 | Infinite Crisis shows off what's going on behind the scenes
On one level, Infinite Crisis feels like an obvious premise. Take a setting that already gives players plenty of reasons to beat one another up as iconic heroes and villains, give those players plenty of iconic heroes and villains, enjoy the show. |
 | Dead Island: Epidemic puts zombies back in MOBAs
What's a ZOMBA? It's not that thing that roams around your floor sucking up dirt but instead an entirely new thing that makes a happy marriage of Dead Island's zombies and MOBAs: a Zombie Online Multiplayer Battle Arena. |
 | Marvel Heroes dev blog talks PvP, defense, and new heroes
It's time again for Gazillion Entertainment's weekly Marvel Heroes dev blog, and this latest entry hops, skips, and jumps its way across a vast number of topics. |
 | Massively's hands-on with Strife, a new MOBA from S2 Games
My team is struggling. We've managed to hold our own after a nasty fight in the bottom lane, but then a message appears on my screen: Krytos is coming. |
 | Crushing MOBA community strife in S2's Strife
Strife isn't just part of MOBAs; soon it will be a MOBA. As we revealed earlier this morning, S2 Games' new game is being designed from the ground up with a more positive community in mind. |
 | SMITE's newest god Tyr lays down the law
Hi-Rez has released a new SMITE god to the masses. The deity of this particular hour is Tyr, also known as The Lawgiver. If that sounds intimidating, wait until you seem him two-hitting enemies, knocking them senseless (and into the air), and generally doing his best to remain impervious to stuns, taunts, fears, and mesmerize effects. |
fans were up in arms this week as developer Hi-Rez Studios
discontinued its forum support and directed players to third-party website Reddit
without consulting the moderators of the subreddit. Many game studios have their community managers interact with the game's main subreddit to keep their fingers on pulse of the community and make announcements, but none has tried to use it as an official forum. To make matters worse,
this controversy came on the back of shaky customer relations due to what's been characterized as unprofessional Reddit comments made by
Tribes: Ascend community manager HiRezAPC.
Two huge threads erupted on
/r/Tribes and
/r/Games explaining the situation and asking moderators to ban all Hi-Rez employees from posting on the subreddit.
A poll on the issue ended with 86% of respondents agreeing that Hi-Rez employees should be banned, but moderators decided not to take action. The
Tribes: Ascend community's opinion of Hi-Rez appears to have taken a steep nosedive in the past year. Players have blamed poor game support, unresolved server issues, and a severe lack of patches since the company started working on
SMITE.
Heroes of Newerth players have probably noticed that development has slowed down in recent years but may not have known why. The reason became apparent today as developer S2 Games revealed that it
has been working on a new game all this time.
The new game is titled Strife, and in an unexpected turn of events, it's actually another MOBA. The game boasts a resource system, pets, crafting, and community features that aren't found in
Heroes of Newerth.
Strife aims to make people invest in individual heroes more by allowing heroes to take up multiple roles and having players choose the hero before entering matchmaking.
Rise of Immortals saw early success with this gameplay strategy but then revamped to a standard lobby picking system shortly before closing its doors for good. The reactions from
Heroes of Newerth players has been mixed, with some feeling betrayed that development time was being spent on another MOBA and others viewing
Strife as a potentially more casual companion to
HoN.
The
Dota 2 World Championship tournament, The International, took place all this week from August 7th to 11th. Saturday saw Swedish team
Alliance (formerly known as No Tidehunter) dominate in the winner's bracket, securing a place in the grand final with a 2-0 whitewash against 2011's tournament winner
Na'Vi. Last year's champion,
Invictus Gaming, was knocked out of the tournament by Chinese team
TongFu, which went on to lose its shot at reaching the grand finals to talented Malaysian squad
Orange.Neolution.
Last night saw Orange and Na'Vi face off in a tense match for a place in the grand final against Alliance. Na'Vi was favourite to win last year but has faced stiff competition this year due in part to over $2.8 million US being on the line, and Orange has recently been taking the competitive scene by storm. Na'Vi managed to secure a place in the grand final, producing some of the most intense and unpredictable matches in the tournament's three-year history. With $1.6 million US at stake, the winner of The International 2013 came down to a single winner-takes-all match.
This week's
Star Citizen updates focused on the upcoming Hangar module, with
two galleries full of
hangar concept art and a special look at the hangar being developed at the start of Wingman's Hangar. In the video below, developers also showed off some presents from fans and took the time to answer a whole slew of gameplay questions on everything from locking down jump-points to modifying engines.
Elite creator
David Braben got behind the camera this week for the fifth
Elite: Dangerous video dev diary, which this time focused on ship passengers. Passengers were first seen in
Frontier: Elite II, in which the player could take contracts to ferry people from one system to another in generic cabins.
Elite: Dangerous aims to revamp this with a new type of dedicated luxury liner ship that allows players to pick up a small number of extremely high-paying guests like a luxury cruise in real life.
There are also plans to add interesting high-profile passengers like royalty, diplomats, and notable criminals whose conveyance could post a risk to pilots. There may even be galactic tourists who want to go on planned trips around multiple locations or take a return trip to a specific resort. Braben also goes on to answer questions from fans on topics like flying ships through a planet's rings, destroying NPC capital ships, construction shipyards, and
Elite: Dangerous' position as a hardcore game in a growing casual market.
Blizzard has
released its schedule for GamesCom 2013, which includes a hands-on playtest with the console version of
Diablo III, live performances of some of the game music, and a
Diablo costume contest. The event will also feature roundtable discussions with Blizzard's community team and a special roundtable for video creators and streamers.
With auction house prices spiraling out of control and rampant inflation devaluing gold by the minute, many players have started adding challenge by building characters using only items they find themselves.
Community Manager Grimiku commented on the idea in the forum this week, confirming that the team is thinking about self-found gameplay and hinting that it may be introduced as an official mode in the future.
Path of Exile's third race season is drawing to a close, marking the end of a huge series of unique events and ladders with huge prizes. Don't worry if you missed out on the events, however, as developers are
already working on some new and interesting events for seasons four and five!
Join us every Monday for Not So Massively, our roundup of the top news from popular online games that aren't quite MMOs. If you think there's a game we should be covering in Not So Massively or you've found some interesting news you think deserves attention in the next roundup, please mail the details to brendan@massively.com.
