joystiq-features
Latest
Arcane Brilliance: Post-patch madness
Each week Arcane Brilliance shows you what happens when Mages stop being polite and start being real. This week, Arcane Barrage gets all up in Living Bomb's face, and fireworks ensue when Hot Streak hooks up with Combustion. Can Netherwind Presence and Missile Barrage learn to live together? Will Arcane Blast come to terms with the fact that it got raped? Will Deep Freeze finally reveal that it has Aids? Find out in this week's Arcane Brilliance.Anyone else's head spinning like that chick in The Exorcist? I'm not saying I need a priest to come and cast patch 3.0.2 out of my body or anything, I'm just saying that holy crap. That was a lot of stuff, all at once. Even though I've been playing the beta, and constantly scanning this site and various others for information to prepare myself for all that was changing when the patch finally went live, it was still overwhelming to log in when my server finally came back up late Tuesday night and see how crazy everything had gotten. To be quite honest, I'm still adjusting.In a ton of ways, what we're logging into today is an entirely different game than the one we logged into five days ago, even though our levels are still the same, we're still doing the same quests, and playing the same end-game content. Our mounts are still there, but in a different place. The bosses we're fighting still look the same, but are now way easier to kill. Many of our talents have the same names, but now do completely different things. Spells that were previously good are now bad, and some that were useless on Monday are perfectly serviceable today.With the information overload we've all been presented with, I have found it best to focus on one or two things at a time, instead of attempting any sort of larger view. I look at each change as I notice it, rather than trying to address them all at once, purely out of fear of my head exploding. If you missed them in all the chaos, Arcane Brilliance did a two-part preview of the major changes, and you can find those here and here. After the jump, I'll go over some of the sparkly newness I've noticed but haven't covered yet in this space, both documented changes that managed to surprise me as well as those that flew a bit more under-the-radar.
Preparing your Mage for patch 3.0.2, part 2
So...tomorrow's the big day, huh? When you log in tonight, be sure to open up your talent interface. Take a long look at your talents. Give them all a nice, long, figurative kiss goodbye. Do this because the next time you see your talents, you won't recognize them at all.Since we have 8 billion things to talk about and substantially less than 8 billion words with which to talk about them, we'd better get started.Patch 3.0.2--the pre-expansion patch that we're almost certainly getting tomorrow--changes a crapload of things. We went over the more general Mage-related changes in Arcane Brilliance on Saturday, so if you haven't seen that yet, take a look and then come on back.Today, we'll look at the vast, sweeping modifications our talent trees have undergone. Trust me when I say a lot has changed. Did I mention the changes were sizable? Well they are. Come back after the jump for a massive review of new and remodeled Mage toys.
TGS 08: Full Square Enix Closed Theater impressions
Ah, the Square Enix Mega Theater. It's always something to look forward to at every TGS. We took the time to check out the theater and see what's cooking behind those big, black walls. Square Enix showed off trailers for nine games and a film in the Mega Theater, including two PS3 titles, the Advent Children Complete movie, and four PSP titles. Grab the full scoop on each title in our Square Enix Closed Theater impressions.
Arcane Brilliance: Preparing your Mage for patch 3.0.2, part 1
Each week Arcane Brilliance patches itself with new Mage content. These weekly patches are always full of buffs, and never any nerfs. They never contain any changes made for the sake of class balance. There are no bug fixes; because Arcane Brilliance has no bugs (or at least no bugs that can't be retroactively called "features"). This week, the patch notes read as follows:Mage: New spell: Polymorph: Corpse - 1% of base mana, instant cast, 50 yard range, transforms the target into a corpse, making it dead. While dead, the corpse cannot attack or cast spells. Lasts however long it takes for the target's ghost to run back to their corpse. Mages can now equip plate armor. Mana no longer goes down when casting, it instead goes up. Next week, I'll complain about this patch. It's totally not powerful enough. Also, Warlocks are OP.All signs point to this coming Tuesday being the day patch 3.0.2 arrives and turns the game on its head. Up will be down, left will be right, dogs and cats will live together, mass hysteria will ensue. We need to prepare for this coming insanity, if only so that we're able to give snarky answers to the many questions that will pop up in trade chat after we all log back in. I expect lots of "LOL WUT HAPPEN TO MY TALENTS?" and the occasional "I used my mount and it disappeared! Bug?"This week will be the first of two columns in which we'll go over the changes most important to Mages that we can expect come Tuesday. We'll begin with general changes, and move on to the altered trainable spells. The second part will appear Monday, and will cover the three talent trees and review the many changes we'll find there. Jump on past the break and we'll get started.
