Game mechanics

Diablo III delivered 100,000 beta keys to North American fans this week, but it also revealed that the epic death animations from the game's first gameplay reveal were actually faked and won't be in the final game. Upcoming online FPS Blacklight: Retribution has challenged players to play 20 ranked matchmaking games by Thursday to win an exclusive golden helmet, and Massively still has beta keys if you'd like to get involved.

Heroes of Newerth released its potentially overpowered new hero Berzerker this week, placing Artesia into the free hero pool for legacy accounts a week early. League of Legends introduced its updated AI, adding 40 champions to the bot roster for both Summoner's Rift and Dominion co-op games. Dota 2 released a new test version to trial experimental changes without interrupting balance testing, and dungeon crawler Path of Exile showed off two new screenshots of its upcoming 0.9.6 patch. Finally, Bloodline Champions increased all XP gains by 50% this week in patch 2.3 and has launched a hilarious new photo content that's sure to get some questionable entries.

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In Star Wars Galaxies, it was the Gubbur. In Star Wars: The Old Republic, it's the Bantha. In World of Warcraft, it's those weird flower-monsters called Lashers. Every game has a super cute mob that I just feel horrible killing. Sometimes I suspect that the devs are purposely adding adorable things to MMOs and asking us to kill them just to mess with our heads in the service of some sort of Milgram experiment. Or maybe it's just meant to put us in our place out of pure revenge: "Flame my game on the forums, will you? Here's a zone full of fluffy Vorpal Bunnies that can one-shot you. Eat it, suckers!"

So what say you? What MMO creature is simply too cute to kill?

Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!

I thoroughly enjoy reading your comments, especially when the discussion turns to game design or suggestions for development. I decided it was high time that I sat down and experienced, even if just a little, how the design process goes. I've had plenty of peeks at different studios, but I wanted to know what it is like to actually make a game from basically beginning to end.

So for the next four weeks, I will be doing something special. I invited indie developer Dave Toulouse, maker of Golemizer and Star Corsairs, to help me in this journey. If you'd like to find out more about Dave, you can visit his official website, follow him on Twitter, or even read an interview I did with him a while ago. He really is the epitome of the indie spirit, and I am so thankful that he volunteered to do this with me.

The goal is to start with a basic idea and framework, and using input from our discussions and from reader comments, assemble a very basic working mobile MMO. So let's get started!

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Bigpoint has let us know that it's about to kick off what it calls "space trials" for some new carrier-class ships in Battlestar Galactica Online. The craft will be visible on the Kobol beta server today in both Colonial and Cylon variants.

Carriers function as support and supply vessels and can also serve as mobile outposts with repair and recharge capabilities.

What's that? You say you want to pilot one of these shiny new vessels? Well, this is Bigpoint, so you'll need to enter a lottery via the community forum for your chance to jump in the cockpit of BSGO's latest and greatest. If you're not up for that, the ships will be available to all players on all servers after the completion of the trial period at the end of this month. You'll need to be level 40 (and in possession of nearly 500,000 in-game cubits) to get one for yourself.

Despite the fact that video game addiction lacks both a definition and a diagnosis, "researchers around the world continue to investigate methods of determining, treating, and preventing" it, according to Gamespot.

The American Psychiatric Association recently rejected a movement to incorporate game addiction into its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, but that hasn't stopped folks at the National Development and Research Institute from publishing the findings from a survey conducted with 3,380 adult gamers.

The study found that five percent of participants reported "moderate to extreme problem game-playing." Commonly reported problem titles included Call of Duty, the Grand Theft Auto series, online poker games, and World of Warcraft. The team concluded that "there is evidence to suggest that problem game-playing is linked to particular kinds of game genres" and that further research is needed.

Guild leading is often as much about managing personalities as it is about managing the nuts and bolts of the game. In previous columns, we've looked at all sorts of issues that guild leaders have to solve, and at the root of almost all of them is some sort of personality clash. Show me a nice blend of personalities, and I'll show you a happy guild that will stick together for years.

What makes guild leading so difficult, though, is that unlike real-life leaders, guild leaders need to manage two identities for every member. There's the real-life identity of the player, and then there's the identity of the in-game character, and they aren't always the same. If you talk to a guild that's met at a guild gathering or convention, one of the things you'll always hear is how a particular member is so different from his in-game character. In game, for example, he might be a rough-around-the-edges general, but in real life he's a quiet teddy bear.

MMOs give us the opportunity to be someone completely different from who we are out of game, and even non-roleplayers will sometimes behave differently when they're playing. But Star Wars: The Old Republic has taken away some of our power to construct our own identities in game. In this edition of The Guild Counsel, Let's look at how that's happened and whether it will affect the way we game.

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Massively gets a certain amount of grief for writing news stories about Richard Garriott. While it's true that he hasn't made a major contribution to the MMO industry since the 1990s, it's also true that he's something of a touchstone when it comes to geekery and ambition. If a guy can go from being a young astronaut hopeful to having a spare $30 million to burn on a spaceflight, that's got to count for something, doesn't it?

While we're on the subject of a spare $30 million, yesterday's Garriott piece got me to thinking about what I would do if I had that kind of pocket change. While spaceflight and a lifetime supply of Hershey's kisses are certainly high on the list, I'd use a good chunk of the money to make my own MMO. What about you, Massively crew? Would you self-finance an MMO if you could, and what would it be like? Would $30 million be enough?

Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!

Today's a big day for fans of Tribes: Ascend, and it's also a big day for Hi-Rez Studios, the Atlanta-based indie firm behind the upcoming online shooter.

You see, today is patch day, and while that's not terribly unusual (Hi-Rez has updated the Tribes beta client early and often since the start of closed testing last November), the latest tweak is a bit of fan service that will likely bring smiles to the faces of franchise die-hards waiting in the wings to see what becomes of their baby.

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Pathfinder Online is still too early in the development process to do much more than talk about principles, but said principles are certainly of interest to fans. The most recent development blog about the project discusses that game's PvE arm, which is meant to be an important part of the game without being the sole driving force. Instead of the game being driven by players going, gathering quests, and then going out to kill monsters, the development team hopes to create an environment where players go out to do something and then find themselves in the midst of a quest.

Four basic types of interconnection are outlined, ranging from wandering monsters to potential beasts attracted by overharvesting an area. (Cut down too much wood in an area and wood-dwelling creatures my start attacking lumberjacks... or some nasty flying monsters might decide the cleared area would make for an excellent nest.) It's certainly an interesting set of principles going into design, making the entry well worth a read for sandbox enthusiasts.

There's still no word on an English-language version of ArcheAge, but that isn't stopping fan sites like ArcheAge Source from digging up lots of interesting stuff on the Korean sandpark title.

The site has a wealth of information covering several aspects of ArcheAge's fourth closed beta phase, including multiple skill guides, lore, and various videos. If that's not enough for you, there's also the latest beta patch notes that are available via Google translate. Check them out to learn more about siege ladders, the game's family system, and importing your own graphics for cloaks and ship sails.

[Thanks to Andrew for the tip!]

Last week's polls were enough for me to get started in the world of Ryzom over the weekend, so I took my first steps back into the game that I haven't played for quite some time. I still remembered how some of it worked, thankfully, but there were a lot of elements that I'd almost completely forgotten. And while I'm still knee-deep in the starter area, I've played enough to at least get some starter impressions.

But let's make this a full narrative, yes? When we left off, the group verdict was that I would be starting out as a Zorai with the Magic starter package based off of a female Shakespearean tragic character. And thus, with only a little extra effort, Corlede was born into the world of Ryzom. The character creator offers a variety of features, allowing you to select your character's build in fine detail but offering a strange lack of certain other options. There are also some odd constraints on character types -- you find yourself always locked within a certain general band of height, for instance, so there are no really tall Trykers.

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We knew that Allods' latest expansion was coming soon. We didn't know exactly when, though. Thanks to gPotato, we're now comfortable penciling in February 15th on our free-to-play fantasy calendar.

Game of Gods is "the biggest expansion ever to hit Allods Online," and it will bring a new Bard class, objective-driven PvP arenas, and new raids to the table. New weapons and armor, new allods and astral layers, and some sort of loot-drop lottery card system are also on the way. That's not all, though, and the game's official website has a full listing of the patch's features and functionality.

[Source: gPotato press release]

Aeria Games has sent word that its Repulse sci-fi shooter has shed its beta tag and is ready for prime time. The company is celebrating release day with four new maps, an east coast server, and a high-ping safeguard feature designed to "provide a better experience for everyone."

Repulse was previously known as Genesis A.D., and though Aeria refers to it as an MMOFPS in today's press release, it's actually more of an online shooter given that it features 16-player mayhem and the usual capture-the-flag and team deathmatch-flavored gameplay. It's free-to-play, and you can see it in action via the trailer after the break.

[Source: Aeria Games press release]

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In case you missed it, Dungeons and Dragons Online is trading Eberron for Faerun. Yes, Turbine is introducing a Forgotten Realms-themed expansion to its six-year old fantasy MMO, but first the company is gifting players with a prequel content push called Web of Chaos.

Update 13 is scheduled to go live later this month, and today we have the first screenshots which focus on a cult called the Lords of Dust. Check out the gallery below for a look at their dungeon base as well as a glimpse of their Rakshasa cult masters.

The content features new quests, new items, and the ability for veterans to start a character at level seven.

[Source: Turbine press release]

Did you know that Ultima Online turns 15 this year? It surely does, and if you're not having a geriatric fit over that fact and wondering where the time has gone, well, get off our lawns.

In all seriousness, UO grand poobah Jeff Skalski has favored the masses with a producer's letter, and he drops several hints about what's to come for the 2012 version of Sosaria. Publish 74 is officially live, and the dev team is already hard at work on its followup, which Skalski says will address "a handful of long overdue bugs" as well as further the game's dynamic story arcs.

Skalski also tells us that the artwork for the enhanced client is still in the oven, and in fact the makeover has turned out to be "more challenging than planned." As a result, it's not quite ready for primetime, but rest assured that it is still a priority. As always, more info is available at the official UO website.