Monthly Archives: March 2012

Heroes of Newerth: The 100th Hero is Here!

Heroes of Newerth: The 100th Hero is Here!

By Mohammad Abubakr, OnRPG Journalist

 

 

Last week Heroes of Newerth released its 100th hero, Kinesis! After reading over the hero preview I was very excited to try out Kinesis because of his unique skill set. I really love how S2 is not afraid to implement new game mechanics. Playing with heroes that only offer stun and damage abilities can make the game quite bland.

 

 

Kinesis is an intelligence hero that relies on the manipulation of nearby objects and minions. He is able to lift and throw these objects from afar. This is because Kinesis has learned to control the energy which flows through everything in the universe. Just imagine a Jedi lifting objects in Newerth.

 

 

Kinesis’ abilities


His first ability Stasis Smash allows Kinesis to lift an ally or enemy and stun them. While they are floating in the air they take 50% damage but upon landing they will stun nearby enemies in a small area.

 

 

I mostly use this skill offensively but it can also be used defensively. Since the floating target takes less damage it can be used to save yourself or a teammate in situations where stunning the enemy would not do so. However, the ally targeting can be annoying at times. Just like Behemoth’s fissure ability, if it is used incorrectly it can cause the enemies to get away.

 

 

Telekinetic Control is his second ability and allows Kinesis to lift nearby objects and creeps. It utilizes a charge system with increasing maximum charges depending on the level of the ability. At max level you are able to lift up to four objects.

 

 

Telekinetic Control can help control the lane. Simply lift creeps to change the lane’s position.


This abilities’ second part allows Kinesis to throw these objects at an enemy to inflict damage and add a slow effect. All of the lifted objects are thrown at once so it is wise to lift up the maximum number of objects before throwing them. Each cost does not take up a lot of mana so it is recommended to use this ability to harass, but if you are constantly lifting four objects the mana costs can add up.

 

 

His third ability, Inherent Defense, is a passive shield that charges up based on the amount of magic damage dealt. No explanation is needed for this ability as it is quite simple; it helps you stay alive.

 

 

I was a little bit disappointed with his ultimate ability; Mass Control. While the skill itself is creative and fun to use, it is almost identical to his second ability. The differences are that this ability lifts more objects in one use and does AoE damage when thrown. I was hoping for another unique ability to go alongside his unique skill set.

 

 

This ability works with Telekinetic Control and throws all objects lifted into the air. This means that you can lift up to 11 objects (seven with the ultimate and four with his W ability) and throw them all at once for massive burst damage. Support heroes will hate you for this combo.

 

 

While playing Kinesis, my skill build for the first six levels is as follows: W,Q,W,Q,W,R. Afterwards you want to get one level in your E ability after maxing W. For the rest of the game your skill priority should be as follows: R > Q > E. Stasis Smash can also be leveled at level one if you feel you will need it early on.

 

 

The EA exclusive avatar looks great!


As with most heroes in HoN, items depend a lot on the matchup. However, I start almost every game with 3 runes, a potion, two minor totems and two Mark of the Novices. This setup gives me some extra stats early on which makes last hitting a lot easier. The Mark of the Novices can also be turned into a grave locket later on for additional stats for a very cheap price.

 

 

On Kinesis I find myself going Steamboots every game. After learning about the stat swapping trick I have come to love Steamboots. The stat swapping trick is simply changing the Steamboots’ stats to a stat which favors your current position.

 

 

If you are going to be nuking a lane or enemy, swap to Intelligence before doing so to have more mana. Strength is used when you want to survive longer and agility can be used to farm on agility heroes.

 

 

The only thing to keep in mind for tread swapping is that swapping to a stat such as intelligence or strength will not speed up your regeneration. Surely the amount regenerated each second will rise but when you switch back to another stat, the MP and HP values get changed depending on their percentage. What this means is that even if you switch to strength to gain more health, the current 1000 health you have will just change to 900 health when switching to intelligence or agility.

 

 

For your core items you should look to build a Tablet of Command and a Nullstone. The Tablet is not too expensive but provides a lot of utility. You can easily catch up to enemies or save yourself. Just do not forget to use its active!

 

 

Most of the time the Tablet is purchased before the Nullstone but if you are getting good farm the Nullstone’s regeneration can help a lot during the laning phase. The health regeneration allows you to stay in your lane for a long time while the mana regeneration gives you the ability to spam your spells. There are some games where the Nullstone is not the best choice but more often than not it will be a core item. Optionally you can pick up the health tube early on for laning power and then continue to build the Tablet of Command.

 

 

I have seen Kinesis players build Spellshards to add to their damage but I am not a big fan of the item. I really love items that have active effects to provide utility and items that provide many stats. After your core items, items such as Sheepstick, Frostfield Plate and Shrunken Head are wise options. Since caster’s abilities do not scale in the late game, building items to help your team are the best options. I can only see myself building Spellshards if I am ahead of my opponents. Adding to your damage early on while the enemy is behind can make it very difficult for the enemy to catch up.

 

 

During the laning phase you want to be using your W ability a lot to harass your opponents. Do not focus too much on harassing as you will need to farm up some items. In team fights having a large mana pool is essential to landing kills.

 

 

During team fights, stun the enemy carry and focus on killing their squishiest hero first. To do so cast your ultimate and W abilities to lift up a maximum number of objects. Launching them all at once should almost always guarantee a kill on the support character. With the Nullstone and Frostfield Plate alongside your passive shield you should be able to absorb a lot of damage but do not get too greedy. Always keep moving around locating more objects to pick up and toss. Since trees can be lifted you need to stay near them.

 

 

To conclude, I highly recommend checking out Kinesis. He is very fun to play because of his unique skill set. His ultimate is a bit disappointing because of its similarity to his W ability but I believe S2 did a great job designing this hero. Looking forward to more unique heroes!

GDC 2012 Day 2: World of Warplanes

GDC 2012 Day 2: World of Warplanes

By Darren Henderson (DizzyPW), OnRPG Editor-in-Chief

 

 

 

I had high expectations dragging myself out of bed on March 8th as I was finally going to have time to step onto the main showroom floor of the convention! And I have to say for a convention dedicated mostly to talent recruitment, some of the companies at the show spared no expense to outshine the competition. Wargaming of course spared no expense (at their after party or at their booth) to prove that close to a year after the launch of their flagship title, World of Tanks, they were now one of the top dogs in the industry.

 

 

PR Manager Arthur Pratapopau led me through their wonderland of WWII props and explosion sound effects to a private room where I was grilled on all the wonderful details of World of Warplanes as well as my first look at actual alpha gameplay. One of their team members was actually playing the game on the test server in front of me and it looked beautiful yet intense. The maps seemed designed to be just the right size where you’d rarely feel you were alone on the battlefield and yet still large enough for sprawling dog fights and epic dodges to occur.

 

 

A Philosophy of Fun

They made it very clear that their design philosophy for the game favored fun to play as a higher weighted factor than capturing real world physics. In addition they would stick to their policy in World of Tanks and allow planes of different nationalities to be able to compete on the same teams. This made perfect sense as I bit my lip watching daring maneuvers where jets would skim through narrow valleys a mere 20 meters off the ground to lose the boggies on their tail.

 

 

Of course this philosphy carries through all parts of the game as each match is set to be rapid fire 5-7 minute occurences in which both sides start in the air ready to do battle rather than dealing with a dull take-off and landing experience. Instead you will be in a race with your foes to either destroy all of their planes in the sky or take out their land based objective points to gain a point advantage for when time runs out. Of course when destroying planes you’ll have ground based defenses targeting you, and when destroying ground based targets you will have planes chasing you so the objective is really one and the same.

 

 

If you’ve been following our coverage you will already be familiar with the three types of planes available in-game. To summarize them basically you have speedy fighters specialized in dog fighting, slow fighters specialized in concentrated fire in front of them, and anti-ground bombers that are slow and tanky but deliver an exceptionally devastating blast to any ground targets they can get close enough to attack. The developers claimed that their testing so far has been too limited to establish an official meta of how many of each ship is ideal, but they claimed that different ratios are more valuable depending on the map objectives.

 

 

In terms of balancing each match, they do this based on player experience as well as tier of airship they are flying. Airships are broken down into ten tiers starting at basic World War I bi-planes and concluding with Korea War era generation 1 fighter jets. Ideally this elo system will prevent biplanes from having to dog fight with jet fighters because it’s just unfair no matter how you look at it.

 

 

Controls and Customization

I was assured that one of the founding principles that made World of Tanks a grand success was the accessibility of the game. World of Warplanes is trying to offer the same kind of complex simplicity that made WoT so easy to pick up but difficult to master. Your warplane is controlled with just the touch of your mouse along with 7 to 8 keyboard commands for special weapons and other tricks. Of course you can also expect joystick compatibility for that awesome dog fighting experience.

