Guild Wars players are likely fairly angry at the news that, after nearly a year of operational work, the Xunlai Tournament House will not be returning. A web-accessible portion of Guild Wars, the tournament house acted as a betting spot, where players could attempt to predict the outcome of the game’s player vs player tournaments.
“After much analysis and discussion, we’ve decided to permanently retire the Xunlai Tournament House.”
Unfortunately, at one point during ArenaNet’s seven month trump through the game’s code, it was determined that the entire tournament house would need to be rebuilt from scratch, pulling resources away from Guild Wars 2 that could not be afforded.
I don’t think this news is too surprising to Guild Wars players, although the fact that the house died to support Guild Wars 2 may disappoint and anger some, but hey: Stuff happens. More on Guild Wars as it appears.
If MMO Fallout were a physical entity, I’d have a lot more fun searching through its records, what with the shelves of documents and that ladder on wheels I’d get to ride around. Going back to the earlier days of Aion’s coverage, I discovered an announcement that the MMO had hit the three hundred thousand preorder mark, along with a reminder that it’s all about the retention rate.
So it comes as no surprise that NCsoft is reporting record profits over the past quarterly report. Profits are up over one thousand percent, while sales are up nearly one hundred percent. Unsurprisingly, Aion made up 48% of those sales. Surprisingly, however, Lineage and Lineage 2 are still selling very well, at twenty seven and twenty percent respectively.
NCsoft’s rebound is very welcoming to the gaming community, especially after the company’s net income plummeted 50% in quarter 3 of last year, shortly before Aion was released, and even more so as NCsoft attempts to suppress the memories of Tabula Rasa, whose failure hit the company hard this past year.
So good work NCsoft. Keep being who you are, and keep that sweet sweet cash flowing in.
I think I’ve directly spoken of Roma Victor once on MMO Fallout, not because of any malice towards the title, but because the only newsworthy piece I came across in regards to the title was the act of crucifying cheaters. And much like any other image I find, it was subsequently beaten and overused for lame comedic effect (my apologies to the players Cholo, Vondum, Germanikus, and any others in the image).
Roma Victor is an odd game set in 180ad, just before the fall of the Roman Empire. Players begin as slaves and eventually move on to fight for either the Roman or Barbarian side of the war (go with the Barbarians, they eventually win). Roma Victor is a levelless game, instead choosing to use a skill tree that, like Darkfall and Runescape, is raised by training that skill (Woodcutting raised by cutting wood).
Unfortunately, not unlike that family member you never visit, my next news article in relation to Roma Victor is not only a sad one, but also fairly confusing to myself. Roma Victor will be shut down in an announcement that, yes, came out last month, but has taken me a little while to decipher the stages of shutting down, which I have submitted here:
On May 5th, account registration will be activated.
On November 5th, No donations or payments will be accepted.
May 5th 2011, Roma Victor shuts down for good.
If you play Roma Victor, at least you have over a year to say goodbye. If you haven’t had the chance to try Roma Victor, you have until May to set up your account. Roma Victor has no subscription fee, and runs solely off of voluntary donations and microtransactions.
The path Roma Victor walks down is the same one that will be traveled by the latest incarnation of Myst Online, that small video game communities run solely around donations do not make for a sustainable, let’s not even think about profitable, business. The developer team is readily admitting that Roma Victor hasn’t been profitable for a long time now, with a small community and no monthly fees. The decision is to slowly wind down Roma Victor in anticipation for Roma Victor 2, that will attempt to fix much of the company’s woes.
Current players will find all of their stuff imported into Roma Victor 2 when it hopefully releases next year, but if the announcement is anything to go off of, it is very possible that RV2 may never see the light of day. More on Roma Victor as it appears.
MMO Fallout 