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The Game Archaeologist and the NeverEnding Quest: The vets
We just had to start 2011 in style, didn't we? I knew that by invoking the sacred name of EverQuest, I'd be opening the door for thousands of collective years' worth of memories, opinions, frustrations, nostalgia, gushing and blocky screenshots. But the Game Archaeologist fears not even the greatest mountain in MMO legend; it had to be climbed sooner or later. And of course, who better to guide you up the mountain than a few EQ Sherpas who know the way? Sure, they might try to steal the idol and not throw me the whip in the end, but that was a very real risk I was willing to take to get the full story. So today I'd like to introduce you to three EverQuest veterans who are all now world-famous bloggers. If you sense a connection between these two facts, I will only hint at the possibility of a secret society in SOE's headquarters that bestows great blessings upon its faithful fans. Hit the jump to meet this EQ trio and hear what they had to say about the MMO that profoundly affected their playing careers!
'Zombie satellite' springs back to life, actual zombies still zombies
In the George A. Romero classic, Night of the Living Dead, a radioactive satellite falls to earth and causes the dead to rise from their graves -- but what if the satellite itself had become a zombie? That's the slightly less frightening reality that has befallen Intelsat's Galaxy 15 communications satellite, which "went rogue" in April of 2010 and has been unresponsive ever since -- even though it has continued to transmit signals. Late last month, however, the satellite finally came back to life, and Intelsat was able to put it into safe mode to prevent it from interfering with other communications satellites. It's apparently even now trying to determine if the satellite could become fully functional again -- although, if you ask us, that just sounds like it's all part of the zombie satellite's plan...
Ten levels of RIFT: A guide to your first day in Telara
With two RIFT beta events under my belt, I was given the supreme honor of creating a guide to the first 10 levels of the game. Naturally, I fell apart under the stress, assumed the fetal position for a couple days while whimpering about "frame rates," and then was prodded into action by our editors. That's quite literally "prodded," mind you -- Massively purchased a pair of cattle prods last year at a police auction. It's going to be years until the scorch marks fade from my spine. The purpose of this guide is two-fold. First, we want to give anyone who's interested in RIFT but couldn't get into the beta a chance to vicariously experience RIFT's newbie path. Second, while RIFT is careful to hold your hand during your first steps into Telara, there are always a lot of things that can be easily missed while one is partaking in the wonders of a new virtual world. So this guide is here to share a few tips and pointers that beta testers may have missed. What are you waiting for? Roll up a new character by hitting the jump!
Rugged Outdoor Gaming Units, Etc making PS3s for the 'harshest of conditions'
Rugged Outdoor Gaming Units, Etc (aka ROGUE) is looking to service our armed forces with rugged all-in-one gaming devices. The goal? "To provide every every big kid with entertainment no matter where his travels take him." The product? The Staff Sergeant PeliStation, available beginning the spring of next year. Priced at $1750, the PeliStation includes a 1080p 22" HD display, built-in PS3, a surge protector and four network outputs. "With a weight of just 35 lbs., this complete setup is easy to carry whether you're going on a weekend camping trip or year-long deployment to the desert," the product description adds. While a feat of engineering, we can't help but wonder if the rumored PSP2 would better serve this purpose?
DOFUS brings the holidays to players, then blows them up
The colorful world of DOFUS seems well-suited to a holiday celebration, especially with the amount of character embedded in the game's graphics. And one is taking place on Kwismas Island, beyond a shadow of a doubt. But there's still something else for players to look for, something that's far less merry than the dungeons of the island (whose merriness is already a rather dubious quality). It's the newest class of the game, the Rogue, a class focused on guns, explosives, and the use of both in tandem. Capable of summoning a variety of elemental bombs as well as making elementally charged pistol attacks, Rogues are the 13th class in the game, available as a premium feature now. All DOFUS players can enjoy Kwismas Island, however, previewed in our gallery just below. Take a look at the Rogue teaser video past the cut, and consider the possible combination of holiday dungeons and heavy explosives. (It beats fruitcake and caroling.) %Gallery-111466%
WoW Insider's Weekly Webcomic: Safe Passage
Welcome to another edition of WoW Insider's Weekly Comic, Safe Passage. This comic takes place post-Cataclysm, so there will be minor spoilers. The first strike! A frost trap has been thrown onto the fire, blanketing them in darkness. She strikes, now within her natural element. Check out the full comic right here, and tune in next Tuesday morning for a new page. You can also see all the previous pages in the gallery below. %Gallery-102091%
Storyboard: Archetype discussion - the Rogue
A disproportionate number of roleplaying characters are heroes. Well, "heroes" might be a bit too strong of a term -- said characters may or may not have actually done anything heroic -- but given the opportunity, they prefer to be on the noble and self-sacrificing side of a conflict. There's nothing wrong with that, to be sure, but there is something to be said for playing someone whose ethics are a bit less grounded in an abstract idea of right or wrong. Most fantasy games have a class either named as a rogue or some variant thereof, and even when the class doesn't exist, the hallmarks are there. Stealthy and sneaky, usually aimed at quick bursts of damage -- all of those elements speak to how rogues work. But they don't actually define a true rogue any more than a hammer defines a carpenter. So feel free to cue up some appropriate music (at your discretion) as we dive into the second archetype study, taking a good hard look at the most underhanded archetype around.
C is for Neutral-Aligned Cookie: DDO Update 8 preview patch notes posted
December is right around the corner, and with it, Dungeons and Dragons Online's Update 8. Advance release notes are up for the Lamannia test server, and so far it's safe to say that this patch is the tastiest one yet. Why tasty? Because Turbine is incorporating cookie jars into the game as a way for players to store edible goodies from Festivault without clogging up their inventory. Best of all? This is one treasure chest that nobody can stick his grubby fingers in but you! What else is the studio baking up for the crowd? First up is a new four-mission adventure pack, "Siege of Stormreach," which will give mid-level players an opportunity to defend and ultimately repulse an attack upon the city itself. For players envious of Lord of the Rings Online's cosmetic outfit system, the upcoming armor appearance kits in DDO are sure to earn a few smiles. Like cosmetic hats, cosmetic armor will visually replace your current outfit without stripping you of the outfit's stats. This special armor can be found in chests, traded, and purchased through the DDO store. The lengthy patch notes also include the addition of Rogue hirelings, class racial enhancements for Half-Elves and the usual collection of tweaks and fixes. Hire a Rogue at your own risk, however, as Rogues have a notorious sweet tooth. Silly Rogue hirelings, cookies are for players!
En Masse's Brian Knox details the Slayer's evolution
Is he a Rogue? Is he a Warrior? Is he an '80s thrash metal band? Whatever TERA's Slayer may be, En Masse hopes that you will find him bad to the bone. En Masse's Brian Knox sat down for an interview with ZAM about how the class was evolving and changing during development. Originally, this Rogue/Warrior hybrid had heavy armor, but due to his extreme DPS output, the devs decided to concentrate more on movement and dexterity instead of damage absorption, and they downgraded his armor to reflect this. When asked about the class' defining traits, Knox listed a combination of two skills -- Knockdown and Leaping Strike -- which, when used together, would both throw a foe off his balance and deal him significant damage. Knox spent time also talking up the Slayer's roguish abilities, such as being able to speedily dash up behind an enemy and backstab for big numbers. Unlike most MMO rogues, TERA's Slayer is limited to using one (1) big honking sword, but En Masse doesn't think this will hurt the class' appeal in the slightest. You can read the full interview at ZAM, and don't miss our exclusive Slayer lore piece!
Guest Post: Confessions of a noob rogue
This article has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. Back in the dark ages of history, in vanilla World of Warcraft, I rolled a rogue. This was before battlegrounds, when dishonorable kills were a fear and world PvP was a rush, when men were men, mages sheeped for fun and warlocks ... well, let's just say that warlocks have a reputation that they've earned. World of Warcraft was my first MMO, after coming from persistent worlds hosted by Neverwinter Nights. I played a rogue there, too, steeped in Dungeons & Dragons rules and the like. World of Warcraft was both nothing like and exactly like my roguish experiences before -- a sneak who dealt devastating damage with small weapons, no matter whether the target was gnome or giant, fearsome orc or fiery dragon. In the midst of a Westfall investigation (tasked by SI:7 to infiltrate a tower), I noticed a few growing complaints in guild chat: "We have seven rogues in the guild but only one priest; would someone please roll a priest?" I told them I would, sent my rogue back to the character select screen, and rolled the character that would take up the entirety of my vanilla experience.
Forsaken World's assassin slices and dices
"By the time you see one," Perfect World Entertainment promises, "it's already too late." Of course when you do see one of Forsaken World's assassins, your last thought may be, "Where are all your clothes, girl?" The assassin is the focus of Forsaken World's latest class spotlight, and if you're thinking "rogue" right now, you're not too far off the mark. This class, playable only by Human and Kindred characters, certainly seems to embody many of the typical qualities of a MMO rogue, from dual-wielding to stealth attacks to working off a combo points system. However, they do get a few interesting abilities, such as being able to run down fleeing opponents with as much mercy as you might expect from an assassin. The class spotlight also lists a few of the assassin's skills-in-progress, which include a brief increase to run speed, the ability to enter and remain in stealth even while in combat, and transferring a slow effect from yourself to your enemy. You can read the full rundown over at Forsaken World.
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Both sides now
Back when Going Rogue was first released, I made a point that I wasn't going into detail on the alignment and tip system. As I saw it at the time, there were two major reasons not to go whole-hog into it, the first being that I was already writing an entire novel on the expansion, and the second being that Paragon Wiki was hard at work putting more details into place. Why try to reinvent the wheel in a weekly column? And there was also a third reason: I'd been spending more time in Praetoria than on my old characters. So I suppose in some way I ought to thank whichever designer gave my poor brute the chance to fight two elite bosses at the same time with three NPCs as backup in a single-player mission. It gave me plenty of incentive to spend more time with my higher-level characters. (Seriously, that mission is absurd.) That meant I started diving into the alignment system, and that means I'm going to spend more time detailing one of the centerpieces of City of Heroes gameplay at the moment: alignment.
Byron the Tauren Rogue: And here's your lovely parting gift
Before Byron snuck off into the shadows, he told me to give you all a little something to remember him by. "Now," you ask. "what could you possibly give anyone that wasn't obtained illegally?" That's easy: IM icons! You are all more then welcome to use these swanky icons for things like forums, Twitter, or your absolute favorite site to talk about WoW! Also, if you somehow missed the ending of Byron, the review, or you don't even know what I'm talking about, why not try catching up a little bit? %Gallery-101950%
Byron the Tauren Rogue: The cow, the legend, the gnome
When I approached the editors of WoW.com to ask them if they'd be interested in letting me do some work, I was thrilled when they agreed and took me on. The creative freedom I got was incredible: "Write us an idea, and if it's all right, you can do it." Thus, Byron the Tauren Rogue was born. Now, the legend of the tauren rogue is just one of many jokes within the WoW universe, like the cow level, or skilled ret paladins. Even though I was told that this idea was "done to death," I really wanted to try out the lovable oaf sort of character. What I didn't expect is what it would turn into. The general synopsis of Byron is as such: Byron is a young, male tauren who dreams of becoming the first rogue of his kind. His friends -- skilled rogues themselves -- dare Byron to sneak into Stormwind and steal the Shield of Fordragon. If he can acquire it and safely escape the city, then he has more than proven himself.
Cataclysm beta: New glyphs for rogues and shaman
Blizzard's been hard at work adjusting a lot of WoW's game systems for Cataclysm, and one of the biggest changes in the pipeline is the overhaul of the inscription profession. You may remember the Path of the Titans alternate advancement system was axed in favor of making inscription, well, better. On top of other changes and a new UI, part of this task is adding a new tier of glyphs -- called prime glyphs -- on top of the already-existing tiers of major and minor. Ghostcrawler recently had this to say about the new glyph system: Ghostcrawler Prime glyphs aren't going to be exciting in a "change up your rotation" style. We want primes to be unambiguous dps (etc.) increases so we figured they might as well be easy to understand rather than something so convoluted that everyone would just go to a fansite to see which 3 to pick. The majors are more interesting, because they are either not dps increases at all, or dps increases in ways that are tricky to math out. We think players will debate and geek out more about which majors to use, and with the new glyph design, swapping them out once in awhile isn't very painful. Minors are basically convenience or fun. source Several classes have had their glyphs worked on and updated as of this beta patch, but only rogues and shaman glyph passes appear to be "done," so we've listed glyphs for those two after the break.
WoW.com's Weekly Comic: Byron, the Tauren Rogue
Welcome to another edition of the WoW.com Weekly Comic, Byron the Tauren Rogue! Well, here we are: the end of Byron. Our story ends with Byron, the bovine hero, watching a raid take place upon the ever-assaulted Crossroads. He has chosen his path but swears to use it to protect those who need to be protected. He is now one with the shadows, always watching over his beloved Horde. I wanted to thank all of you for sticking with this story from the beginning. While I'll be the first to admit it got off to quite a rocky start, I feel that this comic has evolved a lot, and I'm ultimately happy with where it led. Next week, I'll be featuring an article which, among other things, will be an overview of the entire series. I'll talk about the characters, the story, the writing and many other points. I hope to see you all back again! For those who are worried -- don't worry, I'm not going anywhere. I'm taking a small, two-week break to write the next story and pen out a couple of fun little Byron-related goodies. Byron may come back one day, as this next story will be completely unrelated, but who knows? From the Byron crew, we all thank you for reading. Take care! Check out the full version right here, and tune in next Tuesday morning for a new page. You can also see all the previous pages in the gallery below. %Gallery-77825%
Encrypted Text: The rotation system
Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the rogue class. This week, we discuss the rotation model of DPS, and how it defines our class in every way. Blizzard has a long history of taking popular addons and rolling their functionality into the game's base user interface. The first instance of this that I can remember was when Blizzard introduced its own quest objective tracking overlay, nearly copying MonkeyQuest's original configuration. The dev team also inserted dungeon maps for the various instances, taking a page out of Atlas' book. Their latest invention is a replacement for Power Auras, the popular notification mod that displays custom graphics when a specified event occurs. Looking at the list of spells for which Blizzard created custom "spell activation" effects (thanks BB!), we see mostly random and reactive abilities on the list. Paladins will enjoy the art for Art of War, and every mage spec has a particular proc to watch patiently for. What intrigued me was that there is actually a spell activation effect for rogues, an orange lightning bolt that represents Slice and Dice. Slice and Dice, as any rogue will inform you, is not a random proc; it's a core part of our DPS and should be up at all times. While having a lightning bolt on my screen at all times sounds like fun, it got me thinking about the rogue DPS model. I utilize Power Auras extensively on every other character I play, yet I don't even have it enabled on my rogue.
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Facefirst into Praetoria
It's finally here, and I have to admit, it's a little weird to realize it. After I spent the better part of half a year focusing on Going Rogue, the expansion has been released and is totally playable. To have the game sitting in front of me (metaphorically) after it's become such a huge part of my professional life is almost too daunting. I almost didn't even want to fire up the launcher to... OK, yeah, that part isn't fooling anyone. Getting to play around a bit while it was in beta to see how it would play was nice, but I couldn't get myself into City of Heroes fast enough to start leveling a Loyalist and going to town on the new side of town. At the end of the day, I'm just a player like everyone reading this column, and the game I got to play on Monday evening made me very happy indeed. There's a lot to see and do, and I've tried to recap some of the disconnected thoughts in this week's column. And as a bonus, there's a sad announcement at the end! It's like a bonus, anyway.
TUAW's Daily App: Dungeon Hunter
Gameloft's Dungeon Hunter is probably the best Diablo-esque action RPG on the App Store right now -- it looks great, and plays just about as well as any touchscreen controlled action game can. As a Warrior, Mage, or Rogue, you can hack and slash your way through a fantasy world, picking up armor, earning XP and exploring a serviceable (if not particularly gripping) story. The save system is a little annoying, and the inventory can be a bit overwhelming, but the presentation does justice to the genre on Apple's small screen. In accordance with an ongoing sale, Gameloft has the title priced at just 99 cents. For cheap action gaming thrills on the iPhone, things don't get much better than that. There's no word on exactly how long the game will be so cheap, but if the idea of a portable Diablo clone appeals to you, open this treasure chest right away.
Exclusive video diary of the souls of Rift: Planes of Telara
You could be forgiven for not catching it immediately from our E3 hands-on with Rift: Planes of Telara, but there are some unique things going on with the game's class system. It's hardly the first game to allow you to change classes, but the game also goes into combining them, shifting aspects, interplay between multiple class types... it's a maze of inter-relationships. Luckily, we have an exclusive video developer diary from the staff at Trion Worlds that discusses the whole setup at length, giving future players a much clearer overview of how the system works. When players start, they choose one of four Callings -- Warrior, Rogue, Mage, or Cleric -- which determines the player's core playstyle. As they level, they gradually acquire Souls, and it's there that the bulk of a character's abilities come from. It's a fusion of the talent tree system popularized via World of Warcraft with something much more interesting, and the possibilities for mixing the different Souls together can give rise to all sorts of interesting theories. But don't take our word for it -- watch the exclusive developer diary just past the cut.
