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RIFT details upcoming Expert Mode dungeon changes
RIFT's patch 1.7: Carnival of the Ascended is bringing with it some pretty neat things, such as in-game marriage, PvP improvements, and the eponymous Carnival of the Ascended. But long-time, high-level players are probably most curious about the changes coming to Expert Mode dungeons. Tier 1 and tier 2 Expert Mode dungeons are merging into a single Expert tier. What this means is that all players with tier 1 gear will keep that gear (which will be improved by item changes being introduced in the patch), but it will never drop again. The upgraded versions of tier 1 gear will drop in its stead. Previous tier 1 dungeons have had their difficulty increased to be more on par with tier 2 dungeons, and Trion Worlds has also "turned the dials up a bit higher on some encounters to keep things interesting with your flashy new gear." For the full details on all of the changes coming to the Expert Mode system and the endgame gear system, just click on through the link below to the RIFT official site.
Ultima Online producer's letter promises revitalization of classic content
Did you wonder who was captaining Ultima Online since Calvin "Uriah" Crowner left his role as producer earlier this fall? Apparently, it's been none other than Jeff Skalski, who recently penned a producer's letter to introduce himself to the UO-faithful. In it, he explains that his goals for the grand-daddy of MMOs include heavily increasing the team's interaction with the community, implementing weekly Q&A sessions, squashing bugs, and "breathing life back into areas that have long been forgotten," i.e., revamping older content. In fact, some of that older content -- Shame, one of the original and iconic anti-virtue dungeons in classic Britannia -- is due for its revamp sooner rather than later. Publish 73, now on the test server, retools Shame with a truly massive itemization overhaul and difficulty scaling as players descend the dungeon's depths.
Facebook adds real-time 'ticker' to overhauled news feed, donates old layout to science (video)
Facebook is about to turn your social life into an online newspaper. That's the takeaway from a new slate of changes the company unveiled yesterday, ahead of its annual f8 developer conference in San Francisco. From now on, if you log in to Facebook after a lengthy hiatus, your news feed -- much like the front page of a daily paper -- will consist of a list of "top stories," photos and updates that were posted while you were away, with each high-priority item tagged with a blue earmark. More frequent users, on the other hand, will find a list of most recent stories presented in chronological order, along with larger photos embedded directly within their news feed. The company has also introduced a new "ticker" feature that provides users with real-time updates on their friends' activity, displayed along the right-hand side of the home page. Here, you'll find the exact same updates you'd see on a real-time news feed, with the crucial difference being that you'll be able to interact with each development without missing a beat. If you see that a friend comments on a cat video, for example, you'll be able to click that item in the ticker and add your two cents, without having to navigate away from the home screen. Facebook will likely provide more details on these new features at its f8 tomorrow, but you can find more information in the demo video, after the break.
Legend of Edda going dark until 2012 due to revamp
Legend of Edda, the free-to-play title from GamesCampus, is temporarily closing its doors to the gaming public on August 26th until early next year. This isn't because of a dying population or financial difficulty, but rather to overhaul and relaunch the game with a much-improved version. According to a letter left on the website, EU's EYASoft developed a superior version of the game that went into open beta in Europe. Apparently this version was both so good and so incompatible with the North American version that GamesCampus decided to halt progress on the current edition of Legend of Edda in favor for the new and improved one. "Unfortunately," the letter says, "because of the extreme differences between the US version and the new version, it is impossible to update the US servers to the new game." To compensate Legend of Edda fans, GamesCampus is creating compensation packages to refund in-game currency and encourage players to try out on of the studio's other titles. We covered Legend of Edda earlier this year in our Rise and Shiny column.
Notion Ink Adam update overhauls UI, provides a smidgen of extra stability (video)
We'd be lying if we said the Notion Ink Adam tablet wasn't a major disappointment, but the tiny Indian company that brought us the slate hasn't packed it in yet -- this week, Rohan Shravan announced a new round of sales, and issued a massive software overhaul for all existing Adams to go along with it. We've been playing with the new software for over a day now, and we can attest that the Eden 1.5 UI is much improved -- it's less flashy, but far more responsive, less prone to crashes, and generally more useful. We'd still call it a beta, mind you, as we still managed to find some nasty bugs and slowdown while browsing around, but we're digging the new Chords music player, the new To-Do list, and the multitasking-friendly App Manager you see above. Notion Ink also claims we'll see better battery life in this version, and we're putting the Adam through a thorough drain test right now. We're also hearing that Notion Ink is still working on Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) and Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) builds. While you wait, why not click past the break for video of the new features in motion. Update: We're not sure about day-to-day use, but we're not getting better results in our battery drain test -- we're still looking at under 6 hours of juice with the backlight at roughly 65 percent brightness.
Darkfall activity report hints at game-changing expansion
It's been pretty quiet in Darkfall land since the first of the year, and whether that's because the devs have been hunting wabbits or hard at work on the game's next patch is a question that is addressed in the latest Aventurine activity report. There's a new patch in the works, tentatively scheduled for sometime next week, and it's bringing "significant changes" to the offline leveling system that was introduced late last year. How significant? For starters, additional skills will be available for meditation and the overall gains will see a substantial increase according to Aventurine's Tasos Flambouras. Aside from the patch, the dev team continues to forge ahead with Darkfall's next expansion, and it is shaping up to be (quite literally) a world-changer. Flambouras outlines the team's high-level approach which "involves a complete overhaul and dramatic streamlining of the world and complete redistribution of all its features," as well as a "completely level playing field for all players." Details on these sweeping statements are vague at this point, but Darkfall will clearly be undergoing some huge changes when the expansion debuts in the second quarter of 2011. Finally, the activity report touches on long-standing issues like the grind, character progression, endgame content, and the alignment system. If that's not enough for you, there's also a hint about a drop rate increase on books, scrolls, and stat potions, leading us to conclude that big things are afoot in the world of Agon. Stay tuned.
Free Realms releases massive December patch
Like many free-to-play games, Free Realms has seen pretty notable gains with the occasional rough patch -- not exactly a surprise when you consider how the year has in no small part been a renaissance for the business model. But love it or hate it, the game is still going strong, and is ending the year with its best foot forward. A massive December update has just hit the game, with a number of changes and additions to the entire experience. There's been an extensive combat overhaul, and -- hey, where are you going? Yes, okay, get the obvious Star Wars Galaxies joke out of your system, we can hardly blame you. But the changes here seem to be for the best, at least from the outside, with clearer labeling of stats and a more engaging experience all around. Even if you aren't enamoured of the combat changes, you can kick back in the new player housing, take part in the newly-added Fishing minigame, launch yourself into the sky or enjoy some of the many other additions in the game. Take a look at the full list for more details, and expect to clock a few extra hours in on Free Realms if you're a fan of the game. [ Thanks to Brian for the tip! ] %Gallery-80457%
World of Warcraft's graphics engine to be upgraded incrementally
In the wake of a series of comments by Blizzard reps hinting at an eventual overhaul of World of Warcraft's graphics engine, Worldofwar.net contacted Lead Producer J. Allen Brack for clarification. Brack responded by describing specific changes to the engine that will be in the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, and then by making a pretty major revelation about the nature of the overhaul.According to Brack, Blizzard will be making the changes bit-by-bit rather than all at once. "We're taking an iterative, organic approach to graphics upgrades," he said, "going feature by feature as opposed to thinking in terms of an overall new graphics engine."As for the WotLK changes: those will include a new shadow engine, some new shaders for "even better looking terrain, as well as cool ice effects," and an increased view distance to make those expansive Northrend wastelands look, well ... expansive. He also noted that new water effects will be coming in "a future content update or expansion."[Via WoW Insider] One of Azeroth's millions of citizens? Check out our ongoing coverage of the World of Warcraft, and be sure to touch base with our sister site WoW Insider for all your Lich King needs!
Brack clarifies graphical update plans
We heard just last week that J. Allen Brack said Blizzard was definitely considering a graphical overhaul for WoW in the future (something players have been asking about for a while), and now WorldofWar has asked Brack to clarify exactly what's going on with the game's graphics. And he's answered. He says that Blizzard's approach to updating the game's graphics will likely be very different than other games' attempts -- they want to do it organically and iteratively rather than all in one go.Which follows with what's happened already -- Burning Crusade got a few tweaks and upgrades, and Wrath has its own. Not only will they implement that shader system we heard about way back, but the shadows for each model ingame will be updated (and real-time, very cool), and Blizzard is increasing the view distance (to help out with vehicular combat, we hope?). But other changes, Brack says, will come in waves, not all at once.He does mention an upgrade of how the water in the game looks, though of course he doesn't say when that might happen, only that Blizzard is looking at it. But it seems like a pretty sure bet not to expect an upcoming content patch to be "the graphical update patch." Blizzard is improving the way the world looks, but they're doing it one step at a time.
Brack: Will Blizzard consider a graphical overhaul? "Yep, probably."
Chilton and Brack are just all kinds of talkative at the Leipzig Games Convention this year -- in addition to chatting with the buffed.de folks, they also sat down with Jeff Kaplan and Eurogamer, and the results of that conversation are now up on their site.They start out by talking about the changes with 10 and 25 man raiding, and Kaplan says plainly that the Burning Crusade endgame was just too plain hard: "We just had: 'OK, welcome to level 70, here's a brick wall. Maybe you can climb it.'" There will still be a hardcore endgame in Wrath, but it'll be later on, near the very end of the raiding ladder. They also describe Wrath as a "coming home" moment -- after an "exploratory" period in Outland, Wrath will be a return to Warcraft's tradition and lore. And perhaps most surprising, Brack actually lends a lot of credence to a question about a graphical overhaul "from the ground up." He says that by the next expansion they'll "probably" have to look at updating the graphics system completely.And finally, Blizzard believes that yes, even though it doesn't seem like it now, eventually there'll be something bigger than World of Warcraft. Brack's last word is an interesting look at the future: "Something will come along and WoW will be like EverQuest: a great game I played back in the day."[via WorldofWar.net]
WoW graphics engine to be overhauled someday
World of Warcraft producer J. Allen Brack and designers Jeff Kaplan and Tom Chilton were interviewed by Eurogamer today. Most of the interview dealt with Wrath of the Lich King content like the Death Knight, 10-person raids, and world PvP objectives. The most interesting bits of the interview were on the last page, though; the Blizzard reps talked about WoW's future.According to Kaplan, a major graphics engine overhaul is "probably" part of that future. While he himself is not convinced it's necessary (he cited players' lukewarm reception of similar moves by the developers of Ultima Online and EverQuest), he said: "That's actually something we talk about every expansion ... and I'm positive we'll talk about it next expansion."In the meantime, WotLK will allow "people with high-end machines some additional graphical effects." WoW Insider joked that future graphics engine updates might be dedicated entirely to producing even larger, more detailed shoulder pad armor. We wouldn't be surprised![Via WoW Insider]
