Well, big surprise… here’s the confirmation of Warhammer Online being delayed again until fall 2008.

Addendum from Warhammer Online Newsletter-Subscription:

On the day we signed the agreement to license Warhammer from Games Workshop, I promised them that we would create a great and glorious game, a truly next-generation MMORPG. Today, I have news to report; we are going to delay the release of WAR until Fall 2008. While we do not expect this announcement to be met with fanfare and cheering crowds; the additional time will be spent hammering WAR into an even better game that it is today.

During the most recent phase of beta testing, two things have become clear. One was that our key innovations – Public Quests, Tome of Knowledge and Realm vs. Realm combat – were all coming along extremely well, as was the first stage of our innovative crafting system. The second, that the game would benefit from additional iteration time as well as adding a layer of polish or two. Fortunately, as part of Electronic Arts, we are able to do just that.

While I have no doubt that the community will experience a wide range of emotions over this decision, I urge you to remember one thing (and to keep the tar cold and the feathers on the birds), that our goal has never been to release a game by a certain date but to release a great Warhammer MMORPG. We have not wavered from this goal and with the full support of Games Workshop, GOA and Electronic Arts we intend to release a glorious next-generation MMORPG.

As always, I thank the community for its support, patronage and its patience.

Mark Jacobs

VP, GM EA Mythic

Let’s see that leaves… Age of Conan to be delayed again, World of Arenacraft (Sorry, I meant Warcraft, my mistake): The Wrath of the Lichking to be announced. Anything big or at least highly anticipated MMOS I’m missing for this year?

Now is the time to say this, I TOLD YOU SO!

Be seeing you all,
Don Salva

Related posts:

1. 2008, the year of delayed MMORPGs
2. Warhammer Online to be released…trimmed!
3. Champions Online Beta Screenshots [and a small review]!

So I went to google and found 5 easy-to-do tweak with remarkable results! Remarkable, because you truly can see the difference between a standard and a tweaked Firefox. One might wonder why such tweaks are not standard options..

Type “about:config” into the address bar and hit return. Look for the following entries:

1. “network.http.pipelining” and set value to true
2. “network.http.proxy.pipelining” and set value to true
3. “network.http.pipelining.maxrequests” and set value to 30-40
4. “nglayout.initialpaint.delay” and set value to 0
5. “config.trim_on_minimize” and set value to true

If you don’t have them, create them:

1. Right click -> new -> boolean -> type in “network.http.pipelining” -> set value to true
2. Right click -> new -> boolean -> type in “network.http.proxy.pipelining” -> set value to true
3. Right click -> new -> boolean -> type in “config.trim_on_minimize” -> set value to true
4. Right click -> new -> integer -> type in “network.http.pipelining.maxrequests” -> set value to 30 (default is 1)
5. Right click -> new -> integer -> type in “nglayout.initialpaint.delay” -> set value to 0

Now the explanation as to what does what:

network.http.pipelining and network.http.proxy.pipelining:

It enables pipe-lining, which means the browser normally sends 1 request at a time, with pipeline enabled it will send the amount of request you set in “network.http.pipelining.maxrequests”!

network.http.pipelining.maxrequests:

Like I said Firefox usually sends 1 request at any time. By setting a different value than 1, you force Firefox to send more requests thus enabling it to load faster, because he gets more responses at any time.

config.trim_on_minimize:

Each time you minimize your Firefox it will clear the RAM. Firefox is infamous of wasting RAM for Pages you don’t need so you can go “back” to them.

nglayout.initialpaint.delay:

If this value doesn’t exist or isn’t set Firefox waits 250 milliseconds, or 0.25 of a second then starts rendering the requested page(s). People report that setting it to 0, ergo forcing Firefox to begin rendering immediately causes almost all pages to show up faster.

Addendum:

If you are one of the lazy lot, and don’t want to manually tweak your Firefox, here’s a great Extension with virtually the same effect

Fasterfox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1269

Enjoy your new, faster Firefox!

Related posts:

1. How to fix the video lag in Firefox!
2. Force Firefox Add-ons to work with Firefox 3.6 betas!
3. Using Firefox 3.x? Speed it up by vacuuming its SQLite database!

Star Wars Galaxies was one of the most amazing mmorpg’s I’ve played up until today. Mind you, I’m not talking Post-NGE SWG. The immersion of the characters into the world, the awesome sandbox principle…just awesome. (A few more games I’ve played are Everquest 2, Pirates of the Burning Sea, Vanguard, Anarchy Online, Neocron, Lord of the Rings Online).

Today I’m stuck in the canceling, playing, canceling, playing-circle of World of Warcraft. Although Tabula Rasa is a good game in between unfortunately it doesn’t hold me long. Hence the circle.

My hope for this year’s mmorpg to break free from World of Warcraft lies in 2 games: Age of Conan and Warhammer Online!

But sadly, Funcom announced that Age of Conan is being delayed additional 8 weeks, the new release date is listed as 23rd Mai 2008. The lead game director explains in this letter why it’s being pushed back…again!

Now there’s a rumor around, that Warhammer Online might get delayed until fall 2008. A bad scan, but I’ll quote:

“BAD: ‘EA can’t get away from the delay bug. Last month it was Army of Two, this month it’s Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. The game is expected in the summer or fall*. EA CEO John Riccitiello said, “We’re going to give it a little bit more time, a little bit more work, and we think we’ll have a little bit more of a hit on our hands.”

Although CEO Mark Jabobs denies it it remains to be seen what the actual truth is.

My personal opinion is that Warhammer too will be pushed back until fall on the grounds that the Warhammer Online developers are too anal. The game has already been pushed back once. Back then they argued they need a little more time to iron out the bugs, ensure the quality and deliver a pristine game to the audience.

Now don’t take me wrong I’m all for a close-to-perfect game with as little bugs as possible but one can overdo it. You have to draw a line somewhere, release the game and patch ‘n fix the remaining bugs ASAP after the release. And by ASAP I do mean ASAP. Not months later!

A sad year indeed!

Related posts:

1. 2008, the year of delayed MMORPGs came true!
2. Warhammer Online to be released…trimmed!
3. Resident Evil 5, Red Faction: Guerrilla & Batman: Arkham Asylum – Videos and Screenshots!