With Gamescon taking place right now in Germany, Trion has been pretty active releasing a couple articles or videos each day. IGN shared their hands-on experience at Gamescon. At the end of that article they stated that the developers' ultimate goal was to have enough dungeons that the player could reach maximum level by running each dungeon once. Either leveling is really fast or that's a heck of a lot of dungeons.
The videos coming out have been short teasers. The dungeon mentioned in the IGN article was Realm of the Fae, where you experience the four seasons as you progress through it. And it will be something we can experience early on, as it's a lower level dungeon. Rumors are that beta will begin in September. It's seriously getting harder for me to wait for Rift to release.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Forum Popularity = Beta Invite
I've never been a fan of forums that utilize a reputation system. People vote up those that represent their view point and vote down the opposing view. It's just never made any sense to me to even have this "feature". So it's just been something that I pretend isn't there. But that's been hard to do lately over on the Rift forums since the topic seems to work its way into the majority of posts.
A couple weeks ago the CM announced that forum reputation would be one of the things they would look at when choosing beta participants. What a huge mistake that was. Groups started forming exchanging private messages to vote for each others' posts. Some members admitted to creating multiple accounts in order to vote for their own posts. Members who were voted down were posting the names of those who had done so in retaliation. Those who found themselves at the bottom of the reputation list hurried to fill the forums with their idea of "thoughtful" posts, hoping to regain some favor with the forum posters.
Recently, one fellow posted a suggestion that all the released Rift information be consolidated in one spot on the forums so it is easier to find. Currently, if you want to find the latest information on Rift, you have to do some digging on your own to visit fan sites, listen to podcasts, etc. Now if the reputation system weren't in place, I expect the forum thread would have had more normal responses to that post. Instead, hoping to gain forum favor with the fansite people and the CM responsible for posting forum info, members insulted the fellow, called him a troll for disparaging all the hard work they'd done. It's like some high school reality show over there. What a mess.
For any interested, the CM has also started a thread for you to post why you should be in beta. I'm not a fan of publicly selling myself so will likely be sitting this beta out unless I get invited through some other means. *crosses fingers*
To end on a more positive note, have you guys seen this Guild Wars 2 video? Wow, just wow. This is really looking and sounding amazing.
A couple weeks ago the CM announced that forum reputation would be one of the things they would look at when choosing beta participants. What a huge mistake that was. Groups started forming exchanging private messages to vote for each others' posts. Some members admitted to creating multiple accounts in order to vote for their own posts. Members who were voted down were posting the names of those who had done so in retaliation. Those who found themselves at the bottom of the reputation list hurried to fill the forums with their idea of "thoughtful" posts, hoping to regain some favor with the forum posters.
Recently, one fellow posted a suggestion that all the released Rift information be consolidated in one spot on the forums so it is easier to find. Currently, if you want to find the latest information on Rift, you have to do some digging on your own to visit fan sites, listen to podcasts, etc. Now if the reputation system weren't in place, I expect the forum thread would have had more normal responses to that post. Instead, hoping to gain forum favor with the fansite people and the CM responsible for posting forum info, members insulted the fellow, called him a troll for disparaging all the hard work they'd done. It's like some high school reality show over there. What a mess.
For any interested, the CM has also started a thread for you to post why you should be in beta. I'm not a fan of publicly selling myself so will likely be sitting this beta out unless I get invited through some other means. *crosses fingers*
To end on a more positive note, have you guys seen this Guild Wars 2 video? Wow, just wow. This is really looking and sounding amazing.
Friday, August 6, 2010
News from SOE Fan Faire
As most were expecting, the next EQ2 expansion will be Destiny of Velious and releases February 8. I'm crossing my fingers it's not a bunch of snowy islands high up in the sky with some sort of snowdrift-type hover board transport. The expansion will include EQ2's first flying mounts.
The EQ1 expansion releases in October and includes player housing!! Woohoo! Not that I'm playing, but maybe I'll have a look. :)
And they released some concept art for EverQuest Next, which you can find here.
DC Universe Online releases November 2. Not something I have an interest in personally. Just not into the comic books. But pre-ordering supposedly gets you a lot of free goodies.
The EQ1 expansion releases in October and includes player housing!! Woohoo! Not that I'm playing, but maybe I'll have a look. :)
And they released some concept art for EverQuest Next, which you can find here.
DC Universe Online releases November 2. Not something I have an interest in personally. Just not into the comic books. But pre-ordering supposedly gets you a lot of free goodies.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
And I Write Like...
Joining the I Write Like bandwagon, I took a two blog samples and came up with:
and then:
To get a different perspective, I took a sample of some fiction I wrote elsewhere and came up with:
So I suppose Dan Brown it is.
and then:
To get a different perspective, I took a sample of some fiction I wrote elsewhere and came up with:
So I suppose Dan Brown it is.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
EQ2 Extended - FTP Option
SOE has announced they will soon be offering their own version of free-to-play for EverQuest 2.
They will continue to offer the subscription model; however the Extended model will function separately on completely different server lists. While you technically can play completely for free, your options will be limited to two character slots, two backpacks, eight classes, and four races. Free players also will be unable to upgrade their spells and gear, and will have restrictions in gold and broker usage. There will also be a subscription model available on these servers. As far as I can tell, the difference for subscribers between the Extended and Regular servers will be a more "robust" cash marketplace including the ability to purchase stat armor, buffs, and cutting your spell research time.
While initially, I suppose current players opposed to ftp or this type of cash shop will rejoice that they're not on the same servers, I don't think in the long run this will be a good thing for the population of the current servers. New players trying the game will automatically start on the other servers now and are more likely to stay there than have to start over on new servers, especially knowing the option to purchase certain perks will be available. Researching a spell currently takes me 30 days to complete...who wouldn't want to pay to speed that up? Also players from normal servers will be able to have their characters copied to the new servers for a fee and minus their gold and many of their items.
I realize they've done it this way to not chase off their current subscribers as they've done in previous MMO's, but in the long run I don't think this fares well for the old servers and is more a way of getting players used to the idea before merging the old servers with the new.
They will continue to offer the subscription model; however the Extended model will function separately on completely different server lists. While you technically can play completely for free, your options will be limited to two character slots, two backpacks, eight classes, and four races. Free players also will be unable to upgrade their spells and gear, and will have restrictions in gold and broker usage. There will also be a subscription model available on these servers. As far as I can tell, the difference for subscribers between the Extended and Regular servers will be a more "robust" cash marketplace including the ability to purchase stat armor, buffs, and cutting your spell research time.
While initially, I suppose current players opposed to ftp or this type of cash shop will rejoice that they're not on the same servers, I don't think in the long run this will be a good thing for the population of the current servers. New players trying the game will automatically start on the other servers now and are more likely to stay there than have to start over on new servers, especially knowing the option to purchase certain perks will be available. Researching a spell currently takes me 30 days to complete...who wouldn't want to pay to speed that up? Also players from normal servers will be able to have their characters copied to the new servers for a fee and minus their gold and many of their items.
I realize they've done it this way to not chase off their current subscribers as they've done in previous MMO's, but in the long run I don't think this fares well for the old servers and is more a way of getting players used to the idea before merging the old servers with the new.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
EQ2 - Direct2Drive Special
For the next week Direct2Drive is offering EQ2's latest expansion Sentinel's Fate (including all previous expansions and content), along with 25% bonus experience flasks and some sets of appearance armor, all for $14.95. New accounts also get a 30-day subscription.
This deal was too good for even me to pass up.
This deal was too good for even me to pass up.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Final Fantasy XIV - Possible UI/Mouse Changes?
After reading that Rift interview a couple blogs down regarding customer being king, I couldn't help but think about FFXIV. If anyone has been reading mmorpg.com or FoH forums, it's clear that the controls are worse than FFXI and can be a huge road block for attracting new players to FFXIV. With release supposedly just two months away, I couldn't help but wonder why they'd be so stubborn with this one issue when every other mmo out there is playable with a keyboard/mouse.
Now Gamer released an interview yesterday with FFXIV's Hiromichi Tanaka. Here's a couple responses:
Do you fear that some MMO players, unfamiliar with Final Fantasy, might feel like they’re coming to the franchise too late to join in?
There may be some people who are unfamiliar with the series, and it’s very important that we communicate the game well to them. But our main target is Final Fantasy XI players who have stuck with us for eight years and want to proceed into the next generation of MMO.
How has your approach to MMO development changed alongside the market?
We had an alpha test for Final Fantasy XIV and received a lot of feedback from players in Japan, Europe and America. A lot of them said that ‘because World Of Warcraft works in this way then we also expect Final Fantasy XIV to play in the same way’. We heard that a lot and though we’re not trying to imitate any other games we are taking player feedback into account.
I think it's great that they want to keep in mind their loyal fan base for all these years. You often don't see that as companies only see WoW dollar signs/WoW game play to strive for. But I'm sure they'd love to find a way to keep that base and bring in new folks. I'm not sure specifically what sort of World of Warcraft feedback they've gotten, but have to imagine it's UI or control related more than anything.
I just could not get the hang of the controls in the old Final Fantasy. And when I heard it was the same way or even worse in the new version, I just had no plans to even bother. If this article is an indication they might consider making it playable with keyboard and mouse combination, and it's actually playable on my system (not looking good if the benchmark is correct), then I'd definitely give it another look.
Now Gamer released an interview yesterday with FFXIV's Hiromichi Tanaka. Here's a couple responses:
Do you fear that some MMO players, unfamiliar with Final Fantasy, might feel like they’re coming to the franchise too late to join in?
There may be some people who are unfamiliar with the series, and it’s very important that we communicate the game well to them. But our main target is Final Fantasy XI players who have stuck with us for eight years and want to proceed into the next generation of MMO.
How has your approach to MMO development changed alongside the market?
We had an alpha test for Final Fantasy XIV and received a lot of feedback from players in Japan, Europe and America. A lot of them said that ‘because World Of Warcraft works in this way then we also expect Final Fantasy XIV to play in the same way’. We heard that a lot and though we’re not trying to imitate any other games we are taking player feedback into account.
I think it's great that they want to keep in mind their loyal fan base for all these years. You often don't see that as companies only see WoW dollar signs/WoW game play to strive for. But I'm sure they'd love to find a way to keep that base and bring in new folks. I'm not sure specifically what sort of World of Warcraft feedback they've gotten, but have to imagine it's UI or control related more than anything.
I just could not get the hang of the controls in the old Final Fantasy. And when I heard it was the same way or even worse in the new version, I just had no plans to even bother. If this article is an indication they might consider making it playable with keyboard and mouse combination, and it's actually playable on my system (not looking good if the benchmark is correct), then I'd definitely give it another look.
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