After a semester of blogging I can say I never expected it to be so difficult, fun, and a new experience for me. I learned more about the gaming world and the news which have influenced my passion for gaming even more. My blog ended up a polar opposite from how I pictured it being in the first day of class. The gaming community is immense and is growing at a rapid rate.
For anyone looking to start a blog or those of you who have a blog on this topic be sure to remember that this is a more lenient topic and a lot of it is based solely on your opinion, so don't be afraid to speak what you believe.
I'd like to say thanks for all those lurking around the world for viewing my blog and I enjoyed the experience.
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Daylight.
Daylight is a psychological thriller from the creators at Zombie Studios;
Imagine waking up in an abandoned hospital with only your cell phone to illuminate the dark rooms. In the video below it shows that's how the main character starts off as she explores the past of the institution.
According to Zombie Studios no two experiences in the game will be alike, and this game is "best played alone in the dark"(Play Daylight). Jared Gerritzen, studio creative head, also says that the game is like a bunch of lego's in a bucket, where they've made all the pieces so when they say go or when a player presses start the game engine will take all the legos and build a different world, essentially each time someone is to play the game, the bucket of legos have different pieces. The game engine will add all the new rooms, details, and scares each play-through(Machinima). Even the layout of the building will be different from previous plays which in my opinion seems pretty cool as there won't be a set walk-through to help someone from start to finish since each play will be completely different. Which in turn will make the game even scarier if played in the dark as you'll never be expecting something to jump out or scare you since you haven't experienced that play-through before.
Daylight will only be a few hours of gameplay but it sounds like it has a lot of replayability and Jared Gerritzen also says that it will cost around $20 or less and be available on Steam, which is a website and application for purchasing computer games.
Sources:
Zombie Studios. www.playdaylight.com 17 April 2013. <http://www.playdaylight.com/>.
Zombieseattle. "Daylight Trailer." www.youtube.com 17 April 2013. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qw-9qJLqx_g>.
Machinima. "Inside Gaming (Video Game News): Daylight Interview w/ Jessica Chobot, Jared Gerritzen! - Inside Gaming Extended." www.youtube.com 17 April 2013.<http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=emgVN1aJjbI#!>.
Imagine waking up in an abandoned hospital with only your cell phone to illuminate the dark rooms. In the video below it shows that's how the main character starts off as she explores the past of the institution.
Daylight Trailer (Zombieseattle).
According to Zombie Studios no two experiences in the game will be alike, and this game is "best played alone in the dark"(Play Daylight). Jared Gerritzen, studio creative head, also says that the game is like a bunch of lego's in a bucket, where they've made all the pieces so when they say go or when a player presses start the game engine will take all the legos and build a different world, essentially each time someone is to play the game, the bucket of legos have different pieces. The game engine will add all the new rooms, details, and scares each play-through(Machinima). Even the layout of the building will be different from previous plays which in my opinion seems pretty cool as there won't be a set walk-through to help someone from start to finish since each play will be completely different. Which in turn will make the game even scarier if played in the dark as you'll never be expecting something to jump out or scare you since you haven't experienced that play-through before.
Daylight will only be a few hours of gameplay but it sounds like it has a lot of replayability and Jared Gerritzen also says that it will cost around $20 or less and be available on Steam, which is a website and application for purchasing computer games.
Sources:
Zombie Studios. www.playdaylight.com 17 April 2013. <http://www.playdaylight.com/>.
Zombieseattle. "Daylight Trailer." www.youtube.com 17 April 2013. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qw-9qJLqx_g>.
Machinima. "Inside Gaming (Video Game News): Daylight Interview w/ Jessica Chobot, Jared Gerritzen! - Inside Gaming Extended." www.youtube.com 17 April 2013.<http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=emgVN1aJjbI#!>.
