I am happy to announce that, beginning tomorrow, MMO Fallout will be renamed Goats Day Out and will only cover the upcoming godsend to the industry also known as Goat Simulator. If you haven’t had a chance to offer up 10% of your paycheck and assorted organs to Goat Simulator, check it out on Steam later this spring.
Today’s MMOrning Shot comes from The Secret World. While going through missions that I had passed up, I once again found myself in the Innsmouth Academy. Now, I get the whole idea of blood splattered people adding to the horror element, but it wasn’t until a mission had me head upstairs to grab a file off of the Headmaster’s desk that I realized how disgusting this trio must smell, hiding in that office for all this time. Add to that the experiments in vaporizing familiars, and that wing of the school must smell like a combination of burnt flesh, stale blood, and body odor. And you know that girl doesn’t have access to a shower or change of clothing. My poor avatar.
The Secret World doesn’t need more weapon vendors, it needs an Old Spice and hand sanitizer salesman.
January was a pretty eventful month, all things considered. With February ahead of us, let’s take a look at a few highlights of the month.
1. Sony Online Entertainment
It’s been a big month for Sony Online Entertainment, hasn’t it? January started off with Sony announcing, and then very quickly ending, changes to All Access that would remove the 500 station cash stipend given to players each month in return for one purchase of up to 2,000 station cash. In the end players will still receive their cash, although they have to log in to claim it. In addition, SOE announced that all of their games would be unified under a single $15 all access pass. If you are subscribed to one game, you are subscribed to all of them. Unless of course, you play Vanguard.
The month wasn’t all bad for SOE, however. John Smedley hinted at an MMO that Star Wars Galaxies fans could come home to, Planetside 2 continued its updates, and the alpha for Everquest Next Landmark launched in technically January, the best kind of January.
2. Licensing
Star Wars Galaxies taught us that hell has no wrath like a license holder. With a multitude of games disappearing from store shelves thanks to the expiration of licenses, we learned that Marvel Heroes has Marvel’s blessing for at least the next ten years. Turbine later announced that Lord of the Rings Online is safe until 2017 at the earliest. We already know that EA Games has the Star Wars license for the next ten years.
3. Smattering of Shutdowns
Archlord shut down its global server at the beginning of the month, followed by an announcement that servers in Korea would subsequently be shut down in February. According to our friends at MMO Culture, the sequel Archlord II hasn’t seen much of a response from players, with servers merging already in open beta. Next of course we have the announcement that Sony Online Entertainment is shutting down four games from its library, citing lack of profitability and, in the case of Vanguard, terminal technical issues.
January also saw the sunsetting of other MMOs, including Dynasty Warriors Online and the Playstation 3 shooter Massive Action Game. MAG, for those interested, can still be purchased used at Gamestop for $.99, just be aware that you are buying a coaster.
4. LFG 10-Man Funcom Raid
Do I need to reference this? It’s still on page one. Funcom’s offices were raided by the economic crimes unit whose name I won’t try to pronounce here. The developer is being charged with negligent bookkeeping and breaching disclosure requirements in regards to the launch of The Secret World. Funcom later commented to Massively to state that while the investigation goes on, the company is running as usual.
Funcom has been delisted from the stock exchange for the time being.
5. The Exclusive Scrolls
And lastly we have the reveal of the Elder Scrolls Online preorder package. Zenimax unveiling of the two editions has drawn controversy over the developer’s decision to offer the Imperial race as a collector’s edition exclusive. Additionally, players have also drawn criticism to the pack of bonuses included as a preorder exclusive, allowing players to create a character on any faction, regardless of their choice of race.
I feel that this controversy is equally about selling an “exclusive” race as it is about Zenimax going back on some previously strongly held beliefs about the Imperials not being playable as well as the faction pride that required race locks.
Sony Online Entertainment is set to launch the alpha for Everquest Next Landmark later today. Given the increasing reliance on early access purchases and your average gamer’s habit of buying an alpha stage game and then being stricken with buyer’s remorse because it isn’t a finished product, SOE is offering a full refund for anyone not satisfied with the alpha. As John Smedley stated on Twitter:
We will offer a full refund to anyone not satisfied with the Alpha. It’s not confidence. It’s being honest about the fact that Alpha’s aren’t for everyone. Plus we don’t know the kind of problems we expect to see. Things like running it out of North America now. I don’t want any EU players feeling like they got screwed if the streaming has hiccups at first. We just don’t know what we don’t know yet.
It’s actually nice to see a company respond to early buyers with something other than “you should have known what you’re getting into.” Hopefully this quality guarantee will be adopted by other companies, but that is unlikely.
(Source: Twitter)
Fundamentally changing an MMO’s combat system post-launch is a daunting and risky task. As much as there is the opportunity to bring in new customers and reinvigorate the old, a game also stands to alienate its existing user base. Like it or not, people are generally averse to change, especially when it comes in one lump sum and after the previous system had been in place for so long. RuneScape’s Evolution of Combat radically changed the way players engage in combat, and not everyone was happy about the increased demand for attention.
