Category: News

[Video] Storm King’s Thunder Launch Trailer


Today, Perfect World Entertainment Inc., a leading publisher of free-to-play MMORPGs, and Cryptic Studios announced Neverwinter: Storm King’s Thunder is now available on PC and will launch on Xbox One and PlayStation®4 at a later date. This update marks the tenth official expansion for the free-to-play Dungeons & Dragons MMORPG. Based on a new adventure from Wizards of the Coast, Storm King’s Thundersees adventurers face off against invading giants, while braving their way through three new adventure zones and a challenging new dungeon.

Frost giants have forced their way into Icewind Dale, creating a call-to-arms forNeverwinter’s strongest to defend the land from these gargantuan invaders. Adventurers will travel to Bryn Shander, the largest settlement within the Ten Towns, to save the townsfolk from attack. To defeat the frost giants, players will need to enlist the help of classic Dungeons & Dragons characters as they explore different regions. This includes heroes like Catti-brie, Wulfgar and Harshnag. Once the battle has been won, they will continue on to Lonelywood and Cold Run, until they eventually reach Fangbreaker Island, a remote isle in the treacherous Sea of Moving Ice.

A full list of gameplay updates available with the release of Storm King’s Thunderincludes:

  • New Campaign – The new end-game campaign for Storm King’s Thunder is broken down into three parts, each unlocking a new adventure zone. When all three zones are cleared, players will have access to the dungeon on Fangbreaker Island.
  • Three New Adventure Zones
    • Bryn Shander – Adventurers must visit this remote settlement in Icewind Dale to save its inhabitants from attackers.
    • Lonelywood – After clearing Bryn Shander, players will move on to the town of Lonelywood, where they will fight off trolls and other beasts.
    • Cold Run – The last adventure zone is the frigid coastline of Cold Run, where adventurers will come face to face with the mighty frost giants.
  • New Tier 3 Dungeon – Adventurers will need to complete the new Storm King’s Thunder campaign and equip their characters with high-level gear in order to access Fangbreaker Island, the most difficult five-player dungeon in the game.
  • Class Balance Adjustments – In an ongoing effort to maintain balance for Neverwinter, we’ve made major adjustment to three classes, the Hunter Ranger, Scourge Warlock and Guardian Fighter.
  • New Bosses and Enemies – Besides defending the land from Frost Giants, players will fight off swarms of arctic beasts, as well as three new bosses who rule over Fangbreaker Island.

 

NCSoft: All Key IPs Showed Stable Sales Last Quarter


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NCSoft has released their second quarter results and the news is good, even for those of you who play Wildstar. The Korean developer published a 28% boost in operating profit over last year with a 27% bump in pre-tax income and a 56% increase in net income. US and EU shares of NCSofts revenues plummeted, shedding a third of its value while Japan grew slightly as did Taiwan. According to NCSoft’s reports, while Blade & Soul grew heavily year over year thanks to its launch in the west, recent performance has seen a drop in royalties coming from the Chinese division.

On the game’s front, Lineage continues to sell more than virtually every other game in NCSoft’s library combined, with Aion and Guild Wars 2 taking a hit. Guild Wars 2, you can see, is suffering heavily from a content drought and subsequently saw its revenues fall flat over the past quarter. Based on the success of Heart of Thorns, it makes sense for Arenanet to adopt a strategy similar to World of Warcraft, living off of gem and microtransaction sales with small updates filling the gap between large, probably as-close-to-annual-as-they-can-get big expansion releases. The goal, according to NCSoft, is to decrease the amount of time between expansion releases to keep momentum up, however no further details have been discussed.

Aion, meanwhile, is performing fine. It may seem like a bad hit from the outside, but NCSoft has stated its expectations put the game within the 17 to 20 billion Won range, the game merely performed on the lower end of expectations. No one in the NCSoft offices is running around with their hair on fire over this news, however the game does have a major update coming that they expect will bring in increased revenue in the fourth quarter.

Wildstar, meanwhile, grew thanks to a launch on Steam introducing the free to play MMO to thousands of new eyes. Peak players fell off after the first month with a peak of 2,700 in July compared to 5,200 in June. Wildstar’s long term performance following its free to play revival and Steam launch will have to be observed, but it would be bad business for anyone at NCSoft to anticipate sales higher than 3 billion Won ($2.7 million USD) per quarter. Now that the team has a more realistic idea on where the game’s cash ceiling is, they can budget appropriately and NCSoft can figure out where they want to go with the IP.

Nexon’s upcoming list of releases includes Lineage Eternal as well as numerous mobile games including several based off of the Lineage franchise, increasing marketing costs and naturally boosting revenues. When asked about the release of Lineage Eternal, NCSoft’s response was…some information. According to the investor call, development is on schedule however there isn’t any concrete information on the closed beta. The team believes that the most effective timing would be around the holiday break period, so Korean gamers should mark their calendars for late November. The game is presently in the polishing stage.

Blade & Soul Mobile did not perform as well as anticipated.

Incidentally, NCSoft completely glossed over Wildstar in discussing each game’s performance in the investor call, lumping it in with the “other” category. Make of that what you will. Lineage Revolution is expected to have a November launch.

(Source: NCSoft, NCSoft investor call)

DigiHom Update: Tons of Games Disappear From Greenlight


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[Update: Several errors have been fixed or clarified in bold below. MMO Fallout apologizes for the inconvenience]

Digital Homicide’s James Romine may be throwing a temper tantrum right now, and for good reason: Close to two dozen of his games have been removed from Steam.

We’ve been covering Digital Homicide filling its Greenlight queue up with spam filler ever since the developer uploaded dozens of titles back in June, a majority of them simple Space Invaders games and clones of one another. Last month I noted that Valve’s Greenlight team seems to be unsure as to whether or not DigiHom’s games qualify for Steam, with the titles being tagged incompatible on and off on a nearly daily basis. James Romine has commented that this is actually due to modifications made to Steam’s API resulting in numerous games being falsely tagged and untagged.

It appears we have our answer. Digital Homicide’s list of Greenlight items now stands at 27 from its high at 50. Of the 27 that remain, four have been greenlit and already released. All of Digital Homicide’s games (19 at the time of this publishing) carry a negative, “mostly negative,” or “very negative,” approval rating.

For continuing updates on the lawsuit against James Stanton (Jim Sterling), stay tuned.

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Nexon Q2 Quarterly Revenues Hit “Strong,”


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Nexon, developer of everything and publisher of everything else, has finally announced their second quarter results for the 2016 fiscal year, referencing their performance as “strong” despite lower than expected revenue.

Second quarter revenues reached 38 billion yen, down 11% over last year with net income amounting to 7.6 billion yen over the same period. Nexon blamed the majority of the loss on foreign exchange losses from money deposited overseas. Despite these losses, Nexon grew slightly in revenue over the first half of 2016 compared to the first half of 2015, however income has taken a huge hit due to impairment loss taken in the first quarter.

For the unaware, impairment loss refers to a product whose future earnings are lower than the cost of acquisition. In this case, Nexon purchased mobile developer Gloop a few years back and the developer isn’t making money.

“Our solid second quarter results reflect strong execution and good performance from our China business,” said Owen Mahoney, President and Chief Executive Officer of Nexon. “I am also pleased with the important strategic progress we made during the quarter, including our partnership with renowned Japanese developer Sansho Studios and our acquisition of wellgames, the Korean developer of SPECIAL SOLDIER, a high-quality first person shooter for mobile devices. Our best-in-class roster of partnerships remains a cornerstone of our strategy to deliver high-quality, tailored content to players around the world.”

Nexon has a number of games in its publishing pipeline for this year and next, including Riders of Icarus, Lawbreakers, Titanfall, Final Fantasy XI Mobile, Lego Mobile, and more.

(Source: Nexon)

Dungeon Fighter Online Is Back, Hits Steam Today


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Dungeon Fighter Online is back, and by the time you read this will probably already be up and running. Initially shut down back in 2013, publishing for Dungeon Fighter Online was picked up by Neople and reopened in beta to the public last year. Today marks the game’s official launch on Steam. Servers open at approximately 10:00am PST, or in just under two hours as of this publishing.

If you have fond memories of Dungeon Fighter Online, let us know in the comments section below.

(Source: Steam)

Curt Schilling Is Running For President


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If you thought presidential politics wasn’t crazy enough, just wait until you see who is stepping into the ring. Curt Schilling, former Red Sox pitcher and head of defunct game developer 38 Studios has announced his plans to run for president in 2024, or possibly in 2020 should Hillary Clinton be elected by some means (which Schilling refers to as an ‘amazingly illegal event.’). Schilling’s comments were made on his Facebook page in a discussion with another user.

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Schilling has been involved in a lawsuit for the past few years after his game developer 38 Studios went belly up, leaving a bill of over $100 million in an unpaid loan on the plate of state taxpayers. The lawsuit alleged that several parties, including 38 Studios, Schilling, and Wells Fargo, were fully aware that the loan would be insufficient to cover the cost of development and hid that information from investors.

The charges against Schilling, which he has referred to as a ‘fake ass witch hunt,’ were dropped late last month. Schilling was fired from his job at ESPN after a Facebook post led to complaints over transphobic commentary.

As for this election, Schilling is backing Republican candidate Donald Trump.

Survarium Kills Off More Cheaters


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Survarium developer Vostok Games has announced a new ban wave of 139 players over the past week for the use of prohibited software. For those unaware, Vostok Games is one of the few developers willing to name and shame the players who are punished in their public announcements. You can find the entire list below, however many of the names will be illegible if you don’t happen to read Cyrillic.

For more coverage of Survarium, check out our first impressions.

(Source: Survarium)

[Humor] Broadsword Games Plagiarizes Sony’s Terms of Service


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It isn’t too unsurprising to see a smaller game developer plagiarize a larger company’s legal agreements, but it is hilarious when they forget to take out key words such as the company’s name. MMO Fallout has been covering these incidences since way back in 2010 with Quest Online stealing the fourth pillar speech from Bioware, and since I tend to receive nasty letters from humorless lawyers whenever this story comes up, I’d like to reiterate the humor tag at the top of the page. This is all in good fun.

Broadsword Entertainment has been caught plagiarizing Sony’s terms of service for the Playstation Network from 2013. The original you can read here:

NOTE: THIS AGREEMENT CONTAINS A BINDING INDIVIDUAL ARBITRATION AND CLASS ACTION WAIVER PROVISION IN SECTION 17 THAT AFFECTS YOUR RIGHTS UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WITH RESPECT TO ANY “DISPUTE” (AS DEFINED BELOW) BETWEEN YOU AND SNEI, SONY COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT INC., SONY COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT AMERICA LLC, THEIR AFFILIATES, PARENTS OR SUBSIDIARIES (COLLECTIVELY, “SONY ENTITIES”). YOU HAVE A RIGHT TO OPT OUT OF THE BINDING ARBITRATION AND CLASS ACTION WAIVER PROVISIONS AS DESCRIBED IN SECTION 17.

And the version in Ultima Online via this player’s screenshot. Goofs on legal pads are always funny, like when Star Vault threatened to punish in-game malfeasance with a ban from Eve Online.

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Atlas Reactor Is Going Free Again


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Atlas Reactor is going free, following the news from earlier this year that the game would be buy to play. In a post on the official website, Trion Worlds announced that players will have access to free character lists that rotate every week and are unique to the player. Reward caches are doled out as you play, handing out random assortments from the game’s hundreds of banners, emotes, titles, icons, taunts, etc.

We want to thank you all for the terrific feedback you’ve offered us in Beta. The launch of Free Mode accompanies Revised Player Progression, which will make obtaining rewards even clearer and more fun than it is today.

You can read the rest of the announcement at the link below.

(Source: Atlas Reactor)

“Fake Ass Witch Hunt” Against Curt Schilling Results In No Charges


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The case of 38 Studios is finally coming to a close as the Rhode Island state attorney general Peter Kilmartin has declined to press charges against Curt Schilling and members of the state economic development board. According to an eight page report filed by the attorney general, there is not sufficient evidence to secure a conviction. While the decision means that no charges will be levied at this time, it does not interfere with the ongoing Securities and Exchange Commission charges levied against the state, nor does it prevent a later case being picked up should new evidence come to light.

Curt Schilling called the investigation a “fake ass witch hunt”

Former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling been the center of attention since the collapse of his game developer 38 Studios in 2012 and the ensuing investigation over a $75 million loan backed by the state of Rhode Island. The loan is being investigated over allegations that the parties involved knew that it would not be sufficient to complete work on Project Copernicus (the Kingdoms of Amalur MMO). The Rhode Island Economic Development Corp as well as Wells Fargo have been charged with fraud in relation to the loan.

(Source: Game Informer)