Sci-fi

Star Trek Online Executive Producer Dan Stahl has just posted his latest state-of-the-game letter to the official site, declaring that Season Six marks the perfect time for a new player to jump in, thanks to its streamlined mission structure and brand-new starbases.

Here's the juicy bit: Current players know that The Foundry, the game's player-generated content system, has been offline for quite a long time as a result of tweaks made to it by the Season Six patch. Stahl notes that the team is still working on the issues but has finally brought part of the system back online:

Season 6 also introduces some nice improvements for our Foundry. As some may have noticed though, we have yet to turn on these new features yet. The QA team is working diligently as they continue to sort through some specific bugs with previously existing missions. Once those bugs are sorted through, we will then open up the editor – as of today, we have turned on the ability to play existing, republished missions.

Stahl finishes with a quick mention of the dreaded lock boxes, the Star Trek convention in August, and plans for Season Seven. Check out the entire state-of-the-game letter at the official site.

Star Wars: The Old Republic's weekly Q&A session with the devs made it to release on time this week! BioWare's Will Wallace, Hall Hood, Rick Burton answer questions about travel perks in PvP, the seven commemorative pillars on Corellia, and the aftermath of the Rise of the Rakghoul plague event. Principal Lead Systems Designer Damion Schubert joined in to respond to a player with concerns about how automatic transfers will work for players who do not opt to transfer their characters manually:

Once we do automatic transfers, we will be doing everything possible in order to maintain the basics of the current ruleset as possible - PvE vs PvP, regional choice, language (for Europe); so in many cases, you should have a good idea of which populations you are likely to end up with. Another top concern is trying to help the populations that result have a good factional balance. We will give out a specific list once we are closer to implementation of this plan - watch for more info soon!

Schubert also explains what "server stability" fixes really mean. The complete Q&A is online now at the official SWTOR blog.

This cold war... just got hot! Now that we've got cheesy movie poster taglines out of the way, let's talk about End of Nations' upcoming closed beta event. Trion Worlds announced that the event is scheduled for August 3rd, starting at 12:01 a.m. EDT and going until August 5th at 11:59 p.m. EDT.

If you don't have a key for the beta yet, don't despair. You can sign up on the End of Nations beta page for a chance to get in, or watch Trion's social media for giveaways. Alternatively, beta access is guaranteed for those who pre-purcase the digital Founder's Edition.

[Source: Trion Worlds press release]

MMO companies are usually pretty secretive about their user numbers. Sega bucked that trend recently when it announced that 730,000 players had registered for Phantasy Star Online 2. The registration metric is pretty fluffy when it comes to actual player numbers, though, and fortunately the company also announced that PSO2 achieved a peak concurrent user number of 91,513 on July 7th.

These numbers are solely the result of the recent Japanese launch. The game is slated to debut in Europe and North America sometime in 2013.

Not a bad week for shooter news, wouldn't you agree? Let's see, we had PlanetSide 2's heart-pounding Death is No Excuse CG trailer. We also had a huge Tribes: Ascend update. While those two juggernauts get plenty of press coverage, one shooter that's still operating relatively under the radar is Heroes & Generals.

If you've read The Firing Line before, though, you know I'm a big fan of Reto-Moto's browser-based World War II title. Follow me past the break for the latest updates on that and more.

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In a recent interview, EVE Online's Senior Producer Jon Lander expounded on the bottom-up philosophy that CCP practices for its massive space sandbox. He discussed how EVE is focused on building tools for players to use instead of cranking out content for players to consume.

Lander credits the game's success to listening to the player base and the developers who are more intimately familiar with the ins-and-outs of the game world. He states, "What we've done is we've devolved an awful lot of the power of the decision-making and the accountability for what we do in the games to the people who know best, which are the developers on the ground who've been doing this for a long time." He also noted that the company learned a valuable lesson when it deviated from that philosophy in 2011 and the company took its success for granted.

EVE also benefits from focusing on building a social system instead of content. "We build a social engine that people actually love, hate, despise each other, love each other, backstab each other, and play the good Samaritan," says Lander. "People know each other, and there is this history. They feel a big emotional attachment to that, and that keeps them coming."

Although the people of Ostenia aren't getting much attention from City of Steam's alpha players at the moment, developers have shined a spotlight on the fun-loving, romantic Ostenians in the game's latest dev journal. So what sets these folks apart from other people on the Mechanism?

Perhaps most notably, the Holy Kingdom of Ostenia is strongly influenced by the Church. The people are seen by outsiders as zealous and preachy, but not just about their religion. In fact, Ostenians are highly opinionated and considered preachy on any subject, even mundane topics like cooking.

But the religious distinction is just one part of Ostenia. The kingdom is home to one of the richest and most diverse cultures on the Mechanism due to the fact that the nation is actually created from the uneasy alliance of two distinctly different lands: Ancien Royaume, an inland feudal kingdom, and Nuovo Regno, sacred church-run lands on the coast.

If our summary piques your interest in the people, be sure to check them out during City of Steam's alpha weekends.

The other day I was talking to a fellow shooter fan about the merits of PlanetSide 2. There's the open world, the thousand-player battles, and the seamless gameplay transitions between air vehicles, ground vehicles, and foot soldiering.

What about those funky bright-colored uniforms, though?

Those were a tough sell to my buddy, at least prior to SOE's latest PS2 trailer. The gamemaker has joined forces with Blur Studio to produce a grim, grey romp through the far future battlefields of Auraxis. There is a bit of Terran Republic red in the three-minute clip, but it's mostly from the blood splattering across armor, windshields, and the camera lens.

We got a 45-second tease of the clip last week, but this time around we can see the whole heart-pounding picture. There's no actual game footage on display, but the video is nonetheless a welcome tease of what's to come as PlanetSide 2 moves into closed beta testing. Check it out after the cut.

[Source: SOE press release]

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Sony Online Entertainment President John Smedley has tweeted some helpful clues to players anxious about their beta invitations for the studio's upcoming pseudo-sandbox shooter, PlanetSide 2. He posted,

There seems to be some confusion about PS1 Vets and the PS2 Beta. Let me clear it up once and for all. There are going to be multiple phases of the beta. Simply put we are adding more people in different waves simply due to capacity. Every single PS1 player who has ever subscribed to the game will have their Station Account activated at some point during the beta beginning with people who actively are subscribers. Again though we can only let in so many people during each phase so invitations are by necessity going to be staggered. So basically if you've ever subbed to the game you're going to be in. However current subs are in the front of the line for that. In addition we have Priority beta keys given out [and] they will be let in in the early phases as well. For people that ask me, "I played from 2005-2007 am I in soon?" the answer is you will be in in an early phase.

In other words: patience. You're getting in! But Smedley does warn, "This is a real beta. Not a marketing gimmick." So be prepared to do some actual testing.

If I only had more time. If only I had all the time in the world to game to my heart's content without giving up the other aspects of my life that are precious to me. If only I could go back in time and tell myself to play Game Y instead of Game X.

Ah, wishes and horses. Both are full of poop! But if wishes could be horses, I'd love to have some time to go back and play Anarchy Online hardcore.

I don't know what it is about this game that keeps calling me back with its retro appeal. But every year I go through a phase when I download the client and re-enter the world of Rubi-Ka for another attempt at mastering this 11-year-old title. It doesn't stick, but the fondness and desire remains. Why do I play it? I'm going to be coy and make you work for the answer.

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Red 5 Studios Designer Justin Hanson is hard at work on making Firefall's combat the best it can be, and he's openly discussing the changes that the team's been making to the Dreadnaught battleframe (read: class).

The Dreadnaught is a close-range fighter with impeccable durability, giving him the survival edge in any given battle. The team recognized that players were stacking accuracy modules to make him a good ranged fighter, so the devs tweaked the machine gun to make it semi-inaccurate at all ranges. The class now requires skill and planning to get within range, whereupon it can start mopping the floor with the competition.

Dreadnaughts now have an option to replace their machine guns with thermal machine guns. These offer more accuracy at range the hotter they get, but its rate of fire is slower and it can overheat and shut down.

Hanson goes on to relay some of the other weapon and skill changes that are meant to tighten the Dreadnaught's focus and make it an interesting class for talented players.

It might be your time up there, but it's my time -- my time -- down here! For this latest edition of Choose My Adventure, I get to hand out a selection of odd little games for you to vote on, and then for the next month and change, I will stumble my way through the title. At your direction and with your help, of course. The trouble is that I have already played darn near everything. I've downloaded and tried so many games that I simply can't remember them all. So, what to do?

Well, I decided to give a mix of games a chance at several weeks coverage here on Massively. I picked out an assortment of browser games, independent titles, and lesser-known client-based MMOs. Hopefully you will steer me the right way, and if I am lucky, I won't even have a horrible time. I chose games that I know have a robust community in the hopes that plenty of voters will turn out. The key is to get the word out there, so if you have a favorite, go tell your community!

But first, click past the cut and vote on the game you would like to see me tackle for the next several weeks. Just don't expect to see triple-A games on the list!

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Cliffhanger Productions announced an additional payment model last night, right in the middle of its current Kickstarter project to bring Shadowrun Online to fans everywhere. Today, Executive Producer Jan Wagner released a new developer video detailing that new payment model, referring to it as one "similar to Guild Wars" in which you purchase the game once and can play as long as you'd like.

Wagner says that the game will be playable not only as an MMO but as a single-player game, and there will be PvP. In fact, with the mention of upcoming expansions and the way hub cities work, it seems that Shadowrun Online has more than just a business model in common with Guild Wars.

You can check out the entire dev video, including some great in-game footage, just after the cut below.

[Source: Cliffhanger Productions press release]

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There's little debate over whether or not free-to-play is a viable business model, but there are some legitimate concerns over its implementation when mixed with PvP. That's a concern that's been raised by Shadowrun Online fans as the game pushes for Kickstarter funding, and it's one that the developers have addressed in an update on the game's business model. Rather than following a straight free-to-play model, the game will be moving forward under a model more reminiscent of Guild Wars.

At launch, the game will retail for $39.99 (Kickstarter backers will be able to get the game at the $25 donation level), with a new "campaign" launched every three or four months at $14.99. Cliffhanger Productions isn't fully replacing the free-to-play model, as both the campaign option and the free-to-play option will be launched on separate servers to support both business models. It's a far-reaching change based on community feedback, and it should be interesting for fans to see how this affects overall donations to the ongoing funding campaign.