Monthly Archives: November 2015

Cosplay Highlights: Fallout, Borderlands & More!

Our weekly selection of cosplay returns! Check out these amazing shots, and make sure to visit each artist individually to support them.


 Fallout New Vegas - Beatrix Russell Cosplay by Elena Samko

 Fallout New Vegas – Beatrix Russell Cosplay by Elena Samko


Rory Mercury Cosplay by Yuki Godbless FC

Rory Mercury Cosplay by Yuki Godbless FC


Jacob Frye - ACSyndicate by Leon Chiro Cosplay Art

Jacob Frye – ACSyndicate by Leon Chiro Cosplay Art


 Lilith cosplay by Nebulaluben

 Lilith cosplay by Nebulaluben


E.T.C. Cosplay - Warcraft (photographed by PlanK-69)

E.T.C. Cosplay – Warcraft (photographed by PlanK-69)


Bonus Round: Geek Art of the Week

 Attack on Titan by MichaelCTY

 Attack on Titan by MichaelCTY

Black Desert Online – Early Look

By Jordan Hall (ApocaRUFF), OnRPG Journalist

 

Black Desert Early Access

Introduction

Over the past couple of months, I’ve been playing the Black Desert Online Russian beta. Now with the first North American Alpha test finished up, I feel like I’ve got enough of an understanding of the game to relate to you what it’s all about. Of course, there will be differences between the various versions of the game, and what we saw in Alpha isn’t exactly what we’ll see in beta or even release of the NA version of the game. So keep in mind that things will change. However, a lot of the things I mention in this Early Look will translate very well over into the final versions of the North American version.

 

That all being said, Black Desert Online has proven to be one of the best gaming experiences I’ve ever had, no matter the version I’ve played. It’s got a lot of interesting and innovative features, such as seamlessly-instanced housing within NPC cities and a sort of “RTS” or “Empire Building” game-within-a-game. The combat is action-based and has proven to be intense and fun; even while ‘mindlessly grinding’ I found myself enjoying the look and feel of the combat.

 

Black Desert Early Access

Customization

Customization is the best I’ve ever experienced in an MMO. There’s sliders for everything. Literally everything. Even TWO of them for the length of your selected hair style. Some customization options, however, are behind a paywall (At least in the Russian version). You must pay to be able to use them. To tell you the truth, if the NA version of the game has this feature I won’t be too upset, especially if it means that “pay-to-win” options in the cash shop won’t exist because of it.

 

The face-sculpting offers mind-boggling customization. You can fine-tune your character’s face in amazing detail. One or two other MMOs have offered something similar in the past, but nothing near this level. Pearl Abyss then takes it a step further and offers unparalleled body sculpting as well. You can customize everything – down to each individual part of your fingers. This system allows you to create characters that are truly unique, from subtle variations such as nose length or lip position to drastic differences such as length or weight of individual body sections.

Black Desert Early Access

You choose a constellation at character creation, similar to an Elder Scrolls game. However, so far as I can tell, these constellations will only affect very minor things in the game such as giving minor improvements to interactions with certain NPCs. I’m not sure if the system has more meaning that I’ve yet to discover or if there are plans to add more to it later on. As it goes, though, this is the least impressive portion of the character creation.

Black Desert Early Access

Right now, classes are race and gender locked, but I’ve read that the developers have plans to add variations. I can’t find a solid source for this, though. But, from my understanding, classes like Wizard and Witch are basically mirrors of one another but with different genders and minor skill differences. Neither of these classes was available in the Russian Open Beta test, but the Wizard was offered in the North America Alpha test. From what I’ve read, NA will only have a select number of classes that are available in the Korean version of the game because some of the classes in that version have an “Eastern flare” that the developers feel would not fit so well in ‘our’ version of the game. We will be getting more classes in the future, though.

