Godswar Online

Mounts are a big part of nearly any MMO and GodsWar Online is no exception. They recently added a mount system, but it certainly wasn't as simple as typing "/horse" and moving on. Even the decision to add mounts in the first place was a long and complicated process. Their latest developer journal takes a closer look at the thoughts behind how the system came to be.

When the idea of adding a mount system was first presented, the dev team itself was divided. There was a fair amount of discussion about the historical accuracy of infantry in Greece, and seemingly endless discussion ended in an official forum vote. The fans turned out to be "overwhelmingly" in favor of mounts, and production got underway.

Again, it wasn't a simple and quick process: "There's a lot more to it than throwing a character on top of a pig." Many, many small effects work together to create a good mount, and each of those effects must be perfected individually.

This journal entry is a great look at what goes on behind the scenes during the creation process, so it's well worth a visit to the site to check it out.

While Godswar Online may not be one of the more commonly known names in the F2P world, they seem to be doing fairly well for a cute, fun free-to-play title. Apparently there are enough people playing that they've had to open up a brand new server -- their twenty-second -- and are calling it Iris. As a bonus for those who are interested, players who start their adventures on Iris will be given a special "Newbie Gift Package" for free. Each package includes goodies like health, mana, and experience bonus potions as well as other starting tools and items that will help a new player to Godswar Online out.

Aside from that, they've also started a contest to tempt some veteran players (or perhaps new and hardcore) to Iris as well. The idea is this: if players can reach level 70 within the first 7 days of logging on, they'll be given a gift of 3,000 E-Gold (currently worth $16.50 USD) to spend however they like in the Godswar Online store. Between these two giveaways and their Christmas Egg Crack event going on until the 30th, it sounds like a festive and fun time for their players. If you haven't had a chance to see Godswar Online, we have a handful of screenshots from their shiny new server for you to check out.

There's been a lot of back and forth in the EverQuest II community about the xp gain via grouping in Rise of Kunark dungeons. Fingers were pointed, and we gave Scott Hartsman (EQ2's Senior Producer) a chance to rebut. Said Mr. Hartsman, in our discussion piece from last week:

EverQuest II is not a game about sitting in one place and grinding. You find the activity that defines the core of your game, then you make sure it's the part you polish the most, then you make damn sure it's rewarding. That activity is questing.

Tipa's response to Mr. Hartsman's statement clarified the issue from a segment of the player population:

EQ2 was always about two things: Dungeon crawls and getting loot. Quests were just things you could do to make the effort more rewarding ... Most of the quests in my journal I never get around to doing, unless they result in an upgrade for my character. I don't think I'm alone in this.

Apparently, she's not. Today, the word on the official forums from Mr. Hartsman is that dungeon XP is going to be increased, at least through this holiday weekend. He is clear about the reason: bringing parity to quest xp gain for dungeon grouping.

We've been keeping an eye on both the objective, globally recorded experience data from the first week of Kunark being live, as well as the subjective feedback regarding Kunark experience grants, through the many styles that people play. Many of you have pointed out that the exp given from dungeonning feels too low. In the live environment, we agree that is the case. The data backs this up as well. In making the reality more aligned with the overall goal, Kunark dungeon experience gains have just been boosted on all of the live servers.

We'll keep up with this ongoing balance issue as the developers and players work this out.