Day: February 21, 2012

Aion: Truly Free Coming To North America


Last year, NCSoft announced the upcoming free to play transition of Aion…in Europe. In a rather unsurprising move, the developer announced today that North America will be following. Players will have access to all of the content in Aion free of charge, without restrictions on zones, housing, mounts, quests, etc. In addition, NCSoft promises robust cheat detection to ensure that bots won’t take a choke hold over the game.

As a head start, NCSoft will be launching a “Rallying the Troops” event, offering new players a chance to check out the game with no time limit, but a level cap of 40. Returning players will have the ability to have their accounts reactivated for 14 days in the run up to the launch of Truly Free.

Aion Truly Free hits this spring.

(Source: Aion Truly Free)

Rift Raids Southeast Asia Via Asiasoft.


World of Warcraft has shown us that when it comes to dominating the marketplace, Asia is just as important as the West. In an article on Games Industry, Trion has announced a partnership with Asiasoft to bring Rift to multiple Southeast Asian countries.

“Asiasoft, with its deep reach into Southeast Asian countries, is an ideal partner to realise our goal of bringing original connected experiences like Rift to gamers everywhere.”

(Source: Gamesindustry.biz)

Guild War 2 Trumps TERA, Play While You Queue


Someone must have told Guild Wars 2 developer Arenanet that I was comparing MMOs based on how they handle server queues. At least so far in the beta, TERA compensates players who spend more than ten minutes in line for their server with a period of bonus experience upon logging in. I didn’t point this out in the TERA article, but you can actually leave the game without logging in and still receive the bonus.

Guild Wars 2 says sucks to your queue line assmar. Martin Kerstein has posted over at Guild Wars 2 Guru that instead of throwing the players in line and punishing those who join fuller servers at launch, Guild Wars 2 will simply move the player to an overflow server temporarily while they wait in line on their home server. Once the line opens up, you can head back in without delay.

Let me explain what an overflow server is and what it does. It is a technology we also use as our version of a queuing system. When a map or a world you want to log into is at capacity limit, the game will ask you if you want to play on an overflow server – so you can actually play while you are in a queue. Once space opens on your world, the game will ask you if you want to join your friends on your world. And you keep all the progress you made while you were playing on the overflow server.

(Source: Guild Wars 2 Guru)

Mortal Online Wasn’t Hacked


Here at MMO Fallout, I’ve developed a pet peeve over the distinct difference between being hacked and having an account breached. Hacking requires some amount of technical prowess to accomplish, such as exploiting a vulnerability in an sql database to retrieve a list of passwords, or in the case of NCSoft back a couple of years, using an exploit in the client to log into a random person’s character and steal their items. When someone breaches an account by way of keylogger, guessing the password, or having access to an account with higher privileges, the account was compromised, not hacked.

In the case of Mortal Online, yesterday a player obtained access to a GM account and went wild on the server, deleting structures and altering some player’s accounts. It’s important to note that the person was not able to access payment details, and apparently the extent of the damage was destroyed assets, some players had their passwords changed, and some players were banned.

So Star Vault, as they announced, had a “security breach,” but the company was not hacked as some outlets are reporting. I just want to reinforce this difference because with the recent hacking at Steam, Square, Sony, etc, the announcement that a company has been hacked is just another fear of one’s credit details being stolen.

The more you know.

(Source: Star Vault)

Mortal Online Wasn't Hacked


Here at MMO Fallout, I’ve developed a pet peeve over the distinct difference between being hacked and having an account breached. Hacking requires some amount of technical prowess to accomplish, such as exploiting a vulnerability in an sql database to retrieve a list of passwords, or in the case of NCSoft back a couple of years, using an exploit in the client to log into a random person’s character and steal their items. When someone breaches an account by way of keylogger, guessing the password, or having access to an account with higher privileges, the account was compromised, not hacked.

In the case of Mortal Online, yesterday a player obtained access to a GM account and went wild on the server, deleting structures and altering some player’s accounts. It’s important to note that the person was not able to access payment details, and apparently the extent of the damage was destroyed assets, some players had their passwords changed, and some players were banned.

So Star Vault, as they announced, had a “security breach,” but the company was not hacked as some outlets are reporting. I just want to reinforce this difference because with the recent hacking at Steam, Square, Sony, etc, the announcement that a company has been hacked is just another fear of one’s credit details being stolen.

The more you know.

(Source: Star Vault)