dynamic-events
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Flameseeker Chronicles: Guild Wars 2 features that time forgot
It's hard to believe it's the middle of June already. School's out, E3 has come and gone, and all that's left for us Guild Wars 2 fans to do is to pick up our World vs. World Spring Tournament rewards and kick back with a tall glass of omnomberry juice (pro tip: don't). We're still two weeks out from the start of the living world's second season, and ArenaNet has so far been especially cryptic where the future is concerned. We've speculated all there is to speculate for now, and summer heat makes me cranky, so before we blast off to any new horizons, let's take a look back at a few of the unfinished, unimplemented, and underutilized elements of GW2 that could really use some catching up.
Neverwinter's heroic encounters bring dynamic events to Icewind Dale
Neverwinter's Module 3 is on track to release tomorrow, and with it arrives a new type of quest for the game: heroic encounters. Cryptic put up an overview of heroic encounters today, calling these quests "challenging" and "exciting." They sound an awful lot like other MMO's dynamic events, as these variable-sized public quests will spawn on the landscape with different types of tasks. Some of the encounters will require more than one party to complete, and the biggest ones for each map will begin only about every 90 minutes. Rewards from heroic encounters include profession assets, Black Ice, weapons, and consumables.
A fierce weather front is blowing into Age of Wushu
Age of Wushu is introducing dynamic weather effects that will do more than look moody; they will actually herald several events. Each weather effect will have a different event that it will trigger. The great fog will start a school assassination PvP contest, the sandstorm will begin a treasure hunt in the desert, the eclipse will launch an invasion by the Prince of a Thousand Sentiments, and the thunderstorm will give you the opportunity to find the fight of the century. This weather system will be coming with the Age of Wushu: Tempest of Strife update. You can check out the weather effects preview video after the break!
The Mog Log: Lightning fizzles in FFXIV
There's something a bit odd about playing what amounts to a promotional event for a game you won't be seeing for several months. Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII promises to conclude the two-part trilogy that its predecessor created, but it's not coming out in the US until February of next year, leading to a minor disconnect. Still, it matters only in the broadest sense; after all, most of the references packed in hearken back to the first game in the set, and I didn't need a pre-order to know that I wanted a gunblade. So I've been following along with Final Fantasy XIV's event and dutifully progressing along the quest chain for the week. But I wasn't terribly impressed all around. I think there were some very nice touches coupled with some really baffling decisions here and there, and the overall effect was rather lackluster. It isn't really the fault of the event so much as a problem with popularity.
Flameseeker Chronicles: Guild Wars 2's dragon evolution
I'm praying to Grenth -- not just because he's lord of the dead and my human Necromancer's supreme master but because being in Sparkfly Fen during a Tequatl-stomping session has been threatening to down my usually robust computer and I'm hoping Grenth will take mercy on it. That, or I could just upgrade it. Every little bit helps, though. I've spent most of this past week finishing up the move to a new apartment, but I've still made time to throw myself at Guild Wars 2's buffed-up Tequatl the Sunless fight. I was pleasantly surprised by the encounter and the community's reception of it, and it's definitely given me hope that ArenaNet will be able to add more complex and fun fights of this kind to GW2's open world in the future. Tequatl is like the star of a teen movie, turning every head at the prom after a radical makeover. I know you needed that mental image. You're welcome.
Bungie: Destiny is different 'every time you experience it'
Bungie's David "DeeJ" Dague sat down for an interview with the official PlayStation blog at Gamescom, discussing Destiny's world design, class mechanics, and replayability. According to Dague, Destiny takes place in a world of "mythic science-fiction" where fantasy, mysticism, and technology collide. Destiny's plot revolves around humanity's quest to recover the artifacts of the Golden Age and find redemption in the post-apocalyptic wastelands that its brazen rush for advancement has created. Dague explained that Destiny is about making choices, with one of the most important being the class you decide to play. Whether it's the tanky Titan, the stealthy Hunter, or the magic-y Warlock, class selection will determine how you interact with the world, and groups with mixed classes will see greater success. According to Dague, the dynamic world of Destiny and its reliance on inter-player reactions ensure that no two playthroughs are the same. Bungie is expecting the game to have a very long life cycle due to the idea that "the game is completely dynamic and will be different every time you experience it with other people." Also mentioned was Destiny's focus on dynamic group events and the way in which players choose to deal with them. If you're on your own, you may see a public event and decide that you want to jump in and participate in it, or you can bypass all of the actions over here and continue on your own path. You're going to see other players participating in their own portions of the game and you can decide to participate or just go your own way.
