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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.
EVE Online gives a report card to Retribution ships
"The introduction of new ships always sparks considerable initial interest and Retribution was no exception in that regard," CCP Recurve wrote in a new EVE Online dev post today. "Hundreds of billions were spent on blueprints and manufactured ships." The article analyzes the popularity between the five new ships (one mining frigate and four destroyers), noting that the Algos and Corax have proven to be more desirable in PvP. The Venture both sold more blueprints and was destroyed more than the others since the expansion launched, although the mining frigate did account for a sharp uptick in harvested gas overall. If breaking down stats and crunching all sorts of interstellar numbers are your thing, then check out the post for the nitty-gritty details on these ships' performances.
Darkfall's Tasos addresses player feedback
Players often complain that development teams rarely address their feedback, or even listen at all. Aventurine's Tasos does both in a lengthy post over on the official Darkfall forums. He touches on a number of planned improvements for the PvP-focused fantasy MMORPG, including faster skill progression, diminishing stat returns, and improvements to the game's PvE options. "We agree that skill progression needs to be made more interesting, that special quests need to be introduced; unique mobs, unique items and many of your suggestions in this area are being looked at already. Furthermore as we mentioned, quests and dungeons are being revamped, the entire system is being made as to connect the dots and give more meaning to adventuring in the game," Tasos says. Check out the post and as well as player response at the Darkfall official forums.
Rumor: Server merge may be in the cards for Vanguard
Server merges are a fairly touchy subject with just about any MMO community. For some, they're a sign that a company is putting a game on life support. For others, it is viewed as a way for a company to pool resources and effort in maintaining a smaller server structure so they can redistribute funds and manpower into improving the game. In either case, it still beats having one's favorite MMO shut down altogether. That's why we were interested to note a somewhat cryptic post on the official Vanguard forums made by Salim "Silius" Grant, the game's Lead Developer. While he doesn't state that he is definitely talking about server merges, the thread is named "the big merger" and merges are the primary topic in the thread. The post in question reads: "[w]e are still working out the details on this. We are finalizing the process and running it through QA while working on the marketing side so we can get the word out to people and a good bit of forewarning. Hopefully we can get the official word out soon. Sorry for the lack of updates but it really has just been constant QA of the process so we can have as few bugs as possible once this occurs. This combined with getting the other content releases out the door has made things rather hectic around here." We contacted Sony Online Entertainment for clarification, but were told that there are currently no plans on the horizon for server merges in Vanguard. What precisely Grant could have been talking about in his forum posting if this is the case is something we're going to have to wait and see.
