Fury did not come off well from GamePro’s year-end round up, scoring a D-:

The fact that Fury launched in an unfinished state hasn’t helped either. The transition from beta to release didn’t bring many noticeable refinements. This resulted in a game that ran poorly on hardware that should have been more than sufficient to do the job. Normally, one could have a measure of faith that a game like Fury will see enough gradual improvement so as to perhaps make it worth playing a few months down the line. Unfortunately, the future seems a bit bleak here.

Read the rest and the rather better appraisal of Tabula RasaHereSource: GamePro

wired has posted a chat with Paul Sage, Tabula Rasa lead designer about the new alien hybrids:

“We took some of that feedback and we ran with it,” says Paul Sage, the game’s lead designer. The result is that as of version 1.4, which should be available some time this week, you can finally play as a Brann, Forean, or Thrax. Sort of.

The characters are actually human/alien hybrids. “You use the DNA from the aliens to augment yourself,” explains Sage. Adding aliens to the playable roster was always part of the plan for Tabula Rasa, but the community feedback inspired the team to include it “a little earlier than we thought we would.”

Pick up the rest
HereSource: Wired

Tabula Rasa Vault has updated their Clan listing, as well as posting a new disassembled items chart for you TR players.

Tabula Rasa Vault has posted a new Alpha Wolf that’s joined their team, as well as an editorial.

Tabula Rasa Vault has posted their weekly review of interesting stories for TR players, which covers new screens, new guides, and more.

In the latest Tabula Rasa Dev Diary over at RPG Vault, NCsoft World Builder David Vargo explains how the new instance, Fault Lever, was created:

I think one of the important things about being a world builder is making a lasting impression on players through visually compelling environments. I’ve tried to accomplish this goal in Fault Lever by keeping the level’s layout believable while fun, providing interesting highlights and details to the backstory, and focusing on the mood or character of these spaces.

The east region would look as if the Bane had everything under control and they might be on alert for any incoming trouble. But the west region of the map would be in a total state of chaos.

Read more HereSource: RPG Vault

Tabula Rasa Vault has posted a report from the frontline, week 6, and an editorial on changes in version 1.4.

This week’s Feedback Friday over at Tabula Rasa looks at some features of the 1.4 build, now on the Test Server:

Purple Drops
In a recent publish, we significantly improved the power of Green, Blue, and Purple items. In prior versions, item rarity color was simply an indication of the number and strength of the enhancement modules on the items. Rarer item colors also enjoy higher success rates with crafting. High rarity did not make a very significant difference in the overall power of an item. In order for mission rewards to be valuable, many of them were assigned relatively strong enhancement modules, which bumped up their rarity.

Now, however, each level of rarity adds 20% to the damage of weapons or 20% to the absorption rating of armor, so Purple items are now intrinsically more powerful than Blues, and Blue items are intrinsically more powerful than Greens. Mission rewards were not re-worked at the same time, and as a result many “easy” missions were giving out Blue and Purple items. Also, due to “legacy” item conversion errors, many of those higher rarity mission rewards were not correctly converted to have the higher stats.

HereSource: Tabula Rasa

Some Patch notes and a few player questions are answered in the weekly round-up over at Tabula Rase. These are the Patch notes:

Patch Update
On Thursday we made a new build for version 1.4 (1.4.2) for the Public Test Server. Currently, it’s going through final testing before it hits the PTS. Many of the concerns we had for 1.4 have been corrected in this new version and our goal for 1.4.2 is to have it out sometime next week. When 1.4 goes to PTS, the Orion player database will be copied to the Test Server. Stay tuned to the website for updates!

Patch Note Preview
Added new Operation: Sanctus Grotto (Level 50) Will open 1/25/08.

This Forean spiritual retreat is rumored to contain a hidden subterranean temple containing an ancient and valuable Eloh relic. Join in a desperate race to locate the temple, solve the riddle that will open its seal, and retrieve the relic for the AFS. But hurry, the Bane have also heard about the relic, and they’re racing to get there first!

Link to read the restSource: Tabula Rasa

Tabula Rasa Vault has coverage of new reviews of Tabula Rasa, as well as word on the winners of their wallpaper contest.

Tabula Rasa Vault has updated with a field guide to the core basics of Tabula Rasa for you to read.