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The Secret World Teases Event Leading To Tokyo

Funcom has released the latest Game Director letter for The Secret World, detailing the upcoming updates of Issue #7 and #8. Coming in the next few weeks, Issue #7 deals with a new threat facing our Secret World co-conspirators: The Filth. The event is set to take place over the course of several events, spawning from the Tokyo district and moving to other areas of the world. The event will begin after the release of Issue #7 and after the first anniversary event for The Secret World.

Over the coming months as we ramp up towards Tokyo, players will be fighting to contain, and drive back the filth which is tainting the world tree. With every patch, this event will move to a new phase until eventually, if players have done enough, they will gain access to Tokyo itself.

Issue #8 deals with players proving their worth by completing training situations with the Council of Venice in order to be certified to enter Tokyo. Only the bravest and most capable will be able to take on the threat that awaits and the Council must be sure you are able to stay alive long enough to make some headway. Scenarios are repeatable and pit the user in a variety of random situations to test their adaptability.

We’ve heard this word random thrown around before, so let me provide a concrete example: Imagine a Scenario in Kingsmouth Church, where the player has been tasked with helping a group of survivors get through the night (12hrs). Every hour or so (in game time 5 minutes), huge numbers of zombies spawn around the church and move to attack the survivors. The player has multiple options to defend against these waves, including traps and tricks they find lying around. Where the random element comes into play is the chance of something else occurring on the waves: Special bosses spawning, survivors panicking and fleeing the church, an infected survivor turning and attacking the others, a helicopter dropping additional supplies or lightning striking randomly in the spaces around the church.

Sounds fun. This comes alongside an augmentation system allowing players to customize their powers toward specific uses. You can read the entire letter at the link below.

(Source: The Secret World)

Age Of Conan Implements Patchless Events

Don’t you hate temporary events in MMOs? Forgetting the other issues around the time-limited nature of the event itself, then you have to put up with the obnoxious issue of the game requiring a patch (and thus downtime) both before the event begins and once it ends. Wouldn’t it be easier if there was a way to, oh, let’s say update an MMO with temporary event content without having to patch the servers? Well you are in luck! Age of Conan’s latest Game Director letter details a new system put into action with the recent fifth anniversary event. From now on, Funcom no longer has to patch the games to boot up or wind down a game event.

The new system allows us to create events and activate them whenever we wish. This means that we can run events on the fly, without taking down the servers and escalate them on the fly, as we did each day of the 5th Anniversary event. It means that a GM can kick start one of these events in the game by running a simple command. Obviously this has many applications, but the upshot of it is this – you can expect to see a wider variety of events in Age of Conan going forward.

The letter also reminds us that the merger of servers with similar rulesets is still coming this summer, along with a new network layer to improve server stability after everyone is tossed into one location.

(Source: Age of Conan)

APB Reloaded Unleashes Chaos Mode

Chaos has descended upon San Paro! Reloaded Productions has launched the prototype of Chaos Mode, a new game mode for APB: Reloaded that pits law vs chaos in a battle to the death. Currently in testing from May 30th through June 6th, Chaos Mode does not contain the contacts that you are generally used to receiving missions from. Rather, these contacts have been replaced by vendors who will be selling new tools of destruction, and players on both sides are given free reign to take to the streets and kill each other in the name of law, justice, or poops and giggles.

Players are scored based on kills and how long they manage to stay alive in this hellhole, with prizes ranging from temporary weapons and titles given to those who manage certain feats during the week-long testing. Just remember: This is a test of a possible new feature, so Reloaded Productions is looking for feedback from players on how to move the mode forward.

(Source: APB Reloaded)

City of Steam Sees Patch 1.2, Adds Races

City of Steam has released patch 1.2, otherwise known as The Vault Unsealed. The update brings a massive amount of changes to the game, chief among which is the inclusion of two new elven races (Draug and Riven) and the raising of the level cap to 32. The new level cap is accompanied by a new wilderness area, a new PvP tournament event, and paragon mode, a higher difficulty version of dungeons. Players will also be subject to a large number of balance and stat changes to the game, and will find that they are no longer able to send items via mail. The folks at Mechanicst Games also removed some of the useless challenge rewards that I talked about in the review.

You can read the full patch notes here. As far as balancing goes, you’re going to have to figure those changes out for yourself.

