Multi-Plat Defiance

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So many good games!
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New and upcoming MMO. Available on PC, PS3, and XBox 360.

In the genre there is a very sore lack of Sci-Fi when it comes to MMOs. There is, pretty much, just Star Wars at the moment and that's it. Sure in some way's PlanetSide 2 could count but it's more of a FPS game than anything else, with a few rpg-ish features set in an enormous open world. Tabula-Rasa is probably the closest Sci-Fi has come to truly hitting the MMO world, and sadly that game was a huge let down due to it's bugs. (a promising, yet ultimately sad, failure)

So with that in mind comes Defiance in April. If you haven't heard anything about it before, here is the site: www.defiance.com.

You will notice a few things maybe. 1) It's also going to be a TV series on Syfy (which the storylines are suppose to run concurrent as well as effect each other. Things that happen in the show will effect the game world and vice versa.) and 2) The game is being brought to us by the folks at Trion Worlds, the folks that did Rift as well as a couple of other games.

I have not participated in the beta yet, however I did watch a friend of mine last weekend play the game for a bit who did have beta access. For being in closed beta, it looks fairly well polished. I'm sure there are still some issues to work out, hence the betas, but from what I saw the game looked fairly close to being ready.

No real word on exactly how many varied races will be in at launch, as the Earth in Defiance has undergone the after effects of a war with an invading alien race and now coexistence in some places such as the town of Defiance. During the beta, from what I saw there were only 2 races (though they counted them as 4): Human Male/Female, and Irathient Male/Female. However the game and show, from what I can tell, have several different alien races. I can count at minimum, at least 3 other alien races when checking the game's page.

The game essentially plays like a 3rd person shooter as far as gameplay goes, however I'm fairly certain there are melee weapons and abilities. (This is not confirmed, but in a game with many many types of guns why would you try to melee?) It would seem there is a focus on killing things at a distance since the only dynamic event they have shown are the Arkfalls. Essentially, pieces of an alien ship that hovers in Earths atmosphere breaks and falls down to earth and people scramble to it to recover the alien technology and resources, however the Arkfalls also attract the local creatures who are drawn to it. This seems to generate a hoard of enemies which players have to defeat and then a final giant boss and when I say giant, I mean it. From what I can tell, some of the Arkfall giants make the player models look like cookie crumbs. I cant imagine successfully doing melee on anything that large, hence guns seem the only way to go.

There are levels, and abilities to unlock and hence make your character more badass and useful. Though not having played the game myself, the system looked like a cross from being really confusing to really simple.

Everyone plays as an Ark Hunter, whose job is to collect salvageable materials from the Arkfalls. From what little I have seen of the game's story, it seems like fun. Yes, there is a story path to follow and it's fairly mature. With the game receiving an M rating, don't expect it to hold back on swear words and other adult themes.

Though there is some degree of liberty taken here, while there is swearing, some of the words we know are also replaced with different new made up words that in the Defiance world, mean essentially the same thing you think they are being used to mean. I can't give an example at the moment because I forgot what it was. But think of it like Reboot and some of the Transformers series, where instead of using the word "Fuck" they replace it with the words "Slag" or "Frag" in all terms of it's normal negative usage. Yet, Defiance still uses many of our favorite 4 letter words still, it ain't putting on the kiddy gloves for nobody.

I imagine the show will be quite a bit different since it's on cable television, they'll likely use all the words they can get away with, while transforming the ones they can't into new words with the same meanings behind them.

Speaking of the show, it actually looks like it's could be quite interesting, which is good since I don't know how well the game will do if the show manages to flop, or vice versa.
 
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Yes Iso, adult themes. Now make sure to get your parent's permission to buy the game. :D

I also forgot to mention the game is going to be free to play, with the except that you have to actually buy the game itself. No monthly fees here and I'm down for that.
 
EVE Online is coming for that ass. I'm sure a handful of others will be helping it out too.
 
Eh? Meaning what exactly?
 
Bah, if you don't get it no worries; Star Trek Online is pretty damn popular now-a-days too... Anyway, check this out: http://www.wildstar-online.com/en/#page1. Not goin' to hold out much hope for a game based on a "SyFy" channel series though, not one bit. I like being surprised though. It's unfortunate for it too that FFXIV is right around the bend.
 
