Everyone has a fighting chance
When it comes to the question "Where do you start in developing the game world?", I have a rather standard answer: everything begins with the idea and then thinking over the game world in detail. In contrast, when I was writing the book, "The Skies", I wasn’t thinking of the game in detail. The world and the storyline were appearing while I was writing and I actually didn’t know what it would be fully until the end, so the story revealed itself over time.
One of the best ways to spread holiday cheer is to give presents to other people, but let’s be honest: getting a gift that you want (or one that you didn’t know you wanted) is sure to make you feel just as warm and tingly inside. Last week, David Jagneaux shared 5 Awesome Gift Ideas for the MMO Gamer, and I’d be just as happy buying one of those items for myself as I would be getting it for one of my guildmates.
We re-reviewed the game earlier this year, bumping our score up from our initial 5.6 to an 8.2, reflecting all the improvements we found in the game. Still, there are a number of issues that have presented since then and today we’re offering up our list of improvements we’d like to see Gazillion make over the course of the next year.
The Elder Scrolls Online team has been active with reveals in recent weeks, due to how much will be changing in update 6, which itself is just the beginning for subsequent phases of changes, additions, and overhauls. So it’s not surprising that the year closes out with (finally!) details about the Champion system. While no one will get a taste of the actual update until it hits the PTS after the new year, there’s already much feedback and discussion to tide us all over until January and beyond.
On December 2nd, early purchasers of the Shadow of Revan expansion were granted access to two things: the new content that was being added for the $20 purchase of the expansion pack, and the new skills and streamlined combat systems. For people who have played SWTOR in the past and are just curious about the new discipline system, I’d recommend just logging in and trying it for yourself.
Surpassing even the League of Legends prize purse juggernaut, Hi-Rez Studios has announced that the prize pool for the SMITE World Championships to be held in January has risen to over $2.1M. Funds were ‘crowd-sourced’ through the purchase of special in-game items that contributed to the overall amount to be awarded to the winners.
Thanks to the new gifting option in the Marvel Heroes 2015 store, players can now send items to others. Players can send Heroes, Costumes, Team-Ups, Pets and Fortune Card bundles, many of which are discounted right now just in time for the holidays.
In a short, but meaningful, post on the Landmark forum, Dave "Smokejumper" Georgeson acknowledges that the team should have better prepared players for combat in Landmark. Choosing, he says, to get input from the community releasing it in its early form without that preparation was a mistake.
Yesterday’s announcement of the formation of ArtCraft and a new game with new approach to MMORPG design should have people talking by now. We were lucky enough to go right to the source and spend some time with founders Todd Coleman and Gordon Walton talking about their philosophy on MMOs, their new project, and all that we have experienced over the last decade of online gaming.
The Conquer Online team has sent out the first information about the upcoming Kingdom War expansion set to hit the game in the first quarter of 2015. The first order of business is the consolidation the game’s servers into six large ‘kingdoms’ where players will be able to face off in a battle to rule. In addition, cross server battles will also pit player against player to crown the champion of all.