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Warlords of Draenor: New info from PAX East
PAX East 2014 has come and gone, but we at WoW Insider have come away from the weekend with juicy new information to share with you about Warlords of Draenor. During the expo, I sat down for a chat with senior game designers Steve Burke and Brian Holinka, lead class designer Kris Zierhut, and other developers. In our brief time together, they told me some exciting info about garrisons, raiding, transmog, and the expansion's starting experience. They also provided insight into what a boosted level 90 will experience after the expansion launches. Please note that mild spoilers about the early story of Warlords of Draenor will follow. Join me after the break for all the new info!
The Mog Log: Don't you want me, FFXI?
Final Fantasy XI has launched its fifth expansion, and yet I can't bring myself to be as excited as I should be. Longtime readers will recall that the account I've been playing on is younger and lacking in many of the higher-level conveniences such as airship passes and a white mage leveled enough to handle Sneak and Invisible. Put simply, I'm not in a place to just jump right into all of the content that Seekers of Adoulin has to offer right out of the gate. On the plus side, I do have several conveniences that completely new players wouldn't have, not the least of which is an extensive knowledge of the game as a whole. A new player coming in straight would look at the game and just wind up baffled, and I can't blame him in the least. If you're starting fresh, the game is not welcoming you. Longtime readers will also know that I've long been a proponent of making the game easier to get into. But is this even worth bothering with? Is the game for players starting at lower levels any more? Is there even a point to easing up the lower-level restrictions any longer?
The Daily Grind: How long do you need to play a game before you get a fair impression?
First impressions are tricky things. Play a game for a little while and you'll get an idea of what the game is like, but you might miss some important parts that give it context. The combat doesn't change once you finish the tutorial in DC Universe Online, but you have a lot more powers and abilities afterward. Having your full skillbar in Guild Wars 2 changes a huge chunk of the gameplay, and you don't unlock your final slot until level 30. But some gamers would argue that you can tell whether you'll like a game earlier than that. Speaking as a journalist, I know I need to evaluate the game as a whole to make sure it's not just a good game that isn't to my tastes, but a casual player doesn't have that restriction. So how long do you feel you personally need to play a game to get a fair impression of the game as a whole? 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!
Take a tour of Guild Wars 2's Asuran starting experience... for science!
Hopeful denizens of Tyria are almost certainly gearing up for this weekend's Guild Wars 2 public beta test, but fans of all things mad-science are probably a bit disappointed that the insa-- err, innovative Asura won't be playable this time around. Not to worry, though; the folks over at PC Gamer got an inside look at the first 10 levels of the Asura starting experience for your pleasure. Of course, if there's one thing that fans of the minuscule mad scientists know to expect from the race's crazed experiments, it's that they operate entirely within the realm of Murphy's Law. That of course holds true for the Asura starting experience, which sees players battling against the rebel Asuran Inquest while also dealing with the myriad failed science projects of their compatriots. For some of the highlights of the Asuran introductory story, go check out the full article at PC Gamer.
A peek at Gridania and Ul'dah in Final Fantasy XIV
Square-Enix has been as good as their word when it comes to obfuscating the details of Final Fantasy XIV, even through testing. Testers have been confined to the port city of Limsa Lominsa all through the beta phases, but last week Square gave a small hands-on to a handful of sites showing off the other two cities. FFXIVCore happened to be among them, and offers an extensive rundown of the experience in both Ul'dah and Gridania -- both of which are very different from the thoroughly-tested pirate-themed opening. Gridania's opening takes place within the dense forests surrounding the city, with a crashed airship and a rather unexpected encounter with wolves. Ul'dah, on the other hand, features a great deal of pageantry being disrupted by the untimely freedom of a goobue. Both include certain common elements from the Limsa Lominsa opening, most notably the meteor shower and the disembodied voice, but the rundown indicates that players starting in different settings will have a memorable start to their adventures as well. That's good news for Final Fantasy XIV's future players, although perhaps a bitter pill for the testers not yet able to play these cities.
Incoming newbies, but why?
I think this is an interesting post by Grancran over on the official forums. We've already talked about how Blizzard is revamping the newbie experience in upcoming releases (including the next patch and the expansion), but he wants to know: for whom? Sure, there are going to be lots and lots of people going through the starting experience again when the expansion rolls around, both because of the new class combinations and the new races, but all of those people have already played the game. Why update a tutorial system when the majority of gamers have already played WoW? It's an interesting question. Neth answers pretty tamely, saying that we were all noobs at one point, and that they want to make the starting areas as welcome as possible. But the question remains: is Blizzard expecting an influx of new players at some point in the future?
Phasing is the new instancing
In an interview with Eurogamer, Blizzard's J. Allen Brack revealed just a little more about the advancements developers have made with Wrath of the Lich King. As I raved about in my post about the Death Knight starting experience, I effused about how the entire experience was instanced, creating a feel of progression through the world. It turns out I was wrong. The Death Knight starting experience isn't instanced at all. It uses what Blizzard calls "phasing technology". In my defense, even Tom Chilton made the same mistake in the interview, saying "(the Death Knight starting area uses) instancing quite a lot more... the world changes dynamically as you move through the story." This prompted Brack to interject a correction, "It's actually not instances. What we do is we have different world states, and depending on what quests you've completed, it changes what world state you're seeing." He also mentions that the new phasing technology is used in other parts and other quests all over Northrend.
