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Trion sheds some light on RIFT's PvP dimension development
PvP dimensions have been a much-requested feature for RIFT ever since the dimensions feature debuted with the game's Storm Legion expansion in November of 2012. Yesterday brought some good, if vague, news for players waiting on PvP dimensions: They're still in development, but no ETA is available. Trion Worlds's Pithos (of the RIFT development team) explained via the game's official forums that the release date depends on "how many features [the team] want[s] to launch with, and how often other tasks take priority." He also explained that the team has a very basic version working that includes start points, graveyards, and respawning. Make of that what you will.
ArenaNet offers sneak peek at future Guild Wars 2 balance changes
Game design lead Jonathan Sharp took to the Guild Wars 2 official forums yesterday to offer players a "high level" look at ArenaNet's plans for profession balance and improvements. Although the changes won't be going into effect until the October 15th release -- and Sharp cautions that some of them might not make it in that early -- ArenaNet wants to provide fans with a chance to see where each profession is headed and to offer feedback. Several nifty quality of life improvements are also in the works, such as updated trait tooltips and more options for fast cast ground targeting. In another forum post, lead content designer Mike Zadorojny gave fans an update on GW2's highly anticipated looking-for-group tool. To ensure quality and stability, a beta version of the tool will be released with next week's Tequatl Rising content patch and will initially be available to a limited number of players. As the week goes on, greater numbers of players will have access to the tool. [Thank you to Siphaed for the tip!]
Breakfast Topic: Tell us about your most epic WoW death
Xigwa posted a list of epic ways to die in WoW over at the official forums. Some of them are doable in game, while others are just fun things to imagine, such as "Tell Garrosh his head is too small." Many forum posters chimed in with their ideas, including Blizzard employee Crithto: Crithto I'm actually quite fond of Stood in Fire. Each time one of my characters has died to the flames, I spend another several minutes maximizing my camera distance to gaze in awe at the firestorm. 07/05/2012 11:34 AMPosted by Xigwa 5. Plan your wedding in the middle of Orggrimmar and invite all your Alliance buddies. I have just found new motivation to locate the missus! source My favorite ways to die aren't exactly epic. I enjoy complaining about dying to the Undercity elevator boss -- and I get to complain very often. I love when The Spousal Unit leaves himself underwater while going AFK, only to find himself drowned when he returns. It's particularly fun when he does it in full raid gear. He's really good at that one.
Blizzard looking into weapon enchant display solution
The World of Warcraft artists are second to none in the industry, masterfully turning concepts into game reality. What happens, sadly, when your awesome weapon graphics are overshadowed by the overzealous weapon enchant you are practically required to have? Blizzard is still looking into a way to deal with displaying weapon enchants, either through a toggle, some other interface switch, or some unannounced feature yet to be determined. While I agree with Blizzard that iconic and recognizable looks are a great way to pinpoint what items are capable of how much damage and power, as we have seen with transmogrification, the general scope of iconic looks has changed drastically. If it's possible and feasible, Blizzard will allow us to toggle our enchants, especially after the success of transmogrification.
Bashiok comments on WoW's difficulty, accessibility
Players have remarked on the changing difficulty and accessibility of WoW (as well as the MMO genre in general) over the years. What once was a raiding environment based on the grueling EverQuest model has evolved into a new type of accessible/challenging hybrid. One of these discussion posts on the forums has been addressed by Bashiok, who gave quite the answer to players who long for the days of grueling grinds and oppressive content.
Mortal Online busting out tremendous banhammer on hackers
Hackers beware. The team at Star Vault have their eyes on you, and it's time to stop any and all shenanigans you've got going on in Mortal Online. Or else, you say? Or else the banhammer awaits you -- and according to their most recent update, it means an instant, permanent ban that could leave you staring at the login screen in frustration. According to a post by Maerlyn on the Mortal Online forums, there is currently no set date on when software monitoring will come into play, or even what method they'll use to monitor for third-party applications or changes in the game files that are being reported. A follow-up posting by Tazaterra in the same thread indicates that anyone who has modified game files needs to stop at this time. With the game still being tweaked pending release, we're glad to see the team at Star Vault is taking a proactive stance on this before the floodgates officially open. In a game where PvP is everything, players need to know that anyone using exploits, hacks, bots or the like to tip the game balance will be dealt with swiftly and before it causes game imbalances. [via TTH]
Rumor: Server merge may be in the cards for Vanguard
Server merges are a fairly touchy subject with just about any MMO community. For some, they're a sign that a company is putting a game on life support. For others, it is viewed as a way for a company to pool resources and effort in maintaining a smaller server structure so they can redistribute funds and manpower into improving the game. In either case, it still beats having one's favorite MMO shut down altogether. That's why we were interested to note a somewhat cryptic post on the official Vanguard forums made by Salim "Silius" Grant, the game's Lead Developer. While he doesn't state that he is definitely talking about server merges, the thread is named "the big merger" and merges are the primary topic in the thread. The post in question reads: "[w]e are still working out the details on this. We are finalizing the process and running it through QA while working on the marketing side so we can get the word out to people and a good bit of forewarning. Hopefully we can get the official word out soon. Sorry for the lack of updates but it really has just been constant QA of the process so we can have as few bugs as possible once this occurs. This combined with getting the other content releases out the door has made things rather hectic around here." We contacted Sony Online Entertainment for clarification, but were told that there are currently no plans on the horizon for server merges in Vanguard. What precisely Grant could have been talking about in his forum posting if this is the case is something we're going to have to wait and see.
Ghostcrawler on the future of 5-mans
Snowyfox of the US Vek'nilash server recently brought up a point on the forums which is near and dear to my heart: 5-mans really feel like they've lost their heart. In both Vanilla WoW and Burning Crusade, you could usually count on having the motivation and reward for running a 5 man no matter what your level. In Vanilla WoW, you might do a tribute run for potions and buffs or a Stratholme run for Abomination stitchings for an enchant. In BC, you'd run for badges. In Wrath of the Lich King... not so much. Badges don't stretch so far since most of the good stuff requires badges only obtained in raid dungeons, and even the daily quests aren't even close to as lucrative as just heading up to the Argent Tournament or over to the Sons of Hodir and doing some dailies.
Ryzom switching to billing 'soon'
While the players of Ryzom have enjoyed playing for free for the last while, it appears that the time is approaching for that to end. An announcement on the Ryzom forums indicates that they're working on changing the game back over to being under a pay-to-play monthly subscription. After initially seeing the game taken offline last year, then bouncing back, It's been a hell of a ride for the Ryzom faithful. While this most recent reincarnation seems to be doing well, only time will tell if the move back to a monthly subscription model will help it grow further in terms of new content and players or not. That said, if you've wanted to check out Ryzom, you'd better get on the ball. From what their forum message indicates, you only have a few weeks left before its free-to-play status is history. Who knows, you might find yourself enjoying it so much that you roll to a monthly subscription when the time comes too.
Bat mounts? Blizzard, please make it so.
An interesting post popped up on the forums, mourning the passing of racial mounts, which apparently nobody uses anymore. The poster pointed out that most people now using bears or mammoths, every Death Knight using their cool Deathchargers, and a rare few actually still using their faction mounts. This sparked a flurry of responses and even had Eyonix chime in with his thoughts (and enviable epeen stroking when he casually dropped his Spectral Tiger in the conversation).I'm actually guilty of not riding my faction mount, the closest I ever got being the Swift Warstrider. I currently use the very awesome but all-too-common Black War Bear (every day, it's like 40 more people pop up with the mount), and for flying I use the not-so-common but also not-very-awesome Albino Drake. On my engineer I'm enjoying the Turbo-Charged Flying Machine and I plan to get a motorcycle when he dings 80. If I could afford Salvaged Iron Golem Parts and everything else, that is. There are really quite a lot of mounts to choose from, which is probably why the easily acquired, 'vanilla' mounts aren't as popular.
Forum post of the day: Murphy's Law
Sometimes it's just not your day. Some people consider themselves to be just plain unlucky. Gainus of Icecrown posted a thread on "Murphy's Law," as it applies to World of Warcraft. Murphy's law states "Whatever can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worst possible time, in the worst possible way." This particular adage is regularly applied in situations of irony and coincidence, in much of Western Culture. The original poster noted "Every time I get to that point in 2v2 arena where a psychic scream will let me get off 2-3 mana burns, my fear makes my target run in a perfect L, away from me and behind a pillar before I can even get off 1 cast. It's like that's the exact path they would have taken if they weren't feared."
Raid dungeons for everyone?
Earlier today, WoW player Blabberwort posted on the official forums with an interesting suggestion: Create a new dungeon setting that allows players to explore dungeons on a lower level of difficulty. According to the poster, this "Tourist" setting (as opposed to "Heroic") would allow curious players to experience the content although they wouldn't be able to earn any loot from killing creatures in the dungeons. For many players, this would likely satisfy their raiding urges, since it seems that a lot of non-raiders would simply like to experience the content once or twice without the pressure to continually farm it for loot.Prior to the expansion, I didn't have a lot of opportunities to raid and a similar idea occurred to me. At the time I thought it would be pretty cool if there was a quest for each major raid dungeon that gave the player the chance to explore it without being able to engage in combat with any of the creatures. For instance, at the end of a lengthy quest line throughout Blackrock Mountain and the surrounding zones, you're finally tasked with a reconnaissance mission into the heart of Ragnaros's lair. You'd be able to enter the zone just like normal, but when you arrived inside the Core, you'd be wearing a non-removable Dark Iron dwarf costume. All the creatures would be friendly to you and you could talk to them as you made your way through the dungeon, completing the requirements of your quest. (Check out the quest "Who Are They?" for an example of what I'm talking about.) Perhaps you'd have to deliver a message to one of the bosses or simply visit certain locations in the dungeon, but the quest would have a definite objective and ending. If you chose not to complete the quest, you could keep it in your log and continually explore the zone.
"Welfare epics"
To the best of my recollection, one of the WoW developers first coined the terminology "welfare epics" at last August's Blizzcon. I've had difficulty finding the original source, but as I recall, the context of the talk had to do with the goal of the WoW designers to make all players put forth some degree of effort in obtaining quality gear. The specific gear in question was that purchased with arena points.New arena loot was released to the clamoring masses a couple of days ago, and some of the items have arena rating requirements on them, thus setting in motion the designers' plan to avoid a proliferation of welfare epics. As per usual with changes of this magnitude, the official forums are rife with controversial topics. This time around, its the PvE players arguing with PvP players regarding the quality and accessibility of arena loot. Some of this debate spilled over into the comments on one of my own recent posts, piquing my interest in the issue even further.
