Executive Producer Jeremy Gaffney gives a rundown of dynamic events and player housing in WildStar.
PAX East 2013 WildStar Dev Preview
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Yearly Archives: 2013
PAX East 2013 – FireFall’s Rebirth and the Stage 5 Experiment
PAX East 2013 – FireFall’s Rebirth and the Stage 5 Experiment
By Darren Henderson (DizzyPW), OnRPG Editor-in-Chief
For anyone that’s followed Red 5 Studios from the beginning, you’ll know by now they are about as unorthodox of a company as it gets, at least in the online gaming industry. So when my team was invited to sit in on an hour long panel smack in the middle of PAX East, I figured they had something important to tell us. Heck they bought a pack of over 50 members of the gaming press lunch just to keep us in our seats till the end. It really made no sense to me, especially when they started off talking in great detail about their latest patch.
Now this isn’t to underestimate FireFall’s latest patch. It essentially broke down everything that we knew about the game and threw a whole new (and in the opinion of nearly all, much improved) version of FireFall at us. This includes a completely new progression system that offers a multitude of battleframe options, a rework of the current tier system, and a completely new crafting system that makes your character feel a lot more personalized than under the previous system’s ‘oh this is fun but now I’m done and not much different than everyone else’ set-up.
They’ve also made the new user experience much friendlier with The Accord Battle lab offering quick PvE tutorials on movement, combat, customization, weapons, and abilities. And with a game as unique as FireFall is, I’m sure it will be much appreciated by new players trying to get into the game.
But perhaps the most notable upgrade is the focus on the story of the game and incorporating the feeling that you are truly fighting a war of survival against The Chosen to hold onto what’s left of our world. The AI team must have put some serious overtime in on this patch as the enemy AI humanoid faction of FireFall now work together, specializing in various roles with various abilities, and bring the fight to you more as you would expect an organized PvP team would and less like the bunch of random predictable drones we experienced before.
The Chosen not only bring the fight to you harder than ever before, but now will seek to kick the sorry human scum out of various points of interest in the world, costing players buffs depending on the location and pulling back the melding (a wall that essentially acts as the boundary of the playable world) to restrict you from getting a chance to take the zone back for multiple hours. This change adds much more sense of meaning to FireFall’s PvE that has been lacking (badly I might add) in the game up till now.
In addition The Chosen will be unleashing suicidal new zombie units called Tortured Souls that the team at PAX promised would have further story behind them as the game progresses. Oh and watch your head as The Chosen are even now packing siege weaponry to make sure that carebears don’t just turtle inside their towns and wait for the Chosen to break on the city walls with little effort involved to fight them off. The new trailer says all of this so well that I would be amiss to not include it in this write-up.
Impressed yet? I certainly was. But what if all this crazy talk of MMOFPS gameplay doesn’t interest you in the slightest? I know our engineer is more of an RTS guy and was about to enter into a food coma at this part of the panel. But this was the part when everyone in the room got quite an awakening as Stage 5 was revealed.
Now what is this Stage 5? Has Red 5 Studios lost their minds and decided to get out of the game industry and into television? The answer is… sort of. Imagine a revival of TechTV before the slow gutting that G4 wrought upon the network. Now put it in the online realm where costs are much cheaper, contracts much less restricting, and Red 5 Studios has full reign to do as they please. This might not be a big deal to some people but as an ardent fan who couldn’t have remained sane through college with X-Play, I welcome the return of true gaming television.
And thankfully we can expect a wide range of gaming and gaming related television including a Game Changers which is set to take Myth Busters into the realm of video game science, a cosplay creation show, and plenty of focus on the indie scene where nearly all the creativity in today’s gaming realm seems to be coming from. Beyond that I’m rooting that we’ll see some eSports coverage, preferably with Morgan Romine involved as FireFall is an ideal candidate for some intense eSports action and who better to cover said action than a fiery red headed hardcore gaming girl?
But back in reality you have to wonder is this a viable direction for Red 5 Studios to head? Honestly it’s an idea I have been waiting to see spring up as the G4 has slowly given up on filling this niche in entertainment over the past few years. Yet it’s more of a project I expected to see a larger company set out to capture first, and in baby-steps, such as Trion’s current attempt at gaming television synergy with Defiance on SciFi. But the fact that they are going with an Internet only approach is why I’d hedge my bets on its success.
