character-progression
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Neverwinter gives players the freedom to buy skills
Quoting beta feedback as a reason, Cryptic is changing Neverwinter's character progression to allow players to purchase new skills via power points. Previously, specific skills were handed out automatically upon hitting certain levels, but apparently choice was a big request of testers. The new power points system, which will be available in the upcoming fourth beta weekend, allows for both skill unlocks and upgrades. There will be certain restrictions, such as keeping the third rank for all skills locked until level 30 and not giving players enough points to purchase everything by the time they hit the endgame. The team says that this system will make the decision of feat choices more strategic, particularly in compensating for any power weakness.
What does progression mean to you?
I've been pondering the question of what progression really means a lot over the past couple of weeks. Big Bear Butt mentioned it in a blog post last week, and talked about how the word is defined depending on who you are and what you're doing in game. Whenever I hear the word progression in reference to WoW, I immediately turn to raiding -- but is that the only place that it really applies? And even if you're a raider, it's not as cut-and-dry a meaning as you'd think. My current guild is a progression raid guild. But we aren't bleeding-edge and we don't push ourselves like it's a second job. My first raid guild was also a progression guild, but it was definitely far more hardcore, with six nights a week spent raiding our hearts out and trying to get those coveted server firsts. Is there really a difference between the two? It certainly felt like it -- but both guilds were focused on progression, so maybe there wasn't quite as much a difference as I'd like to think.
The Daily Grind: When should character progression carry over?
Age of Wushu is still in testing right now, but that doesn't mean that your play right now doesn't count. Character progression is carrying over, and what you do from this point onward will matter. The game isn't alone, either; Final Fantasy XIV will be carrying over character data from open beta, and other free-to-play titles have kept characters around for the launch environment. If the beta is just a launch without any pricing, that's fine. (If it's persistent and you're being charged, that's not a beta; that's launch.) But Age of Wushu still has a fair bit more testing to go through, some of which could result in some rebalancing or changes. It's all normal stuff for testing, but knowing that what you do during this test will carry over means that you have to base long-term decisions on systems and elements that might change in the near future. Of course, "betas" are increasingly less concernned with development and more concerned with early play. So what do you think? When should character progression carry over to the launch version? Mid-beta? Early beta? Open beta? At launch and not a day before? 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!
Details unveiled about Star Wars: The Old Republic's Legacy Perks
It's always fun to hit significant progress milestones in a game... the first time. The next three or four times it can start to get just a bit more tedious. Star Wars: The Old Republic's Legacy Perks in the upcoming patch 1.3 are intended to help ensure that your alts can focus on doing the things you like the most and get a little extra boost along the way. Unlike account-wide unlocks, Legacy Perks are unlocked per character, meaning you can tailor different characters to different fashions. The perks are split into four main categories: Advancement, Convenience, Companion, and Travel. Advancement perks lets you earn more experience from your favorite activities, whether you'd prefer to advance faster from story quests or Warzones or even just exploring. Convenience perks give you access to remote vendors and mailboxes, while Travel perks grant you special teleports and earlier speeder options. Last but not least, Companion perks let you improve your crew's crafting skills, affection gains, and turnaround on missions. Take a look at the full rundown for a more in-depth picture of how your Legacy will affect individual characters in the upcoming patch.
MechWarrior Online previews BattleMech upgrades and pilot skill trees
A couple of days ago, Piranha Games -- the studio behind the upcoming MechWarrior Online -- gave us a look at the role-based warfare and character progression we can expect from the robot-fighting title. As we reported last week, players in MWO will fall into of four roles: scout, assault, defense, or command. Today's update on the game's official site gives us a closer look at the various ways that players can earn XP and on what they can spend it. For instance, every 'Mech will have an upgrade tree, which is divided into tiers. Players must spend experience in order to purchase all of the upgrades on a given tier before they are able to access the subsequent tier. To get a look at the various abilities and skill trees through which players will be progressing when they finally find themselves in the cockpit, just click on through the link below to the official MechWarrior Online site.
