NYCC 2013 - Wildstar Interview w/ David Bass

So as last bit of NYCC 2013 action was an interview with the community team for Carbine Studios last Friday. I got to have full-on interview with David "Scooter" Bass to talk about Wildstar. Most of the questions were gathered by forum members of the OnRPG community, as well. (Thanks for your questions, guys!)

Oh, and don't mind the little bits of me being awkward. I was kinda anxious to play Wildstar myself!

Seal Online: Blade of Destiny - Review

Seal Online. The name of this MMORPG means a lot to me, as I've had many fond memories playing this on my under-powered Pentium Celeron PC during my younger years. For its time, it was a game that paved the way for many different possibilities in MMORPGs. Since the game’s initial English release in 2007, the game has had a re-launch called Seal Online: Eternal Destiny, which featured a new monster survival mode and a new hunter class. They also decided that it would be a good idea to wipe the ENTIRE player database clean for this re-launch, which I’m sure a lot of veteran players were not happy about.

Now in 2013, the game has had a second re-launch called Seal Online: Blades of Destiny, which retains all the features from the previous Seal Online while throwing in a new Black Dragon Raid and Battle Pets. It doesn't sound like much that would make new and old veterans interested in playing, and to be perfectly honest: It really isn't. This is because Seal Online is a game that has been past its prime for years now. Just about everything in Seal Online has been done in other MMORPGs and has been done better.

Lord of the Rings Online: Helm's Deep - Preview

The Lord of the Rings universe is about to go in deep… Helm’s deep, that is. The newest expansion for LOTRO is planned to be release very soon, with many new features and additions, including new landscapes across Western Rohan, a new level cap of 95, new skills, class specs, and of course, the battle for Helm’s Deep which is centered around a huge conflict straight from the Lord of the Rings novels and movies.

To give players a glimpse into the future expansion, staff from Turbine studios invited members of the press to show off a preview of the game during its early alpha stages, and when I mean early, I mean REALLY early, as many of the new areas were still being worked on.

Onigiri - Alpha Test Impressions

From the land of the rising sun comes a brand new F2P title that’s all about the land of the rising sun. Onigiri is an ancient Japanese themed MMORPG where players can battle against creatures based on Japanese myth and folklore, all while pulling in a diverse cast of characters to partner up with.

Recently, CyberStep hosted an alpha test that was solely focused on testing out the game’s party mode and latency issues. With only a few days to give the game a try, I jumped in on it from day one.

TERA: Rising – Alliance Update Interview

Just a few days ago, En Masse Entertainment has released their biggest update for TERA: Rising yet. Known as the “Alliance” update, TERA players can now participate in faction-based PvPvE scenarios in order to gain power, fame and a new mysterious crystal energy known as “noctenium”. The new alliance system also introduces new PvP gear, new jewelry and plenty more.

While the update has been met with much praise, it has also been met with many concerns from the community. With that in mind, I felt it would be best to get some of their questions answered regarding this new update.

Just an update - 8/14/2013

So here I am, procrastinating on work, as usual! But I still have a bit of time on my hands to post an update on my current personal status and my upcoming projects for OnRPG. One thing I'd like to talk (or rant) about is the newest update for TERA: Rising which is the Alliance system.  I've been looking forward to this new system for years, as I had many different plans in mind for it, including an RP-PvP based guild. Sadly, my plans fell through the roof due to many different reasons. The most prominent reason was the lack of interest from the community overall, as I was looking for a very specific kind of player to join my guild. Sadly, I wasn't able to rope in enough qualified members, so I decided to put my plans to rest and instead just focus on enjoying the Alliance update on my own.

The update finally came out on Tuesday the 13th (yesterday). I was kind of excited to give it a go.

I gave it a try and got a big surprise: It wasn't as much fun as I thought it would be.

Alliance PvP is basically TERA's version of "World vs. World vs. World" mode" from Guild Wars 2, but it's nowhere near as engaging, since participating in Alliance PvE is just more of the same crap were used to: Kill the same rehashed BAMs, gather the same resource nodes, fight the same trash mobs, etc. What irks me the most about Alliance PvE is that it's the most effective way to earn contribution points. Which is silly, because I thought this was supposed to be a PvP focused update.