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
SMITE
SMITE is a MOBA (Massive Online Battle Arena) between Gods from different religious backgrounds, from the developers at Hi-Rez Studios. SMITE is free to play, all you have to do is sign up and download the game, but you can purchase gems which I will talk more about later or the God Pack for $30, which gives you all of the Gods already released in the game and any future Gods coming out before the game is finally released. Right now, SMITE is still in
it's beta stage however in the later stage and is approaching release
fairly quickly, but there is no set release date just yet. Unfortunately
for those Mac users out there, SMITE is only for PC. You have a third person camera view instead of other MOBA's where you
click on the map for your character to move to, you control the
movement of your God using the WASD keys.
Below is one of the trailers for SMITE (smitegame).
Abilities.
Players can chose from 33 different Gods, each with their very own abilities, passive abilities, and ultimate abilities. Each God has 3 different regular attack abilities as well as a primary attack. The primary attack may be something such as firing a bow, using a sword, or throwing lightning bolts for instance. The other abilities can be moves that deal tons of damage, heal the player or even players in a given area, stun enemy players, or even put up a wall to keep enemies or if you're that guy, you can even keep teammates in or out of certain fights for a few seconds. Passive abilities are also unique to each God and require nothing to activate them except to be playing that specific God. The ultimate ability is even more unique, focusing on the God's background and lore, Hi-Rez has managed to come up with amazing graphics and ideas for each God's ultimate ability. These ultimate abilities can make you immune to damage, or make you do massive amounts of damage, however it comes at a price. A God's ultimate ability, just like it's other 3 abilities or attacks will cost X amount of mana to cast and preform the action, all with different mana consumption variations. Not only do they come at a price of mana, they also have a cool-down time, which is a period where the ability is inactive and cannot be used until the timer is up, provided you have enough mana.
Favor.
All players will start out with the same 32 Gods. When players level up outside of game modes they will gain experience, or Favor. Favor will be used to purchase Gods later on in the game when players save up enough favor. The maximum level for a player's account to reach outside of a game is 30, while inside the game the players God will reach a maximum level of 20. Favor is granted to players after they finish playing a match and is determined on if their team wins or loses, and how many kills, deaths, and assists that player has. It will cost a player 11,000 Favor to purchase a newly released God, or 5,500 for an older one.
Game types.
There are four different game modes as of now, Arena, Domination, Conquest and Joust. Arena is like a Team Death Match game type but each team has 200 points and the first team's counter to reach 0 loses, both teams consisting of 5 players. Domination is like any other game's Domination, there are 3 points available for capture and your team must hold 2 or more points to win, just like the Arena game type there is a counter with 200 points and the first to reach 0 loses, both teams consisting of 5 players each.Conquest is the original game type and used to be the only one back in the earlier days of the beta. In this game mode there are two teams, both with 5 players each. The objective of this game is to defeat the other team's Minotaur, but it's not that simple. Teamwork must be used in order to take down at a minimum two of six towers, and one of three phoenix's standing before the minotaur, all while fighting other players trying to do the same to your minotaur. Joust is just a 1 versus 1, but is like Conquest where you have to defeat the other players Minotaur after passing one tower and one phoenix to win.
Gems.
Once a player has made their account they can either purchase gems from within the game or at Hi-Rez's website. They have 3500 gems for $50, 1500 gems for $25, 800 gems for $15, and 400 gems for $8. Now I know you're wondering what's so special about gems and why would someone pay real money for something in-game. A player can receive gems from purchasing them like I mentioned above, they can recommend a friend to play smite and when that person reaches a certain level, the person who recommended the friend will receive a small amount of gems, or you can get gems through giveaways in the SMITE community. Gems can be used in SMITE to purchase Gods to unlock them to play, costing 200 gems per God. If you rather purchase Gods using favor it'll take longer but it'll definitely save your wallet from getting thinner, but then what's the other purpose of gems. Gems can also be used to buy skins for the God(s) a player has unlocked. Each god has at least one skin, however the majority of the skins right now are just re-colors, which is how the God original looks with just a different color scheme. Skins can range from 200 or 400 Gems, normally the re-colored skins are 200 and the better looking skins go for 400.