Overhaul to skills coming to Star Trek Online
The core of progression in Star Trek Online has always been the game's sprawling skill system, but it's also proved to be something of a weakness. Not only were several of the skills difficult to understand at a glance (Astrometrics offers benefits not instantly apparent, for instance), but the higher-tier skills were often prohibitively expensive in terms of skill points. That's why in addition to all of the other changes going live with the game's free-to-play conversion, the development team is working on a major skill overhaul so that players can know what each skill does and so that everything feels worthwhile. A list of the new skills and their effects are included with the newest installment of the Path to F2P blog, with the changes allowing players to more easily switch between ship types and weapon types without feeling unduly penalized. In addition, skills are now clearly separated into buffs to click abilities or passive benefits, rather than having them tied together in several cases. It's a wide-sweeping set of revisions but hopefully one that will help make the system more transparent for all players.
PAX 2011: Funcom discusses The Secret World's PvP, ARG, and more
Funcom had an impressive presence at PAX Prime 2011, and along with that presence came a wealth of information about its upcoming horror MMORPG, The Secret World. In addition to showing off the Polaris five-man instance, the team also highlighted a new solo mission demo and revealed some new information about the title. From missions to PvP to character progression, the team had a lot to say. For the full details on both small- and large-scale PvP, skill progression, and the game's ARG and puzzle elements, head on past the cut.
Rumor: Shogun 2: Total War to be shown at E3
A Turkish site named Oyungezer has reportedly leaked news of a direct sequel to the very first game in the critically acclaimed historical combat Total War series. The site mentioned in a deleted post that Shogun 2: Total War would be on display at E3 in a few weeks. Soon after, Voodoo Extreme posted a leaked fact sheet for the game, which will reportedly be developed by The Creative Assembly and published by Sega. According to the fact sheet, it will contain character progression across nine different Japanese clans, as well as improved war simulation gameplay on both land and sea. The fact sheet sets the release date in 2011. Joystiq contacted Sega to ask about the rumor, and we were told that it "can't comment on news about the next Total War game," so it looks like Sega's lips are sealed, at least until E3. [Via Big Download]
The Agency under the scope, RMT not a part
Genres are a sticky thing when it comes to gaming. On the one hand, they help us categorize and succinctly describe a hitherto unknown game. Simply referring to a game as an MMO, for instance, instantly conjures up a number of elements like a persistent world, large sharded player base, and character progression. While that sort of pigeon-holing is effective for most games out there, occasionally a game comes along that really defies our best efforts at categorization. In this blogger's mind, The Agency is a perfect example of that.In a recent preview of the game, we're treated to details of the ways in which The Agency is both more than and less than a traditional MMO. A lot of the usual elements like persistence and character progression are there, but they're twisted in interesting new ways. None of this is especially new information per say (we spoke with the lead designer ourselves not long ago), but it's another new perspective on the game, and we can't help but gobble it up. Also out of the Eurogamer camp is a reiteration of the point made last month at ION that The Agency will not be using an RMT system for weapons, operatives, or anything else that would give one player an edge on another, which we're happy to see as well.
Earthrise gets two new wallpapers
The brand new MMO on the block -- Earthrise, from Masthead Studios -- has a couple new wallpapers for anybody interested in something new to look at on your desktop. We always appreciate it when wallpapers come with a widescreen resolution option. Since we were already on the Earthrise website, we took the chance to check out their "About Earthrise" page and found a handy bullet-point list of features to expect in Masthead's upcoming game. One thing that stood out to us more than anything else was a feature towards the bottom of the list that says, "Character progression that keeps you advancing in your career even when you're not logged in." As far as we're aware, EVE Online is currently the only MMO that allows for character progression out-of-game -- it should be interesting to see what they do. We think the whole conceptual feature-list for Earthrise is super-interesting.[via MMORPGdot]
