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Choose My Adventure: TERA's Fate of Arun
As was mentioned many times during our end-of-year awards and the comments surrounding them, 2014 was a much better year for adding to existing properties than releasing new ones. Some of the biggest launches of the year came in the form of expansions like Rift's Nightmare Tide, Star Trek Online's Delta Rising, and Star Wars: The Old Republic's Shadow of Revan. Choose My Adventure even took the expansion route last month by investigating World of Warcraft's Warlords of Draenor. En Masse's TERA, too, received a huge update in 2014, though it launched with significantly less fanfare than some of the other major expansions of the year. Fate of Arun introduced new zones, added new dungeons, and raised the level cap (as expansions are wont to do). It also brought a new game mode in The Coliseum, a PvP/PvE hybrid arena-type thing. Perhaps most notably when compared to the other expansions of 2014, Fate of Arun is free to all TERA players. Since TERA so often flies under the radar with MMO fans, I thought it might be fun to dedicate this month's CMA to Fate of Arun. So get ready because it's time to start slaying some big-ass monsters.
Soloing through SWTOR's Shadow of Revan
Some people question how you can be a solo player in an MMO. To be honest, I, too, question how someone can do the whole game solo, but I do understand the desire to experience the game at your own pace. I believe the creators of Star Wars: The Old Republic understand this, too. Game director James Ohlen said that the biggest thing players wanted was the continuation of Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2. Although part of the SWTOR story did continue the Revan and Exile stories, a lot of players haven't even touched on that storyline. In a multiplayer game, it's hard sometimes to experience the story solo with all the group-only material. However, Shadow of Revan creates an amazing opportunity for the solo MMO player to really experience the full story it has to offer. Fair warning: I will not spoil major plot points for the expansion, but I will reveal some key characters in order to talk you through this leveling experience.
Battlefields open in Sevencore's first expansion
Sevencore may have just enjoyed its global launch at the beginning of this month, but there's already an expansion just around the corner. On December 2nd, Webzen will release Occupation War for the English server Balmung. This expansion includes the battlefields Tillau and Crimson Plateau, where players can earn victory points (VP) to spend on weapons, armor, random boxes, and even mounts from the PvP vendors. Each Saturday at 4:00 p.m. EST, one guild will compete against the others for control a certain area. Winners of this contest will be able to collect taxes and manage prices in regional goods as well as access the Presidential election for Inadar. [Source: Webzen press release]
Choose My Adventure: Closing off our time in Swordsman
I've spent quite a bit of time in Perfect World Entertainment's Swordsman this month. Thanks to the unique layout of October 2014, Swordsman ended up getting an extra week compared to most Choose My Adventure endeavors. And while I'm ready to move on to the next game, it was nice to have some extended time with Swordsman before sending it to that magic hard drive in the sky. Sometimes a few extra days can give you time to see things in a game you didn't see before. Swordsman is definitely a game that grows on you. The experience continually improves. If you're willing to stick through the slow opening and limited early experience, there's a pretty interesting game waiting to be discovered.
Choose My Adventure: The once and future Swordsman
For the last three weeks, I've been whipping and kicking every bad guy I can find in Perfect World Entertainment's Swordsman in the hopes of understanding this peculiar wuxia MMORPG. My Choose My Adventure experience thus far has been mixed; I've enjoyed Swordsman's theme and setting, but its mechanics and hard-to-follow narrative have made the experience a touch less manageable. Swordsman from 1-30 seems at best like an extended tutorial and at worst like a game that plays itself. That's not just my opinion. All of the feedback I can find on the game seems to point in one direction: Swordsman's early levels aren't the main attraction. The real Swordsman exists in PvP (unlocked at level 30), guild quests (unlocked at level 35), and instances (unlocked at 15 -- not bad). Last week's combat discipline discovery at 25 further cemented the idea that Swordsman is a game designed to reward players who stick through the initial grind. I didn't have much time to play this last week, but I did get a chance to sit down with PWE product manager Gabrielle Heiland to talk about Swordsman's first expansion, the future of the game, and how Perfect World feels about the game's current "wait and see" design.
Premium Tinder features will help you find love before hitting a new city
If you don't count buying a few drinks or other niceties, finding love on Tinder is essentially free, but it looks like that'll change come next month. The app's CEO and cofounder Sean Rad recently teased at Forbes' Under 30 event that new features will be added that users have apparently been clamoring for. What's more, he thinks they'll offer enough value that a specific subset of its user-base will be willing to pay for them. The core experience of swiping left or right on potential matches to like or dislike, respectively, won't see any fees tacked on, but an ability to expand your Tinder reach beyond your current location and into other cities is coming in November. Perfect for striking up conversations before you start traveling, it'd seem. As you'll see in the video below, Rad isn't keen to say just how much this will cost as of now, only that monetizing these "hacks" will allow the outfit to reinvest in itself. With how the application has handled location data in the past, however, let's hope this turns out for the best.
