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The Mog Log: Final Fantasy XIV's 2.3 primer
Tomorrow, patch 2.3 will descend upon Final Fantasy XIV like a flight of angels. If you can't tell, I'm pretty excited. While I was by and large disappointed with 2.2, 2.3 is adding a lot of features I want, undoing some of the dumb features added in 2.2, and adding in a few more features that I didn't realize I wanted before but now know are immensely important to me. Kind of like the Challenge Log, except more. Unfortunately, the fact that it's landing tomorrow as of the time you're reading this means I have not yet actually played this patch. But I can still put a guide of some preliminaries together so that you can at least know what you're doing even if you haven't necessarily examined the patch notes with a fine-toothed comb just yet. So let's dive into it. When the patch goes live tomorrow, pick your destination, and go to it.
The Nexus Telegraph: The first week in WildStar
Full launch for WildStar has come and gone, the servers have been up and running for a week, and I've been hacking away at various enemies of the Dominion like a good soldier. As I write this, my main is 23, although I'd probably be a fair bit higher by now if I hadn't stopped quite so many times for roleplaying and to decorate my house. (Not too much of that, though, I need to afford that spacious house once I get to a valid level.) It's safe to say that I'm enjoying the game a whole lot. Server loads seem to have largely stabilized, at least from my end, and the fullness of time has given me more opportunities to run more stuff and really enjoy a wider variety of what's in the game. There's some good stuff, some annoying stuff, and some things that kind of cut both ways at the same time. So let's just dive in, shall we?
EverQuest II's dino-tastic expansion pack is still in the works
EverQuest II folks, fret not, for SOE has not abandoned you for shiny new sandboxes. The recent producer's letter mentions several projects that the team is working hard on, the biggest of which is the upcoming unnamed expansion pack. "We are working on a variety of themes again, one of them we have hinted at with dinosaur-like creatures," the letter teases. SOE goes on to say that expansion previews will be happening soon, and come June there will be a "Gear Up, Level Up" promotion aimed at preparing the playerbase for the release. All players will receive bonuses that month, although All Access players will get the better end of it. It also looks as though there will be an expansion discount for those who pre-order in June. The team is also working to improve its matchmaking code, add a new Tunaria PvP warzone, create a Fabled Deathtoll dungeon zone, and toss in dressable NPC mannequins for housing.
WildStar raid dev: 'Our raids are the best blend of challenging and fun'
Do you wonder what it takes to make the toughest PvE content in an MMO? Then you'll want to virtually meet WildStar Dungeon and Raid Lead Designer Brett Scheinert, who stars in a new "A Moment in the Life" video talking about his job. "The biggest thing to be excited about with our raids is that they're the best blend I've seen between being challenging and fun," Scheinert claims. He goes on in the video to talk about his past experience in the industry and how he thinks it's really cool to see his ideas become reality. The video is a three-minute interview with several glimpses into WildStar's raids, although we suspect that Scheinert was using GM codes to solo them. You can give it a watch after the jump.
Could WoW have an expansion without raiding?
I have raided in World of Warcraft since the beginning. Raiding has always been a big part of why I play the game. If not the reason I play, certainly a reason. So when I was sitting up last night and it occurred to me that I've never gone an entire expansion without raiding, I didn't initially think anything of it -- to me, raiding is what you do in WoW. But then I started really thinking about it. Because lots of people don't raid. Before the rise of LFR and flex, a lot of players -- the majority of players, really -- never set foot in a raid at all. They had 5-mans, and that was basically it for group content for them outside of PvP. So I started asking myself if it would be possible to release an expansion with little to no raiding content at all. Would players accept it? It's a cliche (and an overused one among the community) that Blizzard didn't do this or that 'because it would cost us a raid tier' but let's really consider -- what if we could have the expansion next month, but it wouldn't have any raids? Would that be an expansion people would be willing to play? One of the reasons I consider this a more controversial question that it would have been at the end of Wrath is because now, raiding is far, far more accessible than it was even then. With the advent of LFR and the recent development of flexible raiding, it's never been easier to raid than it is. While Warlords of Draenor is changing the raid game, those changes will only make mythic raiding in any way more restrictive -- the rest of raiding will remain very accessible.