Since its launch, Jagex has been rolling back certain features and making accommodations to appease fans of the older system. The Momentum ability was introduced and automates much of the new combat system without requiring a whole lot more input from the player than the old system asked for. Old School servers brought back RuneScape as it was in 2007 and then subsequently updated in a different direction to the main game. Momentum is useful for most aspects aside from the powerful bosses, but continues to be tweaked over time.
In a recent news post, Jagex revealed that the weapon-specific specials would be reintroduced as abilities to bring back value to weapons that had lost value since the update. This week Jagex added a new poll asking players if they would like to see a legacy mode, bringing back the old combat system and interface. The legacy mode would not replace Evolution of Combat, the two would exist side by side.
Turning on Legacy Mode will change your gameplay to be like the old combat system, circa 2012. This includes things like special attacks, no action bar, no abilities and type-to-chat. It will have the old interface layout, with combat info and buttons around the mini map, with the old side-panels in the lower right, plus an option for the old fixed-window interface layout.
At the time that this article is published, the legacy poll leans heavily toward implementation. The goal is to have both versions working on the same servers with players able to fight each other between modes, but not everything is set in stone. Should legacy mode be voted in, which is all but confirmed based on the poll results so far, players will have the opportunity to beta test the feature and tweak it to their enjoyment.
Jagex, for their part, has said that legacy mode is a way for them to open up their game to a wider base, including those who quit due to Evolution of Combat. The company stands by its previous statement that Evolution of Combat is not up for vote and players will not be given the option to remove it entirely.
(Source: Legacy FAQ)
Today’s MMOrning Shots comes to us from Defiance. I didn’t fully understand why the Volge were constantly attacking E-Rep camps until I came across the above area and realized that they are trying to steal our anti-gravity technology. The hovering truck is one thing, but I’m not sure what the point of the levitating garbage can or sandbags is.
MMOrning Shots shows off interesting games and locales, and can be seen here at MMO Fallout every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. To submit your own MMOrning Shot, send an email to contact@mmofallout.com.
Today’s MMOrning Shot comes to us from RuneScape. I took this screenshot during the quest Blood Runs Deep, where you uncover a plot by the race of sea creatures pictured above to take over the world (or at least a sizable portion of it). Upon returning to the port village of Keldagrim, you find its militia locked in battle. What follows is a very long and drawn out fight.
MMOrning Shots shows off interesting games and locales, and can be seen here at MMO Fallout every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. To submit your own MMOrning Shot, send an email to contact@mmofallout.com.
Following the announcement that four of Sony Online Entertainment’s MMOs would be shutting down, John Smedley went on Reddit to take part in an Ask Me Anything with the community. While this is nowhere near all of the answers, I’ve put together some significant comments for your easy viewing. First of all, the shuttering of Free Realms and Clone Wars is SOE quitting the field of kids games.
No. No more kids games. Kids don’t spend well and it’s very difficult to run a kids game. Turns out Kids do mean stuff to each other a lot.
Did Sony learn anything from the poor performance of Wizardry Online? Somewhat.
The main thing we learned was that this particular game didn’t work in the US. I wouldn’t draw any conclusions other than that.
Next, Smedley offers a glimpse at their next game. Something to please Galaxies players.
SWG PLAYERS – OUR NEXT GAME (not announced yet) IS DEDICATED TO YOU. Once we launch it… you can come home now.
As for what this game is..
It’s called “go figure it out for yourself” 🙂
As usual, Smedley once again apologized for Star Wars Galaxies, talked about how Vanguard cannot be sold due to business reasons, and more. Check out the entire AMA at the link below.
(Source: Reddit)
Today’s MMOrning Shot comes to us from Guild Wars 2 and ArenaNet, to show off the Origins of Madness update that will already be live by the time this article goes up. The first update of 2014, Origins of Madness will task players with taking on Scarlet Briar, arch-villain of the game.
MMOrning Shots shows off interesting games and locales, and can be seen here at MMO Fallout every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. To submit your own MMOrning Shot, send an email to contact@mmofallout.com.
Super Data Research is a group that provides market intelligence in the online, digital, and mobile games industry. The numbers for 2013 have been released, detailing the estimated sales for mobile, free to play, and subscription based titles. Free to play was dominated by Crossfire and League of Legends, bringing in a combination of nearly $1.6 billion.
Social games dropped 21% over last year, with the US hitting an average of $50 per paying user spent. Free to play games brought in $2.8 billion, an increase in total revenue despite a decrease in monthly active user count. Pay to play, on the other hand, brought in $1.1 billion in 2013, down nearly 20% from 2012.
Unsurprisingly, the top free to play earnings chart was dominated by the usual titles: World of Tanks, League of Legends, Lineage, World of Warcraft, The Old Republic, and Crossfire.
(Source: Super Data Research)
MMO Fallout 