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DC Universe Remastered Is Coming

Sony Online Entertainment has posted the latest Producer Letter detailing the upcoming Update 31 and gearing up for launch on the PlayStation 4. What does Update 31 entail?

On a high level, that means a sweeping, game-wide graphical upgrade, a massive design effort to polish and remaster the core leveling game, and a host of technical work that prepares DCUO’s underlying technology not only for launch on a next generation gaming console, but for a long future on it as well. This is without a doubt the biggest technical update we have ever done.

Aside from a massive amount of under the hood fixes, tweaks, and optimizations, DC Universe will also undergo a graphical upgrade (not pictured above), a redesign of several major areas including Centennial Park and Robinson Park in Metropolis and Gotham respectively. The letter also notes that the 1-30 leveling process will be made much more fluid, alongside updates to textures and geometry to make the world feel more seamless, and updates to the way that NPCs act to make them more consistent in combat.

These updates will go live on all platforms, including PlayStation 3, and can be previewed on the test server this week. The update is expected to go live in November.

(Source: DC Universe)

Phantasy Star Online 2 Isn't Coming Westward

The good news is that Phantasy Star Online 2 is fully localized in English and ready to go for a launch in the west. The bad news? It will likely never launch here. According to an undisclosed source in an article by Tristan Oliver over at TSSZ, Phantasy Star Online 2’s localization will only be rolling out to English speaking Asian countries. Sega hasn’t officially shot down any prospects of the title coming to the Americas and Europe, however the source speculates that there may be enough doubt that the game would be profitable in the west to prevent the game from ever making its way overseas.

Sega has been silent about a western launch since their appearance at the Penny Arcade Expo last year. Some gamers are already playing PSO2 on the Japanese servers with English patches, and you can too with this handy guide from Kotaku.

(Source: TSSZ)

Phantasy Star Online 2 Isn’t Coming Westward

(Source: TSSZ)

MMOrning Shots: Trick Or Treat

No, I’m not here for candy, and if you rustle my head one more time I will stab you.

Player Protest True Heart Update In DDO

MMO gamers are hardly strangers to in-game protests. We’ve seen plenty of protests in games like RuneScape, Aion, and more over everything from updates to lack of communication and more, the removal of a mechanic or the reintroduction of one that had been removed. The size and efficiency of said protests ranges based on the catalyst and the game in question, but players have had quite a bit of success in the past with organizing sit-in’s and mass exodus or unsubscribing. There is plenty of debate as to whether or not protests actually accomplish their goals, because you won’t find many developers willing to admit if they are.

Players in Dungeons and Dragons Online organized a sit-in on the Wayfinder server in Stormreach city, to show their dissatisfaction toward a change in the True Reincarnation system coming with Update 20. True reincarnation resets your character to level one with bonuses from your “past life.” The update removes the primary way players obtained True Hearts of Wood and will require players to run epic-level sagas in order to obtain commendations to trade in for True Hearts. In layman’s terms, the update will add a lot of grind and make the process of True Reincarnation much longer, with the goal of either directing player’s attention to sagas or toward the cash shop to open their wallet.

Will Turbine cave in to player demands? Tune in next time to find out.

(Source: Occupy Stormreach)

Player Operated Gentleman Clubs In Elder Scrolls Online

According to Matt Firor of Zenimax Studios, Elder Scrolls Online will not have a pre-installed gentleman’s club. Fans of the series will recall that in Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, players could visit Desele’s House of Earthly Pleasures. Not as popular a location as Mehrune’s House of Strider Sausage and Goat Cheese, but that’s beside the point. Instead, Firor inserted a side note that just because the game doesn’t come with such a facility out-of-box, doesn’t mean players won’t find an empty house to set one up for themselves.

Similar to what we saw with the (in)famous Goldshire Inn from the incredible World of Warcraft, we Ultimately decided to leave these choices up to the player to establish things like the House of Earthly Delights from Morrowind. Were not implimenting it ourselves…but whose to say there isnt a vacant building in Suran just waiting to be turned into ESO’s first whore-house! ESO is about choice, and well leave the implementation of those choices up to the “creative” players.”

Does anyone object to me naming the building Mehrune’s Dagger?

Warhammer 40k Q&A Monday

Behaviour Interactive is the developer working on Warhammer 40k: Eternal Crusade, and naturally some of you may have a few questions for the developers. Luckily, MMORPG.com has announced that several key members of the Behaviour crew will be on hand for a Q&A on Monday. If you have anything you would like to ask of the development team, head on over to the link below and drop a question or two.

The live Q&A is at 4pm eastern on Monday, October 21st, but you can ask your question now by putting it in the thread at the link below.

(Source: MMORPG.com)

[Community] Stop Saying Kool-Aid

On this week’s Community Concerns, I want to talk about a phrase that makes my blood boil every time I hear it: drinking the Kool Aid. If you aren’t familiar with the phrase, “drinking the Kool Aid” means the unquestioned faith in another’s words or instructions. The phrase comes from the 1978 Jonestown Massacre where over nine hundred people died from drinking poisoned Kool Aid. The survivors have heavily objected to the use of this term, because a number of the members were forced at gunpoint to drink the poison and others were not aware that the Kool Aid was poisoned to begin with. It’s insensitive, but it does fit the term alternatively as describing someone who unquestioningly follows another into certain doom, knowingly or otherwise. Look it up.

For some reason, drinking the Kool Aid has become the phrase that everyone and their brother uses in conversation, from politics to gaming and beyond, and it almost acts as a beacon to let you know that you’re dealing with an ignorant person who has no interest in a serious conversation. I personally find it offensive because it is yet another tragic event that people trivialize by using it in reference in a contextually inappropriate manner. It is similar to the kind of people who are banned from a game, kicked out of a store, or arrested for committing a crime, and they immediately refer to the moderators/police as the Gestapo. You know who was as bad as the Gestapo? The Gestapo.

They come from the trolls and the fans. I have seriously considered publicizing the emails I receive whenever I complete an analysis of NCSoft’s quarterly finances. If the company has a positive quarter, I get emails from the City of Heroes and Tabula Rasa fans telling me to stop drinking the Kool Aid and that the reports are fake. If the quarter is bad, I get emails from the NCSoft fans telling me to stop drinking the Kool Aid and to source my data from the reports instead of from the trolls. For the record, all of my data is sourced from NCSoft, but you get the point. Either way, I’m dead in someone’s eyes.

The lesson that I have taken from this is that I will never comprehend the level of cynicism that one must possess to believe that every quarterly report must be viewed with the same skepticism as Enron (I get this analogy quite a bit), that we must assume that every businessman is the next Bernie Madoff (this as well), and that any expression of trust is evidence of naivete or stupidity. I’d have better chances of discovering life that exists in the fourth dimension.

Rift Frees Inactive Character Names

Losing your character name due to a server merger sucks, especially if you can’t find a new name because all of the good ones are taken up by people who haven’t logged in since the game first launched. The good news is that players who do end up losing their names when the servers merge on October 23rd will have a bigger pool of alternatives to choose from. Trion has announced that characters who have been inactive for a long time will have their names reset when the servers merge.

Trion has not detailed exactly what counts as “inactive,” but characters that fall into this pool will be contacted via email to warn account holders to log in before it is too late. If you don’t log in, well that’s on you.

If one of your characters is going to be impacted by this change, you’ll be getting an email from us in the next day or two with instructions. If you are one of these inactive characters and want to keep your name, you’ll just need to log in with that character before October 23rd.

(Source: Rift Junkies)

Everquest Mac Shutting Down For Real This Time

Some of you may remember that Sony Online Entertainment originally slated Everquest Mac to shut down in 2012, but decided against it due to passionate feedback from the community. Well passion can only get you so far, and in a letter posted to the community, John Smedley has announced that Everquest’s Mac iteration will be shutting down effective November 18th.

We said this before and now we really have to do it – we’re sunsetting EQ Mac. As a passionate Mac player, I’m disappointed to have to share this news. We decided to keep the game running after receiving your feedback when we originally announced the sunset plans early last year, but with all of our development aligned towards our upcoming slate of games, we simply cannot justify the resources required to continue to support this version of the game.

Everquest on the PC will not be affected by any of these changes, and it is unlikely that players will be able to move their characters over due to the massive difference in versions. EQMac was never updated past Planes of Power, the fourth expansion released in 2002.

(Source: Announcement)

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