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Pantheon removes its web store
If you were waiting to grab something from the website store for Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen, you are now officially too late. A forum post this week states that after internal developer discussion, the devs made the decision to remove the store in prep for a redesign of the interface and a re-evaluation of the various items up for sale. Any orders already placed via the store will still be honored, so you don't need to worry if you had purchased something just before the shutdown. The post also makes note that if the store is brought back, no items with any sort of statistics or concrete advantages will be sold there, although there are no hard and fast decisions about when or whether it will be brought back. Of course, it's probably a little early to be worrying about that anyhow, but points for thinking ahead.
PAX South 2015: Pox Nora is the coolest online card game you've never heard of
Pox Nora is a game that's hard to categorize. It's like Hearthstone, you see, because it's an online card game. But it's also like Civilization because it uses turn-based combat on a variety of maps with terrain that affects the battle. And maybe it's like Minecraft as well because it was built by a tiny team and developed incrementally through the feedback of a passionate fan base. Pox Nora was free-to-play before free-to-play was a thing. It's gone from tiny little indie to SOE-backed product and back again. And through its eight years, it's managed to fly quietly under the radar while its developers continually churn out content, implement community ideas, and expand its possibilities. At PAX South over the weekend, I sat down with Arthur Griffith, CEO of Desert Owl Games and co-creator of Pox Nora, to learn more about the game and its latest content additions.
PAX South 2015: Moonrise and State of Decay shine at the Undead Labs booth
Most media appointments at an event like PAX South 2015 work like this: You meet the person you're supposed to meet, that person shows you the game her studio is working on, and then you rush off to the next booth on your list while cursing yourself for not scheduling time for a snack. Undead Labs handled my PAX appointment a bit differently, sitting me down for back-to-back play sessions with brand-new tablet game Moonrise and a remastered version of State of Decay, the zombie survival game that put the studio on the map. It was a little jarring to go from adorable pet battles to being torn in half by a zombie, but the two-for-one session provided a nice glimpse of where Undead Labs has been and where it intends to go.
PAX South 2015: Slaying giants in Motiga's Gigantic
Motiga's Gigantic is one part Team Fortress, one part Dota, and one part Monster Hunter. The basic match structure will sound familiar to MOBA lovers -- two teams of five slug it out for superiority by controlling resources, leveling up, and killing one another -- but the skill-based mechanics, multiple maps, and shifting strategy priorities make the game more than a three-lane farm fest. Gigantic isn't about last-hitting or memorizing meta. Instead, it's about slaying giants and aiming true. I hopped in on a quick Gigantic match with some other press folks this afternoon at PAX South 2015, and in the midst of delivering an absolute drubbing to the scrubs (kidding!) on the other side of the table, I was able to get a feel for the game's combat system, characters, and the way its massive guardians change the way battles play out.
Choose My Adventure: A bit of TERA sightseeing
There's no question that TERA is one of the most beautiful MMOs on the market. Its open world features gorgeous terrain, cool set pieces, and lots of variation for the screenshot-obsessed. So when Choose My Adventure's voters elected to send me exploring last week, I was more than happy to oblige. I wouldn't accomplish much Fate of Arun stuff, but at least I'd get to see some sights! I also, somehow, learned a bit more about the Warrior class and how to effectively deploy it in combat. It's been a long, hard crawl, but I think I'm finally starting to get the hang of my combo abilities and my evasion techniques. I'm definitely dying less and even occasionally having moments when I feel totally in control of the actions my character is taking and the reasoning behind them. I almost feel... good. Until the next BAM smacks me down, of course.
GDC survey: eSports rising, consoles cresting
The Game Developers Conference revealed its third annual "State of the Industry" survey results, which found that 79 percent of North American game developers believed eSports is a "sustainable business." GDC surveyed over 2,000 developers, 12 percent of which said they are working on an eSports-style, skill-based, competitive multiplayer game. The State of the Industry survey also found that 21 percent of developers said they made most of their profits from microtransactions, whereas 29 percent said "direct sales to consumers or digital sales" was their biggest draw. This compares to 13 percent of the developers surveyed, which pointed to sales at retail as the source of the majority of their profits. Of those surveyed, 41 percent said profits for their companies were higher in 2014 compared to the previous year. Lastly, 56 percent of the polled developers said their current projects would launch on PC and 50 percent said their games would reach smartphones or tablets. 26 percent said they were currently working on a game for PS4 while 22 percent said they were developing an Xbox One game. Head over to GDC's site for a more detailed breakdown of its State of the Industry survey results. [Image: GDC]
Choose My Adventure: Air travel is not very safe in TERA
Massively multiplayer online games are collections of interlocking systems. A character's skills allow her to interact with the world, interacting with the world gives her experience points, experience points give her levels, levels give her skills, and so on. Inventory, items, professions, quests, and social interactions are also systems, layered on top of the core combat and gameplay mechanics. When you have mastery over an MMO, you don't just have mastery over skill rotations; you have mastery over all of the systems underneath. By the time a normal person hits 60 in En Masse's TERA, for example, that person can probably tell the difference between good gear and bad gear, organize a character's inventory, and use the game's menus. This is the stuff you take for granted when you've been playing an MMO for weeks, months, or years. Leaping into expansion content with a near-max-level character but little core game experience is, thus, not very smart. But I did it anyway, charging into TERA's Fate of Arun with a brand-new-yet-level-60 Castanic Warrior for Choose My Adventure. It went okay.
Choose My Adventure: TERA's Fate of Arun
As was mentioned many times during our end-of-year awards and the comments surrounding them, 2014 was a much better year for adding to existing properties than releasing new ones. Some of the biggest launches of the year came in the form of expansions like Rift's Nightmare Tide, Star Trek Online's Delta Rising, and Star Wars: The Old Republic's Shadow of Revan. Choose My Adventure even took the expansion route last month by investigating World of Warcraft's Warlords of Draenor. En Masse's TERA, too, received a huge update in 2014, though it launched with significantly less fanfare than some of the other major expansions of the year. Fate of Arun introduced new zones, added new dungeons, and raised the level cap (as expansions are wont to do). It also brought a new game mode in The Coliseum, a PvP/PvE hybrid arena-type thing. Perhaps most notably when compared to the other expansions of 2014, Fate of Arun is free to all TERA players. Since TERA so often flies under the radar with MMO fans, I thought it might be fun to dedicate this month's CMA to Fate of Arun. So get ready because it's time to start slaying some big-ass monsters.
Trove introduces the Ice Sage
It's that time of year again when the days are shorter, the weather is colder, and a disproportionate number of songs playing everywhere you go relate to ice crystals covering the ground. (Unless you live south of the equator, in which case you're just wondering what we're on about.) To accompany the winter weather, voxelbox MMORPG Trove has introduced its newest class, the Ice Sage. You can probably guess what that one's all about; the name is not exactly a mystery. Ice Sages chill enemies with their basic attacks and avoid slipping on icy surfaces. They can also summon icicles, absorb attacks, and create a deep freeze in their immediate area to freeze and damage enemies. If that sounds cooler than being cool, you can pick the class up in the in-game store now.
ArcheAge reinstates APEX purchases
The time since ArcheAge's launch has been a cycle of allowing cash shop purchases, discovering exploits with those purchases, and disabling those purchases, usually APEX. There have been a variety of other goofs hither and yon, but the important one right now is APEX. After a long period of being unavailable, it can be purchased once more, hopefully without a need to disable it again in the future. APEX, for those of you unaware, is essentially a way to purchase subscription time and sell it in-game, a la EVE Online's PLEX or WildStar's CREDD. The exploit issues caused by use of APEX items without actually consuming them have led to the items being removed from the store on multiple occasions. Hopefully this reinstatement signals the end of that particular cycle for the game.
Soloing through SWTOR's Shadow of Revan
Some people question how you can be a solo player in an MMO. To be honest, I, too, question how someone can do the whole game solo, but I do understand the desire to experience the game at your own pace. I believe the creators of Star Wars: The Old Republic understand this, too. Game director James Ohlen said that the biggest thing players wanted was the continuation of Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2. Although part of the SWTOR story did continue the Revan and Exile stories, a lot of players haven't even touched on that storyline. In a multiplayer game, it's hard sometimes to experience the story solo with all the group-only material. However, Shadow of Revan creates an amazing opportunity for the solo MMO player to really experience the full story it has to offer. Fair warning: I will not spoil major plot points for the expansion, but I will reveal some key characters in order to talk you through this leveling experience.
Amazon's Mechanical Turk workers want to be treated like humans
Amazon's Mechanical Turk service is all about using humans to perform computer-like tasks, such as identifying objects and transcribing videos. However, those workers are tired of being treated like automatons -- they've launched an email campaign urging Amazon chief Jeff Bezos to market Mechanical Turk staff as the humans they are. Ideally, they'd be treated as "skilled, flexible" people with real identities, not just as tools for time-conscious customers. They're hoping for a public response from Bezos, and also want to shake off stereotypes of Turkers as unskilled or working solely for "beer money."
Battlefields open in Sevencore's first expansion
Sevencore may have just enjoyed its global launch at the beginning of this month, but there's already an expansion just around the corner. On December 2nd, Webzen will release Occupation War for the English server Balmung. This expansion includes the battlefields Tillau and Crimson Plateau, where players can earn victory points (VP) to spend on weapons, armor, random boxes, and even mounts from the PvP vendors. Each Saturday at 4:00 p.m. EST, one guild will compete against the others for control a certain area. Winners of this contest will be able to collect taxes and manage prices in regional goods as well as access the Presidential election for Inadar. [Source: Webzen press release]
Just Cause 3 is a retail box game, doesn't have microtransactions
No reason to fret, free-to-play police: Just Cause 3 will not be a free game with microtransactions, Avalanche Studios co-founder and CCO Christofer Sundberg said in a blog post. A few leaked screenshots made the rounds earlier in the week, and they showed what appeared to be a microtransaction system in a new Just Cause game. Avalanche announced Just Cause 3 yesterday and didn't provide pricing details, leaving folks to wonder. Wonder no more, Sundberg wrote: "Those leaked screenshots were taken from an ancient version of Just Cause 3. Like most games, this one went through an exploratory phase where we looked at different control schemes, different technologies, different business models. Those leaked screenshots show aspects of that process, and in no way reflect the game we are making today. To be perfectly clear: Just Cause 3 will be available in 2015 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Windows PC. It will be distributed as a retail box and digital download. It is not a free-to-play game. It does not feature in-game microtransactions." Just Cause 3 will have post-launch DLC, which Sundberg said is "part of our ambition to support Just Cause 3 and its players for many years to come." [Image: Avalanche Studios]
Choose My Adventure: Closing off our time in Swordsman
I've spent quite a bit of time in Perfect World Entertainment's Swordsman this month. Thanks to the unique layout of October 2014, Swordsman ended up getting an extra week compared to most Choose My Adventure endeavors. And while I'm ready to move on to the next game, it was nice to have some extended time with Swordsman before sending it to that magic hard drive in the sky. Sometimes a few extra days can give you time to see things in a game you didn't see before. Swordsman is definitely a game that grows on you. The experience continually improves. If you're willing to stick through the slow opening and limited early experience, there's a pretty interesting game waiting to be discovered.
Flameseeker Chronicles: Gem store scares and lore treats in Guild Wars 2
It's Halloween! Well, almost. Close enough. It's always fun to celebrate holidays as an MMO fan because you can party as long as the event runs without ever leaving your house! Oh, I just made myself sad. Let's start over. Guild Wars 2 is celebrating its third Halloween, and it doesn't seem as though evil ghosts are any more likely to let the destruction of Lion's Arch get in the way of the festivities than the rest of us are. Even though the celebration is a repeat of last year's, there's still quite a bit of news to discuss, so hop past the cut and let's see what ArenaNet dropped in our trick-or-treat bags.
Final Fantasy XIV 24-hour patch downtime and cash shop controversy [Updated]
If you've got any lingering business in Final Fantasy XIV you want to get finished before patch 2.4 launches on Tuesday, you'd better get it taken care of on Sunday. Yes, Sunday. Because of the new wards being added, database maintenance will also be undertaken while the patch is being applied, and it comes down to a 24-hour maintenance downtime from 3:00 a.m. EDT on October 27th until 3:00 a.m. EDT on October 28th. The maintenance might take a bit longer to complete, but players will want to be finished up and logged off before it starts. [Edit: Square-Enix has announced that the maintenance will be extended by one hour until 4:00 a.m. EDT on October 28th.] Patch 2.4 also introduces to the game the cash shop, which has already provoked extensive player discussion, including requests to keep past seasonal items out of the shop. Opinion on the matter is split, and there has been no official word yet from Square-Enix, although it is possible that there will be more concerns addressed during the London Fanfest this weekend.
Choose My Adventure: The once and future Swordsman
For the last three weeks, I've been whipping and kicking every bad guy I can find in Perfect World Entertainment's Swordsman in the hopes of understanding this peculiar wuxia MMORPG. My Choose My Adventure experience thus far has been mixed; I've enjoyed Swordsman's theme and setting, but its mechanics and hard-to-follow narrative have made the experience a touch less manageable. Swordsman from 1-30 seems at best like an extended tutorial and at worst like a game that plays itself. That's not just my opinion. All of the feedback I can find on the game seems to point in one direction: Swordsman's early levels aren't the main attraction. The real Swordsman exists in PvP (unlocked at level 30), guild quests (unlocked at level 35), and instances (unlocked at 15 -- not bad). Last week's combat discipline discovery at 25 further cemented the idea that Swordsman is a game designed to reward players who stick through the initial grind. I didn't have much time to play this last week, but I did get a chance to sit down with PWE product manager Gabrielle Heiland to talk about Swordsman's first expansion, the future of the game, and how Perfect World feels about the game's current "wait and see" design.
Choose My Adventure: Clicking around in Swordsman
Three weeks into our Choose My Adventure adventure, I'm not sure what to make of Perfect World Entertainment's Swordsman. The game boasts a deep literary pedigree and markets itself on its wuxia themes and combat-oriented design. It has a rich, beautiful world that is dripping with powerful design cues and historical influences. Like all PWE games, it is slick and easy to pick up and play. Swordsman is a well-made MMORPG. It is mechanically sound and conceptually solid. So why am I so bored?
Choose My Adventure: Cracking whips in Swordsman
In last week's Choose My Adventure poll, I asked two simple questions of the Massively community: Which gender should our character be in Perfect World Entertainment's Swordsman, and what path should that character take among the game's 10 available schools of combat? The result was a resounding win for the female-character-exclusive Five Venoms school (probably because whips) and for the creation of a female character. Since the polls closed on Saturday, I've created our character and spent a little time with Swordsman's intro sequence, tutorial missions, and the earliest chapters of its main storyline. I've whipped a bunch of dudes, summoned giant frogs, and set a few horses on fire. And while it's early yet to declare Swordsman a success, failure, or mediocre in-betweener, thus far I would describe the experience as decidedly mixed.
