In ArcheAge, a video of the Pegasus mount has emerged, which was raffled at a special event in Korea and is considered the most beautiful and rarest mount in ArcheAge.
The Pegasus, the winged horse of Perseus, is a mythical creature that is also very rare in the sandpark MMO ArcheAge: As reported by reddit, the Pegasus mount is available in the Korean ArcheAge for players reaching level 53, but only for 3 days.
So far, only a few players have obtained it permanently; it could only be acquired once in an event. Well, that makes the Christmas event with its reindeer seem inadequate.
Whether this will ever come to our western ArcheAge is still unknown. Of course, people are already mocking on reddit: If it does, it will cost quite a bit.
Apparently, only a handful of players worldwide have the flying horse with gliding function.
Oh, and if you’re like us, you’re wondering: Where the hell do I know this song from? You know it because you’re probably a bit older than 20. This is the synth-pop hit “Always” by Erasure from 1994 or as some MMO players say: The year 10 before WoW.
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
Weeks ago, Gaijin Entertainment teased the update Steel Generals for War Thunder and then surprised everyone yesterday with the release of the Closed Beta. In addition to the first US tanks, a variety of new features and improvements are entering the game.
In War Thunder, with the Closed Beta for Steel Generals, the first six American tanks are available, which will be supplemented weekly by another tracked vehicle. According to publisher Gaijin Entertainment, the number of US tanks is expected to reach 30 in the first quarter of 2015. Gaijin’s CEO Anton Yudintsev explains why:
We are pleased that we can release the update before the holidays to give players plenty of time to test the new features. The Closed Beta of Steel Generals and the release plan for the first quarter of 2015 ensure that the tanks are perfectly balanced, optimized, and ready for epic battles by the time the majority of players have access – just as our players expect.
In addition to the American tracked machinery, Japanese fighters and other jets, as well as new Tiger tanks and the Russian SMK tank, will join. Overall, the roughly eight million players of the free-to-play title are expecting 15 new vehicles and aircraft.
Reworked Damage Model, Tow Cable, and New Mode
Technical adjustments have also been made: Some vehicles have undergone a series of balance changes, and the airplanes have received a completely new damage model. From now on, aircraft damage is traceable, and the wings do not only break at predetermined points.
With the new breakthrough mode, players now have the task of capturing enemy points in a specific order and preventing the opponent from doing the same with your points.
In addition to some new maps like “Battle of Moscow” or “Eastern Europe”, tank drivers receive a tow cable. With this cable, you can pull your comrades out of trouble and danger zones. You can even right tanks that are on their backs.
The list of all features can be found in the official forum for the game. And if you want to try out the free-to-play tactical shooter War Thunder, you can register here for free on the official site and get started after downloading the client.
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In Destiny Xur, the Agent of the Nine, will also appear at the Tower on December 19 to offer his goods. We have his inventory and location, tell you what he is selling, which exotic weapons and armor he can upgrade this time, and have screenshots and videos for you.
But how do you get Gjallarhorn or the Icebreaker? Either you are incredibly lucky and randomly receive the exotic weapon somewhere in Destiny. Or you buy it from Xur, the Agent of the Nine. But he only has it each week with a vanishingly small probability. Should he perhaps have Gjallarhorn, the Icebreaker,Thunderlord, or another similarly spectacular instrument of death on offer this week?
What is the deal with the different stats on the exotic armors: Strength, Discipline, Intellect?
Here we have an article. Please note that the limits of the 32 tier armors, what stats they can reach at maximum, are higher than with level 30
What does Xur have for Warlocks, Hunters, Titans?
Sniper rifle Patience of Time for 17 strange coins. One of the most popular weapons in Destiny, especially for Hunters. Arc damage is often in demand during the Nightfall strike, additionally, the stealth feature allows for some tricks.
The new DLC gloves Ruin Wings for Titans, he parts with them for 13 strange coins. They start with 94 strength, at max upgrade they reach 101.
Knuckle Head Radar, a helmet for Hunters, costs 13 strange coins, with a roll of 97/104.
The Claws of Ahamakara for Warlocks are also DLC gloves, costing 13 strange coins. The Claws of Ahamkara have 2 stat values, which is a bit confusing. They have 56/60 discipline and 58/63 strength.
And an exotic helmet engram, where Guardians can once again try their luck by investing 23 light particles.
Which 6 weapons and 6 armors can Xur upgrade in Destiny this week?
These weapons can be upgraded this week, cost an exotic shard, between 7000 and 8000 Glimmer, and the old version of the weapons. Caution: The weapons and armors lose all their upgrades and come back “naked”, as if they were freshly dropped.
The Dark Fantasy MMO The Secret World is even mysterious in its promo actions. Some players are offered 30 Fridays via email. No one really knows what criteria the winners are selected by.
Typical for The Secret World: There are 30 Fridays via email, but no one really knows who it affects. All you know is: There is such a promo action, and they threaten with a killer clown (You will die! Hey, that happens in MMOs where killer clowns are after you!), but who exactly gets selected and who does not remains a mystery. By the way, the Fridays refer to free days, not Fridays as in “Friday the Thirteenth.
It seems somehow connected to knowing someone at Funcom and that you’ve played something at some point – or it could be something completely different.
Calculate the sum of the letter values of your email addresses and see if you come up with 23.
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
The asymmetrical MOBA Evolve will have a large beta for players on Xbox One in January. PC gamers and PlayStation 4 players will have to settle for a smaller technical beta.
The MOBA Evolve might have been the game of Gamescom 2014. Also, the Big Alpha in November attracted a lot of attention. Xbox One players will have the opportunity to get a detailed experience in the wild genre mix of MOBA and coop shooter from January 15 to January 19 during an open beta.
Progress made in the open beta is expected to carry over into the release, allowing Xbox One players to already make some progress, for example, in unlocking the 4 last hunters. Starting from January 17, the new campaign mode, which puts single matches into a larger context, will also be unlocked. PC players and friends of the Sony PlayStation 4 won’t be completely left out in January. A “technical beta” will begin for both, inviting players who participated in the alpha. The beta for PC players starts on January 16, while PS4 players will begin on January 17. However, they will not have access to the new game mode, and their progress will not be carried over.
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
In World of Warcraft, a preview for the next Patch 6.1 has now been released. In addition to things that could be expected, such as the new Blood Elf models, the opening of the next raid, and a new system for heirlooms, Blizzard has also planned some surprises.
Blizzard gives an outlook on the near future of WoW. Here they show that they also want to keep up with the times.
Blizzard introduces tradable game time
Thus, they introduce “tradable game time”, which is already familiar to players of WildStar, EVE Online, ArcheAge, and other games. This involves an in-game item that can be traded in-game, which grants a specific game time to the account with a right-click. You can buy the item either from other players for gold or from Blizzard for real money, to then sell it to other players for gold – or to trade it for any other services.
Similar offers are already seen in the trade channels of this world: “Trading gold for game card/game time.” However, this is against the EULA of WoW and can be penalized. Additionally, players can already be scammed and ripped off this way, losing their hard-earned gold. If it happens officially with this item, there will be security.
Caution: It is currently unclear whether the tradable game time will come directly with 6.1. Blizzard does not make a significant distinction in the outlook between “long-term projects” and the direct preview of 6.1.
Additionally, with 6.1, the revamped heirloom system is coming. The heirlooms will find their way into the game and the interface in the form of a tab, just like mounts, toys, and pets used to. The “normal” version of the heirlooms will be purchasable from vendors, and there will also be items with which the heirlooms can be upgraded in World of Warcraft.
Heirlooms in WoW allow twinks to breeze through the content. They provide XP bonuses and have relatively strong stats.
The base version of the heirlooms should, however, only reach up to level 60. There will be two additional tiers that can upgrade the base items – one to level 90 and one to level 100. The original items can be purchased for gold, and upgrading works through a special currency that players can earn in-game.
More of everything: Legendary quest, new raid
The less surprising part of 6.1 continues the legendary questline involving Khadgar. Here, players will also be able to earn a legendary follower, as currently, only the guys, gals, and Blood Elves manage to reach epic status.
There will also be new content for raiders: The Blackrock Foundry, the next raid in WoW, will open its doors. Rukhmar, the next world boss, will also be present. This also brings the itemization into a new realm.
Blood Elves will receive their remodelling as announced. Additionally, the garrison will be further expanded to remain attractive. Detours to friends’ garrisons should be worthwhile in the future. The invasions should also become a bit more exciting: Perhaps a world boss will also drop by for some exciting brawls.
The patch will soon be available on the test server, and the new raid will likely launch in February. It seems that Patch 6.1 could be expected around this time.
Attack on Ratchet
Mein MMO says:The actual surprise in this preview is certainly the tradable game time. There was previously no signal from Blizzard for this.
A kind of “ingame tradable game card” is not a new idea, as EVE has been doing this with PLEX for years. In the past year, it became acceptable with WildStar and ran relatively smoothly, while ArcheAge faced major problems with its APEX.
The reasoning behind this for Blizzard is clear: They are trying to cut off the lifeline of gold sellers or at least attempt to. Certainly a right step for WoW, which could have been taken a few years ago. But it is typical behavior for Blizzard: They observe what other games are doing, see how well it works for them, and then wonder how to implement it in their own game, in World of Warcraft.
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
The first raid Highmaul in World of Warcraft has been cleared by the Finnish guild Paragon. There is now a video of their first kill in WoW.
The kill of Paragon on Imperator Mar’Gok lasts 18 minutes. Five days ago, he had to surrender, as he had nothing left to oppose the overwhelming power of the elite players. And the fact that Mar’gok lies down was only fair, as he had sent the men to the ground in the previous 121 tries.
It was the world-first kill on the Emperor, after which Paragon also achieved the world-first clear and sent the Butcher to sleep. This is of course about kills on the new difficulty “Mythic,” which has a uniform group size of 20, being the only one of the difficulty modes.
Have fun with the kill video (and yes, the last minute traditionally features Teamspeak for the nerdgasms and nerd screams.)
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At Blizzard, they love extraordinary promotional material for their World of Warcraft. Fans adore it, whether at Blizzcon or during events right on the streets of the metropolises. But how does such a three-meter Orc come into being, looking as if it could spring to life at any moment and go on a rampage with its axe?
Players associate a lot with Grom as many have grown fond of him over the years or at least earned his grumbling respect. When Blizzard decided to create a lifelike sculpture of the legendary Orc, they certainly couldn’t risk turning the Goliath into a David.
So they had professionals do it. How they shaped a three-meter Grommash Hellscream out of nothing, you can watch in this impressive video from Blizzard:
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The SF MMO WildStar is coming to China at the end of 2015 or early 2016. The development studio Carbine and publisher NCSoft have apparently come to a deal with the Chinese publisher Giant Software.
Oh, this could be good for WildStar and Carbine. As reported by 2p.com referring to an interview, WildStar will come to China at the end of 2015 or early 2016.
The head of Giant Software, Ji Xuefeng, is said to have confirmed this in an interview in Chinese. There has been no statement from Carbine and NCSoft yet.
GW2, like WildStar, is under the care of the Korean publisher NCSoft: Therefore, the path to the Far East seems to be intended for their western games, after it didn’t go so well in the West recently.
In Destiny a Hunter has now soloed the entire raid “Crota’s End”.
This even drops the jaws of veterans on reddit. The Hunter “sc Slayerage” from the elite clan “The Legend himself” has released a half-hour video showing how he completes the raid “Crota’s End” with his level 31 Hunter.
Well, the 30-minute video shows some cuts. One can thus assume that it wasn’t always as easy as it appears in the finished video. This is also evident from the fact that Slayerage starts the raid as a level 31 Guardian but finishes as a level 32, suggesting there was a little level session in between. Nevertheless, it is an impressive achievement. The light of this Guardian shines bright.
What does the Bladedancer himself have to say? He greets all his teammates who laughed at him for even attempting something like this. One can guess who at “The Legend himself” will have the last laugh in the future.
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Wargaming is treating its fighter simulation World of Warplanes to a thoughtful and explosive Christmas event.
What do you think of first at Christmas? Right, UFOs.
WoW players (yes, that’s how you abbreviate World of Warplanes) can take a seat in a UFO that shoots snowballs over Christmas. The UFO is designated UFO 42M.
The UFO was already in the game on April 1st, but now it is fulfilling its true purpose: Engaging in fierce battles on the new map “Lapland” under the watchful eyes of a rather unfriendly snowman. Those who successfully complete the mission “Happy New Year” will be rewarded with the light bomber Dornier Do 17Z-7 Kauz.
