Tag: Event

MMOments In Gaming: Defiance’s Living World


Defiance 2013-04-10 21-58-21-04

I had a stunning revelation while playing Defiance yesterday: This game might have one of the more lively feeling worlds I have seen in a long time. Here is the story: A temporary event is currently running that tasks players with fighting off zombie sieges and the odd zombie emergency event in the road. Riding on my roller, I stopped by one such emergency only to find the area completely abandoned. Screaming and gunfire could be heard just over the nearby hill, beyond which I found zombies fighting a Raider event. It seems that the two stumbled upon each other, causing the afflicted to invade the Raider invasion.

Rather than intervene, I allowed the two groups to go back and forth, until the zombies won virtually unmatched and the Raiders were forced to retreat. I can only imagine what the Raider’s hostages were thinking, having already been kidnapped from their caravan, bound and gagged, only to have their day made even worse by an invasion of flesh eating zombies. Luckily for them, the zombies weren’t interested in hostages and once the last raider was killed off, moved on back to their own area.

But just imagine the chaos in Defiance if the afflicted zombified their victims, adding to their ranks and branching out kind of like an invasion event in Rift. Maybe I’m just wishing too much.

MMOments In Gaming: Defiance's Living World


Defiance 2013-04-10 21-58-21-04

I had a stunning revelation while playing Defiance yesterday: This game might have one of the more lively feeling worlds I have seen in a long time. Here is the story: A temporary event is currently running that tasks players with fighting off zombie sieges and the odd zombie emergency event in the road. Riding on my roller, I stopped by one such emergency only to find the area completely abandoned. Screaming and gunfire could be heard just over the nearby hill, beyond which I found zombies fighting a Raider event. It seems that the two stumbled upon each other, causing the afflicted to invade the Raider invasion.

Rather than intervene, I allowed the two groups to go back and forth, until the zombies won virtually unmatched and the Raiders were forced to retreat. I can only imagine what the Raider’s hostages were thinking, having already been kidnapped from their caravan, bound and gagged, only to have their day made even worse by an invasion of flesh eating zombies. Luckily for them, the zombies weren’t interested in hostages and once the last raider was killed off, moved on back to their own area.

But just imagine the chaos in Defiance if the afflicted zombified their victims, adding to their ranks and branching out kind of like an invasion event in Rift. Maybe I’m just wishing too much.

Age Of Conan Implements Patchless Events


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Don’t you hate temporary events in MMOs? Forgetting the other issues around the time-limited nature of the event itself, then you have to put up with the obnoxious issue of the game requiring a patch (and thus downtime) both before the event begins and once it ends. Wouldn’t it be easier if there was a way to, oh, let’s say update an MMO with temporary event content without having to patch the servers? Well you are in luck! Age of Conan’s latest Game Director letter details a new system put into action with the recent fifth anniversary event. From now on, Funcom no longer has to patch the games to boot up or wind down a game event.

The new system allows us to create events and activate them whenever we wish. This means that we can run events on the fly, without taking down the servers and escalate them on the fly, as we did each day of the 5th Anniversary event. It means that a GM can kick start one of these events in the game by running a simple command. Obviously this has many applications, but the upshot of it is this – you can expect to see a wider variety of events in Age of Conan going forward.

The letter also reminds us that the merger of servers with similar rulesets is still coming this summer, along with a new network layer to improve server stability after everyone is tossed into one location.

(Source: Age of Conan)

[Taco Tuesday] TERA’s Ingenious Plan To Burn Out Prospective Customers


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It is Tuesday and that can only mean one thing: The greatest day of the week, at least as far as lunch is concerned. Taco Tuesday will always stand as the best day because it has something everyone can enjoy, whether you prefer beef, chicken, vegetarian, or even fish. Now, someone once asked me “Omali, do you ever wish Taco Tuesday could be every day?” And I said no, homeless man who walked into my high school cafeteria, I don’t wish Taco Tuesday was every day. Because then it wouldn’t be special, and tacos would simply revert back into meat in a shell.

And I feel that the same should apply to TERA, or any video game for that matter. If you hadn’t heard, En Masse Entertainment recently announced an event called “No Sleep Til 60.” Running from March 12th through March 26th, new accounts (does not include existing accounts) will be rewarded the further they are able to level their characters.

The event, open to anyone who creates a new account after 12:01 a.m. PDT on March 12, will help get you and your friends ready for TERA’s exciting endgame. To enter, all you have to do is start a new TERA account. (Existing players can certainly help the new folks level up, but they can’t start new characters to earn prizes.)

So sixty levels in fourteen days to hit the highest tier. Considering how well my past power leveling stunts have gone, I’ve decided to preempt the inevitable and sit this one out. More often than not for me, these power-leveling events wind up becoming more of a job than a game (which already happens enough writing for MMO Fallout), losing much of the fun of playing it in the process. By setting a goal and forcing users to play in a style that is likely outside of their norm, you risk running the player ragged and burning them out on your game much earlier on than if they had simply joined and started playing normally.

The other risk factors are the players who do reach level 60 by the time the promotion ends, and then they either burn themselves out or run out of things to do and quit anyway. Of course, you also have the risk in cases like this of alienating your existing community by excluding them from an event that could potentially reward $60 worth of cash shop rewards, which En Masse apparently recognized because they completely backpedaled on the terms of the offer and not only included existing accounts and characters but also dropped several rewards from the event entirely.

Then again, I could be entirely wrong on this. If TERA is truly one of those games where the first fifty nine levels are just there to add fluff while the real gaming starts at 60, this could be incredibly successful.

[Taco Tuesday] TERA's Ingenious Plan To Burn Out Prospective Customers


TERa1

It is Tuesday and that can only mean one thing: The greatest day of the week, at least as far as lunch is concerned. Taco Tuesday will always stand as the best day because it has something everyone can enjoy, whether you prefer beef, chicken, vegetarian, or even fish. Now, someone once asked me “Omali, do you ever wish Taco Tuesday could be every day?” And I said no, homeless man who walked into my high school cafeteria, I don’t wish Taco Tuesday was every day. Because then it wouldn’t be special, and tacos would simply revert back into meat in a shell.

And I feel that the same should apply to TERA, or any video game for that matter. If you hadn’t heard, En Masse Entertainment recently announced an event called “No Sleep Til 60.” Running from March 12th through March 26th, new accounts (does not include existing accounts) will be rewarded the further they are able to level their characters.

The event, open to anyone who creates a new account after 12:01 a.m. PDT on March 12, will help get you and your friends ready for TERA’s exciting endgame. To enter, all you have to do is start a new TERA account. (Existing players can certainly help the new folks level up, but they can’t start new characters to earn prizes.)

So sixty levels in fourteen days to hit the highest tier. Considering how well my past power leveling stunts have gone, I’ve decided to preempt the inevitable and sit this one out. More often than not for me, these power-leveling events wind up becoming more of a job than a game (which already happens enough writing for MMO Fallout), losing much of the fun of playing it in the process. By setting a goal and forcing users to play in a style that is likely outside of their norm, you risk running the player ragged and burning them out on your game much earlier on than if they had simply joined and started playing normally.

The other risk factors are the players who do reach level 60 by the time the promotion ends, and then they either burn themselves out or run out of things to do and quit anyway. Of course, you also have the risk in cases like this of alienating your existing community by excluding them from an event that could potentially reward $60 worth of cash shop rewards, which En Masse apparently recognized because they completely backpedaled on the terms of the offer and not only included existing accounts and characters but also dropped several rewards from the event entirely.

Then again, I could be entirely wrong on this. If TERA is truly one of those games where the first fifty nine levels are just there to add fluff while the real gaming starts at 60, this could be incredibly successful.

WAR: The Newbie Reimagining


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I’ve been struck by some of my viewers for giving WAR too much of a bad light on MMO Fallout. Apparently I am focusing too much on the negatives (Which is half of what this website was set up to do), but not enough on the positives. Low retention rate, massive server mergers, and the continuing issue of desolate areas, where doing certain RvR tiers or public quests is impossible due to the lack of other players present.

With the latest patch to hit the Warhammer Online public testing server, Mythic is looking to make the game easier not only for new players, but long time veterans as well. With this new patch, players will no longer start in the old starting areas. Instead, players will be thrown into a singular starting area, one for Chaos and one for Empire, allowing them to meet and greet, and to allow for easier group formation. New players will also notice that they have been automatically enrolled in a starting guild for each server, to allow them to meet other new players/alts, and form their own guilds off the bat. In addition, there is now a voice-over tutorial, and an improved in-game help manual.

Continue reading “WAR: The Newbie Reimagining”

Champions Online End-Beta Shots


Overtop view of Mega-Destructoid
Overtop view of Mega-Destructoid

Continue reading “Champions Online End-Beta Shots”

Champions Online Beta Event


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The Champions Online beta goes down tonight at 11:59pm Pacific, 3am Eastern. As an end of beta even, Cryptic is beaming robots down to Milennium City for players to fight before the servers go down later tonight. Help the fight against Destructoid’s robots, including the massive Mega Destructoids. Players who aid in the fight against Mega Destructoids will receive special perks and items that will be available at launch, including exclusive Mega Destructoid action figures.

As of this publishing, the servers are down in preparation for the event. The beta is open to all, and the game goes live September 1st with a few days head start for preorders from a few stores. Watch out for the Destroyer clones!