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Star Citizen's Arena Commander gets new CTF mode
Cloud Imperium has added a new game mode to Star Citizen's Arena Commander dogfighting module. Capture the Core is a team-based mode that sees players tasked with -- you guessed it -- capping the core on the opposite side of the map. If that sounds a bit like classic capture-the-flag games, that's by design, though CIG's announcement post points out that there's an "additional challenge of operating in three dimensional space." The new mode is now available to all Arena Commander-eligible backers. [Thanks Cardboard!]
Capture the Flag returns to Titanfall after player feedback
Respawn is re-adding Capture the Flag to Titanfall on PC, even though "less than 1% of the player base was even trying to play CTF," a blog post reads. Respawn removed Capture the Flag and Pilot Hunter from playlists last week, meaning those modes were available via private matches and Variety Mode only. "Last week we made some changes to the Titanfall playlists on PC and since then many members of the community have expressed their disappointment with our decision," Respawn writes. "Capture the Flag has been a specific point of contention considering we had just made a significant change to how the mode worked (Titans cannot carry flags after the last patch). If you're just catching up, we made the decision to remove these modes because hardly anyone was playing them and matches were nearly impossible to find." To offset the lower player count in Capture the Flag, Respawn is reworking its matchmaking system to include wider region searches: "If you're searching for 5 minutes without starting a game, Stryder will eventually widen your search to include neighboring continents. This means you might end up in a game with a much higher ping than you're used to, but as players pointed out; playing is preferred to not playing at all!" Read Respawn's breakdown of how matchmaking works right here. [Image: Respawn]
Pilot Hunter, CTF removed from playlists for Titanfall on PC
Noticed there's been a bit of a wait to find other players before Capture the Flag and Pilot Hunter matches begin in the PC version of Titanfall? So has developer Respawn Entertainment, which pulled the modes from playlists yesterday, meaning that both are now available solely through private matches and Variety Mode. A followup post on Titanfall.com notes that the decision was made based on the sparse player base in either mode. Titan pilots are "predominantly playing Attrition and Hardpoints game modes," Respawn's post explains. "CTF and Pilot Hunter have not been widely used modes on the PC version. Players trying to access these modes had overlong wait times to find other users and it was making for a poor experience." The post added that, going forward, Respawn will continue monitoring unpopular playlists and adding new ones. Retracted modes won't be on the sidelines forever, either - Respawn says it will "still rotate Pilot Hunter and CTF in for future playlists" and add tweaks to other game types, which the studio is "currently working on." Even if you find yourself as the sole player of your favorite mode down the road, Respawn has no plans to pull support for playing modes in private matches. As long as you can fill a round's roster with friends or fellow enthusiasts, you should be all set for your preferred brand of Titan-fueled destruction. [Image: EA]
The Firing Line: Why you should be playing Tribes: Ascend
Skiing! Jetpacks! Pew pew! Yes, kids, Tribes: Ascend is officially in open beta, and that means you no longer have an excuse. Hi-Rez Studios threw open the doors this morning, and despite the fact that the game's closed beta exceeded all expectations and hosted over 300,000 players since its November kickoff, there's always room for more.
Trion details RIFT, End of Nations, and Defiance plans for Gamescom
Trion is one of many MMO companies gearing up for a big showing at this month's Gamescom, and a new interview with Adam Gershowitz, David Luehmann, and Rob Hill lets fans in on what they can expect regarding the world of Telara. For starters, there will be a lot of lip service given to RIFT's "Endgame for All" initiative, specifically the new Chronicle instances coming with the 1.5 patch. Gershowitz also mentions the Hammerknell weekend warfront and says its a way for Trion to "spice up the normal warfront grind" via new gameplay and additional rewards. Said new gameplay takes the form of a new mode called escalation, which is essentially the Telaran equivalent of capture-the-flag. The interview also touches on Trion's End of Nations and Defiance titles, both of which will also be featured at Gamescom (though it's worth noting that Defiance will be restricted to industry previewers as Trion says the title "isn't quite ready for its player debut").
Nexon concludes MapleStory's Chaos series with loads of new content
MapleStory's Chaos series of updates is ending with a bang with the Age of Triumph, which according to Nexon, is "a huge update that brings unique content exclusively to those players who traverse Maple World on Global MapleStory servers." So what does the final update have in store for Maple World? Well, for starters it brings an all-new storyline titled The Silent Crusade. The storyline quests are available for players in the incredibly broad level range of 37-110, and they introduce players to a force that specializes in the elimination of Master Monsters (a new faction of enemies). Alongside the new storyline, the update will also introduce PvPers to the new Capture the Flag mode. And lastly, players will find in their inventory a Crusader Codex, which is essentially an encyclopedia of the monsters of Maple World. Each page can be filled with Monster Cards, which drop from various enemies. Once a page is completed, the page will display the monster's information such as levels, locations, and item drops, and players will receive unique prizes such as medals. For some new screenshots of the upcoming update, check out the gallery below. %Gallery-16709%
Massively revisits Bloodline Champions and gets pwned
The last time I visited Stunlock Studios' Bloodline Champions, I was impressed but not very turned on. Sure, it worked well, and despite its only semi-original art design, it looked good enough. It just wasn't really my game. I'm not a PvPer, and I'm certainly not an arena-combat type of guy. Yes, I enjoy a good romp in the pits once in a while, but arena-type games just seem repetitive. Well, that was back in the early release or beta of the game. Now that I have returned, I have found a much improved, smooth, and more full-featured game. I can even say that I had (gasp!) quite a bit of fun. Granted, I was not able to play many games, simply because during the day it seemed that only the European players had any games available -- and even those were generally locked out -- but I played a few that made me feel, well, kind of tough. Click past the cut and let me explain.
Our tour of Fantasy Earth Zero's October update
Fantasy Earth Zero is an interesting little title, a game that's not for everyone but will hit just the right notes for some. It isn't a graphical powerhouse or a deep PvE title, but what it does accomplish is the laudable goal of being a PvP-focused game that both lets low-level characters perform useful tasks and remains balanced despite being free-to-play. Having released this past May, it's a four-year-old title that keeps itself on solid grounding with its systems. Still, five months out from launch there's something big coming for the game, with a major update scheduled to go live on the 19th of October. Featuring a new gameplay mode as well as a new class for players to enjoy -- and Fantasy Earth Zero players will know that a fourth class in the game's environment will have a big impact. Take a look past the break for a rundown of the game as well as the big changes coming with the October update.
Cowboy up with Red Dead Redemption's multiplayer modes
Honestly, Rockstar didn't even really need to do anything new with the multiplayer in Red Dead Redemption -- we would have been happy to simply see our childhood cowboy shoot-em-up battles reenacted in shiny HD. But it looks like they went ahead and surprised us anyway. As you can see in the new trailer above, every battle starts out with a Mexican standoff, with the winner getting a head start on the map. The reworked Dead Eye system is available in multiplayer, too, letting you paint targets and then unleash a hail of gunfire. And bringing in old-school cannons and a turncrank gatling gun is a nice, old (olde?) Western touch, too. All of those tools are available across multiple modes, including normal and team deathmatch, and a few capture-the-flag variations based on bags of gold: Hold Your Own is standard CTF (on a large scale in some maps), Gold Rush gives multiple bags to chase around, and Grab the Bag has everyone going after just one. All of the modes grant progression across weapons challenges, with golden guns serving as the ultimate reward. And here we thought it was fun just chasing the other kids around the living room pointing our fingers at each other.
You'll have to over-wait for Fat Princess
It looks like the much anticipated cake binging/capture the flag sim Fat Princess, which was promised to hit the PSN sometime in June, will not make its initial release window. Playstation.Blog Europe's Mike Kebby confirmed that while the game would have a global release date, said date won't be next week, and that we can expect the highly frosted gore fest to drop "at some point this summer." Hopefully the warm summer months won't whittle our precious Fat Princess down to just a Princess. That's not nearly as catchy a title.%Gallery-51374%
Sweeping changes to Hellgate: London in Abyss Chronicles
Hell is about to get even hotter, as Flagship Studios prepares to unleash fresh content for Hellgate: London. Our sister blog Big Download has some posted new screenshots of the upcoming Abyss Chronicles for HG:L, as well as info on the 2.0 and 2.1 updates to the title. Patch 2.0 will be Hellgate: London's second major content update, and brings with it a host of new features and changes to the game. The build is likely to go live on the Test Server in the next week, but until then, here's Big Download's breakdown of the 2.0 changes: A new quest line that covers the spread of the Abyss through Parliament Square and the survivors' efforts to fight back A major rebalancing of the Blademaster class A complete PvP overhaul, including achievements, rankings, rewards, and a new CTF team gametype Changes to the Shared Stash, such as a separate pane for each difficulty Addition of two new trinket slots for players to add rings and such to their characters An attribute respec NPC that allows players to remove points from an attribute for a fee-per-point Three new skills for each class A consignment house (read: auction house) where players can sell stuff to other players without direct trading Beyond rolling out The Abyss Chronicles with 2.0, the next area Flagship Studios is focusing on is PvP through Patch 2.1. The patch will 'open up an entirely new side to Hellgate: London' by introducing five cohesive elements of PvP in a single update: ranking, matchmaking, rewards, achievements, and Capture the Flag. The end result is what Flagship describes as 'a robust PvP experience.'
Dungeons and Dragons Online PvP video
Shot in-game by a guild called The Black Plague, this video is sure to change some impressions people might have about Dungeons and Dragons Online. I have to admit, because my last interaction with D&D at all was the original sit-down-and-roll-some-dodecahedral-dice version, I was totally unprepared for the level of action inherent in DDO PvP.This is sheer lunacy. Watching this video gives the impression you're actually watching an Unreal Tournament mod -- this is the PvP that Fury wanted to be. The meleé combat alone is worth the price of admisison; it's fast, it's hectic, it's sloppy, just like real life! Except with CTF elements thrown in. Check it out after the jump -- it's DivX, so make sure you have the plugin installed.[Thanks, Schad!]
TR beginner's guide to the Spy
IGN's TRVault has the first part up of a new series covering the major classes of Tabula Rasa, and first up is the Spy. It's reasonably concise, as primers go. For those who don't know, Spies are TR's version of the rogue class. They're stealth armored, blade wielding killing machines that can do everything from polymorphing into an enemy soldier, to causing hostile foes to turn traitor, to calling in bombing runs.Currently, Spies are not only the most popular class in the final tier, but arguably the most powerful too. Spies are the only class that can tank, heal, resurrect, and DPS as the situation requires -- though some of these may change if Polymorph gets the rumored bug-fix in 1.4. Spies are great for experience multipliers when played properly, too.Spies are amazing at PvP as things stand, so I can see the temptation to level one built for PvP. But unless you're in a very active PvP clan, the better option is to level yourself as PvE, gather as many clone tokens as possible from Targets of Opportunity, then clone yourself a pure PvP Spy when relevant updates are implemented. Tabula Rasa Capture The Flag, anyone?
Freshening up the battleground with new ideas
This idea has been floating around ever since we all realized there were two new opposing reputations in the Burning Crusade-- an Aldor vs. Scryer battleground. It would definitely be a fresh change of pace to line up alongside the opposing faction and have a chance to face off against your own friends and guildies. Of course, there's lots of coding work that would have to be done (as well as a little lore work-- Aldor and Scryer aren't exactly in open war at this point), but it would be a cool addition to the current battleground options.And the forum thread that mentions the idea is actually full of great BG ideas-- a Team Deathmatch BG, multi-team CTF, and even an escort battleground. There's already that kind of thing in AV (you can run the quests that summon an NPC for you to follow around more than escort), but it would be neat to have a BG where you had to get an actual player from one place to another. Or maybe they could do it with an NPC-- run it in the Caverns of Time, and have the player escort someone in the history of Warcraft. Like Durnholde, but with players instead of an instance.The other neat tidbit from this thread is that Ommra winkingly mentions siege engines as something she'd (he'd?) like to see in the BGs. So whatever news comes out about what's new in the battlegrounds, it's a pretty good bet that siege engines are almost upon us.
We pledge allegiance to capture the flag
Our colleagues at AOL Games are running a festive feature to celebrate this 4th of July. Instead of the usual stuff about barbecues and fireworks, they took the flag route. No, not the red, white & blue ... just red and blue usually ... on two different flags. Yup, we're talking about every online gamers favorite pastime: Capture the Flag (that's CTF to most of us).With essays from the AOL Games staff, and contributions from Jay is Games' John Bardinelli and GamerDad Andrew Bub, it sure is a nice way to spend an uneventful 4th. That is, unless you're either busy: a) drinking your face off; b) playing Capture the Flag. If you aren't doing one of the above (poor sod), check it out and celebrate the red and blue!Snip from Scott Steinberg's piece: "Allies may shoot us in the tush. Prepubescent teens, call our manhood into question. But bombing the base and swiping the goods isn't sport or fancy: It's everything, period. And, like an homage to the pleasures of flag-snagging excitement, let the plasma-scarred torsos of friend and foe alike serve as a testament of our devotion -- we love, I mean really love, Capture the Flag." Amen. [Thanks, Dan]
