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EVE Evolved: Rebuilding EVE's corporation tools
The MMO genre is defined by the online interactions of thousands of players, and nowhere is that more apparent than in the single-shard sandbox of EVE Online. While it's possible to play EVE solo, it's the players who make most of the game's meaningful content, and it's only in your emergent interactions with other players that I think the game truly comes to life. Some time ago, I wrote about the importance of CCP supporting EVE's power players, the corporation owners, fleet commanders, and event organisers who give the rest of us something fun to do. Now it looks like CCP is starting to deliver that support, with developers currently looking at updating EVE's archaic corp management tools. CCP Punkturis recently asked corporation owners for a list of the most annoying "little things" they'd like to see fixed with the corporation management interface and was instead flooded with requests for big features and complete overhauls. Developers later confirmed on The o7 Show that at least one highly requested big feature is definitely on its way: CEOs will soon be able to switch off friendly-fire between corp members. The threat of corporate infiltrators attacking corp members has been a massive barrier preventing corps from recruiting new players, so its removal is good news for everyone (except spies). So now that corporation management is finally back on the drawing board, what other features do corp owners need? In this edition of EVE Evolved, I look at a few ideas for corporation tools and features that would make EVE a better place for everyone.
World of Warplanes rolls out MiGs in update 1.6
Ready to fly some of the most iconic Soviet airplanes in history? World of Warplanes update 1.6 introduces the Soviety MiG line at Tier V and above, allowing players to take the controls of these historic crafts and use them in mid-air dogfights with other planes. There are also five new premium aircraft available in the game, offering another way to take to the skies with this patch. Aside from new vehicles, the patch also adds in a new multirole classification, placing some planes between fighters and heavy fighters. The net effect is creating planes that can use a more varied loadout and switch roles in battle more effectively. Map boundaries for the El Halluf location have also been extended, giving the update plenty of features for players to enjoy.
The Mog Log: Final Fantasy XIV's superfluous damage Ninja
If you don't know whether or not I'm excited about the inclusion of Final Fantasy XIV's newest class, I don't know what to tell you. I've been playing a character who's been an in-character Ninja for the duration of the game's life, so obviously I'm happy to finally have it available to me. I personally would be happiest if it were a tank, since I do so enjoy tanking in the game, but I have plenty of people to run stuff with anyway. I'm not worried about queue times anyhow. At the same time, though... we know there's a shortage of tanks in the game right now. This isn't a mystery or a secret. Healers are more common but still hardly as ubiquitous as Bards and Dragoons. So is the inclusion of another DPS class really a wise decision? With the precedent established, would Final Fantasy XIV have been better off adding a more party-oriented option into the mix?
Darkfall Unholy Wars answers questions on custom roles
In the original version of Darkfall, skill selection was a wide-open field. When the game relaunched as Darkfall Unholy Wars, the role system was introduced, narrowing the field of options significantly. Now custom roles are incoming, and that means that players have questions about how the new mechanics will work. Those questions are being answered in a three-part series of community Q&A sessions, with the first two parts available now. Some mechanics are being removed -- Wobble, for instance, was introduced solely to balance roles, but with the new system the developers no longer need balancing specifically between roles. There have been significant adjustments made to some skills, in part to avoid the situation wherein everyone has a ranged kill skill and super-powerful healing. Despite this, the answers also point out that most characters will actually see a net increase in power overall. If you want to know more, feel free to glance at the full rundown of answers for more details.
Darkfall Unholy Wars unveils the new custom roles
You want to do your own thing in Darkfall Unholy Wars, but how are you going to do that? Simple -- you're going to make use of the game's upcoming custom roles to build exactly your sort of character. This represents a fundamental shift to the game's mechanics, and the latest development post on the official site stresses that this first iteration is going to be modified over time. But it's still something novel, and it's a chance to have more control over your character's development. Players will be able to pick out any 9 school skills (with 1 Ultimate skill) and several common skills for a given build, with a grand total of 16 skills from school skills and common skills. Players will also be able to mix and match armor types to create just the right sort of playstyle. Builds can be altered at any point if a character has been out of combat mode for 15 minutes, so you're not locked into one configuration. Check out the official post for more details on the mechanical shift.
The Mog Log: Whispers of what comes next for Final Fantasy XIV
When I find myself in times of trouble, friends of mine will comfort me, speaking words of wisdom: "There are more patches coming to Final Fantasy XIV." And it's true! While I'm not as happy with 2.2 as perhaps I would like to be, as odd as that statement sounds, it's not the end of the world. In fact, there's a lot of stuff around the corner that should make me a lot happier. We've heard rumblings about what we'll see at E3 next month, we're hearing discussion of what's next on the docket for patch 2.3, and there are tantalizing hints about what's going to be arriving beyond even that. Some of these are things that I've discussed elsewhere; some I haven't had the opportunity to chat about yet (we only got the live letter announcement on Friday, after all!). So let's go ahead and dive into what's on the horizon for the game.
League of Legends introduces Braum, the Heart of the Freljord
For too long, there's been a hole in the many champions of League of Legends. Braum, the Heart of the Freljord, fills that hole, introducing the first truly impressive moustache to the game and allowing everyone to marvel at every perfectly waxed hair. Oh, and he also serves as a tank support character, which is also a first, but mostly it's about that glorious lip-blanket. Right, you probably want to know a little bit more about what Braum can do. Well, he applies a stacking debuff that stuns enemies with his basic attack, but once the first tap is in place, attacks from allies will also increase the stack count. He also attacks with line-based AoE attacks that snare targets, blocks attacks with his enormous shield, and can dash to his allies to help protect them from further attacks. In short, he's a traditional MMO tank tearing up the League of Legends lanes. And he has a moustache. Did we mention that?
Switching roles
It's officially the end of the expansion, because I'm tanking again. Every expansion, this happens. I start off tanking, something happens and I switch to DPS, and then by the end of the expansion I'm tanking again. The best part is that it usually happens in the middle of working on heroic progression, meaning that I'm suddenly tanking the hardest fights in the game. Usually without having ever tanked them before, in fact. Last night for instance I found out that I am much better at doing Heroic Norushen if I go down to kill the big add with some Vengeance built up, for how much it helps with Shield Barrier if I mis-time and get hit by the big attack. My gear is adequate - about ilevel 566, with quite a few heroic pieces - but it's still a learning curve and one that's sometimes fairly hard to adjust to, and not just for me. This is a raid we've been clearing weekly, and suddenly here's a new tank who doesn't know what's going on as well as the previous tanks did. Combine that with my general sense of perfectionism (I do not like making even the most understandable mistake) and it can be pretty stressful. But sometimes it's necessary -- your group has all the healers it needs, and you volunteer to DPS. You've been playing a hunter, now you're on your priest healing instead. (Hi, Final.) You're a tank but you're burned out and you need a change of pace. So, how can you deal with this, both as a player and as a group with a player switch? While I'm not pretending to having any sort of universal answer, here's a few things I've noticed.
RIFT's Arbiter and Physician are incoming
Patch 2.7 is delivering a bundle of four new souls to RIFT, and that means that every calling will be able to play every role in the game. The support Cleric soul (Oracle) and the healing Warrior soul (Liberator) have already been revealed, but what will Rogues and Mages get? The details were in the most recent livestream: Rogues get Physician as a specific healing soul, while Mages will be able to tank with the addition of the Arbiter soul. According to the most recent development livestream, a great deal of internal testing is being done to ensure that all four new souls remain functional and competitive, even though they're being added before an expansion. Players can keep their eyes peeled for later in the week when the Physician and Arbiter both get revealed ahead of their test realm implementation. These four souls will be purchasable as a bundle, although no announcements on price have yet been made.
SMITE dredges Scylla from the depths
It's always the seemingly innocent ones. At a glance, SMITE's Scylla looks just like a pleasant little girl. It's only when you get into battle with her that she starts summoning her wolf-headed tentacles and you realize how inhuman she really is. Of course, you could also take Scylla for a spin yourself and learn to utilize her unassuming appearance and her varied snaring tactics to avoid being on the receiving end of a wolf-headed tentacle beatdown. Scylla's passive ability improves her magical power for each max rank ability as well as an additional effect on max rank abilities. Her skills allow her to snare targets, spawn sentry locations and teleport to them, and transform into a lethally powerful form with massive attack power for one attack. You can jump past the break to see Scylla's abilities in action and watch some of her most useful options in group play.
RIFT previews its new soul, the Liberator
The new souls being added to RIFT in the game's 2.7 patch are meant to allow every class to perform every single role in the game. So how will that even work? What will Warriors with heals really look like? You could wait until tomorrow to find out on the official site... or you could take a look at MMORPG.com's preview of the new soul, the Liberator, along with a small sample of its associated lore. Liberators aren't meant to be passive healers; the soul specializes in wading into the fray while sporting excellent group and area heals. In other words, it's still very much a Warrior occupation, but the focus is less upon hurting things and more upon using the energy of combat to help others recover. While the full explanation of the soul's specific abilities will be up tomorrow, you can still get a taste of the lore and concept by looking at the preview.
The Summoner's Guidebook: Supports are ruling League of Legends
I think Season 4 of League of Legends has been dominated by support play. Some of this is because there have been a number of really inspiring star support players at the pro level, and their brilliance is shining down a bit on us plebians. Although I think that the Season 4 jungle is still really messed up, the support role has really solidified in a good way. What do I mean by "good"? Supports still get less gold than other roles and don't generally rock huge K/D ratios. They're still the team's ward machines, as we talked a bit about last week. However, the support's overall game impact has increased dramatically. Supports get more gold than before; they are making plays, initiating fights, and making way more of an impact in those fights than they ever were before. There's no more need for a support who is an ult and ward bot; you can now tank, deal damage, or whatever mix of support you want.
The Mog Log: Future classes and jobs for Final Fantasy XIV?
A long time ago, I speculated a bit on what classes and jobs we might see added to Final Fantasy XIV. And I do mean a long time ago in internet terms; this was back before we knew that Arcanist and Summoner were going to be linked, for example. A lot of new information has come to light between then and now, the sort of stuff that requires a whole new round of speculation. Some of that speculation is, of course, completely out there. Some of it isn't. And some of it is out there in a way that would be totally cool and would attract a whole lot of interest. So let's take a look at some potential jobs, classes, and whatnot to see where they might fit into the game... or even whether they'll fit into the game. There's probably no space for Celebrant, sadly.
The Summoner's Guidebook: Picking a role in League of Legends
A lot of players advise approaching League of Legends with a jack-of-all-trades attitude. If you can play in any position, you'll cause a lot less friction on your team. On the other hand, playing a single role well has a lot of advantages. Individually mastering one aspect of the game doesn't automatically make you better than your lane opponents, but there's a wealth of knowledge available for each position that you can't learn while playing others. Personally, I fall into the latter camp; I can play one role well, two less proficiently, and the rest very poorly. There's a big reason that works OK for me, but almost everyone will want to be diverse. You simply won't be able to play a huge percentage of ranked and normal games in one role.
The Daily Grind: What role would you eliminate from the trinity?
MMO designers around the world have flocked to your home. The trinity of MMO roles will be forever altered, but you don't get to add or alter. No, you can only do one thing: You can subtract. Tanking, DPSing, or healing will be forever removed based upon your decision. This might not seem like much of a question, but think about it. Without a tank, all DPS and healing players would have to pay attention to what's going on, and there would be room for things like distinct pulling, crowd-control, or burn roles. Without healing, survivability takes on a different role, and without DPS, groups become smaller and focused on a wider gap between tanks and healers. Time is running out. What would the face of World of Warcraft look like with no tanks? What is Final Fantasy XIV without healers? If you could remove one role from the trinity, what would you pick? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Tamriel Infinium: Hybrid penalty, Elder Scrolls Online?
The Elder Scrolls Online intends to do some shaking up of the traditional MMO combat system. Other MMOs have done this same thing in the past with varying degrees of success. Class balance, however, seems to be the ever-present issue with any game that has to deal with cooperative or conflictive multiplayer gameplay, even more so if the game attempts to do both like most MMORPGs. With the fast-action, limited ability, skill-based combat system ESO intends to produce, how do the developers at ZeniMax best prevent one of the most dreaded by-products: the hybrid penalty?
The Mog Log: FFXIV lessons from Final Fantasy XI
Final Fantasy XIV is in the final push to launch now, with phase 4 right around the corner and early access shortly after that. This is good news for me, since it means I can get back to actually playing the game that I write about every week after nearly a year. And, you know, the game is pretty awesome, so that's a bright point as well. It also means that the future isn't what it used to be. The relaunch has been The Future for a very long time, but now the relaunch is The Almost Right This Second, and The Future consists of patches and expansions and new classes and the like. All good things, all welcome, and all things that could take a few lessons from Final Fantasy XI. I've said before that Final Fantasy XIV was designed to fix some problems from Final Fantasy XI that it never was going to have, but that's not what I'm talking about. Instead of talking about preventing players from leveling consistently or hunting the possibility of RMT with McCarthy-level vigilance, let's look at some simple lessons to internalize in the future.
Civilization Online not currently planned for North America
You might be tremendously excited about Civilization Online right now, especially if you read our interview with Jake Song yesterday. But if you live in North America, it's time to crank that excitement down to a dull interest because XLGAMES and 2K Games are not currently looking at a release in the region. 2K Games PR Manager Brian Roundy delivered the bad news: "Civilization Online is developed by South Korea-based XL Games in partnership with 2K, and will be available first in Korea. No release date has been set. There are no plans for a North American release at this time." This doesn't mean all hope is lost, of course. It might be that the studios are holding their cards close to their chest or that they don't want to commit until they see how it performs in Korea. But if you were camping in front of a retail store (why?) for this release in America, you should probably go home for now.
Massively Exclusive: Jake Song introduces Civilization Online
You might have heard about a little project called Civilization Online, a new MMO in development based on the popular Civilization series of turn-based strategy games. You also might have heard that XL Games CEO Jake Song, of ArcheAge and Lineage fame, is overseeing the project as Executive Producer. But chances are, that's really all you have heard. Until now, that is. We had the opportunity to sit down with Song, XL Games Senior VP Jung Hwan Kim, and Producer Garrett Bittner from 2K Games to get the scoop on the project. Follow along for all the juicy details about building up civilizations in a new open world environment, including crafting, PvP, and more!%Gallery-195539%
Breakfast Topic: Are you a happy healer or a reluctant healer?
I was smirking my way past the Gordon Ramsay-esque commentary on Twitter recently (go to the tweet to view it in all its unblurred, NSFW glory) when it struck me: Blizzard has created so many incentives to play a healer. Obviously, they've worked -- but are the healers enjoying it? As a long-time healer, I find myself broken-hearted at the idea that players are going through the motions of healing simply because for the sake of faster random queue times or to fill a hole in a roster lineup. Healing by people who aren't passionate about healing? Healing by people who aren't glued to the action? Healing by people who might be watching "other things" on another screen, or eating pizza, or, or ...? Dear readers, we're talking about saving lives here. I weep. Seriously, I weep. Still, there seem to be quite a lot of healers going about their business in today's game. If you're a healer, do you enjoy the role? Did you choose to be a healer of your own volition, or were you influenced by queue times, role benefits, or the needs of your raid or guild? If you were nudged into healing by outside forces, has it been worth it? Are you a happy healer or a reluctant healer?