The Perfect Ten: Obnoxious studio buzz words
So say that you write for Massively. Or say that you work for another news site while wistfully refreshing Massively's front page hoping to see a "we're hiring!" notice pop up. Or say that you're a two-headed frog that has a respectable blog that one head writes for while the other one eats flies. The important thing for this example is to imagine that you write news. Because you write news, a good chunk of your day is spent prowling for stories. Some of them you find while browsing. Some of them are sent to your email. Once in a great while your cell phone registers a call from California and a way-too-peppy voice tries to sell you on the notion of writing a 2000-word feature on a game that only the mole people have heard of. In all of this, you are exposed to a great amount of PR-speak. You see the same phrases pop up, again and again. You understand how words can be hollow shells wrapped around a complete lack of meaning. You start to go mad until your other head tells you to snap out of it and eat some more flies. So today you're going to join me here on this side of the news desk as we look at 10 of the most obnoxious buzz words or phrases that studio PR and devs like to toss our way. You could get really cynical reading this list, but I suggest that you make a bingo sheet instead to turn this into a fun game that never, ever ends!
Bungie's Chris Butcher talks about Destiny's public areas
Is Destiny a shooter with MMO elements or an MMO with a lot of shooting elements? According to a recent video interview with Chris Butcher, it's the former, and seeing as he's the Engineering Lead at Bungie he probably knows what he's talking about. But there's also some more nuance to the game which Butcher explains, and while it might not fall comfortably within the MMO header it's got a lot of persistent options. Butcher explains in the video how the game's many public areas work -- there's no UI elements to let you know that you've entered a shared space, just the sudden sight of other players alongside the announcement of dynamic events in the area. It's certainly an interesting take on shared spaces, and it's more than you might expect from a straight shooter. If you're looking forward to the game, the video embedded past the cut is well worth your time.
E3 2013: Final Fantasy XIV shows off the vicissitudes of FATE and the new jobs
As Final Fantasy XIV dazzles onlookers at E3, those not at the convention have been getting a closer look at the title in anticipation of its relaunch. The latest official video keeps up that pattern, giving potential players a look at one of the relaunched version's major new features -- Full Active Time Events, abbreviated as FATEs. Which is a long way to say "dynamic events," admittedly, but that's just the way you roll in Eorzea. FATEs appear all over the world, with some triggered randomly and others coming in at reliable intervals or via talking to an NPC. Once within range of a FATE, you are automatically added to the event and given a rundown of objectives and progress, with rewards being distributed based on overall participation and involvement. Sounds kind of routine? Then perhaps rather than watching that video, you'd like to see a first look at Summoner, Arcanist, and Scholar. Because there's a new video just past the break that also gives a first peek at these as-yet-unseen classes. So even if you know all about FATEs, you'll want to take a look here.
Chaos Theory: The Secret World is getting filthy
So apparently some of you have operatives who have successfully infiltrated the Massively secret lair because someone has gotten a peek at my master plan... I mean, to-do list... and jumped ahead to this week's topic without me! I know we've talked before about how the real-world setting of The Secret World makes it ideal for blurring lines between game and reality, but I wasn't expecting this. Well, no matter. You cannot thwart the master plan; it has already begun. *maniacal laugh* This stage of my brilliant scheme involves taking a closer look at another little nugget found in the May Game Director's Letter. On the surface we see that The Secret World will be getting even filthier at the conclusion of Issue #7 as the nefarious filth will actually break through the Tokyo gate and begin to infect Agartha itself. But more than that, we are witnessing the implementation of a long-term event that will continue to give new content as it progresses. Could this be the harbinger of dynamic events to come that will breathe more life into the world? We can certainly hope!
