Author: Admin

Turbine’s Renewal of the Asheron’s Call Domain Is Probably Nothing


The internet is buzzing, or at least a small section is, over the news that Turbine has renewed the Asheron’s Call domain through 2022. While the revelation has naturally caused speculation on whether or not Turbine has plans for the property, the real answer is fairly likely to not exactly be what the community wants to hear. In practice, domain renewals are cheap and easy and done simply to protect a company’s IP. After all, while Turbine may have no interest in further work on the series, they don’t want the domains dropping into less scrupulous hands.

Domains generally only get pushed over to the public when the company goes fully bankrupt. Games like Hellgate: London for instance have had their hosting servers taken over by fan sites and revival projects, while games like the 2D Half Life 2 fan title Codename: Gordon link to a domain that has since been taken over by a porn website distributing malware, forcing Valve to remove the game from Steam. In either case, Turbine probably doesn’t want its domain linking to private servers or porn.

So don’t read too far into this domain renewal.

Darkfall Returns: Rise of Agon Is Live


Darkfall is back! Rise of Agon, a revival of the original Darkfall MMORPG, has officially launched. Darkfall originally launched under now-defunct developer Aventurine in 2009 only to shut down and be revived as Darkfall: Unholy Wars in 2012. Unholy Wars was subsequently shut down alongside Aventurine due to poor economic conditions in Greece. Aventurine, while they were in business, had originally planned a revival of Darkfall 1.0 (as some have referred to it) only to cancel those plans later on.

Rise of Agon is one of two Darkfall revivals that are coming out, as Aventurine sold the rights to two developers. Curious players can join in on the action by buying into the game’s $10 subscription fee.

(Source: Rise of Agon)

Trion Worlds Makes Glyph Great Again: Speeds Performance


Who doesn’t want a faster game browser? Don’t answer that. Trion Worlds has announced that its game platform Glyph should be running much smoother following an update aimed at improving client performance. Chiefly, the update removes the browser which was not only a hog of system resources but required a lot of maintenance in stability and security. According to the announcement on the Glyph website, usage has dropped from a previous 200mb when in the background to around 50mb.

There are other updates coming that should continue the trend of lightening the load.

(Source: Trion Worlds)

Prey Developer: Consider Steam’s Refund Policy Your Demo


Prey launches on PC and consoles this week, and while gamers on Xbox and Playstation were able to gauge their interest thanks to a pre-release demo, PC gamers haven’t been afforded the same luxury. Thankfully, Co-Creative Director Raphael Colantonio has a solution: Buy the game anyway, and just make use of Steam’s refund policy. Steam, for those out of the know, allows automatic refunds for games within two weeks or two hours of gameplay, whichever comes first.

“It’s just a resource assignment thing. We couldn’t do a demo on both the console and on the PC, we had to choose. And besides, PC has Steam. Steam players can just return the game [prior to playing] 2 hours so it’s like a demo already.

There are a few important notes to keep in mind that if you’re using Colantonio’s suggestion, foremost being that you have to buy the game through Steam. Registering a third party key will invalidate your eligibility for a refund. Furthermore, the two hour gameplay cutoff isn’t a hard line, but you’ll be dealing with Steam’s customer support and the good will of whoever you happen to be sent to. Finally, there are no guidelines for what constitutes refund abuse, so if you’ve been refunding a lot of games Valve may cut you off.

Otherwise, just think of Prey on PC requiring a $60-80 deposit, depending on your region.

(Source: Aus Gamer)

Nexon Acquires Unannounced Game


Nexon has acquired the worldwide publishing rights for the first born video game of First Strike, which may lead to some MMO Fallout readers asking “well what’s the game?” Patience, my children, as the game hasn’t been announced yet. Formed last year, First Strike is a new on the scene developer composed of developers from 343 Industries, EA, and more.

More details will be announced later this year.

“We are super focused on competitive multiplayer games at First Strike,” said Kevin Franklin, CEO, First Strike Games.  “In Nexon, we found a partner who has truly understood the gameplay we are exploring, has embraced our company vision and has contributed great ideas and expertise. We are looking forward to making amazing games together.”

(Source: Nexon press release)

[Video] “No Vagina Losses,” Streamer Before Losing To Female Team


The above video, provided for your viewing pleasure, involves a Halo 5 streamer who enters into a capture the flag match with his team only to discover that his group has been matched with four female players. “We’re not losing to vaginas,” he says, before promptly losing to said team. “Bro, oh my god bro, we just lost to girls, bro.” If you want to watch a man’s ego die slowly, watch the video from the beginning. If you want to skip to the post-game tantrum, start at around the seven minute marker.

Outside of an assumption based on the screen names, we don’t know if the streamer was actually playing against an entire team of women, but we’re willing to go along with it if he is.

ZX Spectrum Websites Taken Over By Internet Trolls


It looks like the tribulations of Retro Computers Ltd never seem to cease. In an update posted to Indiegogo backers today, Retro Computers Ltd has warned that their domains have been taken over by a third party and are redirecting to other websites (full announcement below). The zxvega.co.uk domain now redirects to a website “Bum Fun Gaming,” who hosts a Youtube channel heavily criticizing the company while the retro-computers.co.uk domain is forwarding viewers to a website that has been archiving the events of the Vega+ crowdfunding campaign.

It is unknown at this time what involvement, if any, the hosts of these websites have. While Retro Computers Ltd. is referring to this incident as a security breach, domain records for both websites suggest that both domains were not renewed by a third party company put in charge of managing said domains, and as such both were opened up to the public. RCL has denied these claims and is stating that they owned the domains until 2018.

We have been made aware that late yesterday afternoon a security breach occurred on a number of domains belonging to Retro Computers Limited.  This includes the zxvega.co.uk and retro-computers.co.uk URLs

We do not currently have control of these domains and an unauthorised third party has taken over these accounts. We we are working to recover our property from this person or persons whom we have identified and reported to Action Fraud and the Metropolitan police.

For security reasons please only contact us through the Indiegogo portal and not via emails that contain either URL  We will provide a new email address for team members in the very near future.

Do not send any personal details via email and this information may not be secure.

Former Funcom Execs Sentenced To Prison Term In Fraud Investigation


While Kingdoms of Amalur may take the title of the game that Rhode Island paid for, The Secret World will go down as one of the few games to result in criminal convictions. We’ve been covering on and off the tribulations of Funcom’s former executives who have been under investigation since the launch of The Secret World in 2012 (yes it has been five years) and subsequent resignations. For those who have forgotten, then Funcom CEO Trond Aas resigned from his position and sold off a huge chunk of his stocks. Funcom’s offices were raided in 2014 over allegations of insider trading and last year Aas and a few other executives were arrested and charged with market manipulation and insider trading.

The men involved have been convicted and sentenced to serving between 85 days and 13 months in prison. It is important to note that Funcom itself has not been involved in the litigation for quite some time. The developer was fined in 2015 for irregularities and it appears that their involvement ends there.

(Source: Massively)

[NM] Demo Impressions: Prey


(Editor’s Note: All screenshots from Playstation 4)

The date, March 15 2032. The place, my apartment. I am Morgan, waking up to start my first day at a new job at the TranStar Testing Facility. After fiddling around with a few things in the apartment, I grab my suit and head to the roof where a helicopter awaits. As the pilot takes off, the game transitions into a vehicle for smooth synth music. Just for giggles, I decide to see if I can jump into the helicopter’s blades. I can, they kill me instantly.

You start off Prey as Morgan Yu, gender-neutrally named protagonist going through a series of confusing and likely annoying personality questions at the TranStar Testing Facility. As you might expect being that this is a science fiction game, you’re walled off from the other characters initially, something goes wrong and all hell breaks loose in the facility. You’ll see this “twist” coming the moment you step into the first room, so I don’t feel like I’m spoiling anything of importance. To go further with the story after this point would be a major spoiler, so play the demo at your own risk.

First impressions with Prey make me feel like I’m playing a game developed by the Deus Ex folks at Eidos Montreal for the Mirror’s Edge universe with some System Shock thrown in for good measure. Rather than throw you into a sandbox and have you play with the encounters placed around the map, Prey follows the vein of Deus Ex, throwing around enough toys to play to most preferences. Want to be an awesome hacker? There are turrets, locked doors, etc aplenty. Want to go in guns blazing? You have that option. Sneak around using stealth? Absolutely. You very quickly come upon items like the wrench, GLOO gun (freezes enemies in place) and oddities like a foam crossbow that fires bolts that don’t do damage but are probably helpful for distractions.

Mimics are the primary antagonist of the game so far. The more populous group you’ll come across are capable of scurrying off and changing into objects in the scenery. Larger enemies roam around the map, and at this early stage it is clearly best to leave them alone. Your GLOO Gun doesn’t do a whole lot to help and they are capable of taking your out from afar.

Skill upgrades are handled by neuro mods both in plain sight and hidden around the map, giving the game more of an emphasis on exploration and less so on killing everything in sight to maximize your experience gain. Neuro mods can be used to customize Morgan to your play style, emphasizing stealth, weapon proficiency, or healing, among other things. Players of Deus Ex will be familiar with using the system for minor upgrades like lifting heavy objects or allowing Morgan to extract more resources from downed foes. Weapons are similarly upgraded through weapon upgrade mods (go figure) that are found separate from the neuro mods and again encourages deep exploration.

Prey is best played at a slow, methodical pace. Explore the map too fast and you’ll likely miss the crafting materials and notes scattered around, sticky notes with pass codes and important information. I also enjoy that mimics will show up in rooms that you’ve already cleared, rather than guiding the player through an all-too-predictable shuffle of entering a room, triggering the traps, and then having it be safe forever.

I walked out of the Prey demo with a few issues, most pressing being that controlling Morgan feels like pushing a wheelchair up a hill made of pudding. Slow and sluggish, both in movement and in turning, with some serious input delays on the Playstation 4. It’s like someone put Morgan into one of those padded training suits that you see the police use with training dogs, and you’re expected to keep up with said dogs who are now on rocket powered skates. None of these problems appear to be present on the Xbox One version, so if you have both systems, you’re probably better off on Xbox. There is no knowing how the PC version will run, Bethesda hasn’t released a demo.

Neverwinter Hits 15 Million Players Across 3 Systems


Neverwinter has plenty of reasons to celebrate today as the MMO announces that it has reached 15 million customers across PC, Xbox, and Playstation. Perfect World Entertainment has released a video thanking the community, embedded below.

Since its original launch in June 2013, Neverwinter has continued to receive expansions, bringing exciting and diverse content from the Forgotten Realms and Dungeons & Dragons lore. From defeating the elven lich Valindra Shadowmantle to facing off against monstrous demon lords in the Underdark and going toe-to-toe with frost giants in Icewind Dale, adventurers continue to experience the Forgotten Realms with players around the world. The Cloaked Ascendancy, now available on all platforms, marks the 11th major content expansion to the action MMO.