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Eternal Blade posts a teaser site and class Facebook pages
Eternal Blade, if you hadn't heard, is a free-to-play action MMO due out later this year from gPotato. We had a chance to preview the game briefly at GDC, and the team behind the game has stepped up promotions with the addition of a new teaser site for the game. The developers have also finalized the class lineup, but the classes aren't getting pages on the teaser site; instead, each class now has its own individual Facebook page. The Soul Summoner, the Knight, the Archer, the Mage, the Thief, and the Berserker pages each have some photos of the relevant class in action as well as a description of why it's the best out of the six classes. If that doesn't get you interested in the game, the teaser site also features a video showing off cinematics and gameplay. More news on beta testing and launch as it develops. [Source: gPotato press release]
Eligium shows off the Human and Viridis races
We're still in the dark about many of the mechanics behind Eligium, the upcoming fantasy MMO from Frogster, but we now know a bit more about who players can be within the context of the world. Two races have been unveiled on the official site: the Human race, with the classes of Warrior and Mage, and the Viridis, who can become Druids. The classes are locked to given races, meaning that each individual class says a great deal about the race as a whole. Humans are the only race who appears to get two different classes, with Warriors as heavily armored wrecking balls and Mages as long-range purveyors of destruction. The Viridis, meanwhile, are a green-skinned people who formerly studied under the Elves before breaking free and mastering the art of nature magic. The first preview of basic Druid abilities is also available, which should help potential players get an idea of what they want to play when the game starts up. [Thanks to Piaskowy for the tip!]
Tyria Evolved: Massively's analysis of the Guild Wars 2 Guardian
Today ArenaNet has unveiled the Guild Wars 2 Guardian. After nearly a full week of wild speculation, we've finally got the details on the fifth class. Interestingly, this reveal followed a similar pattern as the Necromancer reveal in that by the time today's details arrived, it was a surprise to exactly nobody. The Guardian had been revealed after a fashion in Edge of Destiny, then leaked by PC Gamer last week. In the ensuing fan frenzy, Regina Buenaobra stepped in to announce that the full reveal would happen on the 27th. Now that we've finally got the full scoop on the Guardian, follow along after the jump and take a look!
Exclusive: A look at RIFT's Saboteur
You can call them rogues, thieves, scoundrels, but by any name they're stealthy little bastards. RIFT's Rogues are no exception, with the difference being that the soul system allows them access to several unique flavors of sneaky little bastard. There are the backstabbing Assassins, the sniping Marksmen, and the defensive Riftstalker all under the same overarching aegis, allowing players a wide variety of different options. But none of them yet has been the truly annoying sort, the one who looks to be finally caught flat-footed just as you realize he's been playing you the whole time. Rounding off a week of new soul previews is the Saboteur -- and while it might seem a bit less glamorous to come last, that's exactly how the Saboteur would want it. An expert in preparation and subtle traps, the Saboteur is vulnerable without time to prepare his various battlefield modifications, but immensely destructive if he's in control. Click on past the break for more backstory and information on RIFT's resident schemer. %Gallery-101448%
Exclusive: A look at RIFT's Dominator
Mages in RIFT are not particularly nice people. Admittedly, that's not speaking to their character so much as the souls available to them, but between the corpse-raising Necromancers, entropy-spreading Warlocks, and strength-leeching Archons, the precedent has been set. And today's reveal of the Dominator isn't going to change that image, even though it's a soul quite likely to make a number of new friends. But those friends may or may not be willing companions. A mind is a terrible thing to waste, even if you have little to no intention of letting your opponent use it. That's the Dominator philosophy in a nutshell, with a number of abilities designed to confuse, terrify, and control opponents. Although physically fragile, the Dominator will hopefully be in a position where none of his opponents are still coherent enough to take advantage of physical weakness. Take a look at more lore and ability details on RIFT's latest soul past the break, and check back tomorrow for our last soul reveal. %Gallery-101448%
Exclusive: A look at RIFT's Void Knight
