Category: News

Pearl Abyss Drops Sorceress Class For Black Desert Mobile


Today marks the launch of the Sorceress class for Black Desert Mobile, as announced by Pearl Abyss earlier this month.

The Sorceress uses a combination of magic and melee to defeat her opponents, and generates shards of darkness that can be spent on buffs to make her attacks even more powerful. In addition to the new class, players can also enjoy magical enhancements. Throughout February and March Pearl Abyss will be hosting a Black Desert Mobile championship. This is a team competition so you will need to recruit some other members. Winners will be rewarded with pearls and special titles.

Destiny 2 Suffers Rollback After Major Bug Wipes Inventories


Destiny 2’s update 2.7.1 was the source of a whole lot of problems yesterday after players logged in to find that some of their inventories and achievements had just been straight up wiped. The servers were quickly shut down so Bungie could investigate the cause and roll out a fix, however the extent and reach of the glitch meant that accounts would have to be rolled back to where they were at 8:30 a.m. PST.

The good news is that players will lost at most nearly two hours of progress assuming that they played from the moment the server came up through the moment it went offline. Not a huge loss for the grand majority.

Today, Update 2.7.1 introduced an issue that affected currencies and pursuits. We immediately brought the game offline to mitigate any loss of materials while we investigated. We have identified the issue and the good news is that we were able to deploy an update to the server and will not have to update the game client.

We have rolled all character data back to our most recent backup at 8:30 a.m. Pacific before the issue was introduced. This will restore any lost materials caused by the issue, but players will lose any progress they made if they played between 8:30 a.m and 10:20 a.m. when we brought the game down for maintenance. Any purchases made using Silver or Bright Dust during this window will need to be repurchased. Any Silver spent or purchased will be restored.

The server update is complete and we are beginning to bring the game back online now. Stay tuned to @Bungiehelp for updates.

Source: Bungie

Rockstar Celebrates Record Breaking Holiday Season


It’s no secret that Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2 have been insane successes, and Rockstar is giving something back in return for a popular holiday season. The Diamond Casino Heist set new player numbers in Grand Theft Auto Online that haven’t been seen since the Casino itself released last July. GTA V also enjoyed record engagement on Youtube while Red Dead Online experienced the highest peak numbers in December following the launch of Moonshiners with even higher numbers in January.

To thank their players, Rockstar is giving GTA Online players $2 million in GTA bucks, with Red Dead Online players receiving free access to frontier pursuit roles, role item giveaways, and more.

Source: Press Release

Continent of the Ninth Seal Drops New Content Update


Webzen this week announced the latest update to Continent of the Ninth Seal which introduces the seventh continent and a swath of new content.

The main highlight of the update is the new continent Hernad where adventurers can find the dungeons Camp of Durahan, Forest of Blasted Spirits, and Faded Temple filled with Nefer’s forest just waiting to be killed for sweet loot. Along with the new dungeons comes new armor and weapons as well as rewards for those who pre-registered. Players will also find a mystery box which can be opened for gears every 24-48 hours.

An in-game event is being held to celebrate the update that gives away a weapon enhancement package with additional events offering bonus exp, dungeon rewards, and more.

For more details, check out the official website.

Bethesda Gives Proper Compensation To Fallout 76 Robbery Victims


It’s a new year and that means new second chances. Back over the winter holidays, Fallout 76 suffered a rather embarrassing exploit which allowed players to steal items from another person’s inventory effectively initiating a forced trade. It appears that Bethesda is finally making good on its promise of compensation.

This time around players are reporting that their inventories of lost items have been replaced along with a promised stipend of atoms. Bethesda’s remedy appears to be to clone a version of the player’s character from before the theft with the offer of a free service to transfer items from the cloned character to the non-cloned, presumably further progressed original character.

Source: Polygon via MassivelyOP

Operation Breakout: 10k Online, But Nobody’s Playing


I bought Operation Breakout because I’m willing to throw down nearly $10 on a hunch.

Operation Breakout is catching some attention over its sudden appearance on Steam’s trending games list and since this is Steam it’s probably for all the wrong reasons. If you look on the store page you’ll find 28 reviews, 8% of which are positive, and roughly one review being posted in 2019. The game itself has evidently been a massive failure in terms of users and sales.

So it came as a surprise that the game suddenly started showing over ten thousand concurrent players this week, yet nobody seems to be talking about the game. MMO Fallout Eyewitness News crew picked up a copy of the game to see what we would find within. The results were not so surprising.

As you can see in the screenshot above, there are no servers for this game. Seven thousand people logged in at the time of this writing, and yet literally not a single person is actually playing the game.

The answer? Operation Breakout has trading cards, and the most likely explanation is that a lot of game keys have been dumped on a grey market website for cheap and bought up by card farmers.

This isn’t the only suspicious title from publisher Phanom Games. Another title Fireflies has several periods in 2017-2018 where the game inexplicably spikes to over over a thousand concurrent users despite the fact that the game looks and plays terrible and a relatively small number of reviews.

 

Thanks, SirViolentDeath for bringing attention to Operation Breakout.

3rd Party Old School RuneScape Client Coming To Steam


Is Old School RuneScape coming to Steam? Maybe, but not officially.

MMO Fallout’s busy bees discovered a SteamDB listing an unreleased listing for OpenOSRS, a third party client for Old School RuneScape. OpenOSRS advertises itself as an open source client for RuneScape that provides plugins to improve the quality of life of the game, including timers, trackers, popups, and more. The app is understandably listed as free on demand and first appeared on SteamDB’s tracker way back in November 2019.

There is no word on when the client will hit Steam, as of right now it does not have a public store page or community hub. MMO Fallout will update as more details come out.

Third Circuit Court Mutes RuneScape Lawsuit, Again


You all remember Amro Elansari, patron saint of MMO Fallout and guy who is constantly sticking it to the man. What do you stick to the man? Chewing gum, probably.

Last we heard from Mr. Elansari, he had just come off of a failed lawsuit against Jagex over claims that being muted in RuneScape constituted a violation of his freedom of speech, due process, and human rights. Judge Kearney, patron saint of shutting down nonsense, dismissed the case with prejudice noting that a private company like Jagex could not be charged with violations of the constitution. Most definitely they could not be sued on such grounds in state court. Elansari was informed that he could file in federal court should he decide to.

And he decided to, as Elansari appealed to the third circuit federal court who…shut it down immediately. In his appeal, Elansari brought forward a fourteenth amendment complaint which Judges Schwartz, Restrepo, and Rendell noted would require a state actor working with Jagex. If Jagex had a secret state government employee that they were conspiring with to squash Elansari’s constitutional rights, he might have a lawsuit. Elansari did not present any such claim of a state actor, and as a result the lawsuit is kaput.

Elansari also attempted a Title II claim of unequal treatment which would require discrimination based on protected status (race, gender, religion, etc) but Elansari did not make any claim as to his punishment being a result of discrimination. The most recent court filing dismissing the lawsuit is below.

Source: Justia

Frostkeep To Sunset Rend This Month


Rend is dead, as Frostkeep announced today. A post on the official website confirms that the servers for the survival game will go offline permanently as of January 31.

“We’re sad to announce that on 1/31/2020 we will sunset Rend. This was a difficult decision for our team and was not something we approached lightly or without serious thought and consideration. As a small indie studio, we set out with determination and a bold vision to create a competitive survival game that would challenge the traditional mold and introduce new experiences and ways for players and friends to participate within the game regardless of play style. But ultimately, the game’s population levels have decreased and reached a level where the original experience we hoped for and envisioned for Rend is no longer a possibility. We will formally shut down all public servers on Friday 1/31. While today’s news is a disappointment, we’re sincerely grateful to our players, partners and the community for your commitment and support. Thank you for joining us on the battlefield.”

Frostkeep Studios suffered layoffs earlier this month that seem at least somewhat related to the shut down. Also likely related is the dismal performance of the title, as traffic for Rend on Steam had dropped into the single digits of average players since October 2019. Frostkeep has promised not to interfere with private servers.

Source: MassivelyOP

Streaming Buddies: Activision Blizzard Partners With Google Cloud


Google and Activision Blizzard today announced that the two companies will be joining forces to power new player experiences. Activision Blizzard will use Google Cloud services to power their game hosting infrastructures while Youtube will play exclusive host to live broadcasts of eSports and other events (excluding China). In other words, Youtube will be hosting Overwatch League, Call of Duty League, Hearthstone, and others.

Call of Duty’s inaugural league kicks off today (January 24) at 2p.m. PST where twelve teams will face off in Minnesota with Overwatch League following on February 8.

“We’ve worked closely with Activision Blizzard for the past few years across mobile titles to boost its analytics capabilities and overall player experience,” said Sunil Rayan, Head of Gaming, Google Cloud. “We are excited to now expand our relationship and help power one of the largest and most renowned game developers in the world.”

Activision boasts that the cloud will allow gamers to play their favorite titles with low latency and packet loss.

“This is an exciting year for Activision Blizzard Esports as we head into the inaugural season of Call of Duty League and our first ever season of homestands for Overwatch League all around the world,” said Pete Vlastelica, CEO of Activision Blizzard Esports. “It’s our mission to deliver high-quality competitive entertainment that our fans can follow globally, live or on-demand, and to celebrate our players as the superstars that they are. This partnership will help us deliver on that promise at new levels, by combining our passionate communities of fans and players with YouTube’s powerful content platform and exciting history of supporting next-generation entertainment.”

Source: Press Release