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ArcheAge Says Dosvidanya To Non-Russian Players

ArcheAge is a long time coming to the west, so long in fact that dedicated players decided to forego the wait and jump on board the Russian servers hosted by Mail.ru. Hopefully none of them have spent a lot of money on the game, as Mail.ru has announced that access to the servers will be restricted to gamers in Russia and former Soviet states. The IP block was requested by XL Games and provides no details on whether or not players who have already invested money only to be blocked will be able to receive any sort of refund or compensation.

If only Mikhail Gorbachev were here to tear down this wall.

(Source: Announcement)

Wildstar Preorders Begin

Carbine Studios has officially announced that Wildstar will launch on June 3rd, 2014. For those wishing to get in on the action early, preorders for the game will begin on March 19th, with early buyers receiving access to closed and open beta periods, three days of early access, an exclusive rocket house, a mini-ship house decoration, a ten slot storage bag, and the ability to reserve character and guild names prior to launch. Both a standard and collector’s edition of the game will be made available with the latter including exclusive items, titles, and costumes.

Executive Producer Jeremy Gaffney says that the Carbine Studios team is “stoked to launch Wildstar,” adding:

“We’ve aimed for fun and unique content for MMO gamers of all stripes from level one to level cap and beyond. WildStar is a brand new IP and new universe that has attracted more than 1.4 million beta signups already, so it seems like other gamers are also eager for something new and different in the MMO space.”

Wildstar will be available for preorder in one week, at the official website or from select retailers.

(Source: Wildstar Press Release)

Defiance's $100 Weapon

Trion’s latest DLC pack has released, ushering in new arenas, new missions, new weapons, and more. What it also brought is a new cash shop item that has members of the community in arms. The Legendary Weapon Kit comes packed with one random legendary weapon and a set of random epic mods for said weapon. All for the low low price of roughly $100.

Defiance’s community manager Evan “Scapes” Berman responded on the forums to explain that the price.

This wasn’t a number we pulled out of thin air. It was based on analysis of store use data and existing lock box prices and functionality. An Epic Mod Hoard is 700 bits and grants four random mods at epic rarity. A Tier 4 Lock Box is 400 bits and grants four random weapons at random rarity between rare and legendary. The Legendary Weapon Kit is 10,000 bits (currently discounted 20% to 8,000 bits) and grants a one of each type of mod at epic rarity matched to a random weapon at legendary rarity. This price is based on the average cost of purchasing Epic Mod Hoards and Tier 4 Lock Boxes to get the same value: a legendary weapon fully loaded with epic mods.

One hundred dollars for a weapon that there is no guarantee will be useful? Are people really buying this kit? Of course they are.

Simply put, we were seeing purchases of it the moment the servers came back online. If it wasn’t moving at its current price, we’d change it. And agreed, the Legendary Weapon Kit isn’t intended to be “content” per se, but instead offering a (premium) convenience for players who elect it.

Defiance’s $100 Weapon

Defiance’s community manager Evan “Scapes” Berman responded on the forums to explain that the price.

This wasn’t a number we pulled out of thin air. It was based on analysis of store use data and existing lock box prices and functionality. An Epic Mod Hoard is 700 bits and grants four random mods at epic rarity. A Tier 4 Lock Box is 400 bits and grants four random weapons at random rarity between rare and legendary. The Legendary Weapon Kit is 10,000 bits (currently discounted 20% to 8,000 bits) and grants a one of each type of mod at epic rarity matched to a random weapon at legendary rarity. This price is based on the average cost of purchasing Epic Mod Hoards and Tier 4 Lock Boxes to get the same value: a legendary weapon fully loaded with epic mods.

One hundred dollars for a weapon that there is no guarantee will be useful? Are people really buying this kit? Of course they are.

Simply put, we were seeing purchases of it the moment the servers came back online. If it wasn’t moving at its current price, we’d change it. And agreed, the Legendary Weapon Kit isn’t intended to be “content” per se, but instead offering a (premium) convenience for players who elect it.

"MMO For Girls" Teeters On Offensive

Today I received one of the most awkward press releases to grace my inbox, and if the title of this article left you a bit worried than we are both on the same page. AggroStudios, who apparently played a major role in support services for City of Steam, has announced that they are working on an MMO developed specifically with girls in mind. For the sake of argument, we assume that they do not mean the pre-teen My Little Pony demographic, but the older, teenage to adult, female audience.

