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World of Warcraft dispels free-to-play 'Veteran Edition' rumors
Pretty much anything in the world will start the World of Warcraft free-to-play rumors these days, but this set of rumors had a bit of basis in reality, at least. Datamining uncovered references to a "Veteran Edition" for players, which prompted speculation that it would be a preferred account status for players who were on the free side but still had played in the past. It turns out that's not quite accurate, but it's also not entirely wrong: Veteran Edition will allow players to play for free, essentially, with Starter Edition restrictions. Community Manager Bashiok addressed the rumors, explaining that while someone who never had played the game before could jump in with Starter Edition restrictions, veteran players could not. Veteran Edition, then, places almost all of the same restrictions on players, but it will allow you to roll up a new character and play through level 20 or at least log in to chat with friends. No word on exactly when this will be rolled out, but it should put the free-to-play rumors to bed until they start again in a month.
The Mog Log: Speculating on Final Fantasy XIV's Heavensward
We've got patch 2.5 around the corner, but Final Fantasy XIV's first expansion isn't all that far away either. And that, of course, brings with it no end of speculation about what players will find because so little is certain right now. What previews we've had have been vague by design, just enough to set our minds aflame with possibility without nailing down exactly what we'll find when we start venturing northward. Lucky for me, I love speculating. There are several ideas I've already seen regarding what we're getting in Heavensward, some of which are so far out of left field that I tend to think it's a pipe dream of the speculator and some of which seem to be logical predictions about the future of Final Fantasy XIV. So here's a bit of talk about those before we start hearing tons of expansion news and it's all proven transparently true or false. (Midway through the week, maybe.)
Korean investment firm forecasts Guild Wars 2 expansion
This year's biggest trend thus far in the MMO space is to talk about the Guild Wars 2 expansion as if it's already here. But it's not! It hasn't even been announced yet. Gamers are speculating on whether or not it even exists. This didn't stop Daewoo Securities from predicting that NCsoft's income will see a nice boost in Q3 thanks to the sales of the presumed Guild Wars 2 expansion. Daewoo Securities is not an official NCsoft source, of course, but it sure does throw another bit of kindling on the fire. ArenaNet will be at PAX South very soon to discuss the future of Guild Wars 2, and while the word "expansion" hasn't been used, the expectation that it's going to be the big announcement has been echoed by our own Guild Wars 2 columnist. Whether or not it'll be out by Q3 2015 is another story altogether.
Rumor: The Elder Scrolls Online console version may be close
Let's just start with the disclaimers, for those who have forgotten: Online retailers do not necessarily know the date of releases any more than you do. They just enter a future date for preorders and go. Amazon's release date for the console launch of The Elder Scrolls Online is still December 31st, 2015, which isn't a prediction so much as a way of keeping it in the system for this year. But Microsoft's listing of the game for Xbox One on February 24th, 2015, does merit at least a little attention. Sure, it could just be a placeholder date, but it's awfully soon for a placeholder when the store could easily list December. It would also make a certain amount of sense, since the console version was originally slated for last month after its initial delay. So what do you think, readers? Is The Elder Scrolls Online just around the corner for console owners? Or is it just another placeholder date? While you're munching on that rumor, you can also speculate about the fact that Australian EB Games stores are recalling all boxed copies of the game and all time cards, supposedly as part of a normal post-holiday stock recall. Or as a prelude to free-to-play. You decide. [Thanks to squidgod2000 for the tip!]
Flameseeker Chronicles: Is 2015 the Guild Wars 2 expansion year?
Way back in the ancient era of 2013, I wrote an article about why I thought Guild Wars 2 could use one of those fancy expansion doodlehoppers MMORPGs tend to get after they've been running for a while. You might not be surprised to learn that my opinions have changed only slightly since then, and mostly in the direction of, "Yes, GW2 really does need an expansion pack." If GW2 fans have sounded a little like hungry baby birds repeatedly peeping, "Expansion!" for the past couple of months, it's not without reason: The most recent NCsoft financial report conference call reportedly contained hints at expansion plans, and ArenaNet seems to have something mysterious in the works for PAX South this year. But are there any real reasons to think that we might be getting an expansion announcement in 2015 when we've gotten our hopes up to no avail before?
The Mog Log: Final Fantasy XIV's year in review
A year ago, Final Fantasy XIV was in a weird place. The game had already done the impossible one time around, taking a title that had failed badly and re-launching to actual attention from the world at large. Barring a slight misstep with housing, it had done all right. But a year ago, it had to do the hard part: sticking the landing. Sure, re-launching was rough. But at that point it had to bank on that goodwill and shape itself into a respectable game within the MMO space. And it managed that. What still astonishes me about the game's year of history is that despite making mistakes and bad choices, the game has continued to earn praise from players and onlookers, more so as each month rolls on and it continues to not collapse. That alone seems surprising, especially after a year like 2014. So let's look back over the year, see what the game did right, and look forward to the new year as well.
Rumors of a major Destiny expansion swirl
Speculation on what's coming next for Destiny is a cottage industry for fans, and an old image from October is making the rounds as a possible reveal of the game's future plans. The image may or may not be legitimate, but it suggests that the second expansion/DLC pack for the game is launching on March 10th, 2015, with three new story missions and a playable area (the Reef) that is briefly visited by characters but is not currently a playable region. The image then suggest a major expansion, Plague of Darkness, launching in September 2015. Speculation is that this would serve as a sort of re-launch of the game, with bundled versions available as well as standalones for players who have already played the game; the expansion would feature another subclass for all three classes as well as a dozen new story missions and new playable areas. Take a look at the compiled information and decide for yourself how likely the rumor is in the end.
The Nexus Telegraph: WildStar's past year and future
A year ago, I was excited for WildStar's future. Now I'm sitting here wondering how things went so very, very wrong. That's not true, though; I know exactly how things went wrong. I don't like thinking about it, but I do know. And so here I am, with a game I was hugely excited to play out and in the wild, and so much has gone wrong. It's easy to think that I've pretty much clocked out altogether. But that's also not true. I'll be the first to point out that I've said some decidedly unkind things about the state of the game and the choices that have been made thus far in terms of fixing them. The last column I wrote even posited that it might be too late for several of the changes being proposed to make any sort of impact when it comes to the game's image. This is why I really want the game to prove me wrong.
The Mog Log: What we know thus far about Final Fantasy XIV 2.5
With all the cool stuff we heard about Final Fantasy XIV's first expansion, it's easy to forget that we also heard a bunch of stuff about the last patch of the current patch cycle. I think that's kind of intentional, not just because the expansion is a bit more eye-catching, but because things are going to get a lot worse before they get better. 2.5 is titled "Before the Fall," the Heavensward trailer does not predict sunny times for Ishgard, it doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out what happens next. There's no actual release date for 2.5 just yet, although I imagine it's fairly soon, especially given the two-part structure and the proximity of the proposed expansion launch. So let's talk about what we know so far to look forward to before everything comes crashing down. (I'm betting around the end of January, although I'll admit to being a bit less anxious than I was with 2.4's release.)
The Soapbox: Better models for MMO endgame progression, part three
Today marks the last entry in my better models for MMO endgame progression series, the follow-up to my series on why MMO studios should abandon raiding. And that means providing two more possible models along with something of a thesis statement. But it also means that at this point I'm far more willing to wander off into the woods with these ideas. The first part had slight twists on standard formulas, the second had ideas that was a bit further afield, and this one features two ideas that are still almost entirely unrefined. More specifically, today's concepts are more about tackling the very principle that progress has to be tied past a certain point to things that you get. You earn a thing and then you're better. But there's no reason that progress can't be oriented the other way, with the gear (etc.) just being a gating mechanism for your actual forward motion. The funny part is that a lot of these systems aren't really at odds with one another; they can coexist without too much trouble. But then, that's the nature of the beast.
