Hands-On

Welcome back to the second installment of MUD May! Almost any time I write an article, I try to keep new players in mind. It's fun to see the reaction from readers when I talk about MUDs or other "classic" MMO models and how these games can pull in fresh blood. Many people seem to forget that there are new players coming into MMO gaming all the time, and MUDs should be no different. Over the next few columns, I will be pulling examples from five games: Gemstone IV, Dragonrealms, Threshold RPG, BatMUD, and Achaea to explain how some basic MUD systems work.

With that in mind, I'd like to use this week's installment to explain -- in a very simple way -- how combat might feel in a MUD. One of the biggest hurdles for a new MUD player is often the massive amount of information that is built from decades of development. MUD players often sneer at the thought of simplifying the entry for new players. To be fair, this unwelcoming attitude is common in gaming in general. I feel differently, however, and want to explain some of the basics of these fantastic MMOs -- simply -- in a way that illustrates just how cool MUDs can be.

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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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In just over two weeks, Star Trek Online's first expansion, The Legacy of Romulus, will be released. The developers at Cryptic Studios have been working furiously, and we'll all get to see the results of all of the hard work on Tuesday, May 21st, 2013.

I've had the opportunity to jump into the Star Trek Online's test server, Tribble, to catch a few glimpses of some of the character works in progress. With more material being pushed to Tribble on almost a daily basis, there should be lots to see in the next couple of weeks!

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When I first picked up Forge on Steam back in the day (when it first hit the Greenlight service), I was hesitant to say the least. The last time I played any sort of game billed as a class-based PvP arena, it was FURY (does anyone else remember that?) and Dark Messiah of Might and Magic before that. To say those games were less-than-stellar would be a bit of an understatement. Despite my trepidation, I still snagged the game since it was fairly cheap and I felt there was at least a good deal of potential for it to finally do justice to the concept.

Unfortunately, Forge ended up being released far too early because of (as I understand it) a lack of funds, so many of the advertised features (such as a ranking system, matchmaking, and so forth) were conspicuously absent. So I figured I'd put it on the backburner and check it out once it had received some much-needed polish. So of course I was pretty pleased when Dark Vale Games announced that Forge had been "re-released" with many of the missing features in tow, but my initial worries about the game were far from assuaged, and I figured it would just be FURY 2: Electric Boogaloo.

But man, do I love being proven wrong.

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Sci-fi MMO EVE Online has seen phenomenal success recently, from breaking through the 500,000 subscriber boundary to successfully relaunching in China. The game officially turned ten years old today, and CCP celebrated the occasion with events and gifts for all current subcribers. The part-jovian Gnosis battlecruiser was given to every subscribed account at midnight last night and can be claimed before the end of the month, and players logging in yesterday or today will have found a whole slew of bonus gifts.

EVE smashed its previous Peak Concurrent User total during the festivities by a clear margin, replacing 2011's record of 63,170 with a new figure of 65,303 players logged in simultaneously. Part of the reason for the record was the huge number of player-run events taking place that evening, such as the ever-popular Flight of a Thousand Rifters. The event saw almost 2,500 players join together to take down player Marlona Sky's expensive supercarrier. Most of the participants were in small frigates like Rifters and ended up being easy prey when a nullsec sniper Loki fleet turned up. The event was nevertheless a massive success and huge fun for those involved. Continue reading for a gallery of screenshots from the event and video footage from player Scott Manley.

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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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Massively's Richie "bogotter" Procopio is concerned for you. He's concerned that you might not have tried out Guild Wars 2's Molten Weapon Facility dungeon, the latest installment of the game's "Living Story" arc Flame and Frost: Retribution. He's equally concerned that you might have missed the memo about just how temporary this dungeon really is: It's over on May 12th, meaning you don't have long to check it out before it's gone. Forever.

But it's all good because Richie has put together a brand-new video guide to the dungeon, so you can either watch it and get a jump on playing through the zone yourself this weekend or just live vicariously through him, which would certainly involve less death. Enjoy his walkthrough after the break! (Dead goat sold separately.)

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Neverwinter's launch into open beta began last week, and through the grace of my press account, my Great Weapon Fighter was lucky enough to begin her digital life alongside players who forked over $199.99 for the Hero of the North Founder's Pack. I lack any of the Founders Pack bonuses, so off my plucky human character went, surrounded on her first day almost exclusively by panther-having Drow.

Justin's been serving up a delicious helping of launch diary goodness, but he's relaxing on a cruise ship this week, so you're stuck with me! Join me as we sally forth into my launch-but-not-really-launch-it's-open-beta-okay-guys-but-we-aren't-deleting-characters-anymore-no-really-it's-still-open-beta-look-it-says-so-in-this-blog-post impressions! The first section is about thighs.

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Ever wonder what the heck an MMO soft launch actually is? Me too, which is funny because you'd think I'd know, working for an MMO site and whatnot. Soft launch implies that somewhere out in game land there's also a hard launch, which is a term that I've never heard once despite following the industry for decades now.

Is soft launch merely a marketing construct, or perhaps devspeak for a free-to-play MMO that operates in some sort of perpetual beta in spite of a working cash shop? Or is it simply a term that denotes the beginning of an open beta period that is free of character wipes, as is the case with today's Neverwinter pseudo-release? The definition is up to you, I suppose, and while you're mulling that one over, you can also click past the cut for a roundup of our best pre-soft-launch Neverwinter coverage.

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Another patch day is upon us. Among other things, Guild Wars 2's Flame and Frost: Retribution is bringing in a new living story dungeon and some much-needed structured PvP improvements. Over the weekend, members of the press were invited to preview some of the incoming content. I'd like to talk about it with you, so be warned that there are spoilers for the living story dungeon ahead.

Something that I found particularly interesting about all of this is that the Molten Weapons Facilities dungeon is going to be available for less than two weeks. The dungeon is due to exit on May 12th. I had expected it to be time-limited, of course, but I think I was expecting a little more time than that. Anyway, let's dive right into it.

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As EVE Online's tenth anniversary Fanfest slowly got underway, the press were led into a small upstairs room with chairs lined up and ominous-looking black headsets. The headsets turned out to be expensive prototype devkits of the Oculus Rift, a recently kickstarted PC peripheral that aims to make immersive virtual reality affordable for gamers. VR headsets are traditionally heavy monstrosities costing thousands of pounds and usually have input processing lag that make them unsuitable for high-action gaming, but the Oculus Rift is a light and highly responsive device currently clocking in at a more reasonable $300.

We were sat down to take part in a demo of EVR, a new virtual reality multiplayer dogfighter that uses art assets from EVE Online. It was an incredibly immersive experience for those of us unfamiliar with the Oculus Rift, and even members of the press who had used the device seemed impressed with the game. Fanfest attendees were equally excited when a trailer for EVR was shown at the EVE Keynote on Friday, and many attendees got to try the game first hand last night. But what impressed me the most was the story behind the demo's creation and the possibilities that Oculus Rift could potentially open up if support for it were brought to EVE Online.

In this week's EVE Evolved, I give my hands-on impressions of EVR, delve into the story behind its creation, and speculate on how Oculus Rift support could revolutionise EVE.

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War Thunder, a new instanced-based WWII flying battle, uhm, thingy, didn't really seem that appealing at first. It looks nice, and yes, the planes can be controlled in a few different styles ranging from an FPS twitch style to a more "realistic" mode, but I was worried it would be just another slogging grind until I was able to have any fun. There's some truth behind my worry about the grind, but overall I had an incredible time in the game. The only real shame is that I didn't get to put as much time in it as I would have liked. The game had infrequent connection issues, but when they cropped up, they lasted a while. Even so, each match lasted long enough to give me a pretty good taste of combat.

I stuck with the "arcade" style of gameplay. It's a simpler way to control the planes that allows players to point the mouse pointer for control. You might need to land for repairs and take off again, but it's as simple as slowing down until you touch down. I started to take the more realistic mode's tutorial, but as soon as it told me I had to manually control much more of the plane's controls, I gave up. Call me a wimp, but I just wanted to shoot planes.

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After yesterday's initial foray into Neverwinter, I was eager to get back to it. I was still trying to figure everything out, including frustrating little issues (is there a screenshot key that saves to a folder? Can I keep the little notifications from constantly popping out of the side of the map?). There's that period of acclimation in new games when you're excited but also feel a little lost. I'm guessing it's going to be another day or two before I truly feel comfortable in my Neverwinter home.

From what I can figure out, there are six main options for a typical Neverwinter play session. There are general PvE quests, skirmishes (think instanced public quests), zone-wide events, group dungeon runs, Foundry missions, and PvP fights. There's also playing the auction house, crafting, and making your own Foundry missions.

Yesterday was about the first two, so I decided that the second day would be all about the Foundry. At a certain level or part of the quest line (around level 11), you gain access to daily Foundry quests. These give you astral diamonds as incentive to run player-made content, so I figured I had nothing to lose and everything to gain!

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Neverwinter's launch isn't so much a launch as a gradual roll-out that's happening in several phases and operating under the code-name of "open beta." While the doors won't be open for the general public until April 30th, purchasers of the founder's packs are able to get in a few days early. Cryptic's invited the media to join the day one festivities alongside of those who've plunked down $200 for a Hero of the North package, which is how I'm able to bring to you a day-by-day account of the first week of Neverwinter live.

While I've participated in two of the beta weekend events and have been following Neverwinter for a few months now as part of my column coverage, much of the game is virgin territory to me. I like going into a launch relatively unspoiled (or as unspoiled as a writer who covers MMOs can be), so this launch diary isn't going to be the voice of great experience. It's going to be the voice of experiences. See what I did there?

Noon on April 25th finally arrived... and we were off to the D&D races!

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I could make this a very short piece by saying that APB: Reloaded is simply as fun now as it has ever been. The game is a blast in more ways than one. Heck, I could close it right now by telling you that not only was my return to the game well worth the effort but also that it also served to slap me on the side of the head to say, "Hey, dummy, remember how fun it is to run over people?" I'd rather give you more details, though, especially for those of you who might not have played the game or haven't played it in a long time.

APB: Reloaded is essentially a lobby-based shooter. The lobby -- or social district, as it is called -- and the instanced battle arenas are massive places. While I livestreamed the game last week (you can watch the embedded video after the cut), someone accurately commented that watching it was like watching "GTA Online." I agree, but it's also so much more than that. Join me past the cut and I promise not to run you over.

(EDIT: I was able to order an APB: Reloaded box from Newegg.com for $7.99 USD which contains "over $50 value" like a permanent Magnum gun, a Cisco car, 500 G1 credits and 30 days of premium. I paid no shipping fees at all and received it within three days of ordering, but after this article went live.)

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