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Should Blizzard leave heroic encounter difficulty alone?
When the Raid Finder was first introduced, I had high hopes for its impact on the game. While the main reason behind the implementation of this system was arguably to get as many players experiencing raid content as possible, at the time, I was more interested in the impact it would have on the progression races between all of the top guilds in the world. I have always had a great deal of admiration for players in these types of guilds and have watched intently during each new tier as they all vied for world firsts. I believed the Raid Finder could benefit this type of competition by preventing heroic encounters from being nerfed while the content was still current. Surely, I thought, if so many people are able to experience raiding like never before through this new tool, Blizzard would have no pressing reason to make heroic encounters any easier. Well, it seems I was wrong, for in the very next tier of content Blizzard released, we saw progressive nerfs to these difficult fights. Personally, I prefer to keep these encounters the way they are, at least until a new tier is released. Something just feels wrong to see the hardest fights available made easier through a series of hotfixes. Even with respect to my own guild's progression, having sweeping nerfs hit Firelands just as my guild was putting in some really good attempts on Ragnaros felt like Blizzard moved the finish line, taking what would have been a very gratifying kill and turning it into an accidental one-shot that contained none of the catharsis we had felt during previous boss kills. What do you think? With the Raid Finder now a reality and a new expansion looming on the horizon, do you think the difficulty of heroic raid encounters should be static, like those from tier 11, or should they be more flexible?
NERF Lazer Tag hands-on
We just came from Hasbro's off-site Toy Fair show room and, needless to say, we made them take us straight to the NERF Lazer Tag installation. The guns are still clearly in the early prototype stages and hand made -- with plenty of hot glue and header pins serving as evidence. Still, they felt solid and the app appears to be coming along nicely. We weren't allowed to take photos or video of the HUD, which is a shame since that's what sets Hasbro's product apart from similar toys, but we can tell you about some of the features.In the top left of the screen is your life meter, which decreases every time you're shot. You'll know when you've been hit because the display will flash red. The app also beeps letting you know when an opponent has been detected -- alerting you to an opportunity to strike or of approaching danger. In the bottom right hand corner is you weapon selection and ammo remaining. You can reload by pressing in the lever on the front of the weapon. Holding it down opens the weapon selection, which you'll be able to upgrade through achievements and in-app purchases. There's also a pair of triggers in the well. The front engages your shield, which prevents you from being hit, but also stop you from firing on opponents, while the primary trigger fires blasts (complete with laser beam animation and explosions) at your opponents. Check out the gallery below for a few more impressions.Edgar Alvarez contributed to this report.
League of Legends reveals Nautilus, announces Sona nerf
Riot Games adds a new champion to League of Legends' growing roster every few weeks to keep the game fresh, and this week Riot revealed the game's next champion Nautilus, the Titan of the Depths. Nautilus is a tank with a unique initiation ability: He throws his massive anchor toward a target, and then drags himself toward the anchor. His abilities encourage spreading damage around during team fights, with his passive adding bonus damage to his first attack against a champion every twelve seconds and immobilising them slightly. A shield ability and area-effect damage spells make Nautilus a dangerous tank to be near during team fights. A number of gameplay and balance changes will be coming in the Nautilus patch. Shen is getting a complete ability set retuning to make him scale better to late game, and let him function better as as tank. It's been a long time coming, but unsurprisingly LoL's dominant support champion Sona is due for a few nerfs in the upcoming patch. The mana regenerated by Soraka's Infuse will be increased but she'll no longer be able to cast it on herself to essentially have limitless mana. Nerfs are also on the way for Vladimir, aimed at decreasing his early game presence without disrupting his fun gameplay. Check out the full patch preview video after the cut for more details.
