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Cryptic answers the 29 most pressing STO questions
Star Trek Online's monthly Ask Cryptic features are always something for fans to look forward to reading, but this month even more so as executive producer Dan Stahl goes well beyond the normal handful of queries to accumulate 29 questions and answers to some of the hottest topics among the community. Included in this Q&A session is a sneak peek at the work-in-progress Tholian race (above left), the revelation that Season 4 will primarily focus on retooling repeatable end game content, fleet starbases, passive bridge officer abilities, Season 3 item sets, Memory Alpha improvements, sector space expansion and much, much more. Stahl even explains why he picks the questions he does to answer -- basically, he likes to get into topics that aren't repeatedly touched upon in interviews. Those hoping for a full-fledged STO expansion shouldn't start holding their breath, however: "It is unclear if we will ever produce a paid expansion as the market is leaning away from expansions and more towards smaller microtransactions. However, if we ever did release a paid expansion, it would be a significant update and add some new functionality to the game that would be deemed worth the price of the release."
Cryptic discusses user-generated content and future improvements for STO
As Star Trek Online concludes its shakedown cruise of the recent Season 2.0 update, players have turned their eyes to the future and pondered, "What's next?" Coming to their aid is STO's executive producer Dan Stahl, who fields a large number of questions about upcoming features and works in progress in the latest Ask Cryptic article. One of the inquiries covered was user-generated content, which Stahl confirmed would be coming -- at least in beta form -- with Season 3. "We aren't discussing our specific plans just yet, but we do want the tools to be easy to use so that players can begin to create their own missions and episodes," he said. "This may or may not be the big secret project we are working on." Other questions into the future development of Star Trek Online included customizable ship interiors, the PvP system, bridge officer promotions, expanding the Sol System, the ability to play as a holographic character, and bridge officer voices. And for those standing at the edge of their captain's chairs, eager to sit down, don't fret: Cryptic is hard at work on the long-awaited "sit in chairs" feature. You can read the full Ask Cryptic over at STO's website.
Dan Stahl highlights more of Star Trek Online's future direction
Star Trek Online's Dan Stahl has been fairly vocal since he took the executive producer post at the beginning of last month. We had our own chance to speak with him recently, where he discussed everything from the then-upcoming Season 2 content to the rumors about the game adopting a free-to-play model. His most recent interview at ZAM covers several of the same pieces of territory, but as one would expect with the time elapsed and the release of Season 2, there are several new pieces of information within. The weekly episodes are one of the major points of discussion, with the first one premiering in late August. Stahl discusses the episodes focusing around the Deferi, a race with ties to both the Federation and the Klingons, but not explicitly allied with either. He also discusses plans for an overhaul to exploration, likening the current system to "a small box where you fly around and go through random doors," something that the team is planning on changing for Season 3. The full interview is well worth a read for what it contains -- nothing earth-shattering, but more signs that Star Trek Online's direction is getting progressively stronger.
Lineage readies Season 3, Episode 1 update
Massively is traveling back in time this week with regard to NCsoft titles, first with news about updates to Lineage II and now with word on an exciting bit of new content for the original Lineage. Yes, you heard right -- the first-gen MMORPG (originally released in 1998) is still alive, kicking, and updating. July 29th will bring players the opportunity to experience Episode 1 of Season 3 on NCsoft's Play Test Servers. Subtitled Crack of Time and featuring new classes, a dungeon, and an expanded storyline, the update has yet to receive an official live release window. New classes include the dragon knight (a damage-dealer featuring the ability to shape-shift into beast forms) and the illusionist (a PvP-centric class with substantial debuff magic and area-of-effect attacks). The update also brings revamped starting areas, Thebes Dungeon (which features a random entrance-spawn and a challenging completion timer), and tweaks specifically designed to cater to North American audiences. These changes include double XP, higher item drop-rates, and higher boss-spawn rates.
The Guild season 3, episode 8 (with gag reel)
Another excellent (and a little disturbing) episode of The Guild is out right now on MSN Video and the usual places (including right after the jump on this post). Wil Wheaton returns to his role as the rival guildleader, and the rival guild continues to push the envelope on revenge. Tink makes a return as well, but as for how that goes, we'll let you watch the show yourself. Elsewhere in Guild news, Wil Wheaton also made an appearance as himself on the geeky sitcom The Big Bang Theory last night. If you missed it, CBS has a few clips up on their website to watch right now. The appearance isn't actually World of Warcraft-related, though the game has appeared on the show before (and Felicia Day and I talked about Big Bang Theory a while back on our podcast). And The Guild has also posted a second season 3 gag reel, with behind the scenes footage of all of the guys... cursing like sailors. Enjoy! Like The Guild? We do, too! We chatted with all of the folks at BlizzCon, including Felicia Day, Sandeep Parikh, and Jeff Lewis and Michele Boyd. We also saw their panel, and the guys were nice enough to stop by our meetup as well. Stay tuned here every Tuesday for a brand new episode of season 3!
