PvP

"This is going to be the best game most of us have built in our lives," Carbine Studios Executive Producer Jeremy Gaffney said bluntly.

The game in question, of course, is WildStar, and it represents Gaffney's 10th or so trip through the beta development chute on the way to release. There's an undeniable note of pride and calm confidence in his voice as he talks about the baby that's growing inside Carbine's womb right now, and he was definitely not shy in opening up about all of the decisions and work the team's made as WildStar heads into its second trimester... er, closed beta test.

Before that, however, Gaffney provided a recap of the first closed beta test. He said that it was pretty limited, with only 2,000 players testing out the lowbie Exile zones. The team moved some of the elder game content down in level so that people could test it out, and developers spent some time doing impromptu Q&A sessions with players in the field. As a result, Carbine is ready to shift over to the Dominion side and greatly expand the beta in size and content. Read on for the full scoop on what the next step will entail.

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Ready for the latest SMITE character reveal? Isis is here, and Hi-Rez has published a blog post and a gameplay video heralding her arrival. The Goddess of Magic is a sceptre-wielding mage -- no surprise there -- who relies on her Funeral Rites passive ability and spiffy attacks like Wing Gust and Spirit Ball.

Hi-Rez has also tweaked SMITE's level system in the latest patch. God leveling earns you worshippers after every victory, which in turn translate to God Rank for a given avatar. The devs have also changed the old player level to something called Beta level. If you reach Beta level 30 prior to SMITE's official release, you'll get a free Ymir Cocadeamon skin. There's more info on all the changes at the SMITE website, and don't forget the Isis trailer after the cut.

[Thanks Don!]

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Want to be a part of EVE Online's 11th annual Alliance Tournament that starts on July 20th, 2013, but not from the cockpit of your ship? You can apply to be one of the PvP commentators who will discuss the tourney, tactics, and teams involved live on air with developers as well as providing commentary on matches as they unfold. Yes, live means you'll actually be in Iceland for this gig! Qualifications include having a valid passport, being over 21, having a sharp wit, and being well-versed in PvP. Full details for the application process are available on the official site.

If you'd prefer to participate in the battles themselves, note that there will be a few changes to the tourney from years past. To start, Alliance Tournament XI will run over only three weekends, not four. Second, qualifying rounds and group stages have been replaced by double elimination from the get go. Next, from the second weekend onward, two ship types will be banned from the match by team captains. And finally, to fly with an alliance you had to have been a member since downtime this morning. Dev blogs covering all the rules, the broadcast schedule, and sign-up details will be coming soon.

[Update: CCP has been busy today! The official site has now also been updated with a dev blog announcing that dual character training will ship with the Odyssey expansion next month.]

Playing EVE on my couch is bizarre. I know, technically it's called DUST 514, but let's be serious. DUST is basically the beginnings of a massive EVE Online expansion if you subscribe to the notion that EVE is a virtual world as opposed to merely a strategy game featuring internet spaceships and internet drama.

I've played EVE in some strange places prior to this. In an airport terminal, for example. On my toilet, even (yes, nature occasionally calls in the middle of a fleet fight and thank God for laptops). But DUST marks the first -- OK, technically the second -- time I've ever played in New Eden with a controller.

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Vostok's Survarium, a spiritual sequel to the STALKER series, is getting ready to send out alpha invites. A dev diary posted yesterday on the game's official forums says that the first wave will welcome 1,000 testers into the post-apocalyptic MMO shooter's fold. Vostok says that of those 1,000 testers, no less than 200 of them will be stressing the game's servers around the clock.

The dev diary also outlines what testers can expect from the early stages of the project. The alpha, for example, is "team-based PvP combat mode only," and even this is necessarily scaled down in order to ensure that key components like shooting, movement, and synchronization are working properly.

You can register for the Survarium alpha at the game's official website.

Guild Wars 2's The Secret of Southsun patch has released today, bringing with it new quests, a crab toss mini-game, traps in WvW and more.

This patch is part of the on-going content updates that ArenaNet has brought to the popular MMO since launch, including the ongoing Flame & Frost content. Word of an expansion pack came out during the NCsoft earnings call earlier this week, although nothing has been officially confirmed from ArenaNet.

Check out new screenshots from The Secret of Southsun in the gallery below, and read up on the patch at the official site.

This is it, soldier! Training is over, and it's time to head out to war. DUST 514 settles today, officially launching into the New Eden universe also occupied by EVE Online. Available only on the PlayStation 3, this shooter pits forces against each other in a ground assault while orbital strikes rain down from EVE allies and enemies above. Are you ready?

Ah, trapped behind a desk for a while still, are you? Well, don't worry; if you won't have the opportunity to soothe your itchy trigger finger until later, we've got some things to tide you over until you can join the fray yourself. Check out the factional warfare, learn about rewards, and much more in the hands-on experiences, screenshots, videos, news, and impressions after the break.

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Diablo III was hit with yet another exploit this week as players discovered a way to duplicate gold via a bug in the auction house. Blizzard responded by shutting down the auction house but did not perform a server rollback to reverse the damage. Star Citizen clarified its stance on the lifetime insurance available to veteran backers amidst debate over whether it gives early adopters an unfair advantage over other players. Path of Exile also released a new Letters of Wraeclast lore feature in its latest update, and MechWarrior Online's update 15 added a new Misery mech.

Dota 2 began preparations for its biggest world championship tournament yet with the release of a new Interactive Compendium that players can use to stay up to date with the matches. Rise of Immortals has now officially launched its Battle For Graxia revamp, and Infinite Crisis officially entered closed beta this week with the release of new champion The Joker. Finally, Smashmuck Champions released its hilarious new community-designed champion that's half platypus and half unicorn.

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A few weeks ago, the EVE Online community went nuts for EVR, CCP's exciting new virtual reality dogfighter developed for the upcoming Oculus Rift gaming headset. The game demo was produced by a team of just a handful of developers in just seven weeks using nothing but their spare time, but attendees and press at EVE Fanfest 2013 were nevertheless blown away during test sessions. Though EVR isn't going to be integrated with the EVE universe, Senior Producer Andie Nordgren stated in her Keynote address that CCP will be looking into more immersive flight and combat mechanics for some the game's ships. This comment has sparked a lot of discussion over the possibility of finally getting some direct flight controls in EVE.

The lack of direct twitch-based controls in EVE is often cited by gamers as a big part of the reason they can't get into the game. There's no active dodging of missiles, manual ship targeting, or really complex tactical maneuvers in EVE, but that's kind of the point. Most ships in EVE are colossal lumbering hulks more akin to today's seafaring battleships than fighter planes, and combat with them is more a game of strategy and teamwork than a battle of reaction speeds. But that isn't exactly true of all ships; interceptors and fast microwarpdrive frigates move at several kilometres per second and are so agile that pilots can already pull off some interesting tactical maneuvers. So isn't it about time we made the combat for those ships a bit more visceral and immersive?

In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at the fast-paced world of interceptors and explore how twitch controls and weapon aiming could possibly be implemented without killing the server.

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Snail Games may be best known for Age of Wushu, but that may change later this year as the company's Black Gold Online makes it way west. The steampunk fantasy title recently received a website update and a feature listing in its native China, and MMO Culture has translated the details.

Those details include 300 square kilometers of explorable landmass, two factions, six races, and 18 classes. The game will also feature dynamic events of some sort, as well as faction wars and cross-server PvP.

Action combat is on the menu, too, as are a variety of mounts including "mecha suits," anti-air tanks, flying dragons, and more. We've embedded a six-minute gameplay trailer from late last year just past the break.

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Having a settlement you worked hard to build be under constant attack just isn't fun. Pathfinder Online realizes this, which is why settlements are normally defended by large numbers of respawning NPC guards. Not too many to prevent players from scouting a town or stealing a few things, but enough to make a frontal assault fruitless unless you want your corpses to litter the outskirts of town.

If that were always the case, though, attacking a settlement would be pointless. So during a brief window every day, the guard respawn rate decreases, numbers thin, and suddenly the town looks much more vulnerable to attack. A well-developed settlement will still have guards, but a coordinated force will be able to eliminate them... unless players step in to defend the settlement. This also solves the problem of having massive attacks come when no one is awake to know what's happening. Read the full details in the latest development blog on the official site.

Pocket Galaxy, a new sci-fi mobile MMO, is relatively impressive at first. It's a nice looking game that feels like a cross between Dark Orbit, Asteroids, and EVE Online and seems to be pretty casual and cheap to play. These things make me happy. I've adopted a casual playstyle because of my need to be the guy who plays every single game he sees, and that has had the side effect of making casual gaming perfect for me.

For example, a Pocket Galaxy player who wants to craft more ammo for one of her guns needs to create the items by waiting a certain amount of real time that can be shortened by using cash. Many players might see this as some sort of money-grab. I see it as a casual game with the option to speed up build times, but then again... I'm patient.

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I remember playing Age of Conan when it first came out; it seems like an eternity ago. So many titles have been released and failed since then that it's easy to get it all mixed up, and it doesn't help when many of those titles are sub-par or just plain boring and forgettable. Age of Conan sort of messed with my head with its insistent instancing and odd combat mechanics. I just couldn't wrap my head around what the game was trying to do.

Is it a hardcore PvP-centric MMO? Many would say so. Is it a grand, single-player adventure? In some ways. Is it an immersive romp through the long-lived lore of Conan the Barbarian? I guess so. It's a bit of all of these but does none of them perfectly. I decided to jump back into the game because the last time I played it was when it switched over to its odd freemium model that is all-too-common in Western MMOs these days.

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In case you didn't notice, the title of this week's column is a question. It's not because I know the answer; it's because I've been thinking a lot about it lately and don't have a really good answer.

Assassins are in a strange state when it comes to teamfights. In League of Legends, there's a period when teams tend to group up to fight over objectives. This marks the midgame in Summoner's Rift, it happens after altars unlock in Twisted Treeline, and it occurs anytime both teams know where the other team is on the Crystal Scar. We've discussed teamfights a lot already, but what is troubling is the presence of assassins in these fights. Assassins are best when they're able to jump in and kill an unprepared target, ideally before a teamfight starts. Once that's done, their team can jump in with a numbers advantage and take the objective or wipe out the enemy.

When both teams are grouped up ahead of time, assassins lose a lot of their might. Assassins can't kill without exposing themselves to heavy risk, which makes them a liability to their team until they jump in. After they jump in, they're still likely to be the first ones to get focused down.

What do we do about this? What's the solution? I don't have a clear answer -- but I can still share my observations.

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Are you anticipating World of Warcraft's 5.3 patch that's on the horizon? If so, Blizzard offers a handy preparation guide to help you get ready for it. Among the proffered hints is one to keep ahold of some of the currencies earned throughout patch 5.2 as the gear-upgrading Void Binders are returning. The guide offers a breakdown of associated costs for various gear and the different currencies. Also revealed is an 33% reduction in the XP needed to level from 85 to 90.

The guide continues with suggestions for item level requirements for various scenarios and dungeons, information on changes to lesser charms of good fortune, and an update on PvP Season 13. And if you haven't played in a while but intend to after the patch, save some time by making sure your game is up-to-date as well as any UI add-ons.