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Robot Entertainment has posted some important news in their latest blog post on the Orcs Must Die! website. This important news affects both new and existing players alike.  From from 9am CT on Friday December 12th until Monday December 15th the North American Unchained servers will be going down for maintenance.

Players who are looking to join the closed beta of OMDU need to do so BEFORE December 12th as after this date the founders packs will be going away and players will have no means to get instant access to the closed beta until Phase 2. If you are thinking about getting exclusive closed beta access along with all the founders benefits such as in-game gold and the Enchanted Armor you need to purchase your founders pack pretty sharpish!

For existing players it should be noted that after December 12th the in-game store will be disabled. This means that you will no longer be able to buy any card packs or vanity skins. If you are looking to buy items for in-game use between now and phase 2, you must do so BEFORE December 12th. From this date on wards card packs will only be available via leveling up in-game. If you hit the height of level 40, you will earn a pack of cards for every 300xp.

Be sure to read the full blog post to ensure you are fully in-the-know about the changes that are coming to Orcs Must Die! Unchained this weekend. Please note these changes are for the North American servers only. Changes to the European servers are not yet announced.

For a reminder of these sweet sweet Founders Packs that you can get your hands on only for the last few days now, check out the image below. Click the image if you would like to purchase a pack. This really is your last chance to be an OMDU founder under this scheme!

Following on from yesterdays announcement at the Playstation Experience Keynote that OMDU will be coming to PS4 next year. You can check out the moment OMDU was announced at the keynote by skipping to 50:23 on the video below:

Robot have published an FAQ for fans about the newly announced PS4 support over on the official forums. Some of the most interesting tidbits from the FAQ are that Robot is working with Disruptive Games to bring the title to PS4 The game will work in the same way as the PC version and will be free-to-play. Players will not need Playstation Plus to play. Trophy hunters will be pleased to hear that the game will be supporting unlockable trophies.

Be sure to check out the full PS4 FAQ on the link below.

https://forums.orcsmustdie.com/discussion/2753/playstation-4-version-faq

Today Robot Entertainment announced at the PlayStation Experience keynote that Orcs Must Die! Unchained will also be coming to PS4 along side the PC version of the game in 2015. This is Robot’s first return to console since the original Orcs Must Die! on XBLA and is the first title that Robot has produced for a Sony system. Robot’s CEO Patrick Hudson said:

“We’re very excited to welcome PlayStation 4 players to our community, Orcs Must Die! Unchained delivers a unique blend of tower defense and competitive multiplayer action along with the game’s signature humor. We can’t wait for PS4 fans to jump in and start slaying Orcs!”

 

To get us and PS4 fans excited about OMDU, Robot have also released a brand new trailer, with OMD humour aplenty this excellent trailer has been playing at the Playstation keynote:

Its great to see OMDU being launched on an additional platform, expanding the audience greatly. Fantastic news!

We’re back stateside with Fan Friday this week and the spotlight is landing on SirBeast of the US Orcs Must Die! Unchained community. Lets find out a bit more about him!

The Basics

• Name: SirBeast / Frank
• Age: 42
• Home Town: Akron, OH

Questions

• What do you do by day?

I’m the IT lead for the Public Works department in a major metropolitan city

• What exciting things have happened this year?

Of course, OMDU released this year, which I had been long awaiting, along with the release of some other great games: Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, Middle-Earth: Shadows of Mordor, and Gauntlet. I also spent a week vacationing with family in the Outer Banks this summer. Additionally I recently got to see the stage musical rendition of “Evil Dead”.

• Do you get excited about Christmas?

I *LOVE* Christmas and get very excited about it every year. I got my outside lights up (though I did not turn them on) the week before Thanksgiving, as well as one of our two trees up and decorated. We got a new tree last year that is not only pre-lit but also rotates. I have 2 kids, a boy aged 5 and a girl aged 9, and seeing them get excited for the holiday – ESPECIALLY with the escapades of “Ducky Duckaroo”, their “Elf on the Shelf” just makes it all the more enjoyable!

• How would you describe your taste in music?

My taste in music is best described as eclectic. I’ll listen to anything but Country and Polka. Primarily I prefer heavy metal and classic rock, along with artists such as Daft Punk, Deadmau5, and Weird Al Yankovic

• What would your Top 3 films of all time be?

 (1) Animal House (2) Star Wars Episode IV: “A New Hope” (3) The Nightmare Before Christmas

• How did you discover Orcs Must Die! ?

I was a big fan of OMD1 and OMD2. Until the devs stopped supporting it and the score hackers started running rampant on it, a friend and myself were highly ranked on the two-player world rankings on OMD2.

 

• Who is your favourite OMDU hero and why?

I think my favourite at the moment would be Blackpaw. He moves fast, which can allow him to get in, do some good damage really quick, then get out just as fast, leaving enemy heroes dazed and confused as to where they should be watching the next threat to come from. He’s even more devastating if your teammates have gnolls in their decks, which is often the case.

• Which OMDU hero causes you the most trouble on the battlefield?

Midnight causes the biggest trouble. Not only can she mass-disable traps quite easily, but a skilled player who can use her backstab efficiently can do some real heavy damage to enemy heroes when they least expect it.

• What is the biggest balance problem with OMDU right now?

I think the biggest balance problem right now is simply the lack of players. I think the heroes are pretty fairly balanced, if you have players who know how to play them efficiently. But getting into a full 5v5 game outside of Twitch streaming hours is nearly impossible.

• What is the topmost thing you would like to see added to OMDU?

Text and voice chat both in-team and cross-team. The devs think that “toxic” players in the community would cause this to be more trouble than it’s worth. It’s been my experience that such players in the OMDU community are few and far between. Plus I think they could easily take an example from the voice chat features of such games as TeamFortress 2 and Unreal Tournament 2004. Those games not only let you choose if you wanted to chat only to your team or to all players in the game (including opponents), but if there was a “toxic” player you had the ability to mute them – both text and voice.

 

I for one would very much like the opportunity to say to a teammate-turned-opponent (from one game to the next) “Hey, great job last game! Good luck, and try to not kill me too much, or just stand still and let me kill you!”. I think everyone could appreciate the humor and comradery that everyone could benefit from with such a feature being available.

Shout out

• Is there anything you would like to say to all the OMD fans out there right now?

As a final shout-out, I must say thanks to devs for working so hard to make this a great game that everyone enjoys. Thanks the community as a whole for simply being there to play with, and to the newer players try and ignore those that are simply there to PvP-railroad and spawncamp their opponents – don’t let them discourage you, and just think of it as a way to work on additional strategies for overcoming that type of offense.

This week was the first of five big Insider Access twitch streams where we tune in to Robot staffers revealing some of the plans and details about Phase 2 of the Orcs Must Die! Unchained closed beta kicking off early next year.

In this weeks episode we learnt a number of things. Perhaps one of changes that will be sure to excite fans will be the return of the much missed trap – Barricades! Thats right, barricades will be coming back in phase 2. Robot have worked out all the niggles that have prevented them appearing so far. Barricades add a whole new layer of depth for defenders. Of course, barricades is just one example of the things being discussed on Insider Access. There was also discussion about trap caps, which will now be capped at the team level and not individually.

Be sure catch up on this weeks Insider Access with Justin Korthof and Ian Fischer to hear more about thats coming up in phase 2!

Watch live video from OrcsMustDie on Twitch

The next reveal will be December 16, 2014

There is no better way to spend the holidays than playing some
Orcs Must Die! Unchained. If you havn’t managed to get your closed beta access yet, then never fear! Over the next few weeks REF has a number of opportunities for you to get hold of a prized key.

First up, on Thursday’s EU OMDU stream REF will be invading FaTeReLLa’s stream to dish out codes galore! Be sure to tune in at 8pm GMT / 9pm CET on Thursday 4th December and we’ll be in the chat room. We also have some codes for 20x card packs for existing players too. So if you’re looking for beta access or are an existing player you’ll surely be wanting to tune in. The stream will be taking place on the EU twitch channel, right here:

http://www.twitch.tv/orcsmustdieeu

We hope to see you there. We will also be detailing other ways that you can get hold of some keys if you don’t happen to score one in the chat.

Robot Entertainment have announced a new partnership to extend Orcs Must Die! Unchained’s reach into China. In addition to GameForge publishing the title in the EU, Tencent Games will be working to make the game big in China. Of course, with every new announcement comes a new shiny trailer. This time, in Chinese, of course.

Tencent will be marketing the game as a Tower Defense Online Battle Arena, another categorisation for the already diversely categorised game. Steven Ma, Senior VP of Tencent Games commented in he press release:

“We believe the innovative gameplay of Orcs Must Die! Unchained will open a new category in our portfolio of Western titles for the expanding Chinese online gaming market—and as the leader for gaming in China, our focus is on bringing players the very best games and best experiences. The combination of Robot Entertainment’s proven creative abilities and Tencent’s operating experience will be a win-win deal for our two companies and for gamers across Greater China.”

 

Robot’s CEO, Patrick Hudson went on to say:

“China is a massive and growing market, and we are thrilled to partner with the leading publisher in China, Tencent Games, to further extend our global reach.”

 

This is not the first time that Robot has partnered with a China-based publisher. In the past the studio has worked with Yodo1 to bring Hero Academy to the Chinese audience and the partnership involved not only localization but also an exclusive new Hero Academy team and map for the Chinese audience.

It looks like Robot are planning to repeat Hero Academy’s successful model with OMDU. A new hero has been announced, “Mulan” along with new traps. There is a second trailer to give an idea on what these Chinese elements may look like:

It looks like the Chinese version of the game will be a seperate entity, but there are no specfic details on how big the changes will be compared the EU and NA versions of the game, though Robot has indicated on the forums that the changes wont be too much.

In any event, its great to see the reach of the game has been extended to another territory. May the Orc invasion continue!