Sandbox Interactive unveils the last bit of information before the start of the Closed Beta of their upcoming cross-platform sandbox MMORPG Albion Online on Monday. The developer announces the exact Closed Beta starting times for each type of Founder, invites everyone to join a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) and shares some cool new wallpapers. For more information read the full developer blog post.
Starting Times
The precise starting times when each type of Founder groups can access the servers for the Closed Beta are as follows:
Legendary Founders: November 23, 12:00 UTC (13:00 CET, 7:00am EST)
Epic Founders: November 24, 12:00 UTC (13:00 CET, 7:00am EST)
Veteran Founders: November 25, 12:00 UTC (13:00 CET, 7:00am EST)
Players have a possibility to upgrade the Founder’s Pack to a higher tier if they wish to get their hands on the game earlier.
Reddit AMA
In preparation for the launch of the Closed Beta, Sandbox Interactive will also hold an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on http://www.reddit.com/r/mmorpg at 16:00 UTC (17:00 CET, 11:00am EST). Some of the Game Designers, Community Management and CEO & Founder Stefan “Bercilak” Wiezorek will be present to answer community questions about Albion Online there.
Wallpapers
Finally, for those wishing to experience the world of Albion even outside the game, developers have prepared two sets of neat artwork of Albion Online – one set themed around the Factions, while the other showing distinct features of the game and the world. Download them all in one file
The eighth archetype reveal has just concluded from City State Entertainment for upcoming Tri-Realm PvP MMORPG, Camelot Unchained. And while official pets as most MMORPG users know them will not be in the game, this week we got a look at their substitute class option, the Spirit Mages.
Spirit Mages essentially function akin to an MMORPG pet class, with the exception that their pets are more of the destroyable projectile classification than active AI or otherwise controlled NPCs. This reduces the load on the server and on player machines by one, only having pets active during combat scenarios, and two, limiting pet visuals to more of effects in nature rather than having to render armor, and much of the textures a full NPC character would require.
This archetype also proves to be one of the most diverse among the three realms. Let’s break down the details.
Arthurian – Dread Caller
Dread Callers bring purgatory with the hope of redemption. Their power draws from tainted souls of those in the realm that have lost their way. While not so much the case with its rivals within the archetype, the Dread Caller’s playstyle is absorbed almost entirely in the function of their summoned spirit. Their role is defined by their decision to summon more of a fighter or mage type spirit. Their most potent attacks will then derive from this spirit, and if a Dread Caller is trusting in their allies, then can even mind transfer their existence into their spirit, taking direct control while leaving themselves motionless.
The Dread Caller is at one with their spirit, so direct fire to the Dread Caller is vastly damaging to their summon. However the Dread Caller is capable of absorbing damage better than most mages as they can just as easily heal through fire by keeping their offensive assault going with their spirit. Should the going get tough, they can even build out a hulking spirit with shorter range to create a high health defender in place of an actual tank.
A veteran Dread Caller is quite a force to reckon with. While even a novice Dread Caller’s summon can fight on after the death of their master, a veteran Dread Caller’s spirit can fight on for quite a long while. This makes them quite a nuisance compared to most mages as focus firing them may not exactly solve the pain in the ass spirit harassing you right away.
Viking – Slaughterwolf
There’s only two things in life Slaughterwolves enjoy. Wolves. And slaughtering. Thus their class is ready to oblige. The goal of a Slaughterwolf is to build up a pack of wolves for maximum efficiency. Wolves come in a variety of elements with their own strengths and weaknesses (frost and fire the samples given today), but when commanding your pack, wolves of the same element stick together. As you imagine each command comes at a cost, this gives you the most efficiency when managing multiple wolves of the same element!
Of course superior numbers comes with disadvantages. The wolves decay as soon as they’re summoned and can only regain their fighting strength through the consumption of corpses. Only one wolf may feed on a corpse at a time, meaning a large pack is going to require constant enemy deaths to stay strong for long. Plus, you’ll need to keep up with your pack, as wolves that stray too far from their master will go rogue and no longer obey your direct commands. This introduces an interesting synergy with other Slaughterwolves as if they command a stronger wolf of the same element, they can absorb stray wolves from another pack to add to their strength without wasting the cost to summon the new wolf.
In the wild if you come across natural wolves, you can even absorb their strength to allow your pack to reach full potential. A veteran slaughterwolf may even obtain the control to utilize two different element of wolves to unleash pincer techniques and the like. This class sounds quite skill intensive to play, but very rewarding to RTS masters looking for a challenge.
TDD – Morrigan
The Morrigan is the master of three as one. By this I mean their wolf, raven, and bull spirits can transition between forms should their master invest the power to do so. This combined with their ability to create portals in the veil to fast teleport their spirits makes the Morrigan the trickiest, and most unpredictable of the Spirit Mages.
This class compensates for the more AoE control the Druid offered to the TDD mage archetype. They offer more mage-like abilities with long range projectile summons meant to deal vast damage, swarming foes in an ugly torrent of spirits that will be harder to focus fire down like the other spirit mage archetypes. Knowing your enemy and mastering your spirit swapping will be key to take advantage of each targeted foe’s weakness to maximize your dps.
Like many other members of the TDD, the Morrigan is specialized for fighting in the depths of night. They suffer regeneration issues during daylight and gain boons to it while shrouded in darkness. A properly played Morrigan will survey the battlefield to choose their initiation to combat wisely. With the right spell components and creatures, one can kill two stones with one bird, so to speak. Their longer range may also be used for confusion as enemies might not immediately know where the spectral entities are coming from, particularly if one uses your veil portals properly to disguise your projectile routes. Should a Morrigan get on an early killing spree, their power only grows, snowballing into a true terror of the night for hapless ambushed foes.
The spirit mages are an interesting twist in the post-launch class roster. Like other magic, their creatures are expected to experience strange and wonderful impacts from the AIR system. Some powerful spirits will be targetable as well, making this a much more solo friendly mage class compared to the more generic mages out there. At the same time its a class that needs a clear head as you typically will have to focus your attention on yourself and your pets simultaneously to maintain your effectiveness. A lot of questions remain surrounding this classes’ implications, but as it was a stretch goal, CityState Games has time to balance and test their mechanics at launch before finalizing plans to implement this unique take on pet classes.
For the full reveal details, check out today’s archetype page.
French developer Amplitude Studios has revealed a huge update titled ‘Forges of Creation’ featuring its dynamic Steam Workshop integration to the critically acclaimed strategy game Endless Legend. The free update also includes a large amount of new content unlocked by the community via the studio’s Games2Gether program and a previous Steam Free Weekend challenge.
In addition to introducing the option to reskin 3D units, the free Forges of Creation Steam Workshop update gives gamers the chance to create, store, and retrieve mods, offering creative players an endless depth of replayability and exploration in an already deep and enchanting universe. The update also includes content unlocked by the community such as the new Sister of Mercy hero Valete, new hero items, additional custom faction traits, a powerful ‘Guardian Killer’ unit (only available for Endless Legend Guardians owners) and a great number of AI improvements introducing the notion of ‘Faction Personality’. The ‘Forges of Creation’ update is now available on Steam.
To add to the rich and creative Steam Workshop tool availability, Amplitude has also offered up two new diverse and engaging DLC packs: Endless Legend: Lost Tales DLC selling for $1.99 and Endless Legend: Echoes of Auriga DLC for $2.99.
If Forges of Creation taps into players’ inner map-builder, The Lost Tales DLC Pack is a unique offering that gives strategy enthusiasts the chance to purchase a collection of more than 20 quests related to Minor Factions. For the sonically-driven strategy enthusiast, Echoes of Auriga features seven new musical tracks composed by our one and only FlybyNo, with related new hero items, such as the “Harp of Noby Fly.”
By Darren Henderson (DizzyPW), Lord of the Labyrinth
Last year marked the beginning of a new promise from Grinding Gear Games to begin pushing out bi-annual expansions for their runaway smash hit ARPG, Path of Exile. The Awakening expansion kicked things off in July, but things have been quiet since as Grinding Gear did little more than send out confusing obscure wax sealed notes to 300 of their top backers. Well now the cat is out of the bag as they’re ready to go public with the Ascendancy expansion details. And while we don’t expect to see alpha testing till late January with the update live in February, we know from past experience that Grinding Gear is putting in work to make sure this will be one of the most fun and balanced content updates Path of Exile has ever seen.
Having covered MMO games professionally for over five years now, I have a hard time looking anything but passive as devs break down their latest update idea. But the core concept behind Ascendancy had me grinning big time in a ‘why the hell hasn’t this awesome idea been added yet, ya damn tease of a developer!’ See it’s all about the Labyrinth. But let’s give some context.
The Lord’s Labyrinth Awaits
Path of Exile reaches into their ever growing book of backstory to this time pull a tale that began roughly 200 years ago. Back in the day, Emperor Izaro called the shots, and he was worse than High Expectations Asian Dad when it came to his quality standards. So in his infinite wisdom, he decided that no heir to the throne would claim his place without a fight. But instead of going all Gaelic on the situation and dueling to the death, he had a far more Riddler take on the whole thing. Why not build a series of deadly trap filled tombs that the worthy would have to take on one after another, like the Tasks of Hercules, to earn a shot at completing the ultimate Lord’s Labyrinth filled with basically all said traps combined in even more horrifying form?
19 brazen fools of legendary aptitude tried their hand and, considering Izaro was still emperor, assuredly failed to complete the tasks. And then a far smarter bloke came along, threw Izaro into his own labyrinth in a hilarious twist of fate, and then claimed the unopposed throne. When genius strikes, you got to do what you got to do.
Luckily the Wraeclast exiles have screwed around with fate enough that the Labyrinth has unearthed itself once more, daring the greatest champions to once again throw themselves in harm’s way for unforetold secrets. As in you don’t really know you’re even getting out of this! Unless you read on… because…
It’s My Job to Spoil the Secrets!
This glorious expansion takes what ARPGs do best, and what Path of Exile does best, and merges them together at last. The six trials and Lord’s Labyrinth will reset into funky new challenges each and every day with another randomness that even the devs were having a rough time showcasing it with their beefy GM characters. See, first is the proving grounds. You will get a feel for what each of the six traps are like in isolated form, solving (sometimes) mind bending challenges to prove your worth and get through them. Once you’ve shown your mastery of all six trap types in six tiny dungeons spread throughout the world, you’re welcome to approach the statue of Lady Justice to test if your heart and mind are in balance in the Lord’s Labyrinth.
Speed up look at one of the six trials.
And yes, even this is randomized! And rogue-like on top of it. I.E. if you go in with a group, make a stupid mistake, and die, you’re out! The only way back in is to start from scratch, so step carefully. Better yet, the dungeon offers three levels of difficulty, and trap damage that scales on a percentage basis to ensure that no amount of legit gear is going to take you through it safely if you don’t have the twitch reflexes and problem solving prowess to navigate your way through.
The Traps
From the demo I saw a variety of traps in action. There were both timed and pressure sensitive floor spikes. And I’m talking about long winding pathways filled with them, so don’t think you’re just going to bull charge through without a plan to reap the rewards. There are also tricky buzz saw traps traveling on defined visible paths that you can flip railroad style switches to alter the paths of. This combined with the above spikes makes for some nail biting moments that force you to think on your feet, or lose your feet from sluggish thinking.
Statues shooting timed poison darts were among the traps as well. While this seemed rather simple a boring, I was caught off guard when a hidden dart gun shot through me rapid fire. It took me a minute and a test to confirm that a loose stone on the ground was the culprit in triggering the bonus trap. I emphasize this because games are always awful at hiding those moving elements in a map, and Path of Exile blended the stone button in damn well.
Made so much worse when the monsters themselves are activating the stone floor buttons!
The fourth trap is a cousin of the moving buzz saw. An inbred fat ass cousin at that. Stone plates act like Roombas as they bounce along their alotted stone sidewalks. Only they have the buzz saws strapped to them on all sides. Despite their massive size, these tend to move even faster than their smaller counterparts, making them qualified as proper day-ruiners.
Think you’re safe? Not really.
Though even these fail to reach the magnificently awful level of the fire floors. Vast regions of the Labyrinth will turn up the heat slowly until reaching boiling levels. Meaning you will need to run from safe island to safe island, planning your route very carefully. This gets a bit tricky when RNGesus is displeased, as other traps may overlay portions of the fire floor to trip you up. Or if you have some serious bad karma hanging over your head, you might be lucky enough to face tar zombies that will explode to slow your movement speed. Yup, it’s a bitch.
The sixth trap isn’t all that bad, in theory. Just a pillar with sort of long spikes hanging off it, spinning at a moderate rate on a visible track. Yet the way the dungeon spawns tend to position them in combination with other traps makes them your worst enemy. You always think you’re out of range of the buggers, and then poke you every time… for a huge percentage of your health! Then they ping pong back at you before you realized what happen for a second quick jab for the lawls. I imagine this sixth trap is going to be getting the last hit on many an adventurer.
Especially when the dang thing moves ceiling to floor!
The Lord be Thy Name
Did you think this was Path of Exile’s equivalent of a jump quest? No, not quite. There be some intense new fights to give your fancy footwork a rest between bouts of bullet-hell. Turns out old Emperor Izaro didn’t take the easy route and just die in his own Labyrinth. Jerks like that never go away without a fight. And so he’s back, as the living embodiment of the Labyrinth, and wants to see if you’re worthy to face him in his final form. Meaning you have three battles with the same guy, thanks to his fancy elevator system.
The first battle shouldn’t be anything new to veteran Path of Exile players except for his statue system. Three statues form a right triangle around the central circular battlefield. One statue seems to give him an aura of flame that burns you for being too close. One seemed to let him summon three ghastly skeletons from a green exploding fireball. I’m not 100% on this but the third seemed to let him uproot the ground in a large delayed AoE attack. You can click these statues to turn them off, but it’s nearly a moot point. In the time it takes you to run to turn off all three, the first will be coming online again seconds later. After beating about a third of the health out of him, he retreats to his second layer with one of these statues.
The second layer gives you the benefit of only dealing with one of the three statue power-ups. But instead he’s not nearly invulnerable to damage, with the exception of three holy circles that weaken him. Unfortunately those circles aren’t on all the time. Sometimes only two are on. Sometimes just one. So master your kiting skills as you’ll have to quickly pull him to active circles without eating too much damage in the process. Oh, and the statue is elevated this time, meaning you can’t turn it off at all.
The third battle? I’ll leave it up to your imagination. Though if you don’t expect to have everything but the kitchen sink thrown at you by now, then you haven’t been paying attention!
Secrets of the Dungeon
There are some minor features of the dungeon you might not even notice the first few runs through. For one, there are some truly hidden rooms. And discovering them will only matter for that day, since the whole thing will reset come tomorrow. In these secret rooms, as well as other challenging locations to reach, you will find the altars of RNGesus himself! They pretty much look like giant hearts with a tombstone stuck through them. You’ll know.
These altars are a bit weird. They do random things. Sometimes good. Sometimes bad. Most likely a little of both. There is a huge benefit to them though if you play with a circle of friends. Their benefits are the same every time you go through the dungeon on that day. In fact everyone will be playing on the same dungeon each day, letting the more hardcore players map things out ahead of time for their friends. So if you have that awesome cartographer friend, he can warn you which altars offer which affects, which might save you a serious headache in the end.
On that note, beyond secret rooms, the dungeon generator sometimes creates more than one path to victory. It might be through hidden passages, or other times through having two locked doors but only one key. But the odd part is the randomness is so intense, that these passages occasionally let you skip the first or second instance of the fight with Emperor Izaro. While in the next stage he will have more HP than before, this negates his ability to take his bonus skills with him to the subsequent battles as well. Could be worth it, depending on your class and build.
But the most important secret of the dungeon is, of course, the loot!
Super Magic Happy Sunshine Loot Room
What, is this epic challenging Labyrinth not enough to convince you to run it just for the pure joy? Oh you’re one of THOSE people. I hate you. OK, now that we’re past that, I can share info on what awaits those crazy enough to endure till the end.
Two primary goods of glory await you after the third and final confrontation with Emperor Izaro. One related to gear and the other skills. The gear reward is pretty simple to explain so I’ll start there. Completing the Labyrinth on standard difficulty will award you a skull token you can slip into your gauntlet/glove slot. Rather than stat related, this will unlock a variety of new skills/procs that, to say are insanely powerful, would be a grave understatement.
The example I was shown was a duelist upgrade that granted a random chance to proc a spirit sword summon. This sword darts out to attack enemies at range, a distinct advantage for this normally melee class. The part that blew my mind is one: these swords are pretty nasty with a rather fast attack speed and two: you can summon three of them to full on swarm your foes. Those interested in maxing out their DPS will need to find these amazing upgrades to keep up with the Wraeclastians around them. What’s more, defeating the Labyrinth on the two higher difficulties will grant you skull tokens for your boots and helm (I might be wrong on helm, fair warning. But it’s definitely a third slot of gear you can upgrade). Just imagine what you can do with three crazy power unlocks added to your existing bad ass!
The other reward is there to make you a unique snowflake in a game already prided with the uniquest of all snowflakes. Remember the 19 fools that thought they could defeat the Labyrinth? Well it’s time for you to harness their power! Upon defeating the Labyrinth on normal difficulty, you will be given the choice of three new passive trees to unlock. Even within these passive trees you will have hard choices to make, as between the three difficulties of the Labyrinth you will only gain 6 total passive points. The trees branch in a couple directions, and you’ll have to follow the typical paths from the normal Path of Exile passive tree to get to deeper unlocks in each tree. So even two duelists following the path of the Champion will have to make hard choices that might slightly differentiate them from each other!
You can catch a few samples of these skill trees in progress in the gallery below. Do your research and think carefully contenders for the Lord’s Labyrinth. You only have slightly over 2 months to prepare before the time of your trial is at hand!