Editorials – Page 85

MMOments: Marvel Heroes Anniversary Achievements

Marvel Heroes is in the fourth week of its second anniversary, and that means if you haven’t already started working on the related achievements, you’re probably too late. If you haven’t been tuning into the ARPG these past few weeks, you missed out on a lot of free stuff. A random hero, Angel team up, Iron Man team up, Groot pet, cow portal drops, and more.

There are five achievements to obtain and they are pretty self-explanatory even if they require a fair amount of grind in order to obtain. One thing to keep in mind is that the achievement tracking system right now is hot garbage. It won’t properly update its numbers unless you literally have the window open while you progress. Your count is still being kept, but don’t be scared if you find forty-odd cake slices and check the window to find that it still shows your old number.

You need to log out and back in for the tracker to update itself.

1. Marvel Heroes’ 2nd Anniversary

The goal here is to obtain all of the other four anniversary achievements. Self-explanatory.

2. Collection Cakewalk

Not so much of a cakewalk. The goal here is to find 365 2-year anniversary cake slices. Cake slices drop at a much faster rate than eternity splinters do, I counted around four to five drops of cake slices for every eternity splinter, but my findings aren’t scientific and shouldn’t be used as a measuring tool. With a drop about every two minutes, this is going to be a long haul.

Assume about six hours of game time, assuming there isn’t a farming method.

The good side is that you won’t have to interrupt your regularly scheduled grinding in order to churn out these cake slices, they drop during virtually all combat situations (that I’m aware of). Personally, I’ve been leveling up Cyclops while grinding cube shards, and managed to grind out pretty much all of the slices in six and a half to seven hours.

This is the longest achievement in the anniversary event to obtain, so my advice is to not focus on it. Look at what else you need, and grind for that. The cake slices will come and, before you know it, you’ll have enough.

3. The Cake Is Not A Lie

Easiest achievement to get, you should already have a year 2 cake.

4. Defeat Mandarin with the Iron Man Mark II Team-Up

Also straightforward, but timely. You’ll need to obtain the correct team-up character and take him through the Hydra Island terminal. Defeat Mandarin with him active and you’ve got it made.

5. I Want You Back

Defeat 2,015 enemies with the Potted Groot Pet. This one will be difficult if you didn’t pick up the Potted Groot Pet while it was available. And by difficult, I mean impossible. This one is easy, since the Groot plant can’t be attacked and won’t be phased out during combat.

As hard (or as easy) as it is to believe, you’ll beat the 2,015 enemies with Groot long before you find the 365 cake slices.

[Column] Bungie’s Latest Interview A Must Read

Destiny’s upcoming Taken King DLC is quickly becoming a PR disaster for Bungie who, considering their recent interview with Eurogamer, aren’t doing a whole lot to fix the situation. If you haven’t been following the situation, the Destiny community is up in arms over how Bungie plans to monetize the upcoming expansion. Taken King will cost $40 at its base price, twice as much as the previous two dlc packs, with higher tiers available with extra bonuses. Bungie has defended this by saying that the amount of content in Taken King surpasses all of it.

What has players angry is a perception of tone deafness in the various tiers of the Taken King packages. The $60 pack acts as something of a Game of the Year edition, including the base game, expansions, and Taken King. For $80, you can get a collectors edition with all of the above plus a handful of physical and digital goodies. The digital collectors edition costs the same as the physical version, despite containing much less content. There is no way to get the bonus goodies in Taken King without being forced to buy the base game and two expansions again.

Eurogamer recently conducted an interview with Bungie creative director Luke Smith, and rather than do a disservice to his responses, I highly recommend that you read it.

[Community] Trion Worlds Question & Non-Answer Session

Developer Q&A’s are a great representation of why you should never allow an interview subject to cherry pick their own questions. With the exception of an exceptionally newsworthy answer, I’ve stopped covering developer Q&A’s here at MMO Fallout for a few reasons, not least of which being that they have a habit of wasting everyone’s time and in many cases don’t actually answer any of the questions they are asked.