Massively in Metropolis: DC Universe Online concept art sneak peek
Batman. Superman. Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter. Black Canary, Oracle, The Question. The world of DC Comics is populated with amazing characters and fantastic stories. The entire four-color experience is coming to fans of the MMO genre in the form of DC Universe Online, a title in Sony Online Entertainment's stable of next-gen MMOs. Alongside the FPS title The Agency and casual/kid friendly Free Realms, DCUO looks to reinvent the concept of massively multiplayer game for comic book fans. And Massively has had a lengthy first-hand look at this groundbreaking title.We had extensive hands-on playtime with the game's combat and powers mechanics, and hours of face to face chat time with the developers at SOE Austin. Over the next week, Massively is going to fully explore this dyanmic in-development game. In the words of the developers we'll crack into the studio's philosophy of play and discover the value these developers place on your play time.To kick things off we've got a fantastic gallery of concept art taken right from the walls of the SOE Austin studios. Explore the work of Jim Lee and the other DCUO artists, with commentary on what you're seeing and hints on what is coming in the next week. Plus! Read on below the cut for Studio Manager John Blakely's insights into 'future screenshots'! To the Batcave >> %Gallery-34118%
Joystiq impressions: Tomb Raider Underworld
Inspiration seems to be cyclical in the games industry. Well, at least in the case of Tomb Raider Underworld. Many of the improvements we saw in the latest preview of the upcoming Lara Croft adventure seem to come directly from last year's Tomb Raider-inspired Uncharted. Considering the wide accolades Naughty Dog's title received, that's certainly not a bad thing.There are a lot of elements which make us think back to Nathan Drake's quest for treasure. Perhaps it's the environment: the lush jungles of Thailand, with their deserted, decaying ruins reminding us of that other lush, ruin-filled jungle. But there are other similarities to note here, as well. Crystal Dynamics' creative director, Eric Lindstrom, told us that the team was trying to make Lara more human in regards to her abilities. She'll interact with the environment, by pushing foliage out of the way. She'll stumble when she makes large jumps. For the first time, Crystal Dynamics is working with motion capture, to make sure Lara feels a bit more believable.We've heard this pitch before, no? Lara will be holding off ledges, and she'll look towards the direction of a place she can grab on to. We saw Lara jump from one pillar to another, but before jumping, she reached out her arm towards the next pillar to indicate the potential action. Then we saw her approach a narrow walkway, cautiously, lifting her arms for balance as she crossed. We watched her stumble a bit too, struggling to make her next jump.%Gallery-32983%
Enter to win a custom WoW t-shirt from SwagDog.com and WoW Insider
We announced a while back that SwagDog.com was teaming up with Blizzard to offer some custom-made WoW guild t-shirts, and now their site is apparently open for business -- you can put your guild name and tabard on a t-shirt along with your character name and realm, to wear with the pride that only having a famous Warcraft character can give you. And to celebrate, SwagDog is teaming up with WoW Insider to give away three custom-made T-shirts.To enter, you must leave a comment on this post with the faction you choose to support, either "Horde" or "Alliance," before this Friday, October 3rd at 11:59pm. At that point, we'll choose one random winner on each faction to win a t-shirt, and the faction with the most supporters will win a third t-shirt (by a random drawing of that faction). So if more Alliance "grab their sword and fight the Horde" in the comments section below, we'll give away two Alliance shirts, but if more Hordies show up, they get the third shirt. Got it? Each winner will get a code, redeemable on the SwagDog website for a customized Warcraft shirt of the faction of their choice, worth $26.99 each.You may only enter once (though you can recruit as many friends and guildies as you like to support your side), and to enter, you must be 18 or older and a resident of the United States. Click here to read all the official rules, and good luck! May the best faction win!Update: Please note, guys, that you must say "Alliance" or "Horde" in your comment below to get counted as a support for that faction. Saying "I kill Horde" will get you counted for the Horde -- all you need to do is shout out the name of the faction you support.
