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Diablo III Under Investigation In France, Germany, South Korea

Those of you paying attention here at MMO Fallout know from a previous article that Blizzard is currently under investigation by the South Korean Fair Trade Commission over complaints that Blizzard did not deliver on service for Diablo III players, and refused to offer refunds for those who could not access the game due to consistent server downtime. Blizzard’s offices were raided and the investigation is currently ongoing, but likely to end up in favor of the consumer.

In France, Blizzard was given 15 days by the consumer bureau to fix connections regarding Diablo III, an issue which still plagues the game in every continent. They are also asking Blizzard to compensate players for damages accrued due to downtime, and are requesting a formal investigation into the use of always-on DRM. If the server stability is not met, the consumer bureau intends on taking Blizzard to court.

In Germany, however, the issue is a little different. The Federation of German Consumer Organizations has stated that Blizzard is being held accountable for anti-trust violations. Diablo III is being investigated for not disclosing on boxes that the game required an internet connection to play in single player, as well as not disclosing that the game was unable to be resold due to the permanent connection with one’s battle.net account. Or if you want to use the original German translation, Blizzard are being investigated for Wettbewerbsverstöße abzugeben, which sounds a whole lot more threatening.

Granted, neither of the French or German groups have the power to impose punishments on Blizzard, they will have to take the company to court and have a judge hand down a verdict.

(Source: Incgamers)

Getting a Beta Perspective: The Secret World

The Secret World releases on in just a few weeks on July 3rd, and I had yet another opportunity to take a look at the beta this weekend. As you already know from our previous preview, The Secret World is an action-oriented game that plays somewhere between the button mashing of a World of Warcraft game and the more tactical location-oriented button pressing of Funcom’s other title, Age of Conan.

This time around I got my hands on the Dragon faction, a faction out of Tokyo who believe in order through chaos. The opening, however unfortunate, is the exact same as for the Templar: Long, drawn out, and boring. Luckily, it can also be skipped and some of the poor voice actors who appeared in previous beta weekends appear to have been replaced.

Foremost, we need to talk about quests. Quests are, and hold with me here, interesting and engaging. Unlike your other MMOs, you don’t pick up quests by wandering into a hub and nabbing everything in sight. In fact, you can’t. There are hard limits that allow you to only take a very small number of quests simultaneously. Every citizen of Kingsmouth and beyond is unique with their own personality. The presentation readily makes up for the much smaller number of quests available.

While there are a good amount of kill x quests, there are many more that require thought and deduction, offering little or no help on the mini-map. For instance, one of the first quests in Kingsmouth has you talking to survivors to learn more about the fog. It doesn’t tell you who to talk to or even where you should go to talk to them, that is left up to your investigatory skills. Other quests will send you on your way with a vague idea or general area, but no specific pinpoint on your map telling you where to go. Turning in quests is as easy as reporting in via your cell phone.

Perhaps what sets The Secret World apart from other MMOs in this regard is that the game has no levels. Since players are less inclined to try to rush toward end-game, since there really is none, they might feel better sitting back and enjoying the cutscenes and presentation of the quests. When I played The Old Republic, I found myself quickly bored with side-quests. The cinematics did little to numb the pain of quest grinding. In The Secret World, quests are long and spiraling and can regularly contain twenty separate parts.

Keep your thinking caps on, folks. For every brainless killing quest in The Secret World, there are plenty more that will strain your mind and put your investigatory skills to the test. Of course many players will simply have a browser open or beg in chat for answers (the latter being incredibly obnoxious), but there is a sense of accomplishment when you finally figure out the answer.

For example, another quest has you entering the house of a doctor to access the log files on his computer. Your only hint is a photograph that shows fireworks and a hint on the computer about the “song of the seasons.” The answer requires some knowledge of classical music, and I won’t spoil it here. I almost have to question if The Secret World will lose some appeal with its crowd because if you don’t have good deduction skills (or knowledge of classical music), you will probably just wind up looking the answers up online, and that will become annoying after a while.

Crafting in The Secret World is very similar to Minecraft, where you build gear by placing the building blocks in the correct pattern on a grid. Unfortunately, at least in my humble opinion, crafting is still very difficult without reading outside sources and guides for help. In fact there is a crafting guide on the Secret World main page that does an amazing job of explaining the ins and outs of weapon creation.

Combat, as I mentioned before, is a mixture of strategy without going as far as the intricate systems of other games. You will mostly be building energy to pull off attacks that use up said energy, and in the meantime many of the mobs have attacks that need to be dodged. There is a certain level of strategy required in combat, as you have limited space in your active and passive skill section to fill.

We’ll see how the next beta goes. Until then, I still haven’t burnt myself out of The Secret World. The more I play, the more engrossing that the game becomes. Player vs player combat was still absent from the beta but will appear next time.

