Author: Admin

An MMO On Steam: Spelling Quest Online


Spelling Quest Online is certainly a game and is absolutely on Steam.

I’ll come right out and admit that I downloaded Spelling Quest Online because it is free to play and in early access, and also because it is tagged in the MMO category. Spelling Quest Online is multiplayer free-form scrabble, which is a fancy way of saying that nobody takes turns as much as you just throw down tiles and hope for the best. You can connect to random boards and just go to town for the ten minutes until the game gets boring and you want to stop and play something fun.

The boards have words that people can easily spell, like anal and bruv. There is a dictionary check when you want to make a word, but I’m not sure what dictionary the game cross-references that thinks bruv is a word because while the Cambridge dictionary recognizes it, the Oxford dictionary does not. There are daily quests that offer you gold which can be used to replace letters. I assume that most of the people playing this game are cheating. I cheated and used a Scrabble helper website because my gaming skills are only second in their inadequacy to my knowledge of words.

I will readily admit that I quit after ten minutes when completing words left me with a hand consisting almost entirely of Y’s, V’s, and X’s and literally no way to continue playing (I didn’t have any gold) on that map. I probably could have found a spot to put one or two of the Y’s but I didn’t feel like putting more effort than this game is worth. Which is nothing.

As for the developer Craig Schwartz, I will continue to love your character in the film Being John Malkovich, even if they didn’t give you anything to do in the sequel; Being John Malkovich 2: District Dafoe.

Destiny 2 Updates Credits To Include Everyone Who Worked On Game


And now something heartwarming.

Generally when stories about credits come up, it’s because someone got snubbed and didn’t receive recognition for their work. Games, movies, the press, it happens a lot more than it reasonably should. This week however, we have a story coming out of Bungie regarding Destiny 2 that should warm the hearts of our readers.

Bungie’s Drew Tucker took to Twitter to note that Destiny 2 has received an update which credits everyone who has worked on the game since launch.

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The sentiments were echoed by other Bungie staff including Steve Dolan who apologized that the credits had taken so long and expressed his happiness that the people involved could finally see their names.

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Pearl Abyss Reveals More On Plan 8, Exosuit Shooter


Plan 8 is one of several games recently revealed by Pearl Abyss. It is an exosuit MMO shooter built on a new proprietary engine being developed for PC and console Minh Le, co-creator of Counter-Strike. A key feature surrounds finding and equipping different gears to the suit which Pearl Abyss promises to create a unique shooter with MMO gameplay elements.

A number of new screenshots have been released for Plan 8, which we have shared below. For more details, check out the official website.

Virtually Everyone Possesses Duped Cash In DC Universe Online


DC Universe Online has a problem; An exploit allowed players to inject a gross amount of money into the game’s economy. How gross? According to Daybreak, trillions. Enough that virtually everyone in the game is now in possession of the fake cash, regardless of whether or not you’re aware of its origins. The cash has made its way through the economy and into so many player’s hands that Daybreak shut down trading cash and use of the broker while they figured out what to do about it.

The answer? Fix the exploit, ban the exploiters, and enforce a one-time “progressive tax” to fix the economy. You rich folks aren’t going to like this.

We have settled on six tax brackets for this one-time event, totaled at the ACCOUNT level, which are as follows:

  • Cash below $500,000,000 is not taxed at all.
  • Cash between 500,000,001 and 10,000,000,000 is taxed at 5%
  • Cash between 10,000,000,001 and 15,000,000,000 is taxed at 10%.
  • Cash between 15,000,000,001 and 20,000,000,000 is taxed at 20%.
  • Cash between 20,000,000,001 and 25,000,000,000 is taxed at 25%.
  • Cash above 25,000,000,001 is taxed at 100%.

Daybreak has admitted that the goal is not to fix the economy in one swoop, but to get rid of most of the cash that was introduced with the exploit. Their “look on the bright side” explanation is certainly something.

“We also want to maintain some of the scale of wealth legitimately present in the game. You may have less cash after this tax, but for the most part you will still have more than the people you had more than before, and less than the people you had less than before.”

On the plus side, if you had your investments wrapped up in items instead of cash, you’re pretty much safe from the number squash.

Source: DCUO

Stadia: Borderlands 3 Launch Is A New Embarrassment For The Platform


Stadia’s holiday launch is an embarrassment of riches. Well it’s an embarrassment anyway. At least you’d be laughing if you’re not among the astroturf social media accounts who coincidentally just registered and only post to lie about Stadia and its competition.

Borderlands 3 is out on Stadia today, and nothing says embarrassing quite like your console-free game being woefully out of date. One positive of the Stadia experience is that you don’t have to download or update your games, and Gearbox has sweetened the deal even more by simply not updating the game. As posted on the official website, the Stadia edition of Borderlands 3 has launched with the most recent version of Borderlands 3 up to October 24. Gearbox hopes to achieve version parity around early 2020.

