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Rewards expand for backers of Garriott's Shroud of the Avatar
If you've been meaning to throw money at Richard Garriott's Shroud of the Avatar Kickstarter campaign but haven't yet, the good news is that there are now more rewards for people who pledge support to the game. The $50 reward tier now includes a special Immortality Fruit, a special title, and early access to your surname. At $60, you also get a special tunic, weapon, and pet. The new $80 tier adds in future access to episodes 2 & 3 of the game, an indestructible starter tool, and the ability to tame an elusive monster out in the wild (assuming the game reaches its stretch goal for the taming system). Those who have already donated will receive the rewards as well, but there are several more expanded tiers that might convince fans to bump in a few more dollars.
The Summoner's Guidebook: Tiers don't belong in League of Legends
One of the things that really bother me is when players make tier lists of characters in League of Legends. Tier lists are an often subjective measurement of how good a character is when matched up against other characters, and players like to voice their opinions on who is strong and who is weak. Unfortunately, even tier lists that are fairly accurate are fundamentally flawed in any competitive game, and they're especially flawed in League. At their best, tier lists show characters who do well in many situations or who are very difficult to counter. At their worst, tier lists are flawed and show a lack of understanding on the part of the author. This doesn't mean that there aren't strong or weak champions, but a tier list doesn't even tell part of the story. It just gives an arbitrary rating that says very little about a character's true strengths or how to leverage them.
EVE Evolved: The great ship overhaul
One of EVE Online's most important features is that the game is constantly updated to avoid falling behind the development curve and being overtaken by new titles. The EVE we have today bears little resemblance to the primitive sandbox released in 2003 thanks to major graphical overhauls every few years and iteration on gameplay systems. I think that's a big part of why people start playing EVE; they know that the game will still be alive and kicking years from now and will look as good as anything else on the market. EVE remained largely unchanged from March 2009's Apocrypha expansion until Crucible at the end of 2011, but since then, CCP has made huge leaps in iterating on ship graphics and gameplay. This week we saw an impressive new video of the revamped Drake model, and CCP announced details of a complete mining barge and frigate revamp due to hit the servers before this year's winter expansion. These changes seem set to put a sizeable dent in EVE's notoriously steep learning curve. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at the recent graphical updates to EVE's ships and explore the upcoming ship overhauls in more detail.
Verizon targeting mid-summer for tiered data plans, doesn't yet know what kinds of tiers they'll be
Verizon's made no secret of the fact that $30 unlimited smartphone data wouldn't last forever, but CFO Fran Shammo just made things a little more interesting today at the same Morgan Stanley conference Sanjay Jha rocked yesterday: turns out they're targeting "mid-summer" to rearrange the carrier's data pricing. Interestingly, Shammo says they're still working through the details and that they don't yet know whether the tiers will be based on speed, bit buckets, or some combination of the two. Of course, Verizon's already dipped its toes in the tiered game with a $15 / 150MB option that evaporated around the time that the CDMA iPhone launched. Speaking of the iPhone, Shammo notes that the unlimited data plan was kept around to draw users into the iPhone fold -- iPhone users tend to consume a lot of data, after all -- so it'd seem that they might comfortable with that one-time conquest before parting ways with unlimited for good.
Mobile broadband shocker: AT&T looking at tiered data pricing and speeds for upcoming LTE service
We all know AT&T just loves its tiered pricing models, so it's no surprise to hear that the carrier intends to turn its forthcoming LTE service into a tier-vana of great new sophistication. BGR has come across an internal document detailing how AT&T plans to segment its 4G pricing on the basis of both speed and data allowance, meaning that your price will reflect both the amount of data you consume and the rate at which you gobble it down. To add further complexity flexibility, Top Ups will be available that'll allow users to amp up their connection speed for a limited time or increase their allowance on a per-month basis. We're hearing trials of this new offering will commence in May, which fits in neatly with the currently planned LTE rollout in the second half of this year. So it's not all set in stone yet, but irrespective of the number of data options AT&T throws our way, the paramount question will always be the same: how much?
Verizon execs propose speed-based pricing for LTE data plans, say LTE has 'drawn the interest of Apple'
Paying for data overage is the new hotness in the wireless biz, and Verizon was the latest to dive head-first into the nasty world of usage-based pricing for its wireless data plans just a few weeks ago. But how about paying for speed instead? Seems both outgoing Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg and CFO Fran Shammo commented today that the company's shiny new LTE network could support charging different rates depending on the speed subscribers select -- just like in the landline internet business -- though they wouldn't commit to implementing such a system just yet. Speaking of LTE, Seidenberg also mentioned that he "expects" Verizon's first LTE phone to launch in February (likely the LG we saw or HTC's Mecha, if we had to guess), coming in on the early side of its 1H 2011 plan -- and what's more, he's saying more LTE-equipped devices will launch than originally anticipated. We certainly won't complain about that. On the undying topic of the iPhone, Seidenberg's basically holding the same line he's maintained for some time, which is that the companies' "interests are coming together" and that the phone will come when "Apple thinks it's time." The gem, though, is that Seidenberg specifically says that Verizon's adoption of LTE has attracted Apple's attention and helped it score the iPad -- and seeing how Verizon's cobbled-together iPad / MiFi bundle doesn't support LTE, we can only assume it was a peace offering to help the two companies come together and prepare to work together more closely down the road. Question is, just how soon would Apple like to play the LTE card?
PSN survey hints at upcoming subscription-based features
Sony's European team has sent out a survey to some of its UK PSN members asking them yet again about possible subscription models for the service. The survey is run by a market research company called Ipsos, and appears to offer up a list of possible member benefits for a few different plan tiers, along with pricing for each. The benefits range from more tame ideas like exclusive and early access to content to more interesting options like "free title trials" (first hour of a game for free), user-to-user challenges, "token wagering" and a service called "catch-up TV." Oh, and since it's Sony we're talking about, there's even a listed option for "cloud storage space for games." You can find the full list of possible features after the jump. The price options differ from plan to plan, but they go as cheap as £2.99 (about $5 U.S.) up to £14.99 (about $25) for monthly fees, with annual fees also listed for 55% less than you'd pay month to month (so around £19.99 up to £99.99, or $32 to $160). Note that just because all of these things are on a survey doesn't mean that Sony has them up and running -- it only means that they're testing the water in terms of what UK members are willing to pay for certain features. But you can just add this to the growing mountain of evidence that Sony is planning some sort of premium subscription service. [Thanks Marc and everyone who sent this in!]
Will AT&T introduce usage-based pricing?
Ralph de la Vega, AT&T head of consumer services, has hinted at usage-based pricing strategies in response to increased consumer data consumption, according to stories on the Huffington Post and Reuters newsfeed. De la Vega spoke at a recent USB investor conference, saying that AT&T was working on improving service to the strained New York and San Francisco services. AT&T may soon introduce pricing tiers that would penalize high-bandwidth users. Although none of these write-ups mentioned the iPhone, it has facilitated greater and greater network demands with its easy-to-use App Store software and fully-rendered Internet access. That access, using Mobile Safari's browser in particular, was a big selling point in early Apple iPhone commercials. Although App Store has historically limited high-bandwidth applications to Wi-Fi-only usage, AT&T has recently given the go-ahead to allow Voice-over-IP apps like Skype to use their 3G network. A tiered pricing system for greater usage might help offset increased demand but would need to be backed by an enhanced network infrastructure, which AT&T appears to be building. The 2-year contracts for the new 3GS iPhones introduced this summer will begin to expire in the 2nd quarter of 2011. TUAW has contacted AT&T's PR department to request a statement about possible pricing tiers and usage choking but did not hear back by the time this post went live.
Time Warner Cable to axe DOCSIS 3.0 trials without tiered billing?
If you're following the Time Warner Cable capping drama (and we know that you are), then you'll be interested in a short post published on GigaOm today. From the looks of things, TWC isn't just backing off of the tiered pricing plans that they'd proposed recently -- it also looks like they're fully prepared to take their ball and go home when it comes to DOCSIS 3.0 trials. Originally the broadband provider had been hatching plans to roll out the ultra-fast internet service in San Antonio and Austin, Texas, Greensboro, N.C., and Rochester, NY -- but attitudes seem to have changed now that they might not get the new cash infusion that pricey metered usage would provide. In a flurry of tweets from the company's cocky VP of PR, Alex Dudley, there seems to be an indication that with the consumption based billing (CBB to us industry types), so potentially goes the DOCSIS 3.0 trials. In his own, understanding words -- responding to Stacey Higginbotham's query about whether or not the company will pull the high-speed without tiers: @gigastacey it was scheduled as part of cbb trial, but we all know how you feel about that. Frankly, we're still not sure if the facts on this story are totally straight, since much of it is based on 140 character tweets, which -- believe it or not -- aren't that helpful when you need details. We can however, communicate this to Time Warner Cable: you are fools and bastards if you pull this testing because you can't make your tiered billing work. Read - TWC to Customers: You Don't Want Tiers, You Don't Get Super-fast Broadband Read - Alex Dudley's tweet
Bringing WAR to the web
Any massively multiplayer online game built around the twin pillars of PvP and territorial control can't go wrong by providing realtime status updates of the struggle via the web. Warhammer Online has endeavored to do just that with the Realm War site, as addressed in a dev diary by the title's Web Development Lead, Scott Stricklin. The dev blog touches on what Mythic has accomplished thus far with bringing WAR to the web, and what they hope to accomplish in the future -- namely, podcasts, community news, and character and guild profiles. While they have no shortage of ideas about how to expand WAR outside of the client, their first objective has been to bring Realm vs. Realm data to the web. That goal has now been realized, and Stricklin walks the reader through the features of the newly revamped Realm War site.Players now have access to updated information about the overall campaign and the status of each capital city, Stricklin writes. This information is also presented visually, with each capital city's look changing based on its status, ranging from peaceful to besieged. This can all be kept in a pop up box in your browser to provide continual updates for when the tide of battle turns. Further information is provided through selectors which represent a server's racial pairings, giving a snapshot of what's happening with each tier's zone control. An added bonus to this are influence maps for each zone, similar to the in-game maps, which show the status of the various RvR objectives and allow a player to mouse over keeps, seeing when it was last captured and by which guild. Have a look at Scott Stricklin's dev diary for more on the Realm War site, or better yet, just head over there and try it out for yourself. 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!
Tiers: The past, present, and future of dungeon and raid sets
Tier gear is a concept that has been with WoW since the beginning. In Molten Core, the very first WoW raid, each class had a set of gear that looked good together, could only be equipped by that class and that was, supposedly, specially tuned to that class's stat requirements. Priests had Prophecy, Warriors had Might, and so forth. This was called tier 1. Classic WoW had three official raid tiers: tier 1 came from Molten Core, tier 2 from (mostly) Blackwing Lair, and tier 3 from Naxxramas. T3 is notable for a few reasons: It was obtained via multi-class tokens. The bosses would drop, say, the belt token for Priest, Mage, and Warlock. You'd then have to take the token, some mats dropped by Naxx trash, and some crafting mats to an NPC to get the gear. This was useful because the boss drops became more flexible: if your priests all had their belt already, you could give the token to a mage or a warlock; if it had just been a straight drop of the priest T3 belt, you'd have to disenchant it. T1 and T2 filled eight slots, while T3 filled nine, adding a ring. However, the highest bonus was for eight pieces, so you could choose which piece you wanted to leave out and still get the set bonus. This is continued in BC with five-piece sets, but only two- and four-piece bonuses. When Wrath of the Lich King goes live (or possibly when patch 3.0.2 does) you will no longer be able to acquire T3. Naxxramas is being moved from its current location up to Northrend, where it will become the entry-level raid for level 80. Those who already have T3 will get to keep it.
Building an Age of Conan guild city
Another exciting aspect of Funcom's upcoming Age of Conan is the Guild City System. This is mostly unique to other MMOs, in that you build the guild city not as a hall, but as an actual city with multiple buildings within. Each building serves its own purpose for offense and defense against other guilds and attacking forces, and is upgradeable to different tiers, much like an RTS.In a recent article at MMORPG.com, they run down the details of each of these guild city buildings, and their biggest advantages. Also in this article are some details on guild leadership itself. In order to create a guild city, your player will need to be a guild leader, level 40 or higher, and have a guild membership of at least 24 players. You will then have the choice of 3 environmental locations currently for your guild city. Let the land-grab begin!
Forum fun: does Tabula Rasa's cloning system cure alt-itis?
Do you or somebody you love find yourself constantly rolling new characters? Are you infatuated with that new toon smell? Have you maxed out the number of characters in your stable on not just you main server, but on two or three other servers as well? You may just be suffering from a condition widely known as alt-itis. There's no known cure for alt-itis, but there are some experimental treatments being used in mainstream MMOs that you might be interested in hearing about.One of these, is Tabula Rasa's clone system. A discussion on the topic sprouted up on the Planet TR forums on the topic, with the OP going so far as to call the cloning system Tabula Rasa's "lady in a red dress." While I was not sufficiently persuaded that the thread wasn't just an excuse to make a Matrix reference, I think the larger discussion is a salient one. Does a cloning system like Tabula Rasa's really represent a cure for alt-itis? Some would argue that it's a boon for casual players who don't have time to level eight different characters independently to the end-game, but who want to see the content. Others would argue that Tabula Rasa's tiered system means that most cloning opportunities save you a negligible amount of playtime - after all, you only have two ways to go with a clone at level 30, you can't jump branches. It's an interesting discussion worth checking out (even if the topic has since wandered a bit).
