In Heroes of the Storm, the Eternal Conflict is slowly but surely coming to an end. What follows afterwards and what does the distant future look like?
Diablo overshadows everything
The new map comes with the next patch – albeit with a slight delay.
Artanis is ready to go – he’s just waiting for the Starcraft expansion.
In the near future, there is a desire to return to a colorful mix. Sometimes a hero from Warcraft (Rexxar), then one from Starcraft (Artanis) and if it fits, even a Diablo character. They consider the Eternal Conflict a success, but have slight concerns that perhaps there was a bit too much focus on the love for Diablo. After all, the Nexus should be a place where the different universes collide and not one world dominating the entire gameplay. Moreover, the possibilities for surprising players are greater when characters can be drawn from all franchises and not just from one, simply because it is part of the expansion.
Nevertheless, theme-based expansions are not cursed forever – they should just not be so regular as to harm the diversity of Heroes of the Storm. So if you’re hoping for a Warcraft or Starcraft expansion of the MOBA, you don’t have to completely bury that wish.
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
With the expansion The Great Tournament, a new game board appears in Hearthstone. A video now shows the gameplay and secrets of the location.
Wurst Stand and Training Dummies
With every new expansion of Hearthstone, there is, apart from the numerous cards, always a new playfield where players can engage in their duels. Some players consider this unnecessary, while others (like me) enjoy the many little details that the developers continually incorporate into the framework of the game.
A video from hearthpwn.com shows the new board in action:
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Some fans lament that this time nothing can be permanently destroyed, like the rocket on the GvG game board. However, you can wonderfully vent your frustration over the random factor on the defenseless training dummy – it also serves as an occupation when the Face Hunter is once again almost running out of time because he is cooking in the kitchen.
What do you think of the new game board? Nice little features or just silly additions that no one needs?
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
Unfortunately, there will be no official MMORPG based on the horror role-playing game World of Darkness, as EVE Online developers CCP Games have halted work on it. However, another team is now working on a similar game called Project Dogmat.
World of Darkness has a large fanbase, and the concept has proven to work as a video game, as shown by the RPG Vampire – The Masquerade: Bloodlines released in 2004. Fans have long desired an MMORPG set in this dark scenario. Without an official license but with a lot of passion, a development team is working on Project Dogmat. The MMO takes place in a gloomy world where vampires and other creatures of the night exist and engage in an everlasting battle. You belong to those beings. Horror elements and a dark atmosphere are prioritized in the MMO.
A huge “World of Darkness”
Project Dogmat aims to offer a classless system where you can shape your hero according to your ideas. This also applies to the appearance, which can be detailed and customized during character creation. The combat system is said to be a mix of the well-known hotbar system of other genre representatives and a target-based system similar to that found in third-person shooters. With your hero, you will explore large cities that all have a life of their own and react to your actions and those of other players. In many adventures, you will fight your enemies.
https://youtu.be/kaThM4tLaWs
However, aside from these challenges, you will also dedicate yourselves to nightlife and visit clubs to meet other players. Together with them, you can set off to complete more difficult tasks. It should even be possible to infiltrate a hostile organization and then destroy it from within. The developers want to provide a massive game world for thousands of players through a server cluster system. There will be no different worlds; everyone plays in the same one.
Project Dogmat is being developed using the Unity Engine 5, and a Kickstarter campaign is expected to begin soon, through which the team hopes to fund the development of the MMORPG. This crowdfunding is apparently very important to the developers, as it seems that the game will not exist without successful funding.
What do you think of Project Dogmat? Do you believe the developers can realize the MMO, and do you think it can become a worthy, albeit unofficial “World of Darkness” game?
https://youtu.be/-yT4eyzNLmQ
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
Overwatch is more or less in the starting preparations for the closed beta version. At Gamescom, Jeff Kaplan talked about the plans for the universe in the future …
More work than actually necessary
At Gamescom, Pcgamesn had the opportunity to talk to Jeff Kaplan, the Game Director of Overwatch and former World Designer of World of Warcraft. Here, they mainly discussed the long-term plans that Blizzard has for the new shooter – and what the future might hold for other games.
Many details of the maps might later be important to let fans establish a connection.
“At first glance, it seems we are doing more than necessary,” he revealed in the interview, referring to the many details that can be discovered in the maps of Overwatch. Even though most players will never see these details – because they panic and shoot at enemies or jump into cover – they are very important: Overwatch is to become a complex universe that can stand up in terms of story density and complexity with Warcraft, Diablo, and Starcraft.
