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TERA: No Stinking IP Blocks!

tera-europe — We must bring the fight against TERA.

A few months ago, we talked about area restrictions in MMOs, as a few select incidents brought up questions of legality and responsibility on the part of the publisher. Due to legal agreements, the publisher for an MMO in North America cannot allow players from Europe if another company has publishing rights in that region, otherwise they risk negating their agreement. In cases such as Aika Online, the two companies may come to an agreement allowing existing players to continue using their accounts, while more controversial incidents resulted in players being blocked with no reimbursement even after they had paid sums of money in the cash shop.

Luckily for players of TERA, the community manager Scapes has revealed that players will not be region restricted, although they will have to purchase the correct client. In short: A player from Europe will be able to purchase a North American client, and play on the servers, and vice versa.

Our goal is to give players the choice as to which server they are going to discover the world of TERA. In a time that players are becoming more connected around the world, we believe that IP blocking has no place in a world class Action MMO. Note that accounts created with one publisher will not be able to access the other publisher’s servers. Additionally, player data such as characters or progression will not be shared or transferrable between different publishers’ servers.

So there you have it. Find a server and stick with it.

The Chronicles of Spellborn: What Happened?

Chronicles of Spellborn can be summarized by comparing it to a kid explaining his idea for a video game.

“It’s gonna be awesome! There’s gonna be first person targeting, a bajillion quests to go on with only three classes to choose from but they’re gonna have their own subclasses to branch things out a bit. There’ll be no grind too, and more backstory than you can shake a stick at, and we’re talking a pretty big stick too. It’ll be set in a post-apocalypse environment, and there’ll be explosions and crazy quest series that will allow the player to take control of important people and beat up some bad guys!”

So my above rendition may make Spellborn sound like a bad game, which it isn’t by any means. Chronicles of Spellborn is one of those games that shows up and has the potential to innovate the industry, or at least a small portion of it. The story was detailed and in-depth, the quests were the main staple of the series, and numerous at that, and there was plenty of activity for all varieties of players.

And then Spellborn Works went bankrupt. You can make the best game in the world, but unfortunately without cash the game will shut down. Spellborn Works went bankrupt very shortly after Chronicles of Spellborn launched in North America in 2009 (The game had been running in the UK since the prior November). The game was siphoned by then-publisher Acclaim Games, who announced that they would be performing a massive upgrade to the title, turning it into a free to play cash shop game to be re-released at some point in 2010. Until then, however, Spellborn Live would receive no attention in the form of patches or updates.

Earlier this year, Spellborn’s Asia publisher Frogster announced that they would be shutting down the title. Over in the west, things became less and less hopeful as the months went on. The client on the website stopped working, resulting in the community hosting its own client and patches in order to get new players interested in the game.

Of course, progress without money is no progress at all, and Acclaim went bust shutting down everything. Chronicles of Spellborn was sold to Playdom, who announced that the game would be shutting down.

If anything, Chronicles of Spellborn is a perfect example of a good title that was marred by bad luck with its hosting companies. Due to the bankruptcy of its original developers, Spellborn never saw the attention and maintenance it deserved, and as a result ended up spending over a year on life support being transferred from company to company before finally being shut down.

Biting The Hand That Once Fed You: Realtime Worlds Edition

“APB itself only really came together technically relatively late in its development cycle (and it still obviously has problems), leaving too little time for content production and polish, and lacking any real quality in some of its core mechanics (shooting / driving). It’s not that the team was unaware of these huge issues, but a million little things conspire to prevent you from being able to do anything about them.”
-Anonymous Realtime Worlds ex-employee

Thanks to the wonders of the internet and anonymity, when a company lays off a whole lot of people, we have the avenue for them to anonymously reveal exactly what was going on at said company that lead to said layoffs. The above anonymous ex-employee makes a lot of good points as to why All Points Bulletin performed the way it did in the market, most importantly below:

“They also failed spectacularly to manage expectations. When Dave J spoke out saying there would ‘not be a standard subscription model’, he unwittingly set expectations at ‘free to play’. When it’s announced that we’re essentially pay-per-hour, we get absolutely killed in the press, somewhat understandably.”

Luke Halliwell is not, on the other hand, afraid of sticking his name and face out to give his grief about Realtime Worlds. In his blog, he notes:

There had been mounting discontent internally about the competence of our top management – and what better proof could you need than this. How they could keep operating the company when they couldn’t even pay this month’s wages, I don’t know. Presumably they continued to think we had a chance somehow; the behaviour of a deluded, greedy, addicted gambler.

