Game Update 1.1 not only brought a new Flashpoint into Star Was: The Old Republic, it also allowed Bioware to respond to player concerns regarding PvP by placing level 50 characters into their own bracket for warzones.

For the most part the bolster system did a good job of levelling the playing field in warzones however it did not account for the expertise stat found on level 50 PvP gear. Higher level players already had access to a complete skill tree and set of abilities, it may have been a mistake to give them a gear advantage (even if only a slight advantage).

As a mid-level character, getting face rolled by full teams of 50′s in all PvP gear was  getting frustrating enough never mind being a fresh level 10 character hoping to try PvP out only to get obliterated. The barrier to entry was increasing with each new level 50 queuing for warzones and it was starting to get slightly out of hand.

On the other hand the inclusion of level 50 brackets has caused problems for some level 50 players on low population servers, leaving them with potentially lengthy queue times just to get into a match against anyone. As far as I can tell from chatting with a few people, the gear gap issue is also still an issue for fresh level 50s going up against better equipped characters. The RNG system behind loot bags probably is not helping this situation either with some players failing to receive a token for PvP gear despite purchasing a LOT of bags.

What’s your opinion?

Are you enjoying the lack of level 50 characters in your warzones? Or do you miss the challenge of taking on a vastly superior opposing force?

Let us know in the comments.

Dungeons and Dragons Online follows the announcement of the upcoming Dungeons and Dragons 5E for tabletop gamers with its own new addition; the release of its first premium expansion, Menace of the Underdark. It brings the Forgotten Realms to DDO! The Druid will finally be a playable class, the level cap will be increased to 25, and there will be adventures in the Underdark, with all its drowish goodness. I first gave this game a pass because it was set in Eberron, but nostalgia will probably tempt me into giving it a try, now that I can look forward to the Forgotten Realms. Who can pass up another sighting of Lolth?

For more info, visit the Menace website, and the official announcement.

What is currently taking place on the planet of Illum is an absolute slaughter and travesty. Republic forces, vastly out numbered by Imperials, are being decimated with little to no hope of making any type of stand. With no hope of survival, Republic players are staying clear of Illum, turning it over to Imperials who now sit and wait for those unfortunate Republic players, unaware of the situation, to enter.

That’s the current state of the game for Star Wars: The Old Republic on the PvP world of Illum after the release of Patch 1.1. While the patch brought with it a new flashpoint and operation, more importantly it brought much needed changes to PvP.

Up until now Illum has been a merry-go-round where players, for the most part, would stay clear of each other in order to trade off objectives and farm rewards as quickly as possible. Patch 1.1 however introduced some incentives for players to actually kill each other, except BioWare forgot that Imperial players vaaaastly outnumber Republic players on nearly every server. So instead of a merry-go-round, we have a one sided slaughter where Imperial players are camping Republic respawn areas and hunting down new players when their location is revealed through the new Illum notification system.

But it doesn’t stop there. Imperial players are also farming NPC turrets, which respawn almost instantly, allowing them to rack up HUGE amounts of valor. WTF BioWare!?  PvP rewards for killing NPCs? (UPDATE: Seems this was reported falsely by players, turrets and NPCs do not provide valor)

I’m all for giving players incentives to kill each other and I’m still waiting for some in open PvP zones, but this seems like such a rookie mistake. Hasn’t anyone at BioWare played a PvP MMORPG before?  How about some safe zones or added incentive for the factions that’s outnumber to help bolster their numbers. Or maybe just a faction player cap and definitely no Valor for killing NPCs, that’s just plain idiotic.

If you’re interested in checking out the slaughter, below you can find a video that was recently uploaded by a Republic player.

UPDATE: BioWare has responded by adding a population cap to Illum and are working on correcting the issue where enemy players are able to enter the opposing faction’s safe zone without being killed.

Continued…

Star Wars: The Old Republic servers are now live with the first major content update; Rise of the Rakghouls. This update brings some welcome changes – anti-aliasing is finally available! – as well as some that just make me scratch my head and wonder what BioWare is thinking. Georg Zoeller stated that,

“The design intent for the game is that your choice of crafting profession should not become a requirement or ‘gating’ mechanism for participating in competitive content (PvP) and high end endgame challenges.”

Some raiding guilds had started requiring Biochem on their raiders, so they were nerfing biochem to prevent this. But I’m left wondering how sticking a requirement that people who use high end biochem stims and medpacks actually have to have biochem to use them is going to fix this problem. Doesn’t that just make it more likely guilds will require biochem? Wouldn’t it be better to just make other crafting skills worthwhile at the end game raiding level?

Commentary aside, Rise of the Rakghouls does introduce some content that looks pretty interesting. Four new bosses have been added to Karagga’s Palace, and there’s a new flashpoint: Kaon Under Siege. Now if BioWare would only introduce UI scaling and customization…

Read the official full patch notes, sans my pithy commentary, here.

