Betas

This week is packed with MOBA news as almost every major title released a new patch. Infinite Crisis introduced new champions Poison Ivy and Gaslight Catwoman and announced that the game's closed beta will start in two days' time on May 8th. SMITE introduced new Norse god Fenrir the Unbound, and League of Legends released a champion spotlight on new Ice Witch champion Lissandra. Dota 2 also released new hero Elder Titan based on the original DotA hero Tauren Chieftain, and Heroes of Newerth released several months of balance changes at once in its colossal version 3.1 update.

Star Citizen celebrated hitting $9 million US in its ongoing crowdfunding campaign, and to celebrate, developers controversially gave all current backers free lifetime insurance on their ships. The title's success has also spurred EVE Online developer CCP Games to show off its own virtual reality dogfighter called EVR that uses the upcoming Oculus Rift headset.

Diablo III's first anniversary is just over a week away; details of any celebrations haven't yet been released. Developers confirmed that the PlayStation 4 version will not be getting mouse and keyboard support and that the PC version won't be getting support for analog controllers. For those of you up for some oldschool dungeon-crawling, Diablo II also announced that its ladder will be reset on May 14th this week and all players will start the game fresh again.

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We're not kidding about that title. The latest set of answers for The Elder Scrolls Online's Ask Me Anything is full of lore. Spilling over with lore. Its lore cup runneth over. Do you want to know how old an elf has to be before he's actually old? 200-300 years is old. Want to know if there will be any Dragonborn running around a la Skyrim? Nope, and shouts are a thing of legend. It's all the lore you've wanted and were clearly not afraid to ask about.

There are some other answers in the mix as well. Players will have to guess about the abilities of their opponents in PvP to some extent, since the armor system will not allow you to guess at abilities by appearance. Players can also expect to find puzzles in the game rather than pure combat encounters, although no details are given. So while you'll find the most meat if you're looking for lore, even more system-focused players will find some relevant answers in the full set.

If you are hanging your hopes and dreams on World of Darkness coming along to rescue you from the humdrum of life and your precious mortality, well... be prepared to settle in for a good long wait. Executive Producer Chris McDonough said in an interview that the title is still in pre-production and that players shouldn't expect to see it for a few years yet. However, CCP did show a few technical videos to the press to assure folks that the game is still alive.

McDonough did have good news to share, however. World of Darkness has a 70-person crew that is currently building the framework for the title, and according to the producer, they are "making phenomenal progress." The team plans to host the entire game on a single server where active combat and politicking between vampires will be the crux of the content.

"We're making sure this is a next-generation MMO. It's very focused on movement and motion and capturing what it's like to be a vampire," he said. "People ask about our high level designs for World of Darkness, and we've called this a vampire simulator. What's it like to be a vampire. Not a superhero, but a super-powered individual. The way the characters move around the city feels very vampiric."

Tomorrow marks a huge milestone in MMO history as sci-fi sandbox EVE Online officially turns ten years old. Released by a tiny icelandic development studio whose only previous release was a board game featuring Reykjavik's favourite cross-dressing mayor, EVE has slowly grown over the past decade to become one of the industry's biggest and most stable subscription titles. Following 2011's monoclegate scandal that led to around 8% of players quitting and CCP Games shedding 20% of its employees, this year saw EVE Online climb to new heights as it regained the playerbase's confidence and smashed the 500,000 subscriber barrier. As a special side-note, the EVE Evolved column also turned five years old last week; it has now officially been running for over half of EVE's lifetime.

The past year has been remarkably successful for CCP, with both of the year's EVE expansions being extremely well received and console MMOFPS DUST 514 finally starting to take shape. The Inferno and Retribution expansions fixed a staggering number of small issues that were broken in the game while also making big changes to bounty-hunting, piracy, and PvP across the board. We also saw huge emergent events like the Battle of Asakai, a $6,000 ship kill, and the five trillion ISK faction warfare exploit this year. With DUST 514 officially launching in just over a week on May 14th and players fired up about the upcoming Odyssey expansion, the future's looking bright for EVE Online as it heads into its second decade.

In this week's EVE Evolved, I look back at some of year's top EVE stories, stories that touched real life, and what the future holds for EVE's second decade.

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Heroes and Generals is a new browser-based game set in the wonderfully bright and shiny world of... World War II. OK, so it's really a gritty game, and it's sluggish at best, but I have a feeling that combat during that amazing time was from the "two steps forward, one step back" school of warfare anyway. I tried to keep that in mind as I slogged through round after round of being shot in the head.

It's not that the game is boring. It's fun-ish, but when I compare it to many other MMOFPS titles, I find it small and slow. It's an instanced-based lobby sort of design. That's not normally a bad thing, and we certainly cover that style of game here on Massively, but this one just sort of felt a bit too small. There's more coming, I hear, so maybe in the future, the game will feel larger.

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We know now that the next test phase for Final Fantasy XIV will not be until June. This is good insofar as the next test will contain a lot more stuff and bad insofar as I want to play. Those of you living vicariously through impressions articles such as this one probably have less of a struggle with this scenario. And there is still a chunk of the first two phases to be discussed, obviously.

If combat is the usual "how" of MMOs, quests are the usual "what." Final Fantasy XIV started out with a handful of quests and gained several more during Naoki Yoshida's tenure, but quests still weren't the main leveling content in version 1.0. That was a function reserved for guildleves, which have taken on a new role in the beta phases just as quests are enjoying an expanded importance. But it's not as simple as that change might imply.

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So Neverwinter launched this week. Or it went into open beta. Or it did both. We've kind of got a Schrödinger's Launch going on here. You can read our first impressions of the game if you're curious about its overall quality regardless of whether it really launched or not. Lost Saga enjoyed a comparatively unambiguous launch, complete with new content compared to beta.

There's not a full open beta for Marvel Heroes yet, but you can still jump into the game this weekend in celebration of some new movie or another. Representing the other major superhero franchise is Infinite Crisis, which announced that the start of its closed beta testing will be on May 8th.

Oh, and there's the usual assortment of games in testing listed just past the cut. See something amiss? Feel free to let us know about it down in the comments.

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Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment today released two new character videos for the upcoming DC Comics-based MOBA Infinite Crisis, and we've got 'em both for your eyeballs. First we have Gaslight Catwoman, a stealthy assassin who sneaks around and teleports to finish off enemies when they least expect it. She has the passive ability to deal more damage to already-injured foes. She also launches her claws in a cone-shaped attack! MeOW!

Next we have Poison Ivy, who's all about protecting the environment. Her passive ability creates a healing ring for every sixth spell she casts; she can also cast Deadly Flora, an area-of-effect spell that heals teammates and damages foes at the same time. Bammo!

You can sign up for the closed beta at the official site, but hurry because it's due to start on May 8th, right around the corner. Click past the cut to check out the videos.

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Marvel fans are well aware that Iron Man 3 released today, but did they know that after heading to the theaters to watch the hero in action, they can jump into Marvel Heroes tonight to live it? During this weekend's open beta from Friday, May 3rd at 10:00 p.m. EDT until Monday, May 6th at 1:00 p.m. EDT, players can suit up as Stark's alter-ego in a variety of suits from both the comics and all three movies.

Not sure if you prefer the classic-looking Mark 42, the stealthy Mark 16, the sub-orbital Mark 39? If artillery or speed is more your style, there's also the Mark 17 and the Mark 40, respectively. Check out a demonstration of all the suits and their specialty powers in the new trailer after the break.

[Source: Gazillion Entertainment press release]

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With twelve years already under its belt, and a good chunk of those years providing weekly updates, it's understandable if new players might consider RuneScape literally too big to get into. So how do you circumvent this and continue to expand the population base? Why, you throw in a major update and rename the game to RuneScape 3, of course!

In a recent interview, Jagex CEO Mark Gerhard talked to Gamasutra about how this exact approach gives the game an all-new feel that is more likely to draw in new players who might otherwise overlook it. He stated, "We could have called it RuneScape Next Age if we wanted to, and part of my thinking was, for people who haven't played this game in a year, it's going to be night and day. It's not a completely new game, but it's certainly a new experience." RuneScape 3 will have a more powerful audio engine, boosted visuals and a better draw distance, and upgrades to the UI, among other things.

Just like back with RuneScape 2, the plan is to maintain the RuneScape 3 moniker for a while, then drop the numeral and return to the original name again.

The Repopulation's end-of-the-month progress report is here, and judging by the sheer length of the thing, April was one for the books. The new update takes a high-level view of development and it states that since the majority of The Repopulation's features are complete, the dev team is now focusing on content creation and an enjoyable new player experience.

Highlights from April's patch cycle include the new harvester system, player turrets, AI tweaks, stampedes, and gore options. Of course, that's just the tip of the iceberg, so be sure and read the full post for all the details.

[Thanks J.C.!]

Neverwinter soft launched this week. What's a soft launch? It's when a game really shouldn't be launching yet and knows it and yet has to launch anyway for reasons probably involving money. Soft launches are incredibly confusing to old school gamers who are used to a certain kind of testing and release cycle, the uncomplicated kind that involves, you know, some testing and a release. Soft launches make games writers uncomfortable too. Why won't your weird special snowflake of a game launch fit into our perfectly planned box?

Massively reader zmeul expressed his annoyance with us thusly: "I can't understand why some games get this 'soft launch' from you and others do not, even if the criteria are met."

It's a brave new world out there, zmeul!

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Making a new discovery on Nexus is always sort of a double-edged sword. The good news is that the Exile Academy of Science has discovered all sorts of fascinating details about the Thundercall Pell race living in the south of Galeras. The bad news is that some of this has come about as a result of discovering strange energy readings emanating from the caverns known as Stormtalon's Lair and the loss of a science team investigating the region, meaning that WildStar players will have to go in and deal with whatever ate the team that went in the first time.

The latest WildStar Wednesday sheds some light on this early dungeon, explaining the motivations behind the inhabitants of the Lair and some of the mysteries still surrounding them. Players will be tasked with fighting their way into the depths, stopping the Thundercall High Priest from awakening the eponymous Stormtalon. Which means you'll probably arrive just in time to fight Stormtalon before it gets free, because really, how else could this end?

After many years, we finally have the answer to a rhetorical question: SMITE let the dogs out. Well, one dog -- Fenrir. But he's enough dog to count for all the others. If you hadn't guess, Fenrir is the newest deity added to the game, coming into the game with a full suite of melee abilities suitable for a wolf feared by the Norse pantheon.

Fenrir's core mechanic is a stacking set of runes, with each of his abilities gaining a major buff when at a full stack of five. Normally, Fenrir can leap to do damage to an area, leap to do damage to a single target, or buff himself with increased damage and lifestealing. With a full stack of runes, his area leap stuns, his single-target leap becomes an AoE, and his buff becomes more efficient. He can also grow to a massive size, increase movement speed, and carry an enemy god around like a chew toy. Take a look at all of Fenrir's trick in the reveal video past the break, and read up on the full list of changes in the official patch notes.

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Wednesday, May 8th marks the start of Infinite Crisis' closed beta test. The new DC-centric MOBA is accepting signups now on its official website, and Turbine has released a bit of new art focusing on various multiverse Wonder Woman variants to celebrate the occasion.

Infinite Crisis will be free-to-play and feature "a deep roster of DC Comics characters clashing in fast-paced player-vs.-player battles," according to Turbine's PR machine. You can get a sneak peek at the game via's Massively's hands-on report from GDC 2013.

[Source: Turbine press release]