Videos from The Guild panel at SDCC '09
Fan of The Guild? Me too! And you didn't go to Comic-Con last weekend? Me either. Fortunately for us, Microsoft kept the promotion cameras rolling almost the whole week long, and so there's more footage of The Guild at Comic-Con than you probably have time to watch today (although as long as your boss stays away from looking over your shoulder, you can probably give it a try). They went behind the scenes of the show, Felicia Day chatted with Xbox Live's Major Nelson, and the cast talked about what it was like to be around all of the energy at Comic-Con. There's not a lot of new stuff that fans of the show don't already know, but there are some clips of the panel in there, as well as some shots of the characters as they showed up to the Con: dressed in their in-game costumes.Some of the videos are also available right on Xbox Live (and there's quite a bit of Xbox and Microsoft pimping in the videos, but what do you expect -- not only did MS fund the show's season, but they apparently hooked them up with a party bus and a party to go with it at the Con), and YouTube is also brimming with clips from the panel. Apparently the Whedon-directed music video is also now available on Xbox Live as well, so that should be something to see. Season 3 is just around the corner, and we're still expecting to see these guys at BlizzCon in a few weeks, so stay tuned for more Guild news as we hear it.
The Guild shooting season 3, fires director (not really)
Our friends over at The Guild are hard at work on season 3 -- if you've been following their Twitter feeds, you'll have seen that shooting is underway en masse, and while we haven't yet heard when they'll be done, it sounds like they're already keeping some long hours over there. Such long hours, in fact, that tempers are apparently flaring on the set -- as you can see above, director and editor Sean Becker has become a victim of Felicia Day's (substantial?) wrath, and been fired from the show.Ok, not really -- they're just joking around. But even if he's kidding about what's in that "guild 3 master" box, we at least know there is a season 3 master, and that sooner than ever, we'll be able to see just what happened when Codex took that out-of-body sprint at the end of season 2. Can't wait to see it.
The Guild hosts a Worst Guild Candidate Ever video contest
The Guild (which, as we were told by Michele Boyd last week, just started putting together their third season last weekend) is having a video contest, with a little twist. They want you to make a one minute video of a potential guildie for The Guild that would obviously get rejected -- in other words, a worst guild candidate ever video contest. So maybe you could clearly be a loot hog, or not know anything about your character (but claim to know everything). Or whatever else you come up with -- it sounds like they want the entries to be as embarrassingly bad as possible. To enter, you'll just have to create a video, upload it to a sharing site like YouTube or Vimeo (make sure you save a high-quality original of it just in case), and then drop them an email with a link to the video.Sounds like fun. If you win, you'll get featured on their website, and/or have a chance to get your video on their season 3 DVD release. They've also got legal rules over on their site (unfortunately, it's US-only, like so many other contests on the Internet), and have discussions about the contest going on their forums as well. Good luck to all who enter -- we can't wait to see the results!
Telltale working on Sam & Max Season 3, using cursor-less controls
Everyone's favorite bipedal canine and hyperkinetic rabbity thing missed the "Early 2009" window for the launch of their third season of adventure games -- but fear not! In a recent interview with The Inquirer, a few fine folks from the Telltale crew explained that the developer is still working on Sam & Max Season 3 -- though the controls may feel a little less clicky this time around.According to Telltale co-founder Kevin Bruner, Season 3 will feature the cursor-less, console controller-friendly control scheme featured in the PC and 360 adventure title Wallace and Gromit's Grand Adventures. Makes sense -- we know Telltale is interested in bringing the new season to consoles, and having a sans-pointer control scheme would let them do that with ease. However, we imagine adventure game purists and mouse fetishists alike will be none too pleased.
The Guild in Second Life on The Copper Robot
Our friends at The Guild made an ingame appearance the other day, but not in our game -- they showed up as avatars in Second Life as part of a talk show called the Copper Robot. Felicia Day, Sandeep Parikh (Zaboo), and Jeff Lewis (Vork) all stopped by to talk to journalist Mitch Wagner (whom I met on the TUAW Talkcast last night), and you can watch video of the proceedings over on their blog, or just listen in to the audio if you'd like. And there's news about season 3 in the interview -- it should be happening, though Felicia says they haven't gotten "an official pickup" yet, and she hasn't started writing yet. The season 2 DVD is also coming soon.What's perhaps most interesting about this interview is that the Guildies all used custom-made avatars to appear in the game. Second Life, if you've never played it, is more of a sandbox MMO than the strict rules and design of World of Warcraft, and players have mostly complete freedom to make themselves look like whatever they want. And so a few fans from a site called World2Worlds actually made some avatars for the Guild folks, and they based them off of the (also fan-made) art of the characters. We've never seen footage of "the game," as the characters in The Guild call it, so this is the first time we've seen these avatars represented in any game. Very interesting. The show has a Flickr group, so if you want to check out more shots of what they looked like in-game (including some nutty Vork antics), check that out as well.
The Queue: Trial and error
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft.Hello, everyone! Did you all grieve for me yesterday when The Queue never showed up? Yes, I apologize. My internet connection going down for 14 hours sort of caused some problems. But I'm back and better than ever! Well, I'm back at least. That second part is still up for debate. Spoonman asked...I have been hearing that the price for epic flying mount is going to drop to around 2500g, have you heard anything about this?
Arena Junkies looks at some Gladiator statistics
You have to be real careful about how you put together statistics. As Gregg Easterbrook said, "Torture numbers, and they'll confess to anything." So, grain of salt, people. That being said, Arena Junkies has put up a pretty interesting compilation of numbers. They took a look at their (fairly substantial) membership, and figured out the approximate class makeup of each Arena season's Gladiators. The results aren't exactly a surprise, which supports the analysis's validity. Warlocks -- once the Arena juggernaut to the sounds of much QQ -- have lost 8% of their dominance in the Gladiator ranks. By comparison, Rogues have picked up 6.5%. Druids are the big winners, though. Only 7.5% of Season 1's gladiators were druids, compared to 16% of Season 3's. And yeah. There's a lot of metagame interpretation that could be done regarding these numbers. Melee have slowly risen in power over the span of three seasons, and Paladins -- once the bubbling unstoppable -- have really dropped in performance. Druids used to be unremarkable, but now the "science" of Line-of-Sight and Mobility has taken the day. Arena Junkies promise to further update their analysis when the Hall of Fame is updated for Season 3. But I agree with Tyveris: I think the current sample is indicative, and we're not going to see any huge differences between these numbers and those.
Arena Season 4: Everything we know about the brutal season
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/World_of_Warcraft_s_Arena_Season_4_goes_live_today'; Arena Season 4 is finally here. After a long wait of 30 weeks, longer than previous Arena seasons, Blizzard finally decided to end Season 3 and foist upon the public the widely regarded as brutally ugly Brutal Gladiator gear. The new season is different in that virtually all armor pieces and weapons will have personal ratings requirements in order to purchase them. What do we know about the new season and the events that led to it?It's been a long time coming.Arena Season 3 has dragged on long enough that we've speculated on the reasons for Blizzard's delay and even planned around it: Read our report on Drysc's comment about letting more Sunwell Plateau gear spread into the playing community before starting Season 4 in Season 4 and PvE progression. We examine the implications of a long season and how the new mechanics can help stem the flow of Brutal Gladiator gear too rapidly in The Long Wait for Season 4. We've been drooling over the gear as early as February when the first leaks of Brutal Gladiator items leaked through MMO Champion. The wait has been so long that a lot of people have been banking the maximum 75,000 Honor and 5,000 Arena points in preparation for Season 4. New season, new rules.Season 4 is a more brutal season in many ways, the most significant of which is the ratings requirements for most of the Brutal Gladiator items: We found out about the extremely prohibitive 2200 personal ratings requirement for Season 4 shoulders when items snuck out on the European Armory. Drysc talks about new team and personal ratings requirements for Season 4 of 2200 for shoulders, 2050 for weapons, and the ratings for everything else. Season 4 will continue to implement the closely tied relationship between personal and team ratings started in Season 3, which Bornakk explains in detail. With the new rules, there are new benchmarks for everyone to achieve, whether it be a modest 1550 or a lofty 2200. Of course, 2000 doesn't mean squat. Are you ready for Season 4?We've asked this question several times in the past, but now that the season