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Star Wars: The Old Republic will address balance and ranked PvP for update 3.1
Star Wars: The Old Republic is launching update 3.1 in about a month, and the developers are using this patch to address some standing issues. The patch also kicks off the game's fourth ranked play season, which is scheduled to last about three months. This season will be used as the basis for some new ranked play adjustments, such as implementing a "floor" rating for picking up the lowest-tier season rewards in Season 5. The season's titles will also be class-specific based on forum feedback. Designers are also looking into balancing classes, starting with the Darkness Assassin and the Kinetic Combat Shadow, addressing issues with survivability and damage in the class. If you've been feeling squishier or less resilient or noticed oddities with abilities, you can take part in the thread yourself. Early versions of these changes have already been rolled out to the test servers for the coming update. [Thanks to Mikey Moo for the tip!]
WildStar will reduce grind, focus on 'a multitude of playstyles' in 2015
Where does WildStar go from here? That's the question that director Mike Donatelli seeks to answer with his latest address to the community. Donatelli says this morning that while he's thankful for the praise the game received toward the end of 2014, there are several areas where the game needs to improve, and thus the team is working on making a better game experience for everyone moving forward. He lays out three chief foci for the team over the next year: listen to feedback to make the game more fun and "less grindy"; support "a multitude of playstyles," group sizes, and levels; and invest, expand, and improve the existing game. Donatelli targets for these plans the first half of 2015, which will contain better-tuned endgame reward systems to fight fatigue along with a wider breadth of content for solo and small-group players. Over the rest of the year, the team plans to introduce a new Contract system to support different playstyles, continue tuning the rewards, and greatly expand the game's customization options. It's a lot of changes, but the Carbine team seems dedicated to making them work.
Final Fantasy XIV's Yoshida on housing, test servers, and post-Fanfest
Final Fantasy XIV has had a busy year, and it looks to be having a busy next year to boot. The game's first expansion is in the works and planned for a release in spring of 2015, along with another major patch to cap off the game's current patch cycle. And director/producer Naoki Yoshida continues steering the ship, working what I can only assume is a 200-hour week. I had a chance to ask a few questions of Yoshida around the time of the first two fanfests of the year (the final one is scheduled for December in Tokyo), ranging from housing questions to the promise of public test servers to how hard it will be to establish an Eternal Bond. Jump on past the break to read the full interview!
Carbine's Donatelli and Moore on WildStar's population and philosophy
Two weeks ago, Carbine Studios offered us the opportunity to interview product director Mike Donatelli and creative director Chad Moore regarding the state of WildStar and what future updates would bring to the game. We have their thorough answers in their entirety for you today; Carbine assures us that there was no animosity or conspiracy in the delay, and we thank the studio for that. So let's get to it: Read on as the duo discuss WildStar's current population, business model, development strategy, and plans for the near future.
Destiny announces 3.2 million daily players
It's been a month since Destiny's launch, which is as good a time as any to see how healthy the game is now. As it turns out? Quite healthy indeed. Bungie is reporting that the game has 3.2 million players logging into the game on a regular basis, with the average play session lasting three hours at a stretch even during weekdays. Bungie also took the opportunity to respond to player complaints about the Iron Banner event. While the event was advertised as allowing gear and power to matter more directly in the Crucible, the event did not simply turn off all restrictions; players are still normalized to an extent so that a level 30 Guardian cannot defeat someone else in a single shot. Power matters, but skill matters too, and the biggest functional difference you can have between players is about a seven-level gap. For more details, take a look at the full explanation.
PlanetSide 2 patches in Directive improvements and space pumpkins
The latest PlanetSide 2 patch is a pretty big one even without the pumpkins. Yes, there are pumpkins. Space pumpkins. You will need to shoot them to get currency, which you can then cash in for Halloween-themed masks, maximizing your character's spookiness through the month. But the patch has a lot of other changes in it as well, starting with major improvements to Directive tracking and overall Directive progression, complete with a new Leadership tree. Experience awards are also adjusted slightly, changing certain bonuses and how they're distributed to make life a bit easier for players. Offline cert points have also been removed from non-Member accounts and added exclusively to Members, thus making your subscription seem just a bit more worthwhile. For a full rundown of these changes, other balance tweaks, and the like, check out the full patch notes. [Thanks to theKavorka for the tip!]
The Nexus Telegraph: How to fix WildStar
It's been a quiet couple of weeks for WildStar, which could be taken as indicating the team is making major changes, or it could just be pre-patch preparations that are taking half of forever. It'd look the same either way. We know the next patch is coming, and we have some idea of what it's going to contain, but we still haven't gotten anything resembling a release date. Still, leaving aside the obvious shift in patch schedules, I'd like to think this is the start of a paradigm shift for the game's development as a whole. This ties into the last column's topic quite well. The game has issues at the moment; it's not hitting the notes or player numbers it wants. What can actually be done to address this? How can the game draw players back and keep them engaged, especially when it's in need of some pretty serious server consolidation so early in its life?
Mortal Online details its territory control mechanics
Do you want some land in Mortal Online? Then why beat around the bush? Why not just reach out and take it? The game's territory control system is arriving soon, and the developers have offered an introductory guide at the system to give players a better look at how everything will fit together. Players will be able to place and upgrade a variety of structures in controlled territory, with most structures requiring skills to be placed but not improved. NPC contracts can also be used for shopkeepers, guards, and the like. What can and cannot be placed is determined by guild stones, which are gated by the number of members in your guild. Players can also choose the behavior of guards in the town, ranging from law-abiding to attacking any players not in the guild on sight. The update is also bringing in a minor change for free-to-play players, limiting free accounts to logging in from one computer per day, which is intended to prevent players from creating free accounts and logging into all of them in short order to boost guild sizes. You can take a look at the full territory control guide on the official site. [Thanks to Dengar for the tip!]
Roberts discusses Star Citizen's inventory system, balancing, and factions
Star Citizen fans can get some answers from Chris Roberts, assuming that the questions they have match up with the five questions featured in the latest video. There's nothing fancy about this one, just Roberts sitting down and answering top fan questions about the game as collected from the game's Reddit directory. Roberts starts off by discussing inventory and how it will be influenced by player outfits, along with the different inventories for ships, player characters, and the like. He also talks about balancing with weapons and items in the present and in the future, the interplay of organization membership with enemy NPC factions, ship durability, and the details on the Caterpillar. If you want to hear about all of that, jump on past the break to watch the full video; it's only eight minutes long, but it contains plenty of information for fans to consider and discuss in depth.
Final Fantasy XI previews Incursion battles, September version update
Ready to strike against the heart of the Velkk kingdom in Final Fantasy XI? The new Incursion system will allow players to do just that, rewarding combatants with experience points, capacity points, and of course, plenty of loot. The dungeon can also scale its difficulty upward, posing an ever-greater challenge for larger groups and more experienced players alike. All players need are Velkk Fetishes looted from Marjami Ravine, with a minimum of six people allowed in; monster HP will increase for larger groups. Once inside, players will have 45 minutes to tackle the battles within, including six Notorious Monsters wandering the area. Collecting key items from those Notorious Monsters will allow players to face a harder version of the Incursion the next time around, improving rewards all around for a successful clear. Check out the full preview for all of the details on how to take the fight to the heart of enemy territory. The team has also released more details on the upcoming September version update.
Massively Exclusive: Previewing Path of Exile's Tora, Master of the Hunt
The newest expansion to Path of Exile is all about the eponymous Masters -- their goals, their attitudes, and what they can teach the player. Tora is fairly straightforward in all of the above. She is all about the hunt, taking out the monsters that surround Wraeclast, and in her own words, she wants to root out the corruption that has taken root in her world now, before it does any further harm to the natural balance. I had a chance to speak with producer Chris Wilson about Tora and the expansion as a whole the other day, and he happily shared details both about Tora herself and one of the new challenge leagues that will be going live with the expansion on August 20th. Hop on past the break to see Tora's video introduction and to learn more about what players can expect from the huntress, the challenge league, and the expansion in general.
Ever, Jane updates on test builds and the ever-lost hankie
Yes, there is a hankie to worry about in the latest development build of Ever, Jane. Mrs. Hatch's hankie, to be specific. She's lost it before, she's lost it again, and it's up to players to retrieve it, assuming they'd like to curry favor with Mrs. Hatch. The build also adds a number of endgame raiding systems, by which we of course mean the first pass of the game's gossip and sleuthing system, key to the overall social experience of the game. Essentially, the gossip system allows you to craft a few different potential responses to NPCs and to track what other characters are saying about your character. This means that in addition to assassinating or bolstering the reputations of others, you can also try to sort out your own reputation for good or for ill. Take a look at the full update for an explanation of the system, future updates, and other improvements in the most recent build.
WoW's Warlords of Draenor beta: A disappointing start
My time with the Draenor beta has been an overwhelming disappointment. Warlords of Draenor is to World of Warcraft as Man of Steel is to the Superman mythos. It's an effort to collect classic elements with no regard for the setting in which they make sense, throwing them together like line items. It's aware of the history of the franchise only as a resource to mine, and it's just giving us all of the old familiar pieces without the parts that made those pieces memorable. Imagine watching Harrison Ford pretending to be Indiana Jones despite being far too old for the role now, locked in a script with no sense of momentum or energy, going through the motions in a way that's not just lackluster but actively kind of shameful. Imagine Frank Miller writing Batman as a parody of what people thought his original versions of Batman were anyway without the slightest sense of irony. That should give you some idea of where I am when it comes to Warlords of Draenor. It's loads of classic ideas, stuff that I desperately want to like, but it's ultimately just not very good, and it certainly doesn't come together.
Camelot Unchained will feature a customizable 'component combat' system
Welcome back to our coverage of City State Entertainment's batshit-crazy days for Camelot Unchained! A few weeks ago, we spoke with CSE co-founder Mark Jacobs about each of the topics being revealed this week via livestream; this morning, we picked his brain about the game's innovative combat system. Massively: Can you explain why the component combat system and player design of combat abilities doesn't render the concept of classes moot? CSE's Mark Jacobs: Absolutely! Think of the combat system in the same way you would magic. As a member of a certain Realm, you might not have access to particular components, whether for magic or melee combat. Further, your class might have further restrictions in terms of combinations of components. For example, the HelBound will be able to use some healing components that pure fighter classes can't, but they won't have access to the vast majority of magical components.
WRUP: There's too much confusion
When we polled your intrepid WoW Insider staff about what they're playing this weekend, we also asked what they felt was the most confusing mechanic in WoW. These days, the mechanics, stats, and fights all seem to make a lot of sense. Sure, they're mysterious until you learn what's actually happening, but everything under the hood has an overarching sense of order and logic. But it wasn't like that always. And while we might see some more confusion leaking into the game here or there, just keep in mind: All this has happened before. And it will happen again.
The Nexus Telegraph: WildStar's pre-launch ups and downs
We're in the home stretch before WildStar's launch now. If you haven't pre-ordered, you should do so. For all intents and purposes, the launch game is what's being used in the weekend test sessions. All that's left is the actual gameplay, and if you're an RPer, hunting down the roleplaying community to see what's acknowledged as the unofficial community roleplaying server because beta servers certainly do not have those all-important RP tags. What? I know what side of the bread my butter's on. A bit of discussion with a friend the other night reminded me that I can't think of a single game over the past four and a half years that I really thought launched at the right time; either they launched a bit too early or a bit too late, at best. So today, with launch less than a month away, I'd like to talk about the things that make me most displeased about the game... and the bits that make me the most hopeful.
The Daily Grind: Are you into stealthing mechanics?
Apart from the Imperial Agent in Star Wars: The Old Republic, I haven't played a lot of stealth-able characters in MMOs. For me, I just don't see the appeal of sucker-punching bad guys instead of facing off in a fair fight; it kind of makes me feel as though I'm bullying them. Plus, having to walk slower in stealth, constantly worry about positioning, and ignoring the illogic of disappearing in broad daylight all wave me off of such characters. But that's me and those are my hang-ups. I know that stealthing is pretty popular in certain quarters, and I can concede that when done right (as in the Thief series) it can be a compelling mechanic. So I'd like to hear whether you're into being all stealthy in MMOs and what you think about how these systems have been handled over the years. 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!
PAX East 2014: PlanetSide 2's Higby on weekly updates
It's been three months since PlanetSide 2 started updating once every week, if you don't count one update that was pushed back simply because it wasn't quite ready. As creative director Matt Higby put it to me at this year's PAX East, the schedule comes second to making sure that every update is the best it can be. But it's still been quite a ride, and it means that the game has kept up a schedule that's astonishingly fast. More than a year out from launch, Higby has a lot to say about the game's development process as well as the updates it's already undergone. It's not an unmitigated success story, but it's filled with a lot of lessons and improvements. And like any MMO, the game's development is far from finished. In PlanetSide 2's case, it's a complex process that requires supporting new players, veterans, casual gamers, and professional gaming, sometimes in unconventional fashions.
The Daily Grind: What sort of mechanical changes would cause you to quit an MMO?
MMOs often undergo extensive mechanical changes throughout their lifespan, and while sometimes said changes do serve the larger game and its future profitability, other changes seem destined to piss off current players in service of chasing a new potential player group. If you've played in one particular MMO long enough, chances are you've lived through significant game changes, whether they're basic class revamps or more severe alterations like combat system makeovers or the removal of core mechanics like item decay. Assuming you haven't quit your MMO of choice over extensive mechanical changes, what kind of tweaks could prompt you to do so? 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!
The Mog Log: The last stretch before patch 2.2 in Final Fantasy XIV
The past week has brought up an interesting problem regarding the timing of this column and upcoming releases. On the one hand, I had planned to talk today about why there aren't more tanks in Final Fantasy XIV. On the other hand, we also have received a lot of news about patch 2.2, which is launching in a little over a week. Do I push back discussing the patch previews in favor of talking about a larger structural issue? I don't think I can, especially when the reason there aren't as many tanks is one that's been explained dozens of times in other games whilst still being applicable here. Instead, let's talk about 2.2. We've got a week and change until this drops, and while I've already discussed a good portion of the endgame elements, we've got a clearer picture of what's coming out other than that. So while we'll doubtlessly learn more during the next live letter, let's talk about what we've got now.