Gods.
As of today, there are 33 playable Gods currently in SMITE. Below is a list of all the gods and their background. Also found at the SMITE website here with more information on about the Gods.(God List)
Agni - Hindu
Anhur - Egyptian
Anubis - Egyptian
Ao Kuang - Chinese
Aphrodite - Greek
Apollo - Greek
Arachne - Greek
Ares - Greek
Artemis - Greek
Bacchus - Roman
Bakasura - Hindu
Bastet - Egyptian
Cupid - Roman
Freya - Norse
Guan Yu - Chinese
Hades - Greek
He Bo - Chinese
Hel - Norse
Hercules - Roman
*Kali - Hindu
Loki - Norse
Neith - Egpytian
Odin - Norse
Poseidon - Greek
Ra - Egyptian
Sobek - Egyptian
Sun Wukong - Chinese
Thor - Norse
Vamana - Hindu
Vulcan - Roman
Xbalanque - Mayan
Ymir - Norse
Zues - Greek
*The Hindu Gods, mainly Kali caused quite a controversy for Hi-Rez back in the early stages of beta. Rajan Zed, president of the Universal Society of Hinduism requested removal of these Hindu Gods as he believes having players control deities "trivializes" them. I have also heard of other storys saying that Kali looks like "a porn star." Todd Harris from Hi-Rez responded with the Hindu faith is one of the most ancient and diverse religions providing a good base for inspiration for characters in SMITE (Schaffnit).
Sources:
Schaffnit, Mike. "SMITE Creators Address Controversy Over The Inclusion Of Hindu Gods."
www.gamebreaker.tv web. 10 April 2013. <http://www.gamebreaker.tv/pc-games/playing-god/>.
smitegame. "Smite - Battleground of the Gods - MANOWAR - The Sons of Odin." www.youtube.com web. 10 April 2013. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CA4XFHfpmRQ&list=PLqMnSYeIWk0aRO03A26vq04oXayTeXoaJ>.
"Gods." www.hirezstudios.com web. 10 April 2013. <https://account.hirezstudios.com/smitegame/gods.aspx>.
Below is one of the trailers for SMITE (smitegame).
Abilities.
Players can chose from 33 different Gods, each with their very own abilities, passive abilities, and ultimate abilities. Each God has 3 different regular attack abilities as well as a primary attack. The primary attack may be something such as firing a bow, using a sword, or throwing lightning bolts for instance. The other abilities can be moves that deal tons of damage, heal the player or even players in a given area, stun enemy players, or even put up a wall to keep enemies or if you're that guy, you can even keep teammates in or out of certain fights for a few seconds. Passive abilities are also unique to each God and require nothing to activate them except to be playing that specific God. The ultimate ability is even more unique, focusing on the God's background and lore, Hi-Rez has managed to come up with amazing graphics and ideas for each God's ultimate ability. These ultimate abilities can make you immune to damage, or make you do massive amounts of damage, however it comes at a price. A God's ultimate ability, just like it's other 3 abilities or attacks will cost X amount of mana to cast and preform the action, all with different mana consumption variations. Not only do they come at a price of mana, they also have a cool-down time, which is a period where the ability is inactive and cannot be used until the timer is up, provided you have enough mana.
Favor.
All players will start out with the same 32 Gods. When players level up outside of game modes they will gain experience, or Favor. Favor will be used to purchase Gods later on in the game when players save up enough favor. The maximum level for a player's account to reach outside of a game is 30, while inside the game the players God will reach a maximum level of 20. Favor is granted to players after they finish playing a match and is determined on if their team wins or loses, and how many kills, deaths, and assists that player has. It will cost a player 11,000 Favor to purchase a newly released God, or 5,500 for an older one.
Game types.