is finally here, are you really ready? Read on a few pointers on how to survive the new season: Know absolutely nothing about Arenas? And by nothing, we really mean WoW Rookie-style nothing. Head on over to our completely n00b-friendly FAQ for Arena dummies. A new Arena Season isn't just for PvP players, it's for entrepreneurs, too. Read about how enterprising players can make money when Season 4 opens. Not very good at PvP? If your team can only scrape by and not make the personal ratings requirements for Season 4, there're always the epic gems for sale for Arena points. Just in case you want some pointers on how to do better in Arenas (and get more than just welfare gems), you might want to check out some videos of the best of the best. After Season 3 is done, we hope you made sure you qualified for the end-of-season rewards. If not, you can always prepare for this season. If you aren't too big on Arenas, Battlegrounds enthusiasts can take advantage of Season 2 gear going on sale for Honor in Season 4. Just in case you have the banked Arena points and manage to achieve the required personal ratings, are you really sure you want to buy that brutally ugly gear? So maybe you have decided to buy all that ugly gear. Check out WoW Insider's extensive Brutal Gladiator and Guardian gear guide to shed a little more light on your decisions. Maybe reading through our gear guide has actually convinced you that they're not so bad, after all. You can take a look at all the gear in detail in our Brutal Gladiator Arms and Equipment Gallery. Don't forget to click on the Hi-Res button for a higher resolution picture. Keep checking back on this post as we continue to grow our Season 4 coverage. Looking for more Season 4 info? Check out our extensive rating guide for the new Season 4 armor sets!
Arena Junkies fires up S3 Calculator, hooks up with Curse
Arena Junkies has been pretty busy lately -- not only are they updating their Season 3 title calculator in preparation for the new Season, they've partnered with Curse to improve their service. The Season Three Arena Title Calculator by Arena Junkies is created by some pretty involved techniques. They start by plunging a few teams in each bracket and battlegroup as far down the ranking ladder as they can possibly get. Then, the theorycrafters at Arena Junkies do their very best guess about how many teams are inactive. Using that data, they math out what ranking you'll probably need to achieve a given title. As AJ points out, though, this is just an estimate. They don't have the behind-the-scenes data anlysis to guarantee what will be required, and the ranks will be at least a little fluid until the very end. However, as you grind your Arena ranking as high as you can tonight, this'll give you an idea of what title you might expect when S4 starts. Assuming you meet the requirements, of course. The Curse announcement last week was a little more vague, and there weren't definites about what the partnership would mean for Arena Junkies. According to Tyveris, the existing staff members are still in charge of the site, and very little will actually change. What it will allow them to do, however, is add new features in the coming months. It'll be interesting to see what those features are, and whether it's part of that premium package that was mentioned a few months ago.
Season 3 in World of Warcraft grinds to a halt
Season 4 begins Tuesday, June 24th, leaving World of Warcraft players one last day before the ultimate PvP time-sink resets. What comes with it is a brand new ruleset that makes the grind for gear a lot more competitive and inaccessible to the battleground bots because many of the new battleground items that are purchasable with honor will require an Arena rating also. As for the soon to be obsolete Season 1 gear, Gladiator's items will be moved to Sun Reach's Harbor on the Isle of Quel'Danas and will no longer be purchasable with honor but with Tier 4 tokens instead, ironically these are acquired by PvE raiding. The idea was recently introduced in the 2.4 patch and you can also turn in Tier 5 tokens for Season 2 gear. Speaking of Season 2, the Merciless-Gladiator's gear will be the new clearance epics purchasable with honor points and have no arena or personal rating requirement.
The Art of War(craft): Of Duelists and cupcakes, a farewell to Season 3
In the end we fell short. Last night, our team played its last Arena game of the season after an hour-long wait only to win 1 rating point. It had been that way most of the season, and in the end, it took its toll. We close Season 3 likely to fail in attaining our goal of making Gladiator, falling just outside of the projected 0.5% of our Battlegroup. Scheduling conflicts precluded further games for the week, and as the hours whittled down and everyone was getting tired and sleepy, we mustered enough courage to call it for the season. We thanked each other, logged off the game, and turned off Vent. For what seemed like a long time, the only sound I could hear was the drone of my computer's fan before I finally headed off to bed.It had been a wonderful, if ultimately disappointing, experience. I love PvP. It's my favorite thing to do in the game. These past few weeks, I dreamt of Arenas every night. Our window was closing and we couldn't find the schedule to grind the final stretch. Last week, we only managed 12 games on a Monday prior to maintenance to scrape by on the minimum requirements and, with wins of 1 or 2 points each, didn't manage to get much closer to our goal for end-of-season rewards. Despite having won hundreds of games with a win percentage of around 81%, we ended up frustratingly short.
