Category: News

RuneScape Celebrates 250 Million Accounts


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As Runefest draws to a close, Jagex has announced a new milestone for their popular MMORPG RuneScape. Since its release fifteen years ago, more than 250 million accounts have been created.

In its 15th anniversary year, this month RuneScape hit a new and massively impressive milestone with its 250 millionth account created. Over its lifetime, RuneScape has seen real-life player weddings, united families that are spread across the world, and been an escape for discovery seekers. The 250 millionth account joins the ever-growing band of adventurers in Gielinor, which means it must be time to expand the game world significantly…

At Runefest, Jagex revealed upcoming plans for content release over the next couple years including massive expansions to be released every three months.

RuneScape Expansions will deliver a new sense of discovery and exploration more frequently with each expansion as big as 2014’s Lost City of the Elves, arriving on a single day, four times a year. It’s like Christmas coming every three months and it begins in June 2017 as the city gates of Menaphos are finally opened.”

Big plans are in store for the world of Gielinor over the next year, from gameplay-affecting dynamic weather to the release of the second part of the eastern lands, raids in Old School and campaign mode coming to collectible card game Chronicle: RuneScape Legends.

(Source: Jagex Press Release)

[Video] RuneScape: Golden City of Menaphos Revealed


Jagex today released the latest trailer for upcoming content in RuneScape, offering the first glimpses at the city of Menaphos, a desert area that has been locked away for years. In the trailer, familiar hero Ozan discusses his feats around the world of Gielinor, stopping short at gaining entry to the city. Menaphos was first teased back in 2005 with the update releasing the neighboring city of Sophanem. As a response to rumors of plague, Menaphos was closed to outsiders.

According to the trailer, Jagex is aiming for a June 2017 release for Menaphos.

[Breaking] DigiHom Update: All Games Disappear From Store Front


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Relations between Digital Homicide and Valve appear to have gone sour, with sparse details and speculation running rampant after all of Digital Homicide’s games were pulled from Steam one by one earlier today. The news comes on the heels of the revelation that James Romine, owner of indie game developer Digital Homicide, had subpoena’d Valve for the identities of 100 Steam users in pending litigation over negative comments regarding his games on Steam.

Tech Raptor has reportedly received a comment from Valve, confirming that the games were removed due to the developer’s hostility towards customers.

Valve has stopped doing business with Digital Homicide for being hostile to Steam customers.

MMO Fallout has reached out to Digital Homicide for comment.

Marvel Heroes Unveils Biggest System Update Ever


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Marvel Heroes is gearing up to completely overhaul their titular ARPG, and everyone is invited to the party. As announced this week, over the span of several updates Gazillion Entertainment will be making major changes to how you level up and how you play in Marvel Heroes going forward. Long time players are well acquainted with the regular New 52 updates, bringing heroes up to date and tweaking them for the modern mechanics, but can you handle every character changing at once?

That’s right. Every single Hero in the game will be receiving a design update. All. At. Once.Naturally, we are spending more time on this project than most of our previous updates. In this post, we will be discussing three systems involved in this endeavor: Power Points, Talents, and Traits.

The most immediate change is going to be in powers. No longer will players have to level up to unlock powers and then stick points into those to make them viable. All powers will be viable as soon as they are unlocked, with power points being placed into your base stats. Items that affected powers previously will be updated to be just as useful as they were before. Secondly, all heroes will have five sets of talents. Talents exist in their own tree and can offer passive bonuses, mechanical changes, and even replace powers entirely.

Third, all heroes will now have one defensive and one offensive passive trait, themed after the character and unique to each person.

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Marvel Heroes is no stranger to massive annual updates, these types of updates are what transformed a mostly mediocre launch into the game that it is today.

(Source: Marvel Heroes)

James Romine Subpoenas Valve For Steam User Details


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Digital Homicide’s James Romine has filed a subpoena against Valve in Phoenix to discover the identities of what appears to be 100 anonymous users who had made statements about the company in the past. The documents were filed and the subpoena granted this week. The case has been assigned to Magistrate Judge Eileen Willett. Romine is representing himself and is demanding $18,000,000 with the nature of the suit being personal injury.

More information as it appears.

[Video] Black Desert Online Shows Off Sorceress Awakened


Black Desert Online is showing off the Sorceress Awakened, with a massive scythe obtained after reaching level 55. Check out the video above to see the Sorceress Awakened in action.

Neverwinter Celebrates 2 Million On PS4


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Dungeons & Dragons: Neverwinter is celebrating more than twelve million players across three consoles, with more than two million of those fighting on the Playstation 4. Of the 3.2 million characters created on PS4 so far, 32,000 have achieved the level cap in the past two months. Altogether, players have earned over 50 billion Astral Diamonds, 18 million mounts, and 11,000 guilds.

You can see all of the juicy statistics in a handy infographic below. In addition, Perfect World Entertainment is holding a series of events including double experience and glory, double enchants and Astral Diamonds, and a free static PS4 theme.

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One Year Later, Pathfinder Online Still Hasn’t Secured A Buyer


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The news on Pathfinder Online has been dead for the better part of the last year, and for pretty good reason: Nobody is left. It has been one year since we learned that everyone on the development team, sans three people, were laid off with CEO Ryan Dancey resigning his post and user acquisition virtually nonexistent. When you look at the company overall, their success (or lack thereof) isn’t exactly hard to pin down. An overly ambitious plan coupled with a monetization model that presumes a gaming population willing to pay a premium subscription price for a game that is in “early enrollment,” otherwise known as alpha.

Naturally the company is seeking a buyer or an investor and that process isn’t going so well. Acting CEO Lisa Stevens announced that she had received a signed letter from a company willing to take on Pathfinder Online and see it through to completion. This was, as those of you who follow the game will know, part of the end of the year announcement posted December 23rd, 2015. According to the post, acquisition was meant to be completed by March 1st, 2016. It never happened.

According to Stevens’ posts on the official forums, dated April 13th, things are progressing slowly. They are progressing, however.

Unfortunately, this one is taking longer than anyone wants, but is progressing nicely. I will let you know that Newcorp has been putting money towards the current expenditures for PFO while things are finishing up. They wouldn’t do that if they didn’t think it was likely to go through. Now is it a guarantee? No. Because if it was a guarantee then we would be moving forward. But it is likely. And they are behaving as it that is the case. They have even hired a real estate firm to start looking for office space for a studio up here in Seattle.

Stevens later clarifies that Newcorp is footing the bill for half of the operating costs each month. At the end of May, players were told that “the finish line is in sight.”

The pace has really picked up on the deal for NewCorp to take over Pathfinder Online. The finish line is in sight. We are hoping to give NewCorp a voice through the Goblinworks forums in the near future prior to the deal closing so that they can interact with the community and start to convey their vision for the game to you. Look for news about this in the coming weeks. The team here at Goblinworks is very excited about the future and would like to thank all of you for your support through this long process.

Those of you with calendars are well aware that the “coming weeks” has translated to nearly four months with no apparent further action. Over the past couple of months, Pathfinder’s acquisition announcement has been delayed time and time again, with the company more recently targeting September 1st, then September 9th, and now apparently September 23rd to give some news. These deals tend to be pretty shaky, despite the fact that Newcorp has enough interest to fund the game and keep it going for the past six plus months, but with these business deals literally nothing is guaranteed until the papers are signed and the checks clear. Up until that point, the deal could go sour at any moment.

I’ll leave you on a note of interest that a few players have pointed out to me. In about three months, Pathfinder Online hits the point where subscriptions from the highest backers on Kickstarter run out. I’m not going speculate on the progress of the business deal, but this seems like an important milestone when it comes to keeping the game operational.

MMO Fallout will update as soon as news becomes available.

Hero’s Song Is Back, Launches Indiegogo Campaign


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After taking some time out of the spotlight, John Smedley’s latest title Hero’s Song is back in the public’s eye and ready for another round of crowdfunding. For those who just recently joined us, Hero’s Song is an ARPG with friendly fire, permanent death, and player-run servers. You can join worlds created by other players or create one of your own, where your choice of gods and their influence is supposed to shape the way the world develops.

It’s a very interesting concept, assuming that the theoretical instances can be put to practical effect. In one world, as the campaign describes, Dwarves are wiped out by generations of a war whose bloodshed gives rise to the art of necromancy. So far 10 classes and 10 gods have been revealed, with more than 20 classes revealed as well.

We will offer two versions of Hero’s Song. The regular version will be $19.99 and the Deluxe Edition version will be $49.99. The Deluxe Edition includes the soundtrack by Inon Zur, the digital strategy guide and a wallpaper pack. Aside from that there are no differences.

Early adopters can grab the standard edition for $15 through the Indiegogo campaign.

(Source: Indiegogo)

Webzen Will Be Shuttering ELOA, ASTA This Year


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Webzen has announced that two of its titles will be shutting down by the end of this year. First on the plate is ASTA Online, which will be taken offline October 4th. Beginning this week, the cash shop has officially closed and players will be able to utilize 100% boosts to experience, fame, and drops if they wish to continue playing until the service shuts down. All purchases from the past month will be reimbursed.

Many of you followed us all the way from IBT, to OBT, to multiple expansions, and your support made us believe we could succeed. Sadly, we were wrong. The players we have are awesome, and any company would be happy to have such a dedicated community, but sadly the recent player numbers are not sufficient for us to be able to continue the service. So, after discussions with Polygon Games, we have agreed that the game servers will close on the 4th of October.

Second on the chopping block is Elite Lord of Alliance, which will sunset further along. Similar to ASTA, the cash shop will close and all purchases from the last 30 days will be compensated.

Since official launch, we have been working hard to build a strong community and various events. Unfortunately, we have come to a difficult decision to end this long journey we have enjoyed and cherished together. We understand that this will disappoint many of our players.

More details can be found at each game’s respective website.