Civilization: Beyond Earth – Rising Tide lead designers explain Hybrid Affinities and their role in Beyond Earth.
Yearly Archives: 2015
RuneScape Patch Notes #90
Legacy Quest
Legacy Quest is a mobile RPG by Nexon M. As a rougelike style game, players in Legacy Quest will have to defeat a succession of evil bosses in over 60 Dungeon wings, smashing and bashing your way through dark forests, frozen palaces, swampy depths, and fiery cauldrons.
Features:
Dungeon Crawling Action : Each gorgeous dungeon is filled with hordes of crazed monsters for you to decimate.
Rouge-like gameplay: Your heroes may die, but a new hero will always step in to take his or her place. With every soul lost or gained, your heroes grow stronger.
Persistent Crafting System: Craft your heroes, craft your legacy. Equip your kin with a huge array of customizable skills, traits, weapons and armor to craft the ultimate cubular monster slayer.
Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns Raids Beta Announced
ArenaNet™, publisher and developer of the acclaimed Guild Wars® franchise, chose the inaugural TwitchCon show in San Francisco this past weekend to unveil the launch trailer and announce the next beta event for Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns ™. The studio was one of the biggest exhibitors at the show, using the Twitch main stage and two full days of livestreamed programming on the official Guild Wars 2 Twitch channel for feature reveals, exclusive behind-the-scenes material and special appearances by popular streamers as it set the stage for the launch of Heart of Thorns on October 23. There was also programming aimed at the throngs of new fans joining the Guild Wars 2 player community since the game went free last month, including the announcement that this year’s annual Halloween release, which brings new content and rewards, will be available to all players when it releases late next month.
As one of the highlights at TwitchCon, ArenaNet game director Colin Johanson debuted the launch trailer for Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns on the Twitch main stage. The launch trailer shows iconic Guild Wars 2 hero Rytlock Brimstone facing off against the forces of the jungle dragon, Mordremoth, who has destroyed the Pact air fleet. You can watch the launch trailer here.
Johanson also used the Twitch stage to announce the dates for the final Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns Beta Weekend Event and surprised fans with the revelation that raids will playable during this event for the first time. The upcoming beta event is available to all players who pre-purchase the expansion. It begins this Friday, October 2 at 12 p.m. PT and runs until Sunday, October 4 at 11:59 p.m. PT.
During the upcoming Beta Weekend Event, players will be able to create fully geared level 80 beta characters from any profession, including the all-new revenant profession coming with the expansion. Players can also try all of the new elite specializations that bring new weapons and abilities to each profession, including the druid specialization for the ranger profession which was unveiled at TwitchCon. The beta also gives players the chance to fight new bosses and explore a new area of Heart of Maguuma, the new zone featuring in Heart of Thorns, where they can train masteries in a previously unexplored part of the jungle region.
ArenaNet followed up its announcement last month that Guild Wars 2 is getting raids with Heart of Thorns by revealing that this final beta event for the expansion includes a portion of the first raid. In the beta, a brand-new portal serves as a temporary entrance to the first raid, where parties consisting of 10 players can enter the first raid wing, Spirit Vale. Players will experience the first of what will become four total encounters in Spirit Vale. They’ll be tasked with seeking out a missing squad of Pact soldiers who disappeared while scouting an area north of the jungle.
Throughout TwitchCon, the official Guild Wars 2 Twitch channel became ArenaNet Television, featuring daily livestreams with game reveals, original content hosted by The Nerdist’s Dan Casey, and clips and appearances from popular streamers anthonyacc, BogOtter, DjTechlive, docgotgame, jebrounity, phantaram and RPGShack. ArenaNet partnered with iam8bit to create a slate of original programming including “A Taste of Tyria,” a Guild Wars 2 themed cooking show hosted by celebrity voice actor Jennifer Hale, and a live musical segment featuring Guild Wars 2 music with composer Maclaine Diemer. The studio also premiered new livestream shows at TwitchCon that will join the regular lineup on the Guild Wars 2 Twitch channel with “Guild Chat,” a weekly news and talk show, and “Community Showcase Live,” a new program spotlighting the creativity of the Guild Wars 2 player community. All programming that aired throughout both days at TwitchCon is archived on the Guild Wars 2 Twitch channel (http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2) and will be uploaded to the Guild Wars 2 YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/guildwars2) soon.
Devilian: Beta Preview Thoughts
By Jason Parker (Ragachak)
Recently I’ve been working on getting to know “Devilian,” another title by Trion Worlds. In its own way, it reminds me of Echo of Soul in the character customization, right down to the characters being gender-defined, which I’ve never really agreed with. It’s not terrible, but on a personal level, I’d rather have my Evoker be whatever gender I choose for them. Devilian’s a dungeon-crawling MMO that definitely feels like Diablo. It’s free-to-play, and a pretty intense action RPG to boot. Right out of the gate, I found the damage on the Evoker to be fast-paced and absolutely ridiculous. It’s got a lot of cool skill customizations and in addition, like all characters, can temporarily turn into bad-ass demons called Devilians that have new skillsets and obliterate anything in their paths. All four characters are a blast to play, but sadly I had to delete one a few times to try the others; you get at most two character slots to start with, but you can spend money to increase those slots. Though you’re probably better off starting your spending to deal with your tiny, puny inventory.
Those are things that bother me a little, mostly because I suffer from the alt-sickness, constantly switching to try other things to figure out what I want my main to be. Even if it means starting over four or five times. It’s a free to play game, so of course there’s going to be a cash shop, but it doesn’t really give players a huge advantage that I’ve seen. It makes life easier, makes things go a little smoother (more inventory space, attire that slightly modifies health/movement speed), but nothing game breaking. You can have cool pets to follow you and help loot/sell gear when you’re far from home, and though killing monsters does not seem to give a lot of exp, the leveling grind isn’t as harsh as one might think. Quests give fair exp, and there are also group dungeons to help you go. I also like that the game lets you move with WASD or click to move, depending on your preference. If you prefer both in different situations, you can even flip your mode on the fly; I found myself using WASD for precise moments to dodge attacks, while click to move satisfied me in slower moments.
In Devilian, you have four classes: The manly Berserker, the adorable loli-gun-wielding maniac Cannoneer, the mysterious female Evoker, and the chain-wielding Shadowhunter, definitely resembling some manner of dark-elf or demon (despite needing to turn into a demon). As far as base classes go I feel like Evoker and Cannoneer are going to be insane in PVP, thanks to their ability to control/snare opponents, which can only get better as you level up your skills. One of the cool things about this game is the lack of a dedicated “Healer” class. Every class felt like a powerhouse even in solo gameplay, meaning you won’t have to worry about picking up a supportive character that feels gimped without friends around. Instead of yelling for a medic, you need only dance between attacks while spamming potions as they come off cooldown. With dodge set to spacebar, and knowledge of enemy attack patterns, you can usually stay on your feet for quite some time even against tough opponents. Upon reaching a certain level you can go on a quest to activate your inner power and give yourself a second leveling grind. You use Souls to increase the level/power of your Devilian, and there’s even an area to help you grind it a little faster.
You have three members to a party and once you get far enough in the story you have access to the dungeon queue, which pits you through a pretty straight forward dungeon crawl complete with the holy trinity of ARPGs: piles of enemies, cool loot, and a rating at the end (which goes as high as SSS I believe, the Korean indicator that it’s time to quit your dayjob to focus on esports). There are also achievements to net you bonus rewards, but that’s pretty par for the course these days. The daily challenges have a similar system, nothing game breaking but definitely helpful.
Each class has several trees to choose from, offering new and powerful abilities outside of their base abilities. You start with all of your powers right out of the gate, but skill points give new ones/offer modifiers to them (think World of Warcraft). Not all of them are useful I’ve found as far as damage goes, so I’m pretty grateful that the game allows players to recycle skill points and try again. There are other ways to customize your character too. Pets help, and in addition to that there are items called “Talismans” that come from Elite Monsters, the Abyssal Tower, Depraved Temple, or by crafting them. You have two tabs, and there are sets of cards to get bonuses from. You can salvage them, combine cards of the same level to make new cards, or upgrade them. Consider it like having a CCG (Collectible Card Game) within your game. Me, being a sucker for card games latched onto this immediately.
The camera angle being fixed bothers me a little in ARPGs, but it’s pretty much a staple feature in the genre at this point. Devilian’s gameplay makes the system a bit frustrating at times though when I drop a huge AOE spell and don’t see the wave of enemies aggroed by the edges of it just off screen. Luckily my Evoker does such an intense amount of damage that the mob train is typically devastated before they become relevant. The story hasn’t really gripped me yet either, but there’s still plenty of time for that. I know the world is in peril, and I’m one of the powerful Devilian, out to do great deeds. And if you don’t really care about that, there’s 20v20 PVP and 3v3 (parties are 3 members in this game traditionally), and it’s just as fast-paced as the rest of the game. Another cool feature (that I haven’t experienced yet sadly) is Guild Wars. You can level your guild by donating gold to it, and guilds can do battle with one another which is always a welcome feature in any MMO no matter genre.
There’s also a raid in the game at level 54, and I’ve really noticed this game pushes Friendship. There’s a system in place for Affinity with people on your friends list, and you can send them a box with some low level items to help them out, increasing your friendship with them. You also gain affinity simply by whispering and having conversations with them. It’s a reputation bar for your friends, and the higher your Affinity, the better the bonuses/items get, capped at 10 times a day. It’s a really cool concept to make friends/help each other out in game.
Featuring “Dante” from the “Devil May Cry” Series
Okay, not really. But everytime I read something about this all I can think of is Castlevania or Devil May Cry. Is there fanservice? Yeah, there’s jiggling, squealing and screaming, and the Evoker’s got plenty of skin showing, not to mention the art for the various Talisman cards.
What was I going on about?
This does not make the game less fun; it’s still a blast. Nonetheless, it does exist. I need to point out one more thing that I think is both great and awful. Autorun. You can autorun to quest objectives, where you hop on your mount and ride through the enemies; mounts lower your agro with them, dropping you right where you need to be. It takes a lot of the work out of the game, but it does let you admire how pretty the game is, and get you exactly where you need to go for a quest without having to guess, look, or stress.
Players are half-devils, and are doing battle with a Fallen God, and though I’m not really absorbed in the story yet, I’m looking forward to seeing more. Trion Worlds’ games are always different from one another, and ARPG is going to turn heads if they keep up with this pace.
Want more Devilian? Don’t miss JamesBl0nde’s first look video of the beta!
Nexon Korea Brings Preta on Android to Select Markets
NEXON Co., Ltd. (“Nexon”) (3659.TO), a worldwide leader in free-to-play online and mobile games, revealed its Korean subsidiary, NEXON Korea Corporation, is rolling out the soft-launch of Preta, its latest mobile action role-playing game (RPG) developed by the company’s internal studio. Preparing for the global release later this year, players in Australia, Canada, India, Mexico, Russia, Spain and Thailand can now unlock the secrets of Preta.
Heroes experience the thrill of nonstop action in a quest to reveal the secrets of Preta as their potential is gradually awaken and powers are used to crush monsters. Preta features:
- customizable play style to cast devastating combos and use skills to inflict massive damage;
- three bone-smashing weapon classes to master including sword, chain, and wand;
- rare and mystical elements to collect and use to strengthen the hero;
- action packed game modes including Raid Mode to destroy towering bosses, Defense Mode to defend player’s tower against waves of enemies, and Special Mode to collect as much gold as possible.
“What started as an experimental mobile title, out of Nexon Korea’s internal studio, has evolved into an adrenaline-pumping action RPG that gives players the ability to enter the game at any stage and at any time in the ultimate action RPG without limits,” said SeungHee Doo, the director of Preta, at Nexon Korea. “The soft launch in select countries will give our development team valuable insights as we prepare for the worldwide launch.”
Preta is now available for download via mobile device from Google Play for Android in Australia, Canada, India, Mexico, Russia, Spain and Thailand. Following the soft launch and testing of the game, Preta will release in markets around the world.
Boltus Steam Greenlight Trailer
You think you know madness? Try Boltus, a mix of pinballs and MOBAs with some of the most wicked trap metaplay imaginable.
Divinity: Original Sin 2 Kickstarter Update 14 – Twitchcon
Divinity: Original Sin 2 Kickstarter update 14 comes to you straight from the Larian Studios booth at Twitchcon!
Elite: Dangerous Bobbleheads
Space is vast and lonely. Make it a little less so with Elite: Dangerous bobbleheads.
World of Warships Soviet Destroyers
World of Warships sets the Soviet Destroyers to sea, bringing serious speed and power to the battlefield.