I harped on this back when Jagex would do Q&A sessions with their community, because they would ignore hard questions in favor of filling up the transcript with things that they knowingly couldn’t answer, with at least half of the answers being “I can’t answer this,” “this isn’t my department,” or “this isn’t what we’re talking about today.” The thinly veiled attempt at dodging questions under the guise of transparency is obvious to anyone paying the slightest amount of attention, and in the end it wastes time and likely causes more PR damage than actually answering the questions to begin with.

Trion Worlds recently put out a Q&A for Defiance, and in a fashion that I have heavily criticized in the past, managed to not answer just about any of their hand picked questions. Out of eleven questions in the latest Q&A, two fall into the “we are looking into it,” seven into the “we might in the future, maybe,” with one definitive no and one definitive yes. Eleven questions, all hand picked by a Trion employee, and only two answers provide concrete information.

There are two parts to a Question & Answer, the questions and the answers.

In Plain English: The Curious Case Of Jagex V John Doe

Those of you who play RuneScape or World of Warcraft are likely well acquainted with a popular phishing technique that made its rounds over the past few years, or at least you would be if you took a gander through your spam filter. The email warns players that they’ve been caught either botting or engaging in real money trading, and that further cheating will add them to a list of John Does in a pending lawsuit. While the email links to a fake login page designed to steal your account information, you might be surprised to know that the body of the email itself is indeed legitimate, or I should say was originally written by a legitimate source.

Jagex once filed lawsuit against cheaters, and it didn’t end in their favor.

No, seriously. I reported on this way back when it initially happened, getting confirmation from Jagex and from the central district court of California where the lawsuit was filed. The email cites both a valid case file and specific laws under which Jagex planned to file suit. The email threatened users that they could be hit with a fine ranging anywhere from $200 to $2500 per act of botting, past, present, and future. Recipients were informed that their accounts were on watch, and that they would be granted a one-time leniency. Cheat again, and be sued.

A bold move, certainly, but one that you wouldn’t really need a law degree to know is total bunk. While bot makers have been successfully sued in the past, cheating in a video game is not in itself a crime and there isn’t legal precedent in the United States to take a contrary position. For that matter, there isn’t a law specifically prohibiting making cheats either. In the past, developers like Jagex and Blizzard have gone down various avenues to shut down bot makers. Accusations include everything from DMCA violations by bypassing anti-bot software, copyright violations for using the game’s logo/trademark/assets without permission, receiving and then violating injunctions against maintaining the software, and raising costs/damaging revenue due to increased customer service and lost business from disgruntled customers.

But as far as players go, while there isn’t any precedent in the successful prosecution of cheaters, there is in their defense. In the case of Blizzard V Glider, the 9th circuit court of appeals ruled that the Glider bot did not violate Blizzard’s copyright because it didn’t modify the software. As a result, using the bot software was not illegal, noting that Blizzard cannot claim copyright infringement just because their terms of service prohibit such activity.

The court notes:

Were we to hold otherwise, Blizzard — or any software copyright holder — could designate any disfavored conduct during software use as copyright infringement, by purporting to condition the license on the player’s abstention from the disfavored conduct. The rationale would be that because the conduct occurs while the player’s computer is copying the software code into RAM in order for it to run, the violation is copyright infringement. This would allow software copyright owners far greater rights than Congress has generally conferred on copyright owners.

While we will likely never know how many people Jagex targeted with these emails, we do know that the lawsuit specifically mentions ten John Doe defendants. In July 2011, the court approved a motion for Jagex to serve Paypal in order to obtain information on the defendants, with the addition that in the event that Paypal is unable to provide sufficient information, Jagex could go after the ISP of each John Doe to get more data.

The lawsuit references four attorneys representing Jagex, two of whom had to be approved by a judge to appear “pro hac vice,” allowing the lawyers to practice in jurisdictions that they are not licensed. Following the court dockets, Judge Cormac J. Carney approved both applications on July 6th and 7th. At this point, the lawsuit goes dark for a while.

Fast forward five months and on December 1, 2011, Jagex files an ex parte application for a hearing telephonic status conference. A telephonic status conference is essentially where the plaintiff gets in touch, by telephone, with the judge’s clerk to let them know how the case is proceeding, to ensure that requirements set out by the court are being kept, and to resolve any other issues before a trial. It’s pretty standard, but in John Doe cases the courts have a tendency to lose their patience when the investigation phase drags on.

