Author: Admin

Mark Jacobs Back From The Dead


Mark Jacobs made a name for himself here at MMO Fallout, particularly his quote regarding the launch of an MMO and its success being determined by whether or not the developer could be seen adding servers post-launch. Jacobs famously departed from Mythic Entertainment, and much like Richard Garriot following his departure from NCSoft, fell off the face of the earth in terms of future projects or developments.

Well Jacobs is back and, like countless before him, has formed his own company to divert from the standard corporate environment. Jacobs has formed City State Entertainment, with the goal of creating games for tablets, social media, and mobile demographics. Or as hardcore gamers will call it, Jacobs recognized the market potential in churning out FarmVille clones, games that require little effort to churn out a large profit via microtransactions. Or as a business major would call it, Jacobs will roll in cash for a fraction of the effort put into his previous projects. Jacobs says not to worry, however, as the company has no plans on becoming the next Zynga, and instead will form their own IP that they hope to translate to other medium.

City State Entertainment’s first title is set to release in Q4 2011. The company formed back in March and constitutes a number of ex-Mythic employees. MMO Fallout will be continuing coverage as more information on the first title is revealed.

Has Aion Embraced Pay To Win?


Pay to win is a highly controversial label in the MMO business, and I should know. I haven’t even finished the second sentence for this article, yet there is already a mob forming inside of my house ready to beat me to death if I show even a hint of unwavering and militant opposition to the monetary scheme. Going back to our old rule book, it’s important to remember the rule of perception: The important factor is not your intent, it is the player’s reception. If players viewed Turbine’s survey wall as an underhanded, deliberate scam, that is how it will be remembered.

Aion has a special sale going on in the NCsoft store that has managed to ruffle more than a few feathers: The publisher is selling Felicitous Socketing in both Fabled and Eternal flavors, in single sets or bundles of three. The items is single-use and allows you to socket a manastone with 100% success rate. If this makes no sense to you, you’ve probably seen socketing in games like Diablo or Torchlight, except in Aion this system is designed to be unreliable. Failing a socket will cost you the manastone. Couple low success rates with higher level armor/manastones, and you have an expensive recipe for disaster. When researching this topic, I came across a notable amount of posters claiming losses rising up to and over ten million Kinah.

To top it off, the items are only available until October 12th, after which they will be removed from the store. So I’ll leave this one up to the viewers. Do you think this constitutes pay to win?

James Cameron: Avatar MMO? Perhaps


Is the Avatar MMO a possibility? A question best left to James Cameron himself, perhaps asked by IGN. And by the good grace of Grendaline, IGN has come through with just such an interview. In an exclusive interview with Cameron, IGN asked the all important question, “what are your thoughts on turning Avatar into an MMO experience?” While the answer isn’t a confirmation that such a game is in the works, it does open the door to an Avatar MMO in the future.

I think Avatar is a perfect IP for an MMO. It’s a very, very big world and based on the first film, you might not sense that, but we’re talking about an entire planet, an entire alter world, and in fact a universe that has other planetary bodies, as well, and other cultures, other life forms. Eventually people will see enough scope to be able to see how the MMO will work, but that’s going to have to be launched…the timing of that is going to have to be carefully orchestrated with the release of the second and third film because we don’t want to be giving away elements before the fact. And also I think one of the cool things about an MMORPG is that you have to have a lot more possibilities for characters than what you see in the film. The film is really just a leaping off point, so we’ve got to create a rich and diverse world that lives well beyond the films.

Picture of the _____: A What Fondler?


I finally made it into Glitch, the MMO by the guys who made Katamari Damacy, and they have taken yet another step forward toward insanity. I managed to get this achievement for successfully petting 11 piggies, before nibbling on each one individually.

City of Heroes Officially Free


Dust the cobwebs off of that old City of Heroes account, kids, because everyone’s favorite super hero MMO from that time only us old people remember is officially free. For new players, head on over to this website to get started with a new account. For prior subscribers, all you have to do is log in and away you go. As I pointed out last week, if you are still running the old standalone launcher, you’re going to have to upgrade to NCsoft’s in-house client.