The Mog Log: Final Fantasy XIV beta phase 1 and 2 - FATEs and dungeons
Do you smell that on the wind, my friends? It smells like June is fast approaching, and more importantly it smells like soon we'll be able to welcome the third phase of testing with open arms. Which is good, since I am currently going through withdrawal. I wake up in cold sweats, try to change my class in other games, start up the Final Fantasy XIV beta client in the hopes that someone "accidentally" turned the servers back on... you get the general idea. To help alleviate this, I'm going to talk about the two pieces of the game from the first two beta phases that are in need of the most polish. While there are places to improve elsewhere, FATEs and dungeons have issues that might need a bit more hammering to fix. Or they might be fine and we just haven't yet seen enough of the game to know everything. Either way, let's get started with the big addition to the game, the system that had no predecessor in Final Fantasy XIV's first version: the FATE system.
Defiance bugs invade RIFT
Adventurers of Telara, you've kind of got a good news/bad news situation taking place here. The bad news is that RIFT is getting invaded, which was already the case. The worse news is that it's now being invaded by the Hellbugs from Defiance, which usually require a great deal of automatic weapons fire to be put down. The good news is that if you can somehow manage to overcome the distinct lack of any firearms and put down the invasion, you can keep a Hellbug around to ride! Wait, that might still be bad news. Yes, Trion Worlds is kicking off a cross-promotional event with new fire rifts that give players a chance at Defiance-related rewards, most notably the chance to pick up a Hellbug mount. The event is open to all players, even if you're just trying out the game's Lite version. No word on how long the event will last, but it's probably best to assume that it won't be forever -- which is also sort of a good news/bad news situation, unless you wanted to see the game overrun by Hellbugs.
The battle is joined: Starting new and fighting through Final Fantasy XIV's relaunch
I know a lot about Final Fantasy XIV. This is surprising to no one; there's a reason Joystiq sent me to the preview event, a reason I write a weekly column about the game, and a reason I still have the Final Fantasy XIV collector's edition box sitting in my office. The net result is that I have spent a lot of time playing the game. As a result, I was more than a little nervous when sitting down to play the revamped version at the Final Fantasy XIV press event in San Francisco last week. Done incorrectly, playing the game could feel subtly wrong, like a stranger pretending to be your old friend. And even if I avoided that pitfall, the gameplay could feel inelegant or forced. I'm happy to report that none of that is the case. Make no mistake -- the game is very different from its original incarnation, but it also sports enough familiar stuff that you aren't left wandering around baffled.
Breakfast Topic: Would Blizzard-run dynamic events work in WoW?
Once upon a time, I served as a guide in EverQuest. Guides were volunteers who went through a training program to become essentially non-staff customer service agents. We retrieved out-of-reach corpses, plucked players from the world geometry, smoothed ruffled feathers during spawn disputes, and a whole host of other GM-ish duties. But perhaps the most fun thing the CS team did was run loosely scripted roleplaying events. I remember my first event with great fondness, a simple scenario in which we took over the orc NPCs inside the keep of a newbie dungeon zone called Crushbone. After provoking the amazed newbies into charging the keep, we slaughtered them by the dozens (to their delight) and eventually departed as mysteriously as we had appeared. The event remains a highlight of my gaming experience. I'll never forget the astonished shouts of players trying to rally others while explaining that yes, the orcs really had come alive! With all of World of Warcraft's emphasis on story, I adore the idea of having some tucked-away corner of a zone spring to life under GM control. Of course, with so many realms and millions of players sprawling across the world, staffing such an endeavor on any sort of regular basis would require massive manpower. Could a volunteer crew manage a dynamic events team in today's World of Warcraft? Would you enjoy participating in dynamic events? Would you want the events to focus on nudging along the main story lines or filling in the backstory, or should they stick to bringing some previously unremarkable NPCs to life? If it were possible to bring the same story to every realm, how would you react if you were offline or otherwise unable to participate when it happened?
Leaderboard: Dynamic events vs. investigation quests
Guild Wars 2 decided to do something a little different when it was time to put together the game's content. Rather than having a few hubs where players can gather and grab a laundry list of quests, the game offers a few points of open-ended content and a lot of random events jumping up all over. The Secret World went in a very different direction with the same goal of mixing up the final experience. Not every quest is a matter of just clicking the right stuff in the right places. There are quests where the answer lies behind a puzzle, something to challenge the mind of the player rather than just your character's murdering arm. In the case of the former, dynamic events keep areas feeling fresh time after time, but they've also garnered some criticism for their simplicity or awkwardness compared to normal quests. On the other hand, the latter is pretty stagnant the second time you're solving the same puzzle, but it offers you a mental tease you don't always get from MMOs. So which do you think is the more interesting breakout? Dynamic events or investigation quests?
