dev-diaries
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Champions Online nerfs dodge for the sake of diversity
Champions Online is looking to nerf -- er, re-balance -- its dodge mechanic for the sake of diverse builds. As it stands, Cryptic noticed that the too many players were stacking dodge for its passive ability that outstripped other forms of avoidance and tanking. A new dev diary explains that while dodge tanking will still be viable, the team is looking to reduce dodge rating, keep the chance bonuses flat, and make dodge proc off of active powers. A new power, fluidity, will be introduced as a block power to help superheroes avoid being hit. The team is also lowering the damage from critical chance in an upcoming build while raising the damage from offense to keep it from being lopsided. These changes follow significant tweaks to the game's alert system in the previous patch.
Star Trek Online dev blog outlines new Solanae Dyson Sphere adventure zone
Members of the United Federation, the Klingon Empire, and the Romulan Republic alike ought to be polishing their phasers and preparing their away teams because the best and brightest of all three factions are going to be needed to fight back the Voth in Star Trek Online's new Solanae Dyson Sphere adventure zone. Which, as it happens, is the subject of the latest developer diary from the folks at Cryptic Studios. In this new adventure zone, which our own Teri Shull covered in her most recent column, players will board a massive Dyson Sphere in which the Romulan Republic has established a base of operations, but of course they're not alone. The Voth have brought in an armada of their own in hopes of claiming the Dyson Sphere themselves, and naturally it falls to the players to put an end to their nefarious machinations. Players can take part in a number of variable missions across the three major zones of the sphere in order to attain precious Dyson Marks and Commendations, which can in turn be taken to the Dyson Joint Command faction for valuable rewards. If you're looking for more intel on this vital mission, you can check out the full post over at STO's official site.
You asked, ZeniMax answered: Another TESO AMA is here
The folks at ZeniMax Online have posted another edition of their Elder Scrolls Online Ask Us Anything blog feature, this one tackling topics from equipment progression to lycanthropy. Information revealed in the post? Gear will not level, skills will morph only one time, campaigns last for three months and have persistent consequences, guild stores will be accessible by players of the same alliance, and book/chest spawns have some elements of randomness. The ZeniMax team also dodged hard answers on a couple of questions. According to the post, veteran system rewards may or may not remain cosmetic-only and players who become werewolves or vampires may or may not be able to cure themselves and switch sides. Make of that what you will.
Producer's letter details DCUO 'remastered'
DC Universe Online's Update 31 is on its way, and with it come some of the biggest changes ever implemented to the game's core design and appearance. Executive producer Larry Liberty today outlined the key points in a letter to the community, explaining to players what they can expect from Update 31 and beyond. According to Liberty, the bulk of Update 31 focuses on preparing DCUO for its impending PS4 launch. Changes include graphics upgrades like higher resolution textures and area redesigns, along with a "remastering" of the core leveling experience. Leveling from 1-30 has seen special attention; Liberty noted that new players should see a smoother progression of content with less chance of being stuck without a mission. Update 31 is tentatively scheduled for a November launch on PC and PS3. The game's PS4 release is still on track to match up with the console's release window.
Latest Defiance patch gives weapons an overhaul
It's been about a month since Trion delivered the most recent Defiance state-of-the-game address, which promised a number of sweeping improvements throughout the game. Players can now see the first step of those improvements on the live servers in the form of patch 1.105, which was released today. This particular patch is all about shooting things and, more specifically, the weaponry players use to do so. In a nutshell, the new patch has reworked the stats of all new weapons in the game, meaning that players should no longer find weapons with useless bonuses (like melee bonuses on a sniper rifle, for instance), and rarer weapons will be universally better than their lower-quality counterparts. The official dev blog goes into all sorts of detail that we couldn't possibly squeeze into the remainder of this paragraph, so any curious Ark Hunters should head over that way.
League of Legends aims for harmony with new Team Builder feature
MOBA golden child League of Legends has long been renowned for its incredibly hardcore community, which can make matters unpleasant for newer players and for those looking to learn a new character or try a new strategy. The folks at Riot Games are aware of this and are looking to do something about it. That "something" just happens to be making its way to LoL's PBE (Public Beta Environment) in the near future, and it's called the Team Builder. Riot's Lead Social Systems Designer, Jeffrey "Riot Lyte" Lin, stopped by the forums today to drop some knowledge on this upcoming feature. Essentially, the Team Builder allows players to designate their preferred playstyle and strategy, and then the system attempts to match up those with similar mindsets. This saves players the trouble of wondering who's going to play which role, who will be in which lane, and what the team's overall strategy will be, hopefully resulting in a much more harmonious gameplay experience. On top of that, the Team Builder will also include a "smarter matchmaking system that can dynamically account for your experience with a given role, position or champion," so players looking to change up their playstyle need not be afraid of invoking the ire of their teammates as they learn. For all the nitty gritty details on the Team Builder, check out the full post over at the League of Legends forums.
