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TERA Boasts 1.4 Million Users In North America
When TERA announced that player numbers had doubled, and that number was now “over one million,” I had a feeling that since Gameforge was making the announcement that the figure did not include regions outside of Europe. Turns out I was right. In a press release by En Masse Entertainment today, the publisher has revealed that free to play has similarly risen to over 1.4 million users. Maximum concurrent players has also risen dramatically, increasing over ten times its previous number.
“We’ve been blown away by the waves of players logging into TERA, and we’re seeing amazing growth in both registrations and daily users. It’s always great to eclipse the one-million-player mark, and at our current rate, it won’t be long before we hit two million,” said Chris Lee, CEO of En Masse Entertainment. “This success is pushing En Masse even harder to deliver more content and improve our service, so stay tuned!”
To celebrate, from March 20th through the 24th players will be able to hunt Big Ass Monsters for high end equipment and rare drops.
(Source: En Masse Entertainment Press Release)
Defiance Might Not Hit Steam Tiers
Those of you who read Flying Ostrich Media are aware that over there I have covered Steam’s new system of pre-purchase reward tiers from time to time. If you aren’t familiar with the system, it works pretty simply: The more people pre-purchase through Steam, the higher the percentage and more rewards are unlocked. Bioshock Infinite, for instance, offered a free copy of XCOM for the ultimate reward. Trion’s upcoming shooter Defiance is offering everything from exclusive vehicles to weapons, titles and xp boosters all in return for more people pre-purchasing through Steam on the PC.
The system also works to gauge interest in the game, and unfortunately Defiance’s progress does not give great first impressions. With two weeks to go until the title launches and the deadline to pre-purchase is passed, Defiance has still not hit its first milestone. At 33%, it isn’t even close. Now obviously using this to gauge the game’s overall success is virtually meaningless. We have no way of knowing how many people have pre-purchased through alternate sources from Steam, or how many have purchased the game on the PS3 or Xbox360. We also have no way of knowing how many orders are required to hit each milestone.
So why isn’t Defiance skyrocketing to unlock all three tiers of rewards (at least not yet)? It’d take a day and a half to go over all of the variables, from releases on other platforms to Steam not opening up pre-purchases until after the game had been available at other outlets, to the game launching on consoles, etc. On the other hand, players are still able to grab rewards regardless of their system of choice, or whether or not Steam hits its targets, by submitting a lot of Arkfall codes as they are discovered. The number of codes discovered is approaching ninety at the time of this publishing, out of one hundred twenty total, and the more codes you enter, the better stuff you get out of it including permanent skill bonuses, weapons, titles, and more.
Defiance comes out April 2nd on PC, 360, and PS3, and operates on a buy to play model supported by DLC content.
(Source: Steam)
Sevencore Shutting Down
You all remember Sevencore, right? If not, you’ll be saddened to know that gPotato will be shutting down the MMO come April. In a news announcement released today, gPotato explained the shut down as a direct result of the game’s poor performance and developer pulling out.
Today, we regret to inform you that we are shutting down the SEVENCORE service because the developer is no longer able to support the game. SEVENCORE has proved to be less attractive to players than anticipated and thus become unprofitable for the developer to be continued as a game. Without the developer’s support, we see ourselves with no other choice than to close the service, unfortunately.
Players will be relieved to hear that all gPotato Chips spent on the game since the 1st of February will be reimbursed, along with a portion of money spent prior. Along with a few other updates, gPotato is also looking to make the cash shop items free until the game does shut down late April.
- We are going to reimburse all gPotato spent between the 1st of February and today, and between 30% and 75% for purchases prior to this date.
- We will close the in-game shop with immediate effect but are looking into an option to make all shop items available for free.
- The game service won’t be closed until the end of April.
- During the final period of the game, we will boost EXP gain and run various events to make the final weeks as entertaining as possible.
- We are currently working on some very interesting offers for all SEVENCORE players if you decide to play one of our many other games. These packages are currently being discussed and finalized once we have all the details we will update you on this topic.
Unfortunately when the developer kicks the bucket, there isn’t much that the publisher can do about it. Sevencore players can at least look forward to some perks coming their way if they choose to go to one of gPotato’s other titles.
(Source: Sevencore)
PointMMO Improves Functionality With Additional Features
PointMMO is a digital distribution platform for free to play MMOs. The program is currently in beta and has been updated with new features to make downloads faster and more accessible. Essentially, PointMMO is a program along the lines of Xfire, or Raptr that tracks your play time and includes promotional items, except you can also use the platform to more quickly download the games you wish to play. And the list is nothing to scoff at. Players are encouraged to sign up and take advantage of free beta keys and promotional items.
Check out a list of supported games. PointMMO is 100% free.
- Age of Conan
- Aika
- Allods Online
- Anarchy Online
- Bloodline Champions
- City of Steam
- Dino Storm
- District 187: Sin Streets
- Flyff
- Golfstar
- The Guardian: Dark Ages
- GUNS and ROBOTS
- Hawken
- King of Kings 3
- The Lost Titans (Beta)
- Maestia: Rise of Keledus
- Rift
- The Secret World
- SEVENCORE
- Uncharted Waters Online
- Warframe (Beta)
- Wargame 1942
- World of Tanks
- World of Warplanes (Beta)
(Source: PointMMO Press Release)
Runes Of Magic Posts Year 4 Infographic
Runes of Magic launched March 19th, 2009 and has enjoyed great success with eight million accounts creating twelve million characters. In celebration of Runes of Magic’s birthday, Gameforge and Runewalker have released an infographic.
Jagex Decrees: Gambling Illegal In RuneScape
The word of God has spoken. RuneScape has been updated today with a strange set of new fixes to various items. The Easter ring now only turns one color, flowers planted by players now grow in one single color, the seal of approval emote now only displays one animation, and the classic cape no longer varies between animations. Why the sudden lack of random play? Jagex has finally put their foot down, issuing an official notice to players running gambling rings: You will no longer be tolerated.
Jagex has added a new bullet point to RuneScape’s rules list:
You must not advertise, organize, promote or participate in player-run games of chance, where game money or items are staked on the outcome of a random activity.
Players caught running gambling rings will be met with mutes and possible permanent bans. As with the bot busting update, the fight against gambling is one that will not end with this update. Jagex will continue to monitor the game and combat other methods as they pop up.
(Source: RuneScape)
MMOrning Shots: Finding Your Nostalgia
Today’s MMOrning Shot comes from ROBLOX. I chose this screenshot because I have always said that the game invokes feelings of nostalgia for those of us who remember growing up on Lego/Megablocks/etc. Nostalgia is an incredibly powerful feeling, one that takes us back to a time when everything was simpler and everyone was happy. It isn’t an accurate portrayal of the past, dutifully weeding out the negative aspects and focusing only on the positive side, and while we may never truly go back, there are keepsakes that we can take with us to help keep those memories alive.
WWII Online Removed From MMORPG.com By Cornered Rat Software
You may not have noticed that World War II Online suddenly went missing from MMORPG.com earlier today. The main game page for WWII Online and the forum directory became inaccessible, although threads were not deleted and can still be reached and posted in with direct links. The removal came with no immediate comment by either MMORPG.com staff or a developer, leading to speculation that the game’s sudden absence was due to anything from a technical glitch to demands by Cornered Rat Software.
Well the latter group is correct. The removal of WWII Online was at the request of Cornered Rat Software, as MMORPG.com administrator Meddle posted, confirming on the forums.
CRS requested that we remove the forums from the site. Our policy is to also remove the game listing as well in this event.
We’ve discussed here at MMO Fallout before that Cornered Rat Software doesn’t exactly have great track record on dealing with criticism, what with a very heavily moderated forum that is mostly closed off to the public and only accessible to accounts with active subscriptions. Being a third party website, the WWII Online forums at MMORPG have become a platform for current and ex-customers to vent their frustrations with Cornered Rat Software without fear of being banned in retaliation or simply having their threads shut down. As a result of the clash between former and current players, the forum subsection ultimately became a never ending, out of control flame war.
To MMORPG.com’s credit, however, the removal of the game’s forums does come at a high price: The complete removal of WWII Online from the website period. Whether or not CRS sees this as a preferable alternative to what was being posted is up for speculation.
MMOrning Shots: Everquest 14th Anniversary
Today’s MMOrning shot comes from Everquest, in celebration of the game’s fourteenth anniversary. Yes, in two more years Everquest will be of legal driving age, and then presumably will be able to pick up the pizza you ordered through /pizza in-game.
MMOrning Shots is a (somewhat) daily line of screenshots from various MMOs. If you would like your screenshot featured, send it over to contact[at]mmofallout[dot]com with the subject “MMorning Shots.”
MMO Fallout 