Oh, but there is PvP in there, no doubt. And it IS generally enjoyable when players are spread out all across the alliance maps, however, when attacking and defending alliance bases, it turns into "Fraywind Canyon 2: Electric Boogaloo" except now with twice the lag and three times the zerging. It also doesn't help that alliances are heavily unbalanced right now due to the amount of players in each faction, and there's no sign that the community will even things out, as all of the PvP tryhards have piled into Kaiator, the mass PvE guilds in Allemanthia, and everyone else in Velika (including me). Velika stands no chance against the other two alliances due to their sheer numbers, and there's absolutely no incentive for players to even think about joining a weaker faction, so Velika is going to be nothing but a punching bag for weeks or even months to come. And I'm not alone in this, either. If you check on the official forums, many people are speaking up over it, and the story is the same on almost every server, including Mount Tryanus, Ascension Valley, Tempest Reach and Celestial Hills. Here's a link to just one of the major topics on the subject of player imbalances: http://tera-forums.enmasse.com/forums/general-discussion/topics/Great-Job-Community-you-killed-PvP

All alliances not being able to have a fighting chance is going to end in disaster. As soon as either Kaiator or Allemantheia gets a foothold on the other faction, and Velika not being able to keep the other two factions on their toes, only one faction will forever stay on top. In fact: This is exactly what happened to Alliances in K-TERA, where everyone is just piled into one whole faction while the other two rot. At that point, one would simply ask: "Why bother having a faction system in the first place" if things are going to be THIS imbalanced?

'll try and stay optimistic, hoping that the community will sort things out by the end of the week, but so far, I'm doubting it.

Update: I recently got approved to do an interview with EME regarding the Alliance update. I already have a few questions prepared, but I'm trying to get a few community focused questions available, such as their concerns on the player imbalance and spawn camping. I started a thread on the official forums, with which players can leave a question and decide which questions should be answered the most.

http://tera-forums.enmasse.com/forums/general-discussion/topics/Tell-me-what-to-ask-EME-regarding-the-Alliance-update

Just a thought - EverQuest Next

Hello again, random browsers and all five of you rabid followers. Today's a new day for some talk about the MMO industry. I've been pretty giddy all of last week since Sony Online Entertainment revealed details on their upcoming sandbox MMORPG: EverQuest Next, which is set to be (pre-)released by the end of this year. First off, I was instantly taken in by the new visual style of the game, which had a much more cartoon look to it. This is excellent because in all honesty, I really can't stand the "realistic" style that almost every single western fantasy MMORPG goes with these days. With a more cartoon style, the game comes off with a more lively tone. It certainly worked for Wildstar by Carbine Studios, because along with that game, Everquest Next is the second western MMORPG I've ever been interested in play. And personally, I can't wait to play as a Kerran, a lion race that looks suspiciously like Chester Cheetah...

...Umm... yeah.

Oh, and the gameplay features sound pretty cool, too. The whole "world destruction based on voxels" thing is a bit iffy to me, however, because if the entire world can be destroyed, then what's going to keep players from leveling out the world as soon as the servers open up? Because if there's two things that a good handful of gamers love to do in an online game, it's grieving and destroying.

On the OTHER hand, however, while I was discussing EverQuest Next with a few random people, an anonymous user brought up a very interesting possibility with the game's world destruction: With the entire world decimated by the players, no longer will EverQuest Next be about exploring a vast open world, but instead the game will be about surviving in the ruins of a vast open world, which sounded pretty freaking awesome to me. But still, would SOE even allow such events to unfold in their game? I mean sure, it IS supposed to be a sandbox MMO, after all, but the developers still have a general vision in their mind for how the game world should play out, especially with all those AI features they're bringing along, which I'm not so sure would work well with messed up, player made terrain. But who knows? I don't.

As mentioned before, EverQuest Next is being pre-released by the end of the year with the upcoming Landmark creation tools, where players will be able to create their own towns, dungeons and more, just as long as they appropriately fit the environments setting, and most of everything that will get to stay in the final version will be by SOE's discretion, so sadly there will be no dick castles to service as monuments for the glorious nation of Dickstonia. One thing I'd like to mention is that there's some buzz here and there about the whole Landmark problem, where some people suggest the whole process is in place so that SOE doesn't have to waste time making the world of EverQuest Next themselves. "We're too lazy to make the world, so make it for us!" Personally, I think this is actually a grand idea. Judging by Landmark creation tool footage, it will be very similar to how creation works in Minecraft, where players can assemble their creations block by block. However, unlike Minecraft, players will be able to shape and curve out their blocks into any shape. So yes, you'll be able to make dick statues that ACTUALLY look like dicks!

