Author: Admin

Marvel Heroes Patch 1.11 Rolled Back


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Patches suck. Everything can seem fine and dandy in the test environment and then once the update goes live everything tends to break down. But enough about my last week, let’s talk about video games. Gazillion Entertainment released patch 1.11 last night for Marvel Heroes, which introduced the Human Torch as a playable character as well as the new system to make it much easier to acquire heroes without having to resort to the cash shop. The update is massive, if you have some time you can head over to this link to read the patch notes. The update contains a heavy amount of balancing on the existing heroes as well.

Unfortunately, as tends to happen with big updates, patch 1.11 rendered the game unplayable. With a few hours of downtime, the team pushed another patch reverting the game back to its pre-1.11 state and has assured gamers that any purchases made will still be there. The servers are coming back up just as this article is published.

Dragon's Prophet Coming September 18th


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Sony Online Entertainment has announced that the launch date for Dragon’s Prophet will be September 18th. The MMO developed by Runes of Magic developer Runewaker Entertainment and published by Sony Online Entertainment allows players to capture and train a wide variety of dragons, and then customize them to your style of play. Currently in Open Beta, Dragon’s Prophet sports an action-based combat system much like that found in TERA and RaiderZ.

When the game launches, we will deliver an additional zone as well as the long-awaited frontier system with its epic cross-server PvP battles. Gaming has never been this diverse and thrilling – and you’re experiencing it on the back of a mighty dragon!”

Players will also be able to attend massive cross-server PvP battles once the game goes live.

(Source: Sony Press Release)

Dragon’s Prophet Coming September 18th


dragons-prophet-black-dragon

Sony Online Entertainment has announced that the launch date for Dragon’s Prophet will be September 18th. The MMO developed by Runes of Magic developer Runewaker Entertainment and published by Sony Online Entertainment allows players to capture and train a wide variety of dragons, and then customize them to your style of play. Currently in Open Beta, Dragon’s Prophet sports an action-based combat system much like that found in TERA and RaiderZ.

When the game launches, we will deliver an additional zone as well as the long-awaited frontier system with its epic cross-server PvP battles. Gaming has never been this diverse and thrilling – and you’re experiencing it on the back of a mighty dragon!”

Players will also be able to attend massive cross-server PvP battles once the game goes live.

(Source: Sony Press Release)

Slight Rollback


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Good morning everyone,

As you may have noticed over Twitter, we had a slight server issue when upgrading to WordPress 3.6 last night, leading to the website being down for about twenty minutes. Unfortunately we had to rollback to a version from July 25th in order to get everything up and running again. Thank you for your patience.

Dictated, not read,
Management

F.E.A.R Online Gameplay Video


F.E.A.R is one of my favorite games of the last decade, a story that sounds like someone took the horror elements of The Ring and forced it to have children with a satisfying shooter. While the story wasn’t particularly groundbreaking (scary dead girl seeks revenge), the game managed to pull together a tense atmosphere and an intelligent AI capable of forming its strategy on the fly and actually giving the player a run for their money. Like any western horror story, however, the F.E.A.R franchise shifted dramatically from scary and tense to ridiculous and over the top as the series progressed, almost becoming a parody of itself by F.E.A.R 3 or as it was so creatively named: F.3.A.R

One of F.E.A.R’s more enjoyable yet lesser known features has been the game’s multiplayer modes. Expanding upon the multiplayer, Korean studio Inplay Interactive has announced F.E.A.R Online, published in the United States through Aeria Games. Set for release in the future, F.E.A.R Online will feature ten maps and a number of multiplayer modes, including Soul King where players take the role of ghosts possessing bodies and killing each other for souls. The game will also feature a co-op mode where players take on the NPC hoards of monsters and Armacham soldiers.

Hopefully we will hear more about F.E.A.R Online soon. According to the company’s website, it was set for release in late 2012, however that might just be the Korean launch.

Missing Worlds Media Kickstarter Coming September 8th


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City of Heroes is one of those games that the phrase “nothing like it on the market” was designed for. When NCSoft closed down Paragon Studios and shut down City of Heroes, its community was left with essentially two choices of super hero MMOs: Champions Online and DC Universe. While Champions Online has a pretty robust character creator reminiscent of City of Heroes, the two games play differently enough to advertise to separate bases. DC Universe, on the other hand, is first and foremost an action beat-em-up and neither game (naturally) deals with the Champions IP.

One of the spiritual sequels to City of Heroes, known as The Phoenix Project and in development by Missing Worlds Media, is currently about one quarter to one third complete, according to the developers. The game is being developed mainly by volunteers with day jobs and students, a product of love and nostalgia for a time that existed not all that long ago. According to a post on Polygon, Missing Worlds Media even managed to get Epic to license the Unreal engine for free on the grounds that they would be paid at a later date once the money started coming in.

So what brings The Phoenix Project to our headlines once again? As I mentioned in a previous article, Missing Worlds Media is launching a Kickstarter to fund The Phoenix Project, and we now have a date: September 8th. Assuming that the game is properly funded, we can expect to see its release sometime in late 2015. How much will Missing Worlds Media be asking for? This is a comic book story, you’re going to have to wait until at least Issue #5 to find that out.

