FREE! NAVIGATE Issue 8 | December 2008 + PREVIEWED MMOZine Jumpgate Free Magazine For MMO Gamers. Read it, Print it, Send it to your mates Evolution First Look at Netdevil’s LONG TERM PLAY Elite-beater FREE GIFT! + PREVIEWED Dofus 2.0 £1,500 Win 6 months free game time! OF WORLD OF WARCRAFT GOODIES Exclusive The Vanquisher’s REVIEWED! IS IT GOOD TO BE THE KING? TO GIVE AWAY, LOOT * AND MINIATURES Band for every reader! CHAMPIONS ONLINE + REVISITED Characters and classes revealed Everquest 2 Exclusive interactive screens! The Shadow Odyssey * Limited to 50,000. European servers only. CONTROL NAVIGATE |02 Contents WIN! QUICK FINDER DON’T MISS! A FREE DOFUS Every game’s just a click away This month’s highlights... ACCOUNT! Jumpgate Champions Online Welcome Evolution Dofus 2.0 Star Wars: Age of Conan CHAMPIONS The Old Republic to World of Warcraft: Dofus 2.0 Love Wrath of the I look around and around and I see a lot of new ONLINE New details unveiled APB Lich King faces. Must be all the download mirrors because We can beat your Heroes, baby. The Agency EverQuest 2: I’m the new guy! What an issue to arrive on too! DC Universe Online The Shadow There’s an amazing amount of info packed in this Blue Mars Odyssey month. Not one, but three exclusive developer Aion interviews. Our exclusive chats with Warhammer Huxley devs Mythic, champions of Champions Cryptic Football and all-conquering Conan creators Funcom bring Superstars you closer to the people that actually make your games. There’s a definitive World Of Warcraft: Lich King review, the latest news and updates on next Age of Conan WIN LOADS OF TOP year’s hottest titles plus tutorials, previews and Get the brrr facts! PLUS! WARCRAFT GEAR! more. How about 1,500 quid’s worth of WoW goodies? Or a 6-months-free Dofus account? No? Well what about one of 50,000 exclusive in-game PLUS! items for WAR then? It’s all inside for the taking! LICH KING DON’T MISS ISSUE 9 SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE! James Carey, Editor TUTORIAL [email protected] WARNING! MULTIMEDIA DISABLED! If you are reading this, then you didn’t choose “Play” MEET THE TEAM when Adobe Reader asked you about multimedia when The MMOZine massive were told to go you opened the magazine. forth and multiplay, which they did… Without the multimedia playing, the magazine will look correct, but you will be missing out on all of the extra content built into each issue, like videos, animated screenshots, annotations, quizzes, competitions and more. World of Warcraft: We recommend you close and re-open the magazine and select “Play” when ADAM OXFORD IAN MORRIS KIERON GILLEN asked about the multimedia to enjoy the magazine as intended. The shades stop his Ian’s knowlege is so Kieron just needs Wrath of the Lich King MMO nous leaking great it shines from glasses... Reviewed. Can the best get better? from his eyes. his eyes AND head. CONTROL NAVIGATE |03 Alpha Joysticks are supported FIRST – it’s nice to see Old Man Stick get some rare lovin’. Jumpgate: LOOK Publisher: Codemasters Developer: NetDevil Heritage: Auto Evolution Assault Link: www.jumpgate Could EVE Online’s space monopoly evolution.com ETA: 2009 finally be at an end? What’s the story? Space is far too big for just one game, and yet Icelandic uber-MMO EVE Online has somehow corned the market on the great beyond. Fortunately, this second Jumpgate game (fear not, you won’t need to PREVIEW have played the first) aims to loosen this interstellar FEEDBACK! chokehold, albeit with a far more action-heavy Click here to You’re not restricted to approach to spaceshippery. tell us what certain ships by classes. you think of What do we know? Jumpgate: “This is a classless game, so While this does retain plenty in common with the Evolution you won’t end up stuck as a old Elite-based model chased by most space sims, it’s also a lot more in line with MMO conventions – i.e. lowly miner while your chums questing and looting. Don’t expect a levelling grind, are out shooting pirates” though. This is a classless game, so you won’t end up stuck as a lowly miner while your chums are out shooting down pirates. You can switch between roles as you please, and when a spot of space fighting does tickle your fancy, it’s real-time, reticule-based shooting, not invisible dice rolls and tiresome ability cooldowns. What Evolution will live or die on though, is its PvP. The skill-reliant combat will come into its own in an ongoing war between a trio of ever-antagonistic star empires. This also extends to the player-driven in-game economy – nobbling enemy merchant ships could, for instance, really dent their coffers. When do we get more? The beta’s due next Spring. You can still apply at the Landing on that one’s game’s official website to jon the beta and get a tase of not recommended. the game for yourself. CONTROL ONLINE GAMING • NO SUBSCRIPTION FEES C au gh t Join millions of players worldwide and t S in o u t yo m h play through all four chapters in the u e r m h s o i e award-winning Guild Wars universe! d n a e t t ! h o i f s b F a i r tt e l I e m ? p Out now! €14.99/£12.99 (SRP) © 2005 – 2008 NCsoft Europe Ltd. All rights reserved. NCsoft, the interlocking NC logo, ArenaNet, Guild Wars, Guild Wars Factions, Guild Wars Nightfall, Guild Wars: Eye of the North and all associated logos and designs are trademarks or registered trademarks of NCsoft Corporation. All other trademarks or registered trademarks are property of their respective owners. www.DiscoverGuildWars.com CONTROL NAVIGATE |05 Alpha FIRST Star Wars: LOOK Publisher: EA Developer: BioWare Heritage: Star Wars: The Old Republic Knights of the Old Republic Link: www.swtor.com George’s ailing empire strikes back ETA: TBC What’s the story? PREVIEW A Lucasian MMO for a post-Warcraft world. Star Wars Galaxies already FEEDBACK! took A Galaxy Far, Far Away online, but despite massive ambition, it Click here to was a confused and clumsy thing. This time, things are different. RPG tell us what veterans BioWare are at the helm, building a lavish online world out you think of of their acclaimed offline role-player, Knights of the Old Republic. Star Wars: The Unlike Galaxies’ uni-Jedi Classic Trilogy timeframe, Old Republic The Old Republic is set 3,500 years before A New Amazing how little Hope, during an age when Jedis were all over the technology changed in 3,500 damned place. “You’ll be joined by years of Star Wars history. NPC companions, Definitely not a Storm What do we know? Trooper with a slightly Don’t go thinking this is Tabula Rasa with depending on different mask. Not at all. lightsabers. While its class-based structure means your actions it’s likely to have a certain amount in common and with the Everquest-based play that underlines decisions” most of today’s MMORPGs, BioWare are claiming this’ll be a heavily story-based game rather than an aimless, freeform XP-’em-up. Each of the classes – split between Galactic Republic and Sith Empire factions – will have their own quests, complete with branching stories. You’ll even be joined – or abandoned – by NPC companions, depending on your actions and decisions. This could be an ingenious hybrid of solo RPG’s sense of purpose and the scale of an MMOs. When do we get more? Sadly, there’s not even a whiff of a release date yet – the twin corporate behemoths of EA and LucasArts means we can expect a Vader-esque tyranny over the info-flow over the coming months. Your mana bar is What we do know is that it’s been in the works for two years already weak, old man. now, so it may not be that far off… CONTROL PLAYBACK OPTIONS: ������������������������������������������������������������� ������������������������������������������������������� ������������������������������������������������������������� ���������������������������������������������������������� ��������������������������������������������������������������� ��������������������������������������������������� ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� CONTROL NAVIGATE |07 Alpha FIRST The idea of shooting monsters in a world LOOK like this seems absurd, but Steenburg promises the combat will be in keeping Love with Love’s dreamy aesthetic. Publisher: N/A As in ‘made with’. Meet the MMO with art and heart Developer: Quelsolaar Heritage: What’s the story? Impressionism, MMOs involve multi-million dollar budgets, hundreds of staff and the Loq Ariou support of a major publisher, right? Wrong. Love is a one-man, self- Link: www.quelsolaar.com funded project; the work of a sole soul, driven by the sort of bravura ETA: TBA ambition the genre generally throws aside in favour of chasing the big money. Abstract in its presentation and procedural in its environments, it’s quite unlike anything else. PREVIEW FEEDBACK! What do we know? Click here to The smoky, abstract style Both a little and a lot. We have the facts, but isn’t high detail, so Love the ultimate experience remains mysterious. tell us what will love low-end PCs. you think The gloriously inventive creator, one Eskil of Love Steenburg, is primarily a graphics programmer, which means the surreal, paint-like appearance of Love is its major feature. He wants to make a game that doesn’t look like a game. For once, “Love is a one- caring mostly about the graphics doesn’t make man, self- you shallow. In terms of what you’ll actually funded project” be getting up to, expect a balanced trio of free-form city-building, exploring and combat.