Dont worry, there are like 3 more coming out in 2010 accordin to Kosma's thread. PC master race will prevail
:rofl
Tru dat.
Joking aside when Cataclysm drops in 2010 all other MMORPGs will cease to exist in people's mind.
BioWare's Star Wars: TOR :lol
If anything has a shot at surviving next to WoW with a respectable subscriber base, it's the Star Wars MMO. and that's only because it's star wars.
In other news, Champions Online is fun. I'M GOING TO BE A GODDAMN POWER RANGER.
Champions is dying too
lol, none. The only thing that will replace WoW is Blizzard's next MMO. You might as well ask what RTS is gonna bump Starcraft in Korea
regarding the next expansion iirc, blizzard has said that they were never considering a WoW2, it was always thought that they'd just continually evolve what they have. How far this could be taken I have no idea, but it already seems to be taken successfully farther than I would've imagined.They said ages ago that the MMO they're working on now is going to be a new IP, and apparently it does away with the fantasy setting
I don't think Blizzard's next MMO will just be a simple iteration on the Everquest->WoW thing, but something different.
the only downfall atm being that guilds have progressed so far in raiding that you cant just join up, and nobody is running the lower tier raids.Yeah, but that's sorta the way it is with any MMO; get aboard early or you'll be left behind in the endgame forever. Obviously the expansions are attempts at tabula rasa, but most of the players worth a shit have been playing since the beginning and stick together. I actually think that the addition of the 10man or 25man option mitigates that some, because every so often a decent player with 10 man gear in a shitbag guild can jump ship when there happens to be an opening higher up on the ladder, but if you're on a low pop server with not as many middle-tier players then I guess that doesn't help much either.
In a singleplayer game, you can be Luke. In an MMO, you are Luke's tailor.All right if you call Luke's tailor then I'll be Like's mailman. With all these quests in MMOs you're always delivering something to someone. Might as well make a profession out of it.
If I had an mmo, I'd start a campaign where you have to find golden tickets irl throughout the U.S.A. (hidden by the ad campaign team) and make it so you have to deliver them to 7-11 clerks, who would give you a voucher for gold. Then, in the game, you redeem the code and buy stuff for your avatar like some gamer apparel, a new mouse, a new keyboard, ram upgrades, pizza, etc. There isn't much to do in the game but sit in a chair and play WoW. You redeem more codes for gold while you watch your avatar sit in his room and progressively get fatter as he plays more WoW. If you try to leave your house in the game, werewolves pretty much eat you alive.
The achievement thing is a curse for players that are starting out raiding, you need to show your EPIC achievement to get into some basic shit because people are noobs with clue to whats really needed to do something.
If I had an mmo, I'd start a campaign where you have to find golden tickets irl throughout the U.S.A. (hidden by the ad campaign team) and make it so you have to deliver them to 7-11 clerks, who would give you a voucher for gold. Then, in the game, you redeem the code and buy stuff for your avatar like some gamer apparel, a new mouse, a new keyboard, ram upgrades, pizza, etc. There isn't much to do in the game but sit in a chair and play WoW. You redeem more codes for gold while you watch your avatar sit in his room and progressively get fatter as he plays more WoW. If you try to leave your house in the game, werewolves pretty much eat you alive.
Players have asked to try out all of the jobs, and we listened. So as of early November, free player characters that are newly created will be able to play any job (Ninja, Chef, Postman, Kart Driver, Demo Derby Driver, Brawler, Miner, Soccer Star, Archer, Wizard, Medic, Blacksmith, Warrior) in Free Realms up to level five for free. When level four is completed, the job becomes Members Only.
It's still free to play though...
It's still free to play though...
Up to level 5. That's a trial, which ALL MMOs have (and WoW lets you go beyond level 5 I think, not sure though).
Starting in "early November", all classes (including previously subscription-only classes) will be free to try, but all classes (including currently free-to-play classes) will be capped for non-subscribers at level 5.
On the other hand, Free Realms is now all but officially a subscription game with a free trial, rather than a free to play game with an item shop and optional subscription. Perhaps it is more intuitive, but it's also a pretty major change of philosophy.
Mythic laid off 80 people today, which is about 40% of the company and responsible for 90% of the content. According to a friend of mine who left before this happened, they're putting Warhammer into "maintenance mode."
they might for month one, but it will halve for the next three months
they might for month one, but it will halve for the next three months
We've already reported that Cryptic Studios and Atari will have a special retail box Collector's Editon of their upcoming MMO Star Trek Online. Now comes word that there will be a Digital Deluxe edition of the game specifically for download services like Direct2Drive, Steam and Atari's own online site. The Digital Deluxe edition will cost $59.95.
So what do you get for that extra $10 bucks? Well you get the option of playing the game as a "Joined Trill" the same kind of alien Dax was in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine TV series. You also get some exclusive in-game items such as an Original Series uniform set and two unique emotes. One is a Klingon blood wine toast and (we are not kidding) the other is the "KHAAAAAN!" emote. Yes you can make your character act just like Shatner himself. You will also gain access to a unique ship item (an automated defense battery) and a way to give your ship an "NX" prefix in its identification number.
Allods Online entered open beta today. F2P WoW clone that's more polished than any MMO released lately.
Of course GW2 has great support for parties, but they just don’t feel as necessary as they do in other MMOs, because your interests are always aligned with all other nearby players anyway. When someone kills a monster, not just that player’s party but everyone who was seriously involved in the fight gets 100% of the XP and loot for the kill. When an event is happening in the world – when the bandits are terrorizing a village – everyone in the area has the same motivation, and when the event ends, everyone gets rewarded.http://www.arena.net/blog/guild-wars-2-design-manifesto#more-1891
And like the original GW, in GW2 the creativity doesn’t end with your own character. When you play with others, you’ll find that your abilities can complement theirs, and that you can discover new skill combos and strategies between professions. So if you’re playing an Elementalist, try casting a fire wall, and then see what happens when your friends shoot projectiles through it.
A warrior and an Elementalist playing together could combine their abilities in several different ways. The Elementalist could drop down Static Field, which is an area-targeted lightning effect. A warrior who fires a rifle bullet through the static field would cause his shot to be charged up with electricity, inflicting additional damage. If that didn't suit their style, then the Elementalist might drop a Wall of Fire in front of a group of enemies. The warrior could enter the firewall and use Cyclone Axe, an attack which causes him to spin rapidly, sending the firewall outward and hitting his foes. There are literally hundreds of combinations for players to discover.
Well that IS a race from TNG.
There is a huge article in the latest Edge about some new Funcom MMO. Looks interesting!
Traditional quest systems involve walking up to a character who usually has an exclamation point or question mark hovering over their head and talking to them. From here, you get a massive wall of text hardly anyone reads that describes a horrible or totally mundane thing going on in the world that you need to help with. You run off, complete this task, then return and talk to this character again to receive another wall of text and a reward. Traditional quest systems rely on these blocks of quest text to tell you what is happening in the world; this is just an outdated form of storytelling.
In Guild Wars 2, our event system won't make you read a huge quest description to find out what's going on. You'll experience it by seeing and hearing things in the world. If a dragon is attacking, you won't read three paragraphs telling you about it, you'll see buildings exploding in giant balls of fire, and hear characters in the game world screaming about a dragon attack. You'll hear guards from nearby cities trying to recruit players to go help fight the dragon, and see huge clouds of smoke in the distance, rising from the village under siege.
There is a second fundamental flaw to traditional quest systems: what the quest text tells you is happening in a quest is not actually what is happening in the world.
For example, in a traditional MMO, the character who gives you a quest will tell you ogres are coming to destroy the character's home, and you need to kill them. You then get a quest which says, "Kill 0/10 ogres" and you proceed to kill a bunch of ogres standing around in a field picking daisies. Since every player in the game needs to be able to do this quest, the ogres will never actually threaten the character's home - they will just eternally pick daisies in the field. The ogres aren't actually doing what the quest says they are - the game is lying to you!
I wouldn't be surprised if its linked to Cartoon Network's collection of online games.
I hope they keep the current game free. I still need to level up my Runekeeper.
The article mentioned quest packs. The question is what quests? All the quests? I can still level just grinding, but I typically do it through skirmish and storyline quests. If they made you pay for the storyline quests then it would rather suck. If they add quests and make them pay to play then that doesn't really alter my gameplan.
was it ever? I was following it a while back and it all seemed instanced. I don't think it had a fee attached to it.Guild Wars is buy once, no fee though, right?
was it ever? I was following it a while back and it all seemed instanced. I don't think it had a fee attached to it.Guild Wars is buy once, no fee though, right?
DCUO monthly sub is $14.99. There goes the Sony fans hopes of a free PS3 MMO.Isn't Free Realms due to show up on PS3 or something?
FreeRealms isn't free anymore, even on the PC.Wait, what? Really?
Space combat hotspots will be unlocked as players progress through the game, and while they'll initially be solo instances only, eventually BioWare hopes to implement PvP and team combat in the future.
We keep hearing other MMO developers espousing the "holy trinity" of DPS/ heal/tank with such reverence, as if this is the most entertaining combat they have ever played. Frankly, we don't like sitting around spamming "looking for healer" to global chat. That feels an awful lot like preparing to have fun instead of having fun.
QuoteSpace combat hotspots will be unlocked as players progress through the game, and while they'll initially be solo instances only, eventually BioWare hopes to implement PvP and team combat in the future.
INSTANCED again
QuoteSpace combat hotspots will be unlocked as players progress through the game, and while they'll initially be solo instances only, eventually BioWare hopes to implement PvP and team combat in the future.
INSTANCED again
Yet Bioware is getting a pass for not doing something that's the highligh of every other scifi MMO on the market.
I'll look into it. I had some fun with Guild Wars for a few days, then lost interest.
Right now I'm almost completely burnt out of WoW. Trying to get back into the game, but basically my comeback revolves around:
-sign in
-ride around Dalaran
-see none of my friends are online
-check trade channel, just a bunch of guilds advertising
-someone whispers "what's your gearscore?"
-sign out
...wow. I could understand quests being on-rails until you reach a certain level/experience, but EVERYTHING on rails is distinguished mentally-challenged
Maybe if they just promised it for a future expansion and this is make-do for now.
Maybe if they just promised it for a future expansion and this is make-do for now.
(http://www.guildwars2.com/global/includes/images/screenshots/asura/asura-03.jpg)
:wtf
(actually this doesn't really bother me, but I can see people having a kneejerk reaction and going apeshit over something like this - etiolate, you seem to be following the game, are you following the community too?)
** Instead of a bunch of quests from NPCs, realtime events will happen, presenting scenarios for the players to choose to approach or not. An often used example is a traveling salesman moving a supply caravan that gets attacked. You will hear the salesman yell for help, should you choose to assist him you will have to fight off waves of attackers. If another player is in the area and decides to help, the amount of attackers will increase and you both will get experience without needing to form a party. The scenario and difficulty works on a sliding scale according to the amount of players. If you fail, the village will lose supplies and will later on ask you to help them with this problem. If you do succeed, perhaps the gang that attacked puts out a bounty on your head and a new scenario comes about. Events have branching paths that change according to what you do.
Everquest 2 is going F2P next week. I'll probably download it and give it a whirl since I played a ton of EQ1 back in the day.
GW2 looks hot.[youtube=560,345]vXgTFsrNseE[/youtube]
Then there was a small string of biography questions. I was given a few choices as to what my strongest personality aspect was. I chose "ferocity." Out of three options regarding my upbringing as a street rat, a commoner or a court noble, I chose a commoner. Then I was asked what, of three options, was my greatest regret. The first two were boring things like avenging my sister's murder or something. I didn't even really pay attention to them, because the third option completely overshadowed them. My character's greatest regret is that he never had the opportunity to perform in the circus. This could only play out in the most awesome of ways, although I never got the chance to see ramifications of that particular choice.
From there, my character entered the world. I found myself standing before a collection of buildings, and immediately an NPC ran up to me to inform me that the village was under attack from centaurs, and that I needed to rally survivors and tell them to head to the town's inn. With that complete, I was told to head to the local fortress -- currently overrun by the half-beasts -- and take back what was ours. Other players were present during the demo, and I could see them running towards the fortress too. It was there that we all coalesced and began wiping out waves of attacking centaurs. Each kill netted me, and all the other players involved, experience and loot, despite me never having invited any of the other players to a group. We were in the same world, working as separate entities for a common goal, and all being rewarded equally
Wandering through the town, I soon came across a swirling portal, indicating I was about to enter an instanced area. On the other side was a homey little area. In the local tavern I met what could potentially be a love interest, and what was most definitely a rival. Words were traded, and all hell broke loose, with my rival and his posse wrecking the bar and its patrons. I took action and disabled the rabble-rousers with fiery justice.
On the real-world side of the monitor, another was looking over my shoulder and asked how I started all of that. One of the developers informed us that, because I had chosen to play as a commoner, I had that bar-fight scenario. If I had chosen to play as a noble, I would have had to help some sissy-man with a horse or something, and the game's story, from the get-go, would be different.
The farmland surrounding Divinity's Reach is full of dynamic events. As you first walk down to the farms, you may have someone run over to you, begging you to help slay an invading Broodmother. In the opposite direction, you can help a farmer save his watermelons from a pack of ravenous rabbits. Participating (and completing) these events have consequences. In the instance of the rabbits, you can now buy and eat the watermelons for a passive stat-buff, while the death of the Broodmother means the fisherman can now go back to work in the river. Some of these events lead into others, which can become a pretty long chain. You can stop whenever you want, of course, and other people can join in whenever they please. It was surprising how often some sort of event was within reach simply while running through the world.
Yeah open beta is a mistake for them. This game is a huge disappointment. If SE would actually listen to the beta testers, and I don't know, update the game to 2010 standards, it would be okay. As it stands, the only people who will be interested in this game, are the people who played FFXI. And even then, it's missing a lot of the well frankly put, quirky charm that game had.
I guess if the camera and UI were not such a mess the game would be a bit better. But it is still a MMO in the mould of punishing the player in order for a tiny amount of advancement. Which to me, frankly just puts me off a game. Make a game fun, make the story enthralling. You will keep me around a lot longer then making me play 2 months grinding out simple quests to level and only being able to do it once every 48 hours.
I Love SE games, but FFIV is sadly not a game I will enjoy. I think if SE really wants to develop a MMO for more then just the Japanese market they have a whole lot of work to do.
Sucks, doesn't it?
I can't say that I've been more disappointed with a game than I have FFXIV. They paid no attention to things that worked well in other MMOs. I'm sure the diehard FF lovers will stick with it but other than graphics, it offers nothing over FFXI.
Yea I cant say I had high hopes for the game, it sounded interesting and fun. But unless it pulls a complete 180 there is no hope for this one
The controls are pretty bad. As it stands, there are pretty much no hotkeys at all. You need to go into your main menu every time you want to perform any action (including opening chests. I mean, COME ON, why cant you just click on it to open it?! No, you have to go to your main menu and click on "examine". distinguished mentally-challenged). I'm not typically a "controller guy", especially not for PC games, but I actually used one for this because there are so few hotkeys in the game, and the mouse is almost completely useless that there's really no point not to use the controller. It's like they designed the game for controller use, then they said to themselves "hmm, don't want the people who play with a mouse and keyboard to have an advantage over controller users, so we'll just limit everything they can do to the amount of actions available to be made with a controller".
And the targeting is atrocious. I died several times because I tried to target something a foot directly in front of me, and it either kept just targetting myself over and over, or some other player like 200 feet behind me. Just bah, the game is a mess.
I tried to like this game, I really did. Without going into too many details all I will say is that it is the most ass backwards game I have ever played. They intentionally give ambiguous information so you constantly make mistakes that cannot be fixed, or take hours and hours to fix and figure out, and they don't even attempt to make the game user friendly in any way at all. I'm not saying I want my hand held the whole time, but there's no starting area, no tutorials, nothing. They will kick out of of guilds you just paid tons of money for, for no reason at all, and the beta has tons of bugged quests that don't even work, yet they say "you will not be able to report bug errors in this phase of the beta testing". What's the point then? God. I really wanted this game to be good, but as it stands it's a complete mess. They had no communication at all to their fanbase through the entire process of making the game, then they just throw it out there and don't let you give any feedback. They are trying to do something different, but they have absolutely no idea how to do it. There are sooooo many things added just to waste your time, like waiting 10 hours IN GAME before you can do any more side quests, what the hell is that? That's just blatantly making you waste time so you have to play more to get anything done and so they can charge you for additional months of playing. I just don't agree with that. I definitely will not be playing this game.
I don't know why everyone's complaining about the UI. Maybe it's because I play with a controller, but it sems great to me... aside from the slightly annoying factor of switching between active/passive modes. I could live with that, though.
What I can't live with is the leveling system. Two levels - physical and weapon. You're expected to level multiple weapon skills to get access to different abilities. Yet physical level goes up much faster than weapon level. And your physical stats get truncated (or something, noticed my HP was lowered anyway) when using a lower level weapon.
Not to mention, unlike ffxi, it's currently impossible to be both a good mage and a good melee on the same character because of stat assignments (you only have the ability to undo the last level's assignments).
Another major turnoff is exp gain is limited per session. The longer you play on one job/with one weapon, the less exp you gain on that weapon. Some of us are only interested in one or two jobs... especially considering there are currently only two mage jobs...
Finally, the levequest timer. I'd rather have them like they were in the initial stages of alpha: unlimited but not really any better exp wise than killing random monsters. At least it gives you something structured to go after rather than doing your 8 levequests then grinding out levels for the next two days, checking the search party window every so often, and never seeing anyone recruiting.
It just feels like this game was designed by people who have been locked in a cupboard for the last 10 years. I am not saying they should steal Warcrafts UI but good gawd, its like they have learnt absolutely nothing about accessibility since they coded FF XI.
The UI is honestly an abomination against game design, its that bad. Even taking into account the limited beta and many promises that things will be much better before release (deja vu anyone?), this game is really not ready for release.
The worst thing is, I know they will produce fantastic story missions along the way, the game will have some great areas to explore, eventually the combat will be tweaked and be rather fun. Yet if I have to bang my head against a wall of poor UI design and unnecessary timesinks then I'm not wasting my money. Pre-order cancelled? Yup.
Still, the FF die-hards are happy. All those "idiots" who play WoW will be kept away from their game because of the "hardcore" UI and gamplay *rolls eyes*
sounds great, now launch it opposite Cataclysm!
It just feels like this game was designed by people who have been locked in a cupboard for the last 10 years.
[youtube=560,345]zdne_rHrJjo[/youtube]
SE is just making sure that people keep forkin' over that paper.
I just don't see why everyone is falling all over themselves to push out an MMO. Sure there's a ton of money in the genre, but WoW is pulling in about 90% of that money and the remaining 10% is split between countless big-budget and cheap-o "free-to-play" games.
Making a big-budget MMO seems like Russian roulette, where there's actually five of the chambers filled with bullets.
I just don't see why everyone is falling all over themselves to push out an MMO. Sure there's a ton of money in the genre, but WoW is pulling in about 90% of that money and the remaining 10% is split between countless big-budget and cheap-o "free-to-play" games.
Making a big-budget MMO seems like Russian roulette, where there's actually five of the chambers filled with bullets.
I don't agree at all. A lot of these big budget MMO's get phenomenal sales the first month
I just don't see why everyone is falling all over themselves to push out an MMO. Sure there's a ton of money in the genre, but WoW is pulling in about 90% of that money and the remaining 10% is split between countless big-budget and cheap-o "free-to-play" games.
Making a big-budget MMO seems like Russian roulette, where there's actually five of the chambers filled with bullets.
I don't agree at all. A lot of these big budget MMO's get phenomenal sales the first month
Isn't that in part because those MMOs offer the first month free?
http://kotaku.com/5621786/final-fantasy-xivs-play+limiting-fatigue-system-explainedclearly doing it to limit player levels as they are popping the game out before it's ready and don't have enough content to support it. boooooo.
Players get 8 hours of full XP and 7 hours of reduced XP per class per week. After those 15 hours are up the class will receive no XP until the timer resets.
I'm not a die-hard MMO catasser, but this is obviously and patently ridiculous. WoW reduces XP once you leave the "Rested" state but never cuts you off completely.
QuoteIt just feels like this game was designed by people who have been locked in a cupboard for the last 10 years.
Japan development in a nutshell
It's scheduled to come out in 3 weeks. Wouldn't the discs be printed by now ???
It's scheduled to come out in 3 weeks. Wouldn't the discs be printed by now ???
WAR is not going Free 2 Play: We’re not considering this option right now. We’re learning lessons from micro-transaction driven games; however we’re not interested in directly selling things like armor progression or other piecemeal power options. What we do plan on introducing is paid services such as server transfers, character renames and other commonly found services. We are committed to implementing these services in a responsible manner and won’t flip that switch until we’re satisfied that it will not compromise your in game experience. Additionally, we will continue to offer that buffet of services by offering the entire RVR pack purchasable in three segments. Each player can get what the features they want without committing to the whole thing (though we do think all three packs will be pretty great.)
We’re introducing a new Skaven Themed RvR Zone. This new zone is not designed to be the “new hotness” where everyone runs off to once it launches. Rather, the new area will integrate into the existing Tier 4 campaign, supplementing it rather than becoming a siphon. This new RvR experience will be just that…RvR. We’re building on the success of the redesigned cities and iterating on lessons learned there. The zone will be an epic struggle between Order and Destruction, with the victor reaping the rewards.
Skaven are coming: The RvR Pack will be introducing Skaven to the WAR. True to their chaotic nature, the Skaven will influence the battlefield in significant ways, skittering about, doing what Skaven do. Skaven will be playable by both Realms and are not an NPC “third realm”.
Each of the three parts of the RvR Pack (Power, Progression, and Personality) will tie into RvR.
We are increasing the RR Cap to 100: This goes hand in hand with a rework of the Renown Ability system. Our goal is to make the Renown Ability system less restrictive, more customizable and closer, in spirit, to the RA system from Dark Age of Camelot. In the past ten years, we’ve learned a lot of lessons from DAoC, and we’re taking our inspiration from this. At the same time, we’ll be easing some of the grind from 1-80. RR 100 will be a challenge, but we will take responsibility for making sure that the power gap between lower RR’s and the higher RR players isn’t an insurmountable obstacle to overcome.
eh WoW forums are just as bad
"its ok, if Blizzard says we don't deserve this then they know better, we should just be happy they provide us this game"
Applications for the FINAL FANTASY XIV Open Beta Test have been temporarily suspended. Please wait until we are ready to accept new applications and then try again.
PAX 2010 has just begun and the curse team already had a chance to demo Arena Net's Guild Wars 2! The star of the demo was the revolutionary ipad and smart phone application currently in development.
At launch, the app will have tons of features available, designed to help offline players connect with their friends in-game. Along with the ability to chat with your friends and guildmates from your portable device, players will also be able to view the location of their friends via a fullscreen map, showing their actions and movement in real-time.
Other planned features of the app include a remote auction house and the ability to add new friends straight from your portable device. The app will be available to Guild Wars 2 players for no extra charge.
QuotePAX 2010 has just begun and the curse team already had a chance to demo Arena Net's Guild Wars 2! The star of the demo was the revolutionary ipad and smart phone application currently in development.
At launch, the app will have tons of features available, designed to help offline players connect with their friends in-game. Along with the ability to chat with your friends and guildmates from your portable device, players will also be able to view the location of their friends via a fullscreen map, showing their actions and movement in real-time.
Other planned features of the app include a remote auction house and the ability to add new friends straight from your portable device. The app will be available to Guild Wars 2 players for no extra charge.
Probably see these things pop up in most MMOs.
I also took time to really talk with a Dev standing beside me who show me the dye system. Which is GODLY! I could be wrong but it is pretty much you buy a dye and it is a set of color palletes which you can then apply to your armor in three areas. Main color secondary and tertiary. Dyes are also split among different types like royal and common color types. It was just awesome!
Plus after playing the demo I learned that if you do not save the watermelons from the rabbits the vendors will actually lose access to items based upon that. Which means that events can directly effect the games economy in a given area. Jeff Grubb was the one to tell me about that.
For the elementalist, I felt like I could experiment with the mechanics a lot. Vapor blade for example goes through enemies on the way to your target so it's a good idea to target whoever is at the back and hit his friends on the way to him.
It can't since they only have the book license.
Coming soon in an update to the Mobile Armory app available in the iTunes App Store (http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=321057000&mt=8) and Android Market, this new feature will allow all World of Warcraft Remote subscribers the ability to chat with their guildies right from their mobile device. Access to the guild chat feature is included for no extra charge in the €2.99 World of Warcraft Remote Auction House (http://eu.wowarmory.com/wow-remote.xml) premium monthly subscription. In addition, soon after the launch of the mobile version we're planning on adding the ability for premium subscribers to use Guild Chat through any browser on the Armory website.
Guild Chat will allow you to chat with your guildmates via Guild Chat, Officer Chat, and Whispers. Now you can stay connected with your guild or update them from anywhere if you're going to be late to a raid! Stay tuned for additional information about this service and the upcoming Mobile Armory Guild Chat beta test.
Holy fucking shit that's awesome.
The beta client has been crashing for me right after the load screen so I haven't been able to try the heroics yet. Going to try a reinstall.
I want someone to make a MMO Dragon encounter where if you wipe the loot on the dragon camps your corpses and gear. You need to have a spare set of gear to get your shit back. He'd also one-shot the healers as soon as he sees them and gets stronger off bitter tears.
I want someone to make a MMO Dragon encounter where if you wipe the loot on the dragon camps your corpses and gear. You need to have a spare set of gear to get your shit back. He'd also one-shot the healers as soon as he sees them and gets stronger off bitter tears.
super cool design bro
but what happens if he kills you while you're wearing your spare set of gear
hmm, I found a bug in your design
Square has learned nothing from FFXI.They're probably trying to put the payment layer away from them to protect against countries with overly consumer-friendly laws, like... much of Europe.
In order to play FFXIV, you need to:
1. Set up a SquareEnix member account.
2. Set up a payment account at ClicknBuy or another website.
3. Use that payment account or card to purchase Crysta points.
4. Use your Crysta points to pay for a subscription.
YOU CANNOT JUST USE YOUR CREDIT/DEBIT CARD TO PAY FOR THEIR MMO.
Cataclysm Release Date Postponed (Not Official):-\
A few weeks ago I announced that the target release date for Cataclysm was November 2. Well, according to an update I just got, the release has been postponed and Blizzard will try to release the game in early December. (Basically, either December 7 or December 14)
The Cataclysm by itself will happen earlier and will let you play in the "new" zone for a couple of days/weeks before you can buy the expansion and access the level 85 content. Keep in mind that they're mostly inside info, they're not official and I just report them because ... well, I'm sure you all want to know when it's supposed to happen.
Beta Build 13066 - Portals removed from Shattrath and Dalaran
Blizzard doesn't want you to use Shattrath and Dalaran as portal hubs anymore, the latest beta update removed all the portal to the cities and replaced them with class trainers.
two bits of bad news from mmo championQuoteCataclysm Release Date Postponed (Not Official):-\
A few weeks ago I announced that the target release date for Cataclysm was November 2. Well, according to an update I just got, the release has been postponed and Blizzard will try to release the game in early December. (Basically, either December 7 or December 14)
The Cataclysm by itself will happen earlier and will let you play in the "new" zone for a couple of days/weeks before you can buy the expansion and access the level 85 content. Keep in mind that they're mostly inside info, they're not official and I just report them because ... well, I'm sure you all want to know when it's supposed to happen.QuoteBeta Build 13066 - Portals removed from Shattrath and Dalaran
Blizzard doesn't want you to use Shattrath and Dalaran as portal hubs anymore, the latest beta update removed all the portal to the cities and replaced them with class trainers.
:-\ :-\
That kind of fucks over people leveling in the 60-80 range.
If they take away the portals they better add an auction house to Dalaran. The best thing about the portals is the ability to quickly reach cities to access the AH, whether it's for selling or buying raid supplies. It's already annoying enough to find content in the beta quickly.
On the launch date...I can't imagine Blizzard allowing people to access the new content for months until the expansion actually comes out, which will unlock lv85 content. People could easily speed to lv85 in a couple weeks without much effort. I haven't played the beta much but it's amazing how much xp you get in dungeons alone.
The reason the portals from Shattrath were not removed from Outland when Wrath of the Lich King released is that there was a new central hub with portals to all major cities in Northrend. There is no longer a neutral city hub which both factions will be using in Cataclysm. We want to ensure visiting the major faction capitals is still the most attractive thing to do in Cataclysm, rather than having people use Shattrath and Dalaran as easy connector hubs.
To make up for this, we'd like to add class trainers and Auctioneers in Shattrath and Dalaran for those leveling through The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King content.
Cataclysm Release Date - December 7th
Season 9 starts on December 14th, a blue post stated that Cataclysm would be released one week earlier.
In the case of gathering materials from things like ore nodes, plants, and the like, this means that when you gather from that resource you use it up for yourself, but not for others. In Guild Wars 2 there is no need to race to beat other people to the same resource node. Take your time ripping that bear’s head off, because no one can walk up and steal that copper node in the back of its cave from you. You may be helping others in your world reach that copper safely, but rest assured that you’re not just clearing a path for a node ganker.
Going forward into Guild Wars 2 we knew we had to trust our players to know how to dress themselves, so we introduced a system that has now become known as transmutation. With the transmutation system, you’ll be able to acquire new items known as Transmutation Stones through our in-game store that allow you to customize your appearance. With transmutation, you take two items of the same type, pick one that is the most visually appealing to you, one that is the most statistically appealing to you, and then you simply combine the two items into what will hopefully become your perfect piece of armor or weaponry
*''The first time you play a dungeon, you'll play through its Story Mode, where one or two members of Destiny's Edge show up as friendly NPCs to drive the story foward.''
*Although story driven, dungeons arent all about sitting around talking. Its about fighting. ''Even one that starts out as a party in a mansion quickly turns to combat''
*''Beating a dungeon's Story Mode will unlock its Explorable Mode, a harder version of the dungeon which tells varied follow-up stories in that same area, unrelated to Destinys edge''
* They say that the explorer dungeon mode is meant to be really repeatable. It'll have many different scenarios and enemies that could appear each time (while not being random.)
Woo they give an example of a dungeon that isnt the beetletun mansion. The Sorrows Embrace dungeon is a hideout for the Dredge. If you play it on story mode youll discover that the Dredge leaders have sold their people into slavery under the Seraph. So you fight off all the slavers (sound familiar, anyone??? Awesome). So after you've completed that explorable mode will open up and you can do things like ''aid the dredge workers who are now planning to revult against their corrupt leaders''
QuoteCataclysm Release Date - December 7th
Season 9 starts on December 14th, a blue post stated that Cataclysm would be released one week earlier.
:drudge
Aww, I wanted it during Thanksgiving break, not finals time
First Cataclysm casualty!
DCUO delayed until early 2011 after Cata launches.
Man, Guild Wars 2 sounds like a game I could get really excited for.
First Cataclysm casualty!
DCUO delayed until early 2011 after Cata launches.
[youtube=560,345]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yx59lRAFkxo[/youtube]
TOM FUCKING CHICK
http://fidgit.com/archives/2010/10/is_the_world_of_warcraft_expan.php
Bookmarked to laugh at when Cataclysm sells 10 million by Christmas.
WoW servers down for 12 hours tomorrow. Probably patch 4.0.1
DCUO's lack of light-manipulation powers proved a downer, though. In fact, the very first question of the day revolved around whether players can join the Green Lantern Corps, and GL-related questions popped up repeatedly. Heck, I think I saw more Green Lantern and Blackest Night merchandise at NYCC than anything else. (Note: I am wearing my light-up Blue Lantern ring as I write this, and I earned a free green ring by reciting GL's oath at the DC Comics booth on Friday.)
Anyway, no, light powers will not debut in DCUO at release, though Cao said all four Lanterns from Space Sector 2814, and various others, appear in the game. But Lee, Cao and Anderson all echoed the sentiment at various times that the various Lantern Corps and light-manipulation powers will require serious effort to get right. Based on the demand, though, I would think those are a high priority among SOE's post-launch plans.
WoW servers down for 12 hours tomorrow. Probably patch 4.0.1
let the bitching commence. I get home late on tuesdays but oh man, I bet trade chat will be full of crying
Save shit characters no one cares about like Wonder Woman.
Don't save the most popular DC Comic currently on stands. Fuck. People will go see Green Lantern in June, pick up the game, and be pissed that they can't make a Lantern in it.
Old Republic will be one of the greatest failures in the history of MMOs from EA
And Bioware? Don’t make me laugh. They’ve spent more money making the Old Republic than James Cameron spent on Avatar. Shit you not. More than $ 300 million! Can you believe that?
And you know what they’re most proud of? This is the kicker. They are most proud of the sound. No seriously. Something like a 20Gig installation, and most of it is voiceover work.
stolen from GAF
http://ealouse.wordpress.com/2010/10/12/hello-world/
some disgruntled, about to be layed off EA employee explaining why the Warrhammer MMO failed and why The Old Republic is a huge bomb in the making.QuoteOld Republic will be one of the greatest failures in the history of MMOs from EAQuoteAnd Bioware? Don’t make me laugh. They’ve spent more money making the Old Republic than James Cameron spent on Avatar. Shit you not. More than $ 300 million! Can you believe that?QuoteAnd you know what they’re most proud of? This is the kicker. They are most proud of the sound. No seriously. Something like a 20Gig installation, and most of it is voiceover work.
Take with a grain of salt
At random, Deathwing will attack an entire zone and kill everything -- players, NPCs, mobs, creatures and critters. For your death, you get the feat of strength Stands in Fire. We don't know when exactly this will become active on the live realms; however, we are able to confirm it's active on the beta realms.
One of Azeroth's oldest adversaries will soon tear through the Elemental Plane to reforge the world in flame, but this foe won't be conducting his reign of terror from the confines of a castle or lair. Deathwing is a destructive force the likes of which adventurers have yet to see in World of Warcraft, and his appetite for devastation can only be satisfied by the shattering of the world. Following his explosive escape from Deepholm, Deathwing will cast a deadly shadow over the people of Azeroth as he wreaks indiscriminate havoc across the land.
Once free to terrorize the world, Deathwing will randomly choose territories in Azeroth to attack each day until his ruinous reign is brought to an end. A blackened sky will be the only warning before every living creature caught in his approach is consumed by his terrible fire. The unfortunate victims of his malice will receive a rare Feat of Strength... as well as a repair bill and corpse run.
When Deathwing returns, you'd best keep your eyes on the skies.
I don't even remember the pre-LK event. Must have been shitty
Didn't EA just announce they're publishing TOR? Between this and APB, people are going to associate EA as the kiss of death to MMOs.
Sims Online, Earth & Beyond, Motorcity Online, APB, TOR.
Sims Online, Earth & Beyond, Motorcity Online, APB.
"We really tried to ride the line and really tried to back trace what was it about the super hero fantasy that is unique and what thing were shared among other games," he said.
DCUO is actually really fun with a gamepad. Completely different game than with a mouse/keyboard.
Why? So you can troll it with more GW2 viral marketing?
http://www.1up.com/news/star-wars-republic-late
Soooo true.
It starts off in a forest in Spring, and then goes through Summer, Fall, and finally Winter when you're fighting the final boss in a huge blizzard. You get in there around level 17 or so and it's meant for about 17-22 people. Really cool first instance.
He says it looks bad but isn't TOR supposed to be low end so it runs on tons of different rigs?
So, for the DC Online game, I dont have a PS3 and I only have an old laptop from a few years ago that plays WoW just fine. Its got a Intel GMA 965 graphics card, which sucks ass, but its done the few things I've asked it to. Specwise, everything else is covered. You guys think the laptop can handle DC Online? Or am I shit out of luck?
EA: Lowering Expectations -
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-02-02-500k-subs-will-make-sw-tor-profitable
You got Rift in my Team Fortress 2! Trion Worlds and Valve just announced that players who pre-order Rift by March 1 on Steam will get two exclusive melee weapons in Team Fortress 2: the Sharpened Volcano Fragment for the Pyro and Sun-on-a-stick for the Scout. Team Fortress 2 players will automatically receive the weapons starting today. You can check out images of the items after the jump.(http://www.zam.com/Im/Image/188410.jpg)
Just to be clear, all Steam pre-order customers will receive the weapons, including those who have already purchased Rift through the digital platform. This offer is available to Steam users worldwide.
So what's with the hat in the above screenshot? That's the “Well Spun Hat," an exclusive Rift in-game item that players can obtain by completing the new "Riftwalker" achievement in Team Fortress 2. Just apply the code to your Trion account and you'll get the cosmetic hat in your Rift in-game mailbox when the headstart period begins on Feb. 24!
It reads like any other mmo wishlist. 6 months after launch everybody will be min maxing anyhoo.
Post Beta 6 - On Rifts, Raids, PvP, and Damage…
Hi, everyone – We’ve dropped a little below our own bar for keeping you up to date on the state of the game, and for that I definitely apologize.
It’s not out of any desire to not keep you informed, but purely out of how many hours a week that everyone is putting into the builds, features, and updates for Open Beta, Head Start, Launch, and what comes beyond. Not an excuse, just letting you know that’s where every waking moment has been going.
With that said, we did want to get updates out on a few hot topics that have come up since Beta 6.
Let’s start with PvP in the shared world.
Just before Beta 6, we made an anti griefing change that prevented enemy wardstones at hubs and towns from being destroyed by the opposing faction, and significantly boosted guard strength around PvE hubs. We’re pretty happy with how that worked out on the PvE servers.
In time for Open Beta, we’ve developed the ability to repeal those changes on the PvP servers only, to see if they can remain playable without it. Ideally, it’s our hope that there’s gameplay value in having people being able to band together to attack and defend those areas on PvP servers.
