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Blizzard to attend PAX Prime 2014
If you're attending PAX Prime this year, you're in luck -- Blizzard will be there once again, rocking booth #352 of the expo hall. PAX Prime runs from August 29 through September 1 in Seattle, WA. Blizzard's offerings this year include: Warlords of Draenor hands-on What's coming next for Hearthstone Three new heroes in Heroes of the Storm Chat with developers and community managers Giveaways and prizes Attendees, download the PAX guidebook app (for iPhone, Android, Windows Phone, and BlackBerry) and check out the schedule to make sure you don't miss anything.
PAX 10 spotlights Framed and Duet
This year's PAX 10, a collection of games from independent developers, has been determined and will be highlighted at next month's PAX Prime convention. The ten games were hand-picked by 50 industry experts, starting with Duet, Kumobius' elegant arcade-style action game for iOS. Duet is joined by LoveShack's Framed, a narrative puzzle game trapped in a comic world. Both Duet and Framed received attention earlier this year when the games were among six total mobile titles in the PAX East Indie Showcase. Those two games are joined by an abstract 2D PC platformer from DigiPen's Neat Snake known as Flickers. Infinity Monkeys' Life Goes On is also in the mix, in which players set out to find the Cup of Life by ironically sacrificing knights to the game's deathly contraptions. Untame's amorphous puzzler Mushroom 11 will be included in the showcase, as will Funktronic Labs' sci-fi, turn-based adventure game Nova-111.
Perfect Ten: Why the second half of 2014 will be awesome for MMOs
In the midst of mid-summer doldrums, it's easy to fall into a mild depression thinking that everything cool that was going to happen this year already has -- especially in gaming. The spring launch blitz is now officially over, with two highly anticipated MMOs launched, and now some people might be wondering if the rest of 2014 will be all downhill. Spoiler: It will not be. We started talking the other day in the Massively office about just how much there's coming for the latter half of this year and why we're excited to see what the fall and winter months bring. There's so much to look forward to, in fact, that it was incredibly difficult to narrow it down to a mere 10 entries. But that's my job, and that's what I did. Here's why the second half of 2014 will be awesome.
PAX separates from Penny Arcade in co-founder's New Year resolution
Penny Arcade the comic is officially distancing itself from PAX, the yearly gaming convention held in Seattle, Boston and Melbourne. Co-creator Mike Krahulik announced the ideological split in a blog post, as part of his New Year's resolution to be less of "a bully." "You'll notice that it is no longer the Penny Arcade Expo," Krahulik writes. "It's outgrown us and it belongs to the gaming community at large now not just PA fans. Someday I expect to attend a PAX and not even be recognized. That's honestly fine with me. I don't want the material on PA or who I am to keep people from attending and enjoying PAX." Penny Arcade similarly distanced itself from the charity it started, Child's Play, when Krahulik and co-creator Jerry Holkins realized the comic's content was impeding the charity's outreach, Krahulik says. Child's Play is now its own organization that Penny Arcade supports from afar. Much of Krahulik's resolution stems from "a difficult year" where he received negative public attention for things he said on Twitter, the Penny Arcade blog and at PAX. In 2010, Penny Arcade ran a comic that made light of rape, and Krahulik and Holkins responded to outcry by selling merchandise supporting the strip – the "dickwolves" debacle. Krahulik and Holkins removed the dickwolves stuff from its stores, but on a panel at PAX Prime 2013, Krahulik said that pulling the merch was "a mistake." His statement reopened the wound.
PAX Prime 2013 and FFXIV relaunch event in pictures
This year's PAX Prime has come and gone, but during my trip I snapped a bundle of pictures we're pretty sure you're going to love. Enjoy some booths, crowds, games, and quite a bit of the Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn launch event. Even Jesus showed up for my photo shoot!
The Summoner's Guidebook: You're wrong about the LoL community
I'm finally home from PAX, and I'm exhausted. And if there's one thing everyone I talked to mentioned, it's that Riot Games was the elephant in the con. Everyone was comparing something to a similar thing Riot did, whether that was mistakes made or successes had or risks taken. League of Legends is enormous, and even as a columnist for the game, I didn't really grasp just how big it was until now. Let me paint you a story. I'm familiar with fandoms. They're not a new thing. However, when you go to a huge convention and you see that probably a quarter of the people play League of Legends, it changes your perspective. When every non-Riot developer talks about LoL, it opens your eyes to just how pervasive the game is. There was another unified thing about everyone I talked to who played LoL: All of them hated jerks. None of them were intentional trolls, and everyone loved the game and wanted to make it better. All the Riot staffers I talked to preached the same mantra: "It's all about the fans." It's clear that their attitude has paid some pretty big dividends. There's a lot of you guys, and you're all pretty awesome.