 

 

If you’ve played World of Tanks you will be familiar with the between mission routine of repairing your plane, spending points to buy new parts, and purchasing new more advanced planes as you gain experience. This part gets interesting though when we start talking about mixing together WoT with WoWP! Although not all features will be available during the summer beta, Wargaming is set on uniting WoT and WoWP together by the end of the year. This will mean that experience gained on your account will be spendable in either game! Now players will have to decide if they want to upgrade their tanks and planes together or specialize their efforts towards excelling in one or the other.

 

 

Clans and PvP

If you’re wondering why someone would choose to specialize, look no further than the combined clan war system. Currently territories on the world map are controlled and fought over by various tank clans. World of Warplanes intends to join the fray by allowing you to fight for your clan in both the sky and land! The future of clan wars will begin with an aerial dog fight rather than a tank brawl and the winning side with have NPC controlled air superiority that could impact the outcome of the tank battle that decides control of the territory.

 

 

I’m excited to see the clan dynamics involved as casual players will likely need to focus on one game or the other to be able to bring their A-game to clan wars while more hardcore players can split their earnings between both games to be able to support their clan by both air and land. Of course a little cash shopping could help, but Wargaming promises to not sell anything that you won’t be able to earn with playtime.

 

 

With over 100,000 potential players signing up to play beta on day 1 of sign-ups, I expect a bright future for the Wargaming franchise. World of Warplanes is set to be only the second in a trio of MMOs once they release World of Battleships. Clan warfare will then become even more complicated with all three game types joining together to decide the outcome of a battle. OnRPG will keep plugging away and try to get into an early beta test to bring you a closer look at how Warplanes handles itself later this year.

GDC 2012 Day 1: Fighters’ Club

GDC 2012 Day 1: Fighters’ Club

By Darren Henderson (DizzyPW), OnRPG Editor-in-Chief

 

 

Ever had one of those days where you were considering playing Elsword or Grand Chase but the graphics just turned you off? Or perhaps you miss the old beat-em-up arcade games from the 90s like Battletoads and Final Fight? Well Kill3rCombo seems to have seen this niche and published a game to fill it called Fighters’ Club! And this isn’t just a cheap nostalgia trip game but a well produced action fighter beautifully animated with cutscenes that look to be straight out of a graphic novel and unique boss battles.

Class Introduction

Currently they had three playable characters on display named Remy, Spike, and Jack. Jack is your typical tanky bruiser with a heavy emphasis on wrestling style holds and throws. He’s great for marching into a mob of foes and spinning his fists to level all of them at once. Remy is an agile fighter with a style akin to over the top kick boxing. She can’t absorb as much damage but is often fast enough to dodge any major strikes aimed at her. Her ability to dish out combos is also pretty astounding. Spike rounds out the crew by offering a mix of Remy’s speed with Jack’s survivability. He can dish out some noticeably consistent dps if a player knows when to grab and block his foes.

 

While the game may get its origins from the 90s, it isn’t a simple two button fighting game. As you level up you will acquire many unique abilities that are activated at the cost of your blue bar. You will also gain the ability to add skill points into these skills to power them up in various ways such as increased damage, range, reduced cooldowns and more. However you won’t be able to upgrade all of your skills so this adds to the customization between two players of the same class.

In addition, at level 15 players will be given the ability to evolve into a more advanced version of their class. For instance Jack can go Beast mode, unlocking numerous wrestling moves with impossible physics to give you some satisfying cement crushing finishing blows. To help players decide their fate, they are shown a quick in-game trailer of some of the new moves that will unlock with each class.

 

 

Gameplay and Missions

Currently KillerCombo has about 30 missions available for testing on their in-house servers. Each mission offers various difficulties that players can unlock, with normal mode being simple enough to solo and higher modes for group play or extreme challenges. In these missions you usually fight your way across a map taking on multiple varieties of foes, a couple minibosses, and then the ultimate boss at the end of the map. These bosses were pretty unique and each offered a special mechanic to challenge you in new ways. One particularly cool boss was a slutty biker chick that called her gang in to try to run you over during the fight. This forced players to quickly dodge not only her attacks but random bikers that flew across the map from different angles. These missions are broken up into 4 overworlds, helping tell the story of the fighters. I’m not quite sure what that story is but it seems to involve China, a beachside club town, and the headquarters of an evil corporation.

 

Players will be rated from the first moment they step into a new mission, with reward cards awaiting those who complete missions with the most speed and skill possible. These cards will of course include gear that can be put on to improve your stats as well as appearance. Pushing out huge combos and successfully blocking enemy attacks are the two best ways to reach this point but don’t think it is a simple task. Low and high blocks are considered in Fighters Club so keeping a close eye on your opponent’s tells and attack animations will be key to stopping incoming attacks. Some foes also use ranged projectiles forcing you to use gap closer skills to successfully get in range of them (or throw other melee range foes at them!). A nice added feature is the introduction of finishing moves that are as easy as performing a grab on standard foes but force you to whip out long button combos to pull them off against boss mobs.

