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Mortal Online sets out territory control in a new patch
Ready to make your mark on the world of Mortal Online? Your time is now. The game's latest patch implements the territory control system, allowing guilds to war over choice bits of land, build keeps and cities, and generally shape the landscape into what they want to see. There's even a trailer for it past the cut, showing off what players can expect to get when breaking ground on a new city and building its defenses. Cities alone would be a welcome addition, but the patch also brings with it a variety of improvements to quality of life. The game's mail system has been rebuilt, several UI elements and chat commands have been implemented, and the world map has seen some trimming and adjustments. The patch is live now, so you can check out the notes for all the details or just log in and start staking your guild's claim. [Thanks to Zakiyya for the tip!]
Mortal Online details its territory control mechanics
Do you want some land in Mortal Online? Then why beat around the bush? Why not just reach out and take it? The game's territory control system is arriving soon, and the developers have offered an introductory guide at the system to give players a better look at how everything will fit together. Players will be able to place and upgrade a variety of structures in controlled territory, with most structures requiring skills to be placed but not improved. NPC contracts can also be used for shopkeepers, guards, and the like. What can and cannot be placed is determined by guild stones, which are gated by the number of members in your guild. Players can also choose the behavior of guards in the town, ranging from law-abiding to attacking any players not in the guild on sight. The update is also bringing in a minor change for free-to-play players, limiting free accounts to logging in from one computer per day, which is intended to prevent players from creating free accounts and logging into all of them in short order to boost guild sizes. You can take a look at the full territory control guide on the official site. [Thanks to Dengar for the tip!]
EVE Evolved: How to fix nullsec territorial warfare
If you've been playing EVE Online lately or just following the major events in the game, it can't have escaped your notice that nullsec has become a bit stagnant. The lawless nullsec regions are supposed to be politically unstable territories claimed by hundreds of warring player-run alliances, but today they're dominated primarily by just two or three mega-coalitions. Individual alliances can no longer hold out against the combined forces of the coalitions and must either pick a side or be annihilated. The coalitions have even signed agreements not to take space from each other by force, and players are being bored to death as a result. Two weeks ago, I examined the history of force projection in EVE Online and made the argument that capital ships and jump drives ultimately created today's nullsec problems. Increases in mobility have led to alliances teaming up over vast distances, making mega-coalitions an inevitable outcome. It's obviously too late to remove capital ships or jump logistics, but there are plenty of other ways to potentially fix the nullsec problem. We had some great discussions in the comments of the previous article about how this complex problem could be solved without making warfare the painful slog it was back in 2004, and I believe it's possible. In this edition of EVE Evolved, I lay out some ideas for new game mechanics that could solve the current nullsec crisis and may meet CCP's goals for the eventual sovereignty revamp that's on the way.
Camelot Unchained's territory control isn't just for uberguilds
Welcome back to our coverage of City State Entertainment's batshit-crazy days for Camelot Unchained! A few weeks ago, we spoke with CSE co-founder Mark Jacobs about each of the topics being revealed this week via livestream; this afternoon, we're examining the RvR map and territory control. Massively: Taxes and maintenance costs are absolutely necessary to keep territory from being owned by absent players, but if they're too burdensome, they can prevent people from wanting to claim or improve land at all, figuring that a richer guild will do it. How does the team plan to solve that problem? CSE's Mark Jacobs: Balance is always a PITA, and this is a perfect example. There is no magic formula to solve this problem, but one thing I will say is that while money may not buy happiness, it may also not buy a piece of land. Just like crafters, players will not be able to simply have money dumped on them by an alt, friend, etc. and then be able to buy whatever land they want. They will have to earn the right to buy it, and that won't happen Launch Day +1 (or 2 or 3).
EVE Evolved: Four top tips for living in wormholes
One of the biggest goals you can reach for in many sandbox MMOs is building your own empire and controlling a small corner of the game world. For much of EVE Online's lifetime, that privilege was reserved for the powerful few leaders of the game's large territorial alliances, which carve up vast swathes of space between them. A handful of alliances still control the lawless nullsec regions today, but there are still opportunities for smaller corporations and even individuals to stake a claim in the chaotic world of wormhole space. Exploring and farming in wormholes is very profitable activity, but permanently moving in and setting up a starbase can be an intimidating prospect. One wrong decision might lead to pilots getting stranded in the void without bookmarks, your starbase coming under attack, or the whole expedition being robbed blind by a corporate infiltrator. The early days of wormhole exploration were rife with stories of hardship, heists, and devastating wars fought through shifting networks of wormholes. A lot has changed since the wormholes first opened in 2009, and today many of those problems have solutions. In this EVE Evolved opinion piece, I look at some of the ways wormhole life has improved since Apocrypha and give four of my favourite tips for anyone planning to colonise wormhole space.
Pathfinder Online details the War of Towers
If you're gearing up for Early Enrollment in Pathfinder Online, you'll be pleased to know that your experience will be a bit more robust than planned. When the development team looked at the minimum viable early access product, it didn't appear indicative of what the game was supposed to be in the long run, but there was no way to get the full territory control system in without a lot of further work. So what could be done? Why, a stripped-down version. Dubbed the War of Towers, the system will reward players for capturing and controlling towers near one of the existing Settlements, allowing those Settlements to advance and improve in new directions. There's a video available just past the break that explains the details of how this tower capturing works, but the short version is that it should at least fill a gap until the full territory control system can be rolled out later.
Black Gold Online outlines its Guild vs. Guild systems
Guilds in Black Gold Online have plenty to do. Sure, there are the usual social aspects of guilds, but there's also a constantly amplifying race for technological progress combined with territory control. The latest development blog on the official site discusses how guilds can advance and grow in power, as well as the basic outlines of the territory control feature with characters fighting it out over energy wells. All guilds have a level of technology available to them, determined by the amount of eponymous black gold used to upgrade the guild. This can come from members, or it can come from energy wells, which can be fought over on both a factional and intra-factional basis. It's entirely possible for two guilds of the same faction to fight repeatedly over the same well. Take a look at the full article for more details about how you can send your forces to fight and die for that all-important energy.
Xbox One rolling to 26 new regions in September
Microsoft plans to bring the Xbox One to 26 more markets in September, eight of which were in the original plans for the console's November 2013 launch. Those eight territories, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Sweden and Switzerland, were cut from the first run in August, at which point Microsoft scaled its launch plans back to 13 regions. Head past the break to see the list of the other 18 regions the system will arrive in come September.
EVE Evolved: Designing EVE Onland, part 1
When I'm not playing or writing about EVE Online, I can usually be found huddled over my computer typing lines of code into a compiler and chipping away at bugs that make varying degrees of sense. Designing my own hardcore space game is a really fun challenge and very fulfilling work, but I have a dirty little game dev secret: I've actually always wanted to make a fantasy game. While the budget and personnel required to take on a project the scale of an MMO remain quite far outside my grasp for the moment, it's still fun to think about how I might design such a game if the opportunity arose. The MMO genre seems to be heading for a sandbox revolution this year, and there's no bigger sandbox than EVE Online, but could all of EVE's gameplay translate to a fantasy game? EVE is probably the most atypical MMO out there, maintaining a subscription-based single-shard PvP sandbox in a genre that's typically headed in the exact opposite direction. There are several new sci-fi sandboxes on the way that may or may not qualify as massively multiplayer titles, but the vast majority of MMO gamers still prefer to keep their feet on the ground in fantasy lands. I often find myself wondering how much of EVE Online's core gameplay is possible only because of its setting -- and how much could actually be applied to a fantasy MMO. Not only should it be possible to adapt most of what makes EVE great to a modern land-based game, but many of the mechanics sandbox gamers now attribute almost solely to EVE actually started life in classic fantasy MMOs like Ultima Online. In this week's unusual EVE Evolved, I'd like to start a game design thought experiment as I delve into the hypothetical world of EVE Onland.
Hands-on with Albion Online's alpha
Ever miss the old MMO days when crafting had meaning? When your friend could join up with you and on day one you could both go somewhere pretty cool, and just having that extra person could make things a smidge easier? Wish you could go back to those days without dealing with mindless grinds? Sandbox Interactive's Albion Online is perhaps something you should look into. In fact, those are the very reasons I signed up for the alpha back when I first heard about it. And now that I've played around with it a bit, I've been pleasantly surprised with my experience, though there are a few things newcomers will want to watch out for. For starters, Albion's alpha is an actual alpha, not a retitled beta for marketing purposes. If you're going to play any future alpha phases, know that they'll be rough, unfinished, and non-functional in some areas. There's no actual character creation at the moment. Heck, there isn't even a female option (sorry ladies!). You can change your portrait, but that doesn't change the way your character looks. Because it's an alpha, I'm going to only lightly cover what I couldn't play and focus more heavily on those I could.
Albion Online unveils Player-vs-Player and Guild-vs-Guild details
Berlin-based studio Sandbox Interactive released a new dev blog today revealing a number of details regarding Player-vs-Player and Guild-vs-Guild combat in its upcoming title Albion Online. In Albion, much of the game world will be up for grabs, and guilds can claim territories in order to harvest their resources and build shelter for their members in the midst of Albion's wilderness. While guilds can capture as many territories as they like, they'll also be required to defend these territories from opposing guilds who would take their lands. In order to keep Guild-vs-Guild combat fair and balanced, each land-holding guild will be required to choose "a number of times during the day at which their territory will be 'open' to attack." At these times, both the attacking and defending guilds will field a team of five players who will act as champions in the battle, thereby ensuring that no one guild can ensure victory by overwhelming numbers. Those who wish to reap the benefits of holding land without getting their own hands too bloody can instead put a bounty on their enemies' heads and let mercenaries (presumably other players) do the work for them. To learn more about Albion Online and to sign up for the game's upcoming closed beta, head on over to the official site.
PlanetSide 2 hosts pre-season territory control event
The competition in PlanetSide 2 is all in good fun, assuming that you consider crushing your opponents in a bid for global dominance to be "good fun." But starting today the game is being ramped up a notch with the World Domination Series pre-season event. It's a contest to see who can actually control the most territory for the longest period, running a weekly competition from now until October 21st. And to the winners go prizes. You might think domination of the world is the prize, but no, the prizes are experience boosters and special decals. How do you win them? You earn more points than the other empires. Fight on the side of the winning empire in a given week to help earn points. A captured small outpost is worth 1 point, a captured large outpost is worth 2 points, a facility is worth 5 points, and a full territory is worth 3 points per hour that it remains under the empire's control. At the end of the week, values will be tallied, and the next week will give everyone a chance to fight it out again.
EVE Evolved: Strategic resources for everyone!
The past four EVE Online expansions have mostly focused on adding small features and overhauling old game mechanics and content that were beginning to show their age. Crucible delivered dozens of small but highly-requested features and gameplay improvements, and Inferno and Retribution continued with overhauls of several aging PvP systems. Even Odyssey contained mostly small features and revamps, its biggest gameplay features being a new hacking minigame and a streamlined scanning interface. It's been several years since EVE has received a truly massive and game-changing feature like wormholes or a sovereignty revamp, but that may all be about to change! CCP recently announced its intention to start reaching for big ideas again, but this time set over a more realistic timeframe. If everything goes according to plan, the next five years could see the introduction of player-built stargates and true deep space colonisation. I wrote about the potential of this concept last week and looked at some of the big features we'd need to make it a reality, but I didn't really delve into my personal favourite idea for a potential future expansion: New strategic resources and player-created deadspace complexes. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at how strategic resources could be used to get even individual players invested in something worth fighting for, and how player-created deadspace dungeons could be a great way to introduce them.
Pathfinder Online dev blog explains territory and the hex map
You wouldn't normally think that something like hex size would be such a big deal in a video game, but Pathfinder Online's Lee Hammock explains in today's most recent blog post that it can make a huge difference. First off, the type of hex matters. Whether it's a settlement hex, a wilderness hex, a monster hex, or an NPC hex, each version determines control capabilities, building laws, resources, and so on. This basically means that no two settlements will be alike. If you'd like to read up on how much territory and the hex map actually matters in Pathfinder Online, head on over to the dev blog to read more. [Thanks matixzun for the tip!]
Massively Exclusive: Make your nation proud with Wakfu's newest dev diary
Now that Ankama Games' tactical MMORPG Wakfu is live and operational, it's probably about time for players to start getting familiar with the World of Twelve. Thankfully, the fine folks over at Ankama have provided us with a brand-new dev diary to help players to wrap their heads around the nations and territories of Wakfu. For the uninitiated, the World of Twelve is the shared universe of Wakfu and its predecessor, Dofus. Lots has happened in the World of Twelve since the time of Dofus, however. Most importantly, a daft ogre by the name of Ogrest (presumably the older brother of Ogre and Ogrer) gathered the six primordial Dofus and used their overwhelming power to devastate the world, drowning all but seven major island nations beneath the sea. It's up to players to run these remaining nations and restore the World of Twelve to its former power. Of course, it can't all be sunshine and butterflies between the seven nations; we need a reason to kill each other! Aside from the seven main islands, there are also a number of smaller islands that contain valuable -- and sometimes exclusive -- resources. The seven nations, of course, all want to claim these precious goods for their own. Players will have to represent their nations in the battle for these minor, resource-rich islands in order to bring prosperity and bragging rights to their respective homelands. So there you have it, Wakfuians (that's totally a word, we promise). Now click past the cut for the full dev diary video, then get out there and make your countries proud!
EVE Evolved: Building a better empire
It's often said that EVE Online is 99% endgame, with only the tutorials and epic mission arcs really providing directed gameplay. Once you get out into the open world, the game is dominated by sandbox laws and social interaction. This is most clear in the lawless nullsec regions where alliances war over territory and build their own empires in the void. Last week I looked back at the early days of nullsec industry and examined the problems industry has developed over the years. With a massive nullsec revamp scheduled to begin this winter, I went on to speculate on how the game could be changed to bring back the glory days of nullsec industry. Although adequately incentivised local mining and production could transform player-created empires, those aren't the only areas of gameplay being revisited. Sovereignty mechanics, fleet warfare, small gang warfare, exploration and small-scale territorial control will all eventually be redesigned as part of the massive iterative overhaul. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at the history of EVE's empire-building and territorial warfare mechanics, some of the problems faced by the sovereignty system, and how those aspects of EVE could possibly be changed for the better.
Proposed changes to EVE's nullsec regions cause a stir
At the end of 2009, EVE Online's vast and lawless nullsec regions were given a complete overhaul with the Dominion expansion. System sovereignty mechanics were changed, and a new infrastructure system was put in place. Through an infrastructure hub interface, alliances were given the ability to upgrade the systems within their borders. Areas of space near EVE's empire systems that were rarely fought over suddenly became prime real-estate, ripe for conquest and development. The difference in quality between the best systems deep in nullsec and poor systems nearer empire was significantly lowered. The hope was that by increasing the carrying capacity of each individual system, CCP would cause large alliances to contract into smaller areas of space. The result hasn't been exactly as CCP had planned, since huge areas of nullsec are now being dominated by massive coalitions of alliances. In a new devblog, CCP Greyscale has explained steps that CCP plans to take in order to rectify the situation. The quality of cosmic anomalies provided by system upgrades will soon depend largely on the system's true security rating. Systems that were highly sought before Dominion will now be significantly better for making ISK. CCP hopes that this will cause high-end alliances to concentrate in higher-end space, leaving power vacuums near empire space for smaller alliances to fill. Player reaction to the devblog has been fierce, with the comments thread reaching over 65 pages, the vast majority of it negative. Whether the changes are a good idea is debatable, but the one thing players have widely agreed on is that the changes will not achieve the goals CCP has set out in the devblog. As the changes are part of the official Incursion features list, however, it's highly likely that they'll go to the live server in a future patch deployment.
EVE extended downtime has some unfortunate consequences
reddit_url = "http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/11/02/eve-extended-downtime-has-some-unfortunate-consequenceshttp://massively.joystiq.com/2010/11/02/eve-extended-downtime-has-some-unfortunate-consequenceshttp://massively.joystiq.com/2010/11/02/eve-extended-downtime-has-some-unfortunate-consequenceshttp://massively.joystiq.com/2010/11/02/eve-extended-downtime-has-some-unfortunate-consequences/"; reddit_target="gaming"; Tweet Early this morning, the EVE Online server underwent an extended scheduled downtime for the deployment of the Tyrannis 1.2 patch. The patch deployment proceeded as planned and almost exactly to schedule, with the entire downtime lasting around 12 hours. When the servers came up, however, members of some nullsec alliances noticed that something was amiss. All of a sudden, a number of systems in Delve that had been vacant before the downtime were now owned by Reddit-based alliance Test Alliance Please Ignore. It soon became apparent that Test Alliance had placed territorial control units in the systems just before the extended downtime began. Under normal circumstances, territorial claim units must be protected by a fleet for the six hours they need to start up. During that time, enemy fleets have a chance to engage the hostile force and destroy their claim unit. If the six hours pass without event, ownership of the system is then awarded to the alliance that placed the structure. By placing the structures immediately prior to the extended downtime, enemies of Test Alliance were unable to contest the claim, which meant it automatically succeeded. What happened next has been the cause of a great deal of controversy on the EVE forums and Reddit. Skip past the cut for a run-down of what happened next.
Fantasy Earth Zero announces official launch date
Fantasy Earth Zero is an interesting (and long-arriving) import game, originally developed by the inimitable Square-Enix and brought over via Gamepot USA. The game has been moving through its beta testing phase rather smoothly, good news for fans of its action-focused gameplay and PvP territory wars. And now there's even more good news: the game has an official launch date. On May 18th, less than two weeks away, the game is moving out of the beta testing phase and into its full commercial launch. To celebrate, a launch site has been set up specifically for special events, promotions, and other goodies in the days leading up to the launch proper. While there aren't many hints about what will come with the change from open beta to official launch (other than the expected launch of the cash shop), it's promised that there will be new opportunities for players to test their skills. And if you haven't yet gotten a chance to try Fantasy Earth Zero to see if it's a game that you want to stick with... well, what are you waiting for?
Fantasy Earth Zero Q&A
Fantasy Earth Zero is a game with a bit of an odd pedigree, coming to the US years after Square-Enix released it in Japan, going from part of Square's overarching PlayOnline service to a free-to-play game after a weak launch. The announcement only came early this year that it was finally being brought over, and there's unfortunately little information for those of us in the English-speaking world about the game. As a result, a recent interview on Warcry with more details on the game is a welcome dose of solid information, with Gamepot USA's Sheloman Byrd and Nicholas Niers both taking part. A point hit repeatedly in the interview is that level will not be a primary determinant in the game's PvP -- player skill is promised to have a bigger impact. PvP is also one of the game's primary leveling mechanics, as the conflict between kingdoms includes experience gain. The core of battles between castles involve constructing towers while destroying those of the other side, with a large-scale map and changing objectives as one side loses or obtains new territory. The whole effect sounds interesting, so take a look at the full interview, and keep your eyes peeled for more information on Fantasy Earth Zero's upcoming beta.
