Admin

Trion World's New Trove Looks Strangely Familiar

Trion released this screenshot of their upcoming game Trove with the message “what will you find?” I found Waldo, what did you find?

(Source: Twitter)

PSA: Use Your Perfect World Codes Now

If I learned one thing from writing here at MMO Fallout, it is that publishers love consolidated launchers and stores. Steam, Origin, Uplay, iTunes, Google Play, Amazon Store, and even that evil decaying behemoth once known as Games for Windows Live. Perfect World Entertainment has joined the list of publishers with the introduction of Arc, an upcoming consolidated launcher for Perfect World’s games. Eventually everything will be moved over to the Arc Network, with a single client handling all of Perfect World’s game downloads and operations, code redemption, etc.

What is crucially important to this process is that keys issued before the transition will not be redeemable.

It is important to note that most keys that were issued before the initial transition will not be redeemable in the new system, due to an entirely new system being implemented. If you currently possess any keys or codes, we recommend redeeming them before the new website launch.

Check out the whole announcement at the link below.

(Source: Perfect World)

Allods Online Receives Massive Gold Sink

Allods Online has introduced quite an interesting money sink: Coupons! In a recent post titled Wind of Changes: Closer Look at Pure Soul, the team at gPotato details the new class change coupons. These coupons allow players to change their class, not to mention their gear, race, and appearance, with the click of a button. The catch? The coupons are placed on the auction house once per week, and only one coupon per class is available each week. How much do you really want to change your class? As Jerry Mcguire would say, show me the money!

Join the auction, and keep bidding until you have beaten all competitors! The precious coupon will be yours! Use it and you will be able to obtain a Core Morpher related to the chosen class. Players from the subscription server will receive it via in-game mail, whereas players from the Free-to-play server will acquire the Core Morpher in the Item Shop by redeeming the coupon they won from the Auction House.

Happy bidding.

(Source: Allods Online)

City of Steam Is A Chilling Lesson For Indies

City of Steam is a heavy contender for the most disappointing MMO of 2013, and even if the upcoming relaunch and branding as Arkadia goes well, the story of the folks at Mechanist Games will no doubt find its way into the nightmares of indie gamers everywhere. Much like how we use viruses and bacteria to observe evolution in its quickest form, City of Steam has proven itself an excellent example of a developer going from beloved to dismissed in zero seconds flat. Where some MMOs take years for publisher or investor pressure to simplify their gameplay and treat customers not as long term friends to be treated with respect but as open wallets ready for the bilking, City of Steam managed it under R2Games in the simple cycle from closed to open beta.

I hate to say I told you so, so I won’t. That honor goes to the community who spent countless hours explaining why a partnership with R2Games was a bad idea and warning that when time came that City of Steam was gutted for parts and everything had a price tag on it, that they wouldn’t be there to help pick up the pieces. And they weren’t. When City of Steam launched into open beta and everyone’s fears of a partnership with R2 Games were realized, they simply threw their hands up and departed. There was no big hubbub, no boycotts like with City of Heroes, not the kind of angry outburst you’d expect, people simply left. Anything that could be said had already been discussed over the previous months, and by this point there was nothing left to say.

The good news in all of this is that Mechanist Games always had a kill switch, an option that very few indie developers have once they partner with an outside publisher, and it’s obvious by the lack of updates since open beta that they pulled it pretty quickly. As a gamer, I can only hope that Mechanist Games realized the problem before their customers started leaving in massive numbers, and not after. I can dream that every single request by R2Games to remove features, monetize, increase failure rates, and make the game more cash shop reliant were fought tooth and nail every step of the way, and I can picture that when Mechanist Games bought back their publishing rights, it was done with a generous helping of profanity.

City of Steam has what many other games will never get, a second chance. An opportunity to right their wrongs and gain back the goodwill of their audience, one that appears to be more than willing to forgive them of their trespasses. I hope they make use of it.

But that’s just my opinion.

MMOrning Shots: This Is A Crowd

If you ever want proof that a good chunk of people still play Defiance, just check out one of the game’s many Arkfall events. Arkfalls are a great place to go through your stockpile of weapons and figure out which are worth keeping or need to be thrown away. Check out Defiance at http://www.defiance.com/

Star Citizen Just Won't Quit: $27 Million

Star Citizen has moves that just won’t quit, with the recent announcement that funding has surpassed twenty seven million dollars, or approximately one dinner for three at Red Lobster assuming you have a coupon. The milestone brings with it expanded development into the Banu technology. Who are the Banu?

At $23 million we dedicated additional resources to making Xi’An spacecraft a unique experience. At $27 million, we will expand that same thinking to the Banu! Starting with the merchant ship, the design team will expand Banu technology to offer players a completely different way of experiencing their universe.

So what’s next for the endless pile of money streaming into Roberts Space Industries? At $28 million, the team will add a new starter ship. At $29 million, the team will expand Squadron 42, a spiritual successor to Wing Commander and a single player game, with enhanced missions, more resources, and better design.

(Source: Roberts Space Industries)

World of Warcraft's Foray Into Player Housing

Player housing has been a long time coming in World of Warcraft, after all the concept was in place going all the way back to the game’s internal alpha. Blizzard has referred to housing as “on the horizon” going all the way back to the game’s launch in 2004, with a few comments here and there of no particular detail other than to say that the idea was not in active development. One fear conveyed by Blizzard was that the world that had already become rather empty due to the Looking For Dungeon tool, would become even less populated if players had no reason to leave their house. On the other hand, Blizzard did not want to take the massive effort of creating a housing system only to have it underused out of lack of functionality.

With garrisons, Blizzard seems to once again be picking a “learn from the competition” approach to development. For those of you who didn’t catch the Blizzcon information, Garrisons are phased housing areas coming with Warlords of Draenor which allow players to create buildings and recruit followers. Followers add an element of offline progression as players can send them to gather resources, complete crafting tasks, and are able to gain character and item levels to find resources with which to build better buildings and obtain even more resources. Garrisons will also be a case with which to show off one’s trophies and achievements, and presumably will be updated with further features over time.

From what we’ve seen so far, garrisons feel like a slightly more jazzed up version of The Old Republic’s resource gathering, minus the ability to manage your crew portably through a menu. Unless you can, in which case ignore that previous sentence. I’m looking forward to seeing more about garrisons in the future.

World of Warcraft’s Foray Into Player Housing

[Community] NCSoft's Support Timeline

For this week’s Community Concerns, I decided to put together a graph of NCSoft’s library of MMOs, past and present. The above graph shows each game’s support timeline from the year it launched to the year that it shut down or to present if it is still running. Several of the titles may seem inaccurate as they are based on the Korean launch and may be a year or more ahead of their western launch, and at least one title has not launched in the west at all. I also decided to include Lineage as it is still in operation in Korea.

Keep in mind that Blade & Soul has not launched in the west and Lineage has shut down in the west.

[Community] NCSoft’s Support Timeline

Keep in mind that Blade & Soul has not launched in the west and Lineage has shut down in the west.

Spread It:

Spread It:

Spread It:

Spread It:

Spread It:

Spread It:

Spread It:

Spread It:

Spread It:

Spread It: