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Wednesday, 1. May 2002 |
Some Blade News - posted by Kiranga @ 0:50 |  |
 | Hi all. Some sad news. It seems that we won't see any sequel to Blade, as RebelAct has officially closed its doors (off the record, that happened a few months ago actually). Anyway, you can find an interview with Juan Díaz-Bustamante, the former CEO of RebelAct at Blade Forever. It hasn't been translated yet to english, so you might want to use any online translator such as Babelfish. Thanks a lot to Juan for answering, and also many thanks to Masklin and MANsi for taking the time for interviewing Juan. Definitely a recommended read.
But there are also some pretty good news. As some of you might already know, three of the main developers of Blade, Xavier Carrillo, Angel Cuñado and José Luis Vaello, left RebelAct to form a new company a year ago, right after BOD was released worldwide, Digital Legends. They are currently working on a new game, Nightfall Dragons, which I'm sure will be one of the titles to keep an eye on. By the way, don't forget to visit the forums, where many of the Rebelact forums Vets have gathered again.
On a sidenote, during the las weeks I have received a couple of e-mails reporting that the Blade Level Editor link is broken. Well, the zip is not up on the server because of the host service limits the file's size. Anyway, here you have a list of great sites where you can find the level editor, tutorials, some maps and mods, and a few forums where you can find lots of BOD Fans:
Blade Mods
BoD Arena Forums
Blade Forever Downloads Page
Blade Resources
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Thursday, 6. June 2001 |
About Blade-Universe Mirror - posted by Kiranga @ 1:27 | | |
| Hello all. I uploaded this mirror (with Warloghe's authorisation of course ;-) to avoid that this great site vanished into The Abyss. I probably won't add anything (no time, sorry), so you may think of it as if it had been frozen in carbonyte ;-). Almost everything is here, except the movies (they take too much space and bandwidth). Anyway, if you have any suggestions, comments or anything to say, you can mail me here.
Well, that's all, enjoy the great site that Warloghe and DrHaggard built, a long time ago, in a galaxy... (err, forget that). |
Thursday, 12. April 2001 |
End of an era - posted by Dr.Haggard @ 11:58 | | |
| As some of you may already know, Blade Universe will be closing its doors in a few days. Our host, eUniverse, has decided to close down the entire Gamers Alliance network, which obviously includes us. However this comes at a time when both Warlock and myself were beginning to realise that we simply don't have enough time to do the site justice any longer anyway, and so we have decided not to look for a new host.
Since the game was released you may have noticed the distinct lack of the kind of guides, walkthroughs, editing info etc that you might have expected from us. The fact is that we don't have time to produce this stuff - we have responsibilities, families (in my case anyway) and demanding jobs, and it's reached a point where we don't feel like we can continue to maintain the site to the standard that everyone rightly expects.
It's clear that the Severance community is still growing though. See the previous news post for two new sites which will hopefully, along with others (check out our links page), pick up where we left off and keep the community informed. I hope they will also prove to be the kind of information resources that we failed to become.
There is still plenty of amazing stuff going on over at bladex. Josh's brilliant Gladiator mod is now on version 0.9.1, coming close to the defining version 1.0, with masses of improvements and new features since I last mentioned it here. One of those new features is the ability to play on some third party maps created with Gladiator in mind, some of which are simply wonderful and enhance the game enormously. I'm amazed at the work these mappers are doing already with what must be the most unfriendly and awkward level editor ever to be released to the public! :o)
On the subject, there's a new editing site worth keeping an eye on - The LED Center - where there are some great tutorials for the LED being developed.
So, all in all things are looking great in the Severance community. Also, for those of you who don't check out the official forums very often (you really should), Juan has announced that the patch is now in testing, and he's also posted a breakdown of RAS's future plans (also mentioning how incredibly well the game is selling).
Anyway, see you around.
Doc |
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Wednesday, 4. April 2001 |
Two new fan sites - posted by Dr.Haggard @ 18:40 | | |
| Two Severance fan sites have recently gone live, both offering plenty of game info, screenshots, links and so on, plus lots of original content:
La Orden de Ianna is a spanish site with lots of stuff worth checking out and also boasting their own forum.
The Order of the Sword (the names appear to be a coincidence) is a UK site that's recently got up and running, also with their own forum, game info and lots of plans for the site.
