Category: News

In Plain English: Epic Takes On Counterfeiters


Here’s a quick tip on counterfeiting merchandise from one of the most litigious companies in the gaming industry: Don’t.

Epic Games is back in court, because the company refuses to let its lawyers have an easy week. This time around, the company isn’t going after Fortnite cheat distributors. On April 25, 2019, Epic filed suit in the Northern District of Illinois for the sale of products in connection with the registered trademark of Fortnite. The lawsuit contends that the defendants are going to great lengths to hide the extent of their operations and are selling inferior quality products designed to look like authorized merchandise.

Who are the defendants? Good question. Epic lists them as individuals and businesses residing in China and other foreign jurisdictions.

Epic seeks relief on charges of counterfeiting and trademark infringement, false designation of origin, violation of the Illinois Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act, and has demanded an enjoinment from using the Fortnite brand, passing off counterfeit products as genuine, that all profits gained through the counterfeiting operation be handed to Epic or that statutory damages of $2 million USD for each use of the Fortnite trademark be awarded. They also seek reasonable attorney fees and any further damages the court might award.

Epic’s attorneys are meeting with the court today (April 30) to discuss a motion for temporary transfer of defendant’s domain names, temporary asset restraint (freezing assets), expedited discovery, service of process by email, among other motions.

MMO Fallout could not ascertain the identities of the defendants, as those documents have been sealed by the court, possibly to prevent potential defendants from transferring assets in anticipation of a restraint. Similarly, there are no exhibits of such merchandise available at this time for potentially the same reason.

As always, the court dockets have been provided at our expense to you, the reader, at the Google Drive linked below.

Source: Google Drive

IPE Update: Epic Games v. Sperry Ends


Another Epic Games lawsuit has come to a close.

Plaintiff Epic Games and defendant Joseph Sperry, a.k.a “Spoezy” in a lawsuit related to the creation and distribution of cheat software for the video game Fortnite. According to the lawsuit filed by Epic, Sperry promoted, marketed, and sold the cheats to third parties for financial gain, and engaged in acts of contributory copyright infringement as well as contributing substantially to infringement by others through the sale of his software.

Sperry was hit with a DMCA violation, and has been permanently enjoined and restrained from infringement of any Epic product, current or future, as well as having any relation to infringing software of any of Epic’s copyrights, cheating at any Epic’s games, interfering with their contracts or contractual relations, unfairly competing with Epic, or assisting in any way another party in infringing on Epic’s copyrights.

Both parties have accepted the terms of the judgment and neither party may appeal this ruling. If Sperry violates the terms of the ruling, the court holds the right to award Epic liquidated damages of five thousand dollars without regard to proof of actual damages, as well as possibly other relief including attorneys’ fees, costs, as determined by the court.

Epic filed suit in the North Carolina Eastern District Court, Western Division. Epic Games has filed ten lawsuits since October 10, 2017 against cheat creators/distributors for Fortnite with most of the cases ending in simple court-ordered injunctions. All but one of those lawsuits has since been closed.

As always, MMO Fallout has provided the documents on our Google Drive. The file is listed as “Sperry-Judgment”.

Source: Google Drive

MapleStory 2 Sums Up Project New Leaf


Who needs the old leaf? This week Nexon America announced the conclusion of improvement updates to MapleStory 2’s Project New Leaf. As stated by CEO Jungsoo Lee, Project New Leaf is just the beginning and will lead the way to further improvement for the game. The update precedes an upcoming major expansion set to launch in the summer, and the team at Nexon hopes that the updates can revive the game and make it feel as packed as it was on day one.

The massive list of updates includes:

  • Removed Fairfight from all Adventure Dungeons
  • Reduced World Boss HP by ~60%
  • Added Trader’s Ribbons to allow you to trade top-tier equipment that you don’t need to those that could use it
  • Added the Fragment inventory tab to help you reduce the clutter of the Misc tab
  • Improved Notifications to better protect Legendary Gear with Epic Bonus Stats
  • Improved the Available Quest Window
  • Increased penalties for illegally buying mesos
  • Added the Meso Market to improve the mobility of mesos
  • Made Epic Pets much more likely to drop
  • Greatly reduced the meso cost for changing Legendary Gear attributes
  • Greatly reduced the meso cost of fusing Accessory Fragments
  • Made Accessory Socket openings guaranteed and cheaper on average
  • Made Upgrading Gemstones guaranteed and much cheaper on average
  • Made Extracting Gemstones trivially inexpensive
  • Greatly reduced the cost of enchanting via Peachy, creating a competitive guaranteed path towards +15 equipment
  • Replaced Daily Missions with a Weekly Prestige Rank system that encourages you to play MapleStory 2 however you want
  • And more!

Source: Nexon

Mobility: MapleStory M Releases New PvP Dungeon


MapleStory M has released its latest content update and introduced a new PvP dungeon.

The PvP dungeon includes two modes: Ranked and free. Ranked mode has players going head to head in 3v3 matches with tiers decided by seasonal ranking and rewards being distributed as ranked. Free mode will give you more leeway to create as unbalanced of a match as you would like.

The following events are also included:

  • Kemdi’s Dice Game – From April 24 to May 9, a one-of-a-kind board game experience will be available where players can earn dice through hunting. Players can then roll the special dice to advance their pieces on the board and earn rewards. Those who complete the quest will then unlock the mysterious Kemdi’s Gift Box.

  • Spring Wonder Wheel Event – Starting May 9, the Spring Wonder Wheel Event allows players the chance to win Emblem Potential Scrolls, Lucky Day Scroll, Unique Rank Up Stones, Royal Coupons, and other rare items. Maplers can earn chances to spin the wheel by finding special tickets hidden throughout the game.

Also accompanying today’s update are balances to the gold leaf shop, character classes, and the user interface.

Source: Nexon press release.

Quality Control: Valve Approves Obvious Attack on Titan Ripoff


Quality control: On Steam, it is virtually non-existent where Valve has a $100 interest in every game submitted. Between fraudware, malware, rape games, publishers heading over to Epic, and secret bitcoin miners being uploaded to the platform, Valve has had quite the PR nightmare on its hands. That being said, it’s been a while since Valve has had a genuinely embarrassing misstep.

Until today.

Twitter user Lekon brought attention to an Attack on Titan unlicensed game being approved by Valve titled none other than Attack on Titan The Game. The title is available in early access for $5 and appears to be a low quality endless runner hastily cobbled together and tossed on Steam.

Koei Tecmo America has provided an official response that the game was not approved to use the Attack on Titan property and that their legal team has already been notified. While this is hardly the most controversial thing to happen on Steam, it is another reminder on how little effort Valve puts to prevent the same troll/illegal games it promised to keep off the store.

Source: Twitter 

MapleStory 14th Anniversary Event Goes Live: Play As The Pink Bean


As we noted previously, MapleStory’s 14 Anniversary event has gone live, and will run from April 24 through June 12. Events named after past seasonal updates will be available under the 14th Street event. Players will receive the 14th Street Fairgoer title at the start of the event and increase their reputation and stats as they complete missions to receive the 14th Street Celeb medal.

You’ll also be able to create a Pink Bean character through June 12 by talking to Pink Bean outside the Chaos Pink Bean Theatre. The character is temporary, so get as much use out of it as you can. For more on MapleStory, check out the official website.

Source: Nexon Press Release

Nepal Supreme Court Demands Justification On PUBG Ban


You may have read the news that PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds had been banned in Nepal and thought “this makes no sense,” and you would have the backing of the Nepal Supreme Court on your side. The South Asian country took the banhammer to the popular battle royale shooter just two weeks ago and directed all internet service providers and mobile data centers to block access to the game.

Justice Ishwar Prasad Khatiwada demanded an explanation for the ban and asked the government to provide justification beyond the vague excuse that the game was distracting children from schoolwork and chores, as well as unsubstantiated claim of violent behavior coming from addicted gamers.

Unlike India where more than a dozen people were arrested for violating its own ban, it doesn’t appear that anyone has actually been punished in the two weeks that the law was in effect. As of right now, PUBG is once again playable. Whether the government will be able to come up with a convincing excuse to put access back on the kibosh will have to be seen.

Source: Gamasutra

Titan Network In Talks To Revive City of Heroes With NCSoft Blessing


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City of Heroes is back! Or it was. In case you fell off the face of the planet over the past few days like yours truly did, you may have missed all of the hubbub surrounding City of Heroes, a game that’s getting a lot of widespread attention for a title that is dead six years running. The mishegas all began last week as we learned that City of Heroes doesn’t just have a functioning emulator, but it has been running in secret for the past six years now. Even worse, a fair few members of the press knew about it all along (Side note: The people operating the server are probably the same that do not like me and as such I was never cued in on the secret private server).

Fast forward a few days and the code for the private server was released online, leading to the launch of SCORE, a publicly playable server that went live over the weekend. Fast forward a couple more days, and the server went down due to what later turned out to be a fake legal threat. It remains offline. For more information on all of this, you can check out Massively OP’s Bree Royce who has meticulously covered all of the events.

Today, Tony V of the Titan Network announced via Twitter that there are negotiations going on with City of Heroes. Granted, there have been ongoing talks since the game shut down so make what you will of these “positive” developments.

Z1 Battle Royale Will Shut Down South American Servers


Z1 Battle Royale, the PC shooter by Daybreak Game Company, is coming to an end on season 3 and bringing big changes with it. Chief among today’s announcements includes the reveal that Daybreak is shutting down Z1’s South America servers on April 30 to coincide with the end of season 3. This move will consolidate American players into the North American servers, hopefully speeding up queue times and ensuring the servers are populated going into season 4.

Z1’s traffic has been on a steady decline over the past couple of years, with Daybreak making changes in response to the smaller population.

Source: Steam

MapleStory Kicks Off 14th Anniversary Event


MapleStory is turning 14 and wants you to join in on the celebrations.

From April 24 through June 12, events named after past seasonal updates will be available under the 14th Street event. Players will receive a 14th Street Fairgoer title increase their reputation and stats as they complete missions. Once all missions are complete, Maplers will receive the 14th Street Celeb medal.

In addition to the event, players will also be able to create a Pink Bean character. Players will also be able to complete the Pink Bean’s Movie Script, a set of 30 missions that award the Holy Pink Beanity Title. And finally the Big Bang Store will offer rewards for the 14th Street Coins such as new mounts, chairs, and rings. More information can be found at the official website.

Source: Nexon Press Release