MOGS

Final Fantasy XI Walk of Echoes Battlefield Adjustments

With Final Final Fantasy XI’s next big version update, The Walk of Echoes Battlefields are in store for some changes. The goal behind these changes is to make gear more accessible to everyone. No longer will you need to be over a certain level to qualify for extra spoils, and the coin drop rate has been increased.

Moreover, high tier battlefields will be added to make things more challenging for veterans. Along with the new battlefields, new rewards have also been added. Below is a full list of all the changes.

General:
The no-reservation system will be preserved.
The once-per-Vana’diel-day entry restriction will be preserved.
All PCs in a single battlefield will form an allied group, similar to Campaign battles.
The spawn delay for subsequent waves of monsters in each walk will be reduced.
The cutscene displayed upon receiving Kupofried’s medallion will appear only once.
New upper-tier walks will be added.

Evaluation and Rewards:
Evaluation conditions will be revised.
The system providing exclusive rewards to only the highest-rated participants will be changed to one in which all characters rated above a certain level will qualify for extra spoils.
Monster item drops and lottable spoils will be abolished.
New rewards will be added.
Coin drop rate will be increased.

Difficulty Adjustments:
The linked enmity system will be revised.
Characters who remain KO’d for 30 seconds will automatically receive a Raise effect.
A possible time limit extension to 60 minutes is under consideration.

On a side note FFXI’s producer Hiromichi Tanaka mentioned that Square Enix is considering porting the game to the Playstation Vita. The Vita is Sony’s new hand held gaming console, with PS3 quality graphics. With dual analog sticks, two touchscreens, and 3G, it will be interesting to see this plan come to fruition. The touchscreens might be utilized for a keyboard, the right analog stick for solid camera control, and with 3G you could play virtually anywhere. Hopefully we will see it happen!

-Jake

Infinity : The Entire Galaxy at Your Fingertips

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7eREddMjt4&feature=player_embedded&fmt=22

I recently stumbled upon an mmo that has been in working progress for a couple of years now: Infinity.  It’s still a work in progress and has been since 2006. Created by third party developer I-Novae the demos that are up for viewing are nothing short of jaw-dropping.  I-Novae is taking the universe concept to the infinity and beyond….literally.

Infinity uses a procedural programming technique that allows the game engine to generate objects within game space on-the-fly, in real-time and on request, rather than manually building everything beforehand. This creates a massive universe  that everyone on the server can view and is ever expanding and shared by all. This game is going to be the largest scaled MMO to date, hopefully it isn’t too large where the population is diluted and players are difficult to find. However I-Novae mentioned that warp drives and jump-gate like stations will be set up to help traverse the universe.

Like Eve, Infinity will be based on a strong player community. You can command a single ship in a fight or become a military general and command an attack on a base, and mine for ores by yourself or control a corporate empire, all on the same character. Also your character will play while you aren’t at the computer. So docking in a safe location or mining in a secluded field will be of your best intentions.

Unlike Eve, Infinity is a twitched based MMO. It seems that it is joining the ranks of AoC, and TERA, aiming to see how the twitched based combat will fair for space exploration. Honestly I think this is the best decision they could have made. Space fights tend to be the most fun played full twitched based, where  a joystick and throttle can be set up. Where out-maneuvering an opponent and catching him off guard in a dog fight gets you the kill rather than hitting the correct button combo at the right time.

One cool thing the main page did offer is that you can go through the past developments they’ve done through since 06 and watch the progress of the game in blog/video form. I’m very excited to see this game’s development and completion. Although with a new developer it’s hard to get an exact timeframe on things but they’re hoping for Alpha and Beta testing to appear within the next year or two. Check back for updates on their twitter account or their occasional blog at; http://www.infinity-universe.com/

I hope to see this game in my game collection the moment it releases.

-Jon

Mogs.com

Star Wars Pre-Orders are here!

SWTOR Collector's Edition

The last couple of days have brought upon some new SWTOR news with comic-con out and about. Pre-orders for the game are now available! But there’s a new catch to this preorder.  Bioware is putting you in a queue for digital pre-orders and we are theorycrafting that there’s a chance that with this queue that a select few will get an early release of the game. Currently there’s three ways to preorder the game.

There’s the normal preorder for $60 that includes a free month of game time and a Color Stone that allows you to change the color of your lightsaber and blaster bolts.  An extra $20, bringing the total to $80 will net you the Digital Deluxe preorder edition that includes the above along with several in game items.

• Flare gun: Fire flares into the air

• Training droid: Hovers at your side for combat assistance

• HoloDancer: Project your own holographic dancer
• HoloCam: Keep visual records of in-game adventures

• STAP: Sleek and unique in-game vehicle

• Exclusive Mouse Droid: Spunky droid to join your adventures
• Exclusive Collector’s Edition store: Unique in-game vendor with a dynamic assortment of items

Then the is the pricey $150 preorder that will net you all of those in game items along with:

• Exclusive Gentle Giant Darth Malgus statue

• Game disks collectible metal case

• The Journal of Master Gnost-Dural as annotated by Satele Shan

• The Old Republic galaxy map
• Custom Security Authentication Key
• Music of Star Wars: The Old Republic CD
• High-quality Collector’s Edition box

If you have a hole burning in your pocket an your huge into SWTOR and want that $150 collector’s edition preorder, I’m sorry to say that so far it seems they are sold out everywhere. Hoping that they make some more statues and reopen the preorder for everyone else to dip into the package. I’m personally looking at the normal pre-order and ganna hope that the rumors of an early release are true! See you in the Star Wars Universe.

Questions or comments? E-mail me at Jon@mogs.com

-Jon

Mogs.com

MMO Board Games Part 1

Even though video games may take a majority of my game time, I have to admit I’m a tabletop gamer at heart. Many of our MMO’s have crossed the virtual platforms to  the tabletop to reach out to gamers of all genres.  I’m going to explore the two largest MMO/table top game combinations today, and will be back to visit others later.

World of Warcraft was the first game to bridge this gap. With the MMO releasing in 2004, they followed it up with the board game a year later in 2005. The game boasts over 1000 separate plastic pieces and cards and takes up a considerable amount of table space. I personally own the game, and have yet to get through an entire game due to it’s length and dedication. This board game is not for the casual gamer. With a rule book that will take approximately  30min -1 hr, to explain to the full group and insure everyone knows the rules and a 2-4 full playtime this game is not a short one. It’s pretty much as close to playing WoW in a board game setting without turning it into D&D.  Fantasy Flight did a good job making it so you can do just about anything in the game sans battlegrounds and instances (there is an instance in the Burning Crusade Expansion). A couple of small complaints towards the game include long downtime during other player’s turns, and  the general lack of pvp (you really gotta chase someone down). The game is based around leveling up a character, completing quests, gaining gear, then either defeating the opposing faction or defeating an end boss. Even with it’s flaws the game has high replay ability due to it’s complexity and the urge to want to conquer it with a bunch of friends that all know the rules. I recommend this game to the hardcore gamers that are looking for a board game twist on their WoW travels.

World of Warcraft also breached the tabletop genre with their own World of Warcraft trading card game. This card game plays very similar to Magic: the Gathering, except much more streamlined. Each deck is based around any of the Faction/Race/Class/Specilizations in World of Warcraft. This allows for an extremely large number of different deck combinations, along with each class/specialization being able to play variations of a “control” deck or an “aggressive” deck.  I personally played Magic for several years then the WoW tcg for the first couple of blocks and I was blown away by how well the WoW tcg plays (Planeswalkers have nothing on Hero cards). I highly recommend the WoW tcg to any Magic players for they tackled many of the problems that Magic had; including keeping resources manageable, the formats diverse, combat is streamlined (multiple combat phases) and damage carries on between turns. While Magic may have their top 2-3 decks in a tournament WoW tends to have almost a new top 4-6 class/specialization combinations every expansion that works out. Deck strategies range from massing with many allies (creatures), controlling the board with spells, to even gearing up your hero character in full epics and whacking at enemies with your big sword, and everything in between.  Games are very easy to pick up and play for new card gamers, while deckbuilding strategies are expansive enough to keep even the most hardy card floppers scribbling down decklists. I can recommend the card game to all card floppers, WoW players or not.

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, was the second game to bridge this gap. However in the complete opposite way that WoW bridged it. Warhammer originated as a tabletop figure based game and then joined the ranks of the MMO world in 2008. For those not familiar with the Warhammer board game, I highly recommend you go to your local game store and check out a  couple of codex’s (rulebooks) just for the figure’s paint job alone. Warhammer is a complex figure game with large 50-150 piece armies each individually hand painted by yourself or a local artist where you pit your army against an opponent(s). Armies price range can be anywhere from $150-400 depending on the pieces/paint job, however that one army will last you years (or until rules change and some units get nerfed). Game scenarios are very expansive and can be set up from anything from finish off the opposing army, to capture the corner, capture the base, or holding strategic points. Games are played with using a ruler to move your pieces and then using dice to determine the outcome of battle. Each faction’s army has its own individual codex that you need to keep at hand to insure your units have the correct stats and abilities. Games can range anywhere from 30min -1 hour depending on the campaign. The battlefields that they play on can be as beautiful as the painted armies themselves. Generally the terrain is hand crafted and is themed to the setting.  It is an expensive hobby in it’s own, but quite the unique tabletop experience for those looking for a tabletop game that tests your skills at commanding a large army and using the terrain to your advantage.

Stop by your local game shops and check out the table top counterparts to your favorite MMO. I’ll be back next week covering a couple more MMO’s that explored the realms of tabletop gaming.

Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments! Jon@mogs.com

-Jon

mogs.com

The Positive Affects of Gaming

Jane McGonigal, an author and game designer, recently wrote an article titled “Video Games: An Hour A Day Is Key To Success In Life”. Here is a link to the article,http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-mcgonigal/video-games_b_823208.html. I am going to discuss the best parts of her article, and elaborate on the points she makes with my own.

Jane points out that recent scientific research trends have shown that gaming is one of the most productive ways we can spend our time. This is because “games do a better job than ordinary life of provoking our most powerful positive emotions — like curiosity, optimism, pride, and a desire to join forces with others to achieve something extraordinary.”

Moreover, the unique medium of MMORPG’s (and other similar online games) provides a sort of proving ground for people to test and develop their mental and social skills. You can really learn what motivates an individual by gaming competitively online with them. Games have strict rules, risk-reward scenarios, and highs and lows. Together, you must trudging through the lows, seek to reach the highs, all while adhering to the game’s rule set. Experiencing all this with your fellow gamers is what the core of the online gaming experience is all about, albeit may be masked by fanciful graphics and the desire for epic loots.

Jane says that games “are a particularly effective way to bond with our friends and family — strengthening our real-life and online social networks in ways that no other kind of social interaction can.” A study mentioned in the article showed that “just 90 seconds of playing a game like World of Warcraft – where you have a powerful avatar – can boost the confidence of colleges students so much that for up to 24 hours later, they’re more likely to be successful taking a test at school… and more outgoing in real-world social situations.”

The key is to recognize where you can utilize skills in the real world that you have learned and developed while gaming. For example, doing 3v3 Arenas in WOW helps to develop your communication skills, your ability to adapt to the situation at hand and improvise strategies on the fly, and ultimately, your ability to make your group of three think and function as a single unit. All of the aforementioned skills you are honing can be used to help you succeed at school or a job.

The “U.S. Army Mental Health Assessment Team shows that playing games up to 21 hours a week can produce positive impacts on your health and happiness. Gaming for 28+ hours a week can put you at risk ll be at risk for negative impacts — like depression and social anxiety.” So tread that fine line carefully, and do not forget to get your gaming in for the week!

Jake@mogs.com

TERA, the twitch based MMO

-Jon

Mogs.com

SWG / SOE and what they’re doing now…..

So most of you probably know about all of the trouble Sony has had with the PSN and SOE system. It was hacked.

As part of their “Make Good” program, every active SWG account is receiving a Boba Fett Slave ITM miniature ship model. They are also running the Bonus Everything Weekend from now until the Tuesday after Memorial Day!

I also checked the TCG and found that i had 3 free booster packs and 1 choose any loot card pack. I of course chose the Ionized Tibanna Gas Display. It looks like a lot of people did.

Thats the hard one to get!! NOW ITS FREE!!

SWG Galactic Civil War 2 – Space Update

We all know that space has needed some help in SWG for a while. It’s still reayyl awesome but it needs more. It looks like they’re working on it, and it looks good.

In addition to new GCW scenarios in space, they are also introducing the ACE Pilot System where you can battle against some of the best pilots from classic Star Wars™ lore. How would you fare against Wedge Antilles or other famous Star Wars characters? Find out in the GCW2 Space Update coming soon to a galaxy near you! I cant wait!!

Being able to fly against Wedge or maybe even Anakin, what a hoot that would be. He was supposed to be one of the best!! I’m interested to see these new scenarios they have lined up for us and there better be more than 1 for each faction.

Mark SWG Guru

FFXI Servers to Shut down March 13-20

Final Fantasy SERVER SHUTDOWN

Square Enix will be shutting down www.playonline.com and all Final Fantasy Servers for both XI and XIV from March 13-20^th in order to conserve power in Japan. The Tokyo Electric Power Company issued a notice asking users of their electricity to avoid using extra lighting and electrical equipment due to increasing power outages from the earthquake.  Due to this suspension of services all players will not be billed for any PlayOnline service throughout the April billing cycle.  Square would like to notify all customers that  they “will continue to operate the official websites, FINAL FANTASY XIV Lodestone, forums, and the SQUARE ENIX Support Center to be able provide our customers with updates on the current situation.”  As we can see this catastrophe is even affecting the virtual world. Luckily your character data will be saved and the electricity will be used towards efforts in rebounding from this event. Servers are scheduled to be back up in a week, however that is always prone to change. Watch the forums and hopefully it’ll be up sooner than later. We’ll post an update as soon as we hear servers are back up and running.

-Jon

Mogs.com

Source: http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/polnews/news20541.shtml

DC Universe Online – Hack n Slash fun

Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) has launched their latest MMORPG this week, but if your looking for puny goblins or really annoying pygmys waiting to be slaughtered for daily quests, your definitely in the wrong universe.

DC Universe Online is set in, you guess it, the DC Universe. These are some iconic figures we are talking about here. Superman, Batman, Green Lantern.. and.. well… honestly I never really got sucked into comics, but there’s a ton of other important looking people standing around giving me stuff to do, and lets face it.. if your friends with Superman you got something going for you.

First Impressions

At first it reminded me a little bit of Champions Online, just re-flavored and smoothed out by a better development team. The graphics are pretty awesome when you stop to look at the scenery, some of the texturing and shadow work are amazing and there is a lot of little details.

Players will choose a mentor for their character (such as Superman, Batman or Wonder Woman for heroes and Lex Luthor, The Joker, or Circe for villains). Their starting location, principal quest rewards and mob loot will be influenced by that decision. The starting zones are either Metropolis or Gotham City, for both heroes and villains. Heroes get access to the Justice League Watchtower, while villains can enter the Legion of Doom headquarters. Other zones can be reached by teleporters from the two faction headquarters.

Character Creation

The character creation options in DC Universe Online are more limited than say City of Heroes or Champions Online, and the game uses a more traditional equipment system – so as you level up you will get new armor and accessories which will alter how your character looks. This is something that most regular MMO players are used to, but the thing that sets it apart from some of the other Armour systems is you can “lock” appereance items so no matter what item you equip you can maintain a certain overall theme for your character with little effort. This is one of those things I wish Blizzard would wake up to, my rogue wants to raid in his vanilla High Warlord set rocking glaives.

Overall as far as Character Creation goes, there are enough options available to keep everyone from looking like Batman, but compared to games like COH/COC where you can customize everything down to your spell effect colors, DC:UO could use some patch updates as far as character creation options go.

I’m not going to get into much about the class creation, because to be honest there’s so many options and specs and talents and spells it just makes my brain hurt. Essentially you can mix and max pretty much any power from the DC universe or comics in general and create a copy of your favorite hero or create for yourself the hero you always hoped you would be.

You can see my first character below, Kungfu, a duel sword wielding acrobatic ice ninja. I tend to enjoy melee characters so the duel swords was a no brainer, and the ice line of talents is awesome for tanking and has some good abilities for locking opponents down in PVP. There are so many different options though I’m sure as long as my interest is held in this game I will be rerolling alt’s to find the powerset the fits my playstyle perfectly. Right now there just isn’t enough information available so there is a lot of guess work.

Interface

The interface is built with console players in mind, but is slightly easier to navigate on a keyboard because of direct shortcuts. On the controller simple tasks like checking the map or activating missions requires navigating menus on a directional pad. Otherwise as a whole the interface felt a little clunky, much like the combat I wouldn’t say it was “bad”, it just feels like something is off.

Movement

Maneuvering is well controlled, but with a few flaws. Flying sometimes feels tight and you may get disoriented while flying inside small buildings. Superspeed is great when you’re running straight but poses some difficulties in tight areas. You may be turning a corner at one minute to find yourself halfway up a wall and turned around the next. Acrobatics is the other movement type in DC Universe and controls virtually without any problems but isn’t quiet as fast when navigating the city as the other two and has a small drawback in pvp combat against flying opponents. All three control rather well with a controller and only present an issue when moving fast through tight areas.

Combat

The problem for me, and personally it’s going to be the “deal breaker” if I can’t get used to it, is the combat. The basic combat should be familiar to MMO players. You have a range of abilities, some of which have cast timers, and some of which have cooldowns. Some abilities can be blocked, some can break blocks, and some can be interrupted. In low-level PVE you can get away with simple casting and a bit of blocking and movement, but I can imagine that you’ll need to make use of roles, and be more judicious with the block/stun/blockbreaking abilities at higher levels. The combo system feels a little cumbersome on the PC – remembering (and correctly performing) mouse click/click and hold combinations is annoying compared to pressing certain keys in a certain order.

For example, my Duel Sword Wielding Frost Ninja (sorry I just like saying that), has a attack called Ultra Flurry. They could have called this thing “Whirlwind of Death” and no one would argue. The problem is that in order to perform this attack, you have to click your left mouse button exactly 9 times, and then hold the button on that 9th click. If you accidentally click 10 times, you perform a completely different attack. So unless your a Mortal Kombat/Street Fighter god, or at least have an xbox controller you can plugin, you might find the combat system to be a little frustrating at first. It’s all about chaining attacks together, blocking, and interrupting blocks.

To try and make playing DC Universe Online a little easier I hooked my computer up to our monstrous 56″ Display, plugged in a wireless XBOX controller, and went to work. Personally it made playing the game a lot more fun. The square and triangle button are your primary close and ranged attacks, then abilities and consumables are assigned to the four buttons when you’re holding either the R2 or L2 buttons, effectively giving you 8 slots to assign. Attack combos begin very basic but can be upgraded to different combination’s of square and triangle as well as holding the buttons for different effects. That said, it never feels too much like an action game. Damage is still listed as “damage per second” and combat always comes down to how fast you can wail on the attack buttons, just like other MMOs. This all leads to a system that boggles expectations. Don’t go in expecting Batman: Arkham Asylum combat controls, but don’t expect standard PC MMO controls either.

Overall

Overall I think it’s a fun, casual game. It’s not going to affect the warcraft core player base, but I think a part of the warcraft community that is tired of the elitist attitude and hardcore mentality that has been taken to the extreme might find DC Universe Online to be a nice change of pace. It’s not going to be for everyone and it does have some issues that need to be worked out in order to make gameplay as smooth and polished as we have come to expect. I’m still not sure if it was worth the $50 bucks or whatever, we will have to see what the current “endgame” content looks like. However, if there is one thing that gives me hope in this game, it’s what my future tank set looks like: