MMO News |
- Discover Dofus Video Series
- League of Legends Music: The Curse of the Sad Mummy
- SMITE Lore Ep. 15: Who is Bacchus?
- RuneScape Patch Notes #55
- Blitzkrieg 3 Press Preview
- PAX South Day 3 Recap: Moonrise, Broken Bots, & Dreadnought
- Siegelord: New Details on Faction War Revealed
- Battle of Beasts: New Fantasy Browser Game Now Available
- Puzzle and Heroes: Puzzle RPG now available for CBT registration
- PlanetSide 2 Sets New Guinness World Record
| Posted: 26 Jan 2015 03:44 PM PST New series of tutorials to ease new players into the World of Dofus. |
| League of Legends Music: The Curse of the Sad Mummy Posted: 26 Jan 2015 03:40 PM PST A song and animation about Amummu, the sad mummy.
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| SMITE Lore Ep. 15: Who is Bacchus? Posted: 26 Jan 2015 03:32 PM PST Nevercake offers his take on Bacchus’ story.
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| Posted: 26 Jan 2015 03:29 PM PST A look at the major tweaks in this week’s RuneScape patch.
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| Posted: 26 Jan 2015 03:05 PM PST Blitzkrieg 3 Press Demo By Darren Henderson (DizzyPW)
This previous week I had the joy of catching up with an associate of mine from earlier in my journalist career, Sergey Orlovskiy, CEO of Nival Games. In the past I tested out their runaway MOBA RPG hybrid, Prime World, a game that found great success in their native home of Russia. What I wasn't aware of at the time was Nival had a longer storied history of game development, including a solo player real-time strategy franchise known as Blitzkrieg, focused on bringing the realism of the World War II era to life. As such we were surprised in recent months to see Nival back in the news pushing the third installment of this fabled franchise after a long hiatus, now with online multiplayer functionality. But honestly, what was the thought process behind it? We'd rate the real-time strategy genre as one of the toughest of all online gaming genres to break into. The market for it has always been seemingly small compared to other gaming genres, and mixing it with the overdone World War II era seemed like a recipe for certain obscurity. The dev videos leading up gave us enough hope to follow up with this press event, given the fantastic graphical representation of the iconic war with realistically recreated war machines from the Axis, Allies, and Communist (USSR) factions. But they needed some hook to give me something to work with. Thankfully they had been hiding (for whatever reason) just that hook in the shadows to catch me off guard in a great way when meeting in person to try it for myself.
Can This Hook Land the Big One? So what is it that could possible pull in an audience to the faded genre that Blizzard has all but conquered? The key here is Nival isn't after the Blizzard RTS fan market, at least not directly. The fish they're going to fry with this is a much newer population to the genre, namely the Clash of Clans mobile group. Nival's vision for Blitzkrieg is a world war recreated by players representing each of the three factions. Great concept, but ping is always an issue when trying to mix North American and Russian players. That's why they're taking the idea of Clash of Clans' asymmetrical competitive gameplay, and applying it to an AAA quality RTS setting. This lure offers something to draw in both jaded mobile strategy players looking for something more than just timing and click precision in their strategy game, as well as older gamers that loved growing up on RTS games but don't have the time to dedicate to half hour plus head-to-head brutal battles. Now if the kid starts crying, the player can simply pause the game to deal with real life before finishing their mission. But while they're playing the tactics, diverse units, positional strategy, map boons/banes, and skill cap with coinciding knowledge needs is all present. This all ties into the reward and progress mentality of mobile games by offering or costing you resources depending on your performance, that you then take into the opposite side of the game focused on base and army building, made infinitely more strategic now that you have all the time in the world to plan out your perfect defenses. In essence this isn't a question of mathematical efficiency in mobile games where a player must put a turret in the right spot between resource buildings to limit losses. Blitzkrieg 3 gets much more advanced, allowing AI scripting of defending units to time pincer formations, position soldiers in strong defensive positions such as machine gunners in pillboxes, rocketeers in clock towers, and the always fun call for surprise reinforcements or airstrikes. As a result, even though players will be fighting a RTS against AI, the AI will carry many of the tricks only a thinking human player would offer, because for better or for worse, these defensive plays will have been designed by a human player intending to counter you.
Progression Drives You On As time progresses and players build up resources, they can expend them on constructing new structures, whether defensive in nature, resource based, or production focused. They can also research to improve your units from late World War I units to the most advanced military to be found in the final days of the World War II conflict through a tech tree system, though it wasn’t implemented yet on the version I tested. Special support abilities can also be acquired such as recon forces, artillery bombardment, aerial bombardment, reinforcements, paratroopers, and just about any other strategic maneuver you can think of happening on the battlefield of that era. These resources are pulled from a single resource pool, forcing the player to actively decide which of the four equipped support abilities they think will be the most valuable to use at that time, with lesser support moves like recon to provide vision of an area costing less while full on aerial bombardment being quite expensive. Of course this pool is the same ability expenditure pool defenders can script to be used against you. The countryside is rather nice this time of year, before the bombs start dropping anyway. One aesthetic highlight I have to give props to is Nival's clear dedication to make your personal city feel like a living world. In between battles, you will see your troops drilling and training, local farmers going about their daily affairs, delivery men riding by on motorcycles, cranes trying to hoist a tank out of a river from a collapsed bridge, and so on. It's all entirely unnecessary, but if you're the type who likes to stop and bask in the glory of your progression, you will appreciate the attention to detail. Can't say any other game in the genre offers anything quite like Blitzkrieg 3's living cities.
Gameplay in a Nutshell All these factors considered, I expected the gameplay to feel watered down compared to other RTS games on the market. That's not the case at all. Every unit provides a key utility on the battlefield, making your decision of how to fill out your current maximum army size to bring to battle a serious debate. If you find yourself facing off against someone with large city structures, bringing infantry units skilled in guerrilla warfare might save your heavy expensive armors some serious damage from grenade launching ambushers hiding in large heavily fortified buildings. These infantry units can be instructed to raid and take over such structures to prevent you from the much longer alternative of blowing them up brick by brick. This is vital knowledge as the counter to the human vs AI setting in Blitzkrieg 3 is a battle timer that makes the full fight feel more intense. Rather than slowly picking apart an unthinking AI, you may find yourself rushing in from a non-optimal direction to pick apart your foe before the time limit runs out. Larger maps may reward faster armors, while more concentrated smaller maps will reward you for building out smaller high quality formations. As you progress, you’ll acquire generals that can bolster your troops actively and passively to rise to certain challenges. Every bit you conquer can mean more resources to speed up your progression, only to leave you second guessing your decisions as every unit destroyed on the battlefield will tally up to your overall costs in the battle. Bet you wish you protected those infantry units earlier on now, huh. Swampy ground for instance can stall out or slow your tanks treads. Trees can hide and increase the RNG of fire deflection for your infantry. Bullet fire is animated in real-time, allowing you to see the trajectory of shots and adjust your units accordingly. Micromanaging your units' reload time and positioning can be as rewarding here as it is in games like World of Tanks. Tanks can be readjusted to fire and then turn to their sides if that's where their armor rating is strongest to make the most out of direct open terrain trades. Certain defensive structures are built to counter certain unit types, making a well-timed paratrooper landing invaluable to clear anti-tank defensive structures with minimal damage. All this I vaguely comprehend from a quick 20 minutes with the dev team, and I shudder to imagine how many tricks of the trade pros will be able to learn come the full launch.
Launch Goals, Business Model, and Clan Support If the hook isn't enough to lure in the big fish, perhaps their future support plans are where Blitzkrieg 3 truly shines. To my surprise, this quality project intends to offer free multiplayer gameplay at launch. Rather than chipping away at the experience with paywalls and unique cash shop units, they intend to make a profit through cosmetic purchases as well as bonus DLC content. This DLC content should certainly appeal to the more veteran RTS players out there, as they intend to offer fully fledged single player campaigns telling the story of World War II from various angles in the conflict. They mentioned the possibility of even expanding past World War II to offer new units and tactics in a Vietnamese conflict DLC at some point. To address the other concern that RTS veterans may have with this new take on the genre, Nival promises that multiplayer functionality is on the way. This will come in the form of individual and competitive clan ranking based on your successes, activity, and who you can manage to take a beating to in the other factions. Cooperative missions akin to raid content are also in the works, allowing you to still play alongside other players instead of always grinding on scripted player built AI challenges. Overall Blitzkrieg 3 is pushing their treads in a positive direction. I'm not entirely sold on it, and it's going to have to show some solid gameplay to get over the negative connotations of being a World War II strategy game in 2015. But with their free to play online option there to give players a taste for free, and AAA quality campaigns on the way to add new levels of depth to those that stick around, I have higher hopes than I thought I would for this title. Beta starts next month and will be stretching through the better part of this year. Find out full details on their official site. |
| PAX South Day 3 Recap: Moonrise, Broken Bots, & Dreadnought Posted: 26 Jan 2015 02:56 PM PST By Jaime Skelton (MissyS) and Andy Skelton While the third day of PAX was on a sleepy Sunday, that didn't stop anyone from showing up and milking everything the show still had to offer. That final stretch of show is when you learn to forget about your tired feet and lack of sleep and really dig in to make sure you don't miss anything. Our day was hardly quiet and we ended with a real treat that left us talking as we walked out of the convention center for the last time this year. Moonrise There are a lot of creature battlers out there right now, given the popularity of a certain series that begins with P, and ends in mon. While Moonrise doesn't seem to add anything else to the genre on the surface, there are some very interesting differences fans may want to look at. For example, combat is real time. You select a move and wait for it to take effect; all the while the monsters are taking their own turns. Additionally, as the trainer (Wardens, as they're called in game), you're not limited to standing around and watching your critters fight it out for fun and profit – you have your own attacks to join in the fun with! The game promises a simple gameplay experience, but also provides any measure of in-depth strategies, from buffs, debuffs, and ailments, to simply wailing on the opposing trainer to end the battle quickly. It boasts several different customization options, both in trainer looks and pet skills. Pet stats can also be customized and manipulated to your desire. Better yet, battling pets (and trying to capture them) and other players doesn't use any sort of energy system, so you can play at your own pace. Only dungeons and tournaments have any sort of energy gate, and the regeneration rate is very reasonable!
State of Decay Some people may know Undead Lab's State of Decay. It's been out for a while now, and even boasts two expansion packs. What you may not know is they're working to re-master the game for the PC and Xbox One to take advantage of new technology. We had a nice hands-on experience with the game, and it is obvious they put a great deal of work into making the game look that much better. The world is super vibrant and colorful, losing the brown haze that many complained about. Both expansion packs are available from the get-go as well. Speaking of expansion packs, the team made sure they included any and all improvements from both expansions into the main State of Decay game as well. This makes for a much more robust experience for all three parts. Players who have already purchased State of Decay, fret not. Not only will you be receiving a discount on purchasing this edition, you'll also have exclusive access to a brand new character, along with new weapons. A brand new mission type has also found its way into the game, to add even more variety. Oh, and did we mention incendiary shotguns? Because incendiary shotguns …
Broken Bots The morning also meant a meeting with the small game studio, Bunnycopter. Broken Bots is a top down multiplayer shooter, and has recently launched both an open beta and a Steam Greenlight campaign. In its essence, Broken Bots is that fun, quick PvP fix that's fit for all skill levels to pick up and play. Talking about the game was all well and good, but we finally grabbed the controls and hopped into a Capture the Flag match. Before we knew it, we were invested in the outcome and were reluctant to relinquish the controls to the waiting con attendees. It was fast-paced, and the on screen HUD always kept us up to date on where our enemies, teammates, and flag were, so we always knew where to head. There's also simply nothing like the malfunction mechanic, which randomly grants short power-ups or power-downs and requires you to adapt on the fly. We'll have more to say about this title this week, so long as we can stop playing enough to write about it.
Elite: Dangerous Many people have stated Elite: Dangerous is best played with the Oculus Rift. After all, the game fully supports it natively, and is the first AAA title to include it as more than a tech demo or proof of concept. So having the opportunity to get that experience at their booth at PAX South was something that could not be ignored. We'll put it this way: Elite: Dangerous is most definitely meant to be played, experienced, and enjoyed with the Oculus Rift VR device. The demo was simple enough: a combat simulation against another ship. The nice thing about the game is there are multiple control methods available. For this demo, we were given a flight stick to use, and it felt as natural as what we'd imagine flying a real spaceship would be like (maybe). Combat is a definite strong point in Elite: Dangerous, and the simple little dogfight we had was still intense and loads of fun. Plus, the game boasts a 1:1 scale of the Milky Way galaxy. Who else can say that?
Cards & Castles If you've ever had one of those "Wait, how did I miss hearing about this game?" moments, you'll know how we felt when we learned about Cards & Castles. C&C is a game that combines collectible card gaming (ala Hearthstone and Magic the Gathering) with tactical turn based combat (ala Final Fantasy Tactics). The game also recently launched a new expansion, The Ancient Hero Returns, which introduces a single player campaign and an overhaul of the Draft mode. And while the game's currently mobile, they're preparing their PC client for beta and are currently on Steam Greenlight. That's a mouthful, but here's the core of it: Cards & Castles is a truly fun and engaging card strategy game unlike anything we've encountered yet, with a true emphasis on multiplayer and deck building. It's become a sleeper hit, and we can't wait to share more about it with you later this week.
Dreadnought Grey Box's booth was at the front of the show floor and grabbed everyone's attention immediately. Not one but two massive lines curled around this booth whose front stage was constantly doing live shoutcasting of both Grey Goo and Dreadnought matches. The promise of flashy lanyards and a free t-shirt for winners of team battles helped sweeten the deal, of course. While we're familiar with Grey Goo, which launched the same day PAX South opened, Dreadnought had been a general mystery to us, merely a vague idea of big spaceships with big guns. So when we stepped in and were properly introduced to this title, developed by YAGER and currently in pre-alpha, we were pleasantly surprised. Think of Dreadnought as a tactical class-based spaceship shooter. We had a hands on match with the game's team-based multiplayer, which will be free-to-play, but the game will also have an episodic single player campaign available for players to purchase. For a pre-alpha, the gameplay was incredibly smooth and is one of the most intuitive and enjoyable space combat games we've played to date. Stay ready for a full break down soon. Fun enough to even make Bucky dance. And that brings our PAX South daily recaps to a close, but this is only the beginning! This week we'll be revisiting many of these titles with more in-depth previews and interviews. Get ready, gamers: this is a good year. |
| Siegelord: New Details on Faction War Revealed Posted: 26 Jan 2015 12:41 PM PST 37Games has just released a new trailer video for Siegelord focusing on the real-time Faction War which turns out to be the most significant aspect of this game. Start a faction war: “War is like love: easy to begin but very hard to stop.” – H. L. Mencken Your first mission is to expand your faction’s territory with the help of your friends and allies from across the globe. Explore the Thieden and uncover valuable resources:“Unexplored paths lead to undiscovered treasures” – Consztance Chuks Friday. By moving to different areas in the world map you may find many resource such as gold, recruiting horns, food and gear for your generals. You can even gain experience by bribing barbarians. Besiege rival factions: “Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” – Sun Tzu For more info, visit http://siegelord.37.com/ |
| Battle of Beasts: New Fantasy Browser Game Now Available Posted: 26 Jan 2015 12:40 PM PST upjers, the developer and publisher of renowned browser games has unleashed the pugnacious monsters of Battle of Beasts. Now all players can play the new fantasy RPG with strategy and battle elements in English. The mythical world of Battle of Beasts is now finally open to the Anglophone world. Monster breeders can now set out on an adventure and build their own settlement. Of course, this includes accommodations for all sorts of combative creatures such as gigantic Wasps, mystical Basilisks and mysterious Nagas. Special attacks are especially impressive. Crawlers can entrap their foes in sticky webs and immobilize them. The Basilisk, half bird, half snake, turns its enemies to stone with a single glance. Nagas, a snakelike creature from Indian mythology, can charm and confuse its opponents, making them turn on their allies. In Battle of Beasts, upjers has created a spectacular fantasy adventure for your browser. Various features and options in this new RPG provide entertainment and long-lasting gaming fun. To keep your battle monsters content, you must establish an intricate production system involving growing crops and raising cattle. At the same time, you can dig for Gold in the mine and fortify your watchtower. But of course the focus of the game lies on the monster battles: these require strategic prowess, to vanquish your foes and expand your realm. For more info, visit https://en.upjers.com/battle-of-beasts |
| Puzzle and Heroes: Puzzle RPG now available for CBT registration Posted: 26 Jan 2015 12:40 PM PST ZQGame Global, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Shenzhen ZQGame Network Co., Ltd (SZSE: 300052) today announced that its Puzzle and RPG amalgam, Puzzle & Heroes is now open for closed-beta registration. Puzzle & Heroes combines the fun in adventure of the classic RPG and the ultra-habit forming gameplay found in the finest in match-3 puzzle games. The good King’s greatest warrior has been transformed into, of all creatures…..a DUCK!?! To break this curse, players are employed to travel the kingdom to hunt down the Warlock who imposed this spell and avenge the King’s warrior, eventually returning him back to his human state. Game Features Slide Match and Attack Hero Management Step into the Arena Be Famous Closed Beta sign-ups are only available for players with Android devices. Registration instructions and more information about the game can be found on the game’s official Facebook page: |
| PlanetSide 2 Sets New Guinness World Record Posted: 26 Jan 2015 11:48 AM PST Sony Online Entertainment LLC (SOE) has set a new GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS title for Most players online in a single FPS battle in PlanetSide®2, the critically-acclaimed, free-to-play massively multiplayer online first-person shooter (MMOFPS). As the authority of record-breaking achievement, this GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS® honor has further cemented PlanetSide 2 in history as a revolutionary massive scale FPS, while bringing to the forefront the game’s player community as among the most dedicated in the world of gaming. “PlanetSide held the original record for this achievement and we’re thrilled to have officially taken it back with PlanetSide 2,” said David Carey, Producer, PlanetSide 2. “It’s truly the players that define the game and we’d like to extend a BIG congratulations to our players for reaching such an accomplishment nearly every night, as well as thank them for making PlanetSide 2 exactly the type of experience it was meant to be.” The record was set on Jan. 24, 2015. SOE partnered with popular player-driven community PlanetSideBattles for an in-game battle on Hossin between all three PlanetSide 2 Empires (Terran Republic, Vanu Sovereignty and New Conglomerate) resulting in 1,158 players simultaneously in one instance via the game’s Jaeger competitive server. SOE unseated the previous record holder, Man vs. Machine, who had 999 players take action in game back in 2012. “This amazing achievement shows not only how truly massive the PlanetSide 2 universe is, but also how inclusive its online community is,” said Annie Nguyen, Video Games Records Manager at Guinness World Records. “This title truly embodies the international, record-breaking spirit of Guinness World Records.” PlanetSide 2 is among the only games to bring massive communities of players together to fight simultaneously across enormous battles, offering a truly massive world combat conflict. Players can download PlanetSide 2 today for free on Windows PC (https://www.planetside2.com), or register for a chance to participate in the Closed Beta on the PlayStation®4 (https://www.planetside2.com/ps2onps4). Optional content is available for purchase. Guinness World Records 2015 Gamer’s Edition, the eighth edition of the go-to resource for gaming achievements, launched November 2014 for $14.99 and is currently available for purchase. |
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