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Massively's hands-on with Rift: Planes of Telara's dynamic content
Just a few weeks ago, I was invited to attend Trion Worlds' Gamer's Day in San Francisco to get some hands-on time with a couple of the company's upcoming titles, including Rift: Planes of Telara. If Rift seems to have come out of nowhere, that might be due both to the acquisition of EverQuest II veteran Scott Hartsman to head the project as executive producer, and to a clever name change meant to reflect the team's shift in development focus. In fact, that shift in development focus is precisely what I was at Trion's studio to test -- I got to check out the Rifts themselves in all their glory, in the context of the greater dynamic content system that the developers are so excited about. Massively's writers have been able to play and report on character creation and the starting areas of Rift several times over the last year or so, including earlier this summer at E3. But until today's embargo lift (coinciding with the reveal at Gamescom), no one had quite seen the fabled planar invasions and takeovers in action. Now we have.
Earthrise interview sheds more light on sci-fi sandbox
Earthrise is one of those sandbox games that almost sounds too good to be true, and so we read with interest any tidbit that comes our way regarding the upcoming science fiction MMORPG from Masthead Studios. Whether we're looking at the player/crafter-driven economy, the limitless skill system, the faction-less PvP, or the intriguing social gameplay, Earthrise never fails to elicit a raised eyebrow. The latest bit of info is courtesy of MPOGD.com and its interview with Masthead producer Atanas Atanasov and lead writer Momchil Dilov. Atanasov and Dilov cover a lot of ground in the interview, talking about the lack of pre-defined player roles in comparison to traditional MMOs, as well as the fact that gameplay will evolve primarily due to the choices available to players (and their inevitable consequences). The skill system is also discussed, and, though no concrete details are given, Dilov does mention the fact that players aren't restricted in terms of what skills they can learn, nor is there any need for a respec mechanic. Dilov also makes clear that the crafting system is intended to be similarly complex and dynamic, with the learning curve evolving over time based on the ever-changing economy. "Earthrise will bring a breath of fresh air to the MMO genre, which is choking with class-based or free-to-play titles that introduce a lot of limitations to the player. We are going in a direction that I believe many people are looking for," Atanasov says. [Thanks to Super Healer for the tip.]
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: The replacements
Hey, guys, did you know that Going Rogue is launching in less than a week? That's crazy. It feels especially strange to me, since this was an expansion that had barely been announced when I started here, and has since become pretty personally important. But we're not here to talk about my vague feelings about the impending launch, we're here to talk about its larger implications for City of Heroes -- namely, the obvious systemic changes that might well be coming when the expansion goes live. Now, some of you are doubtlessly going to point out that we're not even getting our first Incarnate slot, the expansion isn't changing any part of the system, and so forth and so on. But you forget that there is an interesting change to the system coming that we all know about: the fact that archetypes will no longer be allegiance-locked. That's right -- whether you're in City of Heroes or City of Villains, you'll no longer be limited to five different archetypes. And considering the fact that the archetypes are roughly analogous on both sides now, this might have just a bit of an impact.
Breakfast Topic: Tank anxiety
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW.com. I leveled my main as a retribution paladin until about level 65, when I picked up two new toys running randoms -- a shield with high defense and block stats, and a one-handed sword with good stats that glowed purple and matched the shield. Yes, I became a tank because I wanted to accessorize. I'm a girl; that's how I roll. I dual-specced protection, invested in tank gear and said to myself, "How hard is it?" I already had leveled my death knight through every heroic instance repeatedly, so I was confident that I knew the layout and the fights. My husband and I queued for a random with me as a tank and wound up in Hellfire Ramparts. And then it all went bad. I kept getting confused about who to pull first and which direction to go, and the group promptly lost confidence in me. They started playing the "kill them all quick" game, in which they used their hardest-hitting AoE spells to take the mobs out quickly and try to survive through it. Never mind that this tactic usually makes holding hate really difficult! We wiped, the healer left, the warlock and the hunter told me I was the worst tank ever, and I literally cried. I've ran quite a few instances since then, some successful, some not. Now that I am a new level 80, I am on that perpetual quest to get lots of badges and upgrade my gear -- but I'm still suffering from tanking anxiety.
Lost Pages of Taborea: Grouping basics
This week, I've been thinking a lot about Runes of Magic's ability to cater to players with different MMO backgrounds. Many players may never have played a subscription game from the West, while others may never have experienced the different mechanics found in Eastern F2P MMOs. What you get is a banquet of food and all the guests aren't sure of the proper etiquette or rules or when it's time to eat. If we stick with a food analogy, the group feature would be a main dish. Lots of F2P MMOs have been imported from the East, and they don't handle grouping in quite the same way as Western subscription-based games. In fact, the ideas of raiding, pick-up-groups, and instances that can be found in almost any Western MMO, don't exist in most F2P games. This article takes a look at some specifics of grouping in RoM, including the recruitment board, experience debt, looking for a group, and etiquette.