Let’s look at the description sent to us, shall we?

AggroStudios’s innovative MMO for girls is being designed to encourage the type of game play girls enjoy. It features characters with strong personalities, girl-geared graphics, rich visual customization, cooperative play, and an addictive and dynamic storyline.

For the sake of clarity, I reached into MMO Fallout’s pool of girl gamers to gauge a reaction to this headline. With the exception of one, the response was almost unanimously negative. Our test pool found the ad offensive, condescending, and desired clarity on what constituted “girl-geared graphics” and “strong personalities.” Most responded that they would still be willing to give the game a try, but that the company’s description did not leave a positive first impression.

MMO Fallout will follow up when more details about the game are released.

(Source: AggroStudios press release)

MMOrning Shots: World of Magic

Harry Potter Online is back! Well, in a manner of speaking. Today’s MMOrning Shot comes to us from The World of Magic, an upcoming MMO that is not based on the Harry Potter IP. Those of you paying attention over the past week or so will know that Bio-Hazard Entertainment originally announced that a Harry Potter MMO was in development up to the point of beta, after which Warner Bros. would have final say on whether or not the game could be completed. One thing led to another, and the company very quickly announced that the Harry Potter aspect would be scrapped in favor of a general magical IP.

Check out the official website here and check out MMO Fallout for a new edition of MMOrning Shots every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

FFXIV Enjoys 500,000 Daily Players

Naoki Yoshida has revealed in an interview to 4Gamer that Final Fantasy XIV currently carries 1.8 million player accounts, 6.75 million characters created, and 500,000 active daily users.

Well, the number for daily active user count can be misleading…. The peak time for Japan and oversea countries are different, for example. But if we simply look at the number of people logging in every day, I’d say we have about 500,000 people worldwide.

Yoshida also talks about Final Fantasy XI, Dragon Quest X, and an obsession with Everquest while Final Fantasy XI was in development. You can read the entire translated interview at the link below.

(Source: Square Enix interview)

Harry Potter MMO Already Dead

Well this is a bit awkward. Not even a week after the announcement that a Harry Potter MMO was in development, we learned that said MMO has been put on hold indefinitely. As it turns out, the folks at Bio-Hazard Entertainment may have exaggerated their claim that Warner Bros had allowed to them to create a Harry Potter MMO up to beta, which is to say that they didn’t. At all. Presumably one of WB’s lawyer’s got in touch because the Online World of Harry Potter’s website has disappeared following a notice that the team will work on creating an MMO not based on the IP.

The team is discussing using what they have made and making their own MMO based off of what you guys have suggested, except not HP related. But lets all unite together and show WB that this is needed! WIZARDS UNITE!

On the plus side, you were just saved a few years of waiting for nothing. On the other hand, many of us also got excited for nothing.

(Source: Massively)

Player Housing Comes To The Old Republic

Bioware has revealed that housing is coming to The Old Republic. Not much has been revealed so far in terms of details, but the trailer below shows an apartment with a house droid, mailbox, and other effects laying around. Whether or not this has to do with Bioware’s announcement earlier this year of massive updates will have to be seen.

For now, check out the trailer embedded below.

Mail.ru Takes Control of Allods Online

Players of Allods Online will soon have more friends to play with, as Mail.ru has announced that the firm is taking control of global hosting services for the MMO. Beginning March 18th, Mail.ru will take over hosting from gPotato and merge the European and American servers into one service. On the plus side, this means that players will no longer have to worry about regions carrying different game versions, except for the Russian server which will remain ahead by a small margin. On the down side, the Polish language is being dropped.

Having all European and North American players on the same servers will require the client versions to be synchronized; this puts additional pressure on the version preparation – especially on the localization of the new content. Considering all possible risks which may emerge and cause a delay with the upcoming version updates for all players, we had to make a hard decision of not supporting Polish localization starting from v.5.0.00.

Mail.ru is committed to closing the gap between the Russian and global servers, noting in the announcement that the aim is to only have one month difference in updates.

(Source: Mail.ru)

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