A new playtest for Master X Master (MXM) has been announced by NCsoft and will happen later this month. In this test, NCsoft will focus on Titan Ruins, an "unique spin on a traditional 5v5 three lane PvP mode". Players who complete five Ranked Titan Ruins matches during the test will earn an event-specific title called "Alpha Incarnate" which can be used after the game releases sometime in 2017.
This test event will give players the opportunity to test out all Masters, as level requirements for their use will be removed. Also, two new masters Nedien and Tulam will join this test. The test will run from November 22nd through November 28th, at the following times:
- NA server: 1:00 pm - 9:00 pm PST
- EU sever: 2:00 pm - 10:00 pm UTC.
NCsoft will send invites to all players who will sign up for its newsletter before November 21st, at 10:00 am PDT, so they can join the playtest.
Crowfall has been well received. The kickstarter campaign ended successfully in March 2015 with over $1.7 million being pledged. Now the developer ArtCraft announced that the game had rasied over $3 million from crowdfunding, and together with the funds from other source, they has over $10 million budget for this project.
In a few days, Crowfall backers will be able to get into the game again to try out the first iteration of persistence in Crowfall. Players have been testing the game several times before but now players will explore a much larger and better world.
Crowfall is not a typical MMORPG. The developers describe it as a "Throne War Simulator" because the action takes place not in a persistent world place, but in a universe of worlds that always arise new and are destroyed again. As the Eternal Kingdoms, your home, there is "real" persistence. You travel on one of the worlds with every campaign and fight for the supremacy. Until the "hunger" devours this world. After that you return to your kingdom and can further develop this with your achievements of the campaign.
Check out Crowfall site to know more about the game.
FOVE 0 was first demoed at TGS 2016, and at VRDC 2016 currently held in San Francisco the developer showed the final version of this innovative VR headset and announced the price. Those who can't wait to put on this new headset can preorder FOVE 0 at the official site now. For those who are not quite familiar with eye tracking technology, read on to learn more.
FOVE 0 is the first VR headset to track the direction of a person’s gaze, changing focus on objects within a scene with a high level of precision, creating immersive and natural interactions with virtual worlds and characters. By focusing where a user is looking, FOVE is able to simulate greater depth of field and create a more natural image by blurring unfocused peripheral areas, all the while minimizing motion sickness by reducing the need for unnatural head movements.
Its visual UI allows users to navigate the user interface quickly and easily without using a mouse or controller. The headset weighs 520g, which is lighter than PSVR and Vive but heavier than Oculus and Gear VR. You can see all specs below.
Display: WQHD OLED (2560 x 1440) Display frame rate: 70Hz Field of view: 90° ~ 100° Tracking sensor: Orientation tracking, Position tracking Eye tracking sensor: 120fps infrared eye tracking system x2, less than 1° accuracy Weight: 520g Connections: HDMI 1.4 / USB 3.0 / USB 2.0 Accessories: Position tracking camera / Face cushion
*Product specs are subject to change without notice.
Minimum Hardware Requirements Operating System: Windows 8.1 64-bit, Windows 10 64-bit CPU: Intel Core i5-4590 or greater GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 / AMD Radeon R9 290 or greater RAM: 8GB or greater Interface: HDMI 1.4 / USB 3.0 / USB 2.0x2
Several games have been confirmed for FOVE 0. Project Falcon is an on-the-rails FPS where players get to manoeuvre and lock on to enemies using just their eyes. You can watch the gameplay below.
The other game is called Judgement. It's an escape game with a story that not only progresses according to players’ conscious decisions, but also by elements that players’ subconsciously focus on during their play.
Kakao Games has secured the publishing rights for Bluehole Studios's new MMORPG Project W in North America and Europe. Interesting thing is Kakao and Bluehole don't even reveal what kind of game Project W is. We just know the game is touted as a "blockbuster PC MMORPG" led by former Aion, TERA and ArcheAge developers, and will start beta test first in South Korea in early 2017.
Black Desert is the first MMORPG Kakao publishes in NA and EU, and obviously they have the ambition to become bigger in the west. In South Korea, Kakao has already been one of the biggest game publishers with MMORPGs like Black Desert, Echo of Soul, RF Online, and Rohan Origin in operation.
NCsoft filed a lawsuit against ITS GAMES, the subsidiary company of Netmarble, for Lineage’s IP theft. According to NCsoft, ITS GAMES used famous items’ name in Lineage for their mobile MMORPG Aden.
NCsoft’s Lineage II: Revolution and ITS GAMES’ ADEN are set in the same kingdom - Aden, which could easily make players confused at the first sight. What’s more, ITS GAMES misled players by using Lineage related contents to attract gamers to pre-register the game.
It’s worth to mention that in February NCSOFT and Netmarble Games, two of the country's major game companies, said they have established a stock-swap alliance to fend off management intervention by Nexon. And in the 2nd NTP, Netmarble unveiled it’s 2016 mobile game product line, including “Lineage”, “TERA” and “Blade & Soul” IP based mobile games.
NCsoft filed a law suit against ITS GAMES in mid August. However, ITS GAMES didn’t take any actions before being acquired by Netmarble this October, which leaves an embarrassing situation.
Jackal Assault was revealed ruing the annual Call of Duty XP event in September. When it was first announced, Activison said the game will only be free to those who buys Infinite Warfare on PS4. However, a new blog post reveals that Jackal Assault will be available to all PS4 owners!
Activision says the game “immerses you in the cockpit of a Jackal, the personal, multi-role fighter jet” from the upcoming Infinite Warfare. As an added bonus no November 4, those who aren’t planing to pick up Infinite Warfare will have a chance to play it. Of course, players need a PS VR headset in order to actually play it.
Microsoft's new all-in-one PC Surface Studio is incredibly thin (12.5mm LCD monitor) with amazing industrial design, top-notch technologies, and surely a high price. But we are going to talk about its powerful specs that make it capable of running all VR games with HTC Vive headset. At VRDC 2016 at San Francisco, Microsoft ran some HTC Vive games and even Gear of War 4 on the machine.
Powered by Intel's 6th generation processors, Surface Studio has an Nvidia GTX 980M GPU (GTX 965M for the cheaper version), a 2TB hybrid hard drive, and 32GB RAM. It will be coming this holiday for $2,999/$3,499/$4,199.
Surface Studio demo
Playing VR game on Surface Studio It runs Gear of War 4 perfectly We also got our hands on Hololens game RoboRaid, a FPS which was shown at E3 2015 in the name of Project X-Ray. You'll need to use your fingers and eyes movement as well as vocal commands to repel enemies coming at you from every possible direction.
RoboRaid
Last we tried the new generation Surface Book, which can handle games easily compared with the last generation model. Below is the FPS comparison between the new one and the old one.
MU Legend, the new hack ‘n’ slash from Webzen, is the highly-anticipated sequel to the successful MU Online. MU Legend touts itself as a dark take on the hack ‘n’ slash action-rpg genre. Anyone who’s been around gaming long enough generally thinks of one series as king of dark ARPGs – Diablo. As someone with thousands of collective hours between all of the Diablo games, I was intrigued when I heard about MU Legend. As luck would have it, I managed to get an invite into the recent beta of MU Legend and decided to give it a whirl.
Before going further, it’s worth noting that MU Legend is a F2P MMO, while Diablo 3 is a $30 product with 4 years of patches and updates, as well as an expansion. I took all of this into consideration when playing MU Legend.
Graphics
Upon starting MU Legend you’re greeted with an illustrated cinematic. I was immediately reminded of Diablo 3’s illustrated cinematics, which come between the beautiful life-like cinematics Blizzard is known for. The style of the illustrations in MU Legend as well as the design of certain enemies – including the horned big baddie that’s taunting you throughout the game – were very, very similar to Diablo 3 in many cases. This wasn’t completely off-putting, but some of the enemies were a little too close for comfort when it came to their likeness to Diablo’s roster.
