To conclude the GO Fest in Chicago, Pokémon GO once again surprised everyone. They allowed raids to appear that were meant for all players on-site. It was a huge stress test that presumably went well.
This test is about: Niantic called all players from the GO Fest on Sunday to a big group photo. There, a Niantic employee took the microphone and asked if the players wanted to participate in a test.
Suddenly, numerous gyms appeared around the stage from which a raid hatched. Niantic wanted to test whether the servers could handle so many players simultaneously in a raid.
How did the test go? After a few minutes, a Meowth hatched at each gym. Players could enter the lobby with a free raid pass and defeat the Pokémon as usual.
In the end, very few players had real problems during the raid. Even though thousands of trainers participated, the servers held up, and the stress test went well.
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Here you can see the stress test again in the video
Why do this? An author from Pokémon GO Hub was present and asked the Niantic staff exactly that. They only confirmed that they wanted to see how thousands of players could complete raids in such a small space.
Now one can only speculate why they want to know this. It is also suspected that at the next GO Fests, raids will already be possible. In Chicago, this was not possible on the grounds. There were no gyms. They likely did not want to overload the servers too much.
Since the tests were successful, one can already hope that one can battle in raids in Dortmund. There, Niantic might come up with something special for the GO Fest.
What do you think about the stress test? What could be behind it?
The first MMORPGs appeared in the 1990s. But at that time, there was no fast internet and no flat rates. How did people play online back then?
MMORPGs and the early Internet: In 1991, Neverwinter Nights launched as one of the first online role-playing games. Back then, the game could only be played through the internet provider AOL with hourly charges ($6 per hour) – in addition to the costs of the internet connection. Later, the games became accessible to everyone. Meridian 59 (1996) and also Ultima Online (1997) could be played over any service and established the MMORPG genre.
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How did people play online at first? The internet is significantly older than MMORPGs. To surf the World Wide Web in the 1970s and 1980s, and still partly in the 1990s, an analog modem was needed. Acoustic telephone modems were particularly widespread. These devices used the regular phone line to transmit data. This meant that you could either make calls or surf the internet. Both didn’t work at the same time unless you had a second phone line.
Moreover, these modems were slow and loud. Initially, the phone receiver had to be placed on the modem, but later there were devices where this was no longer necessary. The screeching of the modem during data transmission was an unpleasant side effect of being able to use the internet.
How fast were the modems? Initially, 28.8k modems were widespread. They transmitted a maximum of 28.8kb/s. Later, these were replaced by 56k modems with a maximum data transmission of 56kb/s.
It’s hard to imagine such speeds today, where even gigabit connections are becoming established.
Imagine being in the countryside with your mobile phone and only having Edge connection. This transmits even 220kb/s. It means a 56k modem was almost four times slower than an Edge connection on a mobile phone!
Accordingly, surfing took a very long time. And of course, this time was billed. It cost around 20 pfennig per minute until a price drop occurred in the mid-90s.
In the mid-1990s, ISDN lines with 65kb/s also emerged, which had the advantage that you could make calls and surf at the same time.
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By the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s, DSL connections with 768kb/s or 1,000kb/s emerged. The speed increased continuously and very quickly from then on. At that time, the first flat rates were also introduced. However, they were still time-limited. For example, one could surf 100 hours a month for 100 D-Mark. Plus connection costs. Prices then fell rapidly as more and more private telecommunications companies flooded the market with increasingly cheaper offers.
How did people play then? Either one ran up the phone bill in the early days of MMORPGs or had to limit oneself significantly. Playing could be quite expensive. Because in addition to the costs for the telephone connection, the per-minute billing for using the line, and the purchase of the game, subscription fees also had to be paid at that time.
Due to the high costs, many online game fans preferred to play at the university. There, the computers could often be used for free for surfing, which, of course, prompted many to also play computer games online.
This is how the author experienced his first MMORPG: As a huge fan of the Ultima series, I purchased Ultima Online in the autumn of 1997. It was my first personal contact with the genre, although I had heard of Meridian 59 before.
At that time, I had already been using an ISDN line for about a year for internet. However, it was rather poor. Our system had the problem that whenever I was online and someone called, the connection was dropped.
With an older sister who was constantly on the phone, playing Ultima Online became quite challenging. We eventually agreed on times when I could play relatively undisturbed while she could talk on the phone. There were no mobile phones back then.
Ultima Online fascinated me so much that I often lost track of time. This became particularly intense after the first free month. My father stood in the doorway of my room with a red face, phone bill in hand. I still remember that it was an amount of almost 500 D-Mark that I had burned through, as flat rates did not exist at that time. The billing happened by the minute.
As a result, my internet time was severely limited in the following week. Fortunately, flat rates arrived and it became much more pleasant to play.
MMORPGs were a very expensive hobby in their early days, demanding a lot of patience. Today, one doesn’t have to worry about the issues mentioned above anymore.
In WoW Classic it is easy to find friends. You just have to play the right classes, then everyone will love you.
Finding friends in a new MMORPG is not easy for many players. Not everyone is a “show-off” or likes to chat animatedly in the various chat channels of the game. However, in WoW: Classic you can drastically increase your chances of finding many friends if you simply play the right classes with the right specializations. Then friends will come (almost) all by themselves.
The prerequisite is that you hang around a lot in the capitals and read the chat channels. There is always a request for the following three classes.
The Protection Warrior
If you play a protection warrior in World of Warcraft Classic and have a bit of skill, you will hardly be able to escape friend and guild offers. Warriors are the epitome of a tank in WoW Classic, as they can be relatively easily equipped and provide a good performance in terms of threat generation and tanking capabilities.
Druid tanks and paladins have a harder time and often struggle with issues, as there is little suitable gear for them or their tanking abilities are not as effective as those of the warrior in almost all respects.
The only major disadvantage is that protection warriors are generally expected to lead the group not only as a tank through the dungeon but also to know the dungeons and set the way – this has hardly changed compared to the current WoW.
Protection warriors are typically the “leaders” of a group and dictate the route. However, this should not be a problem for long, as once it has gotten around that your character is a tank, you will hardly be able to escape group invites. Learning the dungeons will then happen all by itself.
However, playing a protection warrior also comes with a number of disadvantages that should not be forgotten: “Solo leveling” is very difficult. A protection warrior deals little damage and has no self-healing. Completing quests takes a long time, and without a healer or DPS behind you, pulling some common enemies can quickly lead to death. It is best to level up together with other players – whether through quests or dungeons.
Lastly, there are increased repair costs. As a tank, you will traditionally be the first to die. As a plate-wearer, you have to pay more gold for repairs than a cloth-wearer. This can add up quickly.
The Holy Priest
If, for inexplicable reasons, there is no tank shortage in an MMORPG, then there is often a lack of healers instead. The stereotype image of a healer is probably a priestess in white robes who casts soothing light magic on her allies from the back rows. This “stereotype image” is also true in World of Warcraft, as holy priests have been and are for many the epitome of a solid healer.
The heals are strong and suitable for almost every situation. Whether group damage occurs or the tank needs a particularly powerful heal, holy priests have the right answer for every situation.
Even if the fight goes completely off the rails and the priest is immediately killed, that’s no problem. As a spirit of redemption, you continue to heal even after death and then hope that one of the group members is an engineer who has a goblin jumper cable handy. Otherwise, the rest of the group will gladly wait for you to find your way back to the dungeon as a spirit. They have no other choice anyway.
In contrast to novice assistant healers (like druids), you can also simply resurrect fallen group members and do not need to use an endlessly long cooldown for that. This saves time when one or two DPS in a dungeon have overdone it and wanted to have an aggro race.
However, priests share a “problem” with all other healers, and that is the management of multiple spell ranks. In Classic, players could still use lower ranks of spells to consume less mana and heal the missing HP accordingly. This requires practice and can sometimes be quite strenuous to have the same spell four times in the spell bar.
Moreover, you should prepare for long hours, days, or even weeks in which you want to teach your fellow players that they should “click on the fountain of light” when they want healing. That is a concept that damage dealers probably won’t have internalized even in the year 2100.
Lastly, leveling as a healer solo is a torture. Simply chain yourself to a protection warrior, because shared suffering is half the suffering.
The [Something] Mage
If you respond to the interview question “What are your greatest weaknesses?” with a smirk and the remark “That I have too many strengths” you should consider a mage.
Mages in WoW Classic are not only capable of dealing absurd amounts of damage that can literally “one-shot” opponents in PvP, but they also have plenty of abilities that make them the kings and queens of utility.
Polymorph (the sheep) is one of the most reliable crowd control spells in World of Warcraft, working on a variety of enemy types found in nearly all dungeons and can be renewed at any time. This dramatically reduces the burden of enemies that need to be fought simultaneously and thus increases the group’s chance of survival.
Personal teleportations and group portals ensure that one can travel quickly around the world. A great relief in a world where there are no flying mounts and traveling across the continent can take 15-20 minutes due to slow flight routes.
Its Frost Nova can temporarily freeze entire groups of enemies, giving the tank valuable seconds to regain aggro from escaped mobs or letting the panicking priest get to safety.
If you value fine-tuning, you can also distribute particularly cool buffs with “Magic Amplification” and “Magic Dampening” that reduce damage taken or healing received. Particularly strong “melee” opponents delight the healer, who can then squeeze out more healing.
A fire-spec mage can even increase the enemy’s susceptibility to fire damage – even warlocks will love the mage.
In summary, the mage is an asset to any group, and every player likely wants a mage on their friends list because it drastically makes almost all activities in World of Warcraft easier.
However, mages also have the reputation for being a bit hyperactive and love to engage in a DPS race with other (inferior!) classes, often leading to chaos that quickly punishes the mage for its low hit points. Usually, the rest of the group experiences that shortly after.
Or to quote the words of wise Uncle Barlow in closing: “Bread and water keep the downtimes caused by wipes he caused in check, the Int buff allows warriors to talk, and portals shorten the way to the nearest blacksmith.”
A recent Diablo 3 survey by MeinMMO found that nearly half of you have remained loyal to your starter class in Season 17. We show you the results.
What was this survey about? On June 12, we asked you whether you continue to play your starter class from Season 17 in Diablo 3 or if you have already switched to another class or even completely stopped playing Season 17.
Over 1500 people participated in the survey . Each of you had only one response option. We show you the percentage distributions.
Are you still loyal to your starter class in Season 17 of Diablo 3?
Yes, I am satisfied with it = 45 % (699 votes)
No, I prefer playing another class over my starter class = 16 % (245 votes)
No, I have another class for solo/group play = 3 % (62 votes)
I don’t have a main / I play multiple classes = 10 % (172 votes)
I no longer play Season 17 = 26 % (407 votes)
Total 1585 votes (Status: June 17, 14:10)
This is special: Apparently, many players chose the right class right at the start of the season. With this, they are still having fun now, a month after the start of Season 17.