PAX Prime 2013: Breaking tables in DC Universe Online
During this year's PAX Prime, I was able to grab some hands-on time with the PlayStation 4 version of DC Universe Online. The demo was made up of content from the brand-new DLC, Sons of Trigon. The DLC features three new duos and an alert, whereas I feature slightly rusty DCUO skills. In fact, nearly all of my DCUO experience has been with a keyboard and mouse, so I reached for the controller with hesitation. I managed to pull slightly more confidence from a long history of PlayStation gaming and Sony's staunch refusal to change the basic layout of its controller for 19 years and counting.
Ask Massively: The best and worst of PAX Prime 2013
PAX Prime is the last major western gaming con of the year, and we'd like to believe it's given us all something to think about as we head into a winter full of special snowflake games. Alas, PAX Prime this year seems to have left us all bewildered at best and underwhelmed at worst, at least when it comes to pure MMORPGs. Now it's time to explain why. We're going to tell you about what was for us the most surprising reveal, the most disappointing offering, and of course, the best MMO in show. The ground rules for our discussion? They're basically the same as for E3: It had to be a game or topic we can justify covering on Massively. Every staff member was permitted to chime in (though not all did). We stuck to three big categories rather than create so many that every game could "win" something, not that these are really awards. Roll the dice!
Guild Wars 2 interview picks Colin Johanson's brain
If you could corner a developer and ask any question that popped into your mind, what would it be? Matt Visual attempts to cover all of the burning questions that many players have about Guild Wars 2 in his piece with Colin Johanson from PAX Prime. The half-hour interview covers a wide range of topics including gear progression, dungeon hard modes, legendary items, a new wardrobe system, housing, and dueling. One interesting tidbit is that the devs have been working on cloaks but have had some issues with the animations. Check out the full video after the break and see if your burning question gets quenched.
PAX Prime 2013: Guild Wars 2's Jon Peters on the state of PvP
At this year's PAX Prime, we attended a party hosted by ArenaNet at which the studio demoed the second world of Super Adventure Box. There was a raffle, plenty of drinks, and a lot of ANet people. In fact, I mentioned to ArenaNet's reps that I was really into competitive play, PvP, and e-sports. Not five minutes later, I was introduced to Jon Peters, lead gameplay designer for Guild Wars 2. I was a bit intimidated; I mean, this was the guy who singlehandedly created over 70% of the skills in GW2! But he was surprisingly down-to-earth with our conversation.
PAX Prime 2013: Riot Games' Whalen Rozelle on LoL Season 3
I was really excited to step into Riot's press room on Friday at PAX Prime. We had just finished the first series of matches of the day, and it was pretty exciting to talk to people about the matches yet to come. But I don't think anyone was more excited to talk about League of Legends' e-sports scene than Whalen Rozelle, or RiotMagus as he's known on the internet. As the senior e-sports manager at Riot, he's tasked with making sure that events run smoothly, and I took the opportunity to ask him about the format for Season 3 -- especially improvements over Season 2 and the lessons Riot will be taking into Season 4.
Indie developer BetaDwarf lived in a classroom for seven months
Denmark-based developer BetaDwarf raised $65,413 on Kickstarter in December 2012 to fund its action arcade game, Forced. Similar to other developers, the team relied fully on the crowdfunding campaign in order to make its game a reality: As BetaDwarf CEO Steffen Kabbelgaard Gronning put it at PAX Prime, the Kickstarter "pretty much saved our asses... If that hadn't went through, we'd have had to abandon the game, I think." Described on its Kickstarter page as a mix between Diablo and Left 4 Dead, Forced has players battle enemies in a combat arena. The game's development traces back to January 2011, when BetaDwarf was founded at Aalborg University in Denmark. During the summer, classrooms at the university went unused, so Gronning and his friends took over one abandoned room to use as their studio. "We moved in and we didn't really want to go home, so we moved in beds and microwaves and refrigerators and things like that and until there are like, eight guys living there our whole vacation," Gronning said. That "vacation" turned into an extended stay, as the group "managed to be there for five more months" since the university "didn't really want to use that classroom," he explained.
PAX Prime 2013: I played Smashmuck Champions and it was golden
There were some pretty great games at this year's PAX Prime, but if there's one new game I played that I couldn't wait to go home and install, it was Smashmuck Champions. Currently in open beta, the game features a MOBA-like control scheme combined with faster-paced arena action. The guys at the booth joked about how they hated the term MOBA, but there are few games that fit the term "multiplayer online battle arena" better than Smashmuck. Allen White, art director for the game, led me through the matches. He was a pretty big help, answering all of my questions while I stomped all over the other con-goers. Unlike the typical MOBA, Smashmuck has a low barrier of entry, a lot of game modes, and an easy learning curve, and it's just plain lots of fun. You're doing yourself a disservice by not installing the game right now.
PAX Prime 2013: SMITE's graphical updates, 10v10 mode, and e-sports
I found myself in unfamiliar waters as I waded into the Twitch booth at this year's PAX Prime. All around me were gamers -- but not just any gamers. These guys were wearing jerseys with sponsorship logos and carrying custom gaming mice and headsets. These guys were pro gamers, and they were there to play SMITE. I had a different agenda, so I tracked down Hi-Rez chief operating officer Todd Harris to talk about upcoming changes to the game. He admitted to me that his team isn't doing a lot of big changes, but that is largely due to the game's continuing success. He did have a few things to show me, though.
PAX Prime 2013: World of Tanks blitzes onto the 360
While there was definitely some buzz at the PAX Prime Wargaming booth about World of Warplanes, which will get its commercial launch on September 26th, World of Tanks was the main source. Not only is Wargaming planning to integrate accounts for both Tanks and Warplanes, but it also has the XBox 360 version of World of Tanks in closed beta. I sat down with some of the Wargaming guys and attempted to play the new 360 version. I struggled a bit with the console controls, but that had more to do with a lack of familiarity than anything else. As I played, we discussed how Wargaming has rebuilt WoT from the ground up for the console market.
PAX Prime 2013: Adjusting butts in Elder Scrolls Online
After my hands-on demo at E3, I was cautiously optimistic about sitting down for another hour of Elder Scrolls Online at this year's PAX Prime. I was ushered into the press demo area and immediately dived into character creation. There were significantly more options available here than during my last demo just a few months ago. Among the additions was a feature I'm sure you've been waiting for: the "posterior dimensions" slider. Beyond butts, the variety of the options Bethesda brought to PAX Prime was pretty impressive. I spent more time in character creation than I expected, even customizing my stomach size. After I decided on the appropriate butt girth, I loaded into the snowy, nordic area of Bleakrock Isle and immediately spent a solid 10 minutes exploring my option menus.
PAX Prime 2013: Behaviour on WAR40K Eternal Crusade's friendly fire, ARG, and more
Massively spoke with Behaviour Interactive at last weekend's PAX Prime, and the topic of the day was of course the company's take on the Warhammer 40K license. Eternal Crusade, as the upcoming sci-fi title is known, is an unapologetically group-focused take on the genre. Join us after the cut as we break down our chat with Behaviour studio head Miguel Caron and talk about space marines, ARGs, and friendly fire.
PAX Prime 2013: A doomsday strike to the heart of Infinite Crisis
I think I'd be a lousy MOBA level designer. I'd always wondered why PvP and MOBA maps came few and far between; after all, how hard is it to whip up a quick level? I realized my ignorance after listening to Turbine Creative Director Cardell Kerr talk about the immense amount of thought and planning that goes into a single map. Kerr and his team were showing off Infinite Crisis, the upcoming DC superhero MOBA, at PAX Prime this weekend, with constant matches taking place between superhero-wannabes. As with most everything at PAX, it's a mix of promotion, information, and entertainment, although I got the feeling that the team also had something to prove. After all, everyone seems to be making MOBAs these days to catch some of that League of Legends/Dota 2 money, and because such, it's triply important that an upstart have a way of distinguishing itself from the pack. Merely having Wonder Woman and Batman show up won't be enough these days (although it certainly doesn't hurt). So what is Infinite Crisis angling to do that will make this the MOBA you'll click on more than the others? It comes down to options: options how to play your game, options how to exploit advantages on a map, and options when it comes to game modes.
PAX Prime 2013: The Repopulation hunkers down for a siege
If EverQuest Next is the big dog of the upcoming sandbox MMO set, then The Repopulation is on the other end of the spectrum. The title is still in alpha testing with only a few hundred players participating, the team is spread across the globe, and the studio is looking for a publisher to help give the title the financial backing it sorely needs. Even so, the folks at Above and Beyond Technologies have an obvious passion for the project and were plainly eager to talk about it at PAX Prime. Tucked away in the Indie Megabooth area, The Repopulation devs invited players to sit down with a laptop and take part in testing the game's siege mode. I chatted up the developers -- who are head-over-heels enthusiastic about The Repopulation, by the way -- and got my first look at what PvP a sandbox hath wrought.
The Nexus Telegraph: No WildStar reveals at PAX Prime panel
The title up there is kind of glib, I admit it. We certainly heard more about WildStar during the game's presentation at PAX Prime. But most of what we heard was filling in blanks and elaborating slightly upon what we hard already learned, sort of an extended postscript to the presentation offered at PAX East. I sat down and watched through the whole panel as it streamed, and after it was over I was left with a distinct sense of confusion about how little new information was actually included. Out of the entire panel, the biggest reveal was the fact that the game does have a dye system, plus the roundabout mention of experience earned at the level cap converting into a form of currency. (Along with more use of the term "elder game," which I increasingly dislike.) Both of these are interesting tidbits, but the former isn't all that surprising and the latter is of interest only to those invested in the game as it stands. This was not a panel stuffed with information.
