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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.
Wings Over Atreia: Boss world tour -- Inggison
Back in January, Wings Over Atreia brought you the first installment of a series highlighting the who, where, what, and even some how of Aion's world bosses. At that time, we took a tour around the land of Heiron and met up with those tough (and some not-so-tough) bosses who taunt players with their juicy, coveted loot. But Heiron is for youngins; this week, we will focus our tour on the playground of the highest levels, the lands of Balaurea -- specifically, Inggison. It never fails -- the best goodies are never the easy-to-get goodies. As much as Daevas may want to get their hot little hands on some of the weapons, armor, and crafting materials dropped by these world bosses, they have to first find these giants and second actually defeat them. So much easier said than done. On the bright side, some of the mobs are easier to kill and can even be soloed (although they are also well-camped). On the not-bright side, others don't seem to show their faces as often as hungry loot-hunters would like, or they take a friend or 20 to take down. So what's a Daeva to do? Soar past the cut for some tips, tricks, and a handy map for seeking out those Inggison bosses and convincing them to give up their loot.
Wasteland Diaries: Bosses and battles
This week in Fallen Earth has been, for me, a good mix of PvP and PvE action. I've gotten plenty of both. I literally wished that I had more time to play. Alas, real life was standing in the way again. I haven't played any other games all week. Unless you consider the Fallen Earth forums a game (which I sometimes do). Between protecting territory that rightfully belongs to the CHOTA and cracking the skulls of world bosses for their precious volatile chemicals, I've found myself pretty busy. I know that everyone feels that Sector 4 is long overdue; it's probably the reason most people haven't come back to Fallen Earth. If you are on the fence about re-subbing or are waiting for Sector 4, there is still plenty to do, especially if you left before Deadfall Point and Deadfall were released. Even if you left in the past couple of months, things have changed, and new content has been added. There is plenty of PvP action if you know where to look, and new faces are joining the fray every day. After the cut, I'll give you some examples of what I've experienced this week, and it may help you decide to come back... or to keep holding out for Sector 4.
The Daily Grind: What's your least favorite sort of boss fight?
If you study a fair bit of literary theory, you'll come across the idea that there are only a handful of different stories at the most basic level. The same is true of boss fights in most MMOs -- while there are variants, you can generally break a fight down to its component elements. DPS races, gear checks, endurance fights, add management, positioning battles... from World of Warcraft to Lord of the Rings Online to City of Heroes, there are going to be fights where you have to avoid standing in things while killing the boss gradually. Of course, each of these fights can bring different challenges, but not all of them are entirely welcome ones. So which set of mechanics do you find the least appealing? Do you find positioning fights irritating as they completely disregard character stats in favor of dancing? Do you dislike DPS races where everyone just brainlessly pounds on the keyboard? Are you sick of burning down non-entities in order to fight the actual boss? Or is there another mechanic altogether that gets your goat? 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!
Jade Dynasty dev diary previews Spring Content Update
There's a new content update coming to Jade Dynasty later this month, and Perfect World Entertainment has released an accompanying video dev diary that aims to give interested fans an early look-see. The video is hosted by Jade Dynasty community manager Greenthorne, and he walks us through a brief demo of the game's new Chroma skills. These skills are affinity-specific and grant access to a wide range of powerful abilities. Chroma skills are quite devastating, and as such, aren't easily obtained. Greenthorne hints at a series of trials that players will undergo in order to unlock the skills and also mentions that skill power may be increased by contributing to the destruction of the game's dragon gates via various quests. User interface enhancements are also coming courtesy of the Spring Update. The events list has been renamed JD Revelations and now features information relating to weekly events, dungeon timers, battlegrounds, level requirements, and bosses. The boss tab is particularly interesting given that it tells a player just about everything worth knowing about various Jade Dynasty boss mobs including respawn rate, recommended level, and related loot drops. The tab even provides an auto-routing function for players having a hard time navigating to a particular boss. Check out the new enhancements in the video after the cut.
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.
New TERA trailer boasts battlegrounds, bosses, and more [updated]
Fans of En Masse Entertainment's upcoming TERA action MMORPG are anxiously awaiting news of a North American beta and release date. In the meantime, Bluehole Studio and Hangame are gearing up for the title's Korean open beta, which is scheduled to begin on January 11th, according to a recently released trailer. The four-minute clip is crammed full of new footage, and in addition to the usual suspects of combat and harvesting, you can check out new bosses, destructible terrain, and what appears to be a type of capture-the-flag battleground scenario. Have a look at all the mayhem after the cut, and head to the official TERA forums for further discussion. [Update: We've replaced the Korean version of the trailer with the newly released English-language version. Enjoy!]
Breakfast Topic: Who's your nemesis?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. For every hero, there is a villain. For every light, there is a shadow. Every rose has its thorn, but if you would just pour some sugar on me ... erm. /cough. The point is that we all have our nemeses, from Hogger and Mor'ladim to Fel Reaver, Illidan, M'uru, and the Lich King himself. Maybe you got stomped too many times by the devilsaurs in Un'Goro Crater, or maybe Mimiron had your raid frustrated for weeks on end. For my guild, it was Sindragosa. When we got into ICC late in Wrath's life cycle, a new, small guild with a mixture of experienced raiders and players who had never ventured past heroic dungeons, we breezed through the first two wings. Blood Queen gave us a bit of trouble, but we soon swept past her and Dreamwalker and found ourselves facing off against the enemy from our loading screens, the last stop before Arthas himself. We went over the strategy, practiced our tomb placement, set up flares, and gave her a try. And another. And another. And yet another. Though we were all sick of hearing her voice, for some reason, we just couldn't get Sindragosa down. We had trouble with disconnects, lag, Blistering Cold, multi-tombs, tanks getting tombed, clearing stacks, and pretty much everything else imaginable. The whole guild was aching to slay that dragon, and when at long, long last we managed it, the jubilation was unlike anything we'd had before. I doubt even the Lich King's demise would elicit the kind of cheers I heard on Vent when she went down. Our nemesis was vanquished at last. Which boss or creature was (or is!) your greatest enemy in WoW? How long did you work on beating it? How did you celebrate when it was finally over?
Breakfast Topic: Who will be the ultimate boss encounter of 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. Illidan. Arthas. Deathwing. Gamon? In WoW, we kill a lot of things. From x number of boars to 10,000-year-old, demon-juiced night elves, we gear up for and defeat just about everything that comes our way, assuming we can stay out of the fire. But at some point, even WoW, as with all good things, must come to an end. Both for the game and for players in the game, a last boss will almost certainly arrive. For me, the last boss was simple: Arthas, the Lich King. As players, we've been following his rise, fall, and next rise for years. We watched him succumb to the dark side -- queue evil laugh -- and fall from his perch as a hero of Light into a twisted master of undeath. Then he taunted us throughout the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. Finally, we vanquished him, fulfilling years of adventure. Unfortunately for my ideal ending, I still enjoy and want to continue playing the game. Now we have Deathwing flying around, killing folks. Will he be the fated endgame boss? More Old Gods, maybe? Or perhaps even the Titans themselves will come back to purge the world of our meddling. Who do you think should be the last boss of WoW? Do you think there will be a last boss?
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.
BlizzCon 2010: Defense of Orgrimmar live raid
I finished watching the current No. 1 guild in the world <Paragon> tackle a unique live raid event developed just for BlizzCon 2010! It was a big thrill watching them do their stuff. I only wish I could've heard their communications in real time. I've always wondered what is being discussed on unknown encounters. Except these weren't unknown encounters. We were fighting past foes like Shazzrah, Baron Geddon and the Beast. It wasn't limited to older encounters. Some newer bosses included Ozumat and Rom'ogg Bonecrusher. Apologies for the image quality on some of these folks; I'll need to select a better location and grab a better camera.
Warhammer Online previews Thanquol's Incursion
If there's one note that Warhammer Online has been hitting rather steadily of late, it's the solid note of the Skaven. The vicious rat-men have been a popular race in the franchise for years, and the promise of an increased presence for the group has been met with nothing but anticipation. So it's unsurprising that Thanquol's Incursion is the newest element of the game under development as a 24v24 RvR dungeon -- a chance for both Order and Chaos to fight back against a Skaven operation of enormous scope. While the dungeon contains several Skaven bosses, the theme is still RvR, with boss fights tallying victory according to both damage dealt and enemy players slain. Players will engage in battles on multiple fronts, and the preview suggests that there's a definite element of trying to work the bosses to deal the most damage possible to your enemies. Take a look at the full preview for what promises to be an all-out brawl between three different sides for Warhammer Online enthusiasts.
Video game bosses go undercover in the workplace
It's important for bosses to mingle, undetected, among ordinary video game enemies from time to time. It's also hilarious.
The Mog Log: Hours of entertainment from just one boss
Every so often, column topics fall into my lap. Like when someone mentioned in the comments the other day that they were dreading the 18-hour boss fight from Final Fantasy XI would return in Final Fantasy XIV. For those of you who don't know what in the world that was referencing... well, it's time to take a look back at Pandemonium Warden, and the now legendary story of what it took for one linkshell to bring him down. Although by "bring him down," we really mean "fight him for nearly a full day and finally give up." That's the image that Final Fantasy XI's boss fights have in a lot of people's heads. It's a great and evocative image, and it's also riddled with inaccuracies. That having been said, the nigh-on insanity of some boss fights in the game merits discussion as we get closer and closer to Final Fantasy XIV's release. Whether you're wondering about the warden's odds of return or just still believe that the boss fight properly went on for nearly a day, jump on past the break. There's a lot to go over.
Thaddius encounter recreated in StarCraft II
Ever wonder what happens to raid bosses when they get bored? For Thaddius, it seems he has been spending some time moonlighting over in StarCraft II. While he was there, it also seems like he's picked up a few more tricks and upgraded his armor. After all, Naxxramas was only a setback! IIam4 used Thaddius as an inspiration for his entry into the custom ability contest on SC2Mapster by recreating his Polarity Shift. While he was recreating this ability, he also decided to add a few new features of his own. Shocking Grasp A random target will be paralyzed and take damage over time. If any other unit comes within range of the afflicted unit, Shocking Grasp will jump. This can create a chain reaction. Spawn Volatile Spark Two volatile sparks are spawned, serving as summoned adds that should be DPSed down right away. These abilities combine to create a very interesting and creative boss battle using the StarCraft II editor. The amount of micromanagement required to keep all of your units alive adds a nice level of complexity to the boss encounter. I personally like that Thaddius is a giant Maruader unit. This video is a nice showcase of the tools that were available even in the beta and exactly what could be done with enough motivation. StarCraft II is set to release on July 27, 2010. While I'm absolutely certain it will be a fantastic game in its own rights, I can't help but wonder if we will see any more player-created World of Warcraft crossovers with the tools that are shipping with SC2. Can you imagine a campaign where the end boss is casting Defile while you try to micromanage all of your units safely around it? How about navigating your troops into position for a Shatter or managing Burning Adrenaline. Maybe a little Doomfire for good measure! This could bring a whole new level of fun to Tower Defense and Mastermind-style game mods! So, if you could recreate any one boss or ability from WoW in a StarCraft II fight, what boss would it be?
The Mog Log: The trial of Chains of Promathia, part 2
It's just as well that there haven't been any huge revelations of late regarding Final Fantasy XIV (aside from the lovely new character creation video), because we're knee-deep in the trial of the second Final Fantasy XI expansion and we've got no room for anything else. After last week's examination, which included excellent discussion and some really interesting viewpoints from the community (seriously, guys, pat yourselves on the back), we're going to dive back into the meat of the trial and try to determine the worth of Chains of Promathia via examining everything there is to examine. And that's a lot, I tell you. Last time, we examined the use of level caps and the lack of new jobs in the expansion. The former looked awful at a glance, but upon closer examination had some notable positives. The latter was... well, it was just plain a keenly-felt omission. This week we're going to dive into what's considered by many to be the biggest part of the expansion -- something so overwhelming that its repercussions are felt to this day. No serious discussion of the expansion would be complete without this most celebrated element.
Two Bosses Enter: Faction champs elude LK, Paletress takes on Tyrannus
Two Bosses Enter ... but only One Boss Leaves, in WoW.com's series of fantasy death matches. Your votes, along with the decisions of our distinguished judges (representing WoW.com staff and readers), determine who makes it out alive. We're down to the second and last match of the semi-finals in the ICC 5-man/Trial of the Champion season of Two Bosses Enter, One Man Leaves. This week, the Trial of the Champion PvP faction champs handily scampered beyond the reach of the Halls of Reflection version of the Lich King, 58.2% to 38.5%). Their victory earns them a berth in the season finals, throwing down inside the Two Bosses Thunderdome against the winner of this week's matchup: Argent Confessor Paletress versus Scourgelord Tyrannus. Two Bosses Enter Semi-Finals The Five-Man Bosses of Icecrown Citadel and Trial of the Champion Match 1: ToC PvP Champions vs. Lich King (Halls of Reflection version) Match 2: Scourgelord Tyrannus 60.7% vs. Argent Confessor Paletress 60.7% As you can see, Paletress and Tyrannus are seeded in identical positions going into this deathmatch. Just as in previous Thunderdome tussles, we'll allow Paletress to front-load her usual supporting cast (after all, Tyrannus has Rimefang to keep him company). Let's see what the judges predict for this matchup, after the break. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls ... Dyin' time's here.
Gameplay on parade in newest Battle of the Immortals video diary
It's a big day for Battle of the Immortals, as the open beta has finally started on the most recent Perfect World Entertainment game. Closed beta was quite successful, with the development team rolling out requested features like improved access to the high-end Soul Gear and improved keybinding (complete with standard WASD movement schemes). To celebrate the occasion, and to give players who haven't been following the game too closely an idea of why they might want to start, the game has released its fourth video developer diary today, this time focusing on the content found within the game. Jon Belliss, Product Manager for the game, focuses on the game's dungeons, starting off with one dubbed Knight's Jail. Everything from gameplay to rewards gets covered, complete with a semi-snarky reference that "you can complete it in ten to fifteen minutes, as long as you have a group that isn't full of idiots." He goes on to discuss the later Dragon Emperor Catacombs, which can switch between a low-level "easy mode" and a more rewarding "normal mode," and Spectre Island even beyond that. Take a look past the cut for the full diary, and keep your eyes open for more news on the open beta for Battle of the Immortals.
Patch 3.3.3 PTR: Zarhym clarifies new holiday boss mechanics
So one of the new changes coming in Patch 3.3.3 is that one will be able queue up using the dungeon finder in order to fight world event bosses such as the Crown Chemical Trio or the Headless Horseman. However, the actual extent of the changes is a bit more involved, as Zarhym clarified in a recent forums post. Here's the rundown:
More Ruby Sanctum information: loot, lore, and more
Today's announcement of the upcoming Ruby Sanctum raid, coming with Patch 3.3.5, was well-met, though it raised a number of questions as to the nature of the instance -- how will it work, what kind of loot can we expect, etc. Zarhym popped back into the original thread a few times to give clarification on a few points: While the instance has a similar layout to the Obsidian Sanctum philosophically, the three sub-bosses (Saviana Ragefire, Baltharus the Warborn, and General Zarithrian) will each be own encounter all their own. The "drakes-up" functionality of Sartharion will not carry over into the Halion encounter. Heroic difficulty is likely to be toggled in the same way that heroic difficulties are handled in ICC (a UI toggle). Saviana, Baltharus, and Zarithrian will each drop an Emblem of Frost, but probably not special loot. Expect loot in the instance to be "about the same item level" as the Lich King items on their respective difficulties. The loot from Halion will be offset pieces as well as trinkets and other items "of that nature." So, basically, Sartharion loot. The instance is intended to be a prelude to Cataclysm and should provide some advancement for the new expansion's storyline before the 4.0 patch, drawing on Deathwing's desire to weaken the Wyrmrest Accord prior to his emergence from Deepholm. Arthas is still considered the final boss of the expansion -- this is merely a complementary raid, like Onyxia with ToC, with ties to Cataclysm. Sounds like about what we were expecting. Keep an eye on WoW.com for more information on the Ruby Sanctum as it comes in, likely starting with the upcoming PTR.
