ALL THE POSTS
Overwatch kicks off its third anniversary celebration on May 21
It's almost time for another Overwatch anniversary celebration after a year of new heroes, new maps, and about five minutes of forward motion in the game's narrative. Starting on May 21st, the game is kicking off its anniversary celebration, which includes a free play event for everyone running until May 28th. And yes, people logging in for free can...
CD Projekt Red weighs in on crunch as Cyberpunk 2077 development gears up
Development crunch is a hot-button topic in the gaming industry these days, and the latest studio to take a stance on the matter is The Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt Red. The studio has "cultivated a reputation for crunch," often "asking its employees to work nights and weekends for weeks and months at a time,"...
Apex Legends’ latest patch is all about sounds and hit detection
Is Apex Legends just too darn loud? The game's next patch is out today, and one of the things that it's doing is just turning down the volume of the game across the board. Of course, that's not all that it's doing sound-wise, as the patch will also tweak and address audio issues that have led to everything...
Worlds Adrift’s May update improves the Blight, knowledge, and ship storage
It's been a few months since we checked in on Worlds Adrift, the early access MMO sandbox. MMO players will recall that back in February, Bossa Studios essentially admitted the game had failed to become "the commercial success" it hoped for, despite its "best efforts in delivering a game that provides hundreds of hours of unique gameplay,...
Camelot Unchained’s ability builder puts the power of choice in your hands
Are you melee, magic, or archery? You'll have to choose when you step into Camelot Unchained's world, because these three paths will lead you toward incredible choices and builds. In last week's dev update, a good deal of focus was given to the ability builder, which is a major part of the character progression system in the...
MMO Cartographer: Climbing the Tree of Savior
A friend of mine from one of my other hobbies recommended Tree of Savior to me a while back, but I was deep down in other games at the time, so I didn't do much more than log in and create characters. Since then, there have been a lot of changes introduced, particularly with the Re:Build update...
Revelation Online is dropping a huge endgame dungeon in Heaven and Earth on May 27
Revelation Online is moving heaven and earth - literally. Its next big patch is dubbed Heaven and Earth, and it's launching next week on May 27th. So far, My.com's detailed its plans for bosses, battle companions, and the game's new event hub, but today, the studio's deep-diving the Temple of the Twelve Dungeon,...
Here are 10 key differences between original vanilla WoW and WoW Classic
It is probably important to realize that no matter how carefully Blizzard developers recreate the early days of World of Warcraft for WoW Classic, it still won't be the exact same experience. Close, perhaps; close enough to trick our minds if we turn a willful eye away from the differences between WoW Classic and the game as it...
The Repopulation updates players on LODs and inventory following water damage
Unfortunately enough for the developers currently in charge of The Repopulation, the universe was not happy with keeping the game's player-facing updates humming along at a decent clip and sent them a torrent of water thanks to a burst water main. Thus, the update has been somewhat delayed, but players can now find out everything they've ever wanted...
Wisdom of Nym: Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood in review – the trials
First and foremost, I freely admit that the title for this one is a bit of a misnomer, since we're covering a lot more than just trials... but it's for the purposes of consistency. And really, Final Fantasy XIV kind of doubled down on making trials a primary means of content delivery for this expansion, since we really didn't...
City of Heroes: Homecoming concurrency, Rebirth and Reddit’s i24 servers, and the future of basebuilding
I had wondered whether the slow-drip release of World of Warcraft Classic this week would dampen enthusiasm for other games' rogue servers and progression servers, but it doesn't seem to have affected City of Heroes' Homecoming servers at all. In fact, just the opposite, such that the team had to bring a new server online (not a...
Fight or Kite: Features MMOs could borrow from successful esports titles
This week I wanted to try something a little different in our PvP-centric Fite or Kite column and take a look at a number of successful esports PvP games to consider whether there are common features or design decisions they’ve applied to grow so popular. Perhaps we could co-opt those ideas to bring more players to our MMOs.
I’m...
Elder Scrolls Online’s Elsweyr early access has begun as players grumble over the cash shop
We're just two weeks out from the official launch of Elsweyr in The Elder Scrolls Online, complete with new zone, new Necro class, and of course, more dragons than you can shake a cat at. And you know what that means: Early access has arrived as of today, so those of you who preordered digitally (or who...
A side-by-side comparison of World of Warcraft’s graphics in Classic and Battle for Azeroth
Computers get faster and better with time. Graphics that require a decent GPU in 2011 can be displayed at much higher resolution in 2019 if you've upgraded your hardware at some point in the intervening eight years. World of Warcraft is kind of hitting up against this issue at the moment as players are seeing the first screenshots...
Ship of Heroes is hoping to roll out its character creation beta in July
Ship of Heroes may be the youngest City of Heroes spiritual successor, but it's also the most likely to hit beta first: Its beta is still slated to launch by the end of 2019. But between now and then, developer Heroic Games has quite a bit planned, including the smaller beta for the character creator.
In response...
Ex-Cryptic Studios artist decries ‘harmful’ video game lockbox designs based on slot machines
A 3-D character artist who previously worked at Cryptic Studios on Champions Online and Neverwinter has come out swinging against lockbox mechanics, saying that they were directly and shamelessly lifted from the gambling industry.
"Loot boxes in games are a familiar topic for a lot of people, but they often discuss the wrong angle. Most gamers comment...
The Daily Grind: Do you think MMO worlds are too bloated and big?
A couple of months ago, I saw an interesting topic on Reddit that deserved more love than it got. User RuccFeddit (<3) posted what he suspected was his unpopular opinion: that "newer MMOs have worlds that are sized too big" - but go to waste, unused, as players level up. "There is nothing wrong with having a big...
MMO Week in Review: A feast for MMOs in Guild Wars 2, WoW Classic, and City of Heroes
Not at all for the first time, Guild Wars 2 and World of Warcraft announcements clashed rather hard this week, as ArenaNet released the final episode of its current living story season to great acclaim and Blizzard began the beta for WoW Classic, now due out in August.
The good news is that based on our...
Battle Bards Episode 144: Colors of the rainbow
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet: Combined, these forces create the awesome power of Roy G. Biv — otherwise known as the rainbow! In today’s experimental episode of the Battle Bards, Steff, Syl, and Syp attempt to find MMORPG music tracks to go with each of the seven colors that shine over a rainstorm or in a...
The MOP Up: Dauntless’ forums are down for a month as the game goes offline until Tuesday
No doubt that you have heard about Dauntless' launch on Tuesday, May 21st. And while that marks a new beginning for the monster hunting game, it also signifies an end to the old testing forums - and a temporary outage for the game.
"On May 20th, 2019, we'll be taking the Dauntless forums offline," the team posted. "This...
