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Not Massive: Sony Won't Ban You For Early Playing

If my childhood is anything to go off of, Sony’s consistent public contradiction of Microsoft is going to net them a belt buckle to the head, you know once the two are out of the public view. Take Two and Rockstar Games have been going insane with shutting down any outlet for pre-release Grand Theft Auto V goodies, going as far as apparently threatening legal action against some publications. Look around and you’ll find a pile of now banned accounts on Livestream, Youtube, and more.

Microsoft has continued their policy of working in tandem with the publisher and handing out console bans to anyone caught leaking pre-release gameplay, IE: Anyone caught streaming or posting screenshots/captures of their gameplay online. It is important to the conversation to point out that the bans are related to the leaking of game footage before the official street date, and not the mere act of playing the game.

Enter Sony, a company whose past few months of public relations can be whittled down to “the opposite of what Microsoft just said.” Sony is not banning anyone with a legitimate copy of GTA V who post footage of their game online before Tuesday’s launch, a move that will likely net them brownie points with the gaming community if at the expense of Rockstar’s goodwill.

If you do manage to get ahold of a copy, you’re pretty safe as long as you don’t start streaming or leaking footage.

Not Massive: Sony Won’t Ban You For Early Playing

If you do manage to get ahold of a copy, you’re pretty safe as long as you don’t start streaming or leaking footage.

Side Quest Returns In Open Alpha

Oh Side Quest, how long have I pined for your loving embrace? Quite a while, according to my schedule. Last year, Side Quest became something of a love interest here at MMO Fallout, we were instantly taken by the game’s charm, wit, and oddly engaging gameplay for a concept so simple. Side Quest is an upcoming game in which you take control of a group of three adventurers and make your way from the left side of the screen to the right. Your characters move by themselves and auto-attack, while you as the player manage special skills and potions.

We had a lot of fun with it before the game was taken down for some heavy plastic surgery, and our waiting has paid off as the servers are now back online. Side Quest is still in alpha, and understandably has a lot of bugs and balance issues to work out. What’s more, the folks at Fractal Entertainment have once again opened the doors to anyone who wishes to play:

The goal of this phase of testing is to focus on balance, bugs and overall gameplay, so please, if you have any comments or suggestions add them to the forums! We’re interested in trying to make SideQuest the best game it can be.

You can check out Side Quest at the link below.

(Source: SideQuest)

Turbine's New Epic Story Changes

The epic storyline has always been the cream to Turbine’s coffee with Lord of the Rings Online. Set alongside the events from the book, the epic story has the player working behind the scenes to aid in the war against Sauron. Ever since Lord of the Rings went free to play, the epic storyline has been available in full for free players regardless of if they’ve purchased the related expansion packs. This policy is set to change with the launch of the next expansion, Helm’s Deep, in which case players will be required to buy the expansion if they expect to proceed any further.

Turbine’s reason for this change in direction is due to how closely entwined the epic story is with Helm’s Deep’s battle system, as well as to make the expansion more attractive for purchase.

The Epic Story in Helm’s deep is very tightly entwined with the Epic Battle system. The story in Helm’s Deep is the Epic battle we all know from the books. We’ve returned to the core story line from the lore and that line leads in a direct path, laid out by the Professor himself, into Helm’s Deep and the battles and heroic deeds that occur there. As a result, this means the Epic story requires the purchase of the Helm’s Deep expansion. Otherwise you’d not be able to complete it as it moves through the Epic Battle system.

Helm’s Deep launches November 18th.

(Source: LOTRO)

Turbine’s New Epic Story Changes

Turbine’s reason for this change in direction is due to how closely entwined the epic story is with Helm’s Deep’s battle system, as well as to make the expansion more attractive for purchase.

The Epic Story in Helm’s deep is very tightly entwined with the Epic Battle system. The story in Helm’s Deep is the Epic battle we all know from the books. We’ve returned to the core story line from the lore and that line leads in a direct path, laid out by the Professor himself, into Helm’s Deep and the battles and heroic deeds that occur there. As a result, this means the Epic story requires the purchase of the Helm’s Deep expansion. Otherwise you’d not be able to complete it as it moves through the Epic Battle system.

Helm’s Deep launches November 18th.