 

Black Desert Early Access

Graphics

Town design is fantastic. What I mean by this is, in a lot of MMOs you’ll get villages or towns with enough housing for a lot of people, yet only see five or ten NPCs out and about. In Black Desert, when you come across a town you’ll see a population that reflects the housing, and you’ll get to watch that population go about their business, fulfilling tasks that are required to keep their town going. I’m not saying that you’ll be able to sit around next to the blacksmith and get to watch him craft swords or talk to other NPCs (you can’t), but you will see him ‘working’ in a location that feels right in the grand scheme of the town. If he isn’t available in the night hours, and you’re in the right place at the right time, you can even see him close up shop and head in for the evening. It’s mostly just aesthetic things, but it makes the game world so much richer in detail.

Black Desert Early Access

It’s not just the town design that looks amazing, either. Literally the whole world feels like a finely crafted piece of artwork. Sometimes I’ll turn a corner and feel like I’ve stepped into a serene Bob Ross painting. Especially if I turn on the game’s “screenshot mode” which has a number of tools, such as focus. It’s one of those games where you could spend days simply looking around and exploring every nook and cranny, discovering beauty everywhere you go. There’s something mind-blowing about being able to ‘walk’ through a game like Black Desert and realizing “people made this.”

Black Desert Early Access

The graphics in general are incredible. Everything looks beautiful, even if you need to play at medium settings (like me). It’s possible for my five-year-old machine (which wasn’t top of the line when I got it) to run the game quite smoothly on Medium, with a near constant 60FPS except for rare exceptions. As for High or Ultra settings… my machine can handle it, but when it comes to some of the more hectic fights. If you’re using an older machine, you may want to upgrade your GPU (and perhaps your RAM to at least 8GB) if you want a smooth experience.

 

Black Desert Early Access

Gameplay

Black Desert starts out with a very traditional set up. You’re a budding adventure and you’ve got to start small. Learn the basics of fighting, explore a bit of the world, help out some villagers. That sort of stuff. You will be introduced to the game by following a series of story quests that have some traditional objectives – kill three foxes, gather some stuff, go around and talk to people. These are normally quite boring experiences, but due to the voice acting and beautiful world, these are a lot more bearable than they would be in other MMOs. It’s a bit of a shame, though, all of these concepts could have been delivered in a more story-driven and interactive way, but the developers instead went with the traditional themepark questing to get the basics across.

 

Combat is action-based. You can hit multiple enemies at once if you attack covers a large enough area. If you’re a fan of fast, intense combat, you’ll like BDO’s combat. If you play as melee, the game (at least early on) will feel like a very good hack-and-slash game. Your strikes have a weight behind them, when you swing a giant sword or axe, your character is committed and the enemies won’t act like they’re being hit with feathers. It’s an impressive visual and audio experience too, drawing you into an ever more believable world. The game isn’t saturated with ability effects, but there’s enough to keep your eyes interested. For example, Giants have an ability that will grab an enemy and slam them into the ground. This looks amazing and makes you feel like a true badass.

Black Desert Early Access

One thing that you may find confusing early on is that you won’t be able to tell how much damage you’re doing to an enemy. Eventually, once you’ve fought an enemy often enough, you’ll start to be able to see how much damage you’re doing. But early on, you’ll find yourself going into a fight almost blind in comparison to the overflow of information that most MMOs will give you in regards to combat. This is a refreshing change, because it encourages players to work together and share knowledge. It also make the world a much more intriguing and wonderful place. You’ll have to actually work towards discovering and learning things about the game, which is a complete 180 compared to the hand-holding that we’ve come to be used to with modern MMOs.

 

Another thing to mention is that abilities can either be executed through the traditional key presses or key combos. For example, you can press 3 to use a headbutt ability as a Giant, or I can hold shift and right-click to do it. The game gives you options and makes it very easy for you to break into various combos, which play an important role in the combat. I wanted to try out playing with the controller, as I’ve heard that it’s quite fun, but I got too used to the keyboard controls for it to be comfortable.