On December 9th, Judge Carney rejected the application with no documented opinion. The following month, January 20th 2012, Jagex filed a notice of voluntary dismissal, dropping all charges. There are no official opinions noted either by Judge Carney or by Jagex in their dismissal, but the answer should be obvious. They didn’t have a case, the court likely recognized it as a waste of time or the judge requested that they show up in person and they never did, and everyone went home with nothing accomplished.

I should make a note here that I reached out to Jagex’s press relations in the hopes of at least giving them a chance to comment, and I received no response. It’s hard to imagine that Jagex intended this to be any more than a scare tactic to hopefully convince some teenagers and the occasional person using bots to make money, to change their ways. It took about forty minutes of searching court dockets to find precedent against cheaters being sued, in an appeal case ruled one year prior.

The original copyright ruling against Glider cited a court ruling from 1993 that stated a technician operating a computer for the purposes of repair constituted a copyright violation, in that the technician creates an unauthorized copy when the program is started and loaded into RAM. That provision of the case was overruled with an addition to title 17 of the United States Code dealing with maintenance or repair, however since the defendant had unauthorized copies of the software on their computer, they were still found guilty.

So now you know the story of when Jagex filed lawsuit against ten unnamed bot users. If I do get a response from Jagex, I’ll put it up at the top.

If you have any thoughts, drop us a comment in the box below.

Nothing To See Here: Another Indie Meltdown

Darkbase 01 is a shooter developed by Nothing To See Here. Well, not really, it’s developed by Solar Storm Studio, a single person studio located in Trinidad & Tobago if his various profiles are to be believed. The game currently has 73 reviews and a 21% approval rating, slightly skewed since many of the positive reviews are blatant sarcasm. In the short time I’ve been writing this piece and checking up on sources, its store page has been removed.

Solar Storm Studio joins the growing list of indie devs who we have become all too familiar on Steam: Releasing low quality games that receive poor reviews, and then melt down and throw vitriol at the customer. Before the game was unlisted, all media had been removed (along with reference to the developer) except for the above image, accusing the Steam community of turning “to shit on ALL sides.”

If you visit the developer’s website, a message has been posted on the front page detailing the game’s removal:

I’ve made the decision to start shutting down my game, DarkBase 01. Throughout the 2 years of this ordeal. I’ve learned one important thing – the gaming community has allot of growing up to do if they are ever to be taken seriously by the rest of the world. I’ve never witnessed such a vile and childish community of people – and if that’s the way that they want to be – then so be it.

I’m in my 40’s and I simply have no time for childish behaviour – so I’m putting the gaming community behind me – and frankly, it’s getting boring. All I see now is drama and more drama – like a bloddy soap opera. I’m back in the graphic design community – where more mature people reside – and this is where I’ll stay from here onward.

You can read my column on Steam’s refund policy here, but I’ll sum it up once again. Valve has effectively killed the shovelware market on Steam, both in terms of visibility and in the ability to make a buck off of impulse buyers with no recourse. This kind of response is exactly what you can expect from an entity backed into a corner with no way out.

sdfsdf

(Source: Steam)

[Rant] Double Standards And The Scrubbed Starting Line

I dove into this topic in my piece about Infinite Crisis last week, but the line between beta and launch has become so blurred in the MMO industry that the whole concept has lost its meaning and many of us in gaming journalism are thoroughly sick of it. Go to virtually any website that reviews MMOs and you’ll likely see the same policy: We start judging when they start charging. I’m paraphrasing, but the point is the same regardless.

In earlier years, I defended the practice of selling beta access as a perk for pre-ordering because it was the best a customer could do to get a “demo” on an MMO. Granted, these were the days when 90% of western titles had subscriptions and wouldn’t see free trials until at least six months post launch, if at all. Furthermore, it was relatively low risk for the consumer. All you normally had to do was throw down the $5 minimum at Gamestop (or your local equivalent), a refundable/transferable five bucks I should add, and you’d get a beta key on your receipt. Apart from some know-how of the game and maybe a participation item, people in the beta didn’t get any advantage because characters were reset before launch.

But then free to play became dominant and the goal posts got moved time and time again. Developers stopped wiping beta characters, began opening up the cash shop in beta and in some cases even alpha. It’s important to read into the motives because the general consensus is that once you start charging for the use of a product, you agree that it is worth selling and therefore worth critiquing.