Blizzard reviews World of Warcraft raiding history
A new raiding game will be coming to World of Warcraft with this fall's Warlords of Draenor, and as part of this transition Blizzard is penning a series of dev blogs looking at the past and future of raiding design. The first one is up on the site, covering everything from launch through Wrath of the Lich King. "In many ways, that was the most challenging aspect of classic WoW raiding: the logistics of assembling and maintaining a sufficient roster with sufficient gear," the studio posted. Blizzard said that reducing the maximum size of raids in The Burning Crusade had two objectives: to improve the gameplay experience for members of raid groups and to make raiding more accessible in terms of requirements. But it was Wrath of the Lich King's many patches that really shaped the raiding scene into what it's become today, the studio said.
What's going wrong with tanking in five player content?
Tanking is not always easy, mind you. But tanking can be an incredible amount of fun, and I hope that it'll make a real comeback in terms of popularity when Warlords of Draenor goes live. Right now, I feel like a few problems really keep tanking from being as universally popular as it could be. Difficult to get starting gear - For most people, it's hard to get started as a tank. Gearing is an issue, because some tanks (DKs, warriors and paladins) need specific tanking gear, while even the leather tanks still generally use different stats to some degree, different enchants, different weapons for tanking than DPS or (especially) healing. This is a problem the gearing changes in Warlords should really help with. Where can you learn it? - Tanking requires a different skill set from DPS or healing. While proving grounds exist, they don't really teach the most important part of being a tank - reacting to other players. It can be hard as a new tank to walk into a dungeon having never done it before. That leads into the third difficulty of picking up tanking. Dungeons don't provide any sort of experience right now - With the wildly disparate gear levels on people running random dungeons, you can have a tank in 450 gear trying to hold aggro off of players in 580 gear. While it can be nice to be the tank in 580 gear, even you might have trouble when groups don't cooperate, run ahead of you, pull mobs half way across the zone, and generally simply refuse to act like any kind of groups at all. This is something I'm hoping the gear squish and ten levels will do away with - we'll all basically be on the same page when Warlords dungeons are being run. While there are still a lot of places where tanking is both fun and rewarding - raiding (especially in a guild group, be it heroic, normal or flex), challenge modes, even in LFD or LFR if you get lucky - I do think it can be a lot to ask a new tank (whether or not she or he is a new player or just new to the role) to grow a thick skin fast enough to deal with the toxicity possible in the current random queue environment. Which is a real shame, because tanking is fun - it can be stressful, and oftentimes groups have an expectation of a tank doing the work of knowing how every fight works for them, but that's not always a negative.
The Mog Log: More time in Final Fantasy XIV's 2.2
I was pressed for time when Final Fantasy XIV patched at just the wrong time. I'm on a schedule, you know. My first impressions of the patch were far less comprehensive than I would have liked, although I did try to fill in the blanks as best I could down in the comments. But that was two weeks ago, and you doubtlessly expected that by now I would have gotten through the rest of the patch for more impressions. Honestly, I could probably spend quite a bit of time talking about all the various aspects of the game altered by this particular patch, but I'd prefer to narrow my focus slightly and zoom in on the most immediately relevant bits. So let's talk a little bit more about 2.2. Let's talk about the dungeons I didn't cover last time, the quest lines, the big battles (sometimes on a bridge), and a couple of problematic elements that have cropped up.
Hitpoint's #Dungeon to start building rooms from tweets on July 4
#Dungeon, the roguelike that will build labyrinths by converting tweets into monster-filled chambers, will start its social media adventure on July 4 on PC, Mac and Android. The date was tweeted on the game's official Twitter account, paired with hashtags that make us wonder what sort of room a release date tweet would make. If you're a little too eager to wait that long, developer Hitpoint's recent post to Indie DB notes that a closed alpha should be "happening soon." Further details will be made available on the #Dungeon Twitter account, so keep an eye on that if you're dying to know what a series of #swag tweets will build. Considering #Dungeon is slated for July 4, we're pretty curious about what the #Murcia sections will look like, too. [Image: Hitpoint Games]
See players take down WildStar's Forgemaster Trogun
If there's one thing that MMOs have taught us, it's that blacksmiths are eternally on the verge of snapping and becoming supervillains. It was true in many fantasy titles, and it's true in WildStar, where Forgemaster Trogun dominates as the final boss of the Ruins of Kel Voreth dungeon. Bog Otter survived his encounter with Trogun in the beta to bring us back a 13-minute boss fight full of tricky telegraphs, giant hammers, and oh so much fire. Give it a watch after the jump and see if you can't figure out a strategy or two that might work when you come up against this dastardly fiend in the live game.