 

Black Desert doesn’t really have traditional roles. Essentially, everyone is a damage dealer, but they can lean certain directions. For example, the Giant is an awesome tank due to his naturally high HP and defense. But he’s also great at dealing damage, though perhaps not as good as a Sorcerer. So far as I can tell, there are no healing roles and not much in the way of healing abilities. Be prepared to chug potions.

Black Desert Early Access

As you meet NPCs and gain ‘intimacy’ with them, they will relate to your stories that you will keep with you. Then, as you meet other NPCs, you can use the stories you’ve gathered to arose their interest and potentially gain access to more ‘stories’ which can provide you with very useful information. It is through this system that you can have ‘conversations’ with NPCs. You can get an idea of how the system works with the screenshot below. After entering the stories you think might be interesting to the NPCs, you ‘exchange stories’ and you see which arose his interest and which fail to. The end result will gain you intimacy (or other ‘stats’ related to the relationships you can have with NPCs). The better an NPC likes you, the more inclined they are to care about you and want to help you.

Black Desert Early Access NPC Relations

At level 20 you can begin taming your own horses, which then opens up the world of mount breeding. Horses are important for getting around the world. Early on – about level 10 or so – you get a donkey, but it’s slow and not very helpful if you’re just looking to get from quest to quest. The horse, though, makes getting around so much easier. Which is important because there is currently no way that I know of to instantly transport to a location EXCEPT for when you die and transport to a nearby town. As fun as horse taming can be, though, I’ve found that it’s a hundred times easier to simply buy a decent horse off the market. Of course, that easiness is what makes it enticing to get into the horse taming/breeding market to make a decent amount of money off the laziness of others.

Black Desert Early Access

Housing is pretty important to the game. Not only do houses look as incredible as the rest of the game, they also offer a lot of functionality. Owning property and upgrading it is also critical if you want to expand your merchant empire. You’ll need to get housing for your workers to stay in, for example. Or to increase your warehouse space so you can store more items. You’ll also need somewhere to put your crafting stations.

Black Desert Early Access Housing

To expand on housing, it’s done a bit different than other games, such as ArchAge. First, all housing (so far as I’ve been able to tell) is pre-made and already exist in the world. Second, all houses are located within NPC towns. And third, housing is instanced (though seamlessly) and (again, so far as I can tell) there is no limit to how many people can own the same property. Each person gets their own ‘instance’ of the property that they will enter and be able to make their own. The way this is done is interesting; in most games you would have a loading screen or something similar when entering an instanced home. In Black Desert, you just choose from a list and then walk into the door and that’s it. No loading screens nor hiccups, just seamlessly walking into your home (or the home of a stranger/friend/guild mate, etc…)

Black Desert Early Access Housing 2

And that brings me to the economy and trading systems. This is a very daunting thing to bring up. Black Desert trading is somewhat like ArchAge – you can tack materials around and sell them for profits. However, it’s more on the scale of something like EVE Online (though not nearly so big). And on top of that, when you get to a certain point it plays like some sort of top-down merchant simulator. A game within a game, almost.

 

First, you will need to invest in nodes. These are guard gates, farms, villages, and cities. In cities and towns, you will need to purchase something within the town using Contribution Points, such as a warehouse. For gates and farms, and all other small nodes, you will need to speak to the node manager at that location. You’ll want to connect nodes to help create ‘trade routes’ for yourself and your workers. If nodes aren’t connected, you won’t make much money through trading between them. If you haven’t invested in a farm node, you can’t send a worker to farm on it.

Black Desert Early Access Cultivation

What this means is, as you adventure through the game and gain contribution points through questing, you can slowly expand your trading empire. You can afford to buy more housing in cities for your workforce so that you can hire more workers; you can expand your trade routes so you can make bigger profits, and you can perhaps begin looking into manufacturing and possibly make yourself a cart to increase your ability to trade. Honestly, this system reminds me of a much more fleshed out system similar to what you could do in Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag. I know it’s odd to compare a single-player game with an MMO, but in Black Flag you could capture ships and add them to your fleet and then send them off to complete trade runs. Black Desert’s system is similar, but much larger in scope and more involved.

