In The Grim Dark Future, There Is Only Single-Player

Warhammer 40,000: Dark Millennium is now only going to be a single-player game, thanks to layoffs at Relic and Vigil.

MMOs are expensive to make, so changing the game to a single-player saves them a considerable amount of money.. but what a disappointment.

Something for the Weekend

Diablo III will apparently not have PvP at launch, as the systems aren’t up to scratch yet.  Instead, they’ll be patched in when they are ready.  In the meantime, Blizzard are apparently putting the finishing touches on the game.. for which there is still no confirmed release date.

CryEngine 3 is now available for free non-commercial use!  AI, animations, dynamic lighting.. check out the preview from IGN:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TtgW20IEm0] (more…)

Aion Goes Free to Play

NCSoft‘s Aion is now free to play: all classes, areas, quests, equipment, professions and PvP will be freely available to all players!

European players will be requested to transfer their accounts to Gameforge, the new publisher of Aion.

(more…)

Firefall Beta Starts Now

Firefall is a team-based shooter / MMO hybrid under development for the PC by Red 5 Studios; a studio founded by Mark Kern, former team lead for World of Warcraft.  The game will be free-to-play once launched.  To take part in the beta, sign up for an account: beta invites will be issued in waves.

The latest Dev Diary details how player actions will affect the roll out of new content in the game:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQrQWRiXFss]

The game is set in a future Earth, where the promise of a new clean energy source leads to the arrival of a hostile energy storm called the Melding, that engulfs most of the world.  A bloodthirsty race known as The Chosen has also emerged and threatens humanity’s survival..

Players can choose from three battleframes: assault, medic and recon, each of which can be customised with different weapons and loadouts.  These are equipped by the player’s character, so you can switch between battleframes too.

Firefall has both PvP objectives and cooperative PvE missions.  PvP consists of Team Deathmatch, and a Sabotage game mode, which has teams take turns being on offense or defense, with three different points to capture and hold.  Confirmed PvE missions so far include a Thumper mission, where players defend a mining machine against waves of enemy creatures while it gathers resources, and Rescue missions, for which no information has yet been released.

Firefall has no set release date; as players join the beta and play, the team collect feedback and continue development of the game, with plans for the game to be rolled out ‘organically’, rather like Google’s Gmail service.

TERA Online Available to Pre-Order

Frogster, European publisher of MMO TERA Online, have announced pre-order details for the game.  Pre-ordering will allow guaranteed beta access and a five-day exclusive access to the game at launch, as well as special in-game items.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jq7aKNVQbH8]

Beta testing begins on February 17th, with details on available sessions here.

TERA has been in the news over the last few weeks due to a lawsuit filed by NCsoft, and reported on by MMO Culture, and for their IP blocking which excludes players from some countries, including Russia, being unable to access Frogster servers in Europe.

RIFT Lite Announced

Trion Worlds have just announced the launch of a Life version of fantasy MMO RIFT, accessible to anyone with a Trion account.

The Lite version of the game will allow new players to try out the first 20 levels of the game, accessing capital cities as well as other areas, with no cost or time restrictions, rather like World of Warcraft’s Starter Edition.

Via Massively.

DC Universe Online – A Very Quick Look

When I first heard about DC Universe Online, and especially the option to play as a hero or villain of your own design, I was rather interested.  However, after my experiences with Aion at that game’s launch, and poor customer service by their developer, I was reluctant to splash the cash on this game till it dropped in price, or unless friends got into it and were sticking with it for a while.

A friend bought the game, and played for the first month, but then didn’t carry a subscription on after that.. however, while at ScampLAN he discovered he had been given some free time on the game, and he kindly let me have a bit of a run around 😀

I decided to play a Villain, so here’s Arcady: a crazy dual pistol-wielding loon, with Illusion as her Power and Flying rather than Acrobatics or Super Speed.

The first missions had me escape Braniac’s ship, learning how to move around, interact with objects and fight..  I found the keys a bit odd to start with, and ended up flying around while I was only supposed to be walking 😉

Once in Gotham, I went to help sow disorder and chaos for The Joker.. starting by fighting the cops who attacked me while I was trying to find my way to the first mission.. more fool them 😉

As I had picked Illusion, the first ability I got was Psychic Blades.. which fire three spinning blades to attack enemies in their path.

Combat was rather easy, and I liked the effects.. I did tend to get carried away though, as it was so easy to do, and the cops spawned quickly, often near enough to aggro straight onto me.  Completing most of the quests led straight into others, without the need to go running back to a quest giver or even travel too far, which was great.

I didn’t explore as much as I would have liked.. flying certainly made it feel easy to get around without being interfered with.  However, there were quests to do and more abilities to pick up.. so I failed on the exploration front this time.

Entering the warehouse for one mission, I encountered Catwoman, who I ended up helping in a fight against The Huntress..

I thought this was rather cool 🙂
Letting players fight alongside known powerful characters rather than simply following orders from them makes you feel like you’re actually quite powerful in your own right, which is rather appealing.

Afterwards, I was let inside the Funhouse, which featured huge rolling balls that, contrary to expectation, didn’t crush and kill me!  The Funhouse turned out to be some kind of bonus-level.. there were various presents laying around for me to collect, with either money or costume items inside.. and it did look rather cool although a little disjointed from the rest of the game.  I’m used to bonus levels belonging to arcade games! 🙂

I guess it’s more in keeping with The Joker’s crazy mentality to have you go running around through a building full of bouncing balls and bombs to get your rewards, and more interesting than simply being handed it invisibly during dialogue with an NPC.

After this, I think I may still get DCUO if it ends up in a Steam sale.. I think I could play through enough content during the included month’s game time to be satisfied, though long-term I’d be unlikely to play without friends in the game to go with.

Free to Play Games on Steam

Steam announced some free to play games this week: RPG / MMOs; Champions Online, Global Agenda: Free Agent, Spiral Knights and Forsaken World, and an action game, Alliance of Valiant Arms.  Free-to-play games usually include some sort of paid features.. extra skins, more equipment, or faster levelling.. or serve up adverts or limit the places you can go in the game while free.. so this announcement got my attention..

Champions Online requires payment to play past level 40, which at least allows a good trial of the game, in which you play a hero going up against Dr. Destroyer and his minions.. the game also apparently allows you to customise your own character, but more interestingly, your own customised enemy to harass you throughout your superhero career.  This sounds rather interesting, though.. another game with a big open world?  I need more free time 😉

Global Agenda: Free Agent‘s free version allows all the game’s content to be played, but you can pay to speed up levelling and purchase better gear more quickly.  I actually bought Global Agenda back in March, just prior to it going free, but having the option of adding it to Steam is a nice one.  This might also help me keep it updated, though I’ve not actually played the game recently..

Spiral Knights, is also fully free to play, but as a co-op game, this will require friends to play with..

The fourth MMO, Forsaken World, has races and classes as I’m used to with WoW, but with dungeons where the difficulty scales with the players’ experience, and weapons and gear which evolves and changes.. another one worth a look.

The action game, Alliance of Valiant Arms, looks to be another squad-based shooter with teams of 4 or 5 players per mission.  Players rank up as they play; the highest ranked player becomes the Squad Commander, hopefully meaning good players can lead others, rather than a recipe for griefing.. another one I’ll have to rope the guys in for 😉

Global Agenda

Shooter MMO Global Agenda was recommended to me at the start of the weekend.. and while I wouldn’t ordinarily pick up a game with little idea about it, developers Hi-Rez Studios had pledged to give all the proceeds of sales during the weekend to the Red Cross Japan Earthquake efforts.  So, I signed up and paid.. knowing that even if I didn’t like the game, at least some good was coming of it.

I had the choice of Robotics, Medic, Recon and Assault, and for my first character I went with Robotics, as I’d get to play with turrets, forcefields and drones..

The game starts off showing my character in a stasis field, in a facility under attack from soldiers who start to free me.  During the scuffle the chamber is smashed and I am freed, but all the soldiers are gone when I get control of my character.

This is where the tutorial kicks in, with directions for basic running and jumping to start with, then a cool jetpack which allows short flights, and my first weapon..

While I have the Mace equipped, I also have the use of a shield, which seems to last as long as my energy reserves, indicated by the blue bar near the middle of the screen.

I reach the top of the building as directed, and I’m told I have to dive off the edge.. a nice cutscene follows where I jump off as instructed, bare feet on view, and eventually crash through the window of a storage room.  Here I get a nice ranged gun, and in the next rooms I get to try it out on easy enemies such as Watchers and Sector workers who try to hide.. and Alarm Responders, who are a little bit tougher.  I also get a ‘Rest’ device, which lets me heal myself.. so far so good 🙂

I’m heading for the roof again.. right at the top I’m introduced to a one-way forcefield, which will let me out to face the first boss, a flying Guardian who fires some kind of homing rocket and wipes me out.  I get a fairly quick respawn back on the safe side of the forcefield, and head out to finish the Guardian off.  Here, I was surprised to find he hadn’t been reset, so it only took another few hits to kill him.

My reward was a cutscene of my escape via train ride.. on top of the train, of course!  My stop is an armoury.. more weapons?  I level up at this point, and am given an off-hand, which for me is a deployable force-field.. which comes in handy because there are plenty more security androids to fight through.  Each roof leads to another, with markers indicating where I can jump off, and use the jetpack to fly to the next place.  Limited energy means I can’t just fly around without thinking about it, which I guess stops it becoming overpowered, but I’m happy being able to jump around for the time being.

Next on the list is a suit, which comes with a robotic arm sticking up over my shoulder.. this turns out to be a repair arm, but isn’t explained at this point.  A few more rooftop fights later, and I find my way into another building, where I’m jumped by this rather cool looking Elite Assassin..

I was expecting a tough fight, but I defeated him rather quickly.. it is still tutorial time though.

Another level up, and I have a Personal Turret, which I deployed here purely for the screenshot 😉

My next mission involves escaping through the sewers, and I suspect that’s where the tutorial will end and I’ll get into the main game..

Rift

Rift is a new fantasy MMO from Trion Worlds, with all the usual PvE, PvP, quests and crafting, as well as some nice world events in the form of the rifts, which open to release elemental invaders into the world.  There are two playable factions: Guardians and Defiants, both trying to save the world, but opposed to each other as well.

There’s a brilliantly unique system in place in this game for character classes – rather than simply picking one of a few classes, you choose a calling: Warrior, Cleric, Rogue or Mage, and then specialise by attuning with a variety of Souls, the first of which you get for the first quest in the tutorial area.  This allows a vast array of customisation, and hopefully means a lot more variety amongst players than in WoW, where choice gives way to ‘optimal’ specs.

There’s a Riftwatch video here, which shows the Guardian’s starting zone.. there’s also a detailed explanation of Callings, Souls and the use of spells 🙂

A friend and I started off as Guardians, since he was determined to be a Dwarf, and they are only available to the Guardian faction.  I also picked a Dwarf Warrior, then a Beastmaster soul, which gave me a pet to help me in combat 🙂

After a few more quests.. enough time to try out the initial abilities.. I was asked to pick my second soul.  One of the suggested pairings for the Beastmaster was the Champion, a specialist in charging into battle with two-handed weapons..

This was where the confusion came in.
The second soul gave me a second set of abilities, which seemed very similar..  I just didn’t know which I should be using at first.

The abilities are similar in terms of the amount of damage dealt and amount of power they use, but the Fierce Strike increases pet attack ability as well as causing damage.. so it made sense to use that rather than the equivalent Champion ability.  I also took the Bull Rush ability as my opener.. having seen my friend charging in at mobs I wanted to be able to do that too.

From my third and final soul, Riftblade, I took the Storm Blade ability – a buff which could be applied to increase melee attack, and which I could apply and then forget about as it lasts an hour.  Less mess; less stress 😉

The quests seemed very easy, especially with friends.  By the time there were four of us, it felt too easy in places.. enemies don’t stand up very well to a mob attack 🙂

The rift events were more chaotic and a lot more fun.  Spawning at random, the rifts throw out elemental type enemies until players have killed enough of them, at which point the rifts close again.  Once a rift is open, a button appears at the top of the page for you to join a public group, should you want to.  The really cool thing is that everyone can get involved.. there are no level restrictions, although if you are much lower level than the invader, you might find you miss rather a lot 😉

While talking about the game with a friend, he said that his character didn’t feel powerful.. or as powerful as he should.  It hadn’t been something I’d considered to that point, but thinking back, I realised that my character hadn’t felt all that powerful once our group had split up..

I had been fighting goblins which were a few levels lower than my character, and therefore should have been going down fast, yet it was taking a while to kill them even with Cuddles biting and clawing at them too.  In WoW, when I charge in with my Warrior and take something on, it goes down fast.. and it feels powerful, especially considering he’s doing it alone rather than having help from a pet.  When I think about that, Orola doesn’t feel powerful at all, despite being a warrior hero type character.

Maybe we shouldn’t be trying to compare games.. maybe it’s just that generally, mobs are tougher in this game and you’re not meant to feel powerful until you’re a much higher level..

I decided to take a look at the Defiant side, creating a new character: Zaaliah, the Eth Mage.
New characters on this faction start off on the last day of Telara, with the tutorial area having you prepare for a trip back in time to try and stop the destruction of the planet.

My first soul was the Pyromancer.. woop, fire!   I’m loving my fire mage in WoW at the moment, so wanted to see how this works in Rift.

While the fireball spell had a great animation.. swirling the staff with the fireball being created and then flung at the end, it had a really long cast-time.  As soon as I got some points they went straight into Ignition, which decreases the cast time of all fire spells.

My second soul was the Elementalist, which gave me the ability to summon a Lesser Earth Elemental who I named Lumpy.. he’s a rather grumpy-looking guy 😀

The other ability from this soul was Crystalline Missiles: this time round, I was able to see it as comparable to my Fireball ability straight away and rather than be frustrated by it, I simply ignored it.

My third soul was Warlock, taken mainly because I liked the idea of healing myself by draining health from the enemy.. although I had considered the Necromancer, you can only have one pet at a time and I wanted to stick with Lumpy 🙂

The early quests included the usual tasks of talking to a person, killing so many of an enemy type, or collecting things.. but I quite enjoyed one particular travel mission when I found I was to be escorted by a Wraith Battle Construct.. a huge thing!

I enjoyed watching him punt the enemy mobs out of the way! 🙂

As per the story, I was to travel back into the past to I can help stop the world from being destroyed..  which brought me to what I think is the same time period as the Guardians end up in after they complete their starting zone and go forward in time.  Nice idea 🙂