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Instagram's expanded Guides highlight products, places and posts
Instagram is expanding its Guides feature to everyone, and they now cover products, places and even posts.
Gaming guide creator Prima Games is shutting down
Prima Games, the company that's been creating physical video game strategy guides for the past 28 years, is shutting down according to Publisher's Lunch. Prima's publisher DK's CEO Ian Hudson sent out an internal memo saying it was an "extremely difficult decision" and one that was made due to a "significant decline" in the video game guide sector per reports by Publishers Weekly. No more guides will be coming out of Prima Games, and its doors will officially close this coming spring.
Lonely Planet's Trips app is Instagram for travel junkies
If you've ever planned a vacation abroad, you've probably spent some time with Lonely Planet. The company is the largest travel book publisher in the world and offers plenty of free resources on its website and in the Lonely Planet Guides app. The latter provided the inspiration for the latest Lonely Planet project, a new iPhone app called Trips (also coming to Android this fall). At its core, it's a crowdsourced version of the Guides app. But instead of featuring contributions from Lonely Planet experts and contributors, it's all about what regular users have to say and the sights they see on their vacations.
The Mog Log: Final Fantasy XIV 2.5 dungeons
I mentioned a while back that it was kind of neat how the whole setup of Final Fantasy XIV had come full circle. At the start of the 2.0 patch cycle we were scurrying away from tonberries and bashing our heads against Demon Wall; in the final patch, we're back to both of those spots, along with the oft-seen and never-explored Keeper of the Lake in the midst of Mor Dhona's wreckage. It's a neat counterpoint. Having played through all of the dungeons now, well, you get to rescue tonberries. That alone makes the last set of dungeons worthy. As in every set of dungeons, there are winners and losers amidst the bosses, good points and bad ones. The dungeons as a whole are very reluctant to let you do much speeding through, with pulls being pretty aggressively gated. So let's talk mechanics, let's talk atmosphere, and let's carefully coach you through the process of kicking the crap out of your final expert roulette competitors.
Learn to beat World of Warcraft's newest raid... in 60 seconds
We realize that there are a couple of different ways to treat that title, so let's be clear: This video guide will teach you how to beat all of the bosses in Highmaul in 60 seconds. It will not teach you how to take 60 seconds to defeat all of them. Yes, it could go either way, but did you really think you could drop World of Warcraft's raid in a minute of playtime? Nope, it's all about length of tutelage, not length of execution. The even shorter version is the universal raid guide for the game, of course: Move out of the thing, stack up if you see everyone else stacking up, and kill the little things. But it's the fine details where everything is really decided. click on past the break and get a minute-long dose of how to not be the one responsible for wiping the group.
The Mog Log: Exploring Final Fantasy XIV's 2.4 dungeons
The first time I ran the new dungeons added to Final Fantasy XIV in patch 2.4, I was kind of surprised. They seemed a lot harder, and I hit more wipes on the way to the end than I had while learning the 2.3 dungeons. After a couple of additional runs, though, I don't think they're really all that bad, just replete with mechanics that are sort of designed to trip groups up and with more than a few nasty surprises. It also helped that I was running with Ninja after the first runs, so that felt more natural. As it's been less than a week since the dungeons were added, it seems like a fine time to give you lovely folks a guide to what's going on in here and what needs to be done. So let's chatter about the new dungeons you'll be running in Expert roulettes for that beautiful poetics armor.
Lost Continent: This is how you go off the rails in ArcheAge
Are you an ArcheAge tire-kicker who's wondering how to go "off the rails" and trade the game's questpark level grind for some of that downhome sandbox flavor? I'm here to tell you that it's as easy as deciding that you really want to do it. There's no magic button or pre-scripted path, though, because the game is sorta sandboxy.
The Mog Log Extra: Hands-on with Final Fantasy XIV's new Ninja
This week's patch 2.4 for Final Fantasy XIV added in a new class and job: the Rogue and Ninja. It's the first addition to the game since 2.0's Arcanist, Summoner, and Scholar, and as was true with those classes those, this week you could not take two steps outside of Limsa Lominsa without seeing a flurry of Rogues everywhere, thus rather obviating the "stealthy" part of the whole stealthy assassin gimmick they have going. Of course, only a few Rogues reach maturity from their Limsan spawning grounds. But maybe you're in it for the long haul. You want this to be your new main, you want to understand how to play this class in the endgame, and you want to be one of the best darn dagger-wielding maniacs the game has ever seen. I cannot tell you how to be one of the best, but I can at least give you the benefits of my insights from having relentlessly pushed at the class and learned what makes it tick.
The Nexus Telegraph: The basics of crafting a WildStar build
There are few things I love so much as writing a column for June 30th only to find out on the 30th that the patch I'm discussing is going live on July 1st. You know, when it's too late to change anything. I really would have been happy to have found that out before the day. But, hey, WildStar's first patch came out, and now I've had a couple of weeks to explore it a bit. Am I happy with it? Sufficiently, yes, although I haven't yet digested it in full. For one month out from launch, I can't complain much. Of course, that's not the first thing that I want to talk about today. I want to talk about builds. Rather than giving you the absolute best-of-the-best builds for tanking and DPS and so forth, which I can't quite do, I want to help you figure out how to make a build that works. It's a satisfyingly interactive, and there are lots of very functional options however you choose to build your character.
The Daily Grind: Have you ever volunteered for an MMO?
A few weeks ago in my Working As Intended column, I brought up the role gamemasters and officially appointed player helpers had in fostering communities, directing roleplaying, and aiding newbies and event organizers in early MMOs. We're not talking about just floating a HELPER tag over your head (though most modern MMOs lack even that); old-school games literally ran programs that traded game time (or just a hearty thanks!) to players who would log into special accounts or robed characters and lend a hand, officiate a wedding, or help a clueless nooblet find the bank. While I was focusing primarily on Ultima Online in that article, just a few days later, SOE tweeted a post about the EverQuest franchise's alive-and-kicking volunteer Guide program. Participating player Guides are now expected to run dynamic events and quests rather than interact in chat, but the concept is the same, even in 2014, however strange it must seem to newcomers to the genre. Today I'm wondering how many of our readers have ever volunteered in a semi-official or official capacity within their MMO of choice. How did it treat you, and do you want to see programs like these become more widespread? 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!
Blizzard serves up some Hearthstone tips
So maybe you've been playing some Hearthstone while waiting for the next World of Warcraft expansion to actually be a thing. That's not a difficult prospect if you're used to card games, but it's going to throw you for several loops if you haven't played them before. Senior designer Mike Donais has penned a new article full of tips for new players on how to build and play a new deck that can hold its own. Veteran card game players will probably already be familiar with most of the fundamentals -- start with a theme, have early-game cards, play with plenty of minions -- but it's all good advice. It also offers some suggestions for cards worth building around whether you want a fast and aggressive deck or a slow controlling force. Check out the full article for a few ways to improve and refine your deck, hopefully making you that much more formidable on the ground.
WildStar tips for every player
Do you know the fine points of dyeing gear in WildStar? Did you know that interrupting enemies grants you a damage bonus? Are you aware that you can get all the benefits of your gear while being absolutely naked? All of these things are true, and a new video by WOBO just past the break takes a few minutes to point out all of the tips, tricks, and other fine points that you might not have noticed while playing the game. Sure, some of these are probably familiar to players who have been in the game for a while, but some of them (like the bonus interrupt damage) might be new even to players who have been in since the earlier beta phases. Jump on past the break for the full video!
Norrathian Notebook: The key differences between EverQuest Next and Landmark
What's the difference between EverQuest Next and Landmark? If we've heard that question once, we've heard it a thousand times, which is understandable, considering EQ Next has been totally scrapped and re-imagined more than once and Landmark came literally out of nowhere. Until recently, the two even shared a name; EverQuest Next was dropped from Landmark's moniker when closed beta started at the end of March of this year. We certainly haven't heard the last of the question, either. With new folks finding out about the games and getting interested in them, it's likely to come up a few more times. Those who haven't been following the development of the games from the beginning have a lot of material to plow through to find answers to their questions. For that reason, Norrathian Notebook is going to address the differences and similarities between the upcoming titles in one fell swoop. Hopefully, with a concise reference we can call on again and again, the confusion will dissipate. So what is the difference between EQN and Landmark?
Here are lots of helpful EVE UI tips
If you're confused by EVE Online's UI, CCP Karkur has made a new video that you'll want to watch. Actually, you'll want to watch it even if you aren't confused, because it's full of tips and tricks relating to searches, inventory, the market, fittings, fleet settings, and more. Click past the cut to have a look!
