Epic new mechanical monsters have arrived in Aion to change the face of the game. Catch the full patch details here.
Monthly Archives: February 2014
TUG: The Untitled Game
TUG is a single and multiplayer open-world sandbox RPG using emerging technology and social sciences to directly involve players. As an interactive platform for social science research, the developers plan to use ongoing research to focus and prioritize development goals in order to create a more engaging gaming experince.
Features:
Creative mode: Players will interactive with 13 unique “real world” biomes complete with terrain contouring and blending. Along with complex cave generation, full control over placeable items, 50+ placeable terrain texture blocks, 40+ resource items and more.
Survival mode: Scavenge and survive in procedurally generated limited map arenas featuring 7 of the biomes found in Creative mode.
Class-less system: Includes a combat system where your abilities and skills are defined by your actions. Using different weapons gives you different play styles.
SWTOR Galactic Starfighter Gunship Spotlight
Only one day remains until SWTOR‘s Galactic Starfighter mode is available to all!
Nerd Kingdom
Nerd Kingdom
Dota 2: The New Bloom Festival
By Mohammad Abubakr
Recently Valve has been spoiling us Dota 2 fans with frequent big updates including new game modes, heroes, and game features. Once again, Valve has pleased its fans with a massive update for Chinese New Year; The New Bloom Festival. This amazing update brings with it a new game mode, two new heroes, and an event for the Chinese New Year. It seems like the delay for Diretide was due to other massive projects being worked on in the background.
When you first turn on Dota 2 after updating, you immediately notice the new Chinese look. The map looks beautiful and is visually appealing while not being distracting from the game play. Even the loading screens have been updated to use the emblem seen above. It is the little details such as fireworks at the beginning and end of matches that make the new look great. Valve has put a lot of work into the new map and I am glad it is not simply a recolor as is done for many events in other mobas.
Currently the New Bloom Festival has players earning Flamesalt Ingots and Jade Tokens simply by playing Dota 2. Jade Tokens can only be received if at least one player in the match has purchased Fortune’s Favor. These tokens are similar to the premium tokens in past events and can be exchanged for prizes. However, this time you can even exchange these tokens for keys that can be used to open the event’s chests! This feature has definitely been the selling point as you can increase your rate of receiving event currencies while still getting to open chests without having to purchase additional keys.
I love the new tower design.
Flamesalt Ingots are harvested by playing regular matches and can be used to purchase equipment when fighting the Year Beast. These items include Fireworks and Lanterns which can be used to help defeat the Year Beast by either distracting, disabling or damaging him depending on the type of item used.
At this point we do not know exact details about the upcoming game mode, “Battle the Year Beast”, except what we can see from community members digging into the game files. This battle will make use of the items purchased with Flamesalt Ingots and will reward players with loot depending on the damage done to the Year Beast. This loot will be parts of the Year Beast which can then be used with the event’s crafting recipes. I assume the battle will be similar to the previous raid boss style battles we all have come to know and love.
Players may also notice a new My Offering tab inside their armory during the New Bloom Festival. This new tab allows players to offer their cosmetic items in hopes of getting something in return. “Twice your Offering will be collected, and wealth left in its place.” We cannot know for sure what items we will get but be sure to at least offer up all your duplicates or chests. Some players are even calling this the Chest Disposer.
The Year Beast is almost here!
My favourite addition brought with this patch is the new Ability Draft game mode. This chaotic yet fun game mode gives teams of five random heroes and pools their abilities along with two additional heroes’ abilities into a pool. Then begins the drafting phase except you are not drafting heroes, you are drafting abilities! Ever wanted to play Sniper with fury swipes, blink, untouchable, and finger? Now you can! Well, if you get lucky… Players take turns picking out skills with no duplicates allowed, making this fun game mode also slightly strategic. You really need to think out your spells before you pick and have backups ready in case your first choices are taken. Go ahead, experiment, rage, and have fun! This game mode is meant entirely for entertainment purposes so don’t expect it to be balanced.
It is important to note the Ability Draft only unlocks upon reaching level 11. This is reasonable as it would not be wise to overwhelm new players with so many choices before they even know all the abilities. Level 11 takes enough time to reach for players to recognize and understand most abilities in Dota 2.
Valve also introduced Replay Takeover mode, allowing friends to take control of any replay and change history. You and nine friends can answer all your “What if…” questions using this feature. Unfortunately, only replays created after the New Bloom update are compatible so we will need to wait until the next International to try and see if we could make better plays.
Grab your friends and rewrite history!
This update has also introduced Terrorblade and Phoenix to the Dota 2 hero pool leaving only five heroes remaining to be ported from WC3 Dota. Both heroes are a blast to play and each bring their own unique style to Dota 2.
Terrorblade is an agility hero focused on dealing damage through the use of images. His skills allow him to make illusions of himself and enemies that can be used to deal reduced damage. He is played as an agility carry building items to increase right click damage output through the use of items such as Drums of Endurance (which now has 5 stacks!) and Manta Style for even more illusions.
This hero requires some farm before he can make it into the fight due to his low survivability. While he does gain a massive damage boost through Metamorphosis and can melt enemies without any damage items, he still needs items to live through the fights. Any coordinated teams will lock him down to kill him within seconds. I can see Terrorblade being picked up in competitive games in the future and we might expect to see a nerf to Metamorphosis.
In a typical game, you want to be farming some items before heading into fights as it can be very difficult to get close to enemies and you can expect to be kited due to Terrorblade having no gap closing abilities. For this reason, items such as Drums of Endurance, Manta Style, and Sange and Yasha are recommended. As far as skills go, Metamorphosis is your strongest ability and should be given priority. Reflect is great to lock down kills but due to its short range, Conjure Image is preferred early on.
The Ability Draft UI makes drafting abilities simple and quick.
Phoenix is a strength hero who makes use of his ability to revive and deals damage by hurting himself. You would not expect an intelligence hero to rely on their health for spells but Phoenix is an exception. Phoenix is quite difficult to play and is a high risk low reward hero. I do not see this hero being picked up in competitive play in his current state. Phoenix could definitely use some buffs in the future.
Phoenix looks great and is a blast to play!
However, Phoenix is a lot of fun to play due to his unique abilities such as Icarus Dive which causes Phoenix to dive forward in an arc dealing damage over time and slowing enemy units. Without any input, he will orbit back to his original position but another spell can be cast to immediately cancel the dive. This is a great ability to initiate, poke, and even escape. All of Phoenix’s spells take quite a bit of his HP to cast and with 0 armor, Phoenix quickly melts.
The idea is to use Phoenix’s ultimate, Supernova, to end his own life for a chance to be reborn. However, the enemy can simply hit this burning sun, which looks amazing by the way, 5-10 times and cancel this spell. Any coordinated team can quickly finish off this egg. You can couple Icarus Dive to cast Supernova away from the battle but that defeats the purpose of the damage over time done by Supernova. I think Phoenix is a blast to play but could use some work when it comes to viability.
Players will want to focus on harassing enemies using Fire Spirits and build items to increase survivability. These items can include Mekansm, Heart of Tarrasque, and Shiva’s Guard. With items increasing survivability, Phoenix can cast spells without fear of being melted to death. If you are ahead and want to deal additional burn damage, Radiance is not a bad choice on Phoenix.
In conclusion, Valve has once again pleased its fans. The New Bloom Festival update is great. I’m looking forward to fighting another raid boss in Dota 2, something you would not expect from an ARTS game. While this update did introduce two new heroes, surprisingly they were not the best addition brought with the update. Ability Draft has been a blast to play and I definitely recommend all players to give it a try. The main focus has yet to come… Let us all work to defeat the Year Beast and earn some rare loot!
Nexon Europe hosts poll event for Combat Arms
Today, Nexon EU is holding an international poll event between 3rd and 10th February for their fast-paced multiplayer FPS, Combat Arms.
This pool will allow users to assist the developer in creating a new map for Combat Arms; players vote for their favourite of the design options available, which will then be created. The map will be tailored to players’ needs and different global regions will have adapted versions. In addition, users will be rewarded with various in-game prizes when taking part in the voting process through Nexon Europe’s Facebook page and the Combat Arms Forum.
“We take the opinions and considerations of our community very seriously and we’re excited to once again involve players in the building of the game that they want to play”, said Kyle Lee, Product Manager at Nexon Europe. “The new map is made for and voted on by the players, and we’re open to all feedback.”
For more info, visit the official game website at combatarms.nexoneu.com
EverQuest Next Landmark Alpha Up; NDA down
Recently, Sony Online Entertainment has released their alpha build for EverQuest Next Landmark, and all those that have obtained founders packages will be free to download and play right now. In a bizzare turn of events, they have also announced on their official twitter page that any activity that happens during the alpha test will be NDA free.
All those that are playing in the alpha will be free to record footage, take pictures and express their gameplay experience to others online.
For more information on EverQuest Next, visit: https://www.everquestnext.com/
The Mighty Quest For Epic Loot Announces Open Beta Date
After an exciting open house weekend that found the Painhammer as the most popular hero, The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot has announced that its open beta will begin on February 25.
The development team has noted that many changes and features are coming to TMQFEL, including the Runaway and Open Creation mode. Open beta will also mark the end of the “Original Opulencian” founder’s packs sales, so interested players are warned to plan a purchase before the 25th to earn their lifetime bonuses.
New details for Gloria Victis
Black Eye Games has revealed some new details regarding their upcoming sandbox MMORPG: Gloria Victis. During the holidays, they have completed a full rebuild of almost every aspect of the game.
Using motion capture technology, they have completely re-hauled animations based on popular demand and will be shown in an upcoming video we are currently working on, as well as we added flesh to the frames of our combat system and now different weapons do different forms of damage and different armours more efficient at blocking certain types of damage such as: blunt, pierce, slash, crush. The Pre-Alpha world has also been completely redone and is now much larger. Game difficulty has also been increased and truly represents the harsh medieval wilderness with bandits preying on unsuspecting adventurers unprepared for the hostilities of unguarded forest paths.
In the coming months, they will be working on NPC dialogue based on our newly written lore by professional writers to lay down the frameworks of moral decision making and non-linear quest system. We will also be fleshing out on the frameworks of warband mechanics via the introduction of heraldry on equipment such as shields, surcoats and banners on polearms. Another focus will be inter-player and inter-warband conflict with the introduction of our partial player looting system.
For more information, visit: http://gloriavictisgame.com/
Jake Song Reveals Civilization Online To Enter Testing in 2014
A recent interview with Jake Song reveals the anticipated (though sadly not yet slated for an English release) MMO edition of Civilization is roughly 60% complete. As things stand, it’s likely to see a Korean test in the first half of 2014. CivFanatics unite so we can show this game needs to be brought across the great ocean!











