heroic-encounters
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Neverwinter's heroic encounters bring dynamic events to Icewind Dale
Neverwinter's Module 3 is on track to release tomorrow, and with it arrives a new type of quest for the game: heroic encounters. Cryptic put up an overview of heroic encounters today, calling these quests "challenging" and "exciting." They sound an awful lot like other MMO's dynamic events, as these variable-sized public quests will spawn on the landscape with different types of tasks. Some of the encounters will require more than one party to complete, and the biggest ones for each map will begin only about every 90 minutes. Rewards from heroic encounters include profession assets, Black Ice, weapons, and consumables.
Star Wars Galaxies Dev Diary and video: Behind the scenes at Echo Base
The Star Wars Galaxies developers have been neck-deep in snow for months now, it seems. Since the launch of the Hoth heroic encounter in late November of last year, the SOE Austin devs have been tweaking and fine-tuning the experience for the enthused playerbase.The actual encounter is massive, and introduces a number of new roles and play opportunities for even longtime SWG players. We've talked about that before, with a highlight being a look at the encounter from the dev viewpoint at SOE Fan Faire.Today we have the pleasure of offering up a brand-new developer diary from SOE designer Stephen Wyckoff, all about the "engineering support" required to put players in massive Imperial vehicles! Join Stephen below the cut as he talks AT-STs, design, development, and tuning encounters to meet high player expectations. We also have a fantastic new video from the developers that will give you just a taste of what it's like to experience the frozen fury of the Hoth battle. All that and more is beyond the cut.%Gallery-37499%
Fan Faire 08: Exploring Hoth and the Star Wars Galaxies heroic encounters
SOE's Fan Faire had a number of excellent events and panels that had nothing to do with the new EverQuest expansions. One such panel was a chance for the makers of Star Wars Galaxies to lay out some background on the high-end experience for all players in the game: Heroic Encounters. These unique missions were added in Chapter 7, and feature some of the most 'Star-Warsy' moments players can experience inside the SWG game world. They pit players against everything from the assassin droid IG-88 to the deadly Sith Lord Exar Kun ... and there are more on the way. The newest of these Heroic Encounters will be released to the game soon, and is centered on one Star Wars lore's most epic battles: the Battle for Echo Base on the planet Hoth. Portrayed countless times in single-player videogames, the SWG designers are thrilled to be able to bring that experience to players within the next few months. Join us below the cut for a lengthy look at designing and developing the Heroic Encounters, and a look ahead to the upcoming Hoth Encounter!
Exploring SWG heroic encounters pt. 2
The 'Tusken Army' encounter was originally intended to be the 'middle-of-the-road' instance, between IG-88 and Axkva. Instead, players kept losing to the onslaught of raiders because too many citizens would die. "Essentially we'd created the world's most obnoxious escort quest." Still, it was very popular because it allowed players a lot of choice. Even if they didn't have the 'right' classes, having enough players to cover the city sufficiently meant you could successfully complete the encounter. Despite the challenge, it was a very well-received experience. The map used in the Encounter is actually a streamlined version of Mos Espa, with many elements taken out to ensure NPCs would path well through the area. From a technical perspective, Tusken Army was the most advanced of any of the Encounters. They really pushed their tools to the limit getting the experience together, and it was a great use of the quest manager in a new and unique way. It's something they really like as a tool to aid player understanding of what's going on – they expect to use it more in the future.Hoth is modeled very closely after the Tusken Army – small teams will be running around taking on encounters individually, rather than 'tank and spank' boss fights. The quest manager will be used in Echo Base much as it's used in the Tusken encounter, to keep players all 'on the same page.' Many components of the "ISD", or Imperial Star Destroyer, were completed some time ago. It was created at the maximum size of the instance, but the original creator never noted that anywhere. The result is that a lot of their work on the instance to begin with was figuring out why things just weren't working. Camera issues plagued hallway encounters, and so most of the action is restricted to larger rooms. Krix, the first encounter, is the most challenging boss in the Encounter. Once you're past him, the rest of the event is comparatively easy – this was on purpose, but resulted in a lot of frustration when the event first came out. To somewhat placate frustrated players, they added a badge for defeating Krix in a specific circumstance. Imperial Grenadiers, a mob that participates in the encounter, throw their charges faster as the event goes on. The fewer Grenadiers there are, the lower Krix's health, the faster they throw. The developers joked that "there should be a badge" for defeating Krix with just one Grenadier standing, because they estimate that devoted solider is throwing about ten grenades a second. Questions from the audience touched on various bugs and quirks about the encounter. The team is always open to this information, they stated, and it was obvious someone was taking notes as these issues were raised. Exar Kun, the most recent and advanced of the Heroic Encounters, was obviously a point of pride for the attending developers. The dev team had a better understanding of what the players could accomplish, and very deliberately created a space where they could showcase several different bosses in evocative lairs. The goal was to create an encounter that 'felt' unbeatable but was still something that could be completed. New technology was implemented for the Encounter as well, that allowed NPCs to attack players through surrogate objects. This tech comes into play in the final encounter with Kun himself. It was completed more quickly than other encounters as well, due to experience with past encounters and development of Encounter tools. << Back to Part 1 Head to the Hoth Preview >>
Exploring SWG heroic encounters pt. 3
"There's no getting around the fact that the Rebels lose at Echo Base. We had to work out how badly they lost, as a question of what's fun for the Rebel players." The base, the developers offered up, is just ridiculously large. It's sort of silly. The Tusken Army Encounter will fit into the Echo Base map four times over. They have drivable AT-STs and drivable Snow Speeders. First time in Star Wars Galaxies. It's not true atmospheric flight, unfortunately, as they had to cheat a bit to create ground collision for the vehicles. You get to zip around a blow up Snowtroopers though, so there's a lot of fun to be had there. They're trying to develop the AT-ST as a two-player mechanic, but there's no guarantee it will make it into the Encounter when it launches.One thing that you've seen in the movies but won't make it into the game is the 'tow cable'. The Snow Speeders tripping up the AT-ATs is really excellent to see, but from a mechanics perspective is just too hard to do in an MMO. "This time the AT-AT shields are not too strong for blasters." They're the primary targets in the field for the Rebels. Loot and badges and collectibles will all be explored very fully in the new Encounter. Snowtrooper armor and Rebel Cold-Weather armor are both going to be available as a result of this new content. Rideable Tauntauns are in the works, you'll be able to fight off vicious wampas, and Rebels will be getting a new rifle skin: the AT-28. The E-Webb is out, as it's just out of scale for all the other weapons in the game.The instance is factional-only. If it launches 'for' the Rebels, all of the plotlines and encounters for players are made assuming you're a Rebel. The same is true for Imperials. There is no 'neutral' version of the instance. They're hoping to do something like with the space encounters, where neutrals could join a group on either side and temporarily have their faction over-written. Objectives from either side pit players against notable elements of this frenetic experience. One of the Imperial objectives in the instance is to stop the Ion Cannon from firing, for example.The designers noted that multi-group instances might eventually be in the works, but there are a lot of thorny balance issues to deal with there. For the time being, they have no plans for space-based instances or multi-group instancing. What they're focusing on now is more of these single-group story-driven encounters that tap deeply into the lore of the Galaxy Far, Far Away. To finally conclude the presentation, the developers and designers showed off a fantastic preview video showcasing the new content coming with the encounter. Check it out below! << Back to Part 2
