Editorials – Page 136

Rift Increasing Server Capacity

This may be surprising, but the recent transition of Rift to a free to play model has brought in swarms of new and returning players. As a result, the most populated servers have hit their breaking point resulting in long queues. In response to player complaints, Trion has been working to increase server queues and optimization, with some of those updates coming tomorrow, Friday.

I did raise server caps ever so slightly this evening which completely removed the queue on a number of servers. They may be able to go up further this weekend – our engineers were able to find a number of optimizations based on today’s load on the servers. We hope to have those optimizations up potentially on Friday. The % impact of the optimization is not yet known.

There are also plans in place for Trion to be able to lock character creation on the fly.

(Source: Rift Forums)

MMOrning Shots: A Menu Reborn

Today’s MMOrning Shot comes to us from Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, and shows off a bit of the new user interface and menu design. When Final Fantasy XIV did its first run, the game was criticized for a poorly implemented menu. Chief among the redesigns for A Realm Reborn is a new menu that is easier to navigate with a mouse and keyboard.

MMOrning Shots is a (mostly) daily line of screenshots from various MMOs. Most are taken in-house or come to us in press releases, but if you would like your screenshot featured, send it over to contact[at]mmofallout[dot]com with the subject “MMorning Shots.”

ArcheAge Heading Free In Korea

archeage

This news is either very encouraging or very disheartening depending on where you stand on the whole subscription vs free to play debate. MMO Culture is our main source for following what MMO companies are doing overseas, and they are incredibly reliable for picking up on updates before they come over to the west. In this case, ArchAge hasn’t even launched in the west yet and the game is already heading free to play. The sandbox MMO launched in Korea earlier this year and will be brought to North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand by Trion Worlds.

ArcheAge will still carry a subscription, however, delivering access to player owned housing as well as faster labor point recovery and vouchers for free stuff. The game goes free to play in Korea in July.

(Source: MMO Culture)

Playstation Plus Not Required For F2P/MMOs

So not everyone is all too thrilled that Playstation Plus is going to require an online subscription starting with the PS4. There is good news in all of this, however. Dual Shockers has discovered an interview with Sony’s Shuhei Yoshida, Sony Worldwide Studio President, where Yoshida confirms that there are special cases where games like free to play titles and MMOs will not require PS+ in order to play online.

You will need it to enjoy online multiplayer. This will also depend on the judgement by the publishers, and there will be some free to play titles that you’ll be able to play without needing a PS Plus subscription, like PlanetSide 2 and DC Universe Online.

Purchasing Playstation Plus on the PS4 will continue offering the same perks gamers receive on the PS3 and Vita now, including beta access, a laundry list of free titles updated each month, heavy discounts in the store, and more. Yoshida also notes in the interview that asynchronous gameplay may also be available to non-PS+ users, depending on what the publisher wants.

(Source: Dual Shockers)

By The Way, Rift Is Free Today

One of the few remaining pillars of subscription-only MMO gaming has fallen today, with Rift officially going free to play. Offering “no trials, no tricks, no traps,” Rift free to play drops the required subscription and opens up all of the leveling experience free of charge. Players are able to purchase credits to buy mounts, services, convenience items, and more: nearly five thousand items to choose from. Even if you choose not to throw some real money in, you can always partake in the delights of the cash shop through buying REX, which can be consumed for cash shop currency.

Today also marks the launch of patch 2.3, bringing a new zone for max level players.

(Source: Rift)

No, Wait, There Is A Warhammer 40k MMO Coming

This is the end, hold your breath and count to ten. As we here at MMO Fallout await the verdict of our trials for heresy (protip: we will be found guilty) due to a lack of faith in the completion of a Warhammer 40k MMO, you will be happy (and surprised) to hear that the Warhammer 40k MMO is indeed coming out. In development by Behaviour Interactive is taking the reigns with Eternal Crusdae and will throw players on a persistent battle to conquer a planet, rifling through procedural content in a third person shooter as one of four factions (Space Marine, Chaos Space Marine, Ork, and Eldar).

Behaviour Interactive is responsible for a massive line of movie tie-in video games, ranging from Brave, Ice Age, Rango, and more. The company’s latest title was Doritos Crash Course 2, the long awaited sequel to the original Doritos Crash Course.

(Source: Warhammer 40k)

Ubisoft’s MMO Is The Division

We’ve suspected an incoming Ubisoft MMO for quite a while, ever since the developer/publisher posted that they were hiring for an unnamed online RPG. At Ubisoft’s conference at this year’s E3, Ubisoft’s David Polfeldt revealed that the game is a massive online shooter named The Division. Not a whole lot is known about the game, other than that it is a third person, massive online shooter set in the United States approximately 72 hours after a biological terrorist attack sends the country into panic. The player is part of a group tasked with maintaining order.

The title has been confirmed for PS4 and XB1 with no PC version planned. The game is planned for release in 2014.

(Source: Game Informer)

Jagex "Chatwatch" Automates Muting Private Chat

Jagex doesn’t find your conversations appropriate, so much so in fact that they have updated the Chatwatch program to automatically detect and mute players for “seriously offensive language,” going as far as monitoring private conversations between friends. The confirmation comes from a leaked post on the private high level forums on the official RuneScape website, where a Mod Lyon states that Jagex is happy with the system and has no plans on changing it, and that the chat monitoring can not be confined to public chat, although this is not due to technical limitations.

Naturally player reaction has been mixed, with some seeing the move as an overreach of authority and others viewing it as simply enforcing the rules.

Jagex “Chatwatch” Automates Muting Private Chat

Naturally player reaction has been mixed, with some seeing the move as an overreach of authority and others viewing it as simply enforcing the rules.

Elder Scrolls Online Confirmed PC, PS4, XB1

Have you been paying attention to E3? If not, why not? Bethesda has confirmed that The Elder Scrolls Online will be coming to Playstation 4 and Xbox One, and will be enjoying a PS4 exclusive beta first before its other platforms. All three versions will launch in Spring 2014.

Just announced: Elder Scrolls Online is coming to PS4 and Xbox One when it’s released Spring 2014,

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