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Aika's latest dungeon is for the birds
It's been fairly quiet in terms of Aika news following the game's first major expansion, but the free-to-play game has just received a major update in the form of the Kynari Aviary. Concluding the story from the expansion of the Kynari civil war, the Aviary is the lynchpin of several story seeds and quests that lead players to challenge the malefactor of the Kynari people, Darkrane. He awaits within the dungeon, complete with new rewards and items for players of all skill levels. The dungeon features three difficulties -- Normal, Hard, and Elite, with the higher difficulties offering better spoils from the battle. It's also filled with high-end crafting materials, with Normal difficulty dropping a large amount of needed materials and Elite difficulty dropping one-of-a-kind recipes for some of the most powerful items in the game. Aika players can begin heading through the dungeon now, assuming that they've hit the level cap and have five friends willing to brave the Aviary.
Shannon Posniewski on the development of Champions Online's first adventure pack
It's been a quiet couple of weeks for Champions Online -- at least, from the news side of things. Players have had plenty to do in the form of the recent Serpent Lantern adventure, offering an experience for players of nearly any level and any group size. Shannon Posniewski sat down for a recent interview in which he detailed some of the work that went into the adventure pack, from the challenges in design to the lessons learned. The overhaul of the perks system and the changes made to VIPER are both cited as elements that the development team was working on without the adventure pack, both of which dovetailed nicely with the new content. Posniewski describes the biggest hurdle as the scaling issues, however, which doesn't simply translate to adding more hit points to higher-level enemies. It's part of what contributes to the four-month design turnaround he describes in the interview. If you've been enjoying the new adventure, it's well worth a look at the interview for a peek at what makes Champions Online's development tick.
