The Korean action MMO Blade and Soul has been waiting for a port to the West for years. There are now further rumors.
An alleged WildStar employee has now reported in the reddit forum that the work on the English version of Blade&Soul has progressed to the point that the highly anticipated game is in a “Friends and Family Beta”.
WildStar, like Guild Wars 2 and Blade and Soul, is published by NCSoft, so WildStar employees may know more about it than the average person. But before fans get excited about the news: The source is not confirmed. The alleged WildStar employee posts anonymously on reddit. What he writes and reveals about supposed insider information carries some weight and seems quite plausible, although there is no way to verify its authenticity.
In Hack’n-Slay Diablo 3 Blizzard has apparently launched some event from May 15th to May 21st, which they stubbornly deny exists.
“There is no cow level,” is emblazoned on Diablo 3 loading screens, probably it is also on the cool T-shirts and spotted coffee mugs of the developers. Also in the strings that data miners recently found, it kept saying. “This is so not a cow level,” “I am not a secret cow boss,” “I am not the cow queen” and “this portal so does not lead to a secret level.” It would be absurd to assume that there is something like a “cow level” in Diablo 3.
But Blizzard announces a “muhtmaßliches” event and uses it to pack as many cow puns into a few lines as possible.
From the early morning hours of May 15th (that’s this morning) until dusk on May 21st, if you read between the lines, there should probably be portals in Diablo 3 leading somewhere.
According to early reports, you can enter the cow level by killing a cow that spawns randomly in the normal world of Diablo 3, outside of rifts. So you play as if you are hunting bounties or treasure goblins, randomly slaying something that looks absolutely nothing like a cow, then the portal opens and you can go in.
In absolutely no cow level itself, a lot of treasure chests, exp, and surprisingly cows await players. The health orbs look like steaks. At the end of the level, there is a quest with a royal final boss and, or, respectively an event. This is still not quite clear.
Apparently the cow level scales with the chosen torment level. But this information is still quite fresh and unconfirmed. The entire event is intended as an anniversary celebration for Diablo 3. It was released three years ago today. So the cows are well aged.
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
In the MMO shooter Destiny , update 1.2.0. might be coming soon. This was announced in the Weekly Update.
Patch 1.2.0. was supposed to go live last Tuesday, but it got postponed for an “indefinite” time. An error was discovered at the last moment. Some fans and media even feared that this delay could mean that House of Wolves would be postponed. But that seems to have been an exaggeration.
In the Weekly Update, a “new date” for this patch has now been hinted at. That would be today, Friday the 15th, around “evening” our time. Provided everything works out.
A specific timeline will be provided later – along with the patch notes.
It is expected that the 1.2.0. patch will prepare the way for “House of Wolves” make some changes to the Crucible and possibly introduce some kind of “gimmick”. With the preparation patch to Darkness Lurks in December, the blades of Crota were introduced. Bungie is still silent about whether they have planned something similar again.
$750,000 has been raised so far. This has exceeded the wildest expectations. Bungie has contributed an additional $50,000. Publisher Activision has also added $50,000 to reach the three-quarter million mark.
Reconnects are set to improve – could prevent frustration
The third important point in the Weekly Update concerns “reconnects”.
Currently, guardians are thrown into orbit when they lose connection to the server. They lose their progress in the activity as a result. This is frustrating and is expected to be mitigated in the future. They plan to introduce “Connection Recovery”: This would keep players in the activity when they log back in.
In House of Wolves, this will be tried first with “Trials of Osiris”. Here, such “orbit landings” would be even more brutal than elsewhere. With these recoveries, there would at least be a chance to spawn back in the Trials instead of in orbit. There are no guarantees with the new system either.
If this turns out to be a viable solution in the “Trials of Osiris”, Bungie plans to expand it to other activities.
It looks like Friday evening will be unusually lively in Destiny today. That there is a lot going on in the morning should not be surprising: Because just before patch 1.2.0., Xur will arrive in the Tower on Friday, May 15th, at 11:00 AM. We from mein MMO will be waiting for him and reporting on his offers.
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
The MMO shooter Destiny will receive its second DLC “House of Wolves” on May 19th. It will be presented in a gameplay trailer. They claim not to know anything about delays. The DLC is still set to release on May 19th.
About a month ago, a first teaser trailer for “House of Wolves” was released, which mainly focused on the story. Bungie could not show much more: everything was still a secret and was only introduced in weekly streams. They broke records for game presentations on Twitch on Wednesdays in 2015: It was about the upgrades, the Prison of Elders, and the Trials of Osiris. New PvP maps were introduced, gear and exotic items were shown, even the new strike “Shadow Thief.”
Now Bungie has gradually laid all the cards on the table. Fans know what to expect. It is now time: Destiny presents the “real trailer” with speed and drive. It shows a cross-section of everything new that is to come with House of Wolves.
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The trailer was released via Twitter. They reiterated the release date, May 19th. It almost seems as if they wanted to contradict the “rumors” that the release of “House of Wolves” could be postponed.
On this front, there is also cautious relief: According to Community Manager DeeJ, they have “identified” the bug and are working on a solution. They will deliver the patch and patch notes “as soon as possible.” That sounds quite optimistic.
05/14/2015: Solutions for technical issues that have delayed the delivery of updates have been identified. Work is ongoing and we’ll release the new content and the Patch Notes as soon as we can. Stand by for more information on timing.
By the way: On the German Facebook page for “Destiny,” they stated again that the expansion will be released on 5/15. Every other source speaks of 5/19. Apparently, the person in charge of the German Facebook account made the error of turning the English date 5/19 into the German 5/15.
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
In the fantasy MMORPG Guild Wars 2 the new elite specialization of the Necromancer, the “Reaper,” has been introduced.
The classes of Guild Wars 2 receive a kind of advancement opportunity with the first expansion “Heart of Thorns”: They can specialize, retrain to a new “idea” of their class, so to speak. Initially, there will be “only” one specialization for each class. However, this is a system that they want to expand in the future.
For now, they are having fun with various “What could we make out of this?” scenarios. From the Mesmer, they have crafted a time mage and from the Guardian, they have formed a kind of dragon hunter.For the Necromancer, a different approach is offered: Let’s just make a real monster out of this!
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Inspirations come from such “horror villains” as Pyramid Head from the Silent Hill series or “Jason Voorhees” from Friday the 13th: Unstoppable, stoic killers. For this, the Necromancer has been given a great sword and the resource “Life Force.” When it is full, the Reaper transforms into an “Avatar of Destruction.”
The design idea behind the Reaper is a tough opponent who strikes slowly, but whose blows really hurt. Every time he lifts the sword, his enemies should feel: Oh dear, not good.
Against a group of already weakened enemies, he is supposed to thrive especially well, mowing them down like a reaper mowing young grass. Those who are already with one foot in the grave should fear him the most. As a running gag in the presentation of the Reaper, ArenaNat references the 70s song “Don’t Fear the Reaper.” The number was composed by the lead singer of the Blue Oyster Cult back in his late 20s, expecting an early death. That’s almost 40 years ago. He is still alive.
In the survival MMO H1Z1 players apparently fear the night. The developer needs to respond to this.
This is how H1Z1 players are. They play a hardcore survival zombie MMO and log out when it gets dark. Maybe they think it would be Dying Light, where the zombies become significantly stronger at night. That doesn’t really happen in H1Z1. It just gets dark, but the players behave as if the night is “dark and full of terrors.” This is explained by DGC head John Smedley in a letter to the fans: Statistically, significantly more players log out when it becomes night.
Actually, they did not want to change anything about the night; the team found everything okay. But the behavior of the players is clear and makes it necessary. The players are essentially voting with their feet.
