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Massively interviews Champions Online's lead designer, part 2
For those interested in the PvP experience, what will Champions Online offer at launch? Champions Online has a LOT of achievements/perks related a various game activities – completing storylines, exploring new areas, defeating signature villains, PvP, etc. In addition to providing goals for players to achieve and tracking story progress we are providing an extensive rewards system.
EVE's combat elite sets aside differences to teach PvP
Among the PvP-centric massively multiplayer online games on the market, EVE Online stands out as a game where players struggle for supremacy against one another on multiple levels, either on an individual or collective basis. Given how heated alliance warfare is -- one needs only read a few posts in CAOD to get a feel for this -- it's notable when players firmly entrenched in EVE's politics take some time out to show newer players the ropes. That's the case with Seppuku Warriors, a PvP training corp which draws top notch instructors from Band of Brothers (including SirMolle), Morsus Mihi, and Southern Cross Alliance, with apparently more to come. What's most interesting is that they've put aside their political differences (some of the instructors come from or lead opposing alliances) to teach less experienced players what they know.
Survey reveals what twinks are all about
This is interesting -- our friend Drayner over at Twinkinfo.com recently took a survey of his site's readers, and after picking up almost 1,000 replies, he's posted the results. They show a little bit of insight into the kind of person that plays a twink (a character maxed out at a certain level before 80, usually to run around in PvP battlegrounds). Specifically, they're male, under 21, play for 21-30 hours a week, think their gear rates a 5 out of 5, and are probably level 19 and in Warsong Gulch capturing flags. I'm not sure if that's suprising or not, but those are pretty safe majority votes, even given the smaller sample size of the poll.Twink players are also more likely to not have more than one account, which kind of makes sense -- they only need one account and just have lots of characters on them. 66% of twinks are actually in twink guilds, and most have at least more than one twink to play around with. Hunters and Rogues top the class choices (though not with a clear majority at all). And perhaps most interesting, over 50% of twinks say Blizzard is serving them just fine -- they're not ignoring them, and they're not giving them any more love than other players. Still, as Drayner pointed out to us, about 36% of twinks said they'd leave the game if Blizzard shut them down with an additional 30% saying Maybe, so Blizzard does have a little incentive there to keep twinking happening.Quite interesting -- twinks might be one of the only groups of players who are completely fine with how they're being handled in game. 2.3 obviously gave them lots of new items to play with, and while there is some frustration from other players, Blizzard has made it so easy to level that if you don't want to play with the twinks at 19, you can move on pretty quickly.
Breakfast Topic: Who will dual specs benefit most?
One of the things that's often surprised me while reading forum threads concerning dual specs is just how wide the gulf is between pure and hybrid classes' perspective on the issue.* Pure classes are worried that they are increasingly obsolete in an age where a hybrid can easily respec between tanking, healing, and DPS. With the damage differences between hybrids and pure DPS shaved fairly thin in Wrath, they've got a point, and it's not that unusual to see resentful players asking why their class -- which cannot choose a different role -- has to risk losing a raid slot to a class that can.By contrast, most of the hybrids to whom I've spoken see dual specs -- not as a competitive advantage, but rather as relief from the financial drain of constant respecs. 50g may not seem like a lot of money in Wrath's economy, but it adds up, to the point where you realize that the two hours you spent doing dailies will only net you about 20g after, say, respeccing to heal a heroic and then respeccing back to tank or DPS for the night's raid. Thus hybrids are equally resentful about the demands made on their time and e-wallet that pure classes don't have to worry about.
Fallen Earth state of the game details, well, everything
Fallen Earth -- a post-apocalyptic MMO -- went through a lot of changes in 2008, but it seems as though it was all for the better. Now with the 'State of the Game' post for January 2009, the game is in the spit 'n shine stage and teams are going back over things that need to look as good as their more recent work. Here's what the game is touting as of right now: 75,000+ text strings Almost 5,500 missions 6,000+ items 14,000+ unique characters/creatures 143,000+ in game objects 70 towns 600+ hrs of content Wow, our eyes required bulging at the last item on that list. Granted, we're assuming that's an assertion of both questing, killing and various free-form styles of gameplay like PvP.But that's not all, Icarus Studios has also hired a PR firm to start getting the game's name out on both the web (hello!) and at gaming conventions as well. We're excited for the game to move from alpha and into beta in the coming months so we can finally get our perfectly sanitized hands on it. Yes, we promise -- lots of disinfectant.
The Queue: Wrap me up, baby
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft.In the comments of yesterday's edition of The Queue, Gilgamesh mentioned that you're actually able to attack the projection of Mr. Bigglesworth in Wintergarde Keep, or at least, you could for a long time. It's inspired me to... tell a little story.Once upon a time, The Queue was Ask a Beta Tester. We were still in the midst of exploring Northrend before every Joe and Jane could waltz in there, and I was a puny level 71 traipsing all over the world and taking in its beauty. Ohh! Dragons! Ooo! Yetis! Oh look, hehe, there's a kitty on the projector! Let's click on it!Oh no! Oh nooo! It's attacking me! Oh gosh, it's just a critter, I can just 1-shot it. Unfortunately for me, it was level 80, and I was a level 71 caster. It resisted absolutely everything. I ran around Wintergarde flailing my arms in horrified desperation, hoping and praying it would leash and leave me be. Unfortunately, it did not, but I had healing spells and managed to weather its furious paws until my Prot Paladin friend showed up to tank it for me. Not my proudest moment, that's for sure.
The Daily Grind: PvP v PvE
You may consider yourself an MMOer that likes a healthy balance of PvP and PvE gameplay, but deep down, we think most people have a favorite. It's not that surprising when you look at it -- just think about how utterly different the same game can be when you are fighting NPC mobs, compared to fighting other players. Let's look at the arguments for each, starting with PvE. Some players can't get enough of the excitement of soloing an extra hard named boss, or getting together a small group of skilled friends to complete a tough instance. Others just love a good guild raid.Over on the PvP side of the fence, you simply can't understate the thrill of the unpredictability that comes from fighting a human opponent. Does the other player have a better strategy than you? Are they just plain quicker at execution? For a lot of players, PvE is boring when compared to the highly competitive PvP world. As with PvE, this doesn't need to be a solo (1 on 1) undertaking, and depending on the game being played, it's possible to have numbers as big as the largest PvE raids. If you had to choose just one of these two gameplay styles, how would you be spending your MMO time?
The Queue: A curse upon you, interlopers
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft.Another Tuesday, another maintenance. As much as I'd like to write something amusing here to entertain you on your slow, boring day, I've got nothin'. Bone dry. I'm like the freaking Shimmering Flats here. Well, you know, like the north parts. Not the south parts with that little lake. Just the dry stuff, people. ...Oh, screw it.Jamesisgreat asked...Now I've hit level 80 and am looking at all the loot available to me as a feral druid, I've spotted a few of the PvP pieces that you can purchase with just honor. So my question is - where's the best place to grind honor nowadays? AV? Wintergrasp? Elsewhere?
WoW Moviewatch: Insane Gouge Crits 7
PvP-oriented videos aren't really the usual fare for WoW Moviewatch. I admit I watch a lot of them myself, though, mostly trying to pick up tips and tricks for the Arena. So, when I came across Insane Gouge Crits: 7 by Buddhist, I was pleasantly surprised. Don't get me wrong -- this is a PvP video, with all the action of "I sneak up on a guy and crit him" that you'd expect from that kind of rogue action. But that being said, Buddhist put a lot of work into making this PvP video more interesting that others you might see. It definitely stands out from its fellows in terms of the opening and closing sequences, both of which hint at movie-esque stories happening behind the scenes. I think this shows that it is possible to bring PvP videos up to the thought and art of more full machinima. There's voice acting, framing, and thought put into scenery. It's definitely a step up, and I would encourage Buddhist to keep bringing his PvP exploits to another level. If you have any suggestions for WoW Moviewatch, you can mail them to us at machinima AT wowinsider DOT com.Previously on Moviewatch ...
Tabula Rasa Night of Champions event
In this week's Weekend Wrapup for Tabula Rasa, we get word of the most recent Friday Night Fights results, but we also get a bit of an announcement for a new finale event regarding the long-running in-game boxing tournament.FNF: Night of Champions will be a special event that will play host to the largest gathering of former FNF champions ever in one spot. The only problem is locating all of these former champions for the event! You can check out the current list of champions over at the PlanetTR forums, and keep an eye out for more info on what may be the largest Friday Night Fights ever.
Fatal1ty talks WoW at CES
Say what you want about Fatal1ty and his endless selling out (we know you will), but the guy is a recognizable face, something that's a little hard to find in the world of professional gaming. Allakazham caught up with him at CES last week, and in between talking about how awesome he and his products were (sigh), they did get some good Warcraft talk out of him.He's been taking advantage of Recruit a Friend, so he's got a Warrior, Rogue, and a Death Knight all to level 60 (unfortunately, I didn't hear him say which faction he plays). His Death Knight's "get over here" "grappling hook" have captured his imagination -- hopefully he'll stick with playing with his brother and get up to level 80 so he can see some of the endgame PvP. Unfortunately, he says he's not into PvE at all, which explains why he's going slow, but if he can push the last 20 levels, there's some fun stuff to be found..And then it's back to the selling -- he says he's looking forward to sponsoring some players under his brand later this year (though he has no plans to play WoW professionally), and he pimps some equipment, too. It's not exactly a hard-hitting interview, but it is interesting to hear one of professional gaming's biggest names talk about his time in Azeroth.
EVE Evolved: The art of tanking - Shield tanking
In part 1 of this series on the world of tanking in EVE Online, I introduced the concept of tanking as it applies to EVE and explained how to select which type of tank to use with your ship. I then went on to give a complete overview of armour tanking, including the equipment and skills you'll need to succeed. In this second part of the guide, I explore the art of shield tanking. Shield tanking: In addition to the differences mentioned in the previous article, shield tanking differs significantly from armour tanking. Shield boosters can repair damage a lot faster than armour repairers due to their faster cycle time but are less efficient and will use up a lot more capacitor. An active shield tank is characterised by the use of hardeners to resist damage and a shield booster to repair damage that makes it through. However, since shield naturally recharges over time, it's possible to make a completely passive shield tank that relies on a high recharge rate rather than a shield booster. Different sets of equipment are used for these two different types of shield tank. Read on and find out all you ever wanted to know about shield tanking, including what modules and skills you can use to boost your combat performance.
Mark Jacobs details future Fortress changes
As was hinted at in a video featuring Mythic's Jeff Hickman not so long ago, the latest update to Warhammer Online's Fortress gameplay was only the beginning of a larger plan to improve the playability of this important aspect of the game. Mark Jacobs has now elaborated on these future plans, at the same time as giving a report on how the new update has been going on the live servers -- on the night of Jacobs' post, there were no Fortress-related crashes, and general performance was better but not quite where they want it yet.There are three initiatives that the dev team hope to put their focus on in the coming weeks. One of these is simply to see how the new population threshold is working, to determine if and how it should be tweaked with respect to balance and design issues. At the same time, they will be keeping an eye on the Fortress Lords to make sure that their difficulty aligns with the number of players attending a siege. The third change will involve optimizing the code that deals with large-scale battles, in the hopes of being able to open up the population threshold some more. Let's hope they succeed with this last effort, as some fans already have their torches and pitchforks out due to the reduced scale of these end-game encounters.
Counterpoint on Warhammer Online's Fortress siege population caps
We reported earlier this week that Warhammer Online has been having some issues with Fortress sieges, and opted to implement a solution -- population thresholds. That solution has led to fewer Fortress-related crashes and overall improved performance, but not everyone is as enthusiastic about the changes Mythic has made to Warhammer Online. A good example of this type of dissent among the WAR ranks can be found at MMOCrunch in a criticism written by Paragus. He takes aim at the Tier 4 campaign changes to Fortresses and states that imposing population thresholds diminishes the very thing WAR bills itself as -- a massive realm-vs.-realm game. He doesn't pull any punches when he states, "The fact that they are trying to spin this by saying 'to allow even more players to participate' by capping population in a given area only makes me feel better about pulling my guild out of this game. I'll be waiting for the flames from Warhammer fans."
An insider's account of galactic warfare in EVE Online
Prolific games journalist Jim Rossignol is an avid EVE Online player, who has made regular contributions to Eurogamer focused on this particular sci-fi MMO. His latest piece, "EVE Online: Battle Reports", is a brief account of how his PvP-focused corp (EVE's version of a guild) fared in a conflict against some steep odds. His aim is to explain a bit about how the game works while telling his story, hopefully holding appeal for those who don't play the game as well as those who do. "Because of the open structure of the game world, player-versus-player battles happen in all kinds of contexts and situations, and the sheer number of variables means they can make for a great story," Rossignol writes.
