Author: Admin

Call of Duty Gets Slammed In Steam Ratings In Open Beta


The Call of Duty World War 2 beta is officially live on PC, and Steam players are not happy. Just hours into the beta being available, the game is already sinking in reviews with 30% (of more than five thousand reviews) as of this writing having a positive outlook on the title. While there are plenty of reviews that are simply trolling or missing context, the general contention among the crowd of haters relates to performance issues, matchmaking problems, and the game just generally being “another Call of Duty.”

A thread has popped up on the forums asking players for bug reports regarding performance issues. It appears that the developers are paying attention, and are not happy with the early review scores, noting:

NOTE: Please don’t review the game without actually giving it a try, it’s unfair to the developers when you rate a game beacuse of an issue that could very well be your own.

The latest Call of Duty title is going to have to work hard to bring PC users back after Infinite Warfare virtually bombed on the system in 2016. Steam charts show that Infinite Warfare peaked at 15,312 on launch, barely three thousand more than Battleborn. Its accompanying title, Modern Warfare Remastered, peaked at just under 1,400 on launch. Both titles carry a “mostly negative” rating with less than 40% positive reviews, and Modern Warfare Remastered has dropped below a full Battlefield server in terms of peak concurrent users. Raven Software, who worked on the PC version of Infinite Warfare, is also working on the PC version of WW2. Steam Spy suggests that less than half a million people own Infinite Warfare on Steam.

Minions of Mirth Goes Offline, But Single Player Still Functions


Cult indie MMORPG Minions of Mirth: Undead Wars is dead, long live the single player Minions of Mirth! Minions of Mirth is a rather quaint fantasy MMO that many of you may not have heard of until right this very moment. Following a hard drive failure on September 18, the official MoM Twitter account announced late last week that the servers will be down indefinitely. Minions of Mirth launched in 2005 and can take the credit of being free to play before the genre was cool.

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Thankfully those of you looking to give this undiscovered gem a go, the single player still functions. Check it out at the official website.

[NM] Gravity Rush 2 Servers Shutting Down Just One Year After Launch


Sony Japan has just announced that the servers for Gravity Rush 2 will shut down on January 18, 2018, just one year after its launch on the Playstation 4. While the game itself will still be playable, the following services will be shut off:

  • Receive, send a challenge
  • Ranking browsing
  • Receive, Post Treasure Hint
  • Receive, post, review photo ghost
  • Obtaining a dusty token and obtaining its remuneration

Gravity Rush 2 was developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment Japan Studio in conjunction with Team Siren (aka Team Gravity) and released in January 2017 on the Playstation 4. For the remainder of the service, players will see an increase in dusty token drops to obtain desired items before the servers go down for good.

Diaries From Guild Wars 2 Part 1: Path of Fire


(Disclosure: I received a copy of Path of Fire for the purpose of writing about. As always, this has no bearing on my opinion on the game)

Guild Wars 2 has been my on-again off-again MMO for the past few years (five, it’s been five years since Guild Wars 2 launched. Crazy, right?) The past year or two, it’s been more off again as I found my interest waning as Arenanet seemed to be confused as to where they wanted the game to go. Still, Guild Wars 2 has gone down in my books as one of the most polished MMOs on the market.

Path of Fire ditches the jungle atmosphere of Heart of Thorns and heads straight into the desert, in a world that is just stunning to look at. Head off in any direction in the multiple zones and you’ll see that there is much more to the world than just sand and stone. In fact, your first real taste of the world sets the tone for what is ahead, as you come across massive, sprawling, crumbling pyramids.

Similarly, the main city of Anmoon is beautiful, a massive city with giant pyramid buildings and tons of activities going on. The first moment I set foot in Anmoon, I ignored the story quest and started to check out what the city had to offer. The major events takes place around the casino, with players collecting coins while also taking care of some seedier troublemakers. I found myself in a race around the desert on the game’s mounts, which was fun even though I was clearly outmatched by my fellow racers.

And speaking of mounts, it looks like Path of Fire is all about the mounts. Very early on in the story, you get your hands on a raptor mount that is capable of jumping farther distances, allowing you to get to previously inaccessible areas. The mounts are great not just because they add a new mechanic, but by how well built they are in terms of usefulness and animation.

As you travel throughout the lands and complete activities, you’ll gain mastery points to make your mount even more useful. They’ll jump higher, leap farther, and just generally do things better. Mounts have been a long time coming for Guild Wars 2, and it’s great to see that they serve more of a purpose than simply boosting your speed.

There is plenty more to do in Guild Wars 2, so I’ll be getting back to it. Expect more detailed coverage in Part 2.

Jagex Disqualifies Deadman Winner Over Cheating


The Autumn Deadman tournament survivor has been disqualified after it was discovered that they were cheating. In a post on the official website, Jagex discussed criticism surrounding the latest Deadman final regarding certain disqualifications. What isn’t in question, however, is that the latest winner was cheating by using a bot farm to boost their account.

The last survivor of the final has been disqualified. A standard subsequent investigation into the winner of the tournament took place and the winner was responsible for the creation of a bot farm. Naturally all accounts linked to this botting activity have now been banned. This then raises the question of what to do with the prize money. At the moment we’re discussing what to do with it. A few ideas we have at the moment are another charitable donation, dispersing the money among the finalists, or carrying it over to the next season (or a combination of all of these).

In the same post, Jagex has promised to provide guides for players to avoid DDoS attacks which have become more common in Deadman mode, as well as tackling issues of cheating that naturally crop up in an event where $10,000+ of real money is on the line.

Deadman is a hardcore mode for Old School RuneScape that trades higher experience rates for open pvp and higher loot risk on death. Deadman Seasonal is a time-limited event where players race to level their accounts, with the 2,000 highest level players going on to a last man standing tournament, with the winner taking home $10,000 in prizes. The latest Deadman Seasonal tournament ended at Runefest 2017 this month.

(Source: RuneScape)

[NM] Warner Bros. Makes Forthog Free, Issues Refunds, Still Donating


Warner Bros. put out an announcement today in regards to the upcoming Forthog Orc-Slayer DLC for Shadow of War, and has decided not to sell the item as paid content.

Earlier this month, Warner Bros. announced that it would be releasing a piece of DLC content in memoriam of a deceased employee who had worked on the game. The download would introduce Forthog Orc-Slayer, an NPC who would show up to help the player when he is most needed, was a tribute to Michael Forgey who passed during development. According to Monolith’s announcement, all proceeds from the DLC sales would go to Forgey’s family.

But criticism quickly sprang up after people noticed that the donations came with an apparent caveat, as according to the official trailer, only purchases in the states would be donated and even then, select states would not be included. Monolith has apologized for the confusion and announced that the DLC will be free and instead Warner Bros. will make a donation to the family. Everyone who preordered the DLC will get a refund.

We now recognize that tying our donation to sales of the DLC was not the best way to achieve our goal of offering financial support to the family and creating a lasting memorial to Michael Forgey.  We sincerely apologize to the fans and to the Forgey family for the confusion we created.

Our thoughts: I’ll go back to what I said in the original controversy, that the disclaimer that only certain areas would be eligible was to protect Warner Bros from state/foreign laws regarding gifts/donations, and that the company would figure out a way to “Pachinko” the money to the right places by funneling the money down the right channels. It’s not a donation if you don’t call it one!

(In all likelihood, we will never be told exactly how Warner Bros is going to make not donating and not profiting work, but if MMO Fallout had to throw in its two cents, I recommend looking at how Pachinko parlors in Japan. You can bypass just about any payout law by adding more steps and calling it something different.)

(Source: Warner Bros)

Jagex Lays Out the Future Of RuneScape/Old School


RuneFest 2017 at Battersea Evolution – David Portass/iEventMedia

Runefest has come and gone, and Jagex has laid out the plans for the next year of content in both variations of their popular MMORPG.

Attendees were able to get their hands on RuneScape mobile to test the game out this weekend. While compatibility information will be rolling out within the next couple of months, Old School RuneScape is expected to hit mobile devices this winter with RuneScape 3 coming in 2018. On a more current front, RuneScape 3 will be seeing a PvE update in October called Dimension of the Damned. Adventurers will travel to another dimension where all of RuneScape has died, and battle a zombie hoard in return for unique cosmetics, achievements, and other rewards.

The entire list of RuneScape updates coming is massive, and since the game updates weekly this just covers some of the major stuff.

“Every year it gets more and more difficult to top the previous RuneFest, but I think with 2017’s convention we’ve managed to do it. We were thrilled to see so many of our hardcore players try out both RuneScape and Old School RuneScape on mobile devices for the very first time, as well as experience the tension of a Deadman Invitational live at RuneFest,” said Mark Ogilvie, Design Director, RuneScape. “Exciting new content, together with new ways to play, will delight and entice players to the world of Gielinor like never before, and in addition to our millions of active players we’ll be here ready to welcome our old friends back from being ‘AFK’.”

Over on the Old School side, players can expect to see a new 5-man raid called Theatre of Blood coming in June 2018. For questers, January 2018 will see the launch of Dragon Slayer II, a brand new Grandmaster quest. The fall Deadman tournament came to a close with one player (5PLUS50K12) walking away with the grand total of twenty thousand dollars. An additional ten grand was donated to Make a Wish by the winners of the team Deadman tournament, #TeamLUL.

The livestream of upcoming Old School updates can be found below.

 

[Community] Wild West Online, Another Bad Weekend, and Humble Pie On Refunds


Wild West Online might be the worst game of 2017, and its alpha weekend rollout might be the worst pitch to buy a game that I have seen since The WarZ did it years ago, but I have to give some kudos to the team. Let’s talk.

This weekend marked the second alpha test weekend for Wild West Online, a game that I have not shown much mercy to. The first weekend was written off as a technical test, an idea that I fully rejected at the time and will continue to do so. Once again, it doesn’t matter what WWO Partners calls the weekend. From the perspective of a customer, I don’t really care that all you were hoping to do was test server capacity and various other bugs. WWO offered two weekends to test the game before the guaranteed refund period passed, after which you’re out of luck and stuck with whatever the game gives you.

This is, regardless of what you or the community call the weekend, a trial period for the product, where you’re trying to convince people that the game will be worth their money. To present the offer of two whole alpha tests to figure out of the game is worth keeping your pre-order, and then to turn around and showcase that with much of the game’s content turned off, is at the very least mildly insulting. It’s like a restaurant offering free samples on its soup, but the sample itself is an uncooked piece of an onion that was part of the recipe. It’s a poor indicator of the full product and you start to wonder who in the kitchen decided to use this to gauge consumer interest.

The second alpha weekend did some polishing on the first, but didn’t really add anything new. As a result, I once again have to conclude that there isn’t enough in the game to warrant buying it at this stage, and that the preview weekend wasn’t enough to convince me that the game can’t go entirely south before launch.

I will give kudos to the team for holding up their end of the bargain this time. After seeing how little progress had been made with the second weekend, I submitted an email to Xsolla’s support with a simple message with my receipt code and game key and asked for a refund. I received it, barely a half hour later. I’ve offered my doubts on Xsolla and Wild West Online, especially after how the refund policy for WarZ was botched, but I will give credit where credit is due: They held up their end of the bargain and gave me my refund with no questions asked. Looking at the forums, it appears that other users also aren’t having an issue getting refunds as well and most are receiving responses within a half hour as well.

So kudos for that, Xsolla.

Bluehole Interview: Epic Should License Battle Royale, Fears Leaking Secrets


Last night I put out a piece regarding Bluehole Studio and Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds regarding the implied threat of legal action from Bluehole against Epic over similarities between the latter’s Battle Royale mode in Fortnite, and the former’s aforementioned PUBG title. I recommend reading it, it’s a short piece, but the crux of the matter is that neither Bluehole or Brendan Greene own the concept of Battle Royale, nor did either create the genre, and that Bluehole doesn’t have a moral leg to stand on when its own employees were actually criminally convicted of stealing from another developer just eight years ago.

Today, PC Gamer released an interview with Bluehole VP Changhan Kim, in which Kim claims that the press release wasn’t clear and that the issue is about Epic and not the game mode itself. You can read the interview here and make your own conclusion, but many of the questions seem to be avoided or outright contradicted in the same interview. For instance, Kim states that Bluehole isn’t claiming ownership.

So, battle royale is just about last man standing, it’s a simple game mode, and we’re not claiming any kind of ownership over the game mode or genre itself, it’s not for us to even comment.

Despite claiming no ownership over the game mode, Kim makes it pretty clear by using H1Z1 and itself as an example, their belief that Epic Games had an obligation to pay a license to use the concept.

You know that Daybreak Games actually licensed this idea and worked with him to develop their game mode and [Bluehole] did license his idea as well. Not only [did we bring] him to Korea to hire him as the creative director, we licensed his idea to develop PUBG.

Kim never explicitly says that Epic should have licensed the game mode, but does state that they should have had to come to Bluehole before developing Fortnite’s Battle Royale mode.

What I think is, they should have at least came to us before making it and had a discussion with us.

He also goes on convey concerns over Epic’s ownership of the Unreal engine, that if Bluehole modifies the engine to create new features, that they could be leaked or “other things.”

We could be afraid when we make new features in the engine by modifying it internally, that is not already available and public, that feature could be leaked, or other things could happen.

Despite all of this, Bluehole admits that it has not actually been in contact with Epic regarding its concerns over Fortnite, however the stated reason for concern does change at the end of the interview to include confusion by the community as to whether or not PUBG was involved in any official capacity with the development of Fortnite Battle Royale. You can check out the entirety of the interview at the link below.

Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds is currently the most popular game on Steam, nearly doubling the number 2 spot held by Dota 2.

(Source: PC Gamer)

Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire Is Live


Arenanet today launched the second expansion to Guild Wars 2, titled Path of Fire, now available in digital and retail stores. The expansion launches just in time for Guild Wars 2’s fifth anniversary. Players must unite against the god Balthazar as his Forged legion descends upon the kingdom in a hunt for the elder gods.

“We’re thrilled to be bringing players back to the Elonian desert region, the setting for the Guild Wars: Nightfall campaign, after 250 years and dispatch them on their most daring adventure yet,” said Mike O’Brien, co-founder and president of ArenaNet. “We have packed Path of Fire full of exciting features and immersive content that gives players alternative ways to experience Guild Wars 2, including new mounts and elite specializations for each of the classes.”

Path of Fire introduces mounts to Guild Wars 2 as well as nine new elite specializations, new zones, and more.