Author: Admin

Hulkageddon 4 Kicks Off In Eve Online


Hulkamania

Eve Online is a persistent world MMO where, short of exploiting bugs, a moral code is virtually nonexistent. Eve’s history has uncovered major ponzi schemes, illicit banks, corporate espionage on an enormous level, and more. The phrase to live by in Eve Online is “it may not be ethical, but it isn’t against the rules.” For some players, however, Eve Online is just a little too safe for AFK-miners and resource gatherers who sit in high security space. Thus, several years ago, Hulkageddon was born.

Hulkageddon is an event where players are encouraged to suicide-gank as many miners and gatherers in high-security space as possible, with points assigned to the best individual players and corporations that take part. Points are alloted based on several variables, including what type of ship was killed. This year, however, the victims are not just miners. As posted on the “about” page:

Since merely blowing up mining vessels is fun, this time around we are broadening the target spread to generate more tears of dismay! In Hulkageddon 4 all mining vessels, orcas, freighters, haulers, noctis and primae count towards your score! Yes, you read that right, all the vessels mentioned there count for the main prize. In addition to that some vessels have their own achievements linked to them, check the prizes page for all the details!

There are a ton of prizes in categories from most kills, to first kill, kills in certain regions, most expensive kills, and best hatemail generated. Yep, if you can manage to devolve your victim into the virtual equivalent of a child screaming in the WalMart parking lot, you can win wonderful prizes (Eve Online prizes).

I’m expecting to take some of the flak for supporting Hulkageddon from miners and “carebears” who attribute the enjoyment of this event to both the lack of a female partner of the opposite sex, as well as inadequacy in the groinal region. That being said, Hulkageddon is a reminder that Eve Online is first and foremost a PvP game where players team up or work solo to make their way up to the top, with success built on the dead bodies and ships of other players who stood in their way, or just were present at the wrong time. Crude? Yes, but Eve Online fills its spot, and a big spot at that with over three hundred thousand subscribers.

You can find the killboard here, and Hulkageddon’s website here. The event runs from February 19th to the 28th.

Xsyon Last Minute Delays


Word to your delays...

You may recall that Xsyon, the sandbox MMO from Notorious Games, was pushed back from its original May 2010 release date to August 2010, and then to a nonspecific date in early 2011. Earlier this year, a confirmed date of March 1st was announced, with the prelude going live two weeks before. As Notorious Games was gearing up for its final character wipe before prelude, however, last minute hardware and database issues arose, causing the servers to lag so badly that the game was nonfunctional for the night. After deliberation, it was decided that the launch would be pushed back, with the “official launch” pushed back to March 15th. The final wipe and prelude launch is, as of yet, undetermined, but according to NG’s Virtus, should occur before March 1st.

The server issues can be attributed to a sudden and unforeseen explosion in Xsyon preorders in the two days leading up to the original prelude launch, those server issues in turn contributing to the database errors. Players are, understandably, perturbed by the announcement of yet another wipe, as the initial launch had tribes competing against each other, not to mention unplayable conditions, fifteen minute delays in action, consistent server rollbacks, and other glitches, in order to lay down claim of territory in the game’s map. Although Notorious Games has promised that they will do everything in their power to restore Tribe territory, they may be unable to leading to another rush for land when the game launches a second time.

More on Xsyon as it appears.

GamersFirst Show: Episode 1


There is something to be said about this video from GamersFirst. If I had a nickel for every time I didn’t laugh during this show, I’d put those nickels in a sock, give that sock to Hal Sparks, and sit idly as he uses it to beat Jonenee Merriex for yet another spin-off of Talk Soup, minus the funny.

Xsyon Prelude Is Coming Today


Word to your delays...

Those of you who follow indie-MMOs may remember that Xsyon was supposed to launch back in 2010, around March in fact, but the title was delayed by around a year because of the need for more content. Since then, the game has received a lot more publicity, a substantially (albeit understandably still small) increased following, and a whole host of new features, tweaks, and content.

While the full game is set to go live on March 1st, players who preordered will have access beginning today when the servers go back up at around 6pm Eastern. The Prelude event, as it is called, is the beginning of players starting new civilization, following an apocalypse that wipes out most life on earth. Players are tasked with forming tribes (and homesteads for solo players) to rebuild, using their skills in everything from basket weaving to tool crafting in order to make life even a little easier. Tribal territory is where players will converge, and offer quests and solace from the harsh world.

