GeekwithEnvy

MMO

Blizzard’s Project Titan Back To The Drawing Board

by Leave a Comment

BlizzardLogo

Blizzard Entertainment’s top secret MMO project “Titan” has apparently had a complete reboot and has essentially gone back to the drawing board. Many fans of Blizzard have been anticipating some details on the secret MMO project, but now they may not get anything until at least 2016.

ZAM contacted Blizzard about the rumors and received this response:

We’ve always had a highly iterative development process, and the unannounced MMO is no exception. We’ve come to a point where we need to make some large design and technology changes to the game. We’re using this opportunity to shift some of our resources to assist with other projects while the core team adapts our technology and tools to accommodate these new changes. Note that we haven’t announced any dates for the MMO.” – Blizzard Entertainment

It’s likely that they have pulled some resources form Titan, which currently has no release schedule, to work on higher priority projects while Titan catches it’s breath and gets an overhaul.

Star Trek Online

by Leave a Comment

Enjoy MMO style games? Well, how about one that takes you to the “Final Frontier”. I am of course talking about Star Trek Online, which is a Free-to-Play MMO that allows you to dive deep into the world of Star Trek. If you’re like me than nothing brings back geek nostalgia quite like Star Trek and if your fan you should check out Star Trek Online .Star Trek Online

Star Trek Online (STO) features combat in space as well as combat on the ground, which brings an awesome twist to this genre of gaming. You can live out our dreams of being in command of  a Federation Starship right from the comfort of your living room. Fans of Star Trek will appreciate the look and feel of this game as well as all of the story driven features that make it feel like a welcome addition to the Star Trek universe.

Feature Episodes are a feature that allow you to start an episode that you must complete in order to move on to the next episode, thus creating a chain of events that eventually become part of a larger overall storyline. The episodes are fun and engaging and add depth to the game. You will also receive rewards for completing each episode and you will receive a larger reward for completing a series within a given time.STOW1

As with any MMO you will need to choose a faction. There are currently two playable factions, the Federation and the Klingons. You will however interact with many other factions such as the Romulans, Cardassians, Dominion, Undine, Borg, and the Tholians.

Character customization is actually not too bad and character models look really nice. The world around you looks great no matter where you are or what your exploring. In overall gameplay, you will spend most of your time wandering around the universe discovering new races, doing battle with your enemies, and collecting resources.

If you play other MMO’s and feel like you need a change or if you just love Star Trek, Star Trek Online is a great game to get into. You can head over to the official site here to download and play the game for free.

 

Guild Wars 2

by Leave a Comment

Guild Wars 2 is just around the corner for PC gamers and it looks like this is going to be a solid game. With heavy competition in the MMO world, you need something that stands out and says “I’m different!” and Guild Wars 2 could be that game. Fans of Guild Wars have been waiting for this sequel since 2007 and on 8-28-2012 they will finally get to experience the game that the 200 person team at ArenaNet have been working so hard on over the years.

Asura_Female_Guardian

Guild Wars 2 really aims to be a personalized experience for each player. The decisions you make early on will change how your story develops. You will be able to choose from eight professions and five races, including the defiant humans, the feline charr, the unearthly sylvari, the mighty norn and the ingenious asura.

Like any good MMO, you will also be able to participate in arena based PvP or player vs player combat which should make good use of the combat system that features combos, improvised tactics, and environmental weapons.

A key component in making an MMO feel like it has depth, is a large, immersive and engaging world to play in. The world of Tyria has been built to be just that.

Divinitys_Reach

A familiar sight in MMO’s are the NPC’s or non playable characters. NPC’s normally wait for you to run up to them before they will give you a specific quest to complete, in GW2 you will walk into a world where the NPC’s are not static but moving around and interacting with the world. You may see something bad that’s about to happen to a NPC and then you can jump in and save them which will trigger a specific series of events, or maybe you don’t save them and a different event triggers.

The world around you is built to feel alive, not static, and the choices you make have real impact. These events are called dynamic events, and you can group up with others to take on world challenges. These challenges increase in difficulty the larger your group becomes and the experience you gain will benefit everyone participating.

Zhaitan

What makes Guild Wars 2 even more appealing to try is that it’s Free to play, just simply buy the game upfront and then play online all you want. If you have an original Guild Wars account you will be able to link it to your Guild Wars 2 account.

Guild Wars 2 goes on sale 8-28-12 for $59.99, and you can find out more information about Guild Wars 2 here.

MMORPGs Becoming Free-To-Play

by Leave a Comment

Star Wars The Old Republic Game

Many major MMORPGs are becoming free-to-play and its all because of the communities around these games speaking out. Many subscribers to these games feel less value in the product between major updates and don’t want to commit. Drops in subscribers are a major problem with these types of games. Star Wars: The Old Republic has recently announced that this fall it is Star Wars: Old Republic going to offer a free-to-play option that will allow players to reach up to level 50. Blizzard Entertainment has also released a free-to-play version of Diablo III up to level 13.

Players will be given a choice as to whether or not they want to pay to gain access to otherwise restricted features. The bottom line is here that with the option of free-to-play you have a better chance of holding on to players and keeping their interest in the game but also you make it easier for new people to get into your game. I know from personal experience that there have been many times where I wanted to get into something new but didn’t want to commit to a subscription.