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Greed Monger Fallout: Jason Appleton Responds

Yesterday we reported that Greed Monger, the sandbox MMO funded via Kickstarter, had lost its lead developer James Proctor. Proctor, in his departure notice, revealed that he had attempted to leave the studio two years prior, but was stopped due to legal threats by Electric Crow Games founder Jason Appleton.

Appleton has posted a response on the Greed Monger forums in which he claims to be the victim, alleging that Proctor was “impossible to work with,” fired employees and wasted money on experiments, and “never made a single deadline.” Both sides are in the process of threatening to post, or have posted, chat transcripts detailing their rocky relationship.

Jason Appleton’s complete response is below.

(Source: Greed Monger)

Bungie Says Goodbye To Toxic Destiny Players

Bungie’s latest weekly update for Destiny is out, and it targets bugs and bad players. For starters, the Destiny team is looking at the least completed raids and easing their difficulty so that more players are willing to see them through from start to finish. The team plays through raids on a weekly basis to see how players are responding to content, as well as looking at in-game metrics to see where problems are arising. There are also bugs that need to be squashed, since the raids are hard enough without the game getting in the way.

Next up, the company plans on dealing with idlers, players who go into strikes and pvp matches and do not contribute.

One player not contributing in an activity might seem like a small thing, but it can make a Weekly Heroic Strike unbeatable or make a Crucible match unwinnable. Those little bits of damage to the experiences other players adds up over time.

The most toxic players will be restricted from matchmaking, starting out as temporary punishments and eventually leading to permanent restrictions if the behavior is kept up. The system won’t catch you because the pizza man came to the door, however, it is designed to only trap habitual idlers.

(Source: Bungie)

Ex-Greed Monger Developer Reveals Lawsuit Threats

Greed Monger dev James Proctor has announced via Facebook and the official forums that he is no longer employed at the indie dev.

Effective today I am ending ALL association with Greed Monger, ElectricCrow Games, and Jason Appleton… I want to say thank you to all of the supporters and community. You guys have been great! You will not be forgotten and I promise you I personally will see to it that I make things right with you guys! I will have more details on the usual channels as things proceed.

According to Proctor, Jason Appleton threatened to sue him when he attempted to leave the development team two years ago for “personal reasons.” While all we have is Proctor’s word for the moment, the allegation would line up with Appleton’s history of legal threats against MMORPG.com, specific users, and Wurm Online, over negative discussion about Greed Monger and Appleton himself.

(Source: Greed Monger)

Neverwinter Double Exp Marathon Readies For Elemental Evil

Elemental Evil officially goes live on April 7th, and with it comes an additional ten levels of adventuring, gear, and monsters. To assist players with reaching the current cap, you’ll be able to take part in a double experience marathon starting yesterday (the 2nd) and going until 7am Pacific on April 7th. The double experience covers gains from killing monsters, professions, quests, invocation, and foundry missions.

In addition, companions will also take part in the double experience.

(Source: Neverwinter)

Jagex Appoints New CEO

Jagex Games Studios has announced the appointment of Rod Cousens to the position of CEO. Cousens, taking over for Mark Gerhard who departed Jagex at the end of 2014, had previously worked as CEO of Codemasters, as well as various positions in Acclaim Entertainment, and Activision.

Cousens will bring his 25 years of industry expertise to Jagex “as it enters a new chapter of business,” overseeing work on the card game Chronicle: RuneScape Legends, tactical online shooter Block N Load, as well as other unnamed Jagex products in development.

(Source: Jagex Press Release)

Neverwinter Tearing Up Xbox One

Neverwinter is now available on the Xbox One in 33 regions across North America, South America, and Europe. Available in its standard free to play form (Xbox Live required), Neverwinter includes the base PC game plus the Scourge Warlock class and Tyranny of Dragons update. Perfect World CEO Bryan Huang had the following to say on the release:

“Neverwinter represents Perfect World Entertainment and Cryptic’s entrance and dedication to the console market. Our development team has worked relentlessly to ensure that the Neverwinter experience lives up to console player’s expectations for a high-quality free-to-play MMORPG. We’re excited to welcome players to the Forgotten Realms and continue to build on their experience as we release updates throughout the year.”

Through April 2nd, Neverwinter will be available to all Xbox Live silver members.

Perfect World Suffers More Layoffs

Perfect World Entertainment is undergoing another round of layoffs, this time from the European division. According to an insider source over at Massively OP, the layoffs included five or six of the Russian staff, as well two community managers and an assistant product manager. Earlier this year, Perfect World laid off 18 employees from Cryptic Studios.

How PWE fared in the last quarter of 2014 is yet to be seen, as the company is nearly a month behind its usual quarterly filings and has yet to announce a date. The NASDAQ stock exchange has posted an expected date of April 6th for Perfect World’s final report.

(Source: Massively OP)

Defiance Armistice Begins Tomorrow

To celebrate Defiance’s two year anniversary, Trion Worlds is running a month long Armistice event. The events, which begin tomorrow and run through April 20th, will revisit the past two years worth of holidays and special events, with players given the opportunity to scoop up some gear they might have missed the first time around.

Throughout the festival you can scoop up past holiday loot and rewards plus new Mark II Crimefighter, Bloodhound, and Gangbuster weapons from Defiant Few faction contracts. (The original Defiant Few weapons are still available via their vendor’s Defiant Few Legacy Supply Crate, too!)

Defiance launched in 2013 alongside the television show, and has since seen countless updates, five DLC packs, and twenty five episodes. The next big update, Alcatraz, is currently on the public test server. Season 3 of Defiance begins this year.

(Source: Defiance)

Neverwinter Details Elemental Evil Changes

With the Elemental Evil module just weeks away, Perfect World Entertainment is busy getting players prepared for upcoming changes. With the new level cap comes better gear, more powerful artifacts, and higher quality refinement items.

Elemental Evil will also usher in the change from Gear Score to Item Level. Item Level will be the new system on which all gear is rated. Entrance to dungeons will also be determined by the combined item level of their gear. Item Level’s main function is to give players an idea of how strong a particular item is at a glance.

You can find out more details at the link below. Profession packs for Neverwinter are on sale until March 30th.

(Source: Neverwinter)

[Update] Skyforge Dev Threatens Game Bans Over Pay To Win Talk

Allods Team doesn’t like the term free-to-play, so much so that community manager Maeron has warned that discussion on the matter could result in your game access being revoked. In his response, Maeron points to a trend in players pasting the p2w label on pretty much everything that costs money, a label that he believes causes undue damage to a game. The discussion occurred in a thread inquiring about whether the US/EU cash shops would be the same as the Russian shop.

Those familiar with Allods Team’s previous game, Allods Online, likely feel that their concerns over pay to win are more than justified. Allods Online, despite all the praise it received for quality and polish, was heavily criticized for its cash shop, from a 1,000% increase in price over the Russian version to the widely unpopular Fear of Death debuff (and its cash-shop cure) that was replaced with an equally unpopular mechanic that would curse items on death and invert their stats, also curable with a cash shop item.

Whatever the case, with this reaction it is certain that Skyforge’s cash shop will be placed under heavy scrutiny by its community.

Update: The thread has been reopened and Maeron’s comments retracted. A followup has been posted on the thread.

Answers will be coming as we agreed already. I’m really sorry I caused all that stir… My intent was mostly to urge players not to use harsh wording so no fences will raise and harm our exchanges… But I must have been carried away… I apologize.

(Source: Skyforge)

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