LotD will be present on a panel this year at the Austin Game Developer's Conference (AGDC) in Austin Texas. As mentioned in our Dev Relations section, we've gotten to know quite a few people over the years. Deyth from the Combine guild should be given the credit for organizing this, and our friends in the industry certainly thought it worthwhile to bring five of the longest lasting and most successful MMO guilds to talk to game developers.
I plan to attend this, have some fun, and mingle more with the industry folks while I'm there. Below is more information about the panel that we will participate in during the September conference.
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Title: Making the Grade: What Gaming's Premier Guilds Really Think About You
Presentation Format: Lecture
Secondary Presentation Format : n/a
Audience Level : Intermediate
Presentation Description: Massively Multiplayer Online Games revolutionized our industry and redefined entertainment for an entire generation. While multiplayer clans and online teams were a common fixture in competitive gaming before, MMO Player Guilds transformed the way our online worlds evolved, how our communities developed, and occasionally – how our games died. Spanning Meridian 59 to Age of Conan, this panel will assemble five Guild Masters from gaming´s premier player organizations to discuss the state of MMO gaming from top to bottom. Why they choose some games and quit
Lords of the Dead Announces Official Darkfall Effort for North American Servers.
Announcement:
After spending many months with only a handful of core LotD members in Darkfall's European server, we are proud to announce that we will be moving officially into the North American server. Continuing our 14 years of PvP excellence, we will be establishing our guild with dozens of core LotD members and many excellent additions since the launch of EU-1.
Darkall has proven itself thus far and with the announcement of a massive "expansion" along with the launch of a server based out of California, we are confident that now is the time to enter a game void of the bugs that plagued the European server and allowed guilds to take an unfair advantage through exploits.
About the Game:
Darkfall boasts a full loot, FFA atmosphere where risk=reward and the harsh world of Agon can gobble up entire thousand man alliances overnight. The dynamic world environment including Day and Night cycles along with a vast server map creates a unique experience that provides the ability to hide, ambush, take cover and use tactical movements to outwit your opponents.
Darkfall also provides a very complex crafting system which provides countless hours of fun for those who look to engage themselves in crafting and the player driven economy.
The game is open ended and provides content for every kind of gamer who is driven to excell.
Where to sign up:
First thing any Darkfall hopeful should do is to... [Read More]
With Warhammer and Mythic failing to deliver a stable RVR and Fortress fighting experience nearly 12 months after the retail release, it has forced LotD to look for another game that can provide RVR with various other objectives. For many of us, the new RVR type game will be AION. It has been a sleeper game, but one that has gotten huge positive word of mouth from the USA player community.
We expect to be in AION for the September 22nd release, and we have most of our leadership team in place at this time. If you are interested in running with LotD-AION, put in an application and we'll give you a fair evaluation.
In the meantime here is an AION E3 Review by Techguy, and some PVP videos that LotD and others have made over the recent beta events.
LotD has climbed to the top of the Warhammer Guild Rankings and achieved Guild Rank 40! Out of Warhammer DB's 30,000+ guilds, less than 20 have attained Guild Rank 40. That puts us solidly in the top 1% of ranked guilds in the Warhammer World of 300,000+ players.
As most people know guild rank is advanced by killing people in PVP as well as defeating high end mobs such as the ones found in Fortress PVP, City Invasion PVP, etc. At this time LotD is closing in on 110 million renown with the Destro Unit, so obviously we've done our fair share of killing people. On Azazel we accumulated over 115 million renown before burning that server to the ground as well. So all in all LotD will have amassed over 225 million renown prior to its exit from Warhammer! That's a lot of players killed and PVP objectives taken!
What's Next?
We've had a lot of fun in Warhammer, but our time in that game is drawing to a close. We've accomplished a lot in our time in Warhammer, but Mythic obviously doesn't have a good vision for their game. The T4 end game suffers from lag and crashes, the class balance is too extreme from patch to patch, and they spend a lot of time making new content instead of listening to the players to fix the things that are broken.
So LotD is going to relax for a couple of months, and then open official chapters in Jumpgate Evolution, Darkfall - North America, and possibly AION. 2010 doesn't look too exciting, but we figure we can kill the year or so wait for SWTOR and GW2 on the three... [Read More]
Almost two weeks ago, we announced the disbanding of the Command & Conquer Alliance over on Warhammer Alliance. Since then LotD has been working with other interested Destro guilds to create a new alliance based on the spirit of realm cooperation. We are pleased to announce the creation of the Death and Dominion Alliance!
Death & Dominion
Cal. Int.
Eximos
Fist of the Empire
Forgotten Legion
Lords of the Dead
Merchant's Inc
Militis Noctis
Mind Bomb
Onslaught
Panic Attack
Red Cell
Sanctuary
Scydis
Sockpuppets
Usual Suspects
Verlassen
During the time that we were working on setting up the new alliance, Order was able to march over a fractured Destro realm to take out our faction's King. While this was disappointing, it also helped to create the additional good will needed to forge a new competitive alliance.
In recent days the D&D Alliance has defended forts, taken back zones, and gotten back to the strategic RVR that we all like to play. Just last night we kicked Order out of a fortress, pushed two zones, and had Order scrambling to send lowbies to crash the second fort attempt to keep us out of Altdorf.
LotD has been actively recruiting to replace people who are burned out on Warhammer, and our activity for planned guild events is going well. We're fielding about 1.5 Warbands of our own, but we are encouraging all members to show up for organized events so we can field 2 warbands with consistency. All in all its a good time to be LotD in Warhammer whether... [Read More]
With Guild Wars 2 and Star Wars: Old Republic being so far off, some LotD are going to take advantage of the downtime and try out Jumpgate when it launches in June. If you are interested, check out our Jumpgate Interest Thread.
I will admit that we are wary of a game that launches so soon and without a mass beta test prior to retail opening day. Due to that, we will send in some squads to check out the game and report back to the guild leadership. If the game runs well and has a decent player population, then we will look at expanding our presence there.
It seems like it should be longer, but LotD will have been on Dark Crag 90 days by the end of this week. In that time we have we have done a lot of things to move our guild, our realm, and our server in the right direction.
Guild Rank and Renown
Our Guild Rank and Renown earned as a guild have gone up much faster on Dark Crag than on Azazel even though we haven't had a regularly owned Keep contributing to our guild exp. On Dark Crag there is so much PVP and zones flip so often that it is impossible to control a keep for long. So 99% of our guild rank has been from killing players or consuming end game content. In a nutshell is means we are out there kicking ass every day, and if we play long enough we may attain Guild Rank 40 before moving onto another game.
Guild Size and Activity
LotD-DC is currently sitting at a little over 100 characters, mostly level 40, with about 65 individual players. During our time on DC we were larger in the beginning, and we're currently going through a minor rebuilding phase as some of our members have decided to retire from the game. Mythic's recent addition of in-game recruiting tools has helped us greatly, and our goal is to maintain as close to 100 active players as possible.
For any guild to maintain over time there has to be a constant focus on regular recruitment, and then regular guild orientation and training sessions. Our leadership is committed to helping new members to integrate into LotD so long as those new recruits show a willingness and desire to help LotD succeed.
The Gear Chase
Unfortunately Warhammer is a game where gear is fairly important. Coming to DC the gear check was one of... [Read More]
Lords of the Dead
