Adrian Bott

Gaming By Adrian Bott

CoX players seek elusive zombie trigger

As City of Heroes players will know, Paragon City and the Rogue Isles were recently rocked by a wave of zombie invasions, as hordes of the crumbling dead clawed their way up from beneath the lawns and sidewalks. As events go, it was a great success.It was thought that with the passing of the Season of the Witch, the invasions would cease, and indeed they have; however, recent arcane communications have confirmed that the players can cause an invasion to take place, in a similar way to that in which Rikti invasions are triggered by the completion of a Lady Grey Task Force. This is excellent news for badge collectors, as the chance to earn badges for zombie defeats now won't be limited to a short time window.

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Gaming By Adrian Bott

What's with all the capes? Why so many superhero MMOs?

City of Heroes kicked off the MMO superhero genre back in 2004. For several years it's led the field, due to being the only superhero MMO out there, but now direct competition is appearing. Cryptic Studios, the original developers of CoX, recently sent their own title Champions Online into Closed Beta. Sony's DC Universe Online, which at one point had gone so quiet that people wondered if it was still being made, has recently produced gameplay footage, stacks of art and a detailed analysis of how the game will work.So what's with all the cape games? Although the superhero genre has been a steady burner outside of the MMO context, it's not the most obvious kind of world to set an MMO in, and designers trying to adapt comic-book themes and events to MMO gameplay face some pretty stiff challenges. We're going to walk through all three games, explain the differences, and try to answer that question. What's with all the capes?

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PC Gaming By Adrian Bott

Heavy Metal live event brings two new careers to Warhammer Online

Much sooner than many were expecting, two new careers - the Knight of the Blazing Sun and the Black Guard - are to be introduced to Warhammer Online. Rather than just slip them in with a patch, Mythic is making a festival of the event. The classes won't be available to everyone at first; instead, by completing certain tasks, players will be able to unlock them early.From November 17th when the event launches, a new tab in the Tome of Knowledge will take players to the Live Events page. There will be a new daily task placed on the page each day, and completing those tasks earns influence, public quest style; the ultimate prize, which will require a login and task completion each day, will be the ability to play the new classes a week before general release. Did you enjoy this? Make sure to check out our Warhammer guides: Massively's Character Creation Guide and our WoW Player's Guide to Warhammer. Plus, don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!

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PC Gaming By Adrian Bott

Murderers and criminals arrive as Patch 3 comes to Age of Conan

It's been a while in development, as the devs ironed out bugs and tweaked the system to get it just right, but the much-anticipated 'Patch 3' goes live this morning. The main feature it brings to Age of Conan is the PvP consequence system. No longer will players be able to gank other players without fear of reprisal. Accumulated 'murder points' will result in the dishonorable becoming outcasts from society, forced to rely upon a scattered few 'shady camps' for their supplies and rez points, attacked by guards on sight. This means that being an unscrupulous PvPer will result in a whole new way to play the game, rather than just an arbitrary penalty. It looks a whole lot better than the original mooted plans for AoC, which involved jails and repetitive tasks that other players could watch you being forced to do. Having fun in Conan's homeland? Make sure to check out all of our previous Age of Conan coverage, and stick with Massively for more news from the Hyborian Age!

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PC Gaming By Adrian Bott

Major Tabula Rasa event only days away?

According to an in-character communique from Tabula Rasa postergirl Sarah Morrison, something big is about to hit the proverbial fan. The implication is that a large-scale Bane attack is coming, and scuttlebutt among the game's players suggests that General British himself may make an appearance:'Increasing Bane activity has been detected across Foreas and Arieki over the past few days. [...] seeking to get as much intel as possible to explain this and have managed to intercept a message between what we believe to be one of their primary Tactical Operations Centers and one of their motherships [...] hard at work trying to decipher the entirety of the message [...] contained information on a possible large scale assault scheduled to take place in approximately 9 days. [...] is probably the last message I am able to send through this channel. It has become increasingly difficult to [...]. Hopefully the bulk of this message will reach you.'The date of the event, November 2nd, should be familiar to Tabula Rasa players as the day the game went live, almost a year ago. It's also the anniversary of Massively - good heavens, hasn't the time flown?