Once at the character creation screen I was immediately impressed with the graphics. Your character model is surprisingly detailed and realistic. This was a pleasant change from Diablo 3’s rather colorful and often too-cartoony aesthetic. Earlier Diablo games were known for being dark, gritty, and mature. MU Legend definitely captured the more mature tone from the get-go with their realistic aesthetic. From the lighting to the human-like modeling of the characters, MU Legend definitely has a more realistic look than Diablo.Diablo has a style of its own, but the characters are nowhere near as realistic as MU's. It's okay, Diablo. I still love you.
The in-game world of MU Legend is equally well done and pleasant to look at. The game has a rather muted color palette in many cases, giving the landscapes a more believable look than the often whimsical color scheme of Diablo 3. Again, this was a pleasant surprise as I expected MU Legend to be absolutely over the top in its presentation.
The enemies, while not completely creative in their design, look pretty great as well. The textures are all fairly clean, meaning even the generic dog enemies look good while getting mowed down by your insane powers. Speaking of powers, the spell effects are rather delightful in MU Legend as well. Even as the game’s tank class, the Dark Lord, I was constantly lighting up the screen with flames, enormous magical chains, and explosions.
Overall, the graphics leave little to be desired. Even taken out of the context of F2P, MU Legend is a visually pleasing game. That being said, the female characters all look absolutely ridiculous, as is the case with many Korean MMOs. I get that sex sells, but the mature look of the game conflicts heavily with the juvenile approach to the design of female characters. I mean, come on. Look at all of those exposed vitals. Teenage boys, eat your hearts out. Sound
One of the things that’s always stood out to me in the Diablo games, especially the latest iteration, is the sound design. Diablo 3 has some incredibly great sound effects, from the horrid screeches of enemies to the thunderous booms of the Barbarian’s weapon colliding with the ground. Who can forget the first time they heard Andariel’s awful voice as she ran toward them, poison at the ready?
When it comes to a sound vs. sound competition, MU Legend never really stood a chance against the Diablo series. This isn’t to say the sound effects in MU Legend are bad, they’re just decent. The monsters make stock monster sounds, the characters grunt and growl when attacking, and the NPCs chatter in the background as NPCs often do. That being said, it’s all rather forgettable. Even when slamming the ground with my Dark Lord’s giant weapon, I never felt the same level of oomph or power being conveyed as in the Diablo series. Pictures can't capture how insane and awesome Diablo's sound effects are during moments like this.
When it comes to music, MU Legend is also not up to the caliber of Diablo. The entire Diablo series packs some incredible music, from the orchestral masterpieces that play while fighting bosses, to the haunting guitar riff of Tristram. MU Legend’s music is still fun and of a much higher quality than many other F2P MMOs. But don’t expect it to get stuck in your head in the same way as Diablo’s.
Gameplay
The gameplay in Diablo 3 is fast and intense. It wasn’t always this way, as the first two games in the series took more of a horror approach with pretty much every aspect of the world and gameplay. The latest one however, is like Gauntlet on steroids.
MU Legend manages to deliver a rather competent ARPG experience. The combat is akin to Diablo 3, focusing more on big groups of enemies rather than one-on-one fights. Like Diablo and other ARPGs, you have a skill bar at the bottom of the screen as well as left and right-click abilities. The abilities themselves stay true to RPG archetypes, with the Dark Lord utilizing damage debuffs and healing abilities, the Blader dishing out damage via AOE and single-target moves, and so on. My tank was lighting up the screen with his ridiculous, awesome spells. At these moments, MU Legend is at its best.
Where the combat begins to flounder is with the actual mouse control. Numerous times I found myself flinging my cursor toward an enemy and mashing the right mouse button, only to find my attacks were landing next to the enemy. It was a similar feeling to auto-aim on an FPS, resulting in my cursor not being exactly where I wanted it. When playing an ARPG, precise mouse control is essential. MU Legend’s mouse control just felt off in some way. This manifests even in basic movement. When running from point to point for a quest, I would often hold the mouse button down to move only to find my character turning in weird ways every now and then. Again, it felt as if my mouse movements weren’t registering properly with the game. It was a very odd experience that often hindered my enjoyment of the combat.
Outside of the combat, MU Legend has a rather in-depth leveling system. You earn standard XP to increase your Soul Level, which allows you to use better equipment, earn new skills, and so on. With each gained Soul Level you earn a point that can be spent in one of several categories. While the stat gains per point are minimal, the bonuses for spending a large number of points in one category lead to some big buffs and unique changes to playstyle. The amount of skills for each class provides a great level of customization.
There’s also an Account Level, which increases with each Soul Level gained on any of your characters. As your Account Level rises, so does your stat bonus for every character. This is much like Diablo 3’s Paragon system, which allows all of your characters to benefit from your XP. Even if the system is similar, I found it a welcome addition to MU Legend, as it allowed for more customization of my character. Customization is never a bad thing in my book. The Soul Levels might not seem like much, but those big bonuses make a huge difference.
Unlike Diablo, MU Legend is an MMO, meaning there are thousands of other players all around you. Diablo only allows 4 players per game, while MU Legend allows party play and supports Guilds. This helps the world of MU Legend feel more alive, and certainly gives it more of a community feel than Diablo. Being an MMO, MU Legend also utilizes the trinity system more, meaning a balanced party with tank, DPS, and healer, will go far. This was a refreshing change of pace from most ARPGs, where you can succeed by having a party of damage-dealing death machines.
In Conclusion
All in all, MU Legend is off to a solid start, especially when considering it’s a F2P MMO in closed beta. There’s a great foundation, the graphics are beautiful for the most part, and the gameplay needs only a little tweaking to be on-par with many other ARPGs out there. Fans of the previous MU games will surely enjoy MU Legend, and newcomers such as myself will likely find something to enjoy. The world feels rich and alive, and the F2P model seems fair. Never once did I feel my experience was hindered by being a free player, as opposed to a whale. MU Legend is no Diablo, but it doesn’t need to be. It provides a satisfying MMO experience, complete with tons of players exploring the world alongside you. I look forward to seeing this game develop and can’t wait for the global launch.
Now if you’ll excuse me, all of this talk about Diablo has got me itching for some demon-slaying.
Bonus screenshots that I couldn't shoehorn into the article "I'm Kundun, totally not Diablo. These aren't horns, it's my uhh...hair?"Where's that chain coming from? As the old adage goes, "With great power, comes great pain." Wait, that's not right. Ah, yes, the Lava Cave Area. We'll just hope this is a placeholder name. I became really attached to my big-headed skeleton buddy.You will rue the day you made this comment, Leo.
Jungsic Park, the creator ofDragon Nest, along with Hound 13 Studio are working on a next-gen mobile action game currently called Project 100. The game has tons of weapons which you can use in different combat situations, a large world (but I guess the game doesn't have an open world), and console-like action experience.
Since the game is announced for South Korean market at the moment, we have very limited information about gameplay. However, the gameplay videos available on the internet show very promising action combat system. In the gameplay videos below you can see flashy combos, and in the second video you can see a character jumps onto the boss monster's back and slay it.
Project 100 is slated for 2017 for Android and iOS devices.
Star Guardian is a series of new League of Legends' skins and released in Patch 6.20. This is a group of female middle school students who choose to become cosmic protectors and must battle cosmic enemies that threaten the Universe. However, they consequently learn of the anguish and perils associated with their newfound roles.
Recently, two South Korean cosplayers, Miyuko and Baily, have done a cute Star Guardian cosplay: Star Guardian Janna by Miyuko and Star Guardian Lulu by Baily.
