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PAX East 2014: WildStar shows off Warplots at last
Do you want to go to war in WildStar? Then you're going to want a stronghold. No, that's not right, you're going to want a fortress. You're going to want a fortification that makes others quake in terror. And then you're going to want to drop that fortification down on your enemy's front lawn and claim their territories while laying waste to their fortifications. Welcome to Warplots. They're the game's answer to player-made fortresses and high-end battlegrounds all at once. More specificially, they're team-based 40 vs. 40 maps that drop you into a race to tear down your enemy. At either end sits the carefully constructed fortress held by each team, in the middle sit resource nodes, and both sides are pushed together to be the last side standing or the one putting a fortress back together post-battle. Want to know more? That's a good thing. Take a look at the typical WildStar trailer past the cut, and then let's talk details.
Pathfinder Online dev blog explores outpost raiding
Goblinworks celebrated its third major Pathfinder Online milestone with a detailed blog centered on the game's PvP raiding system. While the company was careful to note that raids are still in deep development and may change in scope and design, the blog dives into the rewards and risks of raiding along with the consequences to other players. Raids are short, small skirmishes initiated against player outposts. Since every outpost produces goods, there is always something worth stealing at any given outpost. To challenge an outpost, raiders must kill NPC guards in addition to any defending players. Raiders can stock up on an outpost's goods after its defenders have been bested. According to Goblinworks, NPC guards for outposts are "few and far between." Stealing items from outposts disrupts supply chains to local settlements. If raiders hold an outpost for over 10 minutes, they can then strip mine it. Strip mining increases the output of goods but deals damage to the outpost until it is destroyed. You can read more about raiding, strip mining, and how each affects your hostility rating over on the official post.
Pathfinder Online never closes a door without opening a PvP window
Having a settlement you worked hard to build be under constant attack just isn't fun. Pathfinder Online realizes this, which is why settlements are normally defended by large numbers of respawning NPC guards. Not too many to prevent players from scouting a town or stealing a few things, but enough to make a frontal assault fruitless unless you want your corpses to litter the outskirts of town. If that were always the case, though, attacking a settlement would be pointless. So during a brief window every day, the guard respawn rate decreases, numbers thin, and suddenly the town looks much more vulnerable to attack. A well-developed settlement will still have guards, but a coordinated force will be able to eliminate them... unless players step in to defend the settlement. This also solves the problem of having massive attacks come when no one is awake to know what's happening. Read the full details in the latest development blog on the official site.
RIFT celebrates the arrival of Moonshade dimensions
The development team behind RIFT is pretty happy with the new dimension being added to the game next week. In fact, they're so happy that they're kicking off a mini-celebration for players to get in on the dimensional decoration game. They're also giving a pair of ferns to any player who subscribes to the game's email newsletter, allowing you to make your dimension just a little bit prettier. (It's a big place, and there are only two ferns.) The first celebratory event is being held tomorrow at 4:30 p.m. EDT -- a Dimensional Thunderdome, where three teams compete to see who can make the most lovely dimension possible. At the same time on 4/19, the developers will be holding a special tour of two different takes on the new dimension, showing players just how much you can do with the region. So if you're ready to forge a new landscape to your will, just wait a little while longer.
Perpetuum rolling out Gamma Frontier tomorrow
Home is where you hang your hat, but in Perpetuum, home is also where you ensure that your mining operations remain stable with the aid of several high-powered turrets. The next major update to the game, Gamma Frontier, is all about making sure that your home is the best it can be. Player corporations will be able to make use of the game's new Modular Private Colony system, setting up static buildings and defenses for large-scale industrial operations, helped by the addition of 24 new teraformable islands. Obviously, player-run structures are a pretty big deal all by themselves, but the update also includes a new rendering engine for land and sky textures. There's also a new public test server available so that players can take the measure of future updates before they go live. If you're a longtime fan of the mech-based game, you can tide yourself over a little longer by taking a look through the several new screenshots of the update below. [Source: Avatar Creations press release] %Gallery-156617%
Pathfinder Online measures up player housing
To live up to the claim of being an extensively player-built game world is a significant challenge for the Pathfinder Online team, but to the devs' credit, it seems as if they have a few elegant ideas to make it work. In the latest developer blog post, CEO Ryan Dancey discusses how the team is approaching player-built structures in the game world. While there will be three NPC settlements, player structures will be a significant presence in Pathfinder Online, Dancey says. Not only will a player be given the ability to create a persistent structure, but that structure will be vulnerable to destruction as well if not protected. Dancey says that the idea right now is for the world to have special spots that signify a suitable building location; this is to keep the density from growing out of control and also to put buildings near desirable sites or resources. Once a structure is built by a group of players, it can be transferred to new ownership, built up, or attacked. Some of the structures that the team is kicking around include hideouts, inns, watchtowers, forts, and settlements. Dancey also mentioned that players may be able to improve roads and docks in order to facilitate faster travel. The one downside to the logistics of this feature is that players might not be able to go inside these structures; instead, they'll to access housing abilities via menus. This could be changed after launch, Dancey says, but the demand on system resources would make it a difficult task.
