MMO News

Win That War! Early Access Impressions
Battleborn Competitive Multiplayer Trailer
Blackwake Alpha V2.1 Release Trailer
Total War: WARHAMMER 2 High Elf Roster Reveal
Dark and Light Closed Beta Sign-Up Trailer
Gwent Open Beta Impressions
Laser League Announcement Trailer
World of Warcraft: Legion Patch 7.2.5 Survival Guide
Dropzone Patch Notes #2236 Overview

Posted: 09 Jun 2017 12:26 PM PDT

In the 1950s, we had a particular vision of the future. Rounded vehicles that flew, space colonization, we'd be on Mars, using robots to build everything, unlimited sources of power, and military might beyond our wildest imagination. That's what "Win That War!" looks like to me. The developers took that visual design and brought it to 2017. All the splash art, and menus, they all look like that "Retro Future" my parents were no doubt waiting on. Specifically, Win That War is something that has not been seen often enough: An MMORTS. Players pick one of three factions [or each faction!] and all vie against each other in real time for the control of a planet. Each planet is broken up into several regions, each with their own map. In theory, you can join specific online games [like rooms for matchups], but I have yet to see even one spring up in my entire time playing the game. The only time I've come across another human player is in the Galactic Campaign. This is the big winner of the game, the main game mode. This game to me plays, feels, and looks like some of the classic RTS from my youth: Dune, Command & Conquer, and one of the more recent titles, like Supreme Commander. However, you don't have "Commander" units, just your tanks, engineers, diplomats… and of course the rank and file that you produce in the factories.

Progress comes with a cost.

Before you even get into the game, you create up to three characters. You can take this one of two ways. You can either make three characters of the same faction, or you can play it against the middle, and do one of each. Maybe Nasca's getting creamed and overwhelmed? Figure maybe you can try your luck joining the winning faction of Atlas? Go for it! Each of these characters starts off with 25000 credits, for which you can use to create your landing parties. Your "Spawn Squads" are your away teams that you drop onto specific territories to try and conquer them, or at least, start your ultimate goal of commanding all of the resources of a planet. The baseline group has One Light Tank, Two Engineers, and One Diplomat. You can use credits to increase the amount of units available, and from there you can add units as you see fit [that you have unlocked].

Here's where this game really stands out for me: Once you've got yourself situated on a territory, you've built a force that you're proud of, or you actually have to leave [or are mad that you're losing, whatever. No judgments here, folks], you can entrust your Squad to the AI. They'll try to defend you against attacks and keep your best interests at heart. I don't think it'll go out and attack people though. I am particularly glad that you can't set any kind of defensive/aggressive AI. Because I can see people going whole hog, building five factories, setting themselves to aggressive, then focusing on a different faction.

Bring your best squads to the fight!

As long as you have Spawn Squads that aren't busy, you can work on another territory. Success and completing quests [that are refreshed daily] also give you credits. So you can amass a neat little fortune and have as many squads as you'd like. It also helps when you can tackle empty territories before other players get to them, making it a little easier to complete quests. So who are these factions? How are they different? Each has a color [Red, Blue, Green]. There are Blum, Atlas, Nasca. The good thing? They aren't different at all. They don't have unique factions, special bonuses, things that set them apart. The bad thing? They're all the same. It's a double-edged sword; you don't have to worry about your opponents having an edge other than playing longer, but they don't stand out. The units all are kind of bland looking and there can be times they cannot be distinguished from one another.

Another positive point though is that resources don't run out. Once you've built a resource gatherer for "Liquid" or "Sharp Crystals," you won't stop gaining them until that item is destroyed. You can also build buildings to increase your overall max. It does feel like it's incredibly easy, as long as you aren't under attack, to build new units like Light Tanks or Buggies. However, I could not figure out easily what my cap was. When my energy rating dropped, I'd build more generators, but I'd like it to be a bit more obvious. Traveling these maps is tedious though and feels like it takes forever. If you zoom out, you can see everything on it that's been discovered by your faction. Multiple people of a faction can take part in a battle over a territory after all. If it's an untouched area, you have to manually go out and explore and find the resources, because that's the name of the game.

This was my view for most of the game. Pew. Pew.

You want to destroy all of their forces, yes, but you also want to command all of the resources. Though if they can't land and develop, they can't take anything from you. That's one of the reasons I've played more on territory maps that have already been worked on by my side or an enemy because that really shaves a lot of time off. In the Galactic Campaign, you have a timer of several days, and whoever has the most, wins that planet. It seems to be one planet at a time, and as time progresses, they have said there will be more biomes, and I assume that means we'll have more varied planets as time progresses. It's also worth noting that each region has its own planet. Speaking of regions though, if you control a region, and all of the regions around it, you "lock it down," preventing other sides from building and getting a presence there. This is a really cool idea, but when things are slow, you can have three avatars in the same faction and just put as many squads down as you can to control/lockdown all on your own. That's one of the negatives of not having a big player base just yet.

One of the rare moments I built an army ... that went nowhere.

However, the game, despite the wonderful look and sound of it, can feel incredibly bland. I haven't been able to figure out how to target groups of units yet [just one at a time], and like I said, there aren't a ton of units, and most of them have the same general shape unless you zoom in pretty far. While I do love the idea of thousands of players all vying for one planet at once, the lack of a player base is definitely hurting it. Most territories I've been to have been all but empty, except maybe an AI-controlled unit at best. I would like to see an offline version where you conquer planets not used in the Galactic Campaign, another way to acquire credits and such, because while yeah, you get them from quests and being generally successful, I feel like there should be another way. Now there "is" a Quick Match against offline enemies, where aliens defend resources on a few biomes, but I want to see an actual Galactic Campaign offline. I don't think it's necessary, that's just a want on my end. However, if you are failing as a character, you can delete them, and make a new one in that faction, start with all your credits again [but not any that you earned from quests]. The game rewards building as much as you possibly can though. As many generators as possible to flood the ground with tanks and engineers and turrets, things like that.

The 1950s, Today

State of Early Access: Good

This is a concept that I absolutely adore. The 50s style eerie music/sounds and general aesthetic of this game are pleasing. The concept of an MMORTS is something that is definitely not overdone, and once this has a larger player base, and people can really get competitive? That'll be crazy fun. However, as it stands right now, it's pretty bland, and combat can be horrific and overwhelming. Almost every battle I've been in, no matter how many turrets, radars, and tanks I had, I'd get absolutely steamrolled by 50-100 tanks at once. Anytime I can get an army of that size going, there are no enemies in sight, and they just idle and waste my resources.

It's a fun game, but there are some hazards. Some menus and sections of the game are in French no matter what, and the largest part that made this almost unplayable for me was this: I use a set up with two monitors. That's not unusual. Most RTS games in full screen will not move to the other monitor [Dead Zone, Black Zone, whatever they call it], but this one does not have that anywhere in the settings. In order to play this game, I had to unplug my other monitor and did not see a way around it. Having to completely change some of my set up just to play a game really chaps my hide. I treated this like a normal RTS, but it definitely isn't. You need to build as much, as fast as possible in this game. Don't worry about "Oh, I have about 24 tanks, that's okay". It's not okay. You need dozens, hundreds. It's early access, so there's still time for updates, changes to make it a little more enjoyable. The multiplayer is what's going to make it feel truly special, but without people to play against? It's going to feel empty, and the experience is going to suffer.

The post Win That War! Early Access Impressions appeared first on MMOHuts.

Battleborn Competitive Multiplayer Trailer

Posted: 09 Jun 2017 10:55 AM PDT

Battleborn showcases its five competitive multiplayer modes, available in the unlimited Free Trial.

The post Battleborn Competitive Multiplayer Trailer appeared first on MMOHuts.

Blackwake Alpha V2.1 Release Trailer

Posted: 09 Jun 2017 10:32 AM PDT

Blackwake Alpha V2.1 introduces the Schooner, Junk Ship, Treasure Trade mode, and more.

The post Blackwake Alpha V2.1 Release Trailer appeared first on MMOHuts.

Total War: WARHAMMER 2 High Elf Roster Reveal

Posted: 09 Jun 2017 10:22 AM PDT

Total War: Warhammer 2 reveals its High Elf unit roster and two Legendary Lords.

The post Total War: WARHAMMER 2 High Elf Roster Reveal appeared first on MMOHuts.

Dark and Light Closed Beta Sign-Up Trailer

Posted: 09 Jun 2017 09:39 AM PDT

Snail Games announces the availability of sign-ups for the Dark and Light Closed Beta.

The post Dark and Light Closed Beta Sign-Up Trailer appeared first on MMOHuts.

Gwent Open Beta Impressions

Posted: 09 Jun 2017 09:37 AM PDT

It's a tough world for up-and-coming online collectible card games these days, however, a new challenger rises to break the mold and crown itself king within the genre.

From the humble beginnings of a side activity in the Witcher series, to having a quarter-of-a-million dollar tournament in its closed beta, Gwent is shaping up to be the next big thing.

Care for a Game of Gwent?

Who needs RNG?

At a glance, Gwent appears to be a regular CCG, but it couldn’t be more different upon closer inspection. Most initially striking is how you draw pretty much half your deck in your opening hand. Additionally, there's no mana restriction, so in essence there is no 'playing on curve' as all of your options are immediately evident. From as early as turn 1, you have to come up with a game plan for pretty much the entire match.

Winning the game is also quite unique. Essentially every card you play contributes to your strength advantage; win 2 out of the 3 rounds and walk away with victory. Due to this unorthodox way of playing, many more strategic elements can be exercised all at the same time. It's a brilliant combination of turn-by-turn decision making, overarching strategies perfected in deck building, and a level of mind games and bluffs seen only in games like Poker.

Continuing with the against-the-grain philosophy, Gwent minimizes RNG as much as it can. For example, in addition to the initial 3-card-mulligan, you can continue to mulligan cards in later rounds which allows for more flexibility instead of simply being stuck with what's left over from the opening hand. Similarly, many cards mitigate randomness in favor of more reliable, predictable, and counterable effects.

Gwent can be confusing seeing as it's so radically different from the competition, even more so when getting into the specifics within collection. Yet it's not so steep a learning curve to be frustrating and still retains a satisfying level of complexity in the long run.

Beta Blues

It's because the gameplay is so shockingly refreshing that it makes this next part so painful. Currently, Gwent is not in an ideal state. I can hardly go a single match without something unwarranted happening like effects not showing up, not being able to complete an action, or the depressingly frequent freezing and disconnects. It's so bad I don't even want to attempt to play ranked. While CD Projekt Red have responded to the server issues with some in-game goodies, it’s still a massive disappointment – even when keeping in mind it’s in beta.

A weather effect, frost, fails to be shown on the 3rd row despite damaging my units.

The money situation in a free-to-play game will always be a hot topic. Because it's free, the devs don't really owe you anything, albeit with such a saturated market it's not in their best interest to be stingy. Thankfully that's not a big deal here. In fact, the card collection rate in general is fairly generous. Most players will be able to open up a keg (pack) or two a day just from casual play. However, picking up the gold/legendary cards seems to be exponentially more difficult than the other rarities. For some context, not all gold cards used to be legendary and vice versa. For clarity's sake, CDPR made the two synonymous which flooded the game with too much of the rarity. For most people I don't think this is particularly catastrophic, but those looking to have several competitive decks will definitely be feeling the pain.

Game balance is a tough thing to hit in a multiplayer title, and Gwent is no exception. If you've been following this game for a while then you'll know immediately what I mean, it's had notable balancing issues for pretty much the entirety of it's existence and that continues to be the case even now. One day it's enormous un-fun strengths swings, the next, overbearing board effects. It's a sad situation having to think twice about opening the launcher for a game you like knowing you'll have a negative experience regardless. While it's true changes do happen, they usually don't quite hit the mark. I have a deep seated fear the game will never be in a satisfactory state balance-wise. To give a bit of credit though, the overhaul made from the closed beta has been fantastic and unanimously for the better; it's still just a bit off.

I Hate Portals

There's no question Gwent will have a long and healthy life. It has strikingly unique gameplay, great visuals (especially in the animated cards), a popular source material, engaged developers, and a quickly heating up competitive scene. However, it's hard to ignore the currently glaring issues. With some more time to fix their problems, even Hearthstone will have to up its game to stay relevant.

The post Gwent Open Beta Impressions appeared first on MMOHuts.

Laser League Announcement Trailer

Posted: 09 Jun 2017 08:36 AM PDT

505 Games and Roll 7 announces its arcade multiplayer arena, Laser League, arriving this summer.

The post Laser League Announcement Trailer appeared first on MMOHuts.

World of Warcraft: Legion Patch 7.2.5 Survival Guide

Posted: 09 Jun 2017 08:25 AM PDT

World of Warcraft breaks down the major changes in Patch 7.2.5, including the new Tomb of Sargeras raid dungeon.

The post World of Warcraft: Legion Patch 7.2.5 Survival Guide appeared first on MMOHuts.

Dropzone Patch Notes #2236 Overview

Posted: 09 Jun 2017 08:12 AM PDT

Dropzone‘s team breaks down changes of the week, including 3v3 improvements and AFK detection.