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A look at new nautical monsters from the Korean ArcheAge
After a wait so long that more or less everyone could be forgiven for thinking it would never happen, ArcheAge has finally entered its early access period here in America. But that doesn't mean you don't have more to look forward to. Over on YouTube, InporylemQQ has taken a peek at a pair of nautical additions coming to the Korean version of the game, major PvE monsters meant to challenge players. The first foe on display is a massive sea beast that's easily larger than the vessel of the player in the video; it gets a few good hits on the ship before it slips beneath the waves. There's also a ghost ship that fires cannon at the player. Both appear to be high-end monsters meant to challenge players with adequate gear, and both were added in patch 1.7 -- which means that they're a fair way off in the game's updates in the West. Think of them as coming attractions. [Thanks to Karl for the tip!]
The Daily Grind: What mob do you hate fighting?
I'm an equal opportunity killer; put a bad guy in front of me, give me a flimsy excuse to blast it into kingdom come, and watch me go at it. But I'll admit that there are some mobs I shy away from more than others, not because they have me quaking in my booties, but because they're just... annoying to fight. Usually these are the mobs that pull out some form of crowd control by stunning me, knocking me down, or disabling my skills. I'm also not fond of mobs that like to vanish for a while before reappearing, nor of the ones that like to run home to mama when their health bar gets to 15%. I'm betting that you have pet peeves in the form of a particular mob or two. Which ones do you hate fighting and why? 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!
A series of unfortunate events at the Pasadena Apple Store today
Today was an exciting day at the Apple Store in Pasadena, Calif., as the launch of the new iPhone 5s and 5c turned ugly. The LA Times is reporting that at least 200 people were waiting in front of the store this morning for a chance to buy one of the new phones when several fights broke out. Two people, ages 23 and 43, were arrested for fighting in line outside of the store before it even opened. Then around 9 AM, another fight started, this time involving a contender for worst person in the world. A man hired several van loads of homeless people from a downtown Los Angeles homeless mission with the promise of paying them $40 if they'd wait overnight in line. When the man left the store with several iPhones this morning, the people he hired began fighting with him, saying they weren't being paid enough. To defuse the situation the police removed the man from the premises, leaving the homeless people he'd hired stranded at the Apple Store without being paid. Dominoe Moody, one of the people hired by the unnamed man, said between 70 and 80 homeless people were recruited and brought to the store. A lieutenant with the Pasadena Police, Jason Clawson, told the LA Times the department isn't investigating the incident saying "It's not a police issue. It's a business issue."
Infinity Blade: Arena coming out May 19
The long-awaited multiplayer update to Epic Games' iOS hit Infinity Blade has finally been revealed, and it will be landing on the App Store later on this week. The update is called Infinity Blade: Arena, and it allows players to play as a Titan or a Knight, battling against their friends. The mechanics aren't completely clear yet, but as you can see above, the battles will have players hacking and slashing against each other, which is close enough to the game's standard format. The update also includes an Arena mode, where players can take on a continuous stream of enemies to see how long they can last. It also includes a ton of new items, including Holiday helmets, as well as lots of other rings, swords, shields and armor to pick up and master with the game's XP system. Facebook integration is also new and will let players show off characters right on their Facebook pages. Sounds great. The update is free to owners of Infinity Blade (which we should all be at this point), but if you don't have the game yet, you can grab it for US$5.99 on the App Store. If that's too much, just stay tuned -- odds are we'll see a sale to celebrate this update sooner or later.
EA Sports Live Broadcast lets you watch other people play games
EA has announced a new online service called EA Sports Live Broadcast, which will allow users to share videos online of both in-game action and out-of-game smacktalking. The service will also provide programming in the form of fights against players chosen to battle each other for prizes and online fame, matches narrated by live commentators, and other live online events. There's no information yet on if the service will have an extra cost, but it will debut with EA Sports MMA on October 19th of this year.
Ghostcrawler cleans up two dev chat questions
As you probably noticed if you watched along with us, yesterday's developer chat (with Blizzard's J. Allen Brack and Tom Chilton taking questions from Twitter and answering them on the forums) was a little light to say the least. Rather than answer questions about game balance seriously, the devs chose to make fun of hunters taming druids and do a lot of hinting and winking. Fortunately, we have Ghostcrawler -- he's responded to concerns about two of the questions yesterday over on the forums. The first is in response to some feedback about what the devs yesterday called "binary" hard modes -- they said that instead of providing multiple levels of difficulty (as in Sarth and his drakes), they'd prefer to have a hard mode either on or off (you'll be able to toggle between the two in Icecrown). This relates to what we just said recently, with different types of guilds looking for different types of content to play. GC replies that the "in-betweens" in terms of difficulty will come with later bosses in normal mode -- if you want to play a challenge without stepping into the hard modes, Blizzard will do their best to make sure that the last bosses on normal give you that challenge. Which makes sense -- bosses should ramp up in difficulty as the instance goes along, and no one would suggest, for instance, that Yogg was nearly as easy as Flame Leviathan. And GC also talked about one of my favorite (and missed) game mechanics: crowd control.