No PvE servers are under populated
We've been paying pretty close attention the server issues lately. From the missing mail a few months ago, to instability in instances, to the creation of a new U.S. PvE server.Zarhym has come out and said there are no PvE realms under populated, and that's the reason why Blizzard has introduced a new PvE realm, and not a new PvP realm. He goes on to point out that while some PvE realms are not having queues, they are only a few hundred people away from having to suffer through them every evening.And while there are PvP realms that have queues, there are "several PvP realms that are a little too under populated."So what does this mean?
Warhammer Online's fortress changes begin rolling out
Players had been experiencing some stability issues playing Warhammer Online's endgame Fortresses -- the bits before the capital cities -- until yesterday, when a new system went into place for the Phoenix Throne, Dark Crag, Vortex, and Darklands servers. This system is going to be rolled out over the coming days onto all of the game servers, which is a plan that smacks of cautiousness on Mythic's part. Or in other words, they're being wise and avoiding server imploding en mass.So what's the big fix? Well, it's an implementation of a threshold system. What was happening before, is that Fortresses would get so full of players -- 500 or 600 of them -- that the entire thing would essentially crash for everyone. It was a big crash-a-thon. Now, when the player count approaches certain thresholds the game will start teleporting rank 35 and below players entering the fortress area into the nearest warcamp. Then, rank 37 players at the next threshold, before finally rank 39 at a final threshold. Mythic hasn't stated what the exact numbers are for each of these caps, but hopefully it's a high enough count that too many players shouldn't feel frustrated when they attempt to join in the battle and find themselves staring at a vendor or trainer. This is just the first fix of what Jeff Hickman recently promised as one of many (see video above) that should be coming sometime in the future. And with the rapid-fire rate that past updates have hit the game, we have no reason to believe otherwise. WAR has gone 1.1! Check out our full coverage of the 1.1a patch, along with our interviews exploring upcoming content and the open RvR changes. Plus, don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!
A look back at an epic year in EVE Online
2008 was quite a year for the sci-fi massively multiplayer online game, EVE Online. It was chock full of surprises -- both good and bad -- and of course the requisite drama you get when putting as many as 45,000 players in one galactic setting. So much has happened that columnist Michael Lastucka has written a recap of 2008 in New Eden for Massive Gamer Magazine. Longtime EVE Online players also know him as Winterblink, someone who's been playing the game since its beta days, and he shares a bit of his perspective on the major happenings in EVE over the last year -- and what a year it was:
Tips for Strand of the Ancients and how to win it
Eye for an Eye has a great set of tips up for the Strand of the Ancients battleground. Their tips are aimed towards Ret Pallies, but they're useful for almost anyone, and especially any melee-based classes. And the general idea -- focus on the relic and getting to it, not the players attacking you or other teammates -- is great for anyone to know.I don't know what it is about Strand and Wintergrasp that has pulled new players into PvP, but there's something new there -- DanO also has found himself PvPing in those places when he never guessed he would. It seems like the objective is a big part of it; the goals in Strand and Wintergrasp just seem more epic than the skirmishes in Warsong and Arathi Basin (and they come with none of the major issues in Alterac Valley).Still, while most of the tips are common sense, some of them are worth listening to if you haven't though of them yet (I liked the tip about sniffing out Rogues around the tanks -- whenever I've played Strand, I've always headed for the walls, but protecting the tanks is a great tactic, too). If you haven't tried either of the new PvP areas yet, give them a look, and bring these tips along with you.
Class balance in a post-WotLK World of Warcraft
Class balance is always a touchy subject, depending on the class a person plays. But WoWRIOT has put together an impressive look a class balance in a post-WotLK World of Warcraft. After looking through much of the post, we're pretty impressed with its accuracy and overall take on current class balance, especially as it pertains to arena and PvP.Normally, those who actually play the game are much more interested in these kinds of balance overviews. However, the article contains an extensive look at Death Knights and everything about where their place in the game is right now. So for anybody who's been curious as to what's going on with the first new class in World of Warcraft, we'd say the article is definitely worth a look. For everyone who does play the game, it's probably a good idea to at least check out your class (or classes) if only to see why you should or shouldn't be upset with Blizzard. 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!