(Source: City of Steam)

Worlds Factory Interviews Nerd Kingdom on TUG MMO

What is TUG? TUG is a single and multiplayer survival sandbox game offering massive procedurally generated worlds drawing from Minecraft, Fable, Dwarf Fortress, Eve Online, and more. The game will feature many of the things you’ve come to love from a game like Minecraft, with the addition of integrated modding support, pet companions, and more. What is unique about TUG is you actually start the game off as a child, defenseless and only able to use your wits to survive. As you grow, you will be able to learn more trades, becoming an elite adventurer or a master craftsman.

Our friends over at Worlds Factory have pulled an exclusive interview with TUG developer Nerd Kingdom, and they give a good deal of discussion on the game’s mechanics and what is and is not planned for development and post release. You can check the entire interview out at the link below.

(Source: Worlds Factory)

MMOrning Shots: Irathi Plague

There is a sickness going around Defiance, and I’m not even talking about the Hellbug menace. Trion has launched a mini-event in Defiance that has players finding data recorders detailing a new Irathi-born disease that has spread to humans. The event is small, has no indication on when it will end, and may spiral into a larger story related to an upcoming episode of Defiance on Syfy or possibly just fizzle out and become nothing. Who knows? I certainly don’t. All I know is that I won’t be eating my pirogi in Shondu’s Consolate for a while.

MMOrning Shots is a (mostly) daily line of screenshots from various MMOs. Most are taken in-house or come to us in press releases, but if you would like your screenshot featured, send it over to contact[at]mmofallout[dot]com with the subject “MMorning Shots.”

Blizzard's Titan MMO Rebooted, Restructured

“Interested” isn’t quite the word I would use to describe my attitude toward Blizzard’s upcoming MMO, Titan. It isn’t anything personal against the developer or the game itself, it’s just that at this early of a stage in development where everything we know about the title is from rumors and even the title itself is in codename phase, to get excited for Titan makes about as much sense as getting your hopes up for Sony Online Entertainment announcing Video Game: The Video Game. I say this because the news that Blizzard has drastically reduced the development team and has rebooted the title with a new direction and a delay until 2016 means nothing to me.

Rebooted to what? From what? I can hardly be happy or sad to see the old version go when I knew absolutely nothing about it. I’m sure that if Titan does indeed find its way to release, in some form or another, we will eventually find out what the original game was intended to be. Until then, you can’t miss what you never knew you had.

Blizzard’s Titan MMO Rebooted, Restructured

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Funcom's Q1 2013 Finances

Funcom has released their Q1 2013 financial details and the news is…good? Revenues have almost tripled compared to the same time last year thanks to the launch of The Secret World last year, which along with Age of Conan now make up the bulk of Funcom’s revenue. As many of you know, Funcom consolidated its live teams to the hub in Durham, North Carolina. Moving forward, the focus is on the developer’s currently operational games as well as a small number of titles currently in development.

As per the above, the company expects the positive effect from the restructuring to materialize in full in the second half of the year. However, significant cost savings were realized in 1Q13 and the operating costs decreased by 1,197 TUSD compared to the previous quarter and by 2,232 TUSD compared to 1Q12.

The Secret World enjoyed its first full quarter under the new buy to play system, increasing player numbers and retention along with the launch of Issue #6: The Last Train To Cairo. Issue #7 releases this summer. Anarchy Online experienced a server merger which increased activity and players on the remaining servers. Funcom continues to work on the major engine upgrade to Anarchy Online. The Lego Minifigures MMO is on schedule for release and is currently in development for the PC in both client and browser form, as well as tablets.

One of Funcom’s lesser known titles, Fashion Week Live, was sold to 505 Games in Q1 2013. Funcom’s Montreal studio is currently working on bringing the Dreamworld technology to tablets, opening new opportunities for the developer. Funcom expects more cost reductions and lower revenues in the second quarter.

(Source: Funcom Finances)

Funcom’s Q1 2013 Finances

As per the above, the company expects the positive effect from the restructuring to materialize in full in the second half of the year. However, significant cost savings were realized in 1Q13 and the operating costs decreased by 1,197 TUSD compared to the previous quarter and by 2,232 TUSD compared to 1Q12.

(Source: Funcom Finances)

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