pve
Latest
Hyperspace Beacon: SWTOR's Oricon daily adventures
If you missed last week's overview of the Oricon storyline and the history leading up to it, then check that out because today we are going to continue on that same theme. I have played through the content on the new daily area of Oricon set to release on October 1st, and I am surprisingly impressed with the storyline. The writing team for Star Wars: The Old Republic has yet to fall short. Despite the smaller production team and the number of people who claim that the game didn't live up to their expectations, BioWare continues to deliver a wonderful and compelling story. And if that is what you're looking for in your MMORPG, then SWTOR is still your game. However, many MMO gamers aren't looking for story, specifically. These gamers want to hear about the mechanics. I can appreciate that. Once the story becomes tired, the mechanics of a questline are going to be what holds a player to the game. How does the new questlines on Oricon stack up? That's a good question. I'd usually judge quests on the environment, challenge, flow, and overall immersion. But since these quests are supposed to be done on a regular basis (thus the name dailies), that means there has to be a repeatability factor. Let's examine these categories.
Tamriel Infinium: The Nightblade is The Elder Scrolls Online's pirate
Yesterday marked the official 11th anniversary of Talk-Like-A-Pirate Day. And since I write this column a day before its released, that would be today for me. So ahoy, maties, and all that. Although there are pirates in Elder Scrolls lore, I think we should talk about the biggest pirate-like class in the Elder Scrolls Online: the Nightblade. Most likely, this will be the first class I will try. I'm excited about this class mostly because of the fast action combat of ESO and the diverse DPS that the class appears to bring to the playing field. Oh, yeah, and who doesn't like to turn invisible? From the reports coming out of PAX and other conventions, the Nightblade appears to be the first rogue class that I've seen that has some strong viability in a PvE setting, but of course, the class still plays wonderfully in PvP. Stick with me as I break down my thoughts on the class as we know it.
What's the least fun you ever had for rewards?
Let's face it - we do stuff in game to get stuff in game. It's in our greedy little natures. So it isn't surprising to hear that players will do things they don't enjoy if they believe the reward is sufficient to warrant it, but it still has interesting things to say about us as players. Ghostcrawler tweeted the following and it got us thinking. @Baeloro1481 In fact the opposite can also be true: if we're not careful, players will engage in unfun things just for the power rewards. - Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) September 16, 2013 For myself I'd have to admit this is true - as just one example, I really didn't like the Isle of Quel'danas when it first came out (on my server at the time the area was extremely crowded) but my tauren needed a good shield and the expertise neck for his tank set. I didn't need the expertise proc, however, so I had to switch from Scryers (which I was exalted with) to Aldor (which I was not) at the same time I was also grinding Shattered Sun reputation to exalted. It was, frankly, agonizingly painful for me, but I did it. The best part was, of course I eventually got a better neck. But there was no way I was going to grind Scryers back up to exalted by that point, and so he remained exalted with the Aldor. So this leads to the question - what about you? Have you done something you didn't want to do or didn't enjoy purely for the reward at the end of the rainbow? Was it worth it? Or, like me, did you end up with a sour taste in your mouth (and a whole lot of trouble remembering which base in Shadowmoon Valley was safe to land in)?
Red 5 Studios to suspend Firefall PvP, wants to 'get it right'
Red 5 Studios will suspend the Player vs. Player (PvP) elements of Firefall at a "near future point" to focus their resources on improving the game's Player vs. Environment (PvE) aspects, CEO Mark Kern announced on Thursday. Kern explained that Jetball, Firefall's "last big attempt" at a PvP mode that was designed for eSports, was fun but didn't "attract many of our players (less than 3% PvP in Firefall)." Kern described PvP as an important part of Firefall and said that the studio will "regroup, rethink, and deliver the best PvP system we can." Kern said the studio's most immediate efforts will focus on PvE, as players want "more content, fewer bugs and more polish." Although Kern did not have a date for the suspension of PvP, he said it will eventually return to Firefall "when it's ready."
Nethaera fills in the blanks on Connected Realms
With patch 5.4 up and running, many players have been wondering about the status of the new Connected Realms feature. Questions have run the gamut from wanting to know the exact criteria of putting two realms together, to wanting a list of the realms that are scheduled to be connected. Most importantly, players have been wondering if the Connected Realms feature has actually been enabled, or if we have yet to see if the process has taken place. Community Manager Nethaera filled in some of those blanks in a series of updates posted on the official forums. The first two realms that have been scheduled for connection are Boulderfist and Bloodscalp. The system will be rolled out over time, much like what we saw with the Cross-Realm Zones feature -- players won't suddenly see all realms introduced to the Connected Realms feature all at once. Blizzard intends to keep realm types together as much as it possibly can -- for those on RP realms, this means if your realm is connected to another, it will likely be another RP realm. Nethaera went on to note that faction balance, something that has caused many players to struggle on incredibly lopsided realms, may not be the ultimate reason for a connection. But perhaps most importantly -- as of Friday, no realms have been connected. Any server restarts or messages about Connected Realm restarts in game are absolutely not an indicator that your realm has been connected to another -- it's simply some of the work that needs to be done in order to enable the connecting process, should it need to be utilized. For now, it seems that players are still isolated on their own realms -- but there should be further updates to the thread if that changes. For more information on the implementation of this new feature, check out the thread on the official forums.
PAX Prime 2013: Guns of Icarus Online's new Adventure mode, features, and PS4 version
Guns of Icarus' Online's concept of crewing airships in a steampunk future might be a little strange at first, but it's something that Muse Games is really passionate about. I linked up with founder Howard Tsao yesterday at PAX Prime to talk about the game's upcoming Adventure Mode, which will add new context to battles over the unfriendly skies. The new online mode won't replace Guns of Icarus' current lobby-based multiplayer mode, but it will add new content, including missions and factions to provide a backdrop for actions in the game's steampunk world.
EVE Evolved: Odyssey 1.1 and PvP balance
It's been just under three months since EVE Online's exploration-focused Odyssey expansion went live, bringing in a new hacking minigame and significantly buffing the underused tier 1 and tier 2 battleships. With a complete rebalancing all of the tech 1 sub-capital ships now complete, CCP has turned its attention to some of the oldest tech 2 ships in the game: Heavy Assault Ships and Command Ships. Developers have been testing out changes to these ships on the test server and hitting up players for feedback since Odyssey went live, and the results are finally ready to deploy. Odyssey 1.1 will go live in two days time on September 3rd and contains some pretty big changes that are sure to shake up the PvP landscape. Medium-sized long-range weapons have been buffed beyond all recognition, and a buff to active tanking may soon make it viable in PvP. Heavy Assault Ships and Command Ships have been beefed up, the Dominix is getting a small nerf following its absolute dominance in the Alliance Tournament, and the Nosferatu energy vampire module may be about to make a return to PvP setups. In this week's EVE Evolved, I analyse the upcoming Odyssey 1.1 patch and what the new ship balance changes mean for the average player.
The Nexus Telegraph: Talking tasks with WildStar's PvE
At a glance, there are far fewer problems when dealing with PvE content compared to PvP content. WildStar's PvE options are a bit better established, and besides, all you need to do is provide the enemies and a reason to fight them. It's not as if you have to deal with all of the differences that you find in PvP, after all. Toss out some dungeons, give players a daily hub, and everything will work out perfectly, right? The answer is no. Not even a little bit. Just as you need a variety of different things in PvP to serve a multitude of playstyles, you need a variety of different opportunities for PvE players. It's still a header that covers a broad field of different playstyles and preferences, and that means there are a lot of different things that the game needs to offer. Bearing in mind that we're talking about the level cap here, let's take a look at what areas the game needs to support.
Take a tour of Final Fantasy XIV's monsters
It's no secret that Final Fantasy XIV will host quite a number of monsters. Some of those are already familiar to players from both the beta weekends and from the original game, but there are a lot of monsters even after you count those. The team behind the game has put together a new trailer showing off the various monsters and humanoid enemies that players will encounter on the fields of Eorzea. Some of these will be familiar, such as spriggans and coblyns. Some will be unfamiliar in Eorzea but familiar to fans of the series, such as the behemoth and the tonberry. And others are imported from other games or are completely novel. So whether it runs, flies, crawls, swims, or portals through the void, you can see it in the video embedded just past the break. And then you can spend the next week before testing guessing at how you're going to kill it.
Star Conflict adds a fleet of tier five ships
While it soft launched on Steam a while back, Star Conflict is still in technical beta, awaiting a technical kiss from a technical prince to become an officially released game. The strategic space sim hasn't been biding its time doing nothing, however; Star Conflict just released patch 0.9.0, and with it, a new tier of ships. Players can check out the new tier five ships, which include 27 fun varieties and complementing implants. All ships are less expensive and will be easier to visually customize now, with cheaper prices for decals and colors. Other improvements rolled out in patch 0.9.0 include a redesigned weapons system, a better PvE menu, new hangers, and a cool PvE mission that challenges pilots to attack a pirate space station and rescue a few scientists.
