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City of Steam's bestiary gives pre-launch advantage
While we're twiddling our thumbs waiting for the steampunk City of Steam to finally release, Mechanist Games has a great way that we can prepare for the launch. The team has put a spotlight on the website's bestiary, a helpful encyclopedia of creatures and people that players will be encountering in the game proper. Beyond just providing some flavor and filling in some lore, the bestiary has a practical purpose by giving players details as to the strengths, weaknesses, and relationships between the mobs. The bestiary can be searched by individual creatures and by species and has plenty of cool pictures to boot.
Mechanist says no to huge pauldrons, revamps City of Steam NPC duds
It didn't take Mechanist Games long to release its first City of Steam dev journal for 2013. Today's steampunk browser title update focuses on an NPC uniform revamp, and while clothes aren't quite the stuff of epic MMO legend, we must admit to digging the new Victorian duds. The NPCs in question are Nexan guards, the original outfits for which featured gigantic shoulder pauldrons and some sort of checkerboard faux pas motif. The new uniform is noticeably sleeker, "much more respectable, and far less gaudy," according to the devs. Have a look for yourself at the official City of Steam website.
City of Steam shows player collaborations
As part of its pre-launch fundraising efforts, Mechanist Games continues to offer players the chance to design their own in-game item for City of Steam if they kick in $500. It turns out at least four players have done so, and the devs whipped up a new blog post to show the journey from concept to completion for each of these items. The items include a Darth Vader-style mask with cool steampunk goggles, a "Swiss Army Knife" of one-handed swords, a skull-adorned sword with an engine powering it, and a pair of sleek firearms. Mechanist Games says that there are plenty of additional player items being designed and implemented. If you're thinking about making a mark on this upcoming game, you might want to move fast: donors will only have access to the design-an-item perk until December 5th. If you're curious about City of Steam, check out Massively's recent hands-on with the title!
City of Steam reveals journey from turn-based to real-time combat
The saga of City of Steam's creation continues to grow more impressive with a new behind-the-scenes story. In it, the devs tell the little-known tale about how the game used to be turn-based. This was originally due to a very limited team and budget, although the devs further justified the decision by saying that the MMO was based on a turn-based pen-and-paper game anyway. City of Steam managed to make the transition to real-time action with the help of some surprise financing prior to alpha. Over 90% of the code had to be reworked to make it happen, but the team pulled it off prior to the game's alpha and any actual players' eyes. It might be easy for us to take for granted how studios can whip up real-time combat in MMOs, but this post illustrates how incredibly complicated it can be, especially for teams with limited resources. City of Steam heads into beta next month.
City of Steam's blind-as-a-bat race
While their name might sound like something a cat hacked up in your sock drawer, the Draug are actually the latest revealed race in City of Steam. Boasting a line of noble Elfish blood dating back to whenever, the Draug eschewed adapting and instead became a reclusive society living off the remnants of its former glory. Interestingly enough, the Draug have incredibly poor eyesight, which probably should make them terrible adventurers. But in another clever City of Steam twist, the race compensate for their bad vision with bursts of sonar to "see" around them. That's right: The Draug are bat-men. And bat-women. A dev journal on the Draug talks about how this echolocation works both for and against these batfolk. While they have an advantage in low-visibility situations over normal folks, they're more blind than usual if there's a lot of noise nearby.
City of Steam fashions a pressurized skill tree
Many MMOs have skill or talent trees, but when you're doing a steampunk game, why not take a bland staple of the genre and turn it into something awesome? That's what City of Steam's Lead Designer Dave Winking is promoting when he shows off the team's ideas for turning the mundane into the fantastical. After taking feedback from previous generic builds, City of Steam's dev team revamped the skill tree's visuals and mechanics to entice a "whoa!" out of its players. The concept is that the tree is now a maze of pipes, boilers, and valves. Players will build up "pressure" over time, pressure that can be vented into different pipes. The more pressure in a pipe, the higher a skill goes, and once a skill hits 100% pressure, it's usable by the player. Winking says that players have more options than just filling up a pipe; they can also over-pressurize pipes to achieve higher skill ranks and take multiple paths to achieve better skills. There's even a mystery skill that Winking says will "make your character explode into pieces of bread with cat's heads stuck through them." Of course, he then says he's probably teasing about the last thing.
LotRO dev diary details the Instance Finder
In today's Lord of the Rings Online developer diary, game systems engineer Leo "Ransroth" Zelevinsky takes some time to provide players with information on the Instance Finder coming with Update 5. In a nutshell, it works like this: The tool exists in order to allow players to easily find instance parties and to reward them for participating in random content. Joining and completing an instance or skirmish using the Instance Finder, which can be done with or without an existing fellowship, will grant players instance currency, which can then be redeemed for spiffy loot. For the full details on how the Instance Finder works, head on over to the official dev blog.