Magic is a fact of life in any sort of fantasy setting, and RIFT is no exception to this. The Warrior, of course, is the last class you'd expect to be dabbling heavily in magic, an assumption that would be largely correct. But with the plethora of souls available to characters in the game, it seems nigh-on inevitable that a Warrior would have at least one option if he wanted to ensure his opponent was just as bereft of magic, to even the footing down to a contest of arms. And the Void Knight is precisely that. The Void Knight isn't just capable of enduring magical attacks -- he actively absorbs them, using them to power his most spectacular abilities. Although he's not up to a straight contest of arms against a non-magical character, he's more than the equal of a caster, easily capable of turning the most devastating curses or enchantments into the equivalent of an energy drink. Take a look past the break for the full rundown on both the lore and abilities of the Void Knight, and check back each day this week for another new RIFT soul reveal. %Gallery-101448%
Exclusive: A look at RIFT's Druid
Within RIFT's soul system, there's room for a wide variety of different classes within the four core options -- two different Clerics might have very different sets of souls equipped and play like two completely different classes. Trion Worlds has been slowly providing information to players about what they can expect from the various souls, but every time a new soul is revealed, it's something completely different from what's come before. The Druid is one of the souls available to Clerics, for instance, but it couldn't be more different than options such as the Purifier or Sentinel. Druids are a pet class, but not in the traditional sense. Where a Mage with a pet-using soul would rely on his pets to deal damage, the Druid uses her pets as conduits to empower her, making her a fierce combatant in her own right. Although vulnerable if her companions are damaged, the Druid herself is the core of her strength, using a variety of companions for a multitude of effects. Click past the break for more information and backstory on RIFT's Druid, and check in every day this week for more heretofore unseen souls. %Gallery-101448%
RIFT unveils four new souls
If you want to get anywhere in RIFT, you've got to have soul. Specifically, you have to have one of the game's soul trees, the unique mix-and-match system the game uses to help players customize strengths and weaknesses as they please. The team at Trion Worlds has recently revealed four new souls, one for each of the game's four classes -- the Riftblade for Warriors, the Marksman for Rogues, the Necromancer for Mages, and the Warden for the Clerics. RIftblades are magically-empowered warriors, deft at ranged strikes and penetrating armor but weak under concentrated assaults. Marksmen, obviously, are best suited to hit-and-run ranged strikes, with little capability in a close-quarter battle. Necromancers utilize the undead pets you would expect, although they're quite vulnerable without them. And Wardens serve as healers with a specialty in slow accumulation, stacking healing energies over time but vulnerable to a lack of time. Future RIFT players should take a look at the full descriptions as well as the fiction behind each of the fallen champions.
The Road to Mordor: Putting the "lass" back in "class"
With the not-so-recent NDA lift on the beta, LotRO players are fast at work discussing, analyzing, dissecting and pouring over all of the information coming from testers. Like a double Shire rainbow, the main question on everyone's lips is, "What does it mean?" We want to know how this is going to impact us, our future, and our gameplay, and the massive scope of this change is both unsettling and heady. Last week we sifted through the LotRO forums for testimonies about several aspects of the beta, which was treated with a stony silence from the lot of you. Oh, I kid! Nothing gets the tongues wagging around here like a good mouthful of free-to-play, although I've been informed by the leaders of the Global Conspiracy Against Gamers Having Fun that this topic has three days left on the clock until it's locked away in a vault forever. So even though I tried to touch on the relevant points of the beta last week, there's simply so much of it out there that I had to leave some behind. It's easy to forget that this fall's update contains more than the LotRO store, like a whole barrel of additions and fixes to the game -- including class tweaks. Grab my hobbity hand, and we will venture into the land of the unknown... the land of class changes.
Arcane Brilliance: Great balls of fire
It's time again for Arcane Brilliance, the weekly mage column that asks the question: Which balls are the best? The answer, of course, is also provided by Arcane Brilliance: balls of fire. Balls of fire are the best. Wait, what kind of balls were you thinking about? That's pretty gross. But Arcane Brilliance likes where your head is. When the Cataclysm class previews were announced by Blizzard lo those many months ago, my initial reactions were a decidedly mixed bag. Arcane scared the crap out of me. Mana Adept? It took several weeks and many hours of therapy before I could envision any sort of scenario in which that idea didn't sound like a terrible, terrible idea. Frost struck me as kind of meh. I gradually became more excited after I thought about it for a while, but Deathfrost and Wall of Fog simply weren't all that thrilling as initial concepts. Fire, on the other hand, sounded awesome. A giant ball of conjured flame that travels along a set path, sending out tendrils of destruction that incinerate anything in its path? Sexy.