Party like a rock star in Final Fantasy XIV
There are players out there who might be dreading parties in Final Fantasy XIV. Well, not precisely; they might well be dreading that the mechanics will be similar to the parties from Final Fantasy XI, where some classes could seemingly wait for ages without a trace of a group. Mercifully, the fine bilingual team at FFXIVCore has continued its apparent tradition of translating information to coincide with the new beta testing, with the newest translation being a guide to getting a working group in the game. Guildleves are the game's core leveling mechanics, but new ones can only be accepted every so often, and they can be hard to complete on higher settings alone. By grouping up, players gain access to more guildleves from other players and more support in tackling the game's bigger challenges. The full translation has information on everything from the interface to form a party to the game's battle regiments, the equivalent of Final Fantasy XI's skillchains. (We're guessing they meant regimens, but that's the challenge of translation.) Final Fantasy XIV fans are advised to take a look at the article to start gearing up for the game's release in two months.
Rift looking to be the social, outgoing type
It seems as though one of the holy grails of MMORPG development is to encourage players to be social and group up without forcing them to do so like back in the olden days of yore. Rift's creative director, Scott Hartsman, thinks the dev team's found the key to this problem: "We want our MMO to be a social experience and we've realized that it's not that people don't want to be social, it's just because they don't want to be inconvenienced." In an interview with ZAM, Hartsman details how Rift: Planes of Telara is hoping to change the minds of players about teaming up for the game's signature instances. While a character can solo through them just fine, the more players that enter a rift equals greater amounts of experience and loot for everyone. Rifts will adjust both loot and difficulty based on the number of players involved, and Trion Worlds expects that this will go a long way to combating antisocial behavior that MMOs have encouraged. Guilds are another facet of socialization on which Trion plans to focus. "One thing we haven't talked much about is people getting together to build their guild up and build a structure (in the metaphorical sense) that provides you and all of your friends benefits," Hartsman said. You can read the full interview, including details on PvP, at ZAM.
Flameseeker Chronicles: Heroes ruined Guild Wars
Oh, settle down. I'm not stating that as a fact, I'm just repeating what others have said. It's an old argument, but one that's recently come to my attention several times over the past week, so I want to take a look at the argument today. Heroes came to Guild Wars near the end of 2006 with the introduction of Nightfall. They were a huge upgrade from the much-maligned Alesia and her companions. Sure, you had to level them up, but you had as much control over their runes and insignias, skill bars, and weapons as you did your own. The addition gave players the option to add three of these customized companions, making it much easier to continue adventuring even if you couldn't get a group at the moment. It sounds perfect, right? Not everyone agrees, and it's a debate that flared back up in the past months when the possibility was raised of companions in Guild Wars 2. Hit the handy "read more" button to check out both sides of the argument.
TERA's Jason Mical teases politics, group balancing
TERA's political system continues to be shrouded in mystery, and whether it's a proper MacGuffin or some sort of public-relations red herring designed to simultaneously titillate and obfuscate is unclear. One thing that is clear is the fact that En Masse Entertainment representatives are reluctant to do much beyond tease the fact that the system exists. The latest example comes via an interview with community director Jason "BrotherMagneto" Mical over at World of TERA. Mical talks briefly about the level of player freedom inherent in the system. "I suppose the level of freedom will in some part depend on who gets elected. Some leaders might be benevolent, while others might become outright tyrants. Some who start with the best of intentions will probably end up tyrants. In other words, it's going to be a bit like real politics," he says. He goes on to state that PvP will influence TERA's political system quite a bit, referencing Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton "on a much larger and more common scale."
Finally, Bioware unveils a SWTOR multiplayer combat video
You have got to be kidding! Star Wars: The Old Republic is a multiplayer game? It is! Bioware has finally given us a taste of what that multiplayer action feels like. In this first-glimpse video Dallas Dickinson, the Director of Production, examines the core roles for SWTOR group missions. Dickinson explains the possible functions each class can have: the Trooper can be a tank, the Jedi Knight as an off-tank, the Jedi Consular works primary healing, with the Smuggler covers the DPS and alternate healing. This video shows us that SWTOR does, in fact, contain the elements of your typical MMO, but there are also tiny hints that each classes does not have to serve the same role in every battle. If you watch the video closely, you will notice as leader of the group begins to speak to the Mon Calamari trooper, a green ring encircles a wide area, and the whole group steps in. This is the first video to expose this little tidbit of information. The ring transports the group into the dialogue instance. This way no other people in the area interrupt the dialogue sequence by jumping up and down like a rabbit on speed, over the NPC who is talking. (You know what I'm talking about, don't lie.) The most extraordinary part about this dialogue instance system is the lack of noticeable transition. Watch the full video after the break, and let us know: Is the Force with SWTOR group combat or does it fall to the Dark-side?
Massively's exclusive SWTOR interview: Starships, PvP, and crafting!
E3 has been abuzz with the latest news about LucasArts' and Bioware's new MMORPG, Star Wars: The Old Republic. Yesterday, they teased us with an exciting fully rendered trailer called "Hope." The trailer showed a battle which is a precursor to one the players will be able to experience in game. Unfortunately, this trailer didn't have many answers. In fact, it seemed to present us with even more questions. So we at Massively sent our own Sera Brennan to talk to the designers of SWTOR to see about getting some answers. var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/Massively_interviews_SWTOR_s_Rich_Vogel_at_E3'; Rich Vogel, the executive producer for Star Wars: The Old Republic, was kind enough to sit down with Sera for a few minutes in EA's gameplay booth in the LA convention center on Tuesday. Perhaps we could get some of our burning questions answered about PvP, groups, space, ships, housing, and crafting. Follow after the jump to see what they had to say!
The Daily Grind: From start to finish in no time
There is a grind. There is almost always a grind in any MMO, whether it be the real-time skill progression of EVE Online or the slow acquisition of deeds in Lord of the Rings Online. Conventional wisdom shows that the grind has to be there, that slowing progression is what keeps you playing, and removing it entirely would result in players leaving the game in short order. Anyone who is having flashbacks to the state of MMOs in the heyday of EverQuest would not be entirely incorrect. After all, conventional wisdom at the time was that you had to force players to party early on, or no one would keep playing. More recent games have greatly streamlined the need for grouping, and the idea of being unable to solo to the level cap in most games is a thing of the past. So, would you play a version of your favorite game that removed all of the grind? Would you keep coming back, day in and day out, if there was almost nothing grindy left? Or would you lose interest if the pacing was closer to a game like Mass Effect 2, where any level grinding is almost an afterthought?
The Daily Grind: How important is the "multiplayer" part of MMO?
The definition of "MMO" is changing at an increasing pace these days, to the point where many people argue that the very idea of defining an MMO is a thing of the past. However, a defining factor that has stayed consistent through all of that is the question of how many people can play together. "The more the better" is the commonly held standard, but not everyone prefers to play that way. An increasing number of games offer quests created for solo play, the ability to create solo play skill sets, and even the ability to play through the majority of the game alone if you prefer. While grouping isn't obsolete by any stretch of the imagination, the solo player isn't left out in the cold either. So what is your preference? Would you rather go it alone at your own pace, or are you there for the company of others as much as the gameplay?
WoW Rookie: Grouping 101
New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players toward the basics of a good start. See all our collected tips, tricks and how-to's in the WoW Rookie Guide. Everyone's nervous the first time. It's a principle that's so, so true for so many endeavors -- and your first WoW instance is no exception. It's easy to feel bashful about dipping a toe into the dungeon pool, but there are so many good reasons to give it a try. Instances are fun. They're challenging, calling for new and different ways to play your character. They serve up eye-popping monsters and intricate lore. They offer great XP and loot. They're great ways to meet other players. The thing is, getting started can seem like an impossible hurdle. How will you know what to do? What if your group wipes? What if you screw up? What if your groupmates kick you out of the group? Relax. WoW Rookie's here to nudge you past those first, intimidating moments. Before you know it, that first instance becomes another, and another -- and suddenly, you're popping off an instance or two every evening, in between questing and leveling your craft, and you're loving every moment of it! Let's queue up and get started.
Anti-Aliased: Burnout, revenge
Oh those sparkle ponies. They were a fun diversion last week, and a pretty fun topic to write on. Kudos to Blizzard for making crazy amounts of cash last week -- you guys at the marketing department really knew your audience and how much they'd pay for a shiny mount. While I may disagree with the size of the price tag, I still admire how well that move worked out for them. I'm sure we'll be seeing more things like that for World of Warcraft in the future. Anyway, let's move onwards to this week's topic: MMO burnout. Almost all of us experience it at least once with one of our favorite games, and some of us have experienced it more than once across a single game or many games. Right now, I'm really with you guys who are suffering from burnout. I've been looking for a good game to sink my teeth into, but I just can't seem to find "the one" right now. So I'm off doing some other activities, trying to rekindle that spark of love for MMOs. This week I want to talk about some of the ways I've been combating burnout, much like Mr. Kyle Horner did before me, and hopefully you guys can chime in with some ways of your own!
iPhone OS 4.0: Folders help organize your apps
It's been one of the aggravation points since the App Store first launched and we began accumulating all these magnificent toys: how the heck do you manage 11 screens full of icons scattered all hither and yon? iTunes 9 gave us some control, but lacking an organizing principle things continued to be challenging. No more, at least not once 4.0 ships. The new Folders feature will let you throw apps of a feather into a folder grouping just by dragging and dropping, and you can then treat the entire collection as a unit, moving it from screen to screen or tossing it into the app dock as you like. This may not be a killer feature for those who only keep one or two app screens active, but for heavy App Store customers (you know, the people who send Apple that reliable 30%) it's a godsend. At the event today, Steve told us that it would take the iPhone's homescreen capability from 180 apps to a whopping 2,160, so, um, we've got some app downloading to do before the new OS releases this summer.
The Mog Log: Answers (and disclaimers)
In this edition of the Mog Log, every question you have ever had will be answered completely accurately. (Disclaimer: these questions must pertain to either Final Fantasy XI or Final Fantasy XIV. And they must have been asked via e-mail or comments. And it must be noted that "I don't know" is an accurate answer to a question. Also, this aside is now longer then the introductory sentence.) Aren't you excited as possible? I know I am. We'll start off with a question from Dormer: "Why aren't we getting more information from the beta?" We're not sure, but we can certainly speculate. The most logical reason is that the testing is closer to an alpha than anything and they're not letting people in that they can't trust implicitly. Square-Enix has a pretty good track record at keeping things quiet when they want to, and they're likely making sure that nothing leaks out from this phase. How much of an NDA further phases of Final Fantasy XIV's testing will have is a mystery. But there's another reason for the possible dearth of information. (Which we've intentionally put behind the cut to inspire you to keep reading.)
The Daily Grind: What's the most important part of the trinity?
While the structure of the jokingly-named "holy trinity" in MMOs -- tanks, healers, and damage dealers -- isn't universal, it's certainly common enough to be recognizable. Even in games without pre-defined classes, such as Champions Online, have a group structure oriented toward the three roles. But you can't have classes without a struggle between them, and there's always a discussion in relation to the trinity about which part is the most important. Tanks point to their relative scarcity and the pressure of their job, Healers point to their relative scarcity and the importance of their job, and DPS points to the fact that healers and tanks can't keep their stunts up forever if nobody is killing the target. So where do you fall in this debate? Which part of the trinity do you think is the most important to a group's success, and which one is the most superfluous? Do you think that (by astonishing coincidence) the role you play most frequently is the most important one, or do you think it's lower on the scale and you play it for other reasons?
The Mog Log: Those grapes were probably sour anyway
So, guess what beta I didn't get an invitation for. You can go consult with the instant replay if you want, I can wait. I know that everyone is stunned. I certainly was. Of course, I assuaged my sadness by telling myself that I didn't really want to be in their stupid beta anyway, because I bet it smells bad and it sets my computer on fire. That line of reasoning worked real well. I don't honestly think my column got me kicked from the running for a Final Fantasy XIV beta slot, but it's a bit more reassuring than the idea that I just didn't get picked for some other reason. (I'm putting money on Square-Enix not knowing I exist, for the record.) All things considered, I can live without the beta, even though I'm chomping at the bit to play the game. But I'm not the only person, place, or thing not currently darting about the world of Eorzea. And as long as I'm on a streak of making long-winded predictions, why break with formula? There are three other things that I suspect aren't in the beta either, and I intend to make a guessing game out of seeing how close I am to the truth.
The Tattered Notebook: No one is left behind
'Allo again, lovelies. Last week has been a week of danger and intrigue as I battled through Nektulos Forest and worked on getting my unique Shadowknight armor. During all of this, though, I thought to myself -- how can I apply any of these experiences to my notebook entry for this coming week? Then of course, it hit me. Why not just explain what I've been doing to get through the areas in a short amount of time? A few tips and tricks for playing the level game? Sure, I've been up and down with grouping and preparations for Sentinel's Fate, but many players are always intimidated when entering a game and "being behind." Well, don't worry about being behind. You're not entering the game late at all when it comes to EverQuest II, especially thanks to the recent additions to the game in Sentinel's Fate. Interested in catching up and experiencing some great content? Then click on through after the break! Also, I'm still looking for questions anyone has on EverQuest II, so I can answer them in an upcoming Tattered Notebook. Ask me anything, from EverQuest II questions, guild leadership and raiding questions, and even questions on my Dark Elven heritage. Send them over to seraphina@massively.com, and she'll be sure to forward them on through the Norrathian Express mail to me.
