I’ve gotten a bit of feedback on the fact that many of the sales listed on the sales page, those listed through Direct2Drive, have been there since June, putting them at four months on sale at least. A few asked me why I don’t remove them and just consider them permanent price cuts. Back in July I emailed Direct2Drive over whether or not the price cuts were permanent or temporary, and received this answer:
Hi Connor,
Prices can fluctuate depending on pricing offered by the developers and publishers. Some MMO’s are currently on sale and that would be a temporary discount. You can see those games at http://www.direct2drive.com/buy-mmo-pc-games-download The sale items are listed with the original price and the discount price in yellow.
Kind regards,
Rich Metcalfe
Lead Technical Specialist
Digital Distribution
So this is why I still have the games listed. Until Direct2Drive lists them as such, they are a temporary price cut. Hopefully this calms some questions.
Starting next Monday, the 25th, Codemasters will open up the test realms for Lord of the Rings Online’s transition to free to play, which you can sign up for here. Codemasters is saying that the more people who sign up, the faster the testing can take place (meaning the testing is likely for stability and population capacity under high stress) and the faster that the service can transition on the live servers.
Here's your dice, Europe
It’s almost Friday, which means we’re about a day early on the weekly Lord of the Rings Online: Europegate update, but who cares about keeping up to nonexistent traditions? We have good news finally! Starting next Monday, the 25th, Codemasters will open up the test realms for Lord of the Rings Online’s transition to free to play, which you can sign up for here. Codemasters is saying that the more people who sign up, the faster the testing can take place (meaning the testing is likely for stability and population capacity under high stress) and the faster that the service can transition on the live servers.
Is anyone still reading this? Good. Those of you who sign up and participate in the trial will receive 500 Turbine points (or would they be Codemaster Points?) towards the store once the game goes live. The only information we have on timing is “shortly thereafter,” which can mean anything coming from the company that told us over a month ago that the European service would go free to play in “just a couple weeks,” granted their issues were contractual and thus irrelevant to this new update.
Will this be enough to bring back European players who are on the North American servers, likely some of whom have invested both cash and time into their new characters? Only time will tell.
“Pink Day in LA” was a Guild Wars event held this past weekend, encouraging players to dye their armor pink for breast cancer awareness. Malibu Barbie teamed up with Gaming World Entertainment Network and Gamers Giving Back to bring cancer awareness to Guild Wars. Players purchased almost three hundred thousand bottles of pink dye, donating almost eleven thousand dollars in the process.
“I was totally amazed when we hit our original goal of $1,337 early,” Malibu Barbie said.
I’ve been speculating for a while now that there is more to this delay of Lord of the Rings Online in Europe than Codemasters has been explaining. On my earlier articles, I noted my thoughts that Turbine had something to do with the delays, although my assumption that Turbine was attempting to take back LOTRO in Europe was obviously incorrect. Codemasters’ General Manager David Solari put out a notice today that the issues were not, in fact, technical, and that Codemasters was having contractual issues that were delaying the launch of LOTRO F2P EU.
“This is the reason why we have been unable to provide you with any substantial information as to when we will go Free-to-Play, despite the desire to share this with you. Unfortunately a contract was required in order to go Free-to-Play and this has taken much longer to conclude than expected.”
My money says this can be traced back to money, namely how much Turbine wanted in royalties and how much Codemasters wanted to pay under the new contract. Either way, the contract has been concluded, and Codemasters is on their way to a full free to play launch.
We can confirm the launch is imminent and we should be able to announce the dates later this week/early next week.
You can read the rest of Solari’s comments at the above link. More on Lord of the Rings Online as it appears.
A great man once told me, “mark my words, Everquest II will have a big server merge less than six months after it goes free to play.” I can’t recall who said this, and thanks to the wonders of corrupt hard drives and lack of backup copies I no longer have his name on file, so I will let him take credit wherever he is. Those of you playing Everquest II, be it the free or paid version, are likely well aware of today’s announcement that Sony will be shuttering a number of Everquest II live servers. Sixteen servers, overall, are merging into eight, with the remaining eleven being unaffected.
Players with legacy titles will have their titles changed to “of <server name>.” The server mergers themselves are nothing surprising, however, as Sony put it:
We’ve been planning to merge the EQII Live servers for a long while now, and most of you have been asking for it to happen for just as long. As part of our ongoing effort to utilize community feedback and deliver the best gameplay experience possible, I am happy to announce that we will begin merging several servers this fall. Bigger population density on a server is just simply more fun for everyone involved, so it’s time to get it done.
Everquest had a server merger just a couple months ago. It happens when your MMO is not named World of Warcraft.
It’s shameless advertising day on MMO Fallout, and today’s publicity prostitutes are gPotato with Allods Online! Sex sells, and nothing says free to play cash shop fantasy title like two blond haired women in underwear groping one another.
Is it just me, or does the woman on the left bear a resemblance to Yeoman Janice Rand from Star Trek?
Final Fantasy XIV launched last month, and depending on who you ask the game has either been well received, moderately received, or has crashed so hard that only the hand of God himself can stop Square Enix from going bankrupt next month. If you ask me, however, Square Enix is just another company that generates serious cash by making early adopters out of people who have neither the patience, nor the foresight, to be making reasonable purchasing decisions.
If you purchase and register Final Fantasy XIV by October 25th, you’ll receive an extra 30 days, completely free! That’s two months of free game time, for the price of none…well, aside from the game.
For what it’s worth, Square Enix appears to be committed to fixing Final Fantasy XIV, and there is a hint of shame in how the game launched, in Square’s postings. This is less of an appeal to the whiners, and more of a “Hey, so the game didn’t launch that great. Have another month on us and we’ll see how it goes.” This isn’t the first time a developer has done this after launch, and one of those companies rhymes with Gizzard Blendtertainment.
Or maybe the trolls are right and this is Square Enix going into panic mode. Or, it might be picnic mode, the spelling was rather questionable.
MMO players are subjectively patient. As any player can tell you, delays happen for many reasons. An update that wasn’t tested properly, a wayward system that was unable to handle the server load, maintenance that had to be extended longer than expected. As players, however, we have our temporary ways around this system. Our server going offline may lead us to an alt we have on a more reliable server, or if the game is down universally we may go play another game. Often times, however, these events build up until our temporary fix becomes permanent. The guild might be relocating to this new server, or a player might quit the game out of frustration and go join another.
I’ve been entertaining the idea that Turbine must be loving the fact that Codemasters has fully bugged up the Lord of the Rings Online relaunch in Europe, because my research into both the European and American LOTRO forums turns up a lot of disgruntled European players packing bags and downloading the American client, foregoing their current characters and achievements in return for a system that should have been in place a month ago. Of course, one might expect that players coming over to the American servers will be less inclined to stay when Codemasters makes their move, over server location and lag issues.
But, what if Turbine made an offer that would entice European players to keep their American accounts, and even fork over some cash? As I write this, the Turbine sale is going to end in one minute. Today, Turbine placed three major quest packs on sale for 75% off each, offering 300 quests combined, a few new factions, and new instances.
Granted, this wouldn’t be the first time a developer sucker-punched one of its publishers right in the teeth, but for some reason I never saw such an event coming from Turbine. Yes, Turbine has a masters degree in “hey let’s give this a shot,” but (assuming my theory is correct) I don’t think we could have seen such an event coming where Turbine would be actively drawing subscribers from Codemasters.
Hopefully this works out for Turbine, and LOTRO worldwide. More on Lord of the Rings Online as it appears.
The recent release of Darkfall’s “Darkfall 2010” expansion brought along an overhaul to the world of Agon, from the terrain to the dungeons, the villages, ships, and monsters (some of them level up now), and everything in between. A big change, yes, but warranting an article? Probably not. Today, the focus is on changes to the Newbie Protection Program. New players will now be protected for only one hour after creating their characters, as Aventurine found that newbies were becoming too complacent in their previous protection.
Aventurine is still set on making newbies feel as welcome as possible, however, and the expansion brought in a couple new features new players will like. Racial capitals now feature dungeons to get players acquainted, and the default view is now third person by default, toggled by F12. Third person is not available when wielding a bow, grenade, or staff.
Back in April, Aventurine launched the Newbie Protection Program, offering 24 hours of…protection. New players are incapable of attacking other players, or using certain features of the game (teleports, Runestones, portals, clans, mounts). Aventurine has been working diligently this year on reducing certain symptoms of player grief. Declaring war takes time and costs more to deter griefing, balancing health differences, and more.
When it comes to cash shops in MMOs, player opinion is split. There are players who don’t mind cash shops as long as the items are obtainable in-game (or at least the equivalent), while others will only tolerate vanity items being sold. There are players who are opposed to a cash shop in any form, players who will only tolerate a cash shop in games without a subscription, and of course those that are complacent with cash shops as a whole. The players who do not like cash shops in any form might not be sticking with Eve Online.
In an interview with Eurogamer, CCP’s Tori Frans Olafsson was asked if a cash shop was in the books. Tori responded that:
“Yeah, we are looking at introducing virtual goods within the game, but we feel those things should be vanity items rather than those that give you a clear benefit over other players in-game.”
Vanity items? I hope I can get chrome thrusters for my shipping freighter, although heading into 0.0 sector space is likely to get me shot on sight, regardless of what I’m carrying on me. Of course, this might lead to a surge of death squads, as some other MMOs have seen, where players actively hunt down and grief players who visibly purchased cash shop items.
On the topic of a sequel, Tori had the following to say:
I don’t see any purpose in rebooting EVE or doing EVE 2. We have a magnificent community, we have a devoted player-base, we have a vibrant economy, we have the ability to update graphics and game systems and software and hardware – and have been doing so progressively since launch.
The longer CCP supports Eve Online, the better. You can read the rest of the interview in the above link.
More on Eve Online as it appears. Eve Online currently plays host to over 330,000 subscribers, alongside a slew of trial accounts.
MMO Fallout 