Funcom details Secret World Templar mission [Updated]
Templar Week continues at Funcom, and this time the firm is teasing fans of The Secret World with bits and pieces of the game's factional missions and mythology. Today we get a look at a rogue agent mission within what is ostensibly the world's oldest (and definitely its most well-known) secret society. Funcom's dev diary paints the Templars as an uncompromising bunch, and players interested in joining the ranks of these ancient smiters of evil will travel to London, where they'll "feel the weight of thousands of years of history in the great arches of Temple Hall." They'll also be chasing a defector across the globe and even into some sort of alternate hell dimension, and you can read all about that and more at MMORPG.com. [Update: PC Gamer's got a preview of bunch of spooky TSW monsters too!]
Massively Exclusive: Aion mentoring guide
Aion's 2.5 patch is on final approach, and in fact the new content and game systems made a smooth landing on NCsoft's test server just last week. One of those new systems allows high-level players to mentor their low-level counterparts, and today Massively has teamed with NCsoft to present you with an exclusive guide to the new functionality. In a nutshell, low-level players will receive XP and unrestricted loot drops while the high-level mentor earns token rewards that go toward the purchase of high-end gear. One of the complaints consistently leveled against Aion over the first two years of its North American life has centered on the game's steep leveling curve. When coupled with the new quests introduced in previous updates, the mentoring system looks to provide a quick and easy path to the cap for young Daevas as well as an excuse for Aion geezers to wax nostalgic about how much harder it was way back when. Join us after the cut for the skinny on Aion's mentoring mechanics.
Earthrise dev diary highlights West Horizon lore
Ready for more sci-fi lore, courtesy of the Earthrise dev team? If so, head over to MPOGD.com and check out the latest journal entry for the sci-fi MMORPG. Like the previous two installments, the piece focuses on the history of a particular location in the world of Enterra, and this time around that location is the West Horizon. The West Horizon is a name given to a section of inhospitable coastline by the region's original settlers. The area was home to various strains of mutant wildlife as well as toxic chemicals washed ashore by ocean currents. Over time, the pioneers terraformed West Horizon and eventually all of the nearby Sal Vitas Valley. The tranquility didn't last long however, as West Horizon soon came to host a Continoma-sponsored compound built to house the human test subjects from a secret government project. West Horizon also features a mysterious sect alternately referred to as the Alpha Principle and the Sisterhood (due to having exclusively female members). This secretive group reportedly believes that humanity must purge itself of all physical and mental taints, and has achieved a kind of immortality via a scientific process known as Crystomatrix. Check out the rest of the lore-centric details at MPOGD.com, and don't forget our previous Earthrise coverage that you may have missed.
Earthrise devs detail The Arcology
MPOGD is back with another Earthrise developer journal, focused again on the sci-fi sandbox's seemingly substantial reservoir of lore and backstory. This time around, readers are treated to a brief history of The Arcology, a terraforming project begun by Continoma (one of Earthrise's major factions) at a point prior to the game's timeline. As gamers log into the world of Enterra for the first time, they'll discover that The Arcology now lies ruined and overrun with mutants and other unsavory predators looking to take a bite out of unwary clones and their allies. The research compound, located in the northern Atlas mountains, originally hosted a large variety of plants, animals, and organisms from the far corners of Enterra prior to its destruction in a cataclysmic event known colloquially as the "Backlash." Read all the grisly details over at MPOGD, and also be on the lookout for a new interview with the Masthead dev team coming soon, exclusively on Massively.
Earthrise devs detail Autonomy
'Tis the season for Earthrise dev diaries, apparently, as MPOGD.com has surfaced with yet another one from the increasingly vocal developers at Masthead Studios. This time around, the focus is on the sci-fi sandbox game's lore as opposed to its skills and equipment, and the new piece delves deep into the who, what, when, where, and how of a place called Autonomy. This strangely-named section of Enterra functions as a sort of smuggler's haven, or as the article puts it, "a place of crime and corruption where castaways rot in their own sins." At first blush, it sounds a bit like a darker, danker Mos Eisley or Nar Shaddaa, albeit it with a mutant-infested penal colony known as The Nest lending a bit more dread to the general atmosphere. Check out the original article as well as our gallery below. %Gallery-48760%
Earthrise character build brings the pain
Things are starting to pick up on the Earthrise news front, and thank goodness. We gamers are a fickle and impatient bunch, and extended time out of the spotlight invariably brings cries of "vaporware!" and the like. Happily, Masthead Studios has begun to release more details regarding its upcoming sci-fi sandbox, including interviews, screenshots, and dev diaries. The latest diary appears courtesy of German fansite OnlineWelten and features the third in a series of character build articles designed to highlight aspects of the game's combat and equipment systems. Moving on from last week's featured avatar, a ranged specialist named Tommie, the Earthrise devs have unveiled Freddy, who looks to be Enterra's answer to the traditional tank archetype -- albeit with a hefty dose of offensive capability thanks to the game's use of skills over classes. The dev diary goes into great detail regarding Freddy's skill build and also drops a few hints about his equipment (which includes the Translunex Corporation's Agony flamethrower as well as power armor). "He can lay waste to a carefully planned team build and as such, is a primary target... Freddy is one of the most powerful builds in Earthrise," says the article.
Earthrise dev diary details character builds
Bulgaria-based Masthead Studios, the developers behind the upcoming Earthrise sci-fi sandbox, have checked in with German fansite OnlineWelten for the second in a series of dev journals designed to shed more light on the enigmatic title. This week's piece focuses on character builds and details an avatar named Tommie who provides a jumping-off point for examining a few of the skill and gear options available to residents of Enterra. Tommie uses a combination of power armor and speed armor (Nova and Quicksilver, respectively), highlighting the ability to mix and match equipment bonuses in Earthrise. The character also uses a combination of weapon types including a long-range sniper rifle and short-range blades for melee encounters. The article also specifies a number of attack and buff abilities, though the Masthead team takes pains to elaborate on its desire to keep buffs in check. "We want to make sure that everyone knows that in Earthrise, buffs have very, very low durations and if you imagine having 10 of them at the same time -- well, this could prove quite difficult," says the article. Stealth on over to the full article for more details, including snippets regarding combat medic, assault, and concentration skills.
Atlantica Online dev diary hints at forthcoming features
NDoors Interactive is pleased to announce new features coming to their Atlantica Online free-to-play fantasy MMORPG later this year in their latest dev diary. The update talks about everything from new security measures to new outfits, as well as the winning Mercenary design from an earlier contest. Check out all the details after the cut.
A sneak peek at Atlantica Online's new class and dungeon
It's time for this newest installment of NDoors Interactive's bi-weekly developer journal here at Massively. We've covered so much already, but now we're excited to see some news of a shiny new class, called the Druid Mercenary, and the Grand Canyon Dungeon. Here's what they had to say: Atlantica Online is proud to present our newest addition to our growing list of mercenaries, the Druid. In our next patch, players who have reached level 100 will be able to begin the recruitment quest for this axe wielding mercenary.
Atlantica Online dev journal: Thanksgiving festivities
It's time for this newest installment of NDoors Interactive's biweekly developer journal here at Massively. We've already covered the Stimulus Package event and the game's one-year anniversary, so now we turn to the upcoming Thanksgiving event. Here's what they had to say: Thanksgiving time in Atlantica Online has never been so festive, as we are introducing two new in-game event items this year. Players will be introduced to an NPC who will offer them a special Thanksgiving quest. The rewards for fulfilling that quest are new additions to your formation, as well as a new clothing item for your avatar.
Atlantica Online dev journal: The Stimulus Package Event
The good folks at NDoors Interactive have begun a new bi-weekly Atlantica Online developer article here at Massively where they'll showcase the latest and greatest news they'd like to feature to the Massively readers. This week, it's all about a new event where the prize is a snazzy set of in-game wings as teased in the header image, and shown in its entirety with another exclusive image after the jump. Here's what they have to say about the event, the wings and their game:NDoors Interactive Inc. currently has an exciting opportunity for players to join the highly acclaimed MMO, Atlantica Online with their newly launched Stimulus Package Event. Atlantica Online delivers an RPG style battle system and a lush world that incorporates characters that players might find familiar, such as, Caesar, Charlie Chaplin, Beowulf, and many more. However, instead of controlling just one character, players have the opportunity to lead a party of nine unique mercenaries into battle, such as, the inventor, Da Vinci; the pirate, Anne Bonny; the minstrel, Paganini; the Spartan, Leonidas; and many more!The Stimulus Package Event is an opportunity for players to try out the game and have a chance to win 500 Gcoins by simply referring friends while exploring the world of Atlantica. As a special prize, the individual who has the most referred invites will receive a special item, the Blessed Argos' Wings. The next top five players with the most qualified referred invites will each receive normal Argos' Wings.
Fallen Earth dev journal: Character builds
Although classless advancement in Fallen Earth gives players more freedom to build the characters they want and level with skills of their choice, learning how to navigate a wide-open system can be a bit daunting for even the most experienced players. With a little help from the dev team and some crib note suggestions, players can learn how to make the most of the classless advancement system.In Fallen Earth, characters may advance in rank and abilities regardless of their class or faction, and they can do so steadily. For each rank a character gains, players earn 2 AP (20 AP per level). Some APs can also be gained by completing missions, and all APs are spent however the player desires. The resulting system allows players to raise the skills and stats they think are most important for the character they play.
Earthrise spotlights the Industrial Area in recent dev diary
Of the upcoming post-apocalyptic MMOs, Earthrise boasts a feature that sets it apart from the others: more technology. This is evident in the screenshots we've seen and the interviews we've done regarding this Masthead Studios title. In a recent dev journal at MMORPG.com, the team explains the rise and fall the great nanofactories in the game's lore, and sets the stage for your heroic character to step in and help reclaim the Industrial Area."Sadly, Coordinator Jared and his men were great scientists, but poor diplomats. They found the worst kind of economical ally in the face of the Syndicate, who forced them into signing a beguiling contract relinquishing control over the industrial production and the operation of the installations of the Collective. In a matter of weeks, the shady elements of the Syndicate teemed in the Industrial Area, taking "temporary control due to terms of agreement" over the immense industrial plants. The Tech Collective was forced to watch helplessly while the bandits overstretched the production capabilities of the Industrial Area, ending in fiery destruction."Check out the complete dev diary for more of the intriguing story.
