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Warhammer Online streamlines trial transition
It's been a while since Warhammer Online moved to an unlimited free trial, allowing players to experience the Tier 1 game without any time restrictions. It seems to have been a pretty good move for the game, and they're obviously happy enough with how it's been going to sweeten the deal for trial players. Previously, players would have to purchase a full copy of the game to continue with their adventures; now, they just need to start up a monthly subscription. The first month will be billed and the player's account will immediately be unlocked for the entire game. Of course, it's not quite the same as buying an official copy -- you don't get the extra free month of gameplay, nor any of the actual peripherals in the box. But it's a good step to making Warhammer Online more accessible for players who enjoy the trial and want to jump right in. Considering that there's been recent positive talk about both the reaction to the unlimited trial and the possibilities of an expansion, here's hoping that the easier barrier to entry is a step toward revitalizing the game.
BioWare talks Warhammer Online's forthcoming expansions
In a recent GDC 2010 interview with UGO, BioWare's Dr. Ray Muzyka said of Warhammer Online, "Right now it's [a] really profitable business unit within my group." Muzyka went on to say they've actually seen more people come into the game since enacting the free-to-play model on the game's earlier levels, and that he personally felt they were working. In fact, by the sounds of it, Warhammer Online is due for some interesting announcements in the future. Another of Muzyka's comments on the title was, "We have new content planned and all kinds of cool expansions for it." We don't know how much more clear cut a message can be than that. And hey, it's good news! We're looking forward to our playable Skaven and Lizardmen, Mythic and BioWare.
Need for Speed World releases new art and trailer
Need for Speed World is the upcoming MMO from EA games, and while things on that front have been fairly quiet, we have a feeling that's about to change. This morning EA released a new game trailer, a handful of screenshots, and box art, and so far we like what we see. The trailer is full of pretty graphics, fast cars, and destruction of public property -- what's not to love? (We particularly enjoyed the fleet of cars blowing past a 45 MPH sign at considerably more than 45 MPH.) You can work with or against other players, racing as a team or singly, and the game also promises "epic online pursuits," depicting a car chase with police cars that are presumably NPCs. Of course, a game is much more than looks -- in the end, it all comes down to how well it's is done. Follow along after the jump for a peek at the trailer. Then, if you're interested in a firsthand look, Need for Speed World is accepting beta applications now, so head over to the official site to try it out for yourself. %Gallery-88339%
The Digital Continuum: Catching that All Points Bulletin fever
I knew it would happen. GDC 2010 came and went, leaving behind a brand new trial of All Points Bulletin information that's making me want to play it more than ever before. I've written about the game a few times before, each instance knowing a little bit more about the title. This year's GDC brought us hands-on reports, interviews, the news of a North American beta and even a nine minute video presentation via shakeycam. Now my knowledge feels mostly complete and aside from actually playing the game I've got a pretty good idea of why it's potentially going to be something no videogame fan -- let alone MMO fan -- will want to miss. So, let me share a few of them with you.
All Points Bulletin beta kicks off
It's been a while since beta sign-ups opened late last year, but All Points Bulletin is finally moving into closed beta, it would seem. Several people are receiving emails welcoming them into Realtime Worlds' persistent online world that's a cross between GTA and the ultimate set of customization tools for characters, cars and music seen, well, probably ever. Between video podcasts, interviews here on Massively and plenty of wishful thinking, it's been a considerably long wait. Our best guess is that the initial wave of invites is a fairly low number, as it usually is, so don't feel too distraught if you weren't invited. These things have a way of expanding over time, after all.
APB video podcast Ep. 17 talks more music creator and player
The last All Points Bulletin video podcast featured a pretty in-depth look at the music creator coming with the game, but afterwords the community still had several questions. So this week, community guy extraordinaire Chris Collins presents viewers with some more answers on the music creator from the game's audio lead, Roland Peddie. Plus, we get an in-game example of how the music player functions when driving or walking around San Paro. Between creating music and playing whatever you like while cruising around the city, we suspect All Points Bulletin will garner quite the creative following, and we're very excited to hear and see what comes of the game. Next week, we should be getting the final part of this "music trilogy" of APB podcasts, complete with a community Q&A. Find the full video podcast after the break.
The Daily Grind: GDC10 predictions?
With GDC 2010 officially beginning tomorrow, March 9th, we'd like to hear your MMO predictions. And remember, the wilder the better. Although, if you've got some inside info, we're always happy to receive hints via our contact form. Here are some of our predictions, see if you can figure out the wild crazy ones: Red 5 Studios minimally reveals the name of their first title. BioWare attends, but Star Wars: The Old Republic maintains a low presence. Realtime Worlds will be there showing off something awesome about All Points Bulletin. This particular blogger will obsess over not attending and missing out on seeing the game again. Massively Editor Sera Brennan will be dared and subsequently sing a most heinously embarrassing song. She'll later regret these events, as the very performance of said song will delay, at minimum, five MMOs set to release sometime within the next 24 months. Think you can do better? We agree, but would like to see proof, mind you.
More woes with Warhammer Online's new weapons
It's a highly-anticipated feature, but it's been causing more than a few headaches for Warhammer Online's developers. We're speaking, of course, about the RvR weapons that were one of the large features of patch 1.3.4 and have been proving rather awkward in implementation. The short version is that when prices were lowered in a recent live change, there was a bit of an unintended rush of progression, which the developers stepped in as quickly as possible to fix. The problem arose with the people who had been progressing legitimately and wound up finding themselves denied their weapons and the corresponding achievements. The development team has posted a new item asking for players to petition the GMs in a specific fashion to resolve the issue, as well as giving some insight into what went wrong with the whole fix. In short, when they asked players to petition, they didn't ask for enough information the first time around. The statement includes an apology and an assurance that the matter will be quickly escalated for resolution. While it's been an unfortunate period of back and forth for Warhammer Online, hopefully the issue is finally resolved and players can begin enjoying their new battle-earned weaponry once again.
Warhammer Online tweaking their weapon prices
The problem with testing things in any MMO is that so much is contingent upon who decides to log in to the test servers and how much they're willing to play. Ultimately, for all we hate untested dungeons or mechanics or whatever, the only real test for them is to have them go live. Warhammer Online hasn't had too many problems with their most recent patch, but the exact pricing of the newly-introduced RvR weapons has been a bit of a sticky widget. So they've done the most responsible thing possible: they've gone ahead and tweaked the pricing right away. Low-Renown weapons are the most affected by the price cut, but every weapon has been given a nice drop in cost to make the more accessible. The full announcement goes into some detail about the philosophy behind it, no doubt part of the effort at increased transparency from the development team. Best of all, there's no delay in the changes -- they've already gone live and can be enjoyed by all players. So if you feared the long march in Warhammer Online for a decent weapon from RvR and for RvR, you've had a lucky day indeed.
The Daily Grind: Feeling jaded on MMOs?
Reading the comments around Massively, sometimes we wonder if any of our readers are feeling jaded with the current crop of MMOs. In fact, we often wonder if even the upcoming titles like All Points Bulletin, Final Fantasy XIV and Star Wars: The Old Republic are of any interest to many of you. And, if nothing out there is really doing it for you, we'd like to hear what would. Of course, we're far more interested in hearing what isn't appealing to you and why. It's an unpredictable world out there where games like Perpetuum look to meld open economy/PvP with giant robots in the future. So why wouldn't anyone elses' crazy MMO idea have a shot at taking root?
New All Points Bulletin community Q&A focuses on customization and grouping
If you're anything like us, All Points Bulletin is an MMO you're quite looking forward to playing and any information on the game is like the sweet nectar of life. That's why we'd like to point you towards this great community Q&A over on APB Evolved, a fansite easily worth checking out if you're interested in Realtime Worlds' crime-based MMO. The Q&A is brief and informative, covering topics like customization beyond character creation, group missions, raids and even whether or not All Points Bulletin has melee combat. You might find yourself surprised by the answer to that last one -- we know that we were. Keep on the lookout for more of these Q&As, as they're planned to be weekly.
Warhammer Online gets a new producer's letter
Hot on the heels of the 1.3.4 patch, we've received another letter from Warhammer Online's producer discussing the state of the game and its immediate future. Carrie Gouskos, who has apparently inherited the position formerly held by Bruce MacLean and Jeff Skalski, has taken the opportunity to share information of the coming updates to the game. It's also a chance for a new outline of how the team wishes to improve upon community relations, with the promise of more frequent news and updates along with early player involvement in the testing process. In addition for soliciting players for loading screen tips, the letter talks about what can be expected with the next two small patches for the game, 1.3.5 and 1.3.6. The former is slated to shift the core experience of cities and city sieges to an RvR experience, emphasizing PvP combat and with encounters balanced to shift based on population sizes. On the other hand, the latter is going to examine armor sets closely and try to provide a redesign for maximum player benefit. Warhammer Online fans can look forward to more about these features in the coming months, with any luck.
[Updated] WAR 1.3.4 patch coming soon, brings Scenario and City Siege enhancements plus more
Warhammer Online's 1.3.4 patch has gone live as of today is coming soon. The update includes a torrent of changes with a primary focus on streamlining Scenarios -- the game's beloved-yet-flawed open-ended PvE encounters easy-to-access PvP instances -- and City Sieges. These changes are aimed at pleasing the game's community, who've been giving plenty of feedback to Mythic. The original problem with Scenarios were a matter of player population. If you didn't have enough people to complete a 5 or 10-person start a Scenario, well, you were waiting in queue forever. Hopefully, the issue of achieving "critical mass" should all be in the past with the 1.3.4 patch. While new weapon rewards are being added to Scenarios, not everything is making the cut. Less popular Scenarios have been removed, although Mythic is promising that some will return in special weekend events. For an in-depth explanation of the Scenario changes, look no further than this awesome developer post. You can also find a shortlist of the various updates and improvements after the break. Or, if you prefer, you can find the full breakdown of patch 1.3.4 on Warhammer Online's official patch notes section. Update: Due to the 1.3.4 patch not going live as scheduled, we've updated the post to reflect as much. Additionally, we've corrected factual errors as well. Our apologies to anyone confused by the original post.
Development diary explains the Warhammer Online changes
The rebalancing of Warhammer Online's Scenarios has been an arduous process for both the players afraid of losing well-loved content and developers trying to narrow down the field to help everything achieve critical mass. After a fair dose of testing and evaluation, they've reached a point where they're comfortable letting development manager Mike Wyatt write up a development diary giving a clearer picture of what informed the rather sweeping changes to the game's structure. As Wyatt puts it, first of all, trimming the number of Scenarios consolidates the best-liked encounters and weeds out the less-popular versions. Second, a smaller number of Scenarios allows better balancing and tweaking of each, helping improve the overall experience. Lastly, the smaller number can have their rewards more easily brought in line, to avoid making one Scenario much more profitable than others. What follows is a listing of the Scenarios that will rotate in and out versus those that are constantly available, which seems a bit smaller than the last one we received. The diary makes no mention of population concerns, content loss, or the general community reaction (ranging from "meh" to "no"). Still, with an ambitious change we can only hope that Warhammer Online's revisions prove to be a good thing for the game as a whole.
Warhammer Online giving everyone a butcher's blessing
While the Night of Murder event has been pretty well received by the Warhammer Online crowd, there have been certain persistent issues with the event's mechanics. The staff extended the event slightly in order to try and ameliorate the problem, but it kept sticking around for some reason; one of those relentless bugs that avoids squishing no matter how resolutely you aim for it. The major sticking point? Butcher's Blessing, a substantial buff to both experience and renown accumulated. While not a game-breaking issue if unresolved, it was certainly obnoxious for anyone looking forward to the improved growth rates. As a result, the staff has apparently been all but swimming in tickets about the buff not applying or functioning correctly. So the development staff decided to go with the straightforward solution. For today and tomorrow, there will be a 30% buff to experience and renown gained for all characters, regardless of the blessing functioning or not functioning. That's a pretty substantial leap in gains, and it's high incentive for Warhammer Online players to hit the ground running. So go ahead, log in, and start enjoying the blessing of butchery on all of your characters.
