exile
Latest
The Nexus Telegraph: Examining the Exiles of WildStar
It's a truism you can see in literally any project you undertake: As a project wears on, standards for success slip lower and lower. The Exiles of WildStar have seen their major project go on for a very long time now. It started with Brightland's rebellious activities, yes, but at the time, those were actions of protest. That was a long time ago now, down what seems like an almost unfathomably far road. The Exiles of today certainly aren't fighting to reverse policies or change the Dominion; they're fighting for a home. We're introduced to the game's setting as a conflict between two opposing factions, but let's not mince words. The heart of the conflict has been over for a very long time now. The Exiles lost. What players will be jumping into is not the latest part of an ongoing struggle but the last stand of one faction that survives partly on the simple ignorance of its greatest enemy.
Get a heaping helping of lore in this week's WildStar Wednesday
This week's WildStar Wednesday is a bit of a history lesson -- a tale of refugees, daring rescues, and fragile hopes. As the exiled races came together to hide from the Dominion's watchful eye, they found themselves increasingly short on food, water, and functioning ships. As every good sci-fi/fantasy fan knows, it's in the darkest moment that a glimmer of light appears (after which it is no longer the darkest moment). Just as the members of the Exile Fleet began to lose all hope, Dorian Walker brought glad tidings of a planet where they could settle and start anew: Nexus. The announcement would mean nothing if the races couldn't all band together. You'll have to read the official post to see whether they could put the past behind them for the greater good. (Spoiler alert: They could and did!)
Halo 4's Campaign, War Games and Spartan Ops in latest screens
Halo 4 comes with three capacious modes: Campaign, in which Master Chief faces a new Forerunner threat; War Games, a mixture of competitive multiplayer modes; and Spartan Ops, an episodic and story-driven series of four-player cooperative missions.We have new screens from all three modes right below. Be sure to check out Chief's new opponents, the Prometheans – not to be confused with the Protheans from Mass Effect – and "Solace," a vibrant new battleground for competitive matches like Capture the Flag (yes, that guy above is shooting with flag in hand) and Halo 4's frantic spin on territory tussles, Dominion.%Gallery-166233%
Sphero gets a firmware upgrade and new apps, we get another look at its Augmented Reality Engine (video)
You remember Sphero, right? Last we checked in with its creators from Orbotix at E3, the $130 robotic ball was getting ready to act as a 3D controller and the guide point for an Augmented Reality Engine. This week, along with the release of a firmware upgrade, a few new free apps have been released, including two that'll let you use that 3D controller functionality. Better yet, Orbotix has given us a sneak peek at the progress it's made on the AGR since we last checked it out. Join us past the break if you're curious to find out more.
Orbotix pits Sphero as an advanced 3D controller, details upcoming Augmented Reality Engine (hands-on)
During the wind down of E3, we were able to spend a few fleeting moments with the folks from Orbotix to talk about its latest batch of upcoming software for Sphero. If you're unfamiliar with the gizmo, it's essentially a Bluetooth-enabled robotic ball that can be controlled using your Android or iOS device. While Sphero is certainly a unique toy, we grew bored of it quickly -- it ended up best serving us as spendy dog toy during our review. The toy does have constant app development in its favor however, and the company insists that it will continue to offer free apps that open up the roller's capabilities. Head past the break where we'll detail two new advancements on the platform: augmented reality and advanced 3D control support.
The enduring web of indie veteran Spiderweb Software
Spiderweb Software is one of the oldest independent development studios in existence. Founded in 1994 by Jeff Vogel, Spiderweb has been developing RPG gems for close to 18 years, beginning with the Exile series, and more recently launching the first of its new Avadon trilogy, titled The Black Fortress.Today the indie industry is regarded as a true form of gaming and art, producing superstars, millionares and rabid fanbases, all within a cool bubble of hipster trendiness. As Vogel tells Joystiq, it didn't start out that way."When I started, there was no indie culture," Vogel says. "We were writing what was called 'shareware' and everyone thought that we were losers. The whole thing about indie developers being respectable and able to make real money on Steam and iTunes is a very new development. And it still makes my head spin."Vogel is lucky -- he found a loyal, niche market in the indie RPG genre -- but he's also displayed a lot of dedication to have survived on his own for almost two decades, longer than many in the latest wave of indie developers have been alive."I'm proud of survival," Vogel says. "I've been doing this for seventeen years, working for the same company and making the same genre of game in the same way. The list of people who have done that is very short."
Wasteland Diaries: Choose your clan
If you are playing Fallen Earth and you are not in a clan, you are doing it wrong. The importance of clan membership cannot be overstated. There are simply too many benefits to not find one that suits you. There is safety in numbers if you are a PvPer. It's nice to team up on that nasty boss with your PvE buddies. And roleplaying by yourself isn't roleplaying at all; it's just being weird. We need to interact with other people to get the most out of an MMO game. Hence: clans. Finding a clan to join is easy. Finding the best clan for you is a bit more complicated. In order to make it a little bit easier for you to choose the clan that's best for you, I have compiled a list of Fallen Earth clans for you to check out. I've supplied their requirements, playstyle focus, and website when available -- some clans are more secretive than others (or maybe less formal). So click past the cut and start your search for your new BFFs.
Wasteland Diaries: Car wars
Lately, I've been doing a lot of crafting in Fallen Earth. I have a lot of materials stockpiled, and it seems they are just taking up space. So I've been putting together some vehicles (Interceptor Speedsters, to be precise). They take about four days each to make; that's in real time, mind you. There isn't much of a demand for them right now. In fact, they sell very inexpensively on the auction house. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do with them, but I guess it can't hurt to have a couple on hand. Fallen Earth is unique in the sense that you can't purchase a mount from a vendor NPC. You can get them from the rewards merchant or buy them from the Fallen Earth store, but the usual method of acquiring one is to craft it or buy it from the auction house. Some are even quest rewards. But the majority of the mounts out there are provided by the playerbase. In this post, I'll look at the evolution of vehicular combat in Fallen Earth and what we might hope and expect to see in the future. So put the pedal to the metal and zip past the cut for more.
Wasteland Diaries: The battle of Haietta
There are new PvP objectives in Fallen Earth. Well, the objectives are the same, but the means of achieving those objectives are now different. Conflict towns remain largely unchanged, but the taking and holding of one is now dramatically different because of a few subtle changes. No longer are the non-timed towns captured by doing repeatable missions. Timed conflict towns haven't changed at all. But the other towns had a silly mechanic: having the PvPers do PvE missions to control a town. The attackers and defenders would roam about doing missions and possibly run into one another and fight. More often than not, there was little fighting. The new system concentrates the action on a certain point -- actually, three points. The Faction Control Points (FCPs) are placed near or in the town. They are now the key to controlling the town. Of course you can still do it the old-fashioned way, but it's much quicker to control all three points at once. Controlling all three points will give the controlling faction a steady stream of faction points toward its cause. Each tower held contributes 2500 points to the controlling faction about every five minutes.If you've ever done the missions in a conflict town, you know this is a much faster method. PvP is rampant in Fallen Earth right now. Well, in Haietta, it is. After the cut, I'll give a first-hand account of what I've seen on the front lines.
Wasteland Diaries: A brief history
Fallen Earth has a relatively short history, as far as the power struggles on the server. Yes, in case you didn't know it, Fallen Earth is a single-server game. Everything I'll discuss in this post occurred on that single shard. The power struggles in the wastelands, be they between factions or clans, have been ever-changing. It seems that no one group retains power for very long. They say that history is written by the victors. And they could be right, but since we lack clear winners, I'll write it. There isn't really a way to assert dominance in Fallen Earth in any kind of overt way. But there are subtleties that player groups can control. In some cases, they can even hold a resource with which to extort the playerbase. In the future we may see a true struggle for resources in an apocalyptic wasteland, but for now we will have to be content with simply crushing our enemies. After the break I'll chronicle the past year or so and outline how the power struggle evolved through that time period. Not everyone will agree with my perception of the events, but I'll do the best I can to remain unbiased.
