Author: Admin

World of Warcraft Magazine Canned


Blizzard has announced that the World of Warcraft magazine has shut its doors, leaving subscribers wondering what what will happen to their remaining paid issues. To compensate players, Blizzard is offering one of two options:

  1. To get a refund, you’ll have to send a letter to the Future US mail box.
  2. Or players can opt for in-game premium pets, which are allocated depending on how many issues you had left on your account.

Head over to the magazine website for more information.

The exact reason for the cancellation has not been confirmed, but low subscribers and high production costs are probably high on the list.

Square Enix Expanding Final Fantasy XIV Development Team


As I’ve said before, Square Enix has a long history of going away from the norm on a design level and a corporate level. If you’re one of the unbelieving heathens who looked at Final Fantasy XIV and thought “well this will just continue diminishing until there’s nothing left of the development team,” I’m going to hit you on the nose with a rolled up newspaper. Not only are you wrong, you couldn’t be any more off-base unless Square Enix turned out to have never existed and the Final Fantasy series was an M Night Shyamalan film.

Dual Shockers has an article noting that Square Enix is not only not downsizing the Final Fantasy XIV team, they’re hiring more people to work on the resurfacing MMO. Eleven new positions have been created, with another confirmation that the PS3 version is still in development.

As part of this new initiative, I will be shipping Yoshi-P a new t-shirt to wear around the office that says “troll-proof.”

Bigpoint Gives Faith in UNITY, Jagex Should Use It


My first, and for a long time only, experience with MMOs on the UNITY engine was Cartoon Network’s Fusionfall, and for all the criticizing I throw at Bigpoint Games for their public comments, I’m very happy that they had more faith in the engine than I did. I say this because I was playing the open beta for KULTAN today, Bigpoint’s upcoming answer to the sea-faring MMOs, and the game looks great to the point where the screenshots (even the one I presented) really don’t do it justice. And the game ran great, apart from a few issues I had with the controls and some problems with targeting, but that can be ironed out in development.

Of course this isn’t the first Bigpoint MMO built on the UNITY engine. Battlestar Galactica Online also does the engine justice. It is a system that is mind-blowing more in the sense of what a browser-based engine can do, rather than expecting Crysis-level graphics. Even in the short period between Battlestar Galactica and KULTAN, the amount of progress tells me that in just a few years the UNITY engine has the potential to evolve the next base platform for MMOs, in a similar way that the Unreal engine became the base for most video games you play today.

Almost immediately I thought “I’d like to see Runescape transition to Runescape 3, released on the UNITY engine.” Java is a great tool, but it is falling behind on the times. For an MMO, especially one growing at the rate Runescape is, the technology has become so old and lacks optimization that Jagex will only be able to stack so much on top before they are forced to switch over. The Java engine doesn’t lend itself well to “real time” on a mass scale, which you can see in Runescape’s mini-games and FunOrb’s mini-games that have some sort of fast-paced measure to them.

Moving to the UNITY engine would allow for keyboard movement rather than relying on point and click pathfinding, fighting would become far more engrossing than standing next to someone taking turns swiping a whip, and while Jagex could get the engine for free, porting the game over to mobile devices would be far easier than on Java. I’m not an expert on the engine, but I get the feeling that removing the point and click aspect of Runescape would also see a heavy decrease in botters, not to mention better support for anti-cheat utilities. Also, UI improvements! I’d no longer have to go through the game seeing every button for every interface I might ever need to use!

And for the people who can’t play Runescape 3, keep Runescape 2 open for five more years (blocking new accounts) and allow people to transition their characters to the new game. No, not everyone has a powerhouse computer, but UNITY engine doesn’t require one and holding back upgrades to accommodate little Timmy on the library’s computer just allows for Chris in Florida to run that many more clients on his gold farming…farm.

How did this article turn into Runescape? Anyway, I think I’ve made my point. The UNITY engine is the base platform for browser MMOs, and something about Jagex not stopping cheaters.

Video of the ____: This Rift Is Now Diamonds


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqqT-redSJ0

Hello ladies. Look at your video, now look back. This is what your video could look like if you parodied Old Spice. This advertisement for Rift may not be the most unique, but at least worth a chuckle or two.

Week In Review: Tardiness Is Not Tolerated Edition


здравствуйте! I’ve been spending the past few days not on homework or work-work, on figuring out exactly how I want to inject videos into MMO Fallout, as I’ve promised many times in the past. My first video, that I’ll hopefully release in the next week or so, is a quick look at the Sony Authenticator. Since my skills with improvisation in front of a microphone are essentially zilch, I’m taking the old fashioned model of writing out a script.

Needless to say, what did I miss?

