guild-vs-guild
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Black Gold Online outlines its Guild vs. Guild systems
Guilds in Black Gold Online have plenty to do. Sure, there are the usual social aspects of guilds, but there's also a constantly amplifying race for technological progress combined with territory control. The latest development blog on the official site discusses how guilds can advance and grow in power, as well as the basic outlines of the territory control feature with characters fighting it out over energy wells. All guilds have a level of technology available to them, determined by the amount of eponymous black gold used to upgrade the guild. This can come from members, or it can come from energy wells, which can be fought over on both a factional and intra-factional basis. It's entirely possible for two guilds of the same faction to fight repeatedly over the same well. Take a look at the full article for more details about how you can send your forces to fight and die for that all-important energy.
Albion Online unveils Player-vs-Player and Guild-vs-Guild details
Berlin-based studio Sandbox Interactive released a new dev blog today revealing a number of details regarding Player-vs-Player and Guild-vs-Guild combat in its upcoming title Albion Online. In Albion, much of the game world will be up for grabs, and guilds can claim territories in order to harvest their resources and build shelter for their members in the midst of Albion's wilderness. While guilds can capture as many territories as they like, they'll also be required to defend these territories from opposing guilds who would take their lands. In order to keep Guild-vs-Guild combat fair and balanced, each land-holding guild will be required to choose "a number of times during the day at which their territory will be 'open' to attack." At these times, both the attacking and defending guilds will field a team of five players who will act as champions in the battle, thereby ensuring that no one guild can ensure victory by overwhelming numbers. Those who wish to reap the benefits of holding land without getting their own hands too bloody can instead put a bounty on their enemies' heads and let mercenaries (presumably other players) do the work for them. To learn more about Albion Online and to sign up for the game's upcoming closed beta, head on over to the official site.
Heva Clonia Online announces gameplay test on September 19
OGPlanet has announced today that beta testing for its newest free-to-play MMO Heva Clonia Online will run from September 19th through the 30th for North American players. Heva Clonia Online offers players the ability to clone monsters they find in their adventures and use those clones as pets in PvP monster battles. The game also features large guild vs guild battles, two-person dungeons, mini games, and more. You can sign up for the test at the official site, and be sure to check out the gameplay video just after the jump. [Source: OGPlanet press release]
Allods Online updates guild vs guild rules of engagement
Starting today, warriors in Allods Online's guild versus guild territory battles will have new mechanics at their disposal. These new battle mechanics include the ability to set a battle time to improve the organization and coordination of military campaigns as well as a new tournament-based league for sectors. Additionally, a new matchmaking system aims to keep things balanced and fair by using an improved battle points calculation that allows guilds to challenge others with similar power and skill levels. On top of those changes, players with their own allod can now create a dungeon to hide their treasures in a customizable maze that plunderers will have to successfully navigate. Need another reason to log in and check things out? How about this: Allods Online is offering a special event called A Gift a Day. Starting today, each day a player logs in, s/he will receive a gift. Prizes can include exclusive new costumes and a brand-new wolf mount. If you need any more coaxing, check out new images in the gallery below and the update's trailer after the cut. [Source: Webzen press release]%Gallery-91331%
Age of Wulin emphasizes guild features
Noting that guilds will play an important role in Age of Wulin, Europe's version of Age of Wushu, gPotato has launched a feature to help their formation for the upcoming fantasy sandbox. Groups can now create private message boards directly on the official Age of Wulin forums, giving players a one-stop shopping experience to find a guild. Why is gPotato encouraging folks to band together? Because a number of gameplay features are accessed only through guilds. Membership in a guild offers special perks, including the ability to take on special jobs and to support one of the in-game schools. Only a guild can own, defend, and develop a castle, or conversely, attack, capture, and even burn down other castles. Castle ownership opens up the ability to offer special services to guild members, including libraries and training areas. Guilds, which can grow up to 400 members strong, can participate in massive guild vs. guild warfare with up to 1,300 players (all members and up to 250 invited allies per guild). And between major PvP battles, members can pass the time by kidnapping servants and robbing the holdings of rivals. Beta testing for Age of Wulin will begin in early 2013; the game will launch later in the year in French, English, and German. [Source: gPotato press release]
The Daily Grind: Should MMOs balance for PvP, PvE, or yes?
