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Exclusive: Grand Chase unveils Season 5 update trailer
Grand Chase is kicking off its fifth season, and it's doing so via a series of big updates. There's a lot to the update, too, enough that it's got a trailer just past the break showing off all sorts of new features like dodging, new maps, and dungeon records. The game is also introducing the new Character Separation feature to kick things off, which sounds a bit painful but isn't meant to be at all. In essence, players who had unlocked and equipped all of the game's 19 characters would have to cart around a lot of gear in a single shared inventory based on who was being played at any given time. This new update divides up characters and allows you to store their items and equipment separately, a real boon for any prolific players. Check out the trailer and the full release just past the break.
Massively Exclusive: How WildStar has the power to move you
Movement does not normally seem like a complicated topic in MMOs. You press forward; your character goes forward. Backward? Same deal. You can turn, and you can strafe, and you can turn and strafe and run forward if you're some kind of rebel or you want to give yourself motion sickness. But WildStar makes movement a bigger deal than normal because with a greater emphasis on action comes a greater emphasis on moving out of the path of danger. The latest official video covers all the basics of movement, from dashing to sprinting to pining for the presumably nonexistent quadruple jump. But we had a chance to sit down with lead combat systems designer Chris Lynch and lead class designer Hugh Shelton to talk about more of the specifics, starting with the obvious question: What beast must we slay to unlock the all-powerful quadruple jump? Wait, that wasn't it. It was about chaining movement tricks together in an endless cycle of airborne dashes.
New WildStar video is all about smooth moves
Movement is always important in MMOs; you can't get into arguments about who's standing in the fire if everyone is rooted in place, after all. Since WildStar is promising active combat, it needs to have even more movement than normal so that you can find new and exciting ways not to stand in new and exciting sorts of fire. And the newest DevSpeak video is all about that. "That" being movement. Not new and exciting sorts of fire. It's still pretty much normal fire. Some elements will be immediately familiar to anyone who has played a video game on a computer within the past decade. Some elements are a bit more uncommon, like double-jumping or giving every class access to a quick dashing roll. And some elements, like switching positions with a target by tearing a hole in space itself, are pretty well unique. Take a look at all of them just past the break. [Source: NCsoft press release]
Breakfast Topic: Could free movement in combat become a baseline mechanic?
Get out of the fire! Get into the healing! Strategic movement is a key precept in today's World of Warcraft. Encounter design for even everyday zone mobs scritch-scratches at the wool of player tunnel vision, nudging players to make haste out of various sizzling, glowing, steaming puddles of bad. But if we players are to remain light on our feet, we need to be effective even while we're in motion. Over the years, WoW has given us more and more ways to do exactly that. Yet even as mobility becomes a baseline expectation, casting or using skills on the move has not become a baseline ability. In an era of gameplay exemplified by Guild Wars 2's constant dodging, half of WoW still has its feet tangled in cast times and channeling and positioning. Like WoW and its puddles of bad, GW2 expects players to avoid certain damage -- but with much greater alacrity. In GW2, you hop sideways and leap backwards to dodge blows and spells, rather than hoping your stats will help you "dodge," mitigate, or absorb some of them. Dodging becomes a compelling mechanic that's fairly simple to adjust to for a WoW player who's used to moving out of the bad. Readjusting to WoW after a session of GW2, however, is more problematic. I find myself juking my own character (yes, I think you could call interrupting yourself to the point of inaction "juking") when I return to WoW after playing GW2, strafing and jiggling and double-tapping in a vain attempt to dodge my opponent's wrath. My hyper-twitchiness is only complicated by the fact that WoW wants you to move away from some but not all attacks. It's a difficult halfway point to come back to. We've come a long way from the days of plunking our butts down at range to plow through rotation and mana micromanagement. But have we come far enough? Does WoW need to lighten up even more, freeing players to cast and act freely with a more natural flow of action, rather than juggling discrete movement and action phases? Maybe you believe that the mix of both types of abilities presents its own interesting challenges. It certainly has become the foundation of boss encounter design and strategies, and it's a pillar of PvP balance as well. Taking away the yin and yang of movement and stillness would tear apart the whole. What if we could gain the ability to move with complete freedom during combat in WoW without destroying encounter and game balance? Would we also benefit from the more dynamic dodging mechanics of games like Guild Wars 2? Or do you like WoW's blend of movement and static elements just as it is?
