Monthly Archives: January 2016

SMITE Season 3 PTS Notes Round 1 Revealed

Our first taste of Hirez Studios’ season 3 for SMITE is nearly upon us. While changes are vast and wild, it seems they will be restricted to the private test servers for the time being before unleashing their unholy wrath (read: Cloak of Unrelenting Sorrow) on the masses! We’ve summoned up a few highlights of the lengthy notes that took nearlyl 90 minutes to explain on today’s livestream. For the full watch check out this Twitch Replay.

 

Kukulkan_Gentleman_Card

Itemization

Oh things they are a changing. Changing all the time. Season 3 marks a massive overhaul of itemization in relationship to the exchange of active purchases for free trinkets. With beads reduced to the less impressive form ‘purification,’ players will need to invest a bit more heavily in CC immunity or else make due with a 160 second cooldown on use. A new active known as Sunder also makes an appearance, offering assassin’s a focused assault against an enemy by reducing their defenses greatly. Most other actives are making roughly the same appearance, with a few notable instances such as curse offering both attack speed reduction and healing reduction, sprint always giving allies a speed boost, and combat blink no longer being a thing.

Actual defensive items have gotten a bit pricier, but with far higher bang for the buck. Nearly any style of defensive stats you might need has an answer for it with the multiple new trees introduced. Glowing Emerald Tree for health and health regen, Iron Mail Tree for health and phys defense, and the Enchanted Kusari Tree for magical protection and mp5. Many existing items have also received reworks.

On the offensive side we see mostly gold balancing to make various out of favor items more tempting to pick up. Health is being removed from items that are meant to be used on more glass cannon characters. Plus there are some new vanity items at outrageous prices to help characters tear through enemy tanks in the extreme late game.

 

Sol_SciFi_Card

God Balance

SMITE has decided to throw bells on Amaterasu to nerf her. If she catches you, you’re pretty much dead anyway! But at least now you’ll hear bells while she ultis, bringing back PTSD in beta players who still remember Guan Yu’s Bongos. Bellona’s Bludgeon and Scourge take solid hits to bonus damage and utility respectively, hoping to bring her in line. Also Chiron seems a minor nerf in the form of extended cooldown on Masterful Shot and no more stacking healing from his passive. Thor is also brought in line with other assassin’s by nerfing his Warrior’s Madness so he doesn’t flat out wreck early game teamfights.

Rare movement speed changes are hitting as well, with Guan Yu and Vamana sucking the speed out of that nasty little scorpion Serqet. Xing Tian also gets a bit of damage nerf done so he isn’t hitting for more player damage than the rest of his team while playing the role of guardian. And Sol is at last receiving a nerf… to her ulti which now no longer slows. It’s a start, but with the new items coming into play I’m unsure if its going to be enough. Speaking of beast mode gods, Ramana is getting toned down a bit prior to his reemergence into the competitive scene!

Side notes include the long overdue change of Hades’ classification from Guardian to Mage. And Nemesis returns from the land of Jetpack Fighter with a lower cooldown on her ulti, and a new passive that reduces enemy power and amps her own power by their respective current stats rather than a straight drain 1:1.

 

Ymir_Sumo_Card

Skins!

This patch seems some truly gorgeous skins including Amaterasu’s Tier 2, a oni/sumo looking Ymir skin, bear hat Ullr, Cyborg Sol, Fancy Pants Esquire Kukulkan, and full bad ass mode Athena!

 

Be sure to check out the lengthy and detailed full patch notes page for all the juicy details of the PTS. We imagine much of this will be changing before it hits the live servers, but it’s fun to freak out in the meantime!

Amaterasu_Tier2_Card-copy

Kicktracker Report #12 – January 2016

OnRPG’s Kicktracker Report returns for January 2016. Get the latest overview on our favorite picks on Kickstarter and keep up to date on major news from previously crowdsourced games with your host, Mikedot.

Camelot Unchained
http://www.onrpg.com/games/camelot-unchained/
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/13861848/camelot-unchained

Moon Hunters
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kitfoxgames/moon-hunters-a-myth-weaving-rpg
http://www.onrpg.com/games/moon-hunters/

River City Ransom Underground
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/combitstudios/river-city-ransom-underground

Slipstream (Successful)
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/noctet/slipstream

AdventureQuest 3D (Successful)
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/artix/adventurequest-3d
http://www.onrpg.com/games/adventurequest-3d/

Dogma: Eternal Night (Unsuccessful)
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/prelude/dogma-eternal-night
http://www.onrpg.com/games/dogma-eternal-night/

Zems (Unsuccessful)
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/exeneva/zems-a-tactical-online-card-game-with-dynamic-envi
http://www.onrpg.com/games/zems/

Hero’s Song
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/herossong/heros-song
Interview with John Smedley

ChemCaper
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/chemcaper/chemcaper-the-worlds-first-chemistry-rpg

OnRPG’s team believes strongly that the only true innovation in online gaming is set to come from the wild wildness of indie game developers. Do your part to support a project you truly believe has potential to make that change happen!

John Smedley Hero’s Song Interview

Questions by Andrew Skelton (Outfoxed)
Answers by John Smedley, Founder of PixelMage Games

John Smedley Hero's Song Interview header

With its Kickstarter officially underway, Hero’s Song has quite the development team behind it. The open world, 2D rogue-like RPG promises a focus on multiplayer experiences, amazing pixel graphics, and a dynamic world where choices made matter. John Smedley, formerly of Sony Online Entertainment and Daybreak, created Pixelmage Games to create this ambitious title. I had an opportunity to speak with him at length about the game, and his focus on ensuring it’s success.

 

Andrew Skelton: So, for those out there who may have somehow never heard of you, could you give us a little bit of your background here?

John Smedley: Sure. I’ve been making games since 1987, and then ran Sony Online Entertainment and then Daybreak for 15 years. I was part of Sony for about 21 years. This is my third startup. The first two I sold successfully. This one is all about making awesome pixel games.

 

Andrew: Tell us a little bit about the crew you’ve assembled there at PixelMage. They sound really interesting.

John: Let me start with Bill Trost. I’ve worked with Bill for a long time — we’re talking I worked with Bill on the original Everquest. He was the lead designer on that and then on Everquest II and a whole bunch of other stuff at SOE. He is our creative director on the game. We then have Michael Hunley, who’s our tech director. Michael worked at SOE for a really long time and did Free Realms, Clone Wars Adventures, and a bunch of other titles there. Those are the two main names.

We also have Joe Shoopack who’s our art director who was also at SOE and worked on the Everquest series and most of the games we did there. Then we have a number of other people — Andy Skirvin, Toby Brousil, Steve Freitas — all of which have long backgrounds in game development and have been this a lot of years.

Collectively, I think we have something like 200 years of experience.

 

Andrew: I know you’re looking to increase the size of your team after the Kickstarter campaign that’s going on. Is there a size you’re looking at overall, or just trying to build the best team?

John: We’re at 14 people now and what we decided is we want to be the Pixar of pixel games. To do that, the right way to do that is do it one at a time, with very much a craftsman’s attitude towards what we’re doing. We don’t want to think about the future, we want to think about what we’re making now and how much fun we have doing it. We want to enjoy the journey and we want to make really amazing and deep games.

 

Andrew: Speaking of, Hero’s Song kind of seems like a departure from your previous projects. What was the inspiration behind it?

John: So, it’s funny: from the outside, I can totally appreciate what you said. The truth is very different. I have had a game in my head for … it’s got to be about 15 years now, ever since we released EverQuest. The idea is that I want a world that feels alive; that’s driven by AI where each of the NPCs and the monsters have their own motivations that make sense. I want a world that’s not just a Hollywood facade of a town. I want things to matter to the NPCs. So, say you have an NPC that goes to their shop every night. Well, if you kill that NPC, that shop’s not going to open the next day. There’s not just going to magically be someone there. We wanted a world with consequences, so that’s what we’ve made.

 

Andrew: I know people are especially curious about the engine you guys are using to create the game with.

John: Sure! So, we started with the Unity engine. That is the single most time saving advantage I think I’ve ever seen. When I was working at SOE, we had our own engine, the Forgelight engine, which is great, but it was for very specific kinds of games. Unity lets us do a lot of modern stuff that really means our players are going to get the biggest bang for their buck framerate wise, with beautiful graphics, with very nice lighting in our engine and all these things. We built our engine on top of Unity.

 

John Smedley Hero's Song Interview: Rek

Andrew: Now, obviously you’re going for a nice single and multiplayer experience. Since we’re focused on the multiplayer, could you give us some idea on that experience you’re building into the game?

John: Really, the single and the multiplayer experience are the same, just with real people. When you walk into the world, the world is moving around you. The NPCs are doing stuff. If you log into the game today, and log in again tomorrow in the exact same place, you won’t necessarily see the same NPCs. They may be off doing other stuff.

Our focus is really heavily on the multiplayer. We have it so you can join a server from a list of servers, or you can host a server and list your server in the server list. If you host it, you can have 2,000 people playing on that server with at least 200 people playing at any given time. It actually depends on your machine. We actually think that number is going to be a lot higher.

 

Andrew: Can you use the same hero on multiple servers?

John: No, in fact, your hero is specific to the server you’re on, and here’s why that is: our world creation is based upon this concept that you select which gods are bound to your world. Once you’ve selected that, the world you play in — it’s very much like Terraria, how you make a new world in Terraria, it’s like that. When you do that, the gods, depending on the selections you make of which gods are in that world, and how much impact those gods have — we have sliders that say how much impact this god has in this world — the world itself changes and is radically different. So if you choose the goddess of the oceans as one of your primary gods, then maybe the god of the mountains and the Dwarves is less important, you could end up in a situation where there are no Dwarves because the Elves literally slaughtered them in a great war.

The world is radically different each time you make it based on your choices. That also means that the races and classes that are available may not even be there if you create the kind of world where the Dwarves are gone, or simply aren’t an option to play. There will be evidence of their civilization in decline in the hills.

 

Andrew: That’s very interesting,which kind of answered my next question regarding world generation affecting classes and races available. That answers that perfectly.

John: In fact, the simplest way for people to go in is they can just click “Create New World” and it’s balanced and the gods are all balanced and you get all the starting races and classes. It’s when you mess with it when it’s the most fun, because you get to see, “What happens if there were no Elves? What happens if the Dwarves destroyed them? What does that do to the world?” It’s different every time.

 

Andrew: As far as combat goes, is it turned-based, action-based, skill-based? What are we looking at there?

John: Hero’s Song is the love child of Dwarf Fortress, Diablo III, and Ultima Online and if I had to explain it in an elevator pitch to a gamer who knew those games, that’s what I would say.

 

Andrew: That works for me!

John: Yeah! Because of that, it’s very simple to say our combat is basically what Diablo III has with the exception that we’ve slowed it down because we want you to have more tactical opportunities rather than firing off hotkeys. I think we’ve got that nailed down pretty well.

 

Andrew: My last question kind of got answered earlier today. It seems like you’re really responding to the comments on the Kickstarter page in regards to people asking about the different tiers. Going forward, it seems like you want the community to be involved and understand their opinion matters.

John: It does! In fact, that’s why we chose to go to Kickstarter. I’ll be honest with you: we have investors that are ready to kick in if we didn’t do the Kickstarter, or even if it failed for some reason. The reason we went to the community for doing this is very simple: we wanted to start an actual Hero’s Song community, and one of the best ways to do that is to get people excited about it, and Kickstarter is great for that.

 

John Smedley Hero's Song Interview: Town

Andrew: One of the questions I had before was regarding the pricing of the game at $19.99 for retail, but the first tier was $25. You actually responded marvelously to that, in my opinion, by offering the $15 tier.

John: So, it’s interesting. We’re still learning Kickstarter. There are people saying, “Kickstarter 101, of course you should have done that!” It’s about — well, we think the Kickstarter backers believe what’s valuable versus what they actually do. What we found very quickly is we needed to have that cheaper tier. We had thought maybe the beta would be enough for them to pay a little bit more, and there were people clamouring for a $15 tier, so we said, “Okay, let’s do it! Let’s give them what they want!”

We’re going to keep responding that way, too. We’re going to look at the other tiers and see what we can do. We’re trying to be very transparent in development. Patrick Rothfuss is on the team with us. People are going to get a good time getting to watch the creative process within the world.

 

Andrew: That’s something I’ve noticed too. People are very invested now because Patrick Rothfuss is part of the game.

John: Have you ever read any of his books?

Andrew: Yes, I have, actually.

John: Ah, so you know what I’m talking about then. I’m the one that made the decision to bring him in, so this is totally my own opinion. I think he is an amazing writer with a gift for language. I love his books and he’s more of a literary version of George R. R. Martin. That’s probably too strong of a thing, because he obviously doesn’t sell nearly as many books, but he has been a #1 New York Times best seller. He’s beaten Martin before and few authors can say that.

He’s also a wild man! When we’re in our discussions about stuff, he has the most obscure knowledge that you’ve seen in your life! Stuff that you’ve never heard of, like, “Did you know why and how they treated people this way?” He’s just a fountain of knowledge. It’s been a blast to work with him.

 

Andrew: I’m sure that’s helpful when you’re trying to decide on how to do something, and he tells you a story about it.

John: So, let me tell you a story. I’m an aspiring fantasy novelist myself. That’s how I met him many years ago. He also shares how he does a lot of how he does stuff when he’s writing and the process. I’m a heavy, heavy reader and I’ve always often wondered what goes through really good writer’s minds when they’re writing and it’s nothing near as mind-blowing as you think. It’s just sitting down doing the job. It’s just that it’s more creative than most.

 

Andrew: Is there anything that you might want to share that I haven’t covered?

John: Not really, no! I just want people to know this game’s going to be amazing and we appreciate your covering it.

Andrew: You’ve got my support in this case, because I absolutely love the concept from the top all the way down, because I love the idea.

John: Thank you very much. I appreciate that personally, very much.

Andrew: You’re welcome. I know a lot of our team is excited and looking forward to what you’ll do. I appreciate the time you’ve taken for the interview!

(Why) You’ll Still Be Shit at MOBAs in 2016

By Colton Leighton (ColtronXL)

 

Editor’s Warning: This article is written in a language competitive MOBA players can understand. This is extremely offensive to the general populace. Viewer discretion advised.              

 

Colton MOBA Predictions 2016

“I think next year is the year I’m going to reach Diamond,” a coworker said to me before Christmas break in December, cementing his status as having said the stupidest thing I had heard in 2015. Now I, like most people, want desperately to believe in good things in this world. This is not, however, a Disney film so that shit goes right out the window post haste. He’s downright bad at League and if you’re reading this and your name isn’t Dyrus (and there’s almost a 100% chance you aren’t) then you’re shit too. I don’t even have to see a single game in your match history to make this judgment and know that I am absolutely and infallibly correct. Since I imagine that you play at least one of these types of games (League, Dota 2, SMITE, etc) I’m guessing that someone is reading this to you (because you are an illiterate scrub) and as such I’m going to break down for you exactly why you’ll be too busy shitting the bed in January to even think about cleaning the stains you left on the Internet last year.

 

1. You Picked the Champion/Hero/God I Wanted

Listen up you magnificent assclown. I said in all-chat at least seven times that I was going to take ADC Ahri. I’ve done it in fifteen games already and none of those losses were my fault because I eat clouds and poop golden apples! How could you not give me exactly what I want? Pick order doesn’t matter you uncultured fucking bottom-feeder! That’s okay though. I had no problems walking my support-adc-tank-hybrid Chaac right into the enemy’s Phoenix and grabbing my ankles while they tenderize my rosebud with a cucumber and serve it up in a tasteful Caesar salad. That’ll show you that I’m good at this game and you’re not. Jackass.

 

SMITE Predictions 2016

“Don’t go hybrid!” they said. “It’ll never work!” they said. I’ll show them the meaning of “won’t work.”

 

2. Buttons and Items Are Hard

It’s not enough that you could barely read enough to get through the installer without smashing your monitor in frustration; then I and every other sad-sack who had the self-loathing mustered up to hit the solo-queue option had to deal with the burden of your unimaginable incompetence. Why would companies like Hi-Rez and Riot create items that require additional button-presses and an understanding of these additional effects if the average player of their games doesn’t know their ass from a hole in the ground? In fact that’s a solid point. Your asshole would have been a better spot to place that ward you dropped three minutes in on our own tower. Maybe if you had shoved it up there it could have given us insight into how you got to be such a pathetic, miserable human being who cannot play this game to save his worthless life.

 

League Predictions 2016

Maybe your AP Ezreal build DOESN’T need FIVE PHANTOM DANCERS.

 

 3. You Cannot Listen/Obey Commands

I understand. Not everyone is a mind-reader like I am. Not everyone can know exactly the correct plays to make at every given moment in a crucial team-fight where every precious second and every last little input must be absolutely perfect for an advantageous victory to occur. This is why, and I stress this, YOU SHOULD HAVE LISTENED WHEN I PINGED ON THEIR TOWER NINETEEN TIMES BEFORE THROWING MYSELF TO MY DEATH! You should have instinctively known that I was making a power play and that you were meant to back me up! It doesn’t matter if they had five teammates under tower and three complete builds. If you had read my mind like a good player would have then you would have gotten some valuable assists (because let’s face it I’m the only one on this team who ever had a hope of getting a kill in the first place).

 

4. You Separated My Friend and I

It may be hard for you to comprehend (as I’m sure most things are for you) but if I was a shining ray of hope in your life that things might actually improve as it relates to MOBAs then the duo-queue tag-team of myself and my only friend should have appeared to you as the Lord Himself returning from on high, amen. It didn’t though. You, in a stroke of arrogance and stupidity that I can only surmise is the result of brain damage. Yes you refused to let us lead each-other by the BF-Sword into whatever lane we demanded to be in. This point goes hand in hand with item one. You denied us whatever ridiculous demands we insisted on in character select and as such are solely responsible for the loss we suffered and the decline of civilization itself. Hope you’re happy.

 

MOBA Meme

5. You’re Just Plain Bad

It’s not enough that you didn’t give me and my friend the roles/champions/lanes that we attempted to hold you hostage over in the pick/ban phase of the game. It wasn’t enough that you didn’t follow every stupid command we barked at you in chat throughout the whole game, and you didn’t intuitively follow our every move correctly. You even had the audacity to question my meta-destroying six Titan’s Bane Hercules build. Nope. Not enough for you. To top it all off, you’re just plain bad. You couldn’t Blitz-Grab the broadside of your mother’s ass if she shook it in front of you for money which I’m sure she does because she is a prostitute and you are a disgusting person. You don’t buy wards (I attribute this to the aforementioned illiteracy), you never show up for team-fights on time, and when you do you steal the kills which are rightfully mine that I earned, which is to say all of them.

There it is. Black and white, the head of the issue. You’re bad. You were bad yesterday, you were bad in 2015, and my accurate prediction is that you will still be bad in 2016. Them’s the breaks kid.

 

 

Colton Leighton is a self-described “humorous satire writer” and video editor for MMOHuts.com. The views expressed above are satire and if you couldn’t tell from the first paragraph then maybe I’m not too far off the mark. Be great to each other people. Break the cycle.

Rogue Stormers Launches on Steam on March 24th

Rogue Stormers Launches on Steam on March 24th header

 Black Forest Games, developers of the hit Giana Sisters series, is unleashing the lunatic world of Rogue Stormers on March 24th, 2016 on Steam (Windows). Featuring on-and-offline co-op with up to four players, this run’n’gun adrenaline trip retails for $19.99, with phat discounts for 2-Packs ($29.99) and 4-Packs ($49.99), because you’re a Bad Enough Dude or Dudette to gift your friends games on Steam. They’ll feel so grateful that they’ll have no choice but to play co-op with you.

Rogue Stormers debuts with a 10% off discount for its first week on Steam. Grab it up because it’ll be gone before you can say Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz.

What’s Rogue Stormers? Think a modernized Contra/Metal Slug mash-up. But German. Meaning big farking guns, raging powerups, and maniacal characters like Presto, who serenades you with opera as he burns you alive, and Stabbygale, the bombardier who avenges her friends’ murders with more murder. These procedurally-generated missions are so extreme that Diesel Clothing had to bust in with lawyers blazing.

Rise up against tyrannical clothing brands and monstrous creatures driven insane by Goop, a toxic fluid perfect for powering motors and wrecking brains. You and your band of rebel knights, the Rogue Stormers, are led by a werewolf on steroids. It is your mission to take back the oil rig city of Ravensdale. But if you burn the city to the ground while doing it, that’s fine too.

With procedurally generated levels, you’ll never play the same way twice. Rampage your way through five excruciatingly sick biomes modeled in blistering 3D. Trick out your equipment with randomized drops. Trigger environmental chain reactions to fry your enemies alive – set goop ablaze, detonate explosives, launch enemies into hazards and more!