Today, I want to start thing off by talking about Final Fantasy. This is not entirely surprising. What may be surprising is that I’m talking about Final Fantasy Tactics, which is not online and yet still a helpful example when we talk about challenges because players found an impossible challenge and then beat it. The Straight Character Challenge was an idea developed by an enterprising fan of the game to breathe new life into the game. FFT is not a difficult game, especially since it’s easy to find all of the best abilities and slap them on to a single character. But what if instead of playing the game that way as intended, you played the game by picking out one job and having your entire party consist of just that job? No abilities outside of that job whatsoever? It probably sounds difficult. But that’s without getting into the fact that one of the game’s jobs relies entirely upon other job abilities to even function. Calculator, … [Read more...] about Vague Patch Notes: The philosophy of challenge in MMOs
Infinite warfare patch notes
Vague Patch Notes: MMO emulation as a paean for the dead vs. a mockery of the living
If you ever need to know why we’ll happily cover Star Wars Galaxies emulators and not Ultima Online emulators here on Massively Overpowered, the reason is very simple: SWG is dead. UO is not. And that tells you quite a bit about the different sorts of emulation and how fans can approach it, but we’re going to need a few more words to cover all of that. But before we dive wholly into that, let’s talk about Mystery Science Theater 3000. One of the interesting aspects of MST3k fandom is that there has been a sentiment around for ages, frequently put forth by the creators themselves, that fans should keep circulating the tapes of old episodes. Yes, this is for a long-running series that will also happily sell you its two-hour-long episodes in multiple formats and offer others on Netflix or Hulu, along with offering some for free on YouTube. The creators outright encourage fans to just pass along and copy some of the show’s most beloved episodes. … [Read more...] about Vague Patch Notes: MMO emulation as a paean for the dead vs. a mockery of the living
Vague Patch Notes: On balance and differentiation in MMOs
Do you like fighting games? I don’t. Let’s talk about fighting games. But bear with me because you’ll get where this is going. While I might not personally care much about fighting games, I still wind up spending a lot of time reading about them because that’s just the sort of thing I read for fun. And balancing a fighting game is honestly pretty difficult, thus it’s something that gets talked about a lot. It’s difficult enough that there are, in fact, two different ways to do it. This does have a lot of bearing on MMOs, though, where balance doesn’t get talked about nearly as much and tends to get talked about in rather dim tones when it is discussed. But in order to understand that you need to understand the difference in balance methods, why World of Warcraft players miss Mark of the Wild, and why balance matters in the first place. uniform approach (which is a term I’ve just created for this article). The idea here is that you give … [Read more...] about Vague Patch Notes: On balance and differentiation in MMOs
League of Legends Patch Notes Discussion #2 – 8.12: RIP Banner
There were some last-minute changes added to these patch notes, so I hope I hit all of them (and don’t hit the stuff I’m not supposed to because it’s gone!) but the 8.12 patch notes for League of Legends are focused primarily on the Fighter/Bruiser role, as well as Shields/Shield-based items. A few items were added to the PBE that were removed (for now) that were going in, but as it turns out, over the last few patches, the Fighters of League have only grown in strength. Those items will have to be re-tuned or perhaps not brought in at all. It’s unfortunate for me because I really liked the idea of them, and when I’m not tanking in bot lane, I’m hanging out in top lane, trying to throw hands. Before we get started, I’d like to have a moment of silence for another powerful tanking item, as it goes the way of Heart of Gold and Force of Nature – Banner of Command. It’s an item that was either almost never used or so … [Read more...] about League of Legends Patch Notes Discussion #2 – 8.12: RIP Banner
Path of Exile posts the full patch notes for its Incursion update
Play Path of Exile for freeA patch is a beautiful thing for Path of Exile if you enjoy reading through patch notes or playing new patch content. You’ll have to wait a bit longer for the actual patch content to go live, but the patch notes are available right now, and they are extensive. Want to find out everything there is to know about the Incursion league? It’s all there, explaining how players will travel back in time for some reason to create a version of history that’s more beneficial for their efforts in the present. The notes also include a full rundown on the many, many skill changes for balance, including the overall philosophy behind trap changes and the many new gems added with the patch. Whether you’re in for the new League or just want to keep playing, there’s enough stuff here that you’ll want to survey all of it with a careful eye. So much to do and so much to enjoy when the patch goes live June 1st. Source: Official Site; thanks to … [Read more...] about Path of Exile posts the full patch notes for its Incursion update