News – Page 384 – MMO Fallout

Beta Perspective: RuneScape NXT Impressions

I consider myself something of a fan of RuneScape, having played it continuously since 2004 and racked up more than four thousand hours of gameplay, and I’m sure few would disagree with that statement. That being said, I’ve been heavily critical of Jagex as a company and certain facets of RuneScape as a game, and nothing has caught my attention quite like RuneScape’s bloated, near-useless client.

It’s no secret that RuneScape has become massive over the years, straining the client to the point where it’s basically held together with gum and tape. The old client’s days were numbered when the big browsers announced that the end of days were coming for Java support, due to its instability and general habit of opening massive security holes in people’s computers. For RuneScape, Jagex made the attempt to jump ship a couple of years ago with an HTML client, a venture that has so far come up empty thanks in part to the platform itself not coming along as quickly as expected.

Jagex could have launched NXT with none of the visual upgrades and this would instantly be my update of the year. The current RuneScape client is incredibly janky, depending where I am in the world and what I’m doing it will either run smoothly or horribly and turning the graphics down does absolutely nothing to fix this. In the NXT client, I am able to set everything to its maximum value and still manage to play the game at over 70 frames per second. I teleport, I start skilling, killing things, moving around to new areas, and the game remains stable and smooth as butter.

But to top it off, Jagex has made the game look better than ever. The draw distance is now massive, as far as the eye can see, and holds up RuneScape’s unique graphical styling. The new client has made it painfully obvious in some areas how laughably small the world is, a fact previously hidden by the game’s short-sighted draw distance, but for the most part so far Jagex has done its job to play tricks and make the smallness of the world a lot harder to notice.

My first real thought while playing on the NXT client is the depressing thought that this beta is going to end in a few days, and at least until the client launches sometime in…sometime, I’ll have to sit through the old client for the time being. There are numerous visual bugs that are present in the beta, but since the game is running on the live servers there isn’t much of a reason not to give it a go if you are eligible to play this weekend.

I’ll be playing RuneScape quite regularly through the weekend.

Marvel Heroes: BOGO Sale

If you’re looking to get your hands on some new digs in Marvel Heroes, you’re in luck. Until Tuesday February 23rd, when you but a hero or costume from the Gazillion store, you’ll receive a free random token for a hero or costume respectively.

The random token comes with the possibility of giving you a hero or costume that you already own. The sale only involves individual heroes and costumes sold through the in-game store, no other packs are included. The costume pack does not include the new Rocket Raccoon Symbiote costume.

(Source: Gazillion Press Release)

The Old Republic Story Continues March

Bioware has announced that the next chapter in the Knights of the Fallen Empire story will launch on March 10th. Titled Disavowed, the new story content brings back Major Jorgan to assist the player deep behind enemy lines. It will be up to you to decide how far the Major can go.

Disavowed will be available for free to subscribers, with an HK-55 helmet given out to anyone who subscribes by March 1st. New players can jump right in with a level 60 character.

(Source: Bioware Press Release)

Jagex Unveils Casual RuneScape Spinoff

Jagex, makers of the wildly popular RuneScape, today announced the latest game in the MMO series. Dubbed RuneScape: Idle Adventures, the title is a little different than what RuneScape players might be accustomed to. Set in the world of Gielinor, the player takes on the role of the wielder of the Elder Artefact known as the Needle. Play sessions will last a few minutes and boil the MMO gameplay down to loot, levels, and watching your character train.

It’s an addictive, quick-to-play RPG boiled down to the basics of levelling and looting. In a typical session, you’ll spend a few minutes making choices for your customisable hero, then leave him or her to train, fight and quest in real time.

RuneScape: Idle Adventures is being developed by Hyper Hippo, who you may be familiar with from their work on AdVenture Capitalist. The game will be free to play and releases on Steam later this Spring with iOS and Android releases later this year.

(Source: RuneScape)

Screenshots: Humble Neverwinter Bundle

Throw in $5 for the Humble Bundle and get your hands on a pirate costume and a Dancing Blade companion. The Dancing Blade is just that, a floating sword, and comes pre-packaged with a maximum rank of 30 and will need to be upgraded in order to level any further. The striker companion increases critical severity while active.

Grab MMO Goodies In New Humble Bundle

The latest Humble Bundle has arrived, this time themed around popular wiki site Gamepedia. Gamers willing to throw in some money will be come out with items for numerous titles including Neverwinter, Dirty Bomb, Heroes & Generals, and more. If you’re not looking to spend a whole lot of money, you’re in luck: The most you’ll need to pay out is $12 for absolutely everything, plus you don’t have to worry about other customers driving the average price up.

For MMO gamers, there are numerous skins and boost packages up for grabs. For everyone else, there is always the free games.

Pay $1 and get the following:

Awesomenauts.
Heroes & Generals Weekend Warrior Pack including 3-day veteran, boosters, and 500 gold.
Dirty Bomb Starter Pack with 5 mercs, 50,000 credits, and two elite cases.
30 day subscription to Curse.
Wildstar Jump Pack with a 16-slot bag, house decor, 5 gold, housing teleport, and a mount.

For $5, tack on the following:

Vertiginous Golf 4-Pack.
SMITE Freya + Pixel Buster Skin.
Neverwinter Humble Pirate Pack with pirate costume and dancing blade companion.
War of the Vikings.
Robocraft (Early access).

And finally, at $12 you get:

Dirty Bomb Humble Loadout with 7 merc cards and case.
Path of Exile Arctic Crown and Cobra Pet.
Life is Feudal.

See Rust Bans In Real Time

Rust is the open world survival game by Facepunch Studios, makers of the popular sandbox game Garry’s Mod. As a game that relies heavily on player vs player combat with heavy ramifications for death, it should come as no surprise that cheating has become prevalent in servers. To combat this, Rust employs its own anti-cheat system that bans players on a continual basis. We know this because the Rust Hack Report Twitter account is constantly being updated.

In the time it will take to publish this report, more than a dozen new bans will be reported through the account. Many of the accounts banned appear to be throwaway accounts (new accounts with only one game played) and others are repeat offenders with additional game bans and VAC bans from other titles. Some have tallied more than 100 hours on Rust in the past two weeks, some haven’t even bothered setting up a community page. A few are set to private, while one or two are normal accounts that seem to have large libraries and varied gameplay.

If you’d like to follow the Rust ban list, check out the Rust Hack Report Twitter.

Guild Uses Exploit To Kill ArcheAge Boss, Loots Permanent Ban

In a rather interesting turn of events, Trion Worlds has taken to the forums to discuss a recent high profile incident of a guild using exploits to kill a boss monster in ArcheAge. The Leviathan is a massive world boss in ArcheAge that is so powerful that it has yet to be defeated in combat in North America. Legitimately, at least. Videos began surfacing on the ArcheAge forums of the guild Rage Quit obtaining the first kill on a very clearly bugged boss, the Leviathan can be seen floating above water and stops attacking, not unlike a giant pinata. As one might expect from such a high profile kill, it didn’t take long to attract Trion Worlds’ attention.

According to senior community manager Seraphina “Celestrata” Brennan, all participating members of Rage Quit have been banned with no chance for appeal, a grand total of 53 players, while the guild as a whole has been disbanded. Accounts that participated in the event and were members of the council have had their membership revoked, while those who were found to be contesting the kill will not be punished. In addition, all loot generated from the kill has been removed from the game world.

First of all, our new policy on exploits is well-known at this point. We do not tolerate exploits or those who abuse them in our game. Any individual taking advantage of an exploit will receive a permanent ban. This is a non-negotiable stance. The Leviathan kill in question was clearly broken and floating to all bystanders in the videos captured, so the guild involved had full knowledge that something was wrong. They made the active decision to proceed forward with the kill regardless.

According to Trion Worlds, only one member of the guild contacted the studio to report the kill, and even then demanded compensation in return for the details. XLGames has been notified of the exploit and should be working on a fix.

(Source: Trion Worlds)

Neverwinter Strongholds Getting Cheaper

The latest Neverwinter development blog is available and the topic of conversation are strongholds. Guild Strongholds were created as a method of improving player engagement, which while it has worked out great for larger guilds, the smaller groups are finding the costs of progression to be rather frustrating. In response, the Neverwinter team has been gathering data on how to make the process less cumbersome and annoying.

Issue number one became the need for Astral Diamonds, a resource integral to just about every other part of the game meaning that smaller guilds with more casual players would wind up having to give up all of their Astral Diamonds to the coffers, effectively making them unable to participate in other parts of the game. The answer was to reduce Astral Diamond costs, improve rewards for donating harder-to-obtain currencies, and allowing people to collect guild resources through professions.

The changes discussed will go live in the Maze Engine update.

(Source: Neverwinter)

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