MOGS

Raid Finder Coming in Patch 4.3

This is straight from Blizz. I’m sorry its posted a bit late but I know you all are looking for a tidbit of information. There’s a lot more info out there too.

Raid Finder Coming in Patch 4.3

SWG Has Atmospheric Flight

Hello again folks!! This time around I’m going to talk a little about something that we SWG ‘ers have been asking for since the game added space ships. Atmospheric flight.

With the addition of atmospheric flight you can call any of your spaceships from almost anywhere on the ground and it will launch you into the atmosphere. If you don’t have an ITV set to where you want to go you can just fly across the planet. It takes about 2 minutes to go from one side of a planet to the other now, it’s fast!!! If you are going to take advantage of flying in the atmosphere be careful. They have collision in the game for the ships too. What this means is that if you hit the side of a mountain, you’re gonna take damage. (LOTS OF IT)

Here’s a few pics of my B-Wing above our city, New Boonta Eve.

There are a lot more ships in the game other than the B-Wing. It’s too bad though, the game is still closing and now no one can play unless you had a paid subscription on September 15th. If you did then you get to play the last months of the game for free. I wish this game, that has so many unique things and play styles in it, didn’t have to go far far away……

Mark

Mogs.com

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:

Leaked Blizzard Product Slate

For a company who never likes to give solid time tables for release dates, it is pretty shocking to see all their major titles laid out neatly over the next 5 years. Assuming this is real, (which no one noes for sure) I am guessing the aim of such a document would be to show the companies executives where their revenue will be coming in from, quarter by quarter.

If you look closely, Blizzard barely misses a beat, having a release planned for every quarter except for three, before “Titan” (alleged to be an MMOFPS, and Blizzards next big thing) comes out. Not satisfied with missing these three quarters, Blizzard triple stacks Q4 2011 with Diablo 3, Starcraft 2X1 (first Starcraft expansion), and SC2 Phoenix (which no one seems to have info about).

It looks like Diablo 3 will be the next full-fledged Blizzard release, and should drop in 2011. I do not know if this should worry or excite me as it is listed as as a Q4 release. If Blizzard is as grossly inaccurate in its estimates to execs as it usually is with us, we may not see it until 2012. new info on Diablo 3 seems to come every few weeks, with PvP Arena’s being the last big announcement. Since Arena’s are my favorite part of WOW, I am glad to see their inclusion. A D3 expansion is planned for 2013 and 2014.

WOW makes up most of this chart, with a 4th expansion planned for Q2, 2012. A Trading card game expansion is planned for Q3, 2012. And in case the world ends, Blizzard has conveniently put the WOW Movie and Q4 2012, so we all get to experience it. Pending the apocalypse, we will see the 5th WOW expansion in Q4 2013. Trying to find more information online for Project Titan has proved fruitless thus far, but I am sure we will have lots of speculation on it soon due to the inadvertent release of this product slate.

GamersFirst to resurrect APB: Reloaded as a free-to-play title

The saga of All Points Bulletin has become one of the dominating MMO stories of 2010, with its buggy launch, premature shutdown, hunt for a new owner, and rescue by free-to-play publisher GamersFirst last week. Displaced APB fans who are wondering what plans GamersFirst has in store for the game should find themselves bouncing with glee today: The publisher is definitely planning to bring back the game, now entitled APB: Reloaded, as a F2P version.

GamersFirst’s Bjorn Book-Larsson sees the move as a win-win for both the publisher and players: “APB was a game that had several exceptional features and some brilliant ideas, even though it was plagued by some initial balance and monetization issues. We want to take all the unique features of this title, such as its unparalleled character, weapon and car customization systems, and convert the game to a true free-to-play game. We are deep into the planning and early execution stages for this next chapter of APB and we will share more details in the near future.”

The purchase of APB’s assets means good news for ex-Realtime Worlds employees, who will now receive any outstanding wages and promised holiday pay.

APB: Reloaded should be coming back online in the first half of 2011.

Champions Online going Free to Play

Massively ¹ reports that it’s a pretty wild day for fans of Champions Online. In a surprising move, executive producer Shannon Posniewski announced in his most recent State of the Game that Champions will be adopting a free-to-play model.

This announcement isn’t the only shocker for fans of the superhero MMO. New heroes in CO will be able to choose an “Archetype,” a class-like build that streamlines the character creation process and makes the elaborate power selection mechanics a little easier to use. Existing superheroes and new fully-customized Champions will require a paid subscription, but the majority of the game’s content, including the costume editor, the zones and expansion packs will be completely free.

Cryptic has included a full list of all the various features that Silver (free accounts) and Gold (subscriber accounts) will be able to access. This is definitely a bold move by the game’s producers, and only time will tell if it pans out for them. What can be sure is that it will get a lot of new users to take the plunge and try the game out.

1. source: http://www.massively.com/2010/10/26/champions-online-going-f2p/  ↩

APB shuts down after 3 months.

Yesterday Gaming Studio, Realtime Worlds, announced that they would be shutting down servers for All Points Bulletin after a struggle to keep the game going ¹. Less than 3 months after it was initially launched, Ben Batemen, APB’s community officer, wrote on the game’s now-shuttered forums, “Today we are sad to announce that despite everyone’s best efforts to keep the service running; APB is coming to a close.” The game, a massively multiplayer online shooter that pitted heavily armed cops against street-racing robbers, a little like an online variant of GTA IV, met financial failure upon its launch on PC, in June this year. Said to cost over $100 million (about £63 million) to create, and with a lengthy development period of five years, it was a risky game to put out in a troubled economic period.

Worse still, reviews lambasted the game for being plagued with broken systems, outdated play mechanics and being generally unfinished. Gamers, too, weren’t impressed with extra-money making systems, on top of the monthly fee, like audio adverts over the voice chat. Now, with the game’s servers switched off, the developer’s office has been emptied of its last few staff members. Only seven employees, out of the 250 who made the game, remain on a temporary basis to completely close down the game and studio, then turn the lights out and shut the door.

APB has been pulled from both retail and digital shelves but Paul Dounis, joint administrator of Begbies Traynor (the businesses rescue agent dealing with Realtime Worlds) said that disappointed players should contact their retailer for a refund.

1. source: Wired – MMO Shooter APB shut down after 3 months  ↩

Jedi Knight Specializations In Star Wars The Old Republic

BioWare recently announced two specializations to the Jedi Knight class, the Sentinel, and the Guardian. Brief descriptions of each have been released. These help to illustrate what possible MMO archetypical roles the specializations will fit into.

The Sentinel dual wields light sabers, creating a barrage of damage that is hard for foes to evade. Moreover, they can measure their own technique against their enemies defense, and make adjustments on the fly. This sounds like an all out DPS class that will have different tricks to ensure their damage output stays high.

The Guardian uses his perfect concentration to withstand the onslaught of multiple enemies at once. He dares opponents to attack, and inspires allies to perform beyond their normal abilities. His mastery of the force allows him to evade enemies despite the weight of his armor. The Guardian seems to be a traditional tanking class. Also, they will provide buffs to party members to inflate their stats for battle.

Watch out Ventrilo, Mumble in the mix.

The guy’s over at wow.com have done a pretty good writeup on their blog post Ventrilo vs. Mumble ¹, but considering it’s not a site that every single WoW player visits regularly, or something most non-warcrafters even have a reason to visit, I wanted to take a few minutes to highlight their post and help introduce you to Mumble, a low latency VOIP program for gaming. This is an application that is mostly unknown in the MMORPG world, where Ventrilo and Teamspeak have dominated, it’s far better known in the FPS circles where the extremely low latency helps give it a competitive advantage when calling out those enemy snipers and getting teammates over to help defend your bunker.

Mumble, unlike Ventrillo or Teamspeak, was specifically created with low latency in mind, and along with an excellent voice quality there is just as much lag as you would expect on a normal land-lined phone call. The latency is so low in fact that it allows for perfectly normal conversations, and yelling “Meteor in five seconds” actually means “Meteor in five seconds”; not “Meteor in three seconds by the time you hear this”. It also features Auto normalization, which to me is a huge benefit because that means I won’t have to sit there every time a new user joins chat, or I join a new guilds chat, and manually adjust the voice volumes for everyone to be an equal level. No more whispered call out’s I can barely hear, and no more eardrum shattering hunter’s crying about their pet dying. If you’ve ever had to sit there and go through the “Ok, say something now”, following by some tweaking and then another “Ok, say something again.”, you will fully appreciate this subtle but amazing awesome feature. Mumble normalizes everyone’s volume automatically on the server end, and does it right.

I highly suggest heading over and reading their full article which goes a little more in-depth into some of the features and functions of this great VOIP program, and then going to sourceforge ² and grabbing a copy for yourself and your guild to play around with to see if it fits your need. Once this gets a little more widespread in the WOW world I definitely see it becoming the new requirement, so when your applying to a new guild and you see “Mumble is used for guild communication, do you have this installed”, at least now you will have some idea of what they are talking about, and hopefully your savvy enough to see the greatness of it and be able to throw a big fat CHECK down next to the question.

Jake@MOGS

1. source: http://www.wow.com/2010/07/18/ventrilo-vs-mumble/ ↩
2. Mumble Download: http://mumble.sourceforge.net/ ↩

Starwars: The Old Republic Music

The emotional experience of Star Wars™ comes to life in new music created exclusively for The Old Republic™. From soft melodies that ring in the forest of Alderaan to the magnificent booming of a battle scene on Ord Mantell, a talented team of composers, musicians and developers came together to create a magical score for the game. Audio in The Old Republic, just as with the rest of the game, begins with the storytelling. As you all know by now, for the first time ever in an MMO, every quest and character will come to life fully voiced. This is a Star Wars saga that gives new meaning to the word ‘epic’: eight unique class storylines, thousands of hours of gameplay, and hundreds of thousands of dialogue lines. It is likely the largest voiceover project in entertainment history.

When you think about the legacy of Star Wars™, what you hear has totally moved and excited its fans: the orchestral score, the Cantina music, Chewie’s roar, and the pew-pew of a blaster rifle immediately take us to a galaxy far, far away. Developing sound for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ requires that they bring together the talents of dialogue writers, cinematic designers, voice-over actors, musicians, engineers, and production teams at both LucasArts and BioWare. It’s their job to create an audio experience that enhances the emotional experience of the game and reaches the quality level expected of the Star Wars franchise. As fans and as game makers, I hope they’re excited and privileged to breathe life into every planet, every weapon, and every creature that beeps, squawks, or just plain talks…and it’s not as easy as it looks, er, sounds.  ¹

Mark@MOGS
SWG Guru

1. source: http://swtor.com/news/blog/ ↩