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H1Z1 floats possible server rulesets
A short Reddit post from SOE revealed a few possible server rulesets that the team has been discussing for H1Z1. While these aren't set in stone, it is an interesting peek into the possibilities of both official and player-run servers. The possible server rulesets include: Hardcore ruleset (wipes all ownership and recipes upon death) PvP vs. PvE Military weapons toggle Guns toggle (melee/bows only server) Roleplay (VOIP attracts zombies and other tidbits) World chat vs. area chat Hardcore ruleset #2: Starvation! (food and water consumption are much higher) Hardcore ruleset #3: Zombies and wolves are deadlier, faster, and hardier Base destructibility (easy, hard, not at all) SOE also indicated that it would be possible to create rulesets that mix-and-matched between these ideas.
This screenshot really makes me want to play Darkfall
Have you ever felt that way about a screenshot? It's kinda annoying, really. I don't have time for another game right now, and I don't have the energy to seek out a guild and make new friends (both of which are basically required in the sort of FFA PvP environment that Darkfall offers). So, yeah. I guess I'm just going to sit here and look longingly at that dude's spyglass and think about the good ol' Darkfall days. Oh, and Aventurine's put out its latest newsletter, if you want to give that a read-through. And there's a custom roles video after the break.
Darkfall market exploit leads to rollback
The bad news: Unscrupulous players found and abused an exploit of Darkfall's market this past week. The worse news: Because of this, Aventurine had to roll back inventories to last Thursday, May 22nd. "With the help of the community we have discovered that there was some exploiting of our market feature at the end of last week," Aventurine posted on Facebook today. "We immediately deactivated the market to fix this issue and we identified those who had been actively exploiting it. We are in the process of permanently banning these players for their actions, as their behavior is inconsistent with the values we've set for the Darkfall Unholy Wars community." The silver lining to all of this, apart from a hopefully fixed exploit, is that the studio is granting three days of additional game time to all accounts on June 1st.
Darkfall's economy patch is live, role-focused livestream at 1:00 p.m. EDT
Aventurine has released Darkfall's latest patch, and it introduces a number of tweaks to the fantasy PvP sandbox's economy. The devs have added high-yield harvesting nodes "in order to promote more active harvesting activities," according to the patch notes. Said nodes will always be full as long as only one player is harvesting, and they also drop new rares instead of essences, which allows players to skip the rare essence conversion step. New (and more expensive) rare tools are now available for crafting, and new basic materials have been added as well. Darkfall devs are also hosting a livestream today at 1:00 p.m. EDT to answer questions on the game's custom roles revamp. [Thanks Jane!]
Here are a bunch of interesting Darkfall stats
Have you ever wondered who Darkfall's top gankers are and how many gankees they've ganked? How about Agonian market activity? Would you like to know how many items have been traded or whether there's more demand for iron ore, cotton, or timber? These and other burning Darkfall questions are answered in a series of infographics recently released by Aventurine. There's even one for PvE featuring lifetime mob kills on both the NA and EU servers. [Thanks Jane!]
Darkfall details Crafting Orders
If you're a particularly skilled crafter in Darkfall, you might be interested to hear more about the new Crafting Order system that allows you to create items for other players who place an order and provide you with needed materials. This changes crafting to a profession, "rather than something that everyone has to do," according to a post on the official forums. "Orders are anonymous and are processed in the order they were placed (first come - first served)," the post from Community Lead Unuldur states. "Crafting an order will provide a player with the same amount of skillup and prowess as if crafting the same item for themselves." This weekend also marks a special occasion to celebrate the upcoming prowess points respec with a Double Dye Drop Rate event and 2000 free prowess points for anyone with an active account as of May 31. Check out the official threads linked below for more info. [Thanks to Dengar for the tip!]
Special H1Z1 livestream event going on right now
SOE is planning a special livestream event covering H1Z1 starting at 2:00 p.m. EST today. President John Smedley tweeted, "It's a surprise. It's entirely live. Its either going to be epic awesome or epic fail. Either way it will be worth tuning into. Either way, it's not going to bore you." You can watch it on H1Z1's Twitch channel or after the jump.
Darkfall Unholy Wars unveils the new custom roles
You want to do your own thing in Darkfall Unholy Wars, but how are you going to do that? Simple -- you're going to make use of the game's upcoming custom roles to build exactly your sort of character. This represents a fundamental shift to the game's mechanics, and the latest development post on the official site stresses that this first iteration is going to be modified over time. But it's still something novel, and it's a chance to have more control over your character's development. Players will be able to pick out any 9 school skills (with 1 Ultimate skill) and several common skills for a given build, with a grand total of 16 skills from school skills and common skills. Players will also be able to mix and match armor types to create just the right sort of playstyle. Builds can be altered at any point if a character has been out of combat mode for 15 minutes, so you're not locked into one configuration. Check out the official post for more details on the mechanical shift.
SOE's Jimmy Whisenhunt on the paranoia and potential of H1Z1
What's more dangerous to your survival after the apocalypse: undead abominations or your fellow humans? OK, that's certainly not a new question in the zombie gaming genre, although it's not going to stop H1Z1 from asking it. In fact, there's a haze of extreme familiarity that's settled around this title, even though it's the first full MMO on this scale to tackle a zombie survival sandbox. Is it almost too familiar for its own good? Will that familiarity be an asset or a drawback? Is SOE merely trying to cash in on the DayZ craze without trying much new? Or are these assumptions blinding us to the grander plan? To get a better feel for H1Z1, we got on the phone with Senior Designer Jimmy Whisenhunt. To start off, Whisenhunt gave us a quick summary of the game for those who aren't clued in to the whole. H1Z1 is a post-apocalyptic survival MMO that's more focused on physicality than stats. So instead of needing to level up, you'll find your initial challenges will be things like foraging for food, finding a shelter, building a campfire, and getting your hands on a weapon because everything wants to kill you. And when Whisenhunt says "everything," he means not just zombies but the environment, infection, weather, wildlife, and even other players.
Rust, H1Z1, and the emerging 'survival MMO' genre
I'm naked and alone again, but that's OK. After having to level up in other games a million times, deal with boring tutorials, repeatedly turn in quests that add no value to my play time, and then watch as my guild slowly bleeds members to the next MMO asking us to repeat the whole ordeal, "naked and alone" is actually nice. Well, maybe just the naked part. And that, my friends, is the horror-survival/post-apocalypse genre. I love MMOs, but recent themeparks and building games have left me wanting something a bit more dangerous but still not a pointless murderfest. For the most part, these games are less about levels and quests and more about finding items to make sure you don't die. Hunger meters, diseases, and limited supplies in a world filled with enemies who loot you certainly feels like a good throwback to classic RPGs mixed with the multiplayer I've been craving since Asheron's Call first hooked me on MMORPGs. But community-wise, these games have seemed more like lobby shooters than MMOs, which for a long time made me hesitate to try them. If you've been finding yourself in the same situation, hopefully my little plunge into this bloody genre will give you some ideas of what to expect.
Stick and Rudder: How Star Citizen is turning the game industry on its ear
When this column began, the first thing I talked about was Star Citizen's then-unique development model and how important it was both for fans and the game industry as a whole. Over a year later, the jury's still out on whether or not Cloud Imperium's opus will bring balance to the Force and give starving hardcores a home of their own. It's already safe to say that Star Citizen has turned the industry on its ear, though.
Play Darkfall for free from May 1 to May 5
Aventurine is throwing an extended Darkfall birthday party from May 1st to May 5th, so if you've ever wanted to try the fantasy combat simulator sans its monthly subscription fee, now's your chance! The devs are also doubling prowess rewards for the duration of the event, and there's even talk of "dynamic happenings" including a treasure hunt and GM-controlled monsters. Darkfall's latest patch is also live. Click through to the notes if you fancy reading about new armor dyes, the mentor system, and more. [Thanks Jane!]
SOE is streaming H1Z1 right now [Videos uploaded now]
You know what goes great with lunch breaks (or breakfast, if you're one of those weirdo West Coasters)? Zombies, that's what. As such, SOE is serving up an H1Z1 livestream as we speak, so head to the game's official Twitch channel to see game designers Adam Clegg and Jimmy Whisenhunt laying the groundwork for this afternoon's content. This is a day-long stream, with dev interviews, office tours, John Smedley, and gameplay on tap. [Update: We've embedded the trailer and other stream highlights after the break.]
Black Desert's open PvP and death penalties explained
Steparu has posted part two of a lengthy Black Desert beta review-in-progress. This installment focuses on the fantasy sandbox's leveling experience, enchanting, the combo system, and open world PvP. Pearl Abyss has raised the minimum PK level to 40 for this particular beta phase, and Steparu says that people "who misbehave and kill random players will increase their karma points and become chaotic." Chaotic status causes random inventory drops upon death, whereas Black Desert's normal PvP death penalty is "a random chance to lose socketed gems and weapon enchants." You can read more at Steparu.com, and don't forget to watch the beta gameplay vids after the break!
Here's a brief H1Z1 trailer
SOE sneaked a brief H1Z1 trailer onto the interwebs last week, and the clip features 58 seconds' worth of the night terrors typically associated with zombies and zombie video games. The trailer is called Will You Survive the Night. View it in its entirety after the cut.
The Daily Grind: How much paranoia should MMOs provoke?
A few weeks ago, SOE's John Smedley suggested that H1Z1's gameplay mechanics and atmosphere are intended make you "scared when you see someone" and that "your first instinct needs to be to hide." It seemed to me that what he was describing was not an MMORPG but the antithesis of an MMORPG. I usually log into MMOs to be surrounded by people, not to hide from them. Even in a game with open PvP, I don't want the entirety of my play experience to be summed up by sheer paranoia, especially a game that features so prominently a crafting-based and presumably social economy. What do you think -- how much do you want the feeling of paranoia and fear of your fellow players to dominate your play experience? [With thanks to SallyBowls and Space Cobra for the inspiration for this question!] 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!
John Smedley discusses H1Z1 monetization
Player characters in H1Z1 won't be concerned with money, seeing as how they'll be busy trying to fortify themselves against hordes of shambling zombies. Sony Online Entertainment, however, does indeed want to make money off of the game. President John Smedley took to Reddit to share the details of the team's first monetization meeting, and while it's not a decisive list of how the game will make money, it serves as a preview. The early list contains character slots, wearable items, crates with random selections of wearable items, and emotes. The team also intends to allow players to loot wearables from other players, but looted cash items will degrade over time rather than being perpetual acquisitions. Smedley makes it clear that resources like food, water, and ammunition will not be sold, nor will any boosts to those resources, since acquiring these assets makes up the core of the gameplay. Take a look at the post for the details and the community response.
Darkfall getting armor dyes
Darkfall players are no strangers to dying, but now at least they'll get to look good doing it. Aventurine is adding armor dyes to its fantasy PvP MMO, and while we don't know a lot of specifics just yet, we do know that green and gold are both options thanks to a couple of newly released screenshots. Will some dye colors be rarer than others? Will dyes be craftable and applicable to existing armor pieces? Will someone make a Mahirim-only Pink Panther clan with matching uniform requirements? Time will tell. [Thanks Dengar!]
Mortal Online patch will add more blood and Oculus Rift support
Mortal Online is about to both look better and play better with the coming of Patch 1.80.00.00. Wait, is that a patch version or an IP address? Never you mind. The new patch contains a boat-load of tweaks and upgrades, including the switch to an updated Unreal Engine. The dev team has improved the UI, rebuilt the gathering system, added more custom helmet overlays, created a unified options system, and even added support for Oculus Rift rendering and control. And if you worried that Mortal Online might be losing its savage edge, then you'll be glad to read the following patch note: "Tweaked decapitation blood for more... blood." [Thanks to Graham for the tip!]
SOE's new Player Server initiative debuting in H1Z1
Did you watch SOE's late-breaking H1Z1 livestream last night? Are you excited for the zombie survival sandbox MMO? Well, here's another nugget to chew on courtesy of CEO John Smedley and his Twitter feed. The game will feature private servers. Today I'd like to announce H1Z1 will be the first game to implement our new Player Servers. In addition to the traditional servers that we set up and run (what you've come to expect in MMOs), we will allow the players to come together in any way they wish and if they can get enough people together to vote for the server we will make it for them. At first this will be for specific pre-defined rulesets. Later we will expand past rulesets into adding more features. For example perhaps one community prefers to go more militaristic. So they add more military vehicles. So we're truly letting you, our players get exactly the kind of thing you're looking for. Mechanically this will allow players to buy pledge tokens in Station Cash to vote on a proposal. However, should the vote [succeed] we refund. [Thanks BabaGraPL!]
