endgame-content
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Peek into the future of Star Wars: The Old Republic's Legacy system
Yesterday, the Star Wars: The Old Republic guild summit gave players a good idea of what to expect from patch 1.2. But just hearing about things like the new Legacy features and upcoming Operations isn't enough for everyone, which is no doubt part of the reason the development team has put together a trailer for all of the new features. And while the new Operation, Flashpoint, and Warzone might be the most immediately interesting, there's a lot more on display in the trailer. In fact, the trailer shows off more of the cross-race options for new characters that can be unlocked via the Legacy system as well as the upcoming appearance modification and UI customization that the patch will add. There's also a preview of new minipets, the promise of new daily missions on Corellia, and several other tweaks to improve the game. But why take our word for it when you can jump on down and watch the video for yourself? [Source: BioWare press release]
Black Prophecy bringing high-end raids with its next major update
Endgame systems take time to develop properly and even more time to balance. But they're still an important element of any game, which is why Black Prophecy is bringing in a major new set of endgame mechanics with its next major content update. Episode 3: Rise of the Boids will feature new raid missions for large groups of players at the level cap, updating the PvE experience with what the developers promise will be "epic" experiences. Most of the details aren't yet known, as the announcement itself is fairly thin on hard facts, but players will be expected to form groups between eight to ten players in size. The encounters will focus heavily on group mechanics, and if prior experience is any indicator, they should reward players with significant increases in power when completed successfully. If you've gotten a bit tired of Black Prophecy's current PvE endgame, keep your eyes peeled for more details in the coming weeks.
SWTOR opens the Operations holonet page
Star Wars: The Old Republic does everything slightly different from other MMOs on the market. Of course, the principle difference is personal story, which is woven into every bit of gameplay. Even the traditional raids are slightly different. In SWTOR, these highly dangerous group encounters are called Operations -- large, story-driven encounters for either faction. Today, the BioWare development team released a new page on the official website highlighting this endgame content. The Eternity Vault Operation is presented through images of the opening cutscene, part of the first encounter, and the end boss, the Infernal One. The videos included had been presented previously during E3 and PAX East as the Eternity Vault trailer and walkthrough video. However, at the bottom of the page sits an image that does not fit the Eternity Vault encounter, followed by these cryptic words: "Even though the Eternity Vault is featured prominently here, it is not the only high-level Operation for you to experience in Star Wars: The Old Republic. More will be revealed..." As soon as we know exactly what those words mean, we will let you know in our continued coverage of this highly anticipated title.
Take a walk through the underground in City of Heroes
City of Heroes players are currently getting to enjoy all of the improvements within City of Heroes Freedom prior to the change in business models, but there's more in the update. For example, there's the newest Incarnate Trial, which sends players deep beneath Praetoria to investigate the areas into which Hamidon is creeping despite Cole's best efforts. But this is a collision of more than just Hamidon and Praetoria: Statesman, Desdemona, and the Incarnates of Primal Earth are tied up in a search for Praetoria's Vanessa DeVore. It can be a bit confusing at first glance, but the official site has just posted a guide to the lore and the process through the trial. Players will join up with Desdemona during the march through the tunnels, which culminates in a fight against one of the Seeds of Hamidon deep beneath the world's surface. Since players have the option to unlock the Alpha Slot or level the other Incarnate Slots via the trial, the guide should come in handy for players diving into the endgame options in the wake of Issue 21.
The Soapbox: Groupthink
Disclaimer: The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week's writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column. I can pinpoint exactly the moment that the luster of World of Warcraft's big old-game-changing expansion wore off for me. And it didn't take very long, just long enough for me to pick up a quest named It's Raid Night Every Night for my Dwarf. It was an unremarkable quest in every way, with the only really clever-ish bit being the title that slyly winks at players about one of the game's criticisms. Except that it's not exactly an unfair criticism. If you were at the level cap and wanted to keep playing the game with anything approaching forward motion, it was raid night every night. The joke left a bad taste in my mouth. Of course, this isn't an article about WoW except in passing and by association. It's about the temptation and tendency to have group content as the panacea, as the overwhelming focus of any new content. It's about why we get so much content that focuses on large group efforts, and why that isn't necessarily such a good thing -- for the players or even the developers.
RIFT's 1.3 update bringing new raid, free transfers, and more
With less than a week remaining until the biggest game update in RIFT's short history, Trion Worlds is upping the excitement ante with a new press release detailing the extensive features coming with Waves of Madness. The official unveiling will happen courtesy of a world event on June 22nd, and RIFT's 1.3 version update will subsequently include guild bank functionality, new item sets, new character accessories, new artifacts, free character transfers, and Hammerknell. This last is a 20-player raid that Trion says "will challenge even the most practiced players." The encounter boasts three wings, 10 bosses, and a gaggle of gross-out monsters designed to make life more fun for Telara's endgame players. If we've piqued your curiosity, have a look at the official website for all the details.
Scott Hartsman wraps up the sixth beta event for RIFT
With the open beta less than a week away, now is the time for Trion Worlds to step up and address the lingering issues RIFT has before it starts being available for general consumption. Fortunately for the development team, it's a task it's proven quite accomplished at, and the newest wrap-up for the sixth event proves that there's still a lot going on behind the scenes. Scott Hartsman takes the opportunity in the last pre-open beta wrap-up to discuss PvP in the open world, damage tuning, and the difference in raid sizes for endgame content. As Hartsman puts it, some of the anti-PvP measures put into place will be removed on PvP servers, meaning weaker guards around hubs and destroyable wardstones. Damage levels seem to be in a fairly good place across the board from the development perspective, but they're something that will be watched closely during the open event. Hartsman also touches more on the late-game rift content and what it will mean for the game's balance and the availability of content. RIFT players should take a gander at the full rundown and get ready for the open beta starting on Tuesday next week.
[Updated] SWTOR unveils the Taral V flashpoint
We've been told about Star Wars: The Old Republic flashpoints for over a year now, since the Developer Walkthrough, but no one outside of BioWare has seen, touched, or really known anything about them -- until today. Gamespot was lucky enough to land the first glimpse into one of the Republic flashpoints: Taral V. This 90-minute story arc within SWTOR was summed up in a subsequent interview with Jesse Sky, World Designer for SWTOR. A powerful Jedi is being held prisoner inside a nebula, and only one specific computer can navigate the maelstrom. Sky highlights the flashpoint like so: "Your mission is to infiltrate the hidden Imperial fortress on Taral V and recover this computer. Success will mean that the Republic fleet can launch an assault on the prison where you can, perhaps, rescue the Jedi prisoner." For more on the interview with Jesse Sky, you can run over to Gamespot or follow after the break right here on Massively for the full Taral V video. [Update: The official SWTOR website has added a new section for Flashpoints including four other instances besides Taral V. We also updated the video so it does not have the three minutes of nothing at the end.]
The Daily Grind: Why don't you like the endgame?
In many traditional console games, the game's storyline and main challenges climax long before the player hits the level cap. Not so in MMOs -- the level cap is, according to many players, the point at which the actual game begins. Whether you're racing up the 20 levels in Guild Wars or the 90 current levels in Final Fantasy XI, it's only after you've finished that rush that you can start focusing in on the true business of the game, usually featuring large groups running roughshod over challenging content. But while the endgame is loved by many, it is far from a universally adored element of the genre, as evidenced by the fact that City of Heroes has done quite well for itself for years even though it's lacked a structured endgame until recently. Even if you don't think the game stops until the level cap, what is it that you don't like about the endgame? Is it the disconnect between the later challenges and the meat of leveling? An increased reliance on group content over solo adventures? The nature of minor incremental rewards instead of the larger boosts of new levels? Or something else entirely? 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!
Behind the Mask: The mysteries of UNITY
If you've never made the trip to level 40 in Champions Online, the endgame is somewhat of a mystery. I remember prior to getting my first level 40 that people would talk about things like "Nemcon" and "dailies." I found it kind of strange that a level 35 character couldn't sidekick or otherwise experience anything similar to these things. That all changed for me when I journeyed into the UNITY building for the first time. It was a little confusing -- there were no easy guides telling me where to start NemCon or what the "Qliphothic research" was for. Fortunately, you guys don't have to feel as much like a noob as I did. Warning: This article includes some spoilers for the plot of NemCon.
Behind the Mask: The Endgame
One of the common criticisms of Champions Online is that it has an incredibly shallow endgame. If true, this will be a very significant problem when the game goes F2P. When a large number of people with lots of time on their hands and only two character slots dive into a game without a deep endgame, the results will most likely be less than ideal. This week on Behind the Mask, we'll look at what CO has and where it can possibly improve. There are some silver linings as always, but this week we're going to be pretty critical of the Champions endgame.
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Question chilled
We've had a fairly calm month since our last session, and really, I'm kind of relieved. I spent most of October expecting that City of Heroes was going to drop some sort of bomb along the lines of "game shutting down in December, releasing huge new game in January, have a pony." And I'm kind of glad that didn't happen, because I have nowhere to keep a pony in my home. With that awkward preamble out of the way, on with the questions! Jeromai asked: But think, the enemy code [developed for Going Rogue] might later be used for smarter AI for enemies that Incarnates face. A higher-level challenge. Gee, doesn't that sound like endgame content? Well, yes and no. Yes, it certainly sounds like a higher-level challenge, and if you ask a certain segment of the endgame population in any MMO, that's exactly what they want. But endgame content is frequently kept challenging solely through artificial barriers, and as bizarre as it sounds, we kind of want it that way, because the alternative is really, really annoying.
Dungeons and Dragons Online previews new Update 7 screenshots
Update 7 is coming for Dungeons and Dragons Online, and while the title of the update is Half-bloods, the patch promises to be anything but half-baked. Introducing two new races, a new raid, free quests, UI improvements, and more besides, the update promises to be one of the largest for the game since its switch to free-to-play last year. Turbine has shared a few new screenshots from the Droaam adventure pack, highlighting both the adventure and some of the coming UI improvements. The UI improvements previewed offer several streamlined and clarified interfaces, while the Droaam screenshots show off a wide-ranging adventure that spans a number of different adversaries and settings. If the gallery sparks your interest, you can take a look at our recent tour through some of the content coming in Update 7 and get a bit more context. Dungeons and Dragons Online players can look forward to the patch later this month, which seems like a fine reason to assume that the cup is half-full. %Gallery-105016%
The Daily Grind: What content keeps holding you back?
Back when I was in the middle of Naxxramas in World of Warcraft, there was an iron wall that held my entire guild back, and that was Grobbulus. It was insane. We could clear every other wing of the raid without a single wipe, even managing the much more difficult Four Horsemen battle without any problems, but every time we wound up facing the slime daddy it was a night of wipes and frustration. When we finally took him down, the rest of the raid fell to us in a matter of an hour. For some reason, that one boss was just such a hurdle. It could be a mission that you can't solo and can't get help with in City of Heroes. Maybe it's a raid boss in Lord of the Rings Online. Or maybe it's a certain episode in Star Trek Online in which a bug breaks the game and prevents you from completing your objectives. Whatever the reason, we all have something in our games that just refuses to let us past, content that we'd happily never do again if we could get past it the first time. So what's your iron wall?
Phase 2 of the Sandstorm hits Global Agenda today
After a great deal of testing, Global Agenda players can look forward to a treat today -- the second phase of the immense Sandstorm update is going live. Part of a large-scale update that rewrites several core components of the game, the first phase was rolled out about two months ago, and this continuation drops in most of the features left out of the first. The largest addition is the persistent PvE zone in the Sonoran Desert, designed for players between levels 5 to 15. The desert will allow players to take a series of missions from area NPCs to help advance a story arc, learning more about the Desert Dweller and Recursive Colony factions as they gain both loot and experience. Players can also look forward to the addition of consumable items and the option to salvage unwanted pieces of equipment for parts, something that plays well with the updated systems that came into play during the first phase of the patch. There are also new defense raids for players past level 30 to take part in, standing tall in a difficult battle against Recursive Colony attacks. And even with the recent shift in business models for Global Agenda, the Sandstorm update is remaining free for all current and future players -- a welcome addition to the game that should provide several points of interest, as well as set the stage for future expansions to the game.
The Mog Log: The worrying future of Final Fantasy XI
There's a growing unease in the Final Fantasy XI community. It's one of those subtle things that no one is willing to outright talk about, but it's still there, just beneath the surface of a surprising number of discussions. And it's a bit unusual for an MMO, because it's not fear or anxiousness about something being broken from the last update or an upcoming update. No, it's more about the question of whether the upcoming updates will be the last, or if there will even be any changes that could break something. There is an elephant in the room with a big number fourteen on its side, and while few fans of the game are upset that Final Fantasy XIV is coming... well, it raises no shortage of questions about the future of the game we're already playing. And it's not new. People were saying as far back as the leadup to the July update that something was rotten in the state of Jeuno. But when coupled with the promise that Final Fantasy XI isn't over... well, there's an excellent article that almost every fan needs to read on Allakhazam, summarizing what no small number of fans have been thinking. Where are we actually going to be when the dust clears?
