Category: News

Jagged Alliance Online To Sunset November 30


 

Jagged Alliance Online: Reloaded is the latest victim of online-only games, as developer/publisher Cliffhanger Productions announced last week that the servers will come down in November. Initially launched into open beta way back in 2012, developed by Cliffhanger Productions and published at the time by Gamigo. In 2015, the game was rebooted on Steam, now self-published by Cliffhanger, for a base asking price.

“It is with great regret, that we have to announce the servers for JAO will be closing by end of November and the game will cease to exist. We kept the game running for as long as we could – for a long time now it cost us more than we earned- but unfortunately we don’t have the means to continue to do so any more.”

Cliffhanger Productions is currently advertising its next title set for launch this fall: Jagged Alliance: Rage! Rage is a spinoff set 20 years after the first Jagged Alliance. As for Jagged Alliance Online, the game has been sitting at single digit average player counts for well over two years now.

(Source: Steam)

Dirty Bomb To Stay Online Despite Development Ending


Dirty Bomb is a free to play shooter developed by Splash Damage and published by Warchest Ltd. The game launched in June 2015 and has garnered a mostly positive 79% approval rating on Steam with an average concurrent player count of nearly a thousand at any given time, according to Steam Charts.

Despite this, it looks like the game hasn’t been performing as well in the money department as Splash Damage announced today that development on the title would cease. An announcement posted on the game’s Steam forums today revealed that a coming bug fix build in the next few weeks will be the last that the title will see.

After regaining publishing rights for DB nearly two years ago, we staffed up a load of developers and tried our best to deliver a Dirty Bomb experience that would be feature-rich with tons of new content, while maintaining its great gameplay feel & balance. Unfortunately, despite all the added time and resources, there were some challenges we couldn’t overcome, and we were not able to make DB the success that we hoped it could be. The bottom line is that we can’t financially justify continuing to work on the game we love.

According to the announcement, official servers will stay online as long as the community numbers support it. In addition, all merc packs purchased by January 31, 2019 will be refunded.

Since we won’t be releasing any additional Mercenaries, we’re going to refund the All Merc Pack DLC to everyone who purchased it by January 31st, 2019 – the money you spent will go back in your Steam wallet and the unlocked Mercs will remain in your account. We know many of you love DB and still play it religiously, so we will keep servers up for you to enjoy, as long as there are a meaningful number of players using them in the supported regions.

(Source: Steam)

Runefest 2018: Jagex Cans The RunePass


I talked about the Runepass back in July and at the time I was hesitant to give any score to the feature given it was essentially in the state of a pilot program. While I noted that it did somewhat reduce the Dailyscape issue that plagued prior limited promotions, the pass just wasn’t worth it especially when compared to the competition. The Runepass was $10 and compared to other games that have released such a mechanic, it offered very little not only in rewards but in time, lasting about two weeks when most others run for a couple of months at a time and give a lot more for the same cost, if not cheaper.

The response from the overall community was also pretty negative, with players expressing doubts towards Jagex’s promise that a Runepass would mean less cash shop promotions, with many believing that Jagex would just opt to do both.

Well Jagex promised that they would go back and look at the Runepass before offering an update, and it looks like the Runepass has been shelved along with expansions. In a post on the RuneScape Reddit, Jagex stated that while Runepass was apparently successful commercially, it will not be coming back in the foreseeable future.

Before we try doing RunePass again we need to put a little more time and thought into it. For the time being, at least, those energies are better invested elsewhere, and our focus is better placed on instead ensuring the delivery of great game updates for 2019.

(Source: Reddit)

PSA: How To Play RuneScape Idle Adventures (Updated)


(Update: 6/18/19: As brought to our attention in the comments below, this method no longer works.)

RuneScape Idle Adventures was the product of a partnership between Jagex and Hyper Hippo. It launched into early access on Steam and was very quickly abandoned by developer Hyper Hippo and never made it out of early access. Rather than cut ties to its online server, an arguably simple task for a game that arguably shouldn’t need to be connecting to a server, Hyper Hippo decided that the best option would just be to cut off access to the game entirely.

Thankfully the internet is full of magic wizards who can macgyver a functioning game in three keystrokes. Reddit user awsjay discovered nine months ago that you can get RuneScape Idle Adventures (almost) fully functioning with literally one character change in the game’s code.

  1. Download the game (If not already active on your Steam account, you should be able to force the install through SteamDB)
  2. Get yourself a hex editor program. (I used this one because it’s simple looking)
  3. Go to the line highlighted below. The third number from the right will be 3A, change this value to 39 (as screenshotted)
  4. Save your change.
  5. Launch the game.

When I say the game is “mostly functional,” I’m referring to the obvious limitations being you won’t be able to buy anything from the store because the servers aren’t there. Otherwise the game is fully functional as far as they were able to develop it.

To prove this method actually works, I will be leaving my game broadcasting for the next day or so. You can see it active here.

(Source: Reddit)

Daybreak: Just Kidding, We’re Working On Keeping Just Survive Online


Just Survive is shutting down this year, except it isn’t.

H1Z1 savior Jace Hall this week announced in a Twitch livestream that the less popular half of H1Z1 (or whatever it’s calling itself these days), otherwise known as Just Survive, will not be shutting down in October as originally planned. Last month we learned that Daybreak Game Company had received a sizable investment from NantG and that the PC version would be renamed Z1 Battle Royale and have its development taken over by a joint venture between Daybreak and NantG Mobile lead by Jace Hall himself.

At the time, Hall noted that NantG was unable to negotiate the transfer of Just Survive. Evidently that situation has changed since the original comment. Jace Hall noted in the livestream that discussions are still underway on the exact details of how Just Survive will continue, but it looks like it will become a mode within H1Z1.

“What that means is Just Survive will continue and our intention is to put it into a maintenance mode for a moment but then we want to work with the community over time and figure out the right way to re-integrate Just Survive as a mode inside of Z1. There’ll be a survival mode, you’ll see Just Survive.”

(Source: Twitch)

Steam Cleaning: Valve Bans Yet Another Title For Impersonating Dota 2


It must be a day ending in Y, because Valve has terminated yet another Russian developer for publishing a game on the Steam marketplace with the express purpose of scamming items from established Valve titles. In this case, the creator in question was able to change the title of his game to Dota 2, including adding the official Dota 2 logo as his own, and began uploading items with the same art, description, and titles as those in Dota 2. The developer would presumably be able to distribute items to himself and friends in order to better facilitate their crimes.

Thankfully Valve implemented changes the last time this incident occurred, adding a warning to players trading for items from a game they do not own. This developer went even further and apparently discovered an exploit that allowed him to upload items without approval. In order to stem scams, Valve requires that games past a certain trust threshold before they can make use of Steam inventory and trading cards.

A Valve representative posted that the exploit has been patched.

“Scammers figured out a way to get items in the Steam economy without having their game approved for release first. We fixed that today.”

The title was quickly removed and has been virtually scoured from Valve’s systems, going as far as deleting the app and its community hub entirely.

(Reddit)

APB: Reloaded Implements New Premium Payments, With Auto-Renew!


Gamersfirst this week announced that players will finally be able to subscribe to the game’s premium service and have their subscription automatically renew every month. Through its payment provider Stripe, players can automatically subscribe to one month ($7.99), three month ($18.39) and six month ($26.36) plans that will automatically renew without needing you to manually re-purchase the premium package. You will still be able to cancel at any time.

It will also continue to be possible to buy premium with G1 Credits, however the announcement notes that an automatic renewal system that deducts credits from your account every month is not currently available. The team hopes to have it in at some point.

(Source: Gamersfirst)

Old School RuneScape Gets New Skill


This weekend marked Runefest, the annual festival of all things RuneScape. While discussing all things past, present, and future, Jagex announced that Old School RuneScape will receive a new skill in the form of warding.

Warding aims to fill a gap in RuneScape’s crafting. As the developer blog notes, while melee and range users have skills to create their armor, magic users aren’t so blessed. Mage equipment currently is either dropped from monsters or bought from players who in turn received them from monsters. The warding skill will aim to give mages their own alternative.

In order to craft armors, players will need to gather materials from skills such as farming, hunter, or killing certain monsters, using new crops and beasts that will be added alongside the skill. Rune energy will need to be drawn from the various monoliths scattered throughout the world. Soapstones will be used to draw runic wards on the ground, and then the materials are used to create the desired armor.

Warding will release at some point in the future. This marks the first skill available in Old School that is not in standard RuneScape.

 

PSA: Shadow Warrior 2 Free On Good Old Games


First person shooter Shadow Warrior 2 is free on Good Old Games for a limited time, and if you don’t own the title (or own it on Good Old Games), it’s in your best interest to pick it up now. Developed by Flying Wild Hog and released in 2016, Shadow Warrior 2 still sells for $39.99, making this a hell of a deal.

As part of GOG’s tenth anniversary promotion, members of the community were asked to pick a game that would be offered for free and Shadow Warrior ultimately won out over Firewatch and Superhot. It holds a 4.4/5 star rating on Good Old Games.

The deal only lasts until roughly 10:15am EST on Saturday, October 6.

(Source: GOG.com)

Guild Wars 2 Partially Disables Gem Store For Belgian Players


Arenanet has confirmed in a statement that a recent change blocking Belgian players from accessing the gem store is indeed a response to local legislation regarding loot boxes. Arenanet staffer Gaile Gray noted that Arenanet is seeking “flexible solutions,” and that for the time being purchases of certain

“We recently disabled Gem purchases for players located in Belgium. This action was in response to the Belgian Gaming Commission’s declaration that paid loot boxes violate Belgium’s gambling restrictions. We have now implemented a more refined system, which only restricts the purchase of loot boxes and related items, such as chest keys, dye kits, and certain packs by players located in Belgium. For players located in Belgium, you will see the following message when viewing these items ‘This item is not available for purchase in your region.’ All other items and purchases are now available.”

Any chests, dye kits, and other restricted items/packs that have already been acquired can still be used. Arenanet noted in their FAQ that Black Lion Keys and chests will still continue to drop in-game and can still be redeemed as long as they were not purchased with real money.

(Source: Guild Wars 2)