If you choose to play on a PvP server, it’s our assumption that you not only don’t mind that level of interruption from that PvP attack-and-defense style of gameplay, but are actively excited about taking part in it. If you want uninterrupted PvE questing, choosing a PvE server is definitely recommended.
On damage tuning from Beta 6
Beta 6 was the largest test we’ve ever done. We had the largest number of people across more level ranges than ever before playing Rift. As we’re fine tuning NPC damage for launch, we got a lot of feedback (and just as importantly, combat metrics from the servers) on how everyone is performing in different level ranges. Expect further updates to these in Open Beta.
So far, in our closed testing of the current tuning, things are looking pretty positive. Finding the right balance between “too easy” and “too hard” across this many level ranges and character capacities is a challenge, and we’re looking forward to seeing what people think, and how well they perform, in the next round.
Raid development strategies, in a world with an entirely new class of content
One of the things that makes Rift different from other MMOs is that we have this entire class of content that most games don’t – The dynamic content systems that provide us the ability to create invasions, events of all sizes, ancient wardstones, colossi, and rifts. To most everyone here, that’s no big surprise.
Once you start talking about rifts, you have minor rifts (largely for solo and small group players), major rifts (for group players), expert rifts (for high end players, on par with an expert-level dungeon), and raid rifts.
Once we’re talking about those rifts at the high end of the game, those give you the ability to lure out specific encounters by picking up specific Lures. It’s that layer of content that we’ve chosen to focus on for our 10-man raid content for starters.
Most people haven’t experienced this yet in this game or any other, so it can seem as if we’re trying to short the 10-man raids by not doing 10 and 20 man versions of every instance.
Our intent is actually the opposite: This strategy lets us tailor more raid encounters for 10 mans, and giving people cooler things to do, faster, without either a) unfairly forcing people to stare at the same raid zones twice every week if multiple versions of the same zones are available, or b) forcing someone to choose between two sets of friends, if they can only do a 10 or a 20 of the same zone in a week.
Both of those are dynamics that have a lot of downside, and we’re trying to avoid things that either force burnout or force wedges between groups of friends. The dynamic content system, and its ability to provide fun content, accessibly, makes a lot of sense as a potential solution to these problems.
We expect 10 mans to be a pretty huge number of raiders all in all, and we expect to continue creating 10 man content rapidly throughout the live run of the game.
With 10 man rifts (via Lures), just like with 20 man instances, people can go do them on demand, which is another part of the strategy that might not have been clear. So, please don’t think that we’re throwing 10 man raiders to the wolves. We're actually trying to ensure that both sizes of raiding can flourish.
As with any of our other development strategies, we’ll be keeping an eye out and seeing how it goes at mass scale, after lots of people have the chance to participate.
Do know that we’ll respond appropriately, to make sure that we’re always iterating to make the best experience that we possibly can.
- The RIFT Development Team
God help me, I am kind of wanting to play that Old Republic MMO :(
Buy it, play the free month, dump it. It's basically a single-player game anyway.
Buy it, play the free month, dump it. It's basically a single-player game anyway.
Why wait til the game comes out to dump it? (http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/33051/BioWares_Walton_Leaves_To_Join_Playdom_Austin.php) :teehee
Buy it, play the free month, dump it. It's basically a single-player game anyway.
:lolBuy it, play the free month, dump it. It's basically a single-player game anyway.
Why wait til the game comes out to dump it? (http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/33051/BioWares_Walton_Leaves_To_Join_Playdom_Austin.php) :teehee
Without an equivalent of the Ghostbusters game, Atari's revenue for the nine-month period from April 1 through December 31, 2010 was, well, a bit busted. Through the first three quarters of its current fiscal year, the publisher has reported €41.0 million ($55.3 million) in revenue, down 55.7 percent from the same period in 2009.
However, Atari doesn't seem too bugged by the decline. In its latest earnings release, CEO Jim Wilson said that current-year revenues are "in line with our outlook and show a continued shift toward fewer but more profitable retail releases and the growing online games market." And, in fact, Atari's online revenue has increased by €15.3 million year-over-year to €18.4 million ($24.8 million) through nine months, thanks to Champions Online and Star Trek Online.
Revenue from online games represented a whopping 44.9 percent of Atari's total net revenue for the period, compared to just 3.4 percent in the first nine months of its previous fiscal year.
games.on.net: Denzil would like to know if there’s “any possibility of buffing up character stats for Warfronts? When you reach level 10 it's quite hard to be useful for your team, and it's a bit pointless PVP'ing against level 19's.”
Scott: How about this - are you ready? You ready for this answer?
games.on.net: Sure am.
Scott: Done. Yep. We put that in the game last beta actually. The way it works is that it doesn’t fully buff your character such that there is no incentive to continue levelling up, but it does make it so you are contributing much more and surviving much longer. You are in fact boosted a pretty significant amount. That said, it’s still going to slightly more advantageous to level up. I am not a big fan of the systems that do the “one hundred percent everybody is set to level nineteen and everybody has the exact same everything and okay go”. That is not a big help. But at the same time, you don’t want level tens getting one-shotted by level nineteens on their first day. So we were going for the middle ground that gave you a significant boost, such that it was more fun, without removing all the incentive for levelling up.
games.on.net: He continues with: “There's not much information out there in regards to raid content currently and it's something that is not currently accessible within the beta. There's no doubting that raiding is a huge attraction to one particularly successful MMO on the market currently. Do you see RIFT’s end-game being strongly raid focused?”
Scott: At the high end, they will definitely be able to do expert and hard mode raids. We definitely see high-end people enjoying the “on-demand” raid content that we have. How this works is that we have our expert rifts, which are rifts where you can craft a lure and lure out a particular encounter, and suddenly you’re taking part in an extended expert mode encounter in the overland for cash and prizes. And then also there’s raid rifts, where again you craft out the lure, and summon yourself down a raid to play. So for us it’s really about trying to find new, cool ways to make a raid system.
games.on.net: Do you have plans for any other endgame content alongside raids?
Scott: Yeah, definitely! We have the tens and the twenties and the experts, but even prior to the raids, for every dungeon in the game there’s an “expert mode”, and those are broken down into “tier one experts” and “tier two experts”, and the cool thing about that is that a lot of the time, they unlock new areas in the dungeon. So if you play one that only has four bosses, the next tier might have six bosses, and an entirely new area to explore that just doesn’t exist at all in their earlier tier. On the PVP side our prestige system unlocks at level 50 where you are now able to earn “prestige levels” which unlock the ability to spend points in PVP-specific souls, for people who wish to be PVP-hardcore.
And then also at the high end our fourth Warfront, the Battle for Port Scion, unlocks, which is a 20-on-20 PVE/PVP Warfront instance. So for us we’ve been focused on making sure there’s as much of an endgame, as there is to do while you’re levelling up. It’s so hard to get an MMO that’s fun and of the right quality, and so many people get to that point and go “Phew! Now we’ve got to build content to level 50!” and then they realise “Oh crap! We now have to meter how very carefully how long it takes to get level 50 because - dun dun dun - there’s nothing to do afterwards.” And we’ve been focused for the last year or so on adding content JUST for the endgame. We have an endgame content rollout plan that extends through the life of the game also.
They will be releasing more Endgame content than any game that’s been released in a long time. Two level 50 dungones. Ten expert Dungeons as well as expert Rifts. Then there are Raid Rifts and the Greenscale Dungeon. This will be followed shortly by another dungeon – and a little bit later by Hammerknell. And Hammerknell is not a myth. We all saw it, it does exist, and all we can say is it’s Imposing and quite awesome. But it’s definitely there.
What's dynamic content?
Another wrinkle regarding the owned/licensed issue for this title was that retailers and rentailers didn’t widely know that it would not be a traditional PS3 game
QuoteAnother wrinkle regarding the owned/licensed issue for this title was that retailers and rentailers didn’t widely know that it would not be a traditional PS3 game
LOL REALLY? DC Universe ONLINE wouldn't be a traditional PS3 game?
Doesn't mean anything. Sony has put out online only games before that didn't have a key or subscription fee attached.
Green Man sony has
Have to keep Gamestop happy.
Bought the Digital CE edition for that dumb turtle mount.
:bow Rift
Bought the Digital CE edition for that dumb turtle mount.
:bow Rift
Same.
Also got the Riftwalker achievement in TF2 to unlock my free Well-Spun Hat in Rift. :rock
think I fucked it up. I cheated for the achievement but disconnected out of server instead of dieing so I never got the item
FFXIV server levels have dropped to 17,000 active daily unique player characters [adjusting the total of 31,000 down for alts and mule characters].
http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/nodaman/folder/473194.html
FFXIV server levels have dropped to 17,000 active daily unique player characters [adjusting the total of 31,000 down for alts and mule characters].
http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/nodaman/folder/473194.html
Is is still free? :lol
FFXIV server levels have dropped to 17,000 active daily unique player characters [adjusting the total of 31,000 down for alts and mule characters].
http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/nodaman/folder/473194.html
Is is still free? :lol
Yes.
Another question shifted the discussion to how the game's AI accommodates mixed-level groups in dynamic events. The panel took this opportunity to introduce GW2's side-kicking system. If a player has a high-level character who has gone back into low-level territory, that player will be side-kicked down to the appropriate level for that content. This will allow players to adventure with those of a lower level without having to create an entirely new character. In addition, high-level characters can side-kick friends up in level so that they can adventure together in the later areas of the game.
Not content to ruin my life with Football Manager and TF2, I've started a career in EVE today :-\
Not content to ruin my life with Football Manager and TF2, I've started a career in EVE today :-\
Dude, you want a space partner? I bought EVE and ever played it.
Cross-realm grouping is live in WoW now.
Did Planetside 1 ever even launch? I think you're remembering Planetfall.
Yeah, it did. I have close to 100 hours of playtime on PS1 according to xfire or a 2003-2004 era dell (with an ATI 9250SE) and that was during the reserves program. One of the best experiences Ive ever had gaming. Getting everyone together at the sanctuary, gearing up and then straight up destroying the other two factions on one of the heavily contested planets was orgasmic.
I tried playing this Chinese knock-off called Welkin 4591 but there were some serious lag issues and it was hard as hell to find English players because you couldn't have English characters in your name. Apparently earlier in the year a company translated the game and brought it over to the US under the name Mars War Online but all the real info I could find about it made it sound like an incredible scam, with items for sale for over $20, that could only be used daily. Seemed like a quick cash grab by the Chinese company behind it.
I'm really surprised that no North-American company has made an actual MMOFPS since Planetside, to my knowledge.
Had I not bought Dawn of War 2 GOLD from amazon for $15, I would have totally bought Planetside from D2D yesterday for $10. Everyone that plays or played recently says the game is in a really poor state with hackers and balancing issues all over the place so it's not really worth it. Maybe SOE will make the game free and then kill it off when PS2 hits.
Also, wtf is planetfall? The only planetfall I know of is a Civ4 mod that's like Alpha Centauri.
Cross-realm grouping is live in WoW now.
[youtube=560,345]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBCp_rgAkfc[/youtube]
Oh shit.
Oh shit.
Oh shit.
Oh shit.
This is going to be amazing. :bow Sony :bow2
Pre-orders for The Old Republic will come in two flavors, the basic edition and the special Collector's Edition. The total number of pre-orders EA is purportedly taking caps out at 500,000, with only the first 50,000 pre-orders guaranteed, the rest queued in a prioritized waiting list.
Those purchases will only be handled through EA's online store, Origin. Interested customers may want to make sure they have an Origin account in good standing prior to the pre-order launch if they're hungry for an early copy.
Well, pre-orders for Star Wars: The Old Republic are now up and running, and unfortunately for any Oceanic players, there’s no local options for us to take part
Finally, no matter how fantastic a game’s music is, when you hear the same music for the thousandth time, you start wanting to change things up a bit. Many players will simply turn the game music off and play their own collections. The problem is that an external music player has no context as to what’s going on in-game. Guild Wars 2 will offer a solution for this as well. We’re giving players the option of choosing external music playlists that the game’s audio engine will use as a replacement for the default in-game music. Players can choose different playlists for background ambience and battle music, for instance. Additionally, when appropriate, such as during cinematics, the game can revert back to in-game music temporarily to give the best possible cinematic experience, then resume the custom playlist when it’s done.http://www.arena.net/blog/james-boer-talks-gw2-audio-design
Sound Good?
A cool tidbit form the audio design blog for Guild Wars 2:QuoteFinally, no matter how fantastic a game’s music is, when you hear the same music for the thousandth time, you start wanting to change things up a bit. Many players will simply turn the game music off and play their own collections. The problem is that an external music player has no context as to what’s going on in-game. Guild Wars 2 will offer a solution for this as well. We’re giving players the option of choosing external music playlists that the game’s audio engine will use as a replacement for the default in-game music. Players can choose different playlists for background ambience and battle music, for instance. Additionally, when appropriate, such as during cinematics, the game can revert back to in-game music temporarily to give the best possible cinematic experience, then resume the custom playlist when it’s done.http://www.arena.net/blog/james-boer-talks-gw2-audio-design
Sound Good?
So you get Jeremy Soule + your own playlist that changes dynamically. You probably make a battle playlist for when fighting and the game will select from there, then transition back to an ambient track from your 'ambient' or 'city walking' playlist.
That's basically what Oblivion lets you do. Different folders for each "style" of music: combat, field, town, and dungeon. Just drop in an MP3 and it'll play it at the appropriate time.
Energy
Skills no longer cost energy. This means energy potions are also gone. (Sorry to everyone who so vehemently helped us defend their existence.) In place of the energy-potion button is a new dodge button. This allows players to use the mouse to dodge and lets players bind dodge to a single keystroke. If you are moving in a direction, the dodge will take that into account and dodge in that direction. If you are not moving, you will dodge backward. Dodging now also evades attacks, making it a more effective and understandable way to avoid big creature attacks or to get out of AoE spells. Dodging is limited by energy, which regenerates over time.
We have a new long-term replacement for the other benefits that energy potions provided to our system, but since it is not in the game yet, we aren’t talking about it.
Skill Acquisition
The acquisition of skills is changing. Why? Because it wasn’t helping teach people the game, it didn’t fit with how skills actually worked, and it didn’t carry over the fun collection element that made the original Guild Wars unique.
A weapon’s skills are now learned by fighting with that weapon. Because weapon skills are tied to weapon use, there is no reason to visit a trainer and make choices about which ones to unlock. Instead, it makes more sense to learn how to use the weapon by, you know, actually using it.
Non-weapon skills are learned in a different way. The second half of the bar will be unlocked using a collection mechanic similar to Guild Wars. We want players to make fun choices about how they build their character, so the new systems will help promote this. Along with this, the player progression of traits, attribute-point spending, and skill tiers have been updated as well, but the final implementation is not a part of this build either. For this demo, the trait panel is disabled, and when the new system is ready, we will explain how it works.
New Raidhttp://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/3309048
Deathwing raid will be the final raid of the expansion.
You will even get to ride on Deathwing's back during the fight, apparently to take him down over multiple phases.
The project for an Abyssal Maw is gone for the moment, the storyline wasn't convincing enough/fitting.
5-Man Instances
3 new 5-man instances will be added in this patch.
One of the instance will be in the Caverns of Time, for the War of the Ancients
Transmogrifier (Preview below)
The Transmogrifier NPC, which will let you change the appearance of any armor piece on you, while retaining the stats of your current gear. (= T12 stats, but with the Tier 2 look!)
Players won't be able to change the appearance of their armor into another armor type or class armor set, and you might have to own the armor before you can use it to swap the appearance of your existing armor.
Void Storage
The Void Storage is a new type of bank where players will be able to store their old armors in order to free up space in their regular bank.
It will hold 100-150 items. Anything stored there will lose all gems and enchantments.
Raid Finder
The Raid Finder will be introduced in Patch 4.3, it will work like the Dungeon Finder.
Darkmoon Faire
There will be a new Darkmoon Faire island with a bunch of new activities such as "Whack-a-Gnome"
QuoteNew Raidhttp://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/3309048
Deathwing raid will be the final raid of the expansion.
You will even get to ride on Deathwing's back during the fight, apparently to take him down over multiple phases.
The project for an Abyssal Maw is gone for the moment, the storyline wasn't convincing enough/fitting.
5-Man Instances
3 new 5-man instances will be added in this patch.
One of the instance will be in the Caverns of Time, for the War of the Ancients
Transmogrifier (Preview below)
The Transmogrifier NPC, which will let you change the appearance of any armor piece on you, while retaining the stats of your current gear. (= T12 stats, but with the Tier 2 look!)
Players won't be able to change the appearance of their armor into another armor type or class armor set, and you might have to own the armor before you can use it to swap the appearance of your existing armor.
Void Storage
The Void Storage is a new type of bank where players will be able to store their old armors in order to free up space in their regular bank.
It will hold 100-150 items. Anything stored there will lose all gems and enchantments.
Raid Finder
The Raid Finder will be introduced in Patch 4.3, it will work like the Dungeon Finder.
Darkmoon Faire
There will be a new Darkmoon Faire island with a bunch of new activities such as "Whack-a-Gnome"
Sounds good, but a lot of this stuff should have been included with Cata, if not earlier. Many people were begging for something to be done about old tier armor/bank storage for YEARS. Glad it's being addressed
I've raided maybe three times since Cata came out. IMO it's easily the worst expansion in WoW history.
Yea, once my graphics card arrives I'll be back.
Raid finder will be scary as fuck, but could possibly work. Often a friend will want to raid, have 3-4 people but no one else wants to go. As long as you have your tank/heals you're pretty much set enough to kill some bosses
Gamescom Interviews
Now that Gamescom is over the last few interviews are popping up with a few interesting details. (via Digitalspy, GameInformer, Allvatar, and JudgeHype)
Patch 4.3+
The new 5 man dungeons will help to introduce the Deathwing Raid.
The current plan with the Deathwing raid is to have it all available immediately upon release.
The Deathwing raid will be smaller than Ulduar with many phases or encounters with Deathwing.
Patch 4.4 will bring a world event before the next expansion.
The next expansion should be released with a "meaningful difference" in the release timeline compared to previous expansions.
Future Changes and Features
Paid Guild Transfers are still in the works.
Battle.net account wide achievements are still in the works.
Armor dyes are unlikely to be included in the game, but mount customization is a possibility.
Class Quests are unlikely to return due to the amount of time it takes to design and implement them.
No gold sinks are coming soon because of the large variance in the amount of gold players have.
A real money Auction House is not planned for WoW.
Other Notes
RealID LFD grouping was originally going to be paid because of the similarity to Paid Character Transfers, but they decided it was the right thing for the game to offer it for free.
Cross realm RealID grouping is going to be expanded to cover Battlegrounds as well. Depending on how well that works it could be expanded to raids and rated battlegrounds.
There has been a drop in gold farming because phishing and hacking accounts is more profitable.
New players are still having trouble with the first 30 minutes and five levels of the game, more hand holding is coming for very basic concepts like moving, questing, fighting, and looting.
Blizzard did a lot to save time while getting Cataclysm finished, but ended up happy with the final result.
The shared 10 and 25 man lockout has had both positive and negative effects, it solved the need to do both every week but removed some extra content that could be done every week. Some changes will be made in the future to make everyone happier with the solution.
Is there an in-game mail system? @SnakesSnakes
Yes, there is a little flashing symbol in the top left corner – looky here: One interesting piece of information which we gleaned from Martin was that when a new mail is received it is brought to you by carrier pigeon! Which I thought was pretty goddamn awesome.
How has player to player trade been improved? @SnakesSnakes
Colin told us about the marketplace. In the marketplace the player has the ability to not only buy and sell items like a traditional auction house, but also place “Wanted” ads in there stating which item they’d like and for what price. In this system a seller can activate the ad and the transaction will automatically occur with both items being removed from the two players inventories.
Similarly, personal player to player trade can be done through the in-game mail system (see above question for details). Unfortunately, there is no face-to-face trade (ala GW1) in the game at launch.
On the subject of the ongoing fixes, he said, "We'll continue with our reform work, which basically amounts to fully redoing the game, and hope to revive the FFXIV that should have been released."
Maybe in a couple more years it actually be worth playing!
I still don't understand how it got released.
FF14 is going to start billing again in November.
http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com/pl/teaser/ (http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com/pl/teaser/)
FF14 is going to start billing again in November. Version 2.0 megapatch coming in 2013.
http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com/pl/teaser/ (http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com/pl/teaser/)
FF14 is going to start billing again in November. Version 2.0 megapatch coming in 2013.
sweet, just in time for the year of PS3
[youtube=560,345]i3cL3J8-AdM&[/youtube]
:bow TOR :bow2
LEGO is to close down its recently launched MMO this January following failure to generate enough subscribers.
The company's Play Well Studios in Louisville and marketing team in Denmark will be axed, affecting 115 employees.
LEGO Universe launched in 2010 after a protracted development, but in February this year the company bought the majority of the development team and the rights to the game from developer NetDevil. It then proceeded to lay off members of staff.
In June this year LEGO launched a free-to-play section of the game to help drive pick-up in the title.
"The LEGO Universe team can take pride in having developed and launched a great LEGO experience that many players will miss," said Jesper Vilstrup, VP of LEGO Universe.
"Right now, we have almost 2 million players in LEGO Universe, and we get extremely positive feedback from players. Unfortunately, we have not been able to build a satisfactory revenue model in our target group, and therefore, have decided to close the game."
Despite the closure, LEGO emphasised that it intends to continue its digital games publishing business and intends to pursue deals such as those currently in place with TT Games and Warner Bros.
"The development of our digital offerings continues to be a very important element in our strategy," said Mads Nipper, executive VP of the LEGO Group.
"We have more than 20 million visitors on LEGO.com every month, and LEGO video games are among the bestselling children's video games with sales of more than 60 million units in the last five years. Through our experience developing and running LEGO Universe, we have gained a lot of valuable insights, and we have a very strong foundation for future development in the digital area."
Just got a SWTOR invite, forgot I even signed up. Anyone else get one, they starting a new phase?
I'm still downloading the damned files. It feels like the voice acting and story shit is making up a large portion of the download. It kind of annoys me. I assume you need to test to make sure the audio comes out right, but it would be nice to just get to the actual game.
I really want a big budget sandbox mmo, I think the market is there to support it.
No stupid quests and shit, just a sandbox, with a system to let players give out quests and bounties and shit.
wait so you pre-ordered? I thought you didn't like TOR.
FF14 is $9.99 a month again :-\
FF14 is $9.99 a month again :-\
Swotr is out.
Anybody care?
How long till its F2P?
Our programmers added technology to our skill data to allow us to specify a point in an animation at which the player could start moving again. This made skills like Savage Leap not only more functional but tremendously fun to use. This technology came in right before gamescom, so we were able to showcase it with a few important skills in that demo. Now that the technology has evolved, not only does it allow players to specify when they can start movement but it also allows us to transition into queued skills so that we can improve responsiveness. We went through every skill in the game and set up these animation breakout timings and the results were fantastic, but we didn’t stop there. I know many people have also noticed the more polished nature of the animations in the G-Star demo. Since we were able to go back and polish it, we also took a look at the impact of the new blending changes and made some timing changes to existing skills in order to give them more-appropriate anticipation, swing time, and follow-through to match the smoother feel that we were achieving with the blending. This really shines with things like big hammer swings, which now have slow buildups, quick attacks, and somewhat lengthy follow-through, depending on the skill. Ultimately, it creates a much more visceral and immediate system, which helps us straddle the line between action game and RPG.
We recently finished our first closed beta test, and we’re now ready to hold progressively larger events. In February we’ll invite select press to participate in beta testing, and in March and April we’ll aggressively ramp up the size of our beta test events so that many of you will have a chance to participate. And of course, this all leads to the release of Guild Wars 2 later this year.
Is it worth checking out? I've kinda thought about giving it a shot since it's free
Just did some research ... estimated 10k players across all servers, and they're not even paying. Ouch.
I'm definitely going to try that soon; seems like a quick way to get some experience. Have you done DS?
Get some experience? What do you mean?
Let me explain what an overflow server is and what it does. It is a technology we also use as our version of a queuing system. When a map or a world you want to log into is at capacity limit, the game will ask you if you want to play on an overflow server - so you can actually play while you are in a queue. Once space opens on your world, the game will ask you if you want to join your friends on your world. And you keep all the progress you made while you were playing on the overflow server.
How is the PvP dumbed down?
Ulduar Hard Mode was the pinnacle of raiding
Once your friend accepts your scroll and pays for at least 30 days of game, you unlock your choice of the following rewards:
A Free Spectral Gryphon for an Alliance character
Or a Free Spectral Wind Rider for a Horde character
And, to enable you and your friend to play together in Cataclysm's newest content, any friend who accepts your Scroll will also receive the following epic benefits:
A single character immediately boosted all the way to level 80 -- DING!
A FREE upgrade to Cataclysm -- regardless of your friend's original box level
An optional FREE character move -- to your realm and faction so you can play together
7 FREE days of game time -- available immediately
A few other prerequisites apply -- such as a free upgrade to a Battle.net account for players who haven't played since 2009 or earlier -- so be sure to check out the FAQ below for full eligibility details.
Oh I'm assuming I'm not, haven't been to the site. My account was active a couple months ago
To be eligible to receive a Scroll of Resurrection, your friend must have previously subscribed to World of Warcraft for at least 30 days and their account must have become inactive on or before March 4th, 2012.
Once again we will have to wait for blizz an Titan to play something new it seems.
Unless SOE makes Everquest 3...
Lye said NCsoft hopes the free access to the beta weekends of Guild Wars 2, which is included as a pre-order bonus for the game, will help take advantage of Twitter, Facebook and other social media.http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngaudiosi/2012/03/13/ncsoft-aims-to-break-the-static-online-game-mold-with-arenanets-guild-wars-2/
Free weekend for SWTOR already :lol
Free weekend for SWTOR already :lol
Subs are static. They announced 1.7 million in February and they didn't gain any in a month. People are going back to WoW already.
Anyone running into old pals on WoW anymore? For the most part my friends list is completely gone; I see one or two people I know online. Every now and then I run across someone I've played with since vanilla/TBC and we talk, at which point they're like "well I played Rift, came back to WoW. Played Aion, came back. etc." Lots of Guild War 2 talk though
I'm sure folks will be back for Pandera though, the question is "for how long"
So PD you going to resub?
So PD you going to resub?
Yup I resubbed for a month. I definitely want to play around some more, get my alt to 85 finally, and continue DS which is fun.
edit: do you get any account perks due to me resubbing?
In Guild Wars 2 we have three currencies: gold, karma, and gems. Gold is the common in-game currency. Karma, which players earn in-game but cannot trade, is used for unique rewards. And gems are the currency that’s bought and used to purchase microtransactions.
We have a new player-driven market that allows players to trade gold for gems and gems for gold. If you want something, whether it’s an in-game item or a microtransaction, you ultimately have two ways to get it: you can play to earn gold or you can use money to buy gems. We think that’s important, because it lets more players participate on a level playing field, whether they use their free time or their disposable income to do it.
A minipet isn't worth 20 bucks and fuck plastic statues.Of course it isn't worth it. It never is. CEs are for the crazy fraction of the fans that really just should have their assets confiscated and then be flung off into the sun for the betterment of humanity.
A minipet isn't worth 20 bucks and fuck plastic statues.Of course it isn't worth it. It never is. CEs are for the crazy fraction of the fans that really just should have their assets confiscated and then be flung off into the sun for the betterment of humanity.
However, as far as Arena.net is concerned, they may ravage my sore sphincter all they want, lube or no lube (no homo). I've been their go-to cockgobbler ever since GW1 beta 2(?). The one with the temporary skill crystals. Those were awesome.spoiler (click to show/hide)I agree that even for someone like me the deluxe editions of GW2 are bad value, and that the CE dials that up to eleven. They're really pushing it. Sad to see, really.
Sigh. I don't even have much of anything in my HoF. I'm the worst kind of fanboy. :-\[close]
Hello valiant testers!
The weekend BETA event has been in full-swing for just over 24 hours now, and we’ve seen thousands of people roaming the lands of Tyria, battling in the arena of PvP, and fighting for their home world in WvW! If you haven’t already, NOW is the time to join us in the largest Guild Wars 2 Beta test to date!
For this beta event only, we have provided everyone with a special offer in the Gem Store! We offer you this weekend opportunity to pick up $25 USD worth of gems for FREE! While you will be asked to provide your credit card information, this is to help us test the brand new billing system we’ll be using when the game goes live. To do this, a standard authorization charge of one dollar (plus tax) will be placed on your card, though it will be refunded within a week depending on your bank’s processing speed. As these gems are free, this is one of the most valuable contributions you can make to this Beta test this weekend. Not only does this help us test the systems that will eventually handle all of these purchases, but will help us get a feeling for what items and services we can offer that players are interested in. YOU can help us define the very future of the Guild Wars 2 gem store!
To receive these gems, you must visit the gem store by pressingWe’ve also opened up the official testing forum where we’re eagerly awaiting your feedback, thoughts and discussion about the game! Be sure to check it out and contribute to the discussion
- , or clicking the diamond icon in your top-left icon bar. From the Commerce panel, you can then select “Get More Gems” from the bottom of the left-hand menu and follow the steps from there. Your gems will immediately be added to your account, which you can spend at the Gem Store for items, costumes, and other useful treats!
https://forum.guildwars2.com
Thanks everyone, and good hunting! :)
ArenaNet
rabbits are usually the first enemies you fight in mmos or something
I always remember seeing fugly orc females till I sent through the character setup screen. It was then that I could make a orc female look really nice.
Take away the green skin, and sharp teeth, and you will have a female that matches my wife in physcial statue. Hell, when my boss turned 40, she ran a marathon to prove something to herself.
Gander at my hot looking orc warrior with a nice transmog to boot.
:lol the leader of Goonswarm may be banned from EVE after CCP finishes their investigation to a drunken speech he gave at FanFest where he told everyone to hunt down and harass a player.
:lol the leader of Goonswarm may be banned from EVE after CCP finishes their investigation to a drunken speech he gave at FanFest where he told everyone to hunt down and harass a player.Is this (http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&nbid=28575) the issue in question? I thought that was resolved already. He has stepped down and has apologized in public (http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&nbid=28576).
:lol the leader of Goonswarm may be banned from EVE after CCP finishes their investigation to a drunken speech he gave at FanFest where he told everyone to hunt down and harass a player.Is this (http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&nbid=28575) the issue in question? I thought that was resolved already. He has stepped down and has apologized in public (http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&nbid=28576).
The d3 beta is over right? I just realized I was invited months ago but my spam folder ate it.
Quick thoughts on my MoP beta experience so far
-The opening panda area almost looks like an entirely different game. Artistically it's rather beautiful, the music is great, and the panda character models just look amazing.
-I'm only lv6 but thus far I like the zone, although it does feel easier than previous ones. Very beginner friendly
-I plan on choosing Brewmaster once I hit lv10; I'm assuming everyone else will be selected the dps spec for the most part. With other tank classes you can tell early on which spells or instants will be used for tanking, but so far I can't really tell. Pretty much everything is dps focused, outside of a stun
-I LOVE the dodge ability, and would love for all classes to get something like it (as in GW2). I'd imagine healers won't be too thrilled about pandas rolling out of range but it looks awesome, and will probably be great for avoiding damage.
-Anecdotal, but it seems like way more people are involved in this beta than were in Cata's. I remember there being a lot of Worgen running around when I was in that beta, but there are pandas everywhere in this. Like, the zone is full as fuck
-Panda mages do a hodoken :o
We’re counting the days until the first public Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend Event, which begins on Friday, April 27, at noon PDT (GMT-7) and ends on Sunday, April 29, at 11:59 p.m. PDT (GMT-7). Hundreds of thousands of players from around the world will get their first taste of Guild Wars 2—and rest assured, we’ll be playing alongside them!http://www.arena.net/blog/the-beta-weekend-event-is-coming
There are a couple important things you need to know about this Beta Weekend Event:
The only way to absolutely guarantee your access to this or any future Beta Weekend Events is to pre-purchase any edition of Guild Wars 2.
Customers who have pre-purchased the game will receive an e-mail next week with instructions on how to download the client and participate in the Beta.
This is a public event, which means that you’re not bound by a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). So go ahead, feel free to take screenshots, shoot video, blog, tweet, write, or compose a rock opera to share your Guild Wars 2 experience with the world.
In the World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria beta, we’re introducing a new technology that will enable players to meet up and group with other players in under populated areas of the world such as low level zones or areas that other players may have outleveled or moved on from. This technology will allow players to form a group with other players from within a select pool of realms in order to quest just like they normally would while still allowing the social structures of their home realms to remain intact.
Q. How do cross-realm zones work?http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/5393667
When you’re in a zone that is set as a ‘cross-realm zone’ you’ll notice that in addition to the players you’d ordinarily see from your realm, you’ll also see (and be able to play with) players from other realms. This will happen seamlessly, and players will be able to group and quest as they normally would with players from their own realm.
Maple Story is cool.
Tera is 50% off on Amazon DD today.
Someone should make an MMO where you can play every character from every Adam Sandler film. CHECK PLEASEI was going to say everyone will be Jill from Jack and Jill before I realized you said 'every character' and not just 'every Adam Sandler character. If it was free I'd play an all Sandler MMO.
Think of all the achievements they could add lol. Like an achievement for completing a challenge mode in 20 minutes with an all Paladin group, or all druid, or four warriors and one healer, etc.
WoW lost over a million subs last quarter. Ouch
Haiku :
Hmm Dragon Quest Ten
Offline so far but... jesus
Absolute Garbage
WoW lost over a million subs last quarter. Ouch
I like the intuitive nature of queing and being able to find a group within seconds (tank ftw), but I also sometimes miss the days of finding groups in trade chat, or getting excited when that super good healer you knew signed on so you could do instances; likewise it was always cool when I'd sign on and immediately get a couple whispers asking if I wanted to do something. With this you'll be able to get groups quickly for regular runs, but also have the benefit of looking in trade chat for challenge mode groups.
Haiku :
Hmm Dragon Quest Ten
Offline so far but... jesus
Absolute Garbage
WoW lost over a million subs last quarter. Ouch
Must feel good to lose a million subs and still have 8 million more subs then the runner up MMO.
Pretty sure no one is arguing Blizzard is doomed
WoW is certainly on the decline though, and another 5 level expansion/rehash won't fix that. Cata was rather forgettable to most players and I don't see that changing with MoP six months down the line
Someone on GAF mentioned that Blizzard has said there are no plans to make challenge modes accessible via random cues. If they stick to that, this might be the most interesting thing in WoW since Ulduar hard modes. And because random groups won't be failing at the challenges, it's less likely to be nerfed due to crying/complaining.
I like the intuitive nature of queing and being able to find a group within seconds (tank ftw), but I also sometimes miss the days of finding groups in trade chat, or getting excited when that super good healer you knew signed on so you could do instances; likewise it was always cool when I'd sign on and immediately get a couple whispers asking if I wanted to do something. With this you'll be able to get groups quickly for regular runs, but also have the benefit of looking in trade chat for challenge mode groups.
Think of all the achievements they could add lol. Like an achievement for completing a challenge mode in 20 minutes with an all Paladin group, or all druid, or four warriors and one healer, etc.
MoP is nothing like Cata.
Pretty sure no one is arguing Blizzard is doomed
WoW is certainly on the decline though, and another 5 level expansion/rehash won't fix that. Cata was rather forgettable to most players and I don't see that changing with MoP six months down the line
MoP is nothing like Cata.
Pretty sure no one is arguing Blizzard is doomed
WoW is certainly on the decline though, and another 5 level expansion/rehash won't fix that. Cata was rather forgettable to most players and I don't see that changing with MoP six months down the line
MoP is nothing like Cata.
How so
Pretty sure no one is arguing Blizzard is doomed
WoW is certainly on the decline though, and another 5 level expansion/rehash won't fix that. Cata was rather forgettable to most players and I don't see that changing with MoP six months down the line
MoP is nothing like Cata.
How so
Content flow isn't as scattered as Cata where most of the new zones were just accessed via portals.
It really reminds me of Ruins of Kunark in EQ in terms of the tone and feel of Pandaria and the content.
Pretty sure no one is arguing Blizzard is doomed
WoW is certainly on the decline though, and another 5 level expansion/rehash won't fix that. Cata was rather forgettable to most players and I don't see that changing with MoP six months down the line
MoP is nothing like Cata.
How so
Content flow isn't as scattered as Cata where most of the new zones were just accessed via portals.
It really reminds me of Ruins of Kunark in EQ in terms of the tone and feel of Pandaria and the content.
Pretty sure no one is arguing Blizzard is doomed
WoW is certainly on the decline though, and another 5 level expansion/rehash won't fix that. Cata was rather forgettable to most players and I don't see that changing with MoP six months down the line
MoP is nothing like Cata.
How so
Content flow isn't as scattered as Cata where most of the new zones were just accessed via portals.
It really reminds me of Ruins of Kunark in EQ in terms of the tone and feel of Pandaria and the content.
But how does that change the fact that it's still the same gameplay, reused environments, and once you leave the panda area you'll pretty much be doing the same old quests with your new character?
People will rush to lv90 and be stranded again after few months, just as with Cata. The MoP raids are pretty fun but I don't see the overall content satisfying people..
The Pokemon stuff+Challenge Mode will make this last longer than Cata imo, but not by much. And as etoilet said it's hard to see many new people jumping on board over any of that.
The Secret World is having a free weekend right now BTW.
(http://i.minus.com/jNNixXTVbzMPn.png)
That cinematic looked like fan-fiction made real.
That cinematic looked like fan-fiction made real. The stupid look they have when the human handed the Orc the spear was groan worthy. Also, that panda looks like that Samwise dude, which makes sense because to my understanding he has a big boner for Pandas.
Yea I gotta agree with Manabyte. I played WCIII for years, including the beta, and didn't hear any complaints about giant pandas; it was just accepted. I do remember a few people getting upset about Draeni/Space Goats around the time TBC came out, but overall it seemed like the reception was fine; that expansion was awesome, and ultimately the people who did complain about TBC weren't focusing on superficial shit like Draeni.
Basically no one would be upset if this had been in vanilla or TBC. Pandas+Pokemon pets has people upset. Meh, I liked the Panda area sue me. And while I say I won't touch the Pokemon shit, you all know I will. My complaints are more gameplay/content based
Yea I gotta agree with Manabyte. I played WCIII for years, including the beta, and didn't hear any complaints about giant pandas; it was just accepted. I do remember a few people getting upset about Draeni/Space Goats around the time TBC came out, but overall it seemed like the reception was fine; that expansion was awesome, and ultimately the people who did complain about TBC weren't focusing on superficial shit like Draeni.
Basically no one would be upset if this had been in vanilla or TBC. Pandas+Pokemon pets has people upset. Meh, I liked the Panda area sue me. And while I say I won't touch the Pokemon shit, you all know I will. My complaints are more gameplay/content based
The Draenei complaints were from a lore perspective, not because they were space goats. Too bad that it's too long for a guild name because Space Goats Coast to Coast would be an awesome guild.
I tried the beta weekend thanks to andrex but it failed to conbince me itd anything cool. I gave the key to a mate after an hour of listening to some lame storylines I didnt care about and run around small cramped enviroments where stuff magically happens.
It did look pretty though.
Pd i think they just cant change wow too much, unless they make wow 3.
I tried the beta weekend thanks to andrex but it failed to conbince me itd anything cool. I gave the key to a mate after an hour of listening to some lame storylines I didnt care about and run around small cramped enviroments where stuff magically happens.
It did look pretty though.
Pd i think they just cant change wow too much, unless they make wow 3.
Dunno. Cataclysm changed a lot of the early world environments, and introduced a few new early quest lines (especially in Westland iirc). I'd love to see a massive reworking of the early game, moreso than a couple quests here or there. The world rarely seems to reflect the accomplishments your character has made - everything just respawns, and recycles for the next player to do.
GW2 looks beautiful but I'm still hesitant on controls, PvE, and end game. I'll probably get it shortly after release though.
Well its relevant to servers crashing if you sell 10 million copies in 3 months, or 7 million in 10 years.
The game is designed to be profitable based on box sales and some microtransactions. I am not sure if they will track active players or how they will mark active. Blizz does some weird qualifications to make up their Asian subs. Is active logging in once a month? That's pretty easy to retain with no sub fee. Is active logging in weekly? I think they'll just talk about box sales, money from the gemstore, and hours played.
Turbine testing a native OSX client for LOTRO with the new expansion:
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?412407-Lotro-mac-client/page4
WoW, D3, EVE, LOTRO, then Elder Scrolls. Macs will have the only MMOs that matter. Flush Win8 down the toilet!
Turbine pushed back the exp for LOTRO another month to refine it some more. Curious how the mounted combat plays.
We've had a very successful Beta program with some of the largest and most active beta player populations we've seen since Moria. The amount and quality of feedback on our largest expansion ever has been fantastic.
Thanks to some great efforts from beta players, we've identified issues that we think need to be addressed before we can launch. In order to address those issues and meet our expectations for quality we're going to need more time. As a result, we've elected to delay our launch to October 15th.
Welp. I just saw a night elf cruise around Goldshire on a motorcycle.
Yeah early levels were only hard if you were new to MMO's.
Or if you were leveling as a restoration druid in vanilla wow, although in that case the correct term is SLOW.
Hooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooly shit.
The Zar'jira thing is pretty much the worst thing I've experienced in MMOs. Worse than anything in Guild Wars 2.
Basically, I'm just standing there while a few NPCs go at this level ?? naga slut while I get to deal with the ocassional spirit. This went on for like... 5 minutes?
And of course that Zuni motherfucker dies in the end. I COULDN'T HAVE SEEN THAT COMING AT ALL. GEE I WONDER WHY THEY MADE HIM FOLLOW ME SINCE LEVEL 1.
Unbelievable.
UNBE-FUCKING-LIEVABLE.
One big difference between WoW and GW2 is the writing. The writing in GW2 is almost embarrassing, but in WoW it ranges from good to incredible. Some quests are written beautifully, it's kind of sick actually. Motherfuckers clearly know their English.
I won't deny it's the same shit with some visual changes; sort of like building a new floor on top of a burning building. But I heard yesterday a few of my friends from the old days are coming back...so I'm definitely coming back.
I like the new dungeons, raids, new abilities, and I'm REALLY hyped for challenge modes. I'm too committed to this abusive relationship to quit :'(
Why is there so much drama over Cross Realm Zones?
In what is most certainly a coincidence, Trion Worlds has announced a special promotion today to support pandas with the help of players who purchase a certain expansion. No, not that expansion.
Starting tomorrow, every copy of RIFT: Storm Legion pre-ordered will prompt Trion to donate a buck to Pandas International. Pandas International is an organization devoted to saving the Giant Panda, who probably would not need saving if they were martial arts monks (just saying). The pre-order has to take place through the game's website, and it ends after October 3rd.
Sales of the World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria expansion have been disappointing, according to analysts at investment bank Lazard Capital Markets. The fourth expansion for Blizzard Entertainment’s massively popular online game has sold between 600,000 and 700,000 copies at retail since its launch earlier this week, Lazard estimates.http://venturebeat.com/2012/09/27/world-of-warcraft-mists-of-pandaria-performance-disappointing/#mFqdisvhwH7Hq6Pb.99
Historically, each new World of Warcraft expansion has outsold its predecessors, Lazard said, but sales of Pandaria are down 60 percent from the previous expansion pack, Cataclysm, which has sold 3.3 million units since its launch in December 2010. While these figures don’t take digital market performance into account, Lazard analysts believe Pandaria’s digital sales won’t make up for its poor retail performance.
also who the hell is venturebeat
you sure that isn't a pre-teen magazine you're reading there PD?
:drudgeQuoteSales of the World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria expansion have been disappointing, according to analysts at investment bank Lazard Capital Markets. The fourth expansion for Blizzard Entertainment’s massively popular online game has sold between 600,000 and 700,000 copies at retail since its launch earlier this week, Lazard estimates.http://venturebeat.com/2012/09/27/world-of-warcraft-mists-of-pandaria-performance-disappointing/#mFqdisvhwH7Hq6Pb.99
Historically, each new World of Warcraft expansion has outsold its predecessors, Lazard said, but sales of Pandaria are down 60 percent from the previous expansion pack, Cataclysm, which has sold 3.3 million units since its launch in December 2010. While these figures don’t take digital market performance into account, Lazard analysts believe Pandaria’s digital sales won’t make up for its poor retail performance.
:drudge
Blizzard games? Absolutely.
People like boxes.Blizzard games? Absolutely.
No reason too with digital CEs now.
“We think recent reports of weak retail sales for Mists of Pandaria may fail to reflect a channel shift toward a greater percentage of digital sales,” they said.
Read more at http://venturebeat.com/2012/09/27/world-of-warcraft-mists-of-pandaria-performance-disappointing/#L8Pu5DgzuwSHQcS5.99
Here you go Mana: MoP's first week sales an estimated 2.7 million
They didn't halt retail sales.
Fourth expansion to an 8 year old game outsells its supposed killer :lol
Meh, MoP was always going to outsell GW2; there are simply too many active subs for it not to. The more interesting thing to watch is whether subs start falling in a few months again
4. After a month's time, the self-made hype dies off and people realize it's the same old shit they had tired of before.
4. After a month's time, the self-made hype dies off and people realize it's the same old shit they had tired of before.
Shado-Pan Monastery is pretty awesome. Beautiful dungeon
can't wait to get to the snowy zones
2. Quickbars
Two quickbar/hotbars
Quote2. Quickbars
Two quickbar/hotbars
Also, no sprint/run until you make a purchase? WTF
Some sort of TESO event with a playable pre-alpha occurred a few days ago I guess.
http://www.rpgfan.com/features/Elder_Scrolls_Online_Hands_On/index.html
Skimmed through most of it, seems like the consensus is "Good mix of TES and MMO".
Are there any promising MMO's on the horizon?
Sounds intriguing. However, let's face it: this will garner great reviews, early buzz, sell well for a month, then start dying after a few months. Unless of course it's f2p which I seriously doubt
Please :lol
I mean something new and fresh.
Please :lol
I mean something new and fresh.
Are there any promising MMO's on the horizon?
:lolI thought alot of their WoW A team moved to TitanTitan basically has the fucking A Team working on it. It's going to be dope
Where the fuck are you guys getting your information? I've been reading that they've been trying to get talent on board to work on Titan. Why would you do that if you have the people that made WoW, people that are the best when it comes to MMO games? It's been almost a decade since WoW's release. We haven't seen or heard anything of Titan. It suggests mismanagement, and shit development by shitty, clueless developers.
We want you to experience Guild Wars 2 and Lost Shores with your friends, so on Monday November 12, we will turn on Refer a Friend Free Trial. You will be able to invite up to 3 Friends to play Guild Wars 2 with you for free from November 15-18.
To do so, you need a Guild Wars 2 account in good standing that was created before 23:59 PST (7:59 GMT) on November 6.
We will give you more details once the program goes live, but start thinking about who you want to invite!
Freyj: You may have been able to stop and start when you want, but far more aren't able to do so. A lot of sub mmos were designed around the idea that people won't be able to do what you do.
ESO already looks too polished/big to be f2p right out the box
I have no problem with f2p in theory, but there's no doubt the model is still making up for some of the shittier products it was once dominated by. Now you have a few solid f2p games like GW2 and LOTRO so the model definitely deserves more respect.
I am saying its not all bad for systems like Guild Wars 2 or other new ones like LoL. You get everything you would with a sub, so subs are redundant. Only Bioware is dumb enough to gate their content like they're doing. I doubt ESO will go that P2W route.
The Lost Shores is all about the karka, a race of new-to-us foes from the depths of the sea. After being driven to their surface from their murky hives, the karka settled in Southsun Cove until the Consortium, a merchant outfit from Lion's Arch, got all up in their wheelhouse. Now it's up to players to resolve a grudge match between the karka and basically everyone else.
Aside from being a new type of foe, the karka also bring in new mechanics and skills. Part of the event will involve players racing around Tyria to try to figure out how to damage these baddies. You see, as they mature, karka develop a nigh-impenetrable outer shell, which players will have to get through to start doing meaningful damage. ArenaNet has put in some fancy new shaders to make the effects of damage more visible; as players chip away at the karka, they'll see bits and pieces of shell and armor falling off.
ArenaNet's Colin Johanson briefly introduced the brand-new dungeon as one that gets more challenging the farther in you go. Conventional wisdom would suggest that that's nearly always the case, but Johanson left out a key detail: In the Fractals of the Mists dungeon, you can go indefinitely farther in.
The Fractals of the Mists is made up of nine mini-dungeons, each with its own story and environment. A party of five will enter the dungeon and be faced with a random set of three of these dungeons at a time. Upon completing those three, the party will be transported to a hub to rest, repair, and merch -- and the difficulty scale for the dungeon will be raised. Every time the difficulty scale is at an even number, players will face a special boss encounter.
With great challenges come great rewards. The patch will introduce ascended items. Ascended armors are "slightly more powerful than exotics" and can, in some cases, hold slots for infusions. Infusions will allow you to increase your character's power.
what? If you don't like MMORPGs then why are you playing MMORPGs?
I like MMOs and I thought Guild Wars 2 would be different enough and fun enough to purchase it isn't. There's nothing remarkable about the game besides the fact that there's no monthly fee. Which again, isn't a big deal. I'd rather spend my time playing one of the many free MMOs. I'll get the exact same thing out of them as I would get out of Guild Wars 2. Only those games wouldn't be so overhyped and yet so bog-standard.
There’s really just a lot of expectations that come with that MMO genre. And trying to get people to accept that you can make a game that doesn’t have one of those things is a really different thing to do. We wanted this big, open, living world experience, and I remember the very first time that we beta tested the game, or rather alpha tested it internally, we brought it a bunch of testers and we popped their characters out in the open world, and we said ‘Alright! Go play the game.’ And they turned around and said ‘Where do I go? I don’t have a quest blog that tells me that I should go here, then go here, then go here.’ So I said, ‘You can just roam around the world.’ And he said, ‘I don’t understand. I can just run around and find stuff?’ I’m like ‘Yeah! Go play the game, it’s okay!’ It really took years of building on messaging. Just because people have had so many years of this extremely linear, streamlined experience where they don’t have this open world and they don’t have this sense of exploration.
It was something that we knew from the start we wanted to build on. But getting people to accept it and understand it was a really hard thing to do.
I think one of the hardest things about an MMO, to make an MMO really successful, is that you need to be approachable enough that the casual gamer can get into it, but you need to be deep and rich enough that the advanced player can play for years and still find new things and still discover things in the game and continue to grow. That’s a really, really careful balance to walk. I think that you’re always on the risk of upsetting the casual players by making the game too hardcore, and you’re at risk of upsetting your day-to-day hardcore players by making the game too casual.
It’s definitely something that’s really challenging. You see a lot of the MMOs falling into one of the two categories. They’re either really casual games or they’re very niche games, and a really hardcore group of players play it for a really, really long time, but they can’t attract the casual audience, because the game isn’t approachable enough or casual enough. And I think we’ve done a really good job with Guild Wars 2 so far, we’re kind of bridging the gap between those two, providing a game that allows the casual gamer to really get into it and go and have fun and just enjoy themselves and provide depth for the player who’s looking for more. And I think that, in particular for both of those groups, we’re gonna continue to build the game and make sure there’s enough for both of them as we go forward.
Considering you worked on Guild Wars 1 as well, I’m just curious about how you found working within the MMO genre with the shadow of World of Warcraft. I don’t know if that’s the right way to put it, but obviously, working in that genre the popularity of World of Warcraft must have been something you guys were considering. Were you trying to compete with WoW directly, or…?
Well, it’s obviously an elephant in the room when you’re making an MMO. With Guild Wars 1, we decided to not compete with World of Warcraft and we made a game that was very different, that was distinctly different and free-to-play and it was really a completely different game type. We called it a cooperative RPG, not MMORPG. People ended up playing it like an MMO and it kind of adopted that name overtime but we always thought of it as a co-op RPG. And we never intended for it to directly compete with World of Warcraft.
We’re definitely going after a different audience and some people from World of Warcraft would also be interested in this game. But we didn’t just want to make Guild Wars 1 again. So we decided with Guild Wars 2, let’s make a pure MMO, let’s make a giant open world game and let’s try to accomplish the things that people really want to see in an open world MMO, which is a truly living, breathing world that changes and you can just explore to have a great time. That’s really what we set out to do and sure, we wanted to compete with World of Warcraft. We wanted to compete with every game in the genre when we were putting that game out and make a game that basically defines where the genre of MMOs is going. I think the MMO genre had stagnated a lot, and over the course of 7-10 years before Guild Wars 2 came out, there wasn’t a lot of innovation. It was all just ‘Let’s make a game, and World of Warcraft is working, so we should make exactly what they’re making’, and as MMO players, first and foremost, most of us working here were kind of tired with that, because if we wanted to play that game, we could just go play that game. And we didn’t see any reason to make that game again, because there’s plenty of them we can already go and play.
So we wanted to do something different, but we wanted to definitely appeal to that core MMO audience, and that also extends to the RPG audience out there that was looking for an MMO that was more than just an open world quest that you just marauded through. We wanted to make something that was really more like a true RPG, like a Skyrim, where there’s this big open world for all these experiences for you to have. And it just so happens that you can do them with all your friends. I think that appeals to MMO players, it appeals to WoW players, and it appeals to people who play any MMOs out there. Or RPGs.
The risk that comes with it is incredible. And I think seeing more and more companies that are stepping away, thinking ‘We don’t want to take a risk by making a big this big, it’s too expensive, it’s too risky and our whole could fall if we don’t succeed’. You don’t have to worry with the indie game model, you know. You can make two or three or four or five games that aren’t crazy successful, and they’re not very expensive to make, and they don’t take a lot of people, but the second you make Angry Birds, when you make that one that really explodes, you’re crazy profitable and you have enough to hold your company for ages. And I think that’s the biggest thing, in why we’re seeing more and more of that. It’s very easy to form those companies, it’s very easy to make a small indie gaming company, and you’re not risking your entire company on one game when you build stuff. You really have the capacity to make a lot of games and stay in business even if your game isn’t hugely popular. You can sell a small number of copies and keep everyone employed to keep your company going. And I think that’s part of why we’re seeing more and more of that going forward.
It’s that the risk of making these big companies, and in particular, MMOs is just crazy. I really don’t think we’re gonna see that many more MMO companies in the future. I think too many companies have attempted to be WoW and folded and failed. And you’re gonna start seeing very few companies taking risks making games as big as Guild Wars 2.
SWTOR is legit fun, the story is waaaaaaaaaaaay beyond anything offered by GW2. It also doesn't feel cheap being F2P since you can access everything story related without paying. I did 8 euro though for some small stuffs, and because I already put in 10 hours so it's no waste of money def.
I'd really recommend this to anyone.
SWTOR is legit fun, the story is waaaaaaaaaaaay beyond anything offered by GW2. It also doesn't feel cheap being F2P since you can access everything story related without paying. I did 8 euro though for some small stuffs, and because I already put in 10 hours so it's no waste of money def.
I'd really recommend this to anyone.
How's it holding up for you?
I hit a brick wall of unenjoyment around 35-40 on my BH. A combination of quests becoming extremely same-y, dungeons being challenging but boring with terrible groups that rolled on everything and argued about everything and playing the same 10 people over and over in pvp did me in. Huttball was pretty fun as a concept though, no idea if any other MMOs adapted it because I haven't really played a lot of MMO this year.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjDnM0uf0O8
I don't even understand. If this is put out to excite people, how bad was the quest and combat system before?
Ravenholdt?
Funcom's new payment model for TSW is buy-to-play with three membership tiers: free, member, and grand master. After purchasing the game itself, folks can play indefinitely without any additional fees, or they can opt to purchase monthly memberships that provide special bonuses. Players who already have or purchase the grandmaster package maintain their lifetime membership and receive additional bonuses.
Gamers will be glad to know that the conversion will not introduce any restrictions to the game's current content; free players will have full access to every aspect of issues #1 - 4, including weapons, dungeons, and missions. But what of future content? TSW will continue to receive regular patches of free content, just not at the volume of previous issues. More content will be also available periodically through downloadable content packs (DLCs) in the in-game store. Issue #5 DLC, coming in January, will be free to all accounts registered as of the end of December.
SWTOR's "end-game" was anemic at best, especially compared to the well-received storyline content. Surprise, surprise; most of the people who paid for the game didn't continue subscribing after playing through the story once or twice. Between the annoying grind and the recycled content -- another one of those annoying MMORPG tropes -- the game's single player content ended up being even less fun than a normal single player game, never mind the subscription fee to keep replaying it.
Fifty-Six Dollars per Month
That's what it costs to play Star Wars: The Old Republic as a free player.
And that's assuming you're going to plunk down $180 to unlock everything (including hotbars to put your abilities on so you can actually use those abilities) on only two characters. You can't actually get more than two characters (as far as I can tell), and there's plenty else you can't unlock, like getting quest rewards from completing quests or carrying more than a handful of credits.
SWTOR's F2P isn't meant to be a free-to-play MMORPG; it's meant to be an excessively contrived demo to get people to sign up for subscriptions.
Instead, BioWare seems to have tried to find a way to get the most money in the immediate present. I don't know how well it will work. I certainly don't expect it to work well in the long term. There's an expression out there: don't burn your bridges. I guess BioWare wants to invent a new one: If you're going to burn your bridges down, you may as well sell tickets to the show.
The latest report from Korean securities firm KDB Daewoo has mostly good things to say about NCSoft, particularly regarding the launch of Guild Wars 2 and its first few months of operation. Specifically, Q4 2012 is cited as setting a record in operating profit for the company, with GW2 leading the way to the tune of 118 billion Korean won ($110 million USD). Combined with a 3Q OP of W46 billion ($43 million), that makes for a grand total of over $150 million.
Lineage II also gets some of the credit for NCSoft’s strong fourth quarter, with Blade & Soul and Aion expected to “remain flat.”
As for the future, the report considers the overseas — i.e., North America and Europe — market to be the most lucrative in 2013, including this exciting tidbit:
In China, the company is planning to launch Blade & Soul (via a publishing agreement with Tencent) in 3Q13 and Guild Wars 2 in 4Q13 (via a publishing agreement with Kong Zhong). Furthermore, we expect NCsoft to release an expansion pack for Guild Wars 2 in Europe and the US in 2H13.
I really want to try Tera but I need to set aside a weekend where no one in my house can watch Netflix so I can download the whole thing. Stupid DSL :'(
The download system is TERRIBLE. Not only is it P2P but it constantly corrupts and you get manifest (tracker) issues.
Over 3 mill is a lot of copies bro.
It's possibly outsold MoP despite WoW's userbase advantage and the fact GW2 was released in fewer territories.
damn, that tera p2p downloader is bullshit. how the hell is it so damn slow?
Nobody seeds.
Omg concurrent users remained the same for a game with no sub omg omg
Wow still shits on it
It's more that roles have been turned into actions and mechanics. People struggle to understand that and say stupid shit. Then it's pretty much a L2P scenario.
An example is an Ele dropping a water field inside a dungeon. The ele then switches to Earth and blast finishes to heal her group, but then a warrior and a engineer blast finish as well, creating an aoe heal that involved the teamwork of three people. It's a new system to understand. Most get by not learning the system and claim its just pure chaos. They just removed rez rushing from dungeons and people who have been doing mindless chaos are going to get stuck while the people that learned the game will just have some more challenge.
I don't have anything against the trinity, but it's pretty much reached the ends of what you can do with it. I was getting pretty tired of the same song and dance. There's more people want to see in a fight. More concepts and things to do that you can't with a trinity because you have to have the tank and healer, and those jobs can't be abandoned in a fight. Encounters in GW2 are a lot more active. You can't macro it while you watch TV. People who are used to more lax play will either adapt to this and learn, struggle and quit, or struggle and resent it, but the thing is that general PVE is doable enough without learning the depths of combat, so I imagine many hit 80 and don't fully gather in the depths of the combat and just dismiss it. It's not a badge of honor thing. It's that people have been stuck in the same behavior for years and have to get out of that behavior to understand what is fully going on in GW2. A lot just don't do that.
I do find it interesting that some people are struggling to make connections with other players without the dependency of the trinity. It's like they're left to their own social skills to interact with others and don't know what to do. Before, perhaps they were an invaluable tank or healer. By healing people needed them. This is how they made social connections. Now they just have to be good at their class and be able to converse with other people in an adequate fashion. Certain players are struggling with making friends without the threat of "I won't heal for you" looming.
As for WoW not being outshone or that people aren't enjoying the game, all I can say is lol. Rift outshone WoW in many ways in doing WoW but with more and more attention given to what people want. WoW isn't really top tier quality stuff. It's just got wildly popular at the right time. GW2 outshines WoW in every way and then adds more on top that just isn't present in other games in the genre. GW2 can be improved upon itself and I'm curious to see if others do so or ANet just improves it themselves.
Apparently more users = better :derp
It's more that roles have been turned into actions and mechanics. People struggle to understand that and say stupid shit. Then it's pretty much a L2P scenario.
An example is an Ele dropping a water field inside a dungeon. The ele then switches to Earth and blast finishes to heal her group, but then a warrior and a engineer blast finish as well, creating an aoe heal that involved the teamwork of three people. It's a new system to understand. Most get by not learning the system and claim its just pure chaos. They just removed rez rushing from dungeons and people who have been doing mindless chaos are going to get stuck while the people that learned the game will just have some more challenge.
I don't have anything against the trinity, but it's pretty much reached the ends of what you can do with it. I was getting pretty tired of the same song and dance. There's more people want to see in a fight. More concepts and things to do that you can't with a trinity because you have to have the tank and healer, and those jobs can't be abandoned in a fight. Encounters in GW2 are a lot more active. You can't macro it while you watch TV. People who are used to more lax play will either adapt to this and learn, struggle and quit, or struggle and resent it, but the thing is that general PVE is doable enough without learning the depths of combat, so I imagine many hit 80 and don't fully gather in the depths of the combat and just dismiss it. It's not a badge of honor thing. It's that people have been stuck in the same behavior for years and have to get out of that behavior to understand what is fully going on in GW2. A lot just don't do that.
I do find it interesting that some people are struggling to make connections with other players without the dependency of the trinity. It's like they're left to their own social skills to interact with others and don't know what to do. Before, perhaps they were an invaluable tank or healer. By healing people needed them. This is how they made social connections. Now they just have to be good at their class and be able to converse with other people in an adequate fashion. Certain players are struggling with making friends without the threat of "I won't heal for you" looming.
As for WoW not being outshone or that people aren't enjoying the game, all I can say is lol. Rift outshone WoW in many ways in doing WoW but with more and more attention given to what people want. WoW isn't really top tier quality stuff. It's just got wildly popular at the right time. GW2 outshines WoW in every way and then adds more on top that just isn't present in other games in the genre. GW2 can be improved upon itself and I'm curious to see if others do so or ANet just improves it themselves.
I really don't think etoilet has done any high-end raiding in WoW outside of BC stuff.
Is it true that WOW is adding raid wipe buffs? :lolto raid finder only which is infamously and constantly full of terrible players/people who go in and afk to get loot.
Is it true that WOW is adding raid wipe buffs? :lolto raid finder only which is infamously and constantly full of terrible players/people who go in and afk to get loot.
February 26, 2013
The situation worsens for the citizens of Wayfarer Foothills and Diessa Plateau. Volunteers have eased the burden, but more refugees hobble down from the Shiverpeaks. The storm there gains momentum, but the forces of good are beginning to rally. They’re sending their heroes to defend the land and its peoples. Someone must hold back the gathering storm.
In Flame and Frost: The Gathering Storm, the second installment in this four-part series, the stakes are raised, and battles rage, in the foothills of the Shiverpeaks.
We anticipate NCsoft will also launch a mobile version of Blade & Soul in 1H through one of Japan’s leading mobile-gaming platform operators, DeNA. NCsoft plans to roll out its new title WildStar (currently being developed by US-based Carbine Studios) in 2H using CD packages in the US and Europe. It also intends to launch Guild Wars 2 in China, Taiwan, and Japan. An expansion pack for Guild Wars 2 is slated for a 2H release in the US and Europe.
I don't know about in the US, but it's possible it has sold more copies overall. I don't see any reason it's not possible.
Wasn't etoilet claiming that GW2 outsold MoP? Oh wait, it's on this same page!I don't know about in the US, but it's possible it has sold more copies overall. I don't see any reason it's not possible.
It's not possible because it didn't happen!
Wasn't etoilet claiming that GW2 outsold MoP? Oh wait, it's on this same page!I don't know about in the US, but it's possible it has sold more copies overall. I don't see any reason it's not possible.
It's not possible because it didn't happen!
MMORPG: Let’s talk about the Guild Missions now, as I know my own guild is going to be stoked about them. Can you give us some examples of how they’ll work, and what they’ll be about?
COLIN: The guild mission system is a really exciting advancement of our event system, and for guilds worldwide. The system allows people in a guild to work together to unlock guild upgrades that allow them to go on missions together. These missions can be kicked off by the specific guild that has researched that mission, but once they are activated, anyone can jump in and participate to help the guild finish the mission if they wish. The missions are designed such that some components of the mission can only be completed by the guild themselves, but each of them has aspects other players can assist with as well, so everyone has something they can do during the mission.
Effectively, this system allows guilds to literally create content across the world for everyone to experience. When one of these missions is created, often times you’ll see a banner with the guilds name and emblem that created the content. This serves two purposes. It’s a great recruiting tool for guilds to find players by having them join them on missions and if they stand out, inviting them to the guild. It also means guilds will really gain notoriety on their world; you’ll get to know the guilds creating this content and those guilds will become more famous and important in the community.
There are multiple categories of guild missions that a guild can kick off, and within each category there are numerous different challenges to overcome worldwide.
To give an example, one category is the guild rush. When a guild creates a guild rush in the world at one of the rush locations, a timer begins and the rush has to be completed X number of times within the allotted time in order for the guild to succeed. If the required number (or more) of players complete the mission before the timer runs out, the guild gets a reward which can be traded for guild-wide bonuses. Anyone can help the guild get their reward by joining in the guild rush and trying to complete it, but the rush doesn’t end until the timer runs out, so everyone can get a chance to complete it even if the minimum requirement for success is surpassed.
For personal motivation, anyone who completes the rush at least once will receive a personal reward regardless of if they are in the sponsoring guild or not. Also, anyone who was in the guild that kicked off the mission receives an extra different type of reward, which can be traded in for a new category of personal guild rewards that can only be earned through the guild mission system.
GW2 exp within 6 months then?
Can't wait for that!
What can we expect from guild missions?
Colin: It's really spread out all over the game and it depends on which type of mission you're doing. There are actually five completely different types of missions and based on which one it is - bounty hunts, for example, is the really basic one, that's the one that you can get right off the bat when [February's] release first goes out. You actually have to unlock all the other missions types, so it's literally going to take months for your guild to build up enough influence to unlock all of them. It's really a progression here, [...] it's on the whole unlock tree just like any of the other guild abilities, so you make your way down all that stuff and you’ll use influence to kick off missions as well. So, finally, you'll have a use for that giant pile of influence. Some guilds are probably going to tear through really quickly cause they've got huge piles of it but it is going to take a while. With bounty hunts, you can pick which tier of bounty hunts you go on and it randomly generates bosses in different zones that get spawned because the bounty hunt started and it spreads your guild out all over the place. If you do a really big bounty hunt it will actually spread your guild across five different zones, where there is a boss in each and you have, say, 15 minutes to kill all five of them. So, you actually have to split your guild into five different groups and send them to all the maps and find them to take them out.
Some of us have small guilds, we don’t have 500 members and some challenges could prove quite hard. Are we going to see any collaboration mechanisms set in place?
Colin: Our hope will be that [collaborations] will kinda dynamically come out of this as sort of emergent gameplay. The bounties, for example, have different tiers so there’s a small tier that you can do - even small guilds can get those - you’ve got three bosses in three zones so maybe 10-15 people can do that, a small guild, and you can pick which tier you want to kick off based on how many people you’ve got online. Maybe one of the things that will come out of that is “our guild is going to do the tier 3 bounty which takes a lot more people to do, so let’s get 3 guilds together and our guild will kick one off and you’ll help us do ours and then you’ll kick one off and we’ll help us do yours” and the 3 guilds all work together to accomplish [it]. I think that kind of emergent gameplay hopefully will come out of that for sure. We don’t really know what to expect just because it is so hard to test internally to see what guilds are going to do [when all this goes] live. So, some of this is going to [emerge] when we put it out and we’re just going to see how guilds interact with it and what they do and then it will help us determine what other features and additions we need to work on.
I started playing WoW again, 32 Prot Warrior. I also bought a copy of TERA I found at Wal-Mart to get the ~uguu Founders benefits. It's pretty neat but I'm really loving WoW again. I'll get back into GW2 eventually...
I started playing WoW again, 32 Prot Warrior. I also bought a copy of TERA I found at Wal-Mart to get the ~uguu Founders benefits. It's pretty neat but I'm really loving WoW again. I'll get back into GW2 eventually...
Prot War :rock
I started playing WoW again, 32 Prot Warrior. I also bought a copy of TERA I found at Wal-Mart to get the ~uguu Founders benefits. It's pretty neat but I'm really loving WoW again. I'll get back into GW2 eventually...
Prot War :rock
Prot War :rock
leveling prot warrior 1-60 in vanilla :rock :rock
Only about 13 bosses in a HUGE raid instance:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/8778639/Patch_52_Raid_Preview_Throne_of_Thunder-2_25_2013
I found Kara runs and bear runs in ZA and 10 man Uldy far more a real challenge than the 25 man stuff.
Really, the real increase in challenge from larger raids comes in organization, politics and prep. You here, you there, etc. Raids that large are designed just to include as many as they can. What becomes difficult is play-space scarcity rather than personal play level.
Momo: ArenaNet are the makers of Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2. Founded by former Blizzard folk who worked on Diablo 2, Battle.Net and the early development of WoW. Basically, they make kickass games and kickass network tech to go along with them. They brought in some DAOC folk for GW2 to help with their World v World v World mode.
I found Kara runs and bear runs in ZA and 10 man Uldy far more a real challenge than the 25 man stuff.
Really, the real increase in challenge from larger raids comes in organization, politics and prep. You here, you there, etc. Raids that large are designed just to include as many as they can. What becomes difficult is play-space scarcity rather than personal play level.
Momo: ArenaNet are the makers of Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2. Founded by former Blizzard folk who worked on Diablo 2, Battle.Net and the early development of WoW. Basically, they make kickass games and kickass network tech to go along with them. They brought in some DAOC folk for GW2 to help with their World v World v World mode.
This is really not true.
Plus large raids require real guilds, this is the stuff MMO's were founded on. Organisation, politics etc.
That was when I realized that Mists of Pandaria is about so much more than Kung-Fu pandas and revamped skill trees. It's about more than new dungeons, a new loot crawl, and a new class. The real core of Mists, the main idea, is that the Horde and Alliance have become so wrapped up in their own hatred that they're completely unaware of how it affects the world around them. The Pandaren turn out to be excellent foils to this narrative precisely because they are so cute and unassuming. All they wanted to do was hang out and brew beer, but we had to stagger onto their shores and turn our conflict into their destruction.
The story of two warring factions crusading to claim land they clearly do not own, land with a peaceful, intelligent population already present, is strong stuff. Seeing Pandaria's peaceful culture uprooted by the almost-mandatory fighting between the Horde and Alliance evokes sharp memories of real-life colonization and its effects. And most importantly for the game, it calls into question the entire original plotline of World of Warcraft and forces the player to think about why we're so intent on fighting in the first place.
I'm not super far into the story. But watching Blizzard so masterfully turn its original concept upside-down by asking players to experience the Horde/Alliance conflict through Pandaren eyes gives me great hope for the content to come. I misjudged Mists of Pandaria because of its cute characters and colorful art design, but the savvy quest writing, innovative dungeons and clever tweaks to a game that's nearly a decade old combine to make it quite possibly WoW's second-best expansion (I still loves me some Wrath).
Mists of Pandaria is good. Excellent, even. And if you, like me, have been avoiding the expansion because of an irrational hatred of cute things, it's time to give the new content a look. Perhaps you'll be surprised as well.
So glad I don't have to deal with any of that nonsense anymore. No fighting over loot or gear or tank/healer didn't show up.spoiler (click to show/hide)(http://i3.minus.com/ibyovPCRvkLaVx.png)[close]
Beta signup for Elder Scrolls Online:
http://signup.elderscrollsonline.com/
Largest raid in the history of WoW...
Plus large raids require real guilds, this is the stuff MMO's were founded on. Organisation, politics etc.
And yea Naxx was easy but generated a surprising level of competition. Basically with a lot of "who's gonna die on this easy boss lolol" challenges
We'll catch a "tiny" glimpse of vampire MMO World of Darkness at this year's Eve Online Fanfest in late April, maker CCP has told me.
The secretive MMO is being played internally, CCP CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson said, and has benefited from the restructuring that once looked like it had killed the project.
"It's going on very nicely," he told me. "A great example of focus and clearer priorities.
"We're playing it internally at CCP. It's actually a problem that some of our employees are losing themselves already in the World of Darkness as we go through the playtests.
"And we'll be showing a tiny piece of that also at Fanfest. So that is all I have to say about that at this time."
The last we heard of World of Darkness was in summer 2012 when the game was classed as in "active development".
The game's senior producer Chris McDonough had, months earlier at Fanfest 2012, taken to the stage to proclaim the project not dead after restructuring at CCP seemed to hit the World of Darkness Atlanta office hardest.
McDonough offered some detail about the game as well. He said it will feature real-world city locations like London, Paris and New York, and will be built on a sandbox philosophy with deep political systems that can put player Princes in charge of cities.
Those Princes will also have the power to inflict permadeath on other players, gulp.
There will be complex hand-to-hand combat and blood will be used as a currency. Inspiration is being drawn from Vampire: The Masquerade.
"Expansions are definitely something that we’ll potentially look at in the future," he explained. "We don’t have a timetable on it. We’re open to it, but I think our major focus as a studio is making the living world concept as strong as possibly can for the players that we’ve got."
"We want to be able to have teams that are literally developing new, innovative features that change the way that you play our game and grow that experience so it literally feels like you don't leave Guild Wars 2," he explained. "Guild Wars 2 becomes Guild Wars 2.5 or Guild Wars 3 and it continues to grow.
An industry veteran of over 15 years who’s worked on other MMOs including the original Guild Wars, Johanson admits that the decision to make an MMO shouldn’t be taken lightly; failure comes at a high cost. “It takes some serious balls to jump into the MMO industry and go after it,” he admits.
“You’re basically betting your company any time you decide that the thing you’re going to make is an MMO. They take so long to make, and they take so much money that either you’re successful and you’re going to do really well, or you’re not and your company’s toast. If you have a really big backer, maybe you can survive that but it’s a huge risk.”
The fact that such a gamble appears to have paid off not once but twice for ArenaNet is not something to be sniffed at. Aside from managing to shift over 3 million copies in the six months since it launched, Johanson also informs me that Guild Wars 2 has bucked one of the main MMO trends by seeing player numbers continue to rise during what would usually be a post-launch slump. The six weeks following Christmas saw increasing numbers of people eager to explore the world of Tyria, making Guild Wars 2 one of very few MMOs to launch, settle into its core playerbase and then actually start to grow again (EVE Online would be perhaps the only other prominent example of this unusual trend).
Whether it is because of the lure of the action combat model, the graphics, the fact that no content is locked behind a payment gate, or something else entirely, folks have flocked to the fantasy game since it went F2P a month ago. In fact, TERA's playerbase has swelled by over 500,000, doubling the number of registered users to over one million and causing En Masse to open up six new servers in order to meet the demand.
They just aren't all big license big budget hype machines. TESO is probably the last of those types.
If you are a MMO looking to be made right now, you're either going in a new direction or you're going in a real old school sandboxy direction.
"I have to be honest with you. We have completely blown up the design of EverQuest Next. For the last year and a half we have been working on something we are not ready to show. Why did we blow up the design? The design was evolutionary. It was EverQuest III. It was something that was slightly better that what had come before it. IT was slightly better. What we are building is something that we will be very proud to call EverQuest. It will be the largest sandbox style MMO ever designed. The same exciting content delivered in a new way. Something you've never seen before. The MMO world has never seen before. We didn't want more Kill 10 Rats quests. We didn't want more of the same. If you look at the MMOs out there, they're delivering the same content over and over again. So are we. We need to change that. When we released EverQuest, we changed the world. We want to do that again with a different type of game.
What I will commit to is, at the next Fan Faire, not only will you get to see it but you will get to touch it. Most of the EQNext devs are in this room. If you get them drunk enough they might tell you. They're led by Dave Georgeson. Terry Michaels. Vets from EQ and EQ2. We are remaking Norrath unlike anything you've ever seen, but you'll recognize it. I'm sorry we don't have anything to show for it, but I wanted to be honest with you and tell you a little bit about it. Keep the faith."
Sandbox is exactly what I what would make me interested in investing some time in a mmo again.
Good gameplay vid with a Guardian Fighter:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyPQBdQtS_Q
I played about 15 minutes of the Neverwinter beta. It's definitely an MMO.
I played about 15 minutes of the Neverwinter beta. It's definitely an MMO.
It's a F2P MMO without an ass-raping scheme like SWTOR and it's set in the Forgotten Realms, which is a thousand times better than any other fantasy setting in other F2P MMOs except for LOTRO.
I'm gonna check it out
No one here plays GW2 man.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0E6Yw-M1YY
Looks nice but the combat seems quite hack n slash; perhaps that's due to it being the first dungeon. Is there any strategy to boss fights beyond "kick the shit out of him." It looks similar to GW2 in terms of just being "don't stand in this circle of dmg."
Also how are the quests?
New Neverwinter trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_Uzka-2Mz8
New Neverwinter trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_Uzka-2Mz8
dude, The Foundry sounds so awesome
ArenaNet and ZAM combine to give free weekend passes to play GW2 April 19 to 21
....
At this time next week (Monday, April 15), be absolutely sure to watch ZAM like a lion stalking a gazelle as our giveaway page goes live.
http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=32156QuoteArenaNet and ZAM combine to give free weekend passes to play GW2 April 19 to 21
....
At this time next week (Monday, April 15), be absolutely sure to watch ZAM like a lion stalking a gazelle as our giveaway page goes live.
Free weekend codes on ZAM for GW2. Sounds like supply will be limited though.
Etiolate hook me up with a game code and Ill try this out.
Etiolate hook me up with a game code and Ill try this out.
You can't go to the sites giving it away yourself? ??? I can't hook you up any better than you can hook yourself up.
Fuck, so many cutscenes. I'm tired of this game already.
I did some quest involving a crown being stolen and that was quite the snoozefest. It was just me killing skeletons over and over. But it was also somewhat challenging because I was finally losing some decent health.
It was still easy because there was a (VOICED!) pop-up telling me my health was low and I needed to use a potion I had.
Okay I use the potion.
1000 health stored.
THAT'S MORE THAN I HAVE HIT POINTS JESUS FUCK.
This is just fucking stupid. Why bother trying to block shit when I can just insta-restore so much health.
Also levels don't seem to matter. The questing I'm doing is nothing like WoW. It feels like a single player game with intermittent (optional) social stuff. I just don't see the point.
Not that I could expect much from a F2P game... but still.
This whole thing makes me miss WoW man. The trouble with WoW though is the splintered community. A lot of shit going down is level 80 and up, those people play their own shit. What I would like is something like a relaunch where everyone is back to level 1. This has already happened in the past with new servers but there don't seem to be any new WoW servers.
Edit: I just remembered WoW has shit combat, nevermind.
By the way a WoW relaunch wouldn't really work because the old stuff has been reworked to make it stupidly easy (and unsatisfying) to go through quests and dungeons and shit (Deadmines is super short now). I think those Scarlet Crusade dungeons or some such have also been reworked cause I remember it being kinda boring.
But anyways. I could imagine an unofficial Guild Wars relaunch working. I might start a thread on the guru fan forums and see if more people are up for it. But it would be best if it's official.
No the word that means the quality of interest of a bunch of people. So if a bunch of people are interested it's the [word] to describe it.Appeal?
Ugotspergs?
No the word that means the quality of interest of a bunch of people. So if a bunch of people are interested it's the [word] to describe it.
PD, this is where I mention GW2 has all the sorts of stuff you've been posting about.
i resubbed to WoW :fbm maybe this time I can actually make it past level 54
The only other scifi MMO I can think of is Defiance. fistful likes it, but I haven't played it.
Star Ctizen is in Kickstarter Beta and I'm actually kind of interested in that. If I can be a lonewolf space explorer without the EVE spreadsheets/captalist pron then I'm down.
Yeah I was interested in Wildstar. The housing system looks cool and I like the way its tied into the whole game. I am worried about all the WoW inspiration in the game. Some of the races even jump like Night Elves.
The only other scifi MMO I can think of is Defiance. fistful likes it, but I haven't played it.
Star Ctizen is in Kickstarter Beta and I'm actually kind of interested in that. If I can be a lonewolf space explorer without the EVE spreadsheets/captalist pron then I'm down.
http://www.polygon.com/2013/5/7/4309866/star-wars-the-old-republic-revenue-doubled-free-to-play
F2P = mo moneys for swtor
The difficult step wil be keeping it up after the 'second launch' phase of F2P.
Also, I fear TESO and Wildstar are going to cheese the same thing. Launch as Sub based just long enough to get some moneys and then go F2P for a second burst of money.
wow lost 1.3 million subs :o
World of Warcraft is down to eight million subscribers, publisher Activision-Blizzard said in a press release today. That's a 1.3 million loss from February to May—mostly in the East, Blizzard says, but in the West as well.
wow lost 1.3 million subs :oI guess we can finally count WoW as a huge failure that never lived up to the hype.
-Throw in people leaving dying servers and horde/ally population imbalance and maybe you have 1k subs for a side. That's actually not enough to keep a server feeling alive in an MMO unless that 1-2k is intensely active through most of the game. If they're logging in once a week and sitting in cities to instance then it leaves the server feeling barren.
-People feel the "barren" nature and unsub.
It doesn't need to be overhauled. At this point, you just leave it be and make a sequel. It should've been left alone after that Lich King expansion.
It just pisses me off that some publisher exec thinks it's ok to keep on updating a game into oblivion. If the game gets boring, you don't update the game. You create a sequel. That's what sequels are for. WoW used to have nice early game content. They've mangled it with all the updates. If they made a sequel instead, you would have had two nice games with fine early game content. Now you have only game, with shitty early game content.
I'm a level 45 druid now.
Strongly considering to start over. I've found that it's always very fun to play level 1 to level 25 or so, then it gradually gets more boring. Obviously, if I start over, I won't get to level 90 and shit but I'm wondering if it's really worth it.
Basically, the mechanics start to suck more and more as you get higher and higher. Low-level crafting is fun but after a certain point you have to grind so much it becomes ridiculous. Same thing with the combat. Combat is okay on low levels, gets better with more spells and abilities but after like 35 or so there are too many goddamn spells. High level combat seems to be all about juggling many spells around and that just pisses me off. I had to spend an awful lot of time today coming up with proper keybinds and now that I've settled on something nice I don't even feel like playing.
I dunno man. If a new MMO decides to copy WoW, I hope they just faithfully copy the low level shit, and ditch the rest.
As a developer do you find it difficult to separate gameplay design from monetization design? Have these disciplines called for individual devs with individual skillsets in the MMOs you've worked on, and if so do you think they'll continue to be separate going forward?
It's challenging, but also exciting.
In past generations, in a lot of places, it was, "Devs, just do your dev things and let the business people figure out the business-y bits. Business people, figure out which of the eight widget types it is, get it on the shelf, and here's some money to get people to buy it." That's all changing.
Going forward, we'll see an expansion in both directions as developers become more business-aware and non-developers become more product-aware. That's actually a great thing. It means more people inside of games companies will have to care about the customer than ever before. People of all disciplines now need to be "product people" who are always conscious of their impact on customers and what they experience. Especially online.
Conversely, we'll also start to see more traditional product people with a keener sense for what it takes to succeed as a business in ways their customers will genuinely appreciate. When you think about the number of teams coming up via Kickstarter alone, they're already more familiar with business realities and bank account balances than many AAA developers have ever needed to or been able to be. That's a great starting point.
Hey guys! I started playing FFXI on my 360. This is the thread to talk about that, right? I remember trying to play it a few years back but elected to renew my WoW sub. Nowadays I'm a little tired with the way WoWisms have leaked into every MMO since that I wanted to go outside the box and really try something different, and FFXI struck me as just the thing. With its HOT, NEW expansion out already, I scooped up the ultimate edition and got started.
Getting my PlayOnline account set up was a bit of a hassle, all the instructional information was in my email rather than the Square-Enix account website, but eventually I got into the game and have had fun so far!
It's pretty slow, and the areas are sooooo massive, but it's a relaxing game that I think will be perfect for winding down after work. Greetings, Vana'diel!
[img]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BK5fRZMCMAAYueK.jpg[ / img]
So I just hit level 60 in WoW. :whoo
I still think the earliest levels in WoW are the most fun. I've been questing in Outland a bit, and the first zone is alright, but the trouble with high level questing is being there for too long. Hellfire Ramparts is interesting and the whole Outland thing is interesting, but let's be honest. It's a depressing shithole. The music is depressing, the whole area is some kind of alien post-apocalyptic hellhole.
I don't understand why all high level shit has to be like this. High level areas should include attractive, beautiful zones like Elwynn Forest and the NE starting area.
It's funny because in the original Guild Wars, it's also like this. I think everyone agrees Pre-searing is the most beautiful zone but thanks to the shitty story it gets destroyed and you can't go back once you decide to go on a certain quest. :snoop
Yeah barren wastelands match a world at war, but just aren't emotionally investing. Some quest giver is asking me to save some shithole where nobody lives. I could not collect enough fucks to give him. =|
Orr in GW2 is both ugly and beautiful at the same time. It's very much singular in tone and a visual drudge, but it's also got this oily haunted choral reef feel to it that's beautiful at the same time.
Southsun is pretty and dangerous at the same time. The only parts of GW that become sort of bleh are the later Centaur lands and some of Ascalon like Iron Marshes.
In GW:Factions, the starter area is really nice and then you cross the sea to the city and its basically kowloon. Once you get past that, then you get to the Jade Sea and the Forest and it's all purdy again.
Nightfall was visually interesting from start to end, though the area with Abbadon is pretty dark, bleak and purple.
There's no need to use food & drink while leveling. If it has a buff of some sort then its useful, but otherwise there's no reason to. Downtime for food & drink was just an artificial time extender and was smartly removed as the game became more refined.
It seems to me like raiding isn't very fun and the downtime made this clear by having people express their feelings...
And no I already said I never done a raid, brah.
But anyways. You didn't mention how long the downtime was. Obviously if it's too long it will suck.
I'm eager to try out raiding, and from what I'm hearing it sounds awful.
To fill this void, we’re in the process of developing a new Flexible Raid system, which includes a new difficulty that sits between Raid Finder and Normal difficulty, while still allowing friends, family, or pick-up groups to play together. This difficulty will be available for premade groups of 10–25 players, including any number in between. That means whether you have 11, 14, or 23 friends available for a Raid, they’ll all be able to participate.
The Flexible Raid system is designed so that the challenge level will scale depending on how many players you have in the Raid. So if you switch between 14 players one week and 22 the next, the difficulty will adjust automatically. Keep in mind that unlike Raid Finder, no matchmaking is available, so you’ll need to make sure you invite people to attend—but if some can’t make it, it’s not the end of the world (or the Raid). You’ll also still be able to invite Real ID or Battle.net friends cross-realm. Who you choose to bring and what Item Level gear they’ll need to join your merry band is up to you, too—there’s no Item Level requirement for this Raid difficulty.
Blizzard revolutionizes raiding:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/10175200/QuoteTo fill this void, we’re in the process of developing a new Flexible Raid system, which includes a new difficulty that sits between Raid Finder and Normal difficulty, while still allowing friends, family, or pick-up groups to play together. This difficulty will be available for premade groups of 10–25 players, including any number in between. That means whether you have 11, 14, or 23 friends available for a Raid, they’ll all be able to participate.
The Flexible Raid system is designed so that the challenge level will scale depending on how many players you have in the Raid. So if you switch between 14 players one week and 22 the next, the difficulty will adjust automatically. Keep in mind that unlike Raid Finder, no matchmaking is available, so you’ll need to make sure you invite people to attend—but if some can’t make it, it’s not the end of the world (or the Raid). You’ll also still be able to invite Real ID or Battle.net friends cross-realm. Who you choose to bring and what Item Level gear they’ll need to join your merry band is up to you, too—there’s no Item Level requirement for this Raid difficulty.
(Q:) Will we be getting more dungeons?
(A:) We will be continuing to work on our dungeons.
(Q:) (Follow-up) Old ones...or new ones?
(A:) Both! ;)
(Q:) Will we ever see anything like raiding?
(A:) Our answer to raiding may very well be in the works!
(Q:) (In whisper) Can you say anything at all about raid style content?
(A:) It is something I am very excited about and will be unique to GW2
Lost in all the DRM Wars: TESO is going to be on both the next gen consoles and it seems the release has been delayed until Spring of next year.
http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/06/10/the-elder-scrolls-online-is-headed-to-the-playstation-4/
Rift is tempting the fuck out of me. Must...stay...away
Cataclysm is doing an excellent job of pissing me off so far. Much of it is plagued by Modern Game Design Syndrome. Getting into the Maelstrom involved listening to some orc wench speak some contrived nonsense. Fuck off Blizzard.
In the upcoming Guild Wars 2 update, Bazaar of the Four Winds which will launch on July 9, players will be able to take part in Mario Kart-like races across a cliff in a floating city.
Back in February, ArenaNet announced that it was introducing the Living World feature — a series of content that would add new story threads, characters, plot twists and gameplay to the existing MMO story arc. Speaking to Polygon, Whiteside said the studio is now releasing brand new content as part of Living World every two weeks, and in order to achieve that the studio has been restructured.http://www.polygon.com/2013/7/2/4483984/how-arenanet-is-making-guild-wars-2-a-living-world
Microtransactions are nothing new for World of Warcraft, but the game has never had an actual in-game store. You've had pets and mounts that toe the line, but the line still existed. Then a bit of datamining turned up an experience boosting item that looked as if it might be tied to an in-game store. But datamining isn't the same as actual confirmation, and thus much nervous hand-wringing ensued... until community representative Zarhym confirmed that yep, this is a thing that is happening.
Zarhym's posts specifically state that Blizzard is "exploring the possibility" rather than definitely adding a microtransaction store, but it seems the most likely outcome.
GW2 would be so awesome if the controls were good, and it had the tank/heal/dps set-up.That's really the problem. Casual dungeon play is pretty insufferable because of what they tried to do.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6t0mgu0_i3c
Wildstar has great promo vids.
Mentioned in my previous post, some reader were at disbelieve at how the Rootless Clan is able to forcefully castrate another male character in Age of Wushu. At a recent fan event in China, developer Snail Game had a demo of the system, which you can see below.
1. Obtain a special daily quest, which is only available to members of the Rootless Clan of certain fame (exact requirements not mentioned). The word “阉” will appear on the character’s head.
2. 5 of such players may now form a party.
3. Get into position, and activate the formation spell, Soul Breaking Formation (the bright insignia on the ground).
4. After the formation ends, 2 skills will now be enabled, 1 is to mark (show if he is suitable to be castrated) and the other to start the castration process.
5. The Rootless Clan members will then attack him, bringing the target to low health. Note that the target must be someone powerful as well, not just any newbie.
6. The castration process begins when the tent appears. It has a health bar of its own, and random NPCs (adjusted according to party strength) will try to save the victim, while the victim can seek help as well.
7. After around 2 minutes, the process will end. However, the success rate of castration is still considered low at this time. If it is unsuccessful, the victim will still sustain significant damage.
http://kotaku.com/blizzards-next-subscription-mmo-is-no-longer-a-subscri-993248008
In a non-shocker, Titan won't be sub based. This is more confirmation rather than news.
Titan will be shit. Mark my words.
In fact I predict Titan will be a Guild Wars 3 of sorts. I'm sure you'll love it etoilet.
I'm not excluding that of course. Wether the trinity emerged as the dominant set-up or games were made so that the trinity was the dominant set-up doesn't really matter. It doesn't mean that it's the only way to do things.The only reason people go for it is because games are designed in such a way for that to be the most effective set-up.
That's funny, I thought we had trinity to begin with because it was fun.
But I guess I'm just weird. :comeon
I mean, do you need the holy trinity to do other challenges in life? You have some NPC to protect, then you have some players buff the NPC and heal it a bit, the rest keep waves of mobs away. I think of Zelda or just a single player action rpg or adventure game. There's mechanics to bosses and fights in there, and all you have to do is force it to have the mechanics split up for multiple players.
We can all only hope to be as good as you Ruzbeh. Figuring out basic WoW combat mechanics eight years into the game's lifecycle? That's damn impressive.
We can all only hope to be as good as you Ruzbeh. Figuring out basic WoW combat mechanics eight years into the game's lifecycle? That's damn impressive.:dead
Jesus endgame WoW is so bad. I want to PvP but apparently there is no balanced PvP mode where gear is normalized. What the fuck is up with that. Fucking gay ass shit. I can't even do fair PvP in this game.
So I'll PvE. The numbers on the weapons just keep getting higher and higher. At a certain point it should stop. But it doesn't. What the actual fuck. I've seen weapons that do more than twice the damage than the weapons I'm using as level 90. Now I understand some increase in damage for better weapons but why such a MASSIVE increase? I don't remember having to chase higher numbers in order to keep playing in a game like the original Guild Wars. Cosmetic stuff or other, difficult to obtain exclusive stuff was fine. PvE challenges + balanced PvP should be the endgame, not chasing higher numbers and getting better gear.
I'll stick to my guns and say that low level WoW was the best.
Also, I don't care about raids anymore, now that I've found out what they're kind of about. It's basically like dungeons but with lots of people and the bosses use all kinds of shitty gimmicks to keep things exciting. Fuck that shit.
Jesus endgame WoW is so bad. I want to PvP but apparently there is no balanced PvP mode where gear is normalized. What the fuck is up with that. Fucking gay ass shit. I can't even do fair PvP in this game.
So I'll PvE. The numbers on the weapons just keep getting higher and higher. At a certain point it should stop. But it doesn't. What the actual fuck. I've seen weapons that do more than twice the damage than the weapons I'm using as level 90. Now I understand some increase in damage for better weapons but why such a MASSIVE increase? I don't remember having to chase higher numbers in order to keep playing in a game like the original Guild Wars. Cosmetic stuff or other, difficult to obtain exclusive stuff was fine. PvE challenges + balanced PvP should be the endgame, not chasing higher numbers and getting better gear.
I'll stick to my guns and say that low level WoW was the best.
Also, I don't care about raids anymore, now that I've found out what they're kind of about. It's basically like dungeons but with lots of people and the bosses use all kinds of shitty gimmicks to keep things exciting. Fuck that shit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFWh9aY4pas
The player who made this video is incredibly sad. Wowtards just don't get it.
He even makes the point that he fails to see as important. If players wanted to do the harder versions, they could work towards that. If players just want to see the content then they can do that without facing the hardest version. Diffierent difficulty levels is nothing new. Does a sliding difficulty scale destroy the fighting game community? Nope. Then why would it destroy WoW PVE? If players aren't interested in the more difficult challenge then perhaps your PVE community wasn't ever anything but an exclusive club of grinders rather than a selection of high skilled players.
Perhaps people want more than raids and DIFFICULTY BASED ON GEAR CHEEKS. I think that's the main problem he has. It seems he thinks WoW is amazingly deep or difficult by design. Most of the difficulty in raiding came from gear cheeks and learning the fight. Learning the fight was the only player-based skill check. The truth is that most X Mages will be doing the same spell rotation and the same routine. The only differences between them being gear.
The only thing to take form his video, other than his sad mental state, is that the playerbase ignores each other within dungeons. They only pay attention when someone gets in the way of them getting gear.
WoW is old. It's been outdone. It was NEVER an amazing piece of game design. It was fun due to the social nature of MMOs. It was fun because it was a giant persistent world. Decline was inevitable.
The PVE community always looks for the easiest way through and the idea that they did it the hard way for any reason other than it being the only way is silly.
Risk v Reward argument has merit, but not with his example. I don't see how risk v reward is not held up in WoW. How is there not reward equal to risk with WoW's multi-difficulty raids? You do the hardest mode and you get the most powerful gear. You do the easy mode and your gear is much weaker.
But that's how the entire game is. You don't do any dungeons, its hard to get decent gear. If you want the harder challenge then you do the harder modes and get the better gear. That paradigm still exists. The only difference is that the e-peen of seeing content that others haven't is gone. That's all. It's this idea that *I* deserve this and you don't. It's childish.
The PVE community always looks for the easiest way through and the idea that they did it the hard way for any reason other than it being the only way is silly.
PEOPLE always look for the easiest way through. It's human nature. Everyone else follows those people because it's status quo.Risk v Reward argument has merit, but not with his example. I don't see how risk v reward is not held up in WoW. How is there not reward equal to risk with WoW's multi-difficulty raids? You do the hardest mode and you get the most powerful gear. You do the easy mode and your gear is much weaker.But that's how the entire game is. You don't do any dungeons, its hard to get decent gear. If you want the harder challenge then you do the harder modes and get the better gear. That paradigm still exists. The only difference is that the e-peen of seeing content that others haven't is gone. That's all. It's this idea that *I* deserve this and you don't. It's childish.
That's not his point at all, I think you're looking at this from the wrong angle. He's not saying that "how it was before was better because only I got to do it", he's saying that how it is now is worse because everyone does it and it doesn't mean anything. He then follows that up with "is this really a better scenario from a designer's perspective?" because the key reasoning that Blizzard has given for introducing LFR is that "no one got to see the content we were spending the majority of our time on". So is it really better if significantly less people see the encounters from the difficulty level that they were designed for so that EVERYONE can see the encounters from a difficulty level where what an individual player does or doesn't do makes almost exactly no impact on the success of the encounter?
If you could argue that it helped player retention rates by virtue of accessibility, I'd concede that I'm fighting money and there's no winning that, but when players re-sub once every 4-6 months for a single month and then promptly un-sub after finishing LFR, I don't think it is. For a F2P or P2P analogy, those players would no longer be purchasing things from the item shops. Whatever the payment model is, the money flow is dead and you can only pray that they'll continue re-subbing and not forgo a content release or three due to other obligations or games.
There has to be some sort of middle ground starting point between the mindless hour a week unscheduled time commitment that LFR is and the part-time second job that organized raiding is. I think that this new difficulty level between LFR and Normal could be that, but it has to replace LFR entirely if end-game raiding is going to remain the core of your offerings.
The fastest selling MMO in the history of Western video games? Why World of War–err, wait a second…not World of Warcraft? Doesn’t WoW have a bazillion chart-topping subscribers? Isn’t it still cooking along nine years after it launched back in prehistoric November 2004?
It does and it is, though its numbers have fallen precipitously in recent years…you know, as people finally run out of barrel-sized candles to burn at both ends (and despite Blizzard’s admirable attempts at keeping the multifaceted content train a-chuggin’). Still, it took WoW years to reach its record-shattering, apex predator heights. Rome wasn’t built in a day and all that jazz.
How about a year then? Guild Wars 2 debuted last August and shot off the block like Usain Bolt, bringing the game an enormous (and apparently sustained) stock of subscribers. DFC Intelligence, an international market research firm focused on cross-platform video game metrics, just joined hands with Guild Wars 2 developer ArenaNet to announce that the game is now the fastest-selling MMO in history — and that’s just counting European and North American sales.
DFC analyst David Cole says his company came to its conclusions about the sales record by “triangulating against multiple data sources” (which is keep-out-of-the-weeds-speak for “trust our wizard math”). When I asked for clarification about whether ArenaNet and DFC mean Guild Wars 2 is the fastest-selling MMO worldwide or just in the West, I was told that since no one has solid data on Eastern sales, they had to stick with “in the West,” but that it’s probably true (across the board) in terms of sales, since Eastern MMOs are given away for free.
ArenaNet says it expects Guild Wars 2 to “experience rapid growth once it releases in China, where the player-base has the potential to exceed that of the West.” So if this three million in nine months figure — which, assuming sustained growth, would now be three million plus sales since May — doesn’t turn around, and Eastern sales live up to ArenaNet’s aspirations, you’d be well into World of Warcraft territory, say in the vicinity of six or seven million (or more) users combined. Imagine that.
The Free Trial period starts at 12:01 AM PDT on August 23, 2013 and ends at 11:59 PM PDT on August 25, 2013.
But how is it not special anymore? How does it mean nothing now? Because other people saw the content? That people are realizing difficulty is weighted by gear more than skill? What he is saying IS what I am saying he is saying, because it still comes down to feeling less like a little prince because the peasants got in the door.
Too bad its the one weekend in August where I cant play
And thanks Ruzbeh for bringing up GW2!
http://techland.time.com/2013/08/16/guild-wars-2-nabs-fastest-selling-western-mmo-crown-looks-east-for-more-records/
I just don't find his "i'm gonna herpaderp this" as a genuine representation of a LFR player. I still poke in WoW threads, including the GAF one, and experienced, former raiders use LFR and then pretty much quit with the raid. There are capable players doing LFR and choosing to do the raids that way for purpose of time limitations. If its too easy then yes that can be a problem. You have to punish players to teach them the game mechanics. I agree with that.
There's still a lot of troubling sentiments in his video.
I'm loving Halfhill Market and Valley of the Four Winds. The daily quests are decent and farming is pretty damn fun. :rock
If you think you know Tequatl the Sunless and can whip that dragon with your eyes closed, then ArenaNet is just guffawing loudly in your direction. The devs' commitment to change includes the many world bosses, and Tequatl is the perfect platform to experience taking a big bad and making it way, way badder.
So what's Tequatl going to be like when the devs finish injecting him with steroids? The encounter will be completely changed, turning this into an extremely difficult, time-limited 80-person fight minimum that requires group strategy and a whole lot of moxie. Tequatl 2.0 is so tough, in fact, that the team at ArenaNet has yet to bring him down while playing internally. The studio has faith in the players to succeed where it cannot, however.
Firefall is transitioning into a Sandbox MMO FPS. Right now, after the tutorial, there isn't much direction. Well, at least it was that way when I played the beta. I think they're trying to work on ways for people to get into the "sandbox" mindset and guide them a little bit.
hmm I wonder if Guild Wars 2 is gay
(http://i.imgur.com/7fyjLV9.jpg)
oh
Stop with the shitty GW2 shilling. NO ONE FUCKING CARES ABOUT THAT SHIT GAME
What does GW2 do for endgame, outside of dungeons?
Instanced:
-All Dungeons :: Emphasis on Explorable Mode Dungeons. You scale to the level of the dungeon and your rewards are based upon your character's level. So all dungeons are relevant.
-Fractals of the Mists ::
A small collection of instanced 5 man dungeons that you do in sections of three or four at a time. For every section you complete, your FOTM level goes up. You start at level 1. After doing a set of fractals, you go up to level 2. You can then enter again at level 2 and face three random mini-dungeons plus a boss path encounter. You pass that, you go up to level 3. As you level up, three dungeons get harder. After level 10, Agony is introduced. Agony is a special monster attack that does heavy damage over time. Around level 15 or so, you need to start having some agony resist. You can get that getting Ascended items.
As you level up, rewards increase, and you get more Fractal Relic tokens. You exchange the tokens for items from a vendor. This is one way of getting Ascended items. FotM goes up to like level 50 or 60. Agony and difficulty keeps increasing with higher levels, but so do rewards.
-Finishing Your Personal Story :: Most people hit max level before finishing the personal story. I finished mine a month or so after I had hit max level. There's a new story quest every couple of levels.
Open World:
-World Bosses and Dragons :: A selection of world bosses and dragon meta events offer good rewards and large-scale open world pve content. Most of them are on timers, with some less timer-based and more pre-event based. Each of these bosses and dragons have pretty good rewards for downing them, and each offers a daily chest for completing their event. At this point, there's a large range of difficulty between them. At the most difficult, there's Tequatl the Sunless which requires like a 60-80 man organized raid on voicechat. Tequatl rewards a daily chest per 25% health dropped, and then the usual big monster chest drop at the end. Tequatl is the only world boss that can drop Ascended Weapons, as far as I know. Next hardest is Karka Queen, which requires some organization and four pre-events to be completed within a time frame to make her spawn. Our GAF guild does her about once a week. She gives two chests. After that, the meta bosses all have the same rewards with varying degrees of difficulty, Shadow Behemoth, the Shatterer, and Frozen Maw Shaman are very easy. Claw of Jormag, Fire Elemental, and the Giant Golem have wiped some bad players.
-Champion Runs :: Champion Bosses are a step below World Bosses, but can be more difficult. Every Champion drops a Champion loot bag which has a chance at rare exotic weapons, high tier crafting mats, and other goodies. There are often multiple Champions per zone. Places like Frostgorge Sound, Orr, and Queensdale tend to have Champion trains running. This is where a group of players bunch up, run around the map, finding and killing Champions over and over. Sort of fun, but can get tiring. Good money maker.
-Invasions :: These are new and result of the Living Story. They are a lot like Rift's Rift portal invasions. Basically, a message pops up on everyone's screen saying "Scarlet's Minions are invading ...." and then you can go to that zone and see it taken over by legions of invading forces. These invasions often have Champions, tons of mobs, tons of xp and loot. If you complete each invasion, then Scarlet shows up and you can fight her. If you down Scarlet, you get a chest. You also get a reward for participating and completing each phase of the invasion. Most often these days, the Invasions aren't completed, so the end rewards are less than if you down Scarlet.
-Temple Runs :: These are somewhere between meta events and boss events. In Orr, there are several Temples belonging to the old Human Gods. To open a temple, and gain access to the Temple's special vendor, you have to complete a meta event for the temple and down a final boss. Temples like Balthazar, Grenth, and Lyssa are actually harder events than many of the world bosses. If you want temple vendor gear or Obsidian Shards, these are pretty important.
-World Completion :: Exploration in general is a big part of GW2. The game monitors a checklist of things to discover and do for each map. If you 100% a checklist for a map, then you get a map completion rewards with a ton of crafting mats, some gear and gold. If you 100% the whole world, then you get a special title, a star next to your name, and an item required in order to make Legendary items. I am still only at 91% world completion, but I haven't focused that hard on it. Some people do and got 100% in the first month of the game's release.
-Crafting :: Ascended and Legendary items - Crafting gives you XP and is required for making the most powerful weapons in the game. It's only a 5-10% increase in stats for some weapons, but a lot of people making getting a Legendary Weapon their main goal at endgame.
-Guild Missions :: These are special events you unlock through leveling up your Guild. Guild Missions are broken into several categories. These are Bounty Hunts, Guild Puzzles, Guild Rushes, Guild Treks, and Guild Challenges. Bounty Hunts pop up a selection of NPCs out in the world, with a general clue to their location, and the guild must hunt down each name on their bounty list. These are little open world boss fights with different mechanics for each bounty NPC. Guild Puzzles are open world mini-dungeons/jumping puzzles that your guild unlocks. These are the best part of Guild Missions and also feature some of the prettiest sights in the game. Each puzzle has a different set of challenges, such as jumping puzzles, simple mix and match puzzles, and a large labyrinth. Guld Rushes are little races you try to finish as a guild. All of these races transform you into some sort of creature and send you off on an obstacle course around some part of the open world. The spider one is the best one. The Karka one is actually hard. Guild Treks give you a list of locations with clues to their whereabouts in their name. Your guild sets out to find each location and touch a special marker to mark your discovery. Guild Challenges are group events designed around 10 or more people. Sometimes its a multi-person escort, or a protect this area mission with multiple enemies coming from all directions.
All Guild Missions have pretty damn good rewards and can earn you Ascended Trinkets.
-Jumping Puzzles :: The world is filled with fun little jumping puzzles that aren't always easy to notice. Completing these gets you a reward chest. These are done mostly for fun.
-Mini-Dungeons :: Often one and the same with a jumping puzzle. These are open world mini-dungeons that sometimes must be unlocked to open. Some examples are the Font of Rhand, which must have its pre-events done so that the portal opens up. Another is a secret Hylek lair that you open up by picking up rocks and throwing them at a gong. The gong summons the guards, which opens the door. Completing these leads to a chest.
-Exploration in General :: The strongest aspects of GW2 are its combat and its world design. Beyond the Mini-Dungeons and Jumping Puzzles, the Hearts, and the world completion, there's still a ton to discover. Areas are hidden away, and there's rare events that players often don't know exist in the game. Last month, I finally finished both organ puzzles. There's two Organs hidden in the world, and playing the GW2 theme on them unlocks a treasure chest. Just a cool little thing about the world.
PVP STUFF
-Hot Join PVP :: This sucks honestly
-Structured Team PVP :: Much better than Hot Join, but still limited in game modes. I hope they offer Capture the Flag, Death Match, and a real GvG style mode in the future.
-World v World V World :: Massive battles between three servers over four large maps. Right now, this is what keeps me logging in. I've done just about everything else except a few dungeon paths and 100% world completion. WvWvW and the Living Story get me to keep logging in. Well that and the GAF Guild being one of the better MMO guilds I've had. (Honestly, once things go to Community side on GAF, they stop being shitholes.)
WuvWuv is four maps filled with supply camps, towers, and keeps. You take supply camps to gather supply and then use the supply to build siege weapons and repair walls and gates. The objective is to capture and hold most of the map's camps, towers, and keeps.
World V World has its own progression system where you level up in rank. I am rank 150 right now, making me a Bronze Invader. Other players on your server don't see your rank, but the hostile players on the other servers do see your rank. Often, people with lower ranks will scamper off from me. I imagine they just see the rank and assume it's an ass whooping coming. It's really just a statement towards time investment though. Some players are like rank 600 something. I have max guard leech and guard attack, and have leveled up some of my siege skills. Basically, by doing all the things in WvWvW, you earn World XP. You then level up in rank, and each time you rank up, you get an ability point to spend in a various selection of abilities only relevant to World V World V World. Most of these abilities revolve around supply and siege weapons.
This and the Tequatl boss fight are the two things closest to raiding in GW2. I have and sometimes use a Commander tag. This is a tag that I can flip on and it makes my presence on any map visible to others on my server. This allows people to follow me and basically know where to go. I use it in PVE for Tequatl, World Invasions, and Guild Missions. It's main purpose is for WvWvW, where large groups of upwards of 60+ people follow a commander around a map and (hopefully) listen to their instructions on voice chat.
The large scale fights are intense and require team builds that include tanky beefy frontlines, support players, DPS, and utility + tricks. Utility and Tricks is where I come in as a Mesmer. However, I have also designed builds for being a commander and being at the frontline. I currently run a build that's tanky while effecient, making me able to Command and also solo roam around the map, taking out sentries, supply yaks and supply camps.
WuvWuv has also got me a cult following. I can't really explain this one. I first commanded in WvWvW when the other commanders tricked me into it. They were drunk, and just started following me around the map while I was doing havok. I asked, "is my commander tag bugged?" and they all said yes. I trusted them because these are the guys I normally run with. Like, people on my in-game friends list. SO they trick me into turning my commander tag on and the next thing I know I have 60 people following me. I then proceed to just drive the giant zerg and kill the other servers over and over for fun. After this, they all got obsessed with me. It was just the one guild at first, but now its the entire WvWvW server population. If I talk in Map Chat, chances are I get sudden reactions from players I don't really know.
(http://i2.minus.com/itYOvUQJJ4gW7.png)
That's the sort of reaction I get. I still don't understand it. I posted on the official forums with my character name in my signature. I then had a couple people immediately post ZED ZEBES ZED ZED afterwards, and then they got their posts infracted and deleted for being off-topic. So I dropped my signature. It's silly, but harmless.
Living World
-Every two weeks, there's a new living story content update. These updates range in type of content from all over. This month has been Halloween update, World v World League Season 1 (part of why I am playing and commanding more so we can win silver league), and Tower of Madness. Next week is the fourth bit of content from the Living World this month, where players can finally enter the Tower of Madness. I have no idea what it's really like inside, because ANet is overly secretive. But we'll see.
Anyways, Living Story updates get people together doing whatever its about. Each Living Story update has its own meta achievement, and completing these leads to some sort of reward. This leads to achievement hunting. Achievements are their own endgame in GW2. Your achievement score actually adds up to rewards. As you gain in achievement score, you unlock account wide XP, Gold, Karma, and Magic Find bonuses. You also get gold, laurels, and even Gems as rewards. I've earned about 1200 gems off of my Achievemnt score, which is equal to about $15 worth of gem purchases.
Dailies and Monthlies
-This is less a separate thing and more just a reward system for doing all the things in game. Instead of daily quests, GW2 has daily achievements. These are a list of around 12 achievements each day and about 8 each month. You only need to do five for the daily and four for the monthly. Completing these gets you Achievement Points and a daily/monthly reward.
You realize this is the classic dead period of the expansion cycle for WoW right?
can we start a new thread that has a no GW2 content policy
every time I click this thread it's just etoilet shilling for his furry midget sim