Author: Admin

TERA Joins the Fight Against Breast Cancer


En Masse Entertainment has unveiled the Pink Power Bundle, a limited promotion in TERA to help spread breast cancer awareness. The bundle is only available until November 1, and contains a small handful of goods to show off your charitable ways.

TERA’s Pink Power Bundle sells for $14.95, with 100% net proceeds going toward the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

  • Pink Pinions —A pair of rare, translucent-pink wings that emit hearts to show off your caring spirit.
  • Pink Wreath —A crown of pink flowers.
  • Pink Brow Glasses—High-end eyewear for the caring soul.

“According to Breast Cancer.Org, there are more than 3.1 million survivors with breast cancer history, and 40,000 women are expected to die in 2017 from breast cancer,” said Matt Denomme, Senior Product Manager at En Masse Entertainment. “We’ve got a chance to help bring those numbers down by spreading awareness through our TERA community, as well as contributing proceeds from our Pink Power Bundle to one of the many charities in need. We hope our small part will help these statistics change for the better and fight this awful disease.”

Loki Joins Marvel Heroes Omega, Plus 25% Gs Sale


The number of playable characters hits 44 as Loki joins the cast in Marvel Heroes Omega on PS4 and Xbox One. Loki is currently available exclusively through a $20 pack, and will be available to purchase with Gs or with eternity splinters in one month (the website says Black Bolt).

With an ensemble of spells ranging from arcane magic and illusionary tactics to powers of ice and fire, Thor’s half-brother has the goods to cause plenty of damage in battle. Loki’s default costume echoes his classic comic book look, and players who purchase him also have access to a much younger look for the character from his LOKI: AGENT OF ASGARD series.

In addition, G packs are on sale at 25% off for console.

(Source: Marvel Heroes)

Blood Moon Returns To Champions Online


We are knee deep in October, and that means it is that time of year again: Time to go kill some spooky monsters and get your hands on some ghastly goodies. Champions Online is just another one of those games handing out tricks and treats this holiday season.

Head on in to get your hands on the living sword, spiked collar, lunar wing vehicle, or shadow sickle vehicle. Defeat enough enemies to obtain the rank 3 defeat perk and you’ll be rewarded with a Thriller-themed dance emote.

(Source: Champions Online)

Activision Patents Using Matchmaking To Encourage Microtransactions


Can you imagine playing a game where you’re never quite sure whether or not the game is intentionally pitting you against more skilled enemies to better advertise spending real money on more powerful weaponry? Activision can, they patented it.

Discovered by Rolling Stone, the patent relates to matchmaking systems and driving microtransactions in said games. There is no concrete proof that this system has been used in any existing Activision title. The patent offers way to use matchmaking in order to drive microtransaction purposes, by specifically pairing players who own DLC items with those who do not, with the goal of exposing said items to potential new customers.

One example of this implementation involves matching a low skill player with a high skill player who happens to own a cash shop weapon in order to encourage the lower skill player to buy said item. Say for instance if the system determines that a player is trying to become an expert sniper, as the patent describes. He could be placed in the match with a higher skilled sniper who also owns some sniper DLC weapons and maybe that player will buy some weapons of their own.

“The system may include a microtransaction arrange matches to influence game-related purchases. For instance, the system may match a more expert/marquee player with a junior player to encourage the junior player to make game-related purchases of items possessed/used by the marquee player. A junior player may wish to emulate the marquee player by obtaining weapons or other items used by the marquee player.”

Another implementation would have players with a microtransaction item that is currently on sale be paired with players who do not own such item, in order to promote said sale.

Microtransaction engine 128 may analyze various items used by marquee players and, if at least one of the items is currently being offered for sale (with or without a promotion), match the marquee player with another player (e.g., a junior player) that does not use or own the item. Similarly, microtransaction engine 128 may identify items offered for sale, identify marquee players that use or possess those items, and match the marquee players with other players who do not use or possess those items. In this manner, microtransaction engine 128 may leverage the matchmaking abilities described herein to influence purchase decisions for game-related purchases.

The system isn’t all about making more money, though. Other implementations of the patent involve matchmaking in regards to matching players up with friends/clans, placing emphasis on players who spend a long time in matchmaking, and matching performance based on skill in a more accurate way. In another example, the system can determine a player’s preferred game mode and steer them toward those servers in matchmaking.

Activision has denied in a statement that this patent has been put to use in any of its games, claiming that it “was an exploratory patent filed in 2015 by an R&D team working independently from our game studios.”

You can read the entire patent here,

(Our thoughts: Let’s go on a limb here and take Activision’s statement as fact that this has never been implemented. They’ve painted a target on their backs of a company willing, and now capable, of secretly putting such a system in their games.)

The Mad King Returns To Guild Wars 2


It’s Halloween time again in Guild Wars 2! Return to the lair of the Mad King, now equipped with both your Path of Fire mounts and Heart of Thorns gliders, and take on the denizens while navigating the twisting passages of this labyrinth. Race against time in the Clock Tower jumping puzzle or take on other players in the Lunatic Inquisition PvP game.

The Halloween event runs from today until November 2.

(Source: Guild Wars 2)

Marvel Heroes Omega Will Overhaul Its Omega Prestige System


The unveiling of Omega prestige for Marvel Heroes Omega wasn’t entirely positive, with many players taking umbrage with the newly introduced seventy Omega prestige levels. As each prestige level offers more power, in order to fully kit out your character, that means reaching Omega prestige and then going through the increasingly arduous leveling process seventy times, going back to level one each time, losing your powers, and having to re-gear.

As a result, Gazillion has laid out plans for omega prestige going forward, including adding the benefits of Omega up front rather than requiring players to level up over and over again to become more powerful:

Instead of removing power entirely, we are instead frontloading some of the bonuses onto Omega Prestige 1 (final values still being determined). This means that the Omega Traits will have much more potency as soon as they are acquired, and will not require any further leveling to get more powerful. All of the power gained from Omega Prestige will be given immediately, up-front.

To make omega prestige levels attractive, Gazillion will begin rewarding currency for each prestige level gained that can be redeemed for prestigious loot boxes containing boosts and other rewards. Characters who prestige will also receive scaling gear that should mitigate the grind to re-roll gear. The prestige gear will grow with the player and inevitably be replaced by higher tier gear closer to end-game.

(Source: Marvel Heroes)

RuneScape Launches Dimensions of the Damned: Competitive Survival


Today’s RuneScape update marks the introduction of Dimensions of the Damned, a 10 day competitive mode where players race to survive in a world overrun by zombies. As a purely player vs monster mode, Dimensions kits players out with capped stats and throws them into a post apocalyptic Gielinor, complete with the walking dead.

The goal here is to complete sessions which gave an hour to rack up points by killing zombies. Cosmetic rewards can be won by completing tasks (killing more zombies) but the ultimate goal is placement on the leaderboards. At the end of the event, the top 1,000 players will gain access to the finale, a last man standing mode with real world prizes (lifetime membership, collectibles, etc)

“We’ve played with the idea of survival modes in RuneScape in the past, most notably with our DarkScape experiment a couple of years ago, and they’ve proved popular. However, as a purely PvE survival game mode, Dimension of the Damned is quite unlike anything we’ve released before,” said Matt Casey, Senior Product Manager, RuneScape. “We’re really looking forward to seeing how tactics develop over the coming days as players try to reach the finale and compete to win an incredible set of prizes, but with only 1,000 places available in the endgame expect the competition to be stiff and full of rigor (mortis).”

Check out more on Dimensions of the Damned at the link below.

(Source: RuneScape)

Review: Guild Wars 2 Path of Fire


(Disclosure: MMO Fallout received a copy of Path of Fire for the purposes of review. As always, this does not change my opinion)

I’ve always regarded Guild Wars 2 as the Cadillac of MMORPGs, it’s a title that while not being the apocalyptic horseman for subscription games that some fans prophesied, has cut itself a fine section of the market thanks to its polish and the way that Arenanet went about building the world. Here you have a game with strong non-player characters, an engaging story, and a world that feels more living and breathing than your Eorzeas or Gielinors. It presents maps chock full of stuff to do, and your character at the forefront of ever increasingly dangerous foes.

Path of Fire is the second expansion to Guild Wars 2, continuing the story as it left of in season 3 of the living story. Balthazar, human god of war, has returned to Tyria and plans to kill the elder dragons in order to absorb their power and get revenge on his fellow gods for their betrayal of him. At the end of the season, Balthazar turns his sights toward the Crystal Desert and sets off to kill the elder dragon Kralkatorrik. This is where the story picks up.

The lands of the Crystal Desert aren’t just long stretches of brown and tan, either. The world presented forth is massive, much more open than previous zones (especially Heart of Thorns) and well varied between open deserts littered with the skeletons of massive dead beasts, and a lush oasis of trees and waterfalls.

#1: Mounting With Purpose

I’d like to use this opportunity to gush about the mount system in Guild Wars 2, in part because it was the main focal point of my previous commentary and mostly because it is a huge part of the expansion and a lot of mechanics revolve around the use and leveling of said mounts. You’ll gain several story related mounts, all of which are required to progress through the main story missions and to thoroughly complete each map. These mounts allow you to leap further, jump higher, ride the waves, and the griffon is halfway towards flying.

Now depending on who you ask, the mounts fall into one of two categories: Great handling or cumbersome and horrible. While not entirely like driving a tank, there is no doubt that the mounts in Guild Wars 2 have been built with some idea of realism in mind. Your mounts won’t turn on a dime, you can’t position the camera in front of your mount and perform a crazy backwards leap, it just won’t work. In the wide open maps of Guild Wars 2, these mounts feel great. They sway and roll into each maneuver, you can tell that Arenanet put a lot of love into making something more than just your avatar but with boosted speed/jump. Try to use them to maneuver through small spaces, and they respond exactly like you’d expect walking a giant dinosaur through a China shop would.

The mount system itself introduces a whole new form of progression into Guild Wars 2, with each mount becoming even better at their specialty as you use them and gain experience. Completing tasks, finding nodes, and going through the story missions unlocks mastery points which are needed to upgrade your mounts to be all they can be. The mounts also have a use in old Tyria as while the old zones have a lot more waypoints, you won’t have to spend the money to warp between areas.

#2: The Trivializing of Isaac

The good news is that if you have vast swaths of the game world unexplored, as my newly minted level 80 boosted ranger does, you’re going to have a much easier time doing so. The raptor and hopper mounts perform their jobs excellently, jumping long distances and leaping to extreme heights with ease. On the other hand, those of you who meticulously took the time to complete all those difficult jumping puzzles might not be happy to find out that they’ve all been made trivial and mostly useless thanks to a mount that can leap 50 feet in the air or a raptor that can just bypass a jumping puzzle.

Granted, these abilities already exists in one fashion or another, but Path of Fire basically takes all of that and wraps it up into four mounts and hands them to everyone, regardless of your ownership of Heart of Thorns.

#3: Telling A Story With A Punch

Five years later, I still can’t tell whether I like or hate story boss fights in Guild Wars 2. They remind me of the opening sequence of Game of Thrones, in that if I’m in the right mood, they are epic and just the right length. Other times they can seem cumbersome and overly dragged out.

One of the bosses you’ll fight against during the Path of Fire story is the Herald of Balthazar in Act 1. Personally I hated this character, not because of the character itself but for its game mechanics. There is no thought to most of the Herald’s fights, you just pummel her uselessly with attacks while she goes around murdering the people you’re trying to save. I get it, and although clumsy the presence of no-win situations is a nice addition. Who wants the protagonist to come out on top at all chapters of the story?

Otherwise the story boss fights are pretty grand, more than a simple “do more damage than the other guy until one of you is dead.” Fights against Balthazar become desperate, as he continues to make the field more dangerous. One boss I fought against had a mechanic where he would summon allies, and if you didn’t beat them fast enough he would siphon their energy and replenish some of his health. One thing Guild Wars 2 does great with its story boss fights is making that 10 minute fight seem like a real struggle, making you hate the giant bastard after you finally think you’re making progress only for Balthazar to show up and start wrecking your stuff while taunting you the whole time. After a while you realize that it’s not so much frustration at game mechanics that you’re feeling but actual immersion in the world and its inhabitants.