His wife, Lucy, who posted in the comment section was not as restrained, especially when the subject comes to feeding their family and owed wages:

“Dave Jones and Ian Hetherington have pissed away millions, they are getting away with not paying over 200 employees for the work that they have done and have fiddled their way to being able to buy back Project:MyWorld for cheap. Moreover these very people have enough personal wealth to pay the money owed to the individuals and families whose lives they have left shattered, heck Dave could probably pay them all just by selling one of his beloved cars. So I’m more than a little pissed off, but mothers get like that when their kids are hurting.”

We here at MMO Fallout (me) wish the best for everyone at Realtime Worlds, as well as their ex employees. More on APB as it appears.

Absolutely Brilliant! Episode #1: Final Fantasy XIV

brilliant_medium — I'm legally required to remind you to game responsibly.

Here at MMO Fallout, I try to offer my help to companies more in the form of business decisions, rather than what I might feel that the game needs. I only play a handful of MMOs, and honestly am not the best person to go to in order to find out what your game needs tweaking. Sure, I know that All Points Bulletin needs better shooting and driving, and I know that Blizzard needs to severely crack down on mobile authenticators being used as a free way to manipulate stolen accounts, but I couldn’t tell you how the latest expansion affected drop rates in Lineage 2, or how players in Guild Wars might react if a certain update was implemented.

Absolutely Brilliant! is a new category devoted to people clearly smarter than myself. In this section, I highlight ideas that, even if the company the game is directed at won’t take notice, other companies with similar models could definitely benefit from grabbing up this person’s idea.

Final Fantasy XIV goes into open beta soon, and the closed beta members are throwing suggestions left and right. Our first idea comes from MMORPG.com user ProfRed, who has an idea to make the market system a lot more streamlined. Seeing as how Square Enix is not gracing Final Fantasy XIV with an auction house (at least not for now), players are trying to find new ways to make the retainer system (a character who sits in market areas selling your items for you) as easy to use as possible. Rather than just a simple search engine, ProfRed (or The Professor, as I’ve taken to calling him) suggested:

“They simply need to add a way to browse items in one of the market wards. Say search for an item and it lists what market wards it exists in. Not even prices just where. Something akin to standing at the entrance and yelling, “I NEED A PINK MAGE HAT OF DOOM”, and vendors yelling back, “GET IT HERE!!!”.

Personal trade/merchanting is a great thing. I am sick of MMO’s making everything easy mode and catering to the anti social.”

Having a system like this would be a little shaky at the start, having to type the name of the item out exactly, but if Square Enix would implement this, such a system would do wonders more than some of the other suggestions (holding up signs, descriptions above names, etc), be less cumbersome if only the player speaking could see the feedback, and would remove the prospect of walking through a thousand retainers looking for your pink mage hat of doom, the idea of which sends me back to my years of playing games like ROSE Online, and the myriad of other free Korean games, most of which featured some form of private shop.

So that’s episode 1 of Absolutely Brilliant! For the record, I won’t be accepting direct submissions by email to this category, but if you see someone’s idea on a forum feel free to link me to it, either here or through my email. Special thanks to ProfRed, and all of the people who will eventually spite me for indirectly associating them with this webiste.

All Points Bulletin: 130,000 Players

Despite Realtime Worlds going into administration and laying off a huge number of people, all is not bad at the RTW kiosk. According to the new administration, offers to invest are coming in from “both sides of the atlantic,” and prospects are high for those remaining at Realtime Worlds, including the employees who were rehired as part of the MyWorld team.

Realtime Worlds announced today that All Points Bulletin has 130,000 players averaging about four hours of game time a day.

“These are healthy numbers and reflect positively on APB as a ongoing concern. They prove this is a very enjoyable game, which is shown by the average player daily playtime and an ARPPU (Average Revenue per Paying User) that is highest of any game out there”

Whatever you say, Joint Administrator Paul Dounis. If enough of those who are playing are horking up extra cash in the form of RTW-bux, then Realtime Worlds should be all set, and perhaps hire back what employees Codemasters, Sony, and Blitz haven’t vultured from the Arizona desert?

Atari Vs Turbine: The Aftermath

For people like me, lawsuits are a swing and a miss, mainly because after all of the legal jargon, reading long court documents to figure out what is happening, and trying to get both sides to speak on the case, there comes the inevitable deal breaker: The settlement. A settlement, often out of court, is generally always secret, none of the agreements are released to the public and neither side can talk about who was wrong on what accord.

So you’ll have to accept my apologies when I tell you I was well aware that the Turbine/Atari lawsuit ended, not only that but it ended four months ago, around the time Turbine was acquired by Warner Brothers. The major changes? Not much to speak of, aside from Turbine reacquiring their publishing rights in Europe, although this could be a decision under the new ownership.

The lawsuit went out with a fizzle and not a bang, and it’s anyone’s guess who won, if there is a “winner.” I’m removing the lawsuit category at the end of the month, as it will no longer be needed.

A Little Something To Remember Me By

The Chronicles of Spellborn closes down shop on the 25th, and many of you likely know me as a pretty nostalgic guy. So I got a package in the mail today I think a few of you will like.

Granted, I don’t have any place to put this game. The package it came in was basically a mail sleeve envelope. Luckily, I know just the place Chronicles of Spellborn can go where it will be loved and cherished forever.

Right here in the old nostalgia shelf. I could go for a good read.

No, not that one, although most of those are from 2003-2004.

That’s the one I’m looking for!

Good reading. Good reading indeed.

en pace requiescat, Chronicles of Spellborn.

Cryptic: Yea, It’s Dungeons And Dragons Online

screenshot_2010-01-12-13-04-14 — Set battle axe to decapitate...

It didn’t take long to figure out that Cryptic was working on a third MMO, what with both Cryptic and Atari dancing around giggling like little girls and shouting “I know something you don’t know” in a sing song voice, all the while Turbine shouting in the litigation background, “THEY’RE WORKING ON A NEVERWINTER NIGHTS MMO!” At Gencon, Atari boosted rumors by claiming that they were working on a D&D game, and began buying up Neverwinter Nights domains like they were going out of style (they did, several years ago).

So Gamespot announced today an exclusive interview revealing that Cryptic is indeed working on a Dungeons and Dragons title set in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, but it is not an MMO. Instead, Cryptic are creating a cooperative online game (Ala Guild Wars?) that focuses on group play and works by players connecting and playing sessions, much like the role playing version. Players will be able to solo, not to mention create their own content and storylines.

You can read the entire interview and information page on the link, but it appears Cryptic wants to stress that this is an OMG (Online Multiplayer Game) rather than a full fledged MMO. Surely, more details to come.

Cryptic: Yea, It's Dungeons And Dragons Online

Nerdgate 2010: Lineage II Is Just That Good

1212500952-lineage3_11 — Three Times The Addictive!

When I wrote my “I Can’t Do This Alone” article, I put a lot of emotion into my disgust with the stereotype that MMOers still have in today’s society, of which I don’t think I need to remind you. Every once in a while, however, someone goes and ruins the image for the rest of us, resetting those stereotypes and putting us back a good year or so in progress.

Lineage II is a great money maker for NCsoft, and according to my profit rundown on the company earlier this year, Lineage II is NCsoft’s #3 game worldwide in terms of sales, with both in the Lineage lineage still going strong despite their increasingly old age. But, much like the “dangerously cheesy” Cheetos, could Lineage II be so good that it strips the life away from a normal person? Of course not, don’t be stupid.

News is hitting the stands today of a Craig Smallwood, who is suing NCsoft for making Lineage II too good, causing him to become addicted. According to the lawsuit, Smallwood alleges that he spent so much time on Lineage II that he became “unable to function independently in usual daily activities such as getting up, getting dressed, bathing or communicating with family and friends.”

So where is NCsoft at fault? NCsoft “acted negligently in failing to warn or instruct or adequately warn or instruct plaintiff and other players of Lineage II of its dangerous and defective characteristics, and of the safe and proper method of using the game.” Also, according to the lawsuit, Smallwood is claiming that his addiction left him with emotional distress, put him in the hospital for three weeks, and required a regimen of therapy. This is after five years of playing for roughly ten hours a day.

Smallwood is asking for $3 million USD.

Personally, I don’t see where the news story is, but someone asked me to write up about this. Rolling the story down to its basics, and what you end up with is a person with an addictive personality becoming addicted to something. This is really no different than a compulsive gambler or drinker. This addict, however, chose not to take responsibility for his addiction, and instead chose to make a quick grab for cash from the company that provide(d) the product for him.

Another note to think about: Smallwood was banned from Lineage II for real money trading, and my personal belief is that his lawsuit is in retaliation either because he bought gold and was caught, or he’s been running a gold farming troupe with his three accounts and got caught. Smallwood alleges that the ban was to “force” him to play Aion.

So: Before you or anyone you know treats this as “some nerd,” just remind yourself that Craig Smallwood is either an addict or an estranged gold seller/buyer, just one that happens to be able to afford a lawyer. And to the regular news media who will eventually pick this up, and maybe see this page: Us real nerds don’t associate with Smallwood, please don’t build a bridge where a bridge is not needed.

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