The Old Republic to go free to play.

We all knew it was only a matter of time but it looks like it has finally happened.  It was announced today that Star Wars the Old Republic will go free to play this fall.  It will be a free to play hybrid technically.  You will have the option of being a subscription member or a free to play member.  The free to play members will have game content up till level 50 with the possibility to get newer content and premium content, which i presume would be raids, for a purchase with in game currency.  With this announcement we learned today that the Old Republic is down to under a million subscribers which is well under the mark that they wanted to maintain.

Elder Scrolls Interview concerning combat details.

So what we have here is an interview done by Joystiq with the lead game designer, Nick Konkle.  What he discusses talks a lot about how they are coming at the Elder Scrolls from a MMO view point while not making this your stock MMO.  If you recall I have had my doubts about this game (just like half the internet,)  while yet being kind of excited about it.  What Nick discusses during the interview really has me more excited now about the game.

What he discusses about the combat system and how any class can use any weapon makes me interested and glad they took that from the Elder Scrolls games instead of your typical MMO.  Also, you will not see or use a typical rotation of spells or abilities that almost every single MMO has out there.  I am so glad of this because honestly it's kind of boring do "master" a rotation for a class then basically that's all you do every time you play your character over and over.  He discribes it as a play your character your way and be good at it.  Sounds pretty cool to me.  Enjoy this 11 minute video interview and hopefully we will get to see some combat in action from the game.

Elder Scrolls Online Interview.

GT.tv did a sit down interview with one of the guys from the development team behind the upcoming Elder Scrolls Online.  After that we have a short teaser trailer for the game.  I hope that we get an actual gameplay trailer soon.  This game is one that I am watching closely as I have mentioned before, because it could be great or it could be a bad move for the Elder Scrolls franchise.

Rift announces a new expansion

Rift:  Storm legion will be releasing this fall and it seems to offer an extremely lot of content for the current game.  From almost tripling the size of the game world to adding more raids, dungeons, and raising the level cap to 60.  Also they are planning on adding 4 more souls to each class.  Other than these details they haven't gotten into too much detail on exact gameplay or what to expect but it looks pretty promising.  Check out the official Trailer below.

More Elder Scrolls Online GamePlay information.

There is more info hitting the web from interviews with the games creators talking about the solo aspect of gameplay while leveling and the public dungeons that they will offer in the game.

The interesting part of the public dungeons is the fact that unlike WOW or RIFT where your dungeon groups are either invite only or you allow the game to form a group for you, public dungeons will allow anyone to wonder in and do the same exact stuff that you are doing.  The developers inspiration for this comes from their love of the original Everquest game.  One developer says to imagine what it was like in Everquest hiding in a corner waiting for someone to come help you get back out.  While they say they can't exactly recreate that experience they will have these public dungeons all over the place.  These public dungeons can be done solo however they will be extremely hard if done so.  The point of this is simple with in the game world these public dungeons are meant to be a social point for you to meet new people that are trying to do the same stuff as you are.  Maybe you will start leveling together, maybe not.  The point is that this will add a better social aspect while leveling.  Now they will also offer your standard private dungeons and end game raiding for up to six people.

It seems from what info we have gotten so far, it doesn't seem that they are trying to revolutionize the MMO market but rather perfect things from the first and second generations of MMO games out there.  I hope they truly can pull this off and this game does well.  Although, I think many Elder Scrolls players still will not like the fact that the combat system isn't more like Skyrim.