Why? Let’s face it, the Internet is a massive realm filling the gap in our day to day lives that used to be pure boredom. Look at how much money is being made on Youtube these days! Look at how many gaming related channels can survive and prosper simultaneously. The audience is obviously there. But while the volume is up there, there still remains a notable gap in quality between Internet entertainment and television entertainment, minus a few exceptions like Freddie Wong.
So there you have it! Even if Red 5 Studios isn’t exactly in the best situation right now to make this epic leap in focus, they realized the time is absolutely perfect to do so. And more power to them! I hope their channel helps usher in a new era of Kickstarter focused Indie developed games that trounce the Big Money strangling creativity in the online gaming realm. Because honestly I can only review the same old for so long before I become one of the soulless ‘jaded veterans’ in gaming press that I have been meeting more and more of as my career progresses. Long live Stage 5 TV!
Oh and one last note: Lee “Typhon” Reherman is sticking around as a host personality. Everything he does is magic so Game Breakers is in good hands.
Infinite Crisis Announcement Trailer
Get ready to battle MOBA style with DC character this coming fall in Infinite Crisis!
Uncharted Waters Online Gets Steam Powered
Uncharted Waters Online Gets Steam Powered
Netmarble opens a new port of call as Uncharted Waters Online, the strategic massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) for PC, becomes available on Steam. Interested players can register to play for free on Steam, where they now can chart their own nautical adventure on the high seas along with allies and competitors from Netmarble.
“The Uncharted Waters franchise has undergone major changes to adapt to the constantly evolving videogame landscape since its beginning in the early 1990s as a console game,” said Jon-Enée Merriex, producer, Netmarble. “The Steam launch opens the door to a passionate community of more than 40 million players and marks a new era for the beloved game. With the increasing number of free-to-play games on Steam, this is a great time for us to venture into new territory.”
To celebrate the launch of Uncharted Waters Online on Steam, Netmarble is releasing three item packages designed to help new and veteran sailors alike on their journeys. Additionally, the purchase of any pack will unlock an exclusive “STEAM Explorer” in-game title. Packages include:
Steam Booster Pack provides a 30 percent experience point boost and faster ship speed for seven days. Additionally, players won’t have to return to a port to revive sailors lost at sea with this pack.
Steam Premium Pack rewards players with 200 million ducats (the in-game currency) and provides a 50 percent experience point boost and faster ship speed for seven days. Players will also have a chance to win rare items, including ships.
Sea Adventure Pack endows a sailor with 300 million ducats and a 50 percent experience boost for 15 days. The pack also features exclusive items, including a custom Arabian Galley, dragon crest and admiral’s coat.
Infinite Crisis
Infinite Crisis is a MOBA based off of the world of DC Comics, though drawing in all the alternate universes as well. This means you can play as a variety of different versions of Batman, Wonder Woman, The Joker, and Green Lantern, to name a few. The action is fast-paced, giving players a unique set of skills for every character in the game. Infinite Crisis promises to be a MOBA worth looking out for.
Features
Instantly recognizable characters: Batman, The Flash, Superman, The Joker, Lex Luthor, and more. The world of DC Comics comes alive in this MOBA!
Unique skillsets: Even though there may be multiple versions of Batman, such as regular, Nightmare, or Gaslight, each plays completely different from each other, giving the game a huge depth.
Fast paced action: The defining feature of a MOBA is how it plays, and Infinite Crisis is no exception. Expect battles to be intense, fast, and in-your-face!
Destructible environments: Be a superhero and let nothing get in your way, or unleash your inner villain and destroy just because! Smash through obstacles and create your own paths through the many maps in the game.
Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft
From the makers of the hugely successful World of Warcraft. Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft is a TCG set in the world of Azeroth. Create a deck from a variety of cards, each based off of one of the nine original WoW classes. You can then test your prowess against other players, winning new cards in the process to increase your strength. The game features recognizable Blizzard characters such as Jaina Proudmoore, Garrosh Hellscream, and Anduin Wrynn, and you can utilize their might to conquer your foes.
Features
Rich background: With nine years of background in World of Warcraft alone, Hearthstone will have several familiar faces in the cards for players of World of Warcraft.
Simple design: The game is meant to be easy to get into. Choose from one of nine classes, and build your deck around that theme. Skillful use of your abilities will be key!
Tournaments and more: Competition is key in Hearthstone! Challenge yourself and your friends to see who can build the better deck, and can use it best!
Hundreds of cards: Variety is the spice of life, and with the amount of spells, abilities, characters, and equipment found in Hearthstone, there will always be something to do!
Tactical Intervention First Look
Tactical Intervention First Look
By John Shadle (Sephorus), OnRPG Journalist
Tactical Intervention is an upcoming free-to-play lobby-based first person shooter slated for publication in North America by OGPlanet. Featuring Terrorists versus Counter-Terrorists in a variety of scenarios from hostage rescues to VIP escorts to highway chases, TI draws a lot of parallels to the 1999 smash hit, Counter-Strike – and considering that CS’s co-creator, Minh “Gooseman” Le, is the creative mind behind Tactical Intervention, it’s no surprise why this is the case. With Counter-Strike being considered a cult classic, I figured that TI would be equally as great – if not better. Sadly, what I took away from my play time could be summarized as “great idea, poor execution”.
Tactical Intervention’s basic gameplay mechanics should be pretty easy to grasp for anyone who’s played an FPS title before – WASD to shoot, mouse to aim, left-click to fire. There’s some interesting things to leverage as well, like the ability to roll, lean and aim around corners, or blind fire from behind cover. Several maps also give you the ability to rappel down the exterior of a building, which is kind of nifty. There’s also movable and throwable gas tanks and fire extinguishers, which you can use as impromptu smoke screens or bombs. Frustratingly, though, the only way to learn about these features in-game is to either take a look through the keybinds or catch a few tips during the loading screen, as there’s nothing akin to a training room or practice mode. This also means (and meant, in my case) that the first few matches you play will probably equate to “try and figure out new and interesting mechanics and die before you get a handle on things”. It’s not exactly a deal-breaker of an issue, but it makes for a less-than-welcoming start to things.
Weapons and equipment are kind of a mixed bag in terms of overall feel. TI allows you to choose one primary weapon, one secondary weapon, and two grenade types, and you can have up to three configurations saved for swapping between matches. There are some extra bits of useful gear, like riot shields, breaching charges, and even trained attack dogs, so there’s no shortage of things to bring along for a firefight. The guns felt pretty powerful, if a bit inaccurate at times (more on this later!), and were pretty enjoyable to use overall. Grenades, on the other hand, were a different story – mainly because having them is contingent on how many requisition points you earned through matches. It’s not a bad way to slowly have things escalate as matches go on, but the kicker here is that earning enough points for a grenade would give it to you for a single round, meaning that it’s entirely possible to earn one for the next match, die before using it, and have it go to waste. Also, dogs and sniper rifles aren’t a guaranteed thing if you equip them, as teams are limited to two of each per round; given how vicious attack dogs can be, though, it’s not necessarily a bad thing – just odd at times.
The audible presentation, similarly, is a mixed bag. Weaponry, as mentioned earlier, felt powerful. Each gun I tried out sounded like it was going to hurt – a lot. Grenades, too, gave off a sizable oomph upon detonating, which was nice. The voice work, however, came across as horrendous and terribly overdone. Anyone who’d taken some pretty serious damage would spout wonderful one-liners like, “I’m bleeeediiing,” or, “I’m dyyyiiiiiing,” which sounded less like the cries of a man who’d just been shot several times and more like something you’d find lodged as a soundbite in Blatantly Stereotypical Emo Rock. Hostages would run around in fear (as, admittedly, they should) uttering, “JESUS CHRISE” – that’s not a typo, by the way – and would get rescued by your character beckoning them over and saying, “Hey, come here!” It gets the point across, sure, but always feels either incredibly flat or forced. The music is at least easy to classify – there isn’t any. This isn’t noteworthy during matches, where most people would rather be able to hear everything going on, and it may not even be a detraction for some people, but its absence made the lobby screens eerily silent and slightly boring.
Visibly, Tactical Intervention risks making me sound like a broken record, because it’s… kind of a mixed bag. The level design was pretty good – I wouldn’t call it stellar, but considering the overall download size and choice of engine, it’s quite impressive. Character models, however, felt a bit uninspired, as each team had a whopping one character model that felt overly generic, even though it got the point across. Animations felt a bit clunky as well, almost like there was an unnatural weight attached to each movement. It didn’t look inaccurate – people wouldn’t kick their legs out to the side while running, for example – but the timing of everything felt off somehow. It wasn’t a huge issue, but worth mentioning.
Finally, there’s the cash shop implementation. Different weapons and attachments, perks, and a variety of cosmetic gear can be bought – or rather, rented. Aside from your starter gear, which offers no ability to add attachments and has the lowest benefit in terms of strength, everything in the cash shop has to be contracted out for a period of your choosing and will expire unless you re-rent the item in question. Also making things somewhat awkward is that you don’t rent specific attachments – there are separate rental options for an M4 rifle, an M4 with flashlight, an M4 with flashlight and silencer, etc, so if you rent the basic option of a gun and decide you like it enough to want to trick it out a bit, you have to essentially rent a second version of a firearm you already have. Bringing things more into sketchy-practice territory is the fact that the cash shop weaponry is superior to the starter gear, even if only a little, and all of the rentable cosmetic items offer bonuses to things like run speed, listen radius (IE: how far away you can hear things), and heal strength for when you try to keep your fellow team mates from bleeding – I’m sorry, bleeeediiing.
There are a lot of other little nagging things that individually weren’t much to detract from the experience, but compounded to a pretty solid dislike of the game. Your weapon accuracy improved if you were close to your team mates, but you’d only know this if you caught the appropriate blurb during a loading screen or checked the incredibly brief ‘Game Tips’ section of the web site. Right-clicking gave you a basic melee smash with your weapon – unless your weapon had a scope, which makes it zoom in instead; this also meant that there wasn’t an iron-sights option for weaponry without scopes. The one available map with vehicles had no relevant tutorial and made driving pretty much required for victory, making newbies not just a liability for themselves, but the entire team.
Overall, I was pretty disappointed with Tactical Intervention, and I’m honestly a bit worried about its long-term success. While I feel the game would be a bit more accessible with some kind of a tutorial or primer on how Tactical Intervention differs from other shooters (no disrespect to the fans who stepped up here!), the rent-only cash shop and “paying for power” angle of the items is something that’s been done in other games and been a bit of a polarizing subject. I also can’t point to a feature that I feel is both done remarkably well and isn’t present in other titles, which makes standing apart from any other first-person shooter title that much more difficult – and gives me no reason to suggest TI over anything you may already be playing. What I can say is this – if you’re a fan of Counter-Strike, want to play an updated and slightly-expanded version, and can deal with a bit of a learning curve, then go ahead and leverage the free-to-play aspect to give it a spin for yourself. If these things don’t apply to you, though, then the best advice I can offer is this – if you’re looking for something new to play, look elsewhere.
Kartuga Closed Beta Successfully Kicked Off with 100,000 Registrations
Kartuga Closed Beta Successfully Kicked Off with 100,000 Registrations
InnoGames just released initial information on the closed beta of its 3D browser game, Kartuga. The publisher is positively overwhelmed by players’ reception to the game: More than 100,000 players have registered so far, willing to begin their career as fearless pirates. Now the team has summarized first impressions in a developer letter to the Community, saying “thank you” and publishing some numbers – Players have already spent more than 1.76 million minutes, or 3.3 years in the game, buying close to 30 million cannon balls – the subsequent PvE and PvP battles provided InnoGames and developer Ticking Bomb Games with invaluable data, allowing for first updates to improve the games overall stability, matchmaking and PvP.
“No level of internal testing can replace insights of players actually experiencing your game for the first time.” says Product Manager Florian Supa. “And we are proud of the players’ enthusiastic response to the unique formula that is Kartuga. Nonetheless, we got lots of player feedback on how to improve the game. The update we did last week aimed at a more stable experience and fairer PvP.” In the upcoming weeks, the team plans to implement an improved chat window as well as ranking, and rework balancing for PvP and overall progression in order to ensure long-term motivation.
Keys for the closed beta are given out by lotteries amongst all users who registered via www.kartuga.com, but players can also visit InnoGames’ Facebook page to grab keys to enter the game. The closed beta is in English, with several additional language versions to follow in the open beta.
PAX East 2013 Stinky Footboard PC Controller
The Stinky Footboard is set to raise your APM in a way never before imagined.
PAX East Day 3 Recap – Neverwinter, Guns of Icarus, Stinky Footboard, and More Cosplay!
PAX East Day 3 Recap – Neverwinter, Guns of Icarus, Stinky Footboard, and More Cosplay!
By Darren Henderson (DizzyPW), OnRPG Editor-in-Chief
Day three had finally arrived and Bowen and I (well mainly just me) could barely hobble out of the hotel after a long night partying with Bethesda and Perfect World Entertainment. James at least was still as chipper as ever, motivated most likely by the 20 degree Boston weather and the fact that he had just flown in from 90 degree weather in southern Texas. You’d probably have never seen someone power walk so fast from a taxi to the front door of the convention center while carrying 50 pounds of camera equipment.
By PAX East Day 3 even Ahri was running low on life essence
James took off and met with City of Steam yet again to film Gabriel showing off some high level gameplay to improve our upcoming MMOHuts Refresher. Unfortunately we can only imagine how this went at this point as Bowen and I spent an hour just trying to check bags in the maddening long bag check line.
When we finally caught up to James he was in an intense video interview with a member of Carbine Studios Wild Star team. Although we didn’t snag a lot of new info, it was great to see what we learned about in the demo earlier in the weekend actually playing out in real time on the live servers. We also got to see some of the Dominion gameplay instead of the Exile gameplay so be sure to keep an eye out for that video if you’re more interested in ruling the galaxy with an iron fist!
This Icarus has nothing to do with Guns of Icarus. Yet…
Next up we hit up our old friends at Muse Games to learn about their upcoming plans for a Guns of Icarus Adventure Mode. But for those who have never heard of Guns of Icarus, their new February trailer is a great quick crash course of what to expect.
Adventure Mode will take this game closer than ever before to achieving the feel of a fully-fledged open world MMORPG with factions and a huge world map to explore. Muse Games does an awesome job explaining it in their Kickstarter launch video and keep an eye out later this week as we talk to them about what makes Guns of Icarus such a unique title. And if you’re sold on the concept be sure to support them at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/musegames/guns-of-icarus-onlineadventure-mode.
Meanwhile our Team Doyle was helping do some good in the world by talking to the folks at Able Gamer about their charity to raise awareness of gamers with disabilities and promote new tools to level the playing field. Fun shouldn’t be restricted to only the enabled and you have to love what this charity is doing plus they also offer reviews of various titles to show how accessible they are for gamers with disabilities. You can learn more about them HERE.
And speaking of enabling gamers in new and unique ways, we spent some time over at the Stinky Footboard booth and have to say the game offers some great control options for the FPS they had on display. It’s essentially a PC Accessory that rests on the floor with buttons hidden underneath the panel that are activated when you press forward, back, left, or right with your foot. Combined with programmable functionality like Ctrl + Forward, it unlocks a wide range of new hotkeys that can make those not so easily reached keys a hindrance no longer. I’m personally rooting for their Kickstarter campaign as I’d love to test the game out on SMITE and League of Legends to see if it can up my MOBA skills.
And then things really went full circle when we met up with none other than OnRPG’s former admin Nilax, now a member of PWE’s European Neverwinter team, held a mini-reunion with me and Team Doyle, both of whom have been writing for OnRPG since long before my time at the site.
Grand Master Nilax Meets Young Bl0nde
MMOHuts and OnRPG United
We then split as James had a one on one interview with the head of Cryptic Studios and developer of Neverwinter, Jack Emmert, while I spoke to the Star Trek Online Community Manager, Brandon Felczer, on the upcoming Legacy of Romulus update.
We also threw professional cosplayer HaruVamp (cosplaying as the sexiest Tails Prower cosplayer we’ve ever seen) at Jack Emmert to see how he handles himself under impromptu pressure. You’ll have to stay tuned for the upcoming video to see how that all played out though!
It was finally time to finish off the show and catch our flight out of Boston before the terrible incoming blizzard trapped us. But I took a gamble and stuck around at the Riot Booth to get an interview with Associate Game Designer Riot FeralPony, best known for helping design such League of Legends champions as Fizz, Graves, Hecarim, Jayce, Rumble, as well as the Jax rework. Needless to say this guy knows how to make those champions that remain strong in just a unique enough way that you don’t see them nerfed until quite a while after their launch due to the challenge of learning to play them. He’s also a generally cool guy who will be explaining a bit about how the process of Champion Reworks is done, how various game modes and balancing decisions have expanded into a global operation, and if you ask nicely, we might even share his favorite restaurant in Santa Monica with you.
So ended our awesome PAX East convention. But so begins our extensive video coverage via Youtube! Be sure to subscribe to MMOHut’s channel to be the first to know about each of our upcoming videos as we’ll be working nearly around the clock to pump out the most solid coverage our tiny team can muster! Oh and as promised, more cosplay pics!
Mundo tired of DizzyPW phone pictures. Mundo call PAX Security
And that was my cue to leave!
Don’t forget to check out our Youtube MMOHuts Channel for your chance to win one of many PAX Kali skins!