Massively^™

Ever wanted to take on monsters and swagger around, with nary a care for lesser landlubbers? Well Nexon's got just the thing for you in their newly created MapleStory player class - Pirates! Launching this month, the addition of the Pirate class adds a new facet on this already popular game. Players start with the Pirate, but can choose one of two job paths as their levels increase. At level 30, players can specialize in the fast melee attacks of the Brawler, or go for the ranged-attack prowess of the Gunslinger. Both job trees continue up to Buccaneer or Corsair at level 120, respectively. Additionally, pirates gain several fun new abilities like sneaking past monsters in barrels, the ability to summon sea creatures to help, and even transformative battle powers.

As if that weren't timber-shivering enough to give players an incentive for rolling a Pirate, MapleStory is also adding in a series of new maps and areas to experience aboard the Pirate ship Nautilus, just full of new adventures. They're also planning a series of contests based around the new class, including a costume contest, a user-generated content contest and even a competition for pirate-themed guilds. To top it all off, MapleStory is introducing a new server for people to play on - Demethos - which should give new players a chance to be on a more even footing as everyone levels up. Sounds like some serious sea fun to us. Yarr!

The Warden is one of the two new classes releasing in Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria on November 18th. It is considered a tank of sorts, yet uses medium leather armor instead of plate, and wields both a spear for melee combat, and a javelin for ranged combat. They're considered the guardian angels of Middle-earth, and specialize in special skill combinations called Gambits that can let the player adjust their skill needs on the fly, according to a particular situation. While they may not be the heaviest hitters or the most heavily-armored, their flexibility and adaptability in combat is where the Warden really shines.

After spending several weeks in the Moria beta, we're going to approach this article as a hands-on piece, without spending too much time with stats and figures. Turbine has just released a dev diary showcasing the Warden with a wonderful summary of the basics of the class. We highly recommend using that article as a learning tool, and this one as our general impressions of the Warden in certain situations. We'll go through some of the skills that you'll get with the higher-level Warden, explain some useful Gambits, discuss solo-ability vs. group play and then give our final impressions. Follow along through the link below to see what we thought.

In our recent talk with Matt Wilson at E3, we were given a lot of really illuminating information about classes and guilds in the upcoming SOE title, The Agency. It would seem that the Agency crew is doing a very good job of listening to many of the frustrations of MMOG players, while taking the time to study popular games like Team Fortress 2. If you've been wondering about the different classes and abilities, as well as social structure in this upcoming MMOFPS, then you'll be interested to hear what's in the works.

Massively: What are the classes or archetypal roles in The Agency?

Matt Wilson: Our four primary classes are basically Combat, which is the ability to have weapons and have high defenses. Stealth, which is more of a high-DPS, sniper rifles and other things that you take into battle, [Undercover] Stealth which is very important, which is sneaking around and distractions. And finally, there's the Support classes like your Medics and Field Techs. Field Techs are about defense, turrets, other cool things like that. Medics are more about supporting the team, being able to support med stations while you're out in the field, heals, that kind of thing. Those are the general archetypes. Then we have specialties that fall out of those, allowing players to specialize further in each class.

Yesterday's unexpected news of deep cuts into Warhammer Online's at-launch content is still sending shockwaves through the fan community. It seems like it's just been a whirlwind of WAR news of plate, with the announcement of the Guild Beta and the reacquisition of the Mythic Entertainment name close on the heels of the content losses. In the forums at the largest WAR fansite, Warhammer Alliance, Mythic VP and General Manager Mark Jacobs attempted to further clarify what prompted these dramatic announcements.

Jacobs and WAR community coordinator James Nichols have been on the front lines of this discussion. Jacobs in particular has offered up two lengthy posts on the issue, providing Mythic's viewpoint on both the classes and cities pulled. On the class front, it sounds as though these offerings simply weren't coming together from a design perspective. Jacobs even goes so far as to say that new classes may be put in their place if they can't 'get them right' post-launch. The pulled cities, on the other hand, will probably be added to the game at a later date. For now, the team wanted to focus the energy of the players and the developers into two red-hot points. There's a ton of perspective on this issue in the forum posts - make sure to check them out.

Gametribe, the European carrier of Dream of Mirror Online (run in North America by Aeria Games), announced a new game update this weekend. The update will go live on the 25th, and it will add a new class to DoMO -- the Merchant. The Merchant "uses money to fight and create powerful attacks." Sounds cool, but expensive!

The update will also feature a handful of new quests, including a couple new steps to the main quest. The item mall will see the addition of greedy inventory bags. Unsurprisingly, those will increase a character's maximum inventory. Some new visual character customization options will be added as well.

We've given kudos to DoMO for its art style in the past. Brenda Holloway (one of the staff bloggers here at Massively) even wrote that it's better than World of Warcraft. Don't scoff until you've tried it! If you have an aversion to microtransactions, though, maybe you should just take our word for it and move on.

DDO's Module 7 goes live today, and boy, if you're looking for information about it, you're in the right place. Massively has been covering Module 7 since before Module 6 dropped, and just in case you missed out on any of our great coverage, it's right here for your perusing pleasure.

• Live at Connect '08, we provided coverage of the DDO panel, including a first look at the Monk class Turbine released in this patch.
• Shortly after that, we chatted with the woman herself, DDO Senior Producer Kate Paiz, on what worked well with Module 6, and everything else they were planning in Module 7 and beyond.
• We covered "Monk Week" and the official Turbine events leading up to the game.
• Not only did we provide great original coverage, but we aggregated coverage from around the 'net, including other interviews with Ms. Paiz, as well as official info drops (and did you take advantage of your chance to grab the soundtrack?)
• And finally, Massively's got the dungeonmaster of all Module 7 previews, including the number one reason you'll want to roll a Monk, a look at the Gary Gygax shrine and the new midlevel content, the new high level instances and bosses, and even an exclusive video preview of what you'll see in Module 7 (which you'll find right after the break).

We critted on the coverage of this new patch (going live today), and you get to be the one to claim all the loot. Before you sign in and check out Module 7 today, be sure to check all the links above and read about it here.

Hell is about to get even hotter, as Flagship Studios prepares to unleash fresh content for Hellgate: London. Our sister blog Big Download has some posted new screenshots of the upcoming Abyss Chronicles for HG:L, as well as info on the 2.0 and 2.1 updates to the title. Patch 2.0 will be Hellgate: London's second major content update, and brings with it a host of new features and changes to the game. The build is likely to go live on the Test Server in the next week, but until then, here's Big Download's breakdown of the 2.0 changes:

• A new quest line that covers the spread of the Abyss through Parliament Square and the survivors' efforts to fight back

• A major rebalancing of the Blademaster class

• A complete PvP overhaul, including achievements, rankings, rewards, and a new CTF team gametype

• Changes to the Shared Stash, such as a separate pane for each difficulty

• Addition of two new trinket slots for players to add rings and such to their characters

• An attribute respec NPC that allows players to remove points from an attribute for a fee-per-point

• Three new skills for each class

• A consignment house (read: auction house) where players can sell stuff to other players without direct trading

Beyond rolling out The Abyss Chronicles with 2.0, the next area Flagship Studios is focusing on is PvP through Patch 2.1. The patch will 'open up an entirely new side to Hellgate: London' by introducing five cohesive elements of PvP in a single update: ranking, matchmaking, rewards, achievements, and Capture the Flag. The end result is what Flagship describes as 'a robust PvP experience.'

When it comes to choosing your class, we don't usually think much past the basics of the class's design, and of course how awesome you'll look in your favorite armor. But there's so much more to designing a balanced character class in an MMO than you might expect.

Recently, in a wonderful article at Gamasutra, John Hopson takes a look at the importance of designing a class from the most effective standpoint needed in an MMO. It doesn't have to do with the most efficient design, or the most powerfully specialized, but it's more about the situation you're in at that time. This is why his argument in favor of a hybrid class design is so compelling. Approached as a comparison to economics, it all makes perfect sense, and it will certainly open your eyes to what class designers are focusing on in current MMOs, and more importantly, future MMOs.

For most fantasy MMOGs, the basic classes you can expect to be playing aren't too hard to predict. Whether you're a stalwart warrior with shield in hand, a crafty mage raining fiery bolts of destruction, a sneaky rogue with poison on his knife, or a benevolent cleric healing the wounds of his allies, you make up part of what's known as the holy trinity of MMOs: Tank-DPS-Healer. You need someone to get your foe's attention, someone to whack them over the head until they die, and someone to keep everyone alive until that happens. Everything else is just icing on the cake.

We can debate the merits of that particular combat system as long as you like, but what I really wanted to point out is how boring those three specialized roles are. The four archetypes I mentioned are a staple in almost every single fantasy MMOG on the market, but they're far from the most interesting ones. While it's true that you can't get by without them, they've become so vanilla-flavored at this point that they're practically passé. Whenever I log into a new game and look at their class list, I wince a little. "Oh, a chance to be a brave warrior... again. Hmm. Mage? Rogue? Meh."

I've always been a big fan of classes that went against the grain, played outside the box, and did something a little different from the "core" classes. Not everyone needs to fit nicely into those three archetypal slots. The classes that don't often turn out to be the most rewarding and fun to play, in my experience. That said, I thought I'd take a look at some of the more interesting class designs in the games I've played and discuss what made them so cool.

Just in time for your weekend reading pleasure, it's yet another edition of Ask Massively, purveyor of advanced philosophy for MMORPG addicts far and wide since Paris Hilton was a tramp-in-training. This week is a homecoming of sorts for us here at Ask Massively. The past several columns have all been high-level philosophical treatises on MMORPG philosophy. What makes an MMORPG successful? Should certain games really be classified as MMO's? Will World of Warcraft realize its vision of intergalactic conquest and turn us all into gibbering idiots while feeding at their gaming trough like starving piglets?

The ivory tower is a fun place to visit, but it's not healthy to stay there too long. This week, we're going to get into the nuts-and-bolts of Tabula Rasa, NCSoft's latest and greatest entry into the universe of MMORPGs.

Dear Massive-head

I just picked up a copy of Tabula Rasa, and I'm a bit lost. I knew that there were not mages, necromancers, rogues, or bards in this game, but I'm having a difficult time trying to decide what I want my character to be. I can see that some classes are fairly obvious analogs to classes that I am familiar with from other games, but some of the others are downright confusing. I like the look and feel of the game so far, but what's a noob to do?

-Bill S.

Well, Bill, you're in luck. I think I can answer this one for you. I have been playing Tabula Rasa for a few weeks now, and I might be able to help you map the similarities between TR's classes and classes from games that you know and love.

If you have a question for us here at Ask Massively, then drop by our tipline or send us an email to ask AT massively DOT com. I'd like to add that I really don't need cheap copies of Microsoft Office or Windows Vista, so if you're selling those, you might want to go somewhere else.

Imagine if Snow White's wicked queen gazed into her magic mirror and asked, "Who's the most badass priest class of them all?" Judging from the info Funcom provided in a recent interview with Ten Ton Hammer, the answer would be "Age of Conan's Priest of Mitra."

Healers in AoC don't select a target and heal just that target, nor do they automatically heal everyone in their group. Rather, they heal all friendly targets standing in a 120 degree cone of effect in front of them. We'll call those spells "CoE heals." The Priest of Mitra will get bonuses to his or her damage output based on how many friendlies he or she has healed recently. He or she will have an ability called "Reciprocal Healing" that will allow him or her to AoE heal friendlies when affected by a CoE heal from another healer -- making groups with multiple priest-types particularly potent.

Perhaps most impressively, the Priest of Mitra will have access to a wide and dynamic range of crowd control spells by level 80 -- including "stun, fear, knockback, snare, and blind abilities." All that and more in the interview. Check it out.

Ten Ton Hammer has published the fourth in its series of "class interviews" with Funcom. Previously it spoke with the Age of Conan devs about the Dark Templar, the Guardian, and the Conqueror. This time it's the Assassin.

You can read the interview for all the details, but the gist of it is: Asassins use stealth and quick bursts of high damage melee attacks in tandem with poison and debuffs to fell opponents quickly. As a counter-balance to their extraordinary offensive capabilities, they are very weak in terms of defenses. They wear thin silk armor because it allows them to move freely and silently.

So the class is about 90% the same as the Rogue class in games like World of Warcraft. Unfortunately, "Assassins do it from behind" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

Hey all you Specialists out there! Feeling a bit down? Tired of your Soldier friends flaunting those fancy chainguns and graviton armor while you run through the Plains in motor assist? Sick of throwing heals at pick up groups who forget you're even there? Well hang in there friends, because Paul Sage has the answer for you! According to the erstwhile Tabula Rasa designer, many of the changes in patch 1.3 are aimed at shoring up some of the weaknesses in the Biotech and Medic trees, including an AE damage/heal for the Biotech and a big debuff ability in Disease for Medics.

Perhaps more importantly, Sage revealed that they're going to be tweaking the significance of attributes to try and make Health a more meaningful statistic, instead of its utility now, which is basically just a rough estimation of how long it will be until you die once your armor is worn down. These changes won't be coming until 1.4, so they may be over a month away, but it's reason enough to go back to level 5 and retry that Specialist clone again, if you haven't already.