This month for MMO Co-Opportunities, we have a smorgasbord of news, updates, and announcements for several currently released MMOs. Besides the fact that they’re all already out, there’s not really a common thread between them! So let’s jump right in.
13 Years of Dark Age of Camelot
Dark Age of Camelot (DAoC) is celebrating its 13th anniversary this month. As such, former players of the game are welcome back this month for 13 free days of playtime. Newer features of the game include RvR updates to the New Frontiers, Keep Lighting upgrades, the revamped Darkness Falls RvR dungeon, and an extended Champion Level cap of 15. There’s also some special anniversary incentives for former players: a 13th anniversary veteran award (veteran awards are only rewarded in October of every year) and a month-long RvR tournament.
Mythic has provided a helpful set of videos to aid returning players in things such as account recovery, updates to payment method, and archived character transfers. If you’re a former player and are interesting jumping back into DAoC to see what’s changed, a free 13 days is certainly a great way to do it. You can check out the details on their website.
Star Wars: The Old Republic Announces Shadow of Revan Expansion
For those of us who played and loved Knights of the Old Republic, it’s hard suppress a wriggle of excitement at the mention of an expansion for Star Wars: the Old Republic that focuses on the character Revan. This month, Bioware announced their second digital expansion to SWTOR, entitled the Shadow of Revan. The expansion will run players $20 and will include an increased level cap to level 60, two new Flashpoints, two new Hard Mode Flashpoints, and two new level 60 Operations. It will also include an overhaul of the class system (which will change for all players of the game, not just expansion players). The new Discipline system will abandon Skill Trees in favor of Disciplines, which will hopefully result in a more intuitive, role-oriented system.
As is the norm with many digital expansion to MMOs, there are some pre-order incentives for players who already know they’ll be purchasing it. The most interesting perk is a full week of early access to the expansion starting December 2nd for players who pre-order before November 2nd. Another thing to note is that if one buys the Shadow of Revan expansion, the first expansion (Rise of the Hutt Cartel) will immediately be unlocked for that player’s account. You can check out the teaser trailer for the Shadow of Revan below:
Carbine Releases Details on the State of Wildstar and Upcoming Changes
It’s no secret that things have been a bit rocky of late for Carbine Studios. While Wildstar had, in my opinion, a pretty successful launch, the months following brought rushed post-release content which in turn led to some dissatisfaction among players regarding the end-game content as well as Carbine’s perceived attitude of who Wildstar was geared towards. It culminated in Carbine president Jeremy Gaffney stepping down from his leader role to a consultant. Just last week, though, many of the curtains have been pulled back as Carbine attempts to pull everything back together and make changes to Wildstar.
The planned monthly content drops have been abandoned, and have instead been put on a more realistic time track, to ensure that the content is complete and player-ready. So the Mystery of Genesis Prime content, originally slotted for September, is now being rolled in with the update that was planned for come after it (Journey to OMNI-Core-1). Together they will be called Update 3, which Carbine hopes to get out in November.
The update, which is still in the works, has changes and fixes that apparently clock in at over 100 pages. Some significant changes, based on player feedback, include being able to skip the tutorial, a rune system update that will include unlocking and rerolling rune slots, and changes to the ELO matching in PVP. There will also be cross-class combat balancing taking place as well as ability revisions, and client optimization.
Update 3 is supposed to be a game-changing update, and Carbine is so serious about it that they’ve announced that there will unfortunately be no Halloween or Winter Holiday events this year. Despite the fact that months of time had already been devoted to these events, Carbine feels that all their time should be spent on this overdue update and improvement to the existing game. While I’m sure many players are disappointed with this announcement, I can’t help but support the reasoning behind it. Time will tell just how much Update 3 changes Wildstar. I, for one, am hoping it will be a success because I’d love to have a reason to jump back into the game again.
So that about rounds it up for this month. What MMOs are you guys playing? Any thoughts about Dark Age of Camelot, SWTOR, or Wildstar? As always, let us know in the comments.