A Blizzard version of our world
Overwatch brings together characters from various cultures and celebrates this diversity.
“At Blizzard, we love to create worlds,” Kaplan says in the interview. “Working based on planet Earth was fantastic. It may sound strange, but we had to ask ourselves: What could we do with our planet that would be really cool?” The developers posed questions like: What is Blizzard’s version of Africa? Or of Egypt? And although not everything in the world of Overwatch is peaceful, the vision of our Earth reflects quite central problems of our time and turns them into the positive opposite.
Thus, the organization “Overwatch” is nothing but a symbol for internationalism, bringing together the greatest heroes from all around the world. The Numbani map also shows a refreshing vision of the future of Africa, which has technologically caught up with the rest of the world and even surpasses a large part of the rest of the world with this utopian city, because Ominics (robots) and humans live here in perfect symbiosis.
The future of Overwatch
It will still take a lot of time before we see the Overwatch heroes in Heroes of the Storm.
While it is certainly a bit premature to already want to talk about the future of Overwatch when the game hasn’t even reached beta yet, Jeff Kaplan and his team have ambitious goals. Finding the balance between “little things that lore fans can enjoy” and “enough freedom for other games to expand the universe” is challenging. Nevertheless, they aim to achieve just that: If it were up to Kaplan, Overwatch should eventually be able to support its own MMO in the style of World of Warcraft – this is by no means an announcement nor a statement like “Blizzard is giving up on WoW,” but merely a wish for the complexity that they want to achieve with the new franchise, supported by novels, videos, and other games from possibly completely different genres.
Eventually, the Overwatch characters should also be playable in Heroes of the Storm, but “Overwatch first has to earn that.
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
In the MMO shooter Destiny the servers will be offline this evening. Maintenance work is taking place, an update is likely to be deployed.
Regular readers know, when the robot appears as the title image, then maintenance work for Destiny is imminent.
Today, on August 18th, around 7:00 PM our time, the servers will be taken down, and “final preparations will be made” for the distribution of the Nepal Shader.
Tomorrow, we’ll be making final preparations to enable Nepal Shader distribution – among other things. Stay tuned… https://t.co/3ObqF81sll
Furthermore, they want to accomplish “other things” as well. What exactly that means and how long this maintenance will take, Bungie does not specify. It could take a few hours again. That’s usually how long it takes. We will keep you updated if there are any news.
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
In League of Legends , a cryptic promo page has now been launched. Apparently, it’s about new skins.
Riot is getting weirder and weirder. Now a promo page has appeared that seems to be intended to announce “Project” skins. This will turn the champions into some kind of cyborg. There is already one, belonging to Yasuo.
The promo page is a kind of matrix: From an info node, branches extend to others, where mysterious messages like “The cow has calved” appear, such as “Storm, a flower drifting in the wind, …”
People who deal with such things believe: Riot wants to announce more “Project” skins for existing champions. Candidates include Leona, Fiora, Zed, and Lucian. And one of the nodes leads to nothing, behind which a new champion could be hiding, they think.
In the MMO shooter Destiny, the week begins on Tuesday, 18th August. A new weekly Nightfall strike is determined, and the occupation of the Prison of Elders changes. Variks receives new inventory. What will come out this time?
The challenge in Destiny at the moment is not to deal with the Servants of Darkness, but rather to follow the news. There is really a lot going on. Tomorrow evening at 8:00 PM, a first live stream will take place. We will embed it here in an article and comment on it in German.
But now let’s get to the weekly reset.
Weekly Nightfall Strike on 18th August features Taniks
The DLC-2 strike Shadow Thief is back. The modifiers are Voidburn, Solarburn and Grounded.
This week’s heroic weekly is Phogoth
Everyone’s favorite ogre Phogoth is featured in the Heroic Weekly. The modifier here is: Small Weapons.
Everything about the Prison of Elders in Destiny in the week of 18th August
1. Cabal/Specialist – Special weapon damage is doubled 2. Fallen/Solar Switch – Enemies deal increased melee damage 3. Fallen/Airborne – Players deal more damage while in the air 4. Fallen/Exposure – Guardian shields are increased, but do not regenerate 5. Fallen/Grounded – Players take increased damage while in the air
Vex/Airborne – Guardians deal increased damage while in the air
Hive/Grounded – Guardians take increased damage while in the air
Vex – Voidburn
Hive/Angry – The enemies cannot be stopped even by effect hits
Hive/Exposure- Guardian shields are reinforced, but do not regenerate
Skolas, Kell of Kells, also awaits on 18th August in the 35 Prison of Elders
In the 35 Prison, Skolas, the Kell of Kells, sits. This week he has these two modifiers: Small Weapons and Solar Switch.
Hive – Exposure/Brute – Guardian shields are stronger, do not regenerate/Melee damage of Guardians is increased
Vex – Grounded/Airborne – Guardians deal more damage in the air, but also take more damage there
Cabal – Catapult/Arc Burn – the cooldown of grenades is reduced, Arc damage significantly increased, also for the enemies
Fallen – Specialist/Juggler- Special weapons deal increased damage, enemies leave no ammo for the weapon with which they were defeated
Fallen – Stream/Small Weapons – Skills have a longer cooldown, damage dealt with primary weapons is increased
What does Variks sell?
Variks is selling the hand cannon Pride of the Six Exiles this week with One-Man Army and increased damage on Shank (Shank Burn)
In addition, Chest Armors, which have the same properties for all three classes: They increase armor and melee damage when fighting Fallen in the Prison. Moreover, Variks’ Chest Armors this week increase the Guardians’ capacity to carry ammo for pulse rifles and special weapons.
The stats are:
For Titans 90 INT, 86 STR
For Warlocks 82 DIS, 79 STR
For Hunters 83 INT, 80 STR
Guides? Tips? Tricks?
We will present one or the other video throughout the day, in which a group of Guardians manages to overcome one of the challenges this week.
Our friend Nexxos is taking on Taniks. It’s the international “I’m blowing everything away with Gjallarhorn” days, and then also “Solar Burn” – the result of this combination should be clear, although more of Crota’s word and Black Spindle can be seen in this video. However, be careful: With all the modifiers Taniks and his crew hit like horses on this killer stuff … oats!
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The Free2Play MMORPG Rift wants to awaken players with a series of quirky commercials, giving it a new chance.
The theme of the three new commercials from Rift is: “You think Free2Play MMORPGs are like this. We are here to wake you up and show you that we can be fun too.”
The commercials feature some of the patented Rift tentacle creatures playing rustic pranks on sleeping and slumbering potential customers.
In the MMO shooter Destiny, a deal has been made again with an author who was previously responsible for another MMO.
On July 24, Christine “Kestrel” Thompson left after 7 years as the lead writer of Star Trek Online, the somewhat aging Free2Play MMO set in the Star Trek franchise. She did not mention a reason, only that it was time for new adventures, new worlds.
It is now clear where Thompson has ended up: She will be a Senior Writer at Bungie. With this, Destiny has secured another employee with years of MMO experience. Last year, they also recruited from Guild Wars 2. This should help maintain the new direction for the “questification” of the game content in the long term.
Even though Star Trek Online has some technical difficulties, it is considered an MMO that does many things right in terms of story and lore fidelity. This is exactly where fans have identified major weaknesses in the mammoth project Destiny since its release.
On Wednesday, a card chaos will again take place in Hearthstone – presenting the first cards from the new expansion The Grand Tournament!
Medivh vs. Alleria – Inspiration vs. Joust
This week there will again be a new card chaos in Hearthstone, and this time we won’t see a repeat! As already announced on the official Hearthstone Battle.net page, this week everything revolves around the battle between Alleria and Medivh. The special thing about tournament rivals and the two opponents: They bring the first cards from the upcoming expansion The Grand Tournament!
The Nexus-Champion would fit Medivh’s deck.
Medivh will mainly have cards in the deck that make use of the new inspiration mechanic, while Valeera is more specialized in cards that benefit from jousting.
The new card chaos is available from Wednesday at 5 PM, whether there will be a classic card pack as a reward for the first victory is still uncertain, but seems very likely.
An “honorable mention” was grabbed by one of the community favorites – the “Meh” days, a Crucible montage with scenes, that you usually prefer to keep quiet.
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We have little to add. With Bungie’s selection, we are quite satisfied this time. Well, perhaps one thing. One of our readers sent us this rare occurrence. A seventh column.
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If you discovered a great video last week, please post it in the comments. And if you have something you think: The guys at Mein MMO should take a look at this, send it to us via the Mein MMO contact form.
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
In WildStar , the discovery feature has been part of the repertoire since beta – now the attractiveness is being increased again to score in the Free2Play model!
New Pets and Costumes for Diligent Explorers
No matter where you are in WildStar, discoveries are a fixed part of the game world. A shimmering mound of earth appears at random locations in the environment, granting a special gift to the first player who clicks on it. Currently, these range from small things like 15-minute buffs and green gear pieces to a mini-event where waves of aliens must be defeated. Nevertheless, the incentives were not big enough to really search for these discovery points – while players were happy to find them, they did not actively seek them out.
Those who go on an exploration tour can soon get new pets.
This will change with the Free2Play patch in the fall! Then, the discoveries will receive some upgrades: On the one hand, they will appear more frequently, may contain longer buffs, and furthermore have a chance to drop unique pets (one per zone) and armor pieces from 9 different costumes. In this way, Carbine hopes to ignite some competition among the players.
What do you think, a clever timesink or a useful addition to the mechanic?
In the sandpark MMORPG ArcheAge, it has been decided to distribute Griffins.
This year in ArcheAge, there is still the 2.0 patch and the server merging Evolution. The server merging will also be accompanied by some gifts and events to ease the pain a bit.
After the merge in mid-September, every player will receive a Griffin for 30 days, regardless of whether they are affected by the server merging or not. Those who participate in the accompanying event for 7 days will be able to keep the Griffin permanently.
This is the “Royal Griffin”; it looks like this:
There are supposed to be other special items besides the Griffin, including three more mounts. Among them, some that have not been seen before.
In addition to these events and gifts, there will be “Compensation-Packages” for players directly affected by the Evolution. They will be sent in four different variations, categorized by whether players are losing a house or were in a guild that had a stronghold on the “old” server.
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
The Korean fantasy MMORPG Black Desert seems to be getting a new playable race and also ninjas.
In Black Desert, new game content has been teased. Recently, the Kunoichi, a type of female ninja, was introduced. Next, fans of Black Desert can probably expect the male counterpart, the Ninja or Shinobi. A characteristic of this class is likely to be the distinctive mask.
Additionally, a new class that wields the “great sword” has been hinted at.
A “female” race that is already present as an NPC race in the game will likely be promoted to playable races. It seems to be one of those “childlike, girlish” classes. Not everyone is a fan of those in Europe – just look at the reaction to the Elin in Tera.
Although there could be a debate about whether the race fits the well-known “loli” scheme or looks too much like a hobbit.
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
The fantasy MMORPG The Elder Scrolls Online will one day receive housing, but we are only in the initial design phase. Closer is the autumn DLC Orsinium. And there is new information about Champion Points.
Lambert also mentioned “housing.” After all, Matt Firor introduced it into the game. In the background of ESO Live there was a slight dismay: “Why did you say that now?” Lambert replied: “Firor said that first!” A date cannot be given. We are only in the initial design phase.
So yes, it sounds like “housing” is somewhere on the feature list for The Elder Scrolls Online. But it also seems like it will take a while until we hear more about it.
Lambert explained that they have so many plans, so many ideas. He alone has a long list of things they want to bring to The Elder Scrolls Online. It stretches approximately to 2018.
What’s new about Orsinium?
ESO Live also revealed details about the next DLC after the Imperial City, Orsinium: One of the main attractions will be a large PvE arena.
The new game content will work in such a way that players are scaled up to the “appropriate” level. Something similar has been happening since the release for players who step foot in Cyrodiil. They receive experience points in the DLC zone that correspond to their actual level. The basic idea behind the change : When players buy a new DLC, they should be able to play it immediately without having to reach the maximum level.
There are no plans to increase the “raid size,” 12 is the “trial size” for ESO. And they are already working on a new trial.
Champion Points: Seasonal Cap and Catch-up Mechanism Coming
With all the future plans, they also have to address game systems they have just introduced. This includes the relatively complex Champion System. There is a risk that hardcore players will eventually get ahead of newcomers and casual players, creating an insurmountable lead and thus also causing an imbalance.
The top player on PC currently has 1,650 Champion Points. In total, about 35 people have more than 600 Champion Points.
To ensure that the lead of hardcore players doesn’t become too large, they will introduce a “seasonal cap” in the future and implement catch-up mechanisms for players who have fewer Champion Points. However, this is still a work in progress and will not come in Update 7 with the Imperial City.
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
In the coming days, a new addition is approaching all MMORPG fans. Otherland mixes sci-fi with fantasy elements and will soon enter early access.
When the waiting pays off
Reminds a little bit of SWTOR – and yet is completely different.
It has been nearly 8 years since fans were excited about the announcement of the MMORPG Otherland, which was set to be released in the near future. Especially fans of the books could hardly wait to immerse themselves in the fantastic worlds of Tad Williams. Nearly a decade later, it is finally happening: On August 26, the game will be available in early access on Steam, with the full launch planned for next year. To get in the mood for the exploreable worlds, Drago Entertainment has released a trailer that atmospherically shows the symbiosis between sci-fi and fantasy and, unlike WildStar, opts for a more realistic graphic style.
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In addition to the numerous unexplored worlds of the multiverse, Otherland will also offer other MMORPG features, such as an extensive housing system and, of course, plenty of action in the combat system to do justice to the novel templates.
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
When you fly 8900 kilometers east from Cologne to Busan in South Korea – announcements like these happen… a bit differently. Here is a video from the “Soul Party,” where NCSoft announced a new class for Blade and Soul:
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This spectacular announcement with a live performance was unfortunately followed by not too much information. The ninth class will likely be a mix of the Kung Fu Master and the Force Master – combining ranged and melee combat in one class.
Many were dissatisfied with the skill system of the upcoming (MMO)RPG Shroud of the Avatar. Therefore, the developers announced that they would replace this system with a new one that resembles that of the classic Ultima Online at the end of the month.
To increase skills in Shroud of the Avatar, players previously gathered experience points, leveled up, and received skill points that could be used with a trainer to enhance their abilities. The system faced criticism for supporting grinding, and many did not understand why, for example, they should be able to improve their magic skills in throwing fireballs if they only fought with a sword.
The criticism reached the developers. In a lengthy post published as part of a newsletter, they announced a new system where skills improve through usage.
Ultima Online Waves Hello
Players select the skills they want to train through usage. When they use these abilities, they gradually improve. However, if a skill is not used, the player will “forget” it over time. However, this is not as severe as it might seem. It does not mean that players must start from scratch if they do not log in for a few weeks. They will lose a maximum of two days of progress. This loss occurs when the character dies in the game or when a skill improves to the next level through use. A similar usage-based skill system was already employed in the classic Ultima Online, but it led to issues.
Players assigned actions such as “mine ore” to a specific key on the keyboard and then wedged a coin in to keep that key pressed indefinitely. This way, they could go to sleep and wake up the next morning as an expert in mining ore. The developers want to prevent this by making it significantly faster to improve a skill through meaningful actions like PvP battles or quests than simply hitting a training dummy repeatedly. Passive skills and attributes like strength or hit points also increase automatically, but at a much slower rate than active skills.
Overall, it should take a very long time to become a true master of a skill, and maintaining that skill at such a level will be anything but easy. Therefore, it is unlikely that a player will completely master every skill.
This new skill system is set to be introduced and tested with Release 21 of the (MMO)RPG Shroud of the Avatar, which begins on August 27. Want to know more about the game? Then take a look at our news overview of SotA.
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
On Destiny Friday led to some nice anecdotes. Xur’s special inventory brought a family a bit closer together.
There are some terrible stories about video games and their corrosive influence on the family. So it is nice to hear and tell a nice story.
A 68-year-old Destiny player longed for the Gjallarhorn, but just this weekend, when Xur was selling it, he was not home, had to work away. But: Why would you even have kids? The problem: His 25-year-old son Noel is a non-gamer.
But where there’s a will, there’s a way. The 68-year-old sent his son the message: “Noel, you have to do me a favor. There’s this game Destiny … and there’s this vendor Xur … and he’s selling an item.”
The son did as he was told, logged in the father’s Guardian while on the phone with his dad, searched and found Xur. The Destiny veteran can be proud of his son, now enjoying 3 of these rocket launchers.
By the way, the 68-year-old is not only an enthusiastic but also an extremely reliable Destiny player. Every evening after work, his son says, he comes home, plays Destiny until exactly midnight, then goes to bed.
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
In the action MMORPG Devilian, which is supposed to compete with Diablo 3 in the West, the heroes have a secret: A demon slumbers within them.
The “Devil Form” is one of the aspects that should distinguish Devilian from its competitors. Here, the devil is not just on the packaging; the player actually becomes one.
The Devil Form in Devilian is a kind of “super ability”: The heroes awaken their inner demon, dealing increased damage for a short time and gaining supernatural abilities. While in Skyforge players become gods, in Devilian it goes the other way.
A trailer has been released in Korea showcasing the 4 classes in their Devil Form:
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The interesting part about the Devil Form in Devilian is that it can be leveled up and equipped separately from the player. It already offers advantages through the enormous damage boost. With about 3 to 5 times the damage, one can count on that at certain levels.
