artifacts
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Report says NASA lost historical artifacts due to lax procedures
NASA's Office of Inspector General has released a new report detailing shortcomings in how the agency manages its historical items, The Verge reports. Over the years, NASA has apparently lost a number of assets, including a lunar soil collection bag, Apollo 11 command module hand controllers and even a lunar rover vehicle prototype.
Smithsonian crowdfunds preservation of Neil Armstrong's spacesuit
If you've ever wanted to lend a hand preserving a piece of US history, now's your chance. The Smithsonian launched a Kickstarter campaign to gain support for restoring Neil Armstrong's Apollo 11 spacesuit for display at the Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. While the artifact hasn't been on display since 2006, funds raised through the effort would allow it to be properly preserved ahead of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo mission in 2019 and for an upcoming "Destination Moon" gallery that's scheduled to open in 2020. The campaign is seeking $500,000 to cover the cost of the conservation project and a climate-controlled case for the suit. During the course of the preservation, the suit will get faded colors in the American flag patch stabilized to prevent further deterioration, stains removed and a careful cleaning to keep lunar dust in place. Funds will also be used to construct a digital version via 3D scan so that classrooms around the world can examine it in detail for the first time.
Google Art Project adds hundreds of 3D sculptures and animal skulls
The Google Art Project already archived thousands of murals, paintings and more for viewing on the web. Not all artifacts are flat, though, but the folks in Mountain View added nearly 300 3D scans so you can examine detailed animal skulls and ornate sculptures from the comfort of your sofa. Flip through new collections from six museums before rotating a skull with your mouse or touchpad to see features from every angle -- like the Helmeted hornbill above from the California Academy of Sciences. If you're not into animal bones, don't fret: There's art, too. Thanks to places like the Dallas Museum of Art and Museo d'Arte Orientale, you can ogle sculptures, masks and other ancient artifacts as well. And all without having to get in the car.
Neverwinter expands artifact system
Cryptic is clearly in love with the artifact system in Neverwinter, having expanded it to include weapons and belts in the recent Tyranny of Dragons update. In a dev diary today, the team delivers additional details behind the new types of gear that will grow in power over time. Leveling up artifact equipment will take a lot of refinement, apparently: "These artifacts will use the familiar item refinement interface; however the primary difference being that other equipment is used to refine these artifacts rather than enchantments. Basically anything that can be equipped in the 12 slots on your character sheet can be used to empower these artifact." With Module 4 are six new level 60 artifact belts and 21 artifact weapons. The belts have a base attribute (such as strength) that can be increased from +1 all the way to +4, while artifact weapons have the potential for "the highest base damage numbers in the game." The studio said that it might expand the artifact system further if players show support for it.
Neverwinter dispels the mystery of its artifact system
For those of you who are a little mystified over the new artifact system coming with Neverwinter's Shadowmantle module, Cryptic's put out a clear-cut guide to what's what with these special objects. Artifacts are items that imbue the possessor with certain bonuses while at the same time giving players new skills to use. These skills recharge every few minutes and offer significant benefits, from healing to damage boosting to... shopkeeping. Players will get their first artifact for free at level 20, after which additional artifacts will need to be found elsewhere in the game. Artifacts can be leveled up through the refinement system (also coming with module 2). Ultimately, a player can have one active and two passive artifacts slotted at any given time, with the passives offering only the stat bonuses.
Dawn of the Hunter Rangers: Touring Neverwinter's Shadowmantle module
Considering all of the exciting reveals of Neverwinter's second module, Shadowmantle, I think it's prudent to start with the unknowns. No, we don't have a specific date of release (although it will be "by the end of the year"). No, we don't know whether Druids or Warlocks or any other Dungeons and Dragons classes are in development for next year. And no, we can't tell whether there's a massive honey badger conspiracy in the city of Neverwinter. With that said, there's plenty that Lead Designer Andy Velasquez had to reveal to us for this upcoming module. For starters, it's 100% free, just in case you were wondering. Sure, Cryptic will continue to run a robust store (and doesn't seem to have any inclination to rein in the lockbox invasion), but all of the content of Shadowmantle will be available to the entire playerbase on day one. It's shaping up to be an even meatier update than Fury of the Faewild, believe it or not. The big star of Shadowmantle is the first new post-launch class: the Hunter Ranger. But this flexible fighter won't be hogging the entire spotlight; Neverwinter will also be adding a new zone, additional paragon paths, and a spiffy artifact skill system. So read on and prepare for the stampede of players rushing to be the next online Legolas-slash-Drizzt.
