equilibrium
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Twice the bullets in CoH's dual pistols powerset video
The newest Powerset heading to City of Heroes is coming from the Going Rogue expansion, and we've got a video showcasing it. Everyone loves shooting stuff in videogames, so we're pretty sure everyone will enjoy rolling a Hero, Villain, or Praetorian and busting out some crazy gun moves. Actually, the way this Dual Pistols video is cut, you can tell someone is a fan of the Matrix and Equilibrium films. Plus, we're pretty sure the last power shown is basically full-on Gun Kata. Yeah, you'll probably want to check out the video for yourself. Find it after the break, as usual.
Earthrise lead technical artist Ed Mattinian discusses visual influences
The Bulgaria-based developer Masthead Studios is hard at work on their first massively multiplayer online game Earthrise, a title that's equal parts sci-fi and post-apocalyptic. Nolvadex from the Italian MMO news site Gamesource spoke with the game's lead technical artist Ed Mattinian about the look of Earthrise. Mattinian discusses balancing form with function when it comes to how technology is depicted in the game, trying to create a futuristic world that's not simply cold and sterile. He says, "I'd say that technological products have their own beauty to them. It's all about function and how that 'product' -- be it a weapon, a craft, or a teleporter - is designed for its function. That's the beauty that we're looking for."
When it comes to nerfs, maybe change is good
Here's a fascinating post over on Terra Nova. Joshua Fairfield has been playing a lot of Arena PvP, and he suspects something very interesting: that the developers might not be trying for equilibrium in PvP at all. They may actually be trying for imbalance.Our assumption, he says, is that with every nerf and/or buff, the developers are trying to reach a nirvana of balance-- a game where every class has an equal chance to win when all of their abilities are used correctly. Keep in mind that the "chance to win" could only involve a percentage of the time-- Blizzard has already stated that they're working for a "rock, paper, scissors" solution, where rogues beat casters but warriors beat rogues, and so on. But we've assumed that the main goal is a balance, where as long as every class is played well, every class will win a certain percentage of the time.But Fairfield suggests the opposite-- that "games that seek permanent engagement by communities," i.e. MMORPGs like WoW, are actually working against equilibrium, and fighting to keep things constantly interesting. Mages are winning because of Pyroblast's high damage? Nerf it to make Mages use other spells. Warriors are being kited around? Give them a way out of it, so other classes have to learn new strategies.That's a wacky way of looking at game design, but it works for games like WoW because we're already expecting the rules to constantly change. Chess has an established balance-- rook moves a certain way, queen moves another way, and every game they will always move those ways. But WoW is dependent on the rules changing every patch-- if players maxed out their characters and learned all possible strategies, they'd quit paying the monthly fee. So in that strange sense, Blizzard should be happy when lots of players cry foul over a nerf-- the more players they affect with a change, the more they can keep interested. "Any change disrupts the current equilibrium," and forces players to figure out new ways to win.
