game mechanics
H1Z1 introduces hardcore Battle Royale, now with bears
Odds are good that you've had experience with H1Z1's Battle Royale gameplay by now if you've played the game for any length of time....
Beta testing starts for Elite: Dangerous’ Powerplay update
The next major update for Elite: Dangerous is going to really shake up how the game is played. The Powerplay update previewed a month...
Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns testing begins today
Are you ready to enter the Heart of Thorns? Because Guild Wars 2 is opening the testing doors today, allowing players to step in...
Wisdom of Nym: Final Fantasy XIV is ready to expand
There's a phrase that gets passed around my house frequently these days, and the phrase is "expansion mode." I have two characters locked into...
Pathfinder Online expands holding and adds company feuds
If there's another group of players in Pathfinder Online and you hate their stupid faces, the most recent patch to the game's Early Enrollment...
World of Warcraft shakes up itemization in its next patch
If you had been under the impression that World of Warcraft's personal loot was already equivalent in reward amounts to group loot, well... maybe...
Wisdom of Nym: Final Fantasy XIV’s endgame dungeons, from launch to present
It's crazy to realize that Final Fantasy XIV has added more dungeons via patches in a year and a half than World of Warcraft has...
Hands-on: Blade & Soul’s western port is a cheerful cliche storm (and I want to play more)
I spent a ridiculous amount of time playing Blade & Soul just moving around.
Most of the time in a given game, I'm moving around because...
Das Tal demos skill-based combat and posts Kickstarter FAQ
What does skill-based combat mean to you? We can't tell you that, but we can tell you what it means to the makers of...
WoW Factor: A three million loss lesson
It's been a little while, hasn't it, friends? In the time since I last penned WoW Factor (which missed an installment purely due to...
Neverwinter outlines new and upcoming changes
When lead designer Scott Shicoff took point on Neverwinter, his first dispatch to the community was a statement that he and the rest of...
How Star Trek Online constructs its new pilot ships
The newest ships in Star Trek Online are all based around making players feel like that piloting specialization was a good expenditure of time...
Final Fantasy XIV nerfs the Steps of Faith in 2.57 patch
Are you stuck on the last part of Final Fantasy XIV's main scenario quest? The last trial introduced, Steps of Faith, is a pretty...
Wisdom of Nym: Final Fantasy XIV’s cross-class actions
This past week, I did what I needed to do before Final Fantasy XIV's expansion Heavensward launches: I finished the main scenario questline on...
Scope out the Guild Wars 2 Dragonhunter summary
You can't play a Dragonhunter Guardian in Guild Wars 2 right now no matter how much you might want to be wielding a bow...
MMO Mechanics: Three favourite action combat systems
Virtually every MMO contains dangerous places that are filled with other players or NPCs that will attack characters on site, and many also feature...
Trove previews the upcoming Boomeranger class
Another big patch is coming to Trove in the near future, and it's bringing along a new class. The class feels... familiar, somehow. We...
Guild Wars 2 unveils the Guardian elite spec: Dragonhunter
Here we are in the wilds of Guild Wars 2 once again, and you can see we've got a big old dragon right there....
ArcheAge outlines the battles in the Sea of Graves
So what sort of nautical nonsense can you get up to in the most recent ArcheAge update? How about beating back a leviathan of...
Everything you need to know about Crowfall’s combat testing
As nifty as Crowfall's mechanical goals are, they're not going to help the game much in the long run if the fundamental combat engine...
