Author: Admin

[Community] The Beast That Wouldn’t Stop It


sinister

It’s time for another Community Monday here at DH Fallout, the website that used to cover those online games, and as usual I have another Digital Homicide update for you. The last post on Digital Homicide got such a huge response that it shut down the website for part of the day. The positive side is that it spurred me to upgrade us to Cloudflare, so this shouldn’t be a problem going forward.

Despite having nearly two dozen of their games slammed with an “incompatible with Greenlight” sticker from Valve, rejection both by the gaming community at large and now their would-be host doesn’t seem to be slowing the developer down. No, on Sunday the 5th, Digital Homicide added another seven games to their Greenlight portfolio. Let’s break them down:

  • Barnacle Explorer Sub: Fish Rescue – Another Space Invaders clone, the exact same looking game from the dozen other clones DH uploaded last week.
  • Barnacle Explorer Sub: Shark Rescue – A clone of the game above, but with sharks instead of fish.
  • Barnacle Explorer Sub: Octo Helper – A clone of the game above, but with octopus instead of sharks.
  • Mike the Astronaut: Battle on Arturian Twelve – A clone of the game above, but in space.
  • Star Scream on Orion – Looks like a clone of DH’s other game, Decimation of Olarath.
  • Sharktastic Yum Yums – Probably as close as you’ll get to an original Digital Homicide title.

What caught my eye is the last game on the list, Clickerton Gang. I couldn’t figure out for the life of me why this game in particular was screaming for my attention, at least not until a couple of people on Twitter pointed it out: We’ve seen Clickerton Gang before.

Clickerton Gang was first put up on Greenlight by user Bobmiddleton80, an indie developer who appeared out of the blue with three games ready for the Steam community to vote on. We first heard of Bob Middleton under allegations that the account was actually a sock puppet of Digital Homicide. One of Middleton’s games, as it turns out, was Clickerton Gang. In what can only be pure coincidence, the logo for Clickerton Gang bears a strong resemblance to Digital Homicide’s game Wyatt Derp. You might even say it looks like two alternatives to the same stock photo.

You have to imagine that Valve is getting tired of Digital Homicide’s shenanigans. The seven new games weren’t even up for a day and Valve has already struck down five of them as incompatible with Greenlight. This leaves DH with 50 games currently on Greenlight. 26 of its titles are listed as “incompatible with Greenlight.”

With the developer shoveling more trash into the pile every week and Valve increasingly stomping down on it, you have to wonder how long it takes until the developer is blacklisted from uploading new titles period, and whether or not that will be enough to prevent an entity that has had no problem changing its name in the past.

[Not Massive] Valve Just Struck Down Digital Homicide


695119765_preview_merletwo1

In the world of Steam and shady developers, no name has drawn quite as much hatred from the gaming public like Digital Homicide. Not unlike similar personalities including Uwe Boll, Digital Homicide’s notoriety is only superseded by the fact that the perception of its following is much higher than the real numbers. What it does have, however, is the ability to flip Unity engine assets and turn those into cookie cutter games that are quickly becoming parodies of themselves.

downloadFast forward to Steam Greenlight, a service that Digital Homicide has flooded with dozens of titles. As of this publishing, the company has more than forty titles in its Greenlight section. You read that correctly, more than forty. In their rush to clutter the service with as many titles as possible, Digital Homicide has resorted to putting out entire series of games that appear to be quite literally the exact same game but with different stock images.

To the left is Daisy’s Sweet Time: Cupcake Mania 3. It is identical to the other two iterations of the game plastered on Greenlight, and functionally it is also identical to Merle Wizard Extraordinaire #1, 2, and 3, all posted on the exact same day. Those games, in turn, are identical down to the placement of enemies, to Sarah to the Rescue, and its four sequels. Eleven games, all posted to Steam on the same day, all completely identical except for the art. As of this posting, there are more than a dozen Space Inavders clones up on Greenlight through Digital Homicide.

download (1)And the list goes on. Games that are reskins of other Digital Homicide games, sequels upon sequels that are the exact same title coming out at the same time as the original, functionally identical except for slight changes in art.

Because I am a veritable soothsayer of the gaming industry, I started this piece yesterday to convey the message that Valve should do its job and strike these games down. As so happens in the magical box that is the WordPress draft folder, my wish was granted and Valve has struck down many of Digital Homicide’s current Greenlight games.

sinister

If you head over to their workshop, you’ll notice that a good two dozen of Digital Homicide’s games have been blackmarked by Valve as “incompatible with Greenlight.” Whether or not this fully disqualifies titles for release is up for debate, however Valve has clearly shown their disapproval for Digital Homicide’s release tactics.

Overall, 22 of Digital Homicide’s games have been slapped with an incompatible tag. Despite being labeled as incompatible, Wyatt Derp 2 is still available for purchase. Granted, the game was made available before Valve tagged the title, so the future of Digital Homicide’s presence on Steam is certainly in question.

MMO Fallout will update with more information as it becomes available.

Atlas Reactor: 11 Tips To Do Well


AR_ACT_EvosLabs_Elle_PlasmaVolley_01_1464944661

Atlas Reactor is the latest game from Trion Worlds, a turn-based competitive MOBA with heavy focus on twitch-based gameplay. With the free weekend starting, Trion Worlds has passed along a list of eleven tips to help players outsmart and outgun the competition.

After reading the list below, feel free to check out Atlas Reactor at no cost until June 5th.

1.  Dashes are incredibly useful. Use them to dodge Dash phase and Blast phase attacks, or even save allies by dashing into the path of a shot meant for them!
2. Sometimes the best move is standing still. Traps laid down during the Prep phase can punish players that Dash or Move.
3. Knockbacks and Pulls are very powerful when used in conjunction with Traps. These displacement effects always happen at the end of the Blast phase.
4. Being next to a wall will reduce damage taken from that direction by 50%, unless the attacker is also adjacent to you.
5. You can “chase” a player by right-clicking on an opponent (or Ally!). When you chase an opponent you will try to move where they move to. Chasers will move at the end of the Move phase.
6. If you think an enemy is going to chase you, make sure to run through some ally traps; you won’t take damage, but your enemy will!
7. Free Action abilities do not count towards the usual limit of 1 ability per turn; if you don’t use an ability, you can sprint (double movement), which can help get you back to the fight or out of a bad situation.
8. When choosing where to move, you can right-click more than once to set waypoints, which are great for moving around traps or through powerups on the way to your destination.
9. There are light indicators at the base of powerups that will tell you when they will spawn. Landing on one when all 3 light indicators are lit up means you will automatically get that powerup next round.
10. You can see powerups even in the fog of war. If you see one disappear you know an enemy is around that area.
11. During Decision Mode, mousing over an enemy will display the cooldowns of his abilities, letting you know if s/he can dash or not. Mousing over allies shows the abilities they are targeting this turn. Holding Alt will display all of this information at once. If you Alt + Click, you will ping the map.

Marvel Heroes Celebrates Third Anniversary


MH2016_Anniv3_heroes

Saturday June 4th marks the third anniversary of titular MMO Marvel Heroes. Beginning Friday at 11:00am PDT, Gazillion staff will be hosting a livestream throughout the day with various developers fielding questions and discussing their role in development.

The in-game celebration begins tomorrow as well, with the return of some of our most popular gameplay events (Midtown Madness and Mystic Mayhem), a server-side boost to experience points, and a few other surprises. Stay tuned to Gazillion’s social media channels for more details on what’s in store for the weeks to come:

Previous anniversary events for Marvel Heroes have heralded tons of free stuff, from heroes to costumes and bonus experience. Those interested should follow Marvel Heroes on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

(Source: Gazillion Press Release)

Neverwinter Announces Tenth Expansion


540daa95c876ec164445111d27cc78661464793433

Perfect World Entertainment has announced that the tenth expansion to Neverwinter, Storm King’s Thunder, will be hitting PC in August with Xbox and Playstation releases coming at a later date.

Adventurers will travel north to Bryn Shander – capital of Icewind Dale – to investigate the sudden presence of frost giants in the region. No visit to Icewind Dale would be complete without the help of Catti-brie and Wulfgar – characters from R.A. Salvatore’s novels – who will aid adventurers in their quest to stop the invading giants.

The new campaign will take adventurers across three zones with story content and, of course, a new dragon to battle. Information at this stage is sparse, so keep tuned for more details in the coming future.

(Source: Neverwinter)

Neverwinter Hitting PS4 This Summer


neverwinter_scourge_warlock_071414_3_wm

Perfect World Entertainment has announced the impending launch of Neverwinter on the Playstation 4, following up the title’s launch on Xbox One last year. When the game hits, players will be able to enjoy the base experience plus nine expansions, all for free.

Neverwinter on PlayStation®4 features controls optimized to incorporate the DualShock 4’s touchpad, Party Chat integration and will be free-to-play for all console owners. PlayStation®4 adventurers will not need PlayStation Plus to experience Neverwinter.

As with the launch on Xbox, PS4 players will presumably be segregated to their own servers.

(Source: Neverwinter)

If You’re Banned From Overwatch, Don’t Bother Buying It Again


Overwatch 2016-05-06 05-39-24-40

Cheaters, griefers, and trolls banned from Overwatch for the use of aimbots and other hacks might want to stay away from buying a new copy lest they waste even more of their own money. According to posts popping up on various cheat forums, Blizzard is showing no mercy (unlike the screenshot above) when it comes to people using cheats. Take these accounts with a grain of salt, but players are also reporting bans being handed out to players who didn’t cheat in the live game but used various injection programs in beta, while those who do cheat in the live game are reporting pretty fast bans.

But it goes further: Again, you can take this report with a grain of salt, but we’re taking comments from places where people don’t exactly have a reason to lie about cheating. According to numerous posts, people are continuing to get banned on their second or third accounts after re-buying the game and uninstalling whatever program they were using. Apparently Blizzard is fingerprinting computers and simply banning subsequent accounts after a couple of days once they show up with the same ID as a previously banned account.

Blizzard has already commented that their ban policy is one of zero tolerance and is immediately closing support tickets for banned accounts.

Trion Worlds Names Its AbleGamers Winner


Untitled-1

The Ablegamers Fellowship provides scholarship money and internship opportunities to help up and coming game developers with disabilities to make an impact on the industry. With dozens of entries in the bag, Trion Worlds has announced the winner of the first Ablegamers Fellowship: Alex James Ryan.

AJ, as he is known in disability and gaming communities, is an extraordinary individual with the kind of drive and passion AbleGamers and all of the sponsors of the Fellowship were looking for. He uses a combination of assistive technology and superior feet-skills to destroy the competition in Mortal Kombat and one day the game development field. With dozens of independently released titles already under his belt, we know AJ will go on to do amazing things for the game accessibility movement.

While Ryan originally intended on becoming a games journalist, he changed sights over to development after a meeting Jay Moon (Turok: Dinosaur Hunter) in high school. AJ has several projects under his belt, including “Chill Editions” for many of the games on the SEGA Mega Drive Collection on Steam. He hopes to bring more accessibility into the games industry for gamers with disabilities.

“Anyone who cannot use their arms and plays Mortal Kombat with their feet, and is setting up his own game studio is a winner,” said Russ Brown, COO of Trion Worlds. “The world needs more Alex James Ryans.”

(Source: Trion Press Release, Ablegamers)

Crowdfunding Fraudsters: 8-Bit MMO


2d68e6af78207375155690aa23d85223_original

Fraudster:
2a:  a person who is not what he or she pretends to be :impostor;

Good day everyone! I’m going to keep this short and sweet, since this is an obvious one. Today’s project of note is for an 8-bit MMO by Pixels of the Night. Is Pixels of the Night the name of the company or the name of the game? I can’t say for sure.

So what information can Pixels of the Night give us about their game?

This project has been in works for two years now. With help from my college teacher to really put the code behind the game in place. What this money will do is help with the cost of servers, and hire another programmer to help with the many errors that may arise when dealing with building an MMO.

Cool, understandable. It makes sense that you’d need money to run the servers, hire more programmers, and dealing with technical issues. Since the game has been in the works for two years, what other information can you give? Screenshots? Game mechanics? Anything? Bueller?

No, despite being in development for two years, PotN doesn’t deem it necessary to give us even the most minimal of details on their game. No screenshots, no concept art, no details on game mechanics, no nothing. Evidently the creator should have had their college teacher help with the Kickstarter campaign as well.

Unsurprisingly, people aren’t too enthused about funding this campaign, and it has yet break $0 in funding with 11 days to go. The creator is hoping to raise two grand. So since I have absolutely no idea what this game is about, the next logical question is: How much can I donate and what do I get for it?

People who donate 100 dollars will receive a limited addition of the game, featuring 1k gold, and a exclusive armor set keeping you ahead of the game.

Any lingering doubt that the creator doesn’t know what he’s doing should vanish when you note that the only reward tier is for $20, but the detail of the reward is only for donations of at least $100.

Riders of Icarus Beta Giveaway Redux


Riders of Icarus

It is once again giveaway day here at MMO Fallout. We’ve been given 100 keys to give away for the next Riders of Icarus closed beta event. The doors open on June 2nd.

Players who previously participated in the closed beta will automatically be in for this round. There is no need to grab another key. Since we only have 100 keys to give away, the codes have been locked to one per IP.

Riders of Icarus tasks players with taming hundreds of different mounts, from ferocious bears to fire-breathing dragons. Players in North America, Mexico, Europe, Australia/New Zealand, and parts of South America are invited to be among the first to experience mounted aerial combat with dragons and bears! Well maybe not flying bears.

New players can grab a key below and follow the instructions to redeem. For the full list of supported regions, check out this page.

For NEW Closed Beta participants:

  •  Download and Install Nexon Launcher – http://download2.nexon.net/Game/NexonLauncher/NexonLauncherSetup.exe
  • Create Nexon America Account
  • In the upper right hand corner click the down arrow next to your profile name
  • Click “ACTIVATE PRODUCT” to enter your key and click “NEXT”
  • Select Riders of Icarus from the games list
  • Click “PLAY NOW” to start pre-downloading the game

[keys id=17286]