Arcane Brilliance: The state of the Mage
This week, Arcane Brilliance would like to address all Mages everywhere, from level 1 to level 80, in a spirit of optimism and brotherhood. We only have a little over six weeks left before the release of Wrath, and we need to come together as one Mage...one freakish, mutant Mage with a million arms and legs and wands sticking out all over the place...one giant, horrific ball of flesh, cloth, and silly hats that could hurl a Pyroblast roughly the size of a planet. Let's do it! I'm pretty sure if we all stand facing each other like so...and then blink at the same time...oh sweet mother of all that is good and pure...that's awful...just...just nevermind. We'll clean that up later.My fellow Azerothians...We've been through a lot these past four years and change. There was the great respeccing crisis of Molten Core. A string of Blink mishaps. The table-ninjaing scandal of '07. We've Fireballed our way through the scourge invasion, the rise of the silithid, the opening of the Dark Portal. We've killed Ragnaros, Kel-Thuzad, Nefarian, Onyxia, Illidan, and on like 14 separate occasions, Kael'thas Sunstrider. We've emerged unscathed from the bloody, neverending Southshore/Tarren Mill conflict (though countless questgivers and flight masters were lost), and moved on to more organized, focused wars in the various battlegrounds. These were battles with a clear purpose, an attainable goal, and with the notable exception of Warsong Gulch, a firm timetable for troop removal.Fortunately, throughout all of these conflicts, the economy has remained strong. Seriously, have you seen the price of Runecloth lately?So now, my fellow Mages, it is time for us to look closely at the state of our glorious class. We know where we've been, and where we are now. We're fully aware of our past, and we know where we want to be as the future rushes toward us. Let's take a constructive look at our unresolved concerns, and try to foretell our place in the coming expansion. Follow me through the break, won't you?
Joystiq hands-on: Resistance 2
Are we allowed to say that Resistance 2 is "bigger, better and more badass" than the original PS3 launch title? Because that's exactly what it is. In many ways, R2 is incredibly predictable, offering all the improvements one would expect from a highly anticipated sequel. Improved visuals? Check. Better gameplay? Yep. More features? Of course.While Insomniac has been largely focused on its ambitious 60-player online multiplayer offering, yesterday's demonstration finally let us experience the single-player campaign for the first time. Finally, we could see what the new engine was capable of -- and it's much, much more than what the multiplayer has led us to believe. The new lighting and particle effects are particularly noteworthy. The expanded color palette is a refreshing change from the grays and various shades of brown so prominent in the original. In fact, the vibrant particle effects and bright, sunny presentation reminded us a little bit of Ratchet & Clank ... that is, until a Chimera exploded into bloody chunks.%Gallery-32473%
Arcane Brilliance: How long will my gear last me?
Each week, Arcane Brilliance emerges from the sewers beneath Dalaran, weary from dueling (and winning!) over and over in the Circle of Wills, to deliver to you a column about Mages. What's that you say? What good are sewers in a floating city? Where does all the sewage go? Does the city drift over the countryside, forever trailing a series of sewage waterfalls? Ah, but you forget: Dalaran is a city of Mages! Even our poo is magical. After reading our own Adam Holisky's excellent post on upgrading tanking shields in Wrath, I decided I wanted to know how long my Mage's gear would last in the frozen north. It's a fair question, and I suspect a common concern. We've worked hard for our shiny epics--either by raiding like crazy or grinding for honor or Arena points, and often a bit of both--and the thought of leaving them behind in one of the expansion's first zones for some green quality item that drops off a random mob is a little bit depressing.We want to feel--in these last months before Wrath arrives--as if our efforts have not been in vain. If we're still rolling in Karazhan gear, is it worthwhile for us to spend the time upgrading? If our guild has worked its way up through Sunwell Plateau, are we going to replace that gear right away, or will it last us a few levels? How motivated should we be to try to obtain the best that Burning Crusade has to offer before making the trip to Northrend?Well, fear not. Arcane Brilliance is here to show you how long you have before you retire your level 70 purples. And relax: it'll be longer than you think. Come back after the jump, won't you?
Hands & Vocals-on: Rock Revolution (DS)
We don't know what to make of Konami's DS version of Rock Revolution. The PS3/360 version is pretty easily summed up: it's Rock Band + a ridiculous drum - a functional GUI. While Rock Revolution screams "me too" on the home consoles, it's a rather innovative concept for Nintendo DS. Shouldn't that be commended?Perhaps, but the ambitious concept is marred by lackluster execution. Rock Revolution DS gives players different ways of playing for the drums, guitars and yes, vocals. For better or worse, Konami has opted not to include a Guitar Hero-esque peripheral with its game, relying exclusively on touch-screen controls for the guitar sections of the game. Unfortunately, this turns out to be a rather uninvolved process. Icons appear from the top left and right of the screen, with arrows pointing in the direction the player should swipe their stylus. That's it. Even in the more challenging difficulties, swiping the stylus up and down gets plain ol' tiresome after a while.The drums in Rock Revolution DS also mimic the console game's six-pad setup ... right down to the relentless difficulty. In this mode, color coded icons appear on the top screen, and players must hit the appropriate drum on the bottom screen. Unfortunately, this mode has inherited the console game's lackluster GUI, with an amateurish virtual drum design and illegible icons that make gameplay more difficult than it should be. The incredible disparity between easy and medium difficulties must also be noted: while the easy difficulty is borderline catatonic, the medium difficult sends a flurry of almost indecipherable notes that led us to near instant failure. Where's the middle ground? How will players make the transition from these wildly differing modes? %Gallery-32048%
Castlevania Judgment: It's like Soulcalibur Legends (but better?)
Castlevania Judgment. When we first heard of this title, we immediately conjured up memories of Soulcalibur Legends (read the preview that got us blacklisted by Namco Bandai here). Somehow, Konami is daring to tread the same path by re-imagining the Castlevania franchise as a waggle-filled fighting game with subpar (even for Wii) graphics and shallow gameplay. We'd feel sorry for poor ol' Castlevania for being treated this way -- but we've been through this before.At the very least, Judgment is much more competent and fun than Soulcalibur Legends. Graphically speaking, Judgment is rather unattractive, featuring awkward character models that certainly don't belong in the Castlevania universe. Textures are low-res, environments are uninspired and character models are poorly constructed with flat textures and low poly counts. Sadly, it doesn't match the visual fidelity of the 3D Castlevania titles on the PS2.Thankfully, the gameplay in Judgment isn't as shallow as you may expect. Yes, you can swing your Wiimote every which way, but you won't be able to win with blind waggling. Perhaps it's because Judgment is being touted as a fighting game and not an adventure game, but the fighting engine does feature a bit more depth than the one found in Soulcalibur Legends. A huge change, for example, is that you'll actually have to block attacks (!). Players will also be able to equip various Castlevania-themed secondary weapons to unleash upon opponents. For example, I equipped the trusty cross with Simon. A press of the A-button throws it like a boomerang. It's perfect to use after knocking an opponent to the ground. As they get up, it smacks them in the back. Yeah, it's a dirty trick.%Gallery-27218%
MMOGology: Why bother with story?
I recently went through a burn-out period on MMOGs. In addition to a job change and lots of personal commitments that limited my time, I'd simply grown bored with the genre. I think we all go through those periods. Times when we're just done with the grind and we need to recharge our gaming batteries on something different. This seems especially true once we've reached end-game and we're grinding the same old dungeons and flailing away in the same old PvP battles. It seemed like the only thing I had to look forward to was an eight year old telling me how bad I got pwned or watching yet another piece of gear drop that I couldn't use.My burnout period also coincided with the purchase of a brand new gaming rig. I think the last machine I purchased was back in 2004, and I finally decided to bite the bullet and buy a new rig. If you're like me (and I know I am), the first thing you do when you get a new gaming computer is test it on the most graphically advanced game you have available; that special game that brought your old machine to its knees. For me, that game was The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Although my old machine could run it with the settings on low, now I can finally play it at high resolution with all the bells and whistles turned on. I'm proud to say my new rig cuts through Oblivion like a hot knife through butter. I played Oblivion a lot when it originally came out, but because my old rig struggled with it, I never played more than about a quarter of the way through the game. I decided to start over from scratch and as I progressed I remembered why I love single player RPGs: the story. A great story provides a level of immersion that's only possible to achieve when playing alone. It was really refreshing. And it made me wonder, why do MMOGs even bother with the pretense of a story at all?
TurpsterVision : A Class Act
I wont bore you all with words and phrases strung together to create some form of coherence, instead I will jump right back in! I am extremely proud to invite you once more to join in with the fun right here at Massively that is TurpsterVision!After last time trying to sell you all on a new form of entertainment media, I thought I'd return to something a little more traditional. Something that all the MMO fans out there, all the World of Warcraft fans, could really get behind. A game that's on everyone's lips and dancing right into their hearts. That's right: Club Penguin. Join me below the cut for a special deluxe edition (complete with tuxedo) of TurpsterVision!
Arcane Brilliance: Mages in the beta
Each week, Arcane Brilliance conjured up a sizable serving of delicious Mage cookies for everyone to enjoy. This week, special thanks goes out to a very generous reader who wishes to remain anonymous, but was selfless enough to donate his beta key to Arcane Brilliance, for the the benefit of all who read it. To that wonderful reader, I say thank you, thank you, and every time I kill something, I will kill it in your name. When I Cannibalize the corpse, though, that's all for me.Let me begin by saying the beta is awesome.After six hours of downloading and installing, several more hours of patching, and approximately seventy-three different server crashes and shutdowns, I've been able to spend a solid four hours on the beta so far. In those four hours, I've respecced no less than 8 times. I've cast Living Bomb on rabbits on multiple occasions. I've gotten a whole two bars of the way to level 71. I've been impressed with or disappointed with but always amazed by almost everything I've seen and done. There's such an overwhelming sense of newness that pervades the entire experience, it's difficult to adequately describe.Four hours may not be long enough to do a lot of things (I swear it took me like a half-hour to navigate from the top of the zeppelin platform at Vengeance Landing to the bottom), but in experimenting with the new talents I've had plenty of time to formulate some strong opinions. There are things I like, and thing I don't, but in both cases I'm almost embarrassingly excited.Join me after the break for the all the highs and lows four hours can deliver, and I promise not to spoil any plot points. If you don't wish to find out which talents seem to work well and which don't then stay away, but otherwise you're safe.
News from the Wider MMO World: August 26, 2008
The MMO genre is more than World of Warcraft, Age of Conan, and Warhammer Online. Here's what's going on in the rest of the world.Mabinogi welcomes Generation 3The MMO that bills itself as "your fantasy life" has gotten its next upgrade with Generation 3. Now Mabinogi players will have the ability to marry each other, complete with license and wedding attire for both genders. An overarching quest will require warriors to recover dungeon seals to prevent the Fomor from entering the world. And finally, the pet system gets an overhaul, with new interactions, behaviors, and controls. The removal of the combat cap, increased UI options, and new items all await players in Generation 3.Neocron 2 developer declares insolvency10Tacle Studios AG, parent company of Reakktor Media GmbH, developers of Neocron 2, declared insolvency on August 6th. They are awaiting an insolvency administrator to determine what will happen with the game servers. In a later update to the original forum post, Kirk Lenke, CEO of Reakktor Media announced that the insolvency will not affect business operation of Neocron 2, and that they are still in development for upcoming title Black Prophecy.
Arcane Brilliance: Glyph-hanger
Each week, Arcane Brilliance inscribes a glyph into the greater glyph slot of your Saturday afternoon. It's called the Glyph of Mageosity, and it Mageifies the entire rest of your day. A few words of warning, once your day has been Mageified: you may find fire bursting from your fingers at inopportune times. You might discover that certain nearby people who were formerly human may now be sheep. Also, for the rest of the day, you may want to avoid any contact with Rogues or Warlocks.As you may have noticed, build 8820 has touched down in beta land, and with it we Mages finally have our first real taste of how Inscription will affect us as a class. There are still a great many things we don't know about these glyphs, but just having a list and knowing that Glyph of the Penguin won't be our only reason to track down an Inscriber in the expansion is newsworthy. I mean, I'm as excited to turn a Warlock into a penguin as the next Mage, but I'm glad to finally have some idea what our other glyph options will be.Now, I'm still not one of the fortunate few who've gotten into the beta, so sadly I have no first-hand information to pass on to you. I'm sure that a goodly number of Mages more blessed than I are logged into the beta, busy testing out damage numbers as we speak, and I look forward to reading their euphoric and/or rage-filled forum posts later on...reading and dreaming and plotting to kill them and steal their beta keys. For now, though, you'll have to make do with my own uninformed and hastily formulated analysis of these forthcoming glyphs. Frankly, I wouldn't offer you anything less.Join me after the break for the full list of Mage glyphs, and as much hyperbole and bias as you can shake a Chilly Slobberknocker at.
Gen Con 08: Turbine tells us what's in store for Asheron's Call
At Gen Con, we spoke with Turbine's Andy Cataldo, the Community Manager for Asheron's Call, about the future of this historic game. Cataldo told us a lot about AC's epic 100th update. The update is coming within the next few weeks, and it's a doozy. According to Cataldo, AC players will get a whole new faction system, three land areas to battle over, tons of new loot and spells, and various other improvements to the game, particularly to enemy AI.In addition to working its regular monthly event and patch schedule, Turbine is attempting to respond to player demand for a variety of new features in the 100th and all future updates. Particular emphasis is being placed on adding features common in modern MMOs, such as a quest tracking menu. AC has been around for almost ten years, so it has some catching up to do!Learn more about Turbine's big push to modernize the game, add lots of new content, and more in the interview after the break.
Arcane Brilliance: My Mage wishlist
Each week Arcane Brilliance endeavors to give you a tiny peek into the vast and mysterious world of Mages. This peek comes at the cost of your very soul. Really, it totally does. Ok, so I'm lying. Your soul will be fine. No soul-related problems will come from reading Arcane Brilliance. That we're aware of.Mages complain a lot. We do. A stroll through the first couple pages of threads over on the official Mage forums is more often than not like a guided tour of QQ central. For instance, as I write this there's a four-page topic on quitting the game over not being able to downrank spells anymore. Yes, it's terrible, but apparently a level one Warrior is considering leaving the game because he can't save a bit of mana on his main by casting rank 1 Frost Nova. I sense a great disturbance in the Force, as if one first-level Warrior cried out in terror and was suddenly silenced. I think we all share a great sense of loss here.To be frank, in these heady days of Living Bomb spells that look like they might actually be useful, Frostfire Bolts that have the potential to be very, very powerful, Deep Freezes that have become instant cast and do nice damage, an Arcane tree that looks as if it can stand alone as a high-DPS tree, and of course Polymorph: Penguin, I feel as if there simply isn't much left for us Mages to complain about. In fact, as the Wrath beta progresses, I find more and more about our class that inspires an overall sense of optimism.Still, I dream of better things. I'm happy at the direction we appear to headed in, but there a few things I wish for our class--a short list of improvements, most of which I have wanted for a very long time. I'm not finding fault, just wishing. A Mage can dream, can't he? Join me after the break for a brief Mage wish-list, the things I dream of when I'm not setting fire to Fel Orcs.
Wrath of the Lich King's magical city of Dalaran
Dalaran, which is more or less the Shattrath of Wrath, has been getting a lot of love in the last couple of beta patches. It seems development on that particular bit of Northrend is going at full steam. It's still far from complete, with a whole legion of NPCs missing, the inside of some buildings still lack textures, and entire parts of the city still walled off. It really is coming together little by little though, and the city is more or less presentable now, not to mention beautiful -- it's like cotton candy for your eyeballs.We've put together a little gallery of Dalaran for you to sift through if you're interested, and as the beta patches go by we'll probably update it with more of the finished product. Not yet pictured is the Dalaran Sewers, but I hope to fix that soon. What are the Dalaran sewers, you might be wondering? It's a small hidden town beneath Dalaran, within the pipelines that were torn up when the relocation took place. It's full of all sorts of unsavory stuff. Awesome? Yes. Yes it is.%Gallery-28715%
