Monday, April 11, 2016

MMO News

MMO News

The Last Frontier

Posted: 11 Apr 2016 04:24 PM PDT

The post The Last Frontier appeared first on MMOHuts.

Orcs Must Die! Unchained Open Beta Review

Posted: 11 Apr 2016 01:18 PM PDT

The tower defense genre is not, and has not been for a while, restricted to simplistic flash games. Back in the day I am sure we all spent countless hours playing games such as Bloons Tower Defense, but this genre has come a long way since then. We are seeing more and more first person 3D tower defense games with their own unique twists every year. Dungeon Defenders and Orcs Must Die! have been the two that have stood out from the list of 3D tower defense games. Both of these games put you in the shoes of a hero that must balance actively fighting off waves of enemies while micromanaging a tactical series of tower defense traps to protect their objectives. Orcs Must Die! Unchained takes it even further by adding additional elements found in MOBA games to the mix. Read on for my review of Orcs Must Die! Unchained, now in open beta after years of closed beta testing!

Orcs Must Die! Unchained builds off the basics of previous installments in the offline series as well as their rival, Dungeon Defenders. You must stop waves of enemy minions from attacking your core (or in this case, your relic). How you do this is completely up to you. Most maps are divided into several lanes where minions march towards your relic. Depending on your hero, and in this case your deck, you may setup various traps, turrets, and buildings to slow down and defeat waves of enemies. It would be boring, and often impossible, to just sit back and watch your defenses do the job; this is where your hero's MOBA abilities come into play. Using your basic attacks, passive traits, and active abilities, you can jump between the lanes defeating waves of minions. That's all there is to the game and this genre in general.

 

The tutorials do a great job of introducing new players to the game.

It would be quite boring if the latest installment of the game simply stuck to the gameplay described above. We don't need yet another game like this when a DLC for the previous installments should suffice. However, Orcs Must Die! Unchained portrays itself more like a MOBA with multiple game modes rather than as a simple VS AI tower defense game. To begin, the game is always online and you must sign in with your Orcs Must Die account. This system has pros and cons but ultimately it lets you play online with others with ease and not have to rely on having a group ready to go before playing the game.

Once you have logged in, you are greeted with a basic lobby which acts as the main hub of the game. I was disappointed to find the settings menus very basic and even be limited to a measly 1366 by 768 pixels resolution. This is 2016, 1920 by 1080 should be the minimum resolution for a game such as this. It is important to note that the lobby and game are separate, so it may just be the lobby that is limited to this resolution. And no, being in open beta does not excuse the game from having poor resolution and other graphical options. After you have gotten over this downfall, we can move onto the game's other menus such as the store and workshop.

 

Barricades are a great way to force enemy minions into your traps.

Orcs Must Die! Unchained uses a hero system found in various ARTS/MOBA where you must unlock heroes before you can play them. These heroes, all with unique abilities and attacks, can be bought with real money or crafted using materials found simply by playing the game. Anyone that has read my previous articles will know that I hate systems which force you to unlock classes or heroes before you can access them as it results in an imbalanced playing field before the game has even begun. Well, what can you do… let's just be thankful that heroes are also craftable for free.

No matter which hero you select, your goal is still the same: stop enemy minions from destroying your relic. However, your role in achieving this goal can differ depending on your choice of hero. You may be jumping into the fray of battle, staying back and casting spells, or even helping your team stay alive. I personally like to stay back and deal damage at a distance that lets me see the overall flow of battle.

 

Setting up traps is as easy as selecting the trap and clicking where you want it.

Simply being able to select a hero with predetermined abilities would not be very interesting. This is where the deck system comes into play. You can make multiple decks with various cards, granted you possess them, in categories such as minions, traps, gear, and guardians. The deck system is quite interesting and lets you build a deck suiting your playstyle.

After finalizing your deck and selecting a hero, you can jump right into either the Siege or Survival game modes. Survival is a PvE (player versus environment) game mode that is identical to the traditional tower defense games. You and your team must fight off waves of enemies using your hero and custom deck. If you have played any of the previous installments of Orcs Must Die!, this game mode is nothing new, but it is still nice to have this around for fans of the genre that want to experience it with a few friends. Siege is a new game mode introduced to the game which pits five heroes against five heroes working towards getting their minions to the enemy relic. However, unlike a traditional MOBA, waves of minions do not mindlessly march towards the enemy base. Instead, you must setup various portals with your cards to summon minion waves.

 

There are a good number of cards available for players to make their own unique decks.

Depending on your deck, every lane may have different minions. This system keeps the game interesting as you are not stuck seeing the same boring minions everywhere. You can setup your minion waves to suit your playstyle. The functionality found in Survival is still present in Siege; you can still setup traps and barricades. Barricades and traps only affect minions but Guardians (think towers from MOBA games) will still attack heroes when all nearby minions have been defeated. Overall, this game mode is quite interesting and is a nice mix of tower defense with the MOBA genre. While it is true that we are seeing more and more MOBAs nowadays, it is nice to see Orcs Must Die! Unchained at least include its own unique twists such as tower defense and being able to summon your own custom minion waves.

Conclusion: Good

In conclusion, Orcs Must Die! Unchained did a great job mixing the tower defense and MOBA genres. When I first started up the game, I did not expect to find MOBA elements in this tower defense game. There are so many MOBA games on the market now but not many set themselves apart from the competition and simply try to copy the success of Dota 2 and League of Legends. This game does a good job offering something unique and interesting.

 

The game’s controls feel great.

There is a lot of negativity around the game's cash shop and choice of publisher. This is sad to see as the game plays quite well, and I would hate to see yet another potentially great game ruined due to greed and poor monetization decisions. If the game can stick to cosmetic or balanced items being offered to players, the game can do great. However, the greedy route of selling consumables such as potions, locked heroes, and cards will bring bad days to the game. Open beta is very close to release in most cases so it would be surprising to see major changes, but it is not impossible for developers to listen to their community.

The Steam reviews have either greatly negative or greatly positive reviews. However when reading through the bulk of negative reviews, the focus is on the cash shop far more often than gameplay elements. This shows that the gameplay has great potential if it was not for the imbalanced cash shop. Let us hope that this game can stay afloat without taking the greedy route.

The post Orcs Must Die! Unchained Open Beta Review appeared first on MMOHuts.

Nosgoth Shutting Down May 31

Posted: 11 Apr 2016 12:50 PM PDT

A post on the main blog for Nosgoth has confirmed that the Legacy of Kain MOBA will be ceasing development, shutting down its servers on May 31.

Any purchases made since March 1 will be automatically refunded to players. Future content and leagues are also cancelled, with the exception of the Nosgoth Open Beta Cup Series, which will continue through April.

Psyonix addresses any player concerns in this FAQ.

The post Nosgoth Shutting Down May 31 appeared first on MMOHuts.

Escape From Tarkov Reveals Skill System

Posted: 11 Apr 2016 12:24 PM PDT

Battlestate games, developers of Escape from Tarkov, have revealed new details about the game's in-game skill system, skill upgrades and skills' influence on gameplay.

Escape from Tarkov features five skill categories, and each skill upgrade is repetition-based: the more a character performs a certain action – the better he becomes at it. In short, a player’s actions directly influence their character by upgrading the most essential and frequently used skills.

The skill system in Escape from Tarkov is designed to be a bit different from everything what you may have seen so far in the majority of RPG projects, and moreover, it is designed so that it does not interfere with the core gameplay.

In the skills interface, each skill icon features a small colored letter – and all of them have their own meaning. The digits at the bottom of a skill icon reflect skill level and progress.
So how does a skill upgrade occur? It's fairly simple – skill upgrades are repetition-based, and, by performing any action, you are gradually upgrading the respective skill or skills, thus making consecutive performance better, quicker and more accurate. As a result, your character will only improve in the skills that you use during gameplay. Additionally, on every experience level gained, you will be granted an opportunity to level up one skill at your own discretion.

In Escape from Tarkov, you not only improve your skills, but you can "forget them." If the player does not make use of a certain skill, it will eventually lose levels. Skills can't, however, be forgotten absolutely; unused skills are rolled back/forgotten to a predetermined minimum level, and, the player can level them back up to where they were by simply making use of them. The skills system is also designed so that a skill weakened by dis-use can return to the "forgotten" level more quickly than if you were first learning it.

After reaching a particularly high skill level, an "elite" skill level is unlocked, which features various bonus perks – which are, of course, very helpful.

Learn more about these skills here.

The post Escape From Tarkov Reveals Skill System appeared first on MMOHuts.

Total War: Warhammer Available to Play at PAX East

Posted: 11 Apr 2016 11:38 AM PDT

SEGA® Europe Ltd. is announcing to its fans and followers to get their bags packed and head to PAX East taking place in Beantown (Boston), April 22-24, 2016 as SEGA® and Creative Assembly will be offering public hands-on opportunities with two new extraordinary Quest Battles for the soon to be launching Total War™: WARHAMMER®.

The game will be playable at booth #8109, Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 10AM – 6PM. The booth will also be outfitted with key team members from Creative Assembly aiding you in, hopefully, victorious combat. They will also be giving presentations showing exclusive new campaign and battle content, along with daily live contests offering fans the chance to play live on stage and win some fantastic prizes.

The playable battles will be:

  • 'The Amulet of Sea Gold' – Balthazar Gelt, Supreme Patriarch of the Colleges of Magic, leads his men beneath the rough stone lintel of the ancient barrow mound. He feels the shadows crowd in upon him. Creeping despair writhes the hearts of the warriors as they descend. While this is not necessarily an evil place, it is a place of death; the spirits within resent the presence of the living. Gelt has fought the Undead before; he looks to the men, demands valor and then begins to channel the Winds of Magic.
  • 'Sword of Unholy Power' – In the south of the Badlands at the southern edge of the Old World lies a bleak desert and piercing up into the sky is the Pillar of Bone, an ancient arcane fulcrum revered by the Greenskins who live near it. A massive Greenskin slaughter has transpired near this sacred place providing the right condition for the Undead Count to bind the necromantic energy into an artefact. However, he must destroy this Goblin Shaman and his underlings before any Greenskin reinforcements arrive!

The post Total War: Warhammer Available to Play at PAX East appeared first on MMOHuts.

Tom Clancy’s The Division Update 1.1 Trailer

Posted: 11 Apr 2016 11:05 AM PDT

Tom Clancy’s The Division Update 1.1: Incursion launches April 12, bringing with it the new Falcon Lost incursion and more.

The post Tom Clancy’s The Division Update 1.1 Trailer appeared first on MMOHuts.

Smite Pandamonium Odin Skin Preview

Posted: 11 Apr 2016 10:44 AM PDT

We’re not sure why it exists, but Smite showcases its new Pandamonium Odin skin, available in the Escape from the Underworld patch.

The post Smite Pandamonium Odin Skin Preview appeared first on MMOHuts.

Destiny: The Taken King April Update Preview

Posted: 11 Apr 2016 10:36 AM PDT

Bungie takes a look at the new challenges, rewards, and changes coming to Destiny: The Taken King in the April 12 update.

The post Destiny: The Taken King April Update Preview appeared first on MMOHuts.

Mirage: Arcane Warfare Community Diary 2 (Characters)

Posted: 11 Apr 2016 10:18 AM PDT

Torn Banner takes a closer look at the characters in Mirage: Arcane Warfare.

The post Mirage: Arcane Warfare Community Diary 2 (Characters) appeared first on MMOHuts.

Livelock Catalyst Reveal Trailer

Posted: 11 Apr 2016 09:44 AM PDT

Livelock reveals its third playable character: Catalyst. Catalyst is a loyal team member focused on command and support.

The post Livelock Catalyst Reveal Trailer appeared first on MMOHuts.
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