I have decided to retire the Month In Review sessions in replacement for what I call “Looking Back, Moving Forward,” essentially a recap of the month’s highlights.
June, like any decent bridging sequel, brought more questions to the table than it did answers. There was plenty of recaps to be had, such as this one! All in all, June was an excellent month for information regarding previously low-key MMOs. We received a lot of information on Warhammer 40k, the new Star Wars MMO, an upcoming Mummy MMO, Jumpgate, Lego Universe, Project V13, among others.
Foremost, happy birthday to some of our old geezers who are still running around.
WWII Online: Battleground Europe (2001-Present)
Anarchy Online (2001-Present)
Star Wars Galaxies (2003-Present)
Sony kicked off the month with the “official” announcement of Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures. Intending to offer players an experience more akin to Free Realms (and built on the same engine), Clone Wars will follow a similar pricing format, with a multitude of mini-games, activities, pets, and houses for players to engage in. Aimed at a slightly lower age group than your Star Wars Galaxies or The Old Republic, Clone Wars is aiming to hit the net sometime later this year.
Lord of the Rings Online and Global Agenda are getting a lot more accessible, with the announcement of both games changing subscription models. Lord of the Rings Online will be taking on a freemium model, with the original game offered for free with bonuses, expansions, and more content available in one time purchases, or for a subscription fee. Global Agenda, on the other hand, is going the Guild Wars route, offering the entire game after purchase for no subscription fee.
June 9th saw the launch of Mortal Online, after a number of delays on the part of Star Vault, with issues of desynchronization, among others, plaguing the servers. Server stability is still an issue with Mortal Online, with a form of compensation on its way from Star Vault.
All Points Bulletin launched this month, with lead designer EJ Moreland taking a shot at the MMOs opening cash shops, by claiming that APB would not feature a cash shop, ever, before quickly retracting on his statement and saying that Realtime Worlds would only consider cashing in if the community asked for it. Given the response to other cash shop inclusions, expect a cash shop coming to a police department near you.
Darkfall still loves you, and here at MMO Fallout we love us some Darkfall. Since the title launched last year, Aventurine has been working around the clock trying to bring in new players, and keep them. Those changes have removed the $50 paywall and introduced initially a paid, now free limited time trial. New players will find themselves offered extra protection during their first days of game time, as well as the game constantly being balanced to lower the time it takes for players to become competent in PvP combat.
And while we’re on the subject of tweaking content to balance gameplay, how about removing a chunk of content for the sake of balance? Such is the case when Flying Lab Software announced that the higher end ships will be removed from Pirates of the Burning Sea for the sake of balancing the lower tiers of ships.
Not all was great on the western front, however, as this month marked the grand server merger in Everquest, leaving just fourteen of the original servers remaining. With what may just turn 2010 into a year for mergers, Sony later announced mergers for Vanguard, with NCsoft announcing Aion server mergers, both game’s mergers to occur in July.
There is plenty more that occurred in June, and you can read all about it in the MMO Fallout archives. Until next time, this is Looking Back, Moving Forward.
MMO Fallout 