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Star Trek Online updates Klingon War episodes
As we heard yesterday, part of Star Trek Online's Season 8.5 will be devoted to revamping a dozen early episodes from the game in order to bring them up to par with later efforts. Cryptic Designer Jesse Heinig wrote a dev blog explaining what these changes will entail for the Federation's Klingon War story arc. "Rather than turn one or two more episodes into feature episodes, though, we've chosen to go through and make noticeable improvements on all of them," Heinig explained. "The stories remain the same and much of the gameplay is still there, but we've tweaked the missions to be faster, more dynamic, and more visually interesting." The revamped episodes will take advantage of better encounter pacing, removal of unneeded encounters, accomodation for player ships with cloaks, additional art and environments, cleaned-up dialogue, career-specific options and rewards, and fly-out messages from NPCs to enhance storytelling.
Champions Online's FATAL ERR0R takes the fight to cyberspace
Just when the superheroes and heroines of Champions Online thought they had enough problems to deal with in the real world, it looks like there's some serious trouble brewing in cyberspace. On July 18th, Cryptic Studios will be introducing the first part of Champions Online's latest story arc, FATAL ERR0R. You see, the Champions' semi-sentient supercomputer Socrates is under siege by some sinister hackers, and it's up to players to act as a living firewall. In addition to the usual globetrotting, players are going to have to go all TRON and head into the treacherous territory of virtual reality to fend off the viruses that plague SOCRATES. The cyberspace excursion will take place in a group instance ideal for two to three players, and players of any level can get in on the action thanks to enemy level scaling. Players who successfully stand in defense of SOCRATES will be rewarded in meatspace with snazzy new virtual-reality-themed costume pieces. Part one of the FATAL ERR0R arc goes live on July 18th, but in the meantime, check out the gallery below for a sneak peek at the copious amounts of '80s neon that awaits. %Gallery-17946%
Trickster Online's Episode 6 woos players with magic!
The world's most epic love story is coming to a close, a treasure map is discovered, and celebrations galore are on the way. It's not a soap opera; it's Episode 6 for Trickster Online, which has landed on the servers today. Trickster's latest update features the final part of its current story arc as well as a heapload of new content for players to explore. The episode adds 23 additional areas to the game, 56 more quests, an escort system, and a treasure hunt for billionaire Don Cavalier's loot. SG Interactive's Chris Lee says to look at Episode 6 not as an ending but as a new beginning: "The new episode will put the finishing touch to our storyline while providing engaging contents for all players, from beginners to high level players. In addition to concluding the current storyline, this update marks the beginning of more new adventures in Trickster Online, and players should anticipate big celebrations in and out of the game coming soon." Be sure to check out the trailer for Episode 6: Songs of Love and Fate!
Cryptic releases new Star Trek Online Featured Episode
Ready for Star Trek Online's newest Featured Episode series? Well, ready or not, Cryptic is here to give us the skinny on Series 3: Cloaked Intentions. If you're wondering how STO's episodes work, it breaks down like this: Feature Episodes are tied together to form a single story arc. New episodes under each Feature banner take a bow on Saturdays at 11:00 a.m. PST and are freely available to all STO players regardless of level. The new Cloaked Intentions arc involves a series of missions focused on the Romulan Empire; the overarching goal of participating players is the prevention of a bloody civil war. The intrigue kicks off today with Episode 1: The Vault, followed by episodes 2 - 5 every Saturday through March 5th. You can learn more at the official STO website, and don't forget to warp past the cut for the Cloaked Intentions trailer.
Final Fantasy XI previews the end of Wings of the Goddess
The December version update is kicking off the end of many things for Final Fantasy XI -- the end of the year, the end of the level cap from the last update, and perhaps most notably the end of Wings of the Goddess. After a very long and drawn-out storyline and series of missions, it's time for players to finish up their adventures in the past. But as can be expected, it's not going to be quite as simple as walking up to the Spitewardens and politely asking them to pack up shop. After a series of defeats, challenges, and the usual confusion regarding any time-travel storyline, it seems the final movement begins in Grauberg with a rather flustered Cait Sith and moves on to the Walk of Echoes. It's time to face off against the Spitewardens and Lillith, the main villains of the expansion's arc, if adventurers want to maintain any hope of a future controlled by the free people of Vana'diel instead of the beastmen. While the preview only gives us a small taste of what's coming, Final Fantasy XI players had best steel themselves in advance -- this promises to end with a bang.
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Because of reasons!
It's weird to say it, but City of Heroes feels like it's still on the cusp of a storm. Going Rogue was a fine expansion, but it doesn't have the sense of breaking that built-up tension, that feeling of something major just over the horizon. Or perhaps it's just me, perched out on my metaphorical porch and loudly proclaiming that this next one is going to be the big one, as I puff on my metaphorical corn-cob pipe and look across the metaphorical skyline of rural Metaphorbraska. OK, that one kind of got away from me there, but what I was trying to get at was that it's time for another question-and-answer session for City of Heroes and that I don't think I'm the only person feeling like Issue 19 might hold some great secret. We'll know soon enough, although right now it's time for Issue 20's super-secret beta, which even I don't know about just yet. I'm very curious. On to the questions!
The Game Archaeologist and the Asheron Recall: The highlights
It's hard being the youngest child -- you get the hand-me-downs, suffer through swirlies by older siblings, and eventually develop such a neurosis that it requires seven different brands of horse tranquilizers to make it through the day. Not that I would actually know, being an oldest child and all. But I suppose it would be a hard-knock life. In a couple ways, Asheron's Call was the youngest of the three MMO siblings that comprised the first major MMO generation. Ultima Online, the big brother, had prestige and legacy behind it, and middle child EverQuest quickly became the most popular at school. And then there was Asheron's Call, poking its head on the scene in late 1999 as a cooperative project between developer Turbine and publisher Microsoft. AC never got the recognition of Ultima Online nor the numbers of EverQuest, but this scrappy title became a fan favorite and endured even to this day -- beyond its own sequel, believe it or not. Instead of plowing through a stale history report of Asheron's Call today, I thought it'd be fun to come up with a list of the eight most unique aspects of this fairly innovative 11-year-old MMO. Ah lists, how I adore thee -- let me count the ways. Eight ways, to be precise!
Final Fantasy XIV discusses companions and crafting
One of the more frequent complaints about the nature of Final Fantasy XIV is that the game doesn't go out of its way to be accessible. If anything, it revels in a solid veil of mystery and encouragement for players to experiment. That doesn't sit well with everyone, however, which is no doubt why Square-Enix is making a conscious effort to expand the resources on the official player site as a basic reference. The most recent update has seen some common questions about crafting answered, as well as a brief guide to choosing a path companion. Path companions are an element of the game introduced at the start of the fifth main story quest, giving you an NPC who accompanies you on the missions. There are a multitude of different personalities, determined by race and gender, with the short guide provided explaining how each choice affects the outcome. The brief rundown on crafting is also illuminating, as it highlights certain heretofore unknown elements of the system -- such as a character's elemental affinity helping to determine what sort of crystals and shards come from gathering. Final Fantasy XIV players are encouraged to check both pieces.
Matt "Positron" Miller prepares his radioactive banhammer against mission architect abusers
Mission architect -- an amazing system that allows a very creative player-base to finally take the reigns of creation and make amazing in-game arcs that feature personalized stories, personalized characters, farming, well made.... wait, what?Yes, you heard that right, people have already began to leverage City of Heroes's architect system into nothing more than powerleveling tool, and the community doesn't find that to be too enjoyable. Luckily, Matt "Positron" Miller, the lead designer, has already stepped up with a post to the community on the City of Heroes message board about how they plan on dealing with these problems.The team wishes to remove the rewards some characters may have gained through powerleveling, all the way up to removing access to characters that were solely leveled up via mission architect exploits. Past working on a player by player bases, some badges will be changed while others may be removed entirely due to the exploiting groups surrounding them. Lastly, but certainly not least, the team will be proactively banning missions that are created to exploit the system.For Matt's full plan, check out his post over on the City of Heroes message board.
Dungeons & Dragons Online live event postponed
According to Quarion and Patience of the Turbine community team, the Dungeon & Dragons Online servers got unlucky and rolled a 1 earlier today. As any good Dungeon Master would, Turbine consulted the critical fail tables and it would appear that the servers will remain offline until at least 7PM Eastern. What this means is that the final chapter of the Emerald Claw Conspiracy event that has been eagerly anticipated will be postponed for the time being. As we'd stated before, live events in MMOs are sadly uncommon, so we're certain that this is something that the DDO player base will be keeping their eyes on. We know we were looking forward to seeing some screenshots of it for One Shots, as world events are a lot of fun to check out! Hopefully things will work out soon and the DDO servers can get some new dice with better roll mojo for the future.[Thanks, Schad!]
