Category: News

IPE: Romine V Stanton Lawsuit Dismissed, With Special Caveat


You thought it was over but it wasn’t, or at least it soon will be. James Romine’s lawsuit against Jim Sterling may have hit its final note after a long and rather ridiculous back and forth, with the revelation that the lawsuit has been dismissed. For the course of this lawsuit, you may have been misled to believe that Sterling’s focal point was on the fact that Arizona did not have jurisdiction over the case, and therefore would need to dismiss it. Far be it from me to violate the law by offering legal advice as one without a license. In reality, however, Sterling’s lawyers have focused on whether or not Romine is the proper entity to bring the case.

For instance, a cashier cannot sue a person who damages the store they work at, the store has to do it.

Now the law can look the other way on said rule if the corporate entity can be claimed as an alter ego of the individual. In this case, however, since the two Romine brothers own Digital Homicide, said rule cannot be used, since Romine did not make allegations that the acts of development were carried as an individual rather than as a corporate entity, specifically arguing that the defendant (Sterling) targeted the company itself and claiming damages that were suffered by the company rather than himself as an individual. The court does note that Romine included emotional and financial distress, however.

One issue I’ve been harping on this whole time, to an unnecessary extent, is that James Romine did need, and always will need a lawyer if he’s going to even have a chance of seeing this lawsuit go to trial. You see, while individuals can bring lawsuits pro se (without a lawyer), companies cannot. Digital Homicide would need legal council which nobody is willing to crowdfund, which no lawyer will take without upfront payment, and of which the company cannot afford after destroying their own business by attempting to serve Valve with a subpoena causing their contract to be terminated.

So Romine can’t bring lawsuit against Sterling for damages against DHS’ finances, unless he can prove to the court that he can, but DHS cannot appear in court pro se and needs to be represented through legal council, so the court has granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss, as well as denying Romine’s last two motions to amend as moot. Romine has until February 10, 2017 to file an amended complaint or the case will be dismissed entirely. It is important to note here that said complaint must be filed by a licensed attorney.

Skip To 100 in DC Universe Online


If you want to catch up on DC Universe’s content, now is the time to do it. Starting now and running through the end of the month, you’ll be able to advance a character to combat rating 100, bringing you up to speed on the past six years of content.

So, what is Advance to CR100? It works just like Advance to Level 25, which we introduced last year. With this, you can advance a new or existing character to Combat Rating 100. You will be granted appropriate feats and gear, so your character will be ready to play content* in Tier 5 and Tier 6.

The event runs until January 31st.

(Source: DC Universe)

Trion Worlds Compensates (Again) Players For ArcheAge Downtime (Again)


At some point the news will just revert to posting articles when ArcheAge goes a full month without having any server issues or lengthy downtime. Until then, we will be here to report on every time players are offered their regular stipend of compensation.

ArcheAge’s recent downtime, not to be confused with the downtime last month after the launch of the fresh start servers, has spurred compensation for players who tried to log in between January 6th and January 12th. The statement by Trion Worlds is as follows:

Adventurers, we know many of you were affected by the recent sets of server downtime and errors that prevented you from logging in, and we want to offer you all a pack of compensation items. Our teams continue to work to fix these errors and make your experience as smoothly as possible, and we really appreciate you sticking with us through all of it!

As part of the compensation, all players will receive:

  • 2 Daru Warrior’s Chests
  • 12 Warrior’s Medals
  • 2 Bound Worker’s Compensation: 1000
  • 5 Merit Badges
  • 2 Eternal Hero Potions, worth 500 honor each.
  • 20 Bound Hereafter Stones

(Source: ArcheAge)

Neverwinter New Changes to Dungeons, 15% VIP Sale


Today’s Neverwinter patch doesn’t just introduce the Gift of Tymora event, it also marks the start of a 15% VIP sale. VIP in Neverwinter acts like a subscription for other MMOs, with bonuses that continue adding with each month that you subscribe adding to a rank that never decreases even if your subscription does.

In other news, today’s update is accompanied by details to changes to in-game content. Foremost, the rewards system is being reworked to give rarer rewards more often, including artifacts, companions, mounts, and more. The game will announce to your group when you obtain some rare piece of loot, with Perfect World also mentioning that the announcement is not global (not to add to the game’s already spammy announcements), and finally the last item on the list is a useful items inventory tab, for things that you need but don’t use all that often like fishing poles, keys, etc. The useful items tab will help clean up your inventory.

(Source: Neverwinter)

Marvel Heroes Vaulting Boosts, Get Them Now Before They’re Gone


Marvel Heroes is shelving a large number of boosts currently available in the store, and Gazillion is advising that you pick them up now while you still can. Starting next Tuesday, January 17, Marvel Heroes will remove any boost with rare item find and special item find from the store, as well as removing these items from their associated fortune cards and mystery boxes. The boosts themselves are not going away, and their effects will still be usable once the items are removed.

The reason for the removal is to keep the store cleaner and more streamlined, especially with a new bonus item find boost on its way. You will be able to convert your RIF and SIF boosts to tokens and use those for the new BIF boost. All of this is gearing up for Marvel Heroes’ next massive update. The list of items being removed from the store are below.