They have now gathered feedback from the fans and want to try out some solutions; thus, they will make the “night” brighter and introduce some servers where it always stays bright. These 4 servers are now daytime servers:
Smed’s Dead (HC)
Prison Shanked (HC)
Kryvy Rig (Core)
Lacerated (Core)
Kryvy Rig is a EU server; the others are based in the USA.
A new gameplay video has been released for Blizzard’s upcoming online team shooter Overwatch. For a full 8 minutes, which is the length of a complete match, you can look over the shoulder of the player controlling Zenyatta and see how the monk with the strange hand movements takes down enemies, occasionally sending them into respawn.
The game takes place on the map “King’s Row,” set in futuristic England. The goal is to capture control points as well as escort a payload, or prevent both as defenders.
According to polygon.com, a new video is set to be released each week, showcasing a different character each time. This should at least quench the fans’ thirst for information in small bites and allow the next months to pass by. As soon as there are more updates on Overwatch, we will keep you informed. And now, enjoy the video!
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Now Blizzard has again taken action against bots. Officially, they speak of “many” users, in a conversation with a player, a game master even mentions over 100,000.
Dhe has received a 6-month ban. It seems that primarily users of the notorious “Honorbuddy” bot have been hit the hardest. It is usually used to farm honor in battlegrounds without the character owners having to struggle with something as tedious as moving themselves.
Blizzard also clearly states what botting is: as soon as you find a program that “presses buttons for you,” it is botting and you can be punished for it.
Botting is defined as automation of any action, not just character movement. If a program is pressing keys for you, you’ve violated the ToU.
In WildStar the rumor mill is brewing. An anonymous source now suggests that the title will transition from a subscription model to a free-to-play model in August.
Yesterday, the numbers from NCSoft were released. They looked anything but rosy for the SF-MMO WildStar. The game has already fallen below the level of City of Heroes at the time NCSoft shut down the superhero MMO.
In this mood, a source with explosive information appeared in the WildStar subreddit. The source claims to be a “WildStar employee” and asserts that they have proven their identity to the mods.
The source provides the following information:
In August, WildStar is supposed to transition to a “freemium” model. Paying players will then receive XP buffs, more character slots, and similar perks. It will not be pay-to-win. Microtransactions are expected to come later. This change is supposed to be made public “very soon”.
In the long term, WildStar plans to work closely with Steam. They want to become “THE MMO” on the Steambox, and WildStar is expected to be pre-installed on all Steamboxes. In January, they hosted Steam. WildStar is supposed to come to Steam before the China release – the timeframe is expected to be late 2015 or early 2016.
For the China release , some adjustments still need to be made, especially the “The Strain” zones must be revised due to cultural practices, so assets showing bones, blood or oversized teeth or eyeballs need to be redone.
Speaking of blood, the team at Carbine is bleeding heavily, “developers are leaving every week,” they say. The team has shrunk significantly. There is an uncertain atmosphere. However, they are looking for replacements for those who have left.
They plan to continue delivering new content every three months. A range of features are planned, but due to staff turnover, they may not be able to implement all of them.
Mein MMO thinks: This should all be taken with caution. However, there are indications from another source that WildStar is indeed supposed to come to Steam as a free-to-play title. This is also not official, but comes from the Steam database.
Otherwise, the assessment from the anonymous source sounds plausible. To what extent their identity was “proven” or not is hard to say. Whether this is simply a “good assessment” based on known or presumed facts, or whether it really is an “insider” speaking out … is difficult to determine. US MMO sites are reporting on this in any case. The thread is receiving a lot of attention on Reddit.
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
On May 19, “House of Wolves” will be released, the DLC for the MMO shooter Destiny. Bungie has now posted images of the gear that players can obtain in the “Prison of Elders”.
The Creative Director of Bungie, Christopher Barrett, published a picture on Twitter last night. It shows the “Fallen” armor from the “Prison of Elders“, which players will soon be able to don.
In League of Legends (LoL) the abilities of the next champ Ekko, the Timewinder, have now been introduced.
A few days ago, the announcement of the new champ Ekko with a trailer. In it, he is not fighting against Urgot, as a developer mentioned, but against another champ that has received a redesign.
Ekko is an “Assassin” with a special twist, as can be seen from his skills.
Ekko’s abilities, the Timewinder overview with videos
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Ekko’s damage-dealing abilities and attacks build up resonance on his enemies. Every third attack on the same target triggers Ekko’s passive ability, dealing additional damage and slowing his enemies. When his passive ability is triggered on an enemy champion, Ekko also receives a significant movement speed boost.
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Ekko throws a device in a desired direction, damaging all enemies in its path. When he reaches maximum distance or hits an enemy champion, the device expands and creates a field that slows all enemy and neutral units. A moment later, the device contracts again, rushes back to Ekko, and deals additional damage to all enemies in its path.
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Passive: Ekko’s basic attacks deal bonus damage to targets with low health.
Active: Ekko opens a time rift, creating a version of himself from another reality that throws a device in the desired direction. After a delay, the device expands and becomes a wide slowing zone. If Ekko enters the sphere, the device detonates, granting him a shield while stunning all enemies inside.
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Ekko swiftly covers a set distance towards a chosen target area. Once his initial sprint concludes, Ekko gains greatly increased range for his next basic attack and quickly jumps to his target to deal damage and apply hit and spell effects.
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Ekko rewinds time, becomes briefly untargetable and unhurt, then reappears where he was a few seconds earlier. Upon reappearing, he regenerates a portion of the health he lost during those few seconds while dealing a large amount of damage to all nearby enemies.
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
The action MMO Neverwinter was released as a free-to-play title on the Xbox One and has been quite successful.
As John Smedley from the competition knows, the free-to-play segment on consoles is still relatively untapped and very lucrative: If you have a console, the first thing you do is look for what’s available for free, this is his theory.
And if you search on the Xbox One right now, you will find “Neverwinter.” 1.6 million players have found it, as Cryptic now reports. So many players have played the game since March 31, 2015, on the console. This places it in the “top segment” of free-to-play titles on the Xbox One.
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To ensure this remains the case, they promise plenty of new content and quickly. 5 free expansions are set to come to the Xbox One in 2015: including Tyranny of Dragons and Elemental Evil, which was recently released on PC to somewhat lukewarm reviews. With this free offensive, they seem to want to significantly reduce the lead that the PC version currently has, maybe even manage to catch up completely. However, they are not currently revealing whether “Underdark”, the next PC module will also be part of the 5 expansions.
The strategy seems to be to deliver the two “missing modules” now, then perhaps bring “Underdark” with some delay and the two “new” modules simultaneously with the PC during the year, which would mean significantly increased content frequency. Perhaps they also plan smaller expansions in between.
A nice infographic is provided as well. Players have:
• Created 2.3 million characters, 92,000 of whom have reached the maximum level of 60 • Spent 86 million minutes playing Neverwinter • Earned 16 billion Astral Diamonds • Created 10 million groups • Defeated over 1 billion monsters, including undead, orcs, and bandits • 92 players have defeated over 1,000 dragons
Mein MMO states: 1.6 million is a proud number, but it must be mentioned, that this number is inflated for F2P titles and cannot be compared to the 7.1 million subscribers of WoW.
For comparison: A title like Hearthstone has 30 million players, while World of Tanks approaches the 100-million mark when all variants and systems are counted together. The announcement that 92,000 have reached the maximum level may be the more important figure.
We will see how Neverwinter performs when more titles are released in the free-to-play segment of the Xbox One. Soon, Neverwinter will face competition from The Elder Scrolls Online, even though TESO is adopting a buy-to-play model.