The launchification of beta, or early access as the industry has started calling it, has presented a remarkable double standard in game developers who want the freedom to treat the game as effectively launched in the sense that the servers won’t be wiped, the cash shop is open, and anyone can create an account and start playing, but keep up their shield against criticism whenever someone like myself posts a preview saying “this isn’t worth buying right now.” I have several times been the recipient of an email conveying disappointment or offering corrections, calling my criticism unfair because the product wasn’t considered launched yet.

What we’ve learned from the industry these past few years is that certain devs have no problem blurring the lines between beta and launch so long as it conveniences them and, when pushed on it, rubbing it out and flat out denying that it exists. When pushed on refunds, Turbine turned around and said no to founders because they’ve been playing for two years and, by Turbine’s opinion, they got their money’s worth regardless of if the game launched. When players struck back and pointed out that at least a decent portion of the time was spent dealing with outages, extended maintenance, game breaking bugs, and missing or incomplete features, Turbine’s CM simply denied the concept of launch altogether.

Because, in their logic, what does launch really mean when the game will continue to receive updates, bug fixes, and new heroes in the coming years? It makes sense, yes, but going by this line of thought, when are reviewers allowed to critique your product? Because if it’s unfair to criticize a game before it is finished, and a game like Infinite Crisis is in your explanation never finished, are you trying to say that it is never fair to criticize the game?

Or does the whole narrative eventually collapse and we go back to where we started?

With games increasingly shutting down mid-beta or very shortly after and then refusing to compensate customers, the need for tough scrutiny is higher than ever. The days of beta being a low risk, fun thing we did to get some game time in, help squash some bugs while stress testing, and ease the pain of waiting for launch are long over, and in its place is the high risk, predatory game of early access that carries no customer protection, no guarantee of ever receiving a final product, and no out once you’re in.

Otherwise I have no opinion on the matter.

[Community] Steam And The Refund Fallacy

Valve’s new refund policy for Steam has been up and running for about a week, and my prediction that this system would be crippling for certain developers is already coming true. If you’ve been paying attention to the digital papers these past two days, you’ve likely noticed a series of articles circulating around the developer Qwiboo, creator of Beyond Gravity, a game with 89% approval from 616 reviews. Qwiboo has taken to Twitter to complain that the new policy has resulted in a 72% refund rate on new purchases.

It’s refunds. Out of 18 sales 13 refunded in just last 3 days. That’s 72% of purchases. Rate of refunds before was minimal.

I’d like to get something out of the way before we continue: The comparison of refunds is a fallacy, and if Qwiboo isn’t already aware that this tweet proves no point, they should be. To say that refunds have increased since before Steam had a refund policy is irrelevant, it’d be like Verizon sending you a letter that they’ve noticed your bandwidth usage has increased 100% compared to before you were using their services, and that they would like an explanation.

So how does a game with a “very positive” review score suffer from a 72% refund rate? The reviews tell a different tale. While positive reviews beat out negative by sheer number, negative reviews have been voted more helpful than the positive, to the point where seventeen of the top twenty most helpful rated reviews are negative. Reviews note the game as a simplistic one button mobile port without much gameplay that seemingly only exists for the sake of achievements.

Even the more helpful positive reviews seem to have a hard time justifying the game, starting out with these awkward introductions:

Sometimes, a game doesn’t need much to be fun.

There is absolutely no purpose to this game, other than having fun.

Now, for the sake of fairness, the “most helpful” of the positive reviews does actually paint the game in a good light.

The graphics are cute, the music is bubbly, and the gameplay is really excellent. You’ll catch on right away but mastering the jump angles and timing between planets, which are different sizes and rotate at different speeds and often in different directions, is a bit trickier and what makes Beyond Gravity worth playing.

I decided to check out Qwiboo’s Twitter account to see if they commented further on the matter, only to find that they are curating their followers.

Another indie dev showing up in the articles is Puppygames, who last year published this blog post titled “Because You’re Worthless: The Dark Side of PR.”

Without customers, we’re dead in the water, homeless and living in a cardboard box outside Berko sewage plant. But individually, you’re like ants. And all of developers secretly know it and don’t talk about it. You’re not worth supporting. It’s far, far better to completely, totally ignore support, if you want to make a living.

