Author: Admin

[Community] Must We Threaten To Sue Over Everything?


jomali

As you all know, The Secret World went Buy-to-Play, dropping the required subscription in return for giving subscribers more perks and allowing the unwashed masses to play (and presumably spend some cash in the cash shop) by simply picking up the box copy. Like any other town with a bridge to live under, there is a subsection of players who are apparently licensed, practicing, ambulance chasing lawyers, and naturally someone brought up the idea of suing Funcom over the transition. The claim is that the terms of the subscription/lifetime account have been changed without prior knowledge, and that somehow Funcom has diminished the value of the deal without offering a refund.

If you take a look at The Secret World pre-transition, you’ll find two tiers:

Subscriber:

  • Access to The Secret World for that month.
  • Cash shop points based on multi-month packages.

Grand Master (lifetime):

  • Access to The Secret World forever.
  • 1 additional character slot.
  • Set of XP potions.
  • Set of Talismans.
  • 10% discount to cash shop.
  • Snakeskin Jacket.

Following the transition to buy to play, the following benefits were added to accounts:

Subscriber:

  • Mayan time accelerator (reusable bonus xp item)
  • $10 worth of bonus points (cash shop)
  • Item-of-the-month gift
  • 10% discount to everything in the store.

Grand Master:

  • 20% discount to cash shop.
  • Everything subscribers receive above.

Additionally, Funcom instituted a “price guarantee” to subscribers and grand masters ensuring that they will be able to receive any DLC for free by marking down the price to match the monthly bonus point stipend. For example, if a piece of DLC is released that costs $20, the price will be marked down to $10 for subscribers and grand masters. In the shortest sense: There isn’t anything in the new plan that subscribers or grand masters no longer have access to in the new plan. In fact, the benefits (even over the new buy to play tier) have only increased.

I suppose it all comes down to whether or not you see the addition of another tier (buy to play) as removing a benefit from subscribers/grand masters. Perhaps it would have been better from a PR perspective for Funcom to allow players to request refunds for multi-month packages that still had time left rather than to force the players into adopting the new system. Like it or not, there are still a good deal of players who remain loyal to subscription-only games and would not touch a buy-to-play/free-to-play game with a ten foot pole, let alone spend money on it.

Heading forward, however, the MMO community should always know that when a company states that they have no intention of going free to play, they actually mean “at this time.” With the market of MMOs very heavily favoring optional subscriptions rather than mandatory subscriptions, such a transition isn’t as much a possibility as it is an inevitability with the only question being how far post-launch does the game move over? There are obvious exceptions to the rule, strong titles like Eve Online and World of Warcraft who see a better environment in subscriptions, or games like Warhammer Online that simply don’t have the funds to make the transition.

Regardless, you won’t find any legal expert who will agree that Funcom has done anything worthy of legal action, even if some customers aren’t entirely happy with the transition.

Wizardry Online Launching January 16th


wizardry-online

Boy how the time flies. It seems like only yesterday that we were talking about Wizardry Online being a blip on the horizon and now the game is in open beta and preparing for launch. In an email sent out to beta members and SOE members alike, Sony Online Entertainment has announced that the beta servers for Wizardry Online will shut down on January 14th. Two days later, on January 16th, the game will officially go live.

I think this goes without saying, but considering Wizardry Online is a game with player vs player combat, full loot, and the distinct possibility of perma-death, I can only give one warning: Be cautious on launch day. PvP combat will make certain zones a death trap for new players, while the inevitable server lag and outages will be a pain when you throw perma-death into the mix.

70,000 Copies of The Secret World Sold Since Buy To Play


jomali

Alright, so first the bad news. Funcom has released a brand new press release where they discuss that the company will be undergoing some continued restructuring. Costs will be reduced through the closure and consolidation of offices to create a more unified organization. The goal is to use Funcom’s new streamlined technology to better serve their existing MMOs (Secret World, Anarchy Online, Age of Conan) as well as focusing on upcoming, smaller yet high quality titles including the Lego minifigure MMO. The good news, however, is that The Secret World’s transition to buy to play was a completely unsurprising success. Since December, over seventy thousand new units of The Secret World have been sold. As new players come into the game and old players return, activity levels in game have jumped 400%.

“We are building the basis of a very sustainable business. With a restructured organization, we will have a joint team of the best-of-the-best working together to expand our existing online worlds and to create new, exciting and memorable online experiences such as our upcoming ‘LEGO Minifigures’ game.”
-Ole Schreiner, CEO of Funcom

More details will be available in the future, once the process is complete.

(Source: Funcom)

How To Get Into The Neverwinter Beta Free


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I know what you’re thinking: Omali, I want to play the Neverwinter beta, but I don’t want to buy some ridiculous copy of PC Gamer magazine just to take part in the beta. Well good news, you can accomplish both. All you have to do is follow the instructions below:

  1. Head over to play.google.com
  2. Click on Magazines and find PC Gamer
  3. Opt to subscribe with the 14 day free trial. You will not be charged.
  4. Go to promo.pcgamer.com/neverwinter
  5. Follow the instructions using the same billing information you provided to Google.
  6. You may have to answer a question related to the issue. The magazine can be viewed on your desktop.
  7. Get your key and use it at Playneverwinter.com
  8. Cancel your trial subscription to PC Gamer. You won’t be charged.

This way everyone is happy. You got your hands on a free copy of PC Gamer and a beta key for Neverwinter, and a free horse mount to top it off. Meanwhile PC Gamer gets the satisfaction of bringing joy to someone’s heart, even if they are doing it for free. Granted this means nothing if you already subscribe to PC Gamer.

Falling Out #21: Dumpster Diving


reboot21

If there was ever a title for an MMO that deserved a better life, Earthrise is probably a high contender. I’m actually fairly interested in how the reboot turns out, and not just because I had the pleasure of experiencing the first run around and seeing what was a game with amazing potential be squandered by the everlasting joy of indie-developer limitations.

En Mass Entertainment Offering Refunds For Subscribers


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Yea, this is directly following my article on TERA becoming free, but I felt this topic was important enough to warrant its own commentary. Generally when an MMO goes free to play, you don’t see the developer lining up to hand out refunds for existing subscriptions. More often than not, any additional paid time is simply converted into whatever premium service that is rolling out with the transition. In the case of TERA, however, En Masse Entertainment will be refunding any additional game time on an account should the user request it.

From the FAQ:

On the day TERA’s drops its subscription fee, if you would like a refund you may submit a ticket and request a refund for your remaining game time. We will then refund your remaining subscription after the current month ends. For example, if you purchased a 90-day subscription and have 65 days remaining you will receive a refund for 60 days of game time. The remaining 5 days will stay as elite game time.

It appears that this is only for the North American version of TERA, through En Masse Entertainment. The FAQ for the European transition does not make any reference to refunds.

(Source: FAQ)

TERA Heading Free In North America And Europe


TERA_ScreenShot_20120311_210446

With all the effort that En Masse Entertainment put into telling us that TERA would not be free to play in North America or Europe, the latter of which was contradicted the exact same day by Gameforge staff, I feel we as gamers could at least pretend to be surprised that the hiring of Nexon’s former Vice President as Chief Operating Officer at EME had anything to do with a possible transition. Too far? Alright. Everyone saw this coming. I did, you likely did, even your dog could figure out that TERA was going free to play. Starting in February 2013, you will be able to log in to TERA 100% free.

There are three tiers of membership: Free, Founder, and Elite. Elite is the current subscription model, while founders are anyone who activates a full copy of the game. I know what you’re thinking: What is going to happen to Chronoscrolls? They will be removed from the game and no longer redeemable. Any in-game merchant will buy them for 2,000 gold.

  • Free/Elite players are limited to two characters per server, founders have eight characters and an exclusive “founder” title.
  • Free/Elite players are limited to 72 bank slots, founders are limited to 288 slots (max)
  • Elite/Founder players can send unlimited gold via parcel, free are limited to 10 gold per message.
  • Free players are limited to 10 broker postings, Founders to 30, Elite to 50
  • Free/Founder players have a 5% broker register tax.
  • Subscribers have half of the cooldown rate for dungeon entries, as well as double entries each day.
  • Subscribers can claim 10 crate keys, a flaming halo, NPC teleport scrolls, and a village atlas which allows quick travel.
  • Subscribers receive daily XP, Reputation, and Gold boosts.
  • Subscribers receive an Elite Mount, Founders receive their own exclusive mount

(Source: En Masse Entertainment)

The Old Republic Grandfathers In Character Locks


bots

Bioware has launched patch 1.6.2, bringing with it all sorts of bug fixes, balance changes, and miscellaneous changes. Chief amongst the updates in the patch notes is the revelation that Bioware will now be enforcing character slot restrictions. Why now, after all this time? That’s not important. What is important is that free players are restricted to two characters per server, with preferred status players capped at six and subscribers capped at twelve. In a completely unrelated move to the newly enforced cap on character slots, players are now able to purchase character slots from the cartel market for 600 coins.

Here is where the situation becomes confusing. For subscribers and preferred status players who already had more than the default amount, you still have access to your characters, but you still have to buy that character slot if you want to extend your limit on that server. Still doesn’t make sense? Let me explain: Say you are a preferred status player with seven characters on a server prior to today’s update. Your seventh character isn’t locked, but if you want to create an eighth character you are going to have to purchase two character slots, the first to cover your seventh and the second to cover the eighth.

(Source: The Old Republic)

Video of the ____: FFXIV: End of an Era Extended Cut


ffxiv3

Square Enix has released an extended cut version of the End of an Era video released last November. The first five minutes are the same End of an Era video you saw just a few months ago, with the addition of new video showing what happened to the adventurers after they were teleported away at the end. Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn is current in closed testing.

Companies House Removes Proposal To Strike Off Jagex Ltd.


scaperune2

Good news, Jagex fans. While we don’t know for sure if Jagex has actually filed its annual reports, it appears the company has at least responded to Companies House. Last week, I posted that Jagex’s status was changed to “Active – Proposal to strike off.” If a company is more than 90 days late on filing its proper documents (in this case annual income), Companies House is required to propose striking them off unless the company either submits a response or files the actual documents. Failure to do either would result in fines and, eventually, the company being dissolved and liquidated by the UK government. As I said last time, the odds of Companies House shutting down Jagex were just about nil.

It is rather likely that Jagex has indeed filed their income statements. Companies House updated Jagex’s status to simply “Active,” and the due date for their next annual income has been changed to September 2013. The income statement will not be available for public viewing until a later date.

(Source: Companies House)