Hearthstone dev diary sets its sights on Rexxar the Hunter
Blizzard's latest entry into the money-printing franchise that is World of Warcraft, collectible card game Hearthstone, is currently chugging along through the closed beta stage of development, and many fans are clamoring for more information as the game nears launch. Well today you're in luck, especially if the animal-loving Hunter is your class of choice, because the devs have just released a new dev diary detailing Hearthstone's playable Hunter character, the legendary Rexxar. The dev diary dedicates the first half of its entry to the lore of Rexxar the beastmaster, a half-orc, half-ogre from Outland's Blade's Edge Mountains who eventually found himself in Azeroth becoming staunch allies with the Horde warchief Thrall. But let's be real here: We all want to know how he plays. Not to worry, the devs have that covered too. Rexxar's mechanics echo the playstyle of World of Warcraft's Hunter class. He has plenty of tricks and traps available to him, including classics such as Snake Trap and Misdirection. With his longbow in hand, Rexxar unleashes a barrage of ranged attacks while standing safely behind an army of his animal companions, making him a veritable force of nature on the battlefield. For more on Rexxar, click on through the link below.
EverQuest Next dev diary talks exploration
Today's EverQuest Next Landmark dev diary is all about globe-trotting, and no, we don't mean the kind that involves basketball trick-shots. In the latest dev diary video from the folks at Sony Online Entertainment, Creative Director Jeff Butler and Senior Art Director Rosie Rappaport sit down to give players a brief overview of why exploration matters in the upcoming reincarnation of Norrath. As you may already be aware, the world of EverQuest Next is made up of a number of procedurally generated continents, each with a number of diverse biomes to explore. While the motivation to explore in many MMOs is something to the tune of "kill things for XP and loot," the permeable nature of EQN's world adds a new layer of incentive. Each biome, as Butler and Rappaport explain, will contain a variety of different resources and materials that players can use to build their own structures within the world. The duo also addresses the existence of leylines, which, in addition to allowing players to travel around the world, give players the ability to travel between servers. And since players on each server will alter their world's landscape in different ways, there are plenty of opportunities for players to explore each server's unique version of the world. For more tasty exploration details, check out the full video past the cut.
Allods Online dev blog details the Dominion Wars
For some time now, gPotato has been detailing the features of Allods Online's upcoming content update, Lords of Destiny. Today, the final Lords of Destiny devblog discusses one last major feature: the Dominion Wars. The Dominion Wars are described as "battles that will allow guilds to become true leaders of the Astral and gain precious resources, and from them players can gain glyphs that will enhance their equipment even further. In order to join in the battle, players must be level 55 and have the necessary keys for access to the Dominion Wars. Each skirmish in the Dominion Wars consists of two rounds, each lasting 10 minutes. In the first round, one team will play on defense and the other on offense with the roles being reversed in the second round. Attacking players will be tasked with capturing enemy checkpoints, and each checkpoint captured will increase the time of the round by two minutes (though the second round can be no longer than the first). At the end of both rounds, whichever team captured the most checkpoints is declared the victor. For the full details on this complex new system, check out the entire post at the Allods official site.
Murder by numbers: A closer look at Pathfinder Online's combat mathematics
If you like granular detail on still-in-progress systems for a game that hasn't been released yet, boy are you in luck! A new dev post from the Goblinworks team turns a microscope on the hows and whys of combat in Pathfinder Online. This is obviously an important thing, as Pathfinder itself has a well-established combat system that's awesome for pen-and-paper gameplay but probably significantly less awesome for online combat. The system is being modified so that there will be fewer chances for epic failures and so that epic successes won't completely imbalance the game. Combat is being built to make even small numerical differences important (it'll be way cooler to have +10 against Immobilize than nothing), to emphasize the importance of different weapon types, and to keep luck from being a more important factor than player skill. Read the whole blog post for the nitty-gritties of how the numbers work out.