Maybe I just don't see it. Star Trek Online looks like a piece of garbage mmo to me. I believe the only reason people play that at all is the same reason why SWTOR will survive despite it's dramatic drop in numbers from it's original launch, that being that Star Trek and Star Wars have insanely huge fan bases. (And I will say Star Wars: The Old Republic is the better of the two by far, imo.) I forgot about EVE Online because.. well, it's forgettable. Sure it has a player base, but so does WoW for some strange reason.

I'm not going to hate on a SyFy show, a lot of the series on SyFy are not bad at all. It's typically when they make B movies for their network, that are bad. It looks to me like they are putting serious effort into making this show and game be the best success that it can. I am actually looking forward to both, as are many people around the globe. I had my reservations at first, but after looking into the game some and having seen the beta in person (yet to be a tester though) I believe the game will be well received. What trailers I have seen for the show have definitely been enough to pique my interests. And from what I've been seeing, there are a lot of people psyched for the show as well. Many already comparing it to Firefly even though it hasn't started, which I believe to be pretty foolish as the two shows really don't have anything in common other than a male human protagonist who uses guns and both worlds have alien races in them, and that they are sci-fi.
 
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Right, right; think of them however you will, just wanted to get the point across that the genre isn't just SWTOR. It does lack, compared to fantasy based games, a quality base though... most Sci-Fi MMORPGs are just cheap, quick cash-ins or too ambitious to do anything right. I miss my Matrix Online :/
 
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lulz? Joking about Matrix right? That was a nightmare, perhaps the worse MMORPG I've ever seen.

I do wish that Tabula Rasa hadn't flubbed though, it had such potential and when I played the beta it seemed like it was going to be a decent game, despite the few bugs I encountered. Apparently though they just didn't know what they were doing and in trying to fix the game fucked it up even worse some how. Makes me kinda sad just thinking about it. Had it just spent a few more months in beta before releasing they might have been able to fix it all up, but that's what you get when a publisher wants an unfinished project rushed to the shelves. You get FFXIV, oh wait..
 
Hey now, just because you didn't "get" how to play it doesn't make it bad! I'm OK with that though, you called EVE Online "forgettable" and based on its ridiculous popularity alone, you should never forget it ;D

I can't speak much for Tabula Rasa. I played in 2 beta phases that I can recall and an open period after retail, but it never seemed worth any amount of money to me, nor like it could have been. It was one of those games I'd play for a little bit and then get that "why the hell am I wasting my time with this" feelings. So yeah, I doubt I made it to any of the depth to make a good judgement call on it at all, but then again, it says something that is wasn't able to get me there either. I was disappointed though as I expected better of Richard Garriott, then again, he was become less and less "stable" anymore at that point.
 
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Hmm, third-person Borderlands eh, I was kind of hoping for something different. That said, it's definitely something I'll check out given the chance. Hopefully there are some gun-less classes though, maybe a katana or knife based class.
 
Well so far there's no telling. I only recall seeing basically 4 "classes" though honestly I'm not sure if that is the right term as I don't know if they actually effect anything other than the general appearance, armor/gear-wise, of your character. They might have specialize skill branches, but.. I don't know. I think you are free to build your character however you see fit with the use of the EGO system (basically their version of ability trees), which you see briefly in the gameplay video.

I also think that you can use whatever guns you want as long as you skill up your proficiency with them. However, I'm with you on wanting some melee type of weapons. At this point I haven't seen any, but my knowledge of the game is limited by the brief experience I had watching my friend play through a beta nearly 2 weeks ago and by what information is available on their website as well as what I've seen on Youtube. That being said, there are enemies that try to melee you, so in effect, you would think that players would also have similar options, though I do know you can melee enemies as a way of creating distance between yourself and enemies that get too close by kicks and knife attacks.

I'm not really trying to spoil myself too much on it though as I want the game to feel fresh when I play it. There are some neat little things I've found out about. They even have a program setup to give your account special bonuses to characters you make, that utilizes those codes that you will occasionally see in commercials for the game. They generally appear briefly, sometimes in the commercial or after with a flicker type effect, but they aren't just in commercials. They are in all sorts of medium and there are actually people that are tracking them and finding them. (they have gone so far as to hide 2 different codes within the source code of 2 of their websites, for example) So far there have been 36 hidden codes (and there will be a total of 120, up until the game's launch). That's about all I'm going to say about it since the codes give rather nice and useful bonuses the more you find and use. Out of my friends, only one knows about it and he found out while I was watching him look up stuff on his computer, so I know about it too, but we decided to keep it a secret so that when the game launches our other friend will wonder why we are a little better than him. LOL.
 