PvP Lead Designer, Gabe Amatangelo, posted an update yesterday about some much needed PvP changes coming to Star Wars: The Old Republic.

The majority of changes are coming to the Warzones and on the Open PvP world of Illum. Warzones will now have a  new level 50 bracket where players at the level cap will be separated from everyone else. I’m not sure why this is restricted to level 50 players only, wouldn’t it be more effective to make the bracket span a few level, say from 40 – 50?

The second major change comes to the open PvP world of Illum with revisions to rewards, more Companion restricted areas and a focus on more player conflict. As part of the reward revisions, Illum will become a major source of Valor for players as new controllable objectives will give factions Valor buffs.

Other general combat features are also being planned such are Ranked Warzone Matches, PvP stats tracking, open world PvP loot drops and more Warzone medals for different objectives, Guard Optimizations and Target Optimizations. Players will also soon be able to select what Warzone they want to play. Thank god, no more Huttball

A new developer update for the month of November is now up for the barbarian-em up Age of Conan.

The developers lay out the road map for the next series of updates to the game, covering planned additions as far out as Q2 2012.

First up is the 3.1 update, which is currently being rolled out on the servers. This is mostly a tech update that is not adding new content.

There’s more juiciness in the planned 3.2 update, which will bring the new dungeon “House of Crom”, which Funcom promises will be “one of the most spectacular and atmospheric indoor locations we have added to the game yet”. Besides this new dungeon, update 3.2 will also see the addition of a new raid, the Jade Citadel, where players will fight to nab some nice loot from the Khitan Emperor himself.

Update 3.3 is going to conclude the Khitan raid encounter that 3.2 began, with a new raid instance and two new raid encounters.

3.3 will also bring some new things to the blood smeared PvP table. It will be adding PvP world bosses and a chance to get some new PvP mounts. Funcom is also talking about doing some changes to the PvP mechanics, which may include some significant changes to sprinting and stamina.

Update 3.4 is going to be mainly another tech update. It may also contain some changes to the siege systems as well as adding max level AA balanced versions of some existing dungeons.

Update 4.0 is the last point on the developer update. This is going to be the next adventure pack, which is going to take place in an as yet undisclosed location. Most likely this update will also feature a complete revamp of the trade skill system, which is going to be changed quite fundamentally and hopefully make trade skills more interesting and useful to players.

Update 3.1 is currently being deployed to the servers. Funcom hopes that Update 3.2 can start pretty quickly after 3.1 has been implemented. Update 3.3 is planned for early 2012, probably around February. Update 3.4 is looking at a Q1 2012 release date and the big 4.0 update has a vague estimate of Q2 2012.

The latest World of Warcraft patch is upon us and today Blizzard released the official trailer for Patch 4.3: Hour of Twilight.

WoW patch 4.3 introduces a new raid called Dragon Soul, three new dungeons to explore and continues the epic storyline in the world of Azeroth.  The patch also brings in a new tier or armor sets, the legendary item “Fangs of the Father” in the rogue quest line and three completely new features, Transmogrification, Raid Finder and Void Storage.

The patch also included balance changes to all the WoW classes.

Below you can watch the Hour of Twilight trailer as well as read the full patch notes for Patch 4.3

Continued…

The third major content update to the sci-fi space combat MMORPG, Black Prophecy, was announced over the holiday weekend entitled Episode 3: Rise of the Boids.

Today Gamigo revealed the first details and it looks like Black Prophecy will be getting some PvE raids. It will be possible for highly skilled and well equipped groups of 8 to 10 players to complete, however the recommended amount will be over 10. The raids are also about one hour long each, but no word yet on how many there will be.

Above is the first image released of one of these new raids, this one called Ezor – Rudenko Sphare.

The official launch trailer for the upcoming RIFT 1.6 patch Ember Isle was released moments ago. Th trailer is all in-game footage, no cinematics, and gives players a look at Ember Isle as well as some of the evil found there.

Update 1.6 will introduce the games first new zone since launching, a new massive dungeon, new Sliver, World Events, the second tier of Planar Attunement will be unlocked and must more. You can read the full patch notes at Riftjunkies.

Check out the full Ember Isle trailer below.

Continued…

The fifteenth expansion to Eve Online now has a official release date, Eve Online: Crucible will be launching on Nov 29th. The Crucible expansion will introduce new ships, bring enhancements to the graphics, user interface and will include over three dozen updates to game-play mechanics.

Below we have a list of some of the new features that will be included in the expansion, however a full list has not yet been released.

• Improved chat windows
• New Station-themed Captain’s Quarters
• Time Dialation: Improved server performance for massive fleet battles
• Ship spinning and graphics tweeks
• Hybrid weapons balancing
• Assault ships
• Capital ship balancing
• New T2 modules
• Starbase logistics management
• T2 Rigs manufacturing