Fight for your chosen candidate in Guild Wars 2's Cutthroat Politics update
Whether you're a fan of the Black Lion Trading Company's Evon Gnashblade or you're rooting for Lionguard-investigator-turned-airship-captain Ellen Kiel, chances are pretty good that you like playing games. Heck, even if you don't like either Kiel or Gnashblade, you probably still like playing games. On the other hand, if you hate games and just like to vote, you're in deep trouble because the Lion's Arch political process is all about games, which sounds like a great way to let off steam when you feel like literally pummeling the supporters of the candidate you hate. Maybe Tyrians are on to something. In a recent conference call, ArenaNet released plenty of details about what Guild Wars 2 fans can expect to find when they head to the voting booth on July 23rd. Or is it more of a voting arena? Either way, jump past the cut to find out exactly what you'll need to do in order to exercise your ruthless, hardcore, no-holds-barred right to democracy.
Continent of the Ninth Seal unveils the Demonisher
Playing a Shaman in Continent of the Ninth Seal just got a touch more interesting, as Webzen has unveiled the Demonisher, a new class advancement available to players who follow the shamanic ways. The Demonisher is a long-range and melee attacker who uses an orb to initiate magical attacks. Demonishers have a wide range of abilities at their disposal, including evasion tricks, powerful offensive volleys, and a transformation skill that increases movement speed and the power of some attacks. Demonishers also offer debuff skills for use in groups. The addition of the Demonisher isn't all that Webzen has planned this month. To celebrate C9's first anniversary, the studio will hold a number of special events on July 24th. These include in-game giveaways, massive online competitions for real-life peripherals, and the chance for new players to start a character at level 20. Check out the demonisher in action after the break. [Webzen press release]
Hyperspace Beacon: SWTOR mid-term report card
It's history lesson time. In 1996, Dr. Richard Bartle, who earned his PhD in artificial intelligence from the University of Essex, wrote a paper analyzing the different types of gamers who play massively multiplayer games. At the time, these games mostly consisted of MUDs (a genre Bartle helped create), but there were certainly enough data from Bartle's study that could be ported over to MMORPGs, which is exactly what Erwin Andreasen and Brandon Downey did in 1999 and 2000 when they created the Bartle Test. Since then, the Bartle Test, which breaks up online gamers into four general categories (achiever, explorer, killer, and socializer), has been used as a standard in discovering which online games players would enjoy most. Why bring this up? Well, we are about six months into the second year of Star Wars: The Old Republic. The first year was fraught with high expectations and slow delivery. Many failed attempts at greatness made the first year of SWTOR a bit of a downer. However, in this second year, in light of the ever-changing market of MMORPGs, the Star Wars MMO took steps to put itself on a better path. Using the Bartle Test as my litmus test, I will break down and grade this year's performance so far.
Do you PvP, or PvE, or both?
A well-known YouTube personality, who's pretty big on the PvP circuit, recently posted a video about PvP in Mists of Pandaria. Amongst other things, he talked about how the PvP resilience changes made the pure PvPers suffer, while only really pleasing a small group of players who did both PvP and PvE. Now, while my evidence is just as anecdotal as Reinhardt's, this has got me wondering. You see, while PvPers are a passionate and vocal group, I suspect we fall into the minority. Particularly those, and I don't include myself in that group, who purely PvP. It seems to me that it's likely a fairly small group compared to those who PvE, or those who do both. So, to expand my purely anecdotal evidence, I thought I'd ask the WoW Insider audience what they did. Now, the poll is pretty binary, I've deliberately not included choices indicating whether you do more or less, it's either just PvP, just PvE, or both. For clarity, I'm looking at end-game content here. If you've leveled purely via PvP (from level 10 at least), then fantastic. But if you leveled via quests and dungeons, but just PvP in end-game, you're in the PvP category. I'm looking forward to seeing the results! %Poll-83231%
Is gearing the game, or does it get in the way?
I've spent a lot of time thinking about gear lately. PvP gear, specifically, how it's changed, and how it compares to PvE gear. I've also been thinking about my fairly awful gear-related luck, in both my guild's raids and the raid finder, and looking back to earlier tiers when, thanks in part to not being quite so busy, I've been far higher in the gear curve far earlier in the tier. As part of my post-grad studies, I was lucky enough to spend a lot of time looking at the psychology of gaming. One of the theories on how games like WoW keep people interested, and a good theory at that, was one revolving around breadcrumbs. Like a trail of breadcrumbs, WoW offers the player lots of small, reachable rewards. Nothing so big that you feel like you're done, but lots of small things that aren't too hard to get to. Perhaps those things are in pursuit of something bigger, but they happen fairly regularly. Think of valor points, for example. A little additional reward for completing straightforward tasks. Reputation is another good example. Or leveling, be it a character or a profession. Gear is much the same, it is the carrot that remains only slightly out of reach, pushing you to play just a little longer. In a PvE context, for an average player at least, you're never really done. Think of Thunderforged gear, this is an additional breadcrumb for those players who are at the top of the ladder already.
EVE Evolved: Get ready for Odyssey
With just two days to go until EVE Online's exploration-focused Odyssey expansion goes live, players have been scouring the test server for information that can give them an edge. Some have been practicing moon surveying techniques for the upcoming redistribution of tech 2 minerals, and others are hoping to get rich quick by speculating on battleship price changes. Explorers are kitting out new exploration ships, theorycrafters are working on new setups for rebalanced ships, and pirates are setting up base in lowsec areas that are about to become fertile hunting grounds. Odyssey isn't quite the Apocrypha-level expansion I've been hoping for, but it certainly seems set to shake things up. Changes to moon minerals will throw nullsec into chaos and hopefully ignite some big territorial wars, and battleship buffs may change EVE's popular fleet compositions. The Discovery Scanner Overlay will make exploration much easier for new players to get into, but will also give pirates another tool with which to hunt down explorers. A new co-operative hacking minigame will also make exploration more of a team sport. But how can you make the most of the expansion from day one, and what can you do today to prepare for it? In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at the new exploration system and other changes you can expect when you log in on Tuesday, and what you can do now to make the most of them.
Champions' Forum Malvanum alert now live
Have you ever wanted to battle for galactic glory on the moon? Now you can thanks to Champions Online's Forum Malvanum alert. The new content just went live, and Cryptic says that player heroes will need to "defeat some of the the most dangerous monsters and gladiators from around the universe" in order to become champions of the Lunar Games. "The Lunar Games include ten rounds of enemies, with some variation in each run," according to Cryptic's announcement post. "Heroes who complete the first five rounds are guaranteed a prize as worthy competitors. More rewards will be granted by Tateklys for defeating the time-limited sixth through tenth rounds, including a climactic final fight with Firewing himself, reigning champion of the Games. Rewards include costume pieces, resources and more." [Thanks Matixzun!]
The Soapbox: Diablo III's auction house ruined the game
After his departure from the Diablo III development team, Game Director Jay Wilson released a statement that the introduction of an auction house "really hurt the game." While players predicted doom the moment the Real Money Auction House was announced, Jay argued that the gold auction house was equally to blame for the game's fall from grace following its absolutely stellar launch sales. I don't normally agree with what Jay has to say on Diablo III, but in this case he does have a very valid point. Diablo II was consistently popular for over a decade thanks to its immense replayability. At its core, D2 was a game about building new characters and gearing them up by any means necessary. Every enemy in the game was a loot pinata just waiting to be popped, and players farmed endlessly for a few sought-after unique items. You almost never found an item that was ideal for your particular class and build, but you could usually trade for what you needed via trade channels and forums. Blizzard claimed that the auction house was intended just to streamline this process, but when Diablo III launched, it was clear that the entire game had been designed to make the auction house almost necessary for progress. The fault here lies not just with the concept of an auction house but with the game designers. That's right: I'm here to argue not only that Jay Wilson was right about the auction house ruining Diablo III but also that it was his own damn fault.
A Mystical Land changes name to Villagers & Heroes, adds content
Remember A Mystical Land? Well, forget about it, at least under that name. Mad Otter and Neonga have sent out a press release announcing that the title is now called Villagers & Heroes in an effort to "better match the content and focus of the game." The name change isn't the only change, either, as gameplay has been upgraded by the addition of player-created custom gear, new realms to explore, and new epic bosses. Animal ranching is a thing now, too, so you can raise sheep, chicken, and pigs alongside those crops in your backyard. Additional improvements are planned for future updates, and Villagers & Heroes is also seeking your approval on Steam's Greenlight service. [Source: Neonga press release]
EVE Fanfest 2013 day two: World of Darkness, Odyssey, and EVE Virtual Reality with the Oculus Rift
EVE Online's tenth anniversary Fanfest promised to be its biggest yet, with over 1,400 players packed into Iceland's Harpa convention centre to find out the latest on EVE Online, DUST 514, and World of Darkness. The first day focused mainly on DUST and its link with the EVE universe, but today the focus largely switched back to internet spaceships. There were plenty of roundtable discussions, and the CSM and Alliance panels were as awesome as ever, but it was the EVE Keynote that really blew the crowd away. The day got off to a good start with the highly anticipated World of Darkness talk. Most fans were probably expecting to see more airy game design ideas and another shiny trailer, but this year CCP just came out and put all its cards on the table. We saw that the game is still firmly in pre-production, with much of the previous work going into developing the engine and cool content creation tools and shaders. While I was initially disappointed at the lack of gameplay progress or shiny cinematics, I found this approach of being open and direct with fans very refreshing. As I told WoD art director Thomas Holt, honest beats shiny every time. Read on for a full run-down of the EVE reveals from the second day of EVE's tenth anniversary Fanfest, including in-depth details of the Odyssey expansion's features.