Choose My Adventure: Clicking around in Swordsman
Three weeks into our Choose My Adventure adventure, I'm not sure what to make of Perfect World Entertainment's Swordsman. The game boasts a deep literary pedigree and markets itself on its wuxia themes and combat-oriented design. It has a rich, beautiful world that is dripping with powerful design cues and historical influences. Like all PWE games, it is slick and easy to pick up and play. Swordsman is a well-made MMORPG. It is mechanically sound and conceptually solid. So why am I so bored?
Choose My Adventure: Cracking whips in Swordsman
In last week's Choose My Adventure poll, I asked two simple questions of the Massively community: Which gender should our character be in Perfect World Entertainment's Swordsman, and what path should that character take among the game's 10 available schools of combat? The result was a resounding win for the female-character-exclusive Five Venoms school (probably because whips) and for the creation of a female character. Since the polls closed on Saturday, I've created our character and spent a little time with Swordsman's intro sequence, tutorial missions, and the earliest chapters of its main storyline. I've whipped a bunch of dudes, summoned giant frogs, and set a few horses on fire. And while it's early yet to declare Swordsman a success, failure, or mediocre in-betweener, thus far I would describe the experience as decidedly mixed.
The Stream Team: Dota 2's 6.82 madness
The last few months in Dota 2 have come with a sense of stagnation. The professional and high-tier play meta, on display most prominently in this year's $11 million International championship, was in a rut. Something had to change before players grew bored or frustrated with facing the same three or four team strategies. Last week, Valve delivered an earthquake of a content patch, providing a ridiculously huge update that changed items, heroes, abilities, game modes, core mechanics, and even the map itself. For the next few months, pros and casuals alike must sift through the wreckage and try to re-optimize how they play. Tune in tonight as Massively's Mike Foster takes one of Dota's newly-reworked heroes for a spin and tries to make sense of the post-6.82 carnage. The action begins at 7:00 p.m. EDT. Game: Dota 2 Host: Mike Foster Date: Wednesday, October 1st, 2014 Time: 7:00 p.m. EDT Enjoy our Stream Team video below.
Choose My Adventure: The proud wanderers of Swordsman
Since commandeering Choose My Adventure in August, I've been on something of a sci-fi rampage. First we took a second look at a post-release Firefall; then we spaced out with a beta build of Frontier's Elite: Dangerous. And while spaceships and rocket boots are certainly wonderful things, Choose My Adventure is as much about investigating new worlds and new genres as it is about checking out new games. Thus, it's time to leave the world of science fiction behind in search of something a bit more classical. This month, we're adventuring into Imperial China -- as far from deployable sentry guns and pulse lasers as possible -- with Perfect World Entertainment's Swordsman.
Bruce Lee comes to Conquer Online... sort of
Conquer Online is co-opting one of martial arts cinema's greatest stars to be a playable character in its game. The team announced that it is bringing in a Bruce Lee "tribute" character called Lee-Long in a future update. "Many companies have put him in games to salute him, but there was no one putting his elements into an MMORPG," said the team. "As a popular oriental fantasy MMORPG in North America, and with the elements of martial arts and the Dragon combined, Conquer Online has the responsibility to create a character to show our respect to Bruce Lee." The creation of Lee-Long took a full year of work and involved motion capture and close examination of Bruce Lee's films. Bruce Lee died in 1973, but has remained a pop culture icon ever since. The team is being coy about the connection between Bruce Lee and Lee-Long, but said "more details" about be given soon. You can watch a making of video for Lee-Long after the break. [Source: 99.com press release]
Massively's ArcheAge launch diary: Day six - P2W and the early verdict
Is ArcheAge pay-to-win? That's a question I've been asked several times in recent days. Before I answer it, let's get something out of the way up front. And by "out of the way," I mean that this is the most important part of the article and needs to be emphasized in the intro. Pay-to-win is 100% subjective. There is no scientific or universally accepted definition of pay-to-win. Some things in this life are absolutes. Pay-to-win is not one of them.
Choose My Adventure: It's lonely out in Elite: Dangerous
In 1990, hurtling across the edge of our solar system at around 40,000 miles per hour, NASA's Voyager 1 space probe performed a quick rotation and snapped a parting photograph of the planet on which it had been conceived, built, and launched. The resulting image, known as the Pale Blue Dot photo, features a tiny Earth surrounded on all sides by an infinite blackness. It was this image, transmitted a distance of 3.7 billion miles at the speed of light, that inspired Carl Sagan to write, "There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world." In other words, space is big. Really big. And it is into this great unknown, this unimaginable void wrapped in darkness and silence, that Choose My Adventure now boldly goes via Elite: Dangerous, a crowdfunded space simulator (no, not that crowdfunded space simulator) from Frontier Developments. With 55 star systems and 38,000 cubic light-years of space to explore, Elite's Beta 1 release should offer us plenty of freedom to sate our interstellar cravings and to thrive or die as an independent pilot.