The Soapbox: Better models for MMO endgame progression, part two
If you read yesterday's Soapbox, the first in my Better models for MMO endgame progression series, with a fair bit of awareness, you probably noticed that the models I presented were, well... safe. Normal. Not too far outside of the realm of what we already have in some games, in other words. Oh, sure, they were functional and expanded compared to what you normally see in games, and they weren't reliant on high-end raiding, but they were still derived from the same space, which is part of the point. But that's not nearly as far as the rabbit hole goes. So let's start moving further beyond what's already common. Let's start heading into stranger territory. As before, the models presented here are not super-refined balanced labyrinths of systems; they're the outline, the skeletons, the fundamentals of how these concepts could work. And even at this stage, they're able to go in directions you don't find in numerous MMO endgames. So let's jump right into it, shall we?
The Soapbox: Better models for MMO endgame progression, part one
Last month, my three-part Soapbox series on reasons studios should abandon raiding as the core mechanic of their MMOs produced no shortage of comments. One of the persistent refrains from the pro-raid side was, as expected, "if you're so smart, why aren't you proposing alternatives?!" The obvious answer would be that it wasn't the point of the articles. The series was about reasons to drop raiding, after all. But it's also not as simple as "here's what games should be doing" because there are countless alternatives. Tons of alternatives. I can think of at least six off the top of my head. So for this new series, let's consider models that don't rely upon raiding as an endgame progression model. Some of these are close cousins to endgame models found in games currently on the market, some of them are not, and none of them has been designed with fine details or lore or what-not in mind. They're drag-and-drop, as it were. The point here is explaining the multitude of options available for an MMO's endgame that don't rely upon raiding for their focus. Today's article will cover the first two of six I have in mind.
The Mog Log: Final Fantasy XIV's big fanfest reveals
Christmas came early for the forward-looking Final Fantasy XIV player this year. I know some people are upset at the fact that there were more revelations in the Japanese fan festival than in the ones in Vegas or London, but the timing is different. (I'd also point out that the expansion was announced in Las Vegas.) We've gone from having only a dim view of what's coming to having a pretty clear picture of what awaits through the next few month. One of the things that awaits is, of course, endless yelling about Machinist. Because boy. So let's start unpacking the stuff we learned from Tokyo. I say "start" because there is no way to get everything in one column, certainly not with deadlines and other considerations to take center stage. It's going to be a few months, but there's a lot to chew on just about 2.5, even if we ignore all of the expansion stuff, which I have no intention of doing.
Rumor: A Borderlands MMO might be in the works
Back in February this year, Randy Pitchford, CEO and president of Gearbox, specifically stated that the developer was not working on Borderlands 3. In fact, the most he'd say on the matter was that the team knew a sequel would have to be massive and impressive. All fairly standard interview stuff. Not too long ago, a Chinese site for publisher Shanda Games was discovered, with what certainly appears to be a silhouette of the franchise's iconic robot Claptrap. This would all seem completely unrelated if not for the fact that Pitchford had stressed both the need for a massive game and the possibility of making the next Borderlands title into something endless, akin to League of Legends. None of this serves as a single smoking gun, but if you look at all the evidence through the right lens, it does start to appear awfully gun-like. Then again, this is Borderlands; everything looks gun-like.
The Mog Log: The end of Final Fantasy XIV's 2.0 cycle
It's going to be a little while until we see the next major patch for Final Fantasy XIV. I'm not expecting to see patch 2.5 in the wild until February, to be honest. That's a little longer than the standard three months, but we've also got a holiday season through there and a not exactly clockwork schedule to begin with. It's enough time to get plenty of Poetics kit, make headway into Second Coil, and get thoroughly sick of the expert roulette dungeons. Perhaps the game shouldn't always just keep the three most recent dungeons on there... But we still have interquel patches to consider, starting with the promised inclusion of Eternal Bonds in 2.45. While we've still got a little bit of time until the next Live Letter (which will no doubt reveal more about what's coming for the next few months), we've got enough information to speculate, prognosticate, and forecast, which is exactly what I want to do for this week. It's a thing I do.
The Mog Log: Final Fantasy XIV and approaching the end of the story
All right, Final Fantasy XIV isn't really approaching the end of its story. If you think that Heavensward won't include its own set of story missions, well, suffice it to say you are almost certainly wrong. But the ending of the 2.0 storyline will be like closing a chapter in a book, and this patch is the first step along that path. The next patch will close the chapter and begin anew, bringing us down unfamiliar roads. As a result, parts of this patch flirted with important story parts. Others flung themselves right ahead in ways that I hadn't expected. As always, this post will contain spoilers for 2.4's story, so if you haven't already seen all of it yet, be warned. It will not, however, contain spoilers for the Final Coil in any meaningful way. So if you've held off from the spoilers already swirling about that, fear not. Some of you are quite possibly working on that now.
Star Trek Online posts lore on a mystery object
So let's get this straight. While exploring Star Trek Online's Delta Quadrant, the USS Voyager comes across a mysterious object. The ship's crew immediately brings it aboard and tries to figure out what in the world it's supposed to be, coming to a lot of conclusions about what it isn't while being unable to find many answers beyond "it's probably a communication device of some kind." It also doesn't quite match any of the technology seen from the obvious sources of technologically enhanced mystery objects like the Solanae Dyson Sphere. And yet everyone thinks keeping this on a ship is a good idea? There are a lot of episodes arguing against that. All joking aside, there's a fair bit of lore to be found in the latest official dispatch from Star Trek Online, hinting rather solidly toward potential new encounters for players in the future. What it all means remains to be seen, but you can take a look at the lore and puzzle over what Voyager found.
Trademark filings hint at possible Hearthstone expansions
Gamers love to speculate about expansion titles, and with good cause. If an expansion is titled The Battle for the Southern Ridge, well, you can be pretty sure there will be some fighting and you'll be on the southern ridge. If it's titled Steve Gets a Subpoena, you look for a character named steve. This is why particular attention has been paid to two new trademark filings by Blizzard, both of which seem like perfect titles for an upcoming Hearthstone expansion. The names in question are "Eye of Azshara" and "Overwatch." While the latter could apply to many games, the former seems quite clearly aimed at either World of Warcraft or Hearthstone, and it seems even more unlikely that the company would announce the next expansion for World of Warcraft as players are still waiting for Warlords of Draenor. Is it a red herring or harbinger of things to come? We'll know more when BlizzCon takes place later this week.
The Mog Log: Dark Knight is a tank in Final Fantasy XIV
I can't really stop talking about Final Fantasy XIV when it's been weeks of news feasts for the game, can I? Hot on the heels of the last fanfest, the one-day London fanfest happened, and the development team compensated for the shortened overall time by filling the keynote with revelations. The Vanu Vanu are a thing which I currently want to cuddle, we will get personal airships, and we're getting Dark Knight -- a job that starts at level 1 with no base class, breaking all the established rules of the game. Oh, and it's a tank. There were basically two sets of reactions to this news. The first group was busy releasing its collective gasp of joy that it had been holding on to since Dark Knight was practically revealed in Las Vegas. The second group was screaming to the heavens about the fact that this job was going to be a tank instead of a DPS. So it merits some discussion, as do the other things we know about it because boy, Tank #3 is going to be a weird one.
Destiny hotfixes out a loot cave, players uncover more DLC areas
Destiny has a bit of an issue with caves, particularly those that allow players to stand around and shoot until candy comes out. An upcoming fix will adjust auto-rifle damage, boost scout rifles, and also cut off another loot cave from the players. The development team is also working on fixes to under-performing Exotics and tweaking overall class balance. Meanwhile, the game's players have managed to uncover another DLC area in the video past the break, uncovering unpopulated regions on the Moon that tie into an unknown portion of the game's expansion content. Analyst Michael Pachter weighed in briefly on the game when he predicted that game sales for September 2014 would be in a slump compared to September 2013, stating that Destiny's ubiquitous media presence would provide an overall figure around 2.75 million, a bit below Bungie's stated 3.2 million daily logins.
