The model Funcom has chosen for its MMO with a modern setting is one familiar to Guild Wars 2 players.  Simply buy the game, and all the content that is currently available is yours to experience.  Going forward, Funcom will put out DLC in the form of numbered Issues just like their current update format.  New issues can be purchased for just $5, and will include new content, weapons, etc.  The next Issue is scheduled to launch in January 2013, but if you purchase and register your account before the end of December 2012, you’ll get Jaunuary’s Issue #5 for free, and of course the existing Issues 1-4.  There will continue to be free patches with content and game updates as well.

For player who opt to continue or pick up a monthly membership sub fee, you will be rewarded with the following benefits:

• Time Accelerator (Clickable item which increases experience gain for defeating monsters by 100% for 1 hour, 16 hour cool-down – only usable by Members and Grand Masters)
• $10 worth of Bonus Points (given out every month)
• Item-of-the-month gift (given out every month)
• 10% discount to everything in the in-game store

The existing cash shop has received some new items, including an Ability Point boosting potion, and new outfits, pets, and other items will be continuously added.

If you’ve already purchased The Secret World, you can start playing for free today, and if you haven’t you can pick it up the digital download for $30 and get more info on the official site.

The Wintersday event runs from December 14th through January 3rd.

The video is quite entertaining, and I recommend you watch it in its entirety, but at around 2:50 Joel pretty emphatically tells a group of suits at a meeting table to “drop the subscription”.

What this means exactly we can not say for sure right now.  This could very easily be just a free trial, or free weekend event.  But what the video seems to imply is that on December 21st, The Secret World is going free-to-play.  The video ends with a “to be continued…”, so there seems to be more info on its way in the future.  Many folks have thought since its launch earlier this year that it is simply a matter of when, not if, the TSW would go F2P.  We’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for what’s in-store in the coming weeks for The Secret World.

You can try Rift for free by clicking here!

APB Reloaded is a free-to-play game where you tank on the role of a Criminal hell-bent on causing havoc and making money, or an Enforcer tapped by the city to keep the order.

You can download and play APB Reloaded for free at GamersFirst.com or via your Steam account.

“We are committed to making End of Nations meet our standard of AAA and we will continue to develop the game until it meets our standards. Rest assured that we are not giving up on End of Nations and that we are set on giving fans what they want.”

As development moves forward Trion is looking to introduce several improvements such as a revamped UI system, advancements in player strategy, easing the learing curve for new players, and adding more overall polish to the product.

You can check out End of Nations and sign up for beta on the official site.

With yesterday’s patch, Preferred Status players will now be given 4 Quickbars by default, up from the 2 previously allowed those who are former subscribers, or have spent $5 or more in the Cartel Market.  Players who had already purchased Quickbars with Cartel Coins should expect those coins refunded in the shop.

Bioware also announced that in a yet to be determined upcoming patch, Preferred Status players would receive additional character slots, for a total of 4 by default, and that subscribers would see an increase in the amount of total active characters an account can have in the game, which is currently capped at 50.  (May the force be with you if you need more than 50)

Executive Producer Jeff Hickman says that the company is keeping an ear to the ground for player feedback, and encourages the community to continue offering suggestions for what they’d like to see from F2P moving forward.

The Season 3 Preseason Patch for League of Legends is going live today.  With lots of changes, tweaks, and new items coming to the game this is a very extensive patch, and there are loads of patch notes, which you can check out below.  (Note: It doesn’t look like Nami is coming in this patch.)

Summoner’s Rift

• Gold adjustments
  • Ambient gold gain increased to 16 per 10 seconds from 13 per 10 seconds – gold gained from farming lane minions and jungle monsters have been slightly reduced to compensate
  • Melee Minion
    • Base gold value reduced to 20 from 22
  • Ranged Minion
    • Base gold value reduced to 15 from 16
  • Siege Minion
    • Base gold value increased to 40 from 27
    • Scaling gold value based on time increased to 1 from 0.5
  • Minion gold values now update more often on a 90 second interval instead of 180
• Kill and Death streak adjustments
  • Kill Streak bonus now caps at 500 Gold, down from 600 Gold.
  • Kill Streaks and Death Streaks now accelerate faster by roughly 50%.
    • Example: A player with a 4 kill streak will be worth 500 gold – compared to before which required an 8 kill streak.
    • Example: A player with a 4 death streak will be worth 126 gold – compared to before which required a 6 death streak.
• Assist Gold
  • The bonus gold added for multiple players participating in a kill has been reduced to 150% from 158%.
• Jungle
  • Overview
    • Initial difficulty of all jungle camps has been increased
    • Camp difficulty and rewards have been re-distributed more into the large monster in each camp
    • Scaling difficulty and rewards of the primary jungle camps have been significantly increased
    • Overall rewards have been re-distributed between the 3 primary jungle camps (Wolves, Wraiths, Golems) to better match their difficulty and convenience
    • New jungle items have been added to the store and old jungle items have been adjusted
  • Leashing has been changed
    • Jungle monsters now attack the closest target rather than chasing their original target
    • Whenever jungle monsters switch targets it counts as a “leash” – the maximum amount of leashes after which jungle monsters will reset has been increased to 10 from 3
    • Jungle monsters now deal 50% bonus damage to non-champions (ex: Malzahar’s Voidlings, Shaco’s Jack in the Box)
  • The “Banking” system that caused jungle monsters that have stayed alive for a long duration to have slightly increased rewards has been removed
  • Giant Wolf
    • Base Health increased to 900 from 550
    • Health per minute increased to 40 from 31
    • Base Attack Damage increased to 35 from 24
    • Attack Damage per minute increased 0.7 from 0.44
    • Base Gold increased to 44 from 40
    • Gold per minute increased to 0.65 from 0.43
    • Base Experience increased to 153 from 128
    • Experience per minute increased to 2.3 from 1.5
    • Movement Speed reduced to 443 from 510
    • Critical Strike damage reduced to 150% from 300%
  • Wolf
    • Base Health reduced to 300 from 360
    • Health per minute increased to 25 from 16.5
    • Base Attack Damage reduced to 8 from 14
    • Attack Damage per minute increased to 0.43 from 0.286
    • Base Gold reduced to 4 from 5
    • Gold per minute increased to 0.081 from 0.054
    • Experience per minute increased to 0.32 from 0.2136
    • Movement Speed reduced to 443 from 510
    • Critical Strike damage reduced to 150% from 200%
  • Wraith
    • Base Health increased to 750 from 400
    • Health per minute increased to 39 from 28
    • Base Attack Damage increased to 35 from 25
    • Attack Damage per minute increased to 0.75 from 0.5
    • Base Gold reduced to 25 from 33
    • Gold per minute increased to 0.72 from 0.48
    • Base Experience reduced to 103 from 105
    • Experience per minute increased to 2.1 from 1.4
    • Attack Range reduced to 300 from 650
  • Lesser Wraith
    • Base Health reduced to 250 from 275
    • Health per minute increased to 18 from 12.1
    • Base Attack Damage reduced to 10 from 17
    • Attack Damage per minute increased to 0.33 from 0.2195
    • Base Gold reduced to 3 from 4
    • Gold per minute increased to 0.054 from 0.036
    • Base Experience reduced to 15 from 22
    • Experience per minute increased to 0.16 from 0.1064
  • Big Golem
    • Base Health increased to 1000 from 950
    • Health per minute increased to 48 from 37
    • Attack Damage per minute increased to 1.6 from 1.05
    • Base Gold increased to 45 from 40
    • Gold per minute increased to 0.8 from 0.38
    • Base Experience increased to 137 from 117
    • Experience per minute increased to 2.4 from 1.55
    • Movement Speed increased 350 from 300
    • Attack Range increased to 150 from 100
    • Magic Resist reduced to -10 from 0
  • Golem
    • Base Health increased to 500 from 450
    • Health per minute increased to 37 from 25
    • Attack Damage per minute increased to 1.3 from 0.84
    • Gold per minute increased to 0.23 from 0.15
    • Experience per minute increased to 1.6 from 1.08
    • Movement Speed increased to 350 from 300
    • Attack Range increased to 150 from 100
    • Magic Resist reduced to -10 from 0
  • Ancient Golem
    • Base Health increased to 1500 from 1350
  • Lizard Elder
    • Base Health increased to 1500 from 1350
  • Young Lizard
    • Base Health increased to 300 from 250
  • Dragon
    • Base Health increased to 3500 from 3200
    • Health per minute increased to 240 from 220
    • Attack Range reduced to 350 from 500
  • Baron Nashor
    • Base Health increased to 8800 from 8000
    • Health per minute increased to 140 from 125

Twisted Treeline

• Increased low level death times and slightly decreased high level death times
• Reduced the amount of experience split by two and three nearby players
• Clarified the mana regeneration bonus on the altar tooltips
• Tweaked Altar vision rules
  • Neutral altars will no longer grant vision
  • Stealthed champions can no longer capture altars
  • Evelynn will be revealed if within 300 distance of a capturable altar (this is to allow her to capture altars without expending spell cooldowns to forcibly remove herself from stealth)
• Items
  • Blackfire Torch
    • Reduced magic penetration from 20 to 15
    • Decreased maximum charges from 25 to 18
    • Decreased the duration of the burn effect from 3 to 2 seconds
    • Increased the delay between charge gains from 1 to 1.5 seconds
    • Increased the burn amount from 1.67% to 1.75% of max health per second
    • Fixed a bug that caused the first tick of burn to not consume a charge
  • Grez’s Spectral Lantern
    • New Recipe: Cloth Armor + Vampiric Scepter
    • Total Gold Cost: 1250 (combine cost: 150)
    • +25 Attack Damage
    • +20 Armor
    • +12% Life Steal
    • Unique Passive: Your basic attacks against minions and monsters have a 20% chance to deal 200 bonus magic damage.
    • Unique Active: A stealth-detecting mist grants vision in the target area for 10 seconds (1 minute cooldown).
  • Temporarily disabled Lord Van Damm’s Pillager (conflicts with new Black Cleaver)
  • Temporarily disabled Wicked Hatchet (conflicts with new Executioner’s Calling)
  • The following new Season 3 items are disabled:
    • Hunter’s Machete
    • Madred’s Razors (reworked)
    • Spirit Stone and its upgrades
    • Liandry’s Torment
    • Homeguard Enchant
    • Ohmwrecker
    • Sightstone
    • Ruby Sightstone
    • Runic Bulwark

Crystal Scar

• Increased global mana regeneration aura from 1.5% to 2% bonus regeneration per 1% of mana missing
• The following new Season 3 items are disabled:
  • Hunter’s Machete
  • Spirit Stone and its upgrades
  • Liandry’s Torment
  • Homeguard Enchant
  • Ohmwrecker
  • Sightstone
  • Ruby Sightstone

Proving Grounds

• The following new Season 3 items are disabled:
  • Hunter’s Machete
  • Spirit Stone and its upgrades
  • Homeguard Enchant
  • Ohmwrecker
  • Sightstone
  • Ruby Sightstone
  • Crystalline Flask

General (Stats)

• Basic Cost for Stats
  • Attack Damage has generally been made cheaper by roughly 5 to 10%.
  • Attack Speed has generally been made more expensive by roughly 20%
  • Armor and Magic Resistance has generally been made more expensive by roughly 10 to 20%
  • Basic items have had their statistics and gold values adjusted to match.
• Premiums for Tier 3 items
  • Gold premiums on Tier 3 items have generally been reduced across the board. This means that the deeper the build tree – generally the less statistics the item gives or the more expensive it will be compared to before.
• Penetration Changes
  • % Penetration now applies before Flat Penetration. This means that combining the two statistics will amplify the effect of both – compared to live which reduced the effectiveness of both.
  • Last Whisper’s Armor Penetration reduced to 35% from 40%
  • Void Staff’s Magic Penetration reduced to 35% from 40%
  • Haunting Guise Magic Penetration reduced to 15 from 20
  • Sorcerer’s Shoes Magic Penetration reduced to 15 from 20
• Movement Speed
  • Movement Speed bonus on all Boot items has been reduced by 25
  • Base Movement Speed on all champions has been increased by 25

Items

• Removed
  • The following items have been removed and items that build out of them have had their recipe changed:
    • Meki Pendant, Regrowth Pendant, Force of Nature, Ionic Spark, Moonflair Spellblade, Cloak and Dagger, Elixir of Agility, Leviathan, Soul Shroud, Heart of Gold, Madred’s Bloodrazor
• Reworked
  • The following items have been changed and have had their passives and statistics modified:
    • Malady, Phantom Dancer, Zeke’s Herald, Guardian Angel, Lich Bane, Eleisa’s Miracle, Randuin’s Omen, Deathfire Grasp, Guinsoo’s Rageblade, Tiamat, Black Cleaver, Tear of the Godess, Archangel’s Staff, Manamune, Executioner’s Calling, Morello’s Evil Tome, Warmog’s Armor, Avarice Blade, Aegis of the Legion, Hextech Gunblade
• New Items
  • The following items are new and will be available on Summoner’s Rift:
    • Jungle-Focused: Hunter’s Machete, Spirit Stone, Spirit of the Ancient Golem, Spirit of the Spectral Wraith, Spirit of the Elder Lizard
    • Support-Focused: Shard of True Ice, Mikael’s Crucible, Banner of Command, Twin Shadows
    • Attack-Focused: Runaan’s Hurricane, Zephyr, Sword of the Divine, Mercurial Scimitar, Liandry’s Torment, Statikk Shiv
    • Defense-Focused: Frozen Fist, Ohmwrecker
• Boot Upgrades
  • All Tier 2 boots can now be upgraded further with an enchantment for a gold cost – All Tier 2 boots share from the same pool of enchantments.
    • Enchantment – Alacrity: Increases Movement Speed by 15.
    • Enchantment – Furor: Dealing damage to a champion with a single target attack or spell grants you a movement speed boost that decays over 2 seconds.
    • Enchantment – Distortion: Your Ghost, Teleport and Flash cooldowns are reduced by a percentage.
    • Enchantment – Captain: Allied champions moving towards you gain a movement speed boost. Additionally, nearby allied minions gain a large movement speed bonus.
    • Enchantment – Homeguard: Being at fountain instantly restores your health and mana. Additionally, you gain a very large movement speed boost that decays over 8 seconds. This passive is disabled if you are in combat.

Summoner Spells

• Barrier
  • Now available on Summoner’s Rift and Crystal Scar
  • Cooldown increased to 210 seconds from 125
  • Shield amount reduced to 95 + 20 per level from 100 + 25 per level
  • Improved Barrier increases the shield amount by 20 instead of reducing the cooldown by 20 seconds
  • Shield duration reduced to 2 seconds from 4 seconds
• Clairvoyance
  • Duration increased to 5 seconds from 4
  • Cooldown reduced to 60 seconds from 70
  • Radius reduced to 1200 from 1400
  • Improved Clairvoyance now maintains sight on units revealed by Clairvoyance for 5 seconds instead of extending the duration by 2 seconds
• Clarity
  • Now restores 40% maximum Mana to you and nearby allies
  • Improved Clarity now increases the Mana restoration by 25%, up from 20% (total 50% max Mana to you and allies)
• Exhaust
  • Now reduces Attack Speed by 50%
  • Movement Speed reduction reduced to 30% from 40%
  • Now reduces all damage dealt by 30% from 70% for attacks and 30% from abilities/items.
• Flash
  • Cooldown increased to 300 seconds from 265
  • Improved Flash is now calculated after other Summoner Flash cooldown reductions
• Heal
  • Health restored per level reduced to 15 from 25
  • Amount allies are healed for increased to 100% from 50%
  • Improved Heal now increases your champion’s max Health by 5 per level instead of increasing the Heal amount by 10%
  • Cooldown increased to 300 seconds from 270
• Ignite
  • Cooldown increased to 210 seconds from 180
• Promote
  • Disabled
• Revive
  • Now always increases your movement speed after reviving
  • Improved Revive now grants bonus Health after reviving instead of a temporary speed boost
• Surge
  • Disabled

Masteries

• Masteries have been reworked
• All Mastery Pages have been reset

Runes

• Runes have been renamed to be more representative of their actual function (e.g. Mark of Desolation renamed to Mark of Armor Penetration)
• Lesser Mark of Armor Penetration
  • Armor Penetration reduced to 0.72 from 0.93
• Mark of Armor Penetration
  • Armor Penetration reduced to 1 from 1.29
• Greater Mark of Armor Penetration
  • Armor Penetration reduced to 1.28 from 1.66
• Lesser Mark of Magic Penetration
  • Magic Penetration reduced to 0.49 from 0.53
• Mark of Magic Penetration
  • Magic Penetration reduced to 0.68 from 0.74
• Greater Mark of Magic Penetration
  • Magic Penetration reduced to 0.87 from 0.95
• Lesser Glyph of Magic Penetration
  • Magic Penetration reduced to 0.35 from 0.38
• Glyph of Magic Penetration
  • Magic Penetration reduced to 0.49 from 0.53
• Greater Glyph of Magic Penetration
  • Magic Penetration reduced to 0.63 from 0.68
• Lesser Quintessence of Armor Penetration
  • Armor Penetration reduced to 1.42 from 1.85
• Quintessence of Armor Penetration
  • Armor Penetration reduced to 1.99 from 2.59
• Greater Quintessence of Armor Penetration
  • Armor Penetration reduced to 2.56 from 3.33
• Lesser Quintessence of Magic Penetration
  • Magic Penetration reduced to 1.11 from 1.21
• Quintessence of Magic Penetration
  • Magic Penetration reduced to 1.56 from 1.69
• Greater Quintessence of Magic Penetration
  • Magic Penetration reduced to 2.01 from 2.18
• Lesser Mark of Hybrid Penetration
  • Armor Penetration reduced to 0.5 from 0.56
  • Magic Penetration increased to 0.34 from 0.32
• Mark of Hybrid Penetration
  • Armor Penetration reduced to 0.7 from 0.74
  • Magic Penetration increased to 0.48 from 0.44
• Greater Mark of Hybrid Penetration
  • Armor Penetration reduced to 0.9 from 1
  • Magic Penetration increased to 0.61 from 0.57
• Lesser Quintessence of Hybrid Penetration
  • Armor Penetration reduced to 0.99 from 1.11
  • Magic Penetration increased to 0.77 from 0.72
• Quintessence of Hybrid Penetration
  • Armor Penetration reduced to 1.39 from 1.55
  • Magic Penetration increased to 1.09 from 1.01
• Greater Quintessence of Hybrid Penetration
  • Armor Penetration reduced to 1.79 from 2
  • Magic Penetration increased to 1.41 from 1.3

PvP.Net 1.72

• Recommended Items no longer appear in the Champion detail pages. This change does not affect the information displayed on the League of Legends website or the in-game store.

Champions

• Hecarim
  • Base Attack Damage increased to 59 from 56
  • Attack Damage per level increased to 3.2 from 3
• Nautilus
  • Titan’s Wrath shield amount increased to 100/150/200/250/300 from 80/130/180/230/280
• Rammus
  • Base Armor increased to 25 from 21
  • Base Health Regen increased to 8 per 5 seconds from 6
• Sejuani
  • Base Armor increased to 24 from 21
  • Northern Winds duration increased to 6 seconds from 5

Spectator:

• Retreat pings will now be team colored in spectator mode.
• Target pings will now only last 6 seconds in spectator mode.
• Directed camera algorithms have been improved.

General:

• Fixed a bug that causes projectile-based skillshots to not appear when fired out of the fog of war (ex: Nidalee spear)
• The Nexus turrets in The Crystal Scar and Proving Grounds will now kill invulnerable units.
• Updated all bots’ items, masteries, and summoner spells to account for Season 3 changes.
• Improved bots’ summoner spell logic and made usage consistent across all bots.
• Fixed how custom game TT bots adjust to players’ laning decisions.
• Spells that target your own champion will now put an outline glow around your champion.
• Unbound default key bindings for ‘Toggle Health Bars’ and ‘Toggle Minion Health Bars’
• Champion passives will now display their cooldown time over the passive icon.

This isn’t my first time around with World of Tanks, but I’m still a pretty terrible noob.  It doesn’t take a hardcore veteran however to appreciate a lot of the upgrades that have been introduced to the game. What began its life as a fun game experience with pretty utilitarian graphical beauty, World of Tanks has now fully bloomed into an all-around gorgeous game with brilliant lighting, beautiful water effects, and stunning views of distant terrain.  It’s pretty easy to become distracted by the lush terrain or gorgeous cloud formations in the sky, only to find yourself on the receiving end of an enemy barrage that managed to sneak up on you driving a friggin’ tank.  I have several screenshots of my tanks smoldering in ruins after such an occurrence, but instead I’ll show you the pretty ones.

The 8.0 update also introduced upgraded sounds to the game, and the sounds of tanks firing at each other can be pretty intimidating. There are also unique sounds for turning, as well as sounds for different types of terrain you are driving over. The unique sounds are one of those features you don’t always consciously notice, but do a great deal of the heavy-lifting when it comes to creating a great gaming experience.

The biggest change in the game seems to come from the new physics system. The developers spent a lot of time tweaking and adjusting the way tanks move and handle, and that hard work really shows through during gameplay. Heavy tanks feel slow and bulky, lighter tanks feel a little quicker and more maneuverable  but overall they all feel like tanks. You could say that’s a pretty important feature in a game about tanks. But seriously, it is nice that at the end of the day each and every vehicle handles as I can only imagine a tank should, and not like some fine-tuned imported sports car. I came to shoot mounted turret cannons at heavily armored foes across battlefields in World of Tanks, not turn on a dime at 110mph in World of Ferrari.

The new physics system has also opened up some new strategies for players, as tanks can now be maneuvered through water, and over precarious hills and slopes. You can’t just submarine your way to the enemy base or your crew will drown, but you can now carefully traverse tricky terrain in order to gain a strategic advantage over your opponents. With this new ability to utilize more terrain, the devs have tweaked the maps to better utilize the new physics system, as well as make them simply more attractive.

Update 8.0 was a humongous overhaul to World of Tanks, and Update 8.1 has already tweaked and improved several of those upgrades even further. With 8.2 already on test servers World of Tanks is only going to get better and better as time passes. If you haven’t checked out World of Tanks yet, there is no better time than now. The game is gorgeous, the systems are wonderfully realistic, and the gameplay is as good as anything out there. Plus it’s free, and you can’t beat that!

You can sign up and play World of Tanks for free at WorldofTanks.com 

Along with this summoner name cleanup comes a sale on summoner name changes that will run from the release date of Patch 1.73 through December 26. Summoners will be able to pick up a name change for 650 RP, down from the usual 1300 RP cost. If you’re buying RP specifically for a name change, you can get the required RP for $5.

Plans are still in place to take the current Darkfall game offline on November 15th.

From the Darkfall Blog:

“We’re obviously not happy about this development, however we’re geared to make the best of the extra three weeks by further improving the release version of Darkfall Unholy Wars, while keeping the postponement of the launch as short as possible.”

“We apologize for any inconvenience created by the postponement and we appreciate your patience. We resolve to make it up to our players through the quality of the final product. In the meanwhile we’ll also give you a lot more insight into the game.”

Other changes are coming with this update, including an optional change to ranged combat. Check out the video below and see what’s in store.

Check out some of the highlights from the patch notes below, and hit the link to see the full patch notes on the Rift forums:

== STORM LEGION ==

* The level cap is now level 60, with a total of 76 Soul Points to spend.
* Each Calling now has a new Soul available from level 1:
- Cleric: Defiler
- Mage: Harbinger
- Rogue: Tactician
- Warrior: Tempest

* The new continents of Brevane and Dusken are open for exploration – 10 new zones of excitement!
* These new zones include a new city center, new events, new artifacts, achievements, and puzzles – all the good stuff!
* Hunt Rifts and Great Hunt Rifts can be opened in the new areas for those looking to challenge the Planes.

* Seven new Dungeons, including Expert versions, from levels 50 through 60.
* New Raid, Frozen Tempest, and the new Sliver, Triumph of the Dragon Queen.

* A new Warfront, Karthan Ridge, available at level 50!
* Level 60 characters now have access to additional PvP Ranks!

= DIMENSIONS =
* Customize your own piece of Telara – Dimensions allow you to freely build whatever you can imagine from a wide variety of decorative items and building blocks, including object placement, scaling, and rotation!
* Dimensions are available for individual players as well as shared Guild Dimensions.
* Dimension items can be crafted, purchased, or acquired throughout your adventures!
* Invite friends into your Dimensions to look or build, list Dimensions for public visit, give props to other peoples’ creations – these are your personal spaces to do with what you will!

= UPGRADABLE ITEMS =
* A new type of gear is available – upgradable items that allow you to customize how they increase in power.
* Base upgradable items are acquired through quests, dungeons, or merchants. Upgrade components might be crafted, dropped, rewarded, or purchasable.
* Different component pieces are required to upgrade items in different ways. You’ll get to choose which path you want to take and which upgrade components to obtain!
* You’ll see a tutorial-type quest early on in the expansion to point you toward the Adventure Dealer and your first upgraded item!

= CRAFTING =
* Dusken and Brevane host a full complement of new crafting materials, items, and quests.
* The crafting skill cap is now 375!

= Oh yeah, CAPES. =

= 2.0 UPDATE PATCH NOTES =

GENERAL
* Mob tagging updates: Anyone who participates in defeating a mob – by attacking it or healing a group member who is attacking it – is now credited for experience, cash drops, and quest credit for that mob when it dies as long as it doesn’t reset or leash. Only the original person/group to tag the mob can loot the corpse for items, however.
* The Guild level cap is now 25. New guild quests are now available!
* Planarite cap increased to 100,000.
* You can now have up to 25 normal quests, 25 Daily quests, and 25 of the new Storm Legion Carnage quests in your journal at a time.
* The minimap can now show up to 3 possible quest location arrows – one each for Carnage, Instant Adventure, and regular tracked quests.
* Fixed an issue with macros frequently failing to queue any ability when pressed.
* Quest reward UI now displays regular and Planar Attunement experience separately.
* If you are queued for a specific dungeon and gain a level, when placed in the dungeon you will not be auto-mentored down unless you’ve outleveled the dungeon.
* Food, drinks, and gems now stack to 99.
* Increased damage done by swimming fatigue.
* Gloamwood: Fixed an issue that could cause Scald to not spawn properly.

CONQUEST – ON HIATUS
* Conquest is temporarily on hiatus. Conquest decay has been disabled and you cannot currently view your Conquest Power.

PVP GENERAL
* Level 50 characters will be able to gain up to rank 50 at which point rank progression will be capped until they reach character level 60.
* Favor cap increased to 300,000.

* Updates to Vengeance calculations:
- Passives and abilities that grant a percentage increase to Spell Power or Attack Power now also apply the same to Vengeance.
- Debuffs that reduce Spell Power or Attack Power by a percentage now also reduce Vengeance.
- Abilities that deal damage or healing based purely on Attack Power or Spell Power now gain the proper increase from Vengeance. (ex: Warlord’s Recovery Posture now heals for 8% of attack power and vengeance.)
- In Warfronts and Conquest, Vengeance is always used for all spell or melee calculations. In the open world and duels it is only used when actively in combat with another player.
- Note: Tooltips do not reflect heal/damage/absorb bonuses from Vengeance.
* Augments, Runes, and buffs from food that previously granted Valor now grant Vengeance.

* While in PvP combat, global reductions apply to damage from level 1-59 and healing and absorption from level 1-60. Total amounts can be found in the tooltip for Valor.
* Because of this, Valor has been removed from PvP gear below level 60.