Ok... So dick jokes aside, though, with the players being able to create highly detailed environments, along with the possibly of garnering the more creative bunch of the Minecraft community, mixed in with veteran EverQuest players to give players guidance on how the world of EverQuest should look, I'm certain that the world of EverQuest Next will be shaped into something that will resonate with worlds of old EverQuest 1 & 2. Plus, I'm fairly sure that SOE has their plenty of their own environments that will appear in the final game, so not everything will have to be created by the players.

Overall, EverQuest Next is looking might spiffy. I didn't feel like talking about the combat in this blog post, but it looks like it will be similar to combat in Guild Wars 2 or Wildstar. There wasn't a lot of footage of the combat for me to make a decent analysis, but I liked what I say so far.

For more info on EverQuest Next, you can check out some posts over at Cinderboy's blog: http://www.mmoculture.com/tag/everquest-next/

TERA: Rising - Corsairs' Stronghold Demo

Hey everyone. Just quick one for the week: I was very reclutant to post footage of this new update for TERA: Rising because of an NDA agreement that was told to me by a PR manager for En Masse, but I then found out that there was no NDA at all, and then En Masse decided to release the new update a day before its intended release. Kinda bums me out a little that most other sites got their previews up before I even had a clue... Blah.

But anyway, the new 20 vs. 20 mode for TERA: Rising is out now, and it's a pretty sweet take on the 15 vs 15 " Zergrounds, except with all the lag issues that it comes with. With my time spent playing, it was fun, but if you had lag issues before in regular battlegrounds, your PC is going to cringe even more.

Anyway, check out the video for my experience with the new mode:

TERA: Rising - Review

It’s always been in the minds of gamers for years regarding whether it would be possible to create an MMORPG with satisfying combat similar to hack n’ slash action games. Titles such as Phantasy Star Online, Vindictus, Monster Hunter and many others have dabbled with this concept, but have always had a single flaw: Combat that was locked away in room-based instances and had restricted player limits.

Now the dream of a hack & slash MMORPG was realized with the release of TERA (The Exiled Realm of Aborea.) Recently, the game has gone through some hefty changes, with the most notable change being the transition from a P2P to a F2P business model. Bluehole Studios, En Masse Entertainment and Gameforge have made some bold claims with TERA’s gameplay, such as “True skilled based combat” and “Victory is determined by skill, not levels or gear.”, as if the game was made for action gamers in mind, rather than typical MMORPG players.

Just how true are these claims? Is TERA a true hack & slash MMO? After eight months of playtime, I can answer this question by saying:

“Yes and no.”

TERA (NA) - Log - 8/11

On the Saturday of August 11th, a player named Arrafina and members of the Empyrean Divine hosted a summer festival, and along with it, a dueling competition. (It was limited to LV60 players with T12 gear only)
I didn't think I would make it very far, but low and behold, I managed to win first place!

Picture from Kayuki's Art Book 

There was a good amount of variety in classes that were competing, including priests, zerkers and lancers. There was one lancer in particular that I was worried for, manly due to to the lancer's high defense and reflect damage, and I was hoping that my re-enigma'd Nexus gear would be enough.What I got when I re-engima'd was an  extra 8% attack speed and 3% player damage reduction (though I was shooting for reflect damage myself, but that was good enough.)

Along with that, my friends decided to lend me some PvP zyrk crystals to use (More player damage reduction.) When it was time to compete, I had up to 52% player damage reduction on my character.

My first match against a priest really put me on edge, because I didn't realize that the priest also had reflect damage on them. First round I managed to defeat the priest with some health to spare, but the second round ended in a tie due to getting defeated by reflect damage. Third round I ended up losing and thought that it was over, but a friend pointed out that it left us both with two wins each. Final round: My new plan was to simply shut the priest down as soon as possible before the priest could heal back up again. I managed to dodge most of the incoming fiery escapes and pulled off multiple knockdowns in a row. Defeated the priest and moved on to the next round.

That battle sure taught me that priests are just as much of a pain to deal with as lancers.

The next couple of matches weren't as difficult as battling the priest, though. I had to compete against a warrior and an archer. The warrior I fought was damn fast, but my attack speed was just as good. The archer was kind of a push over, even though they managed to land most of their shots.

I quickly became the fan favorite at that competition. Having so many people cheer for me was a great feeling. And I managed to gain a creepy elin admirer.

Last I heard: That elin changed her animal form from a rabbit to a squirrel because she couldn't bare the memory of me rejecting her... Such a crazy Elin... wanting to be with me for the sake of genetics... HA. (I'M SORRY FOR MAKING YOU CHANGE. FORGIVE ME ;_;)

Moving on... It came down to me and another priest with reflect damage. Just like the last priest I fought, I wanted to shut the player down as soon as possible. I also switched out my defense cruxs with HP regeneration cruxs to keep me going. I managed to win both matches flawlessly. So I won the competition and my reward: Armor Templates! (Not a very good prize, I know, but I was still grateful that I got it.)

Overall, the whole thing was a lot of fun. Some people are wondering if there will be a WinterFest competition... If it happens, I'll definitely show up.

TERA (NA) - Log - 8/2 to 8/8

OK! So in the past few weeks, a lot of crazy stuff happened to me in the world of TERA, with some expected and not so expected mishaps. First off, I went on another road trip with the travelers of Broken Compass to climb the mountains near Tulufan.

Why did we decide to go on a mountain climb? I'm not really sure, but I think one of them muttered something about trying to capture "whale magic" or something. So we went out, traveled up the mountain and it was all pretty boring at first, but once we reached the top we got to see some sky whales, up close and personal.

RaiderZ - Early Access Preview

MAIET, creators of the stylish third person shooter “GunZ: the Duel”, is back in action with a new MMORPG, and they’re looking to give a few AAA titles a run for their money.

RaiderZ is a massive multiplayer online role-playing game centered on the theme of hunting. It takes many nods from other action RPGs such as Capcom’s Monster Hunter, and while throwing in several unique features into the mix, all this and more as a F2P title curiosity of Perfect World Entertainment.

I previously had a chance to try out RaiderZ during its alpha phase a few months back, but I didn’t get very far into it due to some optimization issues and client bugs. Now with closed beta on the horizon, it was time to jump back in and give this game a proper walk through.

TERA (NA) - Log - 7/14 to 7/21

I know that I haven't done one of these logs in awhile, but there has been a couple of events and activities that I participated in recently that I would really like to share with everyone! The month of July was filled with so much adventure and excitement that I'm hoping to have more of these experiences like these soon (before my subscription runs out, that is.)

On Saturday July 14th, Fiora Laurent of the High Elves Council held a fashion show in the Velika Outskirts dueling ring. I personally thought it was a weird place to host a fashion show, and figured it would have been better to have it hosted at the podium in one of the Velika Plazas, but whatever, I said. It was their event after all...

The contest was a bit long winded, as contestants were asked to bring two outfits: One formal and one other outfit of their choosing. Contestants were also required to ask questions regarding why they choice their outfits and what their favorite hobby was... I could understand asking the contestants about why they decided to go with the outfits they brought, but a question about your favorite hobby? I thought it was supposed to be a fashion contest, rather than some kind of beauty pageant...

Anyway, I wore my usual outfit as my formal one: The open chest cuirass with the rope binding in the middle, along with my new favorite outfit: The aviator suit!

I didn't have anything special to say about the suit, other than I wanted to make use of a gift (the aviator cap) that I got from working with Invasico for months.

Maestia - Press Tour

New to Gravity’s Warp Portal of F2P titles comes Maestia, a fantasy MMORPG focused on everything for everyone, including a mercenary system, faction based PvP and small tweaks on several time-tested MMO features. Even though I ended up showing a little late to the tour, I managed to get a quick look at Maestia during for its Open Beta launch. When starting out, players will have a choice between one of two factions: The Superion Guardians and the Temple Knights. The Temple Knights are trying to prevent an evil Dark Lord from rising, while the Superions are trying to summon the Dark Lord so they can defeat it once and for all. It’s an interesting premise where both factions are good guys, but still at odds with each other.

TERA (NA) - Night at the Doomcrypt

So I attended the Val Elenium Dance Party, hosted by the High Elves Council on Saturday. I wasn't really looking to dance or socialize, so decided to work the place as a guard & bouncer. I made a pretty nice haul working the floor as a guard and bouncer. It was a very dangerous place for a dance party for those that are under LV50. There was spawning monsters all over the dance floor, so I wanted to keep them from killing anyone...

I ended up dancing anyway, got distracted and someone got knocked out. I felt bad about that... In fact, multiple people died and had to be revived that night. I should consider myself lucky they didn't demand grievance pay, and it was a good thing that I wasn't the only one working the floor as a bouncer, so it's not ALL my fault.

Besides, I think some of the guys that got knocked out were all too high or drunk to care, anyway.

Still, it was an interesting place to have a party, what with the real working disco ball and everything. I'm not so sure that "The Doomcrypt" is an appealing name for a dance club, though.

Overall: Made 100g from the event planner and 40+g in tips.
I think should do more odd jobs like this...

Guild Wars 2 - World Vs. World mode overview

I participated in the previous Guild Wars 2 beta weekend, and I spent all my time trying out the World Vs. World game mode. It's was a bit confusing at first, but once I got an idea of how the battlefields play out, I fell in love with it.

My new microphone makes my voice sound a lot better, but my speech is still pretty bland. I hope to get better with some enunciation practice.

Divina - Press Tour

Beanfun is continuing to storm the MMO market with a dazzling array of anime inspired online games. New to their arsenal is Divinia, a colorful MMORPG with a story based on Norse Mythology. Divina is packed with features out the wazzo, like the ability to transform in to different monsters on the fly, multiple weapon styles for each of the five playable classes, a deep pet system and so much more. I check out this game during a closed beta weekend and during a special press to give you guys a look at things come.

I hopped into Divina’s bright and colorful world as a female Machist, who uses huge cannons and rocket launchers to attack enemies form a distance while adding support with landmines and traps for unsuspecting enemies.

Shortly after logging in, I met up with the Gaminia Team along with GM Basilisk leading the group. The tour started with a little history lesson behind Gaminia, were we learned more about the company’s business philosophies. Divina has been around for quite some time in Asian territories, along with being well received by players for two things: The game’s storyline and the voice actors behind many of the game’s characters and NPCs.

Guild Wars 2 - Weekend Beta Impressions

My first ever commentary video for OnRPG is here! It took me awhile to make, but in terms of editing I think I did a good job. I still hate the way my voice sounds, though! I'm probably going to get a new microphone to use before I try doing another commentary video again.

There was a lot of details that I wish I had time to cover, but overall I really like what Guild Wars 2 has to offer, even if the game is a bit over-hyped. I'm definitely on board and will be looking more into Guild Wars 2 in the future.

As usual: I'm really looking for people to critique my video, some comments of my editing, my tone of voice, any details that I could have explained a bit more.

Play Log - TERA (NA) - CBT5 Weekend

So this is it... The last CBT for TERA before we go live. This weekend was also pretty enjoyable compared to the last one, especially near the end of the CBT where players all over had parties over just about every corner of the world. More on this later.

Weekend started off with me finishing up the Sinestial Manor. As it turns out: last time while I was trying to record footage during the run, my recorder crapped out on me and took the TERA client down with it. When logged back in, I was still inside the dungeon, but the story quest status got completely negated and I had to do the run all over again. Luckily I was able to find another group and we cleaned house pretty quickly.

Play Log - TERA (NA) - CBT4 Weekend

(For those that want to get into the CBT for TERA (NA) this weekend, take a peek into this post and grab one! Just do me a small favor and post a comment stating which key you've used. First come, first serve.) All keys used up!

It's time for another one of my oh-so-exciting play logs for TERA (Now with slightly less tl;dr and more ACTION!)

I recently downloaded Bandicam to record in-game footage since I wasn't too fond of using FRAPS and how it fills up my HDD when recording raw footage. I just loved how Bandicam cant take Hi-Res footage while keeping the file sizes down to a minimum, so I'm never going back to FRAPS again! Now with the inclusion of videos, I hope this will make my logs more enjoyable for you readers (yes, all five of you.)

I also got Sony Vegas from my college bookstore for cheap to do some video editing, but I'm currently having trouble rendering my current videos, although I have no problem rendering videos using Windows Live Movie Maker and it seems to work well enough for what I need, so I'm sticking with that for now until figure out how to use Sony Vegas properly.

Now then... This CBT weekend was my favorite one so far. En Masse hosted an event where players could find treasure chests spread across the game world, and inside those chests: Clothing Dyes!