Camelot Unchained dev diary details crafting
Camelot Unchained's series of dev diaries on the game's "foundational principles" continues today with a post on principle number seven: "Crafting should be fun, useful and not induce Carpal Tunnel Syndrome." Well, that does sound like a reasonable principle, but how is the team going to go about implementing that principle in practice? For starters, crafting will be "the only reliable way to get armor, weapons, and most items" within the game. The post emphasizes that there are no "rare drops" and that "the whole 'Oh look, I just killed a nightingale and it dropped a full suit of purple armor' is so last decade." Players will also be able to create a "'crafting-class' character with separate crafting-based... leveling tracks." The CU devs also hope to ensure that crafters are able to build a reputation on their servers through the "naming/signature (hopefully visual as well as textual) of items, rewards from their server's ruler, etc." The full piece goes into much more depth than we have the space for here, though, so if you want all the details on Camelot Unchained's crafting philosophy, head on over to the game's official site.
Darkfall Unholy Wars hits Steam Greenlight, debuts shiny new video
Aventurine is making a bid to get Darkfall Unholy Wars on Steam, by way of Steam Greenlight. You can now vote (provided you have a Steam account) for the game to be a part of the ever-growing Steam stable. Because just one blog post a day is for the weak, the Aventurine team also put out a new video, which takes a good look at the Brawler School. Brawlers are part of the Skirmisher role and are equipped with skills to increase their efficiency, sprint speed, leap, evade, and reflexes. If covering dizzying amounts of ground and controlling battle through movement sounds like your thing, you might consider checking out the video. We've included it below the cut because we're just that nice. [Thanks to savvy webizen Bartillo for the tip!]
LotRO hands over war-steed reins in dev diary
The Lord of the Rings Online team is hard at work putting the final touches on next month's Riders of Rohan, and a new dev diary shines a spotlight on the expansion's star attraction: trainable war-steeds. The article gives a brief overview of the types of mounts -- light, medium, and heavy -- as well as the trait trees that accompany them. According to the devs, each war-steed will have 32 potential traits to unlock. The good news, they say, is that retraiting a mount is easily accomplished on the fly for the cost of a few coins. The devs round out the post by sharing a few of their favorite traits and skills that war-steeds boast. These include feigning injury to dump threat, trampling enemies, giving additional damage to attacking from behind, and boosting crit chance by a whopping 25%.
ArenaNet talks emotional connections in Guild Wars 2
ArenaNet has put a lot of emphasis on the story of Guild Wars 2. But what good is a story unless it's compelling enough to pull players in emotionally? Ree Soesbee and Jeff Grubb, the heart of ArenaNet's Guild Wars 2 lore, talk about this challenge in a new blog post. Story involvement, says Soesbee, begins with players' avatars as early as character creation. Grubb talks about the balance between creating characters with depth and characters with enough loose ends for an unexpected story to emerge, which is a fine line to walk. The game is built around the assumption that players are heroic in nature and essentially good. Like in the original Guild Wars, players don't really have the option to be villains or anti-heroes through the storyline. The liveliness of NPCs and the world around characters are also key steps toward drawing players into the game. I think that's what it all boils down to in the long run-you become emotionally invested with the game because you become interested in both your character and the world. And you can do that by making choices and seeing those choices have an effect-and truly matter-within the world. That is one of our goals when we're telling stories in Guild Wars 2. - Jeff Grub
Check and mate: A look at Otherland's EightSquared simulation
Fans of Tad Williams' deliciously cyberpunk book series Otherland are almost certainly waiting with bated breath for gamigo and RealU's upcoming MMO adaptation of the universe. In hopes of making the wait just a tad easier, gamigo has released a new developer diary video focusing on the EightSquared universe of Otherland. EightSquared, as you may have surmised from the name, is a simulation in which an entire medieval countryside has sprung forth from a gargantuan chess board on which the Red and White armies are locked in an eternal war/game. But something has gone wrong with the simulation: The armies are no longer following the rules of warfare (i.e., rules of chess), and it's up to players to find out where the problem lies before things get too far out of hand and cause the destruction of the simulation itself. The full dev diary also provides a look at the game's Lifecycle AI, which breathes life into the world by providing NPCs who follow their own day-to-day schedules. So what are you waiting for? Log in to the Net and go take a look for yourself. [Source: gamigo press release]
Colonize the New World: Salem opens beta sign-ups
It's time to set sail for the New World with Paradox Interactive's upcoming free-to-play sandbox title, Salem. The studio announced today that beta sign-ups for the title have opened up, and anyone and everyone is welcome to jump in and give the team feedback. But remember, folks, the untamed wilderness of the New World is a harsh and unforgiving place, and death is not something to be taken lightly. If you don't play your cards just right, you could end up six feet under with no way of returning to the world of the living. Don't worry too much, though; the folks at Paradox have released a new video to give players a bit of a heads up on how to survive the wilderness. So after you're done with the "how-to-not-die-of-dysentery" primer, just head on over to the game's official site and get in on the test. [Source: Paradox Interactive press release]
Leave your legacy with Star Wars: The Old Republic's newest dev dispatch video
Star Wars: The Old Republic's patch 1.2 is slowly creeping over the horizon, and that means players are one step closer to getting to try out the next steps in the game's Legacy progression system for themselves. In light of this, BioWare has released a new video highlighting the inner workings of the Legacy system to give players a look at what exactly they can expect. Here's a recap for the uninitiated: The Legacy system unlocks after a character completes chapter one of the storyline, and from that point on that character will gain Legacy experience in addition to the normal combat experience. Progressing through the Legacy system will unlock a variety of spiffy treats -- such as special skills, new class-race combinations, account-bound gear, and more -- for all characters on a player's account. Obviously the benefits are greatest for altoholics (whoo!), but even one-character players will be able to benefit from the new abilities and other unlocks. Of course, you don't have to take our word for it; the full developer dispatch video can be seen just past the cut.
