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Epilogue: A Tale of One Writer

This editorial is non-game specific and solely based on insights and opinions from its author.


One comment I receive a lot when I explain my job to others is "That's awesome! How do I get into doing that?!" There is no perfect answer to this query, and despite how awesome working in this industry sounds and really is, it's hard work and not quite as glamorous as you may be envisioning in your head.

Guild Wars 2: Berserker Exclusive Reveal

ArenaNet continues to unveil the features for Guild Wars 2’s upcoming expansion, Heart of Thorns. This week we have the pleasure of giving the exclusive reveal for the Warrior Elite Specialization, the Berserker.

Scheduled Events for EverQuest

Over on the official forums, Prathun has shared a schedule for of event content covering the next year, though the dates are subject to change. Times listed are in Pacific time zone.

  • Living Legacy 1 & 2 - IRA Marathon and IRA Sprint, Started 08/05/2015 00:00; Ends 08/19/2015 23:00.
  • Living Legacy 3 & 4 - Endurance and Avatar of Despair, Starts 08/19/2015 00:00; Ends 09/02/2015 23:00.
  • Summer events - Quests, Starts 09/02/2015 00:00; Ends 09/30/2015 23:00.
  • Summer events - Mission, Starts 09/16/2015 00:00; Ends 09/30/2015 23:00.
  • Nights of the Dead, Starts 10/28/2015 00:00; Ends 11/11/2015 23:00.
  • Dragons, Dragons, Dragons! and Giants, Giants, Giants!, Starts 11/11/2015 00:00; Ends 12/09/2015 23:00.
  • Frostfell, Starts 12/03/2015 00:00; Ends 01/07/2016 23:00.
  • New Year, Starts 12/26/2015 00:00; Ends 01/21/2016 23:00.
  • Erollisi Day, Starts 02/03/2016 00:00; Ends 02/17/2016 23:00.
  • 15th Anniversary - Plane of War Mission, Starts 02/24/2016 00:00; Ends 04/06/2016 23:00.
  • 16th Anniversary, Starts 03/16/2016 00:00; Ends 04/27/2016 23:00.
  • Brew Day, Starts 03/16/2016 00:00; Ends 03/30/2016 23:00.
  • Bristlebane Day, Starts 03/23/2016 00:00; Ends 04/06/2016 23:00.
  • 14th-15th Anniversary, Starts 04/13/2016 00:00; Ends 05/25/2016 23:00.
  • 5th-13th Anniversary, Starts 04/27/2016 00:00; Ends 06/08/2016 23:00.
  • Hardcore Heritage 1 & 2 - blackburrow cazicthule, Starts 05/11/2016 00:00; Ends 05/25/2016 23:00.
  • Hardcore Heritage 3 & 4 - gukbottom unrest, Starts 05/25/2016 00:00; Ends 06/08/2016 23:00.
  • Hardcore Heritage 5 & 6 - crushbone permafrost, Starts 06/08/2016 00:00; Ends 06/22/2016 23:00.
  • Hardcore Heritage 7 & 8 - mistmoore soldungb, Starts 06/22/2016 00:00; Ends 07/20/2016 23:00.
  • Death, Death, Death!, Starts 07/20/2016 00:00; Ends 08/03/2016 23:00.

Eternal Crusade PvE Q&A with Nathan Richardsson

Early Access gets closer and closer for the upcoming MMO Warhammer 40,000: Eternal Crusade, yet when we look at their feature list there's still so much left to learn about. When Behaviour Interactive has talked about the game in general up to this point, they've focused on the game's PvP content. This makes sense - "In the grim dark future, there is only war" and all of that. The source material is a tabletop miniatures warfare game, so not focusing on the PvP content would be shocking to say the least. There's more to the world of Eternal Crusade than the battle between Orks, Space Marines, Chaos Marines and Eldar though. In our recent interview with Senior Producer Nathan Richardsson, they finally start to talk about Tyrannids and that up-till-now untouched portion of their game, PvE content.

World of Warcraft Expansion Reveal

Blizzard has just unveiled the next expansion coming to World of Warcraft: Legion!

  • Level cap raised to 110
  • New dungeons and raids
  • New PvP Honor System
  • Class Order halls
  • Wield powerful Artifacts Weapons
  • New class: Demon Hunter
  • The Burning Legion returns

Formerly Hardcore #12: What's After Draenor?

Hello and welcome to the 12th edition of Formerly Hardcore, ZAMs column on Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft. For this week’s column, we’re going to do some speculating. On Thursday, August 6th at gamescom, Blizzard will unveil the newest expansion for WoW. If you’re like me and there’s 15+ hours of flight between you and gamescom, they’ll be livestreaming it on their dedicated gamescom page. Now the question is: where will this new expansion take us and what changes will it bring to the game? Quick spoiler alert for those who haven’t fought Archimonde at the end of Hellfire Citadel and seen the cinematic afterwards – we’ll be talking about that right after the jump.

E3: EverQuest & EverQuest II Progression Servers

E3 doesn't stop when its doors are closed for the day. We snagged Executive Producer Holly "Windstalker" Longdale at this year's Daybreak after-party (and again this week in a follow-up), chatting about some recent changes that hit EverQuest's progression servers as well as the upcoming progression servers and merges for EverQuest II.

Formerly Hardcore #9: Patch 6.2 is Here!

Hello and welcome to the 9th edition of Formerly Hardcore, ZAM’s column on Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft. For this week’s column we’ll be talking about patch 6.2, which is coming to live servers… today! Last Wednesday, Blizzard released the patch cinematic and gave a release date of Tuesday, June 23rd. Coincidentally that was about two hours after I’d already agreed to write the review for the Final Fantasy XIV expansion, Heavensward, which also comes out on the 23rd. It’s amazing how Blizzard just coincidentally keeps releases patches when other games are coming out, despite claiming not to… in all seriousness though, if I were them, I’d do the same thing.

For those of you who aren’t going to be bouncing back and forth between games, you’ll have your hands full with everything in this patch. If your guild has long since finished with Blackrock Foundry or your 5-man group is ready to have a new challenge, your wait is over. Well, unless you forgot to turn on the Background Downloader or to kick off the Battle.net launcher before you went to work.

E3 2015: Picture Gallery

E3 2015 has come to a close—next week we'll be rolling out more articles, and this weekend you can enjoy our show floor picture gallery!

Formerly Hardcore #8: Hellfire Citadel Preview

Hello and welcome to the 8th edition of Formerly Hardcore, ZAMs column for Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft. For this column, we’re going to take a look at last week’s preview of Hellfire Citadel from the official WoW site. Patch 6.2 will be taking us back to Tanaan Jungle where we’ll be not only invading the stronghold of the Iron Horde, but we’ll be doing so against their newly fel-empowered legions of soldiers.