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Anarchy Online's new game director details early 2012 plans
We haven't heard a whole lot from Funcom's old-school sci-fi MMO Anarchy Online since mid-December when the game's producer bowed out. Today, however, the new game director, Fia "Lindelu" Tjernberg, stopped by the game's official forums to give players a bit of an update on what they can expect from the first months of the new year. For starters, Tjernberg gives players a progress report on the game's upcoming shiny new graphics engine. She goes on to explain that "[Funcom's] artists have been preparing a couple of playfields to a standard that is very close to what we're aiming for," and adds that the first video of the new engine should hit sometime in February. Another large priority for the team for early 2012 is the new player experience, but perhaps most importantly of all is the "balancing act," as Tjernberg puts it, which (predictably) aims to bring the game's professions into balance "a little bit at a time." For the full details on Anarchy Online's plans for the next couple of months, just click on through the link below.
Super Street Fighter 4 Arcade Edition Ver. 2012 update coming to PCs in Feb.
The Ver. 2012 balance update for Super Street Fighter 4 Arcade Edition has been available on consoles and in arcades since early December. PC fighters have had to make due with vanilla SSF4AE and all of the problems that came with it. Thankfully, it looks like a solution is right around the corner. Better late than never, right? Capcom hopes to have the Ver. 2012 update ready for the PC version of SSF4AE by the end of February, according to an announcement made on Capcom Unity by a dog in a wig. Further information will be announced "in the coming weeks," so we'll just have to wait; something PC fighting game fans have become quite accustomed to over the years.
Hands on with Propellerhead's Reason 6 and Balance interface
I've always been curious about Propellerhead's Reason software, but since I'm not really an electronic music-making enthusiast, and the fact that up until more recently Reason had no audio recording capabilities, I've always turned to other recording platforms for my music-making needs, that is until now! For those of you that don't know, Reason is a virtual studio rack for your Mac. It even looks like a rack filled with loads of fantastic studio equipment. It has all the tools required to produce music: compressors, reverbs, synths, delays, a whole bunch of instruments...the list goes on. Previously, though, you'd have to connect this virtual rack with a DAW (a digital audio workstation like Pro Tools, Logic, Reeper or even Propellerhead's own DAW, Record) in order to actually record something through it or capture something produced form it. However, with the latest version of Reason, Record (with all the fine features you've come to expect from a DAW) has been totally integrated into Reason. With Reason 6, Reason and Record are now one, and all the better for it. To top that off, and really hit home the fact that Propellerhead is taking audio recording very seriously. It's produced its own audio interface hardware, too -- Balance. With Reason 6 and Balance, Propellerhead provides everything the home recording enthusiast needs. Balance is a high quality 2-in by 2-out audio interface, meaning you can record up to two sources of audio at a time. This may appear meagre, but for the average home recorder, you're not going to be recording more than two sources of audio at a time -- say a guitar and a vocal. However, you are going to add other instruments to your track by layering recordings on top of each other. Maybe add some piano and some percussion? Balance has two XLR microphone inputs (with 48V phantom power), two 1/4" guitar inputs with padding and four 1/4" balanced line inputs (two stereo pairs). This means you can have up to 8 audio sources plugged in, setup and ready to go without having to fiddle around with cables and wires while you're in the creative zone. Another unique feature of Balance is Clip Safe. How often have you recorded the perfect take only to discover that it clipped because the level was (unexpectedly!) too hot? Clip Safe automatically does a backup recording of your take at a lower level, allowing you to go back and readjust the input level of your take after you've recorded it. Are Balance and Reason 6 as good as they, uh... sound? Propellerhead sent TUAW a review unit of Reason 6 and Balance so I could find out. Physically, the Balance unit is very appealing. It's all black and with a soft rubber feel, but the unit itself feels rock solid. Unlike many smaller audio interfaces, all the controls, dials and lights are raised towards you for easy visibility and access. The two most important dials, the main output level and the headphone level, are the biggest, making them easy to find and use. The other two smaller dials are the gain levels for the two inputs. For a novice user it couldn't be simpler. Hit the source selector for the input you want, adjust the input gain level, adjust the main out level and you're on your way. All the source inputs and the audio outs are neatly arranged on the back of the unit. There are no breakout cables, covers or flaps, the design is clean, simple and clear. And, of course, the audio? The pre-amps sound fantastic, especially for the price point. It's also worth noting that the Balance interface is not tied to Reason. The interface is Core Audio compatible and will work with the DAW of your choice, though the Clip Safe feature is a Reason exclusive. Being Core Audio compatible (like just about every other audio interface for the Mac), Balance works straight away with your Mac. Run the Reason installer disc, plug it in via the provided USB cable and you're on your way. As for Reason 6, well... I have no real previous experience with Reason (and bearing in mind that approaching any DAW for the first time can be a bit of a learning curve), I was quickly up and running recording tracks and engaging with the huge array of instruments and gear in no time. It's clear there's a vast depth to Reason 6. And while it may take a bit of time learning how to get there, the new user can happily get along simply skimming the surface, while the more advanced user will find all the power, flexibility and detail they'd expect from any other DAW. Like Balance, Reason 6 feels clean, clear and polished. It's designed to get out of the way so you can get on with making music. It is extremely stable, too. Which brings me to my last point, Reason is a locked environment, you can't use any third party plug-ins with it. Some may see that as a deal breaker. However, there are a plethora of Reason ReFills -- additional Propellerhead approved, high-quality instruments and sounds for expanding on Reason. Seriously, I'd say you can get just about everything your home studio will need in the Propellerhead universe. In part, Reason's exclusivity is probably what makes it so sturdy. To find out more about what Reason 6 and Balance has to offer, check out the Propellerhead website here. I also recently had an interview with UK singer-songwriter Olivia Broadfield, who is an exclusive Reason user. You can read the interview here. Balance comes bundled with Reason Essentials and is available for around US$500. Finally, until the end of January, TUAW is a hosting a competition with Propellerhead, SoundCloud and Olivia Broadfield, giving you the chance to win a copy of Reason 6, a Balance interface, a SoundCloud premium subscription as well as some TUAW goodies. Check out further details here.
Flameseeker Chronicles: ArenaNet talks PvE vs. PvP
"I don't care for PvP, so Guild Wars 2 doesn't really interest me." This is something that I've heard with some regularity over the past year or two, and every time I sort of shake my head in confusion. How could anyone perceive Guild Wars 2 as a PvP-only game? Really, just take a look at what we've seen from the development team and how PvE-centric it is and it seems that you'd get the impression that if anything, there's more of a PvE focus. Of course, I can see where this perception comes from -- Guild Wars 1 holds the same perception for a lot of people, so it carries over. As a huge fan of both games and a pure PvE player, I thought it would be fun to take this week and clear things up. Eric Flannum and John Stumme were kind enough to help, stepping in to answer a few questions about the balance of things both past and present. Curious about what they have to say? Click past the cut and take a look!
BioWare's James Ohlen: Bug fixes coming weekly
Any new MMO, even big-budget behemoths like BioWare's Star Wars: The Old Republic, is often fraught with bugs and exploits that can keep the game from living up to its full potential. The Old Republic's game director, James Ohlen, recognizes this and has stopped by the official forums to let players know how the company will be handling the game's bugs, glitches, and exploits. Ohlen states that "almost every week [BioWare] will be releasing a new patch." These pseudo-weekly patches will be focused almost entirely on fixing bugs, exploits, and glaring balance issues within the game. Ohlen does remind players, however, that bug-fixing is not always a simple task. "There are issues that we will fix immediately," he says, with the caveat that "these are rare and not every issue can be fixed in this manner. We usually reserve these 'emergency fixes' for bugs that are stopping players from playing the game or to exploits that could unbalance the entire game if not corrected." I'm sure players have a few things in mind to which an emergency fix could be applied, but we'll just have to wait for the next patch to see what the devs have cooked up.
Global Chat: December 18-24, 2011
We love hearing what you have to say at Massively, and we love it even more when we can share the best comments with all of our readers. Massively staffers will be contributing some of their favorite comments every week, so keep an eye out every Sunday for more Global Chat! Merry Christmas, Massively readers! We're enjoying some time with our loved ones today here at Massively, and we hope you're doing the same. We've prepared a few things for you to read in your downtime today, though. One of them is this week's Global Chat, so follow along after the break for the best of what our readers had to say last week!
WoW Insider Weekly News Update for Dec. 16, 2011
The WoW Insider Weekly News Update is your source for all the biggest stories from the past week wrapped up in a neat little video package. Mathew McCurley hosts your quick look at this week's biggest news. If you haven't already subscribed to the WoW Insider YouTube channel, you should! This week's top stories include: Blizzard announces Battle.net Balance. Blizzard also announces Battle.net BattleTags. Winter Veil is here. Blizzard reclassified items for Dragon Soul's Raid Finder difficulty. Win a Nightsaber Cub loot card from WoWTCGLoot! Here's how to enter: Subscribe to the WoW Insider YouTube channel and comment on the video over on YouTube for a chance to win! We'll contact our winner via YouTube on Friday, Dec. 23.
Behind the Mask: What does unbalanced even mean?
One of the major criticisms of Champions Online is a lack of game balance. People claim that the phrase "your own hero, your own story" doesn't cover the fact that your hero might be a gimp compared to someone else's. Although archetypes have their own balance issues (even among themselves), this complaint most commonly leveled at the freeform game where there are millions of possible characters. However, I think that most armchair game theorists have a terrible understanding of what "balance" even means. Decades of competitive gaming (yeah, I'm that old) have given me a comprehensive understanding of what the term means, and I think it's worth looking at how CO stacks up.
EVE Evolved: Everything there is to know about Crucible
This summer's lackluster Incarna expansion and the ensuing microtransaction drama took a massive toll on EVE Online's player community and development staff. Players were quitting in droves, and CCP eventually had to lay off 20% of its staff worldwide. Two years of half-implemented expansions, broken features, and "first steps" that were never iterated on left players begging for a content-heavy expansion like Apocrypha or those released in EVE's early years. EVE is known for being practically a new game every six months, but since the blockbuster Apocrypha expansion, daily life in New Eden hasn't changed much at all. To pull things back from the brink, CCP refocused development on EVE Online and gave developers a free pass to work on hundreds of small features and improvements. The company began flooding us with details on new ships, graphical updates, new gameplay mechanics, and desperately needed balance tweaks, and we loved every bit of it. Although it's mostly small features and gameplay tweaks, the Crucible expansion feels like a genuine rebirth for EVE Online. The types of changes made show that CCP knows exactly what players want from EVE and that the company is now willing to deliver it. With CCP's renewed focus on internet spaceships, the Crucible expansion feels like the start of a new era in the sandbox. In this week's EVE Evolved, I pull together everything there is to know about the Crucible expansion that went live this week, from its turbulent origins to the awesome features and PvP updates it contains.
The MMO Report: Schreinercraft edition
This week on The MMO Report, Casey covers South Korea's Cinderella Law, Firefall's attempts at class balance, and World of Warcraft's 4.3 patch. He also suggests that "it's beginning to look a lot like riftmas" in RIFT (groan) before announcing that in honor of Minecon and Minecraft's 240 million logins per month, he will soon begin work on "Schreinercraft, a graphically minimalist, open-source game where players build, create, and customize virtual beards for their avatars." He notes that he doesn't "have any programming experience, start-up capital, or a business plan," but he "love[s] money and would enjoy having more of it." Don't we all! Finally, he dives into Uncle Casey's Mailbag and asks readers to mail him the story of their first MMO experience for possible inclusion in a future show. All this and more in the full HD video behind the break!
Blood Sport: How will patch 4.3 impact PvP?
WoW Insider covers the world of player vs. player action in Blood Sport for fans of battleground, world PvP and Arena play. Steering you to victory is Olivia Grace, who spends most of her time in Azeroth as a restoration shaman turning people into frogs. With patch 4.3 imminent and Arena season 10 due to end Nov. 29, it seems reasonable to assume the patch will appear in early December. While you're racing to get your team into title range, get that last piece of gear, or just running laps of your capital city, you might be thinking forward to the arrival of the patch and wondering what your fate will be in PvP as the nerf bat winds up for another swing. Firstly, let's deal with some housekeeping. Conquest points, the PvP equivalent of valor points, will now be far, far easier to earn from ordinary Battlegrounds. The first daily Battleground win will now award 100 conquest points, up from 25, and wins after that will award 50 conquest point, up from, well, none! The conquest cap will remain, so while it will still be far quicker to reach it through Arena, it will also be attainable via Battlegrounds of the non-rated variety. This makes it far easier for solo players to build up the resilience numbers people often demand (fairly or otherwise) for access to Arena and Rated Battleground teams or just to gear for Battlegrounds.
Firefall video diary talks Medics, Assaults, and that dreaded balance word
Mmm, Firefall. Red 5 Studios is starting the Thanksgiving week off right with a delicious helping of video. The entree consists of David Williams talking a bit about class design and the balance challenges inherent in the title's battleframes (for the uninitiated, battleframes are the suits of power armor worn by Firefall's soldiers, and in gameplay terms they determine your class and combat role). When it comes to the dreaded "B" word, Williams uses the game's Medic class as an example, and he says that Red 5 wants combat docs to be able to deal damage and fulfill the primary support role. This poses a problem, of course, because other classes (like the Assault) aren't able to do both. The Medic "needed to be fun, it needed to be threatening, but it also needed to be just below the offensive capabilities of an Assault," Williams explains. See what else he has to say, and get a good look at Firefall in action, via the video after the break.
EVE Evolved: Returning EVE to the Crucible
When EVE Online launched in 2003, it was a barren game without many of the comforts we enjoy today. The user interface was abysmally worse than today's (if you can imagine such a thing), players with cruisers were top dog, and practically the only activities were mining or blowing up miners. The culmination of years of hard work by a small indie studio, EVE Online sold almost entirely on its future potential. When I was introduced to the game by an excited friend in early 2004 during the Castor expansion, he encouraged me to get in on the ground floor because he believed the game was going to be huge. Years later, I find myself introducing the game to thousands of readers on the same premise. EVE's continual success over the years transformed a fresh-faced CCP Games into a multinational game development giant. And yet, for all that growth and all the updates to EVE over the years, the fact that the game sells largely on future potential is still firmly embedded in both players and developers. Players subscribe not only because they like the game but because they want to support development to reach EVE's true potential. Two years with very little iteration on existing features sent the message that developers weren't trying to reach that potential, but it seems that trend is soon to be completely reversed. With the newly announced Crucible expansion, CCP will be adding countless small features, graphical updates and iterations that put EVE firmly back on the path to reaching its full potential. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at CCP's plans to return EVE to the crucible and reforge it into something awesome. Those waiting for the third part of my look at the new player experience can catch that in next week's column, as Kajatta is enjoying his final week in EVE before delivering his verdict.
Addicted gamer shares his struggle to find balance between the real world and the virtual world
While Tucson's KVOA may not be so well-versed in MMOs as to distinguish between Gears of War and Dark Age of Camelot, the local news station put together an interesting little piece on online game addiction nevertheless. The brief report highlights the story of Elijah Oster, a father and husband who got so pulled into MMOs that he began to neglect his family and suffer from insomnia. He admits that he failed to "budget enough time" for his loved ones, and would grow irritable when his wife interrupted his play sessions. Behavioral health counselor Jeffrey Friedman was brought in to comment on game addiction, which he says is similar to most forms of addition in that people's actions are dictated by what will cause them the least emotional pain. In this case, it's becoming overly dependent on an online world instead of the real one. Friedman works at the Cottonwood Tucson center. The report concludes with Oster sharing what he realized after treatment: "I started understanding the concept of balance."
EVE Evolved: Gallente and hybrid balance
It's been another week filled with announcements and positive news for EVE Online, with CCP showing off EVE's new nebulae and revealing the Amarr and Caldari tier 3 battlecruisers. For Gallente pilots, no news was celebrated more than the rebalancing of hybrid weapons and ships that specialise in their use. Short-range blasters can technically deliver the highest damage output of any turret, but their extremely short optimal range means they deal a smaller fraction of their maximum damage in most fights than other ships. Blaster ships have to spend valuable travel time closing into weapons range, and once up close, targets are hard to track. Although railguns were designed by the Caldari, they're hybrid weapons just like blasters, and so they are the long-range weapon of choice for Gallente sniping and mission-running ships. They have good range and tracking speed but have always suffered from slightly worse damage output and alpha strike than beam lasers and artillery cannons of the same size. Countless suggestions for fixes to blasters and railguns have appeared on the forum over the years, but until now they've remained unchanged. As a Gallente pilot and avid Thorax and Dominix fan, I'm very excited by the hybrid balance changes coming this winter. In this week's EVE Evolved, I take a break from the new player experience experiment to take a look at the impact of the upcoming hybrid balance patch and why the announced changes are needed.
Latest EVE dev video talks ship balance and features coming this winter
Several weeks ago, EVE Online developer CCP Games restructured its company and announced a new laser focus on in-space features for EVE Online. Since then we've seen an absolute deluge of news updates and devblogs on features due for release in the winter expansion. In the first two of CCP's new In Development video series, CCP Guard explored the art department and showed off the new nebula effects, EVE's sharpened shadows and the new tier 3 battlecruisers. In the latest In Development video, Guard talks to the EVE feature teams about the absolutely massive list of balance changes and features coming with the winter expansion. CCP Soundwave admits that developers have "probably done more rebalancing in the past month than we have in the past two years," before rattling off an impressive list of changes and new features. Skip past the cut for a brief summary of the changes and to watch the video in HD.
Captain's Log: A two-minute read could save you 15% or more on nerdrage insurance
Captain's Log, Stardate 65340.3... Hello, computer (and players)! Welcome to this week's edition of Captain's Log, brought to you by "Geko" Insurance. (And let's just say, you may want to purchase a policy). If you are a Star Trek Online player who watches Cryptic's official forums, you know that the game experienced an Occupy movement of its own this past weekend. Even if you don't frequent the forums, you may have seen some of the concerns raised through the #STO Twitter feed. Over the weekend, players lashed out against some of the recent changes that have made their way to the Tribble test server. It may be surprising to some of you reading this, but the commotion was not related to the economy changes. The main concern is that some of the items for purchase in the C-Store are going to be changing from account-wide unlocks to per-character transactions. While I was a little perturbed at the thought too, I was happy to see that some of the misconceptions were cleared up once we got an official statement from one of the devs. But since there is a lot more to the story, let's take a look. Ensign, warp 10! And don't forget to buckle your seatbelt...
Details of EVE's long-awaited hybrid balance patch revealed
Balancing combat in a PvP-centric game like EVE Online is a tricky business. In a sandbox universe that pits fleets of hundreds of ships against each other in a struggle for territorial dominance, balance changes can alter the PvP landscape. Unfortunately, hybrid weapons have always received the short end of the stick in balancing efforts, leaving Gallente turret ships like the Deimos and Megathron behind their Amarr and Minmatar counterparts. In a new devblog, CCP Tallest adds a major Hybrid weapon rework to the growing list of long-awaited features finally making an appearance in EVE's coming winter expansion. Blasters will be receiving some much-needed CPU and powergrid reductions, a 30% reduction on capacitor usage and a huge 20% bonus to tracking speed. Railguns receive the same CPU, powergrid and capacitor reduction as blasters, in addition to a straight 10% damage increase. All ships typically fit with blasters will also be getting speed bonuses to help them get into blaster range, and tech II ammo for all turrets is due for an update.
PlanetSide 2 going for big continents, big battles
Sony Online Entertainment recently showed off the latest version of PlanetSide 2 to PC Gamer, and if you were worried about not having enough elbow room in the sequel to the popular MMO shooter, worry not. The game takes place on landmasses that can stretch out to eight virtual kilometers on either side, and battles can rage all across those areas, with some weapons firing up to an in-game kilometer. The continents also contain "facilities," which hold courtyards of action, some of which creative director Matt Higby says are "the size of a Modern Warfare level." The team also talked about another form of scale: How many players are involved in these massive battles. At times, they admit, it'll be around 200 people fighting against only 30, but they're attempting to design the game so that with the right tactics, "you can still have fun and enjoy yourself as a group of 20 people defending against an onslaught." Of course, it takes even more design acumen to figure out how to also make that fun for the 200 players, but we're hopeful SOE can figure out something smart.
Star Trek Online strengthening the fight against the Borg
Since launch, Star Trek Online has always used the Borg as a major threat. This is evidenced by the Borg's position in several of the game's Strategic Task Forces, top-end challenges for the best of the best in the Federation and the KDF. The conversion to free-to-play will include improvements and updates for these STFs, starting with a change explained in the latest installment of the Path to F2P blog series. The first change is the shift to two separate difficulty modes, Normal and Elite. STFs are also being added to the PvE queue feature so that players can more easily assemble a group. Last but not least, the missions will feature special rewards that can be traded for a variety of anti-Borg equipment, allowing successful players the chance to better tune their ships for future runs. These updates won't reduce the threat level of the Borg, but they should help more players face off against one of the game's marquee opponents.
