About a week ago, BioWare launched a new countdown clock on their site that has had gamers watching it patiently to see what exactly it means. The countdown is officially over as of 12:00pm EST today and the big secret revealed by the countdown is the new BioWare Bazaar, a series of week-long mock online auctions that will begin on April 6th, 2010. In order to bid on the more than 400 items ranging from custom Alienware laptops to BioWare apparel, and much more, fans will need to collect tokens through various challenges to acquire tokens for bidding. The first auction is scheduled to begin at Tuesday, April 6th at 9:00am PST. New items will be made available every 15 minutes from there. The auction series will end at 4:00pm PST on Saturday, April 10th, 2010. What are you waiting for? Click here to learn more.
other games
HeroEngine Developer Simutronics Reorganizes
Gamasutra is reporting that Simutronics, who developed HeroEngine which, in turn, is being used by BioWare in Star Wars: The Old Republic, is reorganizing to support the growth of their engine business: Simutronics, the company behind the HeroEngine that’s used in MMOs including BioWare’s upcoming The Old Republic, has reorganized in order to support growth of its engine business. [Simutronics], founded in 1987, will now be home to two new divisions: HeroEngine and Simutronics Games. The company promoted Neil Harris to president of HeroEngine, overlooking licensee support, and Herb Marselas as VP of engineering. CEO David Whatley is taking over as president of Simutronics Games. HeroEngine is used by a wide range of customers, including large and small studios that make anything from games to government applications, Simutronics said in a statement. Aside from BioWare’s highly-anticipated MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic, HeroEngine is also licensed by Zenimax Online Studios,…
Obsidian Developing Wheel of Time Games
Well over a year ago we reported that Red Eagle Games was looking to develop games (including an MMO) based on Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. Now they’ve announced that they’re partnering with Obsidian Entertainment to do the game development (for, I assume, the single player games). As Dragonmount reports: RED EAGLE GAMES SELECTS OBSIDIAN ENTERTAINMENT AS GAME DEVELOPMENT PARTNER Noted RPG Developer to Assist Red Eagle Games in Building Video Games Based on Robert Jordan’s Fantasy Series “The Wheel of Time” Malibu and Irvine Calif. – February 12, 2010 – Red Eagle Games and Obsidian Entertainment today announced they have entered into a services agreement which provides a comprehensive framework for Obsidian Entertainment to work closely with Red Eagle Games’ in-house development team to create new video games for the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 based on Robert Jordan’s best-selling fantasy series, The Wheel of Time. “The…
IGN Presents the History of BioWare
With Mass Effect 2 right around the corner, IGN posted an article, titled “IGN Presents the History of BioWare”, looking at the history of developer BioWare. Starting with their humble beginnings as two students of medicine programmign educational software at the University of Alberta, right down to the present day of them working on Star Wars: The Old Republic it looks at the string of successful titles they’ve released, the publishers they’ve worked with and such. Here’s an excerpt: Shattered Steel was a modest success, receiving positive reviews and seeing decent sales. Of particular note was the detailed deformable terrain that allowed players to blast craters in the sides of hills, and zone damage that allowed strategic-minded sharpshooters to take out weapons mounted on enemies. Interplay was pleased with the game, too, and a sequel was planned for 1998. It would never come to pass, as BioWare’s second game was…
Rumor: Elder Scrolls MMO
EDIT: Game is now out! Here is a Elder scrolls online digital download price comparison, if yo are looking to buysIn the “not SWTOR” news column a somewhat interesting rumor just surfaced. It’s been leaked (by the court filings of the case between Interplay and Bethesda over the Fallout MMO Interplay is working on) that Bethesda is working on it’s own “World of Warcraft type MMO””. Now VG247 claims to have been “very reliably informed” that this MMO is in an Elder Scrolls MMO. Combined with earlier rumors that elderscrollsonline.com has been registered by ZeniMax (Bethesda’s parent company) as well as a slip-up stating that the next Elder Scrolls game is set 200 years after Oblivion and it’s looking quite likely to be true. Apparently the MMO has been in development since late 2006. If we estimate a development cycle of four to five years then that means that this…
Star Wars: Force Unleashed II trailer
In non Star Wars: The Old Republic related news, the game industry announced lots of new projects at the Vidoe Game Awards, including a sequel to one of the most successful Star Wars games ever – “Star Wars: The Force Unleashed”. The Story in “The Force Unleashed 2″, takes place between Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope.