MMO News |
- Labyrinth Kickstarter Video
- Labyrinth
- League of Legends Preseason Rundown 5.22
- Blade & Soul Closed Beta 1 Impressions – The Early Levels
- Smite Reveals Patch 2.18 and New Pantheon
- Eternal Arena Launch Trailer
- Knight Squad Arms Race Game Mode Preview
- Creativerse Free to Play Video
- WildStar Enter the Cryo-Plex Update Now Live
- Europa Universalis IV: The Cossacks Confirms Release Date
| Posted: 11 Nov 2015 03:53 PM PST Free Range Games introduces Labyrinth, a 3D CCG with a PvP focus, to Kickstarter. The post Labyrinth Kickstarter Video appeared first on MMOHuts. |
| Posted: 11 Nov 2015 03:53 PM PST Labyrinth is a multiplayer CCG-RPG. Featuring 3D graphics and tactical, turn-based combat, Labyrinth uses card game mechanics to bring a dungeon crawling experience where players can control both a party of adventurers and create their own dungeon, including bosses, to challenge other players. Heroes can be one of four callings, and a diverse array of cards allows you to customize and maximize your experience. Labyrinth is currently in development but will be free-to-play.
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| League of Legends Preseason Rundown 5.22 Posted: 11 Nov 2015 03:44 PM PST League of Legends breaks out two videos to break down all the major changes coming with the 2016 preseason. The post League of Legends Preseason Rundown 5.22 appeared first on MMOHuts. |
| Blade & Soul Closed Beta 1 Impressions – The Early Levels Posted: 11 Nov 2015 03:05 PM PST So after two and a half years of waiting (or eight plus years, depending if you've been waiting for an English version since its inception), NCWest has finally given North America and Europe a taste of the martial arts madness that is Blade & Soul (B&S), an Asian-themed fantasy MMORPG created by in-house development studio Team Bloodlust and originally headlined by popular Korean artist Hyung-tae Kim, best known for his work on the Magna Carta series. After NCWest revealed an announcement in 2012, the game was put on a hiatus for very undisclosed reasons (although, anyone that has been paying close attention to NCSoft's track record can easily figure out what caused such a delay). Regardless, NCWest is finally ready to give B&S its chance to shine here in the west, and they've been going full force with weekly news updates, livestreams and promotions galore. In order to drum up some hype, NCWest is hosting five closed beta tests for anyone that purchases a founder's pack off their website, or for anyone that's lucky enough to get their hands on a closed beta key. After years of watching promo videos, guides, wikis and competitive tournaments on YouTube, I was ready to jump into the action. For starters, the game starts up with players being able to choose up to handful of classes among four different races: The courageous Jin (humans), the powerful Gon (Big humans), the mysterious Yun (Tall skinny female humans) and the diminutive Lyn (Tiny humans with animal ears and tails).  Recreating a younger version of myself. Sure, it's kind of disappointing that the race selection only features variations on humans with some defining body physiques. Luckily (for B&S) the character creation options will more than make up for it, because without a single doubt in my mind, Blade & Soul features one of the best character creation systems in any MMORPG out there. Character creation includes a number of hairstyles, facial and body sliders, skin tones and more (hell, there's even three sliders dedicated to female chest sizes.) Not only is there tons of options for creation, but also tons of options to make sure your creations are perfect, including different preview outfits, poses, height comparisons and lighting tests. They've pretty much covered everything there is for players to make the character of their dreams…  …or nightmares, if you're into that sort of thing. You could easily spend hours upon hours tweaking your character creations. I think the development team really wanted players to, because they also included an option to save your character's appearance into these neat little jpeg files that can easily be reused, as well as shared by other players.  Go ahead: Save this picture below and drop it into your BNS picture folder, then reload it using the character creator. Cool, huh? The character creation tools are so impressive that one may even forget that there's still a legitimate game to be played here. I could spend this entire article talking about character creation in B&S, but that wouldn't make for a very enjoyable article, so I went with creating this Jin Kung Fu Master here and dived in. At the start of the game, you're given a fairly short tutorial that will teach players how to interact with objects in the game world, the art of windwalking (also known as Qing-Gong), basic combat attacks, and the revive system. All the while teaching players more about the Hongmoon school, the students that train there, and the old Lyn master who runs the school. After learning all these gameplay elements, you're then treated to several cutscenes showcasing the wonderful demise of your school, all thanks to an evil women named Jin So Yeon and her crew. Your character watches everyone get destroyed, including the master, and then the player's quest for vengeance begins, but not after getting knocked off a huge floating island.  No ambiguity here. These people are bad dudes. From here, the tutorial extends itself into a few more quests where players meet up with soldiers known as the Bamboo guard, and must defend a beachside from thugs and pirates known as the Blackram. This is where players can meet up with other players for the first time as they all work together to push back the Blackram thugs and rescue a few Bamboo guard members on the side. Only after that and a few more tutorial quests that teach the upgrade system and how Soul Shields work (also known as Bopae) will you gain an ounce of freedom in how your game plays out. It's absolutely a good time to point out that this game is beautiful on a level off our typical MMORPG scale. Yes including games that went into development after this game was already released. Sure, there is are some textures that could use a high resolution update, but the visual effects, skyboxes and overall appearance of the environments will make for some tasty eye candy. Given the depths of this beauty, I naturally broke from the quest line chain to attempt to break free of the typical map. Unfortunately even with the insane jump sprint capabilities offered in Blade & Soul, I was prevented from any kind of off-the-map exploration because there's invisible walls placed EVERYWHERE. It's incredibly annoying and disappointing. Why put in a kickass movement system when players can't make use of it anywhere other than the paths already laid out for us? Not to mention that movement system cannot be used in combat for anything beyond setting up a flashy first move of engagement.  Simply put: Don't bother trying to venture off the beaten path using your amazing movement abilities, because the game won't let you. Despite this, the combat system stands well on its own, as it provides a unique mix between combat found in modern MMORPGs and fighting games. Players can perform various different combo attacks along with an array of CC abilities such as stuns, knockdowns, grabs, launchers and more. And each hit performed is very satisfying to land on an opponent, as visual and audio feedback with each attack feels incredibly heavy and solid. From my experiences of playing from level 1 to 15, I was already feeling like a complete martial arts hero, executing powerful slams, ground tackles, one-inch punches and other dazzling moves that would make the late Bruce Lee proud. As nicely animated as this was, there seemed to be just enough compromise on animation cancelling to make micromanaging fighting fans find the battles rewarding. Mob enemies in the game, although fairly easy to defeat, do a great job of scaling up the challenge and keeping players on their toes. They will start off by attacking slowly and blindly by using attacks with visual effect tells or large telegraphs that can be dodged by simply stepping out of the way. Later on, they add in new layers of challenge, such as using their own blocks and counter attacks, so players will always have to be paying attention to an enemy’s current state if they wish to end battles quickly. Now this impressions article is just about done, but one issue that I’d like to point out before ending things off is with the game’s storyline and more specifically, how it was presented in voice acting, because for Pete’s sake…  Visuals in this game aged like a fine wine. While some characters actually sounded pretty decent, most of the voice acting in the game can only be considered as absolutely horrendous. Some character's voices sound too forced, others sound like no effort was put forth, and many, many characters speak various dialects of English that throws off the whole Asian fantasy theme. Even characters that are supposedly related to each other speak different dialects. It’s almost as if the developers asked random NCWest employees to step in and voice most of the characters to save time and money on quality voice work. I was hoping the VO for this game was going to be "cheesy", much like how voice acting was presenting in those old 1980s Kung-Fu flicks. But what I got instead was something much, much worse. Even though NCWest has mentioned that the VO is only temporary and will be updated sometime before the official launch, the lack of quality VO in the closed beta really shook me out of the experience, and at one point, I simply stopped following the storyline because of it. — There's several other aspects of the game that I wasn't able to cover in this impressions, such as the PvE instances and the PvP scene, so I will be focusing my time and attention on those aspects for the next few closed beta tests. Until then, keep your bookmarks tabbed to OnRPG for more info on Blade & Soul. Full Gameplay Image GalleryThe post Blade & Soul Closed Beta 1 Impressions – The Early Levels appeared first on MMOHuts. |
| Smite Reveals Patch 2.18 and New Pantheon Posted: 11 Nov 2015 02:15 PM PST This afternoon, Smite‘s patch note stream revealed the notes for 2.18, “The Astral Hunt.” This patch has no god balance changes, but does introduce a new god: Chiron, the Great Teacher. This will be the final god release of 2016 prior to next year’s reveal of the new pantheon. We also see the new map Clash getting its first chance to shine! This god’s abilities are:
New skins include Sagittarius Chiron, Khepri Mastery, BASS Drop Janus, Furiona Bellona, Rock From Bisrakh & King of the Ring Ravana, Nutcromancer Ah Puch, and Child’s Play Scylla. Full patch notes are available here. There was one additional bonus reveal today: the new Shinto Pantheon! This new pantheon will begin its entry into Smite during 2016, introducing a host of Japanese deities to the game. More details will be revealed at the SPL Super Regionals. Smite Patch 2.18 RevealThe post Smite Reveals Patch 2.18 and New Pantheon appeared first on MMOHuts. |
| Posted: 11 Nov 2015 11:49 AM PST NetEase releases Eternal Arena, an action RPG for iOS and Android with over 35 playable characters. The post Eternal Arena Launch Trailer appeared first on MMOHuts. |
| Knight Squad Arms Race Game Mode Preview Posted: 11 Nov 2015 11:32 AM PST Learn more about the Knight Squad Arms Race mode, available in the Extra Chivalrous DLC. The post Knight Squad Arms Race Game Mode Preview appeared first on MMOHuts. |
| Creativerse Free to Play Video Posted: 11 Nov 2015 11:21 AM PST Creativerse is now free-to-play! Still in Early Access, build R25 opens the game world to the public for further testing. Full patch notes can be found here. The post Creativerse Free to Play Video appeared first on MMOHuts. |
| WildStar Enter the Cryo-Plex Update Now Live Posted: 11 Nov 2015 10:55 AM PST NCSOFT and Carbine Studios announced today that the latest update to WildStar – Enter the Cryo-Plex – is now live. As the first game update to come to WildStar since its free-to-play transition, Enter the Cryo-Plex brings the new Cryo-Plex arena and Arena Season 2. The Cryo-Plex arena is a frozen tundradome in the extreme southern region of Olyssia where teams will face off in subzero temperatures. Arena Season 2 offers teams the ability to jump into Rated matches against other teams of similar skill and battle their way to the top of the rankings while collecting rare rewards. Teams can improve or lose their rating based on their wins and losses throughout a Season and at the end, the top five teams will receive unique weapons, a mount, pet and title. To find out more about the Cryo-Plex arena and Arena Season 2, check out this post. The post WildStar Enter the Cryo-Plex Update Now Live appeared first on MMOHuts. |
| Europa Universalis IV: The Cossacks Confirms Release Date Posted: 11 Nov 2015 10:16 AM PST With the holiday season soon in full swing, it’s the perfect time to plan how you’ll be spending those late nights in front of the computer. Why not conquer the world? On December 1, 2015, you will be able to play The Cossacks, the next expansion for Europa Universalis IV, the best-selling historical grand-strategy game from Paradox Development Studio. With a host of new features and upgrades as impressive as the legendary steppe warriors themselves, The Cossacks brings even more depth and detail to Paradox’s flagship series. A new diplomatic system lets you highlight provinces for expansion, pointing out to friend and foe alike where your ambitions lie. Earn the trust of your allies by performing favors for them, and use the promise of enemy territory to entice them to your side.
And, as always, even if you don’t buy The Cossacks, its release will be accompanied with a free major content update for all Europa Universalis IV players. The post Europa Universalis IV: The Cossacks Confirms Release Date appeared first on MMOHuts. |
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