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'Doom' arrives on Nintendo Switch November 10th
Turns out that you won't have to wait too long to raze some Hell on your Nintendo Switch. That's because Doom will be released this November 10th, only a few short weeks from now. How's it look? Based on the video below, good and it seems to play just as fast, but it's a little soft/hazy compared to the PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions. That's to be expected though, because the Switch is running on a standard NVIDIA Tegra X1 chip versus the PS4's and Xbox One's AMD Radeon processors. What's impressive is that the game's fancy lighting tricks appear to be intact. However, the video doesn't indicate if the game footage was captured during handheld mode or in TV mode.
Blood Pact: What makes a 'lock a 'lock?
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. This week, Megan O'Neill discusses class identity. One of our editors, Adam Holisky, forgot what class he was playing last week, and it made me a little sad. It's great that he wanted to be a warlock again, but we are not hunters. We're not mages either, despite how convinced Matt Rossi is by shared armor. We're not shadow priests, we have demons not totems, and having purple wings is the only similarity between a demo 'lock and a night elf moonkin. I'm not out to make Adam eat his hat, but warlocks certainly distinguish themselves from other classes, I think.
The Art of Wushu: Harnessing demons to slay lovers
Demon Heart Chain Hand is one of the most likely choices for a player's first new martial art. Although many other styles in Age of Wushu are expensive or difficult to obtain, DHCH is relatively easy to farm. It also adds tons of extremely useful utility in the form of a ranged knock-towards, a PBAoE flight disable aura, and a silly self-exploding super move. It works very well in group combat, and proper use of the set can turn the tides of battle even if your internal skills are much weaker than those of your enemies. Even after you're a powerful master, you'll rely a lot on this set in many cases. It does many things (especially its ranged knock) that have very practical uses. As a dueling set, it's a bit on the weak side, but people tend to underestimate it for that reason too.
Blood Pact: To summon or not to summon, that's the question
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. This week, Megan O'Neill scraps another attempt at Kanrethad to discuss being a pet class instead. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous pet bugs in encounter design like jumping down into Nefarian's pit in Blackwing Descent so your pet then did nothing but stand in the middle, or to take up Doomguards against a despawning abyssal phase 3 in Throne of the Four Winds -- and by opposing end them: to die, to sacrifice. To sacrifice, perchance to DPS; Aye, there's the rub, for in that sleep of death, what meter-topping dreams of 5.0 may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil (no, not that one!), must give our developers pause. My terrible warlock Shakespeare adaptation aside, we've had the ponderings about how tied to pets warlocks should or shouldn't be. As I continue to throw myself at Kanrethad's own demonic stampede, I've had some thoughts about the subject.
Kinect can track Paranormal Activity in the home
Paranormal Activity 4 comes out in October and looks to uphold the series' legacy of gritty camera work and terrifying jump-scare moments. As with its predecessors, 4 adds new reasons an otherwise normal house would have 24-hour demon-tracking technology in every room, including one piece of hardware that isn't out of place in a modern suburban home: Kinect.The latest trailer for Paranormal Activity 4, viewable above, shows the family in a darkened room explaining the projections of Kinect's tracking dots. Creepy. Later on the dots pick up something that isn't human, which is also pretty scary, we guess.Since Kinect is obviously the latest tech trend in ghost hunting, we expect to see it pop up on Ghost Adventures soon, alongside that audio box that spits out random words, that thing that analyzes "energy" in mysterious units and that guy who always gets sick. Science.
Diablo 3's biggest, baddest demon from sketch to final
Like the previous Diablo titles from Blizzard, there's totally a giant main boss named "Diablo" in Diablo 3. Surprise! And during Diablo 3 art director Christian Lichtner's GDC 2012 track keynote, attendees were offered a look at the main baddie across his entire evolution. Second surprise: he looks terrifying!
Kojima clarifies the 'ogre' in 'Project Ogre'
Slowly but surely, sparse details regarding Hideo Kojima's "Project Ogre" begin to coalesce in the dark, nebulous void of unannounced games. We already know that Project Ogre will be an open world game with 100-plus hours of content, and that it will be a "very subdued experience," but what that experience actually is has remained a mystery.We have learned, however, that Kojima's use of the word "Ogre" in the project's codename is literal, rather than figurative, and that the game will deal with actual ogres in some capacity, according to a tweet translated by Andriasang. It's also interesting to note that the Japanese word for ogre, "oni," can also be translated to mean "devil" or "demon," so we may end up with one of those rather than an actual ogre. Our prediction is that this whole thing turns out to be a licensed Urusei Yatsura dating game.
Librarians gone bad: TERA's Runekeepers revealed
As we jog nearer and nearer to TERA's release, En Masse continues to unveil the intricacies of this world. Few things are as important to talk about than the uglies and nasties that we'll be beating on for the duration of our career, which is why the studio has added a new entry to its beastiary with the Runekeeper. Near or far, no player will be safe from TERA's Runekeepers. These nasty demons pack a punch up close, with spiked fists that seem to say "Kill!" in a universal language. If you keep your distance, the Runekeeper is liable to chuck a bomb at you -- not a chemical bomb, mind you, but little critters known as guuthangs who have a tendency to explode. It's a lose-lose situation between your face and the guuthangs, really. Oddly enough, the Runekeepers have a massive hunger for knowledge. "Unfortunately, the runekeepers' destructive nature makes it impossible for them to get a library card," the official description reads. "Barakas insist the runekeepers actually devour the books."
Behind the Mask: The Demonflame
Champions Online's second adventure pack, Demonflame, is currently available on the Test Server, and over the last couple of weeks I've done a few playthroughs at various stages of its development. Demonflame is a new take on an old organization from the Champions lore. DEMON (which is strangely not an acronym) is a magic-themed group of devil worshipers and one of the most powerful factions in the Champions universe. Prior to the adventure pack, DEMON was pretty poorly represented in CO. The villain group starred in a small series of arcs in the level 20-25 range, and the core members of DEMON's inner circle were not even given "Super Villain" status. It has been sort of a common theme for mystic roleplayers to downplay the significance of DEMON because the group is so poorly characterized. Demonflame also represents the newest surge of content for CO superheroes, and in many ways it has excelled where Serpent Lantern was lacking.
Warlocks find their pets renamed in patch 4.0.1 [Updated]
This is actually kind of sweet, especially for a class that spends the larger portion of its time channeling dark magic and cursing everything in its path. When patch 4.0.1 hit, warlocks suddenly found themselves toting new and unexpected minions around. No, new pet skins didn't go live, and Blizzard didn't program any new demons into the game, but many of warlocks' trusted minions are sporting different names. For example, my own baby warlock has had an imp named Pagfip who's accompanied him since his earliest days in the Tirisfal countryside, but now I've got ... Garloz? That can't be right. Most warlocks have had at least one demon's name changed. Many have lost demons they've had since classic WoW and -- to put it mildly -- they're not happy about it. Even non-warlocks have chimed in: "Zilnip, our GM's imp, is an important member of our family and we'd like him back, please." If you're not familiar with minion names, the usual deal is they're randomly generated upon creation (whether of the minion or the warlock toon itself, I'm not sure) and remain the same thereafter; lorewise, it's assumed that you're summoning and resummoning the exact same demon from the Twisting Nether. If you really wanted to play with this, you could run with the story that your real felguard's on vacation or whatever, but this seems to be a bug that most warlocks would just as soon have fixed as quickly as possible. That's assuming it's fixable at all, and I'm a little worried that it's not; the only other recourse would be petitioning a GM to have the names changed individually. Notes Cornpuff of Uther, "It's like someone came into my house in the middle of the night and swapped all of my children with evil clones." Thanks to Scott and Zhiva for writing in! Update: Bornakk and Bashiok hit the forums to provide an update on this issue. Warlocks, you'll be getting your original pets back during the next maintenance period! This is it! Patch 4.0.1 begins the slide into December's upcoming expansion. It's a whole new game from here on out. Get oriented with our roundup of everything there is to know about patch 4.0.1 and how it changes the game until the launch of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm.