There are four different game modes as of now, Arena, Domination, Conquest and Joust. Arena is like a Team Death Match game type but each team has 200 points and the first team's counter to reach 0 loses, both teams consisting of 5 players. Domination is like any other game's Domination, there are 3 points available for capture and your team must hold 2 or more points to win, just like the Arena game type there is a counter with 200 points and the first to reach 0 loses, both teams consisting of 5 players each.Conquest is the original game type and used to be the only one back in the earlier days of the beta. In this game mode there are two teams, both with 5 players each. The objective of this game is to defeat the other team's Minotaur, but it's not that simple. Teamwork must be used in order to take down at a minimum two of six towers, and one of three phoenix's standing before the minotaur, all while fighting other players trying to do the same to your minotaur. Joust is just a 1 versus 1, but is like Conquest where you have to defeat the other players Minotaur after passing one tower and one phoenix to win.
Gems.
Once a player has made their account they can either purchase gems from within the game or at Hi-Rez's website. They have 3500 gems for $50, 1500 gems for $25, 800 gems for $15, and 400 gems for $8. Now I know you're wondering what's so special about gems and why would someone pay real money for something in-game. A player can receive gems from purchasing them like I mentioned above, they can recommend a friend to play smite and when that person reaches a certain level, the person who recommended the friend will receive a small amount of gems, or you can get gems through giveaways in the SMITE community. Gems can be used in SMITE to purchase Gods to unlock them to play, costing 200 gems per God. If you rather purchase Gods using favor it'll take longer but it'll definitely save your wallet from getting thinner, but then what's the other purpose of gems. Gems can also be used to buy skins for the God(s) a player has unlocked. Each god has at least one skin, however the majority of the skins right now are just re-colors, which is how the God original looks with just a different color scheme. Skins can range from 200 or 400 Gems, normally the re-colored skins are 200 and the better looking skins go for 400.
Gods.
As of today, there are 33 playable Gods currently in SMITE. Below is a list of all the gods and their background. Also found at the SMITE website here with more information on about the Gods.(God List)
Agni - Hindu
Anhur - Egyptian
Anubis - Egyptian
Ao Kuang - Chinese
Aphrodite - Greek
Apollo - Greek
Arachne - Greek
Ares - Greek
Artemis - Greek
Bacchus - Roman
Bakasura - Hindu
Bastet - Egyptian
Cupid - Roman
Freya - Norse
Guan Yu - Chinese
Hades - Greek
He Bo - Chinese
Hel - Norse
Hercules - Roman
*Kali - Hindu
Loki - Norse
Neith - Egpytian
Odin - Norse
Poseidon - Greek
Ra - Egyptian
Sobek - Egyptian
Sun Wukong - Chinese
Thor - Norse
Vamana - Hindu
Vulcan - Roman
Xbalanque - Mayan
Ymir - Norse
Zues - Greek
*The Hindu Gods, mainly Kali caused quite a controversy for Hi-Rez back in the early stages of beta. Rajan Zed, president of the Universal Society of Hinduism requested removal of these Hindu Gods as he believes having players control deities "trivializes" them. I have also heard of other storys saying that Kali looks like "a porn star." Todd Harris from Hi-Rez responded with the Hindu faith is one of the most ancient and diverse religions providing a good base for inspiration for characters in SMITE (Schaffnit).
Sources:
Schaffnit, Mike. "SMITE Creators Address Controversy Over The Inclusion Of Hindu Gods."
www.gamebreaker.tv web. 10 April 2013. <http://www.gamebreaker.tv/pc-games/playing-god/>.
smitegame. "Smite - Battleground of the Gods - MANOWAR - The Sons of Odin." www.youtube.com web. 10 April 2013. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CA4XFHfpmRQ&list=PLqMnSYeIWk0aRO03A26vq04oXayTeXoaJ>.
"Gods." www.hirezstudios.com web. 10 April 2013. <https://account.hirezstudios.com/smitegame/gods.aspx>.
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Potential Sources.