(Source: Polygon)

MMOments: League of Incredibly Awkward Gentlemen


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Today’s MMOments comes from Champions Online and may be the creepiest interactive moment I have ever experienced in an MMO since I stumbled on a GM cybering in Age of Conan. I recently started playing Champions Online again, creating a new character since I’m using the Perfect World account that managed to get a beta invite to Neverwinter and there are no characters on it. Since Cryptic has seen fit to set up a new studio with the sole purpose of fixing Champions Online, I figured why not? Now I know why not.

Champions Online has a habit of sneaking missions on you, and occasionally you’ll be walking around and an NPC will come up and invite you to start a quest. So when the game threw a popup on the screen asking if I would like to accept an invitation to the fortress of something or other, I hit accept thinking nothing of it. The map loads and my hero is standing at the door in this low-lit mission control room with a table in the center and the adjoining chairs all filled with darkly lit figures. One of the figures says “please, have a seat.” You have to look at this with the understanding that it was so well choreographed that this is one of those rare moments in gaming where you’re not entirely sure if the person you’re speaking to is a hardcore role player or just a really atmospheric scripted event.

So I walk over to the table and have no idea how to sit down, so I just kind of stand at my seat. I can now see that the table is headed by Superman, Captain Marvel, Albert Wesker from Resident Evil, and two other heroes. The addition of licensed heroes/villains makes my brain tick “alright this is clearly just a roleplaying clan.” The Man of Steel continues his dialog about how we’ve all been gathered to join forces to stop a nearly invincible hero that is threatening to destroy the world, and the presentation of his speech and the stillness of the other “actors” has me once again thinking I might have stumbled into, say, someone’s foundry mission or something of the like. The only comparison I can think of is when you are dreaming and your mind realizes you are probably dreaming so you try to break your surroundings but you can’t so you’re stuck in a self-realized limbo.

This is the first time that I’ve ever exited out of a game because I felt too awkward to keep playing, and I will probably never know if those were real players or just scripted NPCs.

Black Gold's Chinese Model Makes Me Appreciate Pay To Win


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Black Gold Online is innovative, like that time I rigged a pair of secateurs so I could use them to eat cereal and accidentally knocked out both of my front teeth. The game is being developed as something similar to, but not really, Guild Wars 2 with more point and click gameplay, and is being created by Snail Games who many of you will recognize from the equally unorthodox Age of Wushu. Where Black Gold Online hopes to innovate is in the lacking presence of both a cash shop and a subscription. Where does the income come from? I guess you could call it “pay to loot.”

According to a post on MMO Culture, a system called Black Gold Time will automatically lock loot received in a given time frame. After a few hours, some items will be locked and others will be put into the player’s inventory. For the sake of not being completely over the top, basic items will be immediately placed in the inventory. Players then have to pay for gold with cash which they can use to unlock and claim items that remain locked. You also have a chance of rolling the dice and receiving a discount or even free items.

I have something else to say about this, but I’ve decided to innovate MMO Fallout and lock it behind a paywall. Send $1 in unmarked bills to MMO Fallout (no address, the postman will know where to take it) for a key to unlock my opinion.

(Source: MMO Culture)

Black Gold’s Chinese Model Makes Me Appreciate Pay To Win


Black-Gold-Online-2-620x350

Black Gold Online is innovative, like that time I rigged a pair of secateurs so I could use them to eat cereal and accidentally knocked out both of my front teeth. The game is being developed as something similar to, but not really, Guild Wars 2 with more point and click gameplay, and is being created by Snail Games who many of you will recognize from the equally unorthodox Age of Wushu. Where Black Gold Online hopes to innovate is in the lacking presence of both a cash shop and a subscription. Where does the income come from? I guess you could call it “pay to loot.”

According to a post on MMO Culture, a system called Black Gold Time will automatically lock loot received in a given time frame. After a few hours, some items will be locked and others will be put into the player’s inventory. For the sake of not being completely over the top, basic items will be immediately placed in the inventory. Players then have to pay for gold with cash which they can use to unlock and claim items that remain locked. You also have a chance of rolling the dice and receiving a discount or even free items.

I have something else to say about this, but I’ve decided to innovate MMO Fallout and lock it behind a paywall. Send $1 in unmarked bills to MMO Fallout (no address, the postman will know where to take it) for a key to unlock my opinion.

(Source: MMO Culture)

New Rule: Having It Both Ways


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New Rule: If it is unfair for me as a writer to discuss your game because it is mid-beta and is therefore an unfinished product, you are not allowed as a developer to add that beta time to your final score when you are defending your company’s will to support their products. I don’t care if your game was in beta for eighteen months, if the game shuts down six months after launch then it will be considered having run for six months, not two years. The statement is bad PR all around because what you are essentially saying is that there was a period of time where you consider the game ripe for compliments but completely immune from criticism. It is like claiming you were in the lead for the first three hours in the Tour De France when really you just showed up early and the race hadn’t even started yet.

Now if you don’t mind, I have to head over to explain to my boss why the fact that not being scheduled or working shouldn’t stop those hours from being added to my payroll.