* Nameplates now display two icons representing the actor’s immunity to Control effects (the head icon) or Root effects (the foot icon).
* The amount of Prestige required for ranks 2-50 has been significantly lowered.
* Level 50 Synergy Crystal bonuses will now activate when mixing pieces from different sets.
* Removed Notoriety requirements from the Order of the Eye and The Unseen rewards.
* Changes to pre-60 PvP rewards:
- Consolidated Order of the Eye/The Unseen and Conquest Rewards. Conquest rewards no longer require Marks of Conquest.
- Armor/weapon sets: removed set 2, 3, and 4 armor/weapon vendors from Meridian and Sanctum.
- Lowered the Favor cost and removed rank requirements from set 5 armor and weapons.
- Lowered the Favor cost of many pre-60 PvP rewards.
* PvP Daily quests are no longer available in Meridian and Sanctum.
* Random Daily Warfronts are now available in the PVP menu. Bonus rewards can be gained up to 7 times a week.
* Level 50 open world, conquest, and PvP Rift Daily quests are no longer available – they can still be turned in if you have them.
* Marksman: Reduced the damage bonus granted by Shoot to Kill by 50% in PvP combat.
* Reduced the damage of Marksman’s Empowered Shot, Rapid Fire Shot, and Deadeye Shot in PvP combat.
* Reduced the effectiveness of the following healing abilities in PVP:
- Chloromancer: Bloom, Essence Surge, Natures Touch (Synthesis Target), Void Life (Synthesis Target)
- Justicar: Salvation
- Paladin: Life’s Rapture, Touch of Life
- Sentinel: Healing Breath
- Void Knight: Fusion of Flesh
- Warden: Healing Effusion, Healing Flood, Healing Spray, Orbs of the Stream, Orbs of the Tide, Soothing Stream

WARFRONTS
* Due to rapid power increase from leveling through 60, Warfront brackets for Storm Legion are split: 50-54, 55-59, 60.
* Whitefall Steppes: Avalanche has been retired – Escalation: Whitefall Steppes has taken its place full time!
* New Achievements for Whitefall Steppes: Escalation have been added. The Whitefall Steppes: Avalanche Achievements have been moved to the Legacy section.
* Bonus Prestige and Favor is now granted based on points scored in 50+ Warfronts.

WARFRONT BOLSTERING 2.0
* 1-59 Warfront Brackets: Other then access to higher ability ranks and talent gains, all players should now be boosted to the max level effectiveness available in the bracket.
* Level 60 Warfronts and Conquest: Bolstering at max level now has less to do with rank, and is instead focused on the PVP Gear you have equipped

* Instead of boosting individual stats if they are below the desired ranks goals, or capping individual stats when you are above those goals we now examine each piece of gear to determine if it needs to be replaced or ignored.
- Each slot is compared against the lowest set of PVP gear available.
- If your gear is less powerful its stats will be replaced with the Mercenary set.
- If the gear you have equipped lacks Valor and is more powerful its stats will be replaced with gear from the Mercenary set.
- Procs and Runes have no effect if they are replaced.
- Synergy Crystal Bonuses use your equipped items to determine which bonuses are applied.
- Synergy Crystals, Greater Essences, Trinkets and Seals are excluded from Bolstering.

COMBAT
* The top end abilities that couldn’t be obtained until level 51+ have seen some adjustments across multiple souls – double check your Soul Tree ability descriptions if you had pre-planned a spec for 51+ points.
* Re-enabled damage variance on auto-attacks.
* Offhand auto-attacks now deal 70% less damage.
* Procs, in general, should no longer trigger off of other procs.
* Break Free should now appear in the Ascended Powers ability list rather than under General.
* All abilities obtained through Planar Attunement now show in the Ascended Powers list.
* Maximum Mana is now capped at 17,000, considering fully-modified Intelligence and Wisdom. Abilities and items that directly increase max mana can push past this cap.
* Pets now inherit Critical Power from their owners.
* Hit and Toughness are no longer reduced when mentoring.
* Absorption buffs will no longer be ignored by certain dungeon and raid boss abilities.

Along side this one-time story event, players with friends who have not yet tried Guild Wars 2 will be able to send up to three free weekend trial codes to their friends and let them experience the adventure from Thursday Nov. 15th through Sunday the 18th.

You can add this event to an already busy MMO week!

Check out the full schedule of events on the official Guild Wars 2 site

First off, Rift is launching it’s first expansion, Storm Legion, tomorrow Nov. 13th, and this isn’t just some minor content update they want to charge money for. Two new continents which TRIPLE the size of the world, a huge new central city for both factions called Tempest Bay, 4 new souls (one for each calling), 10 new levels, and one of the most robust and customizable player housing systems you will see in an MMO. Questing has been updated and made smoother, and the new zones are absolutely gorgeous. If you’re looking to return to Rift, or try it for the first time, this is a great opportunity. New players will also receive the original Rift game when they purchase the Storm Legion, so no need to buy two games to try one!

Star Wars: The Old Republic is also bringing big changes this week with its change to a “free-to-play” model on Thursday Nov. 15th. New and returning players will be able to adventure up to the level cap without needing to buy content, and current subscribers will be receiving bonus ‘Cartel Coins’ to spend in the cash shop as a reward. The folks at BioWare are looking to reinvigorate the game with some fresh blood, and hopefully this week will see a renewed interest in the worlds and stories SWTOR has to offer.

An expansion, and a F2P conversion. More than enough to keep me busy for the foreseeable future. So what are your plans? Are you going to explore the new lands in Rift, or return to your favorite character in SWTOR? Or both? Or neither? Leave us a comment and let us know, and hopefully we’ll see you in game!

Beta test will be divided into 4 “seasons”, and will introduce loads of new features to the game. Devs have said that character wipes will be held to a minimum whenever possible between seasons.

Here are the dates for each event:

Springtide (Nov. 16th to 20th)
Summercrest (Nov. 30th to Dec. 4th)
Autumnwane (Dec. 14th to 18th)
Winter Festival (Dec. 23 to 28th)

City of Steam is a browser-based, free-to-play, online RPG. The game is set in an industrial fantasy world with steampunk elements.

For guaranteed beta access, and to help support the development of the game, you can pick up a Beta Collaborator Pack from the official site.

Other hosting centers have been affected by Sandy as well, as MMORPG.com and Kotaku.com have been down for several hours, and there are sure to be plenty of others who are feeling the effects.

Our best wishes to those who have been affected by the storms, and we hope for a speedy recovery for our friends and family on the east coast.

“The first two closed beta stress tests were big successes, and we appreciate all the valuable feedback that we’ve used to improve and polish Storm Legion,” said Scott Hartsman, Executive Producer on RIFT and Trion CCO. “After months of hard work, we’re ready to show this incredible game to the world, and we encourage RIFT fans old and new to log in and try it out before the official launch on November 13th.”

Participating in the upcoming beta event is easy. Simply head over to www.stormlegion.com/beta, create an account, and download the client. On November 2nd player can create begin creating new characters on the beta shards, or transfer over their existing RIFT characters.

Storm Legion features:

A VAST NEW WORLD

• Adventure across two huge new continents that more than triple the size of the existing world
• Experience epic stories that reveal the true power in Telara … and the gateway to the planes
• Make your move to the island city of Tempest Bay, a new stronghold for both Guardians and Defiant

10 MORE LEVELS, 4 MORE SOULS

• A new Soul for each Calling expands the Ascended Class System – build the hero you want!
• Rise to new heights of power through 10 challenging levels, increasing the level cap to 60
• Play your way! Choose how you level with questing and Instant Adventure everywhere, onslaughts, rifts, events, and more

BRAVE THE STORM

• Achieve greatness with 7 new dungeons, 3 raids, a Chronicle, and more!
• Join the Hunt: New rift gameplay propels you into battling increasingly-challenging planar bosses
• Fight legions of fantastic creatures, including a Colossus that interacts with – and ravages – the world like you’ve never seen

MAKE TELARA YOUR OWN

• Dimensions: Customizable spaces allow players and guilds to own a sliver of Telara
• Take your professions to new heights with Grandmaster crafting
• Become the talk of the town and boost your stats with stylish new capes
• New puzzles, artifacts and collectibles, achievements, mounts, pets, titles, and much more

Damion Schubert posted the following on the official forums:

“We’ve been observing PTS closely over the last few days. In that time, we have generally been very pleased with how well the build has been performing, as well as overall reaction to the build both on the boards and in-game. That being said, based on community and internal feedback here and further deliberation, we will in short order make the following changes to the Free to Play restrictions.”

Those changes are as follows:

• Free-to-Play players will now get a second quickslot bar.
• Free-to-Play players will now be able to do 5 Warzones per week instead of 3.
• The Cartel Coin item lock (i.e. temporary bind) will be reduced to 3 days for Free-to-Play players, and 2 days for subscribers.

Mr. Schubert also had more to say regarding Warzones, and the quality of PvP going forward post F2P.

“Perhaps the most interesting point regarding the Warzones limitation is that some players have concerns that putting limitations on Warzone runs might make Warzone queues less likely to fire. While it is possible that this may happen, we don’t think it will — our subscriber base likely will not shrink much, and for some of our competitors, converting to Free-to-Play has resulted in a subscriber increase! Which means that Warzone queues should likely see improvement from what you experience in game, and at minimum be relatively unchanged in experience.”

“That being said, one of our golden rules is that the Free-to-Play experience should not cheapen the experience for paying subscribers. If it turns out that the Free-to-Play conversion results in a degraded Warzone experience once we go live for subscribers, you can rest assured that we will quickly make adjustments to the system to ensure that subscribers have an optimal experience. ”

BioWare seems to be listening to player feedback and taking their suggestion into consideration, something the studio isn’t exactly well-known for.

You can check out the entire post on the official SWTOR forums.