Hasbro reinvents Lazer Tag for the smartphone generation, lets you live out your Doom-fueled fantasies
Xappr and appBlaster are fine weaponizers for your smartphone, provided you don't care to share your violent tendencies with your friends. Thankfully, Hasbro is bridging the gap between new-school AR shooter and that teenage classic -- laser tag. The NERF Lazer Tag system is getting an update for 2012 that lets you pair your blaster with an iPhone or iPod touch. The top of the plastic guns now sport a slot for your iDevice which, when loaded with the Lazer Tag app, provides you with an augmented HUD view. While you can play against purely virtual opponents, the real fun is in using to track your battles with fleshy foes. The app will display your gear and power level, and update your progress on a global Lazer Tag leaderboard. As you play, new attacks and gear will be unlocked for you to enhance your gaming experience. The app will even actually show your blasts' trajectory, letting you see exactly where you shot your former friend. The 2012 edition of Lazer Tag will hit shelves on August 1st with individual blasters costing $40 and sets of two $70. Check out the PR and a screen shot of the app after the break.
LotRO Update 5.1 shoots Saruman in the knee
Lord of the Rings Online is bringing its servers down today to apply Update 5.1 across the board. While it's certainly not a content patch like its predecessor, it does have a sizable number of fixes and tweaks that should improve quality of (game) life for all. Some of the changes include eliminating dyes from lootboxes, a nerf to Minstrel codas, many tweaks to the Tower of Orthanc raid, the option to timestamp chat messages, and small improvements to the treasure hunt. The devs have also posted an updated list of known issues for the game. As always, it's worth going through the patch notes to try to find the funny asides. In this update? "Addressed a number of typos. Probably added some new ones."
League of Legends to introduce big changes with the Ahri patch
Riot Games has revealed that the long-awaited League of Legends champion Ahri the Nine Tailed Fox will be coming in the very next patch. In addition to heralding the arrival of the new champion, the Ahri patch will introduce some major gameplay changes. In a new patch preview video, lead champion designer Morello and spotlight announcer Phreak discuss the biggest balance and gameplay changes coming in the next patch. Twisted Fate's attack range will be increased, and he'll now be able to manually pick a target for his attack once he locks a card. This should prevent cards hitting the wrong target and make him better able to harass in a lane without leaving himself exposed. Tryndamere receives a much-needed nerf to his self-heal as he tends to have a full rage bar when he's doing well in a lane and the heal ends up being much too powerful. The "perseverence" mastery in the utility tree is being removed and replaced with an old "strength of spirit" mastery that converts maximum mana into bonus health regeneration. With the removal of dodge runes, Phreak and Morello also discuss some new ones being added to make the game a bit more interesting. Skip past the cut to watch the full patch preview video, and stay tuned to our weekly Not So Massively column every Monday for more LoL news and updates.
EVE Evolved: Everything there is to know about Crucible
This summer's lackluster Incarna expansion and the ensuing microtransaction drama took a massive toll on EVE Online's player community and development staff. Players were quitting in droves, and CCP eventually had to lay off 20% of its staff worldwide. Two years of half-implemented expansions, broken features, and "first steps" that were never iterated on left players begging for a content-heavy expansion like Apocrypha or those released in EVE's early years. EVE is known for being practically a new game every six months, but since the blockbuster Apocrypha expansion, daily life in New Eden hasn't changed much at all. To pull things back from the brink, CCP refocused development on EVE Online and gave developers a free pass to work on hundreds of small features and improvements. The company began flooding us with details on new ships, graphical updates, new gameplay mechanics, and desperately needed balance tweaks, and we loved every bit of it. Although it's mostly small features and gameplay tweaks, the Crucible expansion feels like a genuine rebirth for EVE Online. The types of changes made show that CCP knows exactly what players want from EVE and that the company is now willing to deliver it. With CCP's renewed focus on internet spaceships, the Crucible expansion feels like the start of a new era in the sandbox. In this week's EVE Evolved, I pull together everything there is to know about the Crucible expansion that went live this week, from its turbulent origins to the awesome features and PvP updates it contains.
Blood Sport: How will patch 4.3 impact PvP?