The original concept for Guild Wars is right there in the name: guild wars. There was no question that regardless of how much PvE content the game planned to feature, there'd be at least as much or more GvG content for the competitive folks. But as more and more skills were added to the game, the devs ran into serious balancing problems and began tweaking the skills so that the PvP meta was less affected by the powercreep slowly taking over PvE. Eventually, ArenaNet split the skills, giving some skills different effects depending on whether they were being used against players or monsters; some newer skills were designed to be PvE-only from the start. Do you think Guild Wars offers a pragmatic solution to the PvE/PvP balance problems that plague so many MMOs? Or do you think games should strive to balance their gameplay without creating skills (or gear) that do different things in different situations? 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!
Hyperspace Beacon: What is this RP-PvP anyway?
At E3, Principal Lead Writer Daniel Erickson expressed that he wanted a roleplay player-vs.-player server for Star Wars: The Old Republic. Granted, BioWare's live team originally intended to not launch with any type of open-world PvP roleplay server. Community Coordinator David Bass confirmed this when he explained that the Guild HQ program will not support RP-PvP servers and that those guilds wishing to roll on those types of servers will have to do it the old fashioned way: in game. According to the Daedalus Project, a study on the habits of MMO players, only 7% of all players actually roll a character on an RP-PvP server. However, when you keep in mind that SWTOR has the largest preorder sales of any PC game as of right now (about 802,000, not including digital and European sales), 7% ends up being a significant number. At least, there are enough people interested in RP-PvP to fill a server. I understand that many people are turned off by the idea of mixing roleplay with PvP. I completely understand that. When the term RP hits people, images of Goldshire and naked Night Elves come to mind immediately. In truth, however, roleplay is really just telling a story through an interactive medium, in this case an MMO. For instance, if in the course of playing SWTOR you find yourself asking, "What would my character do in this situation?", then you have just brushed up against roleplay. In RP-PvP, players enjoy a very similar experience. Today, let's talk about mixing story and PvP. Players have found diverse ways to integrate the two. Beyond the break, I have examples of how you may find ways to do it yourself, even if hardcore roleplay isn't your thing.
Massively Exclusive: Lucent Heart unleashes guild vs. guild
With Lucent Heart's Scaena expansion fast on the way, the developers have yet to run out of new and exciting features to share with the game's players. This week, it's all about pitting guild against guild in mortal conflict. Who will rise? Who will fall? And most importantly of all, who will be pwned and who will be leet? It seems as though Gamania is angling this expansion toward as wide an array of player types as possible, with not only GvG combat satiating the PvP crowd, but Scaena's custom dancing tools pleasing the fluff nuts and new bosses and zones appealing to the PvE questers. Today we have several exclusive pictures showing off Lucent Heart's guild vs. guild combat, as well as an in-depth look into this system from the developers after the jump! %Gallery-130977%
The Game Archaeologist uncovers Shadowbane: Talking with Josef Hall and Todd Coleman, part 1
After a couple of weeks of talking with players about their favorite experiences in Shadowbane, I decided it was high time to flip the discussion from those who played it to those who made it. Today we're going to kick off a two-part interview with the makers of Shadowbane, Josef Hall and Todd Coleman. It's interesting to realize that while MMOs come and go, many developers remain in the industry, moving between projects in surprising ways. In this case, both Hall and Coleman went from the brutal lands of cutthroat PvP to a colorful kids title: Wizard101. It's hard to imagine two MMOs being more different, but that goes to show you that developers, like gamers, don't always like being pigeonholed into specific roles. The duo were extremely eager to talk about Shadowbane, as you'll see from this interview. Buckle up -- you're in for a treat! The Game Archaeologist: Can you introduce yourself to us and explain how you became involved with Shadowbane? Josef Hall: I'm Josef Hall, co-founder of Wolfpack Studios, the creator of Shadowbane. Currently, I'm the Vice President of Development at KingsIsle Entertainment, creator of Wizard101. Todd Coleman: And I'm Todd Coleman, co-founder of Wolfpack. I'm currently the VP of Production and Creative for KingsIsle. Josef and I still work together; we were the two first people brought in start the dev studio for KingsIsle here in Austin. Hall: In fact, Wizard101 was our idea, which is a bit odd, given that we were also the first two people to come up with the core idea behind Shadowbane.
The Game Archaeologist uncovers Shadowbane: The battle-scarred blogger
I've long since enjoyed doing this column because, to me, it feels like the next best thing to having been there back in the day, playing these games. No one MMO player can occupy all titles at once, so experiences are bound to pass us by. Fortunately, the gamers who were there have long memories and are often more than willing to share a story or two if given half the chance. After last week's initial foray into our Shadowbane retrospective, I fished around for a hearty veteran of the minotaur wars who was willing to step up and answer a few questions without succumbing to post-traumatic stress disorder. Within a minute, my good friend Grimnir bit into the topic, and I reeled him in as he flopped and gasped for air. At some point, this metaphor got away from me, but no worries. Hit that jump and let's cast our nets down memory river and see what we can dredge up!
Lost Pages of Taborea: Is the guild lock-out good or bad?
I want to talk about Runes of Magic's lock-out that prevents anyone from forming a guild or inviting players to a guild between set hours each night. The lock-out takes place between the hours of 7 and 11 p.m. EDT every night. That's a four-hour window each evening that is within the only hours some people can play. It prevents players from forming or getting into guilds, which are standard features expected of MMOs these days. Forming communities and playing with others is one of the biggest reasons to play an MMO. This week on Lost Pages of Taborea, I want to discuss the allure of this feature, why I think it's bad that players have to work around it, the pros and cons of why it's in RoM, and why it's not being discussed.
Guild Wars ups the ante for PvP
"This has been a longstanding problem with our competitive formats," the June Guild Wars dev diary bemoans. "There are a great variety to try, but many people haven't found enough reasons to jump in." Hence the impetus behind Guild Wars' June update, which contains a number of new incentives to entice players into the PvP arenas. Some of the biggest changes include the ability to trade Z-coins, new PvP quests, and additional formats that award Zaishen Strongboxes. Another significant change to Guild Wars is that Alliance PvP formats now award Imperial faction. Imperial faction can be converted to one of three types, depending on the player's need: Luxon, Kurzick or Balthazar. This way a player can fight for one side but earn points toward the other, which should go a long way to increasing the frequency of matches. ArenaNet hopes that these changes will encourage players to branch out into different types of PvP instead of sticking to one format that's tied to specific rewards. There are plenty of other tweaks in this update, so be sure to read the full dev diary to learn about changes to titles, the Codex Arena, GvG emotes and more!
Lost Pages of Taborea: Guild activities
What does a guild mean to you? Guilds are the unified packs of like-minded players we gather around to create a little home for ourselves in our favorite MMOs. Guilds are a way to offer camaraderie, a band of tightly knit players who can help each other for mutual gain. Whether it's a family playing together online, close real-life friends who want to create a personal space to hang out, or single players who could use a helping hand to get through harder content, guilds can provide all of them On one hand, having a function to create a guild isn't much more than a label, but that can go a long way. Players run with those kind of tools and create mini-societies and alliances, and they parcel out the playerbase into feudal territories. Even if a guild can be boiled down to just a special name tag, guilds can provide a powerful mechanism for players. Nowadays MMOs are giving guilds more to do, and Runes of Magic has more than its share of guild activities. Let's take a look at what guilds have access to.
Volume 3: The Fury of War coming to Allods Online this December
The free-to-play developer gPotato has announced a third volume for its popular F2P fantasy title Allods Online. The Fury of War follows in the footsteps of the second volume, Rise of Gorluxor, by offering more free options, items, and content. However, this volume will focus more on guilds and high-level content. Two completely new zones will open up for players: the level 40 PvP areas (Melting Isle and the Junes Catacombs) and a level 40 allod called the Lost Isle. The Melting Isle is a faction-forgotten free-for-all PvP arena with a greater chest guaranteed to spawn if there are more than 20 participants. The Junes Catacombs also ignores factional alignments in this PvP maze, but as an added challenge, there are three bosses, including an ultimate boss, that groups must defeat in order to claim the instance rewards. Each time you enter this maze, it changes. After the launch of Volume 3, guilds in Allods can claim ownership of specific allods or entire astral sectors by a new guild-leveling mechanic. This new addition will pit guild against guild for control -- if you claim ownership, you must be able to defend it. Other guilds will want what you have. The Fury of War will launch before Christmas. For more information, visit the Allods official website, where you can download the game and try it out for yourself. %Gallery-108673%
Lost Pages of Taborea: Siege war top 50
One of the fascinating aspects of an MMO is its ability to spark creativity. With so much to do in these large virtual worlds, it's almost inevitable that players will create wikis, fan sites, addons and anything else they can dream up. Runes of Magic is no different, and its siege war has given way to the creation of Siege War Top 50. The fan-made website aggregates siege war scores from all guilds on North American servers and spits it out in various lists. It has been consistently popular on the RoM forums for many weeks now and is a testament to how popular siege war is. Let's take a look at this site and see what makes it tick. Along the way, I share commentary about the site and siege war in general, and you'll get to see which guilds are in the top bracket out of all the North American servers.