The event starts today, Thursday, December 18th, and runs until January 15th, and looks like a lot of quirky fun in the trailer:
http://youtu.be/ki7a_tE68_k
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
While the Worldbuilder Landmark received a huge patch yesterday, the attention of developer SOE now shifts over to the “mother project” Everquest Next.
Landmark is kind of a “peek into the cooking pot.” In this worldbuilder sandbox, players can use the tools that the “real” developers at SOE use to develop the MMO project Everquest Next. Initially, this went pretty much in parallel: The developers were essentially creating a new brush to design landscapes for Everquest Next. Suddenly, players in Landmark also had such a brush tool.
This step in development is slowly coming to an end. A quarter ago Landmark received a combat system, since then it has continuously transitioned from creative building to MMORPG.
Landmark: Dig where no man has dug before
Yesterday, a massive patch released for Landmark with extensive patch notes that introduced various PvE features into the game and should significantly liven up the sandbox there. It brings mobs, loot, new adventures, and players can now dig as deep as they have never dug before.
In a way, Landmark with this patch is making the final step from a worldbuilder to an MMORPG with PvE elements (or at least the beginnings of a full-fledged MMORPG).
Those who want to know what Everquest Next will be like, must play Landmark
For SOE, this also means: the focus is now shifting from Landmark and the “tools” and moving to Everquest Next. In the new year, most of the team will be working on Everquest Next and features developed for EQN will then be ported over to “Landmark”. They are essentially reversing the flow.
So we’re so close to transitioning the team almost entirely toEQN, and then we’ll take the elements that we build for EQN and port them over into Landmark, but our focus will shift almost entirely to EQN after the new year.
Everything in theory is quite complicated. This happens when you announce an extraordinarily transparent development process and are still creative.
For the players, this means: starting today, one can take an even closer look at what Everquest Next is supposed to become by diving into Landmark.
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
A few days ago, the developers of “Star Wars: The Old Republic” addressed player concerns regarding queue times and server structure. While they couldn’t provide concrete statements yet, they did mention several points they want to tackle in the coming year – from which at least theories can be derived.
First, the issue of queue times in PvP and PvE areas will be addressed, and they will also “rethink the separation of servers”. A natural possibility here would be cross-server battlegrounds and flashpoint visits, as they are already common practice in many other games.
Furthermore, they also want to continue to “support the chosen playstyle of the server, be it PvE, PvP, RP or RP-PvP” – this certainly reassures role-players that RP servers will not be abolished.
Lastly, they aim to improve the social systems within the game world or expand them. Here too, many known options present themselves, such as cross-server guilds or circles, reminiscent of those from WildStar. As soon as there are clear statements from the developers, we will of course inform you.
Finally, a small note: For the past two days, the “Life Day” event has returned to SWTOR and offers this year for the first time some housing items that are only available for a limited time. If you want to do some virtual Christmas shopping to make your Sith apartment a bit more festive, you can do so until January 6. Speaking of housing: In celebration of the third anniversary of Star Wars: The Old Republic, fortresses are currently available for just 3 credits. Additionally, players can pick up free decorations from the anniversary personal vendor on the fleet, including a large holo-projection of the entire galaxy, which is shown here on the title image.
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
The Update 15.1 nerfs the essences of Gondor in the online role-playing game Lord of the Rings Online and makes the Battle for Pelagrir suitable for groups.
The new update for Lord of the Rings Online (15.1) came to the live servers last week. In addition to expanding the Battle for Pelagrir to group size (we already reported on this), 15.1 now makes the essences that were in Central Gondor uniquely usable. There were apparently some “unfair” usage possibilities that endangered the balance.
Moreover, they have also tweaked the bear, so to speak, and introduced some tweaks for the new class Beorning. Additionally, you can now hear Aragorn when he negotiates with the spirits. Previously, he was close to acquiring another nickname, “Ghost Whisperer”, alongside his numerous other titles.
Korea-MMO Black Desert has a new dual trailer that deals with open-world bosses and all sorts of war machines that will be needed for sieges.
The Korean MMO Black Desert starts a true trailer avalanche before the release. Today’s trailer is divided into two parts. In the first part, we see open-world bosses stepping into the world of Black Desert like nightmare figures. The players use a mix of mines, instruments (for whatever reason?), magic, and good old steel to carry out the exorcism. Whether this flashy combat style with correspondingly loud noises is too much for the delicate MMO sensibilities of us Westerners will likely be determined in a few months, when the beta is set to begin here.
Our highlight: the funny drummer.
In the second part, things are noticeably more organized. We see how players use the war machines to ambush opponents in PvP.
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
The fantasy MMO The Elder Scrolls Online (TESO) is facing significant changes next year. The final phase of the overhaul of the Champion System is set to occur with Update 6. On the late evening of Friday, December 19th, the details will be presented in the ESO Live stream show.
After The Elder Scrolls Online launched in April of this year, fans expressed criticism primarily regarding the “end-game”, which became apparent. The veteran ranks felt tedious and lengthy, progress with one’s own hero was only moderately exciting, and the bars increased far too slowly; not much happened after level 50.
The change from the veteran system to a champion system was one of the central points. In recent updates, preliminary stages were already introduced, and with Update 6, which is set to hit the test server in January, even bigger upheavals are on the horizon. The heroes are expected to differ more significantly from one another, have more opportunities for customization, and even twinks should benefit from strong main characters.
All characters on an account will enjoy “benefits” earned by champions (characters over level 50).
However, how all this will work in detail is still somewhat nebulous and difficult to explain. It is a complex system. This point is extremely important for TESO. Once the champion and rights systems are implemented, the port to current-gen consoles Playstation 4 and Xbox One will take place.
Questions about Gameplay and the Champion System
To quench the thirst for knowledge of the fans, they plan to answer the fans’ questions about the new champion system on Friday night during the “ESO Live” stream show.
The following points will be addressed:
Gameplay Changes
Removal of the attribute overload system
New buff and debuff categories
Changes to area effect caps
New ways to gain ultimate power
Armor and ability changes
Changes to synergy abilities
Champion System
Overview of the new system
How the system works and why we chose this path
Changes made since the announcement at the ESO guild meeting
Transition from the veteran system to the champion system
The “ESO Live” show takes place on Friday afternoon Eastern Time, while it will already be late evening around 10 PM our time. If you miss the ESO Live, don’t worry: We will summarize it for you.
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The Iron Banner in December started just a week after the expansion “Darkness Looms” and threatens to get lost in the general hustle and bustle around Eris Morn. Is it even worth a visit to Lord Saladin?
The Iron Banner is a bit like a snack stand that goes out of style overnight during the pre-Christmas season. Last month, Lord Saladin had great food, and the Guardians were starving. Everyone gathered around him, admired him, and tried to wheedle the items out of him. The sun was blazing down from above, and his level 30 boots and gloves were highly sought after: The Guardians wanted to be fit for the DLC “Darkness Looms”.
Now a month has passed, and Saladin is offline. The Guardians have filled their bellies elsewhere.
This week, the timing of the Iron Banner is unfortunate: The weather is bad, the snack stand is out of style, and Lord Saladin stands in the corner, wondering why no one wants his stuff while the ungrateful audience gathers around Eris Morn, the new hot thing, dreaming of holding the Necrochasm in their hands.
What Lord Saladin is selling this week
Let’s take a look at what Lord Saladin is selling this week in the Iron Banner:
Rank 1: Seal of the Iron Lords (3500 Glimmer), an Iron Banner emblem that grants a 10% reputation bonus
Rank 2: Millions Millions (7000 Glimmer), the Iron Banner shader, which also grants a 10% reputation bonus
Rank 3: Scar of Radegast (2400 Glimmer), another emblem; two pairs of Light 24/33 boots (9950 Glimmer)
Rank 4: The respective Class Item (4500 Glimmer), which also brings a 10% reputation bonus; two pairs of Light 24/33 gloves (9950 Glimmer); the legendary Sniper Rifle Efrideet’s Spear 272/331 damage (11,500 Glimmer)
Rank 5: Golden Spiral, another shader (7500 Glimmer); the legendary Auto Rifle Silimar’s Wrath 272/331 attack (11,500 Glimmer)
It is important to note that you do not need to buy the emblems, shaders, and class items again if you have acquired them in the first two Iron Banners. They grant 10% reputation again if you have equipped them.
Is the Iron Banner worth it?
The Iron Banner is being used extremely rarely this week, especially compared to last month, because the rewards are simply not very attractive. Above all, the Glimmer costs are still astronomically high.
This was okay when it was there last month and the Iron Banner was the only opportunity in Destiny to spend Glimmer. Now with the many changes at Xur and the legendary merchants, Glimmer has become significantly more important.
Additionally, the armor pieces are made more difficult as he only sells gloves and boots this week. Players have somewhat weaker ones from last time. Additionally, there were legendary gloves from the “Urn of Sacrifice” series for everyone. And the vendors in the Tower now sell similar or better stuff.
Furthermore, many are sharp on the loot in the Raid. And well: Right now everyone is upgrading their stuff and needs Glimmer for it – the Guardians are already “loot-sated.”
The trend in Destiny right now is that players already have enough items; now they have to upgrade all of them, try them out, and then they can think about what they might “buy extra.”
The Weapons
The weapons, especially the sniper rifle, are the highlight of this appearance. However, they come quite late (with ranks 4 and 5), and there is so much else to do in Destiny. The auto rifle Silimar’s Wrath is similarly built to the “Eidolon Ally,” the new auto rifle from the “Husk of the Pit” quest line. Everyone is likely to get the weapon in the coming weeks anyway.
It’s different with Efrideet’s Spear sniper rifle. This is by far the most attractive item in Saladin’s offer. However, it costs almost half of the Glimmer cap, and there are several alternatives now in this slot, including the Black Hammer, the Icebreaker, the Patience and Time, and the vendor rifle LDR 5001.
It’s a question of whether players will have the desire and time this time to keep rerolling the perks of the weapons with Light particles until something suitable comes up. Last time, players bought two editions of each weapon, to reroll one and save the other for now. Whether they will do this again seems questionable.
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Nevertheless, Lord Saladin’s items, armor, and weapons are an interesting “sideway” to obtain armor.
However, this week, Saladin’s snack stand meets more than loot-sated Guardians who are currently fattening themselves at the other snack stands, whether in the Raid, at Eris Morn, or the Vanguard and Crucible vendors.
One can only hope that he encounters hungrier Guardians next time.
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
In Destiny, players engage in exciting battles in the Crucible. This leads to thrilling situations and duels. We summarize some of the most spectacular moments in videos.
Destiny is currently facing quite a bit of criticism, but the gunplay, the actual gameplay, always delivers exciting moments. Right now, a video is circulating online that showcases a nail-biting duel between two snipers in the Crucible. However, it will turn out quite differently than one might expect. http://youtu.be/VwAVkA9yUVQ In a second video, Destinytracker compiles the five most spectacular Crucible clips of the week. In the last one, a Guardian achieves “Seventh Column”, securing 7 kills in rapid succession, all in a 6v6 match. It is perhaps the craziest thing currently possible in Destiny and significantly harder than “flawless Raider.” http://youtu.be/1707b4StkCo
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
The MMO trends in November show a clear picture. While World of Warcraft experienced a significant increase in playtime thanks to Warlords of Draenor compared to October, the sandbox MMO ArcheAge saw a substantial decrease in playtime after a difficult month.
The numbers from ratpr measure how many hours players have spent in PC games while running the program “raptr”. Since there are no official numbers on how many active accounts most games have, the ratpr numbers are the next best approximation for a trend.
However, it is important to note that games that invite players to spend many hours in them are preferred. Naturally, MMOs are therefore far ahead.
World of Warcraft increases by 70%
The MMORPG World of Warcraft saw the expected massive increase in playtime that was anticipated from the expansion Warlords of Draenor, which launched in mid-November. It increased by more than 70% compared to October. Even then, there was an increase.
However, the accumulated hours of WoW players are not enough to reach the top.
In December, the number is likely to drop slightly again. Most players have their main characters at the maximum level of 100 and are now focused on raids. They are playing “normally” again, which should still be substantial with the mass of players, but probably not enough to challenge League of Legends.
ArcheAge loses 40%
The sandbox MMO ArcheAge was a pleasant surprise in the past two months, initially skyrocketing in player favor with the release and even climbing higher in October.
ArcheAge is still in a strong position in 6th place, making it the second most-played MMO on the list.
