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The Mog Log: Absorbent
By the Twelve and by the Goddess, it's good to be back. Logging back into Final Fantasy XIV was a unique pleasure, one that honestly had nothing to do with the changes to quest experience from Monday or anything else. It was due to the simple fact that I had missed the game, and if I had been in the middle of more projects with Final Fantasy XI, I would have been equally happy to log back in there. (It was still nice, but it's more a matter of seeing an old friend come back than anything.) Now, for the past couple of weeks I've been vaguely hinting at talk about Thaumaturges, so it seems only fair that I use today as an opportunity to stand and deliver. I'm going to talk about one of my favorite abilities within the class, a set of skills that really starts upping the synergy between Disciples of Magic and Disciples of War. I'm speaking, of course, of the four major Absorb skills, which I loved when they were on Dark Knights and I love even more when I can toss them on any character I choose.
Exclusive: Designing the expanded Incarnate trees for City of Heroes
It was rumored for a while and confirmed at PAX East -- Issue 20 of City of Heroes will feature four new Incarnate slots for characters to improve their abilities. That means a huge breadth of new power and ability choices for everyone, and it should lead to some very interesting gameplay once the four new slots become more common among players, especially as the Incarnate abilities aren't tied to any specific archetype or power selection. Of course, that means there are all sorts of new issues for the Paragon Studios team to deal with as the powers go through the phases of design. In this exclusive developer diary, Tim Sweeney, system designer on City of Heroes, has given us the lowdown on how the new endgame slots were conceived and designed. Jump on past the cut to see how the four newest slots were put together for the upcoming patch, from concept to balancing issues.
Breakfast Topic: What's your favorite ability in WoW?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the AOL guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. One of the greatest strengths of World of Warcraft is its awesome sense of progression. Players level up and gain better and better gear as they progress through the game. Some people live for the raiding content, constantly striving for gear upgrades and stat optimizations. However, my favorite aspect of WoW's progression was and still is training new abilities. Leveling my warlock back in The Burning Crusade, I was amazed by every flashy ability I learned. Upon training Hellfire at level 30, I ran to the front gate of Orgrimmar and proceeded to ask a well geared level 70 character to duel. Amused, the 70 accepted and prepared to watch my futile efforts. I immediately popped Hellfire and died within a few seconds, all while laughing maniacally. "Wow, you suck," said the 70 and rode away on his epic mount. My lack of skill aside, the fun I had discovering these new abilities is unsurpassed by any facet of the game. Be it the terrifying Thunderstorm, the dumbfounding Disengage, or the hair-raising Heroic Leap, there are many cool abilities out there. And while some of them may have little to no practical application, every time I use one of them, I always think "Man, that's cool!" So what's your "Man, that's cool!" ability? Did you discover it leveling your first character, or did you see another character use one of those nifty abilities and become inspired to level that class?
The Soapbox: Respecting the IP and why developers shouldn't
Here's how it is: The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week's writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column. If you've never heard of Firefly, you're either afraid of things that are awesome or you've had an unfortunate gap in your viewing history for the past nine years or so. If you have heard of it, however, you're more than aware that simply referencing the show is enough to send most gamers and fanboys into paroxysms of quotations and general gushing. To say that the universe remains well-loved is an understatement. And if you play MMOs, Firefly seems like a setting that's too perfect to be true. Who knows how many moons are out there in the black, how many crews are left to explore the 'verse and make a fortune? The game never went beyond an announcement, and it still topped our list of games that have gone MIA, after all. And the best part is all of that open nature plays right into the structure of an MMO, with no need to change the wonderful IP set forth in the slightest.
Triple the class coming for Runes of Magic
If you're a Runes of Magic player, you've got something big to look forward to in about a month and a half. The latest official podcast not only dates Chapter IV for an April 6th release (barring unforeseen technical issues) but discusses in more detail what can be found within the update. A new starting area for the game is certainly a nice piece of news, but it's not the centerpiece of the announcement -- that would be the fact that the update will be moving the game from its current dual-class system to a triple-class system. The change might sound a bit subtle, but it's actually a rather large shift. Unlike the current system, which allows players to have a primary class active and a second class "in reserve," this system will give you two classes with full access to all abilities, with a third class in reserve. That means access to a much wider range of abilities -- rather than only having access to the general skills of a secondary class, players will have all the skills of two classes, with a third class of general skills on top. Runes of Magic players will want to listen to the announcement, starting at about 10 minutes into the podcast.
Fallen Earth 1.8 patch on PTS, extensive ability changes incoming
The Fallen Earth public test server (PTS) is the place to be for sneak peeks at upcoming content, and as of right now, said new content is the 1.8 patch. Icarus Studios' Carlin has posted the version notes on the Fallen Earth forums, and a quick glance at them indicates that 1.8 is quite the meaty update. The biggest change is the forthcoming ability revamp. According to the notes, "almost all abilities have been changed, with the goal of increasing the number and viability of different player roles and play-styles. Some abilities have been removed, and some new abilities have been added." Patch 1.8 also introduces new NPCs and missions in various parts of the wasteland, UI tweaks (including new chat channels), and an adjustment to the rate at which random AP is gained. If you've never tried the PTS on for size, you can download the client and also pay a visit to the forums to get your bearings.
The Daily Grind: How often do you respec your characters?
Ah respecs. My DC Universe Online character had barely strapped on his spandex underoos before I felt the need to head to the Watchtower and redo his power and skill sets. Such is the nature of a new MMO and a relatively complex character development system. It's not just new titles either. I've lost many a gold coin to the respec gods in Age of Conan, and thankfully Global Agenda's neural re-mappings are free of charge. Whether it's gameplay changes, new strategies that compel us to alter our approach, or a forum post that illustrates just how wrong we've been doing it, respecs are an inescapable fact of MMO life. The more adventurous among us may not even need a reason other than the fun to be had in experimenting with different builds, skills, and abilities. For today's Daily Grind, we want to know about your respec habits. Do you revamp your avatars at the drop of a hat or do you prefer to tough it out and make do with a preferred build? In short, how often do you respec your characters? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Questionable freshness
We've been on a bit of a kick for new players lately, and that's not by coincidence. Sure, City of Heroes has a well-established playerbase by this point, but it's not like the game is exactly hostile to new players. And while I wanted to do another session of questions and answers, I wanted to wait until I had a good crop of questions that pertain to the newer crowd -- players less familiar with the game or with a given archetype, players who are interested in learning more but unable to find a cogent resource amidst scattered threads on the forums and one-off references in posts. Let's face it, after nearly seven years, a lot of us don't need or want references to these things any longer. We don't need someone explaining to us about Enhancement Diversification or why someone other than the healer asks what you need for a wakie when you die. A newer player might have no idea about these things, though, and so we're mixing up the format a bit here. Let's get back to basics and look at some questions that might seem simple if you know the answer -- but don't tend to get answered if you don't.
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: In the case of Brutes
It's the start of a new year, and that means it's time to start getting fired up again. I have been taking a little break from being online for the new year weekend -- after all, when you're always online, it starts to wear on you just a little. But now it's time to get back in the saddle in City of Heroes and everywhere else, and I can't think of a better way to do that than to start in on the archetype overviews once again, especially since I had a friend tell me he was looking forward to his current favorite archetype. We're not on that archetype today, however. No, after having taken a look at the Scrapper to kick things off, we're going to be moving on to a character type that's just down the street. It's the second of three archetypes with an offensive melee/defensive secondary mix, it's one of the four heavily melee-oriented options available, and it's the sort of character type that just makes you start hitting until everything is broken in half. That's right, we're looking at the Brute today, for players who are new to the Brute or to the game in general.
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: In the case of Scrappers
We're in a small lull for City of Heroes at the moment, and truth be told it's well-deserved. After several months of invasions, updates, previews of the upcoming issues and so forth... it's nice to finally have a chance to just lean back and breathe a little bit. Of course, said breathing will involve a fair bit of superpowered antics, but as involved as that might be for the characters, the players don't have to be constantly looking to the future. So while we technically should be working through the Incarnate System, the odds are better than even that we'll all be rolling alts over the holiday season. We play City of Heroes; alts are in our blood. So in a move that can only have been brought on by an almost criminal overdose of liquor, I've decided to start taking a look at the powersets of the archetypes, starting with the alt-friendly Scrapper. This should be of benefit to those who have never played a Scrapper, including players who are starting the game for the first time and who by definition haven't tried one before.
Another bump to Final Fantasy XI's level cap brings more class boosts
The December version update for Final Fantasy XI is right around the corner, bringing with it a slew of enhancements to the game as a whole and players in particular. Needless to say, the biggest enhancement in many players' eyes is the boosting of the level cap to 90, which perforce requires a new set of job abilities and magic to fill the five levels between the current cap and the new ceiling. And it doesn't appear that the update will disappoint in that regard, as the most recent preview explains several of the abilities players can look forward to in the 85-90 band. Among the more interesting abilities are the Warrior's new buff to the critical hit rate of allies, the Dragoon's ability to command the wyvern to use certain breath attacks, and a variety of abilities in several classes to cripple enemies of given types (Paladins against undead, Dark Knights against arcana, et cetera). There's also the promise of new blue magic, although the details are not yet offered. Past updates have frequently included even more enhancements to each job, but Final Fantasy XI players will likely be happy even with just what's provided in the new preview.
The Mog Log: Class actions
The biggest news about Final Fantasy XIV this week, other than the somewhat mollifying UI update preview, was the addition of another 30 days of free playtime for everyone. This is the sort of thing that I don't think you can really see as anything other than a classy move on the part of Square-Enix. It's also very unexpected, but in the best possible way -- I can't help but be surprised that the company which has long been seen as completely dispassionate by Final Fantasy XI players has essentially responded to the "I don't want to pay for beta" complaints with "that's fair, we'll let you play for free." So as long as we're talking about class, let's talk about Final Fantasy XIV's classes. I'm a big fan of games that give you a broad toolbox and let you decide what you want to do with everything, and building a field class is one of my biggest joys in the game. It's not that you can't mix-and-match abilities from Disciples of the Land or Disciples of the Hand, but there's less variance than the combat-oriented classes. Let's start dipping our toes into character building, yes?
Lemmings-like Spirits for iPad out now
Spirits for iPad, which I saw and played back at Indiecade this year, is out now on the App Store. The game is US$4.99, but as a premium iPad experience, it's worth it. The whole thing is extremely relaxing, and the art style is quite well done. If you enjoy Lemmings-style puzzle gameplay where your goal is to get a set of autonomous creatures to a level exit using their various abilities, you'll really enjoy finding your way through the 40 handmade levels in Spirits. I was told a while back that an iPhone version is coming, but the iPad version was ready to go first, so here it is. Unfortunately, there's still no Game Center achievements or any other extra modes or gameplay, but that's ok. The point of the game is just to sit back and explore the world with these weird spirit creatures, so if you're looking to spend some quality gaming time with the iPad this weekend, Spirits won't let you down.
Breakfast Topic: What is your favorite class ability?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. With all this focus on new disasters, races, and abilities coming in Cataclysm, it's easy to forget about all the awesome things our characters can do right now. Mages can teleport, fury warriors can dual wield two-handed weapons, shaman can turn into a Ghost Wolf. Ghost Wolf --- that even sounds cool. My main toon is a holy paladin. Although I did level most of the first 60 levels as holy (yes, it went very, very slowly), I blasted through the last 20 levels and the instances that fill them as retribution. At level 80, I wanted to get into raiding. A friend somehow got me in one of the better raiding guilds on my server and -- guess what? -- shortly after, I got volun -- told to go holy if I wanted a raiding slot. I admit, at first, I wasn't a great healer. I was using a very small portion of my toolbox. I took Holy Light spam to a new level and did almost nothing else. After a time, I discovered Beacon of Light and spent much of the next few weeks declaring it was the best spell in all of WoW. Two tanks taking damage? No problem, 'cause now my Holy Light spamming was twice as effective! Now I'm leveling a rogue and falling in love with a brand new skillset. Cheap Shot and Kidney Shot are fast becoming some of my new favorite character abilities. Are you more partial to the biggest damage/healing/threat increase button, or does pushing someone off an edge with Typhoon just make your day? What abilities do you enjoy the most?
The Mog Log: Saturday afternoon's all right for (discussing) fighting
Here's the hangup I have with writing guides: I like writing them so long as I'm fairly confident in my understanding of the game. Unfortunately, unlike many others who are reasonably sane, I have a definition of "understanding" that goes into theorycrafting and design space issues. I don't feel that I understand Dragoons just through knowing their abilities; I need to understand why they have those abilities instead of others, how those abilities work in concert with other parts of the game, and so on and so forth. That's the reason I haven't talked a whole lot about guides for Final Fantasy XIV, because I'm still figuring a good chunk of this out. That having been said, there was no shortage of positive response (mixed with the usual omnidirectional vitriol) to the first guide-ish piece that I ran. So we're dipping back into that well with a look at the violence inherent in the system. It's time to get down and dirty with combat, and this time around we're going to look at the system as a whole, at tricks you can use that you might not be aware of, and at some useful low-level abilities to consider before you start picking "main" disciplines.
Champions Online previews the new Archetype system
When Champions Online first announced that it was joining the ranks of other games offering a no-subscription option, it included a mention that free members would be locked into archetypes. Archetypes were described in broad strokes as a chance for players to develop along the lines of famous heroes from comics, with a locked progression path but the same basic power level. While the development team hasn't yet expounded on what the precise archetypes will be, it has put together a short description about the differences players can expect between the normal free-form heroes and the coming archetype heroes. As it turns out, archetypes will end up with slightly fewer overall powers than freeform heroes but with the same general power level. The preview explains the split as being one of versatility -- freeform heroes will be able to take many roles, but archetype heroes will perform one role well and that's it. If you're one of the players looking forward to trying Champions Online as free-to-play, or if you're just interested in the new build system, take a look at the full rundown and keep your eyes peeled for the coming details on the archetypes themselves.
The Mog Log: Relaxing with community answers
Sometimes, all it takes to see an answer is a subtle change of attitude. For the past month or so, I have been trying to spend every ounce of spare time available on Final Fantasy XIV, but I'm starting to relax a little bit because I realized just how silly it is. I would rather enjoy the journey and get there when I get there; level 50 will come as it does, and hopefully by that point my fellow AETHER members will be able to craft spectacles. Until then, let's just relax a bit and indulge a few questions with answers, yes? Gente asks: Why is Final Fantasy XI the only game getting a holiday event? There's no Halloween event for Final Fantasy XIV this year, no. There will likely be one next year, however, as the development team has stated there are events in the works for as early as the end of the year. Considering past experience with Square-Enix and this most ghoulish of holidays, we can expect it will feature an inordinately useful item and a surfeit of ghosts within the city walls.
Storyboard: Problem children, part the second
Creating characters is hard work. It's hard enough when you're just concerned with making a really cool melee character who can kick other melee characters up and down the block, and it gets infinitely harder when you're trying to put together something that at least looks like a three-dimensional individual at the right angle. That having been said, there are certain ideas that are just problematic, character types that might seem like a good idea when you're staring at the screen but become a really bad one as soon as you hit "create." Our last look at problem characters focused on the sort that you know you're creating at the time, the sort that sound nifty in your head but cause some serious problems in actual play. This time we're looking at the other side, the sort of thing that's far easier to notice while interacting with characters rather than while creating them. But it's still well worth keeping these types in mind so that if you start traveling down these roads, you can make a turn. On to the problem children!
The Mog Log: World of Craft-craft
Crafting is optional in Final Fantasy XIV, but that word doesn't mean what it usually means in games. You don't have to take any local levequests or take part in crafting to level up, but you'll find yourself far more constrained and advancing your physical level far more slowly if you ignore the crafting side of things. It should be obvious, really -- combining local and regional guildleves gives you plenty of content, but just doing one or the other might leave you feeling a bit spare, and a full half of the classes are crafting classes to begin with. Of course, the problem quickly turns from "should I bother crafting" to "where do I start?" And that's not even touching on issues of inventory, crafts that work well with others, and which crafts support which classes. So this week, I'm going to take a look at crafting as I've seen it thus far and offer some tips on keeping yourself balanced and sane. Or at least minimizing the enraged outburst when you botch the synthesis at 99%.
Storyboard: Brother from another series
Some players and characters are nice enough to point out to you right away that they're not actually from around here. You know the ones -- the elves with long flowing blonde hair and names that imply some variation on legs and the non-presence of same are certainly a long-standing example. Of course, the people in question are rarely roleplaying, but that doesn't change the number of elven marksmen who are all the best in the world at hitting a target, never mind the "miss" result that pops up every so often when they nock their arrows. In fiction, they're called expys, short for exported characters. They're guest stars from elsewhere, and while most roleplayers have a name that's a bit more original than some variant on Legolas, they're no less common. After all, if you're inspired by a particularly good character and want to try playing him in a given environment, why wouldn't you just pick him up and transplant him? But there are good ways to do it and bad ways, just like there are far more ways to make dull and unlikable characters than interesting ones. So follow on past the break for a look at how to make your expy fall into the "interesting homage" camp rather than the "xx_Legolas_xx" camp.