(Source: Marvel Heroes)

  • Avengers Assemble Boost – 2 Hours
  • Beach Party RIF Boost – 20 Minutes
  • Beach Party SIF Boost – 20 Minutes
  • Bounty Hunter Boost – 1 hour
  • Cosmic Penta Rush Boost – 4 Hour
  • Eternity Splinter Boost Potion – 3 Hours
  • Galactic Guardian’s Boost – 3 Hour
  • iBoost – 6 Hour
  • Iridium Quad Rush Energy Bar – 1 Hour
  • Iridium Triple Boost – 2 Hours
  • Iridium Triple Boost – 4 Hours
  • Iridium Triple Rush Energy Bar – 1 Hour
  • Odin’s Bounty Boost Potion – 2 Hours
  • Omega Boost – 4 Hour
  • Patrol Boost Potion – 4 Hours
  • Rarity Drop Boost – 2 Hours
  • Rarity Rush Energy Bar – 1 Hour
  • Special Item Find Boost – 2 Hours
  • Special Item Find
  • Rush Energy Bar – 1 Hour
  • Spring Candy Boost – 70 minutes
  • Super Summer Boost – 4 Hour
  • Sweet Candy Rush Boost – 4 Hour
  • Team-Up Boost – 2 Hours
  • The Collector’s Bounty
  • Winter Wonder Boost – 3 Hours

Neverwinter Hosting another 2x Weekend Plus Tymora’s Gift


Perfect World Entertainment has announced that this weekend will see the return of double enchantment and runestones, as well as the return of the Tymora’s Gift event. The first one is pretty straightforward, any time you would normally receive enchantment or runestones from content in-game, you will receive double that amount. Tymora’s Gift, meanwhile, introduces a new fancy horse that you can buy with currency obtained during the event (picture below).

Both events run January 12 through January 16 on PC and console.

DC Universe Celebrates Sixth Anniversary


As incredible as it may sound, DC Universe Online has been around for six years, and is planning on kicking off a new year with plenty of anniversary celebrations. As part of the event, players travel to a new version of Metropolis in order to fight off a Qwaridian invasion from another universe. The event is currently available and will run until January 31st. The list of events currently running is below.

  • New Open World Missions: Metropolis Antimatter Invasion Zone
  • New 8-Player Raid: Centennial Collapse
  • New Gear, Collections, Feats, and More
    • New Anti-Monitor-inspired gear
    • New auto-leveling gear set
    • New base items and consumables

DC Universe Online is currently available on PC, Xbox One, and Playstation 4.

(Source: Daybreak Game Company Press Release)

Video: World of Warcraft Patch 7.1.5 Survival Guide


World of Warcraft is implementing patch 7.1.5 and Blizzard wants you to know what to expect. You can check out the entire list of patch notes here, or watch the video above to get the gist of things. Putting it short, the patch contains more class balances to make each type more enjoyable, the return of the Brawler’s Guild with new rewards and items, as well as new bonus events every few weeks. Micro-holidays will dot the calendar, lasting 1-3 days and generally being pretty quickly completed events with small rewards.

As always, please refrain from placing your class complaints in the comments below. I do not work for Blizzard.

(Source: World of Warcraft)

Fig Claims 4 of Top 10 Crowdfunded Games In 2016


When I say that Fig carries four of the top 10 funded games in 2016, your answer is probably “of course, they curate the list of games they put up.” As someone who previously had doubt about Fig as a crowdfunding platform, I’m happy to see that the service is apparently finding its footing. Boasting a 78% successful funding rate, Fig (whose name is now synonymous with Tim Schafer) has been the stone on which games like Psychonauts 2, Wasteland 3, and Jay and Silent Bob: Chronic Blunt Punch have been able to find backers.

Apparently Fig backers are quite satisfied with the service, since more than 3,700 came back to back more games, funding an average of $133.71 per person. For more information, check out the infographic below.

(Source: Fig)

Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 Spurs Frontier Lawsuit Against Atari


Frontier Developments is currently best known for their hit title Planet Coaster, of course when people aren’t thinking of them as the developer of that Star Citizen-esque game that actually saw release. Odds are you’ll also remember them as being the developer behind Roller Coaster Tycoon 3, because I just told you they were. The news today is that Frontier Developments is suing Atari over what it claims are $2.2 million in unpaid royalties.

“We can confirm Frontier is currently pursuing a complaint against Atari. We have attempted to resolve this issue without legal action since April 2016. We have so far been denied our contractual right to audit by Atari, and we are unfortunately left with no other way to resolve our concerns. We are unable to offer any further comment while the matter is subject to due legal process.”

Here’s where it gets weird. First, of all people, TMZ broke the story. According to the news article, Frontier Developments is citing a Steam tracking website (likely Steam Spy) in their claim that Atari owes them $2.2 million, following with a lawsuit because Atari has been delaying an audit which Frontier is entitled to in their contract. Secondly, it is odd to see a developer using something like Steam Spy as a source. For the record, it is impossible for third party services to count how many people own a certain game, that information isn’t publicly available. They guess, using data from accounts that are public, and do not claim to be accurate.

Imagine users as voters, but instead of voting for one of three candidates, they’re voting for several games from tens of thousands available in Steam catalog. Even the most popular paid games are reaching maybe 5% of this audience and most are in realms of 0.1% or even less.
So 0.1% margin of error for a game with 0.1% of Steam audience would produce results that are mostly useless. That’s why Steam Spy has to gather millions points of data daily to predict games sales and audience. And that’s why Steam Spy is often wrong. Not by much, but still wrong.

At a $2.2 million difference comparing sales to Steam Spy, it’s rather believable that Atari shorted Frontier Develoments on some level, and you could be forgiven for taking the delays as a sign that the company is hiding something.

Or maybe nobody at the shell corporation that calls itself Atari answers their email. I couldn’t get a single person to answer my requests for comment over Asteroids: Outpost.