The Art of War(craft): Choosing PvP targets part I
My wife's Holy Priest got ganked on the Throne of Kil'jaeden the other day by a full Season 3 MS Warrior. She grouped with a Shadow Priest who was questing in the area and had also fallen victim to the bloodthirsty Human. They got ganked a couple more times while I took my Shaman over to lend them a hand. We managed to take down the ganker several times but not before he almost killed the poorly-geared Shadow Priest. Every time that the Warrior would rezz, he would immediately Charge the Shadow Priest and proceed to Mortal Strike him to within an inch of his life, despite getting heals from my wife's Holy Priest and my Restoration Shaman.After several more tries, the Warrior mounted up and proceeded to taunt me away from the group, the only one he hadn't yet ganked, but I simply brushed him off with a /bored emote. My wife wondered why the Warrior kept on going for the Shadow Priest instead of herself. It only made sense, I replied, pointing out that the Shadow Priest was the most logical target considering he was undergeared. My wife countered that she wasn't equipped in PvP gear, either, but I reasoned that since he'd killed her once, he knows she's not specced Discipline because he's seen Spirit of Redemption pop up. That meant no Pain Suppression, and that there's no way she could heal through his damage. One of the most crucial skills in PvP is choosing the right target, and encounters, matches, are won and lost through choosing the right target. This necessitates a full understanding of the limitations of one's own class, a moderate knowledge of other classes, a familiarity with gear, and an awareness of one's surroundings. It's rapid threat assessment and measured response. Almost every encounter will be different, even with the same players involved. Even with a lot of experience, choosing targets in PvP can still so often go wrong.
Blizzard cracks down on arena win trading
We already know that Blizzard is tweaking arena rules to make it much tougher to artificially inflate your rating by win trading or buying high ranked teams in Season 4, but it looks like they're starting to take it one step further, by cracking down on people who indulge in it. Reports are coming in from the official forums and from other spots around the web of people getting bans or suspensions (generally 72 hours in length) and having their Season 3 arena gear stripped. The bans are even permanent in some cases, such as that of Sinther of Stormscale, whose account was permanently banned when his friend used it to do some win-trading, with the win trading given as the specific reason for his banning. You can read many of these stories and reports in this forum thread.
When you are the weakest link
Our team tanked 76 points tonight. Despite winning five straight Arena games worth about 3 rating points each, we ran into a team that was pretty well-geared but were clearly playing below par. Unfortunately, our leader disconnected midway through the match, and even though we were outplaying the opposing team, the loss of our primary DPS and tunnel vision (he plays a Rogue) was enough for the opposing team to eventually burn us down for a 27-point loss. Just like that, all our previous wins were nullified and we found ourselves lower than when we started. Familiar with the opposing team's make-up, we counter-comped and proceeded to beat them thrice in a row until the fourth game where, in the middle of the battle, everyone started running in place on my screen and nothing was happening. It was my turn to get disconnected.I restarted my router and modem, waited a minute, and logged on to find we'd dropped another 25 points. Eager to recoup our losses against a team we were certain we could beat, we queued again. Not three minutes into the queue, my Vent went silent and I feared the worst. After making certain I had disconnected, I sent an SMS to our leader to tell him what had happened, went through the motions of connecting again and when I finally got on, I found that our team had tanked a total of 76 insane points. And it was largely my fault.
Holy Paladin! A 3,000 team/personal rating
While many people enjoy Arena play, for both fun and gear, some teams really stand out from the crowd. DonLolo z Wladem, a 2v2 team from Burning Legion EU has topped the arena charts with a 3,000 team rating. Not only does this team have no need to worry about rating requirements for Season four gear, but they will have plenty of arena points to spend once it is released. This rating yields 1,140 points per week at the 2v2 level. The team is led by Noksil a Human Paladin. Noksil is the first player to reach a 3,000 personal rating. The build for this mighty combatant consists of 44 points in holy and 17 points in Protection. This build reflects the versatility of hybrid classes in DPS and healing. The team roster also contains two Subtly Rogues: Mnius with a personal rating of 2,883 and Tatus; who carries a rating of 1965 for the 15 games he's completed this season on the team. Congratulations DonLolo z Wladem. Welcome to the Arena Hall of Fame.
