rage
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Rage as a liability
Rage is a problematic mechanic, and has been since its implementation. It can be a lot of fun, but it can also be frustrating, and it contributes to Warriors' gear dependance. Blizzard is probably working on a way to redo rage entirely, but in the mean time, I'd like to highlight this suggestion for a rage revamp from Alveredus, a commenter on a recent post of mine. Here's a quick rundown of Alveredus's proposal: Rage increases over time by itself. The more rage you have, the lower your attack speed, but the higher your crit chance. When your rage is at maximum, you start losing resilience. Your abilities vent rage instead of costing rage - same thing really, but a different way of looking at it. I'm not certain about the specifics of it, but I like the general idea of rage being something you want to get rid of instead of something you want to spend. It makes sense: being in combat makes you angry; when angry, you may be less accurate, more vulnerable, or generally imbalanced. On the other hand, a system like this runs the risk of feeling like Rogue energy with a penalty. Rogues get their resource back at a constant rate and use it on abilities, but nothing bad happens to them when they cap their energy (aside from losing out on some potential DPS). The comparison could feel unfair for Warriors, who already have their share of penalties for core abilities. But rage definitely could use some work, and I'd like it to stay an interesting mechanic.
Speculating on a new resource system for Hunters
As we said on the podcast this weekend, one of the most interesting things to come out of the Hunter Q&A last week was that vague about "long-term plans" to "[remove] the need for hunters to rely on a different resource system then mana." That one kind of came out of nowhere, and the answer was even more vague: basically, they promised to talk about it at BlizzCon. Of course, that's what our attracted our attention: is Blizzard planning on getting Hunters off of their mana system completely?That would be quite a change -- since the beginning of the game, Hunters have relied on mana as their "resource" -- Warriors have Rage and Rogues have Energy, but Hunters somehow got looped in with the other DPSers as mana users. That doesn't make much sense -- not only does it depend on Intelligence (a stat which Hunters don't really have a reason to go after anyway), but it's lead to the problem of keeping Hunters powered up. Hunters are almost continually out of mana, and Blizzard has made some wacky mechanic tweaks (with both AotV and Replenishment) to try and keep them up and running.
Solution sought for Heroic Strike/Maul
In the context of a follow-up to the Warrior Q&A, Ghostcrawler mentioned something that he's touched on a few time before: Heroic Strike is a problem. I know what you're thinking: Eliah, you don't have a level 80 warrior! What would you know? Well, that's true, but I do have a Druid tank, and Maul is essentially the same as HS. So I know your pain. For those who don't, the problem with HS/Maul is basically that it's obnoxious to use in a raid situation. You tend to have roughly infinite rage, so you want to use the ability as often as possible, which contributes to the fact that your main tank sounds like a woodpecker is attacking his keyboard (or mouse) when he pushes his Vent talk button. It's monotonous, but you have to do it to maximize your threat. Recognizing a problem doesn't mean they have a solution yet, though. One idea GC had is to make it consume more rage the more you have (like Execute). Personally, I might like it if it just automatically activated above half rage (or so). Others have suggested that the key act as a toggle, which continues casting HS as often as possible until you toggle it off. What's your preferred solution?
Rage heading to QuakeCon, calm soon to follow?
id Software today announced that the upcoming rageahol-fueled FPS, Rage, will be heading to the company's yearly soirée, QuakeCon. The email we got from id billed the event as "the first look at the next revolution in FPS from id Software," a game we've been anxious to get our hands on since it was announced all the way back in 2007. Wait, 2007?! And the game (er, "prototype") looked pretty good back then! With QuakeCon 2009 just four short weeks away -- and Gearbox Software showing off its strikingly similar-to-Rage shooter, Borderlands, this week to the press -- we're becoming mighty interested in who is going to win the desert death race ... of our hearts. In the meantime, we'll be entertaining ourselves with the strange new website/ARG/slow web thing that just launched around the game, After the Impact. Needless to say, we hope you'll be greatly impacted by your visit. Thanks, folks -- we're here all night.[Via Shacknews]%Gallery-28861%
Doom Resurrection on the iPhone now, lots more id games to come
Fellow shooter fans rejoice -- id software's John Carmack has begun delivering on his love of the iPhone with a brand new game made just for the platform called Doom Resurrection, available right now on the App Store for the price of $9.99. There's nothing small about this game at all -- it offers up 76 mb of original id shooter, including eight levels total, six on Mars, and two more (spoiler?) in Hell, all set in a graphics and control engine designed just for Apple's handhelds (you control aiming with the accelerometer while the game runs you around on rails, and hit the various on-screen buttons to shoot or jump into cover). Unfortunately, there's no lite version to test out (though we can probably expect one eventually, considering Wolfenstein Classic got one), but early reviews say that if you like Doom, you'll enjoy the game.And that's not all -- besides this original version of Doom, Carmack and id continue to have big plans for the iPhone: Quake and Quake 2 are headed there for sure, and Quake 3 probably isn't far behind, as well as a RAGE-related title. And that doesn't even include the rest of the mobile stuff they have planned: apparently Wolfenstein RPG is ready to go, and Carmack hints that they've got even more original titles like Doom Resurrection here up their sleeve. Good to see a major, established developer like id is really committing to delivering new games for the iPhone.
id Software bringing external development back in-house
When Raven Software's long-in-development Wolfenstein (remember when it was an Xbox 360 timed exclusive back in 2005?) finally hits store shelves this August, it'll mark the end of an era ...... oh no! Not of Wolfenstein games – there are plenty more of those coming – but of outside developers working on id Software's hallowed franchises. John Carmack told Joystiq today that bringing external development back in-house at id is "exactly what's going to be happening." Carmack says that while id's had some hits (Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory springs to mind) and some misses (Enemy Territory: Quake Wars springs to mind) the externally developed titles haven't "had the same record that our internally developed titles have." We'd have to agree with him there.With the lead team cranking on Rage for EA Partners, they created a second development team to work on Doom 4, with a still-formative third team currently toiling away on Quake Live. "We'll have three teams," Carmack told us. "We'll have Wolfenstein, Doom, Quake, and Rage and one of them will be taking a vacation each cycle and that will depend on what we want to be doing each time." So don't worry, you'll have plenty of all of the above to go around.
ZeniMax's id buyout doesn't affect Wolfenstein and Rage
We're just one day into the freshly forged relationship between id Software and publishing powerhouse ZeniMax, and we may well be on our way to a bona fide lover's squabble. See, though yesterday's press release from ZeniMax boasted that the company's "library of powerhouse franchises will include DOOM, Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, QUAKE, Wolfenstein and RAGE," Electronic Arts and Activision have announced that they're retaining their publishing duties for Rage and Wolfenstein, respectively.ZeniMax referenced these two parties in the same press release, stating that it would publish all of id's future games "other than upcoming releases previously committed to other publishers." Though both EA and Activision's partnerships with id Software are limited to the aforementioned games, and will effectively end when said titles are released, the temporary presence of these two concubines should make things pretty awkward in the newly built idMax household.
Should rage only come from damage dealt?
Should warriors and druids no longer generate rage from damage taken? Ghostcrawler mentions this as a possibility being considered to change the way warriors and druids tank, one that would eliminate difficulties when rage-using tanks take too little damage/avoid too many attacks and have trouble tanking content that they outgear or are using avoidance heavy gear to tank. Having warriors only or mostly generate rage from damage done is an intriguing idea that has come up a few times. It would help the problem where better gear leads to rage starvation (at least in lower instances) and where warriors have trouble OT'ing because they aren't getting hit. It might also get warriors to care slightly more about dps stats instead of focusing mostly on survival stats. This would all apply to druids too. This isn't a change we have in the pipe, but it is something we discuss from time to time. Of course, this would require a real shift in how warrior/druid tanking mechanics worked. It would also have massive effects in PvP: it would essentially break the pattern of design that makes focus firing a warrior in PvP a slightly more risky proposition, since if you don't kill them they'll turn your own damage back on you. (It could also mean that switching to bear as a survival strategy in PvP for druids would become hobbling.) It's a very interesting idea: as a warrior who is currently DPS, I know that rage starvation can be a real issue when you're reliant on damage dealt, any misses or dodged/parried attacks can sink your rotation, so hit and expertise would become even more aggressively important stats for tanks.There's a lot of issues to consider, but it would make all warriors and all rage based tanks more balanced with each other. No more praying for rage after a dodge streak, no more taking off your pants to run a heroic if you're in raid gear, and more attention paid to parity between DPS and tanking rage use. I'm not sure I want to see so big a change in the game, and I'm certainly hoping they do it right if they do it at all.
Bornakk clarifies rage generation formulas
In a response to concerns on the forums about warrior rage generation, Bornakk replies that the formula is working fine - it's just using different numbers than the players who tested it. Two of the more interesting parts of his statement were as follows: In the formulas people are using, there is a constant value which is labeled as 'c'. At some point in the past, someone calculated a formula for determining c based on their level and that formula is not correct past level 70 as this value needs retuning from time to time like when a new expansion comes out. The value listed for c is 320.6 when it is actually 453.3. Some of the testing was done with ungeared characters hitting for very small amounts. There is a component to the calculation we haven't previously mentioned that will make the rage gained from those attacks sometimes not match the formula. Basically, the normal formula is Rage = (7.5d/c+f*s)/2. However, that result can never be larger than (7.5d/c)*2. This essentially means that very low damage attacks have a limit on how much they can be averaged up by the f*s component of the equation. It seems odd to me that this change to 'c' was left hidden for so long and only came to light following the changes to warriors in 3.1: one possibly explanation would be that rage generation via damage before the nerfs was good enough to obscure the issue. Nevertheless since I posted about the issue this week, I felt obligated to mention Bornakk's explanation of the discrepancy.
id Software maintains 'games first, licenses second' approach with idTech 5
Sure, id Tech 5 may be an impressive piece of middleware which manages to get 90% of game code working across PC, Mac and the more powerful consoles, but if you're going to be a licensee you have to be special. id Software's CEO, Tedd Hollenshead, has told Gamasutra that the company's "philosophy really hasn't changed from what it's always been, which is games first, licenses second." Rage and Doom 4 are currently id Software's top priority.In terms of licensing the engine out to developers id Software has been focusing on "targeting developers" and "working with them on an individual basis," rather than offering it out to anyone with a devkit. Hollenshead says the company's "philosophy on that has been that we'd rather have a small number of good-fit, high-quality developer licensees than a bunch that aren't really good fits." Makes perfect sense to us, and could save id Software some legal heartache in the long run.
id Software promises 'new stuff' at E3
id Software's Todd Hollenshead has told Gamespot that E3 attendees should expect to see some surprises from the developer. "... What I expect is," Hollenshead said, "I expect that we'll be showing Wolfenstein at E3, I expect that we'll have some new stuff at E3 that we haven't announced yet." Because id is no longer an ESA member, there won't be an "official" id presence -- rather, "It'll be games that will be there in other publishers' booths."In the same interview, Hollenshead offers some new information about two id projects that seem likely for E3, in addition to the unannounced games. Rage is apparently going to be super-massive, at least in terms of file size: "The game, ultimately, when it's done on our servers, will be huge. I don't know, 100GB?" id expects the game to fill a Blu-Ray, and span multiple DVDs on 360 and PC. Doom 4 is "not a sequel to Doom 3, but it's not a reboot either." Despite the 4 in the title![Via Big Download]
id's Hollenshead: Rage not coming in 2009
Part Mad Max, part MotorStorm, not at all happening this year. During his chat with GameTrailers TV's Geoff Keighley for last Friday's jam-packed episode of the show, id software boss Todd Hollenshead revealed that Rage, the company's id Tech 5 action-racing game, will not be released in 2009.It's easy to miss in the clip, so Keighley cleared things up via his Twitter feed, tweeting, "Todd said the game won't be out this year." Okay then. Rage was first seen back in 2007, and we're ... kinda of used to waiting for id's games. Perhaps the dev is still searching its spell book for some powerful magicks to squeeze three DVDs worth of game onto two -- without sacrificing anything -- for Xbox 360.[Via Shacknews]
GameTrailers TV previews The Pitt, World at War DLC, The Conduit, Rage
If you haven't already guessed by the circus train of trailers that surfaced today, last night's episode of GameTrailers TV provided a cornucopia of previews for a number of hotly anticipated games and DLC expansions. First on the docket is an interview with Bethesda's Todd Howard, who in addition to revealing a self-surgery minigame that didn't quite make it to the retail version of Fallout 3, gives a few details regarding the upcoming The Pitt expansion, and promises a new trailer for the DLC in the next installment of GTTV.Next, Todd Hollenshead, CEO of id Software, shows off carpocalypse sim Rage, and gives a few scant details on the next Doom title (shockingly, it will be like the last three). Also, High Voltage's Eric Nofsinger drops a few factoids about The Conduit, and the first footage of Call of Duty: World at War's new maps sees the light of day. There's something for everyone -- especially the ladies, courtesy of a sizable dose of Keighley.
PSA: QuakeCon 2009 registration begins March 6
Registration for id Software's annual QuakeCon extravaLANza begins this Friday, March 6, at 9:30PM ET. QuakeCon 2009 is free, but registration is required, especially if you plan to bring your own computer.QuakeCon will frag the frak out of the Hilton Anatole Hotel in Dallas, Texas, between August 13-16. Special room rates ($145, not bad!) are available for those who want to stay in the hotel -- but it's probably best not to dawdle on grabbing those. No word yet if Rage or Doom 4-EVA (not working title) will be shown.[Via Big Download]
The Queue: Spreading the space plague
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. A bad case of space cancer put me out of commission for the last few days, and for that I apologize. In addition to my apology, I blame the pandas. They caused me to come down with such a horrid plague. I'm back on my feet now though, so the Q&A will continue!jtrain asked...I'm admittedly new to tanking, and I hear people talk about a 'rage dump'. Why would I want to dump rage? I thought the whole idea was to build up a good amount so I don't have to sit there auto-attacking waiting for my abilities to become usable. In Wrath, I never seem to have a problem generating rage and at the end of a fight in which I've pulled several mobs, I usually have quite a bit of rage still available. Am I doing something wrong?
The WoW vs. WAR debate makes Top 10 list of video game rage
Alec Meer of Rock, Paper, Shotgun recently put a new twist on the 'top 10' lists that are cropping up at year's end -- a sort of top ten of gaming rage as expressed on the intertubes. Much of this list is focused on single-player titles and the industry itself, but Meer's 'Orc vs Orc' (#8 on the list) caught our attention. Meer writes, "We've already talked today about the absurd, insane fanboy fallout from our own comparisons between Warhammer Online and World of Warcraft, but in truth it was a torrent of poison that briefly gripped MMO sites the world over. Notably, MUDfather Richard Bartle endured character assassination by a raft of WAR fansites after an interview in which he apparently stated the two games were very similar." That interview in question was actually Dr. Bartle's talk with our own (master) Michael Zenke back in June. 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!
Confessions of an EVE Online macro'er
You've encountered them before. Those guys. Them. Next to the ISK spammers, they're a plague within EVE Online.They have gibberish names and sit in ice belts all day in exhumers, macro controlling large mining operations. At the first sign of trouble they gang warp out to safety. Or they're automating courier missions in an endless procession of macro'ed industrials, day in and day out. Or they're part of the infinite army of 0.0 ratting Ravens that automatically warp to a safespot and cloak once someone enters the system. They're all in China, right? The macros are all used by large ISK farming operations where people work in 23/7 shifts... right? Apparently, that's wrong. EVE-Mag is running an article written by a self-proclaimed macro'er. Only he doesn't work in a sweatshop in a developing nation. He doesn't grind long shifts for ISK. He's an American in his early thirties, with two kids and a family dog. Just a regular guy. He writes under the pseudonym "EVE Player" and poses a question to his readers, "I have macro'ed the holy crap out of certain video games. I've been doing it for more than 8 years now so tell me; at what point did you notice your EVE experience going down the tubes because of me? I'll bet your downward spiral really has nothing to do with me macro'ing, now does it?"
Rage Wireless Guitars recalled, chemical burns deemed too emo
Performance Designed Products' Rage Wireless Guitar isn't the most well known Guitar Hero peripheral out there, but that's apt to change in a hurry after this. Said instrument has just been recalled after the company received a single report of a burn after the user self-pwnt him / herself by installing the AA batteries incorrectly. Apparently the circuit board within the axe is "defective" in such a way that it causes cells to leak if they are inserted in an incorrect manner, and thus, it poses a risk of chemical burn to the rocker handling it. Interestingly, consumers who own one are instructed to return the thing to the original place of purchase rather than PDP itself, so we'd recommend wrapping your arm in gauze and printing out the read link to help your case if you've trashed the receipt.[Via SlipperyBrick]
id: RAGE hasn't been scaled down due to the Xbox 360
According to id Software the recent reports that its upcoming title RAGE has been drastically scaled down on all platforms due to the Xbox 360's media-size limitation are incorrect."There was NO CONTENT removed from RAGE because of the 360--NONE AT ALL," wrote Willits. "We feel the 360 is a great platform and will provide a fantastic Rage experience," id Software's Tim Willits told Shacknews. The original statement made by Willits mentioned the game had changed from "5 or 6 smaller wasteland environments but later decided instead to have 2 larger wastelands." The change was mostly due to the title shipping on two Xbox 360 discs but Willits claims the change was for the better of the game because it would reduce load times between all platforms.So, RAGE hasn't been scaled down because of the Xbox 360 ... it was changed because of the Xbox 360. Completely different, people!
id: No content cuts made to Rage for 360's sake [update]
Update: Tim Willits has denied earlier reports that content would be trimmed from all versions of id Software's upcoming Rage due to the Xbox 360's more limited storage capabilities. In a statement issued to Shacknews, Willits said, "There was NO CONTENT removed from RAGE because of the 360--NONE AT ALL." In response to his discussion of limiting the game to two explorable wastelands, as opposed to more, Willits said the decision was best for all versions of the game and would eliminate loading. "Moving from multiple wastelands into fewer but larger wastelands was a far better decision and is actually giving us more gameplay in the game. We feel the 360 is a great platform and will provide a fantastic Rage experience."The original story can be found after the break.