Warhammer Online explains upcoming RvR weapons
It's always been a bit hard on Warhammer Online that up until now, RvR never netted you a viable weapon as a reward. There were reasons given, of course, but in order to get a decent weapon you had to take part in different activities. For a game where on of the major draws is PvP, it seems like a rather egregious oversight. Clearly, the developers ultimately agreed, hence the new Scenario rewards including RvR weapons in the upcoming patch 1.3.4. Item developer Sean Bosshardt put together a new developer diary to help explain the purchasing system, the philosophies in operation, and how the team dealt with balance concerns. The currency is balanced between Emblems and Insignias. Emblems are awarded for taking part in a scenario all along the leveling road; Insignias, on the other hand, are for the endgame and are restricted to players who have reached rank 40. They are also acquired from scenarios, as well as taking or defending a keep and the initial city public quest after attacking. The system will also apparently "unlock" higher levels of weaponry as the player purchases lower ranks, thus keeping a steady flow without skipping ahead. Warhammer Online players would do well to take a look at the full diary for more details, and get ready to start getting your due rewards for crushing skulls.
The Digital Continuum: 'Meh' to MMOs?
While the MMO genre appears to be growing at a decent pace (at least for Blizzard) there's still plenty of room for growth. World of Warcraft clones can attract only so many interested players and turning to classic niche designs such as the sandbox MMO ala Fallen Earth won't do anything to pique the interest of people who otherwise have no interest in the genre. So what will appeal to someone who has never felt a desire to play a game both massively and multiplayer?
Warhammer Online reveals new Scenario structure
People were not happy with the first version of Warhammer Online's plan to streamline the game's Scenarios to create a better structure. They were so not happy, in fact, that Mythic Entertainment decided it was better form to pull their original plans, wipe the slate clean, and start over with a clearer picture. And it seems to have worked, as Andy Belford has announced the revised plan for the scenarios as a whole. The result is a slightly larger list, but one with a bit more variety between tiers and a clearer picture of what the development team wanted to accomplish. As the post explains, the biggest concerns for the scenarios was that they feel different from tier to tier, that each one be unique and interesting in its own right, and that each one can achieve critical mass easily enough that neither faction feels completely helpless. Response to the announcement in the thread seems largely positive, with a wider range available at endgame and a careful re-distribution of what scenarios show up when. Warhammer Online players still have the opportunity to test this new environment on the test servers, and in all likelihood it will be going live soon enough, which represents a definite effort at compromise from the developers.
No candy hearts in Warhammer Online
There will be no Ewok Love Festival in Warhammer Online, and not simply due to the lack of Ewoks. If you're feeling a little fed up with everyone taking this time of year to put down whatever sharp implements they're holding in the spirit of giving out gift baskets and looking bashful? That's what the Night of Murder is all about. From February 9th to the 16th, the Night of Murder event will be taking place, wrapping the world in a haze of bloodlust and death, with the will of the elven god Kaela Mensha Khaine spurring on the fierce rage and love of battle on both sides of the conflict. Order and Chaos alike will be rewarded with the chance to mount the heads of their enemies on pikes, and certain players on both sides will periodically be marked for death as a part of the "festivities." Warhammer Online has never shied away from the darker aspects of its setting, and this event seems to still walk in that direction. Whatever your opinion on recent news and developments regarding the game, this version of the holiday is certainly a nice change from futzing about to get a heart-shaped wand.
Back to the drawing board for Warhammer Online's scenarios
When Warhammer Online promised to greatly streamline its scenario structure and remove several of its less popular ones with the upcoming patch 1.3.4, the response wasn't altogether positive. There was a definite concern that the game was trying to mitigate its difficult times by removing one of the most fun aspects it had, which sounds like a bad idea all around. However, the developers have clearly been paying attention -- after collecting additional feedback from players and receiving plenty of input from the test server, Andy Belford announced that the team was going "back to the whiteboard" for their plans on streamlining and removing scenarios. While Belford makes it clear that the ultimate goal is the same -- to remove the unused and disliked scenarios and move the lower-tier ones that are well-loved to greater accessibility -- he also says that the team was getting clear input that they'd gone too far in the wrong direction. No dates are set, but a revised scenario setup and mass stability test is planned to go live sometime next week, hopefully with a better lineup. Whether or not you're currently playing Warhammer Online, it's always good to see developers paying close attention to what the players want.