I recommend visiting both, and keeping your eye on them for regular updates. It's great to see the community growing. |
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Thursday, 29. March 2001
Wednesday, 28. March 2001 |
LED development - posted by Dr.Haggard @ 11:18 | | |
| Had any success using the level editor? There is some interesting and very useful discussion going on both on the Rebel Act editing forum in this thread, and here at Bladex. Some folks have really got their teeth into this exceptionally difficult and unfriendly tool and are beginning to work out how to do things. |
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Saturday, 24. March 2001 |
Local copy of LED - posted by Dr.Haggard @ 22:14 | | |
| You can now get the level editor and tools straight from our downloads page. |
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Friday, 23. March 2001 |
Gladiator 0.4 - posted by Dr.Haggard @ 21:25 | | |
| In case you haven't been keeping up to date with the near constant flow of improvements to the fantastic Gladiator mod over at Bladex, it's now up to version 0.4. Here are the most recent additions\fixes from the version history of this single player Arena game for Severance\BoD: 0.3
* F1 now works in the arena.
* You now select the desired level rather than it being random.
* You can now continue when you die.
* Just about everything is cleaned off the map when you start a new round. Be sure to pick up things you need before starting the round.
* You are now granted a new weapon each level.
0.4
* Multiple enemies now get generated.
* Fix problems related to not detecting enemy deaths.
* It no longer pauses after every kill. It will still pause every once and awhile, but not as often.
* Added Ragnar, Salamander, and Ice Golem to the fray
* Fixed problem where switching weapons crashed.
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Level Editor released - posted by Dr.Haggard @ 21:19 | | |
| The editing tools for Severance\BoD are now available on the downloads page at the official Rebel Act site. Thanks to Rossella for spotting this first.
Go on, what're you still reading this for?! :-) |
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Thursday, 22. March 2001 |
Review at Fragzone - posted by Dr.Haggard @ 0:13 | | |
| Swedish site Fragzone have reviewed Severance, giving it 4..um...things (presumably out of a possible five) :o)
Swedish is another language that Babel Fish currently doesn't 'do', so try the translation portal at langenberg.com (though the web page translation is giving me a little bit of trouble at the mo).
Thanks again to Moke. |
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Wednesday, 21. March 2001 |
Danish Review - posted by Dr.Haggard @ 21:11 | | |
| There's a review of Severance on Danish site HardwareTidende, with the game receiving a tidy 95% score overall. Since my knowledge of Danish is practically non-existent I haven't a clue what the review's like, so if anyone knows of an online translator that can do Danish to english let me know because I can't find one :-)
Thanks Rune.
Update: big thanks to Moke who pointed me in the direction of this excellent translation site. |
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They just keep coming... - posted by Dr.Haggard @ 15:46 | | |
| Another two great reviews today, at Online Games Review and Broken Pixel. I think this quote from the Broken Pixel review sums it up: What can I say? As soon as I launched the game I was already sh*tting in my pants. |
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Bladex Gladiator mod - posted by Dr.Haggard @ 11:30 | | |
| This has been in the pipeline for a while, and finally Josh at Bladex has decided to 'go public' with the latest version of his Gladiator mod for Severance\BoD, since many of the gameplay elements are now in place. Although he plans to add a lot more to it (so keep an eye out for new versions on Bladex) it's still more than worth downloading and playing, it's extremely addictive :o)
Gladiator pits you, as your chosen character, against increasingly tougher enemies from the single player game in Severance's Arena maps (currently the map is chosen randomly when you start a game). The game is broken down into 'stages', and when you beat enough opponents to level up you will be given time to compose yourself before hitting a key to kick off the next stage.
Check out the site for more details of what Josh plans for future versions, and to download the mod. |
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Tuesday, 20. March 2001 |
Two more reviews - posted by Dr.Haggard @ 22:03 | | |
| Today saw reviews popping up from Sharky Games (offshoot of the well known Sharky Extreme) and GamersUnitedNetwork (this one's in German, so pack a Babel Fish).
Both are great reviews that are worth reading, and give the kind of high scores we're used to seeing :-)
Here's a bit from Sharky's: In Severance, gamers finally have a 3D fantasy close combat game that offers fights that are tactically challenging without scrimping on the adrenaline either. While each encounter might start off as a slow exchange of blows and blocks, when you finally finish them off by slicing off a limb or or two or three the adrenaline will be coursing through your veins like.. oh, sorry, hadn't I already mentioned the limb removal bit? Well, suffice to say, Severance is bloody good looking, in every sense of the word. |
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Monday, 19. March 2001 |
Review @ playNOW! - posted by Dr.Haggard @ 18:08 | | |
| Another new review today, this one at Australian site PlayNOW!, and a good one it is too. The reviewer has obviously spent a great deal of time with the game, and written an incredibly detailed, informative and balanced article. He closes with brief summaries of all the major points (with separate scores for each of the usual suspects - graphics, sound, AI etc), and a final score of 9\10. It's a good read, but don't take my word for it, get over there and dig in... |
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Sunday, 18. March 2001 |
Review on IntelGamer - posted by Dr.Haggard @ 18:20 | | |
| IntelGamer have posted a great review of BoD, which charts the authors journey from initial scepticism and frustration (mainly with setting up the game it seems) to being extremely impressed and drawn in. His final verdict is a very respectable 88%, so hopefully other sceptics might take heed of his advice to "never judge a book by it's cover"... The game was looking better and better. I then walked out to fight some skeletons. One skeleton charged at me with a shield raised and I smashed my weapon at him, which he blocked with the shield. The shield splintered in two pieces, and I was able to hack the skeleton to death. That was one of the most impressive things I have ever seen in a game. |
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Saturday, 17. March 2001 |
Two new reviews - posted by Dr.Haggard @ 19:59 | | |
| There's still a steady stream of reviews appearing on the net, and todays new ones are at Gamezone and Fragland, giving above average scores of 8.5 and 80% respectively. |
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Mods - posted by Dr.Haggard @ 2:29 | | |
| Some cool stuff tonight. Josh of BladeX has developed two new mini-mods, firstly one that actually adds difficulty levels to the game (from 'very easy' through to 'hell') by offering varying levels of damage adjustment (both dealt and received), based on percentages in relation to the original settings. Brilliant stuff. His other mod allows you to drop your bow in the game, thus freeing up a weapon slot (not recommended unless you've already played through the game once, because having a bow is essential at times).
Not only that, but Adam of the Severance Mod Page has created a mod based on what started as tongue-in-cheek ideas thrown around by a few members on the forums recently. This modification actually allows you to exploit the nutritional value of the severed limbs of your slain enemies...yes, you can eat limbs for HP if you're desperate! Not only that, if you aren't famished (ie not at 1\5 or less of your current max hitpoints) then you can still eat body parts but you have to roast them with a torch first. Now don't ask me how you do this exactly, I haven't tried it yet, but I do know that Adam has increased the default torch burning time to make it easier. Tell me you don't like the sound of this :o)
Summary:
Difficulty levels
Drop bow
Cannibalism
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Friday, 16. March 2001 |
More reviews - posted by Dr.Haggard @ 21:03 | | |
| Not a bad review day, with Games Xtreme and PC Gameworld giving the game 82% and 95% respectively. Both reviews are well written and well worth reading. Here's a fragment from PC Gameworld: The sound is no letdown either. The rattling of armor, the clanging of metal, the opening of new wounds, and the whizzing of arrows are all unmistakably clear. Certain enemies have horrifyingly distinct calls. Some of the lesser minions will bark at you or call others close by for assistance. Some of the guards will laugh at you and wiggle their swords in mockery of your skills. And others are most clearly recognized by their earth-shaking footsteps...The voice actors also perform commendably. No where do voices sound like they don't belong or are far-fetched and each actor does a solid job of portraying his/her character. |
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walkthrough-online.com - posted by Dr.Haggard @ 13:29 | | |
| I overlooked one important link when updating our links page yesterday (thanks for the nudge Tribe), and though it's not complete yet it's definitely worth everyones attention. I'm talking about the Blade walkthrough-in-progress over at walkthrough-online.com. The main guide so far consists of incredibly detailed descriptions of six of the games massive levels, and there's also a demo walkthrough, descriptions of each of the four characters and plenty of other useful info. Even if you don't need help getting through the game, it's still worth checking out and keeping an eye on. |
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