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Get ready to raid 'Ghost of Tsushima' on October 30th
Following last weekend’s debut of co-op gameplay and New Game+, SuckerPunch is ready to release more new ways to play. The company announced on Thursday that beginning at 8am Pacific every Friday, the team would release new “Weekly Challenges.”
'Red Dead Online' will turn the tables on griefers
Red Dead Online fans have been fairly vocal about their issues with the game since its launch in November. The in-game economy, lack of missions and griefing are just some of the more commonly cited problems, but Rockstar Games is taking steps to address this. On February 26th Red Dead Online will be getting a big update which, Rockstar hopes, will improve things.
Snapchat adds Challenges feature with user-created lenses
Just in time for the holiday season and those lazy evenings where you're trying to figure out something fun to try with your family, Snapchat has launched a feature that lets you create and take part in lens-based challenges with others. With Lens Challenges, you can dare others to take on tasks such as singing along to Gwen Stefani's rendition of "Jingle Bells" or using a camera trick to make it seem as though you vanish in a "Disappear" challenge.
Driveclub patch restores challenge functionality, rain forecast for tomorrow
Evolution Studios has issued another patch for its socially-focused racer, Driveclub. A post to the game's official Facebook page states the update has "made major improvements to online play," adding that racers should "now see that challenges are back up and running for everybody." Joystiq's Sunday morning test drive was indeed populated with functional community challenges, allowing clubs and friends to take on rivals in track and time-based trials once more. A second patch is scheduled to launch tomorrow, and while the full details regarding its effects will be held until then, a video within the related Facebook post offers a glimpse of a rain-slicked drive. Despite improvements, the team is still working to "reach the capacity levels" needed to support Driveclub's companion app and a PlayStation Plus version. The latest updates continue a string of patches trailing from Driveclub's launch, which have been persistent enough for Evolution Studios to offer up two DLC packs to fans to make up for their troubles. [Image: Evolution Studios]
Destiny combines arms in the Crucible this weekend
The next two community events for Bungie's Destiny will start this weekend. We had names for the two events before, Combined Arms and The Queen's Wrath, and now we have dates and descriptions for them as well. The Combined Arms event is an "all out war on a massive scale" in the Crucible multiplayer section. Players form fireteams of up to six, driving across the map and making use of increased heavy weapon ammo drops. The event starts today and lasts through the weekend. Next up is The Queen's Wrath, a set of bounty missions that begin on Tuesday, September 23 and runs through Monday, October 6. By completing the mission, players earn unique rare and legendary gear. The following two Destiny events are September's Salvage mission and October's Iron Banner mission. This week's Vault of Glass quest was first conquered roughly 11 hours after it opened. Bungie opted to double its well-broadcasted shooter's public events for players to encounter while patrolling areas in the game. [Image: Bungie]
This weekend's Destiny event goes 3-vs-3 in the Crucible
Bungie's freshly-launched Destiny is more than just a first-person shooter, it's an MMO-like game with planned community events for players to pepper with bullets. The developer unveiled the next set of missions in a blog today, starting with the 3-vs-3 Crucible event, Salvage. The playlist spans this weekend and has players fighting to "claim and salvage relics on small to medium sized maps." Players earn Crucible reputation, marks and gear by taking other teams of three on in the mode. Then starting on September 16, the Vault of Glass level 26 raid opens. Set in a mysterious area beneath Venus, players take on "your greatest challenge yet," which happens to be long division for us. Vault of Glass champions receive raid set gear and ascendant materials. The last three sets of challenges are without description at the moment. Two of them, Combined Arms and Queen's Wrath, are planned for September, with the Iron Banner event set for October. These online events are playable as long as Destiny's servers are stable, which are in good shape as of our initial State of Service update. [Image: Bungie]
Massively Exclusive: Previewing Path of Exile's Tora, Master of the Hunt
The newest expansion to Path of Exile is all about the eponymous Masters -- their goals, their attitudes, and what they can teach the player. Tora is fairly straightforward in all of the above. She is all about the hunt, taking out the monsters that surround Wraeclast, and in her own words, she wants to root out the corruption that has taken root in her world now, before it does any further harm to the natural balance. I had a chance to speak with producer Chris Wilson about Tora and the expansion as a whole the other day, and he happily shared details both about Tora herself and one of the new challenge leagues that will be going live with the expansion on August 20th. Hop on past the break to see Tora's video introduction and to learn more about what players can expect from the huntress, the challenge league, and the expansion in general.
Final Fantasy XIV previews the new dungeons of patch 2.2
If you've been playing Final Fantasy XIV since launch, odds are good that you've seen what remains of the Amdapori civilization -- a dungeon crawling with cultists. The game's next major patch is going into more detail than that, though, giving players the opportunity to explore the new Amdapori Township dungeon and see what rank creatures have grown to fruit in the decaying town. This new dungeon is accompanied by two new hard modes to provide a triumvirate of options which have just gotten an official preview. The hard mode of Brayflox's Longstop sees players battling the Goblin Illuminati to protect a secret recipe pilfered by the eponymous Brayflox, while Haltali's hard mode pits you against denizens in the refurbished and reclaimed training grounds. All three dungeons require a minimum item level of 55 for challengers, with the promise of rewards far greater than those of the current max-level dungeons. Take a look at the full preview for more lore and unlock requirements.
Path of Exile patches in guilds, classes, and balance changes for launch
It's not fair to call Path of Exile's pre-launch patch a kitchen sink patch; this is big enough to include the sink, dishwasher, fridge, and probably a good chunk of the dining room besides. It's a big patch, and when it goes fully live tomorrow, you'll have a chance to play around with the enormous list of features, starting with the addition of an entire system for guilds that didn't exist before. Yes, the patch includes a guild system. And that's not even the biggest part of the patch. It includes a new character class for players who have cleared the game on Normal difficulty, six new world areas, achievements, new skills, new items, and an assortment of balance tweaks and improvements. That's not even touching upon new challenge leagues and the like. The point is that even if you know the game inside and out, you might want to hop in tomorrow and try out the huge array of new options available to you because... really. There's lots of stuff here.
Take down rivals in Need for Speed progression trailer and screens
The latest trailer and screens for Need for Speed: Rivals show the progression of goals players face as both cops and racers in the game. Some tasks have players drifting for 500 yards while others challenge players to take down at least six racers. Need for Speed: Rivals will launch November 19.
Storyboard: Making a challenging character
You don't build muscle by lifting weights that don't challenge you. Once a given set of weights doesn't challenge you any longer, you need to move on to something heavier or you're going to stop getting stronger. It's a pretty simple principle: Challenging yourself makes you stronger all around. So long as you play the same roleplaying character, you're not going to improve as a roleplayer. For some people, this is fine. Roleplaying is something you do, you're happy playing one sort of character, and that's what you do. But for others the point is being able to shift into different characters, to come up with something new and exciting and then wind up with more interesting stories to experience. You want to get better, to make even your more familiar characters feel different. That's why you give yourself challenges. And when done right, challenging characters can force you to grow in new ways and make for a better roleplaying experience for everyone.
Achievements, unlocked: Microsoft details Xbox One's 'challenge' system
Microsoft's Cierra McDonald has outlined plans for the Xbox One's overhauled achievements system, detailing new in-game "challenges" that promote community collaboration. Xbox One challenges are time-limited tasks displayed alongside achievements in a player's profile. Unlike achievements, challenges do not award GamerScore. Challenges, however, have the ability to track progress across multiple games and among all Xbox Live members, allowing developers to implement community-based goals. The Xbox 360 currently offers a similar service with Avatar FameStar. McDonald outlines a possible implementation: "Imagine, for example, a game releases a headshot weekend challenge that requires players to cumulatively headshot 1 million baddies in a 3 day period. And every person who participates and meets the challenge's goals gets the unlock on his or her achievement history and reaps its reward." Achievements, meanwhile, are not bound by time constraints, and are still unlocked via individual player progress. Promising players "more tangible benefits" for their in-game progress, McDonald notes that Xbox One achievements may now unlock "digital artwork, new maps, unlockable characters, and temporary stat boosts," along with other bonuses. McDonald revealed that Xbox One video and music apps can also use achievements to reward players with "sneak peek content, early access, or subscription extensions." Note, however, that you can't use app achievements to pad out your Gamerscore – points are only awarded for achievements earned in games.
Path of Exile's next update adding Challenges and more
Grinding Gear Games has published a humongous post detailing Path of Exile's 0.11.0 patch. The content drop is currently scheduled for Wednesday, June 5th, and it looks to include a number of tweaks and rebalances designed to improve your dungeon-crawling gameplay experience. Among the noteworthy adds are a set of "very difficult goals" called Challenges that look to be some sort of precursor to a full-fledged achievement system. Grinding Gear says it isn't quite ready for proper achievements just yet, but you can think of Challenges as a sort of experiment to see how they might affect PoE's gameplay. There's much more to the update, of course, but you'll need to click through to the game's official website to read it all.
The must-try Spaceteam update adds challenges, new play modes
Spaceteam is a great app that we haven't mentioned much, but the TUAW team certainly knows about it, as we played during most of our downtime at Macworld. The lastest update has made it even better. Spaceteam is based on an amazing idea. It's a multiplayer game for one to four (or more, see below) iOS devices. Every player gets a panel of seemingly nonsensical touchscreen controls for a space ship, and gets orders for those controls ("push button 1" or "turn knob to 3," for example) at the top of the screen. The twist, however, is that the command you get is usually for controls on someone else's screen. When played correctly, the game prompts you and your friends to shout crazy commands to each other, like "Turn the astro-generator to five!" or "Jump-start the blast engine!" With the new update, Spaceteam is absolutely free to download. There are new IAP packs to buy, which unlock new skins or control sets, or even open up new challenges or achievements to earn. Additionally, new massive multiplayer modes let you mess around with more than four players if you happen to have a larger group. So not only is the game great, but the devs are working hard to provide lots of other content. It's quite impressive, even beyond the initial idea of just having players, as the description says, "shout technobabble at each other until their ship explodes." If you haven't tried Spaceteam yet, it's a must-play -- go grab a friend with another iOS device, and have some fun.
Storyboard: On roleplaying projects
Roleplaying projects are great. They're good for avoiding burnout, good for stretching your roleplaying muscles, and good for giving you reason to explore something you'd otherwise ignore. Not every project works out all that well, but I'm a big fan of the idea, and I'd encourage everyone who likes to roleplay to try a major project. The problem is that roleplaying projects are a lot of extra work and sometimes don't produce a lot of worthwhile results. Restrictions can breed creativity, sure, but sometimes they're just limiting. Roleplaying a character who never moves, for instance, is certainly possible but probably not a lot of fun, unless you really like sitting in a chair in-game while you sit in a chair in real life. So while I'm not kicking off my own little project just yet (it would take time away from my latest round in Choose My Adventure, and that would be terrible), I thought it'd be a good idea to look at how to create and work within a project so that the experience is a fun break rather than an oppressive fun-sucking nightmare. Hopefully, even if it doesn't work out, you can at least have some fun with the concept.
APB: Reloaded dev blog introduces patch 1.7's new breed of contacts
Criminals and Enforcers alike have plenty to look forward to in APB: Reloaded's upcoming patch 1.7.0, which has been given the name New Breeds Part One. The inspiration for this subtitle comes from the "new breed" of contacts being added to the game with the update, including the sociopathic Criminal Tiptoe (daughter of the Bloodrose Tyron Sennet) and former-military-sniper-turned-Enforcer DevilDog. These new contacts will provide players with a wealth of new progression options such as new weapons, weapon skins, modifications, shiny vehicles, and inventory space increases. On top of all those goodies, New Breed Part One will also introduce Fight Club Challenges, which are weekly events that allow players to compete in a number of unique challenges in order to earn prizes ranging from APB$ to unique weapons and vehicles. Each challenge will require players to play a particular gametype on a particular map, and each "will have three [reward] tiers, with the third and second prizes being straight up requirements, and the top prize requiring you to be in the top X% of players that have taken part in the challenge." The first week's challenges, along with a list of new weapons and modifications, can be found on the game's official blog post for anyone who wants to get a leg-up on the competition, so get out there and wreak some havoc.
Are you a bad enough dude to survive Xsyon's Mutant Maze?
Do you feel lucky when you log into Xsyon? Do you feel as if you can go anywhere and do anything in complete safety? Then perhaps you'd like to test your skills this weekend when the game unleashes the Mutant Maze event starting at 3 p.m. EST (12 p.m. PST). Open to everyone who wishes to take part, the event will teleport all volunteers to the designated grounds at the start and teleport them back at the conclusion... but there's no certainty you'll emerge victorious. So what is the Mutant Maze? It's a labyrinth filled with all sorts of nasty mutants, hence the name. Players will be able to keep the spoils of their kills, and there's a special prize for completing a round of the maze by both surviving and finding the exit successfully. There are three total rounds, enough to test the game's most seasoned veterans -- but for the glory of a prize, won't you spend a weekend ambling through a maze filled with enormous bears? [Source: Notorious Games press release]
Dungeon Defenders for Steam gets new holiday skins and maps, on sale
Dungeon Defenders has gotten a whole stockingful of new content for the holidays, available now for PC players. There are new skins and new holiday-themed weapons for all four of the classes, new holiday-themed dress and clothing for enemies, and even a brand new mission to play, which tasks players with delivering presents and then defending them against an army led by a Mega Snowman. That's a ho-ho-whole lot of updates right there. And as if that wasn't enough, the base game is on sale on Steam for the holidays, where you can pick it up for under $10.The team at Trendy is even giving a holiday wallpaper away for free over on the official website. You'd have to be a real Grinch to not check that one out! See more of the holiday update content in the trailer above and the gallery below. %Gallery-142218%
DDO's Challenges tweaked, torqued, and tailored
It's been a few weeks since Dungeons and Dragons Online came out with Update 12 and its newfangled Challenge system. No new system is perfect, of course, which is why Turbine has a slew of changes and fixes in testing as it prepares the first post-Update 12 patch for release. There's no one specific aspect of the Challenges that is receiving the most attention, but a variety of tweaks to make the feature more enjoyable (and functional) as a whole. The patch includes additional weapons at Challenge vendors, Challenge loot that can be used in crafting and upgraded, and the ability for players to repeat Star Challenges for XP. There's also the interesting inclusion of the ability to sell DDO Store-bought loot to in-game vendors for cash. Players are invited to check the changes out on the Lamannia test server or to peruse the patch notes at their leisure.
DDO's Vaults of the Artificers goes live
For Dungeons and Dragons Online players, today is a special -- nay, hallowed day. It is Patch Day, and with it comes much leaping, dancing, spinning in circles, and singing at the top of one's lungs. Today Turbine has released Update 12: Vaults of the Artificers, a hefty patch that introduces a completely new system to the game: challenges. Challenges are repeatable quests that have unique objectives and time limits, and can be completed for shiny rewards. VIP players will get the challenge adventure pack for free, but free players aren't left out in the dark -- Turbine is giving everyone one free challenge every day. These can be picked up in House Cannith. DDO's Update 12 has plenty of other changes and fixes, including the introduction of store-purchasable rename tokens if you're dissatisfied with your hero's moniker and a shared platinum bank account. You can read up on Update 12 with the official patch notes or by checking out our hands-on impressions from last month! %Gallery-66255%
