Промоакции для игроков не только в шутерах — воспользуйся промокодом Vavada от наших партнеров и получи бонусы, которые подарят азарт и атмосферу, сравнимую с игровыми победами.
.Very interesting post over at Mordor Or Bust. Could Lord of the Rings Online possibly be looking at a F2P business model too? Worked for Dungeons and Dragons Online. Going to be interesting to see what they have to say at E3. Things have been pretty dry on the LOTRO-front for awhile now.
–Ravious
Dungeons and Dragons Online (DDO) is coming out with a pretty cool update at the end of this month. It has a new adventure pack, some new skills and what not, but the biggest feature, in my opinion, are the guild airships. The guild airships effectively take the place of guild halls and guild banks that appear in other MMOs. The guild airships feature coincides with a guild leveling mechanic that will also launch with Update 5. I think that in many MMOs guilds are one of the most overlooked features, and having a guild project will be a great addition to DDO.
In case you haven’t heard, Guild Wars 2 will be available to play this August if you are going to Gamescom in Germany or PAX in a September Seattle. A lot could be theorized about what that means for launch or beta, and one has to take in to account the convention season and the demos available for other games (like The Old Republic). What is more important, for now, is how ArenaNet has been handling expectations of their upcoming game. Continue reading Guild Wars 2 – Managing Expectations
There is a thread on Guild Wars 2 Guru forums titled “Go away! You are upscaling my event!â€Â It is rife with a deconstruction, from the available knowledge, of the Guild Wars 2 event system. It’s a pretty good thread detailing possible pitfalls of the event system, but most importantly it shows with all the dangers just how big of a risk ArenaNet is taking in stepping away from the standard MMO quest (!) system. It is a less tested mechanic in the MMO genre, but Warhammer Online’s public quests provide a very good Petri dish to show what ArenaNet devs will have to consider for Guild Wars 2. Continue reading Guild Wars 2 Event Pitfalls
In the latest info-bomb run, ArenaNet and some game sites released a swath of info on the personal story in Guild Wars 2. The best place to start is, of course, the official page, where Ree Soesbee lays down a pretty extensive overview on what the personal story is in Guild Wars 2. IGN mostly regurgitates in their form the beautiful picture Ree portrays, but they got some amazing exclusive screens.
The best way I can analogize the personal story to what currently exists in MMOs is take Lord of the Rings Online’s epic quest line and replace all of that with a bunch of instances that branch wildly based on decisions you actually make. So, you can play in the common world like everybody else where most things are the same, play dungeons that everybody else plays (with a twist), or enter your personal story which will be unique to you. Guests are more than welcome in your Guild Wars 2 personal story, but it is your story. Continue reading Guild Wars 2: Personal Epic
The Guild Wars Beyond “campaign” set in the War in Kryta theatre has been continuously plugging along since the culmination of Guild Wars 5th Anniversary. A lot of it has been “cut scenes” and pings just inside what I consider core Guild Wars PvE gameplay, but that is starting to change. The War in Kryta has been maturing in to a full fledged slice of Guild Wars.
I was listening to the Game By Night MMO podcast the other day (vacation put me behind on many podcasts), where I learned about a new World of Warcraft add-on, AVR (Augmented Virtual Reality). AVR is an add-on that further simplifies the complex cat herding of raids by allowing a raid leader to mark locations in-game. Then everybody in game will see in their client the spot that the raid leader marked regardless of where their characters are standing. The big hooplah is that this add-on stupifies the raid puzzles to a ridiculous degree. I think this is a tad subjective considering the amount of “required” raiding add-ons, but I can see how this might be one of the straws that broke the camels back.
Anyway, Blizzard is breaking AVR in the next patch by removing camera coordinates or something. Yet, the damage was done. The add-on was created, used, publicized, and will now die in an explosive death. What if Blizzard could have preemptively stopped or limited AVR?
There are a lot of great effects stemming from the Guild Wars 2 event system. Constant activity, grouping by just playing with nearby players, and a dynamic world are some of the biggest features. Yet, in a game without the exclamation hat-wearing questgivers a lot of compartmentalized functionality that quests embody could be lost. We are so used to modularity; will we be ready for the leap to a dynamic world MMO?
The biggest change in functionality is at the start and end points. A quest is started punctually with a lead-in story. There are wolves in the walls, and Farmer Neil and his pig cannot sleep. It is irrelevant when the wolves got there because as far as you are concerned, the problem just arose. Sure, Farmer Neil might’ve told tale of how he has not slept in days, but you are there now. The world is as Farmer Neil told. So, you go around the farmhouse, crawling into nooks and crannies, killing respawning wolves, and looting [jam-filled socks] off their dying wolf bodies, and after ten dead wolves or so, you return to Farmer Neil with a new look above his face. He tells you how grateful he is to be able to sleep, gives you some money, and the module ends. The story might continue with word of the biggest, fattest wolf on Tooba Hill for the next quest, but during Farmer Neil’s quest, a complete compartmentalized story was told.
One of my favorite MMO podcasts, Massively Speaking, just turned 100 episodes old. It’s a well-balanced podcast that plucks news and interviews from all over MMO space. It’s great that they really try and shed light on some of the lesser known MMOs, but also give some good insight on the larger news stories.
For the 100th episode, they interviewed Richard Garriott. Now, I’ve had my jests at Garriott, but the guy is truly a savant for our genre. His commentary, insights, and stories in the interview are quite simply fantastic. Shawn Schuster, one of the hosts on Massively Speaking, said that he was ready to drink Richard ‘Gool-Aid’ after interviewing Garriott, and I have to agree.  The show is well worth a listen if you have an hour to spare your ears.
Congrats, Massively! Here’s to a 100 more.
–Ravious
figaro qua, figaro lÃ
The Guild Wars 2 news is coming in what-seems-to-be cyclical deluges of information on one or two specific subjects with downpours occurring through official ArenaNet channels and big news sites. This week we received a really good overview of the crown jewel of Guild Wars 2 – the event system. Yet, it can take a lot of time and energy, even on the hyperactive forums, to find all the articles and commentary that occurs. The ArenaNet blog has been posting conglomerate articles pointing the way.
There is also another really good way to get information if you are more audiovisually oriented. Sabre Wolf has been releasing Guild Wars 2 Info videos on YouTube compressing the latest news into an easily digested format. He includes released screenshots, quotes, as well as his commentary in to the ten minute episodes. The latest episode details the mass of information the community received in the Guild Wars 2 Guru interview. All links involved are worth a look, but Sabre Wolf’s YouTube channel is here. Enjoy!
–Ravious
we can’t stop here this is bat country