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Funcom teases new Age of Conan group dungeons
The city of Paikang is getting a bit of an update in the next few weeks, and players of Funcom's Age of Conan should be pleased to note that the Imperial capital will soon be the home of two new level-80 instances. The dungeons are designed for elite groups and take place in two outdoor zones that were recently profiled at MMORPG.com. The Ai District features an expansive playfield along with two "set-piece" boss encounters and "the odd secret to be revealed from careful investigation." The Tian'an District is quite different in that it features six boss fights as well as a race against the clock to clear them all. Funcom has deliberately elevated the challenge level in this district, and Tian'an will reportedly require a skilled (and coordinated) group to claim its rewards. While Funcom hasn't revealed those rewards in detail, it has hinted that they will be on par with the existing Kara Korum dungeon drops.
Two Bosses Enter: Ammunae vs. Baron Ashbury
In Two Bosses Enter, WoW Insider's series of fantasy death matches, the bosses of World of Warcraft face off in the squared circle. Your vote determines who wins and claims the season title. This week on Two Bosses Enter, it's a battle between Ammunae, the Construct of Life, and Baron Ashbury, a scary dead guy. Oh, the anticipation! %Poll-63235% In last week's matchup, Augh and Lockmaw slammed face-first into the Scarlet Wall that is Renault Mograine and Sally Whitemane. The pygmy and his pet didn't stand a chance. %Gallery-119335% Follow along for the details of this week's matchup, as well as discussion on last week's match.
Two Bosses Enter: Augh and Lockmaw vs. Mograine and Whitemane
In Two Bosses Enter, WoW Insider's series of fantasy death matches, the bosses of World of Warcraft face off in the squared circle. Your vote determines who wins and claims the season title. That's right, ladies and gentlemen. It's time for our third of four wild cards this season. Whitemane and Mograine make a triumphant return from WoW of old to tackle the dastardly duo from Lost City of the Tol'Vir: Augh and his pet croc Lockmaw. %Poll-63026% In last week's matchup, Karsh Steelbender and Forgemaster Throngus went toe-to-toe in what turned out to be quite a tight matchup. Which of them could stand the heat, and which of them couldn't? %Gallery-119335% Follow along for the details of this week's matchup, as well as discussion on last week's match.
Two Bosses Enter: Karsh Steelbender vs. Forgemaster Throngus
In Two Bosses Enter, WoW Insider's series of fantasy death matches, the bosses of World of Warcraft face off in the squared circle. Your vote determines who wins and claims the season title. After last week's aerial battle, we're getting back down to earth with Karsh Steelbender and Forgemaster Throngus. I hope you have your AC on, because things are about to get hot. %Poll-62871% In last week's matchup, Eregos proved that he's still got it and showed Altairus who's boss. The drake of north winds didn't stand a chance against the Ley-Guardian. %Gallery-119335% Follow along for the details of this week's matchup, as well as discussion on last week's matchup.
Two Bosses Enter: Altairus vs. Eregos
In Two Bosses Enter, WoW Insider's series of fantasy death matches, the bosses of World of Warcraft face off in the squared circle. Your vote determines who wins and claims the season title. "What!?" I hear you ask, trembling with rage. "Eregos!? He was a Wrath of the Lich King boss!" He sure was. Not only was he a Wrath boss, he was the winner of the first season of Wrath of the Lich King's Two Bosses Enter, long before our previous wild card, Scourgelord Tyrannus, was even in the game. "Uggghhh!" I hear you curse, trembling with only slightly less rage than before. "We've already had a Wrath boss wild card! You are just the worst!" Well, perhaps this bit of information will please you: There are no more Wrath bosses amidst the remaining wild cards. In fact, neither of them have appeared in Two Bosses Enter before at all. They could be anything. Anything. %Poll-62565% In last week's matchup, we saw Grim Batol's Erudax clash with Throne of Tides' Lady Naz'jar. There was a clear winner throughout the voting process, though it wasn't nearly the landslide that was Ozruk's win at the beginning of the tournament weeks ago. %Gallery-119335% Follow along for the details of this week's matchup, as well as discussion on last week's matchup.
Two Bosses Enter: Erudax vs. Lady Naz'jar
In Two Bosses Enter, WoW Insider's series of fantasy death matches, the bosses of World of Warcraft face off in the squared circle. Your vote determines who wins and claims the season title. Week 3 of this season of Two Bosses Enter kicks off today with a matchup between Grim Batol's Erudax and Throne of Tides' Lady Naz'jar. Can the Duke of the Below handle the Lady of the Depths? Let's find out! %Poll-62377% In last week's matchup, we saw Shadowfang Keep's Lord Godfrey up against the winner of the previous season of Two Bosses Enter, Scourgelord Tyrannus. The two competitors very nearly split the vote 50/50, with the winner walking away with 50.7% of the vote. %Gallery-119335% Follow along for the details of this week's matchup, as well as discussion on last week's matchup.
Two Bosses Enter: Lord Godfrey vs. Scourgelord Tyrannus!
In Two Bosses Enter, WoW Insider's series of fantasy death matches, the bosses of World of Warcraft face off in the squared circle. Your vote determines who wins and claims the season title. Welcome to week two of this season of Two Bosses Enter! This week we reveal the first of four wild card competitors -- when it comes to the wild cards, anything goes. We broke the Cataclysm boss mold to bring back old favorites ... or something else entirely! Lord Godfrey will be put up against wild card numero uno, Scourgelord Tyrannus, winner of Wrath of the Lich King's Trial of the Crusader/Frozen Halls season of Two Bosses Enter. Can Tyrannus capitalize on this comeback? Can he go toe-to-toe with the bosses of Cataclysm? Does he still have what it takes to compete? %Poll-62171% Follow along for the details of this matchup, as well as discussion on our landslide winner from last week's matchup. %Gallery-119335%
Train Global Agenda newbs for $200 in prize money
Hi-Rez Studios' Global Agenda is that rare MMO that manages to combine player skill, team tactics, and accessibility, all in one spiffy spy-fi package. While newer players have ample time to learn the ins and outs of squad-based combat over the course of the game's 50 levels, competent agents are few and far between when it comes to high-level merc PvP. To the rescue comes Hi-Rez's new Agent Training contest, in which skilled Global Agenda vets may compete for $200 in prize money for producing the best instructional video in both the objective-based PvP and boss fight PvE categories. The contest kicks off today, and entries (which are limited to a maximum of two minutes running time) will be accepted through April 15th. Winners in both categories will take home the prize money, and the victors will be announced on April 29th. There are a few other requirements (including voiceover and resolution guidelines), which you can read about on the official Global Agenda website.
Two Bosses Enter: Ozruk and Asaad kick off Cataclysm season one
In Two Bosses Enter, WoW Insider's series of fantasy death matches, the bosses of World of Warcraft face off in the squared circle. Your vote determines who wins and claims the season title. No, ladies and gentlemen, you are not hallucinating. Due to popular demand Two Bosses Enter is making its comeback today, pitting boss against boss to separate the best from the rest. Every Monday we list the rules and abilities, then you vote for the winner. As each winning boss moves on, we create the new match up and the battle continues until only one boss is left standing. In this first season of the Cataclysm world tour, there are a few details of the format you should know about. Not every boss is included in this season of Two Bosses Enter. We've chosen 16 participants. If your favorites are missing from the roster, let us know in the comments and we'll try to include them next season. Of those 16 participants, you only know 12 of them. There are four wild cards in the roster, and you won't know who they are until the week they enter the ring for the first time. We've returned to a purely poll-based system of determining winners. However, particularly creative comments about the encounter will be highlighted when the winner is announced the following week. You can see this season's tournament ladder right here. %Gallery-119335% Now, on to the matchup: Ozruk versus Asaad! Ready? Fight! %Poll-61887%
Darkfall blog details PvE tweaks, hints at big PvP changes
Exciting things are afoot in the world of Agon, and Aventurine's weekly Darkfall activity report is here to fill you in on all the grisly details. Whether you're keen on seeing one of your personal weapon designs imported into the game or curious about the ongoing PvE and AI updates, this week's entry makes for interesting reading. To kick things off, Aventurine's Tasos Flambouras gives us the low-down on grungrocs, and these gnarly boar-like bipeds are bent on ruining every adventurer's day. There's also talk of boss fight tweaks, and Flambouras writes that there are "significant changes" coming to high-end PvE content including damage cap adjustments, fight tuning, and loot table changes. Darkfall's PvP is getting some love as well, and new land-based objectives (similar to the game's sea fortresses) are in the works. Flambouras also hints at a new "Arena" project and "a lot more we're doing with PvP" that will be revealed at a later date. Finally, all Darkfall accounts have been gifted with 25,000 meditation points (the game's offline leveling currency) to celebrate the title's second anniversary. Check out the full presentation on the Darkfall Epic Blog.
Ask Massively: Happy "I like you just enough to outweigh the annoyance of breaking up with you" day edition
Valentine's Day was Monday, a celebration for those happy couples incapable of showing mutual affection during the other 364 days of the year. But many people haven't given their hearts to their beloveds so much as they have been in those relationships too long. It's not being in love; it's being unwilling to deal with the irritation that comes with splitting up after the situation has become a comfortable routine. Since I assume that the week basically downgrades from Monday, happy day of things not being bad enough to break up! I may have just wanted to link Dogs Die in Hot Cars. But I'll deny it in further comments. This week's questions cover nothing of a romantic nature. Instead, we're talking about World of Warcraft, or more specifically, how doing well on a boss one week seems to mean doing worse next week. As always, you can leave your questions for the next edition of Ask Massively in the comment field or just send us an email to ask@massively.com.
Mario Sports Mix features one behemoth of a boss battle
Well, here's a ... weird ... thing. We knew that Mario Sports Mix would feature characters from the Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest franchises, but we weren't aware of the other aspects the athletic Wii title would borrow from those two RPG franchises. TheBitBlock recently uncovered a bizarre gameplay clip from Mix -- apparently, at one point, you have to face off against one of Final Fantasy's Behemoths, using your epic volleyball skills. Yes, really. Check out a video of a Final Fantasy Moogle and a Super Mario Toad going two-on-one against the boss monster posted after the jump. We wonder if he drops any good loot -- like coins, or a mushroom, or a Masamune. [Thanks, Franco!]
Lost Pages of Taborea: Spam heal is the enemy of strategy
Last week, I spoke a bit about whether Runes of Magic was too easy or not. In that article I harken back to the mana strike that players held to remove part of a patch that added a percentage-to-cost modifier on all spells for all classes. This week I wanted to flit around the same subjects, but from the viewpoint of healing and strategy. I want my readers to be well-versed in RoM 101. Just like I set out to do with my community guide for new and old players, I want to educate players today on the fine art of button-mashing. Let's start by covering what spam healing -- or spamming any skill -- is, and why it's not always fun. I'll put this into the context of dungeon-running, cover some fun strategy that results from not being able to spam heal, and give my opinion on how well (or not-so-well) all this works in RoM.
Exclusive: Aion's Beshmundir Temple goes hard mode
Assault on Balaurea has been a part of Aion for nearly two months now. Are you getting bored yet? If you feel like you've done all of the new content so much that it's a snooze, get ready for a new challenge. Beshmundir Temple is going into hard mode. Aion developers have been hard at work on this for a long time, and they've prepared a huge guide for the PowerWiki. You'll find advice, walkthroughs, details on the named bosses, and much more. The guide will be released next week, but Massively got an exclusive look at it ahead of time. We've formatted it all up into a handy overview for you, so follow along after the jump for a look at what Beshmundir Temple hard mode has to offer!
En Masse shows off PAX TERA demo video
En Masse Entertainment has taken the wraps off a lengthy video edit of their PAX Prime 2010 TERA press demonstration. If you missed the game convention, as well as our coverage of the cultist refuge, you can sample scenes from the demo that have been cut together and made available on YouTube. The video, featuring a look at several boss fights as well as the interior and exterior of the cultist's refuge, runs right at six minutes in length and is underscored by some cheeky narration courtesy of producers Sam Kim and Stefan Ramirez. "TERA is deep, it doesn't just have a story, it is a story. Progression isn't just about levels, items, or skills but about moving the story forward and finding out more about the world and your role in it as a player," Kim notes. In addition to the usual footage of TERA's combat, there are also some interesting shots of the environments and what looks to be harvesting mechanics in the form of butterfly gathering.
The Daily Grind: What's the hardest boss you've ever fought?
The video game boss is as traditional as it is feared. From the earliest days of the console generation to our fancy-schmancy Eminem-Os, gamers have cut their teeth on challenging villains such as the Sleeper, Mallyx, Tarinax the Destroyer and the Watcher in the Water. Boss battles always seem impossible at the outset, punishing parties with a complete wipe at a single mistake. Strategies are memorized, patterns are ingrained and teamwork polished until that big baddie hits the floor, sobbing like a baby. So what's the hardest boss you've ever fought in a MMORPG? Was it an epic one-on-one battle, a harrowing party fight, or even a raid boss so mighty that its mere gaze stopped you in your tracks? What made this confrontation so difficult -- the sheer pool of hit points, the complex strategy or the way it almost seemed to cheat to win? And no, "Hogger" doesn't count for this Daily Grind. These memes have a statute of limitations, you know.
Breakfast Topic: Banging our heads against the wall
As a raider, you tend to encounter that one boss that will kick your butt night after night. In Burning Crusade, my guild saw Teron Gorefiend as our bane. Week after week, we wiped on him for at least three hours a night. All of the raid members did the famous ghost simulator many times, but still we had people who had lag issues when they came to the encounter. We also knew our DPS was not up to par, but our raid leader at the time did not want to run Mount Hyjal to get some of the gear people needed. It wasn't until the patch 3.0.1 nerf that we were able to overcome Gorefiend and move on in Black Temple. Fast forward to Wrath of the Lich King, a different guild and a different server. We have found our proverbial wall in the Lich King. Many of us have successfully downed him in 10-man, but the 25-man fight is a different story. Our problem seems to come from executing phase 2 right, with having a stun rotation on the valkyrs and placing the Defiles in the right spots away from other raid members. Yes, we have the lag monster come out during this phase, but it is mostly an execution point. In both those cases, I have seen my guildmates get so frustrated that they either leave the guild, take a break from the game or even not show up to raid on those nights we are focusing specifically on that boss. They just don't want to be hitting their heads against a wall all night, even though it would be for progression. Raid leaders, how do you get over that hurdle? Do you just keep picking away at the boss until you get him down, or do you take a night where you go through old content to give your raiders a break? Raiders, how do you handle constant wiping on a boss? Are you the type who stays with your raid group through thick and thin, or do you jump ship when you are stuck on that one boss? This article has been brought to you by Seed, Aol's guest writer program that brings your words to WoW.com. Watch for the next call for submissions and a chance to submit your own article. The next byline you see here may be yours!
A trio of Mega Man bosses are detailed
One of the key aspects to those Mega Man games are boss fights. No, not boss battles, but boss fights. Thanks to IGN, we get an early peek at three of the bosses that our little robotic boy in blue will have to face in his latest adventure, Mega Man 9.Magma Man, Concrete Man and Tornado Man are all highlighted here, including their weapons. Head on over to IGN for the details.See also: Mega Man 9 to flicker like it's 1987%Gallery-26790%
The Daily Grind: What makes a boss fight memorable?
Over on his blog, 4th Edition D&D developer Mike Mearls has been thinking over the design challenges posed by a solo monster fight. In 4th Edition, solo monsters are creatures designed to be a challenge on their own, without needing a group to back them up. As Mike has observed, the issue with solo monsters is designing the encounter so that it isn't boring: 'It's important that a solo fight take place in an environment that encourages movement and interesting choices. Otherwise, you end up with the party standing around, trading blows with one monster.'We thought this was a game design point that applies every bit as much to MMOs as it does to D&D. In City of Heroes, where the environment makes little difference, fights with Archvillains used to be straightforward affairs; the AV was a big bag of hit points that got hammered. Now, with Archvillains like Romulus and his cadre of supporters, new twists have been added to keep the fight interesting. The boss fights in World of Warcraft are said to be some of the best in gaming, because they aren't simple surround-and-bludgeon affairs.What do you look for in a fight with a Big Bad? What are your best and worst experiences?
D&DO Module 7: Bosses
The first fight we got to see was Suulomendes (unfortunately, that spelling might not be right -- the big winged guy wouldn't sit still long enough for us to ask his name), a winged devil who sits up on a big pedestal while he sends baddies out to finish the raid off, a wave a time. Every once in a while he deigns to get off the pedestal, and beat you up himself, but when he does, it's not pretty -- various curses fell down on our heads every time he showed up. It seemed like a fairly straightforward fight as we did it (defeat the minions, work over the boss for a while), but the devs told us there were quite a few wrinkles (and the fight would take a little longer) than what we saw. The other boss we got to check out was, in our opinion, a little more fun. There is a Lord of Darkness supposedly hanging out in the dungeon below the Marketplace wreckage, but when you show up to take him out, he's not actually home -- his guard dog, named Xy'zzy, is, and she is a real bitch. Literally. She has puppies and minions that you have to fight as well, and oh yeah, one more thing: you can't actually damage her by hitting her. We'll refrain from telling you exactly how to take her out (the devs didn't want us to spoil all the surprises), but we will say that when you figure it out, you'll get to see something really, really hilarious happen. And yes, if you're nerdy enough to recognize the dog's name, you'll realize that these DDO devs know their gaming history.Like many of the boss battles in DDO, both of these fights (and most of the quests we saw) were all about group coordination and cooperation. While a lot of the Three Barrel Cove quests are soloable, the devs at DDO seem committed to make sure that players find ways to coordinate and work together. They are still working on making sure the Monk has a role of his or her own to play in every group ("this is just the beginning of our development on this class," Paiz told us), but in almost all the quests we say, there were lots of ways for group members, no matter what classes or types of players they were, to make themselves useful.But the new content isn't all that's being added to the game -- we also saw a number of new UI updates, and we got to talk with Turbine's communications director about what they thought of the Age of Conan release and the future of this game.Click here to continue the preview...
