Chaos Theory: Guide to The Secret World’s Templars faction

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It’s Templar Time! After looking at the Illuminati and delving into the Dragon, it’s now time to tie up this trio of guides and talk about the final faction in The Secret World: the Templars. I could fall back on that old adage of “saving the best for last,” but this secret society may not be the best for everyone. That’s the whole reason behind these faction guides — so folks can get a feel for what they may want to play. And with Secret World Legends launching its early access tomorrow, the time to pick is close at hand.

As much as I have been tempted to roll a different faction for SWL, it’s going to be very hard to pass up being a Templar. I can’t deny that it has been my my favorite faction; the philosophy jells better with me, I prefer the deck costumes, and I enjoy the wit of Richard Sonnac’s messages. But what really cemented this society’s place at the top was the final story mission, Virgula Divina. Doing the Illuminati story mission felt like a let down by comparison! If you’ve never visited the playroom, you are truly missing out. Could this become your favorite faction, too? Let’s take a (spoiler-free) look-see at what it has to offer.

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The Repopulation posts teeny, tiny image teaser

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It’s small. It’s ambiguous. And it might be pointing to the future of The Repopulation.

The new team handling this sci-fi MMO posted a rather tiny picture on the forums of which looks like a river on top of a grid and then asked players to vote on what they thought it might be. As the poll is labeled as a “teaser,” we might make the assumption that this has something to do with upcoming development for the game.

Curious what it looks like? We blew the image up (but did not enhance, as that doesn’t really exist outside of TV detective shows) and posted it for you after the break.

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Gigantic rejoins Arc platform, opens up PC beta, and preps for July 20 launch

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There is no shortage of movement on Gigantic, Motiga’s colorful, multi-platform MOBA. For starters, the studio announced that PC players can now get in on the open beta, conveniently located on Perfect World’s Arc platform.

The Windows open beta joins the Xbox One testing program as the title gets ready for launch on July 20th, and players who want to transfer their accounts to Arc can do so with a one-time offer.

As part of launch preparations, a massive June patch was deployed on Wednesday to shore up Gigantic. The update contained a revamped user interface, a new player experience, bot matches, voice chat, hero voiceovers,

Get pumped for Gigantic’s open beta party with the official trailer below!

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Choose My Adventure: Cryptic’s Neverwinter in review

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My time with Neverwinter is done, and it’s a game I find myself in an odd relationship with. It’d be fair to say that despite what some members of the audience expected, I never went into disliking the game; even when I was getting a little bit bored, I didn’t find myself desperately wanting to play something else just to be free of the scourge of the game itself. But at the same time… it never really got its hooks in me, either.

And some of that, I think, is that I’ve played it before.

I’m reluctant to say that every game Cryptic Studios makes is the same because every single one has very clear pieces that stand apart. Star Trek Online’s space combat, Neverwinter’s action combat, and Champions Online’s status as the last relic of a forgotten time. (Probably other things, too.) They’re not the same game. But they do all share the same gameplay loop, which is different… and despite my best efforts, there’s a certain point when all of that just winds up getting a wee bit tedious.

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Star Wars: The Old Republic explains how the developers listen to community feedback

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Feedback is important for every MMO, and that includes Star Wars: The Old Republic. But where does feedback come from? If the developers never ask you about your opinion specifically, how will they actually collect your feedback? Community manager Eric Musco chimed in on the forums explaining where the development team looks for feedback and how his job involves filtering and synthesizing that feedback from multiple sources, all of which serves different purposes and offers different inputs.

The official forums and Reddit, for example, offer the feedback of particular narrows slices of the game with a big time investment; Twitter, meanwhile, has much more breadth of feedback but less depth on individual issues. There are also focus groups and specific influential players courted by the development team just for feedback and information. Check out the full rundown if you’re curious about how the melange of feedback gets passed along to developers; this isn’t necessarily how every game does it, but it is how it happens for SWTOR.

Source: Official Site via Dulfy

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E3 2017: Path of Exile’s Jonathan Rogers on the Fall of Oriath and markets beyond

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Despite the recent release of Path of Exile’s Fall of Oriath’s recent beta release, Grinding Gear Games sent Technical Director Jonathan Rogers out to E3 2017 to chat with press about the game’s incoming expansion. If you’re looking for some sweet, sweet data-crunching from the test server, you’ll be disappointed, as Rogers mentions the team shipped him off before he could see how the freshly launched test was going, but he still brought some interesting information.

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Shroud of the Avatar has plans to attract more players and keep them around

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In the hopes of attracting and encouraging more player investors in Shroud of the Avatar, Portalarium took to Reddit for a Q&A session that did not leave everyone quite satisfied.

During the AMA, Portalarium explained why it’s not doing a wipe before release, responded to those upset at the slow rollout of the single-player version, promised more user interface polish, and addressed frustration over players not being able to find certain NPCs. The studio said that right now there it is seeing around a 500-player concurrency, although it expects this to increase as they start promoting the game more.

So how is the team planning in attracting new players to the game as it heads toward launch? “We have been testing out our free trial system for the last few months and in the next few months we will begin promoting this more and more as the game improves to bring in new players. To keep players around long-term we will be working on more high-end content around the end of the year.”

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Exclusive: Wizard101 Q&A dev diary on its PvP update and monstrology evolution

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Kid-friendly MMORPG Wizard101 is on the cusp of a big update — in fact, it’s already landed on the official test server as of this week. At its heart is PvP: new PvP daily rewards, a new PvP age, adjustments to PvP rank, and a whole new turn-based PvP tourney mode. There’s stuff for everyone, though, including lots of new chat goodies, tweaks to the quest and tutorial logs, and expansions to the fishing and monstrology systems.

You can check out the illustrated patch notes on the official site, and then feast your eyes down below, where we’ve got an exclusive (not sponsored) dev diary from the KingsIsle team, helmed by Senior Producer of MMO Content Leah “Professor Falmea” Ruben, in which the devs the thought process and planning behind the update!

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ZeniMax seeks another half billion bucks in Oculus injunction hearing

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The Oculus/ZeniMax Media lawsuit still isn’t over, all these years after the start: ZeniMax is this week arguing before a Texas district court that Oculus should be forced to remove its VR products from sale or pony up royalties.

Earlier this year, courts awarded ZeniMax half a billion dollars in damages from Facebook-owned Oculus, having found that the VR company was guilty of copyright infringement, false designation, and failing to comply with a non-disclosure agreement. At the time, Oculus declared that a victory because the jury didn’t find it guilty of stealing trade secrets.

The new injunction filed by ZeniMax seeks to double that sum to compensate it for “ongoing harm.” Facebook and Oculus are contesting everything, of course, including the original verdict.

Even the judge seems tired of it all, reportedly having told listeners that he aimed to “resolve the heck out of [this] big, hairy fight.”

Source: Law360, Gamasutra, GI.biz

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LOTRO to reveal Mordor expansion and start beta testing this week

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By the week’s end, Lord of the Rings Online players should know a lot more about the game’s coming Mordor expansion — and even have an opportunity to play it.

In an interview yesterday with Dadi’s LOTRO Guides, CM Jerry “Cordovan” Snook said that the team is preparing a big reveal today for the expansion that should include the name and some key details. Additionally, the first beta preview is set to go live on the Bullroarer test server by this weekend. This test won’t be the full expansion, as the team wants to hold back the epic story and some other major content as to not spoil surprises.

Snook confirmed that there will be a level cap increase with Mordor (although he wouldn’t say what it is) and that the virtue cap will increase by one. The expansion is still on track for release in late summer 2017, with a follow-up patch that will add in group content (such as the new raid).

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Conan Exiles begins partial wipe of official servers

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Get ready to watch the world burn. Well, part of the world. Conan Exiles is wiping official servers this morning. Well, part of them.

“We’ve started a partial wipe on all official servers. Buildings and inventories will be removed, character progression stays,” Funcom tweeted this morning. “We’re wiping official servers per community requests to solve problems with the decay system and in anticipation of the climbing system.”

PvP Blitz servers are also being taken offline for repurposing, which sounds ominous!

The good news is that Funcom plans to double the experience-gain rate on all official servers for the next two weeks, which ought to help you get caught back up.

Source: Twitter

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Skull and Bones will boast a single-player campaign in addition to multiplayer battles

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Pirates are, like, so so hot right now. At least if you look at the multiplayer gaming space, which now has two promising titles from major studios racing toward release. One of these is Skull and Bones, a recently announced Ubisoft title that we got to check out at E3.

For all of the talk of open world sailing and clashes between players, some have wondered if there is any room for the solo pirate who wants to sail the seven seas without others crowding around. Turns out that, yes, this will be a definite option, as Skull and Bones is going to feature a single-player narrative campaign in addition to its multiplayer component.

An Ubisoft representative confirmed this aspect of the game in a statement: “[Skull and Bones] will offer a narrative campaign which will be integrated into the game and will not be something aside of the multiplayer experience. In this campaign, players will encounter iconic characters and memorable rival pirates. More details will be shared at a later date.”

Source: PC Gamer

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Rend delays early access launch due to an ‘amazing opportunity’

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This will come as a bummer to anyone excited about getting his or her hands on Rend this summer: Frostkeep Studios announced yesterday that it is delaying the early access launch for the survival sandbox due to an “amazing opportunity” for the game’s development that was not specified.

“The excitement around the game has brought our studio an amazing opportunity to take Rend to the next level,” the studio said. “With this new support, we are re-evaluating current development plans and exploring ways in which we can deliver an even more robust in-game experience at launch.”

So what’s the new Steam early access release window? Frostkeep is now aiming for later this year to incorporate additional features and mechanics. The studio said that the delay will result in making Rend “an even better game than originally envisioned.”

Source: Rend

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