Reminder: Twitter developer chat today
Just in case the news of a star pony has distracted everyone, there will be a Twitter developer chat this evening at 5:00 p.m. PDT / 7:00 p.m. CDT / 8:00 p.m. EDT. For those of you unfamiliar with these, a couple of developers start answering your tweets directed at @warcraft or just with the #BlizzChat hash tag. As usual, we will have a live transcript of the event up here on WoW.com as it happens. We're hoping to hear additional information as well as clarification on the recent class previews and expect that will take up most of the time. Previous chat transcripts: Feb. 26, 2010 Jan. 15, 2010 Oct. 22, 2009 Bornakk We will be holding our next developer chat on Twitter this Friday, April 16, at 5:00 p.m. PDT with two members of World of Warcraft's class design team. This chat session will focus on the recently released Cataclysm class previews that you can see here: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=24038460683&sid=1 Questions will be taken live through Twitter, so be sure to sign up for a Twitter account and follow @Warcraft (http://www.twitter.com/warcraft) in order to participate! To submit a question for the developer chat, please tweet using the #BlizzChat hashtag between 5:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. PST on April 16. Due to the character limitation on responses within Twitter, all answers will be posted on the World of Warcraft forums in a dedicated thread. source
Cataclysm Class Changes: Protection paladin analysis
While the above was the most-looked-forward-to possible change in Cataclysm, we still didn't get it. Hopefully, the developers will come to their senses and change this horrible oversight on their behalf, but until then we are perfectly happy with just adding the tauren to our list of Light-touched brethren. Yesterday, the paladin class previews brought us a brief glimpse of things to come. Some of them were expected, while others were a little more out there. Overall, I think there will be a lot of tweaking to the class as a whole in the coming expansion. We're going to see more defenses removed from our brothers and sisters in the other specs as well as having some of their tools become available to us. Let's take a look at some of these changes after the break.
Don't freak out about the Cataclysm changes yet
There has been a lot of debate about some of the announced class changes for Cataclysm this week. Some people absolutely love the announced changes while others are either upset or confused about what these changes mean for their spec. One important thing to remember (and something Ghostcrawler and other devs have stressed multiple times) is that almost all numbers, coefficients and bonuses are going to be changing when the expansion ships, and none of the abilities are final. This means trying to say that using certain spells or stats is a "horrible idea" because of particular issues in the current game doesn't really hold up, because your class might end up needing that stat or relying on that spell when Cataclysm hits. Also, being as the entire stat system is getting a revamp (with a lot of the current stats going away or being repurposed completely), all of your current gear's stats will also be changing to reflect this including increased armor for cloth, leather and mail users. There is also the fact that these previews are not the whole story. There might end up being additional talented spells for your spec or revamps of various class abilities that will change your current rotation. Some classes are getting simplified and others will be getting a little more depth. All in all, please look at these changes with an open mind and leave any preconceived notions at the door. We still have the entire beta for them to tweak and change any of the current ideas that might be lacking or might not mesh well with your class's existing kit. Always remember to leave constructive feedback (Note: "This sucks!", "Blizzard obviously doesn't play my class," and "Ghostcrawler promised me a pony!" are not examples constructive feedback.) and tell them what parts seem clunky, good, lackluster or just simply feel "off" of what it should be for whatever reason (and always include the reason why). If you're eloquent in your post (and sometimes even if you're not), you might be the voice that gets things changed. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it. Nothing will be the same. In WoW.com's Guide to Cataclysm you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion. From goblins and worgens to mastery and guild changes, it's all there for your cataclysmic enjoyment.
Cataclysm class skills previewed in Icecrown Citadel
Every one of us has been sitting at our computers with bated breath, eagerly waiting to see the new spells and abilities coming to our favorite class in Cataclysm. The truth, however, is that we've already seen many of these before. Some of these class previews started in Icecrown Citadel, not on the forums. What are we talking about? In Icecrown Citadel, there's a mob in the Upper Spire region of the raid zone called Val'kyr Heralds. They summon other mobs called Severed Essences, which are clones of members of your raid. They don't use all of your exact spells, but they fit each class. With the exception of one (Focused Attacks), each of the unique spells Severed Essences possess have ended up being a new spell for their class in Cataclysm.
Battle of the Immortals reveals classes
Perfect World Entertainment has spent a fair amount of time talking up their upcoming PvP-focused game, Battle of the Immortals. The game certainly looks gorgeous, but we've only heard bits and pieces about how it will actually play. The most recent update, however, certainly provides a fair bit more information on how the game, as it details the game's classes -- Berzerker, Heretic, Magus, Slayer, and Champion. Each class is given a brief writeup of their strengths, weaknesses, and preferred opponents. In no particular order, Slayers deal a mix of physical and magical damage at close range but have next to no defensive abilities. Heretics are a combination of priests with more sinister magics, dealing damage and healing as well as inviting a few obious comparisons. Magi (or maguses, if you prefer) are... well, okay, they're kind of obvious. Berzerkers have an errant "z" in their name and focus on dealing out physical damage at the cost of some defense, and Champions wield a weapon and shield to be all but indestructible. The classes seem set to provide a fair mix of the usual "holy trinity" mechanics and PvP skills, so take a look at the official preview to get a clearer picture of what you might want to play once the game goes live.
