Editorials – Page 83

MMOments: Nosgoth’s The Nest Map

I recently had the opportunity to play Nosgoth’s upcoming map, The Nest. If you haven’t played the game, Nosgoth is a team-based multiplayer game developed by Psyonix and set in the world of the Legacy of Kain games. It is the first in the series to be released in over ten years, with Legacy of Kain Defiance having launched in 2003 on the Playstation 2. Psyonix are best known for their recent smash hit, Rocket League, as well as its predecessor Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars.

My favorite aspect of Nosgoth is the fact that the two teams are not the same mirrored opposites that you find in many other games. There are drastic differences in how both teams work, and knowing how to play to those strengths and avoid their weaknesses is key if you want any chance at victory. The humans rely on more primitive means of offense, in the form of weapons like crossbows and potions that create fire and light. They fight best when able to keep their target at a length, peppering them with bolts and arrows. The humans rely on nodes across the map to replenish health and ammunition.

The vampires, on the other hand, are more up close and personal. They can scale the sides of buildings, pounce on victims or knock them to the ground, and even pick them up and carry them into the sky in order to inflict damage. Vampires perform best in the middle of chaos, splitting up the human team and picking them off one by one, or slamming into the group and scattering them around.

And the variety of characters is easily the greatest strength of Nosgoth. No matter which side you play, or which character, every class has their own unique play style to love or hate, and each character must be dealt with as an individual threat. The fact that the game is five vs five means that your contribution, or lack thereof, are all the more important to your team.

So the map we played on is called The Nest, it is a large map with about as many open spaces as closed. The layout is covered in medium to tall buildings, giving the vampire team plenty of places to climb up and escape danger or plot their next ambush. For the players, however, there were also plenty of open areas and buildings to enter, mitigating the threat from above. It’s also easy for the human team to get too close, putting the whole group at risk of area of effect attacks and ground slams from the larger vampires.

The most disappointing part of our play session was the, ultimately, it came to an end. Nosgoth looks great, handles well, and is fun enough that the time melts away. Unfortunately, the game’s matchmaking in my experience and as pointed out in the community, is a painful slog that often takes longer to find a game than most people are willing to wait. Much longer.

If you have some time to spare, I highly recommend giving Nosgoth a chance. Check out one of the rounds I played on The Nest below

Albion Online Releases Aurelius Update

Albion Online continues to march its way through beta, with the latest update introducing multiple user-friendly features. While player vs player combat is the focus of Albion, the developers recognize that players still want traditional MMO features like dungeons. The Aurelius update introduces three new ‘safe zone hellgates,’ allowing players to raid with a safer environment.

Safe Zone Hellgates offer an introduction to PvP. Five players can enter a hell dungeon where they must face mighty demons – and possibly other players that are also after the precious loot. Hellgates in safe zones utilize yellow zone PvP rules – knockdown only and no full loot, making them a perfect starting point for newer citizens of Albion to begin their PvP adventures.

The update also introduces a new interface, as well as improved controls to allow the player to stay in combat. You can find the entire list of patch notes below.

(Source: Albion Online)

[Less Massive] The Mean Greens: Plastic Warfare

(Disclosure: The review copy of this game was provided to us)

I wouldn’t be doing my job as a guy who writes about games online if I didn’t wax poetic constantly about how the new generation of games are all garbage in comparison to the older, and how you kids today wouldn’t know quality gaming if it was included as a separate DLC season pass. Now that you understand my unquestioned and sarcastic superiority in the way of gaming, let’s continue.

The Mean Greens caught my eye for two reasons: One, it is an army men game. Two, it plays like an older shooter, with none of the leveling or weapon unlocks that have become commonplace thanks to Call of Duty and Team Fortress 2. The premise is as simple as the gameplay: Green and tan plastic soldiers are massacring each other in a war over who knows what. Territory? Plastic? Who cares?

I’d also be lying if I said that Plastic Warfare’s visuals didn’t pull me in. This game looks fantastic, pulling off amazing detail in environments that really offer a convincing feel of being a one inch tall plastic toy. The detail on objects is incredible, from the grainy texture of the wooden blocks to the shiny plastic toys that cover the landscape. The soundtrack is generic but well orchestrated. The game does also carry an interesting knockoff of Flight of the Valkyries, not to mention a birthday song that might get stuck in your head.

The two armies battle it out in a third person shooter spanning ten maps and ten game modes. Mean Greens is both blessed and cursed by tying its game modes to maps, not counting those that are released in the future. Presently each map is its own self contained mode, meaning each mode only has one map. While it helps to keep the game simple, it’s disappointing that I can’t play deathmatch in the bathtub, or capture the flag in the toybox.

Out of the ten game modes, most are pretty standard. You have your deathmatch, capture the flag (two takes on it), domination, king of the hill, capture points, and team deathmatch. The rest are inventive takes on existing concepts. One mode is set on a giant foosball table with both teams trying to score goals. Another has one team trying to light candles on a giant birthday cake. My personal favorite, deep freeze, has the two teams battling it out in a freezer environment, using their flamethrowers in a race to melt their dinosaur from a block of ice. The map starts out as a semi-cooperative mode, with both teams trying to melt the same ice cube.

Weaponry is similarly generic, not to mention the game hands you the entire loadout from the get go. Weapons boil down to basic automatic rifle, sniper, shotgun, bazooka, and flame thrower. Each weapon has a rather low amount of ammo that slowly replenishes once you run out, although you’re pretty much guaranteed to die in the time it takes for the cooldown to pass. The plus side of having every weapon is that you’re equipped for just about any situation. The bad side is, that’s not always great in competitive games.

For every map/mode that takes the winner’s circle, however, there are a few losers. The game modes are fine, in theory, but many fail either in level design or via game mechanics. The fast respawn and the fact that the player immediately starts off with all of the game’s weapons make it difficult for one team to really press on the other, especially in smaller areas. Many of the objective based maps are just ridiculously difficult, bordering unfair. The bathtub level requires players to use slow moving, heavily exposed floating duckies to get flags back to their base. Considering every player spawns with sniper rifles and bazookas, you have to be dealing with a very inept defense for either team to come out victorious. The same goes for Kitchen Run, which has no avenue to flank and generally ends in a no-score match.

There isn’t nearly enough feedback when getting shot, and often times you’re likely to not realize that you’ve been hit by a sniper from halfway across the map because there is no gunshot sound or “thunk” or reaction from your character. Close quarters battles often devolve into bazooka and grenade spam as freshly spawned players walk into battle with those weapons up, throwing away any level of pacing that the game might have achieved.

At the cost of $14.99 (presently on sale for $10), Plastic Warfare is only lacking in players. Somehow the game got saddled with a massive number of dedicated servers (more than I’m willing to count) with only a small number of them populated. I’d also like to see the game open up with more open maps, ones that allow for alternate paths to flank enemies, and support for more players per server.

Otherwise, this is a great game to lose time on.

Heroes & Generals Will Drop Support For Windows XP

If you play Heroes & Generals and your computer still operates on Windows XP, at least one of those two will no longer be the case in the coming months. The latest update to Heroes & Generals, dubbed the Zhukov Armored Ambush update, dropped today introducing new vehicles, new weapons, and various tweaks and anti-cheat updates. In addition, the folks at Reto Moto announced that this update will be the last to support Windows XP.

This will be the last update supporting Windows XP. Microsoft ended their support in April 2014, so there has not been any security etc. updates for more than one and a half years. So, if you’re still running XP now is the time to upgrade as the next update to Heroes & Generals (in early 2016) will no longer be playable on Windows XP.

Players have until next release to update their operating system or find a new game.

(Source: Heroes & Generals)

Beta Perspective: Paladins

Hi-Rez Studios is one of those “follow the trend” developers, one that doesn’t seem to have an explicit purpose like Treyarch (first person shooters), Obsidian Entertainment (role playing games), or Sergey Titov (shovelware). Instead, the company’s development history can be summed up as whatever seems to be most popular at the time, with its first two ventures turning out to be financial sinkers. With the success of Smite on PC and Xbox One, it was likely guaranteed that Hi-Rez’s next product would be something along those same lines. Introduce Paladins.

I like to think of Paladins as the love child of Team Fortress 2, Smite, and Hearthstone. The game is a Frankenstein’s monster mash of first person shooting, MOBA objectives, with a splash of collectible card game customization that keeps people awake (and spending money) on Hearthstone.

First, the SMITE part. The meat of Paladins plays out nearly exactly like its MOBA counterpart (at least in the one game mode currently available), with two teams of five players of unique class fighting for control of capture points. The team that captures said point spawns a siege weapon of incredible strength that lumbers towards the enemy base. With the help of the siege weapon, the team must knock down two layers of base defense before destroying the core itself and claiming victory. Once the siege weapon is destroyed, the timer restarts and a new point opens.

Paladin’s characters are bound to be familiar to anyone with MOBA experience. You have the turret and shield-laying engineer-type, the bow-wielding ranger scout that can reveal hidden enemies, the healing paladin, the tank, etc. Each class has three powers plus a mount to allow for faster travel around the map, and even the maps themselves seem to be structured similar to the three-lane system present in MOBAs.

But where Paladins is similar to SMITE, it is equally different. Like any other first person shooter, you have to aim your attacks. You won’t find trash mobs to grind money and experience on, in fact there is no money as the inventory and item shop didn’t make the roll over either. Rather, players can gain points through capturing objectives, dealing damage, and defeating enemies, in addition to a rolling experience that keeps poorer performing players from falling too far out of the loop. Finally, the level cap is 5, with much of the power difference coming from cards that become available as you level up.

The Hearthstone level of customization is ultimately what sets Paladins worlds apart from MOBAs and other team-based first person shooters. In one match I was able to turn my archer into a mean green killing machine, not only capable of landing major hits that slowed down targets, but healed me at the same time. My engineer in another match was capable of a shield turret combo that healed me while the shield damaged anyone who dared to get too close.

I also have to hand it to Hi-Rez for adding in a casual version of the game to even the playing field. The standard game mode doesn’t allow you to choose which cards you go into battle with, instead picking them randomly out of your inventory. It’s a nice idea to keep the game fair for everyone, rather than forcing newer players to go up against seasoned veterans with stacked decks, but the effect can be frustrating. While the game is still being heavily balanced, the game mode does make it possible to go into battle with none of your useful cards.

The more you play Paladins, the more you unlock cards, and the more tinkering you can do with each individual character. I heavily enjoyed my time playing in the beta so far, and look forward to the new characters and game modes that will be coming out in the coming months.

As with previous Hi-Rez games, you can nab a beta key by buying a founder’s pack ($20), by registering for the beta, or by begging someone in the community for one of their extra invitations.

Grab Free Daily Veteran Bonus On Heroes & Generals

Heroes & Generals is celebrating Thanksgiving with a membership giveaway. All you have to do is log in each day between November 26th and November 29th to receive one free code every day for the duration of the event. Each code is good for twenty four hours of veteran membership, delivered via in-game mail and redeemed with the “redeem voucher” button. For players who subscribed between September 1st and November 10th, they will be receiving a full 30 day membership to compensate for server issues.

(Source: Heroes & Generals)

Trion Introduces $20 Early Access Pack, Bumps Existing Packages

If you’re looking to buy into Devilian but don’t want to shell out the minimum $50, Trion Worlds has a new package for you. Available as of yesterday, the base Devilian package now costs $20 and includes beta access, a two day head start, a corgi companion that comes with extra inventory slots, fifteen days of patron, and two inventory rows. To compensate those who already bought the more expensive early access packs, Trion is sweetening the deal with extra bonuses.

The upper packs now include gemmed talismans (3 for $50 and $99, 10 for $150), experience and gold boosting items, with the most expensive pack receiving a 24-slot bank expansion item.

(Source: Trion Worlds)

Defiance TV Show Cancelled, Game Continuing

Trion Worlds has assured players that Defiance the game will continue long past the life span of Defiance the tv show, which is good news because the latter has been cancelled. Syfy announced that the television show will be getting the axe after three seasons, the latest not producing the kind of viewership that the channel needed in order to continue on to another year.

Luckily, Trion Worlds owns the Defiance IP, so the game is going nowhere so long as they have anything to say about it.

We’ve had a great time working closely with the team of stellar writers, designers, producers, and actors on the Defiance TV show. Like many of you, we’ve all enjoyed the stories they told week in and week out. Let’s treat this as a fond farewell, in celebration of a successful three year run of a show that broke a lot of new ground and brought an incredible quality experience to its viewers.

Fans of the TV show can still hold out hope of a revival by Netflix/Hulu.

(Source: Trion Worlds)

[Community] Blocked & Kicked: Payday Community Targets Customers

Editor’s note: Community is an editorial column where we discuss pressing issues in the gaming community, including outside of the MMO genre. The acknowledgement of events or actions by individuals or developers should not be misinterpreted as our approval of said actions, unless explicitly stated.

If you haven’t been paying attention recently, the Payday community is in a bit of an upheaval following the unveiling of Crimefest, Overkill’s celebration of the Payday series’ fourth anniversary. The celebration is being accompanied by ten days of updates and ten days of free game time for those who have yet to pick the crime shooter up. Overkill launched Crimefest with the Black Market, a system similar to Team Fortress 2 and Counter Strike where players receive lock boxes and must pay real money to open them. Inside said lock boxes are weapon skins of varying type and rarity, some offering bonuses that alter gameplay.

Microtransactions are a highly divisive topic in the gaming community, one that has only become more openly hostile as developers continue to include them in genres where they had previously been absent, with games like Tomb Raider, Halo 5, and now Payday 2 going down the route of blind box rewards. Especially egregious in the eyes of the Payday community is the fact that Overkill has not only denied multiple times that microtransactions would ever come to Payday, but shamed those who dared to think otherwise.

You would expect that an exodus of players would follow such an update, and there is certainly no lack of “I quit” threads being posted to the forums, but certain members of the community are taking another approach to showing their contempt for microtransactions: They’re targeting Overkill’s customers. One of the topics you’ll see being discussed on the Payday 2 Steam forums is the topic of how to curb item purchasing among those who will happily buy drills at $2.49 apiece, and the answer is simple: remove them.

Among those dissatisfied with Overkill’s new microtransactions, a number of players have pledged to kick and ignore any players that join their lobbies with skins gained from microtransactions. Evidently if you can’t physically prevent someone from buying items that are available to them, there is always the option to make their ensuing gameplay experience as miserable as possible, thus either forcing them to quit or diminishing their ability to play.

How widespread this sentiment reaches isn’t clear, while you can find a fair number of people in the forums pledging to block anyone with cash shop skins, I did not personally witness anyone removed from public lobbies while playing over the past few days. This is likely to be a very small minority of the active community, and one that most players will never encounter. Regardless, it will be hard for Overkill to ignore the growing discontent in their own community over the update, and the developer has promised to respond to complaints once the ten day event is over.

Neverwinter Introducing New Astral Diamond Sources

Those of you keeping watch on Neverwinter are well aware of the game’s ongoing issues with Astral Diamonds, a main trade currency and target for gold farmers, not to mention a direct line for players to obtain Zen without paying any real money of their own. In the most recent dev post, lead designer Scott Shicoff details upcoming plans to introduce new sources of Astral Diamonds.

Hey everyone, Scott here today with a quick note about Astral Diamond sources. As you know, we recently made a change to increase the AD players earn via queued content. We know that players can’t always participate in that content, so we are looking at more ways to get AD into your hands. These first changes will be coming very soon.

Starting soon, players will be able to complete weekly quests in exchange for Astral Diamonds. It is just the first update to address the situation, and Shicoff assures the community that PWE is monitoring Astral Diamond movement and will use that information to mold further updates.

(Source: Neverwinter)

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