I eagerly await Season 4 and how the story will continue going forward.

#4: Closing Thoughts

In summary, Path of Fire is exactly what you would want out of an expansion. It adds a bunch of new content, reasons to log back in and keep playing, while keeping your existing toys more or less intact. The Crystal Desert is a beautiful place to roam around in with tons to do. There is more content coming with Path of Fire that simply hasn’t been unlocked yet, but we’ll be doing an updated look when it does.

Verdict: 4.5/5 – I loved the story of Path of Fire, and the mounts are a positive addition to the game. Arenanet avoided a major pitfall by not diluting the world with flying mounts. It’s impressive to see how far the story has come, via a series of flashbacks in Path of Fire’s main story.

Humble Bundle Gets Owned by IGN


Humble Bundle has been owned by gaming website IGN, by which we mean that IGN is now the owner of Humble Bundle. It will take helm of one of the top gaming charities, whose bundles have not just supplied gamers with endless piles of cheap fun, but have also supplied charities to the tune of over $100 million.

“If it’s not broken, don’t fix it,” said Galbraith, who explained that IGN started looking to make a deal like this nearly a year ago. “The idea is just to feed them with the resources they need to keep doing what they’re doing.”

The news has no doubt called into question the ethics of having a company that reviews games be directly connected to a store that could sell those games, but IGN has stated that the two entities will remain entirely independent.

(Source: Gamasutra)

(Our thoughts: To the dismay of Humble Bundle’s finance department, IGN pushed the contribution slider 100% toward giving the money to charity. This news also comes alongside the announcement that IGN has once again not acquired MMO Fallout)

In Plain English: Epic Sues Two Fortnite Cheat Creators


I’m not entirely happy with the press coverage of Epic Games’ lawsuit. If you’ve been reading the news this week, you may be under the impression that Epic Games was so angry about two particular players cheating in Fortnite that the game developer decided to take these two individuals to court. This isn’t exactly the case.

Epic Games has filed complaints against Charles Vraspir and Brandon Boom in separate cases in North Carolina district court. Unsurprisingly, Epic has chosen to go with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act for their main point of attack, alleging that the cheats involve illegally modifying the game code. By going for copyright infringement, Epic is looking to slap both defendants with some potentially hefty fines (up to $150,000 each) plus damages and any additional profits that the defendants made from the sale of said cheats. In the interim, Epic is seeking an injunction preventing the defendants from continuing to use and advertise said cheat programs.

One interesting note in this lawsuit that may help their case is intent. The lawsuit docket makes several notes of both Vraspir and Boom stating that their goal is to ruin the business viability of Fortnite by making the game as unbearable to play as possible.

In an effort to adversely impact as many people as possible while playing and cheating at Fortnite, Defendant specifically targets streamers. He has declared that it is his objective to prevent streamers from winning the game and has boasted in online cheating discussion channels that his goal is to “stream snipe,” i.e., kill streamers as they stream. Defendant has said that making streamers hate Fortnite is Defendant “in a nutshell.”

Epic also alleges that Vraspir’s conduct may be related to the fact that he was banned from Fortnite PvE for cheating:

 

Defendant’s unlawful conduct may be the result of a misplaced antipathy towards Epic because he was banned from Epic for cheating.

This is known in court as the famous “u mad” strategy.

Now those of you who read In Plain English know that the legality of cheating has come up in the past. The court ruled that the use of bot software in World of Warcraft did not constitute copyright infringement because the software itself was found to not violate Blizzard’s copyright. If the software is found to be violating Epic’s copyright by making illegal modifications or by violating DMCA rules in circumventing protections, it could spell trouble.

This is a copyright infringement and breach of contract case in which the Defendant is infringing Epic’s copyrights by injecting unauthorized computer code into the copyright protected code of Epic’s popular Fortnite® video game. In so doing, Defendant is creating unauthorized derivative works of Fortnite by modifying the game code and, thus, materially altering the game that the code creates and the experience of those who play it.

The Fortnite cheat in question has been discontinued on the cheat maker’s website, along with a Paragon cheat that was similarly discontinued over legal disputes from Epic.