Regarding the publisher of Neverwinter, Perfect World, and their relationship with the developer Cryptic Studios there have been quite turbulent reports recently. A success on the console and therefore stepping into a new market would certainly be desirable.
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
In the MMO shooter Destiny , Xur sold the exotic machine gun Thunderlord for the first time last Friday. How did this affect PvP? This info and more statistics are now revealed by Bungie.
At the end of last year, we frequently wrote about the significant influence Xur has on which weapons Guardians have in Destiny and which ones they use. That was already half a year ago, and one would think that his influence has decreased, as most Guardians now have many weapons and thus a wide selection.
However, there was an exception last week: Old Noodleface sold the exotic machine gun Thunderlord for the first time. When something like this happens, some: Oh! Now everyone is going to run around with it? But is that true? Normally, we would just shrug and say: Could be, no idea. But not this time. Because Bungie is actually releasing statistics.
According to Bungie, less than 1% of all Guardians in the Crucible wielded this weapon on Thursday before the “Weekend of Thunder”. On Saturday, however, it was 8.5%. The Thunderlord thus became the fourth most popular weapon in the heavy weapon slot of the Crucible.
Bungie shares this on reddit, where they release all sorts of strange statistics. For instance, Titans had to claim the title of “Shotgunner of the Month” in April. 19% of kills by Defender Titans were made with the shotgun. This weapon is considered frowned upon by some in the Crucible of Destiny. Sunsinger Warlocks, by the way, utilized “the pump” the least for kills during this period.
And the two “Death Places Number One” are also well known now. Guardians have most commonly died on the Crucible map “Twilight Gap”. When compiling a “Deaths per Head” statistic, Crota claimed the most victims. Surprisingly, not on “Hard”, but on “Normal.”
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
Yes, the topic simply never gets old. Sexism is one of the most significant issues on the path to equality in the real world, which is why researchers are also examining social behavior in online games in this context. A new study now shows: Women have to play an attractive female character if they want help.
Blood Elves Yay, Orcs Nay
To measure the attractiveness of avatars in “World of Warcraft,” they have categorized them into three groups. Blood Elves are considered “very attractive,” Night Elves “moderately attractive,” and Orcs as “only slightly attractive.” The researchers set out as both male and female representatives of the respective races and approached a total of 2300 players to ask for help.
Either for a small favor, such as explaining how to get to a certain location, or a big favor, such as accompanying them to the location itself. Additionally, the researchers clearly signaled whether a man or a woman was behind the character by incorporating the player’s gender into their questions (“Can you help a girl/guy out?”).
Female Orcs allegedly do not attract!
Men can look however they want, women cannot
The sad result of the study was that it does not matter to men what kind of avatar they control. The expected willingness to help was always the same, completely independent of the chosen race or character’s gender. On the other hand, women have to play a widely regarded “attractive” heroine to experience the same level of willingness to help. Frank Waddell, one of the co-authors of the study, explains this phenomenon by stating that human reactions to stereotypes and norms follow us from the real world into the virtual one. In other words: Because attractive women are helped more quickly in reality, this also happens in the game, even though they are hidden behind an avatar we assess instead of the woman itself.
Cortyn comments: I think very little of the study. Although some findings are indeed helpful, the researchers seem to have completely overlooked daily life within online worlds. They reached the participants with questions like “Can you help out a girl?” and anyone who has spent more than a few hours in an MMO knows: Those who present so obviously that “she” is a woman attract attention, usually very consciously. Women and men know this, which is why such statements are often avoided. Furthermore, I find the categorization into “very attractive” (Blood Elves) and “moderately attractive” (Night Elves) to be more than a little arbitrary, although this categorization is likely based on some evaluation…
I can’t find much value in the study either, because especially on the internet we are rarely “man”, “woman”, or “demon”, but primarily “gamer”. The real gender plays no role for most, at least that’s my experience. What do you think?
In the SF-MMO WildStar , the numbers for the first quarter of 2015 are now available. Revenues in the previous quarters had continually declined.