New to City of Heroes? Check out the new user guide. Otherwise, get in there and get fighting for good…or evil.

Nexon, Hanbitsoft, NCsoft Block Korean Probe Into Gambling


You’ve most likely heard of “jackpot items,” even if you aren’t entirely familiar with the term itself. These items cost real money and only offer the chance at a high level piece of equipment, usually a very slim chance at that. I’ve been rather critical of jackpot items in the past, I’ve referred to them as taking advantage of people with gambling problems, and criticized a certain company on using it in conjunction with abusing the name of charity to gain funds.

But the question remains as to whether or not such an item constitutes gambling. While you or I might say yes, the Games Rating Board of South Korea asked ten publishers to hand over information relating to their jackpot items. The companies reportedly revealed names, costs, and currencies involved, but refused to hand over details of payout percentages. When pressed, the GRB was met with statements that the data constituted confidential company information, and was not under the jurisdiction of the GRB.

The Games Rating Board is now accusing these companies of obstructing an investigation. It is unclear at this time what, if any, ramifications these companies could face.

Week In Review: Trust In The Community Edition


I told you I’d eventually hit the Sunday deadline for Week in Review. I’ve found through MMO Fallout the deadlines I set for myself often conflict with what I’ve heard referred to as a “lack of respect for authority and tendency toward inappropriate analogies.” Personally I equate the situation more to the first few seasons of House, where the producers made numerous attempts, and failed, to provide a running antagonist for the show. The issue at hand was that the viewer knew House would never be fired, taken to jail, die, or otherwise be removed from the show. After all, the show is named House.

For a while I considered handing the reigns to MMO Fallout to another person, as a clerical manner first and foremost with no real notable effect on the website itself (aside from increased productivity). You can hopefully understand my reasoning for not doing so. So instead, I’ve dedicated more time to working and producing articles and pieces, again working on video features at some point.

1. Jagex Rebuilding Trust In The Community

Originally I wanted this spot to talk about Jagex’s upcoming convention show: Runefest 2011. In Jagex’s advertising for the event, they mention a chat about bot busting, including offering a platform for people to inject their ideas for fighting gold farmers and cheaters, as well as laying out some of their plans for the future of the game. What really caught my eye was a tweet from Gregg Baker, which I retweeted today.

Lots of strategy meetings this morning. Today is the first day we rebuild trust in the community!

I am personally interested in seeing where this goes, as Jagex’s relationship with their community has always been up and down. With issues from rampant cheating and gold farming, to Jagex’s apparent lack of enthusiasm for Stellar Dawn and corruption and incompetence in the player moderator group. No one hopes more than me that this isn’t just another PR move with no motion behind it, as Jagex has been known to pull in the past.

2. Why Were People Unsure About The Old Republic’s Subscription Fee?

Now that Bioware has officially confirmed the price of The Old Republic’s subscription, the threads have died out. That being said, did anyone honestly believe that Bioware would charge anything other than the traditional cost ($15 USD) depending on your region? I can’t even begin to count how many threads I encountered on various boards proclaiming “I won’t buy this game until Bioware confirms a monthly cost.”

For EA to charge more than $15 would be suicide for the MMO. For them to charge less than $15 would be a delightful change from the norm. Given the enormous nature (and cost of development) for The Old Republic, it was safe to assume from the start that the game would carry a traditional monthly fee.

3. Hellgate Meets Tokyo

And now my promotions for Hellgate Global are out of date. T3fun has released the Tokyo expansion for Hellgate Global, so you can no longer play the entire game with a simple five dollars. The entire announcement can be found here, along with the reveal of the base defense mode, cow room, new events, and more.

The Tokyo ticket costs 2,000 tcoins, or $2 USD, but you’ll still have to add a minimum of $5 to your account, or $10 if you want to buy the Act 3 ticket and Tokyo ticket together. If you buy both, you will have four thousand tcoins remaining, which if you aren’t a fan of the cash shop items can be held until a following expansion is released.