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In Defiance you play as an Ark Hunter, which I already said in my first post and gave a brief description.

For a more in-depth description on Ark Hunters, they have released an official page with info: http://www.defiance.com/en/game/overview/what-is-an-ark-hunter/

It's a nice little read if you want some more info on the game.
 
Ecks said:
Some gameplay footage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=b16lY3Zrnf8
Click to expand...

Is it just me or do you smell this guy too (the fat little creature-dood at the front of the trailer):

aramaki8_zps045a8bb1.jpg
 
Yep, definitely the same voice actor and I don't need to find his name to verify. I knew the moment I heard him that he's done several old men in anime.
 
Man. I have been playing some of the 3rd (and final) closed beta and I have really been enjoying the hell out of myself. This beta began Friday morning at 10am cst and ends sometime Sunday night.. so I've got pretty much a little bit of time today and tomorrow left to enjoy it before it launches April 2nd. I haven't really gotten very far into the game yet but have had a great time. There are a ton of different weapon types, though it makes sense to narrow down your choices to 2 preferred types (at least at first) since you can only have 2 weapons equipped at any time. The more you use a weapon type, the more points you accrue towards that weapon type and eventually rank up and get new perks, essentially making you better with that weapon type. So if you want to try to use a bunch of different weapon types it's going to take you a lot longer before you see any one of them actually improve. Naturally you might not start out with the weapon types you may find yourself interested in, unless you pick a starter "class" that happens to have it.

Unlike most MMOs the "4" races and 4 "classes" they list during character creation are really just there for flavor and have only one distinction among them (the classes) aside from giving you a different starting look of armor, which is purely aesthetic. That one and only distinction is what you secondary starter gun will be, as it seems all classes start out with a pistol and whatever secondary gun makes sense to the "class". For example, the Survivalist uses a sniper rifle and the Machinist uses a machine gun. And that's about it. There are numerous different outfits you can wear to customize your appearance, some are awarded from quests while (many, many, many) others you can buy from the cash shop. Also, as far as outfits go, they pretty much have two slots for this, your main outfit, and then your head/helmet/hat slot. Once you unlock or otherwise obtain an outfit or head gear you always have it and can change your look whenever you want.

You don't wear armor in the normal MMO sense. This game handles your defenses almost exactly like the Boarderlands series. You have a shield slot and it functions exactly like you would expect it to.

Aside from guns and a shield, the only other things you have will be a grenade and a vehicle slot. I really like how they've handled grenades in this game. In stead of having to look for a grenade each time you use it, the grenade is actually treated more like a skill and is placed on a cooldown each time you use one and you just wait til it comes back up before you can toss another.

Vehicles also skill up like your guns do. The more you use it, do tricks and other things in it, the more proficient you get with them. Apparently there are at least 3 vehicle types that I know of. Basically, crappy atv, super cool atv, and then there's the cars. (obviously not their official terms)

As far as gameplay, well you pretty much can just free-roam. There is a standard story mode if you follow the quests, and you should, seems a pretty good story so far. There are also several other different objectives to do and all you have to do is look at the map to find them or just roam around and come across them. There are side missions, which sometimes might follow with the story as to events happening in a particular area or might have nothing to do with the story and just be people needing your help. There are semi-random events that just happen in certain areas that just are active as soon as you are in the area of them (normal quests have a starting place in which you accept the quest to start triggering it). Then there are challenges, where once you accept it, it ports you to a place usually close by where the initial quest point was and you essentially take up the challenge. These challenges are things like beat the clock races and the course is outlined by rings along the terrain that only you see, yet everyone else is still playing the game normally even while you are doing this. So.. you might be on a course racing to beat a time and there are players just off to the side fighting mutants or hellbugs and if any of those monsters happen to run in the way of you as you're speeding along.. well, they make a nice squishy sound as they get hit and you kill them and might grab a small amount of experience. Other challenges that I've seen involve a veritable shooting gallery of enemies with a certain weapon type (basically you get swarmed), and you have to try to beat the high score without dying. I found this type to be frustrating, but that's just me. I apparently suck at it and died a lot. Whatever..

And then you have the Arkfalls. Let me tell you, I did about 3 or 4 arkfalls yesterday and it was awesome. Complete chaos as you have to fight hordes of enemies with tons of other players (if they are around), while trying to destroy this arkfall shard. Sometimes these chain, like there will be a bunch of smaller (yet still quite large battles) ark cores and once you've secured those areas it leads to a huge arkfall in which you have to fight a huge boss before it's finished. These are madness, but so much fun. You are almost garenteed to gain some experience and money (called skrip) and quite possibly a few items depending on your participation and effectiveness in the overall battle.

Needless to say I'm actually having a really fun time.

Oh yeah, this game doesn't exactly handle leveling in the traditional sense. You do gain experience, but it goes towards what is called your EGO rating, which is like having a level... sorta. When I first started I didn't quite get it, or even notice it until a friend of mine who i was playing with yesterday pointed it out. He was 40 and I was 20 and I was wondering how in the hell he got so much higher than me when he essentially started after I did (just barely). Well, now I get it a bit more. The more you do things in the game. The higher your Ego rating will rise and like levels, certain guns, shields and grenades will require you to have a certain Ego rating in order to be able to equip them. I'm at 117 Ego rating (still, kind of low) while my friend who apparently got up early today and played the game was at 140 last I saw.

Okay, not gonna get into the EGO powers and how those work right now, but it's also another pretty cool aspect of the game.
 
I'm glad you're enjoying it, but I think they should have refrained from a public beta. It pretty much did nothing but prove my fears; that it's a want-to-be Borderlands in an MMO dressing and really doesn't do one thing well at all. To be blunt, it's a cheap Borderlands cash-in. If I had to give a specific example, I'd say it's not far off from what War Z did to Day Z. I'll give them this though, they did the one thing Borderlands fans have been raving for, but Gearbox keeps denying us, that being an official third-person camera view. I swear, it just seems stupid to me playing a game that enjoys character customizations (especially on the exterior) but never really allows for you to see your character in action. The level system seems like the one in Secret World, really, just everything feels lifted from something else, with little to no "personal" touch. Then finally, too much damn nickle and diming, especially for a game they claim to be an MMO; DLC, Season Pass, AND Microtransactions - just... no, that's not how it works, getting your cake and eating it too (EA isn't even this bad yet).
 
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I didn't realize it was an open beta, as I got my invitation in an email. The PC weekend was just that, 3 days. The PS3 and Xbox 360 betas were a bit longer since this was the first and only beta for either system.

I gotta say it was pretty fun, and not to say I didn't run into a few bugs. I encountered two bugs during my short experience playing. One was after a massive Arkfall experience, where after we completed the main objective (killing a really huge fat mutated Hellbug, first time I had ever seen an Arkfall like that btw and it was challenging and fun) there was no reward like there should have been. The second bug I ran into was similar, but on a story mission. This time I had to clear out an area while protecting 2 npcs and somehow it bugged or had a hidden enemy somewhere because all of the enemies appeared to have been killed once I was done yet the mission wasn't concluding/progressing to the next stage. Hopefully this gets fixed as, specially for a main story mission, it becomes a big disappointment for the moment when you think you've won.

Did you play at all? I wouldn't compare it to Boarderlands(2) at all other than the fact that you are playing a shooter with rpg elements. I mean, that's about the jist of the similarities. I guess if anything it might be close, if BL was a mmo and hundreds of thousands of people were all playing it at once together. I'm not sure what you mean by nickle and dime, as the only thing you have to pay for is the game itself. Mine's nearly paid off, and will be in a few days once I get my paycheck. You don't have to buy anything off the cash shop. It's there if you want the options and considering they haven't actually done anything as far as additional content yet, who's to say what you will have to pay for and what you'll get merely as a patched game update. I might even blow some cash on the shop as some of the armor sets do look pretty cool. But I think I'll wait and see. There have been some neat costume unlocks that have been granted just by doing side and story quests, and a few options to be found in certain vendors.

A few players I was around during my last bit of play (1 or 2 out of like 10) were making comments about how the game was boring to them because it was just the same thing over and over. I have no idea how far ahead of me they might have been in progression or EGO rating, but they didn't seem all that impressive. We only had access to 1 massive zone so there's really no telling how different each zone might be. The game looks great and the action can be incredibly fast paced sometimes, dodging attacks/fire and finding cover are pretty useful tool but neither will save you all of the time as enemy AI seemed fairly intelligent most of the time. I didn't even partake in any of the pvp modes so I can't comment on that aspect of the game just yet, but really.. 3rd person shooter pvp.. it's a pretty safe bet that it's one of the few pvp types I'll enjoy.
 
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I've been looking into this game myself. I want to play an MMO with no monthly fee until FFXIV comes out.
 
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