1. There Was No Ganking In The Old Republic

Any game with player vs player of any kind faces this issue: How liberally do we allow ganking? A majority of games take the approach of rule-bound servers, where players can choose from PvE (only in certain areas) or PvP (virtually everywhere). A select few, including Darkfall and Mortal Online, have mandatory PvP all over, with the exception of small safe zones. Bioware’s statement on the matter:

To put it bluntly: If that is your fantasy, you will have to find another game, because The Old Republic will not cater to that. For every player who enjoys that particular fantasy, there are a lot of players that don’t enjoy being on the receiving end of it. That’s a fact, a business lesson learned from existing, still running MMOs.

Good.

2. Dungeons and Dragons Online: The Offline Novel

The Shard Axe: An Eberron Novel is hardly out of the ordinary if you’ve read a Dungeons and Dragons book before. The story follows Sentinel Marshal Sabira d’Deneith, and surprisingly requires little knowledge of the world inside. The story does a great job of explaining places and people, in great detail, to newcomers of the series, and doesn’t tie-in with the game at all aside from a few locations. The action is quick, brutal, and author Marsheila Rockwell does a wonderful job painting believable characters in mythical situations that are just magical enough to still be grounded in some sort of realism.

The Shard Axe is a decently sized book at 352 pages, and is a must for any fan of Dungeons and Dragons novels, fantasy novels, or the MMO. You can buy it in paperback for around $7.99, or through your favorite ebook app for a minor price decrease.

Amazon

3. An MMO Coming To WiiU and Wii? Dragon Quest X

Now this is a surprising story. As a fan of the Dragon Quest series, the announcement of Dragon Quest X on the WiiU is about all the incentive I need to buy the console when it comes out next year. To add icing to the cake, however, the news feeds are buzzing that the game will feature persistent online multiplayer with components reminiscent of an MMO. The game, developed by Square Enix, apparently pairs up to the title enough that the game will carry a subscription fee in Japan (although this will likely be changed for American/European releases).

All I can say is where do I sign up?

4. Book #2: Book Series Based Off of Gods & Heroes

As it turns out, Heatwave Interactive has more plans for libraries than simply burning them down while murdering your family and leaving you for dead. Announced last week, Gods & Heroes is exiting the digital world and entering the world of paperback novels. Book I, titled “Blood and Laurels” is set to release at some point in the future by a nondescript author who has won an award. You can read an excerpt with the rest of the announcement here, with another excerpt to release on September 16th.

I have a feeling this is going to be one of those book-learning Week in Reviews.

5. Bi-Weekly Star Wars Galaxies Articles

I haven’t played Star Wars Galaxies since my last article on the game, but with my newly renewed Station Pass, I will be rebooting the previously weekly series as a bi-weekly piece.

Bleedout Comic: More Novelty Than Resourceful


You may already be familiar with CrimeCraft (if not, I would start here), in which case Bleedout will also be a known name. Last year, Vogster teamed up with Mike Kennedy and a whole host of artists (Nathan Fox, Zach Howard, Sanford Greene, etc) to write and produce the cutscenes for the MMO shooter’s single-player campaign story. What you may not be as aware of is that Vogster paired up with Archaia Entertainment to turn the animated-comic style scenes into a hardcover book: Thus the CrimeCraft graphic novel was born.

Originally set for release way back in May, Bleedout didn’t ship until near late July due to unseen difficulties (printing issue, as I understand). As far as content goes, this is a direct reprint of the cutscenes in-game, without the motion or the gruff voice-over. Each chapter covers the equivalent chapter in the game, page for page recreated from the MMO. The art style stays true to the game: Dirt, trash, drugs, and violence litter the pages, characters that you can practically feel the slime seeping through the pages. As far as graphic content, there’s maybe one boob-shot and a character sticking the tip of his tongue with a needle. Nothing gut-wrenching.

I highly recommend playing Bleedout on CrimeCraft before you buy this, otherwise you will simply have no idea what is going on. As I already said, the comic mirrors the cutscenes, so each chapter in the book serves as an introduction to the various factions in and around Sunrise City. Looking at the overall story, to take the comic book without playing the game is more akin to buying a book and only reading the first two paragraphs of each chapter. The story will skip ahead too far, too fast for you to keep track of what is going on, who is who, and who you are supposed to hate and why.

CrimeCraft, as I’ve stated in the past, has a rich and deep story once you dive into it, one that is not done justice by this book. Bleedout, on the whole, serves as little more than a companion piece for the game. If you enjoyed Bleedout and you like comics, it’s worth the $10. Otherwise, if you have no interest in Crimecraft (in which case you wouldn’t be reading this), this comic isn’t for you.

You can find Bleedout (the comic book) here at Amazon.

Warhammer Online Is Boring Crap, At Least Mythic Thinks So…


Mythic Entertainment is taking a unique approach to advertising Warhammer Online: Wrath of Heroes, their upcoming MOBA game, and I’m not just referring to presenting the title with all the apathy of a high school student’s PowerPoint presentation on the agricultural impact of Wyoming on its neighboring states pre-dating the 1900’s. Back when Wrath of Heroes was announced, a good number of people noticed that the game is essentially Warhammer Online’s scenarios, minus the grinding and leveling, with the original three faction battles that die-hard Dark Age of Camelot fans have been begging for since the game’s unveiling.

Turns out they were right. At the PAX panel, the WoH development team directly stated that Wrath of Heroes is for people who liked Warhammer Online’s scenarios, but did not want to invest the time or money into the MMO. Or as the panel put it, they cut out all the “boring crap” so that players wouldn’t have to grind for “748,000 hours” to gain small incremental advancements in skills and power. If your average WAR fanboy isn’t steaming at the ears from this news, the team goes on to explain that much of the armor in Wrath of Heroes was either used or scrapped in Warhammer Online.

Mythic is going to need to clean the tire treads off of Warhammer Online, because Paul Barnett and the rest of the panel did their best to trash the MMO and throw it under the bus, a sentiment that the WAR community is not at all happy about.

Bigpoint Games Says Better Call The Cleaning Lady…


Philip Reisberger, Chief Games Officer at Bigpoint Games, is a complicated man. I want to hug him, because he turned Battlestar Galactica into an MMO. But Reisberger’s company is consistently cruising for a patriotic wedgie, talking down the status of companies whose chump change amounts to more than Bigpoint Game’s quarterly revenue. Last November, Heiko Hubertz (Bigpoint CEO) stated that The Old Republic will never be profitable.

Not to be one-upped by Hubertz, Reisberger stated in an interview that the big developers just don’t understand monetizing games, and that developers should be pursuing systems where players can pay extra to gain an advantage instead of offering vanity items.

“It’s a delicate balance, though, and that’s why I love my game designers. All of them have understood how to do this. If you have a sophisticated approach to free-to-play games, in the end you can monetise everything.”

Even more interesting is Reisberger’s insistence that it is possible to offer an in-game advantage for cash without altering the balance of the game, which exactly untrue. By selling items that players can attain through normal grinding/leveling, developers have found a way to technically give players an advantage (time) by removing the factor of grind, without unbalancing the game as those items can be attained through standard gameplay anyway.

We’ll see how players respond to Reisberger’s statement as time goes on.

What Star Trek Online Will Offer For Free


Star Trek Online heads free to play later this year, leaving players wondering what will be available with no cost attached, and what players will be expected to cough up some Cryptic points to enjoy. Well, thanks to some much needed love from Cryptic Studios, I can tell you exactly what will be made available:

  • All sectors and missions are available for free. This includes fleet actions, events and dailies, featured episodes, special task forces, and Klingon play.
  • All classes are available for free.
  • Races have the same availability to free players as with members.
  • All ships are available (barring premium ships, which members have to buy as well)
As for limits:
  • Limited to 2 character slots (out of 3)
  • Limited credit storage (unknown amount)
  • Limitations on fleet (guild) creation.
  • Maximum 48 inventory and 48 bank space (out of 72 and 96 respectively)
  • Cannot create foundry projects (can play other player’s creations)
  • Cannot obtain veteran rewards.
  • Will wait behind subscribers in the case of server queues.
  • Limited access to mail and chat (this limitation is waived after 20 hours of gameplay or if the account has ever been a subscriber/made a c-store purchase)
  • Limited forum access (waived for past subscribers)
  • Limited customer service access.
  • Advertisements in vivox voice chat.
You can read the entire list here.

Falling Victim To Your Own Greedy Nature


While the MMO Fallout inbox is never saturated with emails, so to speak, I get a fair amount of tips especially regarding outbreaks of account theft. For the most part, these thefts are not real. A person will have his account stolen at the general time his friend did, so his conclusion is that a lot of accounts must be getting stolen (or the company is selling accounts to gold farmers, please stop emailing me with those conspiracy theories). A quick check of our archives will show that I do indeed report on legitimate server breaches.

One particular email I received prompted this article: To sum it up, a “regular reader” made the claim that I am being paid off by “illegitimate gold farmers and bot developers” to not post warnings when a bot program is actually a trojan horse or a gold farming company starts stealing credit cards. To start off, my apologies to this disenfranchised man. Secondly: I don’t believe in warning potential cheaters that their service of choice may be even less legitimate than thought.

Let’s break that down, shall we? To use the term “illegitimate gold farmer” implies that there are legitimate gold farmers, which would only apply if the developer sold the gold/items or authorized players to do so. No, I’m not going to make the baseless claim that all gold farmers are identity thieves, but to call the business legitimate is about as disingenuous as you can get. Rather, I see the system as knowing the risks. You buy gold knowing full well the potential consequences if this person turns out to be an actual criminal. To give an outside comparison, this is akin to the people who buy laptops off of truck beds in parking lots and then find out the box is full of rocks.

So I don’t write warnings about criminal cheat websites for a few reasons, but I do write articles like this one warning the unwary (however few of you might exist) that gold farming outfits are indeed shady business that has become a haven for identity theft. This way, when the time comes that your Runescape account is cleaned out and Jagex bans you for buying powerleveling services, you might not write to me and ask me to warn other people about an illegitimate service turning out to be a scam.