The Korean publisher NCSoft has released its data for the first quarter of 2015. Our perspective in the West is primarily focused on the struggling SF-MMO WildStar. The Pay2Play game saw a relatively good second quarter, where it celebrated its release and sold boxes, but then significantly lost players in the following months. Already in the third quarter of 2014, the revenues looked bad, and in the winter quarter of 2014, they dropped drastically.
Now the numbers for the first quarter of 2015 are here, and the revenues have dropped again by more than half. And that from a low level. While WildStar earned a good quarter of what Guild Wars 2 made in the winter, it has now fallen to an eighth.
In the third quarter of 2014 , around 13 million euros were generated, but in the fourth quarter, only 4.4 million were earned. For the first quarter, some fans hoped that a recovery could take place, as the directly competing WoW had lost much of its former glory.
However, this did not happen: In the first quarter of 2015, revenues fell to approximately 2.1 million euros.
The MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV relies on a mix of sweetness and cruelty in its stories, paving new paths. With Heavensward, they aim to continue this.
The first experience in Final Fantasy after a heavy cinematic is with Moogle. They are a kind of race of floating Pikachus that end every sentence with “Kupo” and are somehow … even from the perspective of a real guy … super-cute.
From Kawaii to Psychopaths
Otherwise, the player experience in Final Fantasy XIV is not exactly free from kitsch or excessive cuteness. The adventures of master detective “Hildibrand” have, in their best moments, something of a top-notch Sunday morning cartoon. The dialogues often turn absurd, there is a lot of sweetness in the world: “Kawaii” is what they call the phenomenon in Japan. “Cuteness” is considered an ideal of beauty there.
However, not everything in Final Fantasy is cute and harmless. Some quests get to the heart of the matter: Morbid actions are required from the player. To mitigate the aftermath of an attack, the player must stack bodies, bury them, notify relatives. All actions meant to playfully convey the significance of what has happened: You have lost friends and colleagues. You need time to digest this. You cannot just click through this and move on.
The world of Final Fantasy XIV knows about mental illnesses, villains, acts of cruelty. Old acquaintances become traumatized and even turn into the monsters they once wanted to slay. The storyline can shift from Inspector Gadget to Criminal Minds. Even if someone is cute, bad things can happen to them, or they can be capable of cruelty themselves.
Final Fantasy XIV is — like so much from Japan — capable of reaching the highest highs and the lowest lows. The sweetest sweet and the bitterest sour are closely intertwined.
The Direction Remains Dark in Final Fantasy XIV
For the expansion “Heavensward”, it has already been announced that they want to lean more towards a “Gothic” corner, with stories becoming darker.
The ESRB, which assigns age ratings to games, has dealt with Heavensward. And even though Final Fantasy has again received a “T for Teen” rating, the descriptor reads more drastically: “mild blood” has turned into simply “blood” and mentions some intense scenes that take place “off-screen.” Including mutilations.
Final Fantasy XIV is a Narrative Surprise Box
Perhaps it is this radical mix, this “cruelty on the pony farm,” that makes Final Fantasy XIV such a strange and powerful combination in our western eyes, clearly distinguishing itself from the narrative traditions in the West. And perhaps this mix, together with the combat system, is what polarizes FF XIV so much. For some, this “Asia” flair is exactly what they are looking for. For others, the welcoming scene with the Moogle may be enough for them to take off. Forever, Kupo.
One thing is clear: The future remains exciting. Because for those who know the western narrative traditions inside out, in which western RPGs often linger, the narrative surprise box Final Fantasy XIV remains opaque and thus exciting. Skipping quest texts is a thing of the past.
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
Those who didn’t play with toy dinos as a child were uncool. And rightly so, because dinosaurs are just cool. If these appear in an MMORPG where the survival aspect is in focus, then the inner child cheers with joy.