 

Towns and cities allow you to invest your Contribution Points to buy buildings and upgrade those buildings to do things like increase warehouse space, housing for workers, or allow you to set it up as a residential building for you to decorate and place crafting stations in. There are other things – for example, if you want to make tools you’ll probably want to find a building that offers a tool workshop. But to get to that workshop, you may need to invest in a few other buildings, similar to how you need to unlock nodes in a path to unlock other nodes.

 

The art team for Black Desert has paid incredible attention to detail. When you come up to a fence and you want to jump over it, you don’t just jump ten feet in the air like in a majority of MMOs. Your character grabs on and pulls themselves up. If you’re playing as a Giant and you walk through a low door, your character will bend so that they don’t bump their head.

 

There’s also various types of experience. A lot of quests will give you just Contribution experience. Once your contribution experience bar fills up, you are given another point of contribution that can be spent to invest in various things. Then there is skill point experience, which will give you points to grab new skills. There’s also combat experience, which you will usually only gain from fighting monsters. This will level you up, increase your stats and what not.

Black Desert Early Access

Then there are your stats, such as Stamina, which will go up by simply traveling around. The more you run around, the more Stamina experience you get and eventually you’ll get a level which increases your overall Stamina. Strength you can gain by carrying over your maximum carry-weight and running traveling around. A good way to do this is trade packs. Health can be increased by eating good food. Increasing your Strength and Health will give you bonuses to your carry weight and HP. Then there’s experience and levels for the various gathering and crafting skills.

 

You could invest in a city by setting up a lot of Housing for workers. Then invest in a nearby farm to gather one type of crop. Invest in a couple of buildings capable of food processing and set them up to create food crates from the crops received from the farms. Then you could have some other workers constantly transporting the food crates to a city that you know will pay well for the crops. Then every once in a while, head over to that village yourself and sell the crops to the Trade Manager. If you find yourself killing things in a particular node more often than others, you might want to invest in it and then further invest Energy in it to increase the rate at which you receive drops. Which brings up the grind.

 

The grind is real. After putting fourteen solid days into the game, my character just only reached level 30. On NA, this was cut down to just five days. From what I understand, the grind in Russia is quite a bit longer than what can be experienced in Korea or Japan.

Black Desert Early Access Goods Value

The auction house is a bit weird. The minimum and maximum you can charge for an item is set by the system. So you can’t massively undercut someone, but you can post the bare-minimum price if you want. Which will get your item sold quicker, as buyers are only allowed to buy the cheapest first. This can sometimes cause a bit of annoyance, as someone might be selling one or two of a bulk items at the absolute minimum, but you need to buy a hundred of them. So you’ll have to start with buying the cheap items first, which will only get you one or two of the hundred you need, and then work your way down the list.

Black Desert Early Access Auction House

So far as I can tell, this doesn’t mean the item prices are going to be constantly the same. It seems like it’s possible to drive the prices lower or higher, but it’s a much slower process than what can happen in a regular free-form auction house. This will help push off inflation, I suppose. But, again, it’s kind of annoying that the developers set up artificial restrictions rather than set up a proper economy.

 

There are two types of resource gathering. Manual – where you go out and get it yourself, and having your workers gather resources from a node you’ve invested in. Manual will go a lot faster and allow you to gain some items that your workers can’t – like Crude Stone which can be refined into Black Stone Powder, a very important resource. However, it requires you to use Energy, which may be scarce in your earlier levels of play. Energy is the equivalent to ArcheAge’s Labor Point system. Most actions related to crafting, gathering, or processing will require the use of an Energy point. You can recover one point every three minutes.

Black Desert Early Access Gathering

I have two annoyances related to gathering. First, the quality of the beginning tools – all you have available to you in the beginning – is extremely low. They’re cheap, so it’s not a big deal, but it’s annoying having to change your tool every ten gatherings. The other thing is related to both mining and wood cutting. You have to get right on top (or touching) a tree or rock to see if you can mine it. If someone has just mined a rock, and you walk up to it, the only way you can see if it’s depleted is by standing on top of it and seeing if you can mine it. It’s really annoying having to waste so much time checking a resource node. I hope that in future versions of the game there is a system in-place that temporarily phases out depleted nodes.

 

In general, the whole game is slow going which can be rewarding and annoying at times. Granted my Russian grind was a bit exaggerated compared to what we can expect. But everything, from your level to your crafting levels to your stats, will take you weeks to get to decent levels. Even if you’re essentially dedicating your life to the game. But like I said, this can be rewarding. Very rewarding. At the start, I wished the grind was gone but after spending a couple of weeks delving into the grind – becoming the grind! – I hope NA will adopt a similar stance.

Black Desert Early Access Economies

Slowly building up your empire, starting off with a single worker given to you, is incredibly fun. Experimenting with the various ways to make money – crop farming, transporting, mining, item creation, vehicle building, etc… For example, I started off in a Northern coast town, but then made the move to a walled city near a river. There I built up a decent wheat and pumpkin farming operation and invested in a building that could create crop packs. After a bit, I realized my donkey wouldn’t be enough so I expanded a bit to build myself a farm wagon. I then took down that operation and worked on my farming and crop transport. I examined the market a bit and realized that I wasn’t going to make too much money with the crop packs – they take a long time to make, even with a skilled worker who has skills in agriculture packing.

 

So, I took down that whole operation – keeping the wheat farms so I could make beer for my workers – and re-geared towards making tools. These sell for tens of thousands of silver and have so far made me quite a bit of money in a short time. It’s hard to describe, but that process was one of the best experiences I’ve had in an MMO. Experimenting, learning, filling a market niche… It’s something that I’ll remember doing for years to come. As far as I’m concerned, if an MMO (or any game, for that matter) is capable of providing those types of personal stories, it’s great.

 

Black Desert Early Access

Conclusion

Black Desert Online has the makings to be one of the best and most memorable MMO’s I’ve ever played. There are some rough spots, sure. There’s not much in the way of group content and the developers seem to have some kind of unnatural hatred for player-to-player trading. But the trading in the game is fun, the housing is both functional and interesting, I love the worker system… There’s a lot going for the game. And, with the NA release, we can hope that things will be changed to better suit our region. I’ve already heard that the developers are looking at adding more group content, for example. In short, Black Desert Online is an amazing game.

Camelot Unchained Reveals Support and Mage Archetypes

Camelot Unchained has just concluded their livestream reveal of the Support Archetype, taking on the form most commonly identified in MMORPGs as bards. As I was out the previous week, I’ll also be recapping last Friday’s mage archetype below to clue those in that missed out! Let’s jump right into the break down!

Camelot Unchained Supports

The support class seems focused on bringing wide arching buffs or enemy debuffs across a battlefield. While primarily sold as a speed buff machine, this limited description seems to hide the far more sinister and arching power the support class brings, with the more allies/enemies present only amplifying their utility on the battlefield. Everything from illusions and fear to game changing power-ups are at the command of the bard.

 

Vikings – Skalds

Skalds stand as unique among the supports as a result of their song focus being primarily vocal. This is both a blessing as well as a curse as this means silencing attacks can entirely shut them down, but also that they are more offensive oriented since their hands (and resources) are free to focus on a weapon of choice rather than musical instrument.

The Skald’s sample songs focus on buffs to damage and divine interventions. They’re capable of preventing wound inflictions on allies, and can debuff enemies over time to cause greater and greater damage from Viking attacks. Their particular brand of speed buff can be broken if damage is inflicted, but offers a hefty attack bonus if a Viking under its effect can land the first blow on an enemy. Focusing on their offensive nature, Legacy Strike offers a boon for Skalds that can penetrate through an enemy’s armor, buffing up their next song to new heights!

Skalds also offer a twisting nature to their songs, allowing them to stack effects from a recently sung song with the currently sung song. Over use of this effect will be limited by the high initial cost of starting a song, as well as the constant channel maintenance to remain singing.

 

Arthurian – Minstrel

Minstrels love nothing better than an audience, and come out of the gates swinging harder than their less musically talented counterparts. The more enemies present to hear their tune, the harsher the impact on the foolish zergs that oppose them. Multiple minstrels uniting their talents to a single song have a multiplicative effect that will grant allies massive boons. Alas a song can only hold the interest of its audience for so long before fading from memory. So a talented Minstrel will need to plan out a full performance with a variety of songs to maintain effectiveness over a long battle.

The Minstrel offers the faster speed buff of the supports, at a cost. Should you take surprise fire while playing their song, those hit will be unable to gain the benefit of song for a short period. Perhaps the most unique part of the Minstrel is their power to play harder for more immediate and more powerful effects, though the songs lose potency faster over time.

 

TDD – Dark Fool

Of course the TDD continue their ways of trickery and deceit even among their supporters. While still technically performers, the Dark Fool gets their kicks more from the terror in their enemies than the smiles of friends. They utilize shouts (instant effects rather than channeled over time) more so than their counterparts, and lean much heavier towards negative debuffs as a whole. These jesters of the battlefield create illusions and lead their foes into traps for jollies, but more enjoy tormenting their foes than killing them. Their true might is felt when their side is losing, while Dark Fools lose effectiveness as their side pushes towards victory.

Their signature song is a blood draining tune that targets enemies with more remaining blood than allies, and transfers it to themselves and their hurting friends. Their speed buff also carries a great risk, with great reward. Damage taken while under Mischievous Haste is raised, but should the song conclude, all allies gain a mind buff that lessens the blood and stamina cost greatly of their next attack to get off a truly powerful strike at low cost. Overall their shouts drain the buffs from foes, leaving them panicked and weak in the knees.

 

Learn more about the Supports on the Camelot Unchained reveal page.

 

Mages

Last week’s mage reveal introduced a class meant to fill both the roll of substitute siege engine and spam heal party blocker alike. Utilizing mechanics that ramp their power up over time, timid mages may build into roaring infernos given enough time to their own devices. Another odd take on the mages in Camelot Unchained is their restriction to a single element. Rather than building various kit options out of an array of elements, instead each class will delve deeper into all that a particular element can bring. These classes are frail in 1v1 situations and easily interrupted. But priceless additions to organized group play and important castle siege warfare, with the more enemies in their path, the better. Combine multiple mages casting similar spells for some devastating unity attacks, such as Wave Weaver tidal waves! The AIR (physics based reaction system between spells and abilities) is sure to shine the brightest when mages are around to stir up the chaos.

Camelot Unchained Mages

 

Vikings – Wave Weaver

Vikings tend to be hearty in all things. So its no surprise their variety of mage focuses the heaviest on defensive spells designed to slow and confuddle enemies rather than straight out demolishing them. This is a key in their ramping up design as the first strike as a Wave Weaver against an enemy is likely to rile them up more so than hurt. The Wave Weaver operates on a deluding system, building up stacks of water weariness on foes to amplify the power of spells used against them, as well as offering other nasty side effects that may be less noticeable at first.

Utilizing one’s environment is key as a Wave Weaver. In areas where moisture is present, they can greatly reduce their blood cost for magic to go hog wild tossing water in all directions. Ice can be used for more than your typical movement debuff as in most MMORPGs, allowing you to increase ability cast times to truly put the freeze on your foe’s offensive plans. They can even unleash a direct beam of energy or place swirling water around an ally, both of which applying the effects of whichever rune you chose to build the spell out of! Just watch out for open flames and dry climates as a dehydrated Wave Weaver won’t be making anyone wet.

 

Arthurian – Flame Warden

Those familiar with Mark Jacob’s Warhammer Online Bright Wizards will have an inkling of the kind of raw power being brought by the Flame Warden. This mage is defines glass cannon, and will be greatly dependent on support from allies to keep their flame burning bright. But should a Flame Warden fire dance for an extended period, all before them will be melted to wax. Don’t even think you can run away, as their power at long range is just as significantly wicked.

Rather than an external deluding mechanism, the Flame Warden builds an internal Pyroclastic Overcharge, causing each subsequent spell to burn hotter. The less they move, the more potent still they can become as literal turrets of fiery death. The Flame Warden can light foes ablaze, spreading their powerful fire across the battlefield in what’s sure to awe and terrify foes.

The Flame Warden excels at long range power. Should you opt for longer cast times and higher blood costs, you can become a living weapon of artillery, lobbing slow moving balls of fire that explode on impact, causing heavy structural damage and frying any poor saps not observant enough to get out of the way.

 

TDD – Druid

Don’t expect any tree hugging healer Druids in this game. The always oddball TDD Druid breaks the elemental mage archetype by introducing power pulled straight from the veil to negate enemy magic and overpower foes with AOEs so large, you won’t know which way to run to get out of them. Though slow and dependent on supporting CC from allies to fully realize their true potential, a single Druid is enough to make any major battle a tactical nightmare for the other realm.

Two pieces of the Druid stand out as unusual. One is their tendency to struggle when under fire. While they still have plenty of quick casting abilities to get them out of a tight spot, their truly malevolent powers are easier to interrupt, the more powerful, the easier. However, under the shine of the moon, the Druid’s powers grow. If both moons are out at once, they can even heal themselves from their chaotic spells.

Druids are punishing to deal with via melee. Their spells may be slow moving, but they are so large and caster-centric that any melee character is going to have to face some serious zigzagging routes, or just suck up the raw damage to rush straight in. While they might not pack the full stopping power of other mages, their inherent panic effects from utilizing void magic make them a real headache to face in longer battles if you’re unable to shut them down.

 

For full details on the Mage archetype, check out the official reveal page.

 

 

Kira-Chan Stars in Block N Load’s Free Rotation

Kira-Chan Stars in Block N Load's Free Rotation news header

Jagex Games Studio announces today that kawaii Kira-Chan is now playable as part of Block N Load’s debut free hero rotation. The first time rotation offers players the chance to play a new hero for a limited period of time completely free-of-charge.

Originally introduced in September, Kira-Chan is a J-Pop assassin. Armed with customised, twin SMGs and the giggle-inducing Kitty Cannon, she brings an ultra-attack option to the Block N Load battlefield. Kira sprays her foes with fully automatic fire then assaults the enemy cube with mewing rocket and grenade kitties! Furthermore, her unique Popstar Portals allow for surprise teleportation attacks against enemies, opening up new tactical opportunities for players.

Kira enters the rotation with a popstar’s swagger and takes the place of gentleman-marksman Sir Nigel Purdey-Longshott – who will now take a little nap from free-to-play after many weeks of hunting. Characters who leave the free rotation are not gone forever. Nigel joins a host of heroes available to purchase in the Block N Load game store, ready to be added to player collections on a permanent basis.

Online Arena Game Cyber League Coming in December

Online Arena Game Cyber League Coming in December news header

CyberStep, a global online publisher and developer of the acclaimed action MMORPG Onigiri, announced today that the sequel to its online anime-style shooter CosmicBreak, Cosmic League will be released for North American audiences on Dec. 10. Available now through Dec. 7, a special pre-registration includes incentives like an exclusive hair color for one humanoid, free tickets for content only available in the Cash Shop and a starter pack with boost items, in-game money and key items. Afterwards, a three-day open beta will follow. Players can learn more and pre-register for Cosmic League here.

Cosmic League is a massive online PC third-person shooter that pits two teams of Cosmoloids (Humanoids and Robots) in 10 vs. 10 player battles. Players select one of six powerful classes from a lineup of stylized robots and strong women who specialize in close-quarters melee combat, agile mid-range attacks or long-range blasts. Players must learn to adapt to the changing environment with intuitive controls that allow fast and easy movement on land or sky against several dynamic events, including a falling meteor that can drastically affect certain arenas.

Other key features of Cosmic League include:

  • Complete Customization – Further upgrade characters with a variety of interchangeable parts earned by completing matches or purchasing through the Cash Shop. Parts can be individually colored as well.
  • The Cosmic League – Grow as a Cosmic Leaguer by playing in three different leagues: The Rookie League, Prime League and the Master League. Players can also play in the Golden and Event Leagues at specific intervals.
  • Progressive Unlock System – Unlock even more Cosmoloids and powerful parts by raising their League Rank through online matches.
  • Augmentations – Nurture the growth of Cosmoloids by installing Cartridges to grant different effects, upgrading their ranks from Grade C to Grade S and augmenting Cosmoloids with different items and characters.

“We’ve taken player feedback from CosmicBreak and our experience developing online action games to make Cosmic League the ultimate anime action game,” said Yusuke Ogawa of CyberStep. “With all new technology powering the game, we aim to allow players to live out their anime fantasy through the game’s intense combat and distinct character designs.”

Warframe To Offer Steam Controller and Workshop Support

Warframe To Offer Steam Controller and Workshop Support news header

Digital Extremes announced today its hit AAA Free-to-Play title, Warframe® began support for Steam Controller at launch earlier this week along with recently joining Steam Workshop, where player-generated content can be submitted for consideration in Warframe.

With the official launch of Steam Hardware on November 10, PC players now have the ability to expand their Steam gaming experience to any room in the home. And with that, Warframe players — better known as Tenno — devoted to gaming on the PC can now enjoy being a space ninja while playing from the comfort of their couch with the Steam Controller’s dual track pads, dual-stage triggers, and customizable configurations. As with any first release, the Warframe developer, known for its Community-driven development, will be fine tuning the Steam Controller with additional tweaks and adjustments in subsequent updates as feedback comes in from the vast Community.

On separate but related and equally exciting news, Warframe Steam players will enjoy the first round of user-made content aptly named, TennoGen to be released in the Steam Workshop later this month. Steam Workshop allows content creators to earn money from their in-game creations for their favorite games. Digital Extremes began taking submissions in late October from its incredibly talented player pool for a variety of in-game skins and cosmetics. The first round of submissions have been reviewed and Digital Extremes has decided on the first content to be released. Digital Extremes is excited to continue reviewing submissions for many more rounds of content to be considered. Revenue share for creators in Steam Workshop is typically 25% but Warframe is setting the bar higher for its creators at 30%. First round picks can be seen here.

For those who missed the first round, Digital Extremes has partnered with top 3D art site, Polycount, to host a month long contest running now through December 1, 2015. Polycount is best known as a community of artists who specialize in creating 3D art for videogames. Skilled content creators may choose from a variety of weapon model swaps and alt helmet skins open for TennoGen design submissions. Winning designs for this contest will not only be featured in-game and receive 30% revenue share but are guaranteed $500 worth of shared revenue within the first 3 months of the content released on the Workshop.

“We’re always looking for new and exciting ways to support and encourage players’ interests in becoming more involved with Warframe,” said Rebecca Ford, Community Manager at Digital Extremes. “The quality level of this first round of beautifully created user-generated content from our Community is beyond impressive and is the beginning of what we hope will grow into a thriving resource for both creators and players. TennoGen truly delivers content made by Tenno, for Tenno.”

Tenno not as artistically inclined but interested in participating in the process are encouraged to vote on early submissions they’d like to see in Warframe on the official TennoGen Steam Workshop website.

For more details on the submission process for user-made TennoGen content, please visit the Steam Workshop FAQ on the official Warframe forums.