EVE Evolved: Anatomy of a mining op
When EVE Online was first released in 2003, it was designed as a massive universe of competition and conflict between space-faring megacorporations in the distant future. Players bought into the premise completely and soon set about building their own empires and waging wars with neighbours. Corporations ran regular mining operations for resources to build frigates and cruisers for their members, and some of the larger corps co-operatively mined to build the first ever battleships in the game. The mining op has been a staple activity in the game ever since, providing a way for groups to work together on large manufacturing projects or just make some ISK during their down-time. Mining gets a lot of flak for being one of the most boring and least profitable professions in the game, but that's not exactly true. Solo mining can be a great way to spend your downtime while doing other activities, and it ensures that you're online when something exciting happens like a live event, your wormhole system being invaded, or a titan being tackled by your alliance. Co-operative mining ops also offer the social value of bonding with your corpmates when there's nothing else going on. Some players even run dozens of accounts at the same time to turn this ordinarily placid activity into an intensive profit-making activity focused on efficiency and organisation skills. With mining due to make a resurgence in the summer expansion, this edition of EVE Evolved is dedicated to the humble mining operation. I'll take a look at the various options for mining ships, the different haulers available, and the four different areas you can mine in.
The Mog Log: Making the most of Final Fantasy XIV macros
Final Fantasy XIV is not World of Warcraft. We are not in urgent need of an ability squish after years of play; you hit level 50 with a pretty reasonable number of abilities. The fact that everything needs to be workable on a PlayStation 3 controller helps discourage button bloat, to boot. But you still wind up with a lot of abilities to use in rapid conjunction and marks to place on various targets as a tank. You can run out of convenient space, in other words. That's one of the things that macros can help address, but it's not even close to the only thing. You can use your macros to make your rotation tighter, you can combine necessary abilities, you can mark targets, and you can even toss in a text line on every ability use. (But that does get kind of spam-heavy.) So let's look at some simple macros that will make your Final Fantasy XIV experience that much cleaner.
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.
EVE Online assembles a new guide for new pilots
Getting started in EVE Online can be a daunting task. Most of what people know about the game comes from secondhand sources -- there's a lot of money being thrown around, there's an atmosphere that makes a prison shower seem welcoming, there are plenty of people who will blow up your ship because it's there and they can. But what do you do? How do you start? Hopefully, your questions can be answered via the new FAQ for new pilots. The FAQ clocks in at around 38 pages and covers everything from death and respawning via clones to what you can actually do in the game for content. For veteran EVE players the information will probably seem like old hat, but for novices or those who are just curious it can provide plenty of insight. So if you want to learn more about the game, go ahead and take a gander at the full new player guide.
Get the scoop on Aion's new Glory Points and dungeon systems
When Aion's Steel Cavalry launches tomorrow, Daevas will have their first chance to experience the new Glory Points and instanced dungeon entry systems. To help players better understand these changes, NCsoft has compiled two helpful guides. Glory Points (GP) are a new form of Abyss currency that will determine the rankings from officer on up. While soldier ranks will still be determined by Abyss Points (AP), ranking for officers, generals, commanders, and the Governor will not be affected by gain or loss of AP at all. GP can only be earned in specific ways, such as the Arena of Glory (61+), GP Quests, and fortress sieges in Katalam, Danaria, and the inner upper Abyss. The dungeon entry system is changing from a specific timed-cooldown to an entry count. This means that players will no longer be forced to wait a specific amount of time to re-enter an instance after one run, but instead have a set number of opportunities to do so within a time frame. The entry count for each dungeon will reset on its own schedule, either daily, weekly, or even several times per week.
The Summoner's Guidebook: Supports are ruling League of Legends
I think Season 4 of League of Legends has been dominated by support play. Some of this is because there have been a number of really inspiring star support players at the pro level, and their brilliance is shining down a bit on us plebians. Although I think that the Season 4 jungle is still really messed up, the support role has really solidified in a good way. What do I mean by "good"? Supports still get less gold than other roles and don't generally rock huge K/D ratios. They're still the team's ward machines, as we talked a bit about last week. However, the support's overall game impact has increased dramatically. Supports get more gold than before; they are making plays, initiating fights, and making way more of an impact in those fights than they ever were before. There's no more need for a support who is an ult and ward bot; you can now tank, deal damage, or whatever mix of support you want.