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Gaming By Adrian Bott

Mega-makeover for City of Heroes site

Alex 'Lighthouse' Von Minden's cryptic hints of changes in the pipeline were unravelled yesterday when the brand new City of Heroes website was unveiled. The thorough revamp has resulted in a brighter, slicker site, similar in style to the Tabula Rasa page. The old site had used many images dating from as far back as launch, and was frankly getting stale, looking a bit dated next to the European site for the same game. The new-look website showcases many of the new powersets and costume pieces, and also has a completely new section on the game's signature heroes and villains - the kind of information a new player would be looking to learn about. The new-look site brings an end to the days of separate front pages for City of Heroes and City of Villains, now that all players have full access to both. Devotees of the villain side still have their red-themed forums of evil, however; though we're not sure if this will continue once the forums switch over to vBulletin. We'd like to think that this merging somehow foreshadows the ability to switch sides in the game, though that's nothing but speculation on our part.

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Gaming By Adrian Bott

The Daily Grind: Are you a one-game gamer?

Not so long ago, Mark Jacobs made a comment that got several of you riled: 'Any comment along the lines of 'well if they're in my game they're not playing in another game,' flies in the face of all research that's been done among MMO players... The idea that you only play one is really kind of silly.' Mark was of course referring to the idea that if someone stopped playing WoW they were playing WAR, and if they started playing WoW again they must have stopped playing WAR.While there is obviously no law that says you must play only one fantasy game or SF game, we did wonder just how 'silly' it is to expect gamers to pick one game and prioritize that. Not everyone has the resources, or the time, or the inclination to keep multiple MMOs on the go. For many gamers, it is an issue of having one primary MMO to which they devote their time.Are you one of these? Do you have one main MMO that takes up most of your gaming time? Or do you spread your time around over multiple titles?

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PC Gaming By Adrian Bott

Word of mouth key to bringing Age of Conan players back, says Craig Morrison

Since Craig 'Sirillon' Morrison took over as the director of Age of Conan, even the gnarliest curmudgeon would have trouble claiming that things hadn't changed for the better. They might not have changed enough for some people's tastes, but work has been done and is still ongoing. Now, Craig talks to Eurogamer.net (at considerable length) about AoC, the changes that have been made and those that are yet to come.Although there's plenty of information, there isn't all that much new information; players will be glad to know that the hope is for the PvP consequence system to go live 'early next week, if not this week' with Ymir's Pass following soon after. When it comes to enticing back lost subscriptions, Craig places great value on word of mouth among the players themselves, observing that people who are having a good time in AoC will naturally pass on that information: '... that's what we focus on - making the game as good as we possibly can, so that our own players become advocates for the game.'

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Gaming By Adrian Bott

Open RvR experience boosted even further in Warhammer Online

One of the most common criticisms of Warhammer Online is that many players seem to spend ages just grinding scenarios, while the open RvR areas - clearly meant to be heaving with Order and Destruction players going at it - are much less populated. Mark Jacobs recently announced that the WAR devs intend to 'boost RvR like crazy', and the rumblings have already begun.The bonus XP for killing a player in an open RvR area, previously boosted by 50%, is now going to be boosted by 100%. Players killed in open RvR will thus be worth double the amount of XP of those killed in scenarios. As carrots on sticks go, that's a hefty carrot.There's already been some tweaking done to the chat system to add region-wide and RvR-wide channels; presumably the next big thing to come to the RvR zones will be the boss monsters promised for Witching Night. Did you enjoy this? Make sure to check out our Warhammer guides: Massively's Character Creation Guide and our WoW Player's Guide to Warhammer. Plus, don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!

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PC Gaming By Adrian Bott

This is Halloween... or Witching Night, if you're in WAR

We've seen a few protestations here and there that there won't be any Halloween event in Warhammer Online. Not so! Associate producer Mark Davis has provided some juicy details, along with a lot of other inside information on some of the game's narrative twists and turns on the PvE side. It's not all kill ten of this and deliver that to the other: being tied to the stake and set alight will probably be a new MMO experience for most players.Halloween in the Warhammer universe is known as Witching Night, a time when the divisions between worlds grow thin (or thinner) and the power of the Purple Wind of Magic waxes strong. In the RvR areas, there will be boss monsters roaming around, laden with choice loot and looking for players to mash to a pulp. As they'll be in the skirmish areas, the opportunity technically exists for Order and Destruction to fight against the supernatural foes jointly, though this is about as likely as the two sides declaring a ceasefire and playing football with a dwarf head. There will also be some purely PvE monster encounters planned for Witching Night, but Mark Davis is keeping us all in the dark about those for now.