There could be various reasons for this. Many players choose the same starter class season after season, which they are already familiar with. They know the abilities and sets well and may be testing new builds in a season, but remain loyal to the class.
About 29 % of you have already switched classes or have no main class at all. This may be due to having tried a new class at the start, which they had not started with before, and it did not appeal to them as much.
Others simply prefer the variety among different classes and their play styles. They have no main, so that Diablo 3 doesn’t become too monotonous.
Many have already completed Season 17: A large number of survey participants have already stopped playing Season 17. Over 400 people chose the option not to play this current season anymore.
Some users mentioned that they lost interest in the game after just a few days. A phenomenon often observed in Diablo 3. Because many innovations offered by a new season in Diablo 3 are only rarely substantial.
If you are no longer interested in Diablo 3, you can look forward to the next BlizzCon, as insider reports suggest that something great could await you there:
In Fortnite, Fortbyte #58 has appeared! You can find it in Snobby Shores while using the emote “Sad Trombone”. We will show you where to search.
This is the task: For this Fortbyte, you will be faced with the following riddle: “Accessible by using the emote “Sad Trombone” at the northern end of Snobby Shores.
In the far west of the map lies this time the Fortbyte
Fortbyte #58: Accessed with Sad Trombone at the northern end of Snobby Shores
Here is where the byte is hidden: Before you can collect the byte, you first need the emote “Sad Trombone”. You will get this at level 46 of the Season 9 Battle Pass. Choose it and start a round.
Then fly to the northern end of Snobby Shores. There, a house has been destroyed and exactly at that spot, you will find the Fortbyte. Use the emote beforehand and the byte will be accessible.
Here you will find the sought Fortbyte
Be observant: At the sought locations, campers also like to lurk, hoping for easy kills. So be careful about where you move.
The video will help you: Here we show you a video of the sought byte. This way you can’t miss it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwkQYI9Q1r4
What Fortbytes are about: These electronic puzzle pieces are hidden all over the Fortnite map. Every day, another piece is added.
If you find 90 of the 100 Fortbytes, a special skin is waiting for you, which is only available there.
Red Dead Redemption 2 has smaller side stories to offer in addition to the main story, where players can get to know different characters. One of them is Magnifico, who particularly excited a player. Because Magnifico is short-statured, just like the player herself.
What disability is it about? Recently, a player spoke out on the subreddit for Red Dead Redemption 2. happyquinn27 thanks Rockstar for how disabilities are portrayed in the game, especially her own disability.
Before buying Red Dead Redemption 2, the player watched playthrough videos on YouTube and came to a part where Arthur meets Marjorie and Bertram in the Van Horn Saloon and has to find Magnifico.
During the course of the quest, it is revealed that Magnifico is short-statured. A little shock for the player, who is also short-statured.
Magnifico complains about “the same jokes, the same tricks, just a size smaller”
Who is Magnifico? You encounter Magnifico in the side quest “The Smell of Theater Makeup.” Miss Marjorie wants Arthur to find Magnifico, who does not want to perform together with her and Bertram, who suffers from gigantism.
The trio travels through the land and performs in shows. As happyquinn27 writes, this was very common for short-statured individuals at that time. They were showcased in exhibitions or the so-called “freak shows”.
Magnifico with Bertram, who suffers from gigantism, and Marjorie
The player draws a comparison to the movie “The Greatest Showman,” in which Hugh Jackman plays P.T. Barnum, who really lived and introduced the trend of using short-statured individuals as entertainment in circus shows. Barnum also introduced the English term ‘Midget’, comparable to ‘Zwerg’ in German. The term is now considered derogatory and meant “little fly” or something that can be crushed back then.
Fortunately, Rockstar has refrained from using this term.
Why is this so important to her? The player further explains on Reddit that she is grateful that Rockstar portrayed short stature and her story semi-realistically. While degrading terms were avoided, everything else corresponds to the truth.
The character was even accurately represented. While other games might have simply scaled down Magnifico’s model, he was modeled realistically in Red Dead Redemption 2, with shorter limbs, a protruding nose, and forehead. happyquinn27 could even note similar features between herself and Magnifico, as they both have the same form of dwarfism, achondroplasia.
In conclusion, the player noted that she is glad that Rockstar incorporated the circus mission into the game. Although her stomach turns at the stories of how people like her were treated in the past, seeing her disability represented in a popular video game is very important to her.
In Hearthstone , the “Warrior” decks were actually considered the big winners after the latest expansion. But in eSports, this is becoming a problem for anyone relying on the “Bomb Warrior” deck. Because they are being specifically countered.
Why was the Warrior so strong with the new cards? When the last expansion of Hearthstone, “Conspiracy of Shadows”, was released, the Warrior looked like the big winner.
Because he retained a strong hero card with “Dr. Boom”, while many other hero cards from other classes rotated out and could no longer be used in the Standard format.
Moreover, the Warrior received some nasty new ways to hide bombs in the opponents’ decks.
Particularly the “Bomb Warrior” deck was popular. Tempo-Storm currently has it in its meta snapshot at position 2.
The idea behind the decks: You build up a lot of defense and plan for a multitude of bombs in the opponent’s deck to take them down gradually. You are essentially waiting out the games.
Many are intensively preparing for the Warrior as an opponent
This is now the problem: As reported by Dotesports, the popularity of the Warrior is now somewhat turning against him at the highest level in eSports.
For at the start of the “Grand-Master” tour in Las Vegas, experienced professionals anticipated that many would rely on the “Bomb Warrior”.
Especially newcomers who do not know what to expect at a LAN tournament would rely on the “safe choice”, the Bomb Warrior, they speculated.
Therefore, the strategists extensively studied how to create decks that can reliably win against the Warrior and experimented and practiced with them.
Grandmasters like Paul “Zale” Nemeth or Ryan “Purple” Murphy-Root have intensely dealt with how to reliably defeat the “Bomb Warrior”, Dotesports reports.
This is now the result: As reported by Dotesports, the Warrior was indeed the most played class on the first day of the tournament by far. There were 1399 games with the Warrior, nearly double that of the second most played class, the Rogue.
But after the first day, the Warrior only had a 48% win rate, the lowest among the top 4 classes.
Decks from Shamans and Hunters destroyed the Warrior in the tournament – against them, Warriors only achieved 38% and 42% wins, respectively – that is deadly.
Those who invested time in designing their decks to counter the Warrior have probably invested that time well.
In the deck list of Dog (via hearthpwn), it is evident that he had prepared for the Warrior. Besides Harrison Jones, he also had a Acidic Swamp Ooze to destroy the Warrior’s weapons.
Which classes were represented in the finals? In the new “Specialist format” in Hearthstone , the Grandmasters play only one class, but in three deck variations. In the top 8, there were:
5 Mages
2 Warriors
1 Rogue
The Warrior did play a significant role in the tournament, but was far from being as dominant as one could have inferred from the large number of matches played with him.
In 2019, it looks bleak if you’re into new MMORPGs. Because of the currently announced new online role-playing games, only three have a realistic chance of being released in 2019.
What does the MMORPG release list for 2019 look like? At first glance, looking at our release list for MMORPGs 2019, it looks quite promising. However, upon closer inspection, it quickly becomes apparent that hardly anything is really sure to come out in 2019:
Aspiring projects like Crowfall or Camelot Unchained claim almost every year that they might finally be releasing now, but one cannot rely on that.
The new game from NCSoft, Project TL, doesn’t even have a name yet, let alone a secure release date in 2019. Whether it will “definitely” come this year, as announced, is rather uncertain.
Moonlight Blade and A:IR are currently only active in Asia, and the Western release is also unclear.
New World, a MMO hope from Amazon. It is still in development, but will not be released in 2019.
This is likely to be released in 2019
These three games are relatively safe for 2019: Currently, only three games can be realistically expected:
The Asian MMORPG Astellia
The old-school online role-playing game Legends of Aria
The Bless spin-off Bless Unleashed
But even these games are not 100% certain candidates for a 2019 release. In the following paragraphs, we’ll take a closer look at the three games and how likely their release still is.
Legends of Aria (PC)
This is Legends of Aria:Legends of Aria is a classic, old-school sandbox MMORPG that primarily aims to attract fans of the classic Ultima Online. Additionally, you can create your own worlds (shards) and play by your own rules.
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What do we know about the release? Legends of Aria was supposed to be released on Steam in spring 2019. However, the release has now been pushed back to the vague time of “summer 2019”.
Legends of Aria is therefore expected to be released in 2019, but whether it will actually happen in summer is not guaranteed.
This is Bless Unleashed: For Xbox One, the Bless spin-off Bless Unleashed is planned. However, this is not a port of the unfortunate MMORPG Bless, but rather a standalone game with Unreal 4 graphics and an action combat system optimized for controllers.
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What do we know about the release? According to the plan, Bless Unleashed is supposed to be released in the fourth quarter of 2019 for Xbox One. However, whether that will work out and if the PS4 version will also come out this year is uncertain.
Astellia (PC)
This is Astellia:Astellia is a classic theme park MMORPG with a PvE focus. PvP takes place in arenas. The game is from Korea and does not hold back on colorful effects. Additionally, you can summon the namesake “Astells” in addition to your class skills.
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These are small helpers that come with their own abilities and complete your build. You can collect these creatures and create new combinations.
What do we know about the release? Of the three release candidates for 2019, Astellia is likely the game that will definitely come out in 2019. While we don’t know a concrete date yet, the closed beta will run from June 25 to July 1, 2019. After that, it should be released soon.
What will the future look like in 2020?
As bleak as 2019 looks for new MMORPGs, 2020 appears promising at the moment, at least judging by the announced release dates.
Some of the games mentioned earlier could finally be released, which we probably waited for in vain in 2019. And then, several promising titles are also scheduled for 2020.
Since its release, Fallout 76 has evolved with numerous patches and new content. Some players felt that this wasn’t fast enough. The Product Lead, Jeff Gardiner, now says that faster is not necessarily better.
Why aren’t the developers patching faster? In an interview with PCGamer during E3 2019, Jeff Gardiner discussed the challenges of developing a game-as-a-service like Fallout 76.
Fans want their problems addressed as quickly as possible. According to Gardiner, however, it is not good to patch a game too quickly and constantly. This leads to more problems:
We are trying our best to find a balance… we can’t feed the beast fast enough. But the faster we feed it, the more likely it is to get indigestion. So you have to find a good balance somehow.
This is what happens when patches are made too quickly
What kind of problems are we talking about? Gardiner cited one issue as an example which had quite a wide reach: Bobby Pins. Bobby Pins are an important tool in Fallout 76 used for lockpicking.
The items started the game weighing 0.1 pounds. This quickly resulted in players becoming overencumbered with their limited inventory space when carrying just a handful of Bobby Pins.
Players expected a quick fix for such a “small” problem and even sent Bethesda’s head Todd Howard a packet of Bobby Pins to show that the weight was absurd.
Fallout 76 was critically discussed for weeks on r/games.
Those were already problems: Eventually the issue was fixed, and the weight was reduced to 0.001 pounds. However, in a later patch, this fix was accidentally reversed, so it had to be addressed again. Such occurrences can happen more frequently when patches are constant:
That was a reaction that caught us off guard. But again, we are only human. This is a 70-gig game; that’s a lot. We don’t do this intentionally. And we are not doing this because we are lazy.
This is how Fallout 76 proceeds now
This is the patch plan: To prevent patches from introducing new bugs that need to be patched again and thus get caught in a vicious cycle, Bethesda has established a fixed patch plan against this.
In the roadmap from early 2019, all new content and major updates are listed. Bethesda now intends to work through the milestones of this roadmap. Every few weeks, there will be a major patch with new content.
In between, smaller patches will come for bug fixes or with features that did not quite make the deadline for the larger update.
The upcoming update is “Nuclear Winter”, of which a major feature has already been implemented in the game:
In FIFA 19, a German soccer professional is currently causing a lot of laughter because the third division player lost his cool after a virtual match in FIFA 19 and verbally attacked his opponent. The opponent made it public.
This is the situation: The Reddit user “LukasJMD31” shared several images showing how a German soccer professional verbally attacked him after a match.
The German professional apparently could not believe that he lost this match and sent the Reddit user messages like “You played like a noob” and “You are the worst player I have ever seen.”
FIFA 19 exposed “real” football professionals through special card
This is how the professional was exposed: If you are a football professional, you can receive a very special FUT card from EA. The card is green and “the representation of the own player” has a 99 rating.
This honor is only granted to the professionals who are represented in FIFA 19.
The professionals can thus be very easily identified.
The card on the left wing is the one from the professional – making his identity public.
The Reddit user then showed a picture of the professional’s team where he himself was in attack.
It was clearly recognizable that the Reddit user played against a football professional from the 3rd Bundesliga.
This is what is laughed about: When the football professional lost, he apparently couldn’t cope with it. He sent the Reddit user nasty messages, portraying him as a bad player.
The messages were then received by the Reddit user from the professional
The Reddit user responded coolly and just replied that he should focus on a professional career and not insult other FIFA players.
In addition, the Reddit user sent a picture to the football professional where he had sold him on the transfer market for a quick sale. This brings the most laughter from the readers.
This is how cool the Reddit user responded to the insults
How do other players react? The post has already received over 3000 upvotes on Reddit. We show you some responses:
glen-hodl: “Oh man. If I were rich, I would rent an advertising board in his stadium and show the screenshots of his FIFA defeat there!”
THAT_ONE_GUY_JESUS: “I also played against this guy, lost 4:5 in extra time. He wrote to me to tell me that I am only dangerous at corners and asked me what rank I will end up in. I replied: “Gold 1, nice to see that the salary of the third division is still enough for FIFA points.”
Mesnaga: “This is the best FIFA post of the month. You took his pants off him. Well done!”
What do you think about it? Do you find the action funny or have you ever messaged a opponent like that?
With the next expansion for Destiny 2, Shadowkeep, the familiar Moon from the original game will be included. Are players now expecting even more zones from Destiny 1? Bungie recently discussed whether the team has further plans for the already existing areas from Destiny 1.
However, Bungie will not be bringing the Moon in its original form into play. It is supposed to be expanded and upgraded. The location is expected to be twice as large as it was in Destiny 1.
Is there more to come? During the E3 2019, several Bungie developers talked about the new features presented and the future of the Destiny franchise. Among other things, it was also discussed whether and how Bungie wants to bring further content from Destiny 1 to Destiny 2.
In an interview with GamesRadar, franchise head Luke Smith described the Shadowkeep expansion as a kind of experiment. This would help determine what could be done with the library of content that has already been developed over time and how it could be further developed. Design lead Raylene Deck quickly replied that there are currently no plans to port Destiny 1 content directly to Destiny 2.
In a podcast with Jason Schreier, Luke Smith and Mark Noseworthy elaborated on this point. The team would like to utilize existing zones by updating and recontextualizing them. As an example, Noseworthy mentioned a mission from Destiny 1: The Taken King, where players visited the boss area of the Sepiks strike and discovered a completely new area to explore there.
The Moon in Shadowkeep will now serve as a test for how well such implementations can work in Destiny 2.
Bungie and Recycling: Reusing old content is nothing new in Destiny 2: gradually, old weapons from Destiny 1 are returning to the current game.
Players had many theories about why the Dreadnaught suddenly appeared in the game while they intended to fly to Titan. Bungie explained at the time that this was a bug and old code and that there were no indications that the ship would become playable at a later time.
At E3, the MMORPG Phantasy Star Online 2 was surprisingly announced for a release in the USA – for PC and Xbox One. However, it seems that owners of a PS4 and a Nintendo Switch will be able to join in – at least eventually.
During the conference, it was stated that the MMORPG will be available for PC and Xbox One, which led players to suspect that it would be exclusively playable on these platforms in the West.
MMORPG will “come to all platforms”
What about the PS4 and Nintendo Switch? There was no discussion about the two consoles during the E3 conference. After all, it was a Microsoft event, and they shouldn’t promote the competition.
However, Phantasy Star Online 2 is also available for PS4 and PS Vita in Japan. Therefore, it seems only logical that the MMORPG will at least appear for the Playstation 4.
What is the current situation? Microsoft’s Phil Spencer was asked during an interview about the deal with Sega. He mentioned that he spoke with the Phantasy Star Online team to find a way to bring the MMORPG to the West. After all, it is a well-known brand, and the online game performs exceptionally well in Japan.
Furthermore, PSO 2 is very important to Phil Spencer, as he associates a lot with the MMORPG. According to him, the game already featured opportunities to play this kind of “strikes” even before Destiny.
According to Phil Spencer, it is not an exclusive deal. Spencer believes that Phantasy Star Online 2 will come to all platforms. This gives hope that we will see the MMORPG on PS4 and Nintendo Switch.
This means Sega could also release the MMORPG on PS4 and also on Nintendo Switch. But Microsoft has nothing to do with that.
It apparently rests solely with Sega to negotiate relevant deals with Sony and Nintendo. However, nothing is currently known about such negotiations.
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What about a release outside the USA? Phil Spencer stated that Microsoft is currently busy preparing the release in the USA. This is currently a priority. It seems, however, that Microsoft is interested in a release in other countries.
How are players reacting? There is excitement that Phantasy Star Online 2 can soon be played in the USA – and hopefully also in Europe. Players are also pleased that the MMORPG could appear on all platforms.
Mcmacladdie comments on Reddit: “I am glad I was wrong with my suspicion that the game would probably not come to PS4.”
krazye87 writes: “PSO on the Switch is even better.”
On which platform would you like to play Phantasy Star Online 2 the most?
The battle royale craze has also arrived in the cult game Super Mario Bros. And if you like, you can start playing right away.
What kind of game is this? As more and more games offer a battle royale mode, such as GTA 5, Battlefield 5 and even Fallout 76, now it’s Mario’s turn.
In Mario Royale, you play as Mario against 99 other Marios on the familiar maps from Super Mario Bros. However, it doesn’t follow the usual battle royale format, as you cannot directly attack other players. Instead, you interact with the game world. A fan created the game.
If you kick a green shell around, other players can be hit by it and lose their lives
You can destroy blocks that other players are standing on
Mushrooms as power-ups appear in the world but can only be collected by one player
The only way to “directly” enter the game of others is the star. If you collect this and run through other players, they die.
Another difference from the classic battle royale is that you fight to be the first to reach Bowser. Whoever gets through the world first and reaches the axe behind Bowser wins. There are also victory royales for 2nd and 3rd place.
Games are played on the maps World 1, World 2, and World 3, which are randomly selected in the map rotation.
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How is it played? At the keyboard, you use WASD to move, Shift to sprint, and Spacebar to jump. The special thing about this browser game is that it also supports controllers. So if you want, you can grab your controller instead of the keyboard and run through the levels with it.
It is unclear how long the game will remain available on the website. The creator, InfernoPlus, mentions in the video that Nintendo may see a copyright infringement in his work and he may have to remove it.
Next week, an exotic gear piece will arrive in The Division 2 . But are new exotic weapons planned as well? “Yes,” says Massive. But there are some caveats.
Here’s the situation: In The Division 2, many “exotic weapons” don’t play as significant a role as they did in the first part. While there are outliers like the “Nemesis”, a very powerful sniper rifle, you can never have enough good Exotics. And the offering in The Division 2 is still somewhat sparse.
On the sidelines of E3 2019, Massive was asked in an interview with Gamesradar whether new Exotics for The Division 2 are planned.
The Nemesis.
This is what Massive says: They say: “There are definitely plans for more exotic weapons and gear throughout the year, yes.”
But designing new exotic items is very labor-intensive. There’s significantly more effort involved than just bringing in more weapons:
“Gear sets and exotic weapons or gear are difficult because there is so much standard equipment, and the expectation for anything beyond that is that it should “bring something,” say the developers.
By “something,” they probably mean the “certain something” that distinguishes Exotics from the rest.
What The Division 2 considers before introducing a new Exotic
What considerations does Massive have regarding Exotics? Before designing a new exotic item, Massive needs to consider: For whom do we want to create the weapon?
Do we want to make it for the people who use spreadsheets and calculate even the smallest DPS gain?
The seemingly ultra-hard and complex action RPG Path of Exile has a new expansion called Legion. There, after just about a week, a player has already reached the new max level. Has the game become too easy and casual now?
What happened? The new expansion Legion for Path of Exile was released on June 11, 2019. Just a few days later, a dedicated player had already reached the new maximum level of 100. And that in hardcore mode, where permadeath exists, and everything is lost after death.
It was also the case that SSF (Solo Self Found) applies. You cannot trade there and must find everything you use by yourself.
It was therefore not possible to trade ideal gear from other players.
Thus, the hardest conditions applied, and yet, just a few days after the release of Legion, the new highest level was reached.
Is Path of Exile becoming too easy or are the players just too good?
Is the game not hardcore enough anymore? Given the fact that after just a few days the maximum level has already been reached, some players are slowly skeptical about whether Path of Exile is becoming too easy.
After all, such accomplishments should take many weeks and months. How can it be that it went so quickly? Is the once highly praised, ultra-hard action RPG alternative now following the path of Diablo 3, i.e., the game that many PoE players vehemently reject due to its alleged casualness?
That’s why the player was so successful: However, the fortunate master of the maximum level was not just any casual bob, but Steelmage202 from Method.
This ambition was likely also at work in Path of Exile, and Steelmage202 has been grinding for hours with great dedication using a particularly effective build.
He primarily uses damage-over-time effects, which he distributes across numerous enemies, who then gradually perish miserably while further damaging their comrades. This is how he grinds through high-level instances.
He kills simply like on an assembly line and does not take much time with looting and other distractions. Thus, he earns XP at a crazy speed and can level up continuously.
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That’s why Path of Exile seems to have become easier: The game itself still seems quite tough, it was simply an extremely strong, ambitious player. Nevertheless, it has become less difficult to go wild in Path of Exile.
Because the developers no longer nerf overpowered builds as strongly as they used to, there are better items from league to league, and the overall skill of the players is steadily increasing. Those who have been around for a long time know the systems and can adapt faster than before.
Thus, it is less about the supposed ease of the game, but rather about the rising skill and better equipment of the players that makes Path of Exile seem too easy for some now.
At E3 2019, YouTuber Arekkz was able to try out a demo version of Monster Hunter World: Iceborne and fight against two new monsters: Tigrex and Banbaro.
What was shown at E3 about Iceborne? Visitors of the E3 fair had the opportunity to fight against two of the new monsters from the Iceborne expansion. These were the new monster Banbaro and the fan-favorite Tigrex.
Their quests were ranked in difficulty such that Banbaro was recommended for advanced players and Tigrex only for true professionals. Less experienced hunters could take on the good old Great Jagras and beat it to a pulp.
What can be seen in the videos? Arekkz was able to record his fights against both Banbaro and Tigrex. Besides the short intro, the videos are completely unedited, and you can watch the fights in all their action-packed glory.
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As the fight against Tigrex was the most difficult in the demo, Arekkz teamed up with three other players. They used the following weapons:
Sword and Shield
Switch Axe
Long Sword
Hunting Horn
Various perspectives were captured during the fight. You can see how the different weapons play in a real combat situation and check out the new combos.
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Arekkz, however, faced Banbaro alone. Here, he uses the energy blade and also takes advantage of the new practical slingshot mechanic, which allows you to draw closer to monsters.
You can also see how Banbaro uses elements from the environment, such as rocks or tree trunks, to attack the hunter.
What do you think of the new fights? Let us know in the comments!
The new shooter Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is currently still in a “Pre-Alpha” stage. Hearing this made some players so nervous that a developer from Infinity Ward had to step in to clarify.
This is how Call of Duty appeared at E3: Activision Blizzard did not have its own conference at E3 2019 and did not make much of an appearance at Microsoft either. Therefore, the major games from Activision like Destiny or Modern Warfare held smaller talk sessions, from which some nuggets of information were extracted.
A statement from Infinity Ward during E3 caused unrest in the community.
A developer said, while discussing cross-play, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is still in the “Pre-Alpha” phase, so still relatively early in development. He used that as an excuse for not being able to make definitive statements.
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This is how parts of the community reacted: The statement spread across social media. After all, the release is already on October 25: There is not much time left and “Pre-Alpha” sounds far from a release in the ears of the players.
Unrest arose. There was a video in the community where a YouTuber said he was very concerned (via YouTube). The topic has been brewing a bit over the last few days.
Tour de Force, but as far along as previous titles
This is how Infinity Ward now reacts: A developer spoke up on Friday at Reddit to provide clarification. He says it is his 4th Call of Duty and the 9th game in his career. So he has some experience.
There are parts of the game that are already in alpha, and others are before alpha and content lock. This is because the departments work differently. It is a huge undertaking to bring the entire game into alpha, and until Call of Duty: Modern Warfare reaches the point where one can say: “We are now content locked.”
Between alpha and beta, it will still be polished, bugs will be fixed and they will look for ways to improve the game, the developer continues.
Since the production of Modern Warfare started, they have been developing with the latest technologies and have never taken a moment for granted.
This is how players react to the explanation: The players on Reddit seem satisfied with the explanation and praise the developer for the open communication, which has dispelled some concerns.
Others say, however, that one can only really assess everything once the game is actually out.
This is behind it: When players hear “Pre-Alpha”, they think of early access games from indie developers that remain stagnant for years and make only little progress. These “openly developed games” that rely on crowdfunding are developed differently: they have to show early to generate revenue.
You don’t normally hear such terms as “Pre-Alpha” from AAA studios because games in this state are not talked about. However, for developers at a AAA studio, “Pre-Alpha” apparently is a term without much emotion and merely means: “More content is coming.”
The heated discussion shows, however, that many players are still uncertain about Modern Warfare currently as no gameplay has been shown yet – especially the multiplayer mode is still completely missing.
XL Games, the studio behind the popular MMORPG ArcheAge, is currently working with Moonlight Sculptor on a new online game. This offers a very interesting story.
What is Moonlight Sculptor? The new MMORPG from XL Games and Kakao Games will be released for smartphones, but is expected to offer a large, open game world. The online game was announced back in 2016, and now we can see the first artworks.
The developers are currently holding back on details about the features. However, it is said that players will enjoy great freedom in the open world.
The developers are known among other things for ArcheAge. An iconic race of the game, the Firran, can be seen in the title image and was used here as a symbol image.
An artwork from the mobile MMORPG Moonlight Sculptor.
An MMORPG with a novel basis
What is special about the game? Moonlight Sculptor is based on the South Korean novel series “The Legendary Moonlight Sculptor”. These novels tell an interesting story.
What are the books about? In the books, Lee Hyun tries to pay off his family’s debts. He is a very successful player of the MMORPG “Continent of Magic” and eventually sells his powerful character “Weed” at an auction for 3.1 billion Won, which equals about 2.3 million Euros.
However, he loses almost all the money to loan sharks. Now he is trying to earn enough money with the new VR MMORPG Royal Road to help his sick grandmother and pay for his sister’s education.
In Royal Road, he also achieves great success. As one of the few, he gains access to the secret class “Legendary Moonlight Sculptor” and is allowed to post his videos of the MMORPG online as one of only 500 players.
During his adventures in Royal Road, he meets many interesting players and even manages to become the “Greatest Ruler of the North”.
Moonlight Sculptor is based on a South Korean novel series.
An MMO in a VR world?
What could this story mean for the online game? It seems that we also play a character who finds himself in the MMORPG Royal Road and explores the world there, wanting to go far. So similar to Sword Art Online.
What is there to see so far about the MMORPG? First artworks show colorful landscapes and cute characters typical for Asian MMORPGs.
When will the game be released? Moonlight Sculptor is expected to be released this year in Korea for mobile devices. There is currently no information about a release in Europe and the USA.
The Classic version of World of Warcraft will do a few things differently than the current retail version – for example, it will have different names for places.
The beta of WoW Classic has been running for quite a while, but the German player community has been asking one question for some time: Will the Classic version of World of Warcraft also use the “old” names? In the past, places like “Ironforge” were not yet known, as they simply had the English name “Ironforge”.
After a long silence, Blizzard’s localization team has finally responded and clarified: Yes, WoW Classic will also use the old English names!
Localization has changed over the years: The way World of Warcraft is localized has changed significantly over the years. This is also explained by the Community Manager Toschayju in the German forum:
Throughout the history of World of Warcraft, our localization process has changed significantly. This includes translating certain words and phrases. For WoW Classic, we want to retain the original localization of the game as much as possible and create a player experience that feels authentic and true to its origins. For example, you may visit Bloodhoof instead of the village of Bluthufe, and you will encounter the dwarves of the Stormpike Expedition instead of the dwarves of Sturmlanzen.
There were discussions back then: Just before the release of “The Burning Crusade”, Blizzard decided to fully localize the game into the respective languages to create a linguistically uniform game world. This resulted in many places and terms being “Germanized”. While this barely went unnoticed for some names like “Whisperwind” (which became Wisperwind), it was more obvious for names like Proudmoore (which became Prachtmeer).
So the name remains “Thunder Bluff” and not “Donnerfels”.
Tyrande Whisperwind – authentic with the h!
This did not please everyone and already sparked fierce discussions back then. For some, the original names were something important, they were considered “proper names”. Others only understood why the world had previously been translated half-heartedly and were happy that finally all places and names had a German term.
The money saved for the trip to visit family was spent by the nephew and niece on tons of in-game currency in Fortnite: Battle Royale.
What are V-Bucks? This is the in-game currency of Fortnite. With these V-Bucks, you can buy outfits, gliders, battle passes, or other cosmetic items. The cheaper items can be bought for 500 V-Bucks (about 5 €). Extravagant items can cost as much as 2,000 V-Bucks, which is about 20 €.
The purchased items do not provide any gameplay advantage. It’s only about cosmetic changes that represent the played character or their weapons and vehicles differently than usual.
How did the kids get the money? On Reddit, user A_Sad_Frog1 shares their experience in the “Today I fucked up” subreddit.
Because his nephew and niece do not own many games on their PSN account, the Reddit user (their uncle) let them play on his PSN account. Since all payments require a verification number, he was sure that they could not buy games using his bank information.
The kids apparently bypassed this security measure by first filling the PSN account wallet with money. As A_Sad_Frog1 writes, this payment did not require a verification number. Afterwards, the kids could buy V-Bucks with the PSN wallet money – without verification.
The problem was only noticed after 65,000 V-Bucks had already been purchased. The father of the nephew contacted the Reddit user and asked, “Your nephew is currently playing Fortnite and has 65,000 V-Bucks. Is that normal?” Over the course of a week, the children spent this amount of in-game currency.
In total, $531 was deducted over the course of a week. Most of it happened yesterday. When I wanted to check the damage caused, 20,000 V-Bucks had already been spent.
I saw that the PlayStation wallet can be topped up before every purchase. So they probably paid by first buying wallet currency, which apparently did not require a code.
A_Sad_Frog1 on Reddit
A_Sad_Frog1 found these bookings in his PSN account
A_Sad_Frog1 then immediately disconnected all bank accounts from the account. After his search, he concluded that there was no way to get his money back. The bank could not retrieve it, and the PlayStation Store had no protection against accidental purchases.
Why wasn’t this noticed earlier? Many users on Reddit state that you are notified by email when purchases are made with the PSN account. A_Sad_Frog1 agrees that such emails exist. However, his PSN account is linked to an email that does not send notifications to his smartphone.
What was the money planned for? The situation worsens, as the money was taken from an account that the girlfriend of uncle A_Sad_Frog1 used for her savings.
She is visiting her family in America and had saved this money for that purpose. They had planned many activities together, which she will now likely be unable to participate in.
What happens now? It seems there is hope for this case. In the comments on Reddit, user zemorah writes:
“You can get a refund!
Who told you that you can’t? In the PlayStation Store, there is a one-time (as in once in your life) chargeback for exactly these cases. I know this because my son did the same thing. He spent about $400. I called PlayStation, and it took about 30 minutes to clarify the situation. After a few days, I had all my money back.”
Additionally, the community coordinator of Fortnite, “MrPopoTFS”, spoke in the thread and offered his help. Together they plan to work on a solution. Whether the money will be back in time for the vacation and if the trip can still take place as planned is still unclear.