WoW Insider covers the world of player vs. player action in Blood Sport for fans of battleground, world PvP and Arena play. Steering you to victory is Olivia Grace, who spends most of her time in Azeroth as a restoration shaman turning people into frogs. With patch 4.3 imminent and Arena season 10 due to end Nov. 29, it seems reasonable to assume the patch will appear in early December. While you're racing to get your team into title range, get that last piece of gear, or just running laps of your capital city, you might be thinking forward to the arrival of the patch and wondering what your fate will be in PvP as the nerf bat winds up for another swing. Firstly, let's deal with some housekeeping. Conquest points, the PvP equivalent of valor points, will now be far, far easier to earn from ordinary Battlegrounds. The first daily Battleground win will now award 100 conquest points, up from 25, and wins after that will award 50 conquest point, up from, well, none! The conquest cap will remain, so while it will still be far quicker to reach it through Arena, it will also be attainable via Battlegrounds of the non-rated variety. This makes it far easier for solo players to build up the resilience numbers people often demand (fairly or otherwise) for access to Arena and Rated Battleground teams or just to gear for Battlegrounds.
League of Legends prepares for Fizz patch
All this week, Riot Games has been releasing snippets of information on upcoming League of Legends champion Fizz, the Tidal Trickster. Fizz's mechanics preview gave a first glimpse into the sea monster's skills, including his ability to dodge attacks with his trident and to call a shark to eat the target enemy. A new art spotlight video gave us our first look at the champion and showed off both his signature trident weapon and one mean-looking shark. Today Riot published a patch preview video for the upcoming Fizz patch, detailing all the other changes coming with the update. Ranged carry champions are the focus of rebalancing efforts in the coming patch, with Caitlyn, Kog'maw and Graves being nerfed and Corki, Miss Fortune and Tristana due for buffs. With tournament season approaching, Riot is being careful to make these changes very minor to avoid upsetting current lane balance. Sona's auras are being nerfed a little, which isn't a surprise as Sona's usually the obvious choice for support. The season two summoner spell changes we discussed earlier in the week will also be going live with this patch, along with revamped mastery trees. Skip past the cut to watch the full video in HD.
Latest EVE dev video talks ship balance and features coming this winter
Several weeks ago, EVE Online developer CCP Games restructured its company and announced a new laser focus on in-space features for EVE Online. Since then we've seen an absolute deluge of news updates and devblogs on features due for release in the winter expansion. In the first two of CCP's new In Development video series, CCP Guard explored the art department and showed off the new nebula effects, EVE's sharpened shadows and the new tier 3 battlecruisers. In the latest In Development video, Guard talks to the EVE feature teams about the absolutely massive list of balance changes and features coming with the winter expansion. CCP Soundwave admits that developers have "probably done more rebalancing in the past month than we have in the past two years," before rattling off an impressive list of changes and new features. Skip past the cut for a brief summary of the changes and to watch the video in HD.
EVE capital ship balancing coming this winter
The lovefest between CCP and its disgruntled playerbase continues, this time in the form of a new blog entry heralding the impending balance of capital ships. The proliferation of supercapital ships has been roundly criticized in various EVE Online discourses over the years, and CCP feels the time is right to begin addressing the stagnant fleet fights that often result when hundreds of hard-to-kill megaships are clogging the space lanes. So what's the nerf solution? According to CCP Tallest, the devs plan to make supercapitals "a little bit weaker, but not gut them completely. We're doing a simple 20% reduction in shield, armor, and hull hitpoints on both supercarriers and titans." Tallest goes on to outline a few more details including planned changes for dreadnoughts, sub-capitals, and the oft-employed logoff exploit. "We are changing the logoff mechanics in such a way that as long as your enemies are actively engaged in fighting you, logging off is not going to save your ship."
EVE Evolved: Looking forward to the winter expansion
Since EVE Online's release in 2003, CCP Games has been the center of one of the most interesting success stories in the games industry. Produced by a tiny indie development studio on a frozen volcanic rock, EVE was the perfect example of how to do things right. The game's publishing deal with Simon & Schuster allowed CCP to buy back the rights to the game several months after its initial release. With no publisher taking a cut of the profits, CCP ploughed subscriptions back into the game's development and grew the development team organically. As a one-game company, CCP worked closely with players to make EVE the best game possible for its loyal playerbase. In a recent letter to the players, CCP CEO Hilmar laments that somewhere along the line, things changed for the worse. The CCP of today bears little resemblance to the "little indie studio that could" of 2003, not just housing over 600 employees in offices around the world but also developing upcoming MMOs DUST 514 and World of Darkness. Resources are spread thin, and EVE Online has suffered for it. Last month I looked back at the blockbuster Apocrypha expansion and asked why every expansion since then has cut down on the in-space development players want. Hilmar's letter and its accompanying devblog answered that question this week with a solid plan for iteration on flying in space features during the winter development period. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look forward to the winter expansion and explain why each of the issues being tackled in the coming expansion is a big deal to players.
Raid Rx: Firelands nerfs
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poohbah of World of Matticus and a founder of Plus Heal, a discussion community for healers of all experience levels and interests. Catch his weekly podcast on healing, raiding and leading, the Matticast. The great Firelands nerf has arrived! Those of you who have been struggling on progression bosses (normal mode or heroic mode) will no doubt have found that the the barriers have been lowered significantly. Good or bad, that's entirely up to you and your philosophy. On the one hand, content is now much more accessible. On the other hand, there are many of you who wish you had had more time to take down bosses pre-nerf. The overall nerf, though, changes several aspects of healing. I find myself not needing to work as hard. That doesn't necessarily mean not paying attention during a raid. With a lower amount of healing required (due to lower damage on several bosses), it just means fewer spells having to go out. Even though it might feel a little demoralizing to me, it is a little relieving in the sense that content can be seen more easily by players who normally wouldn't have been able to experience it. We'll go over my thoughts on this week, along with some ways to make healing engaging again.
Firelands crafting recipe drop rate nerfed
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen aims to show you how to make money on the auction house. Email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail! The recipes that drop from trash in Firelands have had their drop rate nerfed in a recent hotfix: Hot fixes notes The rate at which crafting recipes drop has been greatly reduced. source This makes sense from a design perspective; these patterns take some pretty rare boss drops to be made and produce gear on par with normal mode Firelands boss gear drops. On most realms, everyone who is getting the recipes is trying to sell them -- at first, for a lot; however, I've been picking them up for a tenth of what they were being listed for yesterday. One of the interesting artifacts of this system before the nerf was that the people most likely to get the recipe were people farming reputation by doing trash runs. The people most likely to be able to craft the items were the ones in the more organized and progression-minded raiding groups. Now that the drop rate has been reduced, in a few weeks when more guilds are making it farther into the instance, it's possible that more recipes will drop into the laps of raiding guilds than trash PUGs. Click past the jump for a list of the recipes that are affected.
Arcane Brilliance: The state of the arcane mage
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Arcane Brilliance for arcane, fire and frost mages. Well, almost every week. Okay, every other week. Semiannually. Every leap year. Seriously, sorry about the inconsistency lately. Family illness struck last week, and though the situation made it impossible for me to write a column, I still feel bad about leaving you guys in the lurch. I'll do everything in my power to keep the column weekly going forward. Because if I don't, the warlocks win. And they can never win, you guys. Never. With that out of the way, we're at the point in the expansion when most of what I said about the various specs early on is now almost completely false. I feel it is time again for me to address the mage nation about the state of the mage. This time around, though, I thought I'd tackle each spec separately, since the state of the mage is quite different depending upon what sort of mage you happen to be. Over the next three weeks, we'll take a hard look at the state of the three mage specs, focusing on PVE, and see where we're at as a class. We start this week with the left-most mage spec: arcane.
Spiritual Guidance: Priest healing tips for tier 11 heroic mode raids
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore covers healing for discipline and holy priests, while her archenemy Fox Van Allen is busy looking in the mirror instead of playing a proper spec. Dawn also writes for LearnToRaid.com, produces the Circle of Healing Podcast. In previous weeks, Spiritual Guidance has tackled how to heal the various raid encounters in tier 11. This week, we're going to revisit each boss on heroic difficulty. Once more, I'll be examining which spec is better equipped to handle the fight while also examining the differences in the new encounter and how to deal with them. We have a lot to talk about, so let's get started. First, I want to point out that a major difference between any heroic and normal mode encounter is that abilities in heroic do an increased amount of damage. In order to avoid being redundant, please keep in mind that when I point out the differences between modes that the need for more healing will be assumed. If the increased damage significantly impacts the strategy of the fight, however, I will explain how.
Patch 4.2 PTR: Uncut green gems vendor price reduced
Blizzard has already reduced the vendor price for cut green gems (presumably to reduce jewelcrafters' propensity for vendoring the majority of every prospected stack of ore). While they left the uncut gems at 5g, it became much more profitable to shuffle all possible colors of gems into enchanting mats and blue jewlery. Well, the latest testing from the patch 4.2 PTR has reduced the price of uncut gems, too. On the live realms, they vendor for 100g a stack, leaving a decent vendor floor price for ore. Once this change goes live, they will be worth 50s each or 10g a stack. This should indeed have the desired effect of causing fewer of these to end up vendored for inflationary vendor money, with the potentially undesirable effect of making mining less profitable. Assuming you're transmuting, disenchanting, or otherwise making good use of 5 of the 6 colors of uncommon gems, this will likely not change your life much. You will make 10g instead of 100g when you vendor a stack of the borderline useless Zephyrite, but most of your money will be coming from the other activities. Also, you can still occasionally sell these to other jewelcrafters for their daily. Bottom line, though, is that the new "floor" price of Elementium Ore and Obsidium Ore is basically gone now. There are no more guaranteed sales, and if you flood a market (like enchanting mats) by processing thousands of stacks of ore, you can't count on any vendor based fallback to at least get you your money back. The news is already rolling out for the upcoming WoW Patch 4.2! Preview the new Firelands raid, marvel at the new legendary staff, and get the inside scoop on new quest hubs -- plus new Tier 12 armor!
Spiral training Android application turns anyone into Peyton Manning... in theory (video)
Ah, ingenuity. We've seen Google's Android platform used for a host of unorthodox applications over the years, but Ben Kokes' concoction deserves a round of golf claps to call its own. The so-called Replay Football system employs a Bluetooth-enabled Nerf football with a 9-axis inertial sensing motion processing module (MPU-6000 by InvenSense), and when linked to a visualization / throw analysis application, you're able to analyze the rotation of a football in real-time as it's thrown. From there, the app breaks down the nuts and bolts of the toss, and while it's not able to blurt out pointers on correcting things just yet, we're seeing endless potential for the next revision. Don't believe us? There's a video just below that'll make a believer out of you, yet.
EVOtainment System brings emulation greatness to the HTC EVO on a Wiimote and a prayer (video)
In a world full of cheap, plastic Wiimote accessories, aisles that overflow with flimsy little steering wheels for Mario Kart, one man found purpose. One man found something good to do with them. One man created the ridiculous contraption you see above. That man is Jack Malone, crafter of this the so-called EVOtainment System. It's a Wii racing wheel from Nerf that's been drilled out and augmented to enable a Classic Controller to join the party, backed with a strip of 3M Dual Lock. Up top a universal GPS mount clings desperately on to his HTC EVO, which connects over Bluetooth to the Wiimote. It's emulatory bliss in a design that's only a little bit less chunkier than the Game Gripper. Update: Video after the break! %Gallery-118579% [Thanks, Jack]
Wings Over Atreia: Anticipaaaaaaaaaaaation
You know the feeling -- you learn about some upcoming goodness and you want it. Or do you crave it? You can fall anywhere along the spectrum of anticipation, provoked by things you just look forward to all the way to things that make you squeal in schoolgirl giddiness at the mere thought! It's a game in and of itself. Such is the way of Aion updates, which tantalize and tease players for quite some time before going live (and even longer if you can translate the original Korean patch notes yourself!). Not yet having a release date for updates is not dampening the anticipation of many Daevas but rather is fueling it instead. So what brought about my musings on this topic? I squealed! More specifically, an announcement this week that put me right into the giddy mode: Winter is coming! George R.R. Martin's fifth book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series will release in July. Now, while my fangirliness in its supreme is reserved for this outstanding literature, I also have things that I am looking forward to in game. However, there are those who have a virtual heart attack when new goodies for Aion are announced; I have one legionmate who will only re-sub when update 2.5 rolls around and brings with it all the little bells and whistles he is pining for. It is quite interesting to listen as he randomly pops into Ventrilo to trumpet the greatness of this upcoming gaming salvation, then disappears again into the night. So what about 2.5 has my legionmate so excitable... and excited? Skip-to-my-lou past the cut to take a look at some of the upcoming features.