 

 

PvP

Your player versus player needs will be played out in 1v1, 2v2, and 3v3 matches. Tons of arenas are available with interactable environments and weapons you can pick up to keep things interesting. A ranking system will be implemented at launch so that those seeking to climb the ladder can prove their greatness. They also promised spectator mode so you can watch your friends in action while waiting for matches to start. After watching a few matches and seeing the publishers in action, I realized just how skill dependent this game’s pvp is. My only gripe is that in a game named Fighters Club, there was no arena in the basement of a bar. Hopefully we’ll see this reference added in by launch.

 

If you’re ready to try out a new side scrolling action title that is more geared towards graphic novel animation style than manga, Fighters Club shouldn’t disappoint. Just be ready to wait a bit because the US beta won’t be arriving until Summer of 2012.

LOTRO Launches Shores of the Great River Update

The Lord of the Rings Online Launches Shores of the Great River

 

The Lord of the Rings Online

 

Turbine has launched Update 6: Shores of the Great River for The Lord of the Rings Online, setting forth the path for players to journey to Rohan later this year. This update introduces the following content:

 

 

The Great River Region

Travel along the shores of the mighty Anduin in the expansive new region coming in Update 6! The signs of war are all around you as Isengard and Barad-dûr put their dark plans into motion. Push back the Easterlings, dangerous brigands and an ancient enemy of Rohan, as they gather for an attack on Rohan and Lórien. Explore seven new areas along the upper Anduin including the green plains of Parth Celebrant where treacherous shades roam, unable to rest.

 

 

The Great River region is free to VIPs!

 

 

Epic Story

The latest chapter in LOTRO’s free Epic Story awaits! Travel to Lothlórien to seek Galadriel’s wisdom after experiencing troubling dreams. Investigate the grim tidings along the Great River but be prepared as the evidence may point to a foe more terrible than your darkest nightmares.

 

The Lord of the Rings Online

 

Soldier on Landscape

Get the helping hand you need with LOTRO’s new Soldier on Landscape! This new feature allows you to summon your faithful skirmish companion in the field. Customize your skirmish solider to help you tackle even the toughest challenges!

 


Instance Finder Update

You spoke, we listened, and now we’re making Instance Finder better than ever! Instance Finder will soon allow you to queue for the specific instances and skirmishes that you want to do. You can also choose to change loot rules and remove players with a fellowship vote. The rewards are being enhanced, too, granting additional XP for skirmish completion and scaling currency bonuses for when you queue for a larger range of instances.

E-Sports @ OnRPG: March 9th Report

E-Sports @ OnRPG: March 9th Report

By Umar Farooq (Kluey), OnRPG Journalist

 (Editor’s Note: This article was meant for release on Friday but delayed due to my GDC trip. Sorry for any outdated information or predictions)

 

 

IEM World Championships – Starcraft II

IEM Hanover is the IEM Final championship that includes the top players from each IEM event. The tournament boasts an 83,000 dollar prize pool with $35,000 going to the first player. Of course plenty of drama has stirred up to make things more interesting.

 

 

IdrA had voiced his concerns far better than anyone else in the tournament. According to Greg “IdrA” Fields, all the players were thrown into a youth hostel. I’ve never been in a youth hostel but the pictures looked awfully disturbing. Your bedroom, washroom and living room was all in the same room. The walls have white tiles and curtains have a bland look to them. Furthermore, IdrA announced that he had an entire jar of nutella for breakfast from IEM. Although I am not sure if he is being sassy, if this is true, that’s disgusting. Not only because nutella isn’t even made to be eaten like that but also because IEM isn’t poor. If a $500 prize pool tournament had done this, that’s acceptable. That tournament literally cannot afford a proper breakfast but IEM, without a doubt, can afford it and why they chose to do this is beyond me. Although they did release an official statement, I saw it as an excuse. When MLG makes a mistake, Sundance apologizes and makes up for it regardless of who’s at fault. I’d like to see IEM do this and become a lot more honest to the fans.

 

 

oGsSuperNoVa in his youth hostel provided by IEM.

 

 

While we’re on the topic of IdrA, his tournament results were inadequate. He went 1-4 in his group, taking last place. IdrA is known as a top North American player and this isn’t acceptable. I honestly don’t think he showed his full skill. I think that the entire hostel, breakfast and tournament environment screwed him over. If IdrA has one weakness, that’s it.

 

 

Alternatively, Feast did awesome. He placed first in his group, over two Koreans with one of them being SuperNova. Feast recently had some mentoring deal with Grubby and it seems to be paying off. He wasn’t nervous; he was professional and played his best.

 

Feast owning it up at IEM Hanover.

 

 

GSL Code S Finals

People don’t realise how epic these games were. Genius made some sick decisions and had some poor mistakes that no one would make. He forgot warp gate for a few minutes on the Antiga Shipyard set and got overlord dropped on the Entombed Valley which was the ultimate hard counter to the stargate play. I don’t usually have criticism for GSL but, they totally screwed over MLG. MLG players had Code A on the day they came back and DRG had minimal time to prepare for the finals. GSL has done this before and it seems like the Korean E-Sports are very business orientated. Most tournaments will do things that are for the better of E-Sports rather than only themselves. GSL seems to put their tournament on the spotlight and every other tournament in the dump. They have given out Code A spots because foreigner competition in the GSL brings in the viewers. GSL took away the Code S seed from Naniwa even though MLG had been told that Naniwa would receive it.

 

 

IEM World Championships – League of Legends

To be quite honest, League of Legends hasn’t had an IdrA-upset or Feast-beast mode. All the teams that were expected to go through to the playoffs had made it. I guess Solomid not making it is a disappointment though. They have a gaming house and all the players are really talented. I’m not sure what went wrong this tournament for Solomid.

 

 

Phreak and Demon casting some League of Legends.

 

 

As for predictions, I think it will be either CLG or M5 vs. Dignitas in the finals. My heart says CLG but brain says M5.

Meta’s Verse: Matt “Positron” Interview

Meta’s Verse: Interview with Matt “Positron” Miller

 

 

A heroes work is never done. This week marked the launch of City of Heroes Issue 22, Death Incarnate. With all the features and changes that come with a new issue, and all the earth shaking changes from the death of Statesman, will Positron and the Freedom Phalanx be up to these new challenges? I sat down with the man behind the mask to find out the answer to this question and many more.

 

 

OnRPG: Issue 22 has been in beta a long time now. Has this brought about new difficulties with keeping things a mystery until it goes live?

 

Positron: You may be shocked, but surprisingly few players actually participate or pay attention to betas. Even with the amount of time Issue 22 has been in testing, we’re pretty sure that most of our community still has a lot of surprises in store for them. We like long betas because not only does it allow us a good amount of time to squash bugs, but we also get some time to act on feedback about the various features that our players give us.

 

 

OnRPG: With 56 zones spread out across Paragon City, the Rogue Isles and Praetoria, why was Dark Astoria picked as the zone to get revamped for incarnates?

 

Positron: It was a very underutilized zone that was much beloved by our veteran players. It had an air of mythology about it, and really fit the theme of what kind of threats Incarnates will be facing on Primal Earth, since up to this point the Incarnate powers and trials have been entirely Praetorian focused.

 

 

OnRPG: Adamastor is quite tall, how did he manage to get past all those new people in Dark Astoria and get into Talos?

 

Positron: He must have purchased the new Panther Stealth transformation power and used that to sneak into Talos. Seriously though, we know a lot of players would be up-in-arms if that giant monster (and the badge associated with him) was now relegated to level 50 content, so we came up with the idea of being able to summon him on command just outside the zone so he remains more level appropriate to his original incarnation.

 

 

OnRPG: With Dark Astoria getting love now, and Atlas and Mercy getting their facelifts with Freedom, what other revamps or tech like Phasing have you planned to breathe more life into the city of Paragon itself?

 

Positron: We plans to redo a couple more Paragon City zones, but we first need to “finish the fight” in Praetoria. Phasing is a tech we love, but we need to use sparingly because while it’s excellent tech to tell stories with, it’s actually pretty terrible in promoting the social aspect that MMO’s thrive on.

 

OnRPG: Diabolique is a Praetorian, what is she doing in Dark Astoria? What does she think of the budding relationship between her primal, Numina and Positron? To that end, what do you think of the relationship?

 

Positron: We’re still telling the story of Praetoria until Emperor Cole, aka Tyrant, is defeated. So even in a Primal zone like Dark Astoria there is still going to be some Praetorian influence in the story. She has plans that involve Mot, the god worshipped by the Banished Pantheon, and the Incarnate trial revolves around that plan and how you stop it. The end of that trial is actually a huge realization of how you can eventually take down Tyrant.

 

As for Numina and Positron, that started out as a piece of web-fiction I wrote when we had plans to introduce a new armor model for Positron (plans which we have since abandoned). Many of the team liked the idea of the pairing that they started slipping hints of it into content in the game, and then I wrote more of it into another web piece for the 7th Anniversary event that did see publication, and it’s now part of the official story in-game.

 

 

OnRPG: Being in charge of new systems and with the zone revamps and new trials that each issue brings, how challenging do you find creating new challenges for the players?

 

Positron: Making challenges is easy, making challenges that don’t infuriate our players? That’s the trick. We want players to go “yeah! We beat that!” but we don’t want that experience to come at the expense of hours and hours of frustrating failures because of some random element that was beyond their control. Everything we do we try to put a counter into the hands of the players. The Keyes Island Incarnate Trial is a great example of this; there are several mechanics that are meant to be difficult and they can be insurmountable if you ignore them, but none of them are based on pure randomness.

 

 

OnRPG: The cat is out of the bag about the cats, wolves, hawks, bees and dire wolves. Will we get to embrace our feral side during issue 22?

 

Positron: Beast Mastery is a power set that will be released soon after Issue 22 launches. This is a Mastermind set that greatly utilizes our “four legged rig” that we developed alongside of Freedom. As you mentioned there are wolves, lions, and dire wolves as your summonable pets, as well as other fauna used in many of the attacks. It’s something we’ve wanted to do ever since Mastermind was conceived as an Archetype, and I am happy we finally got to see it done.

 

 

OnRPG: Darkness in City of Heroes has always been about skulls and tentacles. Why has Darkness Control gone away from that look to the new sleek look? Are there any plans to make customizations for either Darkness Control or the older dark sets to give them a more unified look?

 

Positron: We really wanted to update and give Darkness Control a unique look, to make it more special. We do not have any plans to update the older sets, but we’re always listening to feedback.

 

 

OnRPG: How many martial arts movies did you and the animators get to watch in the name of research for Staff Fighting?

 

Positron: Tons, along with many YouTube videos of authentic staff maneuvers from various martial arts. We took many of those and translated them into the game. I did want some moves based on “Star Wars kid” but was overruled (and rightly so).

 

 

OnRPG: The changes to Stalkers and Gravity control seem to have come out of nowhere. What inspired these changes to be made?


Positron: A combination of Community feedback and People championing those changes in the office, generally. I know that the players have long had issues with these two items, Stalkers vs. Scrappers/Brutes and Gravity Control. Some people in the office made some great proposals on what can be done to better these, but even then it wasn’t overnight. I think the Stalker changes had to wait several months because we just didn’t have the bandwidth to do the changes needed AND launch Freedom with all it came with.

 

 

OnRPG: Through doing tip missions we find out that Frostfire has started the rise from being a villain. Will there be more story advancement like this in the future?

 

Positron: We love playing with existing characters in new and exciting ways. We are always combating the problem of “game time vs. character time”. We try our best to make sure that a character levelling up through the game gets to see a constant progression of stories and characters, but sometimes certain things are so significant and universal that it transcends this. Things like the “death of Statesman” happened across the entire game.

 

 

OnRPG: There are several MMOs with a feature similar to the team up teleporter that offer extra incentives for using the feature. Will we see anything like that in City of Heroes?

 

Positron: I think those incentives come because the system is not being used (or used in a way that is what the designers want). For us we added the Warmth of Prometheus buff for doing Incarnate Trails with a random group, to compensate for the lack of coordination your League might have.

 

 

OnRPG: Will player efforts in the Drowning in Blood trial be reflected in the Bloody Bay zone? Do you have any hopes that it will make Bloody Bay more popular?


Positron: We did the story of Drowning in Blood because there was the unanswered question of “why are these Shivans different than the ones we know from Bloody Bay?” Bloody Bay will remain as it is to give some grounding for the story of Drowning in Blood to make sense.

 

 

OnRPG: The player summit is coming up and with it are plans to hear ideas from the players about zone revamps and costumes. If you could pick a zone you’d like to revamp which would it be? And if you could design any costume set what would you like to see in the game?

 

Positron: If I were to revamp any zone I’d probably do Kings Row. Right now the level progression once you get out of Atlas Park is a bit too jarring for my taste, as Kings Row has dramatically older content than the new Atlas Park shows off.

 

If I were to get any costume set it would be a Japanese anime-style mecha suit, that sort of angled, venty, armor that was big in the 1980’s and 90’s.

 

OnRPG: At the last player summit you got a lovely haircut done by a player. Have you been growing out your hair for round two?

 

Positron: If you remember, I was supposed to cut HIS hair, but he happened not to have any. We came up with the idea of him cutting mine as a contingency. Fortunately we don’t have any insane contests like that for the next player summit (but we still have the FlowBee here in the office).

 

 

OnRPG: Finally, is there anything you’d like to say about Issue 22 that you just can’t keep contained anymore?

 

The issue itself is pretty well summarized (as well as having been on beta for a while), but I do know about an upcoming item on the Paragon Market that will summon a flying transport to take you and your assembled team straight to your mission door that we call the “Team Transporter”.

 

 

OnRPG: I’m looking forward to playing with this new issue and all the new features we’re going to be expecting in the future. A big thank you to Matt “Positron” Miller for taking the time to chat with me. And an even bigger thank you to the entire dev team for making Issue 22. I’d also like to congratulate Melissa “War Witch” Bianco on being promoted to Lead Producer.

 

Don’t forget Double XP weekend is coming up March 16th to 19th!

 

 
The Spring Player Summit is coming up on April 28th. Tickets are on sale already so get them while you can!

 

And last but not least the Weekly Strike Target is: Terra Volta (44-50) and Tree of Thorns (44-50).

 

I hope you all enjoyed the interview and come back again next week when I sit down with the one and only Samuraiko to talk all things video.

GDC 2012 Day 1: TERA

GDC 2012 Day 1: TERA

By Darren Henderson (DizzyPW), OnRPG Editor-in-Chief

 

 

 

En Masse, the classy folks that they are, had a private room at the back of the show room floor so we could enjoy their demo in peace. And what a demo they had in store for us. I never tire of laughing at the people that have only played through the first 15 or so levels of TERA and complain that the game is too easy. Any of the press that have experienced the end-game dungeons at E3, PAX Prime, Gamescom, or GDC know what a laugh it is calling this game easy. But before I get on to talk about the Temple of Temerity, let’s discuss some of the fun changes being made in the game in preparation for launch!

 

 

First up is this weekend’s patch that I missed while covering the show! At long last we have red names on the PvP servers! But even more exciting is that the red names only mark people as having killed players 6 or more levels lower than them and has no intrinsic penalty on their stats or death penalty. Therefore this is merely a way of marking the troublemakers like myself to the rest of the community so that they can deal with us how they see fit (or die trying).

 

 

En Masse, Frogster, and Bluehole have all been putting a major effort into giving the community what they want and the overall gaming experience is getting better as a result. They’ve added rest experience, achievements with matching titles, and an improved broker system to help players sell their goods to a larger audience. A lot of new quests have been added as well and soon we’ll be seeing reputation quests that allow players to build up respect with 6 different forces, resulting in unique force based rewards. They also spoke of breaking the currency down into gold, silver, and bronze as it can be a bit overwhelming considering how much money you have when all you see is millions of gold in your inventory.

 

 

The level curve has also been adjusted to never make players feel like the game is too grindy. One this note they also added a major bonus to party questing so that you will have incentive to do the unthinkable and team up with your fellow gamers. It sounds like the LFG system is on the way as well, which is a mixed blessing in my opinion. I don’t like the thought of my enemies sitting in town queuing for dungeons but with how busy my life is I’m sure I’ll be thankful when my time comes to get a quick group together.

 

 

One of the really cool reveals that I hadn’t heard about prior to GDC was the Nexus public event system. Essentially it works in the same way as RIFT’s system in which random Argon dimensional portals will open up and players will need to rush to repel the invaders out of Arborea. How this will play out is 3 increasingly difficult waves of Argons will spill out of the portal destroying all in their path. Each progressive wave will hit harder, move faster, and have larger health pools than the last. Don’t expect this to be a casual event either as they were talking about hour long gauntlets to close the portal for good. Special reward items only available from Nexus events will be available for players who succeed in trashing the Argons.

 

 

One point of interest Chris Hager mentioned they are working on is improving support for controllers. Currently the option is there but it’s definitely inferior to keyboard controls so hopefully they can pull off a better system with more testing.

 

 

En Masse was also concerned about the difficulty scaling of content since most end-game dungeons in Korea were designed with a level cap of 58 in mind. Since TERA will be launching with a level cap of 60, they are moving some of the dungeons placement in the storyline around and rebalancing them to still be plenty challenging for a party of level 60s. They are also moving and rebalancing some of the less challenging dungeons down to lower levels so that the path to level 60 still offers plenty of new content for players to experience on the way to the top. And for those who have quickly master end-game dungeons, they will be offering ‘hard mode’ with some of the most keyboard smashingly difficult dungeons you’ve ever seen in an MMO, along with rewards to match for those who manage to overcome them.

 

 

Temple of Temerity

The actual gameplay demo they had waiting for us at the event was a new dungeon balanced for level 60 players. The Temple of Temerity stands as a final test handed down by the Goddess Kaia for Arman wishing to prove their worth among their race. 5 players must team up to defend a crystal point for 20 minutes against a seemingly endless wave of hardy foes.

 

 

The key to victory isn’t just to distract the mobs away from the crystal but to also kill them as quickly as possible. Doing so unlocks special buffs and bonuses like instant revives and HP regeneration for the crystal you’re defending.

 

 

I thought we would have no difficulty going into this mission with our all-star line up of players including Producer Chris Hager (call him Chager) on the lancer, Associate Producer Stefan on the priest, Ben of Ten Ton Hammer and myself on Sorcerers, and a writer from G4TV on the Berserker. However the very first wave caught us with our pants down and our crystal was already down to 30% HP. This is when Chager mentioned that they had groups of press party wipe so early in this dungeon that they had enough time between meetings to try again. Game-face mode activated.

 

 

The first 10 minutes was pretty touch and go with Chager and our berserker both nose diving into the dirt. However the power of 2 level 60 Sorcerers focusing amassed groups was more than enough to keep us in the fight. The sorcerer class is surprisingly good at kiting at max level, with plenty of slow skills and dodge skills in addition to an aoe slow/dodge skill that I kept accidentally casting while running away, resulting in me rave diving right into the middle of a riot of pursuing monsters.

 

 

With 11 minutes left on the clock all hell broke lose as monsters from both entrances to the room swarmed us. Stefan was shouting orders and forcing us to group together for heals to keep things stable and our crystal once again was teetering on the verge of destruction. This is where I found just how important the two active buffs on the sorcerer are. One buffs your next attack by a large margin and the other massively boosts your attack speed. I would unleash a hail of ice with my charged attack active and then switch to the faster attack speed buff to focus down larger foes with a barrage of auto attacks and fast cast spells.

 

 

Just when we thought things were under control a new wave of monsters that looked like organic tanks (i.e. Urgot from League of Legends) appeared in our room. The clock counter hit 10 minutes left and Stefan ran to the side of the room to activate one of our traps. He hit the ‘oh shit’ button and a massive tremor shook the room, killing all monsters on screen. I never got a chance in the chaos to see what this button looked like but I’ll just assume it was a Super Mario Bros 3 POW block.

 

 

From then on the waves became more fierce but we had environmental traps at our disposal to deal with it. Activatable spike traps positioned at both entrances allowed us to snare and damage each wave as it entered the fray (making our jobs as sorcerers so much easier). Exploding barrels also popped up randomly that would 1 shot any nearby mobs when triggered. This made this rather challenging as improper use of the exploding barrels was game over for the crystal, so each aoe had to be well placed to not blow up our last lines of defense. Faster smaller monsters also began entering the fray at this time, quickly scuttling to our crystal so fast that we could hardly target them. It was up to our berserker to cut them down, and since he was dead most of the time, our crystal was feeling the pain.

 

 

At this time boss monsters began to spawn. Team CC coordination was vital to dealing with these behemoths and unfortunately, we were anything but coordinated. Every attempt to sleep the boss would fail within seconds as someone on the team would accidentally bump them to wake them up. We managed to get through one of them via the POW block but the second boss rampaged unchecked. With only 3 minutes left on the clock the two biggest waves yet made their way through both doors simultaneously. Chager and I took up position on one side with the other 3 at the other. Things were going smoothly for about a minute but then our berserker went down and Ben took too much agro to stand his ground safely. Chager was forced to charge to the other side to provide back-up and I was left to solo the impending wave of doom.

 

 

Despite our auto revives and valiant effort to slow and CC the mobs, there was simply too many and we were all out of our traps. With 1 minute and 29 seconds left on the clock, our crystal exploded and we failed the mission. We joined the ranks of 5 other groups of press to have failed this dungeon at GDC. Be sure to check out this trailer to give yourself a visual of the Temple of Temerity.

 

 

If you haven’t had a chance to try this game out despite my constant badgering then I don’t think you really like MMOs. But fear not because in two weeks OnRPG will have 50 keys ready for the fourth closed beta test on the North American servers. Your chances to try the game for free are dwindling so be sure to subscribe to our twitter or facebook to be in the loop when I start handing keys out! As for the rest of you already enjoying TERA, I’ll see you on North American Valley of the Titans server later tonight!