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City of Steam Merging US Servers

City of Steam developer Mechanist Games has announced that the three US servers will be merged into one, bringing gamers together and dealing with waning populations. The merger is set to take place on October 21st and is expected to require four to five hours of downtime. Players from servers 2 and 3 will receive compensation in the form of subscription time and resources to compensate for the head start that players on server 1 received by launching several months ahead of the other two.

European players can fire an email off to Mechanist Games to receive a similar compensation.

(Source: City of Steam)

Planetside 2 Automated Turrets Being Balanced

Sony Online Entertainment is currently planning on implementing automated turrets into Planetside 2, and is soliciting feedback via the forums and through an update set to hit the public test server in the next few weeks. Turrets will be stationary objects, likely only available to the engineer class, and the hope is to release them in November/December.

“The current plan is to have a stress test on the Public Test Server with prototype turrets in late October/early November to evaluate server performance. We’ll need a sizable population on PTS to get useful data so we’ll organize a time, date and testing instructions when we’re ready. If our tests go well, we are aiming for auto-turrets to go live late November/early December.”

How should automated turrets be implemented in Planetside 2?

(Source: PCGamesN)

Turbine Layoffs Confirmed Over Twitter

It looks like Turbine is going through a round of layoffs. Earlier today, former Community Manager Rick Heaton tweeted “Thinking of my friends at #Turbine and #LOTRO and elsewhere today. I’m easy to find if you need me.” When asked if his tweet was related to layoffs at Turbine, he responded “sadly.”

The comment has seemingly been backed by another former Turbine employee, Robert Hess, who tweeted “My thoughts go out to my buddies over at Turbine today. Sounds like a round of layoffs. If folks need anything let me know.” Turbine has not yet commented to confirm or deny these claims.

(Source: Massively)

World of Warcraft is Dying: Subscriptions Increase

As World of Warcraft continues its descent to an early death, Blizzard has revealed that World of Warcraft has seen a bump in subscribers. The MMO behemoth is currently sitting at 7.4 million, six hundred thousand more subscribers, as of October 14th. The imminent release of Warlords of Draenor expansion is no doubt bringing players back, as the game receives a bump with each expansion’s release.

Warlords of Draenor launches in November.

(Source: WoW Insider)

MMOrning Shots: Listen Close, Children

Today’s MMOrning Shot comes to us from World of Warcraft. The guy with the purple staff is giving a history lesson on the days before WoW had a streamlined auto-patching tool, and the process of installing the game from start to finish was often a ten hour job.

Laboriously install MMOrning Shots every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Wildstar Merger Nukes Low Level Inactive Characters

Carbine Studios is set to launch the Wildstar megaservers this week, on Wednesday October 15th. Players will be grouped into one of four servers, based on their physical location (US and EU) and server type (PvE or PvP). Due to the complicated nature of the merger, Carbine Studios is expecting a downtime of twelve to twenty four hours, which will be compensated in the form of thirty Boom-Boxes and an extra day of game time. To avoid naming issues, players will be required to create unique surnames. Guilds with conflicting names will hand priority over to the oldest guild, with the newer one being forced to change its name.

As part of the update, characters under level 3 that are inactive (not logged in within 30 days of the merger) will be deleted.

(Source: Wildstar)

Final Fantasy XIV GOTY Edition Coming

Square Enix has announced a new limited edition of Final Fantasy XIV, set to hit the PC in mid-November. Dubbed the Game of the Year Edition, this box includes a “Book of Diamonds” Grimoire box, five exclusive art cards, and 30 days of playtime, as well as the base game and all content updates. In addition, players will receive an extra card for sixty days of playtime, making for a full 90 days. Players who want to get in now are welcome to give the fourteen day trial a look.

Look for the Final Fantasy XIV GOTY Edition on store shelves beginning next month.

(Source: Square Enix Press Release)

RuneScape Ditches HTML5, Introducing New Client

Jagex just announced at RuneFest that the HTML5 client, originally planned for launch with RuneScape 3 last year, hasn’t worked out. The expectation was that the technology would be optimized in time, and sadly it has sorely lagged behind. Rather than pushing ahead with what is likely to be an unwinnable situation, Jagex has announced a new client for RuneScape that will hopefully rid the game of Java’s limitations. The beta is expected to go live in a few months, no precise ETA, that players will be able to join in on.

Stay tuned for more details.

Wildstar State of the Game

Carbine Studios has released the latest State of the Game address for Wildstar. After hitting some hurdles with population and having to drop their monthly update plan, Mike Donatelli posted a list of updates that are currently in the works for the next update. Players can look forward to new zones, new lore, and other content updates in addition to the tackling of long standing bugs in need of squashing.

Two new chapters of content, including solo, five-player, and 20-man events.
Fully voiced NPCs in new zones.
Option to skip the tutorial on alts.
Various improvements to low level zones.
Combat balances.
Bug fixes and long-demanded tweaks to UI, mechanics, and more.

(Source: Wildstar)

Diaries From ArcheAge #2: Shipping Overseas

As part of the ArcheAge experience, I decided to dedicate some time to delivering a trade pack overseas to the Solzreed Peninsula. I can already tell this is going to end in my death.

As you can see, my only means of transportation across the sea is in the basic rowboat obtained through an early quest. Travel speed: 4.5 meters per second. Likelihood of success: none.

No stowaways! Thankfully ArcheAge has aggro limits and the Seabug got bored a couple minutes later. Maybe it’s not too late to enlist one of those teleporting hackers.