Category: Editorials

Runescape Bot Website Steals Accounts: Surprise!


Final Fantasy XIV bots.

Security is a priority here at MMO Fallout, among our many priorities that have no static value and tend to change depending on what is making headlines. Botting, being a completely legitimate community that breaks no rules and in no way creates a seedy underbelly to a community, at no way puts the account or computer of the owner at risk. So imagine my surprise when I get people asking me to warn the Runescape community about a popular bot.

According to my sources, this very popular bot program (designed to play the game for the player) has been harvesting information including usernames and passwords, and upon the return of free trade, many players are finding themselves with their banks cleared, their passwords changed, etc. For the simple desire to sit back and watch the world burn, I won’t mention the cheat program that was compromised, although if you use it you are likely seeing its effects by now.

Moral of the story: Expect shady business from shady people. Oh, and don’t come complaining to me that I should be warning cheaters about a security breach for a game they are technically not playing.

Square Enix: Revenue Falls, Profits Plummet


In before irony.

Final Fantasy XIV may not have struck the chord that Square Enix was looking for, and a quick discussion with beta players is a good indicator that the game’s lackluster launch and subsequently indefinitely delayed PS3 release and subscription halt are on no one’s heads but Square. Following the restructuring of the Final Fantasy XIV team, Square has been on the case since launch bringing in much needed content, fixing up players issues including the UI, battle system, and other functions.

Square Enix is soon to release their 2010 fiscal year financial report, and the company is expecting profits to be down up to 89%, with a revenue 28% lower than the previous year. Square believes that a new staff and strong console lineup will bring the company back from its current state in the 2011 fiscal year.

Hopefully the lessons have been learned and Square can quickly pick their teeth up off the floor before the blood stains can no longer be removed. Final Fantasy XIV is coming along quite well, and Square has an opportunity to bolster their sales through their console and handheld titles. Final Fantasy XI is still trucking along healthily with upcoming updates to make leveling easier for newer players who may have been overwhelmed by all that the game has to offer.

As the banner says, cautious optimism. As my mama always said, if you go in too headstrong, you’ll get knocked on your ass so fast your head will be spinning. Hopefully Square can get off their feet and put what they’ve learned to good use.

Banned? Jagex Will Sell You Your Account Back


Ban him until he pays us!

Don’t you just hate when this happens? You spend half of your time in Runescape either cursing at other players, or trying to scam new players by selling them rare black lobsters for a few hundred thousand, and suddenly you find yourself with so many warnings you cannot appeal that you are permanently banned from the game. What’s a guy to do, when he’s already wasted his appeals by reminding Jagex that they suck and that you don’t care if you’re banned forever because you’d spend more time with your girlfriend if you were? Simple, buy your account back!

As posted on the Runescape official website,

If Jagex bans any account as a result of your breach of the Rules of RuneScape and you have exhausted the Offence Appeals Process, Jagex may, in its absolute discretion, give you an opportunity to make a fixed payment to reinstate the account.

The question that remains is how much does it cost to get your account unbanned, and for what offenses is Jagex willing to unban the account?

From the outside looking in, it almost seems as if Jagex is on a campaign to stop banning players who break the rules. Not too long ago, the company removed its no-tolerance policy on using third party software to automate actions, instead opting to reset levels rather than outright ban. Undoubtedly this will help Jagex’s subscriber base, but do they really want to reintroduce the players who were removed for being a detriment to the community?

I’m going to seek out more information on how much getting unbanned costs, and will follow up this story with new information as it arises.

The Old Republic: Did We Say 1 Million? Sorry…


Kapow!

Back in March 2010, I wrote about my concerns with Star Wars: The Old Republic, primarily built around the expectation by EA Games that the game would require one million subscribers in order to “break even.” In fact, in the very-pre-release hype, EA went as far as saying that they could not only see one million subscribers, but that the number could go as high as two million. Naturally, I expressed my concern that The Old Republic could wind up like Tabula Rasa (I would have made a comparison to All Points Bulletin, but the game had neither launched or crashed at that point), shutting down after about a year.

Perhaps in response to the news that investors are lacking faith in EA Games’ ability to maintain its MMOs (Warhammer and All Points Bulletin being two examples), EA responded this week by reeling back on their one million subscriber comment. In fact, they went as far as rolling down numbers to claim that The Old Republic could be profitable off of only five hundred thousand subscribers, although EA would prefer to see the insanely profitable number of one million and beyond.

So is EA CFO Scott Brown doing damage control? Very likely, as both comments came up during conference calls attended by Gamasutra. Claiming one million to “break even” is a recipe for disaster, and in a world where EA can’t risk losing any more investors to their MMOs, the fate of The Old Republic may sit on Scott Brown not exaggerating in conference calls from now on.

[Humor] Planetside Next Trailer


Alright, so this isn’t the “official” trailer, so to speak, but it just about sums up our reaction when the real trailer comes out.

Derek Smart’s New MMO: Line of Defense


Derek Smart Online

It’s easy to forget that Derek Smart still has a vested interest in his 3000A.D series, although a quick look at his twitter profile will reveal that his non-Alganon games are still being patched. Looking at the above screenshot, if your first impression is the gameplay of Earthrise combined with the graphics of our favorite super hero MMOs, you might be closer than you think. According to Line of Defense’s website (which at the time is rather sparse with direct details), LoD will be “twitch-based” and the gameplay surrounding two factions fighting over bases:

In the game, you can play as either a GALCOM military marine or an Insurgent soldier. The primary objective is to gain control of each of the four bases. You do this by waging war as an infantry marine (first or third person), on land or naval vehicles and aircrafts (fighter, gunships etc). You will take over bases by either destroying or hacking into and disabling their defense systems, thus making them vulnerable. You will do this 24-7 and 365 days a year on the Lyrius planet or in the space region above it – and all within a 100% persistent universe.

Sounds like the mass scale ground combat over territory in Planetside, in a freemium system.

Hybrid business model which caters to both F2P and premium models; both with access to in-game monetization.

More information on Line of Defense as it appears. Hopefully the combat will be engaging, because there won’t be any crafting.

No pointless grind. No boring crafting. No inconsequential resource collection. Just pure war on a very large scale.

Derek Smart's New MMO: Line of Defense


Derek Smart Online

It’s easy to forget that Derek Smart still has a vested interest in his 3000A.D series, although a quick look at his twitter profile will reveal that his non-Alganon games are still being patched. Looking at the above screenshot, if your first impression is the gameplay of Earthrise combined with the graphics of our favorite super hero MMOs, you might be closer than you think. According to Line of Defense’s website (which at the time is rather sparse with direct details), LoD will be “twitch-based” and the gameplay surrounding two factions fighting over bases:

In the game, you can play as either a GALCOM military marine or an Insurgent soldier. The primary objective is to gain control of each of the four bases. You do this by waging war as an infantry marine (first or third person), on land or naval vehicles and aircrafts (fighter, gunships etc). You will take over bases by either destroying or hacking into and disabling their defense systems, thus making them vulnerable. You will do this 24-7 and 365 days a year on the Lyrius planet or in the space region above it – and all within a 100% persistent universe.

Sounds like the mass scale ground combat over territory in Planetside, in a freemium system.

Hybrid business model which caters to both F2P and premium models; both with access to in-game monetization.

More information on Line of Defense as it appears. Hopefully the combat will be engaging, because there won’t be any crafting.

No pointless grind. No boring crafting. No inconsequential resource collection. Just pure war on a very large scale.

No, Vanguard Isn't Top Priority…Or Middle…Or Low…


As if we didn’t know…

“The monthly subscription fee means players can expect a lot of new content from us. And I say a lot — I really mean that. This is something that we feel obligated to the players, because they are paying a monthly sub fee.“

Sure, John Smedley was referring to DC Universe online when he said Sony Online Entertainment felt an obligation to churn out regular updates for their subscription based games. Sure, Vanguard is a subscription based game operated by Sony Online Entertainment. The question that has been hitting the blogosphere is quite simple: Why is it that Sony continues to charge a subscription despite there being no Vanguard-devoted developers left at Sony, and despite the latest official update coming out in Spring 2010.

A great pianist can only reach his full potential with a piano of equal quality, and Vanguard and Planetside are on the list of Sony Games that are not so much dumped in the trash as they are hooked up to life support machines until the population levels hit zero of their own accord. While the other games in SOE’s lineup receive regular updates, expansions (in the case of Everquest and Everquest II), and new content, assuredly players of Planetside and Vanguard would take issue with Smedley’s promise on their subscription based games.

In an interview at last year’s SyndCon, John Smedley said:

We’re thinking about specific next steps for Vangaurd, but we’re not shutting it down or anything like that. We want to add more stuff to it. Will we change the business model? That’s the question people keep asking me. Will it go free-to-play? I don’t know – we’ve discussed it. What we’ll decide? I’m not sure yet. We’re going to see where EverQuest II Extended goes. But certainly if we make a decision like that, it won’t be without deciding to add more content to the game.

So depending on the success of Everquest II Extended, Vanguard could receive the free to play treatment priority over outright pulling the plug, however as John Smedley promises this will not happen without new content, which undoubtedly means pulling developers from other projects, and spending money for what Sony may determine too high of a risk.

So there we are. Vanguard will likely choose free-life over death, and Planetside may or may not bite the bullet when Planetside Next launches (John Smedley has stated that Planetside Next is being specifically designed so computers scaled back six years can play at minimum settings, which means Planetside players should be able to run it fine).

No, Vanguard Isn’t Top Priority…Or Middle…Or Low…


As if we didn’t know…

“The monthly subscription fee means players can expect a lot of new content from us. And I say a lot — I really mean that. This is something that we feel obligated to the players, because they are paying a monthly sub fee.“

Sure, John Smedley was referring to DC Universe online when he said Sony Online Entertainment felt an obligation to churn out regular updates for their subscription based games. Sure, Vanguard is a subscription based game operated by Sony Online Entertainment. The question that has been hitting the blogosphere is quite simple: Why is it that Sony continues to charge a subscription despite there being no Vanguard-devoted developers left at Sony, and despite the latest official update coming out in Spring 2010.

A great pianist can only reach his full potential with a piano of equal quality, and Vanguard and Planetside are on the list of Sony Games that are not so much dumped in the trash as they are hooked up to life support machines until the population levels hit zero of their own accord. While the other games in SOE’s lineup receive regular updates, expansions (in the case of Everquest and Everquest II), and new content, assuredly players of Planetside and Vanguard would take issue with Smedley’s promise on their subscription based games.

In an interview at last year’s SyndCon, John Smedley said:

We’re thinking about specific next steps for Vangaurd, but we’re not shutting it down or anything like that. We want to add more stuff to it. Will we change the business model? That’s the question people keep asking me. Will it go free-to-play? I don’t know – we’ve discussed it. What we’ll decide? I’m not sure yet. We’re going to see where EverQuest II Extended goes. But certainly if we make a decision like that, it won’t be without deciding to add more content to the game.

So depending on the success of Everquest II Extended, Vanguard could receive the free to play treatment priority over outright pulling the plug, however as John Smedley promises this will not happen without new content, which undoubtedly means pulling developers from other projects, and spending money for what Sony may determine too high of a risk.

So there we are. Vanguard will likely choose free-life over death, and Planetside may or may not bite the bullet when Planetside Next launches (John Smedley has stated that Planetside Next is being specifically designed so computers scaled back six years can play at minimum settings, which means Planetside players should be able to run it fine).

Expect More Warhammer Server Mergers This Year


That's Mr. Merger to you...

Ever since Warhammer Online went free to play, people like myself have been clamoring for Mythic to go full Turbine and just open the game up with a cash shop. Mythic, at least historically, has denied any plans to change Warhammer’s model, but has given side remarks about what they would have to do if they were planning on changing the model and opening a cash shop. Not an acknowledgement that the game will move to a free model, but I would be highly surprised if Warhammer dies before it at least dips a toe in the idea.

In the latest producer’s letter, Mythic is skirting around the idea of planned server mergers. They are “discussing” what to do with the low population servers. There are currently four North American servers and five European servers.

As part of an effort to ensure off-peak hours are as enjoyable as peak hours can be, we are actively discussing our plans for lower population servers. If you haven’t heard anything to this effect by the time this letter sees print, you should see something very soon. We are committed to ensuring that we do what is needed to make sure players enjoy their experience in WAR.

Unless Mythic is going to raise the population by taking the game free to play, I can probably surmise that the end result will be server mergers on low population servers. Unless Mythic wants to cryptically point us to their considerations:

“still working on WAR, but is looking at a different aspect of the game. This new focus will be revealed in due time.”

Say no more.