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Path of Exile's season one race events start February 23rd
Path of Exile is bringing back the popular race events from beta and organizing them into seasons. Race events are limited-duration challenges that put players into a new character and a fresh economy to compete against each other for various prizes. The first season of these events will begin on February 23rd and continue through April 7th. It will be made up of 109 events that take place solely on the weekends, and it will feature different start times so that players across the globe won't be at a significant disadvantage based on location. There are several ways to win prizes through these races. Players accumulate reward points that contribute to both season and lifetime prize tiers, and they can win additional goodies if they place in the top ranks for multiple events and the season as a whole. [Thanks to Josh for the tip!]
Path of Exile update adds new maps, overhauls audio, and improves art
With Path of Exile's open beta well under way, players can expect changes here and there as issues are addressed and bugs are squashed. Yesterday, Grinding Gear Games rolled out a new update that included reworked audio and updated artwork as well as added 11 new types of maps. Full details can be found in the 0.10.1 patch notes. Although not deployed yet, players can also expect other changes in this patch series including minion targeting, high-level mods in items, and improved livestreaming features. Then the next big patch, 0.10.2, will mark the beginning of the open beta content schedule that promises even more core content. For more on Path of Exile, check out Massively's impressions and hands-on experiences. And be sure to watch the action next Sunday, February 17th at 10:00 p.m. EST on Massively TV.
Path of Exile hands-on: The sequel Diablo II deserved
Like many gamers in their mid-20s, I spent countless hours in my teenage years smashing through dungeons and hunting for loot in Diablo II. The deep itemisation system made building effective characters a real challenge, and periodic ladder resets kept the loot-hunting economy fresh. Fast-forward 10 years and the highly anticipated sequel Diablo III was released to some serious complaints. The servers were unstable for weeks at launch, the always-online DRM caused a stir, and the endgame item grind was severely underwhelming. Indie developer Grinding Gear Games aims to beat Blizzard at its own game with its new free-to-play action RPG Path of Exile. The game boasts a dark art style and an unprecedented level of character customisation that lets players build truly unique characters. Each skill is itemised as a gem that can be slotted into your gear and augmented with dozens of different support gems. The sprawling passive skill system is better described as a "skill octopus," with millions of different ways to build a character. I've spent the past few weeks smashing up monsters in the Path of Exile open beta and absolutely loving it. Read on to find out why I can honestly say that Path of Exile is the sequel Diablo II deserved.
Path of Exile developers discuss open beta success
Open betas are stressful for developers. Not just because it's the moment that the game is suddenly available for public discussion and evaluation, but also because it's time to see how well the infrastructure holds up under an onslaught of new players. Path of Exile's development team recently went through that stress, and in a new letter to the community, players and onlookers alike can see how the game weathered the transition. Here's the quick summary: Very well. At the time of the letter, the game's peak concurrency was at 56,700 players, more than had been expected but very close to what the servers could handle. The game struggled a bit with patch downloads due to the CDN system immediately after launch, and there have been some crashes with various realms, but by and large the team seems happy with how the game is going and with overall sales figures. If you want more of the hard details on what a 30-hour open beta launch day looks like, read the full letter. And then get back to clicking things for money and loot. [Thanks to tandarighttanon for the tip!]
Path of Exile explains its open beta transition
If you're looking forward to Path of Exile's open beta (possibly in the wake of our own first impressions), you don't have much longer to wait. The testing will start shortly, giving everyone a chance to get in on all of the clicking and looting. For everyone looking forward to the next step, old hands and new players alike, the development team has provided a handy walkthrough of what will take place as the game's gates creak open. All characters will be returned to level 1 and all items will be removed outside of special promotions, but this will be the last character reset the game will undergo. Players with existing closed beta clients will be able to download the open beta patch directly, but the game's servers will go down for about two hours before the changeover happens. The post also warns everyone to expect that there may be login queues or latency issues given the game's popularity, so consider yourself fairly warned.
Piles of dead demons: A hands-on with Path of Exile
Path of Exile makes me smile. It isn't because of the gritty, dark setting or how a swing of my mace scatters disembodied monster pieces in every direction. It isn't the interesting design of the passive skill tree or the inclusion of PvP. What makes me smile is knowing that the kid inside me has finally found a worthy successor to the action RPG Diablo II. Oh, and it's free-to-play. Grinding Gear Games begins the PoE open beta on January 23rd, 2013. This week I massacred hordes of various dark abominations with Lead Programmer Jonathan Rogers and Producer Chris Wilson in the brand-new Act III content. And after my demo was finished, I almost felt bad for Diablo III.%Gallery-170186%
Click-click-click: Massively's double-dose of Path of Exile impressions
New Zealand-based Grinding Gear Games has a challenge ahead of it: to convince a jaded gaming audience that its online action RPG Path of Exile can be more than just another Diablo III clone. Our Not So Massively crew has been following the game with great interest, zeroing in on its generously sprawling skill tree and item-customization systems in particular. And this Wednesday will see the launch of open beta, leaving only one question left to answer: click-click-click? Well, maybe a few other questions too, like how does it play and is it worth my time? To get some first-hand experience with the latest edition of the game, Massively sent two freelancers -- Gavin Townsley and Jeffery Wright -- to two different Path of Exile developer events last week, one in San Francisco and the other in Los Angeles. Which city won in the quest for the coolest demo? You'll just have to read both to find out.
'Gearing' up for Path of Exile's launch with a demo and interview
Grinding Gear Games is finally gearing up (pun intended) for the launch of Path of Exile, an MMO dungeon-crawler that hopes to satisfy fanatics and casual gamers alike. The new title has been in closed beta for just the last few months of its six-year development cycle, and on January 23rd, it will hit open beta -- surely a relief for players eyeing the closed beta wistfully. Unfortunately for those who have been grinding away (yep, pun intended again) at hordes of monsters during the beta, there will be a character wipe, one that sets all characters, levels, items, experience, passive skills, active skills, and everything else back to zero. I recently attended a live demo and got to chat about the game with reps from Grinding Gear in Los Angeles. Read on for my take!
Grinding Gear releases spiffy new Path of Exile trailer
Grinding Gear Games has released a nifty new trailer for its Path of Exile action RPG. The clip runs a smidge over two-and-a-half minutes and features plenty of looks at the game's gorgeous presentation. There's also an introduction to all six character classes as well as bits on the customization and build functionality and both co-op and PvP modes. Finally, the trailer lets us peek behind the curtain on the "deepest item system in any action RPG." Path of Exile will be free to download and free-to-play. Grinding Gear says the game will be supported by "ethical microtransactions." Open beta starts January 23rd, and you can sign up now at the official website (after you click past the cut to watch the trailer, of course).
Path of Exile is holding a stress test this weekend
Path of Exile takes several cues from games like Diablo III and Torchlight II, but it still remains its own game. But you don't have to take our word for it; you can take a look at the game yourself this weekend. The game is opening up another public stress test weekend from September 14th through the 16th, throwing open the doors and letting everyone experience the game as it stands. Starting at 2:00 p.m. EDT on the 14th, anyone with an account for the game can log in to the client and start playing. The focus is on stress testing to ensure that the game's servers can handle a heavy load of concurrent players, so some lag and choppiness is to be expected. If you're not deterred by this, you can head over to the official site and download the client now so that you'll be all prepped and ready when the doors open on Friday.
The Daily Grind: Are genderlocked classes anathema to MMOs?
In my recent foray into Path of Exile, an upcoming online Roguelike, I was startled to realize that the game's classes are wholly genderlocked. Like Diablo II, Path of Exile locks each class to a given gender. If you want to play a Ranger, you're playing a female toon. If you prefer the Templar, you're playing a dude. And while there are hints that the game might sell more customization in the future cash shop, the current alpha-test gender count stands at four men to two women. I was startled because even Diablo III shed this model. I assumed that a game's survival in an MMO space, especially a borderline MMO, depends heavily on how much players identify with their characters. And it seems particularly jarring that a game with such an impressively deep skill system would limit character customization and gender so dramatically. So what do you think -- are genderlocked classes anathema to MMOs? Would you play a class in spite of its gender, or have you ever picked a class specifically because you prefer to play a certain gender? 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!
Path of Exile running an open stress test this weekend
Are you in need of a beta test to participate in for the weekend? Would you prefer that beta test to have some Diablo flavoring in there? Path of Exile has you covered, as the development team has just announced that the game will be throwing the doors open for a public stress test over the weekend. Whether or not you're in the closed beta, you'll be able to log in and tool around in the game to your heart's content. The stress test will feature all of the content currently available in the closed beta. Servers will open at 8 p.m. EDT on July 27th and will close up once again at 2:59 a.m. PDT on July 30th. Anyone more interested in playing than in filing bug reports will be happy to note that the focus is just on loading up the servers and seeing how they perform under load. The official FAQ has further guidelines and a link to the client so you can get it downloaded and ready before Friday evening.
HP t410 AIO Smart Zero Client does single-wire Power over Ethernet, no power cord required
Now, we don't normally cover this sort of networking equipment, but we were quite impressed by HP's new t410 All-in-One Smart Zero Client after we spoke to its proud product manager Walt Jurek. First of all, this isn't an AIO desktop PC, nor is it an LCD monitor -- well, if you're unfamiliar with thin clients, just think of this as an 18.5-inch, 1,366 x 768 LED-backlit monitor (featuring a 3M technology for the 200 nit brightness -- our money's on the Uniformity Tape) that uses just one Ethernet cable to get both its 13W power from a PoE (Power over Ethernet) switch, as well as data connection over Citrix, Microsoft or VMWare protocol. The t410 can automatically detect the virtualization environment and then reprogram its digital signal processor when needed, meaning less manual work for the admin (in theory, anyway). More after the break.
New WiFi IR emitters from Global Cache´ get us excited about home automation
We've written about Global Cache´ before and we're sure anyone who's done a little home automation around the house has ran across them; but with the new iTach line just announced today, we'd bet the a whole lot more of you will get excited about the little company. While emitting IR or controlling an RS-232 device over the LAN is an old trick for this company, the latest line really takes it to the next level. The first thing we noticed was how much smaller the box was -- comes in handy when there isn't much room behind the TV -- but we quickly said who cares when we learned that WiFi was built-in. But even if you already have a network drop behind your TV you'll be happy to hear that the new line also offers PoE. Those two features alone are enough to get us excited, but the fact that an IR learner is now built-in (used to be an extra $75) and the device is no longer limited to a single connection (so you can have up to eight iPod Touch remotes now). Top all that off with a lower starting price, and being user upgradable, and you have our home automation gears working in overdrive.
First Look: Touch Poet lets anyone be a poet
With Valentines Day right around the corner, it would seem that everyone is looking for something to get their loved ones. While most might settle on candy, or other holiday items, would you ever think of writing your special someone a poem? Even if you've never written a sentence in your life, you can easily write a poem with Touch Poet [iTunes link] for iPhone.Touch Poet grabs word snippets from works by Edgar Allen Poe, Shakespeare, and Rudyard Kipling as well as Digg headlines and other news sources. When you tap on the right-pointing arrow in the app, words will be move out from behind the arrow. When you find a word that you want to use, you can drag it up to the top portion. The snippets of paper has a really great physics engine that makes it look as though you are actually touching it. If you don't like a word, or would like to choose a better word, then you can "throw" the piece of paper in the garbage shoot by tossing it towards the bottom right of the screen. If you can't seem to find a word that you like, you can input your own words by double-tapping on the bottom of the screen -- this will allow you to input your own word. If you tap the upward facing arrow you will have several options, namely the ability to select the source of your words. From here you can also Twitter your masterpiece or e-mail it straight to your loved one. You can get your hands on Touch Poet by visiting the iTunes App Store. It is currently on sale for $.99 (US) through Valentines Day; after then, it will go up to $2.99. %Gallery-44364%
Control4 announces 7-inch POE wall-mounted touch panel
If Control4's Mini Touch screen just seemed too diminutive for your fat fingers, yet the 10.5-inch edition just engulfed your wall, why not check out the happy medium? The 7-inch POE Wall Mount Touch Screen arrives right between the other two in size, yet offers up the same home controlling abilities for tweaking your lighting, temperature, volume, etc. You'll also find a built-in screen saver application that you can customize with your own photos, and if that there just pushed you over the edge, you can snag the hard-wired version next month for $1,195. Looking for WiFi? You'll have to wait until "later this year."
Power over Ethernet kit for Airport Extreme Base Station
Back in the day, the white dome Airport Base Station supported Power over Ethernet, which allowed the station to be mounted far away from an outlet (e.g. on a ceiling) powered by just the ethernet data cable, great for preexisting buildings where running power for base stations might be expensive or impossible.The most recent Airport Extreme Base Stations have lacked this convenient feature, but MacWireless is now offering a PoE kit that works with the 802.11n AEBS. The $59.98 kit contains both an injector that plugs into the outlet and a splitter for the other end that goes to the AEBS, allowing both data and power to be sent over a single Cat5 cable up to 330 ft long. A shorter 200 ft range kit is $39.98.[via MacNN]
Historical figures and game addiction [update 1]
Today's Frazz got us thinking about how the existence of video games and the Internet would have affected the career paths of some of history's greatest figures. Just picture it: Isaac Asimov as the world's most prolific "PS3 vs. Wii" message board poster; Mozart as a world-famous Guitar Hero virtuoso on YouTube; Homer's Odyssey as a mildly sucessful ancient greek Grand Theft Auto clone. How do you think the lives of other historical figures would be affected by video games? [Update: Fixed typo in Guitar Hero title. Whoops!]
How far did you get? [update 1]
Sure, one could plow through Twiiight Princess in perhaps a mere 35 hours or so, eschewing all side-quests, collectables, and exploration. But we here at the Fanboy believe that those facets are crucial to the overall Zelda experience, just as important as those silly temples. But how about you? How many golden bugs did you collect; how many heart pieces have you yet to find?The convenient "Complete Calculator" for Twilight Princess will track your vital stats, brave warriors, and return to you a percentage of how much of the game you've completed. Did any of you guys pick up a true 100%? Has your social life been destroyed as a consequence?[via Digg][Update 1: Old link appeared to contain an IE 8.0 page-spoof. Link altered to a happy page of naught but HTML.]
