in-game-rewards
Latest
Path of Exile unveils more of the Hall of the Grandmasters
Is your character in Path of Exile the greatest of all time? Do throngs of people spontaneously assemble around her to sing Eye of the Tiger when she's just walking down the hall to the kitchen? More specifically, did you purchase the Grandmaster Founder Pack for the game? Then you can be immortalized in the Hall of the Grandmasters, a unique map canonizing player characters whilst pitting everyone against these champions. The development team has recently posted screenshots of the map still under development in addition to some planning details. Players will be able to challenge specific hallways within the Hall of the Grandmasters, which pit players against several random grandmasters who must be beaten to continue onward. This allows the developers to continue expanding as more grandmasters are added in the future. Check out the full thread for more details and preview shots of the map under development. The team has also posted two new skill effect microtransactions; the videos showing them in action are below.
ArenaNet shares Hall of Monuments newbie guide and reward video
With only a month remaining until the release of Guild Wars 2, many players are frantically working on boosting their Guild Wars Hall of Monuments numbers in order to gain access to special GW2 rewards. Content Designer John Stumme posted a neat introductory guide to getting 30 points or more, and he slants his post toward the newcomer. "Most people will be content to get 30 points for all of the special items, and that's a task that's much easier to break down," he assures us. In addition to the guide, Stumme put together a video showing off the in-game rewards that the Hall of Monuments produces in ArenaNet's sequel. You can check this video out after the jump, but don't forget that Massively has a rather excellent Hall of Monuments guide as well!
The Daily Grind: Does SOE owe you in-game compensation?
The recent announcement by Sony Online Entertainment of a compensation program for users affected by the downtime of its MMORPGs presents lots of opportunities for discussion. In some quarters, players have praised SOE for lining up double XP benefits, events, and one-of-a-kind items. In other cases, displaced vets are complaining about the sheer unfairness of it all, as well as the perceived inadequacy of the reward items offered as an olive branch. Underlying all of this is the question of whether SOE owes anything to consumers aside from honest billing practices and identity theft protection services for those actually affected by the breach. If nothing else, the fiasco serves as an interesting case study not only for PR disaster prevention and MMO IT practices, but also feelings of player entitlement. How about it, Massively folk? Do you think SOE owes you in-game compensation for your lost leisure time, or are you content with freely available identity theft protection programs? 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!
Fortune League brings EverQuest II into the Facebook realm
Facebook applications for MMOs are becoming more and more ubiquitous as time goes by -- while the earliest examples were simply character-status updates, more recent additions have been fully featured applications in their own right. EverQuest II has just announced the introduction of Fortune League, a game in the earliest stage of testing that will let players adventure in Norrath even when they can't log in to the game proper. And if that weren't enough motivation, players can earn exclusive rewards in-game by taking part in the Facebook competition. It is indeed a competition, one in which players assemble their preferred set of adventurers and pit them against obstacles on a per-week basis. While there's no direct player conflict, the highest-scoring players are the ones who will receive some nice rewards to be used in EverQuest II, including a pair of special wings. If you're interested in giving another Facebook game a go, the game is available now for players.
One Shots: Way more silliness to come, we're sure
What's got this Global Agenda player looking spooked? Well, perhaps it's the scheduled invasion of the Massively Mob tonight? It could be the knowledge that devs will be playing along with our readers -- and devs generally tend to have nifty weapons. Maybe it's that guy with the glowy, colorful gear in the background, who is clearly labeled as a threat. We can't be sure, but we do know one thing for certain -- that goofy bag mask is pretty funny to look at! This One Shots comes to us from reader Canucck, who writes in: "[Here's a picture of the] new 'diplomat flair' being given out to specific players by Hi-Rez for being helpful. 'Scared Bag is Scared' is the item's description in game." Have you gotten an interesting reward in your favorite game that you'd like to show off? One Shots is all about the player's-eye-view of MMOs, so whether it's a silly mask or new goodies gained from raiding, we welcome your images. All you have to do if you'd like to take part is to email your images to us here at oneshots@massively.com along with your name, the name of the game, and a description of what we're seeing. We'll post it out here for everyone to check out and give you the credit. %Gallery-85937%
Mountain Dew Battle Bots now live
Mountain Dew Game Fuel, WoW-themed flavors of the popular beverage in red and blue (for the Horde and Alliance, respectively), is out in the wild, and at least one of our writers is already a big fan. To show how much they love you (or rather, to try to get you to buy their soda), Mountain Dew will give you a free in-game Battle Bot pet, just for clicking a button on their web site! The button is towards the lower-right, and it'll redirect you to log in to your Battle.net account. Don't worry, it's safe - you can tell by the Battle.net URL. He's a cute little guy. You can see a few screenshots I took in the gallery below. Apparently you get in-game fuel for your pet, again in red or blue, and when you fuel them up, they will fight opposite colors. If you give your pet blue fuel and the guy next to you gives it red, expect some robot-on-robot fighting action. I'm not sure if you have to get the appropriate fuel for your faction, since it seems you can only get one in-game item per day, and I already got my battle bot. I'll try it tomorrow and see how it goes. Edit: It looks like we've killed the Mountain Dew website. Keep trying though, it's bound to come back up sometime... Edit 2: The pet is mailed to all of your characters, so you don't have to decide which one gets it. %Gallery-65571%
The Daily Grind: In-game achievements
When I'm not playing MMOs, I'm usually found on a console. Of all the numerous machines and debugs I own, my Xbox 360 is my favourite. It's the one console I saved hard to buy and waited the longest for. While I think it has some of the best games, it also has Achievements. It's really sad, I know, but I love that little ding and onscreen notification which lets me know I've achieved something in-game. From finding a secret area or finishing a game, there's something about that noise which is rewarding. But now achievements have started popping up in MMOs (in the form of actual achievements or special titles for completion of certain quests) and it's so much fun. What is it about being rewarded? Are we just rats being given cheese for completing a maze or do achievements help keep interest in a particularly long quest chain or boring instance we'd never otherwise complete?