Massively Exclusive: Make your nation proud with Wakfu's newest dev diary
Now that Ankama Games' tactical MMORPG Wakfu is live and operational, it's probably about time for players to start getting familiar with the World of Twelve. Thankfully, the fine folks over at Ankama have provided us with a brand-new dev diary to help players to wrap their heads around the nations and territories of Wakfu. For the uninitiated, the World of Twelve is the shared universe of Wakfu and its predecessor, Dofus. Lots has happened in the World of Twelve since the time of Dofus, however. Most importantly, a daft ogre by the name of Ogrest (presumably the older brother of Ogre and Ogrer) gathered the six primordial Dofus and used their overwhelming power to devastate the world, drowning all but seven major island nations beneath the sea. It's up to players to run these remaining nations and restore the World of Twelve to its former power. Of course, it can't all be sunshine and butterflies between the seven nations; we need a reason to kill each other! Aside from the seven main islands, there are also a number of smaller islands that contain valuable -- and sometimes exclusive -- resources. The seven nations, of course, all want to claim these precious goods for their own. Players will have to represent their nations in the battle for these minor, resource-rich islands in order to bring prosperity and bragging rights to their respective homelands. So there you have it, Wakfuians (that's totally a word, we promise). Now click past the cut for the full dev diary video, then get out there and make your countries proud!
LotRO cleans up the Warden's act
If you're a Lord of the Rings Online Warden, then your world is about to change. Update 6 will reshape this advanced class to strengthen the Warden as a tank, offer a better DPS role, and fashion a ranged fighting trait line. The latter will also be DPS, although it will also offer some measure of support for groups. The latest dev diary by Turbine walks us through these changes as the team works to clearly define the three styles of play. One of the big changes is the addition of a brand-new gambit builder, which comes from javelin throws when players are fighting in the new ranged (Assailment) stance. This gambit builder will replace the spear thrusts in the stance, as it's somewhat difficult to jab someone from 40 meters away with a stick. Another significant change is the addition to what Turbine calls "flavoring" for gambits. These are bonus effects that change depending on the Warden's stance to strengthen tanking, melee DPS, or ranged DPS. Other fun tweaks to the class include allowing Wardens to prep a gambit ahead of a battle and a huge overhaul to the three trait lines.
LotRO prepares for imminent Update 6 release
It's one of the bigger content updates that Lord of the Rings Online has seen in quite a while, and if all goes well, Update 6 will be uploaded to fans this coming Monday. As time is running short between now and then, Turbine is rushing to finish up with its dev diary series covering the major features of the patch. Today's dev diary discusses the fleshing out of the Instance Finder, which will now offer players tailored rewards and the ability to pick specific dungeons and skirmishes. The diary goes into detail about how the rewards work, but the basic version is that players get better currency, power, and morale bonuses when they sign up for more skirmishes and instances at a time. This gives players an incentive to look for a wide range of instances while at the same time it facilitates match-ups between interested parties. We've also got several new screencaps from Update 6 for your viewing pleasure, including four exclusive pictures and many more showing off the new "soldiers on landscape" feature. You can scope them out in the gallery below. %Gallery-149032%