Xsyon is an open world sandbox game with a heavy focus on crafting and evolution. Although the game has free for all PvP, that mechanic is less featured than in titles like Mortal Online and Darkfall, with heavier disincentives for gankers and griefers. As the game progresses, the poisonous “green mist” that surrounds the starting lands will open up, allowing access to new areas and new technologies. So players starting out with guns now may find down the game’s development road that guns are available.

More on Xsyon as it appears. You can read up more at http://xsyon.com/

Final Fantasy XIV: Physical Levels Being Removed?


Final Fantasy XIV bots.

Final Fantasy XIV is an odd bucket. For starters, I love the game, but I often find myself wishing Square would stop phoning me up at 3am, drunk, weeping and apologizing for issues I already know it is fixing. Since Final Fantasy XIV launched, cradled, and promptly slaughtered a flock of geese in its turbine engines, Square has been on the job to fix and tune the game to the liking of its community. The community, despite what one might have expected, has been quite helpful, if anything for the joy of having a free MMO to play that isn’t a Korean grinder (but a Japanese grinder!)

Taking a peek at the lodestone on Final Fantasy’s website reveals a massive list of updates that are currently in the works, from small tweaks to major adjustments. Recently new objectives have been added to the list, from new loot in battle, to balancing the synthesis system. Here are just a few new additions:

  • Instanced PvE content.
  • Auto-MP regeneration.
  • An auto-attack system.
  • Making certain NPCs more visible.

There are a lot of other features in the planning and production stages that are simply aesthetic, including the addition of more graphical “rewards” for ranking up. One question on the poll that caught my attention was whether or not players would prefer to remove the physical level altogether, with a focus being placed on each individual rank. An implication of this, as noted in the poll, is that players would craft and receive gear that relied on skill rank to wear. Another feature receiving a heavy-handed look in the poll was the attribute system, meaning a major overhaul could be in the future for that system as well.

You can check out the rest of the lodestone here. More on Final Fantasy XIV as it appears.

Champions Online: 1,000% More Money


Atari, and by extension Cryptic

By now this type of news shouldn’t be too surprising, and I doubt anyone expected to see a headline: “Cryptic announces major loss in revenue after move to free to play.” As Turbine, Sony, and more have proven before us, the seeming majority who bash everything with a free option and a cash shop ultimately turn up as a very vocal, very tiny minority. There are, of course, those who will claim that Champions Online will have died without making the switch, and they are probably correct in that assessment.

However, if Cryptic Studios is going anywhere now, they’re going to the bank. According to Cryptic, the number of unique logins, concurrent players, and revenue have spiked over 1,000% since the game went free last month. To celebrate, Cryptic is placing a one-hour xp boost in the Cryptic Store for free, limited one per account. If you’re jonesing for some quick cash, the item is apparently tradeable, so save it and see if someone will buy it for a good amount of in-game money.

Having Champions Online free to play will be an interesting move in the months/year to come, as this means more competition for City of Heroes and DC Universe. Will the competition have to adapt to survive? Will Iron Man have to face his one true fear in order to defeat his nemesis? Find out all this and more! On the next issue of Amazing Issues of Amazing Amazements!

Since it had to be asked: Does Bill Roper regret leaving Cryptic now? Someone just missed a fat bonus check.

Everquest: Second Progression Server Tomorrow


Flippy Longstockings

A few days ago, I wrote about how Sony was reactivating inactive Everquest accounts until the 21st of the month in lieu of the time locked progression server, the aptly named Fippy Darkpaw, renowned for his ability to run headlong into guards far higher than his own level, assuredly the first Leroy Jenkins before Leroy was Leroy. As it also stands, I also happen to be a moron, as not only did I manage to misspell “Fippy Darkpaw” in the past two articles, I did it about twenty times, especially given the 490×392 screenshot that sat at the head of the article each time. I am, at this present time, writing this article from inside of The Chokey, where I have to admit my iPad is receiving terrible wifi reception.

Those of you who have experienced Sony’s progression servers in the past will no doubt be sarcastically aghast to learn that the server has attracted so much attention that it has been at maximum capacity since launch. Due to the overwhelming demand for the new server, Fippy Darkpaw (got it!), Sony announced today that a second server is being created, to launch tomorrow (the 16th), if sooner. The server will be named Vulak’Aerr, after the Draconic Lord.

Players wishing to get on Fippy Darkpaw are better off waiting for Vulak’Aerr. The server is at maximum capacity at all hours.

Update: The Vulak’Aerr server is live.

Perpetuum Online: Insurance Fraud Ahoy!


Prepare for unforeseen consequences...

Exploits in a sandbox MMO almost always follow the same progression of events. Exploit is discovered, run into the ground, and is eventually fixed with the developers either removing the ill-gotten gains or banning the more explicit offenders. The forums are then awash with a combination of two types of players; those who used the exploit and those who either wanted to use the exploit and didn’t have the cajones to risk their account getting banned, or didn’t hear about the exploit until it was too late. Those who did get caught and either had their gains removed or were outright banned, never seem to take blame for their actions, and the issue of “it was clearly intended,” sprouts up.

Perpetuum Online is not unlike Eve Online on the ground, with mechs, and inevitably the same issues that spring up in Eve will show up in Perpetuum. In this case, the same insurance fraud scheme that hit Eve has just been patched in Perpetuum, and players are taking to the (virtual) streets to pretty much remove any doubt that they are unapologetic cheaters.

In Perpetuum, players can insure their mechs, for a return if the mech is destroyed. The reimbursement is based off of market prices over two weeks, making the system more difficult to game. However, lesser traded mechs can be manipulated to higher prices, to a point where a player can make a profit by building a robot and blowing it up as it exits the manufacturing facility. The exploit has been patched up and the devs responded by removing all of the ill-gotten money from the economy.

Of course, it probably isn’t in their best interest to give the go ahead on exploiting this system, and then expecting less of an uproar when they change pace and retroactively apply the new rule. As for the players, don’t expect much sympathy when what you were doing, albeit within the rules at the time, was as ethically dubious as insurance fraud.

Aventurine Has Regained Investments On Darkfall


Money money money!

For many companies, regaining the insane investment that MMOs require can often take a game plan of around five years, which is why MMO Fallout specifically designed its patented (not really) longevity test around the five year period. For Aventurine, however, this has taken approximately two years. In an interview with Greek TV (fair warning: It’s in Greek), Tasos Flambouras noted that the company has already seen a return on all of its investments, meaning the profits should be higher in the year to come without all that debt to pay off.

“More and more young Greek scientists conquer their ideas to the international market. Typical is the case of the initiators of the electronic game «Dark Fall», which was created in Greece before 2 years and rampant around the world with more than 100,000 users in over 150 countries and big profits for their creators.”

You’ll have to excuse the poor translation. 100,000 users? And people think Darkfall is a failed MMO.

Frogster: Misleading, Possibly Fraudulent Facebook Ads


The Blokes At ROM

I was going about my daily Facebook activities (posting creepy Woody pictures), and lo and behold, I came across the following ad:

You’ll notice that this ad links to “secure.jagex.com,” and I quite honestly expected that this was either A.) a scam ad that managed to get through, or B.) Jagex was advertising on Facebook, which I don’t believe that they do (with my activities, I’ve seen almost every MMO developer that advertises on Facebook). So naturally I clicked on the ad, and was taken here


Really? Runes of Magic? Take one more look at the URL in the Facebook ad. “secure.jagex.com.” The screenshot in the ad appears to be from Runes of Magic, but someone who has never played either game wouldn’t know that. The ad does do a good job of tip-toeing around, but outright claims to be Jagex by inserting a false link to Jagex.com. This isn’t parody like Global Agenda’s ads or Rift’s “We’re not in Azeroth anymore.” This ad is explicitly misleading people into believing they are viewing an ad for a Jagex product, when really they are being directed to Runes of Magic.

Facebook is already aware of the fraudulent ad, and information has been forwarded to Jagex’s legal department. If this is a third party ad agency, Frogster needs to drop them before they wind up on the receiving end of a false advertising (and likely fraud) lawsuit. If this is Frogster’s doing, someone in the advertising office should be getting his pink slip, yesterday.

More on this story as it progresses.