Did you ever think you’d hear the words “hardcore,” “permadeath” and “Sony Online Entertainment” in the same sentence? Hold on to your boot straps, folks, you’re in for a wild ride. Gamepot is developing Wizardry Online, a hardcore MMO featuring no less than permadeath, non-instanced dungeons, friendly fire, and player killing. What more, Gamepot is being published by Sony Online Entertainment.
Hopefully Sony will include Wizardry Online in the all access pass. More to come.
As far as free to play goes, Age of Empires developer Gas Powered Games will not rest until their MMO is completely free. I have already discussed the Alliances update going live this month in part. Once Alliances goes live, Age of Empires Online will use Empire Points as its real-money currency, allowing players to earn said currency through the Alliances game.
Unfortunately, all silver linings surround a cloud (or however the saying goes), and the update isn’t all great news. The Alliance update will only be implemented on the most popular eight servers. Players on the remaining six servers will need to transfer over in order to enjoy the update, and several weeks after the Alliance update goes live, the six servers will be shut down with anyone remaining transferred off. What GPG would like you to know is that the server mergers are not due to population issues.
We are closing the servers not for financial reasons, but for game design and player experience reasons. In fact, the player base tripled after the Spring Update (Celts, Steam, and more). We are doing it because the game is more fun when more people are concentrated in fewer places. If we start running into performance issues, we will reopen servers as needed.
Check out the patch notes below:
(Source: Age of Empires Online)
Hello, RuneScapers. If you check your calendars, you may already know that today is June 1st, or the day that beta signup begins for the major RuneScape combat upgrade set to begin later this month. For the safety of the community, I’ve decided to throw together a few helpful tips to safely getting yourself into the beta.
Reportedly Jagex has been sending out emails with details, but as no one here at MMO Fallout has received anything, we’ll play the safe side and just recommend you ignore any emails claiming to be from Jagex with details on signing up. With the item you receive in-game, there shouldn’t be any need to open said emails in the first place.
And finally, here are some juicy details about the upcoming combat changes to whet your whistle:
More to come!
Gaming return policies are a double edged sword. You can’t return games because, on one hand the policy stops people from burning the games to a disk and simply returning them. On the other hand, and this goes equally for digital downloads, if the game is broken or unplayable at a fundamental (the game on the disc, not the disc itself) level, the customer has no recourse other than to hope one day that the company patches out the problems. In other words, once the company has your money, they have your money. Unless, of course, you’re willing to go the chargeback route.
South Korea has taken issue with Blizzard’s policy of “no refunds,” raiding the Blizzard offices this afternoon to gather evidence in an investigation as to whether or not the company violated South Korean law by refusing refunds. Dissatisfied Diablo III players, unable to log in to the game, were denied refunds under Blizzard’s terms of service. South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission, who conducted the raid, did not comment on the matter further than admitting that there have been numerous complaints filed.
Blizzard apparently believes they are in the right, as the company has not changed its mind on refunds.
(Source: Korea Times)
I hate to be the pessimist, but with 65 hours left on the Kickstarter and about $225,000 left to go, I think there is a small chance Storybricks may not make its goal in time. Now, I’d hate to see Storybricks fade into the background after the Kickstarter falls through, so I got in touch with Brian “Psychochild” Green and asked if the developer has any plans moving forward.
“We’ve been considering alternatives and will start up another Kickstarter project focusing on more of a game if it seems appropriate.”
Here’s hoping development continues on Storybricks despite this setback. Although the team may not have reached their goal this time around, the increased media exposure through Kickstarter has hopefully helped the fledgling MMO receive the attention is very much deserves.
And hopefully the next time I update this story, it will be with good news.
It’s Corgi time. Do you use Raptr? If you aren’t familiar with the program, Raptr runs on your desktop and tracks your game usage over the PC, PS3 and Xbox360. In essence, Ratpr is quite similar to Xfire, except it also tracks your Xbox/Playstation achievements/trophies. As you play your games more and achieve not just time played but achievements in-game as well, you have the opportunity to unlock rewards (generally in the form of virtual items and coupons for tech gear).
If you achieve “experienced” in any of the games below, you will be able to claim a free copy of Rift. Claim your copy of Rift and rank up on that in Raptr to also claim a free digital upgrade to the collector’s edition and a free pair of Dwarven Smithy goggles. Sorry, folks, the rewards system is in beta and is only available in the US, Canada, UK, France, and Germany.
EVE Online (PC)
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (PC)
Aion (PC)
EverQuest 2 (PC)
Diablo III (PC)
World of Tanks (PC)
Champions Online (PC)
World of Warcraft (PC)
The Witcher 2 (PC)
Diablo III Beta (PC)
League of Legends (PC)
Everquest (PC)
Star Wars: The Old Republic (PC)
The Lord Of The Rings Online (PC)
NCSoft just posted a notice that they will be holding interviews on May 31st from 9am to 7pm at Providence Biltmore. All applicants are welcome, especially 38 Studios (and presumably Big Huge Games) ex-employees.
So far Jagex hasn’t had a great track record with their in-house titles that are not named RuneScape. MechScape was cancelled to the tune of millions back in 2009 and revived as Stellar Dawn which was “paused” a couple of months ago so Jagex could focus on a strong list of games set for release this year, including 8Realms and Transformers Online, not to mention the major combat upgrade we learned is coming to RuneScape.
Well, take 8Realms off of that list. Gamesindustry is reporting that 8Realms only received 10% of the audience necessary to turn a profit, and will be shut down. Jagex’s Daniel Clough gave a comment on the matter:
“During the 8Realms beta it has become clear that the game doesn’t meet our high expectations for success and we are therefore channelling our focus on other exciting opportunities in the pipeline.”
(Source: Gamesindustry.biz)
Would I? Absolutely I would. Square Enix has announced that, upon the launch of version 2.0, players who qualify for the “legacy” system will receive special perks: A discounted subscription ($9.99) and 8 max playable characters per world, as well as an exclusive Chocobo pet and your name in the credits if you wish.
Users with 90 cumulative days of subscription between January 6th and the launch of 2.0 beta testing are eligible. Over at FFXIV Core, an administrator has posted that the last day to register your copy of FFXIV and still be able to qualify is the coming May 31st, meaning 2.0 will probably start beta testing in October (one free month plus three paid).
If you were interested in getting back on board with Square to get your hands on the legacy rewards, you only have a couple of days left to do so. I left a previous article on this matter rather ambiguous, as there was no cutoff date announced at the time.
More on FFXIV as it appears.
I think I might be mixing my references.
MMO Fallout 