The Mog Log: A couple of days in Final Fantasy XIV's patch 2.2
After a couple of weeks of a break from Final Fantasy XIV, I happily patched up and got back into the mix on Thursday evening. Unfortunately, I'm writing this up on Sunday morning, and honestly there's too much for me to have a firm grasp upon the entirety of it after three days. Due to schedule weirdness, I haven't even finished my usual dungeon diving. There's a whole lot to see, and I've been able to get only a top-level overview. That having been said, I've assembled a nice new outfit via Glamours, I've tired the most brand-spanking-new dungeon, I've started in on questing, and I've submitted myself to challenges. I don't think I love this patch quite as much as its predecessor, partly since this one is more heavily focused upon the endgame portion I'm not fond of, but there's still a lot of great stuff buried in there and plenty of elements to love.
Final Fantasy XIV releases the first half of patch notes for 2.2
Final Fantasy XIV is dropping its next major patch on March 27th. Are you ready? Have you been relentlessly following news on the coming content? Then you'll want to get an eyeful of the first half of the patch notes for patch 2.2. Yes, it's only the first half. And it still outlines a number of huge changes, not the least of which are the addition of a new primal fight, three new dungeons, more main story quests, and two new beast tribe reputations. Philosophy tomestones are no longer being distributed -- everything that used to award Philosophy will now award Mythology, with Allagan tomestones of Soldiery taking Mythology's place as the limited-per-week currency. Existing dungeons Amdapor Keep and Pharos Sirius have both been toned down, as well, with the former easing up boss fights and the latter reducing the challenge of both bosses and enemy groups. There are also details on the new Venture system, new items available from the Grand Companies, and plenty more to be seen even in this first (partial) list of changes.
Exploring WildStar's endgame raids and dungeons
For those who like endgame PvE content, Carbine's upcoming MMO WildStar is hoping provide not just lots to consume but a variety of ways to consume it. I'm no longer the type of gamer who has to race to max level, and fortunately for me, WildStar plans to give us that "raid feeling" even while we're leveling via adventures and shiphand missions and world bosses and even public quests. But there's much more to PvE than that. At last week's press event, I sat down with Lead Combat Designer Chris Lynch and Lead Dungeons and Raids Designer Brett Scheinert to talk about endgame and PvE in the next big themepark.
Final Fantasy XIV previews the new dungeons of patch 2.2
If you've been playing Final Fantasy XIV since launch, odds are good that you've seen what remains of the Amdapori civilization -- a dungeon crawling with cultists. The game's next major patch is going into more detail than that, though, giving players the opportunity to explore the new Amdapori Township dungeon and see what rank creatures have grown to fruit in the decaying town. This new dungeon is accompanied by two new hard modes to provide a triumvirate of options which have just gotten an official preview. The hard mode of Brayflox's Longstop sees players battling the Goblin Illuminati to protect a secret recipe pilfered by the eponymous Brayflox, while Haltali's hard mode pits you against denizens in the refurbished and reclaimed training grounds. All three dungeons require a minimum item level of 55 for challengers, with the promise of rewards far greater than those of the current max-level dungeons. Take a look at the full preview for more lore and unlock requirements.
Using the Dungeon Finder to level in a flash
If you're exhausted of leveling through the same old zones, it may be time to head to the Dungeon Finder for some of World of Warcraft's speediest leveling. How speedy are we talking about? Last night I spent about an hour with a just level 15 -- the minimum level for dungeons -- priest dungeon running and walked away with five levels and sacks full of loot. Admittedly, I had a stock of rested XP and a few heirlooms, but even without either, you should find dungeon leveling to be pretty zippy -- and a nice change of pace from the daily questing grind. The downside? While you're here, you'll be playing in a group of five -- typically a tank, a healer, and three DPSers -- and you'll need to learn how to play well in a group, which can be a bit different than playing solo. Though dungeons -- especially low level dungeons -- are easier than ever, there are some tips that will help ease your way. So let's take a look at what you need to hit the dungeons so you're ready to take advantage of that sweet, sweet Dungeon Finder XP.
The Daily Grind: What's your ideal small group size for instances?
I love hanging out with friends in-game, especially when we get enough of us on to go run a dungeon or two. However, I've noticed that the standard small group size in MMOs isn't exactly "standard;" it fluctuates from four to six depending on the game in queston. Four has the benefit of assembling a group easier and faster, although it perhaps makes it more difficult to slot all of the needed roles. On the other hand, six might be too many depending on how few folks log in that evening. But I'm not going to Goldilocks you folks by saying that five is "just right." The truth is, I don't know what I prefer in a small group size. Flexibility, I guess. So what's your ideal small group size for instances? Would you be open to MMOs boasting, say, a three-person or seven-person small group? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Why Proving Ground gating on queued heroics is a good thing
It's certainly been a controversial move. Lead Encounter Designer Ion "Watcher" Hazzikostas took to the forums recently to clarify some hastily translated interviews he did with fansites during last week's press event. There are several key things in Watcher's post that it seems people are missing, so let's just sum it up here. Proving Ground Silver will be required for solo queue heroic dungeons Group queue heroic dungeons will have no Proving Ground requirement Proving Grounds will be updated to "further refine balance and mechanics" Let's begin at the end. Read that last point, and then read it again for good measure. Yes, Proving Grounds have some issues at the moment, as far as balance goes. A lot of those issues actually relate to how well classes downscale with gear, how dependent they are on certain levels of certain stats. For example, let's look at fire mages. Fire mages scale really well with gear, as do their Arcane brothers and sisters. Take a fire mage and scale it right down to 463, and you'll have a harder time doing a silver Proving Ground than a class that scales down really well. I did a little experiment as part of my research for this article. In an attempt to see how bad getting a Silver could be, I took a fire mage to the proving grounds. Not a new 90, but an unplayed one. My gear was woeful. I managed, with this gear, not at the hit cap, not even at ilvl 463 with downscaling, to reach wave 4 of Silver. Bronze took five tries.
WildStar's Adventures skew toward the unusual
Did you read Eliot's first-hand tour of WildStar's Adventure content and find yourself wanting to know more? Carbine Studios posted an excellent follow-up today giving players the full scoop on this unique group content. Adventures aren't to be confused with WildStar's dungeons and Shiphand missions, a point the studio wants to make clear. Instead of being a linear challenge, Adventures are simulated scenarios that offer a "choose your own adventure" tour through an open zone, throwing in options for specific paths and even a MOBA-like battle. These also have demphasized traditional combat (although it's still present) and created "unusual" encounters instead. There will be six Adventures at launch that will come in both normal and veteran modes, with the first one opening up at level 15. Carbine said that there will be a wide variety of loot for Adventure seekers, including housing items, recipes, and gear. Veteran-mode Adventures are also presented as a good method of gearing up for raids.
Pantheon brings back the fun of a corpse run
Is it slightly disturbing that the MMO community has integrated and accepted the phrase "corpse run" without batting an eye at this point? Corpse runs are very much on the mind of Brad McQuaid, who says that Pantheon will be bringing them back as a "consequence of death" in the game world. When a player dies in Pantheon, he or she will have the option to wait for a resurrection or to be reborn without all of that character's gear and weapons. In either event, getting back to one's corpse is of utmost importance because it will not only restore lost gear, but some of the experience lost on death as well. Oh yes, Pantheon will have XP loss on death. Other players can help out with resurrection or retrieval spells, or players may beseech their deity for help at a cost. In non-morbid news, Pantheon posted information and lore on the Sunken Sanctum, a marshland ruins that will be a formidable dungeon. [Thanks to Boinya for the tip!]
Upcoming roguelike #Dungeon generates dungeons from tweets
#Dungeon is an upcoming roguelike with a unique twist: rather than procedurally generating its own content, the game is tied to the @HashtagDungeon Twitter account, which tweets out the code that becomes a level. Players can also get in on the creative process by tweeting with the right syntax and including the #HashtagDungeon uh ... hashtag. It's a hashtag of a hashtag's hashtag! Hashtag-ception! BWAHHH. Developer Kieran Hicks told Pocket Gamer that the game will also feature other social tie-ins, like being able to leave messages for other players to see. Do you want to be honest and helpful or a trolling griefer? Either way will work. There will also be a more standard level editor, as well as a leaderboard for players to rank each other's created levels. #Dungeon isn't quite ready to go exploring the labyrinth of Twitter just yet, but is expected this summer. [Image: Kieran Hicks/Sean Oxspring]