The developers at Studio Wildcard want to offer such a mix with ARK: Survival Evolved. You are stranded on a mysterious island where dinos roam. Completely naked, you have no chance against these giants. So survival is the order of the day.
You start by crafting your first useful equipment by gathering and processing the necessary raw materials. From stones and wood, you can make spears or axes, for example, to defend yourself, at least rudimentarily, against smaller dinosaurs. Later, you’ll mine ores that you can use to create more powerful weapons. However, you will quickly realize that you will have no chance alone against the larger representatives like the Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Pretty hardcore
Fortunately, there are other people on the island with whom you can team up. With these other players, you form tribes, build huts and palisades, and support each other. However, not everyone may be friendly, as PvP plays a role. In raids, it is possible to wipe out entire villages and steal the items produced there. This is interesting as your character does not disappear when you log out of the game. He merely sleeps, which means that his items are still available and can be stolen.
Your pets also remain in the game, but they can be taken over and commanded by your friends during your absence. These “hardcore” gameplay elements go a step further. Your character needs food to avoid dying, so you must ensure that edible plants are available that you can grow yourself. Weather conditions like rain and snow also affect your health. Permadeath and the possibility of capturing players and using their feces as fertilizer or their blood for rituals are also included in the game. Through rituals, it is possible to summon special, god-like beings that fight for you.
Survival of the fittest?
There will be slightly more than 100 players online per server. That sounds like a small number, but it emphasizes the aspect that there are only a few survivors on the island. Moreover, it requires tactical decisions about whether it’s wise to fight each other or better to cooperate against the dinos. Traveling between servers will also be possible. The developers even want to support modding so that players can help shape the world. The Unreal Engine 4 is being used, which provides excellent graphics, as can be seen from the first screenshots and the trailer. The Early Access version of Ark is expected to be available on Steam next month. It is being developed for PS4, Xbox One, and PC. By the way: Virtual reality support is also planned.
Andreas says: Wow! I didn’t expect that at all. An online game with hardcore elements and dinos. I think I need a vacation in June urgently. Of course, one needs to wait and see how it all plays out and whether all elements mesh well. I find permadeath, especially if your character remains in the game after logging out, quite problematic with open PvP and full loot. Nevertheless, ARK: Survival Evolved seems to be a highly interesting online game that should definitely be kept an eye on.
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Yes, I occasionally make mistakes. Sometimes they are small errors in spelling or grammar, but occasionally there are also larger mistakes regarding research. I get quite annoyed about that, believe me. Nevertheless, I at least have a few principles that I try to adhere to strictly.
For example, I don’t like overly sensational headlines, and I don’t like attempts to make a small mosquito into an elephant. But maybe I just need to spend more time on my work? (Yes, a few puns are coming your way…)
Good Times, Bad Times…
You probably remember our little news about ArenaNet’s actions against a known cheater. The corresponding character was stripped of his equipment, subsequently jumped to his virtual death due to the operators’ actions, and finally, the account was banned. A very commendable behavior, I think. Because on the one hand, an example was made, and on the other hand, honest players finally gained the impression that something is being done against cheaters.
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But we wouldn’t be Germany if we didn’t constantly have to put video games on trial again, would we? So let’s let a dear gentleman from “Zeit” loose on this topic, and lo and behold: Suddenly, developers forced a character to commit suicide (zeit.de)! Not only that, through the “evidence video,” the so-called Werther effect could occur, and real people could be encouraged to choose suicide in real life. Not to mention that player characters in Guild Wars 2 cannot actually “die” but only get defeated and respawn at the next waypoint.
The user’s character DarkSide was forced into suicide in the game “Guild Wars 2”. – Zeit.de
Turning Back Time
I had actually come to the conviction that gaming has more or less arrived in the middle of society and that this society no longer sees games as a medium to be demonized. Exactly this was done again this time, playing the role of the pseudo-moralizer and asking: Could the public display of a “suicide” in a computer game lead to real imitators?
Leaving aside the fact that sensationalism produced dramatic expressions like “the character’s death rattle,” which simply do not exist in Guild Wars 2.
A Timeless Issue
But I find this passage particularly hypocritical:
“But media are required to adhere to a guideline when reporting on suicides to avoid triggering the so-called Werther effect – meaning: not to encourage anyone to imitate through sensational and simplistic reporting. Whether a game studio should also adhere to this is at least debatable.”
Honestly: No, that cannot be debated. No one saw a “suicide” here, except for Zeit. And why? Because it makes a wonderful headline. So far, it was just the punishment of a cheater in an online game. The entire suicide part was fabricated. If you want to avoid the Werther effect, as it is beautifully written, you should report sensitively on the topic of suicide. A first step might be to write only about suicides when they actually happened, and that was not the case here. It also doesn’t help to fill a third of the article with self-help addresses and research on suicide causes to present oneself as sensitive.
A Note from the Author
In the meantime, the author of the original text has spoken out again, likely triggered by the countless negative comments that the article has received. Anyone who reads this addendum quickly recognizes the intention: to soften. To mitigate reactions and articulate one’s own thoughts without admitting a mistake. After all, it was the foolish readers who found a headline to be sensational.
That the authors of Zeit now see video games as a cultural asset is commendable, but also quite brazenly dishonest. Because why don’t they act accordingly? Why don’t I read an article every time a new book is published when characters commit suicide? Because video games are still not seen as equivalent cultural assets by some people. I would be happy if some people would finally move with the times.
What do you think about it? Has this topic been exaggerated and twisted? Or does the original author even have a point? However, I will pack myself into the demonic summer sleep and will be at the RPC in Cologne this weekend – where you all should also be. Until next Wednesday!
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
In Destiny there is a final prediction for Xur. His inventory for Friday, May 15th, is known.
Slowly, our reports about Xur’s predictions for next Friday are slipping into “Howard Carpendale announces his retirement” territory. For weeks, we’ve been announcing that it’s over, and then something happens again, and there is new information for next Friday.
The dataminer Megaman is stepping down
Yesterday, Megamanexe4, the first and probably most well-known “dataminer,” who provided players with the information that Bungie wanted to keep secret, officially announced his “retirement.” The Japanese community isn’t functioning, and he won’t do it anymore. He probably wouldn’t have been able to do it anymore either. Since some changes from Bungie, there haven’t been any predictions; the last ones were from the past.
In any case, Megaman didn’t leave without leaving the players a gift. He posted all the inventories of Xur that he had datamined back then. Among them is also the last one for May 15th.
Therefore, we have this article with the Xur prediction one last time. However, it must be noted: This prediction is not 100% certain. The last one was 50% correct: The weapon and one piece of armor were right. It could be similar this time.
The prediction for Xur’s inventory on May 15th
As a weapon, there should be the exotic auto rifle Suros Regime. It would cost 23 strange coins.
For Warlocks, he would have the Voidfang Vestments on offer.
For Hunters, the helmet ATS/8 Arachnoid. However, the stats for the armor pieces are still unknown; these are archive pictures.
And for Titans, a Crest of Alpha Lupi.
Well, somehow this is anticlimactic. Last week with Thunderlord was the highlight of the “Megaman era,” definitely the best inventory from Xur. What else can come after that?
In the god MMO Skyforge the third closed beta phase ends, the next ones will not be experienced by the gods created so far.
Finally a good template for a bad pun! The creators of Skyforge, the Allods team, thank the participants of the third closed beta phase for their efforts and contributions. This has provided important data that is now to be utilized to refine and adapt the western version of Skyforge.
This will take some time: Therefore, it will take a while until the next beta phase. These changes also required a wipe of the beta characters. The third closed beta is now over. Since Skyforge is relatively grindy, this wipe may hit some players, who have already invested a lot of time in their avatars, quite hard.
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