Demon aims to please British gamers with 'very low latency,' traffic-prioritizing broadband service
You could well be a pro at getting virtual headshots, but without a decent internet connection, your shooting is just as good as a baby weeing aimlessly at the ceiling. As such, Demon -- which may or may not be a hint about the operator -- reckons some obsessed gamers wouldn't mind switching over to its £21.99 ($34.19) per month Game Pro service, in return for a low latency ADSL2+ broadband connection of up to 20Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream. Sure, this is hardly a bargain compared to other 20Mbps offerings, but with traffic prioritization, a static IP address, and 24-hour support all in the box, you might actually start winning for a change.
Celebrate the summer in Perfect World International
Grab your beach towels, slather on the sunscreen, and slip on a pair of shades, for the summer is upon us! Just because we love MMOs doesn't mean we can neglect healthy seasonal traditions. Perfect World International is excited about the summer as well, and is ushering in an ocean's worth of new content for players to dive into a month early. If a makeover is your thing this season, then you'll be thrilled to know that you can finally switch between the Demon and Sage paths with a new conversion feature. Maybe you want to see what it's like to be a good girl or a bad boy, for once. The neglected Tideborn players won't be left out of the beach party, either -- they can now acquire Demon and Sage skills, as well as a few other new skills for the Assassin and Psychic classes. Grab a few pals for a quick game of "Kill the Nien Beast," as the grumpy Gus returns for another swipe at Archosaur. This Public Quest was so popular during the spring that it just had to come back for round two. Finally, for the remainder of the month of May, catch a wave at the Double XP Event -- hang ten with double XP, double Spirit and double items!
Varimathras' replacement: "B"
Earlier this year, we wondered just what would happen now that my favorite dreadlord, Varimathras, was vanquished in the Battle for the Undercity, and now Kisirani has provided us with a hint: someone whose name includes a "B." When someone repeats the question on the forums, she posts a note delivered by a bronze whelp hinting that someone will be back in Varimathras' place as of patch 3.3. The note is signed only with a "B," and (as Kisirani probably intended), it's anyone's guess just who that is.And if by "anyone," you mean the denizens of the Blizzard forums, they all seem to think it's Nathanos Blightcaller, a Forsaken who has been sitting in the Eastern Plaguelands since the game began. He's recently been mentioned again in the game, as Varian Wrynn has sent Alliance players after him in Bolvar's place, and so it makes sense that he may rejoin the Banshee Queen and take his place at her side. Balnazzar, Varimathras' demon brother, is another guess, though he's currently serving secretly with the Scarlet Crusade, so who knows how he'd come to that position. And of course, besides Bornakk, anytime you hear B you have to think of our friend Bolvar, whose fate we'll probably learn in patch 3.3 no matter what. As for who it really is, we won't know for sure until we see them in the Undercity.
Demons ready for summoning, Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine goes open beta
Do you wish there was an MMO that allowed you to summon demonic minions under your control in order to restore a post-apocalyptic Tokyo? Well thankfully for you, Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine has entered open beta! Now all your world-saving via demonic pet needs can be addressed thanks to Aeria Games' and their hard work.For anyone whose played Persona 3 or the more recently released Persona 4, an MMO set in the world of SMT is a very interesting proposition. The game has all the demon fusing and combat from the other games (beyond even the Persona series) but it's all done in real-time instead of through turn-based combat. We're curious to see how this handles, as our guess is that it's likely more of a quasi-real-time ala standard MMO design in games like World of Warcraft.
All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a Priest
This installment of All the World's a Stage is the seventeenth in a series of roleplaying guides in which we find out all the background information you need to roleplay a particular race or class well, without embarrassing yourself. Priests in the World of Warcraft are a single class that incorporates a wide variety of characters. They are best known for casting spells that call forth the power of the Holy Light, but the priest using these spells in the game mechanics doesn't necessarily have much connection to the Light as such -- rather they have a connection with their own religion which grants them similar effects to those of the Light.When WoW was being developed, Blizzard realized that night elves and trolls, for instance, would not follow the Light in the same way humans and dwarves do, so they tried to represent a bit of this diversity through race-specific spells. It didn't work out, though -- some were too powerful, while others weren't worth reading about, much less putting on one's action bar. The end result was that they made some of these spells universally available to all priests, and completely removed the rest. Here the lore had to surrender to the game mechanics in order to provide the best game balance.In roleplaying, however, there is a lot of room for players of different races to behave differently, and draw their powers from totally different sources. Greater Heal, for instance, could come either from the Light or the power of Elune. A Shadowfiend could either be a spawn of the Forgotten Shadow, or a dark trollish voodoo spirit. If you are roleplaying a priest, the only thing that really matters is that your character have some sort of faith or profound belief, which could serve as the source of their divine magical power. A priest's magic revolves around his or her strong beliefs and ideas -- but what those beliefs are is entirely up to you.
All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a Warlock
This installment of All the World's a Stage is the fifteenth in a series of roleplaying guides in which we find out all the background information you need to roleplay a particular race or class well, without embarrassing yourself. The Warlock is the ideological counterpart to the Paladin. Where paladins strive to wipe out evil wherever they see it, warlocks enslave those evils and use them for their own purposes. Being a warlock is all about harnessing the most wicked, corrupting, and evil forces in the universe. Why are these forces evil, you ask? Aren't magical powers neutral in themselves depending on how you use them? Isn't killing with one weapon more or less the same as killing with another? Well, if you consider that a warrior basically cuts or bashes things, and a paladin cuts or bashes and brings down the righteous energy of justice. But a warlock uses curses and spells, which, like horrifying biological weapons of modern days, destroy his enemies' minds and eat away their bodies from the inside; wreaks massive havoc with great explosions and persisting fire; and sucks the souls out of people and creatures and uses them to power even more horrifying abilities, such as summoning demonic creatures who would just as soon pluck out your eyeballs as look at you.To suffer at the hands of a warlock is significantly more excruciating than the attacks of any other class -- a slow, painful, torturous, agonizing death. If warlocks existed in modern earth, their abilities would be against all international agreements on human rights and rules of warfare; they would be squarely in the evil company of terrorism, drug-trafficking, slavery, and biological germ warfare development.And yet if your warlock works for the Alliance or the Horde, he or she claims to do all of these things all for the greater good.
One Shots: We will drink your essence, Gelfling
Okay, so maybe we're the only ones who saw this and thought "Skeksis!" But we wouldn't be surprised if he were to demand the essence of fallen enemies to drink. Today's Warhammer Online screenshot comes in to us from Daegallus of the guild Manus Mutati from the Red Eye Mountain server. He writes in: The Lord of Change. Only earthbound beings that have the closest connection with Tzeentch, the god himself. They are the most powerful Greater Daemons of Tzeentch. This one is named Tz'kra. This was in the Inevitable City where he shows up from time to time. This is also the Daemon that showed up at the end of the Intro Movie/Cinematic. He's definitely wicked-looking. Thanks for the awesome Warhammer Online shot, Daegallus!Have you seen a huge demon or giant monster in your travels? Friend or foe, we're curious about the monsters you face in your favorite game. Just send those screenshots to us at oneshots AT massively DOT com including your character name/server/guild and a quick description. We'll post it here for everyone to ogle and give you the credit!
Demonology 101: the Voidwalker
The big blueberry, a Warlock's most lovable pet. Obtained at Level 10, the big blue is usually a Warlock's favored solo leveling companion because it can tank, having a hefty amount of health and the taunting abilities Torment and Suffering. Out of combat, it can regenerate lost health quickly with Consume Shadows, and in a pinch can be Sacrificed to grant a Warlock's version of Power Word: Shield. It isn't specialized for any tree, although a Demonologist will get the most bang for the blueberry buck. The reliable Voidwalker won't be changing much in Wrath of the Lich King, but will be getting a few improvements with some talents from the Demonology tree such as the consolidated Fel Intellect and Fel Stamina, now called Fel Vitality, which rightfully increases Stamina as well as Intellect. Along with all demons, it also gains Avoidance, a baseline ability that helps it mitigate AoE damage by a massive 80%. Improved Voidwalker has not been changed, but a key talent that used to be perfect with the big blueberry -- Soul Link -- was reduced to a 15% damage absorption and no damage bonuses. The good news, however, is that Soul Link is now a Tier 3 talent, allowing almost any Warlock to pick it up for more survivability.
Addon Spotlight: Grimoire Keeper
Warlocks, it's time for you to get some love. In this week's Addon Spotlight we're going to take a look at lock-centric addon. One of the first things I noticed when I started playing my warlock was that I had a hard time remembering which abilities my demons had trained on. I thought it was interesting that Blizzard opted to make demon training a unique system, as opposed to skill training at your class trainer or even pet training for Hunters. Cool! I can teach my blueberry about sacrificing itself via a grimoire, the ultimate in fel magic publications. Then came the caveat; I bought this damned pamphlet on Seduction, used it, and now the merchant didn't save my purchase records like any other bookseller! I didn't expect him to suggest other grimoires I might enjoy based on my interest, but come on! I am aware that I can burn through some shards to summon each of my demons to check at the trainer, but what a waste! There had to be an easier way.Then I discovered Grimoire Keeper, an addon that aids budding demon-wranglers in remembering which abilities, and ranks thereof, their demons already have. Keep reading to discover it for yourself.
D&DO Module 7: Bosses
The first fight we got to see was Suulomendes (unfortunately, that spelling might not be right -- the big winged guy wouldn't sit still long enough for us to ask his name), a winged devil who sits up on a big pedestal while he sends baddies out to finish the raid off, a wave a time. Every once in a while he deigns to get off the pedestal, and beat you up himself, but when he does, it's not pretty -- various curses fell down on our heads every time he showed up. It seemed like a fairly straightforward fight as we did it (defeat the minions, work over the boss for a while), but the devs told us there were quite a few wrinkles (and the fight would take a little longer) than what we saw. The other boss we got to check out was, in our opinion, a little more fun. There is a Lord of Darkness supposedly hanging out in the dungeon below the Marketplace wreckage, but when you show up to take him out, he's not actually home -- his guard dog, named Xy'zzy, is, and she is a real bitch. Literally. She has puppies and minions that you have to fight as well, and oh yeah, one more thing: you can't actually damage her by hitting her. We'll refrain from telling you exactly how to take her out (the devs didn't want us to spoil all the surprises), but we will say that when you figure it out, you'll get to see something really, really hilarious happen. And yes, if you're nerdy enough to recognize the dog's name, you'll realize that these DDO devs know their gaming history.Like many of the boss battles in DDO, both of these fights (and most of the quests we saw) were all about group coordination and cooperation. While a lot of the Three Barrel Cove quests are soloable, the devs at DDO seem committed to make sure that players find ways to coordinate and work together. They are still working on making sure the Monk has a role of his or her own to play in every group ("this is just the beginning of our development on this class," Paiz told us), but in almost all the quests we say, there were lots of ways for group members, no matter what classes or types of players they were, to make themselves useful.But the new content isn't all that's being added to the game -- we also saw a number of new UI updates, and we got to talk with Turbine's communications director about what they thought of the Age of Conan release and the future of this game.Click here to continue the preview...