TERA Launches With Strong 7-Day Trial

When you launch your game with both a client cost and a subscription, gathering new customers after the initial rush of early adopters can get pretty hard. In recent years, level-based trials with no time limit have replaced the one to two week trials of the past. Another hard wall that developers have faced in bringing in new customers, even with the free trials, is the growing size of game clients. Back when Dungeon Runners shut down, the developers noted that a large percentage of players would never even finish downloading the client, and Dungeon Runners was free!

TERA launches its seven day trial with some pretty generous offerings. Players are able to level up 8 characters to level 23 on one server (assuming you can do that in seven days), with some restrictions to certain chat channels, trade brokers, and player vs player combat. Trial accounts are also not allowed to vote in the elections, so put your vote-rigging plans to rest.

Additionally, if you don’t want to take on the 50 gigabyte installation that is TERA, you can try the limited Gaikai streaming trial. There is nothing to install for this trial, however it only lasts 30 minutes and you are restricted to the warrior, sorcerer, and lancer classes. Additionally, Gaikai services are only available in the United States and Europe.

Hit up the link below for details on both the 7-day trial and the Gaikai streaming demo.

(Source: Try TERA)

DUST 514: High End Gear Will Cost Mere Cents

DUST 514 is CCP’s first entry into the MMOFPS realm, where players battle out across thousands of planets for the contractual obligation of players in Eve Online. As with any free to play games, DUST514 will have a cash shop and players want to know what is for sale and how much will it cost? Shacknews reports that high end gear will cost about a quarter. Why? You lose it on death.

“We’ve got to make sure we’re pricing things at the right level, because if you die [you lose these things].”

That same high end gear can still be obtained through regular gameplay, making it entirely possible to play without spending a dime.

(Source: Shacknews)

Darkfall Client Becomes Free, Subscription Reduced

As we’ve already announced: Aventurine plans on removing the initial cost of Darkfall’s client. Rather, players will simply have to subscribe once their trial is over (or any point in the middle) in order to start enjoying the world. Additionally, Aventurine will be dropping the subscription price from its current point of $15 a month to an undisclosed amount.

All of this goes live on June 29th. Starting June 27th, existing players will be given two free days to return, during which time skill gains will be increased. The promotion runs until the launch of Darkfall 2.0, at which time the game may or may not wipe and may or may not go free to play. Probably not.

(Source: Darkfall Epic Blog)

Curt Schilling Sued For $2.4 Million

Citizens Bank is not happy with Curt Schilling, because the company is suing the ex-Red Sox player personally for $2.4 million. Schilling is being sued under allegations that he promised to personally repay the money that had been borrowed from the bank. According to the lawsuit, Curt Schilling had personally guaranteed a $2 million line of credit as well as a $350,000 credit card, both of which 38 Studios and Schilling have refused to pay.

38 Studios is currently under investigation by the State of Rhode Island and the Federal Bureau of Investigation over the $75 million in loans that Rhode Island taxpayers are now on the line for.

“Schilling is liable to the bank in the total amount of $2,394,240.40, plus thereafter accruing interest and late fees, costs and costs of collecting, including, without limitation, attorneys’ fees and expenses.”

Citizens Bank has requested that Schilling’s assets be frozen, claiming that the company would be unlikely to recover any money in bankruptcy court.

Undoubtedly far more into the 38 Studios story will be revealed as ongoing lawsuits and investigations continue.

(Source: WPRI.com)

Free To Play On The Horizon For The Old Republic

The Old Republic was one of the largest MMO releases in 2011, if not the largest. The game shattered EA’s preorder record boasted 1.7 million subscribers in February. However, shortly after launch it became evident that The Old Republic’s was not growing when EA reported a 24% loss in subscribers, down 400,000 in just a month after boasting their 1.7 million. Recently the discussion has turned to servers, with Bioware increasing server capacity and opening limited server transfers for what some believe to be preparation to perform server mergers.

GamesTM recently published an interview with Bioware’s Emmanuel Lusinchi, in which the developer notes that a free to play model is indeed possible.

“The MMO market is very dynamic and we need to be dynamic as well. Unless people are happy with what they have, they are constantly demanding updates, new modes and situations. So we are looking at free-to-play but I can’t tell you in much detail. We have to be flexible and adapt to what is going on.”

Sulake's Biggest Investor Returns Shares

If Sulake is looking to take care of the community problems present in Habbo Hotel, they are going to have to act fast. In just the short time since BBC4 ran their investigation into Habbo Hotel, revealing that the game was a breeding ground for child grooming, Sulake lost its second largest investor and both Tesco and WH Smith have taken Habbo cash cards off of shelves. In addition, Sulake dropped a bomb on the community by temporarily suspending all chat function in Habbo until the problem can be taken care of.

But it seems that suspending chat has not yet stemmed the outward flow of support for the company. In a report published today, the BBC has revealed that Sulake’s biggest investor 3i has withdrawn funding due to the accusations that Habbo harbors pedophiles. 3i owned a 16% share in Sulake. A spokeswoman for Sulake had the following to say: