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PAX Prime 2014: Strife learns from the past
S2 Games is a big believer in learning from the past. Whereas many other MOBA developers are creating their very first such title, S2 already has a MOBA -- Heroes of Newerth -- under its belt. Taking key lessons from that experience, the devs are creating what they call the next generation of MOBA: Strife. Strife was definitely in full force around PAX Prime this weekend. The team had not only a prime spot by the show doors (complete with a mechanical dragon that players could ride) but a spot at a local grill where prizes and cosplay repairs took place. My key question for the devs was, "What makes Strife any different from the dozens of other MOBAs on the market?" This question led into a discussion of how the team has been pulling the best elements from the genre while discarding what didn't work -- denying, for example, is not a part of Strife in the least, nor is the commonplace "last hit" mechanic. Instead, Strife seeks to be enjoyable both as a MOBA and as a single-player experience. The solo content was put in to flesh out the story of the world (MOBAs have story?) and give players a different kind of experience between matches. I was also interested in the pets that characters can acquire and wield for their special abilities. Strife went into open beta this past weekend, so give it a whirl and let us know what you think! Massively's on the ground in Seattle during the weekend of August 29th to September 1st, bringing you all the best news from PAX Prime 2014. Whether you're dying to know more about Warlords of Draenor, The Elder Scrolls Online, Landmark, or any MMO in between, you can bet we'll have it covered!
(Not) Seen@PAX Prime: The many outfits of Assassin's Creed
PAX Prime in Seattle was host to many displays that celebrate video game series. Ubisoft's booth included several mannequins donning the outfits of characters from its rich Assassin's Creed series. Honestly, we just couldn't find most of them.
A modern-day Asteroids could combine space and survival
With Atari back from the brink of extinction once again, the publisher has shifted its focus from a game maker to a license holder that finds development partners to create modern-day interpretations of its library of classic franchises. In an interview during PAX Prime 2014, Atari CEO Fred Chesnais explored his ideas for a modern-day Asteroids experience, saying it could combine the franchise's classic gameplay with survival concepts found in popular titles like Day Z. "So for Asteroids, the initial game was – you remember the game – you get crushed by the asteroids. So what happens now? You land on the asteroid. And then what you have to do is you have to survive on the asteroid. So you can have an Asteroids game, which is basically a survival game in space," Chesnais tells Joystiq.
PAX Prime 2014: Hands-on with The Crew
Ubisoft's The Crew was part of two different booths on the PAX Prime exhibit floor this year, giving ample opportunity to anyone who would like to take a test drive of this online racing game. Being the brave soul that I am and a driver of several years, I got into an elaborate car setup to see if I had the chops to handle such a machine. While we didn't get to see the larger world of the game, I did get to race alongside/against three other players in two mission modes. The first mission, which was prefaced with a short cutscene, had us chasing down a target car to ram into oblivion. The second was a standard street race supposedly set up to prove what an awesome driver I am to an NPC. In both of these, I failed spectacularly to accomplish the goal. I don't think it was necessarily my or the game's fault but the specific game steering wheel used for the demo. It was hyper-responsive and kept jerking around, causing my car to go into unrecoverable fishtails and spins. It was during one of these lovely spinouts that I learned just how indestructible the cars in this game are.
PAX Prime 2014: Hands-on with Warhammer 40,000: Eternal Crusade
After getting the pitch from Warhammer 40,000: Eternal Crusade at PAX Prime, I was given the opportunity to sit down and experience a PvP bout first-hand. I'll share a little pet peeve of mine before we get into the meat of the hands-on, which is that I really don't like it when developers stand over your shoulders at demos barking instructions to you. I wasn't given much of an opportunity to do what I wanted to; instead, I was constantly responding to the dev's commands! In any case, for a pre-pre-alpha build, I'm somewhat impressed that Eternal Crusade was able to cobble together a very playable deathmatch with several classes and two vehicle types (Rhino and Predator). My first class was something of a lumbering tank, well-armed but a clunky jumper. I opted instead to get a jetpack as an assault trooper, willingly trading firepower for the awesome ability to do huge leaps and be able to clutch on to the side of a building and jump once more.
PAX Prime 2014: Hearthstone eyes an expansion
The PAX Prime Blizzard booth was one of the larger and more populated venues on the show floor this year. A slow-moving line wrapped around it as players waited eagerly to try out Warlords of Draenor or to see Heroes of the Storm for the first time. Yet it was Hearthstone -- a free-to-play game available to anyone at anytime -- that was winning gamers over. I talked with Game Director Eric Dodds about how this small project at Blizzard blew up into a great success story. He said that when the team noticed that Twitch livestreams of Hearthstone were drawing in thousands and tens of thousands of viewers is when the studio knew that it had a hit on its hands.
PAX Prime 2014: Heroes of the Storm is friendly, zany fun
Heroes of the Storm's beginnings are rooted in a mod that Blizzard made in 2010 to encourage StarCraft II players to get into the modding scene. Not only was this unnecessary (the StarCraft II comunity took to modding like fish to water) but the mod gradually became so well-liked internally that proper development began in 2012 to make it a full-fledged MOBA. At PAX Prime, I asked the team what was going to make Heroes of the Storm stand out from the rest of the MOBA pack -- or whether it was merely content to ride the Blizzard name to big sales. The response was that this game is shaping up to be one of the most friendly and welcoming MOBAs on the market. Gone are mechanics like denying and last hits and in are new concepts like shared team levels. The devs said that the root of the toxic atmosphere seen in many MOBAs is game design that focuses more in individual selfishness and potential ways to hurt your own team. There also won't be any chatting with the opposing team in HotS to cut down on potential sass-mouth.
PAX Prime 2014: Hands-on with Warlords of Draenor
If you've played World of Warcraft once, have you played it for all time? I was wondering this as I slipped back into Azeroth for a look at the upcoming Warlords of Draenor expansion at PAX Prime. After all, it had been three years and two expansions since I've really played this MMO, but as I learned, even new shinies don't make this game feel any more or less like the good ol' WoW that I remember. The floor demo allowed us to create instant level 90 characters and jump into the second zone, Shadowmoon Valley. I selected a character at random and naturally ended up with a Shadow Priest, a class that I've never played. Figures. I spent a minute selecting a specialization, random talents, and outfitting my hotbar with enough of a skill rotation that I wouldn't be laughed out of the next Priest conclave. Then it was off to check out this brand-new zone.
Disney Infinity 2.0 channels Ninja Theory's combat expertise
Disney Infinity 2.0 is all about merging different universes, a philosophy that apparently also applies to its development team. Polygon reports that during Giant Bomb's panel at PAX Prime, Infinity 2.0 Executive Producer John Vignocchi revealed that Ninja Theory was brought on in February due to the studio's talent with combat, most recently on display in DmC: Devil May Cry and Enslaved: Odyssey to the West. Vignocchi clarified that Ninja Theory developed Infinity 2.0's sand tornado-summoning Princess Jasmine, but also helped with Loki, the Green Goblin and Ronan the Accuser. Ninja Theory is of course still working on Hellblade, a new IP announced at Gamescom that the studio hopes will capitalize on its core strengths. Last year's DmC stands as Ninja Theory's most recent release (on consoles), which managed to ship one million copies to retailers. [Image: Disney]
PAX Prime 2014: Marvel Heroes is the industry's surprise success story
Meeting with Marvel Heroes' David Brevik at PAX Prime confirmed what I have been observing over the past year or so: This game has quietly and steadily become one of the bigger success stories in the online gaming industry. Brevik told me that the Marvel Heroes playerbase continues to grow, boasting four times as many players as it had nine months ago. What did Brevik attribute to the game's meteoric rise? The promotions and sheer mountain of new content that the team's been adding certainly helped, but he said that it really came down to terrific community relations. Brevik streams the game four nights a week and talks to the community members as though they were part of his family.
Spry Fox explores the joy of flight in Free-Range Dragons
After challenging players with the uncompromising high-stakes roguelike Road Not Taken, Spry Fox is taking on more lighthearted fare with Free-Range Dragons, an action-oriented game in which players pilot flying dragons across fanciful 2D worlds. There's a hardcore streak underneath Free-Range Dragons' cheery surface, however. Citing inspiration from Capcom's Monster Hunter series, Free-Range Dragons features high-flying battles in which you'll hunt down dangerous creatures and drag them back to your home base to recruit them. Free-Range Dragons is flexible enough to support multiple playstyles, and it's up to the player to decide how far they want to push themselves during their quest.
PAX Prime 2014: Hands-on with Shroud of the Avatar
When I got my first look at the live game of Shroud of the Avatar at PAX Prime this past weekend, one thought slammed me to the ground: This game is so much better-looking than the website's screenshots let on. My first steps into the spiritual successor to the Ultima franchise were taken in a player village at night. The incredibly dark surroundings were broken by the flickering flames of braziers in nearby huts and the swirl of fireflies. It was moody, stylish, and, if you'll pardon the word, magical. One of the devs told me that lots of work has been done lately to provide dynamic lighting that even goes so far as to allow your character's "eyes" to adjust to the dark and change the screen accordingly. After poking around a few half-finished homes, I ported into a PvP zone to experience the game's combat system. I learned that fighting in Shroud of the Avatar is neither simple nor similar to other MMOs. There's a rather intriguing deck system in which you earn points to spend on cards, then create a build from those. When you switch into combat mode, your hotbar is gradually dealt cards depending on their cooldowns. And if you don't use those skills within an allotted time? Why, they go away. It was confusing to grok, although the dev mentioned that it was something all players will need to spend actual time to learn and wield effectively. I'm unsure how this marks an improvement over most current combat systems, although it might appeal to those who miss Chronicles of Spellborn's system.
Super Meat Boy Forever trims fat, cooks up 'huge' challenge
Super Meat Boy Forever is as much a game as it is a meat grinder. It's "impossible," but only in the sense that it's similar to The Impossible Game, Grip Games' 2011 auto-running platformer that placed an emphasis on blazing hard difficulty. Super Meat Boy Forever dumps a similar formula into Team Meat's universe, and it's optimized for touch-based controls. "The goal is, this is going to be a Meat Boy that you play everywhere," Team Meat's Tommy Refenes told Joystiq at PAX Prime. We took a moment to play both the tablet and PC versions of the game at the event, which both relied on two physical (or touch-based) buttons. While Meat Boy never stopped sprinting through the boldly-outlined demo level, he happily jumped, slid and fell to the Earth at a rapid pace on command. Leaping across broad gaps and jumping from wall to wall, our Meat Boy dodged spinning saw blades just like he did in the original, making the experience feel immediately at home with pared-down controls, particularly on a mobile device.
PAX Prime 2014: Defiance defies barriers to play
If there's one message that Trion Worlds wants to get out about Defiance from PAX Prime this year, it's that the game is bursting with content and absolutely welcoming one and all to play. While we're still waiting for the conversion of the Xbox 360 version to free-to-play, PlayStation 3 and PC players can already jump into the game and experience the title for free. The team's been hard at work refining and fleshing out the game, so for people who might have only dabbled in it shortly after launch, it's almost a completely new world to explore. As season two of the TV show recently wrapped up, so will the current Aftermath storyline in the game. Both the show and the game dealt with the growing threat of cults, and the MMO will be packaging up the entire saga for players to revisit later in September. The devs also shared with me that they used the real-world setting of the Bay Area to unleash some pent-up hatred toward the San Francisco airport and its parking in one of the new areas. Good to know that MMOs can be both fun to play and therapeutic for its makers! Massively's on the ground in Seattle during the weekend of August 29th to September 1st, bringing you all the best news from PAX Prime 2014. Whether you're dying to know more about Warlords of Draenor, The Elder Scrolls Online, Landmark, or any MMO in between, you can bet we'll have it covered!
PAX Prime 2014: Warhammer 40k trains players to think like soldiers
Warhammer 40,000: Eternal Crusade is most emphatically not about two things: PvE and lone rangers. While there will be a smidgeon of PvE content in the released game, the focus of the developers is about coordinated group PvP. In fact, coordination is an essential part to Eternal Crusade's experience, as the devs cited the chaos of PlanetSide 2 as something that they wish to avoid. Instead, using technologies such as Eternal Crusade's single server, low latency, and the built in Razercom voice chat, tools are in place to allow players to find friends and squadmates and talk with them. Going off on one's own is a recipe for a quick death, while sticking with a squad to accomplish objectives and summon in reinforcements will be the path to progress. Different terrain and structures will also require different military thinking, shifting from guerilla warfare to scorched earth madness. At PAX Prime, the devs were showing a very early alpha build to allow eight players to engage in small-scale PvP. The team stressed that the skirmish was definitely about skill instead of stats, although careful planning and strategy were just as important as quick reflexes. The ultimate goal is to help your faction take over as much territory as possible, transforming captured cities into faction-themed landscapes in the progress.
PAX Prime 2014: Trove moves at the speed of lightrail
Probably one of the coolest features that I've seen in an MMO in a long time came during a Trove demo at PAX Prime this weekend. The devs were keen to show off the game's magriders, which are tracks that players can lay down to take others on a pre-planned route around the world. Think of it as a combination of rollercoaster, lightrail, and slip-n-slide, and you might have a notion of how insane these can get. Magriders can obey the laws of physics or not and have several options for speeding up and slowing down passengers depending on the creator's intent. After a dizzying five-minute ride through one of Trove's biomes that ended with a thousand-foot plunge into the heart of a volcano, I was sold on the potential for this new in-game toy. But as neat as magriders are, they're not the only card in the devs' deck as the game nears beta later in September. The team recently introduced Trove's fourth class, the Dracolyte. This is a fireball-wielding mage who fills the need for the pyros out there. The Dracolyte also has a little familiar dragon hovering over its shoulder that can charge up a fiery attack and then unleash it at will. The class to follow the Dracolyte couldn't be more different, however: The Neon Ninja looks to be a cyborg sword-wielder who stepped straight out of Tron. There's so much more to talk about with Trove's development, including the addition of clubs. Clubs are like mini-guilds, only you can join up to five of them, and each one gets its own world to modify and keep. The team is also working on a transmog system to allow players to collect and permanently store skins. From crazy candy biomes to lightning-quick rides, this underdog title might end up surprising us all.
BioWare's Shadow Realms is 4-on-1, action-RPG mayhem
"We're focused on delivering the unexpected," Shadow Realms Senior Producer Dallas Dickinson said during a demonstration event at PAX Prime this weekend. After seeing the game in action, "unexpected" doesn't even begin to describe the chaos that will soon be unleashed by a developer rooted in deliberately paced single-player RPGs. BioWare's Shadow Realms is a 4-versus-1 competitive multiplayer game that aims to capture the unpredictable nature of a dungeon master directing a tabletop game. The result is a deft mixture of Left 4 Dead and Tecmo's Deception series, challenging a party of players to navigate deadly dungeons overseen by a sadistic and omnipresent human opponent.
PAX Prime 2014: The mystery behind WildStar's Nexus
Nexus is a giant ball of mysteries at its core, but WildStar doesn't want to drag out solving them. In the upcoming Defile drop, the team is prepared to address some of the biggest questions of Drusara and the Elden as players delve into the mystery of Genesis Prime. I sat down with Carbine's Stephen Frost at PAX Prime to pry out a few secrets in advance of the patch's release. Defile is a massive patch compared to the game's first two releases, piling on a ton of solo, small-group, and large-group PvE content for players to face and conquer. A new zone will open up, one that's a key battleground between the Strain and Drusara, and things have gotten all sorts of weird there as a result of the clash. There are sentient spiders who have kidnapped faction leaders, a black focus that is malfunctioning, and a five-stage public event that includes bombing runs and a 20-man boss fight.
PAX Prime 2014: Unpredictable water flows through RIFT: Nightmare Tide
When RIFT's Nightmare Tide releases on October 8th, Trion Worlds expects that it will make more than a few MMO gamers rediscover why this is not a game to be discounted. Not only will the full expansion be completely free, but it will allow the Ascended heroes to finally take the fight to the Plane of Water. It's there that a being known as Draum has had his dreams disturbed, water has decided to eschew the laws of physics, and the bloodfire army is attempting an invasion of its own. The team believes that RIFT has two types of players: ones who want to enjoy the story and ones who just want to level already. Nightmare Tide is built with both in mind, allowing people to delve into the story as much or as little as desired. However, Trion's Bill Fisher told me at this year's PAX Prime that the story is so good this time around that he's had a hard time doing the MMO gamer thing of ignoring the quest text. At one point, players will encounter the birthing of a clutch of Skelf eggs. Skelf are humanoid sea creatures (some are like sharks while others share similarities to angler fish) who tend to kill the weakest member of a clutch. However, player intervention will save a poor Skelf baby who will then follow that player around and become a key part of the expansion tale.
PAX Prime 2014: Landmark comes into its own
After the better part of a year of being both an excellent building simulator and the sparse skeleton of an actual MMO, Landmark is finally starting to fill out in all sorts of pleasing ways. At this year's PAX Prime, Dave Georgeson was gushing about the joy that's been unleashed with the recent PvP combat patch. Not only are players reveling in the slaughter of their fellow humans, but a new market for death match arenas has sprung up virtually overnight. "Players are having stupid amounts of fun with the PvP, even if they aren't typically into PvP," Georgeson noted. He said that contrary to popular belief, PvP is tougher to put into an MMO because it deals with a very unpredictable foe (a thinking human). But it's also better for the team to implement that first and home in on what makes the combat click to make PvE combat sparkle when that's added later on. More PvP customization options are on deck for the future as well. Also part of the crazy fun are the new platforming elements: teleporters, moving platforms, and "flingers." Georgeson predicted that once the playerbase gets a handle on what these elements can do and how they can be chained together, the game will grow several orders of magnitude wilder. From here, Landmark's progress will only speed up. The team is going to focus on bug fixes and polishing the new systems while listening to what the players think about the new toys. One thing that the devs have to do is separate ideas that are possible (such as allowing players to order voxel structures to obey the laws of physics) from those that are not (such as allowing players to create enemy creature models). The team does have a release date for the game in mind, although it is not sharing.