Finally, something new about Lineage Eternal from NCsoft. This teaser trailer is just 50-second short but it means a full new trailer is coming soon. Keep your eyes peeled.
According to NCsoft's Q2 2016 financial report, Lineage Eternal should start beta test in 2016. If everything still goes as planned, we should see the start of the first closed beta in November or December.
However, we won't see Lineage Eternal at G-Star 2016 in November because NCsoft rejects the convention for not being able to reach an agreement with the G-Star organizer.
Nexon Korea's side-scrolling MOBA Hyper Universe is going to start Open Beta this month on November 22. The game will offer 30 playable heroes along with a lot of special skins at OBT. Unlike traditional point-and-click control mode, heroes in Hyper Huniverse is controlled with "WASD" buttons on the keyboard.
Developed by NetEase, Twilight Spirits is an action MMORPG blending unique Eastern and Western culture, and it features non-target lock system, visually stunning graphics as well as an unique “Dragon Spirit Moment” combat mechanism. The second closed beta test in now available in China with a brand new teaser trailer.
Dragon Spirit Moment
The "Dragon Spirit Moment" combat system is the core feature in this game, and it’s very crucial in the dungeons and raids. When players successfully dodge enemies attack in the combat, it will trigger the Dragon Spirit Moment which will slow down the time and players will get buffed such as all damage immune and increasing attack dramatically.
In addition, the Dragon Spirit Moment will make the raiding more effective since players can take turns to enter the Dragon Spirit Moment and buff other players. PVP Mode
Various maps will be playable for 1v1, Team vs Team, Guild vs Guild modes, which increase the fun of playing PVP. Players can choose 3v3 or 5v5 in Arena Mode. 8v8 squad battle is available in Battleground Mode. What’s more, gamers can decide the number of team member in customize mode.
New Class
The fifth character Ji Ci, a gunslinger with two guns, is excellent in PVP.
New Costumes
Futuristic technology clothing, college costume and beach outfit will make an appearance in the beta test. Also, players will have access to cloth dyeing system.
Are you tired of playing Clash Royale in mobile? If the answer is yes, you can play Minion Masters on PC. Or you can except to play The table at war in VR. Developed by KUDAI Technology, The table at war perfectly combines card battler and tower defense in VR.
Players can immerse themselves in the battlefield by joining the soldiers to take down the rival’s tower. However, you cannot see whole situation on the battlefield so you had to move your head frequently.
To celebrate featured by Google Play, VNG Game Studios today announced that they will extend the period of Halloween’s event for their farming mobile game - Sky Garden: Farm in Paradise with new, exclusive goodies until November 07, 2016!
The content of the extending Halloween’s event will have:
Special Event Offers - For new users who registered within this period, when buying things on weekend, they will receive 30,000 candies and 10,000 bullets
More rewards when buying things
Special Daily Rewards - During the event week, new registered user when login everyday will receive lots of gems and attracting gifts for the first two weeks of their gardeners life!
Extend Mickey Pot & Décor Set: Continuing to extend the current Disney’s rewards: pots & decors. The rewards only applied for these SEA’s countries (Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam)
Due to the great success of World of Warcraft: Legion and Overwatch, Activision Blizzard generated incredible earnings for Q3 2016. The non-GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) revenues for the third quarter are $1.57 billion, up 58 percent from $990 million a year earlier. Non-GAAP earnings per share are up 145 percent from a year earlier.
Overwatch, which after only about four months had already reached over 20 million players and has incredible player engagement.
World of Warcraft: Legion, which sold-through 3.3 million copies on day one, matching all-time records achieved by previous expansions, and ranking among the fastest-selling PC games ever.
Hearthstone had record quarterly monthly active users, which grew a double-digit percentage year-over-year. Activision had the biggest third quarter online player community in its history with 46 million monthly active users.
The big question of the fourth quarter is whether Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare will come out on top of the shooter competition, or if the close launch dates of Battlefield 1 (October 21) and Titanfall 2 (October 28) will hurt Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare.
At VRDC 2016 we were invited by Google to try Daydream View, the upcoming VR headset for smartphones. "How does it feel compared with Gear VR?" I brought this question with us and got our hands on Daydream View.
Comfortability
I tried several different VR headsets before I put on Daydream View at VRDC's show floor, so I can tell which one was more comfortable to wear. For Daydream View, it felt less comfortable since it just offered one adjustable head belt and a buckle. If you happen to have a small head, you may have the feeling that the headset is not at the right position. Gear VR did better with 2 crossed head belts and it allowed you to move your head comfortably. I also noticed several other people had to adjust their headset when they were trying it.
Design
Daydream View uses many squishy foam materials and whether it's cozy or not really depends on individual preference. Besides, it has a latch at the front to make sure your phone doesn't drop.
Visuals
Daydream View almost didn't have the jagged edges found in Gear VR, and it felt much more clear - perhaps it's because of the high resolution Google's new Pixel smartphone had.
Control
Daydream View offered a small yet beautifully-designed controller. It's easy to use, highly responsive, and its clickable trackpad opened up lots of possibilities for game developers in the future.
Games
For VR headset, games mean the life and death. It meant everything whether Daydream View can bring out full potential in gaming.
I played 2 VR games Google brought to VRDC, and one of them was a Harry Potter style puzzle game Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (based on the film of the same name). In this game, my controller became a magic wand used to cast different magic like teleporting and spells, as I swang it in different ways. By solving puzzles you can find many beasts.
It had the immersion a VR game should offer, as I can't help to move away when a beast came directly to my way. I closely checked the details of the beasts and didn't see any jagged thing.
The other game I played was Wonderglade. One of the game modes was about making a ball-shaped cow roll on a race track. I needed to use the controller to tilt the track to make the cute cow to complete the race before the time ran out. There were items on the track I could make use of. I felt it was a good game to exercise your hands without bringing too much fatigue - you didn't need to press any button in the entire game.
I didn't see any latency from the 2 games, and that meant the games were practically enjoyable, and it was really better than I had expected.
Final verdict
I believe Daydream View could become an amazing headset if it can improve the comfortability of wearing it. It already has promising games like Need for Speed: No Limits and Gunjack 2: End of Shift and it will have more good games in the future.
We'll update at this post the best cosplays we see around BlizzCon 2016. Check back regularly as we'll keep this post updating until the end of the event.
Blizzard announced at BlizzCon 2016 Overwatch's new stealth hero Sombra, 2 new maps Eco Point Antarctica and Oasis, 1v1 and 3v3 modes as well as Arcade mode. You can watch below the Sombra announcement animated short.
Sombra can be played at BlizzCon 2016 and will be available in PTR next week. The Oasis map will be implemented to the game in December, according to Blizzard. Now see some pictures of Sombra below.
Blizzard has announced at BlizzCon 2016 2 new heroes for Heroes of the Storm, Varian and Ragnaros, both of who are iconic characters in World of Warcraft. Besides, the game will get new brawl map Blackheart's Revenge, which will be available on November 15.
Varian can be a tank or a assassin in HotS, depending on how your play style is. For Ragnaros, he'll be very interesting in terms of gameplay with the Molten Core trait. He can be the raid boss in the battlefield, turning to gigantic form, or defend against the enemy siege.
Varian will be available in November while Ragnaros will be coming in December.
A new playtest for Master X Master (MXM) has been announced by NCsoft and will happen later this month. In this test, NCsoft will focus on Titan Ruins, an "unique spin on a traditional 5v5 three lane PvP mode". Players who complete five Ranked Titan Ruins matches during the test will earn an event-specific title called "Alpha Incarnate" which can be used after the game releases sometime in 2017.
We also got our hands on Hololens game RoboRaid, a FPS which was shown at E3 2015 in the name of Project X-Ray. You'll need to use your fingers and eyes movement as well as vocal commands to repel enemies coming at you from every possible direction.