(Source: LOTRO)

Eve Online Bans Impersonating Your Own Alts

A recent change to Eve Online’s Terms of Service has prompted several inaccurate reports that CCP now disallows scamming, spying, and sabotage, and is actively banning players for said actions. The alteration, according to CCP, clarified an already in-place rule which made impersonation of another player a bannable offense. For example, pretending to be a representative of an organization to scam a player is considered a bannable offense. Pretending to be an alt of another character is also a bannable offense under this rule. One player (Abdiel Kavash) on the forums asked if impersonating one of your own alts to scam someone was against the rules:

CASE 2: I decide that I want to make some extra money off my past customers, without necessarily having to provide any extra services. I create a new character, Phill McScammer, on my account. I then go talk to a past customer of AbdielCorp and I claim that Phill McScammer is an alt of Abdiel Kavash. Customer falls for it, sends me their money and never sees it again.

Short answer: Yes. GM Karidor’s response:

Your character Phill McScammer impersonated Abdiel Kavash, the same way as Joe McScammer did, thus gets it from us the same way if reported. From our point of view, as well as from a victims, there is no technical difference between those two cases of a character impersonating another.

In fact, CCP views a player claiming affiliation with one of his alternate characters to be on the same level as one player claiming affiliation with another player entirely.

Both characters Phil and Joe used the name Abdiel Kavash to give of the impression they were somehow related to him. The cases are effectively identical.

So if you claim to be an alt of yourself, in CCP’s view you are still lying. In response to a wave of player feedback, CCP has opened a thread to gather further discussion on the newly clarified rules.

(Source: Eve Online)

Firefall Shuts Down PvP In Preparation For Launch

Firefall may have started with PvP, but as development has continued the focus has shifted away from PvP in favor of PvE, to the neglect of the former. While Jetball was a fun idea, it attracted less than 3% of the game’s population. In response to the waning quality of PvP life, Red 5 Studios has announced that they are shutting down PvP completely to retool it in preparation for a better future.

So we’re going to regroup, rethink, and deliver the best PvP system we can that can be enjoyed by everyone. We don’t have a timetable for this, but at some near future point we will shut off the PvP aspect of the game, which we feel does not represent Firefall at its best, and relaunch that part of the game when its ready.

We look forward to what Red 5 Studios has in store for us.

(Source: Firefall)

Tribes Ascend "Break Even At Best," Mod Tools Unlikely

Erez Goren has posted a letter to the community on the Smite Subreddit/official forum to clear up the “misinformed conclusions” that customers might come to if they look at Hi-Rez’s development history. In case you haven’t been following Hi-Rez Studios, their first game Global Agenda was a major financial loss and Tribes: Ascend, as Hi-Rez’s CEO puts it in the letter, “ended up being break-even at best.” Earlier this year, Hi-Rez Studios announced that development on Tribes: Ascend had come to a close, but revealed that tools were in the works to allow players to create their own maps. Due to the costs of development, however, it is “unlikely” that these tools will ever see release.

Goren goes on to reveal that Hi-Rez had attempted to shop the game to publishers, none of whom were interested due to the game’s niche demographics. Goren goes on to reveal that out of the $30 million in funding, Global Agenda and Tribes have generated $10 million in revenue.

How much did it cost to do the above? At that point I personally funded all the game development with over $30 million of funding (losses) and generated about $10 million in revenue (split fairly evenly between GA and Tribes) so overall we spend about $40 million running the company vs $10 million in revenue.

Smite, on the other hand, has had the pleasure of not just being Hi-Rez’s most popular title, but has grown in revenue and traffic since its launch and continues to grow every month. The team working on Smite has grown from an initial 15 to 80 members, and Hi-Rez has seen interest from outside publishers including Tencent to release the game in China.

(Source: Smite Subforum)

Tribes Ascend “Break Even At Best,” Mod Tools Unlikely

How much did it cost to do the above? At that point I personally funded all the game development with over $30 million of funding (losses) and generated about $10 million in revenue (split fairly evenly between GA and Tribes) so overall we spend about $40 million running the company vs $10 million in revenue.

(Source: Smite Subforum)

Video of the ____: Star Citizen Kane

This video may be an early work in progress, but the visual effects and grand scale of it is mind-blowing. It might be because of the engine, but this video reminds me of that preview we saw of Star Wars 1313 last year.

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