endgame
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Paul Sage on Elder Scrolls' endgame
"When your character in Elder Scrolls Online reaches level 50," ZeniMax says, "the journey isn't over." This is good news for those of you concerned about Elder Scrolls' endgame, and creative director Paul Sage has authored a lengthy blog post that spells out the current post-50 options. Said options include solo or duo PvP, small group PvP, large group PvP, solo or duo PvE, four-person group PvE, and 12-person group PvE. Sage also talks up ESO's first adventure zone, an area called Craglorn that is built for a four-person group despite being the size of a standard PvE zone. Read all about it via the links below.
The Nexus Telegraph: What it means that you can buy Wildstar
On March 10th, I opined that we were close to seeing a release date for Wildstar, along with the end of the NDA and a real change to beta structures. On March 12th, Carbine Studios announced all of that. Prescient? Possibly. All right, no; I just made an educated guess that turned out to be educated completely right. Astute readers will remember that I also made an educated guess about Medic and Engineer that turned out to be more or less completely accurate, as well, so I am apparently on the same wavelength as the people over at the studio. I didn't find out I was right on the money until you all did. That having been said... do I need to stress that this is a huge deal? Here's a game that fell under the "most anticipated" header for this site two years in a row, and now it's finally going to be a thing. We're finally moving out of beta testing and into launch. So let's talk about the impending launch, the pre-ordering, and all that comes along with both.
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.
Working As Intended: Endgame is the worst thing that ever happened to MMOs
Endgame is the worst thing that ever happened to MMOs. I tweeted this last year, and it won't stop rattling around in my head. Every time a developer dodges concerns and leaps to his version of the "elder game," every time a reader claims a reviewer who doesn't get to endgame is irrelevant, and every time someone justifies a weak game mechanic because it doesn't matter at max level anyway, it rattles around some more. Endgame is the worst thing that ever happened to MMOs. Having an endgame, thinking you need one, and designing your game around it -- this is the core problem of the MMO genre. No matter how hard you spin it, when you create a game with an endgame, you create a game with an end... and not much else.
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.
Allods Online outlines changes to the Astral
The Astral is a big part of Allods Online, the big twisting magical space upon which the fragments of land float steadily. Adventuring in this space is a big part of high-level play, and with the game's next major update it's seeing a large-scale overhaul. A new official posting reveals how the environment will be changing and how players will navigate the new regions, hunting down valuable equipment in unexplored regions. With the new update, the map will be divided into four layers of seven sectors each, with better gear available as players unlock maps leading into deeper and more dangerous regions. Players piece together maps by retrieving fragments of said maps in the Wild Shore and will be exploring eight new Astral islands in total. For more information on these changes, including the sector breakdown and the improvements to ship equipment, take a look at the full development blog and get ready for exploration.
EVE Evolved: Top five tips for new EVE players
I often hear people say that EVE Online is a lot more fun to read about than actually play, and I've even caught myself saying it jokingly to friends and writing it in articles. But the truth is that amazing stories like the recent world record-breaking Bloodbath of B-R5RB are a hell of a lot better when you're a part of the action or have the first-hand experience to put the event into a wider context. All of EVE was impacted by that battle, with its effects rippling through the in-game markets and reshaping the political landscape of New Eden. But to read about it, you'd think the carnage in B-R5RB ended when $310,000 US worth of titans went up in smoke. EVE has seen a huge influx of fresh faces since that colossal battle at the end of January, with thousands of new characters being created and the Rookie Help channel bursting at the seams. Whether you've always been a closet fan of EVE who has finally been convinced to take the plunge or you just want to join the ranks of the warring alliances you've read so much about, starting out can be a daunting experience. The sheer amount of information there is out there to absorb and sort through is overwhelming, and not all of it is up to date. CCP released a great new player guide recently to help newcomers assimilate, but I've still received several emails asking for advice on getting started. In this week's EVE Evolved, I delve into the new-player experience with a 14-day free trial and reveal my top tips for starting out on the road to creating your own sandbox story.
Diablo III upgrading Paragon endgame system
Level-capped players will have a "Paragon 2.0" system to look forward to when Diablo III: Reaper of Souls releases. Blizzard outlined three major changes yesterday that will affect the endgame progression system. First, there will be no level cap for Paragon levels. Second, Paragon levels will be shared account-wide, with all normal characters sharing levels and all heroic characters doing the same between them. Third, players will get new Paragon points to spend in four categories: core, offense, defense, and utility. When the expansion goes live, players will receive their new Paragon levels based on the sum of the accumulated Paragon experience on each account. Hardcore heroes who died at 60 will also contribute to this XP pool. Players without the expansion will transition to Paragon XP at level 60, while players with Reaper of Souls will do so after hitting level 70.
A firsthand tour of a WildStar adventure
WildStar's beta test is ramping up further and further. It's ramping up enough that pretty much everyone who isn't in the beta already is looking for a way to get in on it. Now's your chance! Hit this link for a giveaway that will grant you a chance to win a beta key for Wildstar. And one of the things you'd be able to see within the beta, if you were in, are the Adventures that have been all the talk of press releases lately. So what is an Adventure? Well, the DevSpeak video past the break will give you a nice top-level overview of that, so you could just go with that. Or you could ask me, because I got to make my way through one with the development team at Carbine Studios, getting a firsthand look at how the content is supposed to work and what's cool about it. That's also past the break.
The Nexus Telegraph: Stuff the endgame needs in WildStar
I'm going to go ahead and totally dispense with any vagueness here because we already know that WildStar will have a raiding endgame and a PvP endgame. That's great, that's valuable, that's absolutely nothing. That's exactly what lots of games launch with. It's what lots of games consider their bread and butter. It's also not going to cut it. If WildStar sells itself on providing the exact same endgame that we've seen in every other game ever, I'm hesitant to say "it will fail," but it sure as heck won't be dazzling anyone three months out from release. You can't make a game with the selling point of "play however you like" and then surreptitiously add "except when you get to endgame, and then you'd better raid, buddy." With that in mind, let's talk about what the game needs in terms of endgames that we don't see on a regular basis.
The Mog Log: Patch 2.2 and beyond for Final Fantasy XIV
Supposedly, we're still on track to see patch 2.2 in March. Assuming later March, that would mean we're still on a roughly four-month schedule for updates to Final Fantasy XIV, which feels just a bit slow... especially since what we know right now about patch 2.2 is just a bit thin compared to what we knew about 2.1 at the equivalent point in time. Admittedly, I'm biased. New turns of Coil? Not really my jam. (Being able to stomp the old ones will be kind of nice, though.) Still, in some ways this update currently feels smaller than its predecessor, even though I'm pretty sure it isn't. We've got a lot of stuff incoming, but between a deluge of in-game events and the PlayStation 4 beta test, less attention has been paid to the update. So let's shine some light on it. Yes, there's going to be some speculation, but let's start looking at what patch 2.2 is going to mean and what we'll be getting.
Massively exclusive: Champions Online gears up for a rampage
Are you ready to go on a rampage in Champions Online? Good, because there's a big Rampage revamp on its way to the game that should provide players with a lot of new things to do. Three missions are getting a full redo with rewards and challenges tweaked, and a brand-new Rampage is being added to the game, giving veteran players a chance to group up and pit themselves against the toughest opponents Millennium City and points related has to offer. The new Fire and Ice Rampage pits players against two villains originally designed by a player, and the title alone should give you some idea about what's coming. Meanwhile, the Gravitar, Lemurian Invasion, and Sky Carrier have been turned into proper Rampages with an updated set of items and costume pieces on offer. Check out the preview gallery, and click past the cut for all the details on this upcoming addition.
Chaos Theory: Twelve things to do once you've beaten The Secret World
In many respects, The Secret World is a strange MMO that doesn't follow the typical paths that its contemporaries do. It probably has fewer quests that most MMOs, and even factoring in the increased time and difficulty to accomplish them, I suspect that it's not as content-rich of a game as its ravenous community expected it to be. Months ago I "beat" the game as I see it, having finished all of the missions and main storyline. That left me feeling off-kilter because I didn't know what to do next. I still am feeling less focused than I had been while leveling because the core of TSW to me is the excellent missions and the stories tied to these zones, and I simply wanted more of them. Even with the generally excellent issues from 2013, I'm still endlessly pining for Tokyo, and if that doesn't get here in February, then I'm going to start developing long-distance telepathic powers to make it get done. So I've been chewing on what to do now. It's not as though TSW lacks options; it's just that they're either quite different from the game that I've played up to this point; they're repetitive or group-dependent or require some self-motivation to go after them. I made a list to help focus my future efforts and thought I'd share that with you today.
The Mog Log: No one likes FFXIV's Pharos Sirius
Every night, I sit down at my computer and I play the high-level roulette game in Final Fantasy XIV. There are five possible results. Amdapor Keep and Wanderer's Palace are the "win" results, the super-easy runs that can't even scrape dents into my armor. Copperbell Mines and Haukke Manor take a little more doing and a bit more attention on my part, and my shiny white Paladin armor is looking a bit scuffed up by the end. But they're still not bad. They're certainly doable. But there's always that 20% shot that I'm getting thrown straight into horror. The camera pans in to show a ruined lighthouse filled with crystals and a couple birds, and as soon as the cinematic ends, people are already asking "can we vote to abandon?" This seems to be the consensus: that it's not even worth trying to do Pharos Sirius start to finish. And when you look at the dungeon as a whole, it's not hard to see why no one likes it.
The Mog Log: Final Fantasy XIV's Crystal Tower
Let me be up front with you, dear readers: The Crystal Tower in Final Fantasy XIV is one of the most well-designed dungeons I have had the pleasure of playing through, ever. Not just "in Final Fantasy XIV" but anywhere, ever. It's fun, it's clever, it's clean, it's engaging, it's freaking spectacular. If not for one minor wrinkle, it'd be a nearly unambiguously perfect bit of bliss. But I'll cover that part later; the important point is that right off the bat, this dungeons is something that I consider absolutely stellar. Longtime readers will also know that large group content is generally not my thing. I dislike a big raiding endgame, and I'm not a fan of the style of play, so the idea that my current favorite dungeon in the game is a 24-man rush through the tower probably seems a bit odd. So let's talk about boss strategies, progress through the tower, and the one blemish on what is otherwise unambiguously great.
James Frey and Google team up to fuse interactive teen novels with AR games
We knew Google's Niantic Labs was planning to use its Ingress tech to power other augmented reality games, but we didn't expect this. In an announcement today, Niantic announced it has teamed up with publisher HarperCollins to create a location-based game for ENDGAME, a new book trilogy for young adults by bestselling authors James Frey (of A Million Little Pieces fame) and Nils Johnson-Shelton that has already been optioned by Twentieth Century Fox. Niantic will play a significant part in the interactive project, which is lovingly referred to as an "innovative omni-platform endeavor," by developing a virtual-meets-real-world game that allows mobile users to solve virtual puzzles to advance parts of the story. Google's involvement doesn't end there, either. The company has secured the rights to exclusively distribute six of 15 original e-books on the Play Store and will also use YouTube videos, search and image results and maps to build the story, mirroring elements of Niantic's Ingress campaigns. So when can we expect the project to bear fruit? HarperCollins says the first first book in the trilogy, ENDGAME: THE CALLING (yes, it appears someone's Caps Lock got stuck), will be published on October 7th, along with Niantic's official iOS and Android games. To mark the occasion, gamers will be asked to solve a virtual puzzle to claim a quantity of gold secured inside a bulletproof glass case. If that's got you excited, there is a catch -- the case is on public display and Google plans to stream the event live on YouTube.
Final Fantasy XI introducing challenge versions of old bosses
Remember Rise of the Zilaart in Final Fantasy XI? For most American players that's kind of difficult to do; the expansion came baked in with the launch client and more or less formed part of the base game from a player standpoint. It's probably part of the reason the expansion's two main antagonists, Kam'lanaut and Eald'narche, have been quietly forgotten, even while the game's other villains have received updated forms (like the Shadow Lord and Promathia) or still command player respect (Odin and Alexander). But it's time for the brothers to step back into the spotlight with the introduction of new high-level battlefields, pitting players against bosses in recreations of their original arenas. Rewards are given both for surviving and for downing the boss, including materials to upgrade artifact armor to level 119. So if you've been spoiling for a rematch with all of your character's new skills and items, you're about to get your chance.
The Daily Grind: How patient are you with explanations?
I run a lot of random dungeons in Final Fantasy XIV. It's not uncommon to wind up grouped with someone who hasn't seen one of the newer dungeons, or even someone who just happened to forget the mechanics in a lower-level fight. That's fine, and I have no problem explaining the fight in detail to people. What gets my goat is trying to re-explain as someone either ignores the directions or does exactly the opposite time and again. Some people are far more patient than I am. I've watched players explain the same mechanics a dozen times without ever showing signs of irritation. And of course, there are people far less patient than I -- people who explain the fight only once in mangled shorthand or even outright refuse to explain anything. So what about you, dear reader? How patient are you with explanations about fights, areas, mechanics, or anything else in your game of choice? 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!
The Mog Log: Final Fantasy XIV's horse year
As I steadily collect another set of holiday hats for little reason other than an inexplicable need to collect these things (and I'd really like to be able to store my Usagi Kabuto while I'm at it, thanks), it's a fair time to look at the next year for Final Fantasy XIV's development. The game launched well, has made some missteps, and the next year is really going to determine how well it can manage over the long term. I'm not pretending that I have a picture-perfect roadmap for the game over the next year, but I do think there are some pretty obvious things to be addressed. There are gaps to be filled in, systems that could stand to be improved, and more systems that would have a positive effect on retention and play. So let's look at what the next year will hopefully bring other than equine headpieces.
What is World of Warcraft?
On December 23, 2004, I rolled my first character in World of Warcraft. It seems almost impossible to imagine that this was a little over nine years ago, but I still remember the day clear as a bell. A friend told me where to make a character and what faction to use, and offered me a guild invite the moment I logged in -- an Alliance guild that, to my knowledge, no longer exists. That began a journey that was a long, impossible at times, climb to level 60. Along the way, I made a ton of friends both in the guild and out, and when I hit level 60 it seemed like an incredible accomplishment. But as I shook off the haze of congratulations and cheers, I realized I had little to no idea what came after you hit level 60 -- and frankly, neither did anyone else. Ironforge was the place to be. If you were Alliance it was the only place with an Auction House. Players spent hours upon hours outside the front gates dueling each other. There was no PvP as we know it today -- Battlegrounds didn't exist, so PvP was relegated to long, drawn out battles between Tarren Mill and Southshore. The options seemed to be as follows: Run Stratholme, Scholomance, and UBRS to collect your blue dungeon set. Go raid either Molten Core or Onyxia's Lair. And ... that was it. Needless to say, my next option was to roll an alt and find a raid guild. What other choice did I have, at the time? As the game has progressed over the last nine years, those choices have expanded into a flurry of content that dwarfs everything that has come before it. And that makes me wonder -- just what is World of Warcraft, now?