Player reaction to the 5-man Trial
All right -- patch 3.2 has been out for a few days now, and I would say that most people who are interested have had a chance to go in and run the brand new 5-man instance. Of course it's not the only change in the patch (far from it), but it's the one I was most looking forward to, and unlike the raid instances, it's all in there and doable, ready for our judgment. So what did we think?I tried it yesterday, and my first impression was "underwhelmed." I definitely don't feel that way about 3.2 as a whole, but the instance itself seems less than impressive, a one-room fight with almost as many boring moments as there are exciting ones. The fights themselves are actually pretty commonplace for a Heroic -- the jousting fight is probably the least-liked among the playerbase (seriously, whoever really loves the jousting mechanic over at Blizzard needs to take a good long look in the mirror for some self reflection), while the best is of course the Argent Confessor, who summons a random figure from our "past memories" to fight. I got Illidan and Onyxia the first few times I ran the instance, but of course Hogger and Van Cleef and Heigan the Unclean also have a chance at making an appearance. I did like the fight, but I was kind of bummed the old memories didn't bring any of their abilities with them -- they all have the same three abilities to throw at the group.
Tips for the Wrecking Ball achievement
This forum thread is full of great advice and tips for the Wrecking Ball achievement, in which you've got to get 20 killing blows without dying in a battleground. The key here seems to be to find a place with lots and lots of folks to kill (a spawn point, like the graveyard in WSG, works great, or you can hide behind the big groups in AV), and then just hanging out there as far out of the way as you can get. Having a pocket healer won't hurt either, and playing fair isn't really part of this one -- you want to duck in when you're sure to win the fight, and run like crazy when things even threaten to go against you.Some people say that doing it at a lower bracket can help, too, because unless you're uber geared, it'll be better to go after lower levels than have everybody in the BG be 80. It actually sounds like it's easier than it seems -- as long as you set yourself up in the right place and be really careful about getting stuck in a fight you can't win, you should be able to walk away with the points. Good luck!
GC on Hunters and their DPS
It took a few tries, but Ghostcrawler has finally agreed to post a "state of the Hunters" on the forums, and there's both good and bad news. First of all, GC flatly lays out that Hunter DPS was too high in Naxx -- Blizzard wants Hunters to be fighting with Locks, Rogues, and Mages for top DPS, not head and shoulders above them. And Survival is still the top DPS build in PvE; while GC says it's probably not a huge increase from the other specs, they are seeing it do better consistently. That said, Hunter DPS may be a little low now, but Blizzard isn't quite sure, for two reasons. First, people are still learning the Ulduar fights, and they don't completely trust the data they've gotten so far. And second, the main goal for fights in there was supposed to be variety, so there are very few places where DPS can just go all out and test how powerful they really are. GC says you should be asking "what's my DPS in this fight," rather than just "what's my DPS?"As for PvP, he says that the T.N.T. stuns and the big mana drains that Hunters could pull off in the past were just plain overpowered, and they won't be coming back. But as for where Hunters are going next, he says it's more of a function of nerfing other classes rather than buffing Hunters -- it's not that Hunters aren't going into Arena because they suck, it's because other classes are taking their place because they're better. He does say that Hunters are better in 5v5 (which makes sense -- Hunters have always been better from the back rather than forced into the middle of things like they might be in 3v3, and 2v2), and Blizzard is fairly OK with that, as not all classes are going to rock at all Arena levels.
AT&T bringing De La Hoya vs. Pacquiao to U-verse HD PPV
Regardless of his age or win total, Oscar De La Hoya is a preeminent eminence grise in the sport of boxing. That said, we understand that not everyone will be able to jet off to Las Vegas to see his December 6th matchup with Manny Pacquia, but those with AT&T's U-verse will be treated to The Dream Match in glistening high-def. 'Course, the pricing is apt to make you consider just visiting a bar ($65 for the HD PPV, $55 for the SD PPV), but who knows how inflated that tab could be by the end of the night. Decisions, decisions.[Image courtesy of PFW, thanks Anthony]
Breakfast Topic: Best boss fight
Straight from the forums: What's the best boss fight in the game?Personally, having been up through Gruul, I remain a big fan of Jeklik in Zul'Gurub-- it's got just the right mix of old fashioned tanking, AoE, and (eventually) all-out chaos that a great boss battle should have. People are saying that C'thun is a classic, but like most players, I've never had the chance to see him. In terms of five-man bosses, the quality on those really jumped up in Outland. I'd say Heroic Capacitus is fun, with the positive/negative mechanic borrowed from Thaddius. And Sepethrea's little Tron room in the Mechanar is a good time, too.But I'm probably forgetting quite a few good ones. What is the best boss fight in the game?
One Boss Leaves: Jin'do vs. Moam wrap-up
The battle between Jin'do and Moam was our most closely contested battle to date -- with Moam emerging victorious by only a slim margin. You decided Moam would come out on top in this fight by a mere 26 votes! Your comments suggested that Jin'do's totems would be a challenge -- but that Moam's mana drains would overcome them in the end. So one fight is over -- but stay tuned, because our next fight is coming soon! (And for those of you keeping score at home, here are our current standings: though be warned, they can still be shuffled around.)
Breakfast Topic: Favorite Fight
There are a lot of interesting encounters throughout Azeroth, but some seem to be more memorable than others. Certain raid bosses will always inspire players to gather around the corpse to take screenshots and display their accomplishment, but sometimes smaller encounters are more intense and exciting. One of my favorites must be the fight on the top of the temple in Zul'Ferak, where you look down to see a mass of trolls grouping up at the bottom of the stairs - and knowing you're going to need to fight through all of them to escape. What's the one fight you most remember? An instance or a wandering elite? Or maybe even a PvP kill - let's hear about them!