At the beginning of the semester I knew that our class would have a final paper that would have to be written pertaining to our blogs and it's topic. Knowing this, I was influenced into picking the topic that I did and then evolving it to where it's at now. However, as the months have gone by I thought this would be an extremely simple topic but it seems I overlooked it at the time and it's actually harder than it seems. Sure there are tons of websites on gaming with the most recent news about all the new games, consoles or the drama of which lead developer has been fired from some big named gaming company. The redundancy of information from multiple websites covering the exact same big named games and ideas at the exact same time began to bore me more and more. This led to me browsing for hours on end finding very little that seemed interesting enough to post about.
On the other hand, I have outlined my next post in my mind of which sources it will contain and what it will be about. It will be about SMITE an online battle arena game, where players chose a God and are able to play against other people around the world. I myself enjoy this game to a great extent. There has even been some controversy over this game that's still in Beta, but you'll have to wait a week to find out more.
Major sources I will probably use on my final paper may include 1Up, IGN, VentureBeat, Game Informer, and possibly Kotaku, even though I am personally not a fan of how Kotaku is set up, they still provide some different information and another perspective to the gaming world. But those are all subject to change.
Once I figure out what my final paper will be about then I will be able to tell for sure which sources I may and may not use.
On the other hand, I have outlined my next post in my mind of which sources it will contain and what it will be about. It will be about SMITE an online battle arena game, where players chose a God and are able to play against other people around the world. I myself enjoy this game to a great extent. There has even been some controversy over this game that's still in Beta, but you'll have to wait a week to find out more.
Major sources I will probably use on my final paper may include 1Up, IGN, VentureBeat, Game Informer, and possibly Kotaku, even though I am personally not a fan of how Kotaku is set up, they still provide some different information and another perspective to the gaming world. But those are all subject to change.
Once I figure out what my final paper will be about then I will be able to tell for sure which sources I may and may not use.
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Pixar artists gone gamer?
 |
| Picture taken from edge-online.com cited below. |
The artists have deemed Steel Wool just a side company for now and they have already begun work on their first game, Flyhunter, which will be released this summer but for unknown platforms says Jeffrey Grubb in his post on Current Pixar employees banding together.
Below is a picture of the Hero of Flyhunter.
 |
| Picture taken from Steel Wool Games, cited below. |
In my own personal opinion this is pretty cool that a big time movie company such as Pixar is going to be making video games, although they're not related Pixar's artists have a lot of talent and I'm very excited to see what Flyhunter brings to the table. I am also excited to see if I can find any more information on Steel Wool Games and do a follow up post soon. I will definitely keep my eyes on Steel Wool Games for any updates.
Long, Neil. "Pixar artists form Steel Wool Games." www.edge-online.com web. 20 March 2013. <http://www.edge-online.com/news/pixar-artists-form-steel-wool-games/#null>.
http://steelwoolgames.com/ web. 20 March 2013. <http://steelwoolgames.com/>.
Grubb, Jeffrey. "Current Pixar employees band together to form game studio." www.venturebeat.com web. 20 March 2013. <http://venturebeat.com/2013/03/18/former-pixar-employees-band-together-to-form-game-studio/>.
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Minecraft for PlayStation 3?
For those of you who don't know, Minecraft is the game all about blocks. Everything about Minecraft is blocks, but it's not just that. You can build immaculate landscapes,
adventure for days on end, even play with your friends and come up with
other wonderful things to do. Alternatively to those who are not
appealed by Minecraft's blocky nature, there are "texture packs" which
you can install into your game to change how certain objects appear,
luckily there is an endless supply of texture packs to suit everyone's
fancy. However if players are not satisfied with playing by themselves
or with friends there are servers that contain different genres of the
game, now players will still be playing Minecraft but the servers may
have a combat system added into the game so that there will be some
player versus player, or maybe there will be one where a player can own,
run and manage their own town amongst other players.
Minecraft was started by Markus Persson in 2009 only to step down and give the title of lead developer to Jens Bergensten. Mojang, the Swedish company that developed Minecraft has sold over 9 million copies to PC/Mac's alone and then later expanded to the Xbox 360 in May of 2012, selling over 5 million copies. There is even a Minecraft Pocket Edition for iOS and Androids. However as of now Mojang has a console exclusvitiy deal with Microsoft, the creators of the Xbox, meaning that Minecraft is not allowed to expand to Sony or Nintendo consoles until that deal is up. Jens Bergensten said "When it runs out we’ll consider Minecraft for PlayStation, but Wii U is very unlikely"(Edge). Unfortunately Bergensten did not specify if the release would be for the PlayStation 3 or 4. It is also unknown how long the deal between Mojang and Microsoft will last as it has barely been one year now.
This is huge news even though it's still only a rumor. This means that Mojang will expand their game to an even wider amount of players, those who own a PlayStation but not a Xbox or PC/Mac. With the numbers of copies sold to the PC and Xbox versions, I could only imagine how many the PlayStation version could sell. I am personally excited to see how this turns out even though I already own Minecraft for the PC.
Below is one of the buildings I made and one of my favorite pictures I took.
Sources;
Long, Neil. "Minecraft on PlayStation being considered, Wii U version "very unlikely."' www.edge-online.com web. 6 March 2013. <http://www.edge-online.com/news/minecraft-on-playstation-being-considered-wii-u-version-very-unlikely/>.
Gaston, Martin. "Mojang will 'consider' Minecraft for PlayStation." www.gamespot.com web. 6 March 2013. <http://www.gamespot.com/news/mojang-will-consider-minecraft-for-playstation-6404897>.
"Minecraft." www.minecraft.com web. 6 March 2012. <http://minecraft.net/game>.
Minecraft was started by Markus Persson in 2009 only to step down and give the title of lead developer to Jens Bergensten. Mojang, the Swedish company that developed Minecraft has sold over 9 million copies to PC/Mac's alone and then later expanded to the Xbox 360 in May of 2012, selling over 5 million copies. There is even a Minecraft Pocket Edition for iOS and Androids. However as of now Mojang has a console exclusvitiy deal with Microsoft, the creators of the Xbox, meaning that Minecraft is not allowed to expand to Sony or Nintendo consoles until that deal is up. Jens Bergensten said "When it runs out we’ll consider Minecraft for PlayStation, but Wii U is very unlikely"(Edge). Unfortunately Bergensten did not specify if the release would be for the PlayStation 3 or 4. It is also unknown how long the deal between Mojang and Microsoft will last as it has barely been one year now.
This is huge news even though it's still only a rumor. This means that Mojang will expand their game to an even wider amount of players, those who own a PlayStation but not a Xbox or PC/Mac. With the numbers of copies sold to the PC and Xbox versions, I could only imagine how many the PlayStation version could sell. I am personally excited to see how this turns out even though I already own Minecraft for the PC.
Below is one of the buildings I made and one of my favorite pictures I took.
Sources;
Long, Neil. "Minecraft on PlayStation being considered, Wii U version "very unlikely."' www.edge-online.com web. 6 March 2013. <http://www.edge-online.com/news/minecraft-on-playstation-being-considered-wii-u-version-very-unlikely/>.
Gaston, Martin. "Mojang will 'consider' Minecraft for PlayStation." www.gamespot.com web. 6 March 2013. <http://www.gamespot.com/news/mojang-will-consider-minecraft-for-playstation-6404897>.
"Minecraft." www.minecraft.com web. 6 March 2012. <http://minecraft.net/game>.
Friday, March 1, 2013
Elder Scrolls Skyrim Online.
The Fifth edition of the Elder Scrolls series, Skyrim, an action role-playing game with an expansive world for players to explore developed by Bethesda Game Studios. Bethesda has teamed up with Zenimax Online Studios and they have recently announced a Beta sign up to try out the long awaited release of Elder Scrolls Online. Skyrim is available for the Xbox 306, PlayStation 3, and PC and like the previous four installments, you play your character but there is no online so you cannot play with your friends or random people, you are all alone in a world of NPC's(Non-Playable Characters). Skyrim is located on the continent of Tamriel, a vast land with dense forests, frozen mountains, lush scenery with a magnitude of animals and even dragons soaring over head.
There will have to be a lot of work put into Skyrim to ensure that everything works properly for the Online release. In an interview between Matthew Reynolds of Digitalspy.com and Matt Firor, a game director for Bethesda, Matt Firor states that "We've also reproportioned some of our NPC (non-playing character) and player figures, and retextured and tweaked some of our structures and buildings." The online installment of The Elder Scrolls' story will take 100 years before Oblivion (The fourth edition of The Elder Scrolls) and Skyrim. Matthew Reynolds asks "What does setting The Elder Scrolls Online hundreds of years before Oblivion and Skyrim allow you to do?" Firor responds with "It allows us to be able to tell stories about a time that is not well documented in lore, but what is known is very useful - mid 2nd era is known basically as a time of destabilization, lack of central control in Tamriel and lots of outside influences causing problems (invasions, pandemics, etc). It's a perfect setting for The Elder Scrolls Online. It has the familiar provinces and races, but a different cast of characters and stories. Also, it gives the player another era of Tamriel to explore, a time that is a little more unsettled than the Tamriel that they are used to in the other Elder Scrolls games."
Taking such an expansive game that is made solely to be played alone; completing quests, fighting monsters, exploring dungeons, and gathering resources and then turning it into a massively played online game will take a tremendous amount of work but in the end I personally believe it will work out for the best. The online portion will add new aspects to the game such as group-questing and Player versus Player or PvP, where people will fight to the death, most of the time in hopes of gaining what items the player they were fighting had. Matt Firor explains that there will be alliances that are in a conflict and the players get to chose from one of three alliances. Players will work together within their alliance to fight for and defend Cyrodiil, a province and even the throne of Tamriel, the whole continent of Skyrim. Firor also talks about how different the 360 degree radius that you as a player can see, such as games like World of Warcraft, as opposed to other first-person PvP games such as the Call of Duty franchise. This gives players a larger screen to find enemies, especially those behind them. (Elder Scrolls Skyrim Online Interview).
Opening the online to beta testing allows both Bethesda and Zenimax Online to gather information about the game such as bugs and glitches, as well as positive and negative feedback from the players allowing for changes before finalizing the game for launch (Sign Up for Elder Scrolls Online Beta).
Winda Benedetti from Nbcnews' technology section asks the big question of why. She asks "Why make a massively popular single-player game series into a massively multiplayer online (MMO) game?" Again, game director Matt Firor answers. Firor says that the main reason for the online is a tremendous opportunity to get new players who have never experienced MMOs before to just jump in and play online ('The Elder Scrolls Online' invites gamers). Not only is it attracting people who have never played MMOs but this also has a tremendous opportunity to attract people who are really interested in the player-versus-player aspect, so the community for The Elder Scrolls will grow immensely with the addition of online.
Below is the official Bethesda Trailer for Skyrim Online.
For those of you who play Skyrim and are interested in signing up to play the beta, you can sign up here at the beta signup.
Sources;
Mlot, Stephanie. "Sign Up for Elder Scrolls Online Beta Test Now." pcmag.com web. 1 March 2013. <http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2414557,00.asp>.
"The Elder Scrolls Online Beta Sign-Up." www.elderscrollsonline.com web. 1 March 2013. <http://signup.elderscrollsonline.com/>.
BethesdaSoftworks. "The Elder Scrolls Online - The Alliance Cinematic Trailer." www.youtube.com web. 1 March 2013. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=0jNT5cMwxw0>.
There will have to be a lot of work put into Skyrim to ensure that everything works properly for the Online release. In an interview between Matthew Reynolds of Digitalspy.com and Matt Firor, a game director for Bethesda, Matt Firor states that "We've also reproportioned some of our NPC (non-playing character) and player figures, and retextured and tweaked some of our structures and buildings." The online installment of The Elder Scrolls' story will take 100 years before Oblivion (The fourth edition of The Elder Scrolls) and Skyrim. Matthew Reynolds asks "What does setting The Elder Scrolls Online hundreds of years before Oblivion and Skyrim allow you to do?" Firor responds with "It allows us to be able to tell stories about a time that is not well documented in lore, but what is known is very useful - mid 2nd era is known basically as a time of destabilization, lack of central control in Tamriel and lots of outside influences causing problems (invasions, pandemics, etc). It's a perfect setting for The Elder Scrolls Online. It has the familiar provinces and races, but a different cast of characters and stories. Also, it gives the player another era of Tamriel to explore, a time that is a little more unsettled than the Tamriel that they are used to in the other Elder Scrolls games."
Taking such an expansive game that is made solely to be played alone; completing quests, fighting monsters, exploring dungeons, and gathering resources and then turning it into a massively played online game will take a tremendous amount of work but in the end I personally believe it will work out for the best. The online portion will add new aspects to the game such as group-questing and Player versus Player or PvP, where people will fight to the death, most of the time in hopes of gaining what items the player they were fighting had. Matt Firor explains that there will be alliances that are in a conflict and the players get to chose from one of three alliances. Players will work together within their alliance to fight for and defend Cyrodiil, a province and even the throne of Tamriel, the whole continent of Skyrim. Firor also talks about how different the 360 degree radius that you as a player can see, such as games like World of Warcraft, as opposed to other first-person PvP games such as the Call of Duty franchise. This gives players a larger screen to find enemies, especially those behind them. (Elder Scrolls Skyrim Online Interview).
Opening the online to beta testing allows both Bethesda and Zenimax Online to gather information about the game such as bugs and glitches, as well as positive and negative feedback from the players allowing for changes before finalizing the game for launch (Sign Up for Elder Scrolls Online Beta).
Winda Benedetti from Nbcnews' technology section asks the big question of why. She asks "Why make a massively popular single-player game series into a massively multiplayer online (MMO) game?" Again, game director Matt Firor answers. Firor says that the main reason for the online is a tremendous opportunity to get new players who have never experienced MMOs before to just jump in and play online ('The Elder Scrolls Online' invites gamers). Not only is it attracting people who have never played MMOs but this also has a tremendous opportunity to attract people who are really interested in the player-versus-player aspect, so the community for The Elder Scrolls will grow immensely with the addition of online.
Below is the official Bethesda Trailer for Skyrim Online.
For those of you who play Skyrim and are interested in signing up to play the beta, you can sign up here at the beta signup.
Sources;
Reynolds, Matthew. "'Elder Scrolls Online' interview: The beta, first person and Skyrim." www.digitalspy.com web. 1 March 2013. <http://www.digitalspy.com/gaming/interviews/a458194/elder-scrolls-online-interview-the-beta-first-person-and-skyrim.html>.
Benedetti, Winda. "'The Elder Scrolls Online' invites games to test the new Tamriel." www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog web. 1 March 2013. < http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/ingame/elder-scrolls-online-invites-gamers-test-new-tamriel-1B8057219>.
Mlot, Stephanie. "Sign Up for Elder Scrolls Online Beta Test Now." pcmag.com web. 1 March 2013. <http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2414557,00.asp>.
"The Elder Scrolls Online Beta Sign-Up." www.elderscrollsonline.com web. 1 March 2013. <http://signup.elderscrollsonline.com/>.
BethesdaSoftworks. "The Elder Scrolls Online - The Alliance Cinematic Trailer." www.youtube.com web. 1 March 2013. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=0jNT5cMwxw0>.
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