Editorials – Page 129

Missing Worlds Media Kickstarter Coming September 8th

City of Heroes is one of those games that the phrase “nothing like it on the market” was designed for. When NCSoft closed down Paragon Studios and shut down City of Heroes, its community was left with essentially two choices of super hero MMOs: Champions Online and DC Universe. While Champions Online has a pretty robust character creator reminiscent of City of Heroes, the two games play differently enough to advertise to separate bases. DC Universe, on the other hand, is first and foremost an action beat-em-up and neither game (naturally) deals with the Champions IP.

One of the spiritual sequels to City of Heroes, known as The Phoenix Project and in development by Missing Worlds Media, is currently about one quarter to one third complete, according to the developers. The game is being developed mainly by volunteers with day jobs and students, a product of love and nostalgia for a time that existed not all that long ago. According to a post on Polygon, Missing Worlds Media even managed to get Epic to license the Unreal engine for free on the grounds that they would be paid at a later date once the money started coming in.

So what brings The Phoenix Project to our headlines once again? As I mentioned in a previous article, Missing Worlds Media is launching a Kickstarter to fund The Phoenix Project, and we now have a date: September 8th. Assuming that the game is properly funded, we can expect to see its release sometime in late 2015. How much will Missing Worlds Media be asking for? This is a comic book story, you’re going to have to wait until at least Issue #5 to find that out.

(Source: Polygon)

MMOments: League of Incredibly Awkward Gentlemen

Today’s MMOments comes from Champions Online and may be the creepiest interactive moment I have ever experienced in an MMO since I stumbled on a GM cybering in Age of Conan. I recently started playing Champions Online again, creating a new character since I’m using the Perfect World account that managed to get a beta invite to Neverwinter and there are no characters on it. Since Cryptic has seen fit to set up a new studio with the sole purpose of fixing Champions Online, I figured why not? Now I know why not.

Champions Online has a habit of sneaking missions on you, and occasionally you’ll be walking around and an NPC will come up and invite you to start a quest. So when the game threw a popup on the screen asking if I would like to accept an invitation to the fortress of something or other, I hit accept thinking nothing of it. The map loads and my hero is standing at the door in this low-lit mission control room with a table in the center and the adjoining chairs all filled with darkly lit figures. One of the figures says “please, have a seat.” You have to look at this with the understanding that it was so well choreographed that this is one of those rare moments in gaming where you’re not entirely sure if the person you’re speaking to is a hardcore role player or just a really atmospheric scripted event.

So I walk over to the table and have no idea how to sit down, so I just kind of stand at my seat. I can now see that the table is headed by Superman, Captain Marvel, Albert Wesker from Resident Evil, and two other heroes. The addition of licensed heroes/villains makes my brain tick “alright this is clearly just a roleplaying clan.” The Man of Steel continues his dialog about how we’ve all been gathered to join forces to stop a nearly invincible hero that is threatening to destroy the world, and the presentation of his speech and the stillness of the other “actors” has me once again thinking I might have stumbled into, say, someone’s foundry mission or something of the like. The only comparison I can think of is when you are dreaming and your mind realizes you are probably dreaming so you try to break your surroundings but you can’t so you’re stuck in a self-realized limbo.

This is the first time that I’ve ever exited out of a game because I felt too awkward to keep playing, and I will probably never know if those were real players or just scripted NPCs.

Black Gold's Chinese Model Makes Me Appreciate Pay To Win

Black Gold Online is innovative, like that time I rigged a pair of secateurs so I could use them to eat cereal and accidentally knocked out both of my front teeth. The game is being developed as something similar to, but not really, Guild Wars 2 with more point and click gameplay, and is being created by Snail Games who many of you will recognize from the equally unorthodox Age of Wushu. Where Black Gold Online hopes to innovate is in the lacking presence of both a cash shop and a subscription. Where does the income come from? I guess you could call it “pay to loot.”

According to a post on MMO Culture, a system called Black Gold Time will automatically lock loot received in a given time frame. After a few hours, some items will be locked and others will be put into the player’s inventory. For the sake of not being completely over the top, basic items will be immediately placed in the inventory. Players then have to pay for gold with cash which they can use to unlock and claim items that remain locked. You also have a chance of rolling the dice and receiving a discount or even free items.

I have something else to say about this, but I’ve decided to innovate MMO Fallout and lock it behind a paywall. Send $1 in unmarked bills to MMO Fallout (no address, the postman will know where to take it) for a key to unlock my opinion.

(Source: MMO Culture)

Black Gold’s Chinese Model Makes Me Appreciate Pay To Win

(Source: MMO Culture)

New Rule: Having It Both Ways

New Rule: If it is unfair for me as a writer to discuss your game because it is mid-beta and is therefore an unfinished product, you are not allowed as a developer to add that beta time to your final score when you are defending your company’s will to support their products. I don’t care if your game was in beta for eighteen months, if the game shuts down six months after launch then it will be considered having run for six months, not two years. The statement is bad PR all around because what you are essentially saying is that there was a period of time where you consider the game ripe for compliments but completely immune from criticism. It is like claiming you were in the lead for the first three hours in the Tour De France when really you just showed up early and the race hadn’t even started yet.

