Alright, seriously, the black horns and the flaming steed and the firey background, is the full Satan Claus treatment really necessary? Am I going to have to get out my main for this screenshot?
Best wishes everyone!
Happy Holidays From PVD 2010!
We here at PVD would like to wish you some very happy holidays...
Alright, seriously, the black horns and the flaming steed and the firey background, is the full Satan Claus treatment really necessary? Am I going to have to get out my main for this screenshot?
Okay, the wreath's a nice touch I suppose, but the hat doesn't even match the rest of the outfit and there's the gratuitous lizard and... oh never mind.
Best wishes everyone!
Alright, seriously, the black horns and the flaming steed and the firey background, is the full Satan Claus treatment really necessary? Am I going to have to get out my main for this screenshot?
Best wishes everyone!
Will Rift Focus Enough On Rifts And Souls?
The NDA has come down on the Rift Beta, and the blogosphere has jumped into action. Trion gets major points in my book for having the confidence in their product to allow players to talk about it seemingly so early. (By contrast, Mythic carefully kept Warhammer's broken endgame hidden behind an NDA all the way up to release, and SOE is insisting on an NDA for EQ2's next expansion beta even though we learned today that the beta won't even start until about a month prior to release.)
Of the various posts, Keen's take on the alpha and beta stood out the most to me, in fairness perhaps because I'm jaded and skeptical and his is one of the more critical impressions I've seen. In particular, his critique of the questing system as trailing WoW's in both quality and quantity stands out as a red flag.
As nearly as I can tell, Rift's two major selling points are the dynamic content (though most people seem underwhelmed by the basic Rifts) and the use of the flexible "soul" class system to overcome challenging content. Will Trion succeed in using dynamic content to add challenge and variety, with the regular quests taking a back seat as things you do when nothing else is happening? If so, will they manage to communicate that focus to new players, or will the familiar seeming quest system draw newbies away from Rift's greatest strengths and towards unfavorable comparisons with a competitor that has spent an entire expansion cycle on perfecting the theme park quest?
The good news is that these guys are really conveying the impression that they know what they're doing, which is how they've earned all the praise they're getting around the blogs. I just hope that they can use their remaining beta time to get the game to a place where all these good sentiments won't be gone a month after launch.
Of the various posts, Keen's take on the alpha and beta stood out the most to me, in fairness perhaps because I'm jaded and skeptical and his is one of the more critical impressions I've seen. In particular, his critique of the questing system as trailing WoW's in both quality and quantity stands out as a red flag.
As nearly as I can tell, Rift's two major selling points are the dynamic content (though most people seem underwhelmed by the basic Rifts) and the use of the flexible "soul" class system to overcome challenging content. Will Trion succeed in using dynamic content to add challenge and variety, with the regular quests taking a back seat as things you do when nothing else is happening? If so, will they manage to communicate that focus to new players, or will the familiar seeming quest system draw newbies away from Rift's greatest strengths and towards unfavorable comparisons with a competitor that has spent an entire expansion cycle on perfecting the theme park quest?
The good news is that these guys are really conveying the impression that they know what they're doing, which is how they've earned all the praise they're getting around the blogs. I just hope that they can use their remaining beta time to get the game to a place where all these good sentiments won't be gone a month after launch.
DCUO Platform Communication Fail?
Massively reports info on launch date and pricing for the DC Universe Online action MMO. The game abruptly announced plans to release in under three weeks, on January 11th, at the new MMO price point of $50 for the box and the first month, with a monthly fee of $15/month thereafter (or subscription included in Sony's $30/month Station Pass with all their other games). There is understandable concern about the sudden launch, and I'm not betting on it going smoothly as a result.
The thing that strikes me as interesting is the option to play the game on the PS3 - though it is a bit amusing that Sony's console division is charging their MMO division the $10 PS3 tax, bumping the retail price of the game to the PS3-standard $60. Beta players have said that the game plays better with a controller anyway, and my TV/sound system are certainly more impressive than my monitor and speakers. That said, I have some obvious questions about this option.
Do PS3 and PC players use the same servers? If I purchase the client once (e.g. the PS3 version), can I download the other version, or do I need to pay twice? If I can buy the game for the PS3 and attach it to my existing Station account, playing on the big screen when I'm at home and my PC when I'm not, it's potentially a decent deal. If the two are incompatible, the console version becomes much less interesting, and the game probably moves into "wait for sales" territory for me.
Perhaps these questions have been answered in interviews for people who were paying attention during alpha/beta, but they're nowhere to be found on the game's website. Apparently that's one aspect of the game that isn't ready for the newly advanced launch schedule.
The thing that strikes me as interesting is the option to play the game on the PS3 - though it is a bit amusing that Sony's console division is charging their MMO division the $10 PS3 tax, bumping the retail price of the game to the PS3-standard $60. Beta players have said that the game plays better with a controller anyway, and my TV/sound system are certainly more impressive than my monitor and speakers. That said, I have some obvious questions about this option.
Do PS3 and PC players use the same servers? If I purchase the client once (e.g. the PS3 version), can I download the other version, or do I need to pay twice? If I can buy the game for the PS3 and attach it to my existing Station account, playing on the big screen when I'm at home and my PC when I'm not, it's potentially a decent deal. If the two are incompatible, the console version becomes much less interesting, and the game probably moves into "wait for sales" territory for me.
Perhaps these questions have been answered in interviews for people who were paying attention during alpha/beta, but they're nowhere to be found on the game's website. Apparently that's one aspect of the game that isn't ready for the newly advanced launch schedule.
New Travel Philosophy For Cataclysm
Late in the Cataclysm beta, players were less than pleased to hear that Blizzard abruptly removed the portals previous found in the previous expansion capitols of Shattrath and Dalaran. With the game moving back to the original world, it no longer made sense to have those cities serve as the main player travel hubs.
At the time, Blizzard claimed that players lacked the context to understand the decision, as there was the two week period prior to the expansion in which the portals were gone while everything players actually wanted to do remained in Northrend. Having spent more time in the world of Cataclysm, both at low levels and on my two level 80+ characters, I understand what Blizzard was getting at.
With the new, more linear format present continuously through leveling, most parts of the world are now areas that players visit once and never return to. It's still more convenient to be a class that can teleport to a class trainer (Mages, Druids, and Death Knights) and then use their hearthstone for the return trip, but that's a moot point if you don't have to make the return trip at all because you finished that part of the zone you were in.
(To make it even easier, the new zones of Cataclysm can all be accessed via portals in Stormwind/Ogrimmar, and guild reward items can grant players additional teleports to those cities if you really don't want to set your hearthstones there.)
As someone who plays a mage, I still think that the difference between mages and everyone else is a bit too large. Even so, this only really matters between level 30 (when you start questing 2+ flight path hops away from your capitol city) and level 60 (when you gain flying mounts and move to expansion content, which now has its own class trainers). With questlines that span multiple zones for no good reason largely removed from the game, long travel times are primarily reserved for world events and archeologists. Even I don't see much to complain about there.
At the time, Blizzard claimed that players lacked the context to understand the decision, as there was the two week period prior to the expansion in which the portals were gone while everything players actually wanted to do remained in Northrend. Having spent more time in the world of Cataclysm, both at low levels and on my two level 80+ characters, I understand what Blizzard was getting at.
With the new, more linear format present continuously through leveling, most parts of the world are now areas that players visit once and never return to. It's still more convenient to be a class that can teleport to a class trainer (Mages, Druids, and Death Knights) and then use their hearthstone for the return trip, but that's a moot point if you don't have to make the return trip at all because you finished that part of the zone you were in.
(To make it even easier, the new zones of Cataclysm can all be accessed via portals in Stormwind/Ogrimmar, and guild reward items can grant players additional teleports to those cities if you really don't want to set your hearthstones there.)
As someone who plays a mage, I still think that the difference between mages and everyone else is a bit too large. Even so, this only really matters between level 30 (when you start questing 2+ flight path hops away from your capitol city) and level 60 (when you gain flying mounts and move to expansion content, which now has its own class trainers). With questlines that span multiple zones for no good reason largely removed from the game, long travel times are primarily reserved for world events and archeologists. Even I don't see much to complain about there.
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