Choose My Adventure: Firefall as it stands
As I noted in the first week of this month's truncated Choose My Adventure, Firefall is finally an honest to goodness real-life video game. The extended extended beta is over, the launch trailer has released, and the game has been cut loose into the world. One might argue that Red 5 is now officially out of excuses; if something isn't satisfactory in Firefall, it must be unsatisfactory by design. We have stepped beyond the point where "it's a beta" is a fair explanation of the game's rougher edges. Because what we're dealing with is theoretically intended to be a full retail product, it's not useful to talk about what Firefall used to be, nor is it useful to speculate on what Firefall might become. The only honest evaluation of the game, if evaluation is the goal, must center on the current iteration of the product, the one that Red 5 considered complete enough to release as the finished version of its vision. Is Firefall, in its current state, worth playing? Does it offer enough content to keep players engaged? Is it finally delivering on the promise we have glimpsed in its systems? For the first time since my initial encounter with the game in early 2013, I'd say the answer is yes.
Choose My Adventure: The distraught wives of Firefall
"There is no problem in this world a gun can't solve." These words, to my knowledge, are never explicitly stated in Firefall. There's no wise-in-his-grizzledness war veteran to rub his stubbled chin, frown into the distance, and impart such wisdom upon the player. But make no mistake, Firefall's world is one in which most tough situations are resolved with the thunderclap of gunfire. In Firefall's New Eden, violence really is the answer. In last week's Choose My Adventure column, I asked you to help guide my path through this dangerous world, to give my character an identity, a role to play, and a purpose to fulfill. Votes were cast; suggestions were made. I've since created a new character and blasted my way through the re-re-re-re-designed tutorial/opening experience. And while I am, as always, having a wonderful time, I still can't get over my one recurring Fireball criticism: I'm shooting a lots of stuff but I don't care or know why.
Choose My Adventure: Firefall is finally a real game
Forgive me, Massively readers, for I have sinned. It has been six months since my last Choose My Adventure. Luckily, absolution is readily available via a 50-pound desktop computer, a mostly stable internet connection powered by one of the most hated companies in the United States, and three or four Hail Proudmoores. In summary: I have stared into the face of an eternal offline purgatory, clenched my teeth, and growled, "Not today." No, today I'm going to play Firefall. And you're coming with me.
Samsung's premium Galaxy Alpha packs a metal frame and octa-core chip
Samsung's finally launched the much-leaked Galaxy Alpha, a fancier-looking but stripped-down version of the Galaxy S5. As expected, it sports a substantially different, less rounded design than the GS5, with metal sides that gives it a glancing resemblance to an iPhone 5s. The Alpha is also much lighter and thinner than its big brother at a mere 6.7mm and 115 grams. Samsung said it took a "fresh approach" with the new handset's looks, something it vowed to do in the face of a steep downturn in sales. The new design could also give some clues about the look of the Galaxy Note 4, set to launch early next month.
Aura Kingdom lands on Steam
Aura Kingdom has been playable for some time now, but if you're one of those digital platform snobs who refuses to play anything that's not offered, you've previously been out of luck. This has all changed this week, as Aura Kingdom passed the Steam Greenlight process and has become available through the platform. Aeria Games CEO Pascal Zuta hopes that this will give the anime MMO a good boost: "Having a game launch on Steam is a sign of trust in the quality of the game and the service we provide. We are very excited to now be able to offer Aura Kingdom to a wider audience through the Steam platform." [Source: Aeria Games press release]
Massively's first impressions of Black Gold Online's beta
Do you prefer a steampunk or fantasy flavor in your MMO? With Black Gold Online you don't have to choose! And for those who vehemently dislike one or the other, you're welcome to express that distaste on the battlefield; Snail Games' upcoming free-to-play game features realm versus realm warfare that pits machine against magic. With these two different genres represented, the game looks to please a broader spectrum of players than the traditional single-genre titles that populate the MMOverse. The question is, will it succeed? Even though we've perused available news and watched a variety of videos about everything from the various classes and different races to action combat to guild vs. guild systems, nothing beats getting into the MMO and experiencing it for yourself. Closed beta for Black Gold Online began mid-May, so I jumped in to get a taste of what awaits players when the game hits open beta this summer. What I found is that while the game excels in some areas, it comes up short in others. Here's a run-down of my first impressions.
Massively Exclusive: Aura Kingdom's Dark Legion content update
Aura Kingdom is set to get a major update this Thursday called The Dark Legion, and Massively has the first look at the patch. Dark Legion, Aura Kingdom's fifth content update, contains a wide array of new content with an emphasis on high-level adventures. The update will add two new level 60-plus zones: the alliterative Vulture's Vale and Blizzard Berg. Also coming are login bonuses, the Kaiser Zeta eidolon, the level-65 Landing of the Sky Dragon King dungeon, better rewards, improvements to the weapons and partner systems. You can check out the Kaiser Zeta teaser video after the break!