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Gaming By Adrian Bott

Artist David Nakayama joins City of Heroes team

Comics artist David Nakayama, who has done an immense amount of work for Draw the World Together, has joined the NCsoft NorCal team as a concept artist for City of Heroes. The official announcement was made at HeroCon, where David was also making character sketches for the lucky contest winners.David's no stranger to the CoX universe, having drawn several of the comics that came out as accompaniment to the MMO and worked on art for the trading card game. His recent work also includes projects for Marvel Comics, including an upcoming series written by Chris Claremont. The addition of a concept artist of David's calibre at this stage in the game's life is an exciting development and raises some questions.

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PC Gaming By Adrian Bott

Begin to shape the very game world itself in Star Wars: The Old Republic?

These levees broke hard. The information pouring out of various game sites is fascinating, and we're watching keenly for the choice parts. For example, IGN's exhaustive coverage mentions that "your own actions can begin to have a lasting impact on the game world." Storytelling is clearly a critical aspect of the SWTOR approach, and we're intrigued to see how the fate of the world is entangled with that of the protagonists.Another point that caught our eye was the limitation on content: "there are places that you won't be able to go and things you won't be able to do unless you join a mixed party." Although you'll be able to bring along NPC companions (sounds rather like the way Guild Wars handles it) it's not clear whether this would allow devotedly solo players to access the group content. More news as it emerges.%Gallery-35033% Bioware has finally unveiled Star Wars: The Old Republic, their new MMO! Massively's got you covered on all the details -- from liveblogging the announcement to screenshot galleries and more. Join us in the Galaxy far, far away!

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PC Gaming By Adrian Bott

New CoX Mission Architect details emerge from HeroCon

Okay, the City of Heroes Mission Architect feature is an issue away, and there's already an issue in testing in Closed Beta, but that doesn't mean the players aren't eager for information. At HeroCon, which recently took place in Santa Clara, California, several of the CoX developers held a panel discussion on the Mission Architect. Fortunately for everyone who couldn't make it, forum poster Quilcene was present and taking notes.You can instantly see where the additional development time is going. Players will now be able to 'customize enemies, rescuees, allies and contacts in what they are calling the Critter Creator.' In other words, yes, players will be able to put their own heroes (and villains) in the missions. Another key fact is how the rewards will work: there will be no mission complete XP and nothing in a player-generated mission will count towards badges, and instead of regular drops players will earn 'skeeball tickets', which will apparently work similarly to the Merit system.

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News

News By Adrian Bott

The Daily Grind: Repurposed Content

'The street has its own uses for things', wrote William Gibson; Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke also wrote that 'no plan survives contact with the enemy', or in this case, the players. When developers introduce a feature or content of some form or another, there's always the possibility that players will use it for a completely different function. Take City of Heroes, for example, where the ability of some desks in the base designer to have objects stacked on top of them has led to a whole school of base design involving levitating objects. Also in CoX was the superbly inventive use of a dropped oil slick as the target for a mass rez power, causing one of the developers to exclaim 'wth?!' when he saw what the players were up to. And that's not even touching upon the use of pink-tinted gas masks as surprisingly effective pig snouts in the costume generator. (Don't ask.)What repurposed content have you seen in games? Have you come across (or instigated) any new uses for content that were better than the original envisioned design?

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Gaming By Adrian Bott

Zombies run amok in City of Heroes

Halloween has come early to City of Heroes. Among the now-traditional trick or treating, collecting temporary costume powers and hunting down roaming giant monsters, the dead have risen from their graves and are devouring the living. Both Paragon City and the Rogue Isles have been affected. Reports mention tattered undead who have a strange resemblance to real-life celebrities, as well as Elite Boss 'Nightmares' who seem to be in command.Players may be wondering why this sudden outbreak of ravaging zombies has happened with Halloween still some time away. An eyewitness from HeroCon has shed some light on the timing of the invasion: 'After dinner, Positron got up and told us that there were lots of cool things ahead--but he couldn't tell us about them. Everyone was calling him a big tease. So in order to placate the mob, he turned to Heather and asked if she could call Ops and have them unleash the zombies right then.'

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PC Gaming By Adrian Bott

WAR has only just begun to compete with WoW, declares Mark Jacobs

If you've been following this particular exchange you'll know the score, but let's recap: Blizzard's Jeff Kaplan just like turned around and said some stuff about Warhammer Online, about how he wasn't even in the Beta and stuff, and Mark Jacobs was like whoa, and he totally turned around and said some stuff about World of Warcraft, and now Mark Jacobs is all, like, dude, bring it, and everybody's like, ohmygawd, it is so on.In his discussion with gamesindustry.biz, Mark is upfront about competing with Blizzard. 'We're in this space to be successful and, when you have a competitor that is as successful and important to the games industry as WoW has been, you don't go into this space unless you're willing to spend money and spend time and really compete against them.'

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PC Gaming By Adrian Bott

Aion shows off new light and shadow effects

Aion: Tower of Eternity was already looking very, very pretty, and the upgraded graphics that have just been unveiled on the official Aion site demonstrate that it's just getting prettier in the move towards Open Beta. The story of Aion is one of struggle between primordial forces, so it's fitting that factions of shadow and light should have environments to suit their nature. Asmodae has no direct sunlight, so diffuse shadows and strong interior lights dominate, while Elysea is constantly sunlit and clear shadows give depth to architectural textures.Obviously, graphics aren't everything, but this looks like a world we'd like to explore further. With the emphasis in Aion on travel in three dimensions, with winged movement and combat being an important part of the gameplay, it's not surprising that the developers have ensured the environments look interesting from all angles.

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PC Gaming By Adrian Bott

Aion's Twelve Lords of Legend revealed

Aion: Tower of Eternity is drawing closer to Open Beta, and there's a growing hunger for information. An ingenious and generous person by the name of Hellrose over at Aionsource.com has translated some information on the Twelve Lords of Legend, directly from the game's Korean site.You can peruse the lore over at mmosite.com. The Twelve Empyrean Lords were sent forth to defend the Tower of Eternity against the Balaur, warrior members of the original race of Atreia; each one is given a brief description and image. It's evocative stuff, reminiscent of Zelazny's Nine Princes in Amber, the Choirs of the Archangels from the Kabbalah (unsurprisingly) and the kind of radiant archetype seen in anime such as Fate: Stay Night. The images reminded us strongly of Zelazny's Amber Trumps, too; a merchandising opportunity if ever there was one.

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Gaming By Adrian Bott

The Daily Grind: When is a grind not a grind?

According to a history documentary this blogger remembers watching some time back, 'the daily grind' was originally a literal grind; the processing of cultivated grain to make flour for bread, which people would do on small stone wheels. In their thatch roof cottages. Before the Trogdor came in the niiiiight.But in the context of MMOs, such as Scott Jennings' recent criticism of Warhammer Online for being grindy, what exactly makes a grind? It's easy to come up with a rough definition: doing the same thing over and over with little variation and modest but predictable reward, a bit like grinding little stone wheels to make enough flour for one family sized loaf. However, given that pretty much everything you do in an MMO is a task carried out for some sort of reward or other, what stops it all from feeling like one big grind - variations in quest type, changes of scenery, or changes of mob type? What features work best - and worst - to break up the monotony? What makes the difference between feeling like you're playing and feeling like you're grinding?

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PC Gaming By Adrian Bott

Craig Morrison keeps players posted on Age of Conan changes

Without doubt, things are hotting up in Age of Conan. There's still a lot of ground left to cover, but it would be senseless not to acknowledge that a game which recently seemed to be wallowing in post-launch doldrums has turned into something of a comeback king. The final instalment of the current series of patches, Patch 3, is growing by degrees on Testlive, and now Craig Morrison has given a rundown of what's coming and why.Craig kicks off by detailing the final version of the PvP consequence system, which regular readers will be familiar with. The gist of it is that AoC players who attack weaker foes will become outcast 'murderers', attacked on sight by guards, fair game for anyone who wants to kill them, and depending on rough camps on the fringes of society for their needs. There's a new mechanic of 'redemption' that allows murderers to go on special quests to rid themselves of this bloody stain.

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PC Gaming By Adrian Bott

Age of Conan cultural armor and weapons on the workbench

We've blogged at length before about the crafting changes coming to Age of Conan, and every new piece of information we find out makes them look even more intriguing. Take the Culture armor and weapons: new pieces that crafters can make that don't require a guild city, with recipes that drop from bosses as blue loot. Now designer Dave Williams has put up a thorough Q&A about these pieces.As well as adding visual diversity to AoC, with many more cultures represented than we expected to see, they'll be worth wearing for mechanics reasons: stat-wise, the pieces will be somewhere between dungeon-dropped blues and epics. Dave explains that the first batch of recipes to be patched in is only the initial iteration of something that will be much larger. From the look of it, there will be plenty to be going on with: 'There are 24 culture armor recipes. Each recipe makes three pieces of set. Thus for patch 3 we are releasing twelve 6 piece armor sets -- one set per class. There are four culture weapon recipes grouped by geography, and each weapon recipe can make 3 weapons related to that theme. There are a couple of details that I'm going to leave to discovery, that I think players will find interesting.'

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Gaming By Adrian Bott

Floyd 'Castle' Grubb gives a Q&A on the new CoX power sets

Castle, famous in City of Heroes for being the guy who designs and fixes the powers, has prepared a Q&A on the new powersets coming with CoX Issue 13: Power and Responsibility, now deep into Closed Beta: Shield Defense and Pain Domination. Though controversy over proposed PvP changes is dominating the CoX boards at the moment, the new powersets seem to have met with universal acclaim.In the Q&A, Castle explains the thinking behind Pain Domination and the restrictions on the design, the player base's role in the creation of Shields, and his own take on which hero and villain powers are the coolest ones in the game right now. Check out the Q&A after the cut.

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PC Gaming By Adrian Bott

Striking new zone opened on Age of Conan Testlive

Players have been asking for new Age of Conan content for a while now, and one of the biggest content gaps had been the mid-50s. That's the levelling range the new Ymir's Pass zone (previewed some time ago) seeks to fill, and it's now opened on Testlive. The developers want to make it clear that Ymir's Pass is a work in progress, and as such is not complete. We're keen to see what it's like when it's done, because currently it's gorgeous. It's far from being the only new AoC content; we've still to see the Tarantia Commons and the House of Crom yet.No sooner do you enter the zone than an inhuman bellow echoes through the air and the ground shakes. Something huge is making that sound, and the story of what it is (and why it's suffering) is played out through the zone. The first thing you'll probably be doing is looking for footprints. Colossal ones.To help players test out the new content, the Goddess Fate has been placed just outside Tortage where the former level-up contacts were, and she will do pretty much anything you like: increase your level, give you money or a mount, or even teleport you somewhere. She's the only way to get to Ymir's Pass for now, so players that would like to check out the zone on Testlive should roll a new character and talk to her.

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Gaming By Adrian Bott

Video showcases new CoX powersets for Issue 13

The two new powersets in City of Heroes Issue 13: Power and Responsibility are Pain Domination and Shield Defense. Pain Domination finally gives Villains a dose of the healing and buffing power that Heroes had with the Empathy set, but with a potent offensive edge. Shield Defense is coming to both sides, giving several melee classes the option to wield a highly customizable shield in battle. It's emerged that shields will be able to bear cape patterns underneath their emblems, allowing for heraldic style designs.Over at mmorpg.com, a video has appeared showing the two new powersets in action. It's not very long, but it delivers the goods. We're pleased to see that Pain Domination looks every bit as gore-hued and dramatic as we'd have wished, and the Shields animations are slick. Check the video out at mmorpg.com

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Reviews

Reviews By Adrian Bott

Lum the Mad on the many pros and few cons of WAR

Scott Jennings, known to the blogosphere by his nom-de-keyboard Lum the Mad (a reference that crusty old D&D players like this blogger have no trouble recognizing) has set out to amend his image as Mark Jacobs' personal imp of torment, and post a hearty list of things he likes about Warhammer Online which he thinks other games should learn from.The list is fair, honest, and educational - did you know you can earn the title 'AAAAHHHH' by jumping off cliffs enough times? - and makes some sound points. He's particularly on the money when writing about WAR's open groups, which he sees as much more radical and innovative than the more commonly trumpeted public quests. It's a feature we've also appreciated; instead of looking for a group or sending messages to ask if there is room in one, you can just dive on in to any open group nearby. Did you enjoy this? Make sure to check out our Warhammer guides: Massively's Character Creation Guide and our WoW Player's Guide to Warhammer. Plus, don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!

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