Origins of Malu shows off combat and house-building in video interview
Seeing is believing, and folks want to see more of Origins of Malu, a promising upcoming sandbox MMORPG. In answer to this, Burning Dog Media has released an E3 video interview with Lead Developer Jason Mitchell interspersed with alpha footage highlighting a bit of combat as well as the house-building feature. Although some of the footage will look familiar from our exclusive E3 interview, there are added combat scenes and a brief demonstration of housing construction. Jason adds a few details about the twitch-based combat such as the ability to dodge and the charging feature for skills. At 3:28, viewers get their first glimpse of the beginnings of creating unique personal structures in game; creative types are going to have fun with the open functionality of construction by which you build literally from the ground up. Sounds promising, no? Go ahead and take a gander at the new footage after the break, and be sure to read our interview for more details. [Source: Burning Dog Media press release]
The Summoner's Guidebook: Improving our skillshot dodging skills
Although the term "skillshot" was a new word for me when I started playing League of Legends, the concept of avoidable attacks is something that is very intuitive for even novice gamers. Skillshot is just a fancy term that roughly means "dodgable attack" in MOBA games. Although the official terminology sometimes differentiates between ground-targeted AoE and true skillshots (which are generally projectiles or groups of projectiles), that distinction is not really necessary for us. If it can be evaded, we'll call it a skillshot. Dodging skillshots is something that is fairly easy to develop skill for. It takes only a little bit of mental effort to dramatically improve your ability to evade them. It's also a skill that can always be improved with practice. We can always react to them faster or predict them more reliably. This makes it a good area to improve on because we can always get better.
The Daily Grind: What is player skill, anyway?
Today it's time to tackle the somewhat touchy subject of player skill in MMORPGs. With Guild Wars 2 touting its active dodging system and TERA just on the horizon with its action-based combat, many games seem to be attempting to force individual player skill to weigh more heavily in overall gameplay. Guild Wars 2's PvP takes it a step further, putting all players on an even playing field with equal gear and equal stats, leaving the only undecided factor to be the skill of each individual player. But what is player skill? Some people argue that twitch-based gameplay (such as GW2's dodging or TERA's movement and aiming system) isn't skill but rather is a matter of reflexes. Some argue that regardless of gear or character stats, a truly skilled player will always come out on top. Some argue that skill is a matter of knowledge -- knowing your class and the class of your opponent. So today we ask you, what is player skill? Is it the ability to aim a shot in such a way that you lead a player across the map and nail him in the head? Is it knowing to save your cooldowns for when a particular class lands a nasty CC ability on you? Does gear play a part, or does it simply impede a truly balanced experience? Perhaps it's some combination of the above. What does player skill mean to you? 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!
Earthrise developers explain dodge game mechanics in PvP
We're curious about how Earthrise, a post-apocalyptic 'sandbox' MMO from Masthead Studios, is shaping up, especially after the preview of the game we got at GDC 2009. Fortunately the game's creators have been running a Question of the Week forum category, explaining some of the game mechanics involved with playing Earthrise.The latest QOTW deals with dodging in combat, something we've been wondering about, given that Masthead Studios previously stated they don't want players hopping around incessantly out on the battlefield. Jumping will of course be used to avoid damage or cross distances at a quicker pace but, if their original intentions hold true now, jumping and perhaps dodging will be tied in with abilities. Earthrise community manager Moll answers this question: "Will attacks and skills that do damage from a distance have instant effect or will a target perhaps be able to see it coming and have a slim possibility to dodge it completely?"