Otherwise, you should be able to buy the Tokyo ticket in the cash shop. It is currently selling between 360,000 and 1 million palladium. I was able to secure mine for approximately 375,000.

4. Healers Healing Healers, My Only Weakness!

As a solo player, my worst fears come true whenever I see my arch-enemy: The double healer mob group. Continuing talks on Hellgate Global, I came across a moderately sized group of Riders, centaur-like creatures that have strong melee, strong defense, and strong ranged attacks. The group of five or six were accompanied by two Dragoons, the mob that heal other Riders. As I would attack one dragoon, the other would heal it. If I attacked the Riders, the dragoons would heal it.

This can be chalked up to bad balancing on T3fun’s part. The fight would have been over much sooner if it weren’t for the fact that there was no cooldown on the Dragoon’s heal ability. As long as I was shooting, the Dragoon was able to endlessly heal the damage I dished out at a faster speed than I could dish it. I did eventually kill the one Dragoon making the rest of the fight much easier, but only because it bugged out and stopped moving completely.

5. John Smedley: “We Always Wanted To Make DC Universe Free.”

I’m going to do what few have done before and say that John Smedley is a good businessman. He may not be friends to hardcore gamers, but he is a good businessman. He has a good eye where the market is trending and has done a great job with DC Universe and the other recent Sony MMOs. I’ll even go further and say that the cancellation of The Agency might have been a good thing, as I’ve said before Sony never appeared too enthused about the project to begin with.

But moving forward, I wanted to take a look at Smedley’s comment about free to play being their original vision for DC Universe, and it makes me wonder if DC Comics had something to do with the game being subscription at the start. To me, he is conveying that Sony wanted to make DC Universe a free to play title from the start, but some outside force stepped in and said “no, you must have a box price and subscription.”

Such is the game of politics and MMOs.

Faxion: He’s Dead, Jim.


If Faxion left us any wiser, the MMO has parted us with yet another harsh reminder that the free to play market is not the safe haven that it was once thought to be. For every triple-A game that loses its subscription tag, from Lord of the Rings Online to DC Universe, City of Heroes and Everquest II, the competition only increases, while at the same time key titles releasing in various states of unfinished has taken its toll on public tolerance. Of course there is also a lesson to be had in the developer putting faith in the game despite a low launch, and not laying off the entire staff. UTV Ignition did not pay heed to that lesson.

Either way, another chapter in the long line of MMOs has ended, and the Faxion servers have shut down for good (or at least until someone buys the game and re-launches it).

Faxion: He's Dead, Jim.


If Faxion left us any wiser, the MMO has parted us with yet another harsh reminder that the free to play market is not the safe haven that it was once thought to be. For every triple-A game that loses its subscription tag, from Lord of the Rings Online to DC Universe, City of Heroes and Everquest II, the competition only increases, while at the same time key titles releasing in various states of unfinished has taken its toll on public tolerance. Of course there is also a lesson to be had in the developer putting faith in the game despite a low launch, and not laying off the entire staff. UTV Ignition did not pay heed to that lesson.

Either way, another chapter in the long line of MMOs has ended, and the Faxion servers have shut down for good (or at least until someone buys the game and re-launches it).

Help I Can’t Connect To City of Heroes!


The “Hellgate: Stuck At Waterloo Bridge” article went over very well, so I’m expanding the series. If you are like me, you woke up this morning and immediately checked your account on NCsoft’s website, and booted up that old City of Heroes client you hadn’t touched in about a year. Again, if you are like me you were met with a “cannot connect to server” error, in which case you missed the above warning at the verification page.

Earlier this year, NCsoft discontinued the separate client for City of Heroes. In order to play, you will need to have the NCsoft launcher and may or may not have to download the game over again. I had to download around three gigabytes of data. For those of you who would rather not jump on the horse before it’s born, so to speak, you can check your account info on NCsoft’s website. If your account has been activated, you will see your City of Heroes profile marked as a playable and free account.

Happy brawling.