Major avatar combat revisions are in development for Pirates of the Burning Sea.
Kevin Maginn, Lead Designer at Flying Lab Software, has written a dev blog on the subject.
Here is what he said: (Quote)
“Over the last few months, I’ve been working almost completely off the radar on just that: a major iteration of the avatar combat system. At the same time, most of the content team has been doing the same for the avatar missions; the animation team has been revising all the swordfighting animations; the UI team has been revising the UI and the particle effects; and the sound team has been iterating all the sounds of avatar combat.
In short, we’ve been stripping avatar combat down to its foundation and building up again. We’ve learned a lot from the first major iteration of the system; we know what worked and what didn’t, what was fun and what was dull. We’ve gathered a lot of feedback from you as well as feedback from our internal test team. We’ve applied that knowledge to create a new system that (in my naturally biased opinion) is much more fun and engaging, as well as easier to learn and easier to use.” (End Quote)
This is probably an extremely good idea as most people felt that the avatar combat system was just 'ok' and somehow, the ship combat, while effective, didn't seem to carry the title on its own. Kevin did not give any details regarding when this content would release, but let's hope it is soon.
Sword of the New World. Update 4 is currently launched or mid-launch. There was a lengthy blog post on the subject, and I'd tell you about it, but if you are not a Sword of the New World player, it would not mean anything to you. Let's summarize. Sword of the New World is still getting very active additions, and as Brent has said in the past, this is a rather solid game for a free to play port from the east, perhaps the best one he has seen. I, Robotic Brent, didn't particularly like it, because, like Darren from Common Sense Gamer, I find ani-may style graphics emasculating and when you have a dual core processor and 3 gigs of ram, you should be very macho, not playing elfen looking boy-girls in lace and ribbons. One note worthy addition to this game is the new premium subscription program, with a full customer support addition. All other players will only get basic support (game client issues, bugs, etc). That means if you are not premium but buy gold (via microtransactions), you will not get support. They are also working to get name change, gender change and character restoration options available to all players (these are paid changes). The 3 available Premium packs look like this: Basic Pioneering Pack (Trial Pack) [$4.95 once a month] Includes: * 500 gold * 1 Mystery Box Veteran Pioneering Pack [30 Days for $8.95, 90 Days for $24.99, 180 Days for $45.99] the Veteran Pioneering PackIncludes: * 2000 gold * 2 Mystery Boxes * Receive 5% off on additional Gold purchases for the duration of the package. next is the Expert Pioneering Pack [30 Days for $14.95, 90 Days for $39.99, 180 Days for $74.99] the Expert Pioneering PackIncludes: * 4000 gold * 3 Mystery Boxes * Receive 10% off on additional Gold purchases for the duration of the package. and finally, the Master Pioneering Pack [30 Days for $24.95, 90 Days for $69.99, 180 Days for $129.99] the Master Pioneering Pack Includes: * 8000 gold * 6 Mystery Boxes * Receive 20% off on additional Gold purchases for the duration of the package. Thanks to Jay for bringing this news to Brent's attention. Blizzard's Next MMO. Surprise suprise, Michael Mor haim said the next MMO from Blizzard, which was confirmed as "happening", is not World of Warcraft 2. Well duh. Even I could have told you that, and I'm just a bunch of circuits with a pretty aluminum frame. I was talking to Human Brent about this a few days ago and he started to give in to the idea that Blizzard might in fact be building a Starcraft MMO to follow on the Starcraft 2 release, just like they did with Warcraft 3 and World of Warcraft. He still thinks that is lame, but is starting to accept it as a predictable and boring possibility. In other, some what related Blizzard news, the leaders from Blizzard and Mythic have been participating in some interesting mudslinging about who let who into which beta, game imbalance, who will win in the long run and so forth. It is rather ridiculous. I am shocked, completely shocked, that Jeff Kaplan from Blizzard was allowed to say anything to the gaming press about his expereince with Warhammer online or his thoughts. Typically Blizzard just remains silent and stoic as if to silently indicate that their competitors should, "Bring it". Mark Jacobs from Mythic, on the other hand, continues to talk the same way he did when Mythic was independent and not part of EA. This means, he pretty much says whatever he wants. In this case, I think he would be best served by being silent as well, and not implying that in the long term, war might beat wow, because that's crazy talk. My favorite part was when he said “If you look at ‘Warhammer,’ there were so many points [where] we consciously made the decision not to be like wow and to try to push the envelope. I think you’ll find that if you’re actually going to compare the two products, I would say wow is certainly a more polished game now than Warhammer is, of course they’ve had four years and billions of dollars, but if you look at the innovations in ‘Warhammer,’ you’d be hard-pressed to find as many in wow.” End Quote. After reading that, I laughed so hard, I had to reboot and defrag. Pushing the envelope? Innovations? Uh oh, segmentation fault- City of Heroes. Quick bit on City of Heroes and Villians. Zombies have arrived for the Halloween season. Go kill them. End of story.Love.Human Brent, being completely out of touch with the MMO world (gotcha) hasn't talked about this one before, but it is billed as a procedurally-generated moderately-multiplayer online world by one-man studio, Eskil Steenberg. As a computer, I took particular interest in the fact that this game or world or experience or whatever it is, is supposed to be procedurally generated and was made by a single fellow with a laptop, not that unlike myself. Rock Paper Shotgun .com , a great gaming website, has the first trailer video form this game, and calls it, quote, "A wondrous, impressionistic MMO world that facilitates player creativity and encourages co-operation, that looks incredible and sounds too ambitious to be true. It’s a bold, brave project of independent game development." end quote. And based on the video, this is true, though I have to admit, I was surprised at the level of violence depicted in this game called, Love. Or maybe I should not have been surprised. You humans do tend to be a tad ironic. To follow the development of this one-man MMO, visit: http://www.quelsolaar.comWrap Up.Ok, short show for today, partly because news was light this week and partly because you're probably tired of listening to Robotic Brent. I'm sure Human Brent will surface soon enough. In the meantime, go check out some of his favorite sites, Massively.com and Gaxonline.com. Be sure to become a supporter of the site and various podcasts if you are willing and able, several podcasts still are seeking sponsors. Have a good week gaming, and please be kind to your computer, we're amaziningly sensitive sometimes.Bye.
Activity