Earthrise lead game designer on core concepts and game mechanics
One of the independent MMOs in the works that interests Massively is Earthrise, being developed by Masthead Studios in Bulgaria. We came across an Earthrise interview at OnlineWelten by Anja Gellesch, originally in German but translated into English. Masthead's Lead Game Designer Apostol Apostolov gives a well-worded introduction to the premise of the game and its "post-post-apocalyptic" setting, but there's plenty of details to be found in the interview as well. He discusses player choice in the game, how some will opt to join a faction while other players remain neutral in the struggle between the technocratic elite Continoma, and the shadowy resistance movement Noir. Apostolov also mentions that there are 20 different zones spread across the game's island setting of Enterra.
Massively Interview: Masthead Studios' CEO on Earthrise and freedom of choice
There is a slow but steady shift in direction in the MMO industry from being dominated by fantasy titles to one where gamers have other options, namely in terms of sci-fi and post-apocalyptic games. The smaller game studios producing these titles have some big challenges ahead of them, not the least of which is whether or not MMO gamers will embrace settings and gameplay elements that depart from the fantasy MMO paradigm. One of those newcomers to the MMO scene is Masthead Studios who are developing the post-apocalyptic Earthrise.This first title from Masthead Studios will present gamers with a futuristic, dystopian setting where two major factions struggle for control over the island of Enterra, the last refuge of humanity after the burn. Continoma are the technocratic elite; they hold the keys to genetic immortality and enforce their ordered societal views on the population they've resurrected. The game's other major faction, Noir, is a shadow government -- the resistance. Earthrise's setting and factional struggles aren't limited to simple right-and-wrong scenarios, though, and this carries over to the gameplay. Players or guilds may align with one faction or another for their own benefit, but the game's numerous sub-factions provide other options for allegiances, or even the possibility of shifting those allegiances. We had the opportunity to see Earthrise firsthand at GDC 2009 but we've always got more questions. Fortunately, Masthead Studios was willing to oblige. We've had another chance to speak with Masthead Studios CEO Atanas Atanasov about some of the core concepts and lore behind Earthrise, and how their approach to the game and the genre should allow a great deal of freedom for players.%Gallery-48760%
Earthrise question of the week is a call to crafters
Earthrise is the post-apocalyptic MMO being developed by Masthead Studios that will have a game setting quite different from the crumbled, burned out world we'd typically associate with global armageddon. Earthrise is set in a utopian future that's quickly turning dystopian, one that's still rather crumbly on the outskirts to keep that aftermath feel to the game. Beyond the guild warfare and sandbox elements of gameplay Massively has looked at in the past, Masthead Studios is putting a great deal of emphasis on the game's crafting system. In fact, this is the focus of the Earthrise Question of the Week on the game's forums, posted by the game's community manager Moll. However, instead of simply doing a brief Q&A as in other weeks, Moll explains the concepts behind the crafting system before eliciting feedback from Earthrise fans.%Gallery-48760%
Earthrise interview sheds light on title's sandbox gameplay
Fans of 'sandbox' massively multiplayer online titles where gamers can largely play how they choose to might be interested in Earthrise, a post-apocalyptic MMO in development at Masthead Studios. Although there's no solid estimate on the game's release date, Masthead Studios is getting the word out about Earthrise in preparation for beta testing. The most recent interview they've done can be found over at GameSNAFU. Michael G. Koshgarian from GameSNAFU interviewed Masthead Studios CEO Atanas Atanasov, who dished out some info on the storyline quests for the warring Continoma and Noir factions. Of particular interest is the fact that players will be able to shift their allegiances and defect to a rival faction, but at the risk of being branded a traitor.
Esteemed Guild Wars guild punished for cheating
Guild tournaments are serious business in Guild Wars. The arena-based PvP in ArenaNet's successful MMO is widely popular as global guilds face up for a top spot on the Tournament Ladder. One of the most popular and powerful of these competitive guilds is Rebel Rising [rawr], who has been in the spotlight many times for their own separate Rawr Cup Tournament. Recently though, Rebel Rising was caught cheating in a Guild versus Guild tournament. According to ArenaNet, both teams stopped fighting at the end of a match, allowing the timer to run down and guaranteeing both teams a spot in the Top 16. As punishment, Rebel Rising will have their gold cape trim removed for one month, while the other team, Survival Rate [zero] will not receive their silver cape trim, as would usually be awarded for a guild placing in the top 16.Since this was the first offense for both guilds, the punishment was light. ArenaNet has stated that any future offenses will be met with temporary or permanent bans for any players involved. So how do you feel about this decision? When guilds knowingly break the rules to manipulate the ladder, should the punishment be more harsh or more lenient?