“We aim to achieve feature parity for all versions of Borderlands 3 early in 2020, but for the moment the version of the game that you play on Stadia has benefitted from the updates and fixes that were released through October 24. Noteworthy features coming soon to the Stadia version of Borderlands 3 include endgame content like the Takedown at the Maliwan Blacksite and Mayhem 4 difficulty, dedicated loot pools for bosses, and additional bank space.”

Borderlands 3’s first expansion content titled Moxxi’s Heist For the Handsome Jackpot launches on December 19, whereas Stadia players will need to wait until early 2020.

Astellia Online: Free Trials & Holiday Event


Astellia Online is hosting a temporary free trial period for you stragglers.

Starting this Friday December 20 and running through January 5, anyone who creates an account on Astellia’s website will be able to check the game out free of charge. It looks like the free trials are only going to be for the weekends, and you’ll need to use the code HAPPYHOLIDAYWEEKENDS in order to qualify. Over the same weekends, all players will enjoy an experience boost as well as drop rate and increased dungeon ticket rate.

Meanwhile players will be able to take part in a holiday event beginning today (Dec. 17) that will open up a new zone where Braga Claus will offer new quests and new rewards.

For more information, check out the official website.

Mobility: Maplestory M Drops New Class Luminous


Maplestory M is once again back with a new class. The Luminous is the latest class to drop on the hit mobile title, a mage class that utilizes a shining rod and orb to battle the forces of evil. Naturally this would not be a new class release without Nexon also running a burning event. Start up your new Luminous character and you’ll receive an additional two levels for every level up until January 13. In addition to the fast level track, you’ll also be able to obtain special rewards for leveling up the Luminous class character.

“An expert Magician, Luminous defeated the Black Mage using a shining rod as his primary weapon and an orb as his secondary weapon. In addition to these tools, the new hero also has a powerful Flash Shower skill, which shoots a concentrated burst of light that can penetrate multiple enemies. However, Luminous’s dark side also emerged as a result of his brush with the Black Mage. Becoming tainted with the antagonists dark power, Luminous now struggles to keep a hold of his light and dark side.”

Not to just cut and run, Maplestory M players can take part in the Happy Holiday event. Earn rewards, obtain winter treasure box keys from enemies, obtain log-in rewards, and more.

Source: Press Release

In 2018, Activision Blizzard Got $228 Million From Taxpayers For Existing


If you live in the United States and thought you could get away with not giving Activision money simply by not buying their products, you’re in for a nasty surprise.

ITEP, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, posted a list of 60 companies avoiding all federal income taxes in 2018.

“For decades, profitable Fortune 500 companies have manipulated the tax system to avoid paying even a dime in tax on billions of dollars in U.S. profits. This ITEP report provides the first comprehensive look at how corporate tax changes under the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act affect the scale of corporate tax avoidance. The report finds that in 2018, 60 of America’s biggest corporations zeroed out their federal income taxes on $79 billion in U.S. pretax income. Instead of paying $16.4 billion in taxes at the 21 percent statutory corporate tax rate, these companies enjoyed a net corporate tax rebate of $4.3 billion.”

Activision Blizzard notably started out 2019 with the best results in company history, which they celebrated by firing nearly a thousand workers. While celebrating their major financial success and putting hundreds of people out of work, Activision also wound up claiming a -51% effective tax rate. Yes, Activision got $228 million from US taxpayers simply for existing.

We should all get a ride on Bobby Kotick’s private plane. We helped pay for it after all.

Source: ITEP

RuneScape Reduces DailyScape Grind


DailyScape is the not-exactly-positive name given to RuneScape by players who are somewhat fed up with the game’s daily grind. Not so much over the game itself, which is a massive grind no matter where you look in it, but over Jagex’s insistence on daily, weekly, and monthly tasks that start to feel more like busy work than something worth accomplishing.

This month Jagex took aim at daily challenges, a feature that is often long and tedious, requires the player to hand over their creations, and go out of their way to complete the task. Imagine being told to make hundreds of bows only to hand them over for a reward kinda worth the value of the goods that went into it. With this week’s update, RuneScape daily challenges will be more manageable and consistently rewarding;

“So, to solve this issue we’ve simply increased player agency. Instead of having several Challenges per skill, most of the time there will now be only one. This single Challenge will require you to interact with the skill in a manner of your choosing. You might be asked to run five laps of an Agility Course, but you’re free to pick which one. Or maybe you’ll need to cut 28 logs – if so, you’ll be able to choose from whichever trees you like.”

The daily challenge rework blog post can be found here.

We All Missed It: Ankama Pulled DOFUS From Steam


If you’re one of those folks suddenly getting a wild hair up your bum to go play DOFUS again, you’re going to be in for a big surprise if you’re expecting to download it on Steam. It is no longer available on that platform. Ankama made the decision to pull Steam support back at the end of October, and none of us in the games media noticed it because it pretty much flew under the radar without anything in the way of an announcement.

For those coming back to DOFUS, you’re not going to be able to play through Steam. Instead, you’ll need to follow the instructions on the link below to tie your Steam account to an Ankama account, and then play through the official launcher. Good news, you haven’t lost your characters.

Source: DOFUS