The Daily Grind: Are dynamic events another MMO fad?
Move over, MMO story: dynamic events are this season's buzz word. Popularized by earlier MMOs like Warhammer Online and RIFT, dynamic events have become such an integral part of modern MMO design that brand-new Guild Wars 2 employs them as its central content conceit. Skip dynamic events in GW2 and you're going to have a rough time leveling (or surviving the ridicule of the commentariat, who consider dynamic events to be far superior to mundane, quest-like renown hearts). Even MMOFPS titles like Firefall are adopting the mechanic for their PvE fans. But is this actually the type of content we want to see from our MMOs, whatever their flavor? Never mind whether they're actually dynamic -- do you actually think they make for fun, desirable content? Or are we just so sick of themepark-style questing and leveling that we're willing to accept anything in its stead, even if that "anything" might be a fad akin to MMO story? What do you think -- are dynamic events all that and a bag of chips? 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!
Firefall devs talk about dynamic events
Just how dynamic is Firefall? Not dynamic enough, according to Red 5 Studios. In an effort to up the dynamism of the game, the development team is introducing some changes -- specifically, dynamic world events are going to be added to the world. They're so dynamical, it's even part of the name. These new events come in two big categories: local and global. Both the local and global flavors can be world events, which are automagically activated by the game, or on-demand events, which are triggered by players. Global dynamic events are meant to reinforce the large themes of Firefall, while local events are all about what's going on in a specific region. The team is developing events to be engaging, varied, accessible, cooperative, and connected to the story of the world and regions in a meaningful way. For a look at the type of events the team is working on, hit up the official blog post.
The Daily Grind: Are live events due for a revival?
Live MMO events have long since fallen by the development wayside in the pursuit of scripted "dynamic" events. It used to be that game studios would send paid GMs into the game to roleplay with players in a tabletop-like scenario, conducting large-scale storytelling events and spawning enemies, locations, and items. Ultima Online, which celebrates its 15th birthday this week, is particularly well-known for these sorts of events, but they've seldom been replicated in later generations of triple-A MMOs. TERA, apparently, hopes to change that with the implementation of Flash events, "spontaneous events focused on small groups of users and run by staff." They might seem a little out of place in TERA, but they could be a niche worth resurrecting. Live, impromptu events might have the disadvantage of involving only small groups of people and not the entire population, but that's exactly what makes them so intriguing for the players who happen to be in the right zone at the right time when one of these events starts. What do you think? Do you wish more studios would get over their crush on pseudo-dynamic events and return to live events? 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!
Xsyon creature migration system unveiled
As part of making a dynamic, living world, Notorious Games unveiled Xsyon's unique new creature migration system. Unlike worlds where mobs are static, this sandbox will ensure that animals don't just hang around one place. Instead, as animals breed and the populations expand, they will move from regions with higher populations to areas with lower ones. Different species will also exhibit different tendencies when migrating. Smaller, tamer critters will congregate toward the shores of Lake Tahoe and civilization, whereas the more dangerous creatures will migrate toward the mountains away from people. The wild animals that venture too close or into the toxic mist will mutate and return to wreak havoc upon the denizens of the land. [Source: Notorious Games press release]
A critical look at Guild Wars 2
Well, it's finally official: ArenaNet's golden child, Guild Wars 2, has launched, and I'm sure thousands upon thousands of you are too busy playing it to even read this article. On the other hand, it's an MMO launch, so a good chunk of you are bound to be locked out of the servers, unable to launch the client, or any number of other things, and if that's the case, then boy do I have an article for you. But first, allow me to don my flame retardant suit. In the hopes of lowering the deluge of angry emails I'm about to get, let me preface everything by saying this: Guild Wars 2 is a good game -- a great game, even. In fact, I love it. But every time I've had the audacity to mention anything even remotely critical about the title in in-game chat (my first mistake), I've been immediately pounced upon by rabid fans who seem to think that anyone who feels that the game could be better in some regard is a heretic who should just quit the game. So I'm going to do what any rational gamer with a death wish would: take a critical look at Guild Wars 2.