Storyboard: Just the artifacts
There's something inherently alluring about objects of power. That much is obvious; games are already fairly littered with them, ranging from weapons to vehicles to various items whose powers are invariably decided by needs of the plot. It's inevitable that as a roleplayer you would want to create something of power for your own purposes, something that has a purpose that only you know, hopefully a purpose with more careful thought than "being the most scary thing ever." Items like this are what I'm calling artifacts. In some settings they're actual artifacts; in others they're just exceptionally well-programmed computers or bits of otherwise lost technology or whatever. They're useful for extended roleplaying, they create an additional element of your characters, and they're also really problematic in a variety of ways. Still, the drawbacks aren't significant enough to make them useless, just significant enough that you'll want to use a careful hand when adding in your own hidden wonders.
Patch 5.2 PTR: Finding mantid dig sites will be a breeze in 5.2
Archaeology has always been one of those professions that you either love or hate, with little room in between. While the profession as a whole was fairly klonky in Cataclysm, improvements introduced in Mists of Pandaria helped to streamline the process a little for players. The biggest improvement by far was the ability to turn in crated relics from Pandaria in exchange for fragments from any dig site type on Azeroth -- which meant that players no longer had to dig endlessly on Kalimdor, hoping for a Tol'vir dig site to pop up. However, the new treatment of the Archaeology profession apparently doesn't stop there. Patch 5.2 noted that a new section of Archaeology would be added for the mantid, giving players with a penchant for procuring priceless pieces something new to dig for. But as far as we knew, this meant a return to the days of endlessly digging a continent, hoping for one particular variety of dig site to pop up -- which really wasn't an ideal situation at all. It looks like the Lorewalkers have thought ahead with a solution for this already. Wowhead dug up a new item in the 5.2 files called the Mantid Artifact Sonic Locator. This item will let you convert any Pandaria dig site into a mantid site, allowing those that have completed the other sections of Pandaria archaeology to simply get straight to the mantid stuff. The item requires exalted reputation with the Lorewalkers, and stacks to 20, which leads one to believe it disappears upon use. While we don't know the cost of the item, it's likely you're either going to have to pay gold, or more crated artifacts from Pandaria to purchase. Regardless, it's nice to see that the devs are still thinking about both Archaeology and the Lorewalkers as the expansion moves on. Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.
Leaderboard: Achievements vs. collections
Some may call them busy work or a fool's errand, but others delight in the additional fluff systems in MMOs that encourage us to take the path less traveled. Two of these systems, achievements and collections, stand out in my mind as the premier ways of encouraging us to game a bit differently. Achievements are ubiquitous at this point, from World of Warcraft to Warhammer Online (and that's just the Ws). Despite usually not offering anything more substantial than a pat on the back and a few numbers for your number collections, they have proved to be an incredibly popular motivator to going outside of your daily routine. Collections are somewhat more tangible: in-game objects that are often hidden for you to seek out, find, and collect all of them for the cool prize on the back of the box. That may be Cheerios, too. Anyway, titles like EverQuest II and RIFT enjoy sending players out on these scavenger hunts, and it momentarily takes our minds off the presence of death and slaughter that permeates everything. So if you had to pick one of these systems as the better motivation to get you out of your comfort zone and try new things, which would it be: achievements or collections?
The Daily Grind: Is platforming welcome in MMOs?
Like some of you, at least according to statistics, I am an aging gamer (one who is turning 36 tomorrow). With that comes some loss of sharp reflexes and bladder control, which is why I enjoy twitch gaming less and work within 10 feet of the bathroom. As long as I avoid MMOs with the "action combat!" label on them, I'm mostly OK, although it now seems that I have to contend with an increase of platforming elements in my online RPGs as well. From Star Wars: The Old Republic's Super Mario Datacrons experience to hopping along tree branches in order to get one of RIFT's shinies, platforming seems all the rage, and I don't know whether it's a welcome thing or not. It can be terribly frustrating to try to time the right jumps in a 3-D environment, but it's hard to rail against additional gameplay options in MMOs as a matter of principle. So what say you? Do you like or hate platforming in MMOs, and is the style welcome in our games? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Dark Age of Camelot storms the castle with Patch 1.111
People of Midgard, Albion, and Hibernia -- fight for glory! The call to battle is strong and never-ending, and Mythic is looking to your continued diligence and thirst for blood to keep Dark Age of Camelot's PvP raging. For its part, Mythic has delivered the latest tantalizing update to the game today, Patch 1.111. To keep the battlefield skirmishes hot, the studio has added new RvR missions to the Frontiers. This should hopefully cause a greater amount of conflict as players strive to accomplish their tasks. Patch 1.111 also includes a host of class tweaks (including a huge buff to Thanes), additional controllable pets for Animists, and new Atlantis quests. These quests start at level 30 and will help players garner more Atlantean Glass for their artifacts, which should help ease the pain of grinding out Master Levels. The patch is currently live on all servers.
Darkmoon artifacts will drop even when there is no Faire
Bashiok has provided further clarification on the Darkmoon Island artifacts that drop from dungeons, Battlegrounds, and raids that are turned in for Darkmoon tickets -- these will continue to drop for players who have a Darkmoon Adventurer's Guide regardless of whether the Faire is in town. These artifacts can be saved up and turned in when the Darkmoon Island event is taking place, so don't worry about grinding out these artifacts this week only. This makes me a very happy Faire-goer. Darkmoon Artifacts will drop regardless of whether the faire is in town Just to clarify one point, the quest drops that happen in the dungeons/raids/BG's happen all the time, even if the faire isn't in town. Think of it sort of like the Darkmoon Card redemptions. You're out playing all month, while you're doing stuff you're getting chances at the items, then when the faire is in town you turn it all in. (It's also worth pointing out that the turn-in items aren't soulbound, so just like the cards I'd expect some people to farm them just to put them up on the AH.) It's really just this first week and appearance of the faire that's off because the Darkmoon Adventurer's Guide wasn't available for the 3 weeks prior. When it rolls around next month there should be better feel for how the whole system and ticket acquisition rate feels. source Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Review the official patch notes, and then dig into what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!
Diablo III game designers talk Inferno difficulty and twinking
Diablo III is not an MMO by any stretch of the imagination, but it certainly has some strong online elements like previous installments. It also has a lot of expectations to live up to, several of which are discussed in a recent PC Gamer interview with Wyatt Cheng and Andrew Chambers. Both designers discuss the challenge level of the new Inferno difficulty, which is aimed at max-level characters in good gear who have already completed the Hell difficulty level. They confirm that while it's meant to be brutal, it can be played and beaten solo -- although having a friend won't hurt. And speaking of getting by with a bit of help from one's friends, Cheng and Chambers both agree that twinking out new characters is a time-honored part of the game's tradition; their job as designers requires them to find ways to ensure that twinking is a fun process for players. It's the sort of interview that can leave fans wanting more of the game before it's released -- which ties in nicely to the fact that you can pre-order the Book of Cain (a collection of in-universe lore and artwork) on Amazon right now. And you can even take a look past the break to see what the book looks like.
Breakfast Topic: Is it time to implement artifacts?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the AOL guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. More and more people are gearing up in epic equipment these days, either through Zandalari heroics or normal and heroic-level raiding. This leads to a lot of purple items of wide range of different ilevels, particularly toward the end of an expansion set. While this is great for those of us who are catching up to current content (or gearing up an alt), couldn't there be more of an incentive for hardcore raiders? Back in vanilla, it was really something to see someone decked out in the highest level of gear. The color category of a player's items alone was enough to determine their in-game accomplishment. I absolutely think it's a good thing that a larger group of people get to see content and gear up quickly, but shouldn't there be a new level of reward for those who work the hardest on progression? Well, as longtime WoW players may remember, there already is. There has always been a level of gear above epics that has never been implemented in game: artifacts. Originally planned as a step above legendary items, red-quality artifact items could perhaps instead replace heroic raiding-quality epic items as a status symbol for those at the cutting edge of content. At a point in time when blue gear is considered temporary and purple is again becoming the norm, could it be time to implement a rarer category of reward? Do you think it would be beneficial to World of Warcraft for the best possible items to be of a different grade? Would this be enough to bring hardcore players back to the game? Or would it greatly devalue traditional epics?
RIFT's 1.3 update bringing new raid, free transfers, and more
With less than a week remaining until the biggest game update in RIFT's short history, Trion Worlds is upping the excitement ante with a new press release detailing the extensive features coming with Waves of Madness. The official unveiling will happen courtesy of a world event on June 22nd, and RIFT's 1.3 version update will subsequently include guild bank functionality, new item sets, new character accessories, new artifacts, free character transfers, and Hammerknell. This last is a 20-player raid that Trion says "will challenge even the most practiced players." The encounter boasts three wings, 10 bosses, and a gaggle of gross-out monsters designed to make life more fun for Telara's endgame players. If we've piqued your curiosity, have a look at the official website for all the details.
Enter at Your Own Rift: A case for player housing
Earlier this week we were treated to the news that Trion Worlds is going to offer free character transfers between "select servers" once Update 1.3 hits. Now, how useful this will be is anyone's guess -- as some have noted, this may just be a clever ploy to redistribute the population from high-pop servers to low-pop ones -- but generally it's been met with applause from the community. I remain impressed as a consumer with how fast and aggressive Trion is pumping out content, and the fact that this is a free transfer once per week is really cool considering how most other subscription MMOs charge for a similar "premium" service. Whatever Trion's motive and however it'll play out, I do know this: The company needs to continue to bring the heat to the competition. It's vital that RIFT distinguishes itself from the rest of the pack in some way, whether it be polish, originality, speed, customer service, or innovation. Today I'd like to make a case for what I think should be high up on Trion's development schedule: player housing. We know it's something the devs have discussed, with some very much for and some very much against, but I'm hoping it's gone past the brainstorming phase. Why should we care about what might seem like fluff? How could housing work in RIFT? Tune in after the jump, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel to find out!
Enter at Your Own Rift: Off the beaten path
Conventional MMO wisdom says that one should stick to the roads as much as possible when questing. Roads have become the "safe zone" of online games, a place where mobs are less likely to attack and adventurers are less likely to become lost. RIFT, however, turns this MMO convention on its head and does everything it can to break us of this predictable -- and boring -- habit. For one thing, the roads in RIFT are not safe. At any moment, a rampaging invasion or event boss may be wandering down them, looking for easy prey. I've seen more than one jaded MMO vet express a type of dawning pleasure when this has happened, especially considering the reputation modern games have for coddling their populations. For another thing, there are a lot of incentives to strike off the beaten path and explore the world instead of staring at a packed trail that's been walked a million times before. RIFT encourages players to do so in subtle ways, ways that I deeply appreciate as an explorer type. In today's Enter at Your Own Rift, we're going to look at three reasons that blazing your own way in the wilderness is more fun -- and even beneficial -- than sticking to the highway. Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads.
Enter at Your Own Rift: The little things
For me, it's all about the little things in life: the smell of a good cup of coffee, the enthusiastic hug of my two-year-old, an illicit pack of Lemonheads candy, or throwing punny tags into Massively articles. While big things are essential to have and get right, it's the little things I find that give life its unique flavor. So when I enter MMORPGs, I'm always on the lookout for little things. Oh, sure, PvP and raiding and overarching epic stories are all well and good, but it's from the little things that the soul and flavor of a game emerges. I'm often far more delighted when I stumble upon a funny little Easter egg in a game than if I win that roll for a purple piece of armor. Today I want to look at 10 little things in RIFT that I've come to appreciate and savor over the past month or so. Maybe these elements don't get all of the glory, and maybe they're even seen as superfluous to some, but without them the game would be far less to me. So while we rush between rifts and struggle with expert dungeons, I'd encourage all of us to take some time to reflect on all of the supporting cast of features that are just as important to the overall effort.
Enter at Your Own Rift: Sightseeing in Sanctum
One of the things I love about RIFT is its smaller, more intimate feel. Don't get me wrong -- there's still plenty of space to explore and get lost in, but the space that is present is used to great effect and isn't just there to make it seem bigger for bigger's sake. This is echoed in the two capital cities of the game, Sanctum (Guardian) and Meridian (Defiant). Both are gorgeously detailed and impressive in their own way, yet they're comfortable and accessible instead of sprawling and vast. If one thinks of the quest hubs, camps and villages dotting the world as mom and pop stores, then the capital cities are the Walmarts of RIFT: one-stop shops for all your character's needs. They're both fairly compact, although I found myself preferring Sanctum's beachfront atmosphere and circular layout over Meridian's underground labyrinth. Because all players will be traveling to and extensively using capital cities during the course of their in-game careers, I figured we might as well take a look at what capital cities -- Sanctum specifically -- have to offer. Jump on our people-mover as we wind our way through the sights and sounds of civilization!
RIFT beta powow with Scott Hartsman
This is, by any measure, a busy week for RIFT. Fresh off the second beta event, Trion Worlds has dropped the NDA for the game and announced a third beta to take place over the holidays. As the process speeds exponentially faster toward launch, Scott Hartsman and his team have a white-knuckled grip on RIFT for all the bumps, shimmies, dips and hills that such a high-profile title offers. Even with a heaping amount of work on its plate, the team has been willing to share its passion for RIFT with the press and community. During this slight lull between betas two and three, Hartsman sat down with us over the phone to jaw about lessons learned from the beta, why Trion has dropped the NDA, how RIFT's already made history, and when we might be seeing this game on the shelves. Hit the jump and let's do this thing. As Hartsman is fond of saying about the game, "S**t just got real."