Wasteland Diaries: Clan wars
Clan wars were only added to Fallen Earth shortly after the 1.4 patch, so the system hadn't been extensively tested until this past weekend. Exile and Wolves of War clashed in three towns in Sector 1 on three separate days. These engagements were some of (if not the) largest PvP battles ever fought in Fallen Earth. The clan war system has proven to be a bit unwieldy and there were some minor bugs, but for the most part, it worked as advertised. This past weekend was also testament to the fact that the server can handle 40 or more combatants slugging it out in a crowded town with their mounts present. During the week both sides saw a heavy troop buildup in Sector 1, but it wasn't until Wolves of War massed a large band of Blight Wolf Cavalry in and around Zanesville that the battle lines were drawn. After the town was occupied by the Wolves, they fortified their positions and awaited the inevitable assault by Exile's troops. There will be a full After Action Report after the cut!
EVE Evolved: Combat boosters
The drug trade has been a part of EVE since the very beginning. Originally, drugs were nothing more than a trading commodity occasionally demanded by agents in low security space. The old drug trade goods still exist in EVE, a non-functional relic of years gone past. A new drug trade has taken its place - the black market for performance-enhancing combat boosters. If you want to push your ship to the absolute limit of its abilities, whether it's for PvE or PvP, you're definitely going to want to get your hands on some combat boosters. In this article, I take a look at the drug trade in EVE and the different kinds of performance-enhancing combat boosters that are available.
All the World's a Stage: So you want to be an orc
This installment of All the World's a Stage is the second in a series of roleplaying guides in which we find out all the background information you need to roleplay a particular race or class well, without embarrassing yourself.If you've seen Lord of the Rings, or read any other fantasy story in which orcs are portrayed, you probably think orcs are hideous humanoid monsters charging mindlessly forward to slaughter helpless innocents. Azerothian orcs are significantly different, however, with a shamanistic culture that prides honor above all other virtues.But unless you've played World of Warcraft or Warcraft 3, you probably wouldn't know that. The orcs of Warcraft 1 and 2 were pretty squarely in "bad guy" territory, and it is only with the story of Thrall's rise to power and return to shamanism that we find out what the orcs' true history is.Ironically, the story of the orcs is a bit like that of the horrors of modern Nazis and the lore of the ancient Jews mixed together. Imagine that the vast majority of your species came under the sway of a terrible and evil leader, utterly determined to commit genocide against your peaceful neighbors. After carrying out this deplorable task, your people sought a new enemy, and found a new world to destroy. In the midst of this conquest, however, your people's political leadership failed, the way back home was cut off, and you all ended up as slaves in exile, lethargic and utterly without hope. Suddenly, a hero appeared to unite your people, overcome your former masters, restore your ancient faith, reclaim your dignity, and establish a new homeland. What follows is a brief account of the events most orcs know about or lived through, and a glimpse of the effects they would have had on your character.
Spiderweb's Jeff Vogel on shareware game development
If you enjoy classic role-playing adventures that provide hours of addictive and virtually bug-free entertainment, you should check out shareware titles Geneforge and Avernum from Spiderweb Software. For the past decade, the Seattle-based developer has been providing Mac and PC gamers with inexpensive, quality alternatives to mainstream RPG releases. The engaging storytelling and character development that was introduced in earlier Spiderweb releases Exile and Nethergate have remained a formula for success through eight iterations of the Avernum and Geneforge franchises.As Geneforge 4: Rebellion nears completion, RPG Watch caught up with company founder and head Spider Jeff Vogel to learn more about his creative process and how Spiderweb's games are evolving. He had this to say about adding incremental graphic enhancements to the latest Geneforge: "I don't have a religious opposition to decent graphics. I never have. I always put in the best graphics my limited budget and programming skills allow. It's all about fun, and about creating an engrossing experience for the player. And if I have a way to improve the atmosphere of the game and pull the player in more, I'll do that. I can never match the big boys, but I do what I can."After reading the interview, head over to Spiderweb's home to learn more about Jeff and the life of a shareware developer.
