Category: Editorials

Planetside 2 Beta Test Is A Beta Test, Not A Free Demo


Planetside 2 is still some ways off, but that doesn’t mean players can’t take part in the beta test. If you’ve been following Sony Online Entertainment for the past few months, you’ll know that Planetside players and those who purchased PC Gamer or went to the booth at E3 will have priority access to the Planetside 2 beta. Matt Higby appeared on the Planetside Universe forums to announce that external testing will kick off sometime this week, and that players will be let in as they are needed.

However, Higby also reminded the community that this is indeed a beta test, not a free game demo.

Beta testing is a critically important part of our development cycle on this project, we may be asking you to only play on tanks for a play session, or only play aircraft. We are doing true beta testing, not just a game demo and we implore those of you who are invited to understand and respect that. Things will break, the server will be unavailable sometimes, we will cancel scheduled tests when we find something that breaks before the test starts. All of this will help us make a better final game.

With more and more MMO developers using their betas as little more than publicity stunts, it is a breath of fresh air to see someone using them for their intended purpose: testing. Planetside 2 launches in the future.

(Source: Planetside Forums)

Now This is How You Charity: World of Warcraft Server Blade Charity


It is that time of the year again! Blizzard was once again out and about and ready to give. Blizzard auctioned off two thousand original World of Warcraft server blades, with the proceeds to go to St. Jude Children’s Hospital. Well the final tallies are in, and Blizzard has raised $330,000.

“Each winner in this auction will own a small monument to those collective experiences. The best part is that this auction benefits a great charity doing tremendous work in helping children from the U.S. and around the world.”

Blizzard holds regular charities in World of Warcraft with benefits toward the Red Cross, Children’s Hospital, Make-a-Wish Foundation, and more.

(Source: Games Industry)

Steam Summer Sales Assault The Wallet


It’s sale time, so get out your wallet and replace the next month’s meals with Ramen because this year is looking fantastic. Right now there aren’t many deals in the MMO realm to speak of, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get in the fun! Check out the current sales below. Remember, as always, prices are in USD and may vary by region. MMO Fallout does not guarantee that items are not region locked, so please read carefully before making your purchase.

Phantasy Star Online 2 Hacked, NPCs Moved


Phantasy Star Online 2 was released recently in Japan, and comes to the west in early 2013, and the hackers have already started taking control. This week players managed to hack into the MMO and played a prank by moving NPCs around and out of reach of gamers. Sega claims that they are investigating the hack and that no data was leaked in the process.

Phantasy Star Online has always had problems with security holes, from the original which could be hacked with Gameshark, to rampant item duping and other hacks. Unlike real MMOs, Phantasy Star Online runs many operations client-side, offering a major opportunity for players to make alterations with the way their client connects with the server. The NPC glitch above has reportedly been in the game since the beta first launched.

(Source: Kotaku)

The Old Republic Server Mergers Later This Summer


Bioware is committed to keeping server populations strong. Coinciding with their May announcement of massively increasing server capacity, Bioware has been very active in herding their population on to a select number of destination servers. In fact, Bioware wants you to transfer so much that they are handing out perks just for moving over your eligible characters. On the Old Republic Blog, Bioware has detailed plans to increase server transfers.

Later this summer, we’re taking steps to further strengthen destination server population. Ultimately, we are working to transition all players to designated destination servers in the Free Character Transfer Service.

Later on, servers will be merged anyway.

Later this summer, any remaining characters on selected origin servers will be automatically moved to designated destination servers. We will provide additional details regarding the automatic character transfer process at that time.

Just how many servers are being merged is yet to be seen, however Bioware has listed more than 100 North American and 80 European servers as “origin” servers, available for players to transfer off of with only twelve servers per region qualifying for the free transfer rewards program.

(Source: The Old Republic)

Portalarium Gearing Up To Release Ultimate Collector


Richard Garriot is a topic of which I tend to butt heads with the community here at MMO Fallout, generally due to the poor handling of Tabula Rasa and Garriot’s departure from Ultima Online. More recently, Garriot set his sights on social networking with the announcement of Portalarium, which Garriot himself described in 2010 as:

“The Portalarium mission is exactly what I want to be doing next in games. This really takes me back to my roots in the game business – small development teams, low barriers to entry, affordable budgets for quality projects, and unlimited new interactive frontiers to explore together with our customers.”

Currently in the works for release this summer is Ultimate Collector on Facebook, tasking players with running a garage sale and decorating their home with the proceeds. Garriot’s company Portalarium has received a $7 million investment from a number of firms, including M8 Capital, FF Angel, BHV Venture Capital, among others. The money from Ultimate Collector will be used to speed up development of Ultimate RPG, the spiritual successor to the Ultima series that may or may not actually be set in the Ultima world.

“We are grateful for the confidence m8 Capital and Founders Fund have placed in our team and we believe gamers will ultimately reap the benefits from this partnership when they get a chance to play Ultimate Collector and see the unique mobile and social games that we are creating at Portalarium.”
-Richard Garriot

Ultimate Collector is set for release later this summer, with Ultimate RPG on the horizon.

(Source: Games Industry)

Vanguard Free To Play Details Likely To Change


Vanguard goes free to play this summer, and recently Sony Online Entertainment released the prerequisite membership matrix, detailing what players would receive for free or be required to pay for. Several of the restrictions have players up in arms, and in response Sony is giving consideration to altering several of the conditions on free accounts. Vanguard’s customer relations has set up a thread in the Vanguard forums with the hopes of hammering out a new F2P Matrix.

The changes are ongoing, and are not final.

(Source: Vanguard Forums)

More Details About Survarium Revealed


Survarium is not S.T.A.L.K.E.R, let’s get that straight. It is, however, being developed by Vostok Games, a team made up of ex-S.T.A.L.K.E.R creators. Survarium is an upcoming free to play MMO shooter set in a world that has been taken over by flora. In an effort to combat the growing forest, a powerful herbicide is deployed and, you guessed it, kills the vast majority of the world’s population. As in S.T.A.L.K.E.R the world has become filled with anomalies, and players will find themselves taking on missions for one of several factions, shooting it out in this session-based multiplayer game.

So the game is closer to Crimecraft than it is Planetside, but the developers at Vostok want to make this as unique as possible. Team combat is not what you’d expect: rival teams work against one another to scavenge parts and build a device to protect themselves from a massive storm, and both teams can fail at this objective. Cooperative missions delve into the world’s artifacts. Finally, of the three modes revealed recently, free play drops players in a massive map with 30 other players to move and do as they please.

You can view the entirety of the latest developer diary below. Survarium does not yet have a release date.

Getting A Beta Perspective: Evolution of Combat [RuneScape]


Assuming you aren’t already in the beta, I’ve thrown together a quick video showcasing some of the new combat abilities in the Evolution of Combat beta. If you are a current member, you can beta test the Evolution of Combat update by logging in on the appropriate weekend. Otherwise, if you were sent a beta invitation by Jagex, you can log in regardless of the weekend events.

I will have a full written preview in the next couple of days.

50,000 Guild Wars 2 Beta Keys From Curse.com


Guild Wars 2 releases at the end of next month, meaning the opportunities for beta testing are winding down. Luckily, Curse.com has your back. Both general members and premium subscribers will be able to grab one of over 50,000 beta keys to the upcoming weekend event. The beta event lasts from July 20th to the 22nd, and the keys are being doled out on a first come, first serve basis. Ten thousand are Curse.com premium subscriber only, while the rest require just a general Curse.com account.

Make sure you read the rules clearly, especially for European users. The giveaway may not be applicable in your country.

North American Giveaway

European Giveaway