarCry Network : Contests : Warhammer Online: Open Beta Key Giveaway
Google Chrome Heats Up Browser Wars
The Browser Wars are heating up, and it’s not a two-horse race. Sure Opera’s essentially been an also ran for years, but Apple’s Safari has been scarfing up market share with it’s insidious installation tactics and entrenched iPhone base. Now our benevolent overlords at Google have launched Chrome, a new open-source browser with some innovative design. Chrome promises to bring an end to crashing all of your browser tabs and windows for one misbehaving script or plugin and improved memory management. Google has launched it all with a comic starring engineers, designers and developers introducing their intriguing new baby and explaining what sets it apart from the crowd. Hit the jump for some initial reactions.
dwot Helpdesk – Firefox 3 Beta 5
The Final Beta of Firefox 3 dropped last week and I wholeheartedly recommend picking it up to everyone who uses a web browser, whoever the hell that might be. Firefox 3 adds updated page rendering, improved memory handling, tighter integration with the Look and Feel of the operating system, a revamped download manager, and a wealth of other improvements. In non-web-geek talk, it runs better, eats less memory and looks prettier. It installs fairly well in parallel to Firefox 2 on Windows at least which makes it a fairly low-risk install if you don’t feel it’s ready for you yet. Also, be sure to check out Lifehacker’s awesome Field Guide to Testing Firefox 3
Dropclock: Badass Screensaver
Dropclock is a fancy new screensaver available for both PC and Mac. It displays a clock comprised of numbers being dropped into water in slow-motion. The download is a little large for a screensaver, but it is quite cool.
OPENhulu
Looking for free, legal streaming TV episodes? OPENhulu may have your back. As long as you’re looking for videos found within hulu’s invite only library. There’s a ton of good stuff available, including Family Guy, The Simpsons, Firefly, The Office and Arrested Development. Definitely worth checking out.
OPENhulu – Watch TV Shows for FREE This is the new TV-Links Watch Hulu Videos without an invite
dwotClassic: Grateful Dead Archive
Original dwot Posting: 5/21/2004
What we said then: This is freaking amazing.
And today: Still a fantastic repository of live grateful dead shows.