Secrets of Ayanad—the name given to the final 1.2 Korean version of ArcheAge—was launched by Trion Worlds this past Tuesday. We spoke to the newest and very passionate producer on the team, Merv Lee Kwai, about the update what it brings to the players.

"You know, I think it was our best launch to-date for ArcheAge! It was smooth, servers have been stable the entire time and we're really proud of the content we pushed out." Merv explained that one reason the team thinks that the update was such a success is thanks to two weeks of live player data collected on the test realm.

Secrets of Ayanad increased the level cap by five, so players can now go from 50 to 55 on all ten possible classes. There are five new skill points (one for each new level) available—raising the cap to 28—giving better flexibility in your class builds, and each class gets a new skill at 55.

Diamond Shores is the new zone introduced in this update, found to the northwest on the continent of Auroria and is part of the war cycle. The zone has a new housing area, "about 200 houses, only on the west coast."

We had a great weekend at PAX East! There's still more articles and videos to come from our weekend there, but today we wanted to share over 60 pictures we took in and around the convention. Check out a handful of images below and click here to see all the pics!

This week I’ve mostly felt like a kid with a bag of candy in one hand and a Mountain Dew in the other. There’s been so much going on it feels impossible to sift through it all and be left with a coherent thought on the other side.

With that in mind, we’re going to play a game I like to call ‘Talk About Many Disparate Subjects Then Try To Link Them Together With A Pretentious Conclusion’. Or TADSTTTLTTWAPC, since I know how much MMORPG players dig those acronyms.

Half Life 3 Confirmed at GDC! The joke that never gets old could finally get its punchline. Using Half Life as a flagship for a new kind of gaming experience would fit Valve’s MO. While my personal experience with VR (specifically Oculus Rift) has been awesome, I’m still skeptical that creating a critical mass with this kind of expensive peripheral is possible. Luckily for all of us, there’s a metric ton of money being bet against me, so fingers crossed it works and we’re all living in the nightmare dystopian future of Ready Player One by 2020. Or, put another way, within the natural lifetime of MMOs currently in development.

Last week I had the chance to visit the ArenaNet studios to get an early look at the Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns demo that players will be able to play at PAX East this weekend and again at EGX Rezzed in London the following weekend. Alongside being able to play the demo, I had a chance to interview Jon Peters and John Corpening, which you can read right here on ZAM.

Hello and welcome to the 1st edition of Formerly Hardcore, ZAM’s column on Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft. The title probably makes it obvious, but in case anyone hasn’t guessed, this column is going to be from the perspective of an ex-hardcore raider. There will still be plenty of talk about raiding in general, especially for this first post, but I’ll also talk about different aspects of WoW as a whole as patch notes and my whims take me.

For our first column, I’m going to talk about my adventures into WoW’s latest raid, Blackrock Foundry. The gates of BRF opened up to Normal and Heroic groups on February 3^rd with Mythic opening the following week and Looking For Raid difficulty a week later. My raid team is not large enough to try our luck in Mythic BRF, but after three weeks of Normal difficulty, dipping our toes into Heroic as well as trying the first two wings of LFR, I’m ready to talk about the raid.

After a masterful marketing push, Crowfall met its Kickstarter target in about three days. The ideas look fresh and solid, and there’s some seriously hefty industry talent backing it up, so best of luck to them and check it out if you haven’t already. The goal of 800k was relatively modest, and I’ve got my hopes pinned on the $1.3M stretch goal.

All the attention on Crowfall has actually turned a few new people onto Camelot Unchained, and while I expect the games will play very differently, it looks like they’ll be fishing from the same pool. Camelot Unchained is aiming for an alpha launch some time in the next month, so expect to hear a bit about that as well.

As someone looking forward to both of these games, it’s an exciting time for me (hooray for me!), and with a few recent gems like Darkest Dungeon, LISA, Sunless Sea and Hand of Fate being Kickstarted, I’m feeling as optimistic as ever.

For a while there I was thinking I wouldn’t have much to talk about; be careful what you wish for, I guess.

When news started to come out about the layoffs at Daybreak Game Company, players were understandably skeptical about the prospects of EverQuest Next and Landmark. With high profile names being let go, it’s easy to feel like the foundation is falling away.

It’s been wonderful to see the support from the community for the people who were let go, the tribute card in Landmark is a sight to behold, and a fitting tribute to the legacy of those people that made it possible.

It’s also a tribute to the players who made it possible and the strength of the Landmark community, which seems to have redoubled its efforts to be the most welcoming and supportive in gaming.

The message from Daybreak over the last week has been that the games remain a team effort, and while adjustments have to be made and priorities shifted, the guiding principles and foundational principles remain the same. Which is exactly what you’d expect to hear.

In times gone by, that would have been the end of it. We would have had a press release, some clarifications on an official forum, an approved interview or two, and that would be that. It’s happened many times before and shows no signs of slowing down. However, in this brave new world of open development and increased transparency, we were treated to a Q&A session with senior members of the team, using questions submitted by players.

I suppose there’s only one thing to talk about this week.

Sony Online Entertainment broke away from its parent company to become Daybreak Game Company, thanks to investment from Columbus Nova.

As is the all too common and incredibly unfortunate nature of deals like these, the company had to let some people go. When costs are too high for projected revenue, tough decisions have to be made. The important thing to remember in times like these is that it’s people making these decisions, and these decisions affect people.

For all that we care about the games (which is less than the current and former employees of Daybreak, by the way), what this means to us as players is insignificant compared to what it means to the people whose lives were affected.

I want to take a moment to state that I am in full support of the talented, passionate people still at Daybreak, their amazing work continues to inspire me, and I have complete faith they will continue to blow us away.

This week on my adventures through Greenlight, I continue to learn about games that no longer have that New Game smell, but are nonetheless worth delving into for a myriad of reasons. Unlike my preceding articles that seem to have some semblance of direction and organization, this week I relied on my Twitch stream chat to help me choose which game to play. May God have mercy on our souls.

Hello intrepid gamers. We’re back for another Greenlight Special. This week’s games focus on physics-based builders. I find game physics to be endlessly amusing, and I’m fairly certain many of you out there do as well, if r/GamePhysics is any indicator. I also decided to stream my adventures on Steam, and I was pleasantly surprised by the community’s interest. Onward!