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The Art of Wushu: The right martial arts school for you
Normally at Massively, we start off a column by linking to relevant community sites and information resources for a game. Things are a bit different with Age of Wushu, however. Aside from the main community site and the wiki currently under construction, there isn't much information about the game available in English. Running biweekly, The Art of Wushu will help you navigate the sprawling Wushu sandbox. This week, we'll be looking at the various martial arts schools in the game and which schools to select in order to fit your preferred playstyle. While we can't go over each school's intricacies in depth, we'll do our best to give you a brief primer on what you can expect as a member of a particular school.
Storyboard: Archetype discussion - the Scholar
It's time for our third archetype discussion, with the previous two being the Soldier and the Rogue. I've been pleased with the positive response I've seen so far, especially since the archetypes seem to help highlight the difference between a class and the character. There are classes that suggest a more roguelike approach (not a Roguelike approach; that's different), but people play them as soldiers, undertaking missions and killing based on exterior orders rather than any sort of malice or desire. And that's great -- the power of archetypes is that you can have almost any class or combination of abilities backing them up. Such is the case with today's archetype, one that is often seen as being limited to spellcasters but which can really cover almost any set of skills. James Joyce wrote that when you think about things, you can understand them, and that's the bread and butter of the scholar. Queue up some appropriate music, and let's take a look at someone who just wants to know more.
Official Final Fantasy XIV site updated
The official site for Final Fantasy XIV follows several Square-Enix site traditions, by being designed entirely in Flash and having an obnoxiously slow update schedule. Thankfully, an official update has just hit the site, both in the form of several new screenshots (including the lovely in-game shot seen above) and more solid ability information about several of the game's disciplines. Much of it mirrors what we'd seen in early leaks from Japanese magazines, but the abilities and spells of each class shed more light on how the game will play. Conjurers are apparently going to play similar to Scholars, with both traditional black and white magic spells in their arsenal, as well as unique tricks such as being able to cast while moving. Thaumaturges, meanwhile, inherit several Dark Knight draining/sacrificing abilities along with several status ailments. And those are just the two casting professions -- each of the five physical damage professions seem poised for a wide variety of ability combinations, along with a heavy emphasis on position. The beta information for Final Fantasy XIV still seems to be restricted, but the game is already looking intruiging for both fans of the series and general MMO players.
Double dev chat goodness for LotRO Book 12
Two Lord of the Rings Online dev chats within one week? It's like Christmas came early for LotRO players. But it looks like some players are getting presents and others are getting coal. German website, Lotro-Welten, held its monthly LotRO dev chat for European players last week. And last night US players got their own dev chat at MMORPG. Strangely, the EU dev chat held a wealth of new information while the US chat had very little new or interesting. Here are the highlights from Lotro-Welten's chat, mostly applying to the upcoming Book 12 content patch: Fishing is being introduced as a new profession category called Hobbies Hobbies are professions that anyone can level up in regardless of their other tradeskill choices The barber in Book 12 will offer new hairstyles The new cosmetic system allowing you to display different clothing will not extend to hand held items and will be entirely disabled in PvMP zones More solo content is a big priority for the dev team and Angmar is getting a pass in Book 12 to become more solo friendly
Apple Scholars 2006
Apple has selected 10 students for the Apple Scholars program which Dave first wrote about on TUAW a few months ago. Each student was selected for their innovative use of technology, though Apple's website doesn't go into detail about those innovations.Congrats to the winners: Nick Biere John Coburn Michelle Crowther Paul Ginart Vicki Hsu Mitchell Murphy Raj Ranade Zoe Ross-Silverman Lauren Williamson Muthanna Yacoub Each of the Scholars gets an iPod nano, a MacBook Pro, and $2000
Defining academic scholarship in games [Update 1]
The International Game Developers Association's "Culture Clash" column this month takes a look at the boundary between games and scholarship. Academia, and games academia in particular, can be the victim of a lot of stereotyping, but if developers look beyond the tweed-clad perceptions they may find a valuable resource:"One application of game studies is to help make better games by better understanding the medium. We've already seen it in a few places – think about Microsoft's HCI and usability labcoats working with Bungie on Halo, or behavioral scientists colluding with developers to make next-gen MMOs even more engaging."Of course, persuading your college professor that studying World of Warcraft is really going to help your tribal ethnography project is a different problem, but we've heard of several college papers that studied games.[Via Acid for Blood][Update 1 - fixed IGDA typo]
