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Defiance chat upgrades coming with February DLC
Trion's latest Defiance dev blog talks up changes to the sci-fi shooter's chat interface. Creative lead Trick Dempsey says that "one of the most frequent requests" from players since the game's launch has been chat improvements, and Trion's in an obliging mood. In a nutshell, the UI is simpler and "free of the commands/emotes/etc., that bloated the viewport in the previous iteration." When can you get your virtual hands on this fine new chat system? Sometime in February, Dempsey writes. Keep your eyes peeled for the 7th Legion DLC which will feature the chat improvements and "even more steps to improve quality and ease-of-use for Defiance."
Defiance now offers unlimited free trial
Defiance's free trial just got better as Trion Worlds has removed the time limit so that players can explore the game at their own pace. The trial still has a hard cap limit for 500 EGO, however. Trion also posted a dev blog talking about how the team is using stims, spikes, and revamped grenades to make the action in the recent Arkbreaker DLC even better. "Ark hunters constantly ride the dagger's edge between life and death: the addition of resource scarcity makes this danger all the more real when placed into the combat equation," Creative Lead Trick Dempsey explained. "Spikes, stims, and grenades add a huge amount of power to the ark hunter arsenal, but power always comes with the seductive possibility of becoming dependent and thus, vulnerable."
Defiance's Arkbreaker lets players bring down the sky
Defiance developer Trion Worlds promises quite a bit with the game's latest DLC, Arkbreaker, starting with the ability to literally call massive Arks down from the sky. That's right; with this new DLC you'll be able to spot small and large incoming Arkfalls on your map, get yourself to the location, and place one to four batteries that will then hack into one of the orbiting Arks, forcing one to fall to your location. You'll see it break through the sky and crash nearby for your entertainment. After it lands, you and as many people you can summon to your aid will fight through an initial wave of baddies, taking on average between seven and 10 minutes, until a hole is blown into the side of the Ark. Once that happens, you can jump in to fight for your life and for some really, really good loot. We sat down with Creative Lead Trick Dempsey and Social Media Manager Greg Laabs to talk about the new content.
Defiance state of the game promises improvements
Defiance Creative Lead Trick Dempsey is in the middle of his move to Trion Worlds' Redwood Shores studio, but he's paused to take the time to write a state of the game before he changes ZIP codes. The top priority for the Defiance team is fixing weapons -- all of them. Dempsey said that the team is examining the "core balance" of all of the weapons and sorting out rarity and bonus issues. "Higher rarity weapons will always be accompanied with celebration and never disappointment," he promised. The team is also looking to tweak and improve shields, inventory, objectives, the UI, and especially the chat system. Dempsey ends his letter teasing the upcoming second DLC, the details of which he says will be coming "soon." [Thanks to Etaew for the tip!]
