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Captain's Log: New-user tips on Star Trek Online's duty officer system
Let me first wish all of our readers in Canada a very happy Thanksgiving Day! This week I will continue my informal series for new Star Trek Online players with a brief primer on the game's duty officer system. More commonly referred to as DOffs, Star Trek Online's duty officers provide a player with an additional means to obtain XP, dilithium, and other rewards without his having to shoot a single thing. Many people have likened the DOff system to that of a trading card game, and to an extent they are right. The duty officers have also become a commodity that can be used in other ways outside of the assignment system itself. So join me past the jump as I delve into the very basics of the STO duty officer system.
ArenaNet explains Guild Wars 2's new Ascended item tier
Earlier today, Guild Wars 2 players got their first real idea of what's awaiting them in the Lost Shores content update. They responded with an collective outcry against the introduction of Ascended items, which inhabit a new tier of item rarity. The roar of outrage was a little muddled, however, as there weren't a whole lot of details about what purpose Ascended items serve. A new blog post clarifies the whole issue. Get ready for some knowledge! One of the primary design purposes for the Ascended item tier is to bridge the gap between Exotic gear (which fairly casual players can have a reasonable certainty of acquiring without too much angst) and Legendaries (which are for the hardest of hardcores). Specifically, Ascended items will be used specifically to combat new endgame mechanics. Foes within the new Fractals of the Mists dungeon will inflict Agony on players. Agony can only be mitigated by Infusions, which can be put only into Ascended armor. As players get to higher levels of difficulty within the dungeon, they will eventually find a point at which they have to counter Agony (by Infusions) before they can hope to proceed. Rather than being upgraded with normal components, Ascended gear has upgrades built-in, and upgrade slots have been repurposed into Infusion slots. November's update will include only Ascended rings and back items. More Infusions and Ascended item types will be added with time. When Ascended items are added to the game, Legendary weapons will be updated so they are still the best available option (as opposed to being on-par with Exotic weapons, as they currently are).
Addon Spotlight: Get prepped for Pet Battles
Each week, WoW Insider's Mathew McCurley brings you a fresh look at reader-submitted UIs as well as Addon Spotlight, which focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience: the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your addons folder will never be the same. At this very moment, I am taking a break from running dungeons, farming for transmogrification equipment, because the instance counter has ticked to five in an hour and I just can't go back in. I am no stranger to farming and farming and farming for something that I want. As an MMO veteran, this is pretty commonplace and something we expect and understand as a fact of our MMO lives. With Pet Battles coming in Mists of Pandaria, those rare pets out in the world are becoming even bigger status symbols, when we gain the ability to finally show off, train, and battle those companions. Like most of my articles, it all started with an email from reader Josh: My question is there an addon that tracks and counts the number of mobs or certain mobs you kill? I'm starting to farm mobs for mini pets and just counting in my head gets boring (doesn't help my mind tends to wander). Thank you very much :) When I asked on Twitter for recommendations for an addon to feature this week, two addons stood out from the pack because of my current obsession with finding every rare pet left for me to catch and bosses just not dropping my transmog items. @Skolnik (of the immensely interesting podcast Warcraft Less Traveled) recommended Bunny Hunter, an addon that tracks statistics based on your farming sessions for rare pets and mounts that have low drop rates. Another addon I've been meaning to recommend, Rarity, lives in the same category, so why not package it all together?
Fallen Earth dev diary talks economic changes, world events, and more
Earlier today we told you about the Fallen Earth devs answering a few of your free-to-play questions. Now it's time to dive a bit further down the rabbit hole courtesy of this month's state of the game update. Producer Marie Croall checks in with us to talk about the game's two-year anniversary celebration, which includes "PvP, PvE, and RP components." She also says that the event will be run at EU- and US-friendly times (though said times aren't specified as of yet). In terms of game updates, the major portion of the September recap concerns the ongoing economic changes. Inconsistencies dealing with recipe and component rarity have been dealt with, and the dev team has "redone the placement of most of the nodes in the game" to make the rarer nodes more of an incentive to enter PvP-enabled areas. Finally, Croall says that the release of the new world event system has been bumped back to coincide with the free-to-play conversion on October 12th. Grab your favorite wasteland beverage and read all the details at the official Fallen Earth dev blog.
Massively exclusive: Luvinia Online equipment education
Gear in MMOs isn't just about making a fashion statement; it's often the difference between life and death, success and failure, envy and pity. So it is with Luvinia Online, as gear will be a primary focus of any adventurer who doesn't want his lifespan to be measured in minutes. Outspark has been gracious enough to treat us to a comprehensive introduction to how gear works in Luvinia. On top of the expected stats and rarity values, Luvinia has a few interesting ideas about how to modify gear and trade it between characters. Luvinia Online finished closed beta last month, but is heading for open beta fairly soon. Hit the jump to start your edumacation in the fine art of equipment, courtesy of the development team at Outspark.
Captain's Log: The lower decks
Captain's Log, Stardate 64977.3... Spock, Riker, Kira, Worf, Chakotay, and T'Pol. What do they all have in common? They are the notable men and women who served under their Captains as First Officer. Joret, Sito, Alyssa, Taurik, Sam and Geniveve. What do they all have in common? No one knows who the heck they are. In the world of Star Trek, these "unknowns" are the members of the lower decks, people whose work goes unnoticed, whose accomplishments are unacknowledged, and who are often killed off at the end of the episode when you finally do get to know them. While the ships in Star Trek Online currently seem to be manned only by the Captain, his or her Bridge Officers (BOff), and some random crewmen walking around the ship, this is about to change. In the next couple months, get ready to welcome new members to your ship's lower decks. The Duty Officer (DOff) system will be adding a new form of gameplay to STO and give players even more ways to level characters and become immersed in the universe surrounding them. While there are a ton of random pieces of information about it floating out there, I think that Captain's Log is the perfect place to put it all together and give you a more concise picture of how it will work. Ensign, warp 10! It's time to attend your new favorite class, DOffs 101...
The Daily Grind: How important is uniqueness to you?
When it comes to clinging to one's uniqueness, I'm reminded of that classic line from Monty Python's Life of Brian in which huge crowd shouts in unison "We are all different!" and a tiny voice follows that up with "I'm not... ." The truth is that while we as people are unique, there are more similarities between us than we'd often like to admit. This is even more true when you get into MMOs, where character creation options are usually limited to a handful of races, classes and faces, and where everyone is a hero just like you doing all the same quests and activities and world-saving. Because of this, there's a tendency to rebel and forge a unique voice in the crowd, even if it's just a different look, a bizarre name, an odd personality or a piece of loot that's so extraordinarily rare that you're most likely the only one possessing it. We want to be known and remembered for something other than "being the same as everyone else," a feeling that manifests itself in a variety of ways. So how important is in-game uniqueness to you -- and how do you go about demonstrating it? 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!
All you ever wanted to know about Rift's gear and were not afraid to ask
While some players may possess the tact not to come right out and say it to a dev's face, when an upcoming MMO is being discussed there's always the inner voice shouting, "What about my loots? Is the gear pimpin' or what?" Forget zones and races and dynamic events -- today at Ten Ton Hammer, the crowd finally got the Rift: Planes of Telara dev team to open up about the outfits that constitute a bulk of the rewards of the game. In this reader Q&A, Game System Designer Drew Clowery tackled numerous questions about Rift's gear. Rift will launch with 48 armor set models -- each boasting a number of variants and texture options -- but will not initially offer armor set bonuses. Veteran MMO gamers will feel at home with Rift's armor system, which is restricted by class (warriors will be able to wear heavier armor than rogues, for example) and can be bound on pickup or equip. Loot comes in one of four levels of rarity -- common, uncommon, rare and epic -- based on its utility and difficulty to attain. Crafted gear will be competitive (and apparently customizable) to dropped gear. And finally, Rift will not launch with an appearance system that replaces the look of worn gear with cosmetic items. Clowery feels that the team has struck a good balance between loot being useful and being a barrier: "Loot is an important part of our game, and so it has to have an important impact upon the characters. That said, it's not completely overwhelming... We don't design encounters to be gear checks. We design them to see if you can get together and do this."
Bring a little color to your ride in Fallen Earth
As you scour the wastelands in Fallen Earth, most likely you're taking advantage of the situation by getting yourself a vehicle. Not just any vehicle -- you want something that's flashy, functional, and durable. A fair amount of storage would help, too. Yet for all the options given to players, you've been largely restricted to the main colors of the game world for your new roadster until now. The first phase of color customization is hitting the live servers tomorrow, and it brings with it the option to pay a Garage Manager a fee and pimp your ride with a nice new paint job. Four paint and dye kits are being added to the crafting of dyes, with each one working on a different range of vehicles and offering the same selection of colors. On top of that, there are eight additional kits of higher rarity -- three of which are found out in the world, and five of which are crafted from new rare components. While our preview gallery doesn't seem to include Safety Orange, Hot Pink, or Powder Blue among its selection, you can take a look to see just how slick your Fallen Earth wheels will look after the patch. %Gallery-98329%
DS Daily: Three hundred dollars
If you want to import a Nintendo DSi at launch, that's what you're going to have to pay -- that is, if you can even get one. That's about $100 over its retail price, for a system with only two confirmed launch titles (the browser and the notepad program) and only two more known titles (mini-Brain Ages) on the way.Have the prices affected your decision, if you were previously planning to grab one? Or have the reports of rarity, which are helping to drive those high prices, accelerated the decision process?%Gallery-33263%
The Daily Grind: Do you play for specifics?
If you play a particular game a lot, you're bound to get good at it after a while. If you get really good, you may start to find patterns that make gameplay easier. If you refine these patterns, you could become a master. If you've become a master, you may start to see redundancy of experience, where, say, leveling alt after alt becomes repetitive and humdrum. If this happens, you may start to look for the truly novel places, the unique situations, the unusual character builds -- you may quest for something specific.Sometimes, it's that ridiculously rare piece of armor that only drops once every thousand encounters. Sometimes it's that spell waaaay down on the ability tree that requires an exhaustive amount of time to unlock. Sometimes it's an in-game event that occurs randomly, when you've collected the proper sequence of items -- and you don't know exactly what those items are, but you saw someone do it once, and you're damned if he's going to be the only one. When you're so good at a game that the standard challenges no longer entice, do you go looking for something specific?
Are MMOs killing the single-player game?
Listening to the Penny Arcade podcast, Downloadable Content, as I am wont to do when playing something, the topic of discussion turned to how World of Warcraft has ruined Mike for playing single-player-only games because no matter what treasure is received, or secret unlocked, it's an offering on display only for himself; it cannot be shared, and therefore lacks the proper cachet. At least, that was my understanding; I may be mistaken. Check it out yourself.Regardless, the concept is sound. The rarity of your epic loot is rendered almost meaningless in a single-player venue. And perhaps the heady thrill of true PvP combat makes solo play less appealing. Being a Soloist myself, this is not too much of an issue to me, but what do you all think? Do single-player games have to work harder, innovate more, to deserve your dollar? Is the future of gaming, as Raph Koster seems to think, MMOs?
