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Derek Smart To The Rescue! (…Or: MMO Fallout V David Allen)

Back in June, I decided to put a moratorium on articles dealing with the pending litigation between David Allen and Quest Online, mainly owing to my desire to publish something about Alganon that didn’t have to do with lawsuits or the back and forth blog posting between Derek Smart and David Allen. That being said, I haven’t had much to talk about lately on the title, although I still push to find something new from the indie MMO. A lot of quotes from Derek Smart detailing the events leading up to and following David Allen’s forced departure and the direction he is taking Alganon, but that’s about it.

So imagine my surprise when, two months after the fact, I receive the above email from Bryan Gottfredson, an attorney acting for David Allen. In his letter, Gottfredson explained to me that my articles quoting Derek Smart were incorrect and causing damage to his client’s (David Allen) reputation. He requested that I remove any and all mention of David Allen from my website. I agreed to remove any factually inaccurate information from MMO Fallout, however I would not perform a website-wide sweep of all David Allen-related material. I have yet to hear back.

In the meantime, I took both the related articles on MMO Fallout and the form I received, and had them looked over by a defense attorney, and my articles rated 100% legal. I also took my case to Quest Online to see if I could get an idea about what threat David Allen might pose if I kept the articles up, and I won’t mention anything in detail but, in short: There was no threat whatsoever. Derek Smart was very kind to contact me personally, sacrificing both time (and I would assume funds) to have their own lawyer look at and take care of the document I received. I was again assured that everything on MMO Fallout was 100% within the law.

Derek Smart has a blog post up where he mentions me as a side note, where you can actually read the entirety of the legal document there (I don’t believe WordPress allows me to upload .pdf files) as well as Smart’s own thoughts on the lawsuit between Quest Online and David Allen (which, from my understanding of his post, has been in settlement for a while now).

“Apparently, that knuckle-head David Allen who was fired from yet another venture that he started – and then sued – has been sending out toothless and baseless threatening letters to websites.”

I didn’t write this as some sort of gloating technique, or in some half-hearted attempt to “expose” David Allen, or incite something further. I decided, and then initially went back on my decision to publish this, but ultimately I’m going ahead with it because I wanted to discuss that it is not business as usual here at MMO Fallout. I’m not like the bloggers you see publishing hate-mongering articles so they can be threatened by the people they write about, and then act as some sort of martyr who is being oppressed for using his freedom of speech as an excuse to run his mouth like an ill-informed jackass.

I do not run a sensationalist website, but I am regularly fairly blunt in some of my articles, and this is not the first time someone “in the biz” has disapproved of my articles, although until now that has always been a request to complement some sort of bad news with good news, usually in the form of “hey check out this update we have planned.” I don’t publish any of these because, quite frankly, it is the business of myself and the person sending it, and no one else’s. I want to build and maintain trust between myself and developers, not destroy it.

So I hope you accept my apologies for this diversion, and I want you to know that nothing has changed. I want to again thank both Derek Smart for stepping in to help me, and a very good friend who offered to defend me were the situation to escalate. I’m keeping this post untagged because I want as little attention brought to it as possible, as I know fully well what happens with misplaced anger (ahem, Mortal Online article)

-Omali

A Steam Sale Tribute

Why? Why not?

Earth Eternal Likely To Shut Down

Earth Eternal is one of those MMOs I talked about mainly on my Facebook page, which mostly occurred last year when I was in the beta. The MMO has always been tiny, be it the furry inhabitants that populate the world, or the teeny developer that created it, but not the client that ran it. Earth Eternal is like WoW-Lite, I believe I referred to it as, but injected with a full syringe of vitamin-D (The D stands for D’aww).

So, of course, I’m saddened to say Earth Eternal will likely be shutting down fairly soon. In an open letter to the community, Sparkplay CEO Matt Mihaly announced that the team has been cut down to two people, one of them being him, and the latest attempt to sell the game has failed. Although Earth Eternal is up for auction, it is probable that no one will buy up the title.

“I will keep you updated as to what is going to happen with Earth Eternal, but in all likelihood we won’t know until late on Friday whether someone is going to buy EE and keep it running or not. Let’s hope for the best!”

Here’s hoping for the best.

Everquest Next: With The Everquester In Mind!

eqnexttown — And John Smedley Said: Let there be light!

If Sony Online Entertainment’s abbreviated name was NSD, I could point out that their name could also spell out Never Shuts Down. However, since it doesn’t, I’m stuck with my next best idea: Soldier On, Edith which, although surely touching to anyone named Edith who enjoys Sony’s products, only appeals to a limited audience.

But enough of my attempts at word play. At the 2010 Fan Faire, SOE fully announced Everquest Next, the third Everquest MMO to come out at some point in the future. So, very little was offered in terms of when we might actually see Everquest Next, but the SOE staff present were more than willing to give out information regarding the title.

Everquest Next is not a sequel, nor a prequel to Everquest, but a re-imagining. Sony is going for the original charm of Everquest, and notes that fans of the original will feel right at home in the title. They hope to give more engaging content, better combat, immersive story lines, and a more streamlined approach to players with less classes (think Everquest).

More importantly, however, was the fact that Sony is committed to supporting both Everquest and Everquest II, neither of which will be going anywhere anytime soon. We were also promised that players will not be shepherded to EQ Next like they were with Everquest II, a move that was wholly rejected by the Everquest community when Everquest II released those many years ago. Everquest Next will also offer scalability to lower end machines, something Everquest II sorely missed.

And even more importantly, Everquest Next is not being made for kids, and you can take that to the bank.

Chronicles of Spellborn Shutting Down This Month

It feels like ages ago that Chronicles of Spellborn went quiet. Not only did the new developers (Acclaim) stop talking to us, but eventually the downloader and client for the game didn’t even work! Absolutely nothing came into or out of the company, and we were left with nothing more than a long-aged reminder that “we’re still working on stuff guys!” Ask anyone who does MMO news (like myself) and they’ll likely tell you the same thing: Chronicles of Spellborn was an absolutely baffling experience. It was quite a decent game, one that sat through its developers going bankrupt and the new publishers attempting (and obviously failing) to pull a free to play conversion.

So when I say Chronicles of Spellborn is shutting down, I think of it in the sense of putting a very badly hurting title out of its misery. Chronicles of Spellborn was taken over shortly after launch by its publisher, Acclaim, who was in turn acquired by Playdom, who was in turn acquired by Disney, who in turn decided to shutter the title this month.

TCoS will be online until the end of August, when the servers will come down for their final time. It is unknown, and unlikely, as to whether or not the developers are planning some kind of end-of-game event. Playing by the UK release date (November 2008), the game will still have not hit two years old by the time it shuts down.

I’ll be here with a “what happened?” when The Chronicles of Spellborn shuts down this September.

Ultima Online: We Love New Players…For Dinner.

So technically it’s been years since a romp through Ultima Online meant quickly being chewed up, spit out, stomped on, cremated, and then having your stuff stolen by the many denizens of Lord British’s lands, but the idea still stands. Bioware Mythic would love to have you for dinner, so much so that new players will find themselves handsomely rewarded for setting up new accounts with Ultima Online.

In the new player initiative, new accounts (not trial) will receive welcome presents, including twenty thousand gold, skill boosts, as well as premium armor and weapons…until they lose all of it ten minutes later wandering outside of the starting area looking for a bank. I kid, of course…

But it gets better! Those of you from the old days of Ultima Online will be glad to hear that the live events are coming back. Old characters will be making returns, and story arcs will play out live, with developer interaction of course.

It’s never too late to give Ultima Online a try. The game runs slightly cheaper than most other subscription titles, and offers a 14 day trial.

The Days of 51/50 Servers Are Over

Everquest is one of the few ongoing MMOs to dive into experimental servers, generally temporary servers featuring anything from permadeath to progression (the server starts at the base game and expansions open as players progress), and more. The 51/50 server, for those not in the EQ-Know, is where players start at level 51 with 50 levels AP, in order to get them into the meat of the game as quickly as possible. The servers, sadly, have not been very popular, and for a while now the air has been all about mergers.

Mayong, Zek, and Fioriona are the three 51/50 servers on Everquest, and after great discussion between staff and players, Sony has begun the process of merging, starting with Mayong. Currently, the 51/50 ruleset has been removed, and no new characters can be created at level 50. The Mayong server will be merged in September, although players can ship their characters off early for $10 (a discount on the normal fee).

SOE has stated that new information regarding this merge, as well as the upcoming changes to Zek and Fioriona will be coming “soon™.” As one developer put it:

“It’s not as simple to merge servers as it is to, say, merge a little rum into some cola. We’ll be choosing the server that Mayong merges with by the usual method (dart board).”

Everquest’s next expansion, House of Thule, goes live in October this year. More on the Everquest mergers as they appear.

[Video] Chuck Norris NPC In World Of Warcraft

I don’t normally post my Youtube videos here, but I figured I’d make an exception. In Hillsbrad Foothills on WoW, I encountered this NPC. Despite my multiple attempts at killing him, he would fight me until his health hit a certain level, and the he would rubber band back to his waypoint (like an NPC usually does if they chase you out of a certain range), heal back to full health, and come after me again. You’ll notice I tried a few times in the video to figure out if I was outside of his “range.”

I did see the Chuck Norris NPC a few times several days after that and after a few server restarts. It seems this NPC in particular is bugged, rather than simply being the fault of a desync, or connection issues. All of the other NPCs in the area were fine.

So I guess you win this battle, Chuck Norris NPC…until I hit level 40 and can one-shot you.

Check it out in HD. I’ll be adding more videos as time goes on, from various games.

Warhammer Online Is Still Profitable, Says Mythic

WAR_ss_may09-09 — You were thinking it...

When Warhammer Online launched in 2008, the game peaked at about eight hundred thousand subscribers, before plummeting over the course of the next two months to little over three hundred thousand. Over the course of the first year, WAR lost over three quarters of its population, as well as a grand majority of its over-one-hundred servers. So given MMODATA.com’s latest graph showing WAR heading under one hundred thousand subscribers, questioning the game’s health is not exactly out of line.

Luckily, those of you playing WAR can rest easy, at least for the moment. In an interview with Eurogamer, Bioware Mythic announced that WAR is still profitable as it comes to its second birthday this September, and that the game is still chugging forward despite the naysayers. The endless trial has had its desired effect, and “tens of thousands of players” are experiencing the game each month for the first time, according to EA.

Even if you go by mmodata.net’s figures and give WAR a mean 90,000 subscribers, Mythic is still looking at $1.3 million in income a month.

Here’s hoping the Endless Trial goes even better than expected, and Mythic has plenty in the coffers to keep the game going. More on Warhammer Online as it appears.

Play WoW While You Patch WoW!

Technically, Turbine has been doing this for a while with their game clients, but given that few other developers are unwilling to take on this same method, I figured Blizzard gets some notice. What’s the worst part of patching? If you have low bandwidth, your answer is likely the downloading portion. On large patch days, you can probably forget getting any World of Warcraft action in until sometime later in the day, assuming your connection holds up during the patching process.

Tentonhammer is reporting an addition to the WoW: Cataclysm beta, that will allow players to stream patches, allowing them to download only a small amount in order to get into the game while the rest downloads in the background. Your experience will not be ideal, according to the patch notes, but the hope is to minimize the time between patching and playing. There isn’t much information as to what “less than ideal” equates to, but in the realm of big patches and slow download speeds, it is better than nothing.

Hopefully this feature is made standard when World of Warcraft: Cataclysm goes live later this year.

More on World of Warcraft as it appears.

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