Scarlet Blade Dev Blog – The Role of Lore in PvP

By PM_Tactics, Aeria Games Fantasy Lead

Hey commanders,

It’s time for another discussion about the most eyebrow-raising MMO around, Scarlet Blade! Since this game has such a strong PvP element and it’s one of the biggest draws, it’s hard to get away from talking about it. But we also wanted to take the opportunity to bring in another important part of the game: the lore.

They don’t often get enough credit, so we’d like to give our localization team huge props for creating a world of lore that is deep, epic, immersive, and not without a sly sense of humor. It only takes 10 minutes in Scarlet Blade to see how much their hard work has added to the game—you’ll be hooked the first hilarious time that your Arkana playfully bickers with you (her commander) on your initial quests. In this game over all others: don’t skip the quest text!

Now, getting back to PvP—it’s not hard to see how good lore can enhance the PvP scene as well. It’s far less interesting to kill people simply because they’re wearing different colors than it is to kill them because you’ve genuinely built up a true rivalry with their faction. In that regard, our localization team saved the day again with an entertaining backdrop for the warring Royal Guards and Free Knights.

Each group has clearly distinct goals and believes that they’re following the correct path. You’ll run into quests as you level out in the world where you’re getting sabotaged by the enemy faction or hunting them down for vengeance. All of these things are important for establishing the rivalry so that when you do engage in PvP, you have burning desire to see those bodies hit the dirt!

We also have open-world PvP zones that kick the lore up another notch, where there’s actually three forces present on the map: Free Knight, Royal Guard, and powerful NPC Nareks. These maps are sprawling and gorgeous, featuring scenery that can’t be found anywhere else in the game. But the NPCs present here add another dimension to the gameplay. The main goal is to take out huge bosses for outstanding loot, and battle the opposing faction for the kill. To us, this is the pinnacle of merging lore into PvP as you get to fight enemy players and the big bad guys of the game at the same time!

We sure hope you’re as excited as us! Closed Beta is just around the corner, so get those sword arms and trigger fingers ready! (And whips. Never forget the whips.)

If you’re looking for more free-to-play games, check out our catalog at Aeria Games!

WoW Wednesday – The Thunder King

By Meredith Watson, OnRPG’s Azeroth Reporter

Quite a while ago I made a little video and wrote a little something about 5.2, The Thunder King, when it was new on the PTR. Well, here we are. Launch day in the EU. Yesterday, saw 5.2 drop in the US and judging from Twitter and the official forum it seems to have gone fairly smoothly. The only good thing about getting patches a day after US is that we here in Europe get the patch without the hiccups.

For those of you living under a rock, 5.2 adds a new raid – Throne of Thunder, PvP changes, classes changes, dinosaurs and a multitude of other additions and changes.

There is also a new daily quest hub – Isle of Thunder. The other day, a guild member had stated they found some of the dailies rather hard. I replied that I rarely ever did dailies to which she replied “but you have to do dailies” as if it were written in stone somewhere.

So what does it all mean? Well, I guess that depends on how you play the game.  Since I don’t know how each and every one of you play the game I can only tell you what this new content means for me. I think that is fair.

I play several classes and I was pleased to see that Blizzard didn’t do a lot of tinkering with my favourite class – the hunter.  I play Marksman because I always have and I like it. I am very happy that the casting time of aimed shot has been reduced. Supposedly this was done to increase our damage output to keep on par with Beastmaster and Survival. Remember when marks were the dps spec? Silencing shot got a longer cooldown. While I do use this in PvE, it doesn’t matter that much to me but I suspect in PvP it would make more of a difference.

Some mages, it seems, have also gotten a bit of love this patch. I know of several people who play mages that feel the class has been “broken” for a while now. Frostbolt cast by Mirror Images now does 50% more damage and greater invisibility has had the cooldown reduced along with some other changes. Arcane mages got hit hard though with almost all of their most used spells having damage reduced. Whether this will be game changing remains to be seen. No doubt the number crunchers will have their verdicts out soon. Luckily, my affliction warlock won’t see many class changes. Other classes aren’t so lucky. Some priest healing spells have been reduced. Weren’t priests meant to be the healing class? At least they were in vanilla. Somewhere it all went horribly wrong. Warriors have been nerfed a bit while shaman, Blizzard’s pet class, have yet again been slightly buffed.

It is a good time to be a warlock actually. Warlocks now get a nifty new quest line culminating in their own scenario. This solo adventure is to change the colour of warlock fire spells from the normal fire colour to fel green. Now, I wonder, does this apply to the dreadsteed as well?

There are a couple changes that have me especially happy. The first is the changes to transmogrification. Two-handed axes, maces and swords can now be used together as can one handed axes, maces and swords and staves and polearms. This is really great for a unique look. The second change that affects me directly is the change to low level battlegrounds. All combatants will now have their effective level raised to the cap of the bracket for that battleground.  The official notes state, “Player’s base stats and spells are scaled accordingly, and are treated as the same level when determining hits, misses, and critical effect chance.”

If you are fan of the pet battle system in World of Warcraft you will be pleased about all the changes and additions in 5.2. There are several buffs to different pets and a couple nerfs but nothing too major. However, the most exciting bit is the addition of the new elite battle pets. The Beast of Fable taming quest will become available after defeating Aki the Chosen. The new elite battle pets can be identified by their gold paw whereas normal pets have green paws. Once The Beast of Fable is completed the rewards can be a variety of panda pets.

Except for those that had their classes nerfed, this should be a well-received patch. Those that got nerfed will be whining on the forums if you wish to express your sympathy. No matter how you play the game, whether you are a raider, PvPer, pet battler or spend your time levelling alts or professions, The Thunder King offers a bit of pixelated goodness for everyone. By the way, you don’t have to do dailies. I’ve checked. It isn’t written in stone anywhere.