The new refund policy on Steam is going to mark a dramatic shift for the service, and while it marks a huge leap forward for consumer rights, not everyone is going to be happy with the new climate.

Weekend Wrapper: Still Not E3 Edition

This week marks a special occasion here at MMO Fallout, in that once again I am branching out. Check out the first episode of my weekly movie review podcast, Direct 2 Netflix. If you enjoy it, please subscribe and keep listening. We’ll have new episodes out hopefully every Monday.

As usual, the weekend wrapper looks at new games, news, and editorials from all over the web. If you have any articles to share, shoot it to us in an email to contact[at]mmofallout[dot]com.

MMO News:

APB Reloaded is getting a server merge and new engine.
Lego Universe was hindered by dong detection software and high costs of customer support.
ArcheAge’s ongoing server FAQ isn’t complete, nor are the answers final.
Jagex details RuneScape’s upcoming updates.
Daybreak Game Company is focusing its development on Everquest Next over Landmark.

In Other News:

Steam introduces 14 day refund policy.
Xbox One 1gb bundle leaked. (Via Eurogamer)
Lucas hits Smash Bros on June 14th (Via Eurogamer)
XCOM 2 is PC exclusive and won’t support gamepads at launch. (Via Polygon)
Fallout 4 confirmed. (Via Giant Bomb)
Dota 2 prize pool tops $11 million. (Via IGN)

Opinion Section:

How FFXIV is about to get more accessible. (Via MMORPG.com)
Shovelware makers on Steam should be afraid. (Via MMO Fallout)
Interview with Chris Kluwe. (Via MMORPG.com)
How to make money without being evil. (Via Gamesindustry.biz)

Notable Releases:

Lego Worlds – Early Access ($14.99)
Hatred – ($19.99)

[Less Massive] Direct 2 Netflix Episode 1: It’s A Podcast!

This is a bit of self-promotion.

I’d like to divert your attention to a project I’m doing on the side, to test the whole podcasting waters. The show is called Direct 2 Netflix, hosted by myself and two of my acquaintances, where we review bad movies that are already on Netflix DVD.

The goal is to have a new episode out every Monday (meaning the next one will come out in a few days). The microphone is a bit shaky in some areas, but we’ll have a better one for next week. In this podcast, we look at the film The Intruders, starring Miranda Cosgrove and Donal Logue.

If you like it, subscribe and share!

Top 5: Lessons We Should Learn From Infinite Crisis

This week Turbine Entertainment announced that Infinite Crisis is shutting down, news that shouldn’t have really been a big surprise given the game’s extended development period, stretched out beta, lack of promotion, and how Turbine was throwing $50 cash packs in with Nvidia graphics cards.

Infinite Crisis isn’t the only game I’m going to talk about here, so just imagine the title was “Lessons We Should Learn From The MOBA Industry”

1. Developers Face A Steep Uphill Climb

If earning a seat at the MMO table is about as hard as getting a reservation at Rao’s in New York City, then the MOBA industry is right up there with a gig at Carnegie Hall. There are a few dozen MOBAs on the market right now, only a small handful of which will dominate the rest while the industry graveyard continues to branch out and buy up more land for the recently deceased. We talk a lot here about how World of Warcraft clones fail because, for the most part, players aren’t willing to forego the time and money spent leveling their characters to go do the same thing over again.

The MOBA genre, with its hyper-competitive nature, has a lot of shortcomings that can kill it early. You’re going up against companies with established communities, years of work balancing each individual hero, and thriving eSports scene. In order to break into the industry, it seems that companies either need to bring something different to the table (ala Smite), be backed by a company with a massive community (ala Dota 2) or to have gotten into the industry at an early age (League of Legends/Heroes of Newerth).

2. Big IPs Still Mean Squat In Gaming

Isn’t it fitting that, out of all of the MOBAs, the ones that crashed and shut down happen to be based on very popular properties? Warhammer is a franchise that spans tabletop games, pen and paper role playing, video games, novels, and more, and yet none of that mattered when the MMO toppled and the MOBA couldn’t sustain itself through beta. The same goes for Transformers Universe, a popular IP with the backing of an established developer with a massive customer base.

Even Guardians of Middle Earth, with all the power of the Lord of the Rings, couldn’t avoid being critically panned (22% approval on Steam) with presently deserted servers on PC. The game came and went on PS3 so quietly that even Warner Bros. didn’t notice to update its website to stop directing people to buy the PS3 version on Amazon, or even acknowledge the game’s existence on PC. According to Steam Charts, Guardians of Middle Earth has a 30 day peak of 19 players on Steam.

3. The Perpetual Beta Is Tired And Pointless

The idea that a game should receive more lenient coverage when in beta became a thing of the past when developers started fully charging for products that were still in beta, and it would be irresponsible to not acknowledge this when MMOs/MOBAs are shutting down without ever launching, and many don’t even offer some form of refund to the customers that went out on a limb and spent their hard earned money to fund an unfinished project.

And while the unfinished state of the game is a great excuse to deflect criticism when reviewers tell you not to spend money, Turbine apparently has no problem using beta time played to justify denying a refund to their founders, which is the exact sentiment given by Turbine’s Community Manager.

That’s mostly it. Because Founders got to play for 2+ years, you guys were well outside our refund window. We really do thank you for supporting the game, as it was your support that kept us going. Make no mistake about that. But, they guys who just bought their elite pack or starter pack from Steam, they didn’t get to play for as long as you guys.

4. The MOBA Genre Is In The Middle Of A Soft Crash

Right now the genre is in a position where developers are looking at the success of the likes of League and Dota and saying to themselves “I can do that too.” What we’ve wound up with is three major players (League, Dota, and SMITE in that order) and a whole lot of stragglers. This isn’t the case of the MMO industry where we have one game to rule them all and a ton of other companies making much smaller, but still livable incomes. The MOBAs that are down on the bottom of the list are struggling to remain relevant, in a genre that is heavily favoring those few at the top.

Compare the 30 day peak of Infinite Crisis to Dota2 on Steam: 1,557 to 967,674. Or Super Monday Night Combat (152), or Demigod (27), or Guardians of Middle Earth (13).

5. Fully Funded Betas Are Still A Bad Place For Your Money

Paid betas have taken on one of the worst attitudes and practices by developers, as repeated by Turbine’s community manager. Developers like Turbine have no problem selling a beta as though it is a finished product, ending character wipes, opening up a fully functional cash shop, and pulling hundreds of dollars out of players, yet when push comes to shove and people start giving the game negative reviews because of bugs or unfinished features, they turn around and claim that it’s unfair because the game is not released and not a finished product.

And when games like Infinite Crisis shut down after a prolonged beta and short launch? Well then it’s considered a full experience, and when pushed on a refund? Deny the entire concept of a finished game.

I know some of you feel as though you only had a small amount of time to play a “finished” game, but Infinite Crisis is a game that was built to consistently change. Even after launch we were still going to produce new champions, add new features, and continue iterating the game as we went forward. As we posted during our launch announcement, launch was never going to be a stopping point in the eyes of our development cycle. We’re an online game, and we’ve changed a lot (and changed for the better) over the last two years.

Turbine’s CM knows as well as you or I do what the players mean by “finished,” that being when the game sheds its beta tags, but you have to hand it to Turbine. Infinite Crisis was finished enough to open up the cash shop, not finished enough to review as a final product, and when it shut down right after launch? Well what exactly does “finished” mean, really? Hold two sides of the same coin, and then deny that the coin exists.

We understand when indie developers can’t finish a game because it’s a couple of guys working out of a motel/office funding the game partially out of pocket and partially through donations/pledges. A company like Turbine, on the IP of DC Comics and the backing of a corporate hulk like Warner Bros. shouldn’t be dropping development of a game because it wasn’t making enough money during beta.

It’s PR spin, and people aren’t going to fall for it. Infinite Crisis shutting down right after launch is bad enough as it is, bridges will be burned and customers will be lost, it’s an unfortunate part of business. But burning founders can damage a brand, in the case Turbine’s future ability to put a game out in beta and ask people to join in early to fund you, as people will look back to when Infinite Crisis shut down and see that while those who jumped in late were refunded, the people who were there from the beginning were told “oh well, too bad.”

I feel that this is a bad sign for Turbine overall.

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