There were many issues at the beginning of the content patch Auroria.
However, the trend has clearly taken a downward turn, more than pure placement might suggest. Players have spent 40% fewer hours in ArcheAge. November was anything but positive.
The boost that the big content patch Auroria was supposed to bring does not seem to have worked, especially since the release of Auroria was accompanied by significant problems. The server downtimes at the end of November did not help either. After two months, a decline in the player base is noticeable for every MMO.
It can be assumed that ArcheAge will continue to decline in December.
War Thunder appears in the Top Twenty
Otherwise, little is happening in the list, at least among the games we cover at mein-mmo.de.
In Hearthstone, November was relatively calm and stable, but December could change that with the release of Goblins vs Gnomes. Similar to Guild Wars 2, it has lost some playtime compared to October, even though its rank has increased.
The trend looks different for Final Fantasy XIV and World of Tanks. Here, the numbers were slightly better than in October. For FF XIV, they even increased by 20%, possibly thanks to the Game-of-the-Year edition with free playtime, as well as the new patch and hotfixes.
Smite is surprisingly strong as well. And it now breaks into the top 5 for the first time. Perhaps the game will establish itself as a third force in the MOBA area. Although Blizzard with Heroes of the Storm might have something to say about that in the not too distant future.
And for MMO fans, positively: War Thunder secures a spot in the top 20.
On this Wednesday, I’m reaching out with a problem that isn’t primarily related to a computer game (but certainly has connections in the second and third aspects). This gives you a little insight into the incredibly dreadful issues authors have to deal with these days. But what is it about and how did it come to this?
Currently, I’m writing diligently or less so on the review for the first expansion of Hearthstone “Goblins vs Gnomes”, and whenever I hit a small writer’s block, I listen to some audiobook or – as this time – a podcast based on my roommate’s recommendation. A few prominent YouTubers (including “Cynical Brit”) have discussed rating systems for games in detail, and I can hardly support their opinion more strongly.
No one cares what I have to say
Maybe I’m seeing the whole thing too pessimistically, but it bothers me immensely that there are people who only look at the magic number in the rating and aren’t interested in how I arrived at that number. I can’t force anyone to read my articles in their entirety (well, I could… but I’ll be merciful), and in the end, every reader is responsible for how much they really want to consume.
However, if it is possible for authors to encourage readers in some way to read a text in its entirety, then I would love to make use of those methods. Often hours of work go into a detailed review, so I appreciate every person who takes away more than just “6 out of 10 points, bad game”.
To summarize it bluntly and briefly: A numerical rating ensures that the entire text loses its attractiveness. It doesn’t even seem to matter whether the readers can somehow recognize how I actually arrived at my rating. Maybe I just roll a die for it…
When numbers pay off
The biggest problem is probably the attention a page receives as long as it contains a clear rating system. I’m not hiding it: We are absolutely dependent on our readers and the resulting page views. If no one were to visit the page, we could probably shut down our operation in a week. On search engine pages, like Google, posts with a rating system are displayed prominently, which more or less forces me to continue handling it this way.
Rich Snippets on Google: Without stars and rating, the click rate is significantly lower, which ultimately leads to the review losing positions.
But why is that? I can’t say exactly, but it’s simply a fact that every page using a number-based rating system generates more attention and is searched for more often by readers. You could say that as soon as a “grade” is awarded at the end, the readers come on their own!
The problem in this advertisement-funded business is for me that ultimately it doesn’t matter what users do on the page. Whether they read my articles, just scroll down and look at the rating or leave an ugly comment, in the end, everything is “equally” good, at least in the short term.
What is your opinion on this?
What I’m burning to know, aside from Google search results and Metacritic scores: What do you think about this issue? Do you like a rating system that ultimately boils down to a score between 1 and 10, which is based on the subjective impression of a single person?
[pullquote]Something like “fun of the game” or “long-term motivation” is incredibly subjective
How would you feel about a system where there is ultimately no grade or score at the end, but you would be forced to really read the text? Personally, I find it increasingly difficult to rate games in certain categories – because something like “fun of the game” or “long-term motivation” is indeed incredibly subjective. Please let me know in the comments what you think about it. I’m curious!
This is an AI-powered translation. Some inaccuracies might exist.