Now if you don’t mind, I have to head over to explain to my boss why the fact that not being scheduled or working shouldn’t stop those hours from being added to my payroll.

Gameforge Shutting Down RaiderZ Europe

As the MMO market continues its march towards heavy saturation, it is our duty at MMO Fallout to inform you whenever another title sees its services come to an end. Gameforge has announced that they will be shutting down all support for the action MMO RaiderZ in its hosted territories. As Gameforge is merely the European publisher for the MMO, the game will remain operational in North America and South Korea where the game is published by Perfect World Entertainment and Neowiz Games respectively.

The FAQ published by Gameforge notes that RaiderZ did not meet financial expectations:

The success of RaiderZ did not meet our expectations and as we saw no other potential alternatives to the discontinuation of the services, unfortunately we were left with no other alternative than to take this step.

Servers will remain online until August 30th after which players who still want a fix will have to move over to Perfect World or Neowiz.

(Source: Shutdown FAQ)

MMOrning Shots: RuneScape Three

Today’s MMOrning Shot is very timely, coinciding with the release of RuneScape 3. The screenshot above is technically from the HTML5 version which will not go live for another couple of months. In addition to a new music system and interface releasing today, players will also be taking part in the Battle For Lumbridge, a series of weekly events that promise to change the landscape of RuneScape forever. The update is scheduled to go live in approximately ten minutes from this writing, so grab your knapsack and a sword of destiny, and set forth.

Old School RuneScape: Nightmare Zone

The strangest part of talking about Old School RuneScape is the understanding that while this is technically RuneScape as it was back in September 2007, that the game is slowly moving in a direction away from both its original design and the actual progression of the main game. Features like the Nightmare Zone are particularly interested because the idea of fighting boss monsters from quests is something that has been requested in RuneScape for years, at least as long as I’ve been playing, so this will be one of the first additional pieces of content that will go into Old School RuneScape while still being completely ignored on the live game.

So Nightmare Zone is closer to completion and Jagex have been working out details on how to deal with creatures that require special items to creatures that almost require special items, NPCs that really only function properly in their own environments, etc. As a compromise, the game provides various items that are required but would not otherwise even be obtainable by the player, while other items are simply removed from the equation. Rewards are still being worked on, since the community shot down every single pitch in the related content poll.

(Source: Dev Blog)

When Aggressive Becomes Offensive

I want to discuss something that’s been on my mind for a while, and it revolves around MMOrning Shots: aggressive developers. As many of you already know, MMOrning Shots is a screenshot column primarily sourced from press releases sent over to us by various developers, publishers, and their PR firms. When I started the column, I did so knowing that I would probably get some flak over the idea that the column isn’t all that deep, it’s shallow, it’s a photo gallery, pointless, the game I showed sucks, etc. I receive very little of this feedback, in fact most of the emails I get are in support of the column.

On the other hand, MMOrning Shots has tested my patience with a handful of independent developers, which I will admit that I did not see coming at all. It’s one thing when a player criticizes you because they want to see their favorite MMO put up or they hate the game that you posted, and another when I receive an official notice from the creator’s PR division demanding attention and complaining about fairness. For example: A couple of months ago I ran an MMOrning Shot for a particular spiritual successor to City of Heroes, in which I referred to the game as a spiritual successor to City of Heroes. That same day, my inbox was hit by several competing indie projects berating me about everything from how unfair it was that I focused on one game, how I had a hand in the game, that I was a fanboy to that project, insinuating that I’d been paid off, that I hate indie developers, I’m a corporate sponsor, a troll, the article implied there was only one project, that I should edit the article to include theirs, that I should delete it and run all of them at once or none at all, etc. These emails were from the creators themselves or their “pr folk,” not the community.

I love our indie MMO friends and I will continue to show support and devote page space and even occasionally my own money to games like Side Quest, The Phoenix Project, Face of Mankind, Cliffhanger Productions, etc. This whole ordeal with the personal attacks implying ulterior motives or a lack of integrity from certain indie-groups because I didn’t give them special attention is going to stop. MMO Fallout isn’t a huge website with a lot of clout with gamers, but that doesn’t make this place a doormat for developers to wipe their feet over and expect to get away with it.

And for my readers, I apologize for the diversion. I promise that this is the only time I will devote an article to this topic (Tumblr aside), but I feel that our readers should know some of the things that go one behind the scenes here at MMO Fallout.

Now back to your regularly scheduled insanity.

MMOrning Shots: Wildstar Edition

Today’s MMOrning Shot comes from Wildstar, in development by Carbine Studios and published by NCSoft. The Chua, pictured above, are a hamster-like race with an “uncanny grasp of science and mechanical engineering.” In the world of Wildstar, the Chua were given the means to forward their industrial exercises and promptly destroyed the environment in their psychotic need for advancement. With their own world now devoid of resources, the Chua look toward the Nexus as a haven of exploitable land, ripe for the picking.

Wildstar is set for release later this year.

Spread It:

Spread It:

Spread It:

Spread It:

Spread It:

Spread